Hitman’s rap sheet only scratches the surface
In two earlier installments, we reviewed the early criminal history of the accused Dixie Mafia hitman killed in St. Tammany Parish in 1980. Readers responded to those reports, wanting to know more and asking for evidence of Charlie Thrash’s misdeeds. What follows is the complete Louisiana State Police rap sheet of Charles Olan Thrash.
Covington hitman began career as armed robber
In 1956, Charlie Thrash led Louisiana State Police on a thirty-mile chase, driving a stolen 1951 brown Pontiac. Racing from Bunkie, Louisiana to Alexandria, the 25-year-old crashed through police roadblocks in two parishes with patrol cars from three jurisdictions following bumper-to-bumper. The chase ended when the Pontiac T-boned a state police car blocking Highway 71
Did Covington hitman kill New Orleans hairstylist?
On August 11, 1980, Roy L. Cooper, 51, brother of Covington Mayor Ernest Cooper, shot and killed his daughter’s former boyfriend, Charles Olan Thrash, 52, a career criminal and reputed Dixie Mafia hitman.
When Thrash died, investigators lost their prime suspect in two notable murder cases. In May 1983, Mobile, Alabama District Attorney Chris Galanos closed the 1973 unsolved murder of newspaper editor Arch McKay, telling associates he felt convinced the late hitman killed him. “We don’t know who hired him killed or why,” he told reporters that same week, “But we’re certain we ...
Questions unanswered in carbon monoxide deaths
Early one Sunday morning, May 11, 1969, two hunters noticed taillights near the Tangipahoa River and discovered the bodies of a Greensburg couple, the parents of seven children, deceased in their car at the bottom of a ravine.