Retired chief recounts cops, characters, crimes
Researching and writing about crime in South Louisiana, I have befriended numerous retired police officers. I can sit for hours listening to their adventures and misadventures. One such officer is Chief Eugene Fields, who retired from both the New Orleans Police Department and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office. Gene is the author of “Cops and Characters in the Big Easy: True Stories Involving Celebrities, Criminals and Everyday People,” a book released this month by Bogart Books.
Assassination witness remembers Faller ambush
On the evening of January 23, 1962, assassins shot and killed a Louisiana public official in Livingston Parish. On Highway 42 near Springville, two or more conspirators ambushed 48-year-old Marketing Commission Executive Secretary Marvin Faller, unaware that two men witnessed the operation.
Livingston bushwhack slaying remains unsolved
In 1961, Governor Jimmy Davis’ number two man in the Louisiana Department of Agriculture killed another man for trespassing on his property east of Tickfaw. However, before the state official stood trial for manslaughter, a gunman killed him on a highway south of Livingston.
Two young girls murdered in Livingston Parish
When newspapers reported Charlotte Sauerwin’s murder in 1988, Johnny and Joyce Stafford came to see me. One year earlier, Livingston Parish sheriff’s deputies found their daughter’s remains in a wooded area near her home, just as they had discovered Charlotte’s body. Johnny told me both girls, near the same age, knew each other in school.