Orleans Trial of the Century frustrates historians
The murder trial became an unprecedented media sensation. The news media breathlessly reported the most incidental details of events inside the courtroom. Satellite trucks lined the perimeter of the courthouse, and television stations hired special correspondents to cover the case. When the Defense rested, everyone involved in the trial celebrated celebrity status, especially the assembled “dream team” of lawyers and forensics experts, the best money could buy.
Did voodoo curse follow lawmen to Kentwood?
After a woman suggested three Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s deputies loaded her stolen treasure on a train and a voodoo priestess cast a spell over them, all three men died of unnatural causes.
Fortune in voodoo gold still missing 136 years later
This column is part one of another chapter from the history of Bloody Tangipahoa. Circumstances revealed in this two-part report suggest members of a Tangipahoa Parish sheriff’s posse succumbed to a curse after relieving a voodoo doctor of a fortune in gold.
Was New Orleans safer under mob control?
Comparing The New Orleans State-Item’s 1964 summary of unsolved crimes to today’s Metropolitan Crime Commission report, I wonder if New Orleans’ residents felt safer when organized gambling and prostitution were the city’s most significant concerns.