A couple thoughts, for non-locals, in case this into begins to develop: I used to teach public school in Breaux Bridge.
It is a different world over there from Lafayette. Mickey is basically a Louisiana city girl. Over there, once you cross the Bayou Teche, those people in St. Martin Parish are still as Cajun-country as it gets. The people are very different. Folks not from down here don't understand. The families stay there for generation after generation. All the roads are named after someone's grandpa. Everyone knows each other. Traditional education is giving next to bottom priority, in general. The kids have an OUTDOORS education. I also taught in a couple Lafayette schools, and there was a stark difference. They are wild....party hard - live hard - hunt hard - my students used to be late to school a lot out hunting in the morning. Crawfish ponds are everywhere, and cane fields. The area is very poor compared to most of Lafayette. To them, Lafayette is the big city.
The families are TIGHT, like an organism.... everyone knows each other's business, and entire extended families have reputations for different character traits. Everything gets done on the basis of not what you know, but who you know. Oh sure, it's like that in Lafayette to, but this is the heartland of Cajuns.
The reason I'm saying all this... is that out-of-town folks here should realize that it could get and messy. Political corruption is the Louisiana sport. In little places like the Breaux-Bridge, St. Martinville, etc. area, it's just in the DNA. There are intrigues and dramas and emotional decisions made all the time that have just as mjuch to do with who is fighting whom, as to the actually issue at hand.
So..... that preamble said, the Cajun Net is flying. This case may very well be getting worked out in back-room conversations between different factions of relatives. If this kid is found to be involved, his family will likely protect him. But, as word gets out, it will become a huge furor - all the women on the phones trying to sort it out. The police may even be presented a fait accompli. Because though his family may try to protect him, that's a Catholic, God-fearing area. Pressure to protect him will be faced with even greater mouth-to-mouth pressure to surrender him. It will be fought out on the Cajun Net before we ever hear of it here on the Internet.
But - in the end - this Cajun community will do the right thing. If ANYONE in Breaux Bridge knows what happened, it WILL spill. The truth WILL come out, as the entire community begins to buzz. If he gets implicated in this, the people of that area will not stop until he has been forced to confess. Crazy, wild, flawed, hearty, gossipy people they are, they won't hide him. If he's in Breaux Bridge, he will be brought to justice. The character of the community that I know, will ensure it.
