LA LA - Belle Chasse, WhtMale 16-17, UP88342, hanged, suicide note, 14 February 1975 #2

[Sweetluv]

Maybe we should be asking if they believe his remains are still within the vicinity of the Cemetery or displaced elsewhere. If they have a general idea (?) what would it take to organize a volunteer search ? I would participate!

 

[EloquentEyes1975]

Maybe we should be asking if they believe his remains are still within the vicinity of the Cemetery or displaced elsewhere. If they have a general idea (?) what would it take to organize a volunteer search ? I would participate!

The idea of this sounds great!

I don’t know if this is a stupid & ridiculous idea from me, i apologise if this sounds extremely absurd (and i understand why) but a while back i watched the documentary on the St. Louis Jane Doe, and the authorities on her case had lost track of her burial, so they teamed up with a local university (?) & used Jane Doe’s burial photos to build a map of the cemetery to locate her grave, and they were successful.

I don’t think BCJD had photos taken of his burial, but maybe if old pictures of the cemetery itself are available, or maybe even photos of other burials, authorities could use those photos for a map to locate BCJD’s place of burial especially if there was movement of his remains?

 

[Sweetluv]

The problem is..all is lost due to Hurricane Katrina. It may be like finding a needle in a haystack But anything is worth a try!

 

[Romulus]

However, there are many videos on YouTube about this boy, many ideas, many reflections, you never know, maybe they'll put us on the right track...

 

[PatLaurel]

I have shared these articles before, but I’m posting them again in case someone finds them helpful.

BCJD Buried in New Orleans

BCJD- Unmarked grave- June 17, 1975

BCJD- Gretna Cemetery

We have a date and a cemetery, just not the exact location and an unmarked grave.
@Tony1902 was very active in this thread and, if I remember correctly, contacted the PPSO several times. I guess it's time to reread the previous thread for the umpteenth time to refresh my memory. @Tony1902, are you still around?

MOO JMO

 

[Sweetluv]

I believe it was Westlawn Memorial Park (Mr. Mothe)

 

[Romulus]

I believe it was Westlawn Memorial Park (Mr. Mothe)

https://it.findagrave.com/cemetery/69276/westlawn-memorial-park-and-mausoleum

 

[Sweetluv]

I dont believe WS rules would allow us to reach out to the Cemetery (?)

 

[Romulus]

I have shared these articles before, but I’m posting them again in case someone finds them helpful.

BCJD Buried in New Orleans

BCJD- Unmarked grave- June 17, 1975

BCJD- Gretna Cemetery

I guess it's time to reread the previous thread for the umpteenth time to refresh my memory. @Tony1902, are you still around?

MOO JMO

LA Thread 'LA - Belle Chasse, WhtMale 16-17, UP88342, hanged, suicide note, Feb'75 #1'

Nov 15, 2005

3832UMLA <mod note: added link to OP>

I ran across this while researching something else.

On Valentine's Day in 1975, the body of a 16-17 year old white male was found in Belle Chasse, Louisiana. He had committed suicide by hanging himself from a persimmon tree using a bedsheet. He was wearing a maroon and yellow knit shirt, blue trousers and unmatched socks. He was not wearing shoes. A jar laying against the tree trunk was filled with note paper.

He left a suicide note, addressed to "mom and dad" which read in part: "When you stop growing you are dead. I stopped growing...

• Marilynilpa
• Replies: 1,049
• Forum: The Unidentified

• 
• 
• 

The old thread for you!

 

[PatLaurel]

I dont believe WS rules would allow us to reach out to the Cemetery (?)

.Cemetery Database Search
That would mean reaching out to Mr. Boyd Mothe Sr

I don’t think there are any rules about who we can contact, as long as WS isn’t involved. Reaching out to victims’ families is for LE... But that’s common sense, and not the case here.

 

[lynde]

Hello again! I hope everyone is doing well. (*ˊᵕˋ*)੭

Here is a post from the original thread containing a screenshot of past correspondence with the funeral home in question.

His burial transit number was 1975-A-13, and he was buried in a “decent casket” — not cremated as he had hoped — on June 13th, 1975, in a non-ownership Westlawn Memorial Park plot. I hope this helps.

Also: Thank you for the news clippings. I had no clue about the “Would this avoid cruelty?” line until now. ( ´ ~ ` )

 

[PatLaurel]

So, I found the Mothe Funeral Home card index, but there’s no way to search by date, only by name. Using the alphabetical order, I found an "Unknown Male Torso" and got very excited to know that there were "Unknowns" but "unfortunately "that was the only one. I also tried searching for "Doe", "Pauper" and "Indigent", no luck either. What other terms do you think I should try?

ETA: I found the index by year! Fingers crossed!

 

[PatLaurel]

This is what Mothe Funeral Home has for BCJD!

 

[PatLaurel]

This is what Mothe Funeral Home has for BCJD!
View attachment 652468
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View attachment 652471

I just reached page 27 of the first thread and realized that @Baudelaire had already posted these same records on June 6, 2021. I even quoted the post at some point. My apologies... I had no memory of it. MOO JMO

 

[lynde]

Since BCJD seems to have deliberately put quotes around “missing”, I personally am of the belief that his absence was reported by his parents and he was aware of it; however, that case never made its way online. (The other option, raised to me by my good friend who is not a Websleuths member, is that he was using the word for rhetorical effect: “because he is dead, not ‘missing’.) Were we to start examining every single lost boy for connections to our Doe, I think we might go insane, but … 𖦹∽‎𖦹‎；

Obviously, we will not attain certainty without DNA. I am not saying to stop looking for the grave; it just might help to have other missing individuals to compare BCJD against. If Cousins gets ID-ed like CW did, we would be in a bad place to speak to authorities; exhumation is an expensive process: one with little returns without someone reasonable to compare him to.

(Of the people whose cases we do have access to, Bayard Cousins does seem to be the most likely match; however, he is too tall despite the fact that hanging has a tendency to add inches to reported height, and our Doe was never mentioned to have a cross-shaped scar on his finger. (/_<。))

 

[lynde]

I just want to say something personal now: The first thread for this case was created before I was born, and now I’m here, messaging on it, since we still have yet to return his name to him. I find that quite surreal, but I suppose it to also be the reality of cases like these.

 

[leahidea]

This is what Mothe Funeral Home has for BCJD!
View attachment 652468
View attachment 652469
View attachment 652470
View attachment 652471

This is great! You said that these had already been posted, but I also hadn’t seen them before and it can’t hurt to keep them circulating in this thread. Everything they have, or just some? And just to confirm, Mothe Funeral Home was definitely the home responsible for burying him?

I know that the problem of “finding his casket” is the biggest thing blocking our way right now, but if we don’t start somewhere, we’ll never make any progress. These small steps are just what we need.

 

[leahidea]

The idea of this sounds great!

I don’t know if this is a stupid & ridiculous idea from me, i apologise if this sounds extremely absurd (and i understand why) but a while back i watched the documentary on the St. Louis Jane Doe, and the authorities on her case had lost track of her burial, so they teamed up with a local university (?) & used Jane Doe’s burial photos to build a map of the cemetery to locate her grave, and they were successful.

I don’t think BCJD had photos taken of his burial, but maybe if old pictures of the cemetery itself are available, or maybe even photos of other burials, authorities could use those photos for a map to locate BCJD’s place of burial especially if there was movement of his remains?

Honestly I find it so weird zero photos were taken at all. I’m pretty sure his face was recognizable, but not even any of his burial? So disappointing and honestly kind of negligent since it’s not like photographs didn’t exist at that time…

 

[EloquentEyes1975]

Honestly I find it so weird zero photos were taken at all. I’m pretty sure his face was recognizable, but not even any of his burial? So disappointing and honestly kind of negligent since it’s not like photographs didn’t exist at that time…

No doubt photos were taken, but all were lost/destroyed to Hurricane Katrina .
I was expecting to see some photos in older newspapers though, not necessarily of his face but maybe of the area he was found & the morgue.

 

[DannonV]

I made a composite sketch of what he could’ve looked like in color. Unfortunately, the quality of it is pretty low, and when I try to sharpen it at all, it changes the features. This is my first time really reconstructing anything; I hope you guys like it.

I have two versions. The first one has less of a cleft chin than the second one. Hope this helps in any way, shape, or form.