Louisiana
Louisiana daughter says a medium led her to missing mother’s body as she accuses sheriff of botching investigation
A Louisiana daughter has accused the local sheriff’s office of failing to fully investigate her mother’s death last year after a psychic medium led her to her mom’s half-clothed body in the woods.
The mother of three and grandmother of seven, Theresa Jones, was reported missing on Feb. 2, 2023.
Her oldest daughter Ashley Deese spent hours desperately searching for her 56-year-old mom that day and the next day the Union Parish Sheriff’s Office and a K9 unit spent more time searching for Jones, but she was nowhere to be found.
Three days after she vanished, Deese and her sister Brittany reached out to a psychic medium in Wisconsin who has a large following thanks to her success in helping to find missing people, KNOE reported.
The medium, Carolyn Clapper, talked to the sisters on the phone for 45 minutes, sharing step-by-step, detailed instructions on where to find their mom, Deese said.
“There would be a log, [Jones] kept showing me this pronounced log, a very big log in the woods. It wasn’t just little twigs and sticks, it was a log, a huge one, you know you hit this log is basically what she said, you get to this log and my body will be there. There’s water, I saw a creek,” Clapper told KNOE.
Deese set out into the woods near her mother’s house the next morning and spotted a large log.
“It’s like I envisioned what I had heard on the phone last night, that was the landmark, that was the log. So I immediately got ill, shaky, and sick, and started vomiting,” she said.
Jones was found face down and partially nude in Edmonds Creek. She only had a top on and no bottoms or underwear.
Deese called the sheriff who began investigating but never did a rape test or scraped the woman’s fingernails for possible DNA evidence.
“So there’s a woman deceased facedown in a creek, nude. All she had on was a top, no undergarments, nude. There was no rape kit, no scraping of the fingernails. I’m bothered by that,” Deese said.
Union Parish Sheriff Dusty Gates confirmed that neither test was done on Jones’ body in an interview with KNOE. He told the station that his office could have requested either test but he didn’t know if his office ever requested those tests.
The sheriff’s office reportedly told Deese that there were no signs of disturbance in the area where her mother’s body was found so investigators didn’t feel a rape kit or fingernail scraping was needed. The investigators believe her body was nude from the waist down because her bottoms were pulled off by the force of the water.
“This is an assumption or a guess, it might be a good guess, but nonetheless if there’s no clothes, shouldn’t we find the clothing shouldn’t we prove that, shouldn’t there be science behind these ideas,” Clapper said.
The medical examiner — who also didn’t do those tests — ruled that Jones’ death was accidental. She died drowning, with methamphetamine intoxication a contributing factor in her death, according to the autopsy.
Jones had a large amount of meth in her system at the time of her death but her daughter said she had been sober for 20 years after a cocaine addiction.
“It doesn’t line up, it doesn’t make sense. And if someone can make it make sense, I will sit down and listen,” Deese said.
The incident report says that Deese told deputies that her mom was back on meth and marijuana and suffered from mental illness, but “refuses to take her medication like she is supposed to.”
But Deese said she never said those things.
“I also feel that as soon as it was known that there was drugs involved, and even a history of drugs, I felt like the sobriety didn’t matter. And I feel like since there was drugs involved, it’s just one more off the street,” she said.
She also criticized the sheriff’s office for failing to speak to Clapper who has helped provide info to other law enforcement agencies that helped find missing people in the past. She said Clapper knew things about the condition of her mother’s body and toxicology report before each was revealed.
“Even if they don’t believe in psychics or they’re skeptical, you know, they still follow up on leads, so they’ll still question me if I know too much about a case and they can’t really explain how I would know the details that I know about a case, it’s their job to follow up,” the medium said.
Both she and Deese pleaded with the deputies to speak to Clapper repeatedly.
“For months, for months I tried getting in touch, for months Ashley tried following up with them, lending my name and my contact information. Months have gone by, nearly a year and a half now,” Clapper said.
Jones’ case was closed in August 2023.
But her daughter doesn’t believe her death was an accident.
“I do suspect foul play. I haven’t been proved that it wasn’t. And I will suspect that until I’m proved that it’s not,” Deeves said.
CALVIN, La. (WVUE) – A small community in north-central Louisiana is working to preserve an important piece of its history.
During the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps put young men to work replanting by hand the state’s only national forest.
The tiny community of Calvin, tucked away in the resulting pine forest, holds only a few other remaining crumbling clues of that work, as Dave McNamara finds in the Heart of Louisiana.
For more, visit the Heart of Louisiana archive here.
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BATON ROUGE, La. (Gray Louisiana) – Louisiana drivers will soon no longer need annual vehicle safety inspection stickers for most personal vehicles.
Gov. Jeff Landry signed House Bill 1085 into law Tuesday morning, ending the state’s mandatory vehicle safety inspection sticker program for most personal vehicles. The bill was authored by Rep. Larry Bagley, R-Stonewall, who has worked for years to pass the change.
The law replaces the current inspection sticker, often called a brake tag, with a $6 QR code sticker tied to the vehicle’s registration.
Fifty-nine of Louisiana’s 64 parishes will abolish the inspection stickers and use QR codes instead. Drivers in East Baton Rouge, West Baton Rouge, Livingston, Iberville, and Ascension parishes would still need emissions testing under federal law.
The changes are set to take effect Jan. 1, 2027.
There will be a grace period from June 30 until Jan. 1, 2027. During that time, law enforcement will not issue citations for failing to display an inspection sticker.
Supporters of the bill have argued the inspection process is outdated and inconvenient for drivers. Bagley previously said the QR code would include limited vehicle information, such as the VIN, and would be available to law enforcement through special equipment.
The change will not apply to every vehicle. Some commercial vehicles, school buses and certain farm vehicles would still be subject to safety inspections. Some local governments would also still be able to require local inspections.
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Copyright 2026 Gray Media. All rights reserved.
LAFAYETTE PARISH (SCOTT) — As hurricane season officially begins, Louisiana homeowners have a new opportunity to strengthen their homes against severe weather through the Louisiana Fortify Homes Program, an $80 million initiative offering grants for hurricane-resistant roof upgrades.
The program is providing 3,000 grants to eligible homeowners seeking to replace traditional roofs with FORTIFIED roofs, a roofing system designed to better withstand high winds and heavy rain during hurricanes and severe storms.
State officials say the effort is intended to reduce storm damage while also helping homeowners lower their insurance premiums.
“The fortified standard itself has been proven, thanks to Alabama’s work with their program, which was tested by Hurricane Sally several years ago,” said John Ford with the Louisiana Department of Insurance. “So we have a lot of confidence in the standard.”
Homeowners can now enter a lottery for a chance to receive a grant worth up to $10,000 toward the cost of a FORTIFIED roof installation.
Ford said the program has already produced positive results across the state.
“We get great feedback. People are getting stronger roofs, and they’re seeing real reductions on their insurance premiums We’re very positive with where the program’s gone, and we feel like it’s only going to get bigger from here.”
The program requires additional oversight during the roofing process, helping ensure installations meet strict standards.
“Traditional roofing scenario, you have a contractor and a homeowner, but nobody’s verifying what that contractor’s doing,” said Jason Lopez, a certified Louisiana Fortify Homes contractor with Acadiana Roofing in Scott. “That’s been a problem with some of these hurricanes that come through. People have gotten some shoddy roofs.”
He added that the upgraded roofing system provides significantly greater protection than traditional roofs.
“A fortified roof is waterproof before they put the shingles on,” Lopez said. “A lot of your damage comes from when a hurricane or high winds come through, tears shingles off, and water goes straight into the house.”
Lopez added that Louisiana insurance companies are required to offer discounts for homes that receive a FORTIFIED designation.
“To me, it doesn’t make sense to put a traditional roof on,” he said. “If you live south of I-10, you should get a fortified roof.”
The Louisiana Department of Insurance expanded eligibility for the program this year to include Acadia, Jefferson Davis and Lafayette parishes, along with previously excluded portions of Iberia, St. Martin and Vermilion parishes.
Registration for the grant lottery is now open through June 19 at 5:00 p.m.
A complete list of eligibility requirements and application information is available here.
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