Louisiana
U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy touts infrastructure grants awarded to Louisiana municipalities, utility districts during Donaldsonville event
Louisiana U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy released a statement after awarding more than $52 million in grants from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to municipalities and gas utility districts during an event May 17 in Donaldsonville.
“This money will decrease the risk of explosion and decrease the amount of wasted methane which people are paying for, thus saving folks money,” Cassidy said in the announcement. “It also cleans up our environment. It’s a good investment of taxpayer dollars for the benefit of folks in Louisiana.”
In an effort to safeguard natural gas pipelines, nearly $1 billion will be awarded over a five-year span throughout the country with $392 million being awarded this year, the senator added.
As previously reported, the cities of Donaldsonville, Port Allen and Walker, the town of Berwick, and gas utility districts in East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana and West Feliciana parishes were grant recipients.
Similar funding was awarded last April with more than $27 million going to municipalities in south and central Louisiana.
Per Cassidy, the IIJA has awarded more than $9.1 billion to Louisiana since the president signed it into law in late 2021.
The funding has gone toward repairing bridges, building flood protection systems and extending broadband in rural areas.
Cassidy noted Donaldsonville Mayor Leroy Sullivan’s city received the largest grant, which was $20 million to replace 27.3 miles of natural gas infrastructure.
Sullivan said the gas line improvement grant from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration “is a pivotal moment for the City of Donaldsonville.”
“Sen. Cassidy was instrumental in helping us secure this funding and we are deeply grateful for his unwavering support.,” the mayor said in the announcement. “This project is an investment in the future of our city and positions our community for continued growth.”
Gonzales Weekly Citizen and Donaldsonville Chief, part of the USA Today Network of Louisiana, cover Ascension Parish and the greater Baton Rouge area. Follow at facebook.com/WeeklyCitizen and facebook.com/DonaldsonvilleChief.
Louisiana
Gov. Jeff Landry describes evacuation from White House Correspondents Association
Gov. Jeff Landry said he and first lady Sharon Landry were able to safely evacuate the White House Correspondents Association dinner after shots were fired outside the ballroom, forcing them, President Donald Trump and a host of other top leaders to evacuate.
“I’m back and safe and everything’s okay,” the governor said calmly in a phone interview shortly after evacuating.
Law enforcement officials said one officer was shot in the bulletproof vest and is expected to be okay. The FBI said a suspect was in custody.
Landry said he and his wife were sitting at ABC’s table, “pretty close up to the main stage.” They were close to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other members of Trump’s cabinet.
Then he heard the muted sound of gunfire from a floor up above the ballroom.
“It was almost like somebody dropping a pot or something,” the governor said.
Landry knows the hotel well; it’s where Washington Mardi Gras, the annual gathering of Louisiana political, business and nonprofit leaders, is held.
Landry praised how law enforcement handled the incident, saying he did not feel threatened.
“The Secret Service came in, they got everybody down,” Landry said. “I mean, they did a great job of taking everybody out.”
Landry said he was able to leave the scene and make it back to his hotel without incident.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from the Shreveport area, said in a statement on X that he and his wife, Kelly, were also there.
“We’re thankful no innocent people were harmed and everyone is now safe,” Kelly said. “We’re grateful as always for the law enforcement and first responders who acted so quickly to bring the situation under control.”
Johnson added: “Praying for our country tonight.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, also said he was there.
“I’m incredibly grateful for the brave members of law enforcement who acted quickly to protect all of us attending tonight’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner,” Scalise wrote on X. “This is an event meant to bring people together. Violence has NO place in our country.”
Louisiana
Pipeline blowout reported in St. Helena Parish, authorities say
ST. HELENA PARISH, La. (WAFB) – Authorities are warning people to avoid one part of St. Helena Parish following a pipeline blowout.
According to the St. Helena Parish Sheriff’s Office, the blowout happened Saturday along Nesom Road off of Highway 16.
Officials said they evacuated some residents living near where the incident took place. Many of the impacted people live on Nesom Road, Dennis Lee Road, and Burkett Lane.
According to the sheriff’s office, no one will be allowed back into the surrounding neighborhoods until the all clear is given.
No injuries have been reported.
Any potential leak following the blowout has been stopped.
Louisiana State Police and multiple fire departments have been notified of the situation.
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Louisiana
Podcast helps Louisiana police arrest 4 suspects in decades-old murder of teen girl Roxanne Sharp
Louisiana police say a podcast helped them solve the decades-old killing of a 16-year-old girl and announced Friday that four men now face criminal charges in connection with her rape and murder.
In 1982, teenager Roxanne Sharp was killed in the woods of St. Tammany Parish, about 30 miles north of New Orleans. Police struggled to solve the case due to a lack of evidence and witnesses willing to come forward.
But then, investigators approached a local media company, which agreed to produce a podcast, “Who Killed Roxanne Sharp?” renewing public interest in the case after its six-part series aired last year.
Louisiana State Police spokesperson Marc Gremillion credited the podcast with generating crucial tips from the public and prompting new witnesses to approach investigators.
“It helped our investigators piece together where Roxanne was days before to the time she died, to where we’re at now,” Gremillion told The Associated Press. “It was a very large help with getting that message out to the public, and then, therefore, those witnesses getting back to us.”
Over the past few days, police charged four men with aggravated rape and second-degree murder: Perry Wayne Taylor, 64; Darrell Dean Spell, 64; Carlos Cooper, 64; and Billy Williams, Jr., 62.
Cooper and Taylor were already in prison on unrelated charges, and Williams and Spell were arrested earlier this week.
Sharp was an acquaintance of the four arrested suspects and was known to frequent the neighborhood where they lived, Gremillion added.
“We appreciate the hard work and love that has been shown to Roxanne Sharp’s case,” Sharp’s niece, Michele Lappin, said in a statement on behalf of her family. “We hope that with justice will come healing and closure for our family, her loved ones, and the community.”
Billy Williams Jr.’s son, Billy Williams III, said his father is innocent of the crime.
“He thinks they’re putting him in for something he didn’t do,” the younger Williams said. “He says he would never in his life hurt anyone.”
The St. Tammany Parish clerk of court did not have attorneys listed for any of the suspects. Family members of Spell, Cooper and Taylor did not respond to requests for comment via phone numbers associated with them.
“When we started the podcast, we kind of thought nobody cared — we were quickly corrected,” said Charles Dowdy, vice president of Northshore Media, which produced the podcast. “A lot of people stepped up and said they knew Roxanne, they remembered her, they were friends with her.”
Dowdy recorded audio as investigators recreated the crime scene using measuring tapes to mark the exact locations where Sharp’s body was found and where other pieces of evidence were uncovered.
“It clearly showed that she’d been grabbed on the street and dragged into the woods,” Dowdy said.
Police had once thought the case solved after serial killer Henry Lucas claimed responsibility for Sharp’s murder. But Lucas, known for making false confessions, later retracted his claim, and other evidence disproved his connection to the murder.
St. Tammany Parish resident Justin Joiner, 39, told the AP that his father, a Covington police officer, had been one of the first law enforcement to arrive at the scene of Sharp’s death and remained frustrated about the lack of closure for the rest of his life.
He kept a briefcase full of his notes on the case until he passed away last year.
“It’s been a big black cloud on the community,” Joiner said. “Nobody would talk about it — it was hush, hush, you talk about it in your house, not in public.”
Joiner added that the podcast opened up discussion about the case across generations and throughout the community.
“Cold cases don’t close themselves,” Covington Police Department Chief Michael Ferrell said in a statement.
“They close because people show up, year after year, and refuse to quit. That is exactly what our agencies did, and today, Roxanne and her family finally have the justice they have waited so long for.”
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