Louisiana
“Who Killed Roxanne Sharp?” podcast leads to 4 arrests in decades-old murder of girl in Louisiana
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.”
District Attorney Collin Sims echoed that sentiment.
“This case is a powerful example of what persistence, collaboration, and advancements in investigative technology can accomplish. For more than four decades, this victim and her family have waited for answers,” Sims said in a statement. “Today’s arrests reflect our unwavering commitment to pursue justice—no matter how much time has passed—and to hold those responsible fully accountable.”
Podcasts have helped law enforcement solve other cold cases recently. Last year, detectives in Illinois solved a missing person’s cold case and credited the podcast “Somebody Knows Something,” which the Elgin Police Department itself launched. In 2024, a sheriff in South Carolina credited a podcast with helping to identify a 1975 cold case victim, formerly known as “Mr. X.”
Louisiana
Can Louisiana environmental groups publish their pollution data? A judge’s ruling clarifies it.
“We’re not posting every day because we want to cautiously feel our way through,” Robertson said. “Just to be safe.”
Cindy Robertson sorts through donated food items at her home on Tuesday Oct. 31, 2023, in Sulphur, La.
Other plaintiffs in the case are not currently sharing air monitoring data, due to the CAMRA law as well as other hurdles. They include two groups in St. John the Baptist Parish, according to Tish Taylor, who leads Concerned Citizens of St. John, and Joy Banner, a founder of The Descendants Project.
In addition to uncertainty around the state law, Taylor said her organization is waiting for air monitoring results being analyzed by Colorado State University. Separately, funding from the EPA to maintain monitors in the parish expires at the end of the month. An EPA contract for St. John monitors also included its own restrictions around dissemination, according to the partner organization Deep South Center for Environmental Justice.
Louisiana
‘A little bit nervous’: Survivor of deadly Mall of Louisiana shooting makes emotional return
BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – For the first time since surviving the deadly shooting at the Mall of Louisiana, Donnie Guillory made an emotional return to the mall on Wednesday, May 20.
Guillory was one of six people shot during the April shooting at the mall. Martha Odom, a high school senior from Lafayette, died from her injuries.
Guillory, a Special Olympics athlete, walked back through the mall with a special escort from Baton Rouge Police and the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office.
“Everybody is here today to see me,” Guillory said.
Guillory spent several days in the hospital before returning home. His family said one of the things he talked about most during recovery was getting back to the mall, where he spent time almost every day before the shooting.
Still, returning was emotional.
“I’m a little bit nervous. Nervous a little bit,” Guillory said.
Guillory’s father, Charles, said the support from law enforcement has meant a great deal to their family since the shooting.
He praised officers not only for helping save his son’s life, but for remaining involved throughout his recovery.
“You hear him say he’s a bit nervous,” Charles Guillory said. “He spends so much time in there with so many friends, I’m glad he’s able to go in there without being anxious about it.”
While the visit marked an important step forward for Donnie, his father said concerns about public safety remain.
“It’s something we need to address, because it’s not going to do any good to be happy today and have a problem two weeks from now,” he said.
Charles Guillory said he hopes businesses and community leaders continue looking for ways to improve safety measures moving forward.
“They need to look at what the mall is going to do and what other businesses are going to do to protect their patrons,” he said.
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Photos chronicle Louisiana history, culture and people
Bob Winans of Alexandria talks about the photos his father, the acclaimed Louisiana photographer Fonville Winans, took throughout his storied career.
When you’re driving along on a road trip, you may spot something unique on the side of the road and decide to pull over and explore.
Roadside attractions are often quirky landmarks that offer a nice reprieve from driving.
Fifty Grande, an American travel magazine, has compiled a list of the strangest roadside attractions in each state.
Abita Mystery House is Louisiana’s weirdest roadside attraction says Fifty Grande
Abita Mystery House, located in Abita Springs, is the weirdest roadside attraction in Louisiana, according to Fifty Grande.
This roadside attraction features a vintage service station, a 100-year-old Louisiana Creole cottage, an exhibition hall of memorabilia and junk, as well as the museum’s House of Shards.
The House of Shards is an old cottage decorated with thousands upon thousands of tile pieces, pottery shards, mirrors and glass. The building also houses an interesting collection of vintage bicycles.
Other exhibits at “Louisiana’s most eccentric museum” include a general store, car repair, comb collection, Airstream, “Bassigator,” “swamp ghost” and numerous art prints.
This folk-art environment, curated by Louisiana inventor and artist John Preble, is filled with thousands of found objects and homemade inventions. Here, visitors can observe artistic recreations of a Mardi Gras parade, New Orleans jazz funeral, rhythm and blues dance hall, haunted Southern plantation and more.
The weirdest roadside attraction in each state according to Fifty Grande
- Alabama: The Unclaimed Baggage Center
- Alaska: Igloo City
- Arizona: The Thing
- Arkansas: Thorncrown Chapel
- California: Chandelier Drive-Thru Tree
- Colorado: Rita the Rock Planter
- Connecticut: PEZ Visitor Center
- Delaware: Futuro House
- Florida: World’s Smallest Post Office
- Georgia: The Tree That Owns Itself
- Hawaii: Pineapple Garden Maze
- Idaho: Idaho Potato Hotel
- Illinois: World’s Largest Catsup Bottle
- Indiana: Martini-Drinking Pink Elephant
- Iowa: Future Birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk
- Kansas: World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Versions of the World’s Largest Things
- Kentucky: World’s Tallest Three Story Building
- Louisiana: Abita Mystery House
- Maine: Wild Blueberry Land
- Maryland: Vanadu Art House
- Massachusetts: The Paper House
- Michigan: Giant Uniroyal Tire
- Minnesota: Jolly Green Giant Statue
- Mississippi: The Frog Farm
- Missouri: BoatHenge
- Montana: Garden of One Thousand Buddhas
- Nebraska: Klown Doll Museum
- Nevada: International Car Forest
- New Hampshire: The USS Albacore
- New Mexico: International UFO Museum
- New Jersey: Lucy the Elephant
- New York: World’s Largest Pancake Griddle
- North Carolina: The World’s Largest Chest of Drawers
- North Dakota: The Enchanted Highway
- Ohio: World’s Largest Bobblehead
- Oklahoma: Winganon Space Capsule
- Oregon: Mill Ends Park
- Pennsylvania: The Haines Shoe House
- Rhode Island: The Big Blue Bug
- South Carolina: South of the Border
- South Dakota: The World’s Only Corn Palace
- Tennessee: Backyard Terrors Dinosaur Park
- Texas: Barney Smith’s Toilet Seat Art Museum
- Utah: Hole N” The Rock
- Vermont: Ben & Jerry’s Flavor Graveyard
- Virginia: Hugh Mongous
- Washington: Big Red Wagon
- West Virginia: World’s Largest Teapot
- Wisconsin: Al Johnson’s Goats on the Roof
- Wyoming: World’s Largest Elkhorn Arch
Presley Bo Tyler is the Louisiana Deep South Connect Team reporter for USA Today Network. Find her on X @PresleyTyler02 and email at PTyler@Gannett.com
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