Coroner's Journal

by Louis Cataldie

  In a world of such insanity, such bewildering intensity, one actually has the desire to rush in and embrace the baby. Sounds crazy, but once you are in such a situation you are changed forever. You cannot un-experience it. Even as I focused on the investigation, the reconstruction of the crime, and the collection and preservation of evidence, I knew I would be taking this child into my life, and she would be with me forever.

  Of course, my role here was grounded in practical reality. The simple words from the crime-scene tech knocked my thoughts back into the moment, and back into professional objectivity: “What we gonna do here, Doc?”

  Many a physician has wrestled with the mandate of objectivity and the need to keep emotions in check. Ironically, it becomes a form of subjective objectivity. Sounds oxymoronic, but there you have it. You cannot escape being human—and if you can, you don’t need to be a doctor.

  With some help, I was hoisted into the swill and gently tried to free the child. No luck. Dammit!

  I turned to the crew of officers, detectives, garbagemen, their risk-management executives, and death investigators. They were just sort of staring past me and at Baby Jane. It was like being in a TV and looking back at the viewers—strange indeed. Is this real?

  I muttered to no one in particular, “She’s stuck . . . it’s a she. We need to take some pressure off of this blade.” I turned to the BFI folks, “Can we do that gently or gradually? And can we do it without killing me?”

  Risk management assured me that they could, but I wanted to hear it from the guy who works the back of the truck all day. His assurance was my signal to continue. So the BFI guy had to move the blade. It was not without trepidation that I stood there while he manipulated the controls, which could easily crush me also. This is surreal.

  Then . . . Got her! She fell into my hands. So little, so cold . . .

  Autopsy revealed that Baby Jane had been alive when she was placed into the garbage bag. The blade crushed her skull. She had bled into the injury. She was alive when the blade smashed into her little head. That announcement quieted the whole morgue—no gallows humor here today. Here was silent outrage.

  Some of the placenta was still in the bag. Not all of it, so maybe the mother had some left in her. That would mean she would have to go to a hospital—maybe. But she may well have left town and ended up at the Charity Hospital in New Orleans, known as the “Big Free.” One could easily be treated there, and we would never hear about it. But if we do, we have the DNA to match the mother to this heinous abandonment.

  Who speaks for the foundlings? We all do. We speak by what we do or don’t do.

  In 2000, the Louisiana legislature passed a law allowing mothers to leave newborns at hospitals and police and fire stations up to thirty days after birth without being prosecuted. So what happened here? Maybe the mother never heard about this safe-haven law. I’m not sure how many people in need would know about it. It’s really not that well publicized. I posted it on my coroner website but I doubt the mother checked the site out before committing the murder of her child. I think that it is important that we explore the “maybes” here. Maybe we can find some answers and practice some preventive medicine. Baby land is too full already.

  For Baby Jane, a group called Threads of Love speaks and remembers. This organization, with 125 chapters across the country, provides clothing, blankets, and other handmade articles for infants that are stillborn, miscarried, or even premature. They are also dedicated to abandoned infants. For Baby Jane they coordinated a proper burial: Welsh Funeral Home prepared Baby Jane’s body; a burial plot was donated by Green Oaks Cemetery in their “Baby Land”; and she was dressed in clothing hand-sewn by Threads of Love volunteers. The news media presented the story without sensationalism. They also took this occasion to promote awareness of the Louisiana law that allows you to drop an unwanted baby off at certain locations—no questions asked and no criminal charges filed. You can walk away without legal consequence.

  Who listens? The funeral was well attended. Sissy Davis of Threads of Love gave me a picture of Baby Jane dressed in her outfit. She looked so peaceful—a stark contrast to the photographs taken at her crime scene and autopsy. I put it in her file. It’s about dignity. They also gave Baby Jane Doe a name: Christine Noel Love. But my death certificate will still read “Unknown,” and so will the birth certificate I must issue—both hollow documents.

  As I stood by the casket, I spoke to Baby Jane, now Christine. “Well, ‘Little Bit,’ you got lots of love here today. I hope you find some peace now. We’ll keep trying to do what we do, Boo . . . and that’s a promise.”

  The priest talked about forgiveness. He also knows about justice. I realize that he, too, must live with his own brand of subjective objectivity. He spoke of the child and read the Scripture. It was a clear day in Baton Rouge. The wind was gentle and the birds were chirping. Baby Love’s angels, I surmised. After the service I spoke with the priest. We stood there before the small casket, which was laid out under a giant live oak tree. I confided that I was having a great deal of trouble with the forgiveness part of his remarks. I could tell by his eyes that he knew.

  Enough said.

  Sometimes in the early morning hours, when I’m out alone on my Harley, doing what I consider stress management and trying to get my thoughts together, I cruise into Green Oaks Cemetery. I’ve ridden Harley-Davidsons since the early seventies. It’s escapism on an iron horse—with all the smells, sights, and feel of the world around you.

  The wind feels good. The loud guttural rhythm of my “Fat Boy” engine doesn’t seem to bother anyone at that hour. I park at Baby Land and visit Little Bit. There are usually several baby toys left by others on her headstone. Maybe her biological mother has been here. Maybe to ask for forgiveness. Who knows? I look around the cemetery and ponder that possibility. I guess I’m looking for suspects. Does it matter right this minute? I think not. I’ve stopped asking the why during my visits.

  CRIME AGAINST NATURE

  I’ve been avoiding making this journal entry, even though I still play it back in my mind often. I’ve had several false starts, and I’ve come to the conclusion that my block to writing it is that I possess no words vile enough to describe the crime. The betrayal and murder of an innocent child is such a dastardly deed that it tends to defy explanation. It is even more obscene when the perpetrator is also the child’s parent.

  Courtney LeBlanc, a twelve-year-old white girl, was reported missing on November 11, 2002. As the hours and days dragged on without finding her, we anticipated the worst. She was a resident of a neighboring parish at the time of her disappearance and as such, she was not in my jurisdiction; but she came to be. Her body was found in a wooded area near the East Baton Rouge Parish side of the Amite River. Her killer was her stepfather, Gerald “Jimmy” Bordelon, a forty-year-old, three-time-convicted sex offender with short gray and black hair, and icy blue eyes.

  He confessed to the crime on November 26, 2002, while being interviewed by the FBI and the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office. He was booked on first-degree murder and held without bail.

  I was with my family on the Redneck Riviera (Gulf Shores, Alabama) the day her body was discovered. My chief deputy coroner handled the body retrieval and kept me informed of every detail during that process, but my family vacation was over. I returned to be greeted by her autopsy and ghastly crime-scene photos.

  The hours in the morgue were silent, and the process isn’t really what’s important here. Courtney’s story is.

  She was a cute little girl with sparkling blue eyes and blond hair, and she is smiling in the photos that were frantically posted after she went missing. That smile concealed a secret hell—and it was a sharp contrast to the skull protruding through her decomposed face at the dump site.

  The criminalist in me would call her story a crime reconstruction; the human in me calls it an abomination; and it seems a little late to have people listening now, when there were so many opportunities along the way
to have interrupted the path that ended with her death.

  The path her killer chose was dark from the beginning. By the age of sixteen, Jimmy Bordelon knew trouble well—the kind of trouble some adult convicts achieve in a lifetime—pleading guilty to aggravated rape and simple kidnapping in February 1979.

  Two years after this release, he struck again. In March 1982, Bordelon abducted an eighteen-year-old woman at knifepoint. He then forced her to give him oral sex twice and released her. After her escape, she quickly led police to his home and he was nailed. He was arrested for aggravated sexual battery, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, and two counts of aggravated crimes against nature. A few months later, he pled guilty to sexual battery, which is a felony, and the man was sentenced to ten years in jail.

  After being moved to a few different facilities, though, he was released for good behavior in July 1988. He wasn’t even placed on supervised parole when he got out of prison four years early!

  Two years later, in June 1990, Bordelon was accused of kidnapping a twenty-one-year-old woman and raping her behind an abandoned building on Florida Boulevard—not far from where Courtney’s body would be found. He “pled out” to reduced charges of forcible rape and crimes against nature. The kidnapping charge was dropped. He should have faced forty years for the forcible rape alone, but he was out in ten.

  If our legal system had held him truly accountable, Courtney would never have been exposed to this sexual predator. None of these horrible things would have happened to her.

  Jennifer Bordelon said she met Bordelon after she placed an ad on the Internet to sell a go-cart, which he bought. They married in July 2001, and two months later, the family moved to Gloster, Mississippi, where his parents lived.

  Courtney’s mother married a convicted rapist then moved him in with her children. A report from the Amite District Adult Probation and Parole Office revealed that Jennifer Bordelon was aware of the new husband’s adult convictions from at least two sources. Who marries a convicted rapist? Who indeed would be so naïve, so foolish, so desperate? I do not understand it. Who allows such evil to live with children? I will never understand it. Her mother must take responsibility for that behavior. She introduced a sexual predator into her family and he preyed upon her daughter. There are no surprises here. What did she expect? The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

  In Mississippi, soon after they moved, he allegedly sexually molested Courtney. One of Courtney’s half sisters witnessed it on December 26, 2001. A Mississippi grand jury did not act on two separate occasions. The jury “stalled” twice because the half sister could not be located to testify, even though videotape of her testimony was made available. The sister had been moved out of Mississippi. The case was still pending at the time of Courtney’s murder.

  Jimmy Bordelon was not living with the family at the time of Courtney’s abduction. He was evidently just waiting for his chance to get to her. Then it happened. Courtney was home alone and he struck. He entered her home and abducted her at knifepoint—just as he had done in 1982 with another one of his victims. I can only imagine the terror she felt. She knew what a monster he was. She knew that he was going to force some sex act upon her, and she was helpless.

  How does a twelve-year-old defend herself against a grown man—a man who is such a coward that he forces her to comply at knifepoint? How does she defend herself? The answer is simple. She does not—because she cannot. That was her mother’s job and her father’s job and society’s job—our job.

  He drove her to Mississippi and sexually assaulted her. Then he decided that he would have to kill her to avoid going back to prison. That was his stated reason to detectives for killing the child.

  I see a helpless, terrified child driven to the woods near the river and strangled. I imagine her tears and hear her cries for mercy. He told detectives he pushed her down, straddled her, and choked her until she lost consciousness. I feel the blackness of death consuming her as her life is strangled away. I feel shame that her little body is dumped by the river and left alone for the animals and insects—thrown away with less care than we give our trash.

  At the scene, her twisted little body was face down. The harsh Louisiana environment had already started to reclaim her remains. Her flesh had rotted off of her face and maggots were feeding upon her. The rancid smell of decay permeated the humid air. I’m sure she would have been so very embarrassed. There would be no chance of an open-coffin funeral. He had denied her even that!

  The search for Courtney, which would draw more than a hundred volunteers, ended with Bordelon’s confession. She was accused of being a runaway. She was not. She was described as acting very mature for her age, which I believe was her cry for help. A warning bell always goes off when I hear how mature a preadolescent is. And my first reflexive question is: “Why?” Why does she have to be so mature? In this case it was because she was robbed of her childhood. It had been sacrificed to a sexual deviant. She was the victim of a father who had left her soon after birth, a mother who at some level betrayed her, a stepfather who preyed upon her, a dysfunctional judicial system that failed her, and a society that allows such atrocities to continue.

  Where is the public outrage? As a society, we failed to protect this child. As a society, we would continue not only to turn a deaf ear to her cries for help, but some of us would also judge and discount her. Courtney and all the Courtneys before her and all the Courtneys who are trapped right now are crying out to us.

  Since the original abduction occurred in Livingston Parish, my files were handed over to that jurisdiction. I hear the DA there will push for the death penalty. What else is there?

  Bordelon escaped with a convicted killer from the Livingston Parish Prison on October 18, 2003, but was found a day later. Being dissatisfied with his public defender, Bordelon requested and got a new attorney via the Indigent Defense Board. He will be tried for first-degree murder and second-degree kidnapping of his stepdaughter in January 2006.

  Jennifer Bordelon, his thirty-three-year-old wife from Denham Springs, was indicted in Mississippi for child abuse and sexual battery, on charges that she failed to protect Courtney from her thrice-convicted sex-offender stepfather. She was found guilty of felony child abuse and is out on probation for five years. The judge’s admonition was damning: “Every time you look into the mirror I want you to see the anguish she [Courtney] experienced, the horror and the terror.” A specific condition of her probation is that she write a 200-word letter telling Courtney how she failed her. A new letter is to be written each year on June 5, Courtney’s birthday.

  I hate to be so graphic in my depiction of crimes. I have done so here because I do not want to soften the horror of this death. I believe that so-called silent screams can be heard if you listen.

  I still don’t have a handle on this one.

  SIX

  Head Cases

  A BRIEF HISTORY

  This is Louisiana, and we do lots of things differently from the rest of the United States. Coroners here are responsible not only for death investigations but also for significant duties under the state’s mental health laws. The coroner’s mental health responsibilities include the issuing of orders to have people picked up for psychiatric evaluation and the actual commitment of people to psychiatric facilities. It is a significant component of the job. Some people are shocked to learn that this coroner’s office deals with about 3,000 psychiatric cases each year.

  The origins of these responsibilities can be traced back to the Louisiana Constitution, which has been written in both English and French. The Louisiana Legislature of 1847 established the “Insane Asylum of the State of Louisiana” in the town of Jackson, in the parish of East Feliciana. It is still there today and we still commit people there. It was also at that time (1847) that the sheriff’s office got saddled with the duty of transporting “insane” patients from Charity Hospital in New Orleans to Jackson. To this day, the police still transport what are called “coroner c
ases” to the psychiatric hospitals.

  The judge of the district was in charge of handling “said lunatic or insane person.” Insanity had a much broader definition in those days and included mental illness, alcoholism, mental retardation, feeblemindedness, and even some physical abnormalities. Just because you were declared insane doesn’t mean you were really crazy.

  Around 1910, the Legislature enlisted the coroner into the mental health arena by mandating that the judge had to combine forces with the coroner and the physician of the “suspected person” before he or she could be committed. A “coroner’s certificate” was created, which would go through several revisions, but the judge still had the final say-so as to the disposition of the “suspect.”

  In 1946, the Legislature codified pretty much what we have today. A family member can petition the coroner to pick a person up and examine him for mental illness, and if the person is dangerous to self or others or gravely disabled and unwilling or unable to seek treatment, the coroner can commit him to a psychiatric facility. The person must be examined by a facility doctor and if that doctor agrees with the coroner, the patient can be kept there for fourteen days.

  The true power of the coroner’s emergency-commitment powers was demonstrated in 1959, when one of my predecessors, Dr. Chester Williams, committed Earl K. Long, three-time governor of Louisiana and brother of Huey P. Long, to Southeast Louisiana Hospital in Mandeville—while Earl was still governor! So, Doctor Williams may have considered the governor to be dangerous to himself or others, or gravely disabled. The governor’s subsequent behavior assures us that he was most definitely not willing to seek inpatient psychiatric treatment. He did not go quietly and was literally dragged into the facility. But Earl was not deterred, and he not only ran the state from the psychiatric hospital, he kept his political machine intact and well oiled. Uncle Earl was in Southeast, which happens to be a state facility, for a little over a week when he had its administrator and head doctor fired, an altogether legal act since they were state employees and he was still the “Guv.” Their replacements declared Earl sane during a short court session and he was immediately released. Louisiana is a very political place, if you didn’t already know.