A Cold Case Being Investigated By The LCPD
By Brad Goins
It was early in the morning when the Lake Charles Police received the call. At 8:59 am, on May 10, 1973, the police dispatcher was contacted by a woman who’d just walked into the unlocked door of Children’s Shoe House, located at the time at 123 South Ryan St. (now DeBakey Drive).
The caller had gone to the store to buy shoes for her children. But when she spoke to the LCPD dispatcher, shoes were the furthest thing from her mind.
She told the dispatcher she’d seen a woman lying on the floor of the store, bleeding and moaning.
Officers Errol Cheramie and Mike Broussard were dispatched to the scene. This is what they saw:
Scene of the struggle.
Lying on the floor was store owner Marian (Mrs. Wallace) Pierce, Jr., her face covered in blood. Her head rested in a pool of blood. Damage to the head was severe and gruesome — too gruesome to be described in this magazine. Lake Charles Police would later determine that the cause of the horrific wounds was blunt force trauma.
Sgt. David Wagoner of the LCPD Detective Division was given the task of heading up the investigation. Wagoner surmised the store had been the scene of a struggle. A shoe stand was knocked down and broken and there was blood on two boxes and a bench. (It would later be determined that Pierce had bruises on her shoulders and upper arms. Had an assailant forcibly tried to hold her still as she resisted?)
Wagoner found more. As he inspected the victim’s purse, he located a bloody fingerprint on her wallet.
A conspicuous cigarette butt.
And then there were the cigarettes. Wagoner found one cigarette on a corner of the porch of the store. He also found an empty cigarette package inside the store. When the officers first arrived on the scene, they found a cigarette in an ash tray. What was odd about this was that the cigarette was still burning. Could the assailant have been interrupted by the shopper’s 8:59 arrival and made a miraculously swift retreat from the premises?
LCPD found that a cloth money bag had been emptied. The funds from this bag, as well as other money in the store, was missing. In spite of the missing funds — amounting to less than $200 — investigators did not take it for granted that the motive for the attack was robbery. A number of motives were considered.
In spite of the severity of her injuries, Pierce managed to cling to life. She was taken to St. Patrick’s Hospital and listed in critical condition. She never regained consciousness and thus, of course, could give Lake Charles Police no information.
After 48 hours, she finally succumbed to the wounds. Her funeral was conducted at Our Lady Queen of Heaven.
Pierce was 42 years old at the time of her death. She left behind six children.
The Investigation
The Lake Charles Police investigation was on a large scale. One objective was to the find the weapon that inflicted such severe damage. Police cut grass in nearby yards and searched them. They entirely drained a coulee that ran near the store. No weapon was found.
For the next two days, police manned roadblocks in order to determine who was driving past the store.
LCPD officers conducted extensive questioning of those residing and working near the store to determine who was seen in the neighborhood near the time of the attack.
LCPD Deputy Chief Mark Kraus calls attention to the thoroughness of the investigation. “I commend them for doing [all that]. They did an excellent job in trying to solve it.”
“They put me [that is, teamed him] with Detective Wagoner,” he recalls. Alcede’s partner in the case was also teamed with a LCPD detective.
“We actually split two teams. That’s a true joint investigation … That was unheard of back then … I’ve been working at this 45 years and I’ve never seen this before or after.”
The Evidence
As to the evidence collected, Kraus notes that “today we have science on our side.”
It’s not lost on anyone that the evidence in this case was collected 42 years ago. But since then, law enforcement has gained the use of DNA analysis, the nationwide fingerprint database and other revolutionary technology.
As the reinvigorated investigation of this cold case gets underway, even when there has been “possible degradation of evidence,” says Kraus, the evidence will be submitted to technicians who can use “new science” to enhance material that may have degraded.
‘We Genuinely Care’
“We genuinely care,” says Alcede in reference to this case. “When it gets to be something like this: an episode so tragic,” the caring is especially acute. Alcede says he still runs into Pierce’s daughter from time to time. When he does, she always gives him a hug.
This case sticks with Capt. Eric Darling, who is on the team now looking at the case, because of “the brutality of it.”
Kraus says that when cold cases are subjected to new scrutiny, the reason is that some “outstanding member of the community” is interested in the case and wants to find out what happened and who was involved.
As always, Kraus and others working the case hope that with the passage of time, those who have information about the case may have altered their feelings about withholding that information. As time goes by, the stings of conscience felt by a particular individual may become harder and harder to bear. The publication of the details of the cold case may be the impetus that’s needed to spur a troubled individual to come forward with the vital information.
If you have any information about the Marian Pierce case that you think might be helpful, please contact the Lake Charles Police Dept.
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The Cold Case Series is the result of an ongoing collaborative effort between the Lake Charles Police Dept. and Lagniappe Magazine.
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