COLD CASE FILES: THE 1978 MURDER OF BARBARA BIRD

A Cold Case Being Investigated By The LCPD

By Brad Goins

At 10:30 pm on June 28, 1978, Lake Charles Police received a phone call about an incident taking place at a McNeese Street residence.

When LCPD arrived, they found Rick Bird, head of the family home. He told police, he had just discovered his wife lying motionless on the kitchen floor.

At first, he said, he just saw her legs, which were in a position that indicated she was lying on her back. He said he called her name but received no answer.

As he moved closer to her, he saw that her head was resting in a pool of blood.

Police arrived to find the back door to the home standing wide open, with a chain that had been used to secure the door ripped away.

In the kitchen, right next to the bar, Barbara Bird lay on her back, her open eyes expressionless, as if she were simply staring up at the ceiling.

Although a large amount of blood had gathered on the floor around her head, there was relatively little blood on the front of the body. All of this made it look as if she truly never knew what hit her when someone struck her violently on the back of her head. She may have been so stunned by the force of the blow (or blows) that she simply fell straight backwards. There was certainly no evidence of a long, hard-fought struggle.

Faced with what appeared to be a case of death by blunt force trauma to the head, police scanned the home for any sign of a weapon. In the living room adjacent to the kitchen, a coat of arms hung on the wall. But, as police photos taken the night of the murder clearly show, there were four hooks or pegs on the coat of arms that were designed to hold something that had been removed — two swords. (Subsequent police searches of the neighborhood and the bayou that runs through it didn’t uncover any sword.)

Two large pieces of stereo equipment that had been pulled off shelves rested on the living room floor. This misplaced equipment could have indicated that a burglar had been interrupted by Mrs. Bird. But it could just as well have indicated that the perpetrator had been trying to stage a foiled robbery; the same could be said of the broken chain for the back door.

If there was a burglar, he neglected to pick up a large amount of money that was clearly in view on the kitchen bar.

Before The Call

Rick Bird told police that he and his wife had gone on a trip to Astroworld with family and friends earlier in the day. Rick said that once the crew returned to the Lake Area, he dropped off the others, then let out his wife at the McNeese Street home.

He said he then proceeded to run errands for 45 minutes. His primary objective, he told police, was to feed the animals in his and his wife’s business — Bird’s Pets and Things. He also spoke of a few other stops.

He said that when he returned to the home and discovered his dead wife, he called a friend and asked him to come over. The friend did; after he appraised the situation, the friend called his mother, who in turned placed the call to the LCPD.

According to this timeline, Barbara Bird would have entered her house at 9:45 pm and been murdered at some time before Rick Bird told police he had discovered her body at 10:30 pm.

Blunt Force Trauma

The autopsy confirmed the hypothesis that Barbara Bird had been killed by one or more violent blows to the head. Autopsy photos showed three large lacerations on the back of the head. Since these lacerations seemed to be more or less aligned across the back of the head, it appeared that it could have been possible that they were made by one strong blow from one powerful weapon.

But there was a mysterious twist. The middle of the three lacerations seemed to go in a different direction (roughly vertical) from the other two (which were roughly horizontal). This suggests the possibility of at least two blows (which, one would surmise, would have to have been delivered very rapidly).

The autopsy revealed a large round area of dark matter near the base of Mrs. Bird’s brain. This was almost certainly blood that had pooled from the deepest laceration (on the left side of the head).

‘We’re Not Going Away’

Although this case is 37 years old, Lake Charles Police detectives are actively investigating it.

“We’re investigating the facts,” says Deputy Chief Mark Kraus. “If the facts [as they’re presented in this story] make someone think, ‘Uh oh, they’re looking at me,’ we’re not walking away from that.”

Kraus notes that it is particularly difficult for detectives to proceed when one or more individuals withholds information about the case. Clearly the LCPD hope that someone who’s reminded of the case by this story will react with guilt, regret, remorse, a desire to conform to religious beliefs or even the prospect of an impending death, and come forward with new information about the case.

“Everybody’s a suspect,” says Kraus. “We don’t know who’s responsible. But we are investigating it. And the person who’s reading this should know we’re not going away.”