Local Edward Jones broker increases share in partnership
February 13, 2007
Edward Thomas
February 15, 2007
A second inmate has died at the Terrebonne Parish Jail within a four-day span.
Maurice Austin, 52, a homeless man from Raleigh, N.C., was rushed to Leonard Chabert Medical Center early Tuesday, Sheriff Jerry Larpenter said in a news release. Austin was serving time for theft and contempt of court.
Following an autopsy conducted Tuesday evening, the cause of death was an aneurysm in the main artery of Austin’s upper left leg near his groin area, the sheriff said. There was no evidence of foul play.
On Saturday, Jeremy Walker was found dead in his bed at the facility.
On Monday, Walker’s mother and two others were arrested for smuggling narcotics to Walker.
Detectives and narcotics agents received information that Walker was part of a group responsible for getting contraband into the jail. The three arrested are Walker’s mother, Roxanne Lirette, 44, of 129 St. Louis St.; Stephen Lirette, 20, of 205 Glynn Ave. in Houma; and Dusty Canter, 19, of 412 Engeron St. in Houma.
The bond for all three suspects was set at $250,000.
Upon being questioned in regards to the investigation, the three confessed their involvement in smuggling tobacco products and illegal narcotics into the jail.
Roxanne Lirette, who was not incarcerated at the time, gathered the illegal products and passed them to Stephen Lirette, who was employed at the jail from March 24, 2006 to Jan. 31, when he was fired for an unrelated matter. Stephen Lirette would then pass the items to Walker.
After Lirette’s termination, reports say that Walker solicited another correctional officer, Dusty Canter, to obtain drugs from Roxanne Lirette. Canter was employed from June 19, 2006, until Monday, when he was fired and arrested.
It is unknown at this time if the narcotics played a role in Walker’s death. Further investigation will be conducted upon learning the results of the toxicology tests.
Preliminary autopsy results show Walker’s death as unclassified.
The last death at the jail occurred on Dec. 11, when Joel Chiasson, 43, of Houma hung himself with a boot stram in the trusties’ dorm’s bathroom area on the third floor of the Courthouse Annex. Chiasson was serving a six-year sentence for distributing drugs.
