Cop-slay suspect granted ‘get out of jail free’ card

Neighborhood Watching: HPD credits group with Houma’s drop in crime
February 13, 2013
Consolidation in T’bonne schools future?
February 13, 2013
Neighborhood Watching: HPD credits group with Houma’s drop in crime
February 13, 2013
Consolidation in T’bonne schools future?
February 13, 2013

A man accused of murdering his neighbor and a police officer in St. Mary Parish, as well as wounding two deputies, fell through multiple cracks in the mental health and criminal justice systems during weeks leading up to those deaths, paving the way for the tragedy that ensued.


A Tri-Parish Times investigation of the recent history of Wilbert Thibodeaux reveals key points where the 48-year-old grass cutter was detained but then released in Texas and Louisiana, not only in jails but at a mental hospital, despite documented violent behavior.


Those systemic lapses placed Thibodeaux on a collision course with Sgt. Rick Riggenbach, now hailed posthumously as a hero for sacrificing his own life to prevent further bloodshed.

“I feel that the system has failed him,” Bonnie Riggenbach, the officer’s widow, said, referring to her slain husband. She made the statement based on information obtained from the newspaper’s investigation as well as details already shared with her by Louisiana authorities. “And so, unfortunately, Rick had to become a victim of this vicious crime.”


Bonnie Riggenbach said she was told that Thibodeaux had threatened the life of her husband, who arrested him on Jan. 22 for disorderly conduct at the Cypress Bayou Casino four days prior to the shootings, and that he had threatened to harm people at the casino as well.


But there is no evidence that any threats Thibodeaux may have made were taken seriously. The only charge he was booked on at the Centerville jail in St. Mary Parish was disorderly conduct, and he was released on his own recognizance after being held for two days. There were no charges for making terroristic threats, nor for any crimes relating to threats on Riggenbach.

Police made vague public statements about Riggenbach’s action resulting in saved lives, but never provided details other than stating Thibodeaux had multiple shotgun shells in his pockets when he was arrested on Flat Town Road. Sheriff Mark Hebert has not returned phone calls placed since the incident occurred seeking comment or clarifications. His department has refused all comment on the most routine matters relating to the incident, which remains under investigation by Louisiana State Police.


Prior to the Jan. 22 arrest Thibodeaux had no history of problems with the law in Louisiana.


What Louisiana police did not know was that Thibodeaux was already wanted in Texas on a felony assault charge. Details of his Texas arrest were obtained from interviews with officials at the District Attorney and sheriff offices in Jefferson County, the hospital where he was detained on a mental health hold, the Port Arthur Police Department and relatives.

“It is apparent he slipped through the cracks, not only through law enforcement but the mental hospital, too,” said Sam Cochrane, a retired major with the Memphis Police Department, a nationally-recognized expert on programs that help police manage cases involving mentally ill people, after he was informed of the Tri-Parish Times’ findings. “Who is at fault for turning this individual loose? The death of that officer and the other person is connected to the ineptness of the events that unfolded.”


“HE TRIED TO KILL ME”


Thibodeaux had no family in Charenton. His mother died years ago, said family members, who added that she suffered from a mental illness and gave him up. His father, McAlvin Jones Sr., said he only learned within the last 10 years or so that Wilbert existed, and that the two established contact.

Wilbert Thibodeaux began visits to Texas from Louisiana and began building a relationship with his father, half-brothers and half-sisters.


During his last trip there, Thibodeaux got into an altercation with his half-brother, McAlvin Jones Jr., on Dec. 6 shortly after noon.


“He threw away a bag with my clothes and my medications in it,” said Jones Jr. He said they argued and that Thibodeaux came at him with the handle of a double-edged axe that was in the house.

“He tried to kill me,” said Jones Jr., who, according to his account and police records, suffered a laceration to the face. “I didn’t see (the axe) at first, but I grabbed the thing and fought him off.”


Port Arthur police were called to the scene and Thibodeaux was booked into the Jefferson County jail the same day.


According to deputies there and officers in the Port Arthur department, the booking on case number 76707-12 was routine. Thibodeaux was booked on a charge of aggravated assault, a 1st-degree felony because it was committed against a family member with a deadly weapon.

Within a day of his arrest the case went to a magistrate, who set a bond of $20,000.


While Thibodeaux languished in the jail, a clock was ticking.


Texas law states that a person arrested must be arraigned on a felony charge within 180 days. But prosecutors in Texas, legal experts there affirm, can also make their own rules within that period of time requiring that police officers bring a case to them even more quickly for charges to stick.

In Jefferson County, prosecutors require that a charge be brought to the District Attorney within three days, five days if a weekend is involved.


“We had three days to file a case,” said Port Arthur Police Chief Mark Blanton. “We are going to file that case by that timeframe no matter what, unless we cannot find a witness. It is not uncommon that a victim cannot be found.”


Because there was indeed a weekend involved, Port Arthur Det. Darrin Johnson, who was assigned the case, had until Dec. 11 to file with the District Attorney.

If he did not, then the bond set on Thibodeaux would be vacated, and the suspect would walk out of the jail a free man, or at least remain free until witnesses were located and paperwork filed, in which case he could be re-arrested.


NO-MAN’S LAND


According to Blanton, authorities did experience difficulty locating Jones and other witnesses to the axe-handle attack, and so the paperwork could not be sent to the District Attorney in a timely manner.

Jones, the victim, disputes this.


“I was here all the time,” he said. “Where was I going to go?”


On Dec. 11, Thibodeaux was technically free. But because he had exhibited signs of mental problems, authorities were not quite done with him.

Thibodeaux was transported to Fannin Pavillion at Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas in Beaumont, because jailers had placed what is referred to as a “mental-health hold.” Difficulty locating medical records for Thibodeaux, Blanton said, may have also contributed to the delay in detectives filing the required paperwork with the District Attorney.


The mental-health hold required that Thibodeaux be evaluated by doctors, who would determine if he was a danger to himself or others. The jail has its own psychiatrist, but is charged for those services. Treatment and evaluation at a local mental hospital would not result in charges to the county; one reason medical personnel say that route might have been chosen.


Hospital officials say they are prevented by strict federal confidentiality laws from even acknowledging that Thibodeaux was in their institution. There is no way of knowing whether any details of his criminal case, including the alleged act of violence, would have been shared with medical personnel.

Baptist Behavioral Health Administrator Mark Severns said that such patients are in what he described as “a no man’s land.” There is often little knowledge of their history, and in the absence of information, staff must depend on what they observe and what patients disclose to them.


“Sometimes they do know and sometimes they don’t,” a hospital employee said, when asked if staff would have knowledge that a person came to the hospital because of an arrest. “If they don’t have a warrant, the officers will ask them to voluntarily sign in. If they are violent, police will make them involuntary sometimes.”


A judge is seated at the hospital twice a week to review commitments of patients, with the power to release a person or order them held for further treatment, or transfer to a hospital that does more intensive, long-term treatment, depending on medical records and recommendations of staff.

The test is whether the person is determined to be a danger to self or to others, a threshold practitioners and police officials agree is a difficult plateau to reach.


A release from commitment by the judge, hospital staff and officials agree, was the only way Thibodeaux would have gotten out. According to procedure, if a patient like Thibodeaux required medication, it would be issued.

According to standard procedures at the hospital, Severns said, a release protocol for treatment is issued, for which the patient signs.

“We don’t know what they do with it afterward,” Severns said.

At some point after he was admitted to the Pavillion, Thibodeaux made his exit from no-man’s land, most likely within about three days.

Thibodeaux’s half-sister, Audrey Blanchard, said the family received a call from the hospital asking if they would come and pick him up.

“Daddy said, ‘No,’” Blanchard said, referring to Jones Sr. “He didn’t want Wilbert back here. Wilbert tried to kill my brother.”

According to an account Thibodeaux himself later gave to neighbors, he was taken to a Greyhound bus where the person accompanying him – most likely a social worker – told him to sit in front. Thibodeaux told neighbors he rode the bus to Lafayette, got off and walked to Charenton. The distance is just under 50 miles.

Port Arthur detectives were still working with Thibodeaux’s felony case while Thibodeaux was in the hospital.

On Dec. 13, Det. Johnson checked with the jail but was told Thibodeaux was gone, taken to the hospital on the mental-health hold. There is no clear record as to whether Johnson called the hospital – or, if he did, whether they told him if Thibodeaux was there.

“They are not going to tell us he has been released,” Blanton said.

Contact with the complainant, Jones Jr., was made Jan. 2, according to police records. Jones agrees with that statement, while insisting that it is the only time police contacted him after the incident.

For the case to continue, Jones said detectives told him to obtain releases for his medical records relating to the axe attack. Jones said he did as he was told.

Paperwork was then sent to the District Attorney by detectives.

“We filed our case Jan. 4th,” Blanton said.

But the District Attorney’s office did not get a warrant issued, he said, until nearly a month after that, although it was within the power and authority of prosecutors to do so.

An investigator for the District Attorney’s Office, James Rose, confirmed the procedural hoops Texas police spoke of. Asked why it might take so long for prosecutors to respond to the police filing, Rose said his office is subject to backlogs.

Asked whether cases are often lost due to the rapid filing rule, Blanton said as many as two cases a month might drop out of the system, meaning felons may have walked without bond.

Blanton acknowledges there was a delay between Dec. 7 – the day the detective was given the case – and Dec. 13, the day he learned Thibodeaux was no longer in custody, in filing paperwork.

Attorneys who practice in Jefferson County say they are surprised because in their experience domestic violence cases get dealt with quickly.

RELEASED AGAIN

Thibodeaux’s condition appeared to deteriorate in Charenton, attracting the attention of neighbors, who made calls asking officers to check on him. No such check is known to have resulted, and the first known contact with law enforcement occurred on Jan. 22. That was the day Thibodeaux showed up at the Cypress Bayou Casino, where he was accused of causing a disturbance, and arrested by Sgt. Riggenbach.

It was at that time, according to the claim made by Bonnie Riggenbach, that Thibodeaux threatened her husband’s life and the safety of people at the casino. Why those statements – if made by Thibodeaux – did not result in additional charges is a mystery.

Discussions with experienced law enforcement officers at various Louisiana police agencies resulted in speculations that they were seen as the mere rantings of a madman.

Thibodeaux was jailed for two days and released, by all available accounts within Louisiana law enforcement, on his own recognizance, meaning no bond was required.

If Texas had issued a warrant between Jan. 4 and Jan. 22, it would have been for a felony. Interviews with law enforcement officers in Louisiana and Texas make clear that a felony warrant would have been entered in the National Crime Information Center database.

Had that occurred, if Thibodeaux was the subject of a traffic or pedestrian stop – or while being booked in Centerville – the warrant would have popped up on a law enforcement computer screen.

On Jan. 26, a Saturday morning, a call was made to 911 in St. Mary Parish reporting that a man with a gun was walking on Flat Top Road.

Riggenbach, on patrol in a Chitimacha patrol vehicle, was nearby and responded, then was allegedly shot and killed by Thibodeaux.

St. Mary Parish deputies Matthew Strickland and Jason Javier, responding in the same patrol car, were shot and wounded.

The body of Eddie Lyons, a Charenton neighbor of Thibodeaux’s, was later discovered in a trailer on his property. Authorities have not yet stated whether they know if Lyons was shot first and took cover in the burned trailer, or whether his death was caused by a gunshot or the fire.

GATHERING INFORMATION

Thibodeaux, who was injured during a gunfire exchange with deputies, remains at the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel.

Prosecutors don’t know yet if they will seek the death penalty and will wait until after a Grand Jury decides on the matter of indictment before making their choice.

The Public Defender’s office, which represents Thibodeaux, is currently doing its own investigation and will decide soon whether to ask for a sanity commission. If that request is made and a judge grants it, then a team of doctors will offer opinions as to whether Thibodeaux is competent to stand trial.

“Right now we are gathering all of our information,” said Public Defender Craig Colwart.

Meanwhile, Thibodeaux’s family members expressed anger at his release.

“They never should have done that,” said the suspect’s father, Jones Sr., who received a chilling message from Thibodeaux, once he was back in Louisiana. “He asked if he could come back to Texas and I told him no. He told me ‘Are you ready to die.’”

Wilbert Thibodeaux