Family: Murder victim cared about welfare of others

Family members remember Catina Stewart Jack as a cousin with an entrepreneurial spirit, a niece who cared about the welfare of others, a wonderful cook and a mother of four.

Catina was found dead in Thibodaux on June 15 after an apparent homicide. She was 38.

As a teenager, Catina lived in the same house as her cousin Elisha Robinson. Their proximity to one another fostered a sisterly bond, Robinson said, one that didn’t break when Catina’s mother moved her to New Orleans.

“I can remember when they lived in New Orleans, we used to catch the Greyhound bus to her mom’s house, I and another cousin, to catch concerts, all the time,” Robinson remembered. “We used to go to Big Daddy Cane, New Edition – we caught all their concerts all the time together.”

Robinson remembers Catina for her “beautiful spirit;” she remembers how Catina loved puppies so much that she would buy a new one every time one of hers was stolen; she remembers Catina’s love for decorating weddings; and she remembers how her cousin looked for the best qualities in everybody.

“For them to do that to her is, like, so devastating because of the type of person she was,” Robinson said. “She would find good in anybody. She would find good in [convicted serial killer] Jeffery Dahmer, whatever his name was. She would have found one ounce of good in somebody, no matter what.”

Catina also had an entrepreneurial mind, Robinson said. For two years, she sold hair products and oils out of a store in Thibodaux and “She always encouraged people to follow their dreams,” Robinson said.

Catina is survived by; her husband, Larry Jack Sr.; three sons, Larry Jack, 20, Jeremy Jack, 17, and Zion Westley, 9 months; and her daughter, Jernaje Jack, 13; her father Roosevelt Stewart; and three brothers, Kevin Delcour, Donrell Watson and Roosevelt Stewart Jr.

The Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office arrested Jamie Coleman, 205 Santa Monica Drive, on a drug charge and a child support charge the day of the murder. LPSO later charged him with Catina’s murder, and he’s being held at the Lafourche Parish Detention Center.

The sheriff’s office described Coleman as an “acquaintance” to Catina, a point on which the family is unsure.

“She was a person who trusted everybody,” Eartha Stewart Johnson, another of Catina’s aunts, said. “She was an outgoing person. That could have been her first time even talking to that guy. We don’t know.”

Catina’s aunts remembered her as an eager cook. Rose Stewart Jones, Catina’s aunt who lives in Olympia, Wash., said she remembers her niece in the kitchen when she arrived in Gibson for Mardi Gras 2011.

“When we came from New Orleans from the airport, she was at my sister’s house frying chicken,” Jones said.

Catina especially liked to cook soup and red beans, but her favorite dish was crawfish dip, the family members said.

Robinson said she enjoyed Catina’s red beans more than any of her other dishes, because she made them “with more meat than beans.”

“She loved to cook,” Jones remembered. “She was loud and loved her family. Her favorite colors were chocolate and burnt orange. She loved her kids and always tried to help out whoever she could.

“At the gravesite Wednesday, when it was all over, and they were lowering the casket, there was just this wind; it was really cool. Everybody was saying, ‘That’s Catina saying goodbye,'” Jones said.

Catina Stewart Jack, the 38-year-old mother of four, was found dead in Thibodaux earlier this month from an apparent murder. Family members remember her kind heart, culinary skills and entrepreneurial spirit. COURTESY PHOTO