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Two mothers in south Louisiana contacted Bayou Justice last week with the same problem. Their adult sons are missing, and police suspect both are dead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Tracy Brewer wrote me, distraught that her 31-year-old son, Christopher, had not returned to his home on Stateline Road in Kentwood since May 2020. She told me the lead investigator on the case is Captain Blane Sanders of the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff\u2019s Office and that investigators suspect someone killed her son. However, she said, they have no leads in the case.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThe police presume him dead, but no arrests have been made, and they haven\u2019t found a body,\u201d Tracy told me. \u201cBut there are a lot of stories going around about what happened to him with details and the people involved.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Police officers in four parishes know Christopher. Deputies in the Tangipahoa, Livingston, St. Helena, and Ascension Parish Sheriff\u2019s offices have booked him at various times on burglary charges.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In September 2018, serving time in the Tangipahoa Parish lockup in Amite accused of robbing the St. Dominic Catholic Church in Husser, Christopher challenged a jailer, Charles Grimes III of Ponchatoula, to a fistfight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Grimes accepted, and Sheriff Daniel Edwards fired him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Christopher said later that Grimes was a \u201cgood dude\u201d and that he felt bad that Grimes lost his job. Christopher also admitted to detectives, \u201cI shouldn\u2019t have provoked him.\u201d He said both apologized to each other after the fight was over.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Last seen in the Wilmer area, Christopher went missing in May 2020. He is a Caucasian male with auburn hair and green eyes. He weighs between 140 and 165 pounds with tattoos on his neck, face, abdomen, chest and arms. He has a spiderweb with the name \u201cJaelynn\u201d inscribed on the back of his head and a tattoo on his chest that reads \u201cRide or Die for My Family.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The same week Tracy Brewer wrote me, Tina LeClercq contacted me about her missing son. Near 3 in the morning, Aug. 29, 2014, a 911 caller reported seeing a man sitting on a railing near a truck parked on the I-10 Mississippi River bridge in Baton Rouge. Minutes later, a second caller reported seeing the man jump from the bridge, 175 feet to the muddy water below.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The truck belonged to Tina\u2019s 22-year-old son, Jake Latiolais of Brusly, who had dinner with his grandmother and brother less than 48 hours earlier and seemed to be in good spirits. Jake stands 5-foot-10, weighs 150 pounds, and has brown hair and brown eyes with a cross-shaped scar on his left wrist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
After police received the anonymous call about a person going over the railing, responding officers found Jake\u2019s truck running and his cellphone on the pavement nearby.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cA dive team was called in, but no one was recovered,\u201d Capt. Don Coppola of the Baton Rouge Police Department told NBC Dateline. \u201cSo right now, it\u2019s an open missing person\u2019s case. Homicide did a preliminary investigation, but it is an active missing person\u2019s case right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cHere\u2019s what the police aren\u2019t telling anyone,\u201d Jake\u2019s mother said. \u201cThere was a boat in the back of his truck and an ice chest with fish. Someone tried to make it look as though he had gone fishing, but the trolling motor had no battery, and there were no fishing poles.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
She said, Jake broke his right foot two weeks earlier. He could not walk without crutches and an orthopedic boot. Neither of which were in the truck.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cIf he had jumped off the bridge, his crutches would have been found. They would have been left nearby, in his truck, on the bridge, or floating in the water,\u201d Tina said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Tina found the boot inside Jake\u2019s home, and the crutches turned up at a relative\u2019s home two years later. Police found the truck\u2019s gas tank full and four packs of cigarettes, bought at a Port Allen Walmart at 2 that morning, unopened on the truck seat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cAfter I learned about those two 911 calls coming in,\u201d Tina said, \u201cI requested and got copies. Both calls came from the same number but two different voices. On the disc, there was also a recorded call from a state trooper named Marc Bourgeois. He said that he was going Eastbound when he saw Jake\u2019s truck on the bridge, but he saw a gray car parked next to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Tina also reported that Jake\u2019s home had been broken into, robbed and later burned. The day following Jake\u2019s disappearance, she found indications of a struggle, including holes in the walls and a window punched out, and Jake\u2019s television and guns were missing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cI recently got a letter from the Social Security stimulus program showing someone received three stimulus checks in Jake\u2019s name,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not law enforcement. If I can find out this much, they can do better. They are not trying to solve this case.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Jake Latiolais enjoyed fishing, working on cars and drawing. Local business and homeowners often hired him to create art on their walls. He also left behind a young daughter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The disappearances of Jake Latiolais and Christopher Brewer remain open missing person cases, and the mothers of these two young men need help finding answers. Reading this, if you have information or know someone who does, please contact investigators.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n
\u201cBayou Justice\u201d is a weekly true crime column featuring notable south Louisiana crime-related stories, most still unsolved. If you have information that may help solve the case, contact Crime Stoppers or your local police agency. H.L. Arledge gets email at <\/em><\/p>\n