LA LA - Stephanie Hebert, 6, Waggaman, 13 June 1978

FrayedKnot

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I have never started a topic here at WS before so forgive me if I make any mistakes.

Six-year-old Stephanie Hebert was last seen by her mother as she left her home on June 13, 1978 to walk to a neighborhood friend's home.

Her skeletal remains were found by a hunter almost 6 month later on November 29, 1978. They were located about 20 miles from her home in Jefferson Parish and appeared to have been bound to a tree. :(

No one has ever been charged in Stephanie's murder. However in an odd twist, the sister of the POI (who was 16 at the time) was found dead several years later in the trunk of her car. Her murder is also unsolved. In recent years this POI was also found not to be a DNA match. Therefore I am not posting his name in our forum.

Sadly there is not much MSM info on Stephanie's murder or the investigation.

The following are links to blogs which contain more information about the crime and transcriptions of news articles from the time of her disappearance.

I am hoping some of our fine sleuths can solve the mystery of little Stephanie's murder.

(edited to remove disallowed link-sorry!)

http://kidnappingmurderandmayhem.blogspot.com/2012/11/unsolved-murder-in-louisiana.html?m=1

http://missing87975.yuku.com/forums/32

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=43231748
 
Thank you for posting this case! I grew up in the NOLA area and while this was before I was shortly born, I had never heard of this case!

I'm not sure that the POI's sister was "murdered" necessarily. The coroner's spokesperson said the autopsy showed she "died of a combination of toxicity from cocaine, alcohol and carbon monoxide poisoning. She said the precise time or place of death cannot be determined and it is unknown if the death was an accident, suicide or homicide." This is from a 1989 Times-Picayune article that can be accessed via pay sites or if you are affiliated with a university that has America's News database available. The article is called POLICE INACTION KILLED WOMAN, MOTHER SAYS and it ran in the Times-Picayune, - Friday, November 3, 1989; Author: RICHARD BOYD West Bank bureau.

Her death is definitely suspicious but I'm not sure it was murder. It's an odd twist indeed that the sister of the POI was found dead this way. But this was 10 years later. From what I can tell, I don't think is related to Stephanie's abduction/murder in any way.
 
Thank you for the added info!

All I could glean from the pitiful amount of info out there was that it was the POI's sister (I did NOT know she was the SIL) and that her death occurred sometime after. Had no idea this was 10 years later!

Anyway, this was my main reason for posting this case, in the hopes that someone out here would know enough about the case and the players to piece together a better picture of what may have happened.

I really appreciate your reply and corrected information! :).
 
Waggaman is a small, semi-rural community outside of New Orleans on the Westbank of the Mississippi River. Not exactly a suburb- a little to rural/industrial/removed. There is a shipyard there; it was renamed and downsized and allegedly will close in 2013. It's pretty much the main economic staple of the town (well, it's not a town but a census-designated place). In 2000, it had a little over 10,700 residents (for some reason I can't find the 1980 census). To the other NOLA suburbanites, Waggaman is really a trek out there, even to those that live on the Westbank.

There are a few cases I know of the because of WS that center around Waggaman missing people/suspicious deaths between 1978-1989, including (now) Stephanie & the POI's sister. The other that I thought of immediately was Vicki Carriere, an 18 year old expectant mother who disappeared from Waggaman in 1987. I'm not suggesting all of these are connected, but it seems strange to have a missing/murdered child, missing woman, & the POI's sister's suspicious death all happening in such a small community within 10 years. Although maybe it's really not that strange at all (I don't really know about crime stats for relatively small towns/communities).

ETA Vicki has a thread here on WS: LA LA - Vicki Carriere, 18, Waggaman, 12 July 1987 - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community
....but like Stephanie's case there is really very little info available.
 
From reading newspaper articles & blogs that mention Stephanie's case, I get the impression the story that Stephanie was seen buying cotton candy with an older lady was a false sighting. Don't think it ever happened or if so, I don't think it was Stephanie. It seems that after years & years, the police have decided that this sighting isn't that important to the case & have discounted it themselves. I'm sure the woman who thought she saw Stephanie really did think she saw her, but I also think this (along with zeroing in on the POI who has now been cleared via DNA) made the investigation so difficult to solve.

Sadly, I think Stephanie was probably already tied to the tree or being taken out to that area by the time the woman served the little girl she thought was Stephanie.

There's been some speculation serial killer Robert Carl Hohenberger may have been involved in Stephanie's death. He killed 5 teenaged girls between March & May 1978 in Morgan City, LA (which is about an hour away from Waggaman) and then committed suicide in Washington state in June of 1978. I'd like to know what day he committed suicide and when it's believed he left Louisiana for Washington (before or after Stephanie's disappearance & murder). So far I haven't been able to find this info.
Five or six seems a little young for his victims' profile, but I generally operate under the assumption that while many serial killers may have a preference for certain types/looks/ages as far as victims, most will also victimize anyone who even vaguely fits into their ideal victim category - that this can just mean "female and alone/vulnerable." More or less, I think they often have poor impulse control (obviously) & will take an advantage of an easy target, which a 6 year old girl certainly would be. So I'm undecided on the likelihood that this serial killer harmed Stephanie (if he was even in alive & in Louisiana at the time).

I wonder if there are other missing children or unsolved murders in the area that I am unaware of during this time frame. I didn't know about Stephanie as it can be kind of hard to come across or get info on cold cases in this area...so who knows if there are other similar victims around the same time.
 
Thank you for the added info!

All I could glean from the pitiful amount of info out there was that it was the POI's sister (I did NOT know she was the SIL) and that her death occurred sometime after. Had no idea this was 10 years later!

Anyway, this was my main reason for posting this case, in the hopes that someone out here would know enough about the case and the players to piece together a better picture of what may have happened.

I really appreciate your reply and corrected information! :).

Oh no! It was definitely his sister! I misread it and went back to re-read it. Oops! Sorry!
 
Just a thought about the original POI having been eliminated as a DNA match:

I could not find any official statement from LE to that effect. I will have to go back and look but IIRC the claim has only been made by the POI himself.

OTOH, if he HAD been a DNA match, surely LE would have had him in custody, right?
 
From reading newspaper articles & blogs that mention Stephanie's case, I get the impression the story that Stephanie was seen buying cotton candy with an older lady was a false sighting. Don't think it ever happened or if so, I don't think it was Stephanie. It seems that after years & years, the police have decided that this sighting isn't that important to the case & have discounted it themselves. I'm sure the woman who thought she saw Stephanie really did think she saw her, but I also think this (along with zeroing in on the POI who has now been cleared via DNA) made the investigation so difficult to solve.

Sadly, I think Stephanie was probably already tied to the tree or being taken out to that area by the time the woman served the little girl she thought was Stephanie.

There's been some speculation serial killer Robert Carl Hohenberger may have been involved in Stephanie's death. He killed 5 teenaged girls between March & May 1978 in Morgan City, LA (which is about an hour away from Waggaman) and then committed suicide in Washington state in June of 1978. I'd like to know what day he committed suicide and when it's believed he left Louisiana for Washington (before or after Stephanie's disappearance & murder). So far I haven't been able to find this info.
Five or six seems a little young for his victims' profile, but I generally operate under the assumption that while many serial killers may have a preference for certain types/looks/ages as far as victims, most will also victimize anyone who even vaguely fits into their ideal victim category - that this can just mean "female and alone/vulnerable." More or less, I think they often have poor impulse control (obviously) & will take an advantage of an easy target, which a 6 year old girl certainly would be. So I'm undecided on the likelihood that this serial killer harmed Stephanie (if he was even in alive & in Louisiana at the time).

I wonder if there are other missing children or unsolved murders in the area that I am unaware of during this time frame. I didn't know about Stephanie as it can be kind of hard to come across or get info on cold cases in this area...so who knows if there are other similar victims around the same time.

So the whole hullabaloo over the manly-looking woman who could possibly have been the original POI in drag was probably just a mistake?

Wow! I will say that that whole aspect of the story really creeped me out. Thinking a male pedophile predator would dress as a woman to abduct a little girl but then take her out for cotton candy in public! It just seemed too freakshow.

But so many people had commented on how much the composite sketch of the "woman" looked like the POI, it made me sort of buy into it.

I will say that from the little I have been able to read, my gut still favors the original POI.
 
I'm glad to see that people are showing an interest in what happened to Stephanie Hebert. I'll never forget that day... She lived around the corner from and her mom actually came by house to see if she was there. And concerning the ice cream truck incident, ther was another girl in Waggaman who got mistaken for Stephanie alot, she looked like she could have been her twin.

I also knew Vicki Carriere everyone couldn't believe it when she disappeared.

And the POI in Stephanie's case was cleared through DNA a few years ago, I knew his sister as well. From what her mother said (the POI sister)her body was in the trunk of the car of her trunk for two days before she was found.
 
I see this thread is pretty recent..I read about this on the Kidnapping, murder and mayhem blog, and I googled it and did not really find much in re to this case. And it is staying w/ me! When I first read about it I thought that someone younger, maybe a teen, did this all by themselves...sick, sick young man, who may have known her? I don't know, just throwing my idea in here. I really hope this little girl will get a measure of justice, her life was taken so horribly.
 
I'm glad to see that people are showing an interest in what happened to Stephanie Hebert. I'll never forget that day... She lived around the corner from and her mom actually came by house to see if she was there. And concerning the ice cream truck incident, ther was another girl in Waggaman who got mistaken for Stephanie alot, she looked like she could have been her twin.

I also knew Vicki Carriere everyone couldn't believe it when she disappeared.

And the POI in Stephanie's case was cleared through DNA a few years ago, I knew his sister as well. From what her mother said (the POI sister)her body was in the trunk of the car of her trunk for two days before she was found.


:welcome5:
Welcome to Websleuths, crsnryad!
 
I wish I could remember some of the names in a Cold Case thread I was looking at just the other night -- the thread's subject was another female child who was found, deceased, tied to a tree ... and it seems two or three other similar cases were mentioned by posters. Don't think any of the cases were in Louisiana, and maybe none even in the South, though.

I have been reading a lot in the Cold Case threads lately and though every case seems so unique and sad when I am reading it that I think I will never forget it, it is hard sometimes to separate them -- there are just SO many -- when trying to remember names, locations, etc. I do remember, but they tend to "blend" in my mind. So many, so sad.
 
Waggaman Suspect In Unsolved 1978 Child Murder Convicted Of Raping Another Child

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf..._1.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

A Waggaman man, who police suspect was involved in the unsolved kidnapping and murder of 6-year-old Stephanie Hebert in 1978, was convicted Thursday of raping another girl in his home more than 30 years ago.

Daniel Parks Sr., 62, will spend the rest of his life in prison, the mandatory punishment for aggravated rape and one 24th Judicial District Court Judge Henry Sullivan will hand down Jan. 9. The Jefferson Parish jury, which deliberated about a half-hour, rejected Parks' claim that detectives talked him into confessing he raped the child, who lived near his home on Evergold Lane.
. . .

In the 1990s, she said she confronted Parks in his kitchen, while he cooked gumbo during a seafood boil he and his wife hosted. It was then, she said, that Parks lashed out at her, warning her she'd end up like Stephanie Hebert, the slain Waggaman girl who lived only blocks from Parks and whom Parks' wife babysat before she was killed.

After the woman reported the rape, she also told the Sheriff's Office about Parks' mention of Stephanie. She testified this week that Stephanie was her "best friend." Homicide detectives were notified, said Capt. Dennis Thornton, who heads the Sheriff's Office Homicide Division and questioned Parks last year.
 
I am so sorry for the victim who was raped as a child. Had they been able to jail him for Stephanie's murder, this never would have happened. It's a miracle she didn't end up dead like Stephanie.

I know she's had a hard life since this happened. I hope she can come to realize she can honor Stephanie's memory by living the best life she can despite what this man did to them both.

She's already done a tremendous thing by telling her story and getting him put away.

I hope he didn't hurt other little girls in the decades he was free. Are there any other unsolved child abductors/murders he could be responsible for?
 
FYI- I just went through some old blogs, threads, etc and this man who was sentenced for raping a child and named a suspect in Stephanie's murder recently (Daniel Parks Jr) was NOT the same man we discussed here as the POI with the sister who was found murdered on Earhart Blvd.

Just goes to show me that sometimes only LE knows who the real suspects are and it can be someone completely off of our radar. I'm sorry that man got dragged into this.
 
I am so sorry for the victim who was raped as a child. Had they been able to jail him for Stephanie's murder, this never would have happened. It's a miracle she didn't end up dead like Stephanie.

I know she's had a hard life since this happened. I hope she can come to realize she can honor Stephanie's memory by living the best life she can despite what this man did to them both.

She's already done a tremendous thing by telling her story and getting him put away.

I hope he didn't hurt other little girls in the decades he was free. Are there any other unsolved child abductors/murders he could be responsible for?

Such thoughtful words for the victim, ktgirl. Good question too. The fact that he wasn’t imprisoned for over 30 years since he raped Jane Doe and very likely murdered Stephanie, chances are high he has more victims.
 

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