A retired sheriff’s deputy who shared his research last year on four lynchings in Livingston Parish returned to the Edward Livingston Historical Association this month with another chapter of the parish’s history.
This time, Lt. Col. Alden Thomasson presented details of three known executions tied to Livingston Parish that appeared to have followed the laws in place at the time.
According to Thomasson, each was unique in its own way:
Because he sought his own execution, Bordelon is considered Louisiana’s only death penalty “volunteer.” He was the last person executed by lethal injection in Louisiana. The state switched to nitrogen hypoxia for an execution last year.
Thomasson told the group there may have been other legal executions in the parish, but court records were destroyed when the courthouse in Port Vincent burned in 1875.
A history of Springfield mentions the hanging of an enslaved person at the courthouse when it was located there. However, Thomasson said he could find no mention of the hanging in the enslaver’s family accounts or in newspapers from the time.
Newspaper articles about Durand’s execution also mention a legal hanging in 1867, but those court records no longer exist, and Thomasson could not locate any contemporaneous newspaper accounts of a post-Civil War execution.
Thomasson also has been unable to locate the criminal court records book from 1941, when Johnson was electrocuted, although numerous newspaper articles about his case and execution remain available.
When Louisiana switched to the electric chair, state officials transported the chair, known by some as “Gruesome Gertie,” and a power source to the execution site.
In Johnson’s case, the courthouse had no electrical power. Thomasson said a carbide light was used to illuminate the cell where the electric chair was placed, while wires leading to a truck-mounted dynamo were run through a window in the cell.
Photographs of the Centerville courthouse are rare, Thomasson noted, but a Baton Rouge newspaper published a photograph of the electric chair inside the cell.
If Durand was buried on the courthouse grounds, the location of his grave remains unknown, Thomasson said.
Durand, whose last name is sometimes incorrectly spelled Durant, was convicted of fatally shooting his former sister-in-law, Pulcherie “Cherie” Perrilloux Lobell, at the Perrilloux home in French Settlement.
Testimony indicated that Durand turned to alcohol and opiates after his wife, the former Marie Imogene Perrilloux, died in 1894. He later became infatuated with her sister, Eubertine, but grew jealous on July 3, 1897, apparently because she was dancing with other men at a community party.
Durand was accused of fatally shooting Cherie Perrilloux, possibly after mistaking her for Eubertine, Thomasson said.
Johnson was convicted of murder in the robbery and beating death of Steve Bench, 59, near Albany on Nov. 22, 1940. Another suspect, Ashton Heard, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, Thomasson said.
Bench was killed during a two-year period in which several people in Livingston and Tangipahoa parishes were beaten and robbed by one or more people.
Bordelon, a convicted sex offender, was convicted of murder in the death of his 12-year-old stepdaughter, Courtney LeBlanc. She disappeared from her home near Denham Springs on Nov. 15, 2002. Five days later, Bordelon led investigators to the location near the Amite River where he had left her body.
Thomasson also noted the short period between the crimes committed by Durand and Johnson and their executions. Both were put to death less than a year after the killings.
