A Louisiana Bayou Love Triangle, a Murder, and a 38-Year Mystery | Paula Boudreaux

Last time anyone saw Paula Boudreaux alive was on August 3, 1986

Now part of the Dark Cast Network. Welcome to Indie Podcasts With a Dark side. The last time anyone saw 22 year old Paula Boudreaux alive was on August 3, 1986. That night, Golden Meadow, Louisiana was having their annual Bull Club Fair, a church fair held after the Fleet Boat Parade on Bayou La Forche. The annual Parade of Boats was a festival marking the start of shrimping season. Boats of all sizes passed under the Chur Church’s bayou side and residents crowded to the waterfront. Paula, a mother of a four year old son, had had enough of the festivities around 10:30pm and was dropped off at her parents home on B and R Lane. Then no one saw her again. Welcome Lambs. Welcome to Love and Murder, heartbreak to Homicide, your weekly true crime podcast bringing you the voices of the victims and telling you stories of relationships that have gone wrong. I’m, um, your host Ky and I invite you to take a seat, take a listen to this case all the way to the end, and if you like my retelling, then don’t hesitate to subscribe so you don’t miss any other cases.

You can also subscribe on my patreon patreon.com/loveandmurder

You can also subscribe on my patreon patreon.com/loveandmurder for free where you do get some benefits of subscribing for free. But if you also want to be a voice of the victims, if you want to help keep Love and Murder on the air, and if you want bonus episodes, case extras and so much more, then choose one of our bonus tiers and become part of the patreon. LaM Patreon fam patreon.com/loveandmurder I always look forward to seeing my lambs over in the Patreon. The most recent bonus I just put in there was a case of resilience. Oh, of bravery. Of survival. I’ll just read you the synopsis real quick. It was a woman who was left for dead on the side of the road with her throat so deeply cut she had to hold her own head up and somehow she survived. So this was the last bonus episode we had in the Patreon. So if you want to hear that episode and more, then join us in the Patreon. Become part of the LaM Patreon fam. Patreon.com forward/loveandmurder now without further ado, go ahead and grab your butts, grab your delicious glass of apple juice and let’s get into the case of Paula Boudreau.

Paula Ann Boudreau disappeared on August 6, 1989

On August 6, four days after that night, when Paula went back to her parents house, her sister sue filed a missing person report with the Golden Meadow Police department. Paula Ann Boudreau was born and raised in the close knit community of golden meadow along Bayou LaForche in Louisiana. She was the second to last child of seven children. Described by family and neighbors as quiet and kind hearted. She was fiercely devoted to her four year old son Eric. Everyone said Paula embodied the spirit of a small Louisiana town. A lifelong neighbor and relative described Paula as, quote, a quiet little girl. You never heard her. She was very much to herself. Although a missing persons report was immediately filed, police had no information to go off of, no clues, no idea where even to start. And in the end, the case ended up going cold. Over the years, rumors started to flow. People said Paula was lured into a family owned building and killed. And that her body was buried beneath her father’s cement. Some even claim that she was fed to alligators along the bayou. These rumors, fueled by gossip and the local fear of law enforcement because of past corruption scandals, left Paula’s family with more questions than answers. Everybody talked about it, but a rumor down here, you know, it’s pretty much the truth. And there were even more rumors. Rumors that Paula was caught in a love triangle. She was supposedly seeing a man named Russell Lee was who was actually married to a woman named Judith Wisner, who went by Judy Lee at the time. Even her brother Van Boudreaux has said that, quote, she had been messing around. One witness told investigators they had seen Judith one day with a cane, knife, basically a machete, which I think on the mainland, y’all say machete. Anyways, she had a machete on bnr, uh, Lane, threatening Paula just days before she disappeared. According to the same witnesses, Judith was enraged over the alleged affair between Paula and Russell. Well, that is her husband, so you can’t really fault her for being angry. But I mean a uh, machete is a bit much. Now Russell wasn’t exactly a clean cut guy. Since 1986, he’d built a long rap sheet that includes charges of aggravated kidnapping, assault, battery, burglary and arson. Investigators said that most of it was domestic violence or involved women. So with the case of Paula, they didn’t have a body, they didn’t have clues, they had nothing to go off of. And uh, there was not much that the sheriff’s office could do. Now every few years someone would come forward with new information, but the case ultimately ended up staying closed. The rumors though, never stopped. More rumors said that Paula was lured and killed over jealousy. Others said that she was dismembered and her body was dumped, missing her hands. The most common Version claimed that she packed up and was taken past New Orleans along the railroad tracks on Highway 90 and dumped somewhere in Slidell. One of the most disturbing rumors was about a confession. Word was someone went to the Glen meadow town hall police department just days after Paula vanished and confessed. The town secretary supposedly wrote it down and recorded it on tape. But that confession was never seen again. The story goes that she handed it over to the golden meadow police chief, and after that, it disappeared. That tape, as the rumors said, should have been turned over to laforche parish investigators. Now, sheriff Craig Weber later said that his office had heard about this rumor of a confession and the tape. But he said, quote, we have not seen a confession in writing. Now, like I said, people didn’t believe this police station because back then, the laforce sheriff’s office had its own problems. There were heavy rumors of corruption, with locals saying everyone knew what they were doing on this bayou. They were running drugs. The sheriff at the time, Duffy Breaux, and several of his top deputies later pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges. So the corruption wasn’t a rumor. So this is why the town just didn’t trust the police over there. And this is why they are really stuck on that rumor about the confession where, you know, they’re thinking even bro’s deputies had gotten rid of the confession. Sheriff Weber admitted that the rumors were widespread, but he says he’s never seen any evidence of corruption tied directly to Paula’s case. He said the biggest issue from the beginning with Paula’s case was that there was no bot. In January 1989, some hunters had come across skeletal remains in a piney marsh off Bayou Paquette road in Slidell, Louisiana. The bones were sent to LSU face’s lab, but with the limited forensic tools available at the time, no one could figure out who she was. The cause and manner of death were both listed as undetermined, and the case was just continued to stay cold. For decades. The remains sat in the St Tammy parish morgue files labeled only as Gein DOE. Then, in 2013, the LSU Faces Lab made a clay reconstruction of the Gein Doe’s face, hoping to trigger identification. That composite circulated online, but nothing ever came of it. The big break in Paula’s case didn’t come from law enforcement. It actually came from a relative. In, uh, 2022, Michelle Chouay was working on her family tree when she noticed a blank spot. Paula Boudreau. She found out Paula had vanished in 1986. And she said, quote, I’d never heard Paula Boudreau’s name in my life, and I was born and raised here. During her own investigation, Michelle heard the same rumors as everyone else. But the one that stood out to her was that Paula had been murdered, dismembered and dumped near Slidell. So she and her friends started digging. They called people. They searched the Internet for unidentified remains in St. Tammy’s parish from the late 1980s. Eventually, they found two cases, but only one of them stood out. This was when the hunters had found that partial skeletal remains. Remember, in the bayou in 1989, that Gein does file on the national Missing and unidentified person system said that this victim was missing her hands or limbs, just like the rumors Michelle had heard. Then when she looked at the clay reconstruction of the face that was made in 2013, if you remember, she said, quote, I had to stop. I had to catch my breath, and I cried. The resemblance to the photo of Paula was too close to ignore. I wonder how everybody missed that then. Because they, LSU had sent this out and nobody caught the resemblance. Maybe the family was just too tired of hoping, constantly hoping. So they were trying to put it behind them. Or maybe they were trying to. I’m, uh, not sure. Maybe there’s a reason why they didn’t see that, though. Maybe it was just too painful for them to continuously look it up. So Michelle submitted a tip to NAM US and emailed the faces labs directly. The tip landed on the desk of cold case investigator Chris Knoblaw with the St. Tammy’s Parish Coroner’s office. Around the same time, another anonymous email came through Namu suggesting Paula might be the woman found in 1989. The coroner, Dr. Charles Preston, reached out to LSU Faces lab, and detective Kobla got in touch with sheriff Weber. DNA was collected from Paula’s sister Lillian and her son Eric. By January 2023, the results were back, and the remains were a match. The Gein Doe that had been Sitting there since January 1989 were Paula. Now, at first, officials kept the identification quiet for investigative purposes. But in April 2023, they held a press conference to announce that the case was open and being treated as an active homicide investigation. What was a missing person’s case is now much more. From that point forward, we are taking the position that until we discover otherwise, foul play or perhaps homicide was involved, we implore anyone who may have information which might be helpful in this case to come forward.

Investigators believed Russell and Judith Wisner murdered Paula Lee in Golden Meadow

After 33 years, Paula’s family finally had answers. Now, this was only half of the answers, because now they know where Paula is. But the other half was what happened to her. Investigators Went back through everything, Old notes, faded interviews, neighborhood rumors, and long standing witness statements. At the center of it all were two Russell Lee and Judith Wisner. Sheriff Weber said about the affair between Paula and Russell, it was almost a worst kept secret. And in Golden Meadow, Paula was believed to have been murdered inside the house, directly across the street from her parents home. When investigators searched the old Lee Wiser home, they found possible blood evidence in both the kitchen and the bathroom. My thing is it’s been 33 years. That could have been anything that, that’s, you know, that’s so long. So they turned the evidence over to the St Tammy’s Parish Coroner’s office for full analysis. With new forensics evidence and multiple witness statements, detectives moved forward. They believed Russell and Judith had killed Paula, dismembered the body, and dumped her remains in the marsh in Slidell. On July 9, 2024, after 38 years, Russell was arrested in Missouri with the help from Mountain Grove police department. The next day, on July 10, Judith was arrested in Tennessee with help from the Cumberland County Sheriff’s office. Both were charged with second degree murder and obstruction of justice. Their bonds were set at $1.1 million each, and they were both extradited to the Laforche Parish Correctional complex. Michelle called the arrest bittersweet, adding that while it didn’t undo the pain, it finally not only brought closure, but justice. Quote, I couldn’t contain it. I just cried. It’s an emotion I can’t understand myself. Just closure. Van said that it was, quote, a sigh of relief. You always put it in the back of your mind. You go lose yourself. You just don’t want to think about it for a while. But it was always in my heart after all these years.

A grand jury declines to indict Russell and Judith in Paula Boudreau case

After the identification, the arrests, and the long awaited sense of movement, the case took a turn no one saw coming. On October 22, 2024, Russell and Judith went before a grand jury. But instead of moving forward with prosecution, the grand jury declined, uh, to indict either of them. The Laforche Parish district attorney’s office explained the grand jury had, quote, pretermitted the matter, meaning that they didn’t believe there was enough evidence to bring the case to a trial. As a result, the charges, the second degree murder and obstruction of justice, were dropped. What do y’ all think of that? I did not see that coming. My thing is, I guess I kinda, I didn’t think they were not going to trial, but I thought trial was going to be really hard because it’s all circumstantial. Evidence, any hard evidence has probably been lost. Unless you have a witness, like 10 witnesses who saw the same thing and probably had pictures. It’s been 33 years. Like, the hard evidence is gone. So what did you think? Do you think. Were you shocked at this? But despite this outcome, the case still remains open. So, uh, they still have it in the cold case file. Like, the case is still open, but it’s still a cold case because they can’t move forward. The DA’s office said that if new evidence comes in, the grand jury can revisit it. And Michelle said, quote, I know that it brings me a lot of satisfaction knowing that she means something now. She’s not forgotten about. Paula’s story isn’t over yet, and neither is this investigation, and that is the case of the disappearance of Paula Boudreau. What did you think about this case? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. I’m so sorry. This episode is really short. I was supposed to do another episode, but, uh, mentally speaking, I did need a break. So this was a case that I found interesting and it wasn’t really, really hard like some of the other cases I’ve been doing. Because even with the AI, even though the AI is narrating the case, I still have to do the research, writing and everything, I still do everything. So I still go through those hard, hard cases. So I kind of needed a mental break. So I wanted to bring a different case today, and that’s why this episode is so short. But anyways, either way, I do want to hear from you.

Let me thoughts on this case. Had you heard about this disappearance before

Let me thoughts on this case. Had you heard about this disappearance before? Because this is the first time that I’ve heard about it. And some of the town names I might have said incorrectly because it is Louisiana name. So a lot of, like, French Creole type names. So I do apologize if I said them correctly, but that is all I have for you today. And as we end each Monday episode, I want to remind you that it’s say it with me now. Uh, all love and no murder. Thank you so much for your continued support. Thank you so much for joining me. Don’t forget to head on over to the Patreon and just, you know, check it out. You can sign up for free, but if you want to help out the podcast and if you want to be one of the voices of the victims like this one to get their stories out there, because who knows who might have heard something. Maybe they hear this podcast and they bring forth some information on what happened to Paula Boudreaux. So if you want to help be a voice of the victim, then sign up for any one of our bonus tiers. You do get a lot of extras by signing up. Patreon.com Ah, forward/loveandmurder and I will see you in the next episode. Bye.

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