A tip from a farmer about a possible grave site on his property 2.5 miles northwest as the crow flies from the St. Ann Church in the Mallet community led to two more similar mounds but nothing else, according to St. Landry Parish Sheriff Bobby Guidroz.
The sheriff says the search for Mickey Schunick continues.
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| Photo by Dominick Cross | |
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St. Landry Parish Sheriff Bobby Guidroz says Thursday's search of property near the home of Brandon Scott Lavergne in the community of Mallet turned up nothing. |
"They are not grave sites," says Guidroz, adding that the use of probes and shovels determined the 6-foot-by-3-foot mounds were not graves. "We were convinced they are not grave sites because of the root systems that was in the mound of dirt."
From 6:30 a.m. to 10 a.m., 13-15 members of the Lafayette Crime Scene Unit and the St. Landry Sheriff's Department searched the area adjacent to farmland Guidroz says appears to be a rice field.
"And beyond the rice field is a wooded area and in the wooded area are trails where trucks and tractors pass," he says. "And at the edge of the woods is the first mound that we searched. The team was canvassing the area and found a second and a third."
Guidroz says the area is in the vicinity of the home of Brandon Scott Lavergne, who was arrested July 5 in connection with the disappearance of the 21-year-old woman last seen May 19 riding her bike home in Lafayette.
"We're going to keep looking. We're there for the Shunick family, along with the LPD and we're hoping that we can put some closure, recover her, find her alive or if she's not alive, we hope that we can recover her body," Guidroz says. "I know the family has hope that she's alive and that's certainly a possibility."
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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