8 replies to this topic

[Jenn]

http://www.klfy.com/....asp?S=12250554

Opelousas Man Missing

Posted: April 2, 2010 09:02 PM



Three friends leave town for a weekend fishing trip but only two return, and the missing man's fishing companions claim they have no idea what happened to him.

Now, authorities are searching for the Opelousas man. The mans family is already fearing the worst.

Unfortunately, the family of Earl Bubba Kidder Jr say they don't think they'll ever see him alive again, but they're still holding out, praying for his safe return.

Bubba's sister says he was picked up by a friend for a weekend fishing trip in the Sherburne Wildlife Management Area. He called his mother on Sunday to let her know all was well, and nobody has heard from him since.

The car his friend picked him up in, was found burned in Sherburne by Wildlife and Fisheries agents. We're told detectives in Pointe Coupee spent the day questioning the two people who were fishing with kidder before he vanished.

Pointe Coupee, St Martin, and St Landry Detectives are all working on this case.

Three friends leave town for a weekend fishing trip but only two return, and the missing man's fishing companions claim they have no idea what happened to him.

Now, authorities are searching for the Opelousas man. The mans family is already fearing the worst.

Unfortunately, the family of Earl Bubba Kidder Jr say they don't think they'll ever see him alive again, but they're still holding out, praying for his safe return.

Bubba's sister says he was picked up by a friend for a weekend fishing trip in the Sherburne Wildlife Management Area. He called his mother on Sunday to let her know all was well, and nobody has heard from him since.

The car his friend picked him up in, was found burned in Sherburne by Wildlife and Fisheries agents. We're told detectives in Pointe Coupee spent the day questioning the two people who were fishing with kidder before he vanished.

Pointe Coupee, St Martin, and St Landry Detectives are all working on this case.

You can call the Pointe Coupee Sheriff's Office at (225) 694-9014 with any information.

[Lori Davis]

http://www.techetoda...-murder-mystery
Missing person or murder mystery?
Man-hours soar in search for Opelousas man in the Basin

Posted April 13th, 2010
By Ken Grissom

Sherburne WMF – It has been over two weeks since Bubba Kidder’s family last heard from him. And the best guess the authorities can make is that he has been somewhere in the woods of this remote area the whole time.

The prospects are not good.

Item 1: The car he was reportedly in was found burned near the Little Alabama Bayou near the state wildlife management area’s headquarters.

Item 2: Bubba’s family says there is no way he would just take off. He is regularly seeing a doctor for pain management, and he missed his appointment on Monday, March 29.

Item 3: Deputies and others continue to search a relatively small area, reportedly using divers and cadaver dogs. Nothing has turned up but something is keeping them there. Being good investigators, they’re not saying much until all the facts are in.

Bubba – Earl Kidder Jr., 40, of Opelousas – left on Friday, March 26, with a friend, Chad Pitre, 35, of Opelousas, on what he told his family was a fishing trip in the Atchafalaya Basin. A third man supposedly along on the trip was identified by Kidder’s family as Riki Armand, also of Opelousas.

The men apparently went to a camp owned by Pitre’s mother, Emily Courvelle Sylvester, on the Big Alabama Bayou just south of the state complex with its boat ramp, shooting ranges and campgrounds. Neighbors on the bayou reported seeing Pitre’s little gold-colored Mitsubishi compact car going back and forth over the weekend, but with only two people in
it.

On Sunday, March 28, Bubba reportedly called his mother, Agnes F. Kidder, to say the fishing was good. But he didn’t come back on Monday. And, as noted, he missed his doctor’s appointment.

On Wednesday, March 31, the family filed a missing persons report in St. Landry Parish. Since the camp is located in Pointe Coupee Parish, responsibility shifted to that parish’s sheriff’s office. The Kidder family is not happy with the results.

“They lied to us,” said Melissa Brown of Scott, Bubba’s sister.

“They said they were out searching. We had people on four-wheelers over the Easter weekend and there wasn’t a soul out there but us.”

She said the official search didn’t start in earnest until the St. Martin Sheriff’s Office got involved.

The scene of the crime, if that’s what it is, lies just inside the St. Martin Parish line, on a little-used road, blocked from public use, paralleling Little Alabama Bayou. A state game warden, Channing Duval, came across the burned-out hulk of the Mitsubishi out in the woods near the bayou, providing a focus for the search. Whatever other physical evidence might have been recovered at the scene is not being revealed at this time.

Pitre and Armand have reportedly been interviewed multiple times by investigators. The story that emerges is that Bubba Kidder took Chad Pitre’s car during the night Sunday and disappeared.

While not talking publicly, one investigator has said privately that the Mitsubishi was so thoroughly burned, arson is suspected.

The Sherburne Wildlife Management Area, the Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge and adjoining Corps of Engineers lands combine to form 44,000 acres of bottomland hardwoods and meandering bayous.

[Jenn]

http://www.dailyworl...arch-for-Kidder

Authorities continue search for Kidder

By William Johnson • April 25, 2010

Almost a month has now passed and the whereabouts of Earl "Bubba" Kidder Jr. remains unknown.

Kidder, who lives in Opelousas, was last seen March 28 after a weekend fishing trip to a camp in the Sherburne Wildlife Management Area near Krotz Springs with two friends.

"There is nothing new to report," Major Jenny Higgins with the St. Martin Parish Sheriff's Office said Friday. "Teams of deputies have been out there everyday looking but haven't found anything yet."

Higgins said her office has followed up on scores of tips as well as receiving assistance from search teams from the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and the St. Landry and Pointe Coupee parish sheriff's offices, all to no avail.

"We have had dogs out there from the beginning to see if they can pick up any scent, but they haven't turned up anything yet," Higgins said.

While she said the case is still being investigated as a missing person's case, the circumstances are troubling.

The vehicle Kidder is believed to have been using was found burned near the Little Alabama Bayou, not far from state wildlife management area's headquarters.

Investigators say the vehicle was so thoroughly burned, arson is suspected.

"We had to use the (vehicle identification number) to confirm it was the missing vehicle," Higgins said.

Kidder's family said he is regularly seeing a doctor and wouldn't have voluntarily missed his appointment March 29.

What is known is that Kidder, 40, left his home on the Friday before for a fishing trip with friends Chad Pitre and Riki Armand, all of Opelousas, at a camp owned by Pitre's mother, Emily Courvelle Sylvester, on the bayou.

His family last heard from him that Sunday, when he called his mother, Agnes Kidder, to say the fishing was good and all was well. When he did not return, the family filed a missing persons report, and rangers with Wildlife and Fisheries began the search.

When their efforts producted no results, on that Wednesday they called in the Pointe Coupee Parish Sheriff's Office for assistance, as the camp is located in that parish.

Later that week, a vehicle belonging to Pitre, that Kidder was believed to have been using, was found burned in nearby St. Martin Parish.

Anyone with information concern Kidder's whereabouts is urged to call the St. Martin Parish Sheriff's Office at 337-394-3071.

[Jenn]

Charley Project Profile for Earl: http://www.charleypr...idder_earl.html

[Lori Davis]

Detectives comb a Cajun swamp trying to solve a cold case.

Teche Today.Com
March 4, 2011

Detectives from the St. Martin Sheriff’s Office, aided by some of the their colleagues, made one last search last week of a remote corner of the parish where a car reportedly being driven by an Opelousas man was found gutted by fire almost a year ago.

Earl “Bubba” Kidder Jr., 40, has not been seen or heard from since.

A few articles of clothing believed to be Kidder’s were found on a gravel road not far from the burned out vehicle, tightening the focus of a portion of woods used by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries for hunts by the handicapped and not routinely tramped by able-bodied hunters in search of deer sign.

Many a missing person, dead and alive, has been stumbled upon accidentally by a hunter in the woods.

Read more: http://www.techetoda...e-a-cold-case-?

[Lori Davis]

A second search for man missing 11 months

The Associated Press Share  
Published: March 04. 2011 5:39AM

Eleven months after an Opelousas man went missing, the St. Martin Parish Sheriff's Office spent a long day searching the swampy and heavily wooded Sherburne Wildlife Management Area for him again.

Earl "Bubba" Kidder Jr. went fishing with two friends from a camp in Pointe Coupee Parish, just across the river from Krotz Springs. His friends returned. He didn't.

Read more: http://www.goerie.co.../APN/1103040644

[Lori Davis]

https://www.findthem...n/cases/6973/0/
NamUs profile for Earl Kidder - Case 6973

[Lori Davis]

http://www.katc.com/...d-bubba-kidder/

 

Missing in Acadiana: Dale LaFleur and Bubba Kidder

Apr 30, 2013 4:07 PM by Allison Bourne-Vanneck

 

The families of Dale LaFleur and Earl "Bubba" Kidder are still searching for answers after their loved ones went missing years ago.

 

The men are just two of several who have gone missing in Acadiana and four who disappeared from St. Landry and St. Martin parishes. See people missing in Acadiana here.

 

Sixty-eight year old LaFleur went missing on July 13, 2011.

 

He left his home that day, and drove off in his Blue Mazda Miata. For 10 days, police searched the Atchafalaya river and Bayou Courtableu with a solar boat and even brought in a helicopter.

 

But, to this day, they haven't been able to locate LaFluer, or his car.

 

"We'd love to solve this case, as in others of missing persons from St. Landry Parish, and I feel for the family because I know the family very well, I know all his brothers in his family, been knowing them for many, many years," St. Landry Parish Sheriff Bobby Guidroz said. "And my heart goes out to to the family, they want answers and we can't provide it to them. But if we could, I would."

 

The family of Earl "Bubba" Kidder is also still looking for answers. Kidder called Saint Landry Parish home and went missing from St. Martin Parish three years ago.

 

"You know as time passes, you begin to realize, you he's not coming home... That it is over, and something did happen to him," Kidder's sister, Melissa Brown said.

 

But what happened to Kidder is the question no one can answer. All that's left are pictures and memories like the one from the day he disappeared.

"I'll never forget, momma called me at 6 o'clock in the morning and said your brother is missing. And it's like, just a cold chill went down my spine cause I just knew it wasn't good," Brown said.

 

Kidder was on a fishing trip with his friends in the Sherburne Wildlife Management Area in Point Coupee Parish. Investigators said he left on March 28, 2010 without telling anyone, and he hopped in a car by himself and drove along a dirt path, into woods in neighboring St. Martin Parish.

 

Later, the car was found completely burnt with no sign of Kidder.

 

"Possibilities on this case are endless. Yes he could have just taken off, walking away from the car. Right Now we have no clue of what actually happened or who's involved," St. Martin Parish Sheriff Lt. John Bruce said.

 

Authorities could never determine whether the fire was mechanical or if foul play was involved.

 

"I can't say how many days we spent out here, or how many actual hours. But we were out here for quite a bit of time," Bruce said. "At one time we had, um, the family come out here with us as we did a search, and that yielded negative results on anything."

 

It's been three years since that search., and not finding Kidder has meant not finding closure either.

 

"We had a memorial service at church, but we never had anything tangible to say, 'Yes something did happen, he is gone,'" Brown said. "You know, no closure no grave-sight to go to nothing."

 

"It's just hard, I don't know how to explain it. I'm so lost without him, I mean, we used to talk on a daily basis," Kidder's daughter, Sarah Kidder, said. "I just want to know what happened and I would like to put it to rest. Because i do not have closure at all."

[Deborah]

Bubba is still missing. New leads are needed.

 

St. Martin Parish Sheriff's Office at 337-394-3071.