Nearly four decades after a Louisiana woman was slain, police say they have identified and charged two people they suspect are responsible.
Lafourche Parish sheriff’s officers flew to Missouri and Tennessee this week to help arrest Russell Lee and Judith “Judy” Weiser. Weiser and Lee have been charged with second-degree murder and obstructing justice.
Authorities say a series of recent breakthroughs led to the arrests in the 1986 cold case. Paula Boudreaux, 22, was reported missing on August 3, 1986, after disappearing from her parents’ Golden Meadow home, which is roughly an hour and a half from New Orleans.
Skeletal remains were discovered roughly two hours away in Slidell in January 1989, but detectives were unable to properly identify them at the time. Decades later, in 2022, scientists were able to create a plausible image of the person’s face, triggering an anonymous tip.
The informant provided Boudreaux’s identity, and investigators confirmed the match using DNA evidence obtained from one of her surviving relatives. Detectives then reopened the case and continued the investigation from where they had left off.
The sheriff’s office stated that they followed up with surviving friends and family members, as well as others who knew of Boudreaux’s disappearance. Lee and Weiser quickly became subjects of interest as a result of an alleged love triangle. According to authorities, Lee was in a relationship with both Weiser and Boudreaux at the time of her murder. Investigators also discovered that Lee had a violent criminal history dating back to 1986, including arrests for aggravated kidnapping, assault, battery, burglary, and arson.
WKRN reported finding remarks and evidence linking them to the incident. By the end of their investigation, officials concluded they had enough evidence to think Lee and Weiser murdered Boudreaux, dissected her body, and discarded her remains in Slidell.
They then got arrest warrants for both persons, which led them to two different states. On Tuesday, July 9, Lee was apprehended in Missouri with the assistance of the Mountain Grove Police Department.
Weiser was apprehended a day later in Tennessee. The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office reportedly helped in her arrest.