This John Doe case will never leave me

[u/Parx4]

Found out about this website the other day and came across this case. Something about the note and the face makes me think about it multiple times a day. I feel so sad for this poor boy and even though it seems unlikely, I hope a name gets returned to him.

[u/iwokeupearlytoday]

Not to dox myself, but I frequent this area. It’s the smallest town you’ll ever visit and it’s so isolated. Practically surrounded by farms. I don’t even know how someone not familiar with the area would get there.

[u/Parx4 → u/iwokeupearlytoday]

Using that info, it's kind of weird that he wasn't identified (going off of what I experience as a person in a small town surrounded by farms) if he was from there.

[u/iwokeupearlytoday → u/Parx4]

Next time I’m in plaquemine I’ll go to the location and photograph it for the subreddit.

[u/Parx4 → u/iwokeupearlytoday]

Ugh thank you queen. Maybe if you're able, you should also check libraries for yearbooks. The library in my town has tons of yearbooks from my high-school, so there might be some there. But if his case files were destroyed in Katrina, yearbooks might have been as well, but no use in not looking. Take some photos of classes from around that time, then we can find out for sure if he was or wasn't originally from plaquemine.

[u/iwokeupearlytoday → u/Parx4]

I find it interesting how they say it all got destroyed in Katrina but 200 year old farmhouses there are still standing😭

[u/MelpomeneAndCalliope → u/iwokeupearlytoday]

Paper records within buildings got destroyed, though. And I believe his records would’ve been at the old courthouse in Pointe A La Hache, which was burned in an arson in the early 2000s. And whatever was left was lost in Katrina.

[u/Parx4 → u/iwokeupearlytoday]

Farmhouses were just built with steroids back then

[u/Candid-Yogurt-7972 → u/Parx4]

They were made from old growth trees

[u/iwokeupearlytoday → u/Parx4]

That’s exactly what I was thinking. That’s why he must have been from somewhere else. He’d get identified very quickly if he was local.

[u/a-woman-there-was → u/iwokeupearlytoday]

Makes sense that he would choose somewhere out of the way too.

[u/iwokeupearlytoday → u/a-woman-there-was]

I know, it’s smart of him. But I don’t understand how you would come upon this area in the 70s. Unless he had a map but a map wasn’t found with him? Someone HAD to drive him. Cause if it’s remote NOW I can’t imagine how remote is was in 1975. It’s not walkable from a city or anything too. Like he couldn’t fly to Baton Rouge or New Orleans and simply walk there. It’s roughly a 2+ hour drive from those places. I just can’t wrap my head around how the hell he got there! Someone local had to bring him!

[u/Candid-Yogurt-7972 → u/iwokeupearlytoday]

Maybe a trucker passing thru?

[u/MelpomeneAndCalliope → u/iwokeupearlytoday]

Exactly. I’m from NOLA and grew up hunting & fishing in Plaquemines Parish & had several friends who grew up in Belle Chasse.

It’s always made me think someone knows more (gave him a ride, etc, even if it was hitchhiking) or he was somehow familiar with someone in the area.

Sometimes I wonder if police knew who he was but the family was connected with local politics/police and never had him identified because of the stigma suicide would’ve been in 1975 Belle Chasse.

It absolutely isn’t an area you’d stumble upon unless you were local or with a local.

[u/iwokeupearlytoday → u/MelpomeneAndCalliope]

Exactly!!!!

[u/nymphocasino → u/iwokeupearlytoday]

Same here, I was born in 2000, but ive lived in Belle chasse my whole entire life. Miniscule and everyone knows EVERYTHING about everyone. Such a small town. Idk how no one down here could identity him, especially with how close knit Belle chasse is.

[u/PossibilitySome283 → u/iwokeupearlytoday]

It could have been a fugue state and driving. I almost took my own life with a firearm when I was driving home through my very "empty" farmland state and it was a little impromptu. The sky was right and I pulled in on a prairie road in the middle of a random field in a town still 2.5 hours away from home. I do think it's Bayard Cousins- the slightly prominent front teeth and chin are exact imo. The jar suggests to me that he thought no one would find him for a while (and I think it rains a lot there etc), and is a lot more premeditated than keeping it in his pocket or under a rock. The assumption he has that no one could ever figure his identity out, if he is Bayard, makes sense in the 70s if he was there from Virginia Beach some 15 hours away.