STAYING IN TOUCH AFTER TRAGEDY

A casual observer might have mistaken Catholic High School’s homecoming last week as run of the mill.

A king and queen were crowned, though the football team lost. But it was the appropriateness of this year’s theme — community — that made last week noteworthy.

This year, the Class of 1978 is celebrating a 30-year reunion, but they are doing so without former classmate David LeBlanc, the 17-year-old St. Martinville native who was murdered with his girlfriend, Loretta Bourque, 31 years ago on homecoming night, a tragedy that helped inspire the book and movie “Dead Man Walking.”

“What homecoming is really about is feeling a connection to your school that lasts many, many years,” Catholic High Principal Tim Uhl told a gym full of students Thursday following a special Mass. “The connections you’re making here are going to last many years, especially because this is also a faith community.”

The Class of ’78 has epitomized that message.

Several of David’s classmates stayed in touch with his family over the years, assuring them David will never be forgotten. They attended both of the funerals — services were held in St. Martinville and Thibodaux — and sent countless flower arrangements.

But it didn’t stop there. Each time the class has gotten together, they’ve been sure to send pictures and signed cards. Some send Christmas greetings around the holidays.

“This is a great example of community,” Uhl said. “These people have really kept in touch with each other and the LeBlancs.”

For a family that was left to grieve, the support of David’s classmates has been of no small benefit. 

“They were a good bunch of kids, they really were,” said Vickie Albert, David’s older sister. “And they let us know David wasn’t forgotten.”

David’s best friend, Wade Vincent, stood in Albert’s wedding and is godfather to her youngest son. “

David couldn’t be there so we asked him,” she said wiping away a tear. Vincent said he and David were “attached at the hip” when the two were at school. Another good friend, Donald Robertson, was part of their “trio” at school and also has stayed in touch, Vincent said.

David’s death brought his classmates even closer together. His was a small, close-knit class of 51 students.

“(His death) was a hard pill to swallow,” Vincent said. “But we stuck by each other and made sure no one went through it alone.”

Dead Man Walking

More than three decades have passed since that unforgettable November night. David attended the homecoming football game with Bourque, and the two were parked in a lovers’ lane later that night when they were approached by two young men impersonating police officers. The faux deputies, Elmo Patrick Sonnier and his younger brother Eddie, told the couple they were in trouble for trespassing.

According to police reports, the Sonniers handcuffed David to a tree and took Bourque away to rape her. They later shot both of them in the back of the head three times near a sugar cane field along Crochet Road in New Iberia. Albert said the two were found holding hands together.

After testifying against his brother, Eddie received a life sentence that he is still serving at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. Patrick was sentenced to the death penalty and in 1984 was executed in the electric chair.

Sister Helen Prejean, a New Orleans nun who has since become a well-known anti-death penalty advocate and author, befriended Patrick during his stay on Death Row and chronicled her relationship with him in the award-winning novel “Dead Man Walking,” which was subsequently turned into a film of the same name.

It’s a film Albert has never seen.

Albert said Prejean asked her to look over some the drafts of the book and was alarmed by much of what she read.

“I told her your book should have been titled ‘Lying Man Walking’ because the Sonnier brothers lied to you and you believed it,” Albert said.

Prejean’s relationship with the Sonnier brothers created a bit of tension with both the LeBlancs and the Bourques initially, but Albert said Prejean has remained a family friend over the years.

Lloyd’s death

Thursday was an emotional day for Albert and her mother, Eula, for many reasons. Attending the Mass Thursday morning marked one of the very few times the family has visited the school since David’s death.

“My daughter was over there a couple of years ago for a Relay for Life and it felt funny,” she said. “We just haven’t had any other reason to go.”

Albert said it was “hard to be there” but comforting to be among some of the classmates who could make it Thursday.

“It was fantastic what they did after all this time,” Prejean said in a telephone interview this morning. “That people came out on a business day, that really says something.”

But there was one man missing from the crowd Thursday.

“My only regret is that my dad was not here, because he would have loved to have gone,” Albert said.

David’s father, Lloyd, died in May of a heart attack at the age of 79.

“It’s sad, but he survived and he was a strong man. Not one day passed when he didn’t think about (David),” Albert said. 

“My daddy was a bulldozer operator, and he said for every tree he knocked over, it made him remember that his son was handcuffed to a tree when he died.”

Since Lloyd’s death, Albert said a clearer picture has emerged of just how forgiving he was toward David’s killers. Albert said she recently learned, while going through some notes, that her father frequently sent money to Patrick Sonnier through Prejean while he sat on Death Row.

“He grew up in the Catholic Church, which teaches forgiveness,” Albert said.

Lloyd missed his son for much of his life, but now, they rest in peace together. His last request was to be interred with his son, and Albert made that happen.

“He had his final wish,” Albert said. “He missed that child so much.”