More than five months after the unexplained strangulation death of a New Iberia woman, recently completed DNA testing has proved inconclusive in the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office’s effort to determine the nature of the death, Sheriff Louis Ackal said Tuesday.

But while the results may raise more questions than answers, police have named the woman’s husband as a person of interest in the case due to inconsistencies in his statements to police, Ackal said.

Judy Landry, 61, was found dead July 1 in her home on Robert S. Drive just minutes after Ackal’s inauguration, but the circumstances of her death remain unclear as the Sheriff’s Office continues to investigate it as a possible homicide. 

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The Acadiana Crime Lab, one of two labs to perform the testing, found only Landry’s DNA on the zip ties used in her strangulation, Ackal said. But the DNA was found only on the part of the ties that made contact with her neck — not on the ends of the ties that might be pulled in tightening them, Ackal said.

“Does that mean she did that to herself? I don’t know,” Ackal said. “Could it be that an individual wore gloves when they did that?”

Landry’s husband, Edmond, told police he found his wife unresponsive when he returned home around noon and said he removed the ties from her neck with scissors, Ackal said.

“What surprised me was, the husband cut the zip ties off and his DNA wasn’t on the zip ties,” Ackal said. “There’s no DNA from anybody else on those ties.”

In a telephone interview Tuesday, Edmond Landry confirmed he cut the ties in an effort to revive his wife but denied any involvement in her death, adding he was at work at the time of her death.  

Judy had a history of “problems,” he said, and had been suffering from depression for more than a year and taking Xanax.

One of her three sons was in prison in Florida at the time of her death and another recently divorced. Edmond said he spent more than $10,000 on her treatment and still owes a local hospital.

“I love my wife and I’m still grieving,” he said.

Asked to comment on the police considering him a person of interest in the case, he said, “I don’t know what they’re talking about. Imagine you come home and find your wife dead.”

Edmond Landry said he usually telephoned his wife from work each morning around 10:30 a.m. to check on her. On the morning of her death, Edmond said he received no response to several phone calls and decided to go home.

He said he found his wife “purple” and dead in the dining room when he arrived.

The Iberia Parish Coroner’s Office report only identified the cause of death to be strangulation but was unable to determine the nature. Edmond has not been charged in the death.

“We have no evidence that we could take to court and say ‘this individual killed his wife,’ ” Ackal said. “We don’t have that.”

But another point of interest for investigators has been the marks left by the ties around Judy’s neck.

“The ligature marks on the neck came up from the neck going up behind the ears, which meant somebody would have had to take them and pull up over the top of her head,” Ackal said. “I can think of a lot of ways to commit suicide and that’s not one of them.”

Despite the confusion, Ackal said the case has not run cold.

“The biggest thing we’re working on now is what some of the neighbors may have seen,” Ackal said.

Some of their testimony is “promising but not enough to take to the district attorney,” he said.

“(The investigation) is not where we want to be and I’m not happy about it.”