By J. Anfenson-Comeau

jamieenews@bellsouth.net

The St. Landry Crime Stoppers program is going strong in the two years since its inception, and is looking to expand further, program coordinator Jimmy Darbonne said during the organization’s first annual banquet and awards ceremony, which also recognized the parish’s ‘top cops’, at the Steamboat Warehouse in Washington, La.

Darbonne also said that Crime Stoppers hopes to breathe new life into a three-year-old double homicide in Eunice through a deck of playing cards.

Crime Stoppers is a non-profit program that offers anonymous cash incentives for information leading to an arrest in criminal investigations in need of more information.

Darbonne said that since the program began in 2007, St. Landry Crime Stoppers has led to 19 arrests, 39 cases cleared, $128,650 worth of property recovered and $129,150 cash recovered.

However, the success of Crime Stoppers cannot be judged solely on the basis of statistics, Board President Gerald Roberts said.

Roberts said that the program also promotes awareness of crime as a problem, gives communities a means of fighting back against crime, and improves communications between law enforcement, the judiciary, the media and the community.

St. Landry Crime Stoppers will also be participating in a new program designed to clear cold cases by soliciting information from prison inmates.

Crime Stoppers of Baton Rouge is collecting information across the state regarding unsolved crimes; the information will be printed onto a deck of playing cards.

“Those cards are passed out at all the Department of Corrections institutions, and prisons such as Angola, in hopes of getting information from these criminals who are in jail, to help us solve these unsolvable crimes,” Darbonne said.

Other states have used the ‘cold-case decks’ to successfully solicit information from inmates and their families regarding unsolved crimes and finally putting these cases to rest.

Darbonne said that three cases from St. Landry Parish were submitted, including the Courville murders, a double homicide that took place in Eunice in January 2006, involving the brutal murder of an elderly couple, Youric and Mary Courville, during an apparent robbery.

The program also recognized the assistance it has received from law enforcement with an induction ceremony for outstanding officers in each municipality and the sheriff’s department; the ceremony took a particularly poignant note, in that the Opelousas Police awardee was Sgt. Roblis Gallow, who recently died from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident July 4.

“He was a true public servant,” said Opelousas Police Chief Perry Gallow, no relation. “From Day One, until the very end, Sgt. Gallow was committed to do everything that he could to make St. Landry Parish a better place.”

Sgt. Gallow’s brother, Earl Gallow, accepted the award on behalf of the family.

Sgt. Avé Sonnier was the Eunice award recipient. Other recipients were Joseph Noel (Loreauville), Jeffrey Guilbeau (Grand Coteau), Jesse Martin, Jr. (St. Landry Sheriff’s Dept.), Mike Potter (Port Barre), Peter Guidry (Sunset) and Wayne Pitcher (Palmetto).

Crime Stoppers profiles a new case each week on local television and radio. Anyone with information is encouraged to call and leave information anonymously. If the information leads to an arrest, a reward will be paid out.

To date, St. Landry Crime Stoppers has paid out $6,300 in rewards; the rewards are funded through private donations to the program.

More information on the program, unsolved homicides in St. Landry Parish and the Crime of the Week can be found online at www.stlandrycrimestoppers.com.