2 Louisiana deputies out of critical condition
Jan 27, 2013, 11:16 PM
Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Two sheriff’s deputies were out of critical condition Sunday, while the man accused of shooting them and killing two other people was charged with arson and two counts each of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder, Louisiana State Police said.
Wilbert Thibodeaux, 48, of Charenton (pronounced SHARON-ton), was held without bond in the Iberia Parish jail, said Trooper Stephen Hammons.
He is accused of killing Eddie Lyons, 78, of Charenton and a Chitimacha Tribal Police officer whose name has not been released. Nor have officials released the names of the wounded deputies, both of St. Mary Parish.
Hammons said Lyons’ body was found in a mobile home that had been set on fire Saturday before someone told police that a man carrying a shotgun was walking down a street near the tribe’s 260-acre reservation and less than a quarter-mile from its Cypress Bayou Casino.
The tribal police officer who responded to the report and two deputies who arrived together all were shot. One deputy remained hospitalized in Lafayette, 40 miles northwest of Charenton, and the other in New Orleans, about 100 miles east of Charenton.
Lyons had been shot before his trailer was torched and his burned body was found after the fire was put out, Hammons said.
Hammons said Thibodeaux also was shot, and state police are investigating who shot him. Other responding deputies arrested him without further incident and he was released to state troopers after treatment at a local hospital, Hammons said.
Sheriff Mark Hebert, Chitimacha Police Chief Blaze Smith, District Attorney Phil Haney, Fire Marshal Butch Browning and Louisiana State Police officials scheduled a news conference Monday to release the officers’ names, Hammons said.
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