St Tammany Coroner Dr. Charles Preston and St Tammany Sheriff Randy Smith were joined by officials from Lafourche Parish for a press conference yesterday about Paula Boudreaux, who vanished from Golden Meadow in August 1986.
At the time investigators pulled out all the stops but detectives were unable to determine what happened to the 22 YO mother of a 4 YO son.
When skeletal remains were discovered by a sportsman near Slidell in January 1989 the remains were sent to the LSU Forensic Anthropology Computer Enhancement Services (FACES) Lab. Thirty-three years later, St. Tammany Coroner Dr. Charles Preston contacted the FACES Lab and requested a joint inventory of overlapping and unsolved cases, wanting to ensure that no one slipped through the cracks – gaps in history, technology, and leadership.
In October 2022, an email tip to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NAMUS) suggested investigators look at Paula Boudreaux’s case and that there may be a link to the unidentified remains from 1989.
NAMUS contacted Cold Case Investigator Chris Knoblauch at the St. Tammany Parish Coroner’s Office. Knoblauch contacted Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre, whose investigators collected DNA from Boudreaux’s known surviving relatives, and sent it to Lacombe.
In short order, the St. Tammany Coroner linked the remains found in 1989 to the young mother who had vanished. Those results were returned to LPSO in January, and the Coroner contacted the St. Tammany Sheriff’s Office to join the investigation. Although from a forensic standpoint the case was “closed” in that the remains now had an identity, for law enforcement there remains more work. Knowing who she was does not, after all, explain how she died – or how she wound up in Slidell, 105 miles away.
The Coroner identified Boudreaux in January and her next of kin were notified, but for investigative purposes that news was kept quiet while the LPSO and STPSO expanded their probes.
Last week, law enforcement gave approval for this important development to become public, hoping the news will shake loose even more leads that might solve the mystery of Paula Boudreaux’s disappearance and death.
