Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/234144
Saturday, December 28, 2013 – Daily News 7A Police: 4 dead after Louisiana shootings, 3 injured LOCKPORT, La. (AP) — A nurse embroiled in a custody fight with his exwife killed his current wife before shooting his former in-laws and his onetime boss in a rampage that spanned two parishes in Louisiana, leaving three people dead and three wounded. He then fatally shot himself in the head, authorities said. All three survivors remained hospitalized Friday, two in critical condition, Brennan Matherne, a spokesman for the Lafourche Parish Sheriff's Office, said in an email. He said deputies are still investigating the motive. Preliminary evidence shows that Ben Freeman, 38, first killed his wife, Denise Taylor Freeman, before he went on a rampage and shot the others Thursday, Maj. Malcolm Wolfe wrote in an email. Taylor Freeman's body was found in a bathtub, and an autopsy conducted Friday showed that she suffo- cated and drowned, said Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter. Ben Freeman then attacked his former in-laws with a shotgun in Lafourche Parish about 45 miles southwest of New Orleans, wounding parish Councilman Louis Phillip Gouaux and Gouaux's daughter Andrea, Matherne said. Both were in critical condition after surgery early Friday in New Orleans, Matherne wrote. Gouaux's wife, Susan, was dead when deputies arrived, he said. Susan — ''Pixie'' to her friends — was a teachers' aide at Holy Savior Elementary School. She also was a talented needlewoman and knitter who designed the state bicentennial quilt square for Lafourche Parish and made scarves for all her friends, Parish President Charlotte Randolph said in a telephone interview. She said that she went to school at one time or another with both Philip and Susan Gouaux, and that Susan Gouaux taught her grandchildren. The couple has six adult daughters. Gouaux called 911 around 6:40 p.m. Thursday from his home in Lockport, telling dispatchers he had been shot in the throat, The Courier newspaper in Houma reported. Freeman was divorced from Gouaux's daughter Jeanne, whom he married in 1997. Jeanne Gouaux — also a nurse — had filed several protective orders against Freeman, who had pleaded guilty to harassment charges and was allowed only supervised visits with their four children, said Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre. The last protective order expired less than a month ago, he said. ''Clearly, there has been a very difficult and complicated divorce/custody issue going on,'' Webre said during a news conference late Thursday. On Nov. 27, Ben Freeman was issued a citation for simple battery on Denise Freeman, the sheriff's office said in a news release. A court date had been scheduled for Jan. 16, 2014. Court records show Freeman agreed in June to pay Jeanne Gouaux $22,560 in overdue child support payments dating back two years. A settlement filed the following month showed the couple would sell three adjacent lots near her parents' house and split the $25,000 in proceeds; Freeman also agreed to pay Gouaux $39,000. Jeanne Gouaux and the children lived with her parents for a while after the divorce, said Rita Bonvillain, 83, a neighbor of the family for nearly 30 years. She said Andrea Gouaux, a nurse like her sister Jeanne, was visiting from Texas. Whenever a holiday came, she said, children filled the house and yard. A trampoline, soccer balls and a swing hanging from a big oak in the front yard testified to that. Bonvillain choked up and held back tears several times as she talked about the Gouauxes. Since her husband died, they regularly have stopped by to ask if she needs groceries or other errands run. The councilman once told her, ''If you ever hear a sound at night and want someone to check it out, call me,'' she said.