A break in a cold case?

On Sunday, July 11, 1965, Franklin businessman Albert Blevins departed Patterson airport in a private aircraft. Blevins never came home.
A search for the missing man and his plane was carried out, and the St. Mary and Franklin Banner-Tribune reported on the incident. According to the Banner-Tribune, Blevins was a skilled pilot with four years of experience who frequently took plane rides on Sundays.
On that Sunday he left the airport between 3 and 3:30 p.m. and there was a reported electrical storm followed by a heavy rain and strong gusts of wind shortly after his estimated time of takeoff.
The search for Blevins never produced a find of either him or his aircraft, and the incident turned into a cold case.
Fast forward to Oct. 23, 2019, when a post displaying the St. Mary and Franklin Banner-Tribune articles about the disappearance of Blevins was placed on a Facebook page called THE WAY IT WAS..Franklin, La.
This page, which is a public group of over 1,900 members, focuses on sharing old photos and stories of St. Mary Parish with its followers.
One of its followers, Brian Carter of Morgan City, saw the post and it brought up a memory he has from when he was a child that may be related to the case.
“I was either 4 or 5 years old, my dad Russell Carter and my mom Della Carter, we were all in the boat raising nets in the Atchafalaya River,” Carter said.
“We saw the plane fly over and it had gotten real bad that day, raining and lightning, so we went further away from where the rain and the lighting was and we were watching and the lightning hit a plane,” Carter said.
“We saw (the plane) come down in the Atchafalaya Basin and we knew where the plane landed, and we have known all our lives,” Carter said.
His parents didn’t report the incident when they witnessed it in 1965.
“They didn’t want to get involved, back then, and I didn’t know how to go about it, I was a little kid,” Carter said.
“I didn’t know the way later to go about searching for any of it, so I just left it alone, but then I read the story and it brought it to my attention and I said I need to let somebody know what I remember,” Carter said.
Carter got in touch with the St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office to tell them his story.
St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office confirmed that Carter made his report with them and they have given all the information to the last agency involved in the search in 1965.
“My parents have passed away and then I stumbled on to that post on Facebook and I said that could be the airplane they were searching for, so I got in touch with the Sheriff’s Department and we went out (Tuesday) so I could show them the exact spot it was in the Atchafalaya,” Carter said.
“I’m just hoping this proves to be something,” Carter said. “That way the family can get some closure.”