RSS Feed

The second of Franklin’s bicentennial celebration events took place Wednesday night at the Teche Theatre for the Performing Arts amidst a packed house.
Fran Middleton, former academic and retired librarian shared a presentation entitled, “Other Times, Other Customs and the Dreher-LeBoef Case,” centered around and expounding on the infamous subject matter of the Ada Leboeuf-Thomas Dreher Murder Case.
Middleton’s sources were many and varied and were largely comprised of documents and records she managed to hunt down.
Middleton said that in 1927, James LeBoef, husband of Ada LeBoef, was shown a letter accusing his wife of cheating on him with a well-known doctor in Morgan City, Dr. Thomas Dreher.
According to Middleton, LeBoef began stalking Dreher, and even threatened to shoot his wife for her alleged infidelity.
“In the weeks prior to his death, James had grown increasingly more violent toward her (Ada), and was stalking an already paranoid Dr. Dreher,” Middleton said.
On July 1, 1927, Ada LeBoef sent a note to Dr. Dreher asking him to meet she and James later that night, to settle the situation between them.
At the meeting, James Leboef is said to have pulled a pistol and fired (though no shot was reportedly heard) at Dreher, who was accompanied by a comrade with a shotgun. The comrade, James Beadle, fired two shots into the chest of James LeBoef killing him instantly.
After Beadle mutilated and scuttled the body of LeBoef—he, Dreher and Ada carried on as usual. But, the body resurfaced from the depths of Lake Palourde, and was reported shortly thereafter.
All three, Beadle, Dreher and Ada Leboef were taken into custody by July 7, 1921.
On July 12, the three were indicted for the murder of James LeBoef, and by July 13 they were arraigned.
The trial took place from July 30 to mid-August and culminated in guilty verdicts for Ada, Dreher and Beadle.
Ada and Dreher were sentenced to death by hanging, but Beadle got a lenient life sentence with hard labor at Louisiana State Penitentiary.
Ada and Dreher’s appeal was denied, and newly elected Governor Huey P. Long scheduled the pair to hang on Dec. 21, 1928.
A pardon board was convened, and with a plethora of new evidence, witnesses and affidavits, a sentence of commutation to life in prison for Ada and Dreher was recommended by the pardon board. But Long would not comply.
Due to the possibility of a new trial necessitated by the pardon board’s recommendation, the execution date was changed, but the Louisiana Supreme Court refused a new trial. However, a stay of execution was granted by Long on Jan. 5, 1929; and then, after he changed his mind just a few hours later, the execution was set again to proceed.
“From mid-January on, writs and appeals were filed to no avail,” Middleton reported. “Ada LeBoef and Dr. Dreher spent most of this time meeting with their families, and in prayer.”
On Feb. 1, 1929, Ada Leboef and Dr. James Dreher were hanged at the St. Mary Parish Courthouse Square, in Franklin.
LeBoef was buried in the Morgan City Cemetery, and Dreher was buried at the Rosehill Cemetery in Linden, with these words on his gravestone: “A forgotten man.”
Ada Leboef was the first white woman to be hanged in the state of Louisiana.
A book was penned on the subject of the Dreher-Leboef case and published in 2000, titled, “Ada and the Doc: An Account of the Ada Leboeuf-Thomas Dreher Murder Case,” by Charles M. Hargroder.

Each year there are about 400,000 poison center calls and 50,000 emergency room visits as a result of young children ingesting medications when adults weren’t paying attention. A new study finds that more than half of the time when children get into prescription pills, the medication had already been removed from the child-resistant container by an adult.
The findings come from a study of calls to five U.S. poison control centers by researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Emory University School of Medicine, and the Georgia Poison Center.
The study appeared in a recent The Journal of Pediatrics article.
“These data suggest it may be time to place greater emphasis on encouraging adults to keep medicines in containers with child-resistant features,” said the study’s senior author, Daniel Budnitz, M.D., MPH, of CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion. “There is an opportunity here for innovative medication container options that promote adult adherence and provide portability and convenience, while maintaining child safety.”
Child-resistant packaging keeps kids safe — but only when pills are inside
The current study found four common scenarios in which young children get into prescription pills after the pills are out of their original containers:
—Removed to remember to take as prescribed: Adults put pills into pill organizers that are not child-resistant.
—Removed for ease of travel or transport: Adults put pills into baggies or other small containers that are not child-resistant to carry with them.
—Removed for convenience: Adults leave pills out on countertops or on a bedside table for someone to take later.
—Removed unintentionally: Adults sometimes spill or drop pills and may miss some when picking them up.
The most common scenarios varied by type of medication. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder medications (49%) and opioids (43%) were more often not in any container when found by young children.
Diabetes drugs (34%) and cardiac medications (31%) were more often transferred to alternate containers such as pill organizers or baggies. Nonprescription medications were most often accessed from the original containers, but for many of these medications, child-resistant packaging is not required because of low potential for toxicity.
Grandparents’ pill organizers often involved
Investigators also asked whose pills the children were getting into. Most of the time, the children got into their parents’ pills. However, for some prescription medications that can be very harmful to young children in small amounts (e.g., diabetes or cardiac medications), over half belonged to grandparents.
Therefore, it will be important to remind grandparents, as well as parents, about the importance of keeping medications up and away and out of the reach and sight of children.
CDC recommends keeping medications in the original child-resistant packaging. If one must remove pills from their original containers, a few precautions can help keep children safe:
—Use a container that is child resistant.
—Securely reclose the container after every use.
—Put the container up and away and out of a child’s reach and sight immediately after every use.
—Keep purses, other bags, or pockets with medicines in them up and away from young children.
—If pills are spilled when taking or transferring medications, double-check to make sure that all pills are picked up.
—Save the Poison Help number in your phone – 800-222-1222 – and call right away if you think your child might have gotten into a medicine or a vitamin, even if you are not sure.
For more information on what parents and grandparents can do to safely store their medications, visit: www.cdc.gov/features/medicationstorage/index.html and UpandAway.org

Cleco power customers will save a combined $22.3 million a year beginning March 1, when the Storm Restoration Charge drops from their bills, the utility announced.
The Louisiana Public Service Commission approved the charge in 2006. The charge raised money that the utility used to repay debt incurred when it repaired damage caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
“This is good news for our customers,” said Bill Fontenot, president and CEO of Cleco, in a press release.
“Cleco’s residential customers will, on average, pay $3.75 less per month resulting in savings of about $45 over 12 months, which supports our ongoing efforts to lower customers’ bills.”
The cost to repair Cleco’s system and restore power following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita was approximately $160 million, the largest combined storm expense in the company’s history. The company secured low-interest bonds to finance the storm costs, create a storm reserve for future weather events and reduce customers’ costs.
The storm recovery effort for Hurricane Katrina included 3,400 workers and lasted 29 days. Storm recovery for Hurricane Rita included 2,400 workers and lasted 11 days.
“We’ll always remember these back-to-back storms because of the catastrophic damage and resources required to repair our system. Both storms tested our endurance and far exceeded anything we’ve ever experienced,” said Fontenot. “We’re glad these two storms are behind us.”
Cleco Corporate Holdings LLC is a regional energy holding company that conducts its business operations through its subsidiaries, Cleco Power LLC and Cleco Cajun LLC. Cleco Power is a regulated electric public utility company that owns 10 generating assets with a total nameplate capacity of 3,357 MWs and serves approximately 290,000 customers in Louisiana through its retail business and supplies wholesale power in Louisiana and Mississippi. Cleco Cajun is an unregulated utility company that owns eight generating assets with a total nameplate capacity of 3,555 MWs, with contracts serving nine Louisiana cooperatives, five wholesale municipal customers and one electric utility. For more information about Cleco, visit us at www.cleco.com.