[StBernard] MRGO

[Westley Annis]

John,

The State Library give everyone with a library card from any parish online
access to Newsbank for ten state newspapers.  Unfortunately, they don't go
past 1986.

Here is the link to logon.
<http://lalibcon.state.lib.la.us/index.php?illcode=b1la&patroncode=t78605>
<http://tinyurl.com/zqmvg>

This is the only story I could find after a quick search.

Westley
-------------------------------------
FAMILY LIFE GOES ON AFTER 1981 MURDER 
Times-Picayune, The (New Orleans, LA)
August 5, 1990
Author:  DOUGLAS S. ELFMAN St. Bernard/Plaquemines bureau
Estimated printed pages: 2

The mysterious death of Valerie Randazzo in 1981 led to a six-year murder
investigation that remains unsolved, an open but inactive case. The family
she left behind has picked up the pieces.

"Comes a time when you have to make a decision - put things on the side.
It'll never go away, but you've got to put things on the side," said Randy
Randazzo, Valerie's husband at the time of her death.

Valerie Randazzo, a 37-year-old mother of three and a bartender, disappeared
on Feb. 14, 1981, after closing the Chalmette bar where she worked.

Investigators from the St. Bernard Sheriff's Office, the New Orleans Police
Department and the FBI began investigating after Randazzo's body was found
in the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet five days later.

The New Orleans Coroner's Office never determined the cause of death.

Federal authorities entered the case because of speculation that influential
people in St. Bernard might have been involved in her death and that
sheriff's deputies might have tried to cover it up.

St. Bernard Sheriff Jack Stephens, who took office three years after the
investigation began, said he "heard some talk" of such rumors, but has
looked at the evidence and has seen no indication that they are valid.

Investigators ran out of leads in 1986 and the case has been inactive since
1987.

Randy Randazzo said the unexplained death preoccupied him and his children
for about three years.

He remarried in October 1983 and since then Jeanette Whatley Randazzo has
helped him and Tara, 20, Ja'nel, 16, and Tia, 14, cope with the tragedy, he
said.

"It would've been a hell of a time without Jeanette," Randy Randazzo said.
"I don't know what we would have done without her."

The struggle to create a new life began with Jeanette Randazzo forming a
relationship with the children, the couple said.

"For a while, it seemed like it wasn't my house," she said. But after a time
the children helped her feel at home.

Years of tender moments with the children finally won their acceptance, she
said.

Randy Randazzo said that his first wife's death will "always be on the back
of my mind someplace," and that it comes into focus at Christmas and other
special times.

Jeanette Randazzo said it bothered him a lot around Valentine's Day, the
anniversary of the murder, but now he has a calmer outlook.

"We're a lot happier now," Jeanette Randazzo said. "It got to the point
where we said it's time to go on with our lives."
Section:  BB
Page:  B6

Copyright, 1990, The Times-Picayune Publishing Corporation. All Rights
Reserved. Used by NewsBank with Permission.
Record Number:  9008050176