[StBernard] Man found dead in Chalmette home after another man shows up bloody at Chalmette neighbor's doorstep

[Westley Annis]

Man found dead in Chalmette home after another man shows up bloody at
Chalmette neighbor's doorstep
 By Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, Staff Writer 
on October 02, 2012 at 6:02 PM, updated October 02, 2012 at 6:43 PM Email |
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One man was found dead in Chalmette on Tuesday afternoon, another was
injured, and a third was forced to relive a troubling past, according to the
St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Office. The murder and beating occured at a
home in the 8500 block of Regiment Drive.

Authorities have not publicly identified the injured man or the dead man,
who they discovered after responding to a report that a man had been beaten.

The man who was beaten, his head and face bloody, staggered across the
street and knocked on his neighbor Tim Williamson's carport door. The man,
apparently hit on the head by some type of tool or object, was dizzy and
"just leaning there," according to Williamson, who first peaked through his
curtains to see who was there.

Williamson, who was wearing his fatigues and is a member of the Army
National Guard, called police for help around noon. 

"I just tried to keep him from passing out," he recalled a few hours later.
"Just tried to get him to calm down and breath."

After police arrived on the scene, witnesses told investigators that they
had seen the man leave a home across the street. When sheriff's officials
examined inside the home between Jean Lafitte Pkwy and Kings Drive, they
found a dead man.

Initial reports were that the man had been shot, but St. Bernard Parish
Sheriff Jimmy Pohlmann would not confirm the details saying only that the
man was found dead and that the cause of death is being determined. He said
that the man apparently was in his early 30s.

Williamson, 30, and his wife, Alkima, had moved to Chalmette about two and a
half years ago after their 7-year-old daughter, Paige DeJean, was killed by
a stray bullet as she slept in their River Ridge apartment. 

"It just brings some things back, old memories," Williamson said as he
washed blood off his car and driveway. "It's a trip. No matter where you go,
if trouble wants find you, it's going to." 

Blood was still visible on his door's white frame from the stout man whose
white shirt had been soaked through before being taking away by ambulances.
Polhmann said that beaten man, likely in his late 20s, was in stable
condition.

Georgia Clofort, 74, another neighbor, saw the man laying in Williamson's
driveway, "like someone had took a wrench and hit him all over the head,"
she said. Later, she said she saw sheriff's officials taking another man out
of the house across the street, wrapped in a blue sheet. 

"This has never happened around here before," Clofort said. "It's always
been so quiet and calm, but now I want to move."

It is the first murder in St. Bernard this year, Pohlmann said.

Around 3 p.m., children returned from school, walked down the block, looking
around curiously at the police who had descended on their block. 

"I just was hoping it was all cleared before they came home," said Tiffany
Johnson, who said she arrived home after all the violence.

Neighbors said that the man who was killed had just moved in. 

"It is a very rare occurrence, particularly in this part of town, that we
see this type of violence," Pohlmann said.