LOCKPORT, La. - A nurse embroiled in a custody fight with his ex-wife killed his current wife, his former mother-in-law and his onetime boss in a rampage that spanned two parishes in Louisiana and left three people wounded as well, authorities said Friday.
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, 43, before he shot the others Thursday, Maj. Malcolm Wolfe wrote in an email.
Denise Freeman’s body was found in a bathtub, and an autopsy showed that she suffocated and drowned, Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter said Friday.
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. Louis Gouaux was shot in the neck, while Andrea Gouaux suffered spinal damage, the sheriff’s office said in a news release. Both were in critical but stable condition after surgery early Friday in New Orleans, Matherne wrote. Gouaux’s wife, Susan, was dead when deputies arrived, he said.
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, Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre said. 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.
On Nov. 27, Ben Freeman was issued a citation for simple battery domestic violence on Denise Freeman, the sheriff’s office said in a news release. A court date had been scheduled for Jan. 16.
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 next 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.
Bonvillain choked up and held back tears several times as she talked about the Gouauxes. Since her husband died, they regularly had stopped by to ask if she needed 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.
About 20 minutes after the first shootings, Freeman arrived at the home of Ochsner St. Anne General Hospital Chief Executive Officer Milton Bourgeois in nearby Raceland, about 8 miles from Lockport. Bourgeois was shot and killed at close range; his wife, Ann, was shot in the leg and was listed in stable condition at a hospital, Matherne said.
Bourgeois had been CEO of the hospital in Raceland since 1988, Giselle Hecker, spokesman for Ochsner Health Systems, said in anemail.
Freeman had worked at the hospital as a registered nurse before he was fired in 2011, Webre said. But in a teleconference later Friday, Ochsner officials said Freeman had resigned voluntarily, citing personal reasons. The officials said he had worked at the hospital from May 1998 to April 2011, and that he was considered an on-call employee for another five months after that.
Freeman also had worked at two other hospitals, which along with St. Anne had been placed on lockdown for a time Thursday.
Ben Freeman was found dead around 10:45 p.m. along U.S. 90 near Bayou Blue where he had shot himself in the head, authorities said.
Officers searching for Freeman found the body of Denise Freeman in the bathroom of their house, Larpenter told The Courier.
At the home, a man who did not give his name demanded that an Associated Press reporter leave his sister’s property.
Others in the neighborhood of quaint middle-class, ranch-style houses in Houma, the Terrebonne Parish seat, said the house was originally hers.
She had only recently married Freeman, but she and her son Josh - of elementary school age - had lived there for years, said Glenn Cradeur, who has owned his house, two down from hers, for 28 years. He said he believed the boy was not home when his mother was killed.
Cradeur said he saw no signs of trouble until about two weeks ago, when he saw police vehicles outside the home, responding to what he believed was a domestic dispute.
He returned from a visit to out-of-town relatives to find emergency vehicles outside the house and stunned neighbors gathered nearby.
“It’s shocking, and it’s sad,” he said.
Information for this article was contributed by Janet McConnaughey and Judith Ausuebel of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 9 on 12/28/2013