NEW ORLEANS — Concerns of a neighbor living two doors down from Benjamin Beale saying, “you know he would pass the house and we spoke…he even came and sat on the porch and had pizza with everybody.”
Claims made in passing from a man who wouldn’t stop to talk but said he, “never really interacted with Beale, he was one of these regular dirty kids just running around that had the bus.”
Days after police say a dismembered body was found in his freezer, these were the only people willing to talk about Beale on camera.
Court documents show Beale, also known as Kelley Kirkpatrick, was being questioned for weeks about the location of Julia Dardar.
Beale claimed Dardar was his girlfriend.
In the process of the investigation, police grew suspicious of Beale after a round of questioning that took place on January 5th and soon after obtained a search warrant.
The documents show, once in the home, they noticed an extension cord running from inside of Beale’s home to a bus parked in the back yard.
The extension cord ran into a deep freezer where a headless body was found.
And even though investigators recovered Dardar’s ID on the scene, they stopped short of saying whether it was her body.
A look at Beale’s Facebook page reveals he’s lived in many places but shows New Orleans as his current home.
According to a handful of people who didn’t want to talk on camera, Beale has made his presence known around town.
Artist and carriage drivers in front of Jackson Square say they would see Beale and his bus on Decatur.
They suggested checking Latrobe park near the French Market.
People there said they saw Beale around, but encouraged me to ask people near Check Point Charlie’s on Esplanade.
There, with a guitar bag on his back, someone told me they only knew people that knew Beale but never personally interacted with him.
The traveling musician thought I should go ask around Melba’s Poboys
I showed a manager on duty Beale’s Facebook profile and the manager says Beale’s picture looked familiar.
On an Instagram page that appears to be managed by Beale, not even a year ago he was invited to do a pop-up at a local business called “She Comes in Peace” on Charters and Pauline, right down the street from Beale’s home back where this all started.
There clearly are more questions than answers and certainly more people in town who may know both Beale and Dardar.
Beale’s bail that is set at 400k is only for the charges of obstruction of justice in a death investigation, operation of a clandestine lab for the unlawful manufacture of methamphetamine, and illegal drug and gun possession counts.