FRANKLINTON, La. — When you walk out of the Washington Parish Sheriff’s Office in Franklinton, you might notice something.
“‘There’s a murderer among us’ sign on the side of the building, over there across the street,” said Sheriff Jason Smith. “There’s been an unwillingness from the sheriff’s office to even address it.”
That’s changing. Days into his new role, Sheriff Smith is giving the nearly seven-year-old unsolved case of Donna Arceneaux’s death a new look. It’s a case WWL Louisiana highlighted last year.
“I’m feeling more hopeful and very excited. Things are starting to happen. Her case is being talked about in the sheriff’s department,” said Arceneaux’s sister Sherry Pigott.
Pigott says that didn’t happen with the last administration which handled the initial investigation.
Arceneaux, 40, was a single mother of three. She was found shot in the chest inside her Highway 16 home in October of 2017. The autopsy called it a homicide. The sheriff’s office reported it as being ruled a suicide.
“I don’t know how that got all mixed up and messed up,” said former sheriff Randy Seal during a November 2023 interview.
Seal told WWL Louisiana there was a division among investigators because a gun was found at the scene as well. It’s not clear whether it was the gun used in Arceneaux’s death.
“There was some that thought it was homicide, there were others that thought it was suicide,” said Seal.
Arceneaux’s family never thought it was a suicide and lost confidence in the investigation. In 2019 the family requested that state police take over the investigation.
“I felt like there was no transparency,” said Seal. “It was hard because it felt like nothing was happening, like she was just being forgotten.”
Even though Seal agreed to allow state police to take the case, Pigott says there’s been no movement until recently. After speaking with the new sheriff, Pigott is holding on to hope a little tighter.
“He said he wasn’t going to promise me that it was going to get solved but he was going to promise me that they were going to try and that meant everything to me,” said Pigott.
Trying is something Sheriff Smith says must happen in a case with so many questions.
“It’s in my best interest as sheriff to do what we can to make the citizens of Washington Parish as comfortable as they can, that what they're being provided with in terms of security and law enforcement is the best in the state,” said Sheriff Smith.
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