This is the story of the “Mysterious X” that catapulted Jerry Larpenter into the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office way back in April 1987.
Going into the beginning of April of that year, Charlton P. Rozands was still the sheriff, but at that particular point in time, he was:
- Under federal indictment;
- Dying of cancer.
Rozands and his two sons, along with Chief of Detectives Aubrey Authement and deputy Elmore Songe were all INDICTED on charges ranging from malfeasance in office, improper removal of weapons from the sheriff’s office, unauthorized and illegal personal use of weapons being held as evidence, and the disposal of weapons being held as evidence but which had been in Authement’s possession.
In fact, the sheriff’s cancer was so advanced that he was said to have been heavily medicated on morphine that he was unable to be arraigned and could not perform the simplest of tasks.
ROZANDS DIED ON APRIL 19 (from the Houma Daily Courier)
Six days before his death, on April 13, Larpenter signed the required OATH OF OFFICE oath of office as Rozands’ Chief Criminal Deputy.
On the second page of that document, in the left-hand margin, is the signature, “C.P. Rozands, Sheriff.”
Except it’s not Rozands’ signature. A comparison of that signature with a document actually signed by Rozands makes that point abundantly clear.
Several people who were in positions to know have told LouisianaVoice that Rozands would have been physically unable to sign anything because of the advanced stages of his cancer and because he was heavily medicated with morphine. What is not clear is who actually signed his name.
In fact, at some point prior to Larpenter’s signing his oath of office, sources tell LouisianaVoice that a meeting was held to discuss a successor. Said to have been at that meeting were Rozands’ wife Mae, his two sons, and Houma attorney William F. Dodd, legal counsel for the sheriff’s office. He remains the sheriff’s legal counsel today.
The meeting was held to discuss the succession to Rozands who by this time obviously near death. At the time, 1987, state law allowed an official’s widow to assume his seat but Mrs. Rozands let it be known she wasn’t interested in the job. Nor were either of their sons.
The choices were quickly eliminated until there was only Larpenter who, when asked, said he would take the job.
The affidavit was quickly drafted, presumably by Dodd, that named Larpenter as Chief Criminal Deputy, which would make him next in line for the office of sheriff.
But to make the appointment official, Rozands was required to sign it. With him unable to affix his signature, he supposedly signed with an “X.”
But did he? One person close to the series of events said, “I don’t think Rozands would have waited until he was that sick to appoint Jerry Larpenter. They were close, but I think if Rozands had wanted Larpenter as his Chief Criminal Deputy, he would have appointed him while he was well enough to know what he was doing.”
Besides the job promotion and salary boost that came with Larpenter’s ascension into the sheriff’s chair, it also gave him the decided advantage of running as an incumbent in the next regular election only months away in October 1987.
In that election, the incumbency proved beneficial, all right. Larpenter, running against eight opponents, got a whopping 44 per cent of the vote, a full 30 points of his closest competitor, who got 14 percent. In the November runoff, he received 69 per cent of the vote to win his first of seven terms, interrupted only by his unsuccessful run for Parish President in 2007.
Each one of his elections—he was unopposed in 2015—were won by wide margins.
But the details of how he went from obscure deputy to sheriff for those few months in 1987 remain murky and clouded with questions of whether Rozands actually scrawled that “X” or it was done by someone in his name.
It’s almost as big a mystery as that entry in Larpenter’s campaign expense report. He lists an expenditure of $15,400 to an outfit named WEBCORP in Missouri for bulletproof vests for the sheriff’s department.
It’s awfully magnanimous of him to spend his own campaign funds to purchase equipment for his deputies—especially when Web Corp isn’t in the business of bulletproof vests. It’s an Internet web-building company.
When I read of such actions by those in Law Enforcement, I ask myself WWJD? And I get this vision of Him storming into the “Halls of Justice” not only turning over desks, tables, and chairs, but also smacking those asses in the jawbone.
I’ve got $100 that says that Catherine A. Champagne forged the signature reading C. P. Rozands, Sheriff. She made no attempt to disguise the forgery. She even included the comma between his name and title.
Some witnesses to this document should be held accountable for this blatant crime.
The fact that Larpenter has been re-elected numerous times by large margins would seem to indicate that the public is satisfied. He even returned and displaced L B Bourgeois who chose not to run (as incumbent) against Larpenter.
I also believe Larpenter was related to Rozands wife, which is why he was selected. His first act as Sheriff was to clean house of cronies who were using Sheriff’s Office for personal gain inciting Grand Jury investigations.