The police simply weren’t moving fast enough for a man looking for his abducted cousin. In spite of the fact that officers had been called, they were not taking the kidnapping seriously enough for the family of the victim. That’s when they decided to find her themselves.
That’s why the victim’s cousin kicked in the back door of an abandoned house where his kidnapped relative had been taken and shot and killed her kidnapper, according to law enforcement representatives in Louisiana.
Detectives on the case, now after the fact, say that the shooting has been ruled a justifiable homicide by the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Department.
While that’s great news for the victim and the hero who rescued her, it has left many in the community wondering why it took a citizen to do the job that police claim to be there to do.
So far, the sheriff’s department says they do not want to release the name of the shooter, so we have been unable to contact him for specific comments or further information.
What we do know from the police is that he claims to have heard screams coming from the abandoned house where his cousin was being held.
Sheriff’s Capt. Kip Judice says that he broke the door down and saw the kidnapper stabbing his 29-year-old cousin Bethany Arceneaux. Unable to wait for police any longer, he drew his legally-owned handgun and fired several shots.
The kidnapper turned out to be Scott Thomas, someone who Arceneaux unfortunately knew very well. Arceneaux had a restraining order out against him, after the two had parted ways years ago.
Arceneaux was injured from the initial stab wound that Thomas inflicted before being shot. She has been hospitalized but is expected to recover, according to the sheriff’s captain.
It’s important to understand just how long Arceneaux was missing. She had disappeared Wednesday night, and Thomas’ car was found the same name abandoned behind a cane field.
Police claimed to be “doing all we can” during the search. Indeed they did search the area around the cane field with bloodhounds, but beyond that they seemed to have little interest in searching surrounding areas and neighborhoods.
That’s when the family decided to canvas the area themselves Thursday and Friday, looking around abandoned buildings where the kidnapper might have taken her: something the police should have thought of and taken the initiative to do.
Still, Judice admitted that “The cousin was at the right spot when he heard the screams,” something that would have gone unnoticed if he would not have taken the initiative that the police had not, to find his cousin.