Damien Matlock
March 14, 2017
Local social workers celebrated for service
March 15, 2017
A 13-year-old middle school student’s claim of attempted abduction was recanted last week, in large part due to intervention by the deputy assigned to the boy’s school, interviews with his mother and law enforcement officials has revealed.
Sgt. Mike Suggs of the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office says his intervention was a result of doing the job a school resource officer is supposed to do, knowing his students and paying attention.
“You learn your kids,” said Suggs, who has been an SRO at Evergreen Middle School for 17 years. “You learn their habits and you learn each individual child’s attitude. The kids get to know you and you gain their trust.”
The trouble began last Tuesday when the 13-year-old arrived home late from school.
Breathless and banged up on one knee, the boy burst through the front door of his home and told his mother a tale about a white van and bald man with facial hair offering him a ride despite repeated refusals, then grabbing him before a mysterious stranger intervened and disappeared.
Susan believed him. The deputies who responded to her call believed him.
But in the end the story proved false.
Susan LeBlanc, the boy’s mother, had some troubling doubts but wanted to believe her son, and found it difficult to believe he would make up such a tale.
“The juvenile stated that there was an older white male, driving a white in color older model van, (who) attempted to kidnap him,” said Major Malcolm Wolfe of the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office. “This information was disseminated throughout the Houma area and police patrolled in search of this suspect and vehicle. This information was also shared on Facebook by multiple residents in the area.”
Deputies responded to LeBlanc’s home and interviewed the child, appearing to believe him.
LeBlanc and the deputies searched for the van to no avail.
Later that night, after soul-searching and deliberation, LeBlanc posted about the alleged incident on Facebook. On the one hand, she thought caution and silence would be the better route. But then she thought, she said, about the potential that if a threat to children existed in her neighborhood, she had a duty to share the information with other parents.
The posting got wide attention.
“Long story short, we learned (he) made up the story of someone trying to abduct him,” Susan said. “There is no white van, no creepy bald man looking for kids, none of that. It’s unclear exactly why he said that but we at school get the impression that he’s having a tough time with friends. That he fabricated the story to get attention from the friends who are not friends to begin with.”
Susan now feels horrible for sharing the story, something she only did after the police had taken their report, after she and her son had ridden around the neighborhood, looking for the van, and after deputies had done so as well. She made the decision to share details of the report in hopes that other parents would be alerted, and only after considerable time spent questioning in her own mind whether she should.
“I am not someone who posts things that happen within my home. I finally decided that if I didn’t post this and something happened to someone else I couldn’t live with it,” Susan said. “I’m shocked and sitting here numb that this has happened … I can’t apologize enough.”
Although she believed her son – and wanted him to know that he was believed – a few details on the abduction were not adding up, Susan acknowledges. The boy’s narrative included mention of a good Samaritan’s assistance being the reason he got away. But the man who stepped forward to help, the boy said, disappeared.
“I found it difficult to imagine that someone would help like that and then be nowhere to be found,” Susan said. “But I had no reason to doubt him.”
The motive, as determined through discussions between the mother, authorities and the boy, was that he had to account for not being home at the time expected, which had something to do with a situation with friends.
The boy was charged as a juvenile with criminal mischief by reporting a false incident. Because it is a misdemeanor juvenile charge, The Times is opting to not identify him by name. Susan’s widely distributed Facebook posts were made under her name.
“He has been dealt with according to the law and with me as his mother,” Susan said. “This is not like him, at all. I know every parent says that about their child but it’s true.”
The next day – Wednesday – Susan brought her son to school. She spoke with the assistant principal, Jessica Scott, and Sgt. Suggs.
“I knew that over the past couple of weeks he had been telling a few fibs,” Suggs shared. Among the stories the boy had told was that he had suffered a heart attack at the Southland Mall. At that time Suggs had challenged him on the truth of the matter and the boy admitted the lie. “I talked with him about this and he pretty much stayed with his story. I asked if he realized that if he was telling a story he was wasting man hours, they could be investigating serious crimes, that he might want to correct it and tell the truth if this wasn’t what happened. He could be charged with filing a false police report. He thought about it and recanted his statements.”
Suggs sympathizes with the mother’s anguish over having posted the story on social media.
“She didn’t want to take a chance,” he said.
Suggs is pleased that he was able to help.
“He’s not a bad kid,” Suggs said.
Sgt. Suggs
