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Created page with "{{Infobox officeholder |name= Wyatt Luther Nugent, Sr. |office= Sheriff of Grant Parish, Louisiana |term_start=1928 |term_end=April 21, 1936 |preceded=..."
{{Infobox officeholder
|name= Wyatt Luther Nugent, Sr.
|office= [[Sheriff]] of Grant Parish, [[Louisiana]]
|term_start=1928
|term_end=April 21, 1936
|preceded=
|succeeded=
|birth_date=October 30, 1891
|birth_place=Colfax, Grant Parish
|death_date=April 21, 1936
|death_place=Grant Parish
|spouse=Lydia Ann Rosier Nugent
|children=Eleven children
|party= [[Democratic Party|Democrat]]
|occupation=Public official
|religion=[[Baptist]] }}
'''Wyatt Luther Nugent, Sr.''', also known as '''W. L. Nugent''' (October 30, 1891 – April 21, 1936), was a [[sheriff]] of [[Grant Parish, Louisiana|Grant Parish]] in north central [[Louisiana]], who with a deputy, Delmer Lee Brunson, was slain in the line of duty. The crime, stemming from a dispute over the enforcement of the state tick eradication law, is still considered the worst in Grant Parish history. Nugent, a [[Democratic Party|Democrat]], had been elected to a third term in the [[general election]] held on the day he was slain.<ref name=nugent>{{cite web|url=http://www.libertychapelcemetery.org/files/sheriff.html|title=Sheriff Wyatt Luther Nugent, Deputy Delmer Lee Brunson [Killed]|publisher=Libertychapelcemetery.org|accessdate=January 15, 2011}}</ref>
==Background==
A former Grant Parish clerk of court,<ref name=nugent/> Sheriff Nugent was the son of Matthew Columbus Nugent (1868–1955) and the former Lucy E. Walker (1873–1909). He was married to the former Lydia Ann Rosier (1895–1976), daughter of Dan E. Rosier. The couple had eleven children,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.libertychapelcemetery.org/files/family/nugent1.html|title=Nugent Families of Liberty Chapel/Grant Parish|publisher=libertychapelcemetery.org|accessdate=January 15, 2011}}</ref> deceased sons and daughters, Herschel, Herman, Harold, John, Lucy Hargis, Thelma King, Doris McGinty, and Frances N. Petrus (1927-2014), and surviving sons, as of July 2014, W. L., Jr., Herbert, and O. D. "Pop" Nugent.<ref name=fnpobit>{{cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/shreveporttimes/obituary.aspx?n=frances-nugent-petrus&pid=171817799&fhid=10218|title=Frances Nugent Petrus|publisher=''The Shreveport Times''|accessdate=July 25, 2014}}</ref>
Frances Petrus was the widow of Alfred Joseph Petrus (1920-2009), a superintendent of water distribution for his native [[Shreveport]] prior to a political and legal dispute in 1977 with then Public Utilities Commissioner [[Billy Guin]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.leagle.com/decision/19791394378So2d1016_11202.xml/PETRUS%20v.%20GUIN|title=Petrus v. Guin|date=December 3, 1979|publisher=leagle.com|accessdate=July 24, 2014}}</ref> Thereafter, Petrus worked in the private sector and was a long-term champion of veterans causes.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ktbs.com/story/22370499/alfred-joseph-petrus|title=Alfred Joseph Petrus|publisher=[[KTBS-TV]]|date=January 2009|accessdate=July 25, 2014}}</ref>
==Details of the slayings==
Nugent and Brunson were killed by Walter Johnson (born c. 1894), a farmer from the Aloha community, who was charged with double murder. After the murders, Johnson fled into the dense Lake Iatt swamp. Sam Johnson, Walter Johnson's 84-year-old father, was taken from Colfax, the parish seat of government , to an undisclosed place of incarceration and held under a $1,900 appearance bond as a material witness in the case. Louisiana state police and local law enforcement officers, armed with guns, tear gas, bombs, and bloodhounds, combed the wooded area where Walter Johnson fled.<ref name=nugent/>
The two Johnsons claimed that dipping cattle causes the animals to become ill. Sheriff Nugent came to serve an order from the 8th Judicial District Court upon Walter Johnson to compel him to have his animals dipped. Nugent and two other officers then began loading some of Johnson's cattle onto a truck to transport them to the dipping vat. Perched in a wooded area, Walter Johnson fired on the officers with a rifle. Brunson and Nugent were found an hour later. The Grant Parish coroner, Dr. J. H. Sandifer, determined that the pair was killed by No. 6 buckshot slugs fired from a shotgun. Walter Johnson was thought to have used a .30-.30 caliber rifle. It was then believed that Johnson had two weapons.<ref name=nugent/>
Bloodhounds brought from the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in West Feliciana Parish failed to pursue Johnson's trail because of heavy rains the previous night. The search was directed by Brigadier-General Louis F. Guerre, the commander of the Louisiana state police. Area sheriffs, including [[U. T. Downs]] of Rapides Parish, Bryant Sholars of Winn Parish, and [[Henderson Jordan]], who had two years earlier participated in the capture of the bank bandits and murderers [[Bonnie and Clyde]] in his own Bienville Parish, headed posses of local citizens in searches of the region. The men found Johnson's truck near the scene of the shooting. Bloodhounds were unable to pick up the trail thereafter. The crime occurred after months of controversy between certain cattlemen and officers over enforcement of the tick eradication law.<ref name=nugent/> When finally captured, Walter Johnson was taken to a jail outside Grant Parish because of the fear that a mob might try to kill him. He was presumably executed though the author could not find the final disposition of the case.
Nugent died of two shots to the head; Brunson, of three shots to the body. A joint funeral was held for the officers at the First [[Southern Baptist|Baptist]] Church of Colfax, with the pastor, the Reverend D. L. Goodman officiating. The funeral party then traveled to Bethel Chapel Cemetery where Brunson, who was a deputy throughout Nugent's tenure as sheriff, was buried. Nugent was then interred at the Liberty Chapel Cemetery in the Williana Community in Grant Parish.<ref name=nugent/>
==Women sheriffs in Louisiana==
For a time after his death, Mrs. Lydia Nugent by appointment succeeded her husband as sheriff of Grant Parish.<ref name=fnpobit/> Similarly, four years later in 1940, after the death of Sheriff [[Eugene Campbell]] of Concordia Parish, his widow, Darlene Fuchs Campbell, served as sheriff until her own death eighteen months later on July 25, 1941.<ref>"Mrs. Campbell Died Yesterday: Splendid Lady of Vidalia Called by Death, Buried Yesterday", ''The Natchez Democrat'', Natchez, [[Mississippi]], July 26, 1941.</ref> No woman was elected sheriff in Louisiana until 1999, when Beth Oakley Lundy, a Democrat, won the position in Calcasieu Parish, which includes [[Lake Charles]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.reocities.com/vbenson_2000/sheriffs.htm|title=First Woman Sheriffs in the United States of America|publisher=reocities.com|accessdate=July 25, 2014}}</ref> with 51.5 percent of the vote cast in the [[nonpartisan blanket primary]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://staticresults.sos.la.gov/10231999/10231999_10.html|title=Election returns: Calcasieu Parish, October 23, 1999|publisher=staticresults.sos.la.gov|accessdate=July 25, 2014}}</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nugent, Wyatt Luther}}
[[Category:Louisiana People]]
[[Category:Sheriffs]]
[[Category:Democrats]]
[[Category:Baptists]]
|name= Wyatt Luther Nugent, Sr.
|office= [[Sheriff]] of Grant Parish, [[Louisiana]]
|term_start=1928
|term_end=April 21, 1936
|preceded=
|succeeded=
|birth_date=October 30, 1891
|birth_place=Colfax, Grant Parish
|death_date=April 21, 1936
|death_place=Grant Parish
|spouse=Lydia Ann Rosier Nugent
|children=Eleven children
|party= [[Democratic Party|Democrat]]
|occupation=Public official
|religion=[[Baptist]] }}
'''Wyatt Luther Nugent, Sr.''', also known as '''W. L. Nugent''' (October 30, 1891 – April 21, 1936), was a [[sheriff]] of [[Grant Parish, Louisiana|Grant Parish]] in north central [[Louisiana]], who with a deputy, Delmer Lee Brunson, was slain in the line of duty. The crime, stemming from a dispute over the enforcement of the state tick eradication law, is still considered the worst in Grant Parish history. Nugent, a [[Democratic Party|Democrat]], had been elected to a third term in the [[general election]] held on the day he was slain.<ref name=nugent>{{cite web|url=http://www.libertychapelcemetery.org/files/sheriff.html|title=Sheriff Wyatt Luther Nugent, Deputy Delmer Lee Brunson [Killed]|publisher=Libertychapelcemetery.org|accessdate=January 15, 2011}}</ref>
==Background==
A former Grant Parish clerk of court,<ref name=nugent/> Sheriff Nugent was the son of Matthew Columbus Nugent (1868–1955) and the former Lucy E. Walker (1873–1909). He was married to the former Lydia Ann Rosier (1895–1976), daughter of Dan E. Rosier. The couple had eleven children,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.libertychapelcemetery.org/files/family/nugent1.html|title=Nugent Families of Liberty Chapel/Grant Parish|publisher=libertychapelcemetery.org|accessdate=January 15, 2011}}</ref> deceased sons and daughters, Herschel, Herman, Harold, John, Lucy Hargis, Thelma King, Doris McGinty, and Frances N. Petrus (1927-2014), and surviving sons, as of July 2014, W. L., Jr., Herbert, and O. D. "Pop" Nugent.<ref name=fnpobit>{{cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/shreveporttimes/obituary.aspx?n=frances-nugent-petrus&pid=171817799&fhid=10218|title=Frances Nugent Petrus|publisher=''The Shreveport Times''|accessdate=July 25, 2014}}</ref>
Frances Petrus was the widow of Alfred Joseph Petrus (1920-2009), a superintendent of water distribution for his native [[Shreveport]] prior to a political and legal dispute in 1977 with then Public Utilities Commissioner [[Billy Guin]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.leagle.com/decision/19791394378So2d1016_11202.xml/PETRUS%20v.%20GUIN|title=Petrus v. Guin|date=December 3, 1979|publisher=leagle.com|accessdate=July 24, 2014}}</ref> Thereafter, Petrus worked in the private sector and was a long-term champion of veterans causes.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ktbs.com/story/22370499/alfred-joseph-petrus|title=Alfred Joseph Petrus|publisher=[[KTBS-TV]]|date=January 2009|accessdate=July 25, 2014}}</ref>
==Details of the slayings==
Nugent and Brunson were killed by Walter Johnson (born c. 1894), a farmer from the Aloha community, who was charged with double murder. After the murders, Johnson fled into the dense Lake Iatt swamp. Sam Johnson, Walter Johnson's 84-year-old father, was taken from Colfax, the parish seat of government , to an undisclosed place of incarceration and held under a $1,900 appearance bond as a material witness in the case. Louisiana state police and local law enforcement officers, armed with guns, tear gas, bombs, and bloodhounds, combed the wooded area where Walter Johnson fled.<ref name=nugent/>
The two Johnsons claimed that dipping cattle causes the animals to become ill. Sheriff Nugent came to serve an order from the 8th Judicial District Court upon Walter Johnson to compel him to have his animals dipped. Nugent and two other officers then began loading some of Johnson's cattle onto a truck to transport them to the dipping vat. Perched in a wooded area, Walter Johnson fired on the officers with a rifle. Brunson and Nugent were found an hour later. The Grant Parish coroner, Dr. J. H. Sandifer, determined that the pair was killed by No. 6 buckshot slugs fired from a shotgun. Walter Johnson was thought to have used a .30-.30 caliber rifle. It was then believed that Johnson had two weapons.<ref name=nugent/>
Bloodhounds brought from the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in West Feliciana Parish failed to pursue Johnson's trail because of heavy rains the previous night. The search was directed by Brigadier-General Louis F. Guerre, the commander of the Louisiana state police. Area sheriffs, including [[U. T. Downs]] of Rapides Parish, Bryant Sholars of Winn Parish, and [[Henderson Jordan]], who had two years earlier participated in the capture of the bank bandits and murderers [[Bonnie and Clyde]] in his own Bienville Parish, headed posses of local citizens in searches of the region. The men found Johnson's truck near the scene of the shooting. Bloodhounds were unable to pick up the trail thereafter. The crime occurred after months of controversy between certain cattlemen and officers over enforcement of the tick eradication law.<ref name=nugent/> When finally captured, Walter Johnson was taken to a jail outside Grant Parish because of the fear that a mob might try to kill him. He was presumably executed though the author could not find the final disposition of the case.
Nugent died of two shots to the head; Brunson, of three shots to the body. A joint funeral was held for the officers at the First [[Southern Baptist|Baptist]] Church of Colfax, with the pastor, the Reverend D. L. Goodman officiating. The funeral party then traveled to Bethel Chapel Cemetery where Brunson, who was a deputy throughout Nugent's tenure as sheriff, was buried. Nugent was then interred at the Liberty Chapel Cemetery in the Williana Community in Grant Parish.<ref name=nugent/>
==Women sheriffs in Louisiana==
For a time after his death, Mrs. Lydia Nugent by appointment succeeded her husband as sheriff of Grant Parish.<ref name=fnpobit/> Similarly, four years later in 1940, after the death of Sheriff [[Eugene Campbell]] of Concordia Parish, his widow, Darlene Fuchs Campbell, served as sheriff until her own death eighteen months later on July 25, 1941.<ref>"Mrs. Campbell Died Yesterday: Splendid Lady of Vidalia Called by Death, Buried Yesterday", ''The Natchez Democrat'', Natchez, [[Mississippi]], July 26, 1941.</ref> No woman was elected sheriff in Louisiana until 1999, when Beth Oakley Lundy, a Democrat, won the position in Calcasieu Parish, which includes [[Lake Charles]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.reocities.com/vbenson_2000/sheriffs.htm|title=First Woman Sheriffs in the United States of America|publisher=reocities.com|accessdate=July 25, 2014}}</ref> with 51.5 percent of the vote cast in the [[nonpartisan blanket primary]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://staticresults.sos.la.gov/10231999/10231999_10.html|title=Election returns: Calcasieu Parish, October 23, 1999|publisher=staticresults.sos.la.gov|accessdate=July 25, 2014}}</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nugent, Wyatt Luther}}
[[Category:Louisiana People]]
[[Category:Sheriffs]]
[[Category:Democrats]]
[[Category:Baptists]]