Dawn Bailey composed herself as she recalled a day she’d give anything to erase, and the agony it’s caused her.
“My son was over there in the water – found in a ditch,” Bailey said.
Dec. 17 will mark three years since the 2021 murder of Ellington Lockett, affectionately nicknamed AL by those who knew him best. The Boutte man was 31.
His body was found near the 100 block of Spruce Street in a drainage canal. An autopsy revealed he had been stabbed to death.
The case remains unsolved, and Bailey remains without sense of closure.
“I came home from work and I didn’t see him. My other children had seen him the day before, but not that day,” Bailey said. “And he’s an adult, he doesn’t have to come back home if he doesn’t want to … but then it happened again, and I felt ‘oh, no there’s something wrong.’”
Bailey called the police to report Lockett as missing. As she spoke to a dispatcher, her neighbor overheard the conversation and called to Bailey.“She’d found the handkerchief he wears on his head (by the ditch),” Bailey said. “And I sent my other son to look and … it was awful,” Bailey said. “Sure enough, my son was in the water.
“It’s not right. Somebody took my son’s life.”
Lockett had last been seen a few days earlier on Dec. 14 of 2021. He was reported to be seen twice that day – in the morning, riding his bicycle on Magnolia Avenue toward Highway 90, then that night when detectives believe he was headed to South Kinler to retrieve his bicycle.
Bailey said she’s called St. Charles Parish investigators regularly for updates, but that nothing has developed.
“Last month, I called and asked how far they’d come along in the investigation, then I said I’d like to know everything,” she said. “They told me they can’t do that, because it’s still an open case. Somebody has to know something. Three years, it’s gonna be three years on Dec. 17.”
Bailey said her son was a humble person who went out of his way to help others.
“When people wouldn’t see him, he’d do something to make people see him,” said Bailey. “Whoever needed help, he’d raise his hand and say ‘I’ll help.’”
Emotionally, she says, it hasn’t gotten easier.
“It’s very difficult,” she said. “I took leave from work for about a month after it happened. After that, I know I have to go on with my life, I know I have to pay my bills. But it’s hard. It’s still hard.”
