Antoine Edmond Sr. lived on Magnolia Ridge Road in Boutte for 52 years before he vanished without a trace in what his son likens to something from a TV movie.
“It is bizarre,” his son, Antoine Edmond Jr., said.At the time of his disappearance, Edmond Sr. and his son lived together in a trailer in Boutte. The two were together in their home on Aug. 29, 2012 when Hurricane Isaac pummeled the parish.
Edmond Sr., who was 93 at the time of his disappearance, went missing the morning after Hurricane Isaac first made landfall and has not been seen or heard from since. At the time, he was believed to have been wearing a pair of blue jeans and a red t-shirt.
He was not wearing shoes.
Edmond Jr. said although his father had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, he was still very independent.
“He was very sharp in his memory. Sometimes he would forget something and sometimes he would go off and could not remember certain things. I don’t think it was that bad that he couldn’t remember who he was,” he said.
As soon as he found out his father was missing, Edmond Jr. called the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office for assistance. He also started his own search.
“I got on a bicycle and rode around in the community with my cousin Dwayne Simmons. We rode back in the community all along the wood line where we could look back in there and look back in people’s yards. We didn’t come up with nothing,” he said.
Edmond Sr. was a longtime hunter and fisherman, which leads his son to believe that he couldn’t have gotten lost in the woods behind his home. Still, the Sheriff’s Office searched the area and was unable to find any sign of Edmond Sr.
“The police searched the wood line. They had the dogs and everything in there and the dogs couldn’t get back in there because all of the downed tress. The water was too deep, so they waited a little while for the water to subside,” Edmond Jr. said. “I don’t believe my daddy hit them woods because we hunt all around here.”
Edmond Jr. said there is no evidence that his father passed away in the storm.
“I am willing to accept the fact that he is deceased, but with all of the hi-tech equipment today, if he was deceased they would have picked up some kind of trace of him. You ain’t’ found clothes, you ain’t found bones, you ain’t found nothing,” he said.
Besides the fact that there are no clues about what happened to his father, Edmond Jr. said it is hard for him to let go without seeing his father’s body one last time.
“I was there when we buried my mother, brothers and sisters. I know where they are,” he said. “I don’t know where he is. How would I feel if I gave up hope and then found out he was still alive?”
Deep down, Edmond Jr. thinks his father is still alive after all of this time.
“I believe somebody picked him up and I believe he is still living wherever he is. The Sheriff’s Office assisted me and they are working on it,” he said.
Anyone who has any information on Edmond Sr. is asked to contact Det. Brad Walsh with the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office at (985)783-6807.
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