NEW IBERIA, La. (AP) - A 60-year-old man arrested in Missouri is the suspect in a 2008 murder of a 61-year-old woman strangled in her New Iberia home, the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office said.
Sheriff Louis Ackal told The Daily Iberian (http://bit.ly/1AdwQy6) that Keith Leleux, of Forsyth, Missouri, will be charged with first-degree murder and awaits extradition in the death of Judy Landry, who was found strangled on July 1, 2008.
"They're going to get him and bring him back to Louisiana," Ackal said.
Ackal said he was pleased with the arrest because the case has haunted him throughout the years and occurred as he was being sworn into his first term as sheriff. "I still go to bed thinking about this case," he said.
Leleux was arrested Nov. 20 in Forsyth on a charge of second-degree domestic assault in an unrelated case and was being held on $25,000 bond, according to Taney County Sheriff Jimmie Russell.
Russell said Ackal's office reached out to him after Leleux's arrest there. Neither he nor Ackal indicated what led them to link Leleux to the Landry case.
Leleux's bond was removed per the upgraded charges and extradition notice and will remain in police custody, Russell said.
According to reports from 2008, Landry's husband, Edmond Landry, found his wife with zip ties tightened around her neck when he returned home from work. Edmond Landry said he cut those ties in an attempt to save his wife, but to no avail.
Authorities struggled to determine the manner of death because of inconclusive DNA tests on those zip ties, but the positioning of ligature marks on Judy Landry's neck helped lead Ackal to the conclusion of homicide. Though Edmond Landry was initially considered as a suspect, the Sheriff's Office hadn't turned up any evidence to substantiate that suspicion.