Louisiana authorities have made arrests in a 42-year-old murder case after a true crime podcast brought new attention to the unsolved killing of a teenage girl.
Roxanne Sharp, age 16, was found dead in wooded areas of St. Tammany Parish in 1982, approximately 30 miles north of New Orleans. The case remained cold for decades as investigators lacked sufficient evidence and struggled to find witnesses willing to speak.
The breakthrough came after Louisiana State Police partnered with a local media company to create “Who Killed Roxanne Sharp?” The six-episode podcast series, which aired last year, sparked renewed community interest and prompted witnesses to contact authorities.
State Police spokesperson Marc Gremillion explained how the podcast proved instrumental in solving the case.
“It helped our investigators piece together where Roxanne was days before to the time she died, to where we’re at now,” Gremillion said. “It was a very large help with getting that message out to the public, and then, therefore, those witnesses getting back to us.”
Authorities have now filed charges of aggravated rape and second-degree murder against four men in their 60s: Perry Wayne Taylor, 64; Darrell Dean Spell, 64; Carlos Cooper, 64; and Billy Williams, Jr., 62.
Two of the suspects, Cooper and Taylor, were already incarcerated on separate charges. Williams and Spell were taken into custody this week. According to Gremillion, Sharp knew all four men and was familiar with their neighborhood.
Sharp’s family expressed gratitude for the continued efforts to seek justice in the case.
“We appreciate the hard work and love that has been shown to Roxanne Sharp’s case,” said Michele Lappin, Sharp’s niece, speaking for the family. “We hope that with justice will come healing and closure for our family, her loved ones, and the community.”
Billy Williams III maintains his father’s innocence in the crime.
“He thinks they’re putting him in for something he didn’t do,” the younger Williams stated. “He says he would never in his life hurt anyone.”
Court records did not list legal representation for any of the accused men. Attempts to reach family members of the other three suspects were unsuccessful.
Charles Dowdy, vice president of Northshore Media, which created the podcast, was surprised by the community response.
“When we started the podcast, we kind of thought nobody cared — we were quickly corrected,” Dowdy said. “A lot of people stepped up and said they knew Roxanne, they remembered her, they were friends with her.”
During production, Dowdy documented investigators as they reconstructed the crime scene, using measuring equipment to mark where Sharp’s remains and evidence were discovered.
“It clearly showed that she’d been grabbed on the street and dragged into the woods,” Dowdy explained.
The investigation had previously taken a false turn when serial killer Henry Lucas confessed to Sharp’s murder. However, Lucas was notorious for fabricated confessions and later withdrew his statement. Additional evidence also ruled out his involvement.
Local resident Justin Joiner, 39, shared how the unsolved case affected the community for decades. His father, a Covington police officer who responded to the original crime scene, never stopped working on the case until his death last year.
“It’s been a big black cloud on the community,” Joiner explained. “Nobody would talk about it — it was hush, hush, you talk about it in your house, not in public.”
Joiner noted that the podcast encouraged open discussion about the case across different age groups in the community.
Covington Police Chief Michael Ferrell praised the persistent efforts that led to the arrests.
“Cold cases don’t close themselves,” Ferrell said in a statement. “They close because people show up, year after year, and refuse to quit. That is exactly what our agencies did, and today, Roxanne and her family finally have the justice they have waited so long for.”
