Vitter's shadow

Some of the more compelling sport to be had during last year's governor's race was watching how many Republicans were willing to be seen at David Vitter campaign events. The supposition at the time was that a Governor Vitter would be in position back one of them as the successor to the Senate seat he would vacate. Turns out Vitter is leaving anyway. But not exactly by the way he had hoped. 

At the time, though, the Senatorial aspirant most conspicuously present at Vitter events was usually Charles Boustany. 

In the book, Murder in the Bayou — which will be released by Simon & Schuster’s Scribner imprint next week — investigative journalist Ethan Brown cites three anonymous sources claiming Republican Rep. Charles Boustany was a “client” of some of the murdered sex workers known as the “Jeff Davis 8.” The book also reveals that the motel where some of the victims did their sex work was run by Martin Guillory, a field representative for Boustany who goes by the nickname “Big G.”

Boustany, who is now running for U.S. Senate in Louisiana, denied the allegations to the author through a spokesman. Guillory, who ran the Boudreaux Inn from the late 1990s through the end of 2004, told the author he’d met “one or two” of the sex workers, as well as Frankie Richard, their pimp. But Guillory said he was unaware of any criminal activity taking place at the motel.

Between 2005 and 2009, the bodies of eight women were discovered in the canals and swamps surrounding the small town of Jennings in Louisiana’s Jefferson Davis Parish. The victims, whose murders remain unsolved, became known in the national media as the “Jeff Davis 8.”