Louisiana boy’s suspicious death leaves family asking if racial bias slowed police response
LOREAUVILLE, La. — The disappearance and mysterious death of a 15-year-old Black boy in rural Louisiana has left his family looking for answers and airing frustration at what they call local law enforcement’s failure to act in the hours after the boy vanished.
The body of Quawan “Bobby” Charles was found Nov. 3 in a sugar cane field near this tiny village about 25 miles north of his home. The Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office has said it is investigating the “suspicious circumstances” of Quawan’s death but has released few details since the boy went missing two weeks ago.
Quawan’s parents say the sheriff’s office told them that their son had drowned and water was found in his lungs. A preliminary autopsy report by the Iberia Parish coroner listed the cause of death as “likely drowning” with muddy water in his airways and hyperinflated lungs. The preliminary report indicated he did not have injuries before his death and the condition of his face was likely caused by “aquatic animals” while he was in the water, it read.
Quawan’s cousin Celina Charles on Wednesday called the drowning explanation “bogus.”
“His face says different,” Charles said. In a photo the family has published online, the teen appears so disfigured that his teeth are visible outside of his mouth. The family has ordered an independent autopsy.
Quawan’s parents reported his disappearance from his father’s home in Baldwin, La., on Oct. 30, according to family attorney Ron Haley. The Baldwin Police Department took a report, Haley said, but gave no indication over the next few days that they were searching for the teen or actively investigating his disappearance. Instead, they suggested Quawan might have gone to a football game and asked if the boy had a troubled past, he said.
Baldwin’s assistant police chief has not responded to calls from The Washington Post, and the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office referred questions to a last Tuesday news release stating its investigators “have interviewed multiple individuals and collected physical evidence which is being processed.”
Quawan’s family said they learned through a third party that a 17-year-old friend and his mother, Gavin and Janet Irvin, had picked up Quawan around 3 p.m. the day he went missing, while his father was at a store. Kenneth Jacko, Quawan’s father, said neither he nor Quawan’s mother knew the Irvins, who are White, and had not given them permission to take Quawan.
Jacko said Iberia Parish officers accompanied Quawan’s family to the Irvins’ home on Nov. 3 — four days after Quawan disappeared but before his body was found. Gavin confirmed the story, Jacko said, explaining that the boys had wanted to spend time together that day but that Quawan later left, alone.
“[Gavin] said Quawan got up and said he was leaving. [Gavin] asked about where Quawan was going, and after that, he disappeared,” Jacko said. Officers searched the Irvins’ home but did not find anything suspicious, Jacko said.
Later that day, police discovered Quawan’s body in a nearby field. The family has not heard from the Irvins since, Haley said.
The Post’s attempts to reach the Irvins by phone and at their home in a Loreauville trailer park on Wednesday were unsuccessful. A relative of the trailer park’s owner said the Irvins recently had been evicted, but he did not say why.
A spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office said she could not comment on whether investigators were communicating with the Irvins. No suspects have been named in the case, and it has not been designated a homicide.
“I want the lady who came to get my son without my permission, his dad’s permission, to be held accountable,” said Quawan’s mother, Roxanne Nelson, during a vigil for her son last week. “She took them to her house. He was alive and well when he was here, and now he is dead.”
