Retired Nicholls State University librarian and historian, Fran Middleton, is writing a new history on the 1927 murder of James LeBoeuf, which was the crime of the century for St. Mary Parish. A jury in 1929 found Ada LeBoeuf and her alleged lover, Dr. Thomas Dreher, guilty of the crime and as a result they were both executed. Ada LeBoeuf was the first woman hanged in Louisiana history. Despite receiving a life sentence for shooting the murder victim, local trapper and handyman, Jim Beadle, was released from Angola Prison in the 1940s. Fran Middleton provides new information on the case, while highlighting the media's age-old pattern in vilifying and sexualizing women in crime stories. We also learn more about Mrs. Dreher and the infamous "woman beyond the tracks," as well as Ada LeBoeuf as a person Beyond the Frocks and Gallows.
