I couldn't stop for any local opinions in Ida, but I did pick up a copy of the local Shreveport-Bossier crime tabloid, The Inquisitor (motto: "If you don't want it printed, Don't let it happen!")
As I said, it's a weekly crime tabloid. The print all (all!) the local police and jail bookings, with mug shots. They love nothing more than when a local celebrity gets busted, and they are absolutely tenacious bulldogs about local political corruption.
As expected, it was their #1 story. The front page headlines:
LOCAL ATTORNEY
GUNNED DOWN
BY ARKANSAS DEPUTY!
WAS HE LURED ACROSS STATE LINE?
SHOCKING INQUISITOR PROBE REVEALS INCIDENT
COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED!
It's a long article, 50 column inches. They don't have an online presence except for subscribers (full $52 a year for online access to their stories), and I'm not going to scan the article or transcribe the whole thing, so here are selected quotes (in bold) and my comments (in italics):
The land was indeed in dispute, and the Arkansas/Louisiana question is still unsettled (at least to me). The land where he was killed was not his, it belonged to another local attorney named Alan Stegall. Morneau had permission from Stegall to hunt that land, but a local hunting club, the Clements-Story Hunting Club, had an adjoining lease and that's where the boundary dispute arose.
The misdemeanor warrant was being served by one Miller County deputy and three Arkansas game wardens.
Evidence uncovered Wednesday suggests that Morneau was lured across the state line by someone who called him and requested him to go out into the woods on Sunday.
...
Miller County Sherfiff's Lt. Duke Schofield says his deputy fired a single shot from a rifle.
Morneau, who for years wore his western-style gun belt and holsters in public, never discharged his weapons, and neither did the game wardens, according to Schofield.
...
Morneau's stepson, Joe Ebarb, said Morneau went to church on Sunday and sang in the choir and even served as an usher at the Catholic church in Vivian. He said he was in a great mood that day and enjoyed spending time at his country home near Ida when he heard four-wheelers in a wooded area behind his home, where he had permission to hunt. He said Morneau went to investigate it because about two weeks prior he had an encounter with a local hunting club over a property dispute.
There follows a long exchange between the reporter and Lt. Schofield, about why the MCSO didn't get Caddo Parish to serve the warrant, or simply notify Morneau about the warrant and seek his cooperation. Schofield "would bet my career on it" that there can be no interstate extradition for misdemeanors, so the reporter called CPSO, who said of course they could extradite for misdemeanors. When presented with this, Schofield refused to talk any more, so the reporter called the Miller County deputy prosecutor, Carlton Jones, who also confirmed that they could extradite for a misdemeanor warrant.
On Wednesday of this week, after The Inquisitor made a public records request with the Caddo Parish Sheriff's Office for documents related to any complaints that Morneau had made in the past few months regarding property disputes and trespassers on his land, a letter to Caddo Parish Sheriff Steve Prator from Morneau surfaced. The letter was written and mailed, according to the postmark, on Friday, just two days before he was gunned down by the Arkansas deputy.
In the letter Morneau expressed concerns that someone was attempting to lure him "into a trap."
Police complaints filed with the Caddo Parish Sheriff's Office indicates Morneau had been having a land dispute with the Clements-Story Hunting Club out of Fouke, Ark.
...
The reports state that Morneau told deputies that someone had bulldozed fences down on the property when Morneau was at church. It also indicates that Morneau had been in contact with Louisiana Wildlife Agent Frank Reger, who apparently used a GPS to locate the Arkansas-Louisiana line for Morneau.
Two letters were mailed by Morneau to Sheriff Prator in September, which were dated Sept. 24 and Sept. 28.
The article then quotes the letter of October 8, where Morneau informs the sheriff that his no trespassing signs had been torn down, and replaced with new signs at the southern line of the disputed property. He also received a phone call from someone who claimed to have had a falling out with the hunting club, and told him where to find a hunting blind that had been stolen from Morneau, and suggested it would be easy for Morneau to go get it. The name and phone number used by the caller were fake.
(quoting the letter) "...So it appears that they were trying to lure me into a trap. This is not the first time. They tried it last year. It appears that they are going to continue trying to provoke a fight where they will have the upper hand. They will be back this coming Sunday with a new and more extreme effort to provoke a fight. Eventually, they are likely to try something in or around my home."
Morneau concludes his letter stating, "This has got to stop. The situation will continue to escalate until it ends in a violent confrontation. We have both seen this happen."
The reported contacted Lt. Schofield with this new information and asked if the officers lured Morneau across the state line. Schofield refused to answer any more questions, and said the sheriff was "out and gone" and wouldn't answer any questions either.
The hunting club lease-holder, Harold Clements, said they suspected Morneau would illegally gun-hunt the land on Sunday (opening day of gun season in Louisiana, but before gun season in Arkansas), and "I don't know how many times they had been down there waiting, trying to catch him. He was kind of hard to catch. We figured he would be in there on gun season."