Stepfather Leads Authorities to Body of 12-Year-Old Courtney LeBlanc
Authorities are waiting for autopsy results to determine the cause of death in the murder of 12-year-old Courtney LeBlanc. WAFB's Carmen Izzo spoke with the mother of Courtney's stepfather Wednesday morning. Gerald Bordelon has been charged with first degree murder and his mother says that since the day Courtney was reported missing she had a gut feeling that her son was involved. She also says she built a close relationship with Courtney and that she will not be able to forgive her son if he is guilty of killing Courtney.
Gerald Bordelon is being held without bond in the East Baton Rouge Parish prison. Detectives say Bordelon led them to her body Tuesday evening, in a wooded area near the Amite River. Courtney had been missing for almost two weeks.
We first broke the story last week that Gerald Bordelon is a convicted sex offender from 1990. He raped a young girl and made her perform oral sex on him. A few days ago Bordelon told WAFB's Greg Meriwether about living with courtney and her younger sister and he says he tried to avoid the search spotlight for the sake of the very girl that deputies say he killed. Bordelon said, "That's why I've been avoiding the spotlight. For Courtney's sake. I don't want her to think I was there if she was thinking about coming back."
Courtney's mom, Jennifer Bordelon, said she did not suspect the stepfather to have any hand in her daughter's disappearance and she told WAFB's Carmen Izzo that even after he allegedly molested courtney months ago--Courtney still relied on him as an adult figure and wasn't afraid of him.
Hours after Courtney's body was found Jennifer told Carmen Izzo that she didn't have the strength to speak out yet. She said she's had her share of tears in the last 10 days but has really held up as everyone helped look for Courtney.
But the woman who's really blaming herself is Jennifer's good friend Lana. She's the family friend who dropped Courtney off at the 12-year old's request that night at her mobile home thinking the child would be okay while her mom was at the hospital with a family emergency. As Lana literally wept on Carmen Izzo's shoulder tuesday night following the discovery of courtney's body, she says she feels so guilty knowing she was the last one to see her alive...aside from Gerald Bordelon.
Lana sparked the local search team to look for courtney and those volunteers came to the scene one by one Tuesday night, devastated. Volunteer searcher Mac McNeil said, "We searched real hard and I want to thank all the people who helped us. I was a volunteer and went to the church and I have kids and can imagine what the family is going through. As I know this wasn't one of the areas that was searched--part of it was--it's a spot we were planning to search this weekend. It's hard to put it into words--we were hoping to find her alive."
