Gennieve “Jean” Thompson Ashworth, 74, was a White woman who lived in Glenmora, Louisiana, where the summer morning of July 5, 2014, broke with the kind of quiet that makes sudden violence feel even louder. Just before dawn, deputies assigned to the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office Glenmora substation were dispatched to the 200 block of Freedom Road after a report came in of a person wounded by gunfire.
The call, authorities said, was relayed from the Oakdale Police Department after a man identified as Rodney Thompson, 52, of Pitkin, walked into that department and reported that a shooting had taken place.
When deputies arrived, the home did not open to them. Investigators said they made forced entry, and inside they found an elderly female suffering from a gunshot wound. The sheriff’s office described the response as an active investigation from the outset, with deputies and detectives working the scene, and the man who had come forward at Oakdale quickly becoming the focus. In the small hours after the discovery, the case moved from a reported shooting to a homicide investigation, with the victim’s death recorded as having occurred in the days immediately following the incident.
As information solidified, the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office publicly identified the arrestee as Rodney Thompson and stated that his charges were upgraded to first-degree murder. They reported he was being held at the Rapides Parish Detention Center without bond, and they emphasized that the investigation was still ongoing, declining to release additional details at that time.
