On a summer evening in 2011, the life of 49-year-old Mary Jeanette Duhon, a female resident of Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, was tragically cut short. On June 5th, deputies from the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office were called to a residence on Rustic View Drive in Lake Charles, where they discovered that Duhon had been fatally shot. The investigation that followed painted a grim picture of domestic violence culminating in a deadly confrontation.
The prime suspect in Duhon's murder was identified as her estranged husband, Joe M. Constance. Investigators determined that Constance had forcibly entered his wife's home, where he confronted other individuals present while demanding to know her whereabouts. Upon locating Duhon in another part of the house, Constance shot and killed her before fleeing the scene. His abandoned truck was discovered on Fred Vail Road approximately half an hour after the shooting, but Constance himself was nowhere to be found.
In the aftermath of the murder, an extensive manhunt was launched involving the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office and numerous other local and state law enforcement agencies. Despite their efforts, Constance managed to evade capture and has remained a fugitive for over a decade. The charges against him are severe, including first-degree murder, two counts of aggravated assault, and aggravated burglary. In 2014, the case was elevated to the federal level when the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana issued a warrant for his arrest on a charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
Years later, law enforcement officials have reiterated their commitment to bringing Constance to justice and providing closure for Mary Jeanette Duhon's family. In a press briefing held ten years after the murder, both the Sheriff and the District Attorney of Calcasieu Parish stressed that they had not given up on the case. They announced that they were willing to offer immunity to anyone who might have assisted Constance in his flight from the law if they came forward with information that would lead to his capture. The search for Joe M. Constance, a white male with brown/gray hair and brown eyes, who has several tattoos and has been known to use multiple aliases, continues.
