In the summer of 1976, the vibrant life of James 'Jim' Leslie, a 38-year-old male journalist and public relations executive, was cut short in a professional hit. On the evening of July 9th, Leslie was fatally shot in the parking lot of the Prince Murat Hotel in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His murder came just hours after a significant political victory he had passionately worked for: the passing of a controversial 'right-to-work' bill in the State Legislature.
The celebration of this legislative success with colleagues would tragically be his last.
The investigation into Leslie's death quickly pointed towards a complex web of political corruption. Suspicion fell upon George D'Artois, the powerful Public Safety Commissioner of Shreveport, for whom Leslie had previously worked on a re-election campaign in 1974. It was alleged that D'Artois had attempted to pay Leslie for his campaign services with city funds, an illegal act that Leslie refused. Leslie had reportedly confided in a friend that he had been warned not to testify before a grand jury that was investigating corruption within D'Artois's department.
In August of 1976, George D'Artois was arrested in connection with Leslie's murder and was forced to resign from his office. However, he was initially released due to a lack of evidence. Another key suspect, a man with ties to D'Artois named Rusty Griffith, was identified as the potential triggerman. Complicating the investigation further, Griffith himself was killed a few months after Leslie's murder, in what some speculated was an effort to silence him and prevent him from blackmailing D'Artois.
D'Artois was arrested for a second time in April 1977 on first-degree murder charges related to Leslie's death. His trial, however, was repeatedly postponed due to his failing health. In June of that same year, D'Artois died on the operating table during open-heart surgery. With the deaths of the primary suspects, the case against them crumbled, and no one was ever convicted for the murder of Jim Leslie. The case remains officially unsolved, a dark chapter in Louisiana's political history. Decades later, cold case detectives have revisited the murder, spurred by new potential leads, offering a glimmer of hope that justice for Jim Leslie might one day be served.
