Walthall County authorities are continuing their search for Dustin Broussard, who escaped custody Sunday while attending his grandmother’s wake at a Tylertown funeral home.
Sheriff Duane Dillon said Tuesday that Broussard, who was released from the Marion-Walthall County Regional Correctional Facility to attend the funeral, managed to elude the sheriff’s deputy who was guarding him and slip out through a side door at Hartman-Hughes Funeral Home while visiting with family.
Broussard and his wife, Alysha, left in Broussard’s mother’s car.
Dillon said this morning that tips have placed the couple in Canada and Mexico.
He said warrants have been issued for Alysha Broussard charging her with aiding and abetting a fugitive.
He indicated Tuesday that Broussard and his wife plotted the escape before the wake.
Broussard’s mother, Walthall County Circuit Clerk Pat Broussard, said she has no knowledge of any plan, “but the actions speak for themselves.
“If I had known he was going to escape, I would have left him in Marion County,” Pat Broussard said. “He would have never gone to my mother’s wake.”
She said her daughter-in-law came to her during the wake and asked for her car keys to get a different pair of shoes for Pat Broussard’s granddaughter. The child, Broussard said, is from her son’s first marriage.
She said Alysha Broussard later returned with the shoes.
“I assumed she had returned the keys,” Pat Broussard said. “I was wrong.”
Pat Broussard said her son remained in the funeral parlor for some time after her daughter-in-law returned. It was some time later when he was discovered missing.
“The deputy came in and asked, ‘Where’s Dustin?’ ” she said. “I said I had just seen him a minute ago. Then I saw the look on his face.
“There were a lot of people at the wake,” Pat Broussard said. “The funeral home was packed. It would have been very easy for someone to slip out. I don’t blame the deputy; it’s not his fault.”
Dustin Broussard was in jail awaiting a probation violation hearing for failure to make a court appearance at the time of his escape.
His mother said he has always been in and out of trouble since his youth. “Dustin is bipolar,” she said. “He wasn’t getting his medication while he was in jail.”
Broussard said it was his understanding that her son could not receive his medication while he was in the regional facility. She added he has been in jail twice before, but never tried to escape.
