Willie Waggonner

William Edward Waggonner, usually known as W. E. "Willie" Waggonner (August 7, 1905 – May 9, 1976), was from 1948 until his death in office the sheriff of Bossier Parish in northwestern Louisiana. A native and resident of Plain Dealing near the Arkansas state line, he was the older brother of U.S. Representative Joseph David "Joe D." Waggonner, Jr., who held Louisiana's 4th congressional district seat from 1961 to 1979.^[1]

Role as sheriff

The son of Joseph David Waggonner, Sr. (1873-1950) and the former Elizzibeth Johnston (1882-1957),^[2] Waggonner was a deputy under Sheriff Louis H. Padgett, Sr., from 1936 to 1948, when he was elected sheriff at the time that Earl Kemp Long returned to the Louisiana governorship after an absence of eight years. Waggonner was a president of the Louisiana Sheriff's Association and a member of the Louisiana Peace Officers and the National Sheriff's associations. He was affiliated too with the Masonic lodge, Lions International, and the Chamber of Commerce.^[1]

Early in 1954, The Shreveport Times published a picture by its chief photographer, H. Langston McEachern, entitled, "The Sheriff Weeps", depicting a heartbroken Waggonner mourning the deaths of two law-enforcement officers. One of Waggonner's deputies, Maurice M. Miller (1912-1954) was shot to death when he confronted a suspect, Ed "Man" West (1918-1954) in West's residence in Taylortown in Bossier Parish. West then shot to death Shreveport Police Chief Edward Gaston Huckabay (1906-1954), when Huckabay attempted to retrieve Miller's body. Other officers then killed West.^{[3] [4]}

On December 5, 1959, Waggonner was handily reelected as sheriff in the same election in which his brother, Joe Waggonner, was an unsuccessful candidate for Louisiana state comptroller against eventual winner Roy R. Theriot. Willie Waggonner defeated fellow Democrat Joe B. Mason, an Arkansas native, by a five-to-one margin.^[5]

In 1967, Waggonner, along with his chief deputy and subsequent successor as sheriff, Vol Dooley, were accused of collusion with then Judge O. E. Price and District Attorney Louis H. Padgett, Jr. of the 26th Judicial District (the son of the sheriff whom Waggonner had succeeded to the office) to rig the double murder trial of rodeo star Jack Favor. Favor was falsely accused of shooting to death an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Richey, who operated a bait and tackle business near Haughton in south Bossier Parish. Waggonner believed the false testimony of Favor's accuser, Floyd Edward Cumbey.^[6] After his conviction was overturned Favor sued for wrongful conviction and imprisonment but settled for $55,000.^[7] The actor Robert Norsworthy, under the fictitious name "Sheriff Gerker," played Waggonner in the 1998 television movie, Still Holding On: The Legend of Cadillac Jack.^[8]

On February 1, 1968, Waggonner hired Wilbert Anderson, the first African-American deputy sheriff in Bossier Parish. Anderson was also the first black licensed bail bondsman in the parish. He retired as the first black detective in the department.^[9]

In 1973, outgoing Mayor George Nattin of Bossier City was charged by a grand jury under District Attorney Charles A. Marvin of three counts of public bribery. Waggonner booked Nattin, his son, George Nattin, Jr., and three other suspects but refused to fingerprint them or take their mug shots.^[10] Ultimately, Nattin was acquitted of two charges, and a third was dropped.^[11]

Death

Waggonner died at the age of seventy at his home of an apparent heart attack, the fourth that he had sustained in the last part of his life. He and his wife, the former Nell Evans (1907-1989), had a daughter, Jacqueline Waggonner Gore, known as Jack Gore (born 1940), the widow of the farmer Odie Lee "Sonny" Gore, Jr. (1940-2016), also of Plain Dealing, who died from complications of a tractor accident.^[12] Sheriff Waggonner had a sister since deceased, Mrs. Susie W. Carroll of Dickinson in Galveston County, Texas. He was preceded in death by a second brother, Johnnie J. Waggonner (1908-1968). Services were held at the First Baptist Church of Plain Dealing, with interment in the family plot at Plain Dealing Cemetery. One of his pallbearers, James L. Cathey, Jr., was a former deputy who served as the mayor of Bossier City from 1973 to 1977.^[1]

See also

• Larry Deen, Bossier Parish sheriff from 1988 to 2012

References