Louisiana murder suspect arrested near Cape Girardeau wanted in adopted daughter's death

A Louisiana man fleeing from authorities who suspect he shot his wife and adopted daughter was captured on Interstate 55 at Center Junction by the Missouri State Highway Patrol and Cape Girardeau police Tuesday evening.

The patrol received a call from Louisiana authorities who thought the man was northbound on I-55, said trooper Nathan Wheeles of Troop E Headquarters in Poplar Bluff, Mo.

A general dispatch call alerted troopers, who spotted the silver Dodge pickup near the Benton, Mo., exit and gave chase, Wheeles said.

The suspect led them north on I-55, joined by Cape Girardeau police, who used stop sticks at the Bloomfield Road overpass and again near Center Junction, Cape Girardeau police Sgt. Rick Price said at the scene. The truck spun into the median and was pointed south, but the driver continued to try to drive his disabled truck until it became stuck on the guardrail on the east side of the highway.

The man, who was alone, refused to exit the truck. Troopers smashed both side windows to gain entry and arrest him.

He was taken to the Cape Girardeau County Jail, said Cpl. Jason Selzer, spokesman for the Cape Girardeau Police Department.

According to Wheeles, the suspect was from St. Bernard Parish near New Orleans.

A news report on the website of the ABC network affiliate WGNO reports that about 5:15 a.m. Tuesday, deputies from the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Department were called to a home in Violet, La., where an 18-year-old woman was dead and an older woman had been shot in the face.

WGNO reported that the suspect, Charles Richardson, 50, left the scene in a silver Dodge pickup. The dead woman was his adopted daughter. The older woman was his wife.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that the adopted daughter, India Mahoney, a high school senior, was found dead at the scene and the wife, Elizabeth "Beth Marie" Richardson, was struck in the neck by a bullet. While at University Hospital in New Orleans, Elizabeth Richardson identified her attacker as her husband, The Times-Picayune reported. They had separated in September and Elizabeth Richardson had a restraining order against her husband, the newspaper reported, but had recently allowed Charles Richardson back into the home because of a kidney illness that made him unable to work.

rkeller@semissourian.com

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