Elderly suspect charged with 1984 cold-case murder of man found in Louisiana well

Authorities have arrested a 74-year-old man of allegedly murdering a man found in a well almost four decades ago in Louisiana.

On Oct. 28, the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force took Delwin Avard Sibley into custody at his home in Biloxi, Mississippi, KTBS-TV reported.

In 1986, a landowner discovered the skeletal remains in an old well in Sabine Parish, Louisiana. The victim’s identity was unknown, but in 2013 the Louisiana State University Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services Laboratory determined there were shotgun pellets embedded in the pelvic bones.

A possible connection was then made between the remains and Lester Rome, who reportedly survived a shotgun wound to the abdomen years before he was reported missing in Jefferson Parish in 1984, according to WLOX.

Last December, retired law enforcement officer and former district attorney’s office investigator Ted Delacerda contacted the Sabine Parish Sheriff’s Office and gave them photographs and news clippings related to the cold case, which was known as the “man in the well” investigation.

Four months later, detectives recovered additional evidence, including bone fragments, from the well, and the 58-year-old victim’s identity was definitively confirmed on Oct. 18.

According to KTBS-TV, detectives working the reenergized investigation over the past 10 months developed Sibley as their prime suspect.

Sibley has been charged with second-degree murder and is awaiting extradition from Mississippi to Louisiana.