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Noah Webster Cross (October 3, 1908 – November 22, 1976)^[1] was a controversial Democratic sheriff from Ferriday in Concordia Parish in eastern Louisiana, who served from July 1, 1944 until July 1948 and again from July 1952 until April 4, 1973, when a conviction for perjury and a failed appeal forced him into federal prison. Cross was succeeded by Fred L. Schiele,^[2] a former member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, who was appointed by Governor Edwin Washington Edwards, pending a special election, to fill the remainder of Cross' term. Schiele had run unsuccessfully in the 1967 primary against Cross.^[3] At the time of his resignation, Cross was the senior sheriff in Louisiana in terms of service.^[4]

Background and family

Cross was born in Monterey in Concordia Parish to Marsalin Gillis Cross and the former Lydia Catherine Wilson. He attended Ferriday High School and Louisiana Tech University. He married the former Iola May Denham (February 28, 1910 – July 23, 1997)^[2] of Baton Rouge,^[5] Cross began his career in 1927 with the William Campbell Nabors Oil Company. Iola Cross was an English teacher at Ferriday High School. The couple had three daughters: Diane Brakinridge, Kay Faulkner, and Lydia C. Wilson^[5] (born August 23, 1950).^[6]

Lydia Wilson, named for her paternal grandmother Lydia C. Wilson, is the widow of Roger Wayne "Butch" Wilson (1948–2006), a Wisner native and a 40-year law enforcement officer who began his service as a deputy to his future father-in-law, Noah Cross. Wilson was also the chief of police for eight years in Ferriday and was thereafter a deputy under Sheriffs Schiele (1973–1980) and Hubert Lee McGlothin (1984–1990).^[7]

Cross was a member of the Sevier Memorial United Methodist Church in Ferriday. He was also affiliated with the Masonic lodge.^[5]

Cross as sheriff

Cross was first elected sheriff in 1944, when Jimmie Davis won the first of his two nonconsecutive terms as governor. Cross was, nevertheless, unseated in 1948 by his predecessor, Hartwell Love. That year Earl Kemp Long was elected to the first of his two full terms as governor. Cross then unseated Love in January 1952 in the runoff election which propelled Robert F. Kennon of Minden to the state's highest constitutional office.^[8]

In January 1972, days prior to the February 1 general election in which Edwin Edwards defeated Republican David C. Treen for governor of Louisiana, a federal grand jury in Alexandria in Rapides Parish in Central Louisiana, began investigating Cross.^[9] On May 6, Cross was convicted on two counts of perjury for having lied to a grand jury about his acceptance of bribes to protect prostitution and gambling in Concordia Parish. The case was prompted by the padlocking on orders of District Attorney William C. Falkenheiner of the former Morville Lounge, operated by Curt Hewitt, who had come to Concordia Parish from St. Landry Parish, where he had owned the Peppermint Lounge and paid bribes there to Sheriff Cat Doucet.^[10]

In Cross's trial before U.S. District Judge Nauman Scott of Alexandria, two bar operators testified that they made weekly payments to either Cross or the Concordia chief deputy to keep from being arrested. J. D. Richardson, one of the bar operators, testified that Cross was paid $200 per month to allow the bar to operate. Cross denied ever having taken the money. He faced four years in prison and a $10,000 fine. His conviction came the Saturday before the Tuesday, May 9, inauguration in Baton Rouge of Edwin Edwards as governor.^[11]

After the perjury conviction, Cross was charged with jury tampering and obstruction of justice. In June 1972, Cross petitioned for a new trial, a month before he took office for his seventh nonconsecutive term as sheriff.^[12] In a second trial in Alexandria in January, 1973, Cross was again found guilty of perjury.^[13] In March 1973, he filed a motion for an appeal.^[14] The request for an appeal was rejected by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.^[4] Cross then changed his plea to guilty in the jury tampering case. Judge Scott ordered him to report to U.S. marshals in Shreveport for transportation to federal prison on April 16, 1973.^[4]

Cross then resigned as sheriff to enter the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana, Texas.^[15] He faced six years after the second trial.^[16]

Cross was ultimately released from prison after serving less than half of the sentence. He was a member of the Louisiana and national sheriff's associations. A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography credits him with having modernized operations of the sheriff's department.^[5][17] Cross died thereafter in Ferriday at the age of sixty-eight.^[3] He is interred at Natchez City Cemetery in nearby Natchez, Mississippi.^[1]

Though he was known for longevity in office, Cross was not the longest-serving Concordia Parish sheriff: that designation went to Eugene P. Campbell, who served from 1908 until his death in office on January 30, 1940.

Deputy Frank DeLaughter

A Cross deputy, Frank Edward DeLaughter (July 4, 1927 – October 30, 1996), received a sentence of one year in 1972 for racketeering and for violating the civil rights of Cliff Davis of Ferriday, who was beaten to death in the parish jail; the sentences were served concurrently. Known for his large physical size and his abuse of African Americans and his dealings with parish bars, houses of prostitution and gambling during the 1960s, DeLaughter claimed to have been reformed after his release, but he was never again allowed to work in law enforcement, in which he had fifteen years of experience, or even to carry a firearm.^[18]

DeLaughter told FBI agents that Sheriff Cross sent him to the Morville Lounge brothel south of Vidalia to pick up an envelope, which he never opened but presumably contained cash. DeLaughter long claimed to have taken the fall for Cross. During the 1960s, the Marcellos, an organized crime family from New Orleans, controlled much of the gambling, prostitution, and liquor rackets in Concordia Parish.^[18]

DeLaughter sought a second trial in the Davis case when he claimed to have found a physician who treated Davis on the night of the incident and would testify that Davis had no life-threatening condition, only loosened front teeth and two lacerations on the scalp. Prosecutors claimed that DeLaughter had switched victims, and he never obtained a retrial. He also appealed the U.S. District Court conviction on the grounds that the trial judge gave erroneous instructions to the jury. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans denied the motion. Cross's sentence was identical in time to that of DeLaughter but based on his guilty plea to perjury.^[18]

DeLaughter had close ties with the Ku Klux Klan, specifically the Silver Dollar Group. According to circumstantial evidence in FBI reports, DeLaughter may have been involved in the 1964 burning death of Frank Morris, an African-American store owner in Ferriday, and the torture/drowning death earlier that year of Joseph Edwards, an employee of the Shamrock Motel in Vidalia whose corpse has yet to have been found. These two cases, unsolved since in the late 1960s, were reopened by the FBI under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.

In 1977, DeLaughter requested a pardon so that he could carry a weapon for hunting and resume voting. Many Ferriday residents objected, and the pardon was not granted. He spent his last years in Ferriday, where he worked at various jobs and resided with relatives.^[18]

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