Barbara Blount: There One Minute and Gone the Next

Barbara Blount disappeared from her rural Louisiana home in 2008. No trace of her has ever been found. How does a beloved mother just disappear?

Who was Barbara Blount?

East of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, lies the small town of Holden. Originally part of Florida, it was annexed into the state of Louisiana in the early 19th century. Its landscape is dotted with swamps, moss-covered oak trees, and pine forests.  It was within this mostly rural Acadiana town that Barbara Blount disappeared. She last spoke to a neighbor in the late morning hours of May 2, 2008. She was working on the most normal of chores—cleaning her kitchen. Within an hour, she was gone. Over seventeen years have passed since that spring day. Where is Barbara?

Barbara Blount grew up in Bogalusa, Louisiana, a town on the Mississippi border. She had been married to Henry “Junior” Blount Jr. for over thirty years before his death in 2004. She was described as a “tough” lady who would take her loaded . 38 revolver with her when she went out to complete her farm chores. Barbara also enjoyed gardening. She was a Christian, and her faith was important to her. She would pray before every meal. She taught Sunday school at her local Baptist church. 

“She’d be hauling 5-pound buckets of feed to the cows, and also feeding the fish in her ponds. She was a strong lady overall.”

– Suzanne Honeycutt, niece to NewsNation

Ordinary Spring Day

On that breezy Friday in May, Barbara’s daughter Kristie Thompson, who lived nearby, came by to see her mother. It was customary for Kristie to eat with Barbara before going to work, which started at 10:00am or 11:00am. Her mother told her she was going to take advantage of the nice day and clean out the cabinets where she stored her pots and pans. Barbara liked to keep busy. 

When Kristie left that day to head to work, everything seemed normal. She would normally drop her dog, a chihuahua, off at her mom’s and pick the dog up on her way home.  

Barbara’s son Ricky lived in a trailer on her 17-acre property. Normally, he too would have stopped by his mother’s house for breakfast. He had just started a new trucking job, though, and left home at 2:00am that morning to begin field training. 

No Answer

After Kristie had been at work for a couple of hours, she called her mom. Strangely, Barbara didn’t answer. She kept calling for the next two hours. It was very unusual for Barbara not to answer either her landline or cell phone, even if she was busy. “I remember calling and calling, and she wouldn’t answer the phone. It was just chaotic.”

Growing more and more concerned, Kristie called her cousin, Raymond, who lived close to Barbara. She asked him to drive over and see what was going on at her mom’s house. Barbara was 58 years old and in good physical and mental health, but accidents can happen to anyone. 

Suspicious Circumstances at Home

Upon arriving, Raymond immediately noticed Barbara’s car was gone. Her cordless phone was on the floor of the carport area. The battery was lying beside it on the ground. The front door was locked but not pulled all the way to, so Raymond was able to enter without having a key. Inside, he found pots and pans on the kitchen floor, but that was the only sign of disarray. Barbara’s purse was gone, but her glasses and cell phone were there. Kristie said her mom always wore her glasses. Barbara’s handgun was found inside a dresser. No articles mention whether or not Kristie’s chihuahua was at the home or not. 

Kristie told Raymond to call the police. She was going to leave work early and head over there. Raymond instructed her to come to his house, very concerned about the situation at Barbara’s. After she arrived, the two stood outside, trying to figure out what could be going on, when they saw a police car drive by. They soon learned police were responding to another call—an abandoned silver Toyota Camry, the same kind of car Barbara owned.

The Car

At approximately 4:15pm, Raymond headed to check out the car, while Kristie stayed behind. It was in fact Barbara’s car. It was located approximately ¼ mile from her home, pulled off onto a road that led to a hunting camp. It was 25 yards off the main road, partially concealed between two trees. A teenage boy who knew Barbara was driving along Highway 1036 when he spotted a car he recognized as hers. He called his mother, who then notified police before driving down to the scene herself. The keys were found about 20 yards from the car, half buried in gravel. 

That afternoon, storms came through and dumped more than 6” of rain in the area. Unfortunately, the floorboard of Barbara’s car was flooded. “We had a horrible rain that day, and the whole road was covered with water. It rained so much that water covered the floorboard of her car, and deputies today still talk about watching the water rise waiting for the tow truck. It came up that fast.” Sheriff Jason Ard recalled to The Westside Journal ¹The Westside Journal

It is unclear if police were able to obtain any evidence at the scene before the storm, such as photographs of tire tracks or disturbances in the dirt or gravel. That evening, police cordoned off Barbara’s home. While the storm raged, friends and family gathered at Raymond’s house for prayer and community.  

Puzzling Details

Barbara Blount’s home was located at the end of a long driveway and couldn’t be seen from the road. The area was rural and densely wooded. When asked by police, multiple family members said Barbara was cautious; she wouldn’t even answer the door for a stranger, much less let someone she didn’t know into her home. 

Police would learn that the last time anyone heard from Barbara was at 11:30am when she spoke on the phone with a neighbor. The order of events, as investigators believe it happened, was puzzling to say the least. Barbara supposedly left home with nothing but her purse. Everything else—her glasses, her cell phone, her weapon—remained behind. She drove only a short distance before turning off the road and onto a long driveway that led to a hunting camp.

On Monday, May 5th, after the storms had cleared, searches began in earnest. Sheriff’s deputies, along with approximately 100 volunteers searched the dense woodlands and swampy terrain. Searches were conducted using boats, 4-wheelers, horses, tracking dogs, and a helicopter.  According to the information that has been released, nothing has ever been found.  There was a pond located on Barbara’s property; however, it remains unknown whether it was ever subject to a search. 

Chilling New Witness Statement is Released

What the public didn’t know—and wouldn’t learn until more than a decade later—was that two witnesses had come forward just days after Barbara Blount disappeared. The couple reported seeing someone matching Barbara’s description on the day she went missing less than a mile from her home. 

Wesley and Terrie Collins reported seeing Barbara around 12:00pm on May 2, 2008. They were headed home with their three youngest children to Fort Payne, Alabama, after visiting a friend who lived in Holden. They left earlier than planned because of the incoming bad weather. They were driving down the street Barbara lived on when they came upon a strange scene. 

Terrie: “We saw her standing in the misting rain. She had keys in her hand, and something else. I really thought it was her glasses, but I can’t be sure.”

Wesley: “We had just come around a curve, and we were pulling our camper. We had to slow in that curve. That’s really how we happened to see her as closely as we did.”

Blount’s 2006 Toyota Camry sat in the middle of Road 7 where it joined Highway 1036, as if she had just pulled in to turn around. She stood behind her car and in front of a silver Ford, parked facing her on the side of Highway 1036. She stood at the driver’s side door, talking to the driver.

Wesley: “It looked like she had just pulled over to talk to someone she knew. I was driving, so I noticed more about the vehicles than the people talking. The truck was not new, but not old, maybe a 1998.”

Terrie: “When we came around that curve, the lady turned to look at us and smiled, like you do in rural areas, but something seemed off, I got this eerie feeling, like something just wasn’t right. After she smiled, I looked over at the guy. He wore mirrored sunglasses, like state troopers wore back then, and he had light-colored hair, blonde or bleached with dark roots, almost in a bowl cut. His face was thin, kind of sunken in.

Terrie: “The man kept a blank expression as we passed, but when I made eye-contact, he kind of slumped in the seat and pushed his head back towards the door panel, like he didn’t want us to see his face.”

More Questions

The two were so disconcerted by what they saw, they called the friend they had just left to report the odd scene. Within days of returning home, Terrie came across Barbara’s photo on social media and immediately recognized her as the woman they had seen standing in the rain that day. She contacted the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office and was able to describe, in detail, what Barbara had been wearing: a tank top, pinstriped shorts, and purple Louisiana State University Crocs.

When shown photographs and mugshots, they were able to quickly identify Barbara but didn’t recognize any of the other individuals. After returning to Louisiana, the couple brought deputies to the spot where they had seen the woman and man. Authorities confirmed the location was just a few yards from where Barbara’s car was eventually found.

According to journalist H.L. Elridge, who has extensively covered this case, Sheriff Jason Ard downplays this sighting. He believes the couple didn’t see Barbara Blount but instead the teenage boy who found the car and his mother. Ard did tell NewsNation in 2023, “I believe that she was murdered. That’s obvious to us.” ²NewsNation

Police Speak of New Tips

Over the years, Sheriff Ard has held several press conferences, saying he has received new information regarding Barbara’s case. Unfortunately, nothing has yet come from these new leads, at least nothing has been released publicly. In a 2023 press conference, he said:

“Right now, we have gotten some information that I feel is going to be very good information. Of course, we have to work through it to make sure it’s credible and what we need. But I have a really good feeling that this is going to put another piece in the puzzle and help us find Barbara Blount,” the sheriff said. ³Bayou Justice

Was the Motive Revenge?

One early rumor—engineer was that Barbara was killed in an act of retaliation. Her husband, Junior, was killed in a horrific work accident. He worked as a truck driver for Lard Oil Company.  He had just filled his tanker truck with 8,000 gallons of gasoline when he drove up to a railroad crossing, one that didn’t have an automatic stop arm. 

There is a traffic light at the crossing, but naturally trains have the right of way even when the light is green. Inexplicably, Blount drove through the intersection when his light was green, even though a train was incoming. According to a witness, “It was in slow motion like something out of a movie. It kind of lifted (the tanker) and turned it on its side. As it turned on its side it cracked, you could see the liquid coming out. Within seconds it exploded into flames, shooting 50-60’ high.” ⁴The State June 28, 2004

Junior Blount was killed, as well as two employees of the Norfolk Southern Railway – engineer Dennis Vinson and conductor Anthony J. “Tony” Mills. All three men suffered extensive burns. A fourth man, brakeman Charles La Bella, was able to jump from the train before the locomotive melted.

Investigators determined that Henry Blount was ultimately responsible for the accident. His driving record had been perfect up until that day. Members of the locomotive union threatened a lawsuit against Blount’s employer for the “murder of their brothers.” ⁵Bayou Justice Police looked into retaliation theory. It doesn’t seem as though anything came of it. It was an immense tragedy, but one that did not, on its face, suggest a motive for kidnapping or murder.

Two Losses Leave Only Questions

After the tragic death of their father, Kristie and Ricky grieved alongside Barbara and the rest of the family. The family seemed to grow closer, with the two siblings sharing most of their evening meals with their mother.

After Barbara’s disappearance in 2008, her family petitioned the court to have her declared legally dead—a designation granted in 2010. Under Louisiana law, a person must be missing for more than five years before they can be declared legally dead. However, that period can be reduced to as little as two years if the individual is not wanted for a felony by the state or the federal government. Having someone declared legally dead begins the “business of dying,” such as the probate process, distribution of assets, reconciliation of debts, and property transfers.

Former investigator Woody Overton, who hosts a podcast called “Real Life Real Crime,” detailed what he believed happened to Barbara on his show. He has assisted in getting leads in the case. He believes Barbara Blount was murdered telling WBRZ, “It’s just a tragedy of investigative events that occurred since Ms. Barbara, I’m going to just say it, she was murdered, because no she didn’t just disappear, I’m telling you she was murdered.”

Where is Barbara Blount?

According to family members, Barbara was looking forward to becoming a grandmother. She now has several grandchildren that she will never know, never get to watch grow up. Barbara’s loved ones continue to hold on to hope that she may one day be found. If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Barbara Blount in 2008, please contact the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office or you can contact Crime Stoppers at 225-344-stop (7867). There is an undisclosed reward in this case.

“Just because whoever did this, doesn’t feel guilty about it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It doesn’t mean that we’re going to give up. You’re going to have to answer to God one day.” ⁶Suzanne Honeycutt to NewsNation