Just after midnight, on the cold morning of March 10, 1962, 35 year old Faye Southall started home in her 1957 pink and grey Pontiac. She was five foot seven inches tall, had black hair, weighed 140 pounds and was wearing a red bowling shirt with black and white checkered “slim jim” pants. She was a champion bowler and had just finished bowling at the Bowlero Bowling Lanes (now NAPA Auto Parts next to Catfish Cabin) in Monroe with friends when she headed north for Bastrop and home. She had to rest up for a bowling tournament later that day and work at the International Paper Company on Monday. After she told her friends goodbye, she was last seen headed down Louisville Avenue. She was never seen again. When she didn’t turn up for the Shreveport tournament, friends and family became alarmed. The authorities were alerted. For days, the Morehouse and Ouachita Sheriff’s departments combed the woods along the Morehouse/Ouachita line on foot and by air but not a trace was found. The sheriffs believed there was no foul play, but where was she? By July, her home was being sold off in a sheriff’s sale to satisfy her unpaid mortgage. Time ticked slowly onward.
On November 7, 1963, Walter Sexton was dragging Stink Creek (Stalking Head Creek) near the bridge on Highway 139 (Old Monroe Road) on the parish line. He had been hired to clear debris from the polluted waterway. Unfortunately, he snagged a car. It was Faye’s pink and grey Pontiac, now badly decayed. Inside they found a golf bag with no clubs, a glass tumbler and an ice chest. It was said everything that wasn’t plastic or rubber was badly decayed. The car even ripped and fell apart when it was being pulled from the creek.
In search of the body, Ouachita and Morehouse parish sheriffs worked together dragging the creek. Nothing was found. At the time, the bridge where the car was found, was at the bottom of a steep curve coming off a hill. The logical conclusion was that she had lost control and went in the creek. When Faye’s body wasn’t found, authorities turned to science.
At the time, both of the Bastrop paper mills dumped their waste water into the creek. The stench of the water gave it the nickname “Stink Creek”. If you were here in the late 70’s through the 80’s, you may remember the Stink Creek Horseshoe Festival held every year in Swartz! They really didn’t start cleaning up the creek until the 1990’s. The thought was, maybe all that pollution had lime in it, which would quickly eliminate any body that might have been in the car. After testing, it was determined the chemicals in the water weren’t strong enough to dissolve a human body. No trace of Faye was ever found.
In 1971, her fellow women bowlers gave a “duplicating machine” to the Lucy Hudson Training Centers in Faye’s memory. That is the last mention of her name in the newspapers. What happened to her? I think the original assumption is true and she did miss the curve and went into the creek. Either her body washed away downstream and was destroyed by the local wildlife or the chemicals really did dissolve her remains. After only a year and a half in the water and the car was deteriorated THAT badly, it HAD to be the water! Still, maybe she just got out, placed her car in the waters of Stink Creek and ran off to start a brand new life. Maybe she is in her late nineties, sitting in a retirement home sipping a drink and enjoying life. Her disappearance though, will remain a mystery.
Ouachita Parish History Tidbits 