A body found late last Thursday night is believed to be that of a missing 78-year-old man.
Carley Donald Provost Sr., age 78, has not been seen for months. Officials have not yet definitely confirmed that the body discovered late Thursday night is him, but they seem relatively sure that it is. The body was discovered in a trash can at a home on North Jones Road, which is located southwest of Bogalusa toward Plainview in rural Washington Parish.
Some of Provost’s family members have been concerned about him for months. A welfare check conducted by law enforcement last year went nowhere when he could not be located, yet there was no hard evidence showing that anything had happened to him.
Then, last week Provost’s son, Carley Donald Provost Jr. was arrested by the Washington Parish Sheriff’s Office and charged with Second Degree Murder for a shooting that occurred on December 29. (This was not related to Provost Sr. being missing.)
Provost Jr. is being held at the Washington Parish Jail in Franklinton on $2,000,050 bond on the unrelated Second Degree Murder charge.
Initially, during questioning about his missing father, Provost Jr. wasn't cooperative, Sheriff Jason Smith said.
But after a week in jail, the son changed his mind. “His conscience had been bothering him,” the sheriff said.
Provost Jr. then provided information that led to the discovery of the body Thursday night.
Provost Sr. was having multiple medical issues and “it looks like he passed away due to natural causes’” Smith said.
The son didn’t know what to do, the Sheriff said, “so he put his dad in the trash can and wheeled him over to his neighbor’s house.”
The Sheriff said the son likely made bad decisions because of drug abuse.
“For somebody to allow their father to pass away and to just cavalierly dispose of him like he did, you think that’s not a clear thinking individual. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it took a little over a week in jail for him to kind of get his system cleaned out, for his head to get straight, for his conscience to start wearing on him before he finally did the right thing and told us what happened.”
Sheriff Smith added, “We don’t have any reason to suspect foul play. Carley Jr. didn’t admit to any foul play, but we won’t know the answer to that until the forensic evidence is finalized.”.
The sheriff said Provost Jr. could possibly face charges for disposing of his father’s body. That would be in addition to the unrelated Second Degree Murder charge he’s already facing.
