Do You Remember the Unsolved Murder of Margaret Coon?

Do You Remember the Unsolved Murder of Margaret Coon?

For nearly 40 years, one question has continued to hang over St. Tammany Parish. Who killed Margaret Coon?

On the evening of February 19, 1987, Margaret Coon left her condominium inside Beau Chene, the gated country club community near Mandeville, and took her Afghan hound out for a jog. Margaret was 41 years old, wealthy, successful and well known in the local legal community. She had previously worked as an assistant district attorney in St. Tammany Parish, where she prosecuted sex crimes and crimes against children. She was not someone people would have considered especially vulnerable, and Beau Chene was certainly not a place where residents expected a woman to be murdered along one of its main streets.

By the following morning, Margaret had not returned home. At approximately 5:30 a.m., a resident traveling through the neighborhood discovered her body near North Beau Chene Drive, only a short distance from her condominium. Margaret was lying beside the road in a pool of blood, and her Afghan hound was reportedly still nearby. According to accounts from the time, the dog initially resisted allowing emergency workers to approach her body, as though it had remained there guarding her throughout the night.

Margaret had been killed by a single stab wound to her back. There were no apparent signs of a prolonged struggle, no evidence that she had been sexually assaulted and nothing indicating that robbery had been the motive. Margaret was reportedly wearing jewelry worth approximately $100,000, yet none of it had been taken. Her condominium was locked and undisturbed, and investigators found no indication that someone had broken into her home. Whoever attacked her appeared to have approached her while she was outside, delivered one fatal wound and disappeared without taking anything.

That left investigators with a troubling possibility. Margaret may not have been killed by a stranger looking for money. The person who attacked her may have known exactly who she was.

The location of the murder made the case even more confusing. Beau Chene was a private, affluent neighborhood with guarded entrances, and the security guard working that night reportedly said no unauthorized visitors had entered through the gate. That did not prove the killer was a resident because there were reportedly other ways to access parts of the property, but it raised an obvious question. Was Margaret’s killer already inside Beau Chene?

Investigators searched the area with metal detectors in an attempt to locate the murder weapon, believed to have been a knife, but it was never found. Reports from the original investigation placed the likely time of the attack sometime between 7 p.m. and midnight. Despite searching the neighborhood and surrounding wooded areas, investigators were unable to recover the weapon that delivered the fatal wound.

The missing knife would become only one of many unanswered questions. Investigators had no obvious robbery, no sexual assault, no damaged home and no known eyewitness who could identify the killer. A person had apparently approached Margaret on a quiet neighborhood street, stabbed her once in the back and vanished without being seen.

Because of Margaret’s former work as a prosecutor, attention naturally turned toward the people she had prosecuted. Margaret had handled cases involving sexual violence and crimes against children, meaning she had helped send dangerous people to prison. The possibility of revenge was taken seriously. Investigators reportedly examined whether a former defendant, a recently released prisoner or someone connected to one of her cases could have followed her home and waited for an opportunity to attack.

That theory was frightening, but investigators could never connect one of Margaret’s former cases directly to the murder. No former defendant was charged, and no evidence has ever been made public proving that the attack was retaliation for her work as a prosecutor. It remains one possible theory.

Margaret’s personal life was also examined. She was divorced, independent and reportedly had relationships that some friends and investigators believed deserved a closer look. Over the years, rumors circulated that jealousy, an affair or a complicated romantic relationship may have played a role in her death. None of those rumors has ever been proven, and no former romantic partner has ever been charged.

Investigators also looked at several people who appeared suspicious for different reasons, including a former law enforcement officer and a drifter believed to have been in the area. Both became persons of interest during different stages of the investigation, but neither path resulted in an arrest.

As the official investigation stalled, Margaret’s father refused to let the case disappear. He hired private investigators and spent years pursuing information about his daughter’s death. He followed countless leads and explored numerous theories, but he died without ever seeing anyone held accountable.

The failure to solve the murder created fertile ground for rumors. Some residents came to believe the killer had connections to powerful people in St. Tammany Parish. Others whispered that investigators knew more than they were willing to say, or that the identity of the killer was an open secret among certain members of the legal community. There were also rumors that Margaret knew damaging information about influential people.

It is important to note that none of those rumors have ever been substantiated. No official investigation has concluded that Margaret was murdered because she knew confidential information, and no evidence has publicly established that anyone protected her killer.

Another rumor that has circulated for years involves an attempted incident near the Beau Chene clubhouse on the same evening Margaret was killed. According to later accounts, a former law enforcement officer claimed he searched near the area that night but did not see Margaret’s body. That story led some people to speculate that her body may have been moved after the initial search, while others believe darkness simply prevented anyone from seeing her. That claim has never been proven.

More recently, renewed attention on the case introduced another person whose name has been discussed publicly. A Beau Chene resident named Patricia Currie became the focus of renewed speculation after investigative journalists revisited the case. The attention centered largely on where she lived, statements made by people who knew her and her later behavior in unrelated incidents.

It is important to be clear that Patricia Currie has never been arrested or charged with Margaret Coon’s murder. Over the years, rumors have suggested everything from jealousy to a personal dispute, but those remain rumors. No court has found her responsible, and no public evidence has conclusively tied her to the crime.

That is what makes this case so haunting. There is no shortage of theories, rumors or names that have surfaced over the years, but there is still no public evidence that definitively places any one person with Margaret at the moment she was killed. There is no recovered murder weapon, no known eyewitness to the stabbing, no public DNA match and no confession that has resulted in criminal charges.

What investigators did find was a respected former prosecutor dead beside a road inside one of St. Tammany Parish’s safest communities. She still had her valuable jewelry. Her dog was still nearby. Her home was locked. There was no clear sign of robbery, sexual assault or a prolonged struggle.

What investigators did not find may be even more important. They never found the knife. They never found a witness who could identify the killer. They never established a motive strong enough to bring charges, and they never gave Margaret’s family the answers they spent years searching for.

Nearly four decades later, the murder of Margaret Coon remains one of Louisiana’s most haunting unsolved cases.

Someone knows what happened that night.

The question is whether they’ll ever tell anyone.