Desormeaux indicted for murder by Grand Jury
Published 8:30 pm Thursday, September 4, 2008
A Jefferson County grand jury indicted Joseph Jimmie Desormeaux on Thursday for the murder of Summer Bourque.
The jury handed down the indictment Thursday.
Desormeaux is currently being held in a King County, Wash., facility and is fighting extradition, Assistant District Attorney Ed Shettle said. A hearing, not yet scheduled, will be held in Washington where a judge will decide if Desormeaux will be extradited.
Shettle said he feels certain the judge will decide to extradite.
Desormeaux, 43, is suspected in the homicide of Bourque, a head hostess at Sanderson’s Restaurant in Nederland.
The Nederland woman was last seen leaving Dylan’s Bar and Grill in Port Arthur on Aug. 10. Surveillance video obtained by police from Dylan’s shows Bourque leaving the restaurant/bar with a man identified Desormeaux. Her body was discovered Aug. 13 in a waterway by employees of the J.D. Murphree Wildlife Refuge off Texas 73.
Shettle said the cause of death is “asphyxiation by a manner and means not known to the grand jury.”
Near the time Bourque’s body was discovered in the waterway, Desormeaux left the area and was seen in Sabine County near Six Mile Marina at Toledo Bend Lake.
Detectives recovered a vehicle of interest, a 1989 Dodge van, in Sabine County.
“We were very successful in obtaining good scientific evidence out of his van,” the assistant district attorney said.
Desormeaux may face more charges when he returns to Texas in that a future grand jury may re-indict him as a habitual offender. This issue won’t be addressed until local authorities receive proper paperwork from other jurisdictions, Shettle said.
The murder suspect has a prior criminal record in the state of Georgia and was released from a Georgia state prison July 28, just a few weeks before Bourque’s murder.
According to the Georgia Department of Corrections, Desormeaux has also gone by the name of Dan Dolezal. He spent time in prison for charges of aggravated battery and false imprisonment.