Sad Parade Story
Wordy
Uptown hit-and-run deliberate, wife says
Sunday, February 26, 2006
By Gwen Filosa
Staff writer
A New Orleans couple, married less than a year, were eight blocks from
home when an apparently deliberate hit-and-run by the driver of a black
pickup truck killed the husband early Saturday morning.
Toby and Melissa Beaugh had chosen to walk home after a night of
Carnival revelry with friends, which included watching parades from a
St. Charles Avenue balcony. And as the couple spent the walk home
anticipating another long Saturday, instead, Toby Beaugh died of head
trauma after what police and his widow called a deliberate hit-and-run
by an unidentified motorist.
As they walked home, Toby Beaugh, 29, a graduate student at the
University of New Orleans, wore Mardi Gras beads around his neck and
lingered a few steps behind his wife on Magazine Street.
But as the couple crossed Jena Street at Magazine, a black truck
abruptly turned right onto Jena, startling the couple, Beaugh said. They
reacted to the close call with quizzical gestures, thinking it was a
thoughtless driver, but she said they made no threat.
"No words were exchanged," she said. "We kept walking up toward home. I
was a few steps ahead of him. He was joking that I was doing my
'exercise walk.' We were just hanging out, having a good time."
One block farther up Magazine, at Cadiz Street, the truck reappeared,
having apparently circled the block. It stopped at the corner, and Toby
Beaugh paused in front of it with his arms outstretched, facing the
driver, his wife said.
"The truck stepped on it, gunned it," she said. "It was so horrific.
There were Mardi Gras beads shattered all over Magazine Street."
Police said they had no suspects or motives Saturday, but they were
looking for a white male who had been driving a black pickup with an
extended cab. The truck resembled a Toyota Tacoma, they said.
"Mardi Gras was his favorite holiday, next to his birthday," Beaugh said
late Saturday afternoon, having gone sleepless since she said she
watched the pickup drive headlong into her husband.
The Beaughs met in New Orleans in 2001, while Melissa Beaugh was in law
school at Louisiana State University. They were married in April and New
Orleans was their choice for a home, even after evacuating for Hurricane
Katrina.
"We rode our bikes everywhere, and we walked everywhere," she said of
their life in Uptown. "He was that guy who everybody loved. He's got a
lot of friends."
Toby Beaugh graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and
had worked for five years in the truck division of Enterprise
Rent-A-Car. He decided to return to school to earn an accounting degree,
enrolling at UNO prior to Katrina.
Beaugh, 28, raised in Metairie and now a lawyer, said they had planned a
future with children. "We figured he would be in school for two years
and after that we would start a family," she said. "He loved the city.
We had a good little life."
On Saturday, she met with reporters at her parents' Metairie home,
retelling her story and pleading for anyone with information to contact
the police. She said she had no idea why the driver ran over her
husband, in her view, as coldly as someone pulling a trigger.
Her husband will be buried in his native Lafayette, and Beaugh is
planning a memorial service in New Orleans.
Taunto
Lesson: Don't fuck with thinks weighing thousands of pounds more than
you do.
Shirley
They didn't thing about it?
Wordy
> I saw this story last night on the news and was wondering if you might know
> them? According to the TV report the man who lived in the apartment by where
> it happened had some kind of outside camera going and that authorities have
> it. The report said it was a black pickup with (probably) a white male
> driver.
>
> Jeez, I might well be the type to yell at someone to slow down in my 25mph
> neighborhood. Coulda been me.
I heard that this morning. Just two days ago I said something to a
fellow for parking in the handicap ramp and I thought he was gonna come
after me. Crazy times.
metonymy
> I heard that this morning. Just two days ago I said something to a
> fellow for parking in the handicap ramp and I thought he was gonna come
> after me. Crazy times.
There's a lot of crazy people out there. It's not just New Orleans, it's
any fair sized city.
Wordy
Yes, but there's a sick kind of post-Katrina energy in the air.
There are people out there getting plastered, who've been holding in all
their Katrina issues. This weekend those people are drinking and doing
a lot of drugs and they're out on the street. They're spewing six
months of frustration on the same streets as innocent revelers. Makes
me nervous. I'm turning into a big fat pussy.
metonymy
> There are people out there getting plastered, who've been holding in all
> their Katrina issues. This weekend those people are drinking and doing
> a lot of drugs and they're out on the street. They're spewing six
> months of frustration on the same streets as innocent revelers. Makes
> me nervous.
You are correct.
Wordy
> You and me both. Just be glad you're uptown. It's getting freaky out here
> at the back of beyond. Freakin' burglars have the balls to yell back over
> there shoulders at you when you run 'em off instead of shooting 'em.
> Sheesh. You can't do some people a favor.
> Incidentally, I once lived (briefly, a long time ago) over old P.'s
> place (I imagine he's long gone), a couple of doors from the address you
> posted the other day. That would be the gardener, I'll bet. I always
> check out his little tomato/pepper patch when I pass by. Then there's
> the weird Cuban guy on the corner who used to grow papayas, among other
> cool things. Looks like that house probably changed hands, though.
Old P? Never heard of him. The papaya growers at Mag & Soniat (5000
blk--riverside) just moved @ 3-4 years ago. They'd maybe be in that
house about 7 years.
The gardener who does the tomatoes is the guy at 4911 (lake side @
Upperline) also my neighbor, as we share a common wall.
Wordy
> @ wrote:
>
>> You and me both. Just be glad you're uptown. It's getting freaky out
>> here at the back of beyond. Freakin' burglars have the balls to yell
>> back over there shoulders at you when you run 'em off instead of
>> shooting 'em. Sheesh. You can't do some people a favor.
>
>> Incidentally, I once lived (briefly, a long time ago) over old P.'s
>> place (I imagine he's long gone), a couple of doors from the address
>> you posted the other day. That would be the gardener, I'll bet. I
>> always check out his little tomato/pepper patch when I pass by. Then
>> there's the weird Cuban guy on the corner who used to grow papayas,
>> among other cool things. Looks like that house probably changed hands,
>> though.
>
> Old P? Never heard of him. The papaya growers at Mag & Soniat (5000
> blk--riverside) just moved @ 3-4 years ago. They'd maybe be in that
> house about 7 years.
Same guy owns papaya peoples' house. He redid it a couple of years ago
and now can't get the rent he's asking.
Big Ray
>Driver sought in N.O. man's death
>Uptown hit-and-run deliberate, wife says
>Sunday, February 26, 2006
Da Bastids! I hopes they find him and hang him.
How close to your house?
--
Regards,
"Big Ray" Jones - RETIRED New Orleans tour guide,
cab driver and mule-drawn carriage driver. Author of
"The Complete Idiot's Travel Guide to New Orleans"
ISBN 0-02-862303-7
"Murder at Audubon Zoo" by my late wife Jane Gillis Jones
ISBN: 0-595-14061-0 To order, call 1-877-288-4737
or check my web page for New Orleans and Louisiana info at:
http://www.sstar.com/ray.jones/nola.htm
To join the New Orleans Mailing List (NOML), send blank e-mail to:
noml...@sstar.com or go to:
http://groups.google.com/group/neworleans.general
Big Ray
I try not to mess with anybody. You never know what they'll do these
days.
Big Ray
Nuttin' wrong wit' dat.
Wordy
> On Sun, 26 Feb 2006 10:06:25 -0600, Wordy <word...@cox.nest> wrote:
>
>> Driver sought in N.O. man's death
>> Uptown hit-and-run deliberate, wife says
>> Sunday, February 26, 2006
>
> Da Bastids! I hopes they find him and hang him.
>
> How close to your house?
>
Jena at Magazine