The Liberty County Historical Commission will meet Monday, July 15, 2024, 6 p.m. at the Hartel Building, 318 San Jacinto Street, Liberty, Texas for their quarterly meeting.
After a short business meeting, guest speaker, Shera Broussard LaPoint will discuss the process of FIGG and how it helped solve a local murder cold case and how you can help to solve future cases. The meeting is open to the public and citizens are encouraged to attend. A special invitation to all law enforcement officers in our county is extended.
Shera LaPoint, a native of Kaplan, La., has deep Cajun roots and enjoys researching her Acadian Roots and genetic genealogy. She became involved in biological DNA searches in 2016 and has helped many adoptees and people of unknown parentage find their biological family. She is a Genetic Genealogist with DNA Labs International, Inc. and a licensed Private Investigator in the State of Louisiana.
She is the founder of Our Roots Genealogy and DNA network on Facebook and she enjoys speaking publicly to libraries and civic organizations about her DNA journey.
Aware of the “Killing Fields” murders that took place for over two decades near a forty-mile stretch of Interstate 45 between Houston and Galveston, Texas, Shera was very knowledgeable about four of those murders which involved bodies being dumped in pastureland very close to the oil field of Calder Road.
In particular, Donna Gonsoulin Prudhomme, who disappeared in 1990 and whose remains were found in late 1991. Known to authorities for years as Janet Doe, Prudhomme proved to be a very distant DNA match to Shera herself, and Shera’s relentless research in 2018 through vehicles such as GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA allowed her to provide crucial information to League City, Texas, police department and help determine once and for all that Janet Doe was indeed Donna Prudhomme.
She was later honored by that department with the Coin of Excellence for outstanding performance. Since that time, Shera has solved over seventy-five cases where adoptees or people of unknown parental origin have been put in contact with family members. This remarkable accomplishment is all the more amazing considering the many interviews of possible DNA matches that take place when attempting to solve even one case – searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Shera is honored to have worked with League City, Beaumont, Texas, and the Texas Rangers on cases.
In September 2023, she was honored to be assigned to the BTK Task Force as a consultant genetic genealogist. Shera has been a guest Investigative Genetic Genealogist on Crime Stories with Nancy Grace since 2019 and is enthusiastic about being an advocate for Investigative Genetic Genealogy and how it is changing the face of crime fighting. Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy gives answers to families and speaks for victims that have been silenced.
Now in high demand on the speaking circuit at public libraries and genetic genealogy conferences throughout south Louisiana as well as a proven commodity wit a growing number of law enforcement agencies, Shera Broussard LaPoint – The Gene Hunter – is just a passionate today about building your family tree and helping closed cases involving DNA evidence as she was when a television commercial for Ancestry.com prompted her to create her own family tree!
For more information about the Liberty County Historical Commission or this program, please visit our Facebook page or email: lchc318@gmail.com.