SULPHUR, La. (KPLC/Gray News) – A mother in Louisiana has been arrested in a 1970 cold case involving the death of her 16-month-old son, according to authorities.
On March 27, Alice Bunch Idlett, 75, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder for the death of her son on Jan. 20, 1970.
In 2022, the Sulphur Police Department opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Earl D. Bunch III at the request of the child’s family.
Detectives said 16-month-old Earl Bunch III received injuries that were initially reported to be from falling out of a crib. At the time of the child’s death in 1970, the father was serving overseas during the Vietnam conflict.
The case was ultimately closed due to a lack of evidence.
In a document from the Third Circuit on the hearing for the child custody case involving Alice Bunch and her child’s father, Earl Bunch Jr., Alice wrote many letters to her husband while he was stationed overseas expressing her feelings towards her son.
In a letter on November 4, 1969, she wrote:
“… I just got through whipping that little basdard (sic). I hate him. That’s the honest truth. I can’t stand this life. God had to punish me by letting me have that little brat. I wish I would have died when he was born. I hate myself. Do you think I’ll ever be happy? Now I know how those people feel that get rid of their kids. I believe I could do it. I’m serious …”
In another letter on December 9, 1969, she wrote:
“What is wrong with me darling. I should love my own son but I really don’t think I do and if I did I would know it. I feel as if he would die tomorrow I wouldn’t care. I can’t help it. To me he is the one who ruint (sic) my life.”
Alice denied to Earl that she had anything to do with the death of her son, and he “probably fractured his skull when he fell out of bed at his grandmother’s house.”
The document also shows that when Alice took her son to the hospital, he was “limp and gasping for breath” and the physician who examined the baby said he observed “bite marks on Earl Dwayne’s body and a burn mark on his buttocks” and “multiple bruises over his body.”
He died the following morning during emergency surgery.
Detectives obtained additional information that led to the exhumation of the child’s body. The remains of Earl D. Bunch III were sent to the FBI for a forensic autopsy, which determined the manner of death as a homicide.
Alice Bunch was booked into the Calcasieu Parish Correctional Center on a $950,000 bond.
Copyright 2025 KPLC via Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.