A YOUNG MOTHER'S DEATH IS DECLARED A SUICIDE - BUT WHEN HER FAMILY REVIEWS PHOTOS OF THE SCENE, THEY BELIEVE THEY SEE EVIDENCE OF A HOMICIDE

"48 Hours" Reports in "The Suspicious Death of Megan Parra"

On June 28, 2014, in the small town of Cottonport, La., 29-year-old Megan Parra was discovered in her home by her parents, Missy and Steve Ducote, with a gunshot wound to her head. Parra's husband, Dustin Parra, showed up minutes later and tried to save her. It was too late. She was taken off life support the next day. Her death was ruled a suicide, but Steve Ducote was convinced there was foul play. Contributor David Begnaud reports on the case in 48 HOURS: "The Suspicious Death of Megan Parra" to be broadcast Saturday, Jan. 6 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network and streaming on Paramount+.

"I knew something was wrong with this case from the start. I knew she hadn't killed herself," Steve Ducote tells 48 HOURS.

Ducote eventually got his hands on more than 100 images taken at the shooting scene. Some of the photos revealed signs of a struggle, like a wine rack found behind a chair.

Betsy Jeansonne, Parra's sister, says she spent hours on the internet studying blood spatter patterns, because something about the blood around Megan didn't look right to her.

"You can see the blood spatter where it should have been on the exit wound side," says Jeansonne. "It's actually on the entrance wound side. And there's no spatter on the exit wound."

Several months later, Steve Ducote went to Avoyelles Parish district attorney Charlie Riddle and showed him some of the photos that concerned him.

"And as I looked at it, I kept saying, this can't be what was found to be a suicide," Riddle tells 48 HOURS. He then worked to get local and state law enforcement officials to take another look at the case. Most resisted, but those who did review the evidence agreed with the determination of suicide as the manner of death.

However, a crime scene analyst hired by Steve Ducote discovered what he believed to be irrefutable physical evidence, blood splatter on the shorts Dustin Parra was wearing the day of the shooting.

On Oct. 13, 2021, District Attorney Riddle presented evidence to a grand jury seeking murder charges against Dustin Parra. After just six minutes of deliberations, they returned a charge of second-degree murder.

But it was not an open and shut case, and there were still several obstacles to overcome.

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