Vermilion Parish families with open homicide cases form group

More than a dozen from Vermilion Parish with a common bond gathered Thursday evening in a meeting room at the library in Abbeville.
The tie that binds each of them is that they have family members who were victims in open homicide cases.
It is not a support group because the support has been there.
“We don’t want to stop talking about this,” Waldean Jordan said of the meeting’s purpose. “We want to keep these cases alive and going.
“We want to keep these on the front line.”
One of the homicide cases open with the Abbeville Police Department is that of Jordan’s mother. Rita “Theresa” Jordan was found dead of multiple stab wounds on April 26, 2012.
Waldean Jordan, who is organizing the effort, said Thursday’s meeting is the first of what will be a monthly gathering. She said the group will be henceforth known as TEARS.
“Lord knows I have cried plenty of them,” Jordan said.
The group will meet again at the Abbeville Branch of the Vermilion Parish Library on Saturday, Aug. 16., from noon until 5 p.m.
“We are hoping to have a guest speaker from local law enforcement at that meeting,” Jordan said. “We want to know about the processes of handling these cold and open cases.
“We want to be educated on what is considered a cold case and what is considered unsolved.”
Jordan asks that, with all due respect to outside groups that are concerned and wish to help, those attending the meetings be family members impacted by the killings.
“It is hard to know how we feel,” Jordan said. “We want this to be a place that those families can feel they can open up.”
It will not be limited to families from Abbeville.
“We want people from all over Vermilion Parish,” Jordan said. “We want them from the east boundary in Delcambre to the west in Gueydan and all the way north in Maurice.”
She said she is extremely pleased with Thursday’s turnout.
“We want to build on that,” Jordan said.
Part of that will be the creation of a TEARS page on Facebook.
“We also want to make T-shirts,” Jordan said.
Anything that will keep their family members names out there and, hopefully, ultimately, Jordan said, lead to arrests.
“That will be the closure we are all looking for,” Jordan said.