The Hi-Ho mafia murder

New Orleans' mob visits Tangipahoa and Livingston parishes

THE FIRST DEAD MAN I ever saw had a cigarette between his fingers.

I was eight years old watching nine Livingston Parish sheriff’s deputies pulling the body of John George Trathen from a briar patch at the base of the Courtney Bridge in Holden.

Bright sun, but chilly cold.

My mom stood beside me on the sandbar, along with a few other nosy neighbors, all of us squinting in the August light.

The deputies lost their footing pushing through the brush. Trathen’s wool cap fell off the stretcher. Nobody picked it up.

I never forgot that cap. And I never forgot Trathen.

A swimmer found John George Trathen, 41, on Sunday, August 8, 1973, behind a clump of bushes next to LA 1036, near a bridge over the Tickfaw River in Livingston Parish. The Associated Press reported he was a party barge captain and professional sports angler out of Miami Beach, Flo…