Deputy killed investigating robbery

• Advocate River parishes bureau
• Published: Aug 20, 2008 - UPDATED: 11:55 a.m.

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CHACKBAY — Louisiana State Police have apprehended a suspect in the death of a Lafourche Parish sheriff’s deputy this morning.

About 2:30 a.m. today, Deputy Martha Woods Shareef responded to an alarm at Nocko’s convenience store, 1530 La. 20, Thibodaux, Sheriff Craig Webre said.

Woods, 53, of 915 School St., Thibodaux, confronted the suspect in the store once she arrived and at some point, she was run over by the suspect’s vehicle as he fled the scene, Webre said.

“There were sounds of a struggle and then silence over the radio,” said Gilbert Dardar, a spokesman for State Police Troop C.

Dardar said he doesn’t know the details of how the suspect, Billy Daigle, 41, 807 Elder St., Houma, got from the store to the car.

State Police investigators are questioning Daigle at the Thibodaux Police Department office, but as of 10:45 a.m., he had not been booked on any counts, Dardar said.

The owner or manager of the store said on the mobile radio that Shareef had been injured and gave deputies a description of the suspect’s vehicle, according to a news release.

An ambulance took Shareef to Thibodaux Regional Medical Center where she was pronounced dead, the news release says. Shareef was a 15-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Office, having served as a patrol officer, school resource officer, and supervisor, the news release says.

At 2:49 a.m., State Police, sheriff’s deputies and Thibodaux police spotted the suspect’s vehicle and pursued it until it wrecked just south of Thibodaux on La. 1, the news release says.

Daigle swam across Bayou Lafourche and was seen climbing up on the bank, but he was found at 6:25 a.m. hiding under a house on the bayou side of La. 308, authorities said.