William Bouvay Jr. was just another neighbor to some residents of Skysail Avenue until Tuesday night.
Deon Sartain, a resident of Skysail Avenue, said Bouvay’s routine is not unusual.
“He was a good guy, nothing out of the ordinary,” Sartain said. “He just came home from work, hung out on his porch and that’s about it.”
But after Baton Rouge Police canvassed the neighborhood Tuesday, searching houses to find the culprit behind the University’s bomb threat, many residents considered whether Bouvay made the call as a joke.
“Will was probably just messing around,” said Demarcus Newman, another neighbor. “I don’t think he is really that smart to make a bomb. If he really did do it, then he must have not realized how much trouble he could get in.”
The Daily Reveille attempted to contact a number listed for Bouvay’s residence as well as multiple family members, but only his ex-wife, who chose to withhold her name, replied and acknowledged her relationship with Bouvay.
“I know who he is,” she said. “I don’t talk to him. You can find the history yourself.”
An attempt to speak with the incarcerated Bouvay was denied because he is still in central booking at East Baton Rouge Parish Prison, and it will be a week until he can have visitors.
Sartain and Newman called themselves close friends of Bouvay. Both said they were surprised when police made the arrest, but most neighbors said they didn’t see Bouvay enough to make a judgment.
Christopher Lewis, a Southern University student, lives across the street from Bouvay’s residence but said he rarely saw his neighbor.
“I think I saw him once or twice,” Lewis said. “He kind of just stayed to himself.”
After tracing a 911 call’s GPS signal to Skysail Avenue, police walked door-to-door asking to search residents’ phone call logs. But according to Sartain, police were ambiguous about their intentions.
“They asked me to see my phone because someone called 911, as if someone were in trouble,” Sartain said. “They didn’t even mention that there was some bomb threat. I told them, ‘Do your job officer, but I didn’t call you guys.’”
Police arrived between 8 and 9 p.m., according to Sartain. After searching through several residents’ cell phones, police took a resident of 8222 Skysail Ave. in for questioning.
“I knew they had the wrong guy,” Newman said. “That man never did anything wrong.”
Police lit up the neighborhood again shortly before midnight, bringing the resident of 8222 Skysail Ave. home and arresting Bouvay after connecting him to the bomb threat.
· Additional reporting by Staff Writers Chris Grillot and Ben Wallace.
Bouvay’s house at 8224 Skysail Ave. had a small bag of marijuana on the driveway.
