HOUMA (LA)
Houma Today
November 22, 2018
By Dan Copp
A local former Catholic priest convicted of raping an altar boy in 1996 has died in prison, officials said.
Robert Lester “Bobby” Melancon died Nov. 5 of natural causes at the age of 82, state corrections spokesman Ken Pastorick said.
Melancon, who moved from St. Genevieve in Thibodaux to Annunziata Parish in Houma in 1985, died while serving a life sentence at the David Wade Correctional Center, a minimum-security prison near Shreveport.
A Terrebonne Parish jury of seven men and five women convicted Melancon in 1996 of aggravated rape after less than two hours of deliberation following a 4 ½-day trial.
Prosecutors at the time said Melancon was a sexual predator who raped an 8-year-old altar boy several times from 1985 to 1991 at the Annunziata rectory.
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