Kidnappers are dead, but estranged husband is still  wanted

Published 9:49 pm Thursday, August 10, 2017

PORT ALLEN, La. (AP) — Authorities are still looking for a Louisiana businessman who may have orchestrated the kidnapping of his estranged wife.

Lawrence Michael Handley appears to be at the center of a tangled tale that led to two Jackson, Mississippi, men fleeing from sheriff’s deputies the wrong way down the shoulder of I-10 against snarled traffic, then running off into a swamp on Sunday, only to be found drowned in the Intracoastal Waterway.

The kidnapped woman, taken from her Lafayette home Sunday afternoon, was found alive and handcuffed in the van the men abandoned.

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Handley is proving more elusive, and Lafayette police tell local media he’s rich enough to flee or hide. Lafayette police have issued a warrant for Handley, saying the kidnapping relates to an ongoing domestic dispute.