INTERVIEW: Major Ronnie Hebert leads detectives in Louisiana’s ‘Killing Fields’

Discovery’s Killing Fields, which continues with new episodes Tuesdays at 10 p.m., features a cast of real-life characters who investigate violent crimes in Iberville Parish, Louisiana. The backdrop is the rugged bayou in this unique area of the United States, and the crimes depicted on the series are real and painful to the families and detectives searching for answers.

Major Ronald “Ronnie” Hebert heads an investigating team that includes a group of detectives and crime-scene experts who dig through evidence and chase leads to find some semblance of closure on homicides that have gone unsolved. On the new season, the team members are looking into a number of cases, including the tragic homicide of Eugenie Boisfontaine, a Louisiana State University student who died in 1997.

Hebert and company work long hours in search of the next clue.

“I think what happens is [the audience members] actually see the real world, the real investigations,” Hebert said of the popularity of Killing Fields. “This is not a made-up TV series where the bad guy is caught in an hour. This is actual investigating, and I think it shows the people that these crimes take days, months … to actually bring to fruition. It’s not an easy task, and I think the people see that now versus just watching one-hour TV series where a murder was committed, and at the end of the show, all the bad guys went to jail.”

When Hebert is looking for employees to join his investigation team, he searches for candidates who are accessible. He needs to be able to pick up a phone and gather information from any of his detectives or forensics specialists without delay. When he says 24/7, he means it.

For his current team, Hebert had nothing but praise.

“I always tell people the credit needs to go to the rest of this team,” he said. “They are unbelievable, but what I look for is somebody who is aggressive, don’t ever take no for an answer, and very nosey, get in everybody’s business, and yet compassion at the same time. And the group that I have assembled, everybody is so different in their own lives, but they mesh together so unbelievable.”

The day to day for Hebert can be quite dark at times. The homicide cases that come across his desk are gruesome, resulting in grieving families, unsolved mysteries and plenty of unanswered questions. The major has a way of compartmentalizing the shock and sadness. He has learned to deal with the subject matter in the best way he can, but it’s always lingering in the back of his mind.

“I learn to separate the work from pleasure, but it never leaves my mind,” he said. “I could be working in my yard, doing lawn work … and I’ll still reminiscence or run through my mind things that I did or things that I need to do. And I’ll make a phone call from the borough park, or I’ll make a call from off of my lawn tractor. It never goes away, but I don’t let it affect me to the point where I’m losing sleep.”

Perhaps the hardest part of solving these cases is how much time has passed from the point of the murder to the present day. Sometimes it’s decades, and the evidence is missing. Sometimes witnesses move away, and everything is subject to the elements.

“That’s probably the number-one hindrance that we run across,” Hebert said. “So much time has passed. People have passed away. Evidence is eroded — and the conditions of what her body was in when we found her and the conditions where we live here in Louisiana, south Louisiana. It’s so hot and humid. We get sunny and rainy days. [There’s] remote areas that are only accessible by boat some of them.”

Hebert has worked in law enforcement for quite some time. His love of the profession dates back to the days when he would watch his brother as a dispatcher. “My brother was in law enforcement,” he said. “He was a paraplegic, and he was a dispatcher. He was paralyzed probably from his chest down, and as a young child when he first started working, I had the chance to hang around the police station. And I saw what these guys did. I said, ‘I got to do this. I have to do this.’ I worked in a chemical plant when I first got out of high school, made great money, took a huge cut to come into law enforcement and never regretted a second of it. I love it.”

Hebert started his current post in 2012 after Sheriff Brett Stassi took office. Hebert was appointed the head of investigations, and the first case that he found in the file room was that of Boisfontaine. “We went in, and we reorganized everything,” he said. “We made sure all of our boxes were straight and all of our files were straight.”

And so began a multi-year odyssey to find the killer.

In this line of work, the investigations can take days, months or years. Other times, the police work can find results within hours. Hebert remembers one case in 2013 of a homicide of a man who was allegedly shot from behind by his friend. The only access to the body of the victim was by boat. There were no cameras and no witnesses, Hebert said, and yet the police were able to track down the killer within 13 hours. Other cases take much, much longer.

For that 2013 case, the TV cameras weren’t rolling, but in today’s world, those cameras are ready to go. So Hebert and the team need to get used to having their difficult work displayed on Discovery Channel every week. “I will say this, they always respected us to the utmost,” Hebert said of the camera crew.

The cameras have brought many more phone calls and emails to the major.

“I get embarrassed with it because I’m not very good on fame,” Hebert said. “I’m not very good on pats on the back. … It’s a great feeling. I’m not going to lie. It feels great, and I’ve had people call from all over the country calling here. I get emails from all over the country thanking me for what I do and how awesome a job it is. It’s an amazing feeling.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

Killing Fields airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on Discovery Channel. Click here for more information.