Quawan Charles case: Louisiana woman arrested for failure to report, contributing to delinquency

IBERIA PARISH, La. (TCD) --

A Louisiana woman was arrested Tuesday related to a missing-person case after a teenager's unclothed body was found in a ditch in November.

Quawan “Bobby” Charles, 15, was reported missing by his family on Oct. 30, 2020, in Baldwin, La.

Charles’ unclothed body was found submerged in a ditch near a sugarcane field about 20 miles away, near Loreauville, on Nov. 3.

Janet Irvin was arrested Tuesday and booked into the Iberia Parish Jail on charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and failure to report a missing child. In their statement about Irvin’s arrest, lawyers said she was arrested after sheriff's deputies met with a private investigator to exchange notes, the Associated Press reports.

Irvin told investigators with Charles family that the teen had smoked marijuana and was high on hallucinogens when he left her house, the Lafayette Daily Advertiser reports. She said Charles had fallen asleep and when he was awoken, he became combative and said he was going to harm himself.

Irvin did not call the police until four days after Quawan Charles left her house, attorneys for the family said, according to the Daily Advertiser.

A coroner’s report said a witness reportedly saw Charles crawling in culverts behind a school, and quoted autopsy witnesses as saying surveillance video showed him alone near the area where his body was found, the AP reports.

Two autopsies, one for the family and the other for the Iberia Parish Coroner’s Office, found small amounts of alcohol and THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in his blood, the AP reports.

The Acadiana Advocate reported Monday Charles' cause of death in the official autopsy report is drowning, but his manner of death remained undetermined.

"The uncertainties about whether this drowning represents an accidental, suicidal, or homicidal death makes an undetermined manner of death most appropriate likely," a forensic pathologist at the Louisiana Forensic Center wrote in an opinion.

The autopsy said in part, “Reportedly he had been at a residence where drugs were consumed including possible marijuana (THC) and psilocybin mushrooms. Reportedly after smoking a substance the decedent passed out and when he awoke he became combative. Reportedly he said he was ‘going to kill himself’.”

Charles family attorneys have repeatedly stated they believe Irvin and her son were the last people to see Charles alive, and that Irvin picked Charles up from a family residence without parental permission, according to the Acadiana Advocate.

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