'I wish he was dead': Woman charged with allegedly killing 16-month-old son 55 years ago

SULPHUR, La. (TCN) -- A 75-year-old woman was arrested last week following a yearslong investigation into her toddler son’s death in 1970.

KPLC-TV reports Sulphur Police Department officers took Alice Bunch Idlett into custody on March 27 on a charge of second-degree murder for the death of her son, Earl Dwayne Bunch III. The department started investigating his death in 2022 following a request from the 16-month-old victim’s family. Officials initially said Bunch died when he fell from a crib, and there was not enough evidence at the time to prove otherwise.

Detectives reportedly recently exhumed the boy’s body and sent his remains to the FBI, who listed his death as a homicide.

Bunch’s father, Earl Bunch Jr., was deployed overseas in Thailand during the Vietnam War when the boy died.

According to court documents shared by KPLC, Bunch Jr. filed for divorce in 1983, citing "mental cruelty." During his custody appeal of their daughter, Bunch Jr. said Idlett wrote him letters that "were of a threatening nature, both toward herself and her son." The court document cites excerpts from her correspondence where she talks about hating their son and herself.

On Nov. 19, 1969, she allegedly told her husband she never wanted to be a mother, adding, "I honestly wish he had never been born. He knows he won’t get his way around me. I’ll kill him before he becomes spoilt. I honestly mean that..."

In a letter two days later, she reportedly said, "If he (Earl Dwayne) starts crying when I put him down to play, I’m going to whip him until his darn seat is red. I can’t put up with this mess... I hate your son, I wish he was dead."

She wrote that Earl Dwayne Bunch "ruint [sic] my life" and that he "needs love but I can’t give it to him."

Bunch Jr. said he attempted to fly back to Louisiana to be with his wife, but he could not get an emergency leave order.

On Jan. 19, 1970, Idlett took Earl Dwayne Bunch to the emergency room because he was "limp and gasping for breath." A doctor who examined him said the boy was "in a comatose condition." He also noticed bite and burn marks on the child’s body. The doctor reportedly noted Earl Dwayne Bunch’s wounds "looked more like a child that had been beaten; that perhaps somebody had taken it by the feet, and swung it against a piece of furniture or the wall."

Idlett allegedly appeared "stoical" and not emotional.

He was transferred to another hospital for X-rays, which showed he sustained several skull fractures and a right shoulder fracture. Earl Dwayne Bunch was taken to a third hospital in Texas, where he died during emergency surgery the next day.

Bunch Jr. returned to Louisiana for his son’s funeral, and he "accepted his son’s death as accidental, because he could not believe that the woman he loved could have harmed her own son."

According to KPLC, a grand jury returned an indictment to the Calcasieu Parish District Attorney’s Office charging Idlett with second-degree murder.

Idlett is being held at the Calcasieu Parish Correctional Center on $950,000 bond.

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