Cop haunted for decades by Roxanne Sharp’s brutal killing didn’t live to see suspects arrested

For decades, former Louisiana police officer Herbert Joiner used a brown leather briefcase to store the records, clippings and clues he had collected about a case that had haunted him since 1982 — the brutal gang rape and murder and 16-year-old Roxanne Sharp.

For decades, former Louisiana police officer Herbert Joiner used a brown leather briefcase to store the records, clippings and clues he had collected about a case that had haunted him since 1982 — the brutal gang rape and murder and 16-year-old Roxanne Sharp.

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"Herbie," as he was known to friends and family, died in October, just a few months before the case that shook him and the city of Covington to its core was finally cracked.

But before he was felled at age 68 by a heart attack, Joiner had shared what was in the briefcase with the lead Louisiana State Police investigator on the case, Stefan Montgomery, Joiner's son and the LSP confirmed.