Gov. Edwards’ Former Bodyguard Is Killed; Friend’s Husband Held

Clyde Vidrine, a former aide to Gov. Edwin W. Edwards, was shot to death Tuesday as he left a courthouse with a woman, and deputy marshals arrested her estranged husband.

Vidrine, 48, died in a Shreveport hospital from shotgun wounds several hours after the attack in front of the federal courthouse, authorities said.

James R. Cummings, 35, of Blanchard, was arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder, police said.

Vidrine, who had said he would run for governor in 1987, was with Cummings’ estranged wife and 16-year-old son when he was shot.

Witnesses told police that Cummings accosted Vidrine and the two men argued, and that Cummings took a shotgun from his car and fired three rounds. Vidrine, formerly the governor’s bodyguard, was hit twice as he tried to run away, police said.

Vidrine apparently had accompanied Kathy Cummings to bankruptcy court, witnesses said, for a hearing on her husband’s personal bankruptcy and the failure of his building supply company.

Vidrine, a rice farmer who befriended Edwards when Edwards was a young congressman, later accused the governor of taking money from South Korean businessman Tongsun Park.