The darkest part of night seems to linger at the bridge where, according to Google Maps, Parish Road 140 becomes Bayou Tortue Road.
Ask anyone who has chanced driving there at night, and they'll describe how the darkness seems to envelope everything. Is it real or imagined? Maybe a little of both. That's how legends work, and this one involves the manifestation of a girl in white on this bridge that crosses Bayou Tortue outside of Broussard.
Well, back that up. This is a legend, after all, and scary a one at that. So, a few rules that have to be met before the girl will appear.
A small bridge nicknamed the Mary Jane Bridge is pictured on Bayou Tortue Road Monday, October 20, 2025, in Broussard, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY LESLIE WESTBROOK
First, the car must stop in the middle of the bridge with the motor turned off. Don't worry about disrupting traffic, because there won't be any. After that, all passengers must say "Mary Jane," three times.
Mary Jane is the ghost girl, namesake of what is unofficially called the Mary Jane Bridge. By this time, all arms will be covered in goosebumps, prompting an attempt to restart the car.
But the motor will be dead ā as dead as the darkness surrounding the bridge.
A small bridge nicknamed the Mary Jane Bridge is pictured on Bayou Tortue Road Monday, October 20, 2025, in Broussard, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY LESLIE WESTBROOK
And all passengers can do at this point is get out and start pushing. Once the car crosses from the bridge to the road, the motor should restart, that is, if the car crosses over before Mary Jane "gets you."
"It's said that Mary Jane shows up on the bridge after you call her three times," Breaux Bridge resident and musician Yvette Landry said. "You have to push your car off the bridge as fast as you can before she gets you."
Landry has tried her own hand at the legend.
Graffiti and bullet holes decorate a weight limit sign displayed at a small bridge nicknamed the Mary Jane Bridge on Bayou Tortue Road Monday, October 20, 2025, in Broussard, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY LESLIE WESTBROOK
"I vaguely remember going out there with some friends when I was in high school," she said. "We stopped the car and said her name twice, but we never made it to the third third time. We were too scared. We started the car and got out of there as fast as we could."
How and why?
Though it's the irresistible terror that attracts most adventurers to the bridge, Josh Hall is more intrigued by the story behind the ghost.
"Who was Mary Jane?" the Lafayette resident asked. "I've heard about the legend, but was she real? And when and how did this story start?"
Early evening sunlight dances off the water below a small bridge nicknamed the Mary Jane Bridge on Bayou Tortue Road Monday, October 20, 2025, in Broussard, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY LESLIE WESTBROOK
The first part of the question is a little easier to answer than the second, and even here, details are null and void.
Mary Jane's story can be found on several Acadiana-based websites. Authors CherĆ© Dastugue Coen and Tim Wescott also include the story in their respective books, "Haunted Lafayette, ¶¶Ņõh" and "Weird ¶¶Ņõh."
The gist of it goes something like this: Mary Jane and a date were taking a ride along Bayou Tortue Road after leaving their high school prom, when the prom date stopped the car at the bridge. He'd been drinking and wanted more than hand holding and kissing, but Mary Jane wasn't having it. Her date went into a rage, struck her with a whiskey bottle then dumped her body into Bayou Tortue.
A small bridge nicknamed the Mary Jane Bridge is pictured on Bayou Tortue Road Monday, October 20, 2025, in Broussard, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY LESLIE WESTBROOK
It's said her body was never found.Ā
Meanwhile, Mary Jane's last name never appears in any version of the story, and her prom date's identity is always nonexistent. Yet here is this legend with no clear origin.
"I've called my brother, and he's made some calls," Landry said. "I've called around to other people I know, but no one knows how this story got started."
Still, Landry's mother, Breaux Bridge resident Mary Alice Landry, remembers the story popping up some years after she graduated high school.
Decorative Halloween ghosts hang from a tree about a quarter-mile from the small bridge nicknamed the Mary Jane Bridge on Bayou Tortue Road Monday, October 20, 2025, in Broussard, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY LESLIE WESTBROOK
"She said she doesn't remember hearing when she was in school, but I was in school in the '70s and '80s when I first heard it," YvetteĀ Landry said. "So it had to be some time between then."
A preventative measure?
As for how it started, YvetteĀ Landry has her own theory. She's not only a musician but an author and storyteller, and one of her stories could hold the key to the Mary Jane mystery.
"When I was a little girl, my grandmother told me a story about a witch who would drift into your attic if you misbehaved," she said. "At night, her long, bony fingers would slink down through the rafters and snatch up any kid who was not doing as told."
A small bridge nicknamed the Mary Jane Bridge is pictured on Bayou Tortue Road Monday, October 20, 2025, in Broussard, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY LESLIE WESTBROOK
She published the story in her 2016 children's book, "Madame Grand Doigt."
"Sure, it was terrifying, but it was meant to be preventative," she said. "You made sure you were being good, because you didn't want this witch reaching down and snatching you. I think it's the same case with the Mary Jane Bridge story."
YvetteĀ Landry remembers Bayou Tortue Road as being a popular hangout for high schoolers in the 1970s and '80s. However, the area wasn't a safe place.
"The road was dark, and someone could have gotten hurt," she said. "So, I think the Mary Jane story might have been made up by adults as a preventative measure. It was a scary story to keep them from hanging out there."
A small bridge nicknamed the Mary Jane Bridge is pictured on Bayou Tortue Road Monday, October 20, 2025, in Broussard, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY LESLIE WESTBROOK
Did it work? While the story might have scared away some kids, others surely wanted to test it. Even today, the call-out of Mary Jane on the bridge is just too irresistible for both teens and adults.
Another dimension
Meanwhile, Joan Broussard shared another dimension to the legend.
"I went to Comeaux High School, and we always went to Stone Road and the Mary Jane Bridge," the Lafayette resident said. "I always thought it was called Stone Road, because that's where the high school kids gathered to party."
Anyway, the legend was a little different for Broussard and her friends.
"Back in those days, the legend was that you turn off your car, and it will still go over the bridge," she said. "Now, I really can't say that I remember that because I'm such a scaredy cat. If I did it, I was on the floorboard."
According to this version of the legend, ghostly crying can be heard after the car crosses.
"There have been a lot of deaths on that road," Broussard said. "And that's because people drive too fast around the dangerous curve before the bridge. That may have something to do with the crying part of the legend."
But that didn't stop Broussard, now 53, from returning to the bridge with her 19-year-old daughter Sylvia Broussard.
"I asked her if she wanted to go down Stone Road," Broussard said. "She didn't know what was going to happen. When we got there, we saw that someone had hung some ghost decorations in the trees. I told her that this is where the urban legend begins, and I explained the story to her. She said, 'Mom, I thought we were going to see Halloween decorations.'"
Sylvia gunned the gas pedal, but she was still in the middle of Mary Jane's territory.
"Our GPS and radio went silent," Broussard said. "Now, that could have beenĀ ā no pun intendedĀ ā a dead spot for a signal, but both started working as soon as we crossed the bridge."
And the song playing on the radio?
"ItĀ was Michael Jackson's 'Thriller,'" Broussard said, laughing.Ā Ā Ā
And somewhere within the darkness of Bayou Tortue, Mary Jane was smiling.