community that news travels fast.
Until recently, the city about 50 miles north of Lake Charles had mostly been known for its proximity to Fort Polk and a rumored-to-be-haunted “Hanging Jail,” where a noose still dangles in the stairway.
But over the past few months, DeRidder has made national headlines while the r of them drew an influx of attorneys, spectators and journalists into the city. The recent trial of , now convicted of multiple sex crimes involving a 2024 party when she had sex with her son’s 16-year-old friend, led to a boom for some local businesses.
Locals say, though, that they wish the attention on their town was related to something brighter, while the news surrounding Roberts’ case has echoed through their community.
“There’s some strong people in this community,” said Debbie Rowell, a DeRidder coffee shop owner. “There was a dark cloud that hovered for so long, but that has lifted and people are coming together more.”
Rowell owns The Coffee Connection, right across from the Beauregard Parish Courthouse where Roberts was tried. She moved to DeRidder in 2020 from Los Angeles.
The city of 10,000 is her ex-husband’s hometown and where her children and grandchildren live. It’s quickly become her home, too.
“This community has found a place in my heart,” Rowell said. “We all may differ on a lot of things, but I think our passion and our one goal here is to have unity in the community.”
Patrons walk past businesses on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, in downtown DeRidder.
STAFF PHOTO BY BRAD BOWIE
Her business selling lattes and baked goods experienced about a 30% increase in sales for two weeks as attorneys, jurors, witnesses, journalists and curious spectators took breaks. Rowell had to bring in additional staff to handle the crowds.
“It was crazy the people coming through,” Rowell said. “I think since I’ve owned this business, maybe one time we exceeded those numbers, and it was during the Christmas holidays.”
Jon Doyle, who owns Cecil’s Cajun Kitchen in downtown DeRidder, also saw an increase in business during the trial as visitors sought their seafood, sandwiches and salads. The restaurant is typically busiest during festivals, parades and other events.
“We’re downtown without a parking lot, so you really have to want to come to us,” Doyle said. “We’re like a destination unless there’s an event going on downtown. Of course this was a trial, but it brought people in like an event.”
Owner Jon Doyle can be seen on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, at Cecil’s restaurant in downtown DeRidder.
STAFF PHOTO BY BRAD BOWIE
Now that the trial has ended and the media craze has subsided, those who live and work in DeRidder are hopeful that visitors might come instead for the city’s quaint and quirky offerings.
‘Before they cut the pine trees’
DeRidder, the largest city in Beauregard Parish, was carved out of the piney woods of southwestern h.
In 1897, the railroad came through the region and the timber industry quickly followed.
“They used to say that the pine trees were so thick here that in the middle of the day, the sunlight didn’t touch the ground,” said Cleo Martin, interim director of the Beauregard Parish Tourism Commission. “It was like midnight in the middle of the day before they cut the pine trees. And from that, DeRidder sprouted up.”
The stained glass dome featured in courtroom one of the Beauregard Parish Courthouse can be seen on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, in DeRidder.
STAFF PHOTO BY BRAD BOWIE
The region’s lumber companies funded the design and construction of a courthouse and a jail in the early 1900s.
“To show how we were prospering, they went to New Orleans, and they got an architect,” Martin said. “And it cost $168,500 to build both of these buildings.”
Though the Beauregard Parish Courthouse has been expanded and renovated over the years, its main courtroom, where Roberts’ trial took place, still features the original mural and stained-glass, domed ceiling.
Next door, the gothic-style jail opened in 1914 and housed inmates until 1984. An underground tunnel once connected the two buildings.
It’s often referred to as the hanging jail because two men — convicted of robbing and murdering a taxicab driver — were hanged there in 1928.
Marlena Dougherty leads a tour of the Gothic Jail on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, in DeRidder.
STAFF PHOTO BY BRAD BOWIE
But the person rumored to haunt the building is an old jailer who lived on-site, known for frisking staff and visitors.
Marlena Dougharty, a tour guide at the jail, said she’s often heard women arguing upstairs in the area where women were once locked up. When she climbs the spiral staircase toward the women’s cell, Dougharty usually hears a male voice shushing the women.
“It’s almost like the jail comes alive,” Dougharty said. “It just kind of happens around you. That’s what I love about it — the history coming to life.”
Tour Guide Marlena Dougherty leads a tour of the Gothic Jail on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, in DeRidder.
STAFF PHOTO BY BRAD BOWIE
The jail was also featured in the 2019 Netflix movie “Eli” about a boy being treated for a rare disease at a clinic in a haunted prison.
The sawmill culture and Paton’s pipe
The lumber and paper mill industries still employ a significant portion of the city’s population.
The city is also home to a thriving Mennonite community, whose members sell dairy and handmade products at downtown storefronts. Curled Creme features rolled ice cream and other treats, and Little Willow Mercantile offers linens, toiletries, gifts, toys and food.
“We have a lot of churches here,” said Elona Weston, Beauregard Museum director and Main Street director for the city of DeRidder. “And that really goes back to this sawmill culture because we had so many different ethnicities and every nationality of people living here.”
Handmade soaps are available at Little Willow Mercantile on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, in DeRidder.
STAFF PHOTO BY BRAD BOWIE
The city also has a museum inside a 100-year-old train depot, along with the Lois Loftin Doll Museum, which houses more than 4,000 dolls from across the globe.
Cleo Martin, with the Beauregard Tourism Commission, talks about the town’s collection of over 4,000 dolls on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, at the Beauregard Tourist Commission in downtown DeRidder.
STAFF PHOTO BY BRAD BOWIE
With Fort Polk about 30 miles away, DeRidder has also become home to veterans from across the country.
A plaque at the corner of First and Washington streets commemorates Army Gen. George Patton Jr., who purchased a pipe at Ideal Drug Store in the summer of 1941 a few months before America joined World War II. The store was packed that Sunday with soldiers who frequented the store’s soda fountain. As Patton considered two pipes, a soldier asked if he could go around him and pay.
“Patton responded harshly and used profanity,” the plaque says. “He asked the soldier, ‘Don’t you know who I am?’”
Brownie LeRay, who worked the register at that time, was shocked.
“‘Sir, you may be a general, but you are no gentleman,’” LeRay told Patton, according to the plaque.
The general paid for his pipe and left the store. Patton would go on to command the Seventh Army in the Mediterranean Theater of World War II, then the Third Army in France and Germany after the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944.
‘Not let this destroy our reputation as a small town’
Beauregard Parish President Eddie Ware hopes the city’s small-town charm will outshine the recent negative media attention.
“We are in a small town, and everybody’s family here,” Ware said. “We’ve got to remain positive and not let this destroy our reputation as a small town, even though now it’s gone national. There’s been a lot of people put in a position they didn’t want to be in, including myself. We know everybody here. Our kids and families grew up together.”
Police Jury President Eddie Ware, left, and business owner Debbie Rowell discuss the virtues of life in DeRidder on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, at the Coffee Connection in downtown DeRidder.
STAFF PHOTO BY BRAD BOWIE
A jury of six on March 3 found Roberts guilty of carnal knowledge of a juvenile and indecent behavior with a juvenile. Her defense attorneys have since asked as attention around the case continues.
“We ask the public to remember that, behind every headline, there is a real person and family living through it,” said a joint statement from attorneys Adam Johnson and Todd Clemons.
Although the trial is over, there will likely be more attention on DeRidder next month, when Roberts is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Kent Savoie.