The New Orleans Tragedy of 1982: 21 Fishermen Dead Over a Missing Crab Trap | HO!!

By the time the sun rose over Empire, Louisiana, on August 15th, 1982, the Gulf air was already thick with heat, salt, and something else the community had never smelled before—blood. Twenty-one commercial fishermen lay dead across boats, docks, driveways, and narrow bayou roads stretching between Empire, Port Sulphur, and Buras. The murders unfolded within six violent hours, from just before midnight to well past 3:00 a.m., in a rampage that law enforcement would call the most calculated fisherman-on-fisherman massacre in modern American history.

The catalyst?
According to investigators, witnesses, court records, and the last living participants:

A single missing $47 crab trap.

That seemingly trivial theft—one trap among thousands pulled from the Gulf every week—triggered a chain reaction of pride, territorial fury, old Cajun codes, economic desperation, and personal humiliation. It ignited a conflict between two families who had worked the same waters for three generations: the Tibideauxs (pronounced “Tib-i-do”) and the Berceurons (BER-suh-ron). And once the spark caught fire in the already-dry tinder of a collapsing fishing economy, nothing—not church, not family ties, not common sense—could stop what was coming.

This is the definitive, investigative account of what happened, why it happened, and why the answers are far more unsettling than the legend locals still whisper about today.

This is the story of the New Orleans Tragedy of 1982.

I. A Community Built on Water, Pride, and Unwritten Law

In the early 1980s, Plaquemines Parish—78 miles long, shaped like a crooked finger pointing into the Gulf of Mexico—stood as one of the largest seafood producers in the United States. Empire, a town of 2,100 sitting on the west bank of the Mississippi River, functioned as the regional engine. Here, blue crabs, oysters, and shrimp powered not just the economy but entire family lineages.

These were old Cajun fishing families, the descendants of French settlers who had been working the same bayous since the 1880s. Their unwritten rules formed a code stricter than any statute drafted in Baton Rouge:

You never cut another man’s trap line.

You never enter another man’s waters without permission.

You never touch another man’s gear.

Your name—your family name—is everything.

“When someone steals your trap,” retired captain Thomas Breaux told investigators in 1982, “they’re telling you that you’re nothing. Not a man, not a fisherman. Nothing.”

It was in this volatile environment that a modest piece of missing wire mesh would tip the balance between civility and carnage.

II. The First Trap Goes Missing

On August 6th, 1982, 47-year-old fisherman Marcel “Big Mark” Tibideaux motored his boat, the Marie Claire, to check his trap line in Bay Junop—territory his family had worked since World War II. A large, powerfully built man with hands scarred by decades of rope burn and crab claws, he had spent his life on these waters.

One trap was gone.

Not damaged.
Not shifted by current or storm.
Gone.

The float line had been cleanly cut, a telltale sign of deliberate theft.

Big Mark immediately assumed the culprits were the Berceuron family, led by 52-year-old Claude Berceuron, whose sons had been edging closer to Tibideaux waters for months.

This suspicion was not without precedent. Territorial pressure in Empire had intensified dramatically as the Gulf’s blue crab boom lured new competitors—particularly Vietnamese refugees resettled after the fall of Saigon. Local resentment simmered. Some fishing families responded by expanding into waters they didn’t traditionally work.

When rivals crossed those invisible lines, conflict was inevitable.

III. The Confrontation

On August 7th, Big Mark drove to the Berceuron home on Highway 23. Claude met him on the porch.

“My trap’s gone,” Big Mark said. “Line was cut.”

Claude stared back, coffee in hand.
“You accusing my boys?”

“I’m saying my trap is missing. And your boats are running my waters.”

Claude’s response became infamous:

“Forty-seven dollars ain’t worth getting worked up over.”

To Big Mark, that sentence was not just dismissive—it was humiliating. A negation of his honor. A denial of the code. A violation of the one thing he treasured more than money: respect.

That moment, investigators later concluded, was the psychological breaking point.

IV. Escalation: Eight More Traps Disappear

On August 10th, Big Mark’s oldest son, Junior, found eight more traps missing in the same area. The lines were again cut.

Over $400 of equipment lost.
But money wasn’t the issue.

“Someone was sending a message,” Detective Captain Bernard Thibodeaux said later. “And Marcel Tibideaux received it loud and clear.”

The Tibideaux family convened in their father’s garage. All four sons—Junior (32), Joseph (28), Thomas (24), and David (21)—argued possible next steps. Some suggested reporting it. Others wanted retaliation.

The patriarch made the decision for them.

They would take justice into their own hands.

And they would do it thoroughly.

V. The Purchases That Changed Everything

On August 13th, Big Mark drove 83 miles north to Baton Rouge. He bought:

12 boxes of 12-gauge Federal Premium buckshot

Additional ammunition at two other stores

Two boxes of .30-06 rifle rounds

All legally purchased, all carefully recorded, all later retrieved from his truck as evidence.

When a clerk casually asked, “Hunting season?” Big Mark replied:

“Something like that.”

That night, he cleaned his father’s old Remington 870 in the garage while his sons waited silently in the kitchen.

The die was cast.

VI. Midnight, August 14th–15th: The Massacre Begins

11:47 p.m. — The Tibideaux Men Mobilize

Two trucks.
Four shotguns.
Two rifles.
Five men driven by a combustible mix of pride, anger, and fatal certainty.

Their first stop: the Berceuron house.

VII. The Killing of Claude Berceuron

The Berceurons were home watching television.

Big Mark entered through the unlocked front door.

Claude looked up from his recliner.

“Mark,” he said quietly.

“Claude.”

“What you’re doing… it ain’t right.”

“It’s what’s left.”

Marie Rose, Claude’s wife, glimpsed the shotgun and screamed before locking herself in the bedroom.

Claude tried to reach his nightstand revolver. Big Mark fired once.

The blast killed a man he’d known for 30 years.

“I waited for guilt,” Big Mark later told police.
“But all I felt was relief.”

VIII. The Shed Murders

Two of Claude’s sons—Paul Jr. and Raymond—were asleep in the gear shed.

Joseph and Thomas Tibideaux executed both with shotguns.

IX. The Marina Execution

At Empire Marina, the Tibideauxs found 29-year-old Louis Berceuron working late.

“My daddy?” Louis asked.

“Gone.”

“My brothers?”

“Gone.”

Louis told them his wife was pregnant. The news shook Big Mark, but Junior stepped forward and fired the fatal shot.

Louis’s body slid into the water between the boats his family had worked for generations.

X. A Baby in the Back Room

The next stop was the home of 26-year-old Michel Berceuron, who slept near his infant son’s room.

Big Mark hesitated.
A baby crying behind the door made him pause for the first time all night.

But Michel lunged with a knife, and Big Mark shot him.

His wife found the body moments later and screamed into the night.

XI. The Youngest Son and the Fall

Twenty-three-year-old Jacques Berceuron tried to escape from his girlfriend’s second-story balcony. He fell, shattering his leg.

He begged for his life.
Big Mark shot him on the pavement.

XII. The Bunkhouse

Three Berceuron cousins—workers, not leaders—were playing cards in the bunkhouse behind the property. The Tibideauxs opened fire through the trailer walls.

All three died.

One, Andre, lived long enough to ask:

“Why?”
Big Mark answered:
“You were on the wrong side.”

XIII. The Final Five Murders

Between 2:15 and 3:30 a.m., the Tibideaux men hunted down five more men associated with the Berceuron operation—men who had helped steal traps or had laughed about it at Manuel’s bar.

The victims included:

Remy Garo, 42

Marcel Dupis, 38

Henri and Baptiste Comeaux, brothers

Antoine Robicheaux, 51

Antoine, the last victim, did not run.

“I been waiting for you,” he said.
“Make it quick.”

Big Mark did.

XIV. Morning: The Bodies Are Found

By 7:42 a.m., Father Melancon from Our Lady of Good Harbor discovered the first body drifting near Slip 14.

He called the sheriff in panic.

“Send everyone,” he said. “There’s been a massacre.”

Detectives soon realized the scope:

21 dead

8 locations

Multiple crime scenes across 12 miles

All victims connected to the stolen traps

The murders had been surgical.

XV. The Arrest

On August 16th, troopers and deputies arrived at the Tibideaux home expecting a firefight.

Instead, they found Big Mark sitting on his porch, hands open.

“We’re ready,” he said.

The sheriff asked:
“Mark… was it worth it?”

Big Mark looked at the bayou.

“They stole from me, Sheriff. Disrespected me. A man can’t live with that.”

XVI. The Trial

The trial was moved to New Orleans due to intense local bias.

105 counts of first-degree murder.

All five Tibideaux men were convicted.

Big Mark: death penalty (later commuted to life)

Junior: life without parole

Joseph: life (killed in prison in 2001)

Thomas: 60 years

David: 45 years

When asked for final remarks, Big Mark only said:

“I protected what was mine.”

XVII. Lives After the Massacre

Big Mark died in Angola in 2016 at age 80.

Evangelene, his wife, died in 2010, having visited him every Sunday for 28 years.

David walked into the Gulf in 2029 and never returned.

Thomas, paroled at 81, lives quietly in Metairie and avoids all interviews.

The Berceuron widows rebuilt their lives in silence.

The Berceuron property was bulldozed.

The Tibideaux name vanished from the docks.

Empire moved on—outwardly.

But the water remembers.

XVIII. Forty Years Later: Lessons No One Wants to Face

The official narrative is simple:

A mass murderer killed 21 men over a crab trap.

The true story is far more complicated.

The Empire massacre revealed:

A broken system

A neglected community

Economic desperation

Honor codes older than law

Pride that outlived reason

And a justice system too weak to prevent the unthinkable

Captain Bernard Thibodeaux summarized it best in 2020:

“Legally, Marcel Tibideaux was a murderer.
Morally… the bayou has its own laws.
And sometimes those laws demand blood.”

This is the tragedy of Empire:

Not just the 21 dead.

But the understanding that it was never really about a crab trap.

It was about:

Respect

Territory

Identity

Economic survival

And a pressure-cooker culture with no safety valve

When honor becomes more valuable than life itself,
the line between justice and revenge disappears.

And all that remains is blood.