Suspect held on $5million bond
JENNINGS, La. (AP)- A former mental patient who police say is obsessed with rock star Olivia Newton-John was ordered held in lieu of 35 million bond Wednesday on charges that he murdered five members of his family.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Dallas Cormier said Judge Walter C. Peters appointed two defense attor neys and set bond almost immed-ately after Michael O. Perry, 28. was returned from Washington where he was arrested Sunday for stealing a radio cassette from a hotel.
As the suspect was being booked on five counts of first-degree murder Wednesday, Cormier said, “He didn’t say anything. Nothing at all. He was just real quiet and everything.”
Perry waived extradition to Louisiana on the murder charges Monday, saying, “If Louisiana is needing me, and I’m sure they are now, the best thing for me to do is go out there and see what’s going on.”
Perry lived in a trailer behind his parents’ home in Lake Arthur, where the bodies of his father, Chester, 48, his mother Grace, cousins Randy, 19, and Bryan LeBlanc, 22, and nephew Anthony Bonin, 2, were found July 19. Each had been shot in the head.
Police have said Perry apparently was obsessed with Newton-John, and the names “Olivia” and “Judge O’Connor” an apparent reference to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor were scrawled on a piece of paper found in one of the two houses where the bodies were found.
Another sheet bore the names of everyone in his family, according to police.
Police said Perry tried five times in April to see Newton John at her home in Malibu, but was turned back at the door.
He told Newton-John in a fan letter he allegedly wrote last year that he felt there was an “underground network” operating under his trailer and his parents’ home, authorities said.
“I heard voices and the voices said to me that you are a Muse and trapped under Lake Arthur,” he wrote.
Miss Newton-John played a Muse in the movie “Xanadu.” A muse was any one of nine goddesses of the arts in Greek mythology.
Chief Deputy Ted Gary, who helped escort Perry back to Louisiana, said Wednesday that six television sets were found in the Washington hotel room where Perry was arrested and the name “Olivia” was scrawled on one of them.
The FBI had been warned Per ry also might be a threat to O’Connor.
Newton-John’s security company, Gavin deBecker Inc., said the singer was in Australia where she issued a statement saying:
“These cases are an unfortunate part of public life and I am just relieved that this one has been caught. Because the court case is currently being prepared the Department of Justice has advised that I not comment further.”