If you are adult living in Louisiana, no doubt you are familiar with who Dr. Carl Austin Weiss is. He is the person who allegedly shot Huey P. Long in the Louisiana State Capitol on the night of September 8, 1935. This event has received more publicity than probably in other event in Louisiana history. Many books, television documentaries and articles have been written and produced related to this subject. I became involved with this matter in the early 1980’s when I did research for Ed Reed for the book he was writing about Huey Long which he titled “Requiem for a Kingfish”. The book was published and contained two revelations that both Reed and I felt would significantly change the public perception of who actually shot Huey Long. These items are the first and second items of the evidentiary summary I have prepared over the years which, I feel, presents overwhelming evidence that Weiss did not shoot Huey Long. The summary is as follows:

1. Merle Welsh interview As the mortician at Rabenhorst Funeral Home where Long’s body was brought, he described in detail how Dr. Clarence Lorio removed a large caliber bullet from Long's body at the funeral home. He was given the bullet by Lorio and he, in turn, gave it to his assistant, Jack Umbehagen. Unbehagen’s relatives confirmed that he had a large caliber spent bullet on his watch chain for years describing it as the bullet that killed Huey Long. Weiss’s gun was a rather small 32 caliber.

2. Coleman Vidrine Jr interview He explained how his father told him that Dr Arthur Vidrine, his uncle, had given his father, Coleman Sr. a 38 caliber spent bullet for safekeeping, telling him that this was the bullet removed from Long's body during surgery. Arthur's instructions to Coleman Sr. were to keep the bullet in a safe place and tell no one about it, obviously because it was a different caliber than Weiss’ gun. This was corroborated by J. C. Broussard a south Louisiana restaurant owner and friend of Arthur Vidrine. Broussard told T. Harry Williams during his research for his Pulitzer Prize winning book “Huey Long” that Vidrine confirmed to him that Long had two bullets in him, one being a 38 cal. Dr Vidrine also confirmed the same story to Col Francis Grevemberg’s father.

3. The recollection of Tom Ed Weiss, Carl's brother about the events he experienced the night of the Long shooting. His explanation was that after he heard about the shooting, he went to the State Capitol and located Carl's automobile which was locked. He went to his home to find the spare key and when he returned to the capitol, the automobile was moved, unlocked and ransacked. The glove compartment where Weiss kept his pistol was open and the pistol was gone.

4. The true details on the Long shooting from some of the state police officers who were at the shooting that were inadvertently disclosed to Francis Grevemberg during a long automobile trip after a raid. Grevemberg was Superintendent of state police at that time. These details included the accidental shooting of Long by his bodyguards, introducing a throw down gun which was later replaced by Weiss’s own gun, and a gathering of all of witnesses by Superintendent L. F. Guerre later to admonish them to close ranks in support of a Weiss shooting. This version was corroborated by Morris Soileau a barber, whose shop was close the state police headquarters and who heard this same story for those state police troopers who were present at the Long shooting.

5. The testimony of the two emergency room nurses at the hospital, who said that Long explained that the cut on his lip was caused by Weiss hitting him. They also related that Long asked his bodyguards “who was that ‘sob’ who hit me?” Not who shot him but who hit him which is highly probative that Long knew that Weiss did not shoot him. It would be inconceivable to believe that Weiss struck Long and five bodyguards standing very close would allow Weiss time to draw a gun and shoot Long after he hit him.

6. Weiss confronted Long on three separate occasions. The shooting incident occurring on the third occasion. If Weiss had gone to the Capitol intending to shoot Long, it makes no sense that he would have passed up two earlier occasions to shoot him, not knowing if he would have been presented with additional occasions later.

7. Judge Fournet’s testimony that he saw Weiss shoot Long. This has been heavily relied on for many years as the key evidence supportive of Weiss shooting Long. His declaration took place several days after the shooting and according the Grevemberg statement, after General L. F. Guerre brought all of those present at the shooting into a gathering and directed them under extreme repercussions not to break ranks against the version of Weiss shooting Long that Guerre orchestrated. Fournet recanted to at least five different individuals that he lied about what he said he saw but refused to go public with his recantation.

8. Stories about the Long shooting told to others by Vernon McGee a reporter at the scene who witnessed a bodyguard accidentally shoot Long. He and all the other reporters were later subjected to extreme intimidation by General Guerre not to report the facts but only that Weiss shot Long. Philip Maranto also told his story of being at the shooting to a Port Allen newspaper. His story was that a bodyguard accidentally shot Long in the back. Federal Judge Lansing Mitchell who was General Guerre’s attorney acknowledged that Guerre admitted to him that the Weiss gun was removed from his car after the shooting.

Physical Evidence

The official version of the shooting describing the two wounds in Long’s body as wounds of entry and exit from a single shot from Weiss’s gun. Although there were many law enforcement officers who investigated the scene for some time, no .32 caliber bullet was ever found even though the scene was a closed, pristine, marble hallway. There is no record of anyone even looking for a .32 caliber bullet because it is obvious that no one at the scene saw anything that would have caused them to look for one. Had that been the case, there is little doubt that the order would have come down from the top that no one was to leave the building until that bullet was found. Additionally, the .32 caliber pistol round at about 70 grains projectile weight and approximately 900 feet per second muzzle velocity is the slowest least penetrating of all the handgun rounds and very unlikely to cause a pass-through penetration in the upper torso of a large adult male. I’ve seen narratives defending the state’s position that assert that the state employees involved at the time would not be so calloused as to frame Carl Weiss for shooting Long after Weiss’s death. Apparently, these same employees were sufficiently calloused to shoot Weiss at close range over seventy times which required them to reload their weapons multiple times and continue shooting into Weiss’s lifeless body. The number of shots to Weiss’s body was confirmed by Dr James Starrs when he performed an autopsy on Weiss’s body in the late 1980’s.

In my opinion, any one of these items standing alone would be enough to convince an objective person that Carl Austin Weiss did not shoot Huey Long and all taken in total would produce that conclusion beyond any reasonable doubt. The only state investigation made since the shooting was after the fiftieth anniversary of the shooting where many of the factors presented above had been revealed and received extensive publicity. Ironically the Louisiana State Police conducted its own one-man investigation which concluded that Carl Austin Weiss was indeed the shooter and Long’s bodyguards simply responded by shooting the man who shot Long. This investigator was aware at the time of his investigation of each and every one the factors listed above but chose not to even consider any one of them. I seemed to be the only one to notice that the Louisiana State Police saw no conflict of interest in deciding to investigate the Long shooting and the criminal conspiracy cover up of its own former employees.

Additional analogies and conclusions about the Long shooting can be made as follows:

Grevemberg’s attempt to publicly disclose the explanation of the shooting he overheard from those involved. His statement details that after he confronted the bodyguards about going public with their inadvertent admissions to him, they reminded him that they were sworn to secrecy years ago by General Guerre and if forced to would deny they ever made those statements. He ultimately dropped his attempt to go public after his legal advisor convinced him that it would not be successful, and he would probably lose his job if he proceeded with it.

T Harry Williams’ book about Huey Long was somewhat of an enigma when it came to the Long shooting. Although it mostly ignored the shooting itself, Williams remained adamant that Weiss shot Long. I’ve explored that scenario and have come to the same conclusions about it. It is fairly common knowledge that the Long family sought out Williams to write the “defining book” about Huey Long. Williams had the right credentials to do the necessary research and pen the type of work that the Long family wanted. It is also common knowledge that the Long family held fast to the belief that Carl Austin Weiss, and not the bodyguards, shot Long. I am not certain if the Long family or Williams ever acknowledged it, but it is also a common belief that they paid Williams a handsome sum to undertake this endeavor. That would make perfect sense since there was no guarantee such a book would be the financial success it ultimately proved to be and the amount of time Williams spent on this project was staggering. This being the case, it came as no surprise that Williams toed the Long family line about Weiss shooting Long. This is particularly interesting because of the acknowledgement that J. C. Broussard made to Williams that never was included in the book. Because this information came from such a reliable source and was in stark contrast to what had been published and accepted about the shooting, it should have given Williams considerable pause to reconsider his position, which he never did. I found this information buried in Williams’ research material he had accumulated and donated to the LSU library. This material covered numerous boxes and had originally been designated by Williams not to be made available for inspection until years after his death. When I reviewed this material in the early 1980’s, I was informed by the curator that I was the only person who had ever examined it and I mean all of it which took over two weeks. The Broussard memo was only a partial page and I suspect probably either forgotten by Williams or was so insignificant in volume to the total research package that he felt no one would come across it or make an issue of it.

The question of truths versus untruths in the shooting of Huey Long can be postulated as follows: If Weiss shot Long all of the following lied: Merle Welsh, Jack Umbehagen, Coleman Vidrine, Tom Ed Weiss, two emergency room nurses, Francis Grevemberg, Francis Grevemberg’s father, J. C. Brousssard, Morris Solieau, Vernon McGee, Phillip Maranto, and Judge Lansing Mitchell. If Weiss did not shoot Long, Judge Fournet, General Guerre, and the bodyguards lied. Fournet acknowledged to five separate individuals that he lied, General Guerre told his attorney Judge Mitchell he lied and the bodyguards acknowledged to Francis Grevemberg and Morris Solieau that they lied.

The orderly way that these nine factors dove tail and corroborate each other. Some of the facts coming from different sources agree with each other in amazing detail, even though the sources never knew or had occasion to discuss these events together. Examples of this are the story from the bodyguards told both to Francis Grevemberg and Morris Solieau and what Guerre told to his attorney and the bodyguards telling Grevemberg the same story about Weiss’s gun which was also corroborated to some extent by Tom Ed Weiss. Additionally, Merle Welsh revealing the removal of the large caliber bullet and Coleman Vidrine acknowledging the 38 caliber bullet which were disclosed to T Harry Williams by J. C. Broussard and by Francis Grevemberg‘s father. And finally, the same story about Long being accidentally shot by his bodyguards which was told by both Vernon McGee, a reporter present at the shooting and Phillip Maranto, a Long groupie who was also present.

Since my first involvement with the research for Ed Reed’s book, I have made quite a few attempts to get public official recognition by the State of Louisiana acknowledging that Carl Weiss did not shoot Huey Long. In a letter to the editor published by the Baton Rouge Advocate, I stated “it seems that the perpetuation of the Long shooting as a mystery is a myth that the press and to some extent, even our elected officials seem to want to hang on to as a mystery because it is more interesting to keep the mystery going than to accept closure by applying the existing facts of the case. These facts, I submit, conclusively prove that Carl Austin Weiss did not shoot Huey Long. Hanging on to the mystery may have some merit in promoting the mystique of Louisiana but does not overcome the agony suffered by the Weiss family for this injustice.” Where I have been able to have any dialog with state officials on this matter. I have generally been met with the posture of “that’s our story and we’re sticking to it and we have the last word.” None of my efforts, thus far, have been successful.

Ernest A. Gremillion
retired criminal investigator
Baton Rouge, Louisiana