On the evening of March 25, 1976, thirty-three-year-old Mary Ann Perez went out with a girlfriend for dinner and drinks at the Chalmette, Louisiana, Country Club, eight miles east of New Orleans. Her friend departed around 10:00 p.m. At 10:30, Mary Ann phoned her daughter, Donna, who was babysitting her younger siblings, and said she would be home shortly.

Around 1:30 a.m. on March 26, Donna was awakened by a phone call from a woman who said her name was Dorothy. She told Donna her mother was having car trouble but would be home soon. A half-awake Donna thought that was odd; her mom’s car was relatively new and would seem unlikely to have mechanical difficulties. Also, Donna did not know anyone named Dorothy and could not recall her mom ever mentioning anyone by that name.

Nevertheless, Dorothy sounded reassuring, telling Donna there was nothing to worry about and that her mom would be home soon. Mary Ann, however, never returned.

Dorothy was never identified and in November 2018 it was confirmed Mary Ann Perez will never come home.

Mary Ann Perez

When Donna awoke later that morning and found her mom had still not returned home, she began searching for her. She found her mother’s car parked in the Chalmette Country Club parking lot.

Three days later, Mary Ann’s purse was found, weighted down with a brick, in Lake Pontchartrain, ten miles away.

No clues to Mary Ann’s fate surfaced for nine years.

Purse Found

In 1985, Wichita, Kansas, inmates David and Donna Courtney confessed to a multi-state killing spree. One victim of the husband-and-wife killers sounded as if she may have been Mary Ann Perez.

David Courtney, convicted of three murders, told authorities he saw an inebriated woman as he pulled into the parking lot of a New Orleans bar. After convincing her she was too drunk to drive, he offered to give her a ride home. He said he instead picked up his wife and they took the woman to their trailer, where they raped her after she passed out. When the woman awoke, they continued making sexual advances toward her, at which point she became irate.

Courtney said he then told the woman they would take her home. Donna drove while he and the woman were in the back seat. When the woman realized they were not driving her home, she again became hysterical. Courtney conveyed he again raped and then strangled her with a coat hanger. Believing her dead, they dumped the woman’s body in a ditch near the Louisiana-Mississippi state line, making no attempt to hide her body.

On another occasion, Courtney said the woman was instead having car trouble, which fits in with what “Dorothy” had told Mary Ann’s daughter. He identified the woman as Mary Ann and also identified her car. Donna Courtney admitted throwing the woman’s purse over the side of a Lake Pontchartrain bridge, consistent with the area where Mary Ann Perez’s purse was found.

New Orleans Police and Mississippi police showed no records of a body found in the area where Courtney said they dumped the woman and some parts of Courtney’s story suggested the woman was not Mary Ann Perez. She was not a big drinker and her friend said she was not drunk when she last saw her at the bar at 10:00, a half-hour before Mary Ann called her daughter. In addition, a mechanic who examined Mary Ann’s car determined it was in perfect running condition.

The district attorney determined there was not enough evidence to charge the Courtneys in connection with the disappearance of Mary Ann Perez.

David And Donna Courtney 

No new leads surfaced for another five years.

In 1990, fourteen years after her disappearance, Mary Ann’s daughter-in-law, Shawn Perez, received a phone call from an anonymous woman. She asked to speak to Shawn’s husband, Elward, (Mary Ann’s oldest son), but he was not home so Shawn took the call. With fear in her voice, the caller claimed Mary Ann was still alive and implied she did not know her own identity and was being held against her will. The caller said she was making the call in hiding, and, before hanging up, said she would not be able to phone again. She never did. Her identity was never learned, and it was not determined if she and “Dorothy” were the same woman.

The bodies of all of the Courtneys’ known victims were found where they had claimed. The possibility that Mary Ann could still be alive, however, seemed remote as no confirmed sightings of her surfaced.

The case stalled again.

Faint Hope

Donna Courtney served ten years in prison as an accomplice in her husband’s killing spree. She was paroled in 1990, shortly before the anonymous phone call claiming Mary Ann was still alive, but police could find no evidence she had made the call.

She has since died.

Did Donna Make The Phone Call?

In December 2017 investigators announced they believe they had found the remains of Mary Ann Perez.

On November 28, 1976, eight months after Mary Ann’s disappearance, the remains of an unidentified woman were found by hunters in a cornfield near Grand Bay, Alabama, twenty-five miles southwest of Mobile just across the Mississippi border. Many of the woman’s features matched Mary Ann’s and the physical characteristics and the jewelry and clothes found on the corpse were consistent with her stature and what she was wearing when last seen.

The remains were found in an area fitting with Courtney’s account with the exception of being just across the Mississippi-Alabama border as opposed to the Mississippi-Louisiana border.

A Likeness Of the Mobile County Jane Doe

In May 2018, investigators announced Mary Ann Perez had been in a car accident shortly before her disappearance and had a partial dental plate on her upper front teeth. This matched the dental plate found on the Mobile County, Alabama, Jane Doe.

In November, DNA tests confirmed the remains were those of Mary Ann Perez. Apparently, the Courtneys’ were having so much fun murdering Mary Ann, they blacked out Mississippi.

As Suspected,

Mary Ann Perez Was Murdered

Articles from 2018 state Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi investigators were working together to try to determine where Mary Ann Perez was murdered and that David Courtney would likely be charged with her murder, but that it was unclear what state and county or parish would file the charges.

According the Kansas Department of Corrections website, the imprisoned David Courtney died in December 2022 at age seventy-nine. I have not found any other source confirming his death.

Her Killer Dies In Prison

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/152941551/maryann_viola_perez#

 Sources:

• The Charley Project
• Daily World, Opelousas, Louisiana
• The Doe Network
• NamUs
• New Orleans Advocate
• News WKRG 5
• Unsolved Mysteries