Open Letters | LSMSA Survivor Tip Line

September 15, 2026: The Board's statement, read against the record

Note added October 16, 2026. This letter was written on September 15, 2026, on the record as it stood that day. Later the same day, and in the days that followed, other agencies answered. The District Attorney produced a single email from the former Executive Director dated September 15, 2020, sent to the District Attorney's personal email account, and a September 22, 2020 letter to the Sheriff stating that six files were hand delivered; the District Attorney's office later certified that the 2020 email was one page with no attachment. On September 21, 2026 the Sheriff's Office wrote that a 2020 meeting took place and a file was produced, and that no written record of either exists. No record produced by any agency shows a report to the Department of Children and Family Services, or any report or file logged by the District Attorney, the Sheriff, or the State Police, as the mandatory reporting law requires. The letter is reproduced below as written. The Board's own recording of the September 14 meeting is now posted here.

To everyone concerned: alumni, current parents, current students, faculty, and the people of Louisiana.

On September 14, 2026, the Board of Directors of the Louisiana School met for the first time since the arrest of its former senior administrator, Thorn Lacaze. On September 15, the school released a statement over the Executive Director's signature. I attended the meeting by the Board's video connection. I have read the statement. This letter sets each thing the school said beside what the public record shows, so that you can judge for yourselves. Every document referred to below is either already public or has been requested under the Public Records Law, and I will provide any of them to anyone who asks.

First, what was asked of the Sheriff, and what the Sheriff certified

On September 10, 2026, I made a public records request to the Natchitoches Parish Sheriff's Office. Item 1 of that request asked, for the period January 1, 2005 through the date of the response, for records in which Anthony T. Lacaze, Thorn Lacaze, or any variant spelling of that name appears as the subject, suspect, accused, person of interest, or person complained of, as follows:

Item 1. Complaints and reports. Every complaint, report, incident report, offense report, initial report, supplemental report, narrative, computer aided dispatch or call for service record, and intake or walk in record, regardless of source, regardless of whether an investigation was opened, and regardless of disposition, in which Mr. Lacaze is the person complained of or investigated.

Item 5. Prior arrests, bookings, and warrants. Any record of any prior arrest, booking, detention, warrant, summons, or citation of Mr. Lacaze by or through your office during the period of this request.

The same day, the Sheriff's Office answered over the signature of its Criminal Records Director. This is the certification, word for word:

"Please accept this as certification the Natchitoches Parish Sheriff Office is unable to locate any records regarding your records request on Anthony T. LaCaze for item numbers 1 and 5."

Read Item 1 again. Every complaint or report, from any source, for more than twenty years. The answer was none. Keep that sentence in front of you while you read what the school said four days later.

The school's statement, line by line

The school said: "Although we do not know whether Mr. Lacaze's recent arrest is related to his employment at LSMSA, which ended in 2020, we are deeply disturbed by the charges."
The record: The State Police charged the exchange of goods for child sexual abuse material and sexual favors by juveniles. The school's own Title IX file, produced under compulsion in federal court, contains written reports received in the summer of 2020 describing exactly that conduct by Lacaze on the school's campus. The school's Executive Director testified under oath in 2022 that six students had complained about him and that all but one were minors. The man who signed the statement sat on the Board in September 2020 when the Executive Director reported on the investigation. The school knows.

The school said: "Upon receipt of reports of sexual harassment by Thorn Lacaze, LSMSA immediately opened investigations of the allegations."
The record: The school's Title IX Coordinator testified under oath about how those investigations ended: "He quit, so the process stopped." No finding was ever made. And the reports did not begin in 2020. Reports about Lacaze reached the school under Dr. Widhalm years earlier and were never addressed. Other reports of sexual misconduct by school personnel reached Dr. Horton before 2020 and were never addressed either. What happened in June 2020 is that several former students came forward within the same week, in writing, and forced the school's hand. Those are not my words about the reports; I am deliberately not describing them or naming anyone. The documents exist, in the school's own file.

The school said: "On June 24, 2020, Dr. Steve Horton notified the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors ... The Board of Directors unanimously passed a motion that authorized and instructed Dr. Steve Horton and Board Chair Mrs. Sharon Gahagan to contact the Natchitoches Parish District Attorney and, furthermore, to instruct Dr. Horton to contact the Louisiana Office of Risk Management regarding said matter."
The record: Note what this sentence admits and what it omits. It admits the Board knew on June 24, 2020. It omits that the Office of Risk Management is the State's insurer. On its own account, the Board's first two instructions upon learning that students had reported sexual abuse were to call a prosecutor and to call the insurance carrier. Not the Department of Children and Family Services, which Louisiana law names first. No report to that department has ever been claimed by the school, and none exists in any record it has produced.

The school said: "On June 25, 2020, Dr. Horton and Mrs. Gahagan formally reported the allegations of sexual harassment made against Thorn Lacaze to Natchitoches Parish District Attorney Billy Joe Harrington and Natchitoches Parish Sheriff Stuart Wright."
The record: A formal report to a sheriff's office creates a record. That is what the word means. The Sheriff's Office has certified, in the words quoted above, that it has none, from any source, since 2005. Requests for the same records are pending with the District Attorney, the State Police, the Natchitoches Police Department, and the University Police, and a written request is now before the Sheriff asking whether anyone from the school met with his office in 2020 at all.

The school said: "On September 15, 2020, Dr. Horton provided comprehensive files related to each investigation to District Attorney Billy Joe Harrington and Natchitoches Parish Sheriff Stuart Wright."
The record: A delivery of comprehensive files creates a record on both ends: a transmittal at the school, a receipt at the agency. The Sheriff has none. The school's own Title IX production in federal court contains none. A public records request now asks the school to produce the transmittal or certify in writing that it does not exist.

The school said: "The District Attorney and Natchitoches Parish Sheriff then forwarded those files to the Louisiana State Police."
The record: The Louisiana State Police stated in its own release announcing the arrest that its investigation began in August 2026, on a new complaint. If the State Police had held the school's files since 2020, the State Police would have said so. It said the opposite.

The school said: "LSMSA has a zero-tolerance policy towards any form of sexual abuse or criminal sexual acts against any members of our campus community."
The record: In June 2026 this Board voted unanimously to name Dr. Horton Executive Director Emeritus, nineteen months after receiving the federal court's judgment that he coached witnesses and destroyed evidence, and six months after receiving four current students' written complaints about a dean entering their rooms at night. That dean remains in the residential halls. The retirement celebration for Dr. Horton was held immediately after Monday's meeting.

What the Board did in 2020, in its own minutes

The Board's approved minutes of September 28, 2020 are posted on the State of Louisiana's Boards and Commissions website. They record that the Board went into executive session that day to receive the "Executive Director's Report Regarding Investigative Proceedings Regarding Allegations of Misconduct." Louisiana's Open Meetings Law allows a public body to close its doors for a short list of reasons, and the Board must name the reason in the motion and record it. The reason this Board chose and recorded was La. R.S. 42:17(A)(2): "strategy sessions or negotiations with respect to ... prospective litigation." Not the exception for investigating misconduct. Not the protection of a child's privacy. Litigation strategy. The school's outside lawyers were asked to remain in the room. The doors closed at 2:01 p.m. and opened at 2:37 p.m., and no action followed.

That choice tells you what the Board understood the reports of June 2020 to be: a liability. It is consistent with the instruction it had given three months earlier to call the insurer. And it is the frame the school has never left. Six of the members who voted to close those doors in 2020 sit on the Board today. The seventh is the Executive Director who signed this week's statement.

The same minutes record something else. Eleven members of this community submitted public comments to that meeting. Ten were read aloud. When a Board member asked whether there would be any response, the Chair answered that the Board "was not required to take any further action." That was the school's answer to you six years ago.

What the statement does not contain

No outreach to survivors. The statement contains no telephone number, no counseling resource, no name of any person a survivor may contact, and no sentence addressed to the students who reported. It speaks about the "Eagle family" and the "mission, integrity, and long-term strength of LSMSA." It does not speak to the six students the Executive Director swore reported Lacaze, five of them children, or to the four girls who wrote to this Board in December, or to the students in the residential halls tonight.

No additional information, and no notice of where any could be found. The statement does not identify the investigations it says were opened, their findings, or where the files it says were delivered can be examined. It does not tell parents what has been done about the December 2025 complaints. It does not say whether any report was ever made to the Department of Children and Family Services. It does not say that a federal court found the school's Executive Director coached witnesses and destroyed evidence. It does not mention the written directive of December 2, 2024 instructing employees that they had no obligation to speak with counsel for survivors, which remains in effect. It does not tell anyone that the school's own minutes from 2020 are public, or where to read them. A statement that wanted to be transparent would have said where the documents are. This one hopes you will not look.

The self-congratulation. At the conclusion of Monday's meeting, five days after the arrest of the man six students reported, with a retirement celebration waiting outside the door for the Executive Director a federal court found coached his witnesses, the Board commended itself on how well it had handled the matter. Reports had reached this school for more than a decade before the summer of 2020. They were never addressed until several people came forward at once and left no choice. Nothing in that history is an achievement, and a governing body that can look at it and congratulate itself is not tone deaf by accident. It is tone deaf by habit.

What we are asking

Not that the school be destroyed. That it stop telling this community things its own records do not support. Rescind the directive. Remove the dean from the residential halls until someone independent has looked. Retain that someone, from outside Natchitoches, with authority to read every file back to 2009, and publish the findings. Offer the survivors the resources they were owed the day they reported. Produce the records that support this week's statement, or correct it. If the Board will do none of those things, its members should resign so that people who will can take their seats.

If you reported anything to this school, about anyone, in any year, and were told it had been handled: the tip line on this site exists for you, and so does the June 14, 2027 deadline under Louisiana's revived filing window. You may remain anonymous. You control every next step.

Read the Board's September 28, 2020 minutes yourself: State of Louisiana Boards and Commissions, LSMSA minutes, September 28, 2020.

Let the Eagles soar.

Donald C. Hodge, Jr.
LSMSA Class of 1998
Counsel for survivors and currently enrolled students
225-800-7124

An open letter to the LSMSA alumni community

As posted to the Life After LSMSA alumni group, September 2026.

I am writing to you as an alumnus (1998) and as the attorney who has spent the better part of six years inside the records of the school we all love. Some of you know pieces of this. Most of you have heard rumors. You deserve the whole picture, in one place, from someone who has read the depositions.

The lawsuit that is coming

A civil lawsuit will be filed against Thorn LaCaze, LSMSA, the State of Louisiana through LSMSA and its Board of Directors, both in their individual and official capacities. It has not been filed yet, and that is deliberate. We are waiting on the criminal matter involving Thorn LaCaze to run its course. I want you to hear about it from me first, not from a docket.

Most of you know the name. Thorn LaCaze worked for the Foundation, then served as the school's senior external affairs officer. He directed Summer camps at LSMSA. He taught journalism. He organized the alumni events, wrote the press releases, and chaperoned the trips. For years he was the public face of LSMSA to alumni, to campers, and to the families of prospective students.

The petition will allege that LaCaze sexually abused and trafficked minors on school property. I will not identify any of them, and I ask you not to speculate. They are members of this community. Some of them may be reading this.

Here is the part that matters most: reports were made. Not one report. Reports, plural, across two administrations. Dr. Patrick Widhalm received reports during his tenure as Executive Director. Dr. Steve Horton received reports during his. Neither one made required reports as mandatory reporters.

Dr. Horton has since testified under oath that law enforcement was notified. He lied.

How we got here: the Barker case

None of this would be known without Justin Barker. Ms. Barker taught at LSMSA from 2017 until the school declined to renew her contract after she reported harassment by Kristy Key. Professor Key, a sexual harasser, remains teaching children at the school today.

In December 2021, Brandy Mai (Class of 1997) and I, both alumni, filed suit on her behalf in federal court: Barker v. Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts, No. 1:21-cv-04419 (W.D. La.). The school settled that case in the summer of 2024.

The settlement is not the story. The depositions are. While his employees were being deposed, Dr. Horton sat in the room texting the chief of staff and the very colleague Ms. Barker had complained about, in real time, about the questions being asked. When we asked for those messages the next day, he had deleted them.

On March 8, 2024, the court found that he destroyed that evidence and issued an adverse inference: the deleted messages would have shown him instructing LSMSA employees how to testify. Separately, the school's human resources officer (Sheila Kidd) testified that she shredded her investigation notes while a federal EEOC charge was pending.

Let me be precise, because precision matters here. Dr. Steve Horton lied under oath. He directed his employees how to testify. He destroyed evidence. I am not asking you to take my word for any of that.

Those same depositions are where the LaCaze reports surfaced under oath. The record now contains sworn testimony about what was reported, to whom, and when. Dr. Horton and the chief of staff gave contradictory testimony about whether anyone outside the school was ever notified. The record also shows other misconduct complaints at the school that never saw daylight. That testimony is the reason the LaCaze lawsuit is coming.

What the law required

Every teacher and every administrator at LSMSA is a mandatory reporter under Louisiana Children's Code articles 603 and 609. When a mandatory reporter has cause to believe a child has been abused, the law requires a report to DCFS or to local law enforcement. Not to human resources. Not to the Foundation board. Not to an internal investigation. The law does not treat the failure to make that report as a judgment call. Under La. R.S. 14:403, it treats it as a crime.

The duty is personal, and it belonged to the two men at the top. An Executive Director who receives a report of the sexual abuse of a child and handles it in-house has not exercised discretion. He has made a choice, and the law has a name for it.

Why this is happening now

Four things are moving at once.

First, on July 21, 2026, a criminal referral concerning these matters was filed with the FBI and the Louisiana State Police.

Second, a complaint is pending with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights regarding the school's handling of these matters under Title IX. Both the state and school stand to lose federal funding as a result.

Third, Dr. Horton retired as Executive Director on July 1, 2026. He has returned to campus as the debate coach, working directly with students, while a criminal referral concerning his sworn testimony is pending.

Fourth, the clock. The Louisiana Legislature revived the claims of survivors of childhood sexual abuse, no matter how long ago it happened, and set a deadline of June 14, 2027 to file. After that date, the door closes.

What I am asking of you

If you reported anything about Thorn LaCaze to Dr. Widhalm, Dr. Horton, or anyone else at the school, I need to hear from you. If you were told a report had been "handled," I need to hear from you. If you worked at LSMSA or the Foundation and were told to keep something quiet, I need to hear from you. If you were a camper, a student, or a chaperone and saw something that did not sit right, I need to hear from you.

If you are a survivor: you are not alone, you are believed, and you are not required to talk to me. Talk to someone. Talk to any attorney you trust. Just know that the June 14, 2027 deadline is real and it does not move to bring a civil claim for what this school and men did.

Preserve what you have. Screenshots, emails, messages, journals, photos. Do not delete anything.

And ask the Board of Directors, publicly, for the one thing the school has never done: an independent investigation, conducted by someone from outside Natchitoches, covering both administrations, with the results published to this community.

I love this school. It changed the course of my life, as it did yours. That is exactly why I am not willing to let two Executive Directors decide that its reputation was worth more than the safety of the children entrusted to it. LSMSA can survive the truth.

What it cannot survive is another decade of silence.

To that end, I call on the three alumni members of the LSMSA Board, William Luster ('01), Kirby Hopkins ('94), and Tana Luther ('96), to cease with your deafening silence as you have for 4 years. Be the adults in the room as the current Board has exhibited only the circling of wagons with little regard to the survivors of sexual abuse which occurred on the property of the school itself.