A manhunt is underway in Houma, Louisiana, after four people were found stabbed to death and a child was left critically injured in the Ashland Drive area. Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Tim Soignet said detectives have identified 47-year-old Houma resident Kaegan Jude Solet as a person of interest.
Deputies were first called to the 200 block of Ashland Drive, where they found the wounded child. The child was flown to an out-of-area hospital and remains in critical but stable condition after suffering what Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office Lt. Blake Tabor called “extremely significant” injuries.
“That’s not something that you want to see ever,” Tabor told Fox News Digital.
As deputies searched the area, they found at least four people dead inside nearby homes. Authorities have not released the victims’ identities or said what relationship, if any, they had to each other, to the injured child, or to Solet. Investigators have also not disclosed what triggered the violence or whether it occurred at more than one location.
Solet has not been arrested or charged in connection with the killings, and the sheriff’s office was clear that naming him a person of interest is not an accusation of a crime. Authorities believe he is likely still in the area but are not ruling out other scenarios.
“We’re using every investigative tool that we have,” Tabor said. “Our hope is that we plan to get him in custody very quickly.”
Tabor said investigators have no current indication Solet plans to flee the state, but added that “all options” are being explored. As of the latest update, he had not been located.
A Record of Violence That Never Kept Him Off the Streets
This is not the first time Solet’s name has come up in a violent crime investigation. In December 2019, he was arrested after allegedly stabbing a woman repeatedly and leaving her locked inside a room at the Red Carpet Inn in Houma.
Police responding shortly after midnight on Christmas Eve 2019 found a 59-year-old woman on the floor of her motel room with numerous stab wounds. Witnesses said they heard someone yelling for help before finding her unable to move. She was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.
Investigators said Solet, then 40, had been invited into the woman’s room before an argument turned violent. Police allege he stabbed her repeatedly in the head and upper body, then fled and locked the door behind him, leaving her trapped inside. He was found roughly 18 hours later and booked on one count of attempted second-degree murder.
Terrebonne Parish detectives had also sought Solet on a second-degree murder warrant in January 2019, tied to the killing of Kemple Paul Scott Lovell on Jan. 9, 2019. Then-Sheriff Jerry Larpenter said at the time that detectives were searching for Solet in the Houma area. The final outcome of both 2019 cases was not immediately available.
Asked how Solet was free to allegedly be involved in this latest string of violence, Tabor said the sheriff’s office is asking the same question.
“I can’t tell you. Certainly, that’s the hot question, right? Why is he out?” Tabor said. “We’re probably just as stunned as everyone else is.”
Tabor said the sheriff’s office maintains a strong working relationship with the Terrebonne Parish District Attorney’s Office, but acknowledged unresolved questions about how Solet’s earlier cases were handled.
“How this slipped through, I certainly don’t know, but it’s a question that probably needs to be answered,” Tabor said.
Fox News Digital contacted the district attorney’s office for details on Solet’s release and whether he remained under court-ordered supervision but did not receive an immediate response.
The investigation is active and in its early stages. Anyone with information on Solet’s whereabouts is asked to call Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office detectives at 985-876-2500.
