Boy, do I have a story to tell. While I was writing my
latest novel, Jasper Kaine, I went to Louisiana several times. I talked
to numerous people, traveled the bayou, visited museums and noticed how many
people had commercialized the religion of Vodun just to make a quick buck. This
made me sad, but it also got me thinking. When exactly did Voodoo become so
interesting that thousands of people each year travel to this great state,
spend thousands of dollars just to tour a cemetery that the dead lay in
waiting? I realized quickly to answer my own question, it is Marie Laveau. The
most famous Mambo Queen in New Orleans.

Marie Laveau is buried, supposedly in St. Louis
Cemetery No. 1. This is where most of the high profile, famous people are
buried in New Orleans. The problem is, some say she is not buried there at all.
Some claim Marie Laveau’s body was spread out between three to four
cemeteries’, claiming her bones are resting peacefully in the swamps of
Louisiana where they belong, but this has never been proven. Others claim it is
her daughter Marie Laveau II that is buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 and not
the original Voodoo Queen herself. It is proven fact that there are two tombs
that carry the name Laveau, but each with different middle names. So where is
Marie Laveau?

History takes us to the day she passed away on a mysterious journey, standing outside of 1020 St. Ann Street in the French Quarter where she lived. Once it was announced the passing of the Voodoo Queen, some residence claimed they saw her walking around the French Quarters. They claimed she looked younger and more vibrant than she normally appeared. We must remember at her death, Marie Laveau was claimed to be 98 years old, although some historians have debunked this claim and records show she was 78.

As the myths go, people claimed she was getting younger. Some stories were even as farfetched as claiming the Voodoo Queen was sucking the souls out of younger children to preserve her soul for eternity. Sounds like a great Hollywood movie, doesn’t it? What most did not realize or take into consideration is Marie Laveau II. Her daughter. A more young, charismatic version of the Voodoo Queen herself. Her twin of sorts. But which daughter was it? Marie Laveau had two daughters, both named Marie. Marie Euchariste Eloise Laveau (1827-1862) and Marie Philomene Glapion (1836-1897). It was tradition in French Catholicism to name your daughters Marie and use their middle name as a common name. As history has shown, no one knows which daughter took on the identity of Marie Laveau and no one really knows which one is buried in the second tomb in St. Louis Cemetery. What we do know is that the tomb of Marie Laveau is the most visited and the most vandalized tomb in Louisiana. But is it the daughter’s tomb that is being vandalized or is it the original Mambo Queen’s spirit that is pulling believers to her grave? Stay tuned while I travel to New Orleans and figure out this mystery myself.