A Louisiana toddler may finally get justice more than 50 years after his death. Earl D. Bunch III, was just 16 months old when he died in 1970. His mother, Alice Rollinson Idlett, brought him to a hospital on January 19, “limp and gasping for breath.” He died from his injuries the following day. Investigators closed the case, deeming it accidental, but newly released evidence points to Idlett as an allegedly abusive mother who may have killed her son.
According to Law & Crime, Idlett gave birth in 1968 at age 18. Shortly after, her husband, Earl Bunch Jr., was deployed to Thailand while serving in the United States Army. During his time abroad, he and his wife exchanged letters. Idlett allegedly penned a note to her husband in 1969 that read, “I just got through whipping that little [expletive],” she allegedly wrote in November 1969.
“I hate him. That’s the honest truth. I can’t stand this life. God had to punish me by letting me have that little brat. I wish I would have died when he was born. I hate myself,” she wrote. “Now I know how those people feel that get rid of their kids. I believe I could do it. I’m serious.”
The letters continued, and Idlett reportedly often referenced physically disciplining their son and wishing she’d never given birth.
“I honestly wish he had never been born,” she allegedly wrote in another letter. “He knows he won’t get his way around me. I’ll kill him before he becomes spoilt. I honestly mean that.”
According to court documents obtained by Law & Crime, the child’s father reportedly tried to get emergency leave to return home, but the Army denied his request.
Following his child’s death, the elder Bunch returned to the United States for his son’s funeral and Idlett allegedly told him their son “probably fractured his skull when he fell out of bed at his grandmother’s house in New Orleans a few weeks prior to his death.” Bunch said the authorities gave him “no reason” to believe their son’s death wasn’t an accident.
Bunch and Idlett divorced in 1983, and Idlett attempted to obtain full custody of their 7-year-old daughter. According to court documents, Idlett began questioning her ex-husband about the letters she sent him.
“These questions aroused [his] suspicions. He found the letters and reread them for the first time in thirteen years. [His] concern for the welfare of his daughter prompted him to further investigate the incidents surrounding his son’s death,” the documents assert.
Bunch reportedly spoke to the doctor who treated his son before his death. “These were not the type of injuries I would have expected to see from a fall from a crib, for example, or a porch, or something like that where you get a fairly severe injury,” the doctor noted in a sworn testimony. “It looked more like a child that had been beaten; that perhaps somebody had taken it by the feet, and swung it against a piece of furniture or the wall.”
Bunch ultimately petitioned and won joint custody of the couple’s daughter.
In 2022, detectives in Sulphur, Louisiana, reopened the case at the family’s behest. They ultimately exhumed the boy’s remains, and an autopsy revealed he died by homicide.
Police arrested Idlett on March 28, 2025, in connection with her son’s death. Per online records, she’s currently at the Calcasieu Parish Correctional Center on a $950,000 bond.
If you suspect child abuse, you can call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453 (1-800-4-A-Child), or go to Childhelp.org. The hotline is available 24/7.
