EXCLUSIVE: Survivor of notorious rapist priest speaks out for first time

WWL Louisiana/The Guardian

April 17, 2025

By David Hammer/Ramon Antonio Vargas

The clergy abuse survivor who helped prosecutors secure the only conviction against a notorious child rapist and retired Catholic priest in New Orleans is still hoping that authorities file criminal charges against his former high school principal and everyone else who enabled the clergyman.

“Everybody that had any part … needs to be held accountable. Period – period,” Neil Duhon, who was raped 50 years ago by Lawrence Hecker, said in an interview with WWL Louisiana and the Guardian, the first and only time he’s ever revealed his identity to the public.

Referring to the Archdiocese of New Orleans, the institution that employed and protected Hecker for decades and kept doing so even after the priest admitted he had preyed sexually on minors throughout his career, Duhon added: “I hope they get some type of criminal charge.

“You know, they are responsible for all of this.”

And Duhon, who is now 65 but was about 16 when Hecker raped him in 1975, had particularly harsh words for a judge who handled part of his ordeal. New Orleans criminal court Judge Benedict Willard delayed Hecker’s trial date for more than a year before recusing himself on the day jury selection for the case was to begin. Only by handing the matter over to another judge did Willard finally clear the way for Hecker to plead guilty in December, shortly before the priest died.

Duhon called Willard “a coward – a coward. That’s it.”

Duhon granted WWL and the Guardian a two-hour interview and credited the outlets’ reporting with aiding the successful prosecution of Hecker. He provided the most detailed account yet of the stand he took against one of the Catholic church’s most inveterate abusers. Hecker’s prosecution last year also showed how the clergy molestation crisis roiling the US church for decades was not yet over.

Duhon was a freshman student at St. John Vianney Prep, an Uptown New Orleans high school that catered to boys interested in joining the priesthood, when he met Hecker in 1973. The school, which has since closed, required students to essentially help local Catholic churches with their masses and other services. And Duhon was assigned to do that at a church adjacent to St. John called St Theresa the Little Flower, where Hecker introduced himself to him.

To read the entire article, go here.