By Monique Roth
L’Observateur

RESERVE — A Reserve man with a violent criminal background was arrested Tuesday after authorities said he followed a female victim into a house, choked her and threatened her with a screwdriver.

Clarence Bolden, 42, of Beech Grove Drive in Reserve was arrested Tuesday and booked with two counts of home invasion and resisting an officer after St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to an aggravated burglary call from the 500 block of Central Avenue at 10:52 a.m.

Bolden remains in custody on a $201,500 bond set by Judge Mary Becnel and a probation/parole hold.

A 53-year-old female victim told deputies when she walked in her 82-year-old mother’s house Tuesday, a male subject grabbed her from behind and choked her with the scarf she was wearing. She said the assailant threatened her with a screwdriver, telling her he wanted money.

After being forced to the floor, the victim told authorities she surrendered a sum of cash to the perpetrator. According to the police report, when victim’s mother walked in the kitchen area, the offender fled from the back door of the residence.

The victims provided deputies with a description of the assailant and the clothes he was wearing, and after deputies in the area saw a subject matching the description of the perpetrator, a foot chase ensued.

Deputies apprehended Bolden on East 14th Street.

Sheriff Mike Tregre said no one was injured or received medical attention as a result of Tuesday’s burglary, and Bolden is the prime suspect in two home invasions that took place on Central Avenue in Reserve in October and December.

Tregre said Bolden lives “less than a couple of football fields away” from Central Avenue, adding “he very well could fit the description” given of the man responsible for the two previous crimes.

In all three cases, Tregre said, there was no report of the assailant fleeing in a car.

Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to the 300 block of Central Avenue in Reserve at 8:16 p.m. Dec. 10 after a man armed with a gun assaulted a 55-year-old Reserve woman in her home, striking her and forcing her into a bathroom.

Authorities said the victim identified the suspect as a black man wearing a dark jacket. She said when she exited her bathroom, the man with a gun confronted her.

“When she struggled with the assailant for the gun, he pushed her to the floor,” Tregre said in December, adding at one point the victim was able to disarm the man. “The perpetrator had already taken money from the victim’s purse on the kitchen table. When she attempted to unlock the front door for him to leave, he knocked the keys from her hand and struck her in the face before closing her in the bathroom.”

The victim called 911 for help from the bathroom, and Tregre said the man made it out of the house with $20.

In another case, deputies responded to a call Oct. 16 of a knife-wielding man who struck in the 300 block of Central Avenue.

The 41-year-old female victim told deputies she did not close the door completely after arriving home, and when she turned around she saw a man with a knife telling her to keep quiet.

The victim told authorities the man fled when she yelled for help.

Tregre said Thursday that in spite of the weapons being different in the three cases, there are enough similarities for authorities to consider Bolden a strong suspect in the October and December crimes.

Tregre said the Louisiana State Police crime lab is processing physical evidence from the three cases for DNA evidence.

“I’m very satisfied with the case so far,” Tregre said. “But we all know that this is just the beginning.”

Tregre added he wouldn’t rest until whoever was responsible for the three Central Avenue crimes was convicted.

Bolden’s criminal history includes a 1991 arrest for aggravated rape, armed robbery, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated burglary.

He pleaded guilty to forcible rape in 1992 and was sentenced to 40 years.

Bolden, a registered sex offender with St. John Parish Sheriff’s Office, was released in 2013 after serving approximately 22 years.