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The murder of James LeBoeuf took place in Morgan City, Louisiana, on July 2, 1927. Massive flooding prevented the murder from being discovered or identified until floodwaters receded five days later. On July 8, the day after the discovery of LeBoeuf's body, James LeBoeuf's wife Ada (née Bonner), her lover Dr. Thomas E. Dreher, and Dreher's assistant James "Jim" Beadle were arrested as authorities continued investigating the murder. Although Ada LeBoeuf and Dreher initially pinned the murder exclusively on Beadle, claiming Beadle shot James LeBoeuf with a shotgun, Dreher eventually confessed to being the "instigator" in the murder. Dreher confessed that on the night of July 1, 1927, when James LeBoeuf and Ada LeBoeuf took separate solo boat rides on Lake Palourde, Dreher and Beadle followed and shot James LeBoeuf in his boat, and weighed his body down with chains and railroad angle irons so his body would be concealed below the surface of the water. Dreher implicated Ada LeBoeuf in alerting him and Beadle of the upcoming boat ride, as well as helping dispose of her husband's body. Ada LeBoeuf insisted she was not involved in the murder at all. Authorities blamed the murder on Ada LeBoeuf's desire to maintain her affair with Dreher.

The ensuing trials of the perpetrators, which took place later in July 1927, made national news partially due to its similarities to the concurrent trials of Ruth Snyder and Henry Judd Gray in New York. Beadle, who had a separate defense team from that of LeBoeuf and Dreher, ultimately pleaded guilty to the charges against him and was sentenced to life imprisonment. LeBoeuf and Dreher decided to go to trial, where they were convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. After spending over a year fighting the death sentence with appeals, the two were executed together on February 2, 1929. Ada LeBoeuf was the first white woman to be executed in Louisiana's history.

Background
The victim, James LeBoeuf, was born in Montegut, Louisiana, on June 3, 1884. At the time of his death, LeBoeuf was employed by the Louisiana Public Utilities Company as a superintendent. A retrospective news article on his case published in 1955 described LeBoeuf as "two-fisted, quick-tempered, and popular."

Ada Regina Bonner was born to Chester Ernest and Marie-Virginia Bonner in approximately 1890. At the time of the murder, Ada LeBoeuf was described as being a part of Morgan City, Louisiana's high society.

The LeBoeufs married in __. SOURCE They had four children.

Extramarital affair
Authorities believed the extramarital affair Ada LeBoeuf had with Dreher had lasted for approximately two years before the murder occurred.

Investigation
Ada LeBoeuf issued a statement to authorities in which she was quoted as saying:"'I followed in my boat about 50 feet behind Jim [Beadle]. When we passed the school house, Dr. Dreher and Beadle came up in their boat to within six feet of my husband. The doctor shouted, 'Is that you, Jim?' [B]efore Jim had a chance to answer, Beadle had fired twice in the darkness. I saw my husband crumple forward in his boat. He groaned only once. After that I rowed back to my brother's house and came on home in my car. I explained my husband's absence that night and the next day as due to a quarrel. I assured my children that when their father's petty anger had cooled off he would return.'"

Ada LeBoeuf and Thomas Dreher
On December 3, 1928, in a 2–1 vote, the Louisiana pardon board refused to commute LeBoeuf's and Dreher's death sentences, with the two concurring members arguing that LeBoeuf and Dreher had received a "fair, legal and impartial trial." The dissenting member, Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Paul N. Cyr, argued that the two deserved clemency because "11 of the 12 jurors who convicted [LeBoeuf and Dreher] signed the petition to the board of pardons asking for commutation of sentence, the twelfth juror having moved away and could not be located[.]" Cyr also noted that the decision in the two defendants' appeal to the Louisiana Supreme Court was split almost evenly at 4–3. This decision surprised high-ranking Louisiana officials who had expected the two to receive a recommendation for a life sentence. The board's decision rendered the governor unable to pardon LeBoeuf and Dreher, although he was still able to offer a reprieve.

Jim Beadle
Beadle's case was first considered for clemency in 1936, but he was not released from prison until April 1939. His release from prison was permitted under a Louisiana law known as the "double good time law" that would allow a prisoner serving a life sentence to be eligible for parole after serving 10 years and 6 months of their sentence with good behavior behind bars. During his time in prison, Beadle, who was described as a "model prisoner," worked at the Louisiana State Penitentiary's tobacco factory. Following his parole, Beadle moved to Berwick, Louisiana, where he died in 1955.

In popular culture
Several books have been written about the murder case, including Ada and the Doc: An Account of the Ada Leboeuf–Thomas Dreher Murder Case by Charles Hargroder.

In 2014, the Investigation Discovery true crime show Deadly Women covered the LeBoeuf case in the nineteenth episode of Season 8.

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