Paul Durousseau

Paul Durousseau was born on August 11, 1970, in Beaumont, a city and the county seat of Jefferson County, Texas. His parents never married and not long after his birth, his father deserted the family. He then went to stay with his mother’s family in Los Angeles. He faced many problems and got into trouble with the law often. Besides this, very little information is available on his childhood and early life.

He graduated from high school and got a job as a security guard at the age of 19. As an adult, he committed his first offence on December 18, 1991, when he was apprehended for carrying a firearm in California. He was arrested again for the same offence about a month later, on January 21, 1992.

Paul Durousseau joined the US Army in November 1992 was later sent to Germany. There, he started a relationship with Natoca Spann, a soldier who was also stationed in Germany at the time. They got married in 1995 in Las Vegas. A year later, he was transferred to Fort Benning, Georgia.

He was arrested for kidnapping and raping a young woman in Georgia on March 13, 1997, but was later acquitted of those charges in a court-martial. However, he faced the military court again in January 1999, this time for possession of stolen goods. Durousseau was subsequently court-martialed, found guilty and dishonourably discharged from the army.

Paul Durousseau and his wife returned to the US and settled down in Jacksonville, Florida. They had two daughters. While he did find jobs quite frequently, he failed to keep any of them for a long period. He was employed as a school bus driver and an animal control worker in 2001 despite his history. In 2003, he found work as a taxi driver in Jacksonville.

It is generally agreed now that Durousseau met most of his victims while working as a taxi driver. Although the media reported that Gator City Taxi Company, which hired Durousseau, had failed to run a background check on him, this is not true. It was the city’s responsibility to do so and they are ones who issued him a taxi driver permit.

Durousseau and his wife frequently fought about the financial issues and the fights often turned violent. The authorities suggested that Natoca should seek a restraining order against her husband. During her testimony, Natoca told the court that Durousseau would get violently angry every time she mentioned divorce. Between September and October 2001, Durousseau was sent to jail for 48 days for domestic battery.

During the investigation and afterwards, his neighbours and friends characterized him as a “lewd womaniser”. He went about asking young women when they would “make flicks” with him. A witness even stated that he had seen Durousseau trying to flirt with a girl who looked to be just 13 or 14 years old.