LEONARD GRAY

LULING – Doctors treating Justin “Pee Wee” Dufrene, 18, are hoping he makes it through the weekend but caution his condition is still “very critical,” according to a family spokesman. Dufrene, of 200 Laurel Court in Luling, was the victim of a vicious beating Aug. 4 at a party on Monsanto Avenue. An arrest was made the next day of Shawn J. Trehan, 20, of 117 Railroad Lane in Des Allemands, and he is charged with attempted homicide. The St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office was called at 1:27 a.m. and Dufrene was transported to St. Charles Parish Hospital with a skull fracture, brain trauma and internal brain bleeding. There, he was stabilized and transferred to Ochsner Hospital, where he remains in an induced coma and having no visitors outside of family, as doctors hope to bring down the swelling within his skull. “His brain pressure is lower and more stable,” said his uncle, Grant Dufrene. “On Wednesday, it jumped very high and they couldn’t control it for four hours. Then, out of nowhere, it shot back down.” Scores of friends came to the hospital earlier in the week, but after Wednesday’s episode, visitation was cut off. Capt. Patrick Yoes of the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office said Justin Dufrene was attending a party in the 500 block of Monsanto Avenue when Trehan arrived uninvited and Dufrene tried to leave to avoid trouble. Witnesses, Yoes said, told police they saw Trehan follow Dufrene out to his car, shouting and trying to provoke a fight, finally punch him and caused him to fall into a ditch. According to his uncle, Justin threw up his hands and shouted, “I don’t want to fight!” However, another punch from Trehan knocked him down again. When Dufrene struck the pavement, Yoes continued, the back of his head hit the street. While on the ground, witnesses said Trehan continued to kick Dufrene several times on the face and body before leaving him in the street. Dufrene, an honor student and 2001 graduate of Hahnville High School, was enrolled at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette on a TOPS Scholarship, according to his uncle. Dufrene has been raised by his uncle since the age of 7, when his father died in a 1990 auto accident.