Javier married Emily Marie Bisso. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Regel married Lorraine Marie Wegmann [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

illiam Wegmann Sr., a New Orleans lawyer who was a member of the team that successfully defended businessman Clay Shaw during District Attorney Jim Garrison's sensational -- and, ultimately, futile -- investigation of John F. Kennedy's assassination, died Saturday at his Metairie home. He was 87.

Mr. Wegmann, a lifelong New Orleanian, was a defense attorney and a former assistant district attorney. He became involved in the Shaw case because his brother Edward, a specialist in civil matters, had been Shaw's longtime attorney.

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William Wegmann Sr.
When Shaw called Edward Wegmann in 1967 to tell him he had been arrested on conspiracy charges, Edward Wegmann turned to his brother because of Mr. Wegmann's experience with criminal law, said Lorraine Wegmann Bisso, one of his daughters.

F. Irvin Dymond, a New Orleans lawyer, led the defense team. After a sensational trial that attracted global attention, the jury deliberated only one hour before acquitting Shaw in 1969. No one else was ever charged.

Those two years were tough on Mr. Wegmann and his family, his children said.

"There was a certain amount of heightened interest in this particular case," said William Wegmann Jr., one of Mr. Wegmann's sons. "Dad had to work pretty hard to insulate us from public attention, and we worked hard at home to insulate him, to give him whatever privacy he could get."

At home, Bisso said, she and her siblings were told to be extra-careful when they answered the door or the telephone.

"We learned to be very circumspect," she said.

Even though reporters from around the planet were descending on New Orleans, Mr. Wegmann couldn't address their queries because there was a gag order forbidding anyone connected with the case to comment publicly.

Even if he had wanted to do so, he wouldn't have had much time, William Wegmann Jr. said, because he was taking care of his regular clients since he knew Shaw couldn't afford to pay his attorneys for the time they were putting in.

Defending Shaw "was a matter of professional responsibility and dedication to the profession," said the younger Wegmann, who also is a lawyer.

Given all these circumstances, as well as crank calls to the Wegmann house that became common, "it was a very stressful time," he said. "I did as much as I could to avoid the public eye and shield us from media attention. We tried to lead a natural life under the circumstances."

Mr. Wegmann, the youngest of 11 sons, graduated from Jesuit High School and enrolled at Loyola University. But he interrupted his college education to enlist in the Army after the United States entered World War II.

He was deployed to the Pacific Theater, where he was part of an amphibious tractor-tank battalion attached to the Marines. Mr. Wegmann was involved in campaigns on the Marianas and the islands of Tinian and Saipan.

When he returned to the United States, he went to Officer Candidate School and was commissioned as a second lieutenant.

Mr. Wegmann earned a law degree from Loyola in 1948 and went to work as an assistant district attorney under Herve Racivitch.

Mr. Wegmann and Racivitch went into private practice after leaving the prosecutor's office. With Guy Johnson and Warren Mouledoux, they founded the firm Racivitch, Johnson, Wegmann and Mouledoux.

Mr. Wegmann later was a founding member of Wegmann and Adams. His clients included Bohn Ford, J.J. Krebs and Sons and the Louisiana State Board of Optometry Examiners.

He retired after Hurricane Katrina.

A part-time teacher at Loyola College of Law, Mr. Wegmann wrote "Banks and Banking in Louisiana," a 1951 treatise that traced the history of banking in Louisiana from the colonial period through 1950.

He was a founding member of the local chapter of the St. Thomas More Society, an organization for Catholic lawyers, and was a member of the Metairie Country Club and the Pickwick Club.

Survivors include his wife, Lolita del Pilar Martinez Wegmann; three sons, William Wegmann Jr., Stephen Wegmann and Paul Wegmann; four daughters, Gretchen Wegmann Smith of Houston and Lorraine Wegmann Bisso, Monica Wegmann Smith and Sophie Margaret Wegmann; a brother, Dr. Francis Wegmann; and six grandchildren.

A Mass will be said Friday at 2 p.m. at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home, 5100 Pontchartrain Blvd. Visitation will begin at noon.

Burial will be private.

William married Lolita Del Pilar Martinez on 12 Aug 1947 in New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, USA. Lolita (daughter of Benigno Andres Martinez and Marie Catherine Koen) was born on 12 Jul 1924 in New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, USA; died on 16 Feb 2020 in New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, USA; was buried in Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]