Warren de Brueys has died

Warren de Brueys, former Metropolitan Crime Commission director and FBI agent, dies at 92

John Pope, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune By John Pope, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune 

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on December 29, 2013 at 11:56 AM

Warren Claude de Brueys, a managing director of the Metropolitan Crime Commission who also was an FBI agent whose duties included deciphering Japanese codes in World War II and compiling the first report on President John F. Kennedy's assassination, died Dec. 21 in Mandeville. He was 92.

A native New Orleanian who had lived in Covington more than 20 years, Mr. de Brueys joined the Metropolitan Crime Commission as its managing Director in 1979, two years after retiring from the FBI. He held that post for a decade, during which he was a member of the Governor's Commission on Criminal Justice, the Governor's Task Force on Drug Enforcement, the New Orleans Mayor's Citizens' Commission Against Crime and the Juvenile Courts Subcommittee of the Judicial Planning Committee. He also was chairman of the Subcommittee on Police, Courts and Corrections.

He returned to his hometown after an FBI career that began during World War II, when he worked undercover with the FBI in Mexico City. During that period, he met Mary Louise Henderson; they were married in New Orleans.

Mr. de Brueys enlisted in the Navy and served in the war's Pacific Theater, where he worked with the Radio Intelligence Unit deciphering Japanese codes.

After the war, he returned to New Orleans, where he earned bachelor's and law degrees at Tulane University.

He re-entered the FBI as a special agent of training at Quantico, Va., and FBI headquarters. He worked in the bureau's Newark, N.J., and New Orleans offices and had special assignments in Miami, the Dominican Republic and Dallas, where he was assigned to the investigation of Kennedy's killing and helped compile the first report on the assassination.

In addition to working in several divisions at FBI headquarters, Mr. de Brueys was an assistant legal attaché at U.S. embassies in Mexico City and Buenos Aires, and legal attaché at embassies in Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia, Brazil. He also worked in San Juan, Puerto Rico and El Paso, Texas, before retiring from the bureau in 1977.

Survivors include a son, James Warren de Brueys; a daughter, Denise de Brueys; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

A funeral will be held Monday (Dec. 30) at 11 a.m. at New Covenant Presbyterian Church, 4375 Highway 22, Mandeville. Visitation will begin at 9 a.m.

Burial with military honors will begin at 2 p.m. at Pinecrest Memorial Gardens in Covington.

E.J. Fielding Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.