About The Project

Cold Cases in Louisiana & Mississippi – LSU Cold Case Project

The Manship School of Mass Communication works to bring closure to the families and the nation for the unsolved Klan-related homicides in Louisiana and southern Mississippi during the Civil Rights era.

Featured Article

Half century later, question remains: What deputy killed two students?

First in a four-part series

Josephine and Denver Smith took different approaches to protests at Southern University in the fall of 1972…

Burger Chef was a popular hamburger chain in the U.S. during the 1960s. Its Natchez operation was harassed by Klansmen for several months in 1966 because the restaurant served Black people. The FBI launched a preliminary investigation after the owner complained to the bureau. The Natchez restaurant was following the guidelines of the public accommodations title of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Featured Case

The Klan’s 1966 Campaign to Shutdown Burger Chef

On March 16, 1966, an executive with Burger Chef informed the Department of Justice that its newly-opened store in Natchez had been targeted by white men who opposed the racial integration of the store.

Featured Case

Robert ‘Shotgun’ Fuller

In Monroe, Louisiana, in 1960, Zennie William Fuller shot five of his Black employees killing four and seriously wounding another. An all-white grand jury refused to indict Fuller, choosing instead to indict the lone survivor for the attempted murder of Fuller.

Featured Article

The Murder of Frank Morris

Frank Morris was 51 years old when Klansmen torched his shoe shop in Ferriday, LA, on December 10, 1964. He had been sleeping in a back room when he was awakened after midnight by the sound of breaking glass.

LSU Cold Case Project for Louisiana and Mississippi Unsolved Cases Hosts:

Over 175K Pages
of FBI Investigative Findings on Regional Cases
60+ Photos
160+ Cases
in DOJ Cold Case Initiative
36+ Stories



Bitter Jaguar Listening Event

BATON ROUGE — The LSU Cold Case Project, LSU Storytellers Lab, and Manship School of Mass Communication will host a listening event for a new podcast series titled Bitter Jaguar:…

Read More



Tommie Lee Jones

Tommie Lee Jones (1936-2007) was a Klansman from Natchez, Miss., who became one of the earliest and most violent members of the secret Klan cell known as the Silver Dollar…

Read More

The Disappearance of Joseph Edwards

Joseph Edwards disappeared in Concordia Parish in July 1964. FBI records, a lengthy investigation by the Concordia Sentinel in Ferriday, LA, a book by LSU Cold Case Project associate director…

Read More

Murder of Frank Morris

Frank Morris was 51 years old when Klansmen torched his shoe shop in Ferriday, LA, on December 10, 1964. He had been sleeping in a back room when he was…

Read More

Ernest Avants

Ernest Avants was a Klansman who was convicted in 2003 for the murder of Ben Chester White, a 67-year-old farmhand in Adams County, Miss., who was slain in 1966. The…

Read More

Browse Our Database

Louisiana Cold Case Gallery

The pictures we gather throughout the investigations.


Scroll to Top