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.

Awards

IRE Award Winner

Students from LSU’s Manship School of Mass Communication and the Southern University Law Center won a national investigative reporting prize

Local and federal agents arrive on the scene shortly after Milton Scott's death in Baton Rouge in 1973 Credit: Photo courtesy of The Advocate

Featured Articles

The Fatal Shooting of Milton X Scott

2 Part Series – On a hot, quiet morning in July 1973, 21-year-old Milton Scott heard a loud knock at his door. Scott was lying in bed…

Featured Article

LSU Cold Case Project student reporter wins first place in feature writing for large universities for story: “A Klansman’s sons seek to understand and redress his wrongs”

Featured Article

First black student in Ferriday meets with klansman’s daughter 50 years after firebombing

Featured Article

Jo-Ed Edwards disappeared in a Klan-suspected abduction. His body’s never been found.

Featured Article

LSU lab helps law enforcement solve missing persons cases

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






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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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Browse Our Database

Louisiana Cold Case Gallery

The pictures we gather throughout the investigations.


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