Team
In Appreciation
Our Appreciation and List of the Team Members for the Cold Case Project
The LSU Cold Case teams have been provided invaluable assistance from Stanley Nelson, editor of the Concordia Sentinel, who now helps run the LSU Cold Case Project. We also appreciate the help from a number of federal officials, including Chris Allen and Samantha Shero, FBI Director’s Office; Nelson Hermilla and Emmanuel Ellefson, Department of Justice FOIA division; and MaryKay Schmidt, National Archives archivist and FOIA specialist, and William “Jay” Bosanko, the chief operating officer of the National Archives.
Also rendering great encouragement and support over the years are five deans of the Manship School of Mass Communication: Jack Hamilton, Ralph Izard, Jerry Ceppos, Martin Johnson, and Josh Grimm.
Cold Case Members
2022 Students
- Alex Tirado*
- Allison Allsop*
- Annalise Vidrine*
- Ayatt Hemeida*
- Cayli Pham*
- Claire Sullivan*
- Shelly Kleinpeter*
- Amelia Gabor
- Brea Rougeau
- Brooke Couvillon
- Domenic Purdy
- Drew Hawkins
- EnJanae’ Taylor
- Erin Stephens
- Hannah Rehm
- Jordanne Davis
- Julia Jackson
- Katherine Parke
- Lillian OConnell
- Mackenzie Wallace
- McKinley Cobb
- Myracle Lewis
- Olivia Landry
- Olivia Varden
Project Faculty Coordinator
- Christopher Drew
- Bailey Williams
- Calista Rodal
- Emma Booker
- Eternity Honore
- Joshua Archote
- Rachel Mipro
- Rosel Flores
- Reed Darcey
- Alex Tirado*
- Allison Allsop*
- Annalise Vidrine*
- Ayatt Hemeida*
- Brea Rougeau*
- Cayli Pham*
- Claire Sullivan*
- Shelly Kleinpeter*
- Karli Carpenter
- Lara Nicholson
- Matthew Clark
- Alyssa Berry*
- Abigail Hendren*
- Lynne Bunch*
- Sydney McGovern*
- Natalie Anderson
- Brennen Normand*
- Caroline Fenton*
- Jace Mallory*
- Payton Ibos*
- Alyssa Berry*
- Abigail Hendren*
- Lynne Bunch*
- Sydney McGovern*
- Brennen Normand*
- Caroline Fenton*
- Jace Mallory*
- Payton Ibos*
- Alyssa Berry*
- Justin McAcy*
- Minjie Li*
- Drew White*
- Kayla Hampton*
- Patrick Richoux
- Olivia McClure*
- Justin McAcy*
- Minjie Li*
- David LaPlante*
- Drew White*
- Kayla Hampton*
- Ward Colin
- Mary Lee Williams*
- Renee Barrow*
- Olivia McClure*
- Justin McAcy*
- Minjie Li*
- David LaPlante*
- Drew White*
- Jennifer Vance
- Katie Macdonald
- Tesalon Felicien
- Zach Carline
- Amy Whitehead*
- Joshua Jackson*
- Wilborn Nobles*
- Mary Lee Williams*
- Renee Barrow*
- Olivia McClure*
- Justin McAcy*
- Minjie Li*
- Gordon Brillon
- Kevin Thibodeaux*
- Morgan Searles*
- Amy Whitehead*
- Joshua Jackson*
- Wilborn Nobles*
- Andrea Gallo
- Ben Wallace
- Brian Sibille
- Brianna Piche
- Matthew Schaeffer
- Sydni Dunn
- Xerxes Wilson
- Ryan Buxton*
- Jake Clapp*
- Kevin Thibodeaux*
- Morgan Searles*
- Chelsea Brasted
- Lex Wilson
- Matthew Albright
- Robert Stewart
- Sarah Lawson
- Ryan Buxton*
- Jake Clapp*
*took class for multiple semesters
About Our Coordinators & Project Founder
Christopher Drew joined the Manship School in 2017 after 22 years as an investigative reporter and editor for The New York Times.
Before that, Drew worked as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal and The Times-Picayune.
During his career, he received two awards for national reporting from the White House Correspondents’ Association and won a George Polk Award with other Times journalists. He also has co-written a best-selling book, “Blind Man’s Bluff,” about submarine espionage during the Cold War.
Drew holds the Fred Jones Greer Jr. Endowed Chair and now leads the experiential journalism curriculum, overseeing the Manship School’s Statehouse Bureau and the LSU Cold Case Project.
Drew says that in addition to the Southern series, his favorite case was the Robert Fuller series because students were able to find new witnesses and documents that had never been reported. He enjoys teaching students research and interview skills while working on high-stakes reporting. He is proud that his students can contribute something important to the history of Louisiana.
As editor of the Concordia Sentinel, Stanley Nelson began investigating unsolved Klan murders in 2007 after the FBI initiated reviews and investigations of civil rights-era cold cases.
Nelson began work with LSU Cold Case Project founder Professor Jay Shelledy and his students in 2009 and now helps run the project.
His investigation into the 1964 arson murder of Ferriday shoe shop owner Frank Morris resulted in the naming of a living suspect in 2011. A grand jury convened in Concordia Parish a month later but no charges were forthcoming.
For his work, Nelson was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in local reporting in 2011 for “his courageous and determined efforts to unravel a long forgotten Ku Klux Klan murder during the Civil Rights era.”
He has written two books on Klan murders, “Devils Walking: Klan Murders Along the Mississippi River in the 1960s” and “Klan of Devils: The Murder of a Black Louisiana Deputy Sheriff.”
Nelson says the most haunting case he has ever investigated is that of Joseph Edwards, a 24-year-old African American man who went missing in Concordia Parish in 1964 after being abducted by Klansmen and police.
Nelson retired from the Concordia Sentinel in 2021. He has worked with the cold case project as an adjunct professor since 2019.
Jay Shelledy served as editor of the Salt Lake Tribune for 12 years before joining the faculty of the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication in 2005 as director of the Office of Student Media. He later became the Fred Jones Greer Jr. Chair in Media Business and Ethics.
He has more than 30 years of daily newspaper and wire service experience.
At LSU, Shelledy also directed the student-staffed Manship School News Service Program.
He founded the LSU Cold Case Project in 2009, transforming the journalism field-experience class into a cold case investigation class in which students obtain FBI records through the Freedom of Information Act. He accompanied students twice a year to the National Archives for research and to retrieve FBI documents.
Additionally, he arranged for students to interview and meet with FBI and DOJ officials while in Washington, D.C. Students produced multiple stories as a result of their investigations.
His goal for the course was to teach students to analyze documents and create a coherent narrative and to provide closure for the families after so many years.
The Newspaper and Online News Division of the nation’s largest organization of journalism professors presented Shelledy with the Educator of the Year Award in 2016.
The late Jerry Ceppos, then Manship School dean, said at the time that Shelledy “directs a sort of news empire in which LSU students investigate cold civil-rights murders by making FOI requests and helping families turn the page on a scarring chapter in their lives, learn to cover the Louisiana state legislature, or work with news editors around the state fulfilling requests on a wide range of reporting assignments.”
Shelledy retired from the Manship School in 2017. Since that time he has served as a member of the Manship School’s Board of Visitors.
Past Team Photos
