2019 Gumbo final - Book - Page 71
Case Warmed Up
Manship Students Open Cold Cases
From Civil Rights Era
esearchers from the University's Cold Case project are
investigating unsolved Civil Rights era murders in
Louisiana and southern Mississippi to bring closure to
affected families, pursue justice and rewrite history
before it’s too late.
Since the project began in 2010, around three dozen students
have investigated cases from the 1960s in which African Americans
died or disappeared at the hands of klansmen and other white
supremacists who were often backed by local law enforcement.
“I think it was important for LSU to take this on because these
deaths occurred in LSU’s backyard,” former University professor
James Shelledy* said. “It has the resources to look into these
things.”
These researchers are part of the Manship School of Mass
Communication’s Statehouse Bureau, an experiential journalism
program headed by former New York Times investigative
reporter and University professor Chris Drew. The program allows
students to cover Louisiana’s legislature for nearly 50 news
outlets statewide. This semester, six students from that course are
investigating the cold case, with help from two volunteers. The
project teaches students real-life journalism skills by making them
meticulously analyze documents and have compelling interviews
so families who suffered during the era can finally get answers.
Researchers have historically taken semi-annual trips to the
National Archives in Washington, D.C., to retrieve FBI documents
requested through the Freedom of Information Act. Their plans
to do so this semester were postponed due to the government
shutdown, but Drew still plans to send two students to copy two
files containing a combined 2,172 pages of documents.
These partially redacted documents include information about
Robert Fuller, a former Klan leader who killed three black
farmhands in the 1960s in northeastern Louisiana, and the White
Knights, a faction of the KKK that emerged during the Civil Rights
era. While they wait to retrieve those files, researchers are
sifting through FBI interview reports and other documents on
the Deacons for Defense and Justice, an armed black resistance
group that aimed to defend black communities from klansmen. A
few chapters emerged in Louisiana, and one was in Bogalusa. The
Washington Parish town is a crucial part of another subject of the
team’s research. Some students are investigating the murder of
Oneal Moore, one of the parish’s first black deputies.
Information that researchers find on the case will be relayed to
Stanley Nelson, who plans to write a book on the case. Nelson is
the editor of the Concordia Sentinel, a newspaper published in
Ferriday, La., and he has investigated cold cases for years. As an
editor, he does not have time to travel to the National Archives
to retrieve documents, so the work of the researchers helps him
greatly.
Nelson explained that in most cases during the era, the FBI kept
files, and when the cases were closed, the files were put away and
sometimes became inaccessible. Students were able to retrieve
some files for the first time since the 1960s, enabling them to
discover who the FBI was investigating decades ago and connect
it with evidence from their own research.
Some criticize the return to these cases, but Nelson defends the
importance of doing so by asking critics to consider if their family
members were victims of the crimes during the era.
He said that an unsolved murder in any community is horrible,
especially a Civil Rights era murder that went unsolved because
klansmen were involved with law enforcement and intimidated
witnesses into silence.
Drew noted the value of revealing the names of witnesses who
had the courage to speak out.
“Some people feel better when they see that even though the
FBI didn’t crack the case, three local people actually stood up as
witnesses and told them what they knew,” Drew said.
Drew’s predecessor, Shelledy, said that law enforcement and the
FBI have been too consumed with other issues to revisit 50-yearold cases that would probably not lead to a conviction. The task
falls almost entirely on the students and journalists like Nelson,
and, as witnesses and perpetrators age, the window to conduct
interviews is narrowing. Luckily, the location of dozens of murders
allows them to fulfill this duty.
One of Shelledy’s teams believed it discovered what happened to
Joseph Edwards, a black man who disappeared in Vidalia in 1964.
He is suspected to be the victim of foul play by klan-sympathizing
law enforcement officers, according to an article on the project’s
website. Shelledy said they interviewed witnesses and were able
to draw a conclusion through circumstantial but clear evidence.
Andrea Gallo,* now an investigative reporter for The Advocate,
was a cold case researcher under Shelledy in 2012 and 2013.
The primary case she worked on involved the murders allegedly
committed by klansman Ernest Parker. He was accused of tying
two black men to the motor block of his Jeep and throwing them in
the Old River near Tallulah. Reporting on the case taught Gallo how
to condense thousands of pages she had read into a single story.
“It was really cool as a student just to go to the National Archives
and to do that level of research that really showed how to be an
investigative reporter,” Gallo said.
Gallo said it is incredibly tragic for a loved one to be brutally
murdered and never get answers. The project allows students to
piece together information to bring justice and closure to families.
Nelson stressed how important it is for families to know that
someone cares and is working to get answers. Even if cases are
not solved, researchers can give families information that the FBI
did not.
“It’s just the right thing to do,” Nelson said. “It’s what we ought to
do. It’s the moral thing to do.”
Nelson said this research may be the most important thing
students ever do, and he believes they will always be glad they
were involved with such essential work.
“Students sacrifice a lot of time for this, and they are motivated by
doing what’s right,” Nelson said. “They’re led by their hearts.”
Story // Karli Carpenter
Photo // Reveille Photographer
Design // Catherine Carpenter
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