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

Published: April 5, 2023

By: LSU Manship School News Service

*(Christopher Drew/LSU Manship School News Service) LSU Cold Case Project students met at the Southern University Law Center with family members of one of the shooting victims.*

Nine students from LSU’s Manship School of Mass Communication and the
Southern University Law Center won a national investigative reporting prize this week for
stories re-examining the shooting deaths of two Southern students by a sheriff’s deputy in 1972.

The prize–for the best investigative work in 2022 by students at large universities–was awarded
by Investigative Reporters & Editors, the largest organization of professional investigative
reporters and editors.

The four-part series, published last fall, was based on dozens of interviews and nearly 2,700
pages of previously undisclosed FBI documents. It prompted Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards
to apologize to the families of the victims on behalf of the state.

Edwards said he was six years old when the shooting happened and that all he knew about it
came from reading the stories by “a group at LSU who actually did the cold case investigation
and have been working on this to educate people.”