Research & Write A Case Profile
Researchers, genealogists, historians, writers, and others who enjoy digging into records are invited to help document Louisiana’s cold cases.
With hundreds of cases deserving renewed attention, it simply isn’t possible for one person to research and write every profile. Volunteer contributors allow the Louisiana Cold Case Project to document more cases while maintaining the careful research standards behind the project.
Our goal is to tell more than the circumstances of a crime. Whenever records allow, each profile should help readers understand who the person was, their background, family, work, interests, and life before the case, while presenting the facts of the investigation accurately and without speculation.
How It Works
- Choose a parish you’d like to research. (not all parishes are available *yet*)
- Complete the request form below. LCCP will assign an available case from your selected area.
- You may request up to five case assignments at a time.
- Follow the LCCP Case Profile Template when organizing your research.
- Research the victim, circumstances of the case, investigation, and relevant historical records.
- Cite your sources and submit copies or PDFs of the source material with your completed profile.
A photograph of the victim is especially helpful when one can be located from an appropriate source.
Research Standards
Profiles should be based on documented, verifiable information rather than theories or speculation. Contributors are asked to review and follow our Research Methodology before beginning an assignment.
Sources may include law-enforcement records, court filings, government records, historical newspapers, archival materials, genealogical records, and other reliable sources appropriate to the case.
LCCP does not initiate contact with victims’ families for profile research. Family members who contact the project on their own are welcome to contribute information, photographs, records, and recollections. If relevant information has already been provided to LCCP by a family member, it may be shared with the assigned contributor when appropriate.
Original Research & Editorial Review
Submitted profiles should reflect the contributor’s own research and writing. Research tools, including AI, may be used to help locate, organize, or analyze information, but the final profile should be oroginal and written by the contributor.
Submissions are reviewed and may be edited for accuracy, sourcing, consistency, clarity, and conformity with LCCP’s profile format before publication.
Contributor Credit
You’ll receive author credit on each profile you research and write. Contributors who complete five or more profiles will be recognized on our Contributors page, if you so choose.
Case Assignments
Pending case lists are not published. Assignments are made from LCCP’s internal research inventory based on the region or parish selected by the contributor and the cases currently available for assignment.