Murders at Mer Rouge

By John Warner Smith

In 1922 Louisiana, at the height of the Ku Klux Klan's power, two white men who dared to speak against the Klan vanished from the small plantation town of Mer Rouge. Four months later, their mutilated bodies emerged-igniting outrage that reached the governor's desk and shook the nation.

The Murders at Mer Rouge unravels the explosive true story behind those disappearances: a network of Klan intimidation, political corruption, and a cover-up designed to protect violent men in power. As state and federal investigators close in, one woman becomes a pivotal-and dangerous-piece of the puzzle: Lollie Belle Olive, a young mixed-race prostitute entangled with both a Klan leader and one of the murdered men. Her secrets threaten to expose everything.

Riveting and meticulously researched, this novella reveals the investigation that helped fracture the Klan's stronghold in north Louisiana-and accelerated its decline across the country.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1965059864
• ISBN13: 9781965059869
• Release Date: March 2026
• Publisher: Willow River Press
• Length: 156 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.0" x 8.0"