[3] In 1922, Louisiana Governor John M. Parker pleaded with J. Edgar Hoover (then Assistant Director of the Bureau of Investigation) to help him as he wrote, "the Ku Klux Klan has grown so powerful in my state that it effectively controls the northern half.

[5] In Bastrop, on August 24, 1922, Morehouse Parish, Louisiana held a festival called the "good roads bond rally.

At the halfway mark between the towns, the convoy was stopped by heavily armed black-robed KKK men who searched every vehicle.

New Orleans pathologists brought in specially by the Governor identified the bodies by noting that one wore a belt buckle with the initials "F.W.D."

The leading theory was related to an alleged attack on the car of Dr. B. M. McKoin, a top official in the Klan No 34 enforcement squad.

[11] Since McKoin's post-graduate specialization was genito-urinary medicine,[12] he would have had the surgical expertise to mutilate the young man in the manner the pathologists described.

However, the infiltration of the local grand jury system by Klan members allowed them to dismiss the case for "insufficient evidence".

[13] Louisiana Attorney General Adolphe V. Coco was able to eventually bring minor charges in April of 1923 on the Klan and 17 of its associates.

[14][13] These attempts to seek justice ended in late 1923 when Governor Parker had retired and Attorney General Coco lost his reelection bid.