In January 2014, Ethan’s multi-year investigation into eight unsolved homicides in Jefferson Davis Parish, Louisiana, ran on Medium.com. The piece—”Who Killed the Jeff Davis 8″—has been praised by the likes of True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto, the late true crime writer Michelle McNamara, and Vanity Fair critic James Wolcott. Read it here:
https://medium.com/the-jeff-davis-8-killings
Medium Senior Editor Mark Lotto talked to Capital New York about the “Jeff Davis 8″ piece and the re-launch Medium’s publication, Matter, here.
In March of 2014, Ethan signed a deal with Scribner to write a book about the Jeff Davis 8 case.
In September of 2014, Ethan’s Jeff Davis 8 piece was included in a True Detective anthology that also featured works by Ambrose Bierce, Thomas Ligotti and Arthur Schopenhauer.
Ethan’s book about the Jeff Davis 8 case, Murder in the Bayou, was published by Scribner in September 2016 and was the result of years of witness interviews and public records requests, many of which were made under Louisiana’s Public Records Act. Specifically:
*Dozens of witness interviews with law enforcement, suspects in the murders, friends and families of the victims, drug business players, local journalists, and local politicians.
*Records requests—beginning in 2011—to a slew of public agencies including the Louisiana State Police, the Jefferson Davis Parish Sheriffs Office, the Jefferson Davis Parish District Attorney’s Office, and the Jennings Police Department.
*Multiple in person research visits to public entities including the Jefferson Davis Parish Civil Court, Calcasieu Parish Clerk of Court, and the Vermillion Parish Clerk of Court.
*Records requests for multiple civil and criminal federal court records which resulted in thousands of pages of records from the United States District Court in the Western District of Louisiana.
*A review of dozens of Taskforce witness interviews and a 100+page summary of Taskforce witness interviews.
