Crime Stoppers: RPSO looks to solve March 1999 homicide staged as suicide

TIOGA, La. (KALB) - The Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office and Crime Stoppers of Central Louisiana need your help in solving a cold case from 1999.

On March 26, 1999, the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office received a call to the Hagan Mobile Home Park where Alan Michael Edwards had been found dead by his roommate.

Edwards, who was 34 at the time, was the father of three young children and had separated from his wife. The sheriff’s office said he worked at Walmart in Pineville.

According to the sheriff’s office, his roommate was cleaning the trailer they shared when he made the gruesome discovery. Edwards had been shot to death inside of the trailer. Detectives said the scene was staged as a suicide, but forensics and firearm analysis confirmed it to be a homicide.

Major Mark Baden, who heads the cold case unit for the sheriff’s office, said it’s a case they’ve been trying to crack for more than two decades.

“Twenty-two years is a long time. A lot of people have gotten displaced, but amazingly, most of the players and the witnesses and people are still in the Tioga area,” said Major Baden. “So, that’s what we’re attempting to do. Go back and interview these people. I’ve located his ex-wife, and we just go from there.”

Baden has been reviewing Edwards’ case, as well as a slew of others that are long since cold. This one has kept him up at night.

“In looking back over the cases, I have sat in here for hours and hours and hours reviewing these case files,” he said. “Going over every statement, every crime scene photograph. It was just something that jumped out at me that this wasn’t a suicide. And, it goes from there.”

The sheriff’s office is reaching out to the public for help to hopefully get the wheels of justice moving. Maybe you heard something or saw something. Major Baden said it’s never too late to come forward.

“Any information. Anything that you have heard from another person. A lot of times people go and commit these crimes and they have to tell somebody. They cannot keep it to themself. That’s what we’re looking for. We’re looking for that somebody that has the information that we can put the pieces of the puzzle back together,” he said.

If you have any information that could help the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office solve the case of the deadly shooting of Alan Michael Edwards, you can contact them at 318-473-6700 or Crime Stoppers of Central Louisiana at 443-STOP. You can remain anonymous by contacting Crime Stoppers, and your tip that leads to an arrest or indictment could lead to a reward of up to $2,500.

Click here to report a typo.

Copyright 2021 KALB. All rights reserved.