Angela Woolridge, a 36-year-old Black woman, died in New Orleans, Louisiana, on Thursday, March 8, 2012. In the days that followed, the public record of her passing took the familiar shape of a city saying goodbye: her name printed for friends and relatives to find, an invitation extended to everyone who loved her, and a church door that would open early for visitation before the service began.
Her obituary described her as a mother and a grandmother, and it sketched the family circle she left behind. A funeral service was scheduled at Star of Bethel Missionary Baptist Church on Harmony Street, with burial to follow at Bear Creek Cemetery in Montpelier, Louisiana, and a Jefferson-area funeral home handling arrangements. Condolence messages that appeared with the notice read like overlapping voices in a crowded room—people recalling her smile, speaking to her children and relatives, and reaching for words that could soften what couldn’t be changed.
Separate from the funeral notice, at least one online cold-case listing connected her name to a murder investigated by the New Orleans Police Department, indicating her death as a homicide case rather than a death from natural causes. Those listings, however, did not provide a narrative of what happened, where it occurred, or how the events unfolded—only the implication that her case belonged among the unsolved.
Across the publicly accessible sources available online for this request, there were no reliable details naming a suspect, documenting an arrest, or outlining charges, court proceedings, or a conviction tied to Angela Woolridge’s death. The record that can be confirmed publicly is, heartbreakingly, the aftermath: the service time, the church address, the burial location, and the trail of grief left in guestbook lines from people who wanted her family to know she mattered.
