Resonance Raman spectra have been acquired for resting state mammalian lactoperoxidase, LPO(N), and its six-coordinate, low-spin (6CLS) cyanide complex, LPO(CN), as well as for various heme I containing fragments resulting from partial or complete proteolytic digestion. These proteolytic fragments provide a useful set of reference compounds for analysis of the LPO(N) and LPO(CN) enzymes, using various ligands to generate well-defined five-coordinate and six-coordinate high-spin (5CHS and 6CHS) species. In addition, these model compounds, which contain zero, one, or two covalently attached ester linkages to polypeptide chains, are quite useful for determining the extent to which the presence of the ester linkages at the heme periphery affects the characteristic heme resonance Raman marker bands. The spectral results not only provide strong evidence for the formulation of the resting state enzyme as a 6CHS species, but also confirm the previously documented anomalous intensities of several low-frequency resonance Raman bands, which are most reasonably interpreted to arise from a protein-induced out-of-plane distortion of the heme I macrocycle mediated by the covalent ester linkages to the associated polypeptide residues of the intact protein.