Prosecutor reopening race killings

JACKSON, Miss. -- In 1964, FBI agents assigned to the biggest civil rights investigation of their time were searching for three missing voter-registration volunteers when the remains of two young black men were pulled from the murky Mississippi River.

At the time, the FBI was more interested in finding the three civil rights workers. And this being Mississippi in the 1960s -- when a white man could kill a black man and get away with it -- the investigation into the other deaths did not get far.

Four decades later, a federal prosecutor in Mississippi is renewing the investigation into the two all-but-forgotten killings.

The investigation is part of a larger effort by prosecutors in the Deep South to punish crimes committed long ago during the civil rights era.

Last month, a former Ku Klux Klansman was convicted in Mississippi in the slayings of the three civil rights workers. James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were ambushed by carloads of Klansmen, beaten, shot and buried in a red-clay dam in a crime that focused the nation's attention on the struggle for racial equality in the South.

Some of the old cases that were recently prosecuted "have heightened the awareness of what's gone on in the past. Maybe the climate is different today" compared with a few years ago, Lampton said.

Forty-one years ago, searchers were looking for Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney when a fisherman nearby found the lower part of a man's body near Tallulah, La., and notified the FBI. The remains of another man were found a day later.

Investigators checked the pockets of the first victim and identified him as Charles Eddie Moore, an Alcorn A&M College student. The other man was identified as Henry Hezekiah Dee, a sawmill worker.

The two black 19-year-olds had been tied to a tree near Meadville on May 2, 1964, and beaten mercilessly, authorities said. The bodies were then chained to a jeep engine block and thrown into the river, according to FBI documents.

In November 1964, two reputed Klansmen were arrested by the state of Mississippi -- and one of them confessed to involvement, according to the FBI -- but the murder charges were later dropped. Moore's brother, Thomas Moore of Colorado Springs, Colo., said he believes both of those men are still alive.

"They seemed to have had strong evidence linking these two Klansmen to these abductions, including the confession. The fact that they were not prosecuted at the time shows the lack of real interest in the part of the state," said Penny Weaver, who grew up in Mississippi during the 1960s and is now a spokeswoman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups.

"There was no commitment to justice for black people by officials in Mississippi. We have the names of dozens of other black people who were killed by white people during that time and whose stories have never gotten any attention."

She added: "If they hadn't been searching for Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney, and two of those three were white, they wouldn't have found these bodies."

According to a 2000 story in the Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, an FBI informant told investigators in 1964 that the killings were prompted by a false rumor that black Muslims were arming themselves for an insurrection. But The New York Times reported in 1966 that one of the suspects told authorities the black men were killed because one of them had peeped through a window at the white man's wife.

Lampton has also reopened the investigation into the 1967 car-bombing death of a black man named Wharlest Jackson. Jackson was killed as he drove home after being promoted to what was regarded a "whites-only" job at an Armstrong Tire and Rubber Co. plant in Natchez.

Jackson was treasurer of the local NAACP. Many of the workers at Armstrong Tire were suspected Klan members. No one was ever arrested.

As for the other case, Thomas Moore was away in the military when his brother disappeared. He said his mother made him promise not to hunt down the men responsible for his younger brother's death.

"After Charles was brutalized, she asked me to stay in the Army because she wanted to know I would have safety. She was afraid I was going out and get involved and eventually get killed," he said. "I had to swallow my pride, but I made her that promise."

He said he decided to push harder for justice after he was approached for interviews by David Ridgen, a documentary filmmaker for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Thomas Moore and Ridgen traveled across Mississippi together for two weeks in early July, interviewing people, hoping to jog someone's memory.

"Every day has been a triumph. Thomas has been getting new information that he has delivered to Dunn Lampton," Ridgen said.

Thomas Moore said they were told that both men arrested in the case -- James Ford Seale of Roxie and Charles Marcus Edwards of Meadville -- are still alive, but Lampton could not establish their whereabouts.

According to FBI documents and newspaper accounts, Edwards confessed involvement in 1964, saying the young men were beaten but left alive in the woods. In later years, he denied ever admitting to any involvement.

Calls by The Associated Press to a number listed for Charles M. Edwards in Meadville were not returned. There was no listing for James Ford Seale.

Lampton said he would meet with state and local prosecutors in the coming weeks to determine how much evidence still exists, given the possibility that some witnesses have died over the years. He said he may offer immunity to people who come forward with information.

Ollie Mae Allen, 62, of Chicago said a conviction in the slaying of her brother, Henry Dee, would bring some relief to the family.

and in other news

Ky. man says '60s suspect sold him guns

# Rifle, pistol likely obtained from Lawrence Rainey, lawyer says

The Kentucky man who bought two guns from a suspect in the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers says the seller could have been now-deceased Neshoba County Sheriff Lawrence Rainey.

Dick Downey, a lawyer from Franklin, Ky., said his unnamed client has documentation to show he bought a .30-30 Winchester rifle and a Star 9mm pistol in the late 1960s. Rainey was living then in Kentucky.

Downey said if evidence points to those guns possibly being used in the Klan's June 21, 1964, killings of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, his client will return them for testing and will share all he knows.

"He doesn't want any publicity if they are not connected," Downey said. "Actually, he doesn't want any publicity at all. He just wants to do the right thing."

Chaney's brother, Ben, said Friday he plans to spend the weekend talking with his family about the possibility of James Chaney's exhumation.

A confession from Horace Doyle Barnette did not place Rainey at the scene of the killings but did link him to the conspiracy. Barnette said Rainey met him and other Klansmen after the slayings, telling them, "I'll kill anyone who talks, even if it was my own brother."

If either gun was used in the killings, the shooter would have had to have given it to Rainey, who was acquitted in a 1967 federal conspiracy trial in the case.

Prosecutors told reporters less than an hour after a jury recently convicted Edgar Ray Killen of manslaughter in the trio's killings the only two triggermen in the case, Wayne Roberts and James Jordan, are dead.

But the work of world-renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden and Mississippi state forensic pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne has revealed the possibility of additional gunmen.

Baden said two additional bullets still in Chaney's body could be matched to weapons. Hayne, who examined the X-rays of Schwerner and Goodman, added, "The radiologist said there were bullet fragments in the head and neck area of each."

Although the pathologist who did the autopsies on Goodman and Schwerner discounted that possibility, Hayne described each in his report as a "potential gunshot wound."

Downey read about the pathologists' conclusions in a June 26 article in The Clarion-Ledger, discussed it with his client and contacted the newspaper.

Baden said it's possible the two guns sold to the Kentucky man account for the additional bullets in Chaney. The only way to confirm that would be to test the weapons against the bullets, he said.

Killen may have given another of the murder weapons to former Klansman and Meridian police officer Mike Hatcher.

Hatcher testified at Killen's trial that Killen gave him a revolver to destroy the day after the killings. After the trial ended, Hatcher wouldn't talk about the make of the gun or whether he had followed Killen's instructions to get rid of the gun.

According to Barnette's confession, Roberts and Jordan fired the fatal shots: Roberts grabbed Schwerner, 24, and shot him once, then Goodman, 20, and shot him once. Jordan then joined Roberts in killing Chaney, 21. Ballistics confirmed bullets removed from the bodies came from two different .38-caliber pistols.

Dr. William Featherston of Jackson, who did the original autopsy, removed three bullets from Chaney's back, head and chest. But Baden said X-rays show two other bullets struck Chaney in his arms and are still there.

According to the autopsy report, Chaney had his left arm broken in one place and a right arm broken in two places.

The fracture to Chaney's right wrist "could have been caused by a blunt object like a baseball bat, but the deformed left upper arm is due to shooting," Baden said.

Attorney General Jim Hood has said all the statements authorities received don't mention any triggermen besides Jordan and Roberts.

But he said it might be difficult for those present to know exactly who fired their guns on such a dark night.

In his 1964 confession to the FBI, Jordan describes the various guns Klansmen had that night: Barnette had a .30-caliber rifle; Wayne Roberts, a snub nose gun, possibly an English .38-caliber pistol; Jimmie Snowden, a sawed-off shotgun; Billy Wayne Posey, a pistol, make and model unknown; and Jimmy Aldridge, a long-barreled pistol.

Federal authorities searched for murder weapons in the case, but never found any.

I don't have a problem with old murders being pursued for the sake of justice. I do, however, have a problem with this incredibly selective process of choosing which cold cases to pursue. Rest assured there are PLENTY of unsolved murders in our state, PLENTY of other families left behind to deal with the horror of losing a loved one like this, PLENTY of cases that never received much attention at all because the victims--all colors represented--were not considered important at the time for a variety of reasons. They all get ignored while this tour de force in political correctness marches forward. And we all know that as soon as the aforementioned politically correct cold cases get tucked nicely away, there will be no continuing effort to address the remainder of unsolved Mississippi murders. Those victims will lie in their graves without another thought from these showboats.

MM

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