Otis Rush and Marty Stuart
Posted on 01/06/2005 6:49:14 PM PST by WKB
PHILADELPHIA, Miss. - Reputed Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen was arrested late Thursday on murder charges in the 1964 slaying of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, officials said.
Neshoba County Sheriff Larry Myers told The Associated Press that Killen, a 79-year-old preacher, was arrested at home without incident.
The arrest came after a daylong grand jury meeting Thursday that apparently included testimony from people believed to have knowledge about the killings.
"We've got several more to arrest, but we went ahead and got him because he was high-profile and we knew where he was," Myers said.
Myers said Killen was being held on three counts of murder. Calls to Killen's home late Thursday were answered by a recording.
Neshoba County District Attorney Mark Duncan said during the grand jury hearing that arraignments would be held Friday morning.
The grand jury considered whether sufficient evidence existed after 40 years to bring charges in the crimes that were dramatized in the movie "Mississippi Burning." Killen was identified in testimony in earlier federal court proceedings as having a role in the killings.
Mississippi has had some success reopening old civil rights murder cases, including a 1994 conviction of Byron de la Beckwith for the 1963 assassination in Jackson of NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers.
But until recently there has been little progress in building murder cases against those involved in the Ku Klux Klan slayings of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.
Seven Klansmen were convicted of federal conspiracy charges in the killings and sentenced to prison terms ranging from three years to 10 years. None served more than six years. But the state never brought murder charges.
"After 40 years to come back and do something like this is ridiculous ... like a nightmare," said Billy Wayne Posey, one of the men convicted. The graying Posey, supported by a cane, refused to say what he expected to be asked by the grand jury.
Goodman's mother, Carolyn Goodman, said she "knew that in the end the right thing was going to happen."
"As I have said many times before, I'm not looking for revenge. I'm looking for justice," Goodman, 89, said from her home in New York.
Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner were among hundreds of Freedom Summer volunteers, mostly white college students, who came to Mississippi in 1964 to educate blacks and help them to vote. The three were beaten and shot to death. Their bodies were found later in an earthen dam.
Chaney, a 21-year-old black man, was from Meridian, Miss. Goodman, 20, and Schwerner, 24, were from New York.
Jackson attorney James D. McIntyre, who declined to identify his client but said he was on the defense team during the 1967 trial, was critical of prosecutors.
"It appears to be a sad day for the state of Mississippi," McIntyre said. "The investigation that has being brought forth - the prosecutors, news media - I just hate to see it happen."
McIntyre said all he new of the reopened case is "what I read in the newspaper and it appears there has been a lot of judgment made concerning the guilt or innocence of a lot of these people."
Ben Chaney, the younger brother of James Chaney, called the latest investigation a sham that may target one or two unrepentant Klansmen but spare wealthy and influential whites who he said had a hand in the murders.
He said he and others had asked Hood early last year to turn the case over to the FBI with the goal of having a special prosecutor named to take up the investigation.
I do not suppose the "Weathermen" et al lose any sleep these days..Hillary defended home grown American terrorists in a torture murder case. Ho hum, I guess, ones views do get flamed here. I checked your profile. Glad you got your views across. I do not have to agree with them- like anyone else.
"The 3 men killed were NOT "civil rights workers". They were communist agitators."
It's legal to kill communists?
Outstanding reply!
Good question. Sheets was in charge of recruiting, in his role as Grand Kleagle, so one would assume that this fellow Klansman's recruiter should be tried.
Very good reply! Kudos!
Go back, being from the past! Go back while you still can! Go back before the worm hole closes and you must remain here in the 21st century for the rest of your life! Go, now!
I find it ironic that Communists who do not believe in voting would go down to Mississippi to Register Black people to vote.
Great insight you have there. And you claim to have once worked in "Military Intelligence." Look like you put the Moron in the adage of "Military Intelligence" being an oxymoron.
I woulda carried a pistol in the South Bronx had it been legal back when I lived there in the 80s as well and yep...because I'm 100% peckerwood.
I do carry a firearm when driving around my hometown of Jackson Mississippi which has become a veritable war zone in most parts in our new enlightened age.
Driving while white is dangerous too in places in cases you have been hiding in North Dakota.
Blacks run nearly all municipalities and black counties in Mississippi now. The bottom rung done moved up as they say.
Which is why they and politicians of all stripes who want to make hay are on these cases with good PR on their side. Justice with a TV camera following ya all around is not only noble but good for one's career.
But I can tell ya....30 years after Jim Crow has been dead and buried down here....it's a mixed bag.
Don't be looking for anybody to be trumpeting cases involving black on white crime which is endemic. No political hay to be made.
That's just how it is. Mississippi is 40% black and largely poor. This is where the realities of the Great Society rubber meets the road.
I have no answers. I just know it's in some ways better and in other ways ...much much worse....for everybody. Not to say the old ways were better but some of the old racists worst nightmares have come true. Did this happen because of Jim Crow or is it more than that? I don't know.
Anybody figure it out....give me a holler.
Unlike most Yankees in their fairly segregated worlds...lol...in Mississippi...you can segregate...and they do...black and white....mostly by choice.
BUT UNLIKE UP NORTH.....you cannot hide down here. Segregated or not....blacks and whites are gonna get to know one another apart from TV shows and football games...the good, the bad, and the uglee.
"I'm 100% peckerwood."
You might want to 'splain the term "peckerwood"
for those who may not know what it means. ;o)
"Unlike most Yankees in their fairly segregated worlds...lol...in Mississippi...you can segregate...and they do...black and white....mostly by choice.
BUT UNLIKE UP NORTH.....you cannot hide down here. Segregated or not....blacks and whites are gonna get to know one another apart from TV shows and football games...the good, the bad, and the uglee."
Oregon is not Yankee territory.
But, my daughter has had several black friends move
back to their Southern home state.
The reason for this is that, as they told her, they
"feel" the the unstated prejudice out here.
It is unsaid because it would be unPC...but it's there.
They felt like they, at least, knew where they stood,
prejudice or not, in the South.
And, having lived most of my life in the South, I agree.
On that note, I'm off to bed.
Good to see you. ;o)
"This is Mississippi taking care of its own problems (however belatedly). At least, give us credit for that."
Big ole bump. ;o)
Good to see you, and hope all is well with Mrs. bourbon.
Please, give her my best.
Oregon is not technically Yankee but they did supply Union troops.
Of course....blacks and whites are more honest with each other down here...no doubt...and it's not all The Cosby Show admittedly but we don't pretend to know what's best for them anymore like Yankees do but I will tell them if they are wrong and I don't pander.
I get pilloried here at times for being how I am. I straight talk blacks down here on these issues. Hell, if I don't they think I'm playing them.
having known more than my fair share of criminals....I fear that this fellow did not suffer much remorse actually.
now I'm gonna roast myself personally on a pyre for all to see but I will confess that to this day still that most Missisippians still do not cotton to yankee interlopers stirring up anything...whether to do with race or unionizing or anything else.
it's a peculiararity that transcends all issues....and outlives Jim Crow's demise.
it's not meant as a justification for crime but it is true....I'm telling ya. murder is murder and this will play out as it should if the man is guilty....i have not studied this case but I do recall the popcorn eating photos which were an embarrassment as was the movie from that Greek pinko.
folks are clannish down here...blacks too.....ask any rural Delta black folks if they want some highstepper cousin from Chicago coming down to Ittabeena and telling them how it's done....nope ....they won't like it.
Otis Rush and Marty Stuart
small world
Sadly, no. See this thread.
No excuses for three people being murdered...
mark to comment later
I was going to comment on something you said and ask a question but I realize everyone has a right to their opinion. Besides after paying a brief visit to a similar area I'd carry a gun too. I'll only say I'm glad I didn't grow up in the South back then. That's not to take away from other folks' upbringing but that's just how I see it in light of reading about the lives of various immigrants and mixed race people. I hope no one gets offended at what I say because that's not my intention.
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