CIVIL RIGHTS CRIMES
Ex-Klansman Charged in '64
Slayings
01/25/07
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Charles
Moore, above, and Henry Dee were
killed in Mississippi in 1964.
A suspect in the case was indicted
on Jan. 25, 2007.
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A
former Ku Klux Klan member was indicted Thursday
in federal court in Mississippi on charges
related to his role in the abductions and
slayings of two young African American men
in 1964.
The
three-count indictment alleges that James
Ford Seale and fellow Klansmen conspired to
abduct, beat, and ultimately murder Henry
Dee and Charles Moore in May 1964. Seale and
his fellow Klansmen allegedly picked up the
two men hitchhiking, drove them into the woods
to question them, and badly beat them. Dee
and Moore were then bound with duct tape and
taken by boat onto the Old Mississippi River,
where the two men—still alive—were
thrown overboard, weighted down by an engine
block and railroad rails. Their decomposed
bodies were found two months later during
a search for three missing civil rights workers,
what would later be known as the Mississippi
Burning case.
"Today's
indictment is one example of the FBI's strong
and ongoing commitment to reexamining and
investigating unsolved civil rights era murders
and other crimes," FBI Director Robert
S. Mueller told reporters at a press conference
Thursday in Washington, D.C. "Under our
Cold Case Initiative, we will continue to
identify and pursue these cases of racially
motivated violence to ensure justice is served
wherever possible."
The
unsolved case was revived in 2005 when Charles
Moore's brother Thomas and a documentary filmmaker
discovered by chance that Seale was alive
and still living in Mississippi. Their legwork
prompted the FBI's Jackson field office to
reexamine decades-old records and enlist the
help of five retired FBI agents who investigated
the original case in 1964 before relinquishing
it to local authorities. The Jackson office,
with the local U.S. Attorney's Office, created
a task force that assembled enough evidence
against Seale to bring the case before a grand
jury.
"The
charges reflected in the indictment are charges
that can be prosecuted," Attorney General
Alberto R. Gonzalez said during the press
conference.
The
case joins several other civil rights era
cases that only recently saw closure.
"A
Mississippi cold case can be solved,"
said Thomas Moore, who attended the press
conference. "There can be justice."
Henry Dee's sister Thelma Collins also attended
the press conference. She said she cried when
she learned Seale was charged. "I cried
because I had shed so many tears over the
years about it."
James
Seale was arraigned Thursday morning in Mississippi
and pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he faces
a maximum sentence of life in prison for each
count of the indictment.
Resources:
- Press
Release
- FBI
Civil Rights Page
- Civil
Rights Stories
- Director's
Remarks
