NOTE: This article originally published on June 22, 2005, during the trial of Edgar Ray Killen.
Philadelphia, Miss. — He was a preacher and a Ku Klux Klansman in a place and time when being both made sense to many folks.
When Edgar Ray Killen rounded up fellow Klansmen during that Freedom Summer of 1964 and dropped them off to execute three civil rights workers on a dark piney-woods road, prosecutors said, he believed he was doing God's work.
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The next afternoon in nearby Meridian, Killen bragged to a cop whom he'd sworn in to the Klan that he knew the last words spoken by one of young men shot and buried in an earthen dam.
"I understand how you feel, sir," Michael Schwerner, 24, was reported to have said to one of his abductors.
On Tuesday, the 41st anniversary of the slayings, Mississippi expressed its own sentiments for the first time in a courtroom, convicting the 80-year-old Killen — staring from a wheelchair and breathing from an oxygen tank — of three counts of felony manslaughter.
Prosecutors said Killen plotted the murders and arranged for a bulldozer to bury the bodies. It took FBI agents 44 days to find them, bringing worldwide attention to this backwater.
No smoking gun.
The killings of the three young men, who worked to register black voters, became a notorious symbol of the segregated South and galvanized the civil rights movement.
Killen, tried with 17 others on federal charges of depriving the victims of their civil rights, walked out of court in 1967 a free man after the all-white jury deadlocked 11-1 for conviction. The lone holdout said she could not convict a preacher. Seven others were convicted, but none served more than six years.
When he is sentenced Thursday, Killen faces a maximum of 20 years in prison on each manslaughter count in the deaths of Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, 20, and James Chaney, 21. His attorneys said they would appeal.
"There is justice for all in Mississippi," said state Attorney General Jim Hood, who prosecuted the case. "I thank the good Lord for showing us these murders were not sanctioned by God, but by evil men. One of them will have to pay for that now. It's late, but it's now."
Rita Schwerner Bender, Schwerner's widow, had sat in the front row since the trial began June 13. "Mississippi has taken one small step for mankind," she said. "There are a whole lot of other steps that have to be taken."
Credit: ROGELIO SOLIS
Credit: ROGELIO SOLIS
Chaney's younger brother, Ben Chaney, hugged Bender after the verdicts were read.
"When I was growing up in Meridian, there was a lot of laughter in our house. But for 44 days in 1964, we didn't laugh. We only cried," Chaney said. "Now my mother feels like she's happy. The life of her son has some value."
Some in the nearly full courtroom were disappointed at the manslaughter conviction, having hoped the jury would find Killen guilty of murder. Prosecutors charged Killen was the orchestrator of the killings, not one of the two triggermen.
But the jury of nine whites and three blacks sent out a note to the judge Tuesday morning saying they were deadlocked on the murder charges, and asked if they might move on to the manslaughter charges. Given permission, the jury took just 10 minutes to return a unanimous decision.
One of the white jurors, Warren Paprocki, said later the panel was frustrated that prosecutors hadn't given them strong enough evidence to nail a murder conviction. The jurors split 6-6 on their initial vote on murder charges, their forewoman told Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon late Monday.
"If they would have only presented something that was like a smoking gun, something really strong, then we would have convicted him of murder in a minute," Paprocki said. In all, the jury deliberated about five hours over two days.
'Not a perfect verdict'
Prosecutors said they were hampered by having to present a parade of now-dead witnesses through testimony from the 1967 federal conspiracy trial. Four defendants from that trial refused to cooperate with the state's prosecution, even after being offered immunity. Two new witnesses have died since the state reopened the case in 1999. Hood said one told investigators he was at the meeting where the Klan's imperial wizard approved Killen's request to "eliminate" Schwerner. That witness committed suicide last year.
"It's not a perfect verdict, but it wasn't a perfect case," said District Attorney Mark Duncan. "I believe we proved murder, but I think it's asking a lot of a jury to convict someone of murder when three out of four of your witnesses are dead."
Defense attorney James McIntyre expressed relief at the lesser conviction.
"At least he wasn't found guilty of a willful and wanton act," said McIntyre. "Manslaughter is a negligent act."
Nettie Cox, a member of the Philadelphia Coalition, made up of local civic leaders and concerned citizens who pushed for Mississippi to bring charges, said the manslaughter convictions were "not what I hoped for, but something is better than nothing."
The second-floor courtroom filled quickly when word spread that a verdict had been reached. About a dozen law enforcement officers ringed the wood-paneled room.
Judge Gordon, an imposing figure with white hair and deep drawl, warned spectators against reacting to the verdict. He then assembled jurors in a semicircle before his bench, their backs to the crowd.
Wife comforts Killen.
Many in the courtroom were on the edge of their seats. An elderly black man rubbed his forehead over and over. A middle-aged white woman kept her face in her hands. Many sat with their eyes closed as if in prayer.
When the first guilty verdict was read, a hushed, open-mouthed gasp filled the courtroom. Smiles broke on the faces, some streaked with tears, of people supporting conviction, but there were few other signs of celebration.
Two rows were filled with Killen's family and supporters, who appeared deflated and distraught. The defendant's wife, Betty Jo, gasped audibly, then whimpered. Hands clasped in front of her face she began to weep quietly, the only sound in the courtroom for several minutes. A young woman sitting next to her wept and embraced her.
Killen's sister, Dorothy Dearing, and brother, Oscar Killen, sat stone-faced. Oscar Killen turned red and clenched his jaw. Brother and sister had testified for the defense on Saturday that they had spent the day with their brother just hours before the deadly ambush was set into motion.
Killen's wife sprang from her seat and went to her husband in his wheelchair, oxygen tubes looped over his ears, his face showing little emotion. Tears streaming beneath her glasses, she hugged him, stroked his arm and whispered softly to him. He reached out to her several times.
The room remained hushed as the couple comforted each other. Finally, Judge Gordon ordered three sheriff's deputies to wheel Killen, trailed by his oxygen tank, off to the Neshoba County Jail.
Outside, the former sawmill operator, who broke both legs in a March logging accident, angrily struck out at TV cameras twice before being folded into a car and driven to jail.
Word of the conviction spread quickly through this lumber and casino town of 7,300 residents, some heading to the lawn of the courthouse, flanked by two spreading magnolia trees in bloom.
"I was in my office three blocks away, shaking, watching it on TV," said lawyer Fenton DeWeese, a Philadelphia Coalition member. "Then I ran right up here. The feeling came right through the TV."
"Truth has produced justice," he said. "We in Neshoba County took the first steps. We need to continue to do things for redemption and reconciliation."
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