Edgar Ray Killen
Encyclopedia
Edgar Ray "Preacher" Killen (born January 17, 1925) is a former Ku Klux Klan
organizer who conspired in the murders of three civil rights activists—James Chaney
, Andrew Goodman
and Michael Schwerner
—in 1964.
He was found guilty of three counts of manslaughter
on June 21, 2005, the forty-first anniversary of the crime. He appealed the verdict, but his sentence of three times 20 years in prison was upheld on January 12, 2007, by the Mississippi Supreme Court.
, the second of eight children of Lonnie Ray Killen (1901–1992) and Etta Hitt (1903–1983).
Killen was a sawmill
operator and a Southern Baptist minister. He was also a kleagle
, or klavern recruiter and organizer, for the Neshoba
and Lauderdale County
chapters of the Ku Klux Klan
.
" of 1964, James Chaney, 21, a young black man from Meridian, Mississippi
and Andrew Goodman, 20, and Michael Schwerner, 24, two white men from New York, were murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi
. Killen, along with Cecil Price
, then deputy sheriff of Neshoba County, was found to have assembled a group of armed men who conspired, pursued and killed the three civil rights workers. The Mississippi civil rights workers murders galvanized the nation and helped bring about the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
At the time of the murders, the state of Mississippi made little effort to prosecute the guilty parties. The FBI, under the pro-civil-rights President
Lyndon Johnson and Attorney General
Robert F. Kennedy
, conducted a vigorous investigation. A federal prosecutor, John Doar
, circumventing dismissals by federal judges, opened a grand jury
in December 1964. In November 1965, Solicitor General
Thurgood Marshall
appeared before the Supreme Court
to defend the federal government's authority in bringing charges. Eighteen men, including Killen, were arrested and charged with conspiracy to violate the victims' civil rights in United States v. Price
.
The trial began in 1966 in a federal court before an all-white jury
convicted seven conspirators and acquitted eight others. For three men, including Killen, the trial ended in a hung jury
, with the jurors deadlocked 11–1 in favor of conviction. The lone holdout said that she could not convict a preacher. The prosecution decided not to retry Killen and he was released. None of the men found guilty would serve more than six years in prison.
Over twenty years later, Jerry Mitchell, an award-winning investigative reporter for The Clarion-Ledger
in Jackson, Mississippi
, wrote extensively about the case for six years. Mitchell had already earned fame for helping secure convictions in other high profile Civil Rights Era murder cases, including the assassination of Medgar Evers
, the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing
, and the murder of Vernon Dahmer
. Mitchell assembled new evidence regarding the murders of the three civil rights workers. He also located new witnesses and pressured the state to take action. Assisting Mitchell were high school teacher Barry Bradford and a team of three students from Illinois.
The students persuaded Killen to do his only taped interview (to that point) about the murders. That tape showed Killen clinging to his segregationist views and competent and aware. The student-teacher team found more potential witnesses, created a website, lobbied Congress, and focused national media attention on reopening the case. Caroline Goodman, the mother of one of the victims, called them "super heroes".
sheriff, Malcolm MacMillan, conducted a counter-petition, calling for a re-opening of the case against Killen. Killen was arrested for three counts of murder on January 6, 2005. He was freed on bond. His case drew comparisons to that of Byron De La Beckwith
, who was charged with the killing of Medgar Evers in 1963 and arrested in 1994.
Killen's trial was scheduled for April 18, 2005. It was deferred after the 80-year-old Killen broke both of his legs while chopping lumber at his rural home in Neshoba County. The trial began on June 13, 2005, with Killen attending in a wheelchair
. He was found guilty of manslaughter on June 21, 2005, 41 years to the day after the crime. The jury of nine whites and three blacks rejected the charges of murder, but found him guilty of recruiting the mob that carried out the killings. He was sentenced on June 23, 2005, by Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon to the maximum sentence of 60 years in prison, 20 years for each count of manslaughter, to be served consecutively. He will be eligible for parole
after serving at least 20 years. At the sentencing, Judge Gordon stated that each life lost was valuable, and he said that the law made no distinction of age for the crime and that the maximum sentence should be imposed regardless of Killen's age.
Prosecuting the case were Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood and Neshoba County District Attorney Mark Duncan. Assisting Hood was Assistant Attorney General Lee Morris, now in private practice in Jackson. Consultants in the case were Dr. Andrew Sheldon and Beth Bonora.
On August 12, Killen was released from prison on a $600,000 appeal bond. He claimed that he could no longer use his right hand (he had to use his left hand to place his right one on the Bible
during his swearing-in) and that he was permanently confined to his wheelchair. Gordon said he was convinced by the testimony that Killen was neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community. However, on September 3, the Clarion-Ledger reported that a deputy sheriff saw Killen walking around "with no problem".
At a hearing on September 9, several other deputies testified to seeing Killen driving in various locations. One deputy said that Killen shook hands with him using his right hand. Gordon revoked the bond and ordered Killen back to prison, saying that he believed Killen had committed a fraud against the court. On March 29, 2006, Killen was moved from his prison cell to a Jackson hospital to treat complications from a severe leg injury he sustained in a logging accident in 2005.
(CMCF) in unincorporated
Rankin County
, Mississippi. He underwent evaluation, and prison officials were deciding whether to keep him at CMCF or to send him to the Mississippi State Penitentiary
(Parchman) in unincorporated Sunflower County
. Killen, Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) #112906, is incarcerated in Unit 31 in Parchman. His tentative release date is April 2, 2033. His location last changed on June 25, 2010.
On February 25, 2010, the Associated Press
reported that Killen had filed a lawsuit against the FBI. The suit alleges that one of Killen's lawyers in his 1967 trial, Clayton Lewis, was an FBI informant, and that the FBI had hired "gangster and killer" Gregory Scarpa to coerce witnesses. On February 18, 2011 U.S. Magistrate F. Keith Ball recommended the lawsuit be dismissed.
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
organizer who conspired in the murders of three civil rights activists—James Chaney
James Chaney
James Earl "J.E." Chaney , from Meridian, Mississippi, was one of three American civil rights workers who were murdered during Freedom Summer by members of the Ku Klux Klan near Philadelphia...
, Andrew Goodman
Andrew Goodman
Andrew Goodman was one of three American civil rights activists murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi, during Freedom Summer in 1964 by members of the Ku Klux Klan.-Early life and education:...
and Michael Schwerner
Michael Schwerner
Michael Henry Schwerner , was one of three Congress of Racial Equality field workers killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by the Ku Klux Klan in response to their civil rights work, which included promoting voting registration among Mississippi African Americans...
—in 1964.
He was found guilty of three counts of manslaughter
Manslaughter
Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...
on June 21, 2005, the forty-first anniversary of the crime. He appealed the verdict, but his sentence of three times 20 years in prison was upheld on January 12, 2007, by the Mississippi Supreme Court.
Biography
Edgar Ray Killen was born on January 17, 1925, in Philadelphia, MississippiPhiladelphia, Mississippi
Philadelphia is a city in and the county seat of Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 7,303 at the 2000 census.- History :...
, the second of eight children of Lonnie Ray Killen (1901–1992) and Etta Hitt (1903–1983).
Killen was a sawmill
Sawmill
A sawmill is a facility where logs are cut into boards.-Sawmill process:A sawmill's basic operation is much like those of hundreds of years ago; a log enters on one end and dimensional lumber exits on the other end....
operator and a Southern Baptist minister. He was also a kleagle
Kleagle
A Kleagle is an officer of the Ku Klux Klan whose main role is to recruit new members.-Kleagles:*Edgar Ray Killen, a Mississippi Klansman long suspected of involvement in a notorious civil rights movement murder that were the subject of the movie Mississippi Burning...
, or klavern recruiter and organizer, for the Neshoba
Neshoba County, Mississippi
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 28,684 people, 10,694 households, and 7,742 families residing in the county. The population density was 50 people per square mile . There were 11,980 housing units at an average density of 21 per square mile...
and Lauderdale County
Lauderdale County, Mississippi
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 78,161 people, 29,990 households, and 20,573 families residing in the county. The population density was 111 people per square mile . There were 33,418 housing units at an average density of 48 per square mile...
chapters of the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
.
Murders
During the "Freedom SummerFreedom Summer
Freedom Summer was a campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African American voters as possible in Mississippi which had historically excluded most blacks from voting...
" of 1964, James Chaney, 21, a young black man from Meridian, Mississippi
Meridian, Mississippi
Meridian is the county seat of Lauderdale County, Mississippi. It is the sixth largest city in the state and the principal city of the Meridian, Mississippi Micropolitan Statistical Area...
and Andrew Goodman, 20, and Michael Schwerner, 24, two white men from New York, were murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi
Philadelphia, Mississippi
Philadelphia is a city in and the county seat of Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 7,303 at the 2000 census.- History :...
. Killen, along with Cecil Price
Cecil Price
Cecil Ray Price was linked to the murders of three civil rights workers in 1964. At the time of the murders, he was 26 years old and a deputy sheriff in Neshoba County, Mississippi...
, then deputy sheriff of Neshoba County, was found to have assembled a group of armed men who conspired, pursued and killed the three civil rights workers. The Mississippi civil rights workers murders galvanized the nation and helped bring about the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
At the time of the murders, the state of Mississippi made little effort to prosecute the guilty parties. The FBI, under the pro-civil-rights President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Lyndon Johnson and Attorney General
United States Attorney General
The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
, conducted a vigorous investigation. A federal prosecutor, John Doar
John Doar
John Michael Doar is an American lawyer and currently senior counsel with the law firm Doar Rieck Kaley & Mack in New York....
, circumventing dismissals by federal judges, opened a grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
in December 1964. In November 1965, Solicitor General
United States Solicitor General
The United States Solicitor General is the person appointed to represent the federal government of the United States before the Supreme Court of the United States. The current Solicitor General, Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 6, 2011 and sworn in on June...
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from October 1967 until October 1991...
appeared before the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
to defend the federal government's authority in bringing charges. Eighteen men, including Killen, were arrested and charged with conspiracy to violate the victims' civil rights in United States v. Price
United States v. Price
United States v. Cecil Price, et al. , also known as the "Mississippi Burning trial" , was one of the most famous criminal trials in American history...
.
The trial began in 1966 in a federal court before an all-white jury
All-white jury
An "all-white jury" is an American political term used to describe a jury in a criminal trial, or grand jury investigation, composed only of white people, with the implication that the deliberations may not be fair and unbiased...
convicted seven conspirators and acquitted eight others. For three men, including Killen, the trial ended in a hung jury
Hung jury
A hung jury or deadlocked jury is a jury that cannot, by the required voting threshold, agree upon a verdict after an extended period of deliberation and is unable to change its votes due to severe differences of opinion.- England and Wales :...
, with the jurors deadlocked 11–1 in favor of conviction. The lone holdout said that she could not convict a preacher. The prosecution decided not to retry Killen and he was released. None of the men found guilty would serve more than six years in prison.
Over twenty years later, Jerry Mitchell, an award-winning investigative reporter for The Clarion-Ledger
The Clarion-Ledger
The Clarion-Ledger is the Pulitzer Prize winning daily newspaper of Jackson, Mississippi. It is the second oldest company in the state of Mississippi and is one of only a few newspapers in the nation that continues to circulate statewide...
in Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson is the capital and the most populous city of the US state of Mississippi. It is one of two county seats of Hinds County ,. The population of the city declined from 184,256 at the 2000 census to 173,514 at the 2010 census...
, wrote extensively about the case for six years. Mitchell had already earned fame for helping secure convictions in other high profile Civil Rights Era murder cases, including the assassination of Medgar Evers
Medgar Evers
Medgar Wiley Evers was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi...
, the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing
16th Street Baptist Church bombing
The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed on Sunday, September 15, 1963. The explosion at the African-American church, which killed four girls, marked a turning point in the U.S...
, and the murder of Vernon Dahmer
Vernon Dahmer
Vernon Ferdinand Dahmer, Sr. was an American civil rights leader and president of the Forrest County chapter of the NAACP in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.-Early life:...
. Mitchell assembled new evidence regarding the murders of the three civil rights workers. He also located new witnesses and pressured the state to take action. Assisting Mitchell were high school teacher Barry Bradford and a team of three students from Illinois.
The students persuaded Killen to do his only taped interview (to that point) about the murders. That tape showed Killen clinging to his segregationist views and competent and aware. The student-teacher team found more potential witnesses, created a website, lobbied Congress, and focused national media attention on reopening the case. Caroline Goodman, the mother of one of the victims, called them "super heroes".
Re-opening of the case
In 2004, Killen declared that he would attend a petition-drive on his behalf, which was to be conducted by the Nationalist Movement at the 2004 Mississippi Annual State Fair in Jackson. The Nationalist Movement opposed communism, integration and non-speedy trials. The Hinds CountyHinds County, Mississippi
As of the census of 2000, there were 250,800 people, 91,030 households, and 62,355 families residing in the county. The population density was 288 people per square mile . There were 100,287 housing units at an average density of 115 per square mile...
sheriff, Malcolm MacMillan, conducted a counter-petition, calling for a re-opening of the case against Killen. Killen was arrested for three counts of murder on January 6, 2005. He was freed on bond. His case drew comparisons to that of Byron De La Beckwith
Byron De La Beckwith
Byron De La Beckwith, Jr. was an American white supremacist and Klansman from Greenwood, Mississippi who was convicted in the 1994 state trial of assassinating the civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963....
, who was charged with the killing of Medgar Evers in 1963 and arrested in 1994.
Killen's trial was scheduled for April 18, 2005. It was deferred after the 80-year-old Killen broke both of his legs while chopping lumber at his rural home in Neshoba County. The trial began on June 13, 2005, with Killen attending in a wheelchair
Wheelchair
A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, designed to be a replacement for walking. The device comes in variations where it is propelled by motors or by the seated occupant turning the rear wheels by hand. Often there are handles behind the seat for someone else to do the pushing...
. He was found guilty of manslaughter on June 21, 2005, 41 years to the day after the crime. The jury of nine whites and three blacks rejected the charges of murder, but found him guilty of recruiting the mob that carried out the killings. He was sentenced on June 23, 2005, by Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon to the maximum sentence of 60 years in prison, 20 years for each count of manslaughter, to be served consecutively. He will be eligible for parole
Parole
Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...
after serving at least 20 years. At the sentencing, Judge Gordon stated that each life lost was valuable, and he said that the law made no distinction of age for the crime and that the maximum sentence should be imposed regardless of Killen's age.
Prosecuting the case were Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood and Neshoba County District Attorney Mark Duncan. Assisting Hood was Assistant Attorney General Lee Morris, now in private practice in Jackson. Consultants in the case were Dr. Andrew Sheldon and Beth Bonora.
On August 12, Killen was released from prison on a $600,000 appeal bond. He claimed that he could no longer use his right hand (he had to use his left hand to place his right one on the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
during his swearing-in) and that he was permanently confined to his wheelchair. Gordon said he was convinced by the testimony that Killen was neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community. However, on September 3, the Clarion-Ledger reported that a deputy sheriff saw Killen walking around "with no problem".
At a hearing on September 9, several other deputies testified to seeing Killen driving in various locations. One deputy said that Killen shook hands with him using his right hand. Gordon revoked the bond and ordered Killen back to prison, saying that he believed Killen had committed a fraud against the court. On March 29, 2006, Killen was moved from his prison cell to a Jackson hospital to treat complications from a severe leg injury he sustained in a logging accident in 2005.
Incarceration
Killen entered the Mississippi Department of Corrections system on June 27, 2005, to serve his sixty year sentence. That same year, after a circuit court judge denied Killen's request for a new trial, he was sent to the Central Mississippi Correctional FacilityCentral Mississippi Correctional Facility
The Central Mississippi Correctional Facility is a Mississippi Department of Corrections prison for men and women located in unincorporated Rankin County, Mississippi, near Pearl. The prison is the only state prison to hold female prisoners in Mississippi, in addition to minimum and medium...
(CMCF) in unincorporated
Unincorporated area
In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...
Rankin County
Rankin County, Mississippi
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 115,327 people, 42,089 households, and 31,145 families residing in the county. The population density was 149 people per square mile . There were 45,070 housing units at an average density of 58 per square mile...
, Mississippi. He underwent evaluation, and prison officials were deciding whether to keep him at CMCF or to send him to the Mississippi State Penitentiary
Mississippi State Penitentiary
Mississippi State Penitentiary , also known as Parchman Farm, is the oldest prison and the only maximum security prison for men in the state of Mississippi, USA....
(Parchman) in unincorporated Sunflower County
Sunflower County, Mississippi
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 34,369 people, 9,637 households, and 7,314 families residing in the county. The population density was 50 people per square mile . There were 10,338 housing units at an average density of 15 per square mile...
. Killen, Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) #112906, is incarcerated in Unit 31 in Parchman. His tentative release date is April 2, 2033. His location last changed on June 25, 2010.
On February 25, 2010, the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
reported that Killen had filed a lawsuit against the FBI. The suit alleges that one of Killen's lawyers in his 1967 trial, Clayton Lewis, was an FBI informant, and that the FBI had hired "gangster and killer" Gregory Scarpa to coerce witnesses. On February 18, 2011 U.S. Magistrate F. Keith Ball recommended the lawsuit be dismissed.
External links
- Site explaining how the case was reopened
- Court TV coverage of the Edgar Ray Killen murder trial
- Edgar Ray Killen
- Jackson (Miss.) Free Press Killen Blog
- Killen interviewed by Nationalist Movement leader Richard Barrett – Barrett is a Mississippi-based white nationalistWhite nationalismWhite nationalism is a political ideology which advocates a racial definition of national identity for white people. White separatism and white supremacism are subgroups within white nationalism. The former seek a separate white nation state, while the latter add ideas from social Darwinism and...
, a vocal supporter of Killen, and believes that Schwerner and Goodman were communistCommunismCommunism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
operatives - National Public Radio trial-reaction roundtable (audio)
- BBC Report on the conviction
- Profile of Jerry Mitchell, the journalist whose work led to Killen's arrest (Mother Jones magazine)
- Killen's Mississippi Department of Corrections record
- The James Earl Chaney website has information on the case.
- Documentary featuring interview with Killen
- http://www.wlbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=14055952