This story is of course the new trial of James Ford Seale for the murder of two black teenagers in 1964.
The Jackson Free Press reports that originally their bodies were found because authorities were looking for the bodies of others who had been killed by Klansmen.
When a fisherman found the first body parts on July 12, 1964, the FBI thought that they had found the burial spot for James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, killed June 21 by White Knights (or “bedsheets,” as the FBI called them) from Lauderdale and Neshoba counties, and still missing. But personal effects found in the pockets of the pants on the torsos—the second one was found July 13—indicated that the bodies were those of Dee and Moore.The Guardian, a paper from the United Kingdom, reports the circumstances that allowed for finding Seale so that he could be brought to justice.
Pulling up at a petrol station for an egg and sausage sandwich, he met by chance a distant cousin, Kenny Byrd. Moore explained why they were in Franklin County and said it was a pity that Seale, who had been one of the main suspects, was dead. His family had been saying so since 2000. The local Clarion-Ledger had reported it as fact: so too had the Los Angeles Times. Byrd replied: "Hell no, he lives over there."
The Biloxi Sun Herald is reporting a bit of good news which is that jury selection, now in its third day, is moving along with seemingly few hiccups.
Most potential jurors in the trial of a revived Jim Crow-era case are telling a federal judge they believe they can be impartial in deciding whether a reputed Klansman helped kidnap two black teenagers who were beaten and dumped in the Mississippi River in 1964.Hopefully we shall soon see justice served.
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Lawyers are going through a detailed series of questions to try to choose a dozen people, and a yet-unannounced number of alternates, to decide whether Seale, now 71, took part in abducting and killing Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee, both 19.
Wingate said testimony could start Monday, but attorneys said jury selection might stretch into the middle of next week.
thank goodness they're finally prosecuting these cases. It pisses me off to no end when people say that they shouldn't because the murderers are now "old men" and because "we don't need to dredge up the past" We learn from the past to make our future better, which is why we need to prosecute these civil-rights era murders to their fullest extent.
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