A reporting team of native Mississippians covered and blogged about the Killen trial in June 2005.
Donna Ladd is the editor of the Jackson Free Press and a native of Neshoba County.
Natalie Irby is a Jackson, Miss., native and intern for the JFP. She graduated from Ole Miss.
Photos of the trial and Neshoba County on this page are copyright Kate Medley, also a Jackson, Miss., native and a freelance photojournalist.
Photo intern Thabi Moyo graduated from Howard University in 2004. She is an aspiring filmmaker and lives in Madison. She grew up in Jackson.
The Jerry Mitchell this-could-be-the-last-one comment is also strange when his own journalism suggests Hood and Duncan misrepresented the nature of the Chaney, Goodman, Schwerner murders, possibly for the purpose of keeping that investigation as narrow as possible, with so many other living suspects who have already been successfully prosecuted on federal civil rights charges. I forget how to do the hyper links in this system, so here's the Mitchell story I'm thinking of:
Note: For now, the JFP's current 4,000+ word cover story, "After Killen: What's Next for Mississippi?", is not posted here in the Killen trial blog. Click here to access that story, read the more than 100 comments to date and add your own comments. Also don't miss Natalie Irby's column this week about Killen attorney James McIntyre's closing statement, which she says represents the "worst Mississippi has to offer."
A judge Friday revoked the bond that allowed Edgar Ray Killen to stay out of prison while he appealed his manslaughter conviction for the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers. Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon ordered Killen returned to prison after a court hearing where District Attorney Mark Duncan said the 80-year-old Killen may have misrepresented his physical condition. more...
Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon today granted a $600,000 appeal bond to an 80-year-old reputed Klansman convicted of orchestrating the killings of three civil rights workers in 1964, allowing him to go free while his case is on appeal.
“Preacher” Edgar Ray Killen’s jury trial has ended; he was convicted of manslaughter in the deaths of the three young men on June 21, 1964. On June 23, 2005, Judge Marcus Gordon sentenced Killen to the maximum allowed under Mississippi law: 60 years (20 years for each homicide). Killen will be held in isolation at the Central Mississippi Correctional Institute until a state “classification” process is completed. Killen will be labeled either a medium or a maximum security prisoner and will remain in the Rankin County prison or be shipped to Parchman to serve his time. In either case, he will be in isolation in a cell for 23 hours a day, Monday through Friday. Weekends and holidays, he will remain in his cell for 24 hours a day.
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Creative Loafing editor and blogger John Sugg has published a cover story about the Killen trial, with an intriguing comparison of Killen and Dick Molpus, in the Creative Loafing papers in Atlanta, Tampa, Fla., and Charlotte, N.C. He writes:
It was a rhetorical question, but one freighted with implication for this town and the surrounding Neshoba County. For Mississippi and the South, as well. It was a question that should inspire those throughout the South who long for justice and reconciliation. And it was a question that should haunt diseased souls, especially those of Mississippi's two U.S. senators, Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, who still play the race card and see little need to heal the South's wounds left from decades of terror, beatings, shootings, church bombings, cross burnings - and almost 4,800 lynchings between 1882 and 1964.
The question, sweeping in its simplicity, from retired Neshoba Democrat editor Stanley Dearman: "Can you believe that this town produced Dick Molpus and Edgar Ray Killen?"more...
After a Neshoba County jury found Edgar Ray Killen guilty of three counts of manslaughter on June 21 for orchestrating the deaths of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, his week went from bad to worse. Being rolled out of the courtroom that day, the Baptist preacher struck and shoved a WAPT cameraman, showing a less genteel side of himself than the jury had seen in the courtroom, where he often dozed when they were in the room (and took notes when they weren’t).
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Photographer Kate Medley has just posted a full gallery of 87 photos from the Edgar Ray Killen trial last week. Don't miss them! Kate—a Jacksonian and Murrah grad—did some amazing work over there and by Thursday was shooting for the New York Times, not to mention other publications and wire services around the world. Kate makes Jackson very proud.
Moments ago in Neshoba County, Judge Marcus Gordon has sentenced Edgar Ray Killen, 80, to the full 60 years possible for his guilty verdict for manslaughter in the James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner case. The judge sentenced Killen to the maximum 20 years for each count of the indictment—or for the death of each young man. Gordon could have sentenced Killen to as little as one year for each count.
PHILADELPHIA, MS – Public school teachers from around the region will converge in Philadelphia, Miss., June 22-24 for what is expected to be a landmark event aimed at providing teacher training through first-hand perspectives on the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement. At the same time, two blocks away in the Neshoba County courthouse, Edgar Ray Killen stands trial for the gruesome murder of three civil rights workers forty one years ago in this small Mississippi town. The conference has been planned by Philadelphia Coalition, which initiated the call for justice in the 1964 case and the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi.
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Feb 05, 07 | 5:54 pm More Prosecutions Possible in Neshoba Slayings? Ironghost: Will this approach free whatshisname from prison? After all, (and I'm no lawyer), if the defense can come back with evidence that the prosecution hid, lies, and other hijinks, won't the idiot walk free?
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Feb 05, 07 | 5:50 pm More Prosecutions Possible in Neshoba Slayings? ladd: Yep. Simply putting the spotlight on these cases and giving it our best shot sends a message to the victims—not to mention ourselves and our neighbors—that we give a damn.
Good enough for me....
Feb 05, 07 | 5:46 pm More Prosecutions Possible in Neshoba Slayings? Tom Head: Y'know, every time I think about the prosecution of these pathetic old creeps, it reminds me of the Nuremberg trials. Did hanging a few Nazi generals bring "closure" to the victims of the Holocaust? Of course not. But it was a potent...
Feb 05, 07 | 5:02 pm More Prosecutions Possible in Neshoba Slayings? Ray Carter: It would be so much easier for the State of Mississippi to get the very needed treatment (psychological and medical) and get WELL or CURED if the complete truth could just be told once and for all about the depth and extent of the depravity,...
Feb 05, 07 | 4:41 pm More Prosecutions Possible in Neshoba Slayings? Ben G.: Right, exactly. I'm just emphasizing specifically the remaining known, living suspects in the Neshoba murders case. As long as those eight men (down from nine, now that Bowers is dead) remain unbothered by the Grand Jury, it is a significant emblem...
Feb 05, 07 | 3:56 pm More Prosecutions Possible in Neshoba Slayings? ladd: True, Ben. I completely see your point. I never bought that prosecuting Killen was supposed to be some kind of "closure" for the state—although I understand that it was a potent symbol for the families. But, as you recall, even Rita Schwerner...
Feb 05, 07 | 3:52 pm More Prosecutions Possible in Neshoba Slayings? Ben G.: Along the lines of your point on the Dee Moore thread about the importance of telling the whole story, I think that these cases should be pursued as much for the process of discovery as for who actually gets convicted.
I would like to see...
Feb 05, 07 | 3:21 pm More Prosecutions Possible in Neshoba Slayings? ladd: Knowing who is alive and who isn't in the Neshoba case, I can understand the difficulty of further prosecutions (and am not convinced that acquittals in weak cases would help a whole lot).
However, I've never really understood why the state...
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Note: For now, the JFP's current 4,000+ word cover story, "After Killen: What's Next for Mississippi?", is not posted here in the Killen trial blog. 
by Howard Ball
