It is one of the most investigated cases of mass murder in FBI history, and yet, 44 years later, the Klan’s killings of three young men in Neshoba County remain mostly unpunished.
The FBI is examining more than 100 unpunished killings from the civil rights era, many of them deaths with little to go on, but the June 21, 1964, slayings of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner are not among them – despite the fact FBI agents generated nearly 40,000 pages of documents in their investigation.
Although more than 20 men took part in the trio’s deaths, only one man has been convicted of charges related to the slayings. Edgar Ray Killen is serving 60 years in prison on three counts of manslaughter. Seven others were convicted on federal conspiracy charges in 1967.
Asked last week what it would take for authorities to reinvestigate the killings, District Attorney Mark Duncan replied, “More evidence, new evidence.”
Magnolia Tribune
