Reputed former Klansman James Ford Seale was arrested today on federal kidnapping charges in connection with the May 2, 1964 Klan abduction and slaying of Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore. The Clarion Ledger's Jerry Mitchell reports:
Asked by The Clarion-Ledger in 2000 if he had anything to do with crime, Seale replied, "I ain't in jail, am I?"
The arrest of the 71-year-old former cropduster marks the 28th arrest from the civil rights era in the United States over the past two decades.
Since 1998, Moore's brother, Thomas, has been pushing for justice in the case.
Upon learning of the arrest, he choked up. "I'm very emotional," he said. "I don't know what to say."
He said he's grateful and thankful the day finally came. "I'm just glad I had something to do with it," he said. "I just hope Charles and Henry Dee know there is justice on the way."
Dee's sister, Mary Byrd, also welcomed the news. "I feel good now," she said. "Yes, indeed."
Mitchell also gives a succinct summary of the murders and the development of the evidence that has led to today's arrest:
The slayings of Dee and Moore are among dozens of killings that plagued this nation during the civil rights movement. The names of 40 martyrs from the movement can be found on the National Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, and nearly half of those killings took place in Mississippi.
Seale was arrested once before in connection with the slayings. That came Nov. 6, 1964, when authorities arrested him and Charles Marcus Edwards on murder charges.
At the time, authorities confronted Seale and told him they knew he and others took Dee and Moore "to some remote place and beat them to death," FBI records say. "You then transported and disposed of their bodies by dropping them in the Mississippi River. You didn't even give them a decent burial. We know you did it. You know you did. The Lord above knows you did it."
"Yes," Seale was quoted as replying, "but I'm not going to admit it. You are going to have to prove it."
When authorities arrested Edwards, he "admitted that he and James Seale picked up Dee and another Negro in vicinity of Meadville and took them to an undisclosed wooded area where they were 'whipped,'" a Nov. 6, 1964, FBI document says. "States victims were alive when he departed the wooded area."
According to FBI documents, Dee and Moore were hitchhiking from Meadville when Klansmen coaxed them into their vehicle by pretending to be law enforcement agents. Deep in the woods, Klansmen repeatedly beat the teens, believing they knew something about a rumor regarding gun-running in Franklin County.
Finally, one of the pair claimed the guns were being hidden in a church, hoping to stop the violence.
It didn't.
Klansmen loaded Dee and Moore into the trunk of a car and hauled them across the Mississippi River. There, Klansmen tied them up and weighted them down with a Jeep motor block before dumping them into the Old River two miles south of King, La.
On July 12, 1964, a fisherman found Moore's body and reported it to authorities.
Two months after the arrests, then-District Attorney Lenox Foreman asked to have the murder charges thrown out, saying further investigation was needed.
FBI agents pressed forward, but many were fearful, including potential witnesses. "This informant advised he would not testify under any circumstances because he is concerned for his life and the lives of his family," a Jan. 12, 1965, FBI document reads.
At the time of the killings, Seale and Edwards worked for International Paper Co.
The FBI said the Klan in those days infiltrated unions at that company and others in Natchez. On Feb. 14, 1964, Alfred Whitley, a black employee at Armstrong Tire Co., was abducted and whipped. Two weeks later, Clinton Walker, a black employee at International Paper, was killed on his way home. His car was riddled with bullets.
In 1965, George Metcalfe, an NAACP leader and Armstrong employee was nearly killed when a bomb exploded his car. Two years later, his friend and fellow employee, Wharlest Jackson, died when his truck exploded.
"The Klan ruled then," Thomas Moore recalled. "There were a lot of things that happened back then."
As years passed, the killings of his brother and his friend were forgotten — like so many others from the civil rights era....
On Jan. 13, 2000, The Clarion-Ledger reported White's killing wasn't the only violence that took place in that forest — so had the beatings of Dee and Moore.
After FBI agents reported they had destroyed their files in the case, The Clarion-Ledger found they weren't destroyed and got copies.
The Clarion-Ledger also tracked down and interviewed Seale, who blamed the newspaper for talk of reprosecution. "You don't have anything better to do but to stir this stuff up," he said.
The FBI reopened the case, only to stall when they believed the FBI's key informant in the case, Ernest Gilbert, was dead.
The Social Security Death Index showed a man of the same name had died in Mississippi in 1999, but the real Gilbert was still alive and living in Clinton, La.
In spring 2000, ABC News producer Harry Phillips tracked him down and got the former Klansman to share his story of a friend's confession to the crime. The FBI then interviewed Gilbert.
Gilbert told The Clarion-Ledger how Seale's brother, Jack, came to him and confessed his involvement in Dee and Moore's killings. "I couldn't live with it," Gilbert said. "I wish I never had been in the Klan. It messed my life up."
But by the end of 2000, authorities let the case grow cold. They still had questions regarding federal jurisdiction and were busy preparing to prosecute Ernest Avants for White's killing.
Federal authorities didn't get interested again in the Dee-Moore killings until July 13, 2005 — a few weeks after jurors convicted Killen in the killings of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner.
That's when Thomas Moore met with U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton of Jackson, convincing him to have his office take a second look at the case.
Lampton has taken a personal interest in the case, sometimes accompanying FBI agents in their interviews.
No charges are expected against Edwards, who has been interviewed by the FBI and may be a witness against Seale.
One thing left off in Mitchell's chronology is that by 2005 Seale had been thought dead until Canadian Broadcasting Corp. filmmaker David Ridgen and Jackson Free Press Editor-in-Chief Donna Ladd discovered that Seale was still living. Ridgen, Ladd and other JFP staff were covering a trip by Thomas Moore through Mississippi in pursuit of justice for his brother, Charles Eddie Moore.
The Clarion Ledger piece has links to a photo gallery and a flash chronology of the Dee-Moore murders, based on the FBI case files. Also seee the JFP's Full Dee-Moore Investigative Package.
UPDATE: And also see today's CBC report.
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I hope they throw the book at this guy. It could never be as bad what these boys went through.
Hi, Ben, wanted to tell you that I’m thrilled to see your new website (with all the information great essays you have, you need it).
Also wanted to thank you for mentioning the part of the story left out by most mainstream media.
People like you keep these things churning, you had your own part in the push for justice, and continue to do so. Thanks for that, too. I look forward to seeing you the next time you take the trek to Mississippi – let me know when you’re coming down, and I can provide you with a place to lay your head at night.
Regards,
C.W.
Hey C.W. Thanks for the comments and encouragement. Glad you like the new site. I do expect to be back in MS, certainly by summer, if not sooner. I’ll let you know if I’m in your neck of the woods. Your site continues to be a great window in on MS.