CRIMINAL COLD CASES-FUGITIVES FINALLY BROUGHT TO JUSTICE-7-COLD COMFORT

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02 COLD COMFORT
In any of America's big cities, at any one time, there are hundreds of cold cases on police files. Of these, only a handful will ever be front-page news. There are many reasons why murders make the headlines: if the case involves a celebrity, it will almost certainly attract media attention – this was the situation with Jill Dando, a British TV personality who was murdered in cold-blood in an execution-style killing by a lonely obsessive who had been stalking her. The murder of a member of the wealthy elite, as in the case of candy heiress Helen Brach, also excites enormous interest: and Brach's case, with all its twists and turns in the cut-throat world of thoroughbred horseracing, is indeed a fascinating story. Then there are the high-profile political cases, such as that of Medgar Evers, the civil rights activist who was brutally murdered in 1963, but whose killer, white supremacist Byron de la Beckwith, was not brought to justice until 1994; or that of teenager Martha Moxley, whose killer's connections with the Kennedy family helped him evade justice for years, or so it was claimed. And finally, there are the cases, such as that of Hilda Murrell, an elderly lady living quietly in the British countryside, where a murder attracts attention because of a conspiracy theory that builds up around it – but which, in the end, proves to be less sinister than was supposed. What links all these cases is that they are the ones that hit the headlines, the murders that raise controversial issues in our society – whether to do with celebrity, wealth, class, politics or race.

GOODMAN, SCHWERNER AND CHANEY: THE FREEDOM RIDERS
EDGAR RAY KILLEN, KNOWN AS PREACHER KILLEN, WAS A MEMBER OF THE KU KLUX KLAN IN PHILADELPHIA, MISSISSIPPI, WHO IN 1964 ORGANIZED THE KILLING OF THREE CIVIL RIGHTS CAMPAIGNERS. AT THE TIME, KILLEN MANAGED TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER, BUT FORTY-ONE YEARS LATER HE WAS TO PAY THE PENALTY FOR THE CRIME HE HAD COMMITTED IN THE NAME OF WHITE SUPREMACY.

Terrible acts of violence
Killen was born in 1925, and grew up to become a sawmill operator. His other activities included working for the church as a part-time Baptist minister, and for the Ku Klux Klan as a klavern organizer, recruiting others to the cause. At this period, in the early 1960s, the Ku Klux Klan was a powerful force in Mississippi, encouraging a culture of extreme racism among ordinary white citizens. Terrible acts of violence against black people were committed on an almost daily basis in some areas; lynch mobs and firebombings of black churches were a common occurrence. These attacks very often went unpunished in the courts, since the influence of the Ku Klux Klan extended into the highest echelons of the judiciary, the police and the military.

By the 1960s, the situation in Mississippi had become the focus of a national campaign among students at colleges across America. In what became known as the 'freedom summer' of 1964, dozens of young civil rights campaigners, both black and white, came down by bus, train, and plane from college campuses to the South, intending to challenge the 'Jim Crow' laws operating there. Among them were two young white men, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner from New York, and a young black man, James Chaney from Mississippi.

In 1952, racial segregation on inter-state buses was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Alabama in 1961 had still not embraced these changes, and a bus operating under non-segregation laws was firebombed. Fortunately, no-one was hurt
At the start of their visit, the three friends set out to see the ruins of Mount Zion Church, a black church that had recently been firebombed. Unbeknown to them, their movements were being carefully tracked by Cecil Price, Deputy Sheriff of Neshoba County. On their return journey, the sheriff had the three men picked up for speeding, and held in the county jail.
Another bus load of 'freedom riders' – including four white college professors – arrives in Montgomery, Alabama in May 1961. Seating would have been mixed, rather than the division of white people at the front and black people at the back

Beaten and shot dead
Next, Sheriff Price contacted Killen, whom he knew to be the organizer of the Ku Klux Klan Neshoba Chapter, and told him that he was holding three civil rights campaigners in jail. He also said that he would be letting them out that evening. Killen then rounded up a large mob of bloodthirsty rednecks and told them of his plan to meet the campaigners on a country road as they left jail, and attack them. The mob, armed with rifles and other weapons, set out that evening, and caught up with the three young college students as they walked down the deserted road. In a frenzied attack, they brutally beat the three friends and then shot them dead. Killen and his men later buried the bodies in an earthen dam.

Sheriff Price's plan had worked; yet ironically, the brutal murder of these young idealists, who wanted nothing more than peace and justice for all Americans, had the opposite effect of what the Southern racists intended. All over the country, people were so appalled at what had been allowed to happen in Mississippi that the civil rights campaign grew stronger than ever, and it was not long before a series of important civil rights laws were set in motion.

For many people, one of the most shocking aspects of the freedom riders' case was that, far from pursuing the perpetrators of the crime, the state of Mississippi initially allowed the murderers to go free. There appeared to be no attempt to arrest, charge and convict the culprits. Instead, the police and the judiciary closed ranks, blocking all attempts to have the killers brought to justice. In the end, the FBI, acting under the orders of President Lyndon Johnson, had to intervene to see that justice was done. Killen was arrested for the murders, along with eighteen others suspected of having joined the posse he had organized at Sheriff Price's request.

In 1967, the trial finally took place. By the end of it, most of the all-white jury were convinced that Killen was guilty and wanted to convict him. But there remained one member who felt unable, on principle, to convict a preacher. She held out against a decision to convict, so the jury was hung and could not reach a unanimous verdict. The prosecution decided against a retrial, even though it was clear that a conviction could probably have been gained next time, and once again Killen walked free. In an outcome that angered many civil rights campaigners, the men who had been found guilty of the murders received short prison sentences of no more than six years apiece.

Open racism
For the next forty-seven years, Killen continued to live in Mississippi, openly declaring his racist views. However, in 1999, an interview with Sam Bowers, a prominent leader of the Ku Klux Klan, was published, throwing new light on the case. In 2005, aged eighty, Killen was once more arrested for the murders.

Killen's trial was initially delayed because he had injured himself while chopping wood, breaking both of his legs. It finally took place in June 2005, and this time the jury were a mixed group of three black and nine white members. Killen attended court in a wheelchair, but this won him no sympathy, and he was duly convicted of manslaughter. The fact that he was not convicted of murder reflected his role as the organizer of the mob, rather than as the murderer himself.

The judge awarded Killen the maximum prison sentence he could: twenty years for each manslaughter, amounting to sixty years in total. It was obvious, of course, that Killen would die well before serving his term; however, the long sentence he received was a symbol of the authorities' commitment to civil rights, after years of neglecting their duty in this area.

It had taken decades for Killen to be brought to justice, but in the end, he was put behind bars. As eighty-three-year-old Carolyn Goodman, mother of Andrew Goodman, commented from her home in New York when she heard the news: 'I just knew that somehow this would happen – it's something that had to be.'

Killen's bond, which had allowed him to go free whilst appealing manslaughter convictions, was revoked in September 2005. He returned to jail

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