Someone Knows Something - S3 Episode 2: The Klansman

Episode Date: November 6, 2017

Why did authorities close the case? David & Thomas speak with the FBI and local District Attorney to try to find out. They also meet Henry's sister Thelma and Joe Lee, one of the last to see Dee & Moore alive. Thomas makes a shocking discovery. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sks/season3/someone-knows-something-season-3-dee-moor-transcripts-listen-1.4360239

Turn off hesitation. Turn off doubt. Turn off fears. The YMCA helps you turn off whatever's holding you back, so you can let your potential shine. Through our wide range of programs and services, you can turn on confidence. Turn on connections.

Turn on possibilities. Visit our website to see what you can achieve at the YMCA. This will be the day. abilities. Visit our website to see what you can achieve at the YMCA. This will be the day. This is a CBC Podcast. What is this? Just kind of like a town hall or something? This is the village hall, yeah. Oh, the village hall. Oh.

Okay, you write down who it's to and all that and from. All the good stuff. It's going to be to the FBI in Washington. Public Affairs Specialist. Attention, Neil Schiff from Thomas Moore and David Ridgen. Mr. Schiff, please find and close nine pages of FBI investigation into the murder of Charles Edelmore and Henry D. You just happened to be the town we were going through?

Yeah, just happened to be the town we were going through? Just happened to be. What are we doing here, Thomas? We received a call from Neil Shiffman, FBI, and he stated that they don't have any reports of the investigation by the FBI. Therefore, they probably couldn't give us an interview. However, when we told him that we have nine pages of an investigative report,

then he kind of agreed that if we sent it, then he'd look into it. So that's what we're doing. We are faxing this report to the FBI in Washington. You're listening to Someone Knows Something from CBC Original Podcasts. In season three, David Ridgen revisits his 2007 documentary, Mississippi Cold Case. Teaming up with Thomas Moore to investigate the murders of his brother, Charles Moore, and Henry D., two 19-year-olds who were killed by the Ku Klux Klan in 1964. This is Episode 2, The Klansman. Now you talk about terror.

I think you talk about terror. People have been terrorized. All my days. All my days. Hey, David, David, come here, come here, come here, come here. You see where that storm is over there? At a rest stop in Texas, I'm gassing up, and Thomas, who's stretching his legs,

points off to the east to a bleak, foreboding cloud, the kind of storm that approaches forever as you drive the kilometers away under this big Midwestern sky. That is Mississippi. That's where we are going to go. Final destination, Mississippi. Thomas and I shared the driving on the 18-hour journey from Colorado Springs to Franklin County, Mississippi.

Through rain and hail and even tornadoes, I'd film Thomas flipping through the memories of his 19-year-old brother Charles and friend Henry and his mother Maisie. He told me about growing up in Mississippi, driving a mule cart, plying the fields and gardens of white people, stories about his army life,

picking up pieces of a friend blown up by a mine, being a Huey helicopter gunner, his killing of North Vietnamese, and then being spit on by anti-war protesters as he returns from Vietnam. The goal of finding Charles Marcus Edwards brought us together. Two people who probably maybe wouldn't have chosen each other as collaborators or possibly even friends under any other circumstance.

At the threshold of the unknown in a civil rights era murder narrative, the mission brought us together. All you want to do is ride around Sally Line, Sally Line. I mean, as far as my feeling, I would never trust a white male down here. Never. Never. Right now, the only guy that is even close to that is Jerry Mitchell, because I'm concerned. I don't know nobody else down here.

We'd be going to visit Jerry Mitchell and Jackson in just a couple of weeks. When you were in the Army, was that the first time that you sort of were exposed to white people, like in terms of talking and having to live with them? Yeah, because I didn't stay in New Orleans long enough after I got out of high school to deal with too many whites. So yeah, in the military is where I had the first opportunity to deal with whites and

to respect them as individuals. I mean, my platoon sergeant in Vietnam, This guy, white guy, he knew I was scared. First missus, you scared? He's like, yep. He went back to the road, sat and got a fifth of liquor, told him to have a drink. We was on a helicopter going on a missus. So they took care, you know, I mean, I respect that. The Vietnam War was the first major conflict where U.S. forces were not segregated.

Black and white were made to work alongside each other toward a common military goal. But still, trust issues persisted for Thomas. But you know, I get the feeling sometimes that, are you telling me everything you know, or are you just telling me enough to satisfy me? And that's the same way I feel about Harper. What do you mean your hands are tied? What do you mean? Ronnie Harper is the long-serving district attorney in the area of Mississippi we're going. Thomas has met him before, but come away from those meetings not wholly satisfied.

And we'll be speaking to him again soon. Surely, there has not been any more tragic thing happening in Franklin County than that. I think Franklin County, like the movies I've seen, something like The Secret of Franklin County, finally somebody come back and set the record straight. We're making that movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're at the start.

What truth do you... That this guy... Huh? It's the FBI calling. Hopefully the documents we faxed them have jogged their memories about the Dean Moore case. Hello? David? Yeah, is this Mr. Schiff?

It's Neil Schiff. You may call me Neil. Oh, okay. Okay, Neil. How you doing? I'm doing well. We got a number of men on the line from the Jackson FBI office also. Hi, David. And, you know, we did talk, and this was reviewed by superiors, and there really is nothing for us to provide you.

Even though you had sent these pages to me, it was determined that this wasn't a federal situation, and therefore we have really nothing to be involved with. You'd have to go to the locals in the state. Right, but that's exactly what I need someone to tell me, is that there was an FBI investigation and that now there's nothing going on with the case. I need someone officially... That would be the U.S. Attorney to say that, and so we recommend you go there.

Do you know when they decided that there was not enough evidence? Is this a decision from way back or just recently? I'm just sitting here with Thomas Moore. 2003, they concurred with the United States Attorney's Office here. I'm just sitting here with Thomas Moore. He's the brother of one of the murdered victims, and I think he might have a question for you. I got involved several years ago, and that's when I received the nine pages of the FBI report. And when I talked to Ronnie Harper down in Natchez, the district attorney, the big effort was that this happened in the home of Children of the National Forest.

My understanding was there were allegations that it happened in two or three different locations. What do you mean? And there was never any provable evidence to determine factually at which location it occurred. Well, the FBI report said that they was picked up in Franklin County and taken nearby in the home of Children's National Forest and beat severely. And then the bodies were transported from Mississippi across the river into Louisiana and dropped into the Mississippi River. That was out 41 years ago and that's in the report and I'm going to while I'm in Mississippi

and I'm gonna get the other 991 pages that the FBI talks about a lot more about this case. So I'm not reading a thousand pages. I don't have time to do that. But whatever we did, we turned over to the Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney's Office. In this particular situation, it was decided that the case would be closed. Is it possible for us to talk to any of the original investigating agents? Well, that would be for you to go through the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI because there's no one around from 1965.

Okay, and how do I get in touch with that society? Yes, I'll give you a phone number. Okay. I get the numbers for the Department of Justice Publicity and the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI. And then Deborah gives us the number for the sitting U.S. attorney in Jackson, a man who will become very important for this case later on.

The sitting U.S. attorney at the moment is a gentleman by the name of Dunn, D-U-N-N, Lampton. To clarify, there's at least two levels of justice that can potentially help in the case. At the state level, there's District Attorney Ronnie Harper, and at the federal level, there's U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton. Okay. He would be the person in the decision-making process with regards to this case, then, Dunn? It was his office that determined we did not have enough evidence to provide federal jurisdiction. It was actually Lambton's predecessor, Brad Pygott, who did not move forward on a federal case in 2000.

Pygott, Reeves, Johnson & Minor. Later, I contacted former U.S. Attorney Brad Pygott to ask him why the case did not proceed in 2000. I'm afraid that while we looked into that during my tenure as U.S. Attorney, my memory is very scarce on that particular case, and I really can't share any specifics for that reason. I see. Do you recall why it didn't go forward in 2000? Why the case didn't go forward? Very generally, but not on anything that I could disclose, no. Sorry. There must have been something that happened, right, that made it not go forward.

I don't recall. Maybe Pygott's successor in the role of U.S. Attorney, Dunn-Lampton, would be more helpful. Then again, maybe not. I remember these early phone calls with FBI and other officials were like talking to characters from a Kafka novel. Unself-consciously bureaucratic, looking down with a measure of corporate condescension, but nevertheless holding out the promise of a next step, no matter how frustrating or confusing. Okay, well, if I have any more questions, I hope I can call you back. Yes, David, if you have any questions, you call me and we'll see what we can do.

Thanks very much, Neil. Thank you, Debra. Good luck to you guys, and thank you. Bottom line, if we go with what was said here, without being able to pinpoint the place or places of the crime where Dee and Moore were beaten, for example, jurisdictional issues seem to have been at least part of the reason things haven't moved on the case in the modern era. But Thomas and I felt even then that there must be more to the story. What do you think of that? What do I make of that? What'd I make of that?

What'd I make of that? So far, since yesterday, we are continuing to prove that Mississippi is backwards. That Mississippi is in a total denial. Like he made a comment, you know, I ain't got time to read a thousand documents. Well, maybe everybody else feels that way too. Hello there, this is a message from Mr. Dunn-Lampton. I make an appointment for us to see U.S. Attorney Dunn-Lampton the following week. And on the evening of July 7, 2005, we cross the Mississippi River at the small town of Vidalia, Louisiana

and arrive in Natchez, Mississippi. Natchez was one of the powerhouses of cotton plantation industry and culture from the time of the cotton gin in the late 1700s all the way to the early 20th century. This area of Mississippi surrounding Natchez and into Louisiana, also an area of lumber and oil production and historically a shipping hub for traffic along the big river, was a main focal point of the Klan and Klan violence from the mid-1950s onward. Tourists from all over the world still flock here to visit the palatial antebellum plantation homes that used to be run by the cotton bosses and serviced by African slaves.

These plantation mansions with names like Dunleath and Monmouth are surrounded by opulent grounds though the larger neighbourhoods around them can be quite run down. It's a city that has had many episodes of white on black and even white on white terror. Explosions, horrific killings, beatings, marches, and boycotts of all kinds. Did you watch the news this morning? What was it? Well, big explosion in London. Some Al-Qaeda outfit is claiming responsibility. They have several explosions on the ground, system,

at least one double-deck bus. They know they have casualties, but it's too early to figure out how many. Tony Blair, he spoke saying they were a bunch of cowards. President Bush also spoke in reference to being a bunch of cowards. They're standing their ground against Al Qaeda. Here we are in the 21st century dealing with a networked Al Qaeda. There are some similarities in today's Al Qaeda and the 60s KKK.

From the beginning, Thomas and I had planned that we would try to find and then meet with Charles Marcus Edwards, whom Thomas takes to calling simply Marcus, and ask him why his name was in the FBI files. Thomas had never met Edwards before, and he and I knew him only through a grainy picture in the photocopy of Stephanie Saul's December 1998 Newsday article. Edwards, then in his 60s, looked in good shape, and Thomas decided he wanted to speak to him now or forever languish in guilt. We also wanted to interview others who may have been too afraid to come forward with information at the time. Retired loggers who worked with whites in the woods, old bootleggers who sold moonshine to whites,

even the area's few remaining black activists from the civil rights era. And it would be the first time that the case would be publicly discussed in any community, white or black, and the first time that Thomas would talk to whites about it, period. But before we did any of that, we wanted to experience the case on the ground, visit the places where we knew things happened. Eighteen miles down into Crackerville. And very early the first morning after our arrival, we headed to Meadville, just a 20 minute drive from Natchez to start that process.

While we're very conscious of being seen by locals, we also want to establish a visualization of where the hitchhiking began and what the sight lines might have been. Thomas walks quickly along the road toward the edge of town, even holds out his thumb, and I position myself at various points behind him to see what can be seen. It's very early, so there's almost nobody around, and the morning light is perfect, but neither of us are sure this approach is really getting us anywhere. Hey, David, you know, I've been here for Franklin County. Know that I'm in town.

You know, it would be great if Marcus was to come by and I hitchhike him and he give me a ride and I introduce myself, he'd probably jump out the truck. He'd probably jump out. But Charles Marcus Edwards does not drive by, and we decide to move out of sight. Let's go. Cool.

That's it. That's it. That's it. Oh, boy. There we go. Stop around your seatbelt as soon as we got in at Mississippi? I don't know why. Is this maybe the answer to your question?

Over the course of the next many days and months and years, we'd speak to people and go to places that help us visualize the case. Jolie Rawlins is a friendly, thicker-set man, bald, gray beard and glasses. Thomas was the best man at Jolie's wedding and once we're settled at Jolie's kitchen table, the two slip into the easy shorthand of old friends for whom years apart are meaningless. Jolie was reportedly one of the last people to see Charles Moore and Henry D before they were picked up by the Klan on May 2nd, 1964 in Meadville On Saturday, May 2nd, I was doing some grocery shopping at Hollinger's store in Meadville, Mississippi for my mother.

When I went into the store, I saw two of my classmates, Charles Moore and Henry D. I think the thing that they was getting out of the store was everybody, we had these big sodas they were called gut busters. They were 16 ounces and we used to get one of them and most of the time a honey bun that was our favorite thing was you know a big soda and a honey bun and that's what both of them had in their hand so we hung outside the store for a few minutes you know just kidding around because we was teenager kids and I hadn't seen Henry for a while

he had I think if I'm not mistaken he had just returned from Chicago tell me a little bit about Charles and then tell me a bit about Henry hadn't seen Henry for a while. He had, I think, if I'm not mistaken, he had just returned from Chicago. Tell me a little bit about Charles, and then tell me a bit about Henry. So just the kinds of things that you remember about him. Well, Charles was the type of guy that he'd always like to do things to make people laugh. And he was like a little funny guy.

What did he play on the football team? Was the center on the football team? I think the biggest guy on that team was probably me. And I think I weighed about 160 pounds then. And everybody had these big players and we used to always run trick plays on them. And we used to cheat on the testers like everybody in school do. We had that down so good it wasn't even funny. The teachers couldn't even catch us door. None of us that hung in the group

never really did anything to be in trouble with nobody. Henry was a guy, I guess, by him going to Chicago every summer, he used to tell us he was city slick. He had a lot of things that he would try to take advantage of us with, but we'd say, hey, man, you know, we country boys. You can't beat us and stuff like that.

But, you know, I never knowed Henry to be into any problems, and just a lot of fun. We all just did the normal things a kid would do. When Henry and Charles spotted Joe Lee at the store, Joe Lee says they asked him to give them a ride home. They asked me which way was I going. I told them I was going to go up to the red and white store that was just on the other end of town. And they said, well, come on and drop us at the Falk. I said, man, I would be more than glad to. I said, well, my father got me restricted with the car. I can't go out of the city. So they said, well, OK, drop us up at the store. So when we got up

to the store, I dropped them out and they went across the streets to the gas station and I went into the supermarket and did some shopping. And when I came out, they were standing there and I told them I'd catch up with them later because you know we had said we was going to hang out a little bit on set that Saturday night and actually that was the last time that I actually saw them. The gas station was just a short walk away from the tasty freeze where Henry and Charles were ultimately picked up. Tell me about how hitchhiking worked at that time. Where we lived at, it was small, and almost everybody, you know, black, white, whatever, knew each other, and they definitely knew the kids.

And, you know, you would jump in the car with anybody that would stop, because it was a common thing. And most of the time, you got in a car with someone that you knew. If it was a stranger, we didn't get in a car with them. So I'm pretty sure whoever got them, they knew who it was. Jolie estimates that he last saw Charles and Henry around 10 or 11 a.m. Once somebody was saying that Charles' mother had passed him and told him to wait, she would pick him up on the way back.

Afterwards, Thomas confirmed this story, that his mother Maisie had been feeling ill and decided to head to the doctor that Saturday morning. Maisie saw her son Charles hitchhiking, but was going in the opposite direction to the doctors. She told Thomas she decided to pick Charles up on the way back. As a matter of fact, I talked to her and she said she wasn't gone 10 minutes and when she come back, they were gone. Both were gone and she never seen no more or heard from him.

But there's one additional piece of information about Maisie that Thomas hadn't heard before. I think after they found them, I think somebody put some kind of a threat on them. So Maisie Moore told you that she had been threatened? Mm-hmm. Okay, now tell me about that. One day while working in the store, Miss Maisie came in and she had did some shopping.

And I was bagging up the grocery too. I was also a bag boy in the store. I had bagging up the grocery too. I was also a bag boy in the store. I had bagged up the stuff and I took it out to the car that she was riding in and on the way to the car, me and her were talking and she told me that she had been threatened but she didn't tell me who had threatened her

and she said that they had told her to don't try to do anything about her son being missing, to just leave it alone. And I told her, I said, well, mama, maybe you might need to think about moving away from out there. And she told me, boy, that's been my home. I ain't leaving my house. I didn't realize that perhaps she had been threatened.

But you know, we never talked about that. That time back then, we didn't want to remember. We just didn't. I guess because it was like a shock. Right, well it was a shock. And she made me promise her that I wouldn't do anything. That was the reason that it went so long. I know, I know.

You had to wait till... We go back over the events of that day, Saturday, May 2nd, 1964, and the following weeks to see if Jolie can remember any other details. I didn't realize anything had happened to them until several days later. I was at Junior Hunt's place. That's where we kind of hung out. We played cards and we shot poo there and stuff like that. And these two guys come in. They were white and asked for me by name and I

asked them who were they and they told me that they were FBI agents and they wanted to talk to me about Charles Moore and Henry D. Then my father gave them permission to talk to me and we went outside and I sat in the backseat of their car and talked to them for maybe 20 minutes to a half an hour and they was asking me about Charles and Henry and what they had on and stuff. I remember Charles having on a pair of jeans and I'm pretty sure it was a sweatshirt and Henry, I don't know if he had on jeans or not, but I remember whatever he had on it was the dark blue. And they found Henry and Charles in the river and they had weights or something on them and they had been dropped into the riverbed and it was

reported that someone fishing had found them I was quite upset it was a hard thing at such a young age of my life to have to deal with. I want to say something, David. You know, I got the same kind of problem, too, with my sister. Joe Lee leaves the kitchen for a moment, then returns with a photo album showing me a time-worn picture of a young woman. This is a picture of my sister. She was killing one car accident. The car burned up maybe three quarters of the way. And after we had the funeral and stuff, my mother made me promise her also that I wouldn't do anything until after they were deceased.

I know her son is not satisfied with what was told to them and I know the rest of us is not satisfied with it either so we're going to look at this. We got some people working on opening up an investigation down in the state of Mississippi on this also. So you guys have something in common both of you. It seems like everybody we meet has got somebody that's been killed. Exactly, exactly. And this is what happens when we were living down there in this small town and the type of shit that was going on.

We didn't know all this stuff was going on. We had found out that Franklin County was just infested with them Ku Klux Klan. It was, it was, it was. You picked up the two boys and dropped them off, and you weren't able to take them onwards. Right, because my father had me on restriction with his car that day. I couldn't leave out of city limits with his car. I felt regret back then.

I felt it then, and I feel it now. And, you know, I probably would, when I lay down my last time, I'd probably take it with me when I die. And that's okay to feel that way because I feel guilt about it. I feel guilt that me and Mama didn't talk. We just never talked about it. I found that over many interviews with blacks and also some whites over the years, that stories of violence and loss are part of a legacy of deliberately sown fear and uncertainty,

part of the civil rights era fabric of the area. The feeling that tragedy or violence or even the hate could have been prevented, that justice might have been achieved if only. Dee and Moore and the rest of the men and women we know were killed or beaten or discriminated against during those days in the 1950s and 60s were far from the only victims of the American soil terror of white supremacy. A couple of days after arriving in Mississippi, Thomas and I took a trip into nearby Louisiana to visit someone else very important to the case.

Miss Collins. Yeah, how you doing? How you doing? Thelma Collins is one of Henry D.'s sisters. Thomas and I would find her in the small Louisiana town where she'd been living for many years. She's a gracious woman, shorter in stature, with the resilient mindset of one who has raised 12 children

and lost a brother to murder. I see your face, and you resemble Henry D. Oh, yes. There were no known pictures resemble Henry D. Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There were no known pictures of Henry D. at the time, but Thomas saw his face in every one of his family members that we would eventually track down. Yeah. Your sister's grandson, I guess?

Uh-huh. Henry Hezekiah D. was born on January 8, 1945. He was raised in the rural village of Roxy, Mississippi by his grandmother after his mother, Isephine, was deemed mentally ill and had to be committed to a psychiatric hospital. Henry Di was a good boy. He went to school. He attended to his grandmother. That was his pride and joy, his grandmother.

Henry had traveled back and forth to Chicago several times to visit an aunt there, and as we heard from Joe Lee, was thought of by his friends in Mississippi as a bit of a city slicker. He had processed hair with a reddish tinge that he was very proud of and would often wear a bandana to protect it. And he never did bother nobody. He would smile. If you bring a conversation, Henry would talk. But other than that, he would smile. That's the kind of person he was.

What did he want to do when he got older? What were his aspirations? What did Henry want to do when he got older? What were his aspirations? What did Henry want to be? He wanted to look out for his grandmother. Work and take care of his grandmother was the main thing he had on his mind, was his grandmother. That was his pride and joy because she had him ever since he was a little baby.

My mama, you know, she lost her mind. So she left five head of us. And they had the family took, some of them took two and some took one, like they had to take care of us. When did she die? She hadn't died. She's still living?

My mother's living. Oh. Uh-huh. We hadn't told her this. We hadn't told her this because of her mind. I wouldn't want to be the one to break it to her. Not me. I wouldn't dare to break it to her. Mama's 85. She'll be 86 on her birthday. But she just, she left us. Most of us was like five years old and six and like that.

In fact, as of July 2017, Icy Fiend is still alive in her late 90s, institutionalized and still has no idea her son Henry D. was murdered. Do you still see your mother? Yeah, we're getting our birthday party this month. Where is she now? She's in Jackson, Mississippi. She's in her home. And she's doing fine.

Yeah, it hurts. So your mom does not know that her son Henry D is dead? She don't know it yet. She don't even know her husband passed. We hadn't told her that. Henry D. graduated high school in 1963. Afterward, he worked at the Haltom Lumber Company in Roxy, and on the day he was murdered, according to those who last saw him,

he was on his way there to pick up his paycheck. He and Charles Moore decided to hitch a ride together as they were going in the same direction. In the weeks following their disappearance, there were rumors, repeated if not started, by Franklin County Sheriff Wayne Hutto, who was also a reputed Klan sympathizer, that Charles and Henry had gone to Louisiana to look for work. Growing worried, Maisie Moore, Thomas' mother,

looked into the rumor on her own. Mama came down here to visit you, didn't she? Yeah, your mother came to my house. And she told me that's when I found it out. She told me, she said, is my son and your brother here? I said, no, they're not here. She said, well, they're supposed to be

and came here to get a job. I said, no, they're not here. And she said, Lord, have mercy. She said, I don't know. She said, the bars has come up missing and we don't know where they are. So you didn't know that they were missing until Mama came back?

I didn't know they was missing until your mother came. And that's when I found out they was missing. We still didn't know they was missing until your mother came. And that's when I found out they was missing. We still didn't know nothing until one day my uncle called me and told me they found them. And, you know, it really hurt. It just hurt. I can't say how bad it hurt, but it hurts. Because, like, right now he's killing me to talk about it.

It hurts. But we have to go on, you know. Never. Thelma and her remaining siblings were happy to allow Thomas and I to continue working on the case on their behalf because none of them had the time or resources to do so and we'd connect with Thelma again many times over the next months and years. Thomas Moore has done a wonderful job and I appreciate him and I thank him because

nobody else hadn't picked it up that it was a dead case. Forgotten. They was just murdered and forgotten. Turn off hesitation. Turn off doubt. Turn off fears. The YMCA helps you turn off whatever's holding you back so you can let your potential shine through our wide range of programs and services you can turn on confidence turn on connections turn on possibilities visit our website to see what you can achieve at the YMCA. This will be the day. Happy birthday to you.

Hey, where's mom going? She hasn't even opened her presents. Well, son, she just turned 65, which means there's new offers for her at Specsavers. What? Yep, an eye exam now costs her nothing, and she can get 50% off lens upgrades with any pair of glasses. Wow. So, can we cut the cake now?

You betcha. Eye exam costs are covered by Provincial Healthcare for eligible seniors. Conditions apply. See Specsavers.ca. So you got catfish, right? Okay, you want a grilled cheese? I know it's better. You get cheese. This is my friend from Canada. Back in Mississippi, Thomas and I visit Delamay's Restaurant,

a drive-in greasy spoon located at the entrance to Meadville. He's from Canada. He don't know about all this stuff. He don't know what fish is. He know what fish is, but he don't know if catfish. You want lettuce and tomato on you? No tomato. You can put lettuce and tomato on mine. I don't care. That's all right with me.

Jesus Christ. Catfish and grilled cheese aside, our visit to the small restaurant at the entrance to Meadville was about more than sandwiches. This is the ice cream parlor, they called it at that time, the Tasty Freeze, they mentioned in the report.

Place that Charles Moore and Henry D. was picked up. Just up the road is the gas station where Joe Lee Rollins last saw D. and Moore. It's easy to picture them walking in this direction, looking for a ride out of town. On the morning of the 2nd of May, Charles A. Moore and Henry D. were hitchhiking from this spot. They were picked up by a member of the Ku Klux Klan, KKK, driven into the Homeless Children's National Forest.

What they were beating was bean sticks until they were unconscious. We drove into the forest, mostly towering pines with a few hardwoods, and stopped almost randomly at a dead-end overgrown road. Did you ever used to come here when you were younger? No. It's sort of like a national park, right? Well, blacks didn't hang around this kind of shit. It was predominantly white rules, you know.

What, you weren't allowed to come in here? Well, you just, nobody never told you you couldn't come in, but you just didn't do no shit like that. This was not the place they were brought, but we walked into the forest to get a sense of it, more for my benefit, I guess. And Thomas wanted to show me the kind of sticks that may have been used to undertake

the beating. In the documents, they were called bean sticks, slender, stripped, new branches. Just imagine a person tied to a tree, tape over the mouth, legs tied to the tree, probably a rope around the neck, and hitting like this. There, there, there, there, there. Beat him unconscious. And wrapped the bodies in tarps so they wouldn't get fucking blood in the car. Like their goddamn car was more important than these two guys. They just beat the goddamn hell out of them. But they wanted to protect their little fucking car. After being beaten bloody and unconscious,

Dee and Moore were taken to Clyde Seal's farm in the Bunkley community, deep within the Homochitta National Forest. From there, a phone call was made using the code word Kiwu, meaning, Klansman, I want you. Jack Seal and Ernest Parker drove from Natchez in Parker's Red Ford Galaxy to answer the coded Klan call for help. Jack Seal was James' older brother and Clyde's son. He was the Nighthawk of his local clavern. Ex-Navy and a garbage man by trade, he was known, like his brother James, to be violent and is known to have taken part in many other instances of Klan violence in the 1960s.

Ernest Parker was from a family made wealthy by oil and cattle. He was a member of the White Knights and also the Americans for the Preservation of the White Race, a Klan-sympathizing auxiliary organization based in Natchez. Parker's wealth supported white supremacy in the area, for example by helping to build white private schools, and Parker and his family also owned Parker's Island in the old Mississippi River where Dean Moore's remains were found. After Parker and Jack Seal arrived at Clyde Seal's farm in Bunkley, according to the FBI report, James Seal taped Dean Moore's mouth shut, and they were bundled into a plastic tarp so their blood wouldn't get in the car,

and then stuffed into Parker's trunk. Then a long three-hour drive along country roads to the ultimate destination, Parker's Landing in Louisiana, a place Thomas and I would ultimately refer to as the kill site. As we drove out of the Homachita Forest on the Bunkley Road towards Meadville, Thomas reflected. It's been 37, 38 years since I traveled this particular road. I see things that flash back in my memories, like certain things on the side of the road, certain curves, certain hills. It makes me wonder what conscious does Charles Marcus Edwards have. What does he think?

I mean, if I can remember things just passing by, surely he can be reminded of how he helped torture and eventually killed Charles Moore and Henry D. I'm sure they were begging for their life, hollering, crying, praying. Sometimes you make you wonder, how can a person like that survive? If the report is true,

that they took Charles Morden Henry D. up into the Toluca, Louisiana area, this is the highway they had to travel because this is the only way to come across the Mississippi River, and that's it. So this has to be the road that they travel. So here we go. I've never been here.

Always wanted to come over, but it's my first first time getting an opportunity to come into this place. As we grew closer to the kill site, Thomas became taciturn and irritable. I don't know. I'm probably sad, you know, sad. Eventually, we arrive at the place where Dean Moore's partial remains were discovered. The place in that 1964 black-and-white film I first saw at CBC with the men fishing out the bones. And the place I returned to with my son so many years later. On the far side of the waterway, Parker's Island, also known as Davis Island after the previous owner and namesake of the place, none other than Jefferson Davis, the leader of the Confederacy. As Thomas and I walk down to the river, the mud gets thicker and eventually impossible to navigate.

And there's a man in a boat coming toward us. It's a member of the Parker family. He's coming this way. Okay. We'll tell him exactly what we're doing here. How you doing? He points out that we're on private property and asks us to leave after I'm through getting a few shots with my camera.

According to the FBI informant JN30, the Klansmen were surprised to find that D.N. Moore had survived the journey from the Homachita Forest to Parker's Landing. Upon arrival, Dee and Moore were dragged out of the trunk and thrown on the ground. Charles Moore was chained to a 1944 Willys Army Jeep engine. Henry Dee was attached to some old train rails and flywheels. Jack Seal, James Ford Seal's brother, said that they'd discussed shooting them, but decided not to,

because it would have gotten blood on the boat. A Klansman asked either Dee or Moore if they knew what was going to happen. He nodded that he did. And one by one, they were taken by boat out onto the old river, Henry D. First followed by Charles, and thrown overboard while still alive. Where I'm standing here is in Louisiana. That over there is Parker Island, that's in Mississippi.

This is where Charles Moore and Henry D. were brought and prepared and tossed over into the Mississippi River. According to the reports, they were still alive. Wow. Well, my friend was pretty mad, pretty angry. I just talked to a parker. You know, he said that he was a nice talking guy. He could have told to get the hell off of it, told me to go and do what we gotta do. We didn't see a poster sign.

Well, it's a grim sight. Knowing that this is probably the last minutes, seconds that Charlie Morton Henry D was on this face of the earth alive. It's a goddamn shame. I plan to do something about it. Man, these little towns, like Roxie, that's a little old town there. One red light in there. So you're talking about rural.

This is rural Mississippi. You see how dead those trees are around there? They spray that insecticide on there to kill the trees. Back in the van on the first morning after our arrival in Natchez, we're finished with the hitchhiking demonstration in Meadville and now heading back to Natchez for our appointment with District Attorney Ronnie Harper. His would actually be the first interview outside of Thomas that I would conduct in Mississippi for the case.

Officer, District Attorney Ronnie Harper right here. If the DeMoore case is to be taken up by a state-level official, Ronnie Harper would be the one to do it. Hello. Hello. My name is Thomas Moore, and I'm here to see Attorney Ronnie Harper. Sergeant, how you been, man? Retired.

Been a long time. You look good. Come on in. Ronnie Harper is tall in a blue suit and red tie with white stripes. He graduated from the University of Mississippi, or Ole Miss as it is known, and has met Thomas Moore at least once before. So, Mr. Harper, just introduce yourself. My name is Ronnie Harper. I'm the district attorney for the Sixth Circuit Court

District in Mississippi, which would include Adams, Franklin, Wilkinson, and Emmett counties in the southwest corner of the state. Well, here I am again. I know you are. And we're still trying. That's all I can tell you at this point. You know, in 1998, I came over.

And then the Connie Chung thing. I think I talked to you once or twice. I think we did talk once. Yeah, we talked several times. Yeah. Of course, Ernest Gilbert died. The one from Baton Rouge? Right.

Well, from Louisiana. He was the one that said that they called him that night. Ernest Gilbert was one of the highest-ranking Klansmen in the state of Mississippi at the time, and he acted as a spokesperson for the Klan. Here he is being introduced at a Klan rally in Louisiana, a recording Gilbert himself made on a quarter-inch reel-to-reel recorder. A little later on, folks, we will have the burning of the cross.

But at right this time, I would like to introduce now a good friend from Mississippi, Mr. Ernest Gilbert. MR. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It's my pleasure to be in Louisiana again. First, to set things straight, I'd like to say that I am and have been a Klansman for as long as there's been a Klan this last time in the state of Mississippi. He was head of the KBI, or Klan Bureau of Investigations, for the White Knights,

and he also, as it turns out, became an FBI informant in August of 1964, shortly after he was told by some of the Klansmen involved about the murder of Dean Moore. Gilbert would supply the FBI with information about the Klan and their activities. The black man, he is determined to cut the throat of the white man and crawl into bed with the white man's wife for his daughter. For example, he assisted with the Myburn case, identified the manufacturer of Klan robes,

talked about Klan meetings, furnished the identities and roles of numerous Klansmen in over 12 clabberins and 200 members, including the activities of Sam Bowers, the Imperial Wizard. And he also provided information about key pieces of the DeMoore case. Gilbert was confidential informant JN30, the informant from which much of the information from our nine-page report about the killings had been gathered. Gilbert was paid for his role as FBI informant,

but came forward first, according to the FBI and those close to him, because he was deeply troubled by what he heard from his fellow Klansmen about the treatment and murder of Henry D. and Charles Moore. Gilbert was tracked down in the late 90s by Connie Chung and a crew from ABC News with the help of a local African-American law enforcement officer named Eddie Stewart, who had befriended Gilbert. But despite the fact that this key informant was obviously willing to talk, the DeMoore case did not move forward at the time, and Ernest Gilbert has since died. Back to District Attorney Ronnie Harper.

This is basically an unsolved murder case, an open investigation. There were never any formal arrests, never any indictments returned, never any trials. So you've got none of that. You're basically going back to getting the work product of the officers and trying to go back through and reconstruct it and see who you can find and hopefully get more information because obviously, I think we've talked about this before, I mean, there was an extensive investigation in this case. There was a voluminous file. You mean during that time?

During the time. Yeah, absolutely. The FBI did an extensive one. But even then, they didn't feel confident that they had enough evidence to file formal charges. Well, you know, they arrested those two guys. They were arrested by the Justice Court in November and dismissed in January. There were never any hearings. I think they took them, tried to interview them, and then released them on bond and then

subsequently very shortly dismissed them. It appeared to me that was an investigative tool they tried to use. And I've been around a lot of investigations. I've never seen an investigation as thorough as they tried to do that one. In the final analysis, they didn't feel confident, even in federal court, apparently, that they could prevail because they didn't file any charges. Ronnie Harper obviously hadn't been the district attorney 41 years before,

and he can't or doesn't really say why his predecessor chose not to pursue the case. But part of the reason that Harper didn't follow up on the file years later, he says, was that he too was told that there was no FBI investigation. I initially requested a file from them at the beginning, and they wrote me back telling me they didn't have one. And subsequent to that,

I think with the assistance of one of the local reporters in Jackson, they found out that they did have a file on microfiche in Washington. This reporter was Jerry Mitchell at the Clarion Ledger in Jackson, someone Thomas and I will soon be visiting. And they subsequently sent me the file. So that's where I got what I have. Sergeant Moore, I want you to understand something. And I think I've told you this before.

When I was elected to this position, I took an oath to support the law, to prosecute people that violated the law. And I told you then that it didn't make any difference to me who it was or when it happened or anything. If a case could be developed and someone was charged and indicted with a crime, be it murder or what else, that I was going to prosecute it. And I've tried to get assistance in getting it investigated. The district attorney's office is not really charged with investigating. We have to rely on the law enforcement agencies to do the investigations. And the biggest hurdles we had is that this case was different from those,

not in the type of crime it was or in the importance of the victims, but just in the status of the case as we look at it 40 years later. I don't know what to tell you. I think we're running out of time. I think- Well, time, of course, time is a problem. Yeah, I think we're running out of time. I mean, ten years ago, nine years ago. I don't know

Well, I can tell you is that I am trying to make sure that it moves as rapidly as so So what you telling me the case is still open? Oh, absolutely Of course, I can't speak for what I mean from you. I mean from you absolutely You know what? I've never indicated that it you know, that we wouldn't do anything. Of course, I'm not an investigative person, but I mean, certainly, as far as I'm concerned, the investigation is still ongoing, yes. If that's your question to me. So I will stay in touch with you and periodically we'll talk about, hey, what you got. Absolutely. about hey what you got uh absolutely i come up with something i'm looking at trying to get something going on my side as far as investigative work yeah you make and find out something law

enforcement came well that's what i'm hoping i mean you know you may very well be i'm hoping to do some of that now because i know they talk to a lot of people get back during that time some of them probably still living some of them not right but it was apparent to me that a lot of those people were hesitant to talk. Oh, yeah. Out of fear or whatever. Absolutely. That may talk to you now that still may not talk to law enforcement. Right, right, right.

Whatever it takes. I mean, that's just the least I can do. I step out of the room to give Thomas and Ronnie Harper a chance to speak privately. Afterwards, Thomas tells me what they talked about sitting on the curb outside Harper's office and eating some local boiled peanuts. Well we talked about the condition of the bodies. He told me that later on Navy divers went down and there was skeleton, parts of skeleton still attached to the parts of the engine block. And I asked him, how was Henry D. identified?

He said, well, Henry D. had identification in his pocket. And oh yeah, by the way, he gave me something that I always wondered about. Why was Charles Moore expelled from college? For the first time in 41 years this is what I see. This is from the president of Alcorn A&M College which at that time was J.D. Boyd and he wrote this letter to Charles Moore. Dear student, you have been suspended from Alcorn College for conduct on the campus, unbecoming a student. Now, according to Ron Harper, this was a protest for the food in the cafeteria. That's what the protest was about.

Some stinking country food in the cafeteria. That's what the protest was about. Some stinking country food in the cafeteria. Had it not been for this, he'd have been in college. Bottom line. Later, we visit Alcorn College, one of a handful of Mississippi's HBCs, or historically black colleges, but no officials will talk to us, and Thomas and I get a few shots of the bleachers

where the protest was held and leave. Documents I've obtained from various archives and from eyewitnesses have presented a number of reasons for the protest that spring of 1964. From a curfew imposed on students, to football players stealing from the student union, to the quality of cafeteria food. In all cases, it is clear that the governor of Mississippi, Paul Johnson, was heavily involved in the decision to have police move in and for the expulsion plan laid out by Principal J.D. Boyd. If Charles had not been suspended he would not have been in Meadville

less than two weeks later hitchhiking It's still our first day here so far we've been to Meadville for a quick hitchhiking reconnoiter then to Ronnie Harper and Natchez now back to Franklin County Near Roxy, Mississippi we stop in at what was then a BP gas station for a snack,

Thomas' euphemism for boiled peanuts or a massive sandwich. I generally stuck to fruit bars and cereal, being a vegetarian, much to Thomas' needling and laughter. Thomas went inside to pay and came back to the van with an old friend of his, a cousin, actually, a cousin actually, a man by the name of Kenny Bird, who was wearing a straw hat and great blue coveralls with his name embroidered on the left breast. Name is Kenny Bird.

Kenny Bird. Yeah. What's your story, Kenny? Kenny Bird's story was about to change the entire course of her investigation. Well, he said he knew where James Seal lived. Right there? Right here. James Ford Seal, who was supposed to be dead.

Seal was the Klansman who had reportedly assisted with the pickup, whipping and murder of Dean Moore. He'd also been arrested but then released, along with Charles Marcus Edwards, back in November 1964. Where's James Steele at? Right there. Just right there. See that opening between those pine trees right there? Yeah. Yeah. Hang on. Let me get a shot of this.

See that opening right there to the right down there? It's a motorhome. Yeah. One of them motor homes. That you can drive across country? Yeah, right. How do you know he lives there? Well, he lives here. I stay here.

He lives here. I lived here. James Sears lived right down there. And this is the guy that's supposed to have been the torture guy. Right. So the trailer's sitting right there. Come on, I'll show you.

You have been listening to Episode 2 The Klansman. Visit cbc.ca slash sks to see pictures of Thomas Moore in Vietnam, James Ford Seal, and Charles Marcus Edwards when they were Moore in Vietnam, James Ford Seal, and Charles Marcus Edwards when they were arrested in 1964, and other photos associated with the case.

Someone Knows Something is hosted, written, and produced by David Ridgen. The series is also produced by Chris Oak, Steph Kampf, Amal Delich, Eunice Kim, and executive producer Arif Noorani, and mixed by Cecil Fernandez. Our theme song is Terrorized by Willie King. Now you talk about terror. I think you talk about terror. People have been terrorized all my days.

All my days.