The Murders and Trial - Mississippi Burning Part 2

• When in the Neshoba County jail, Schwerner asked to make a phone call and the request was refused.
• Price contacted Klansmen, Edgar Ray Killen, and informed him that he captured Schwerner.
• Killen called Neshoba and Lauderdale county Klansmen and organized a group for what was referred to as some "butt ripping."
• A meeting was held at a drive-in in Meridian with local Klan leaders.

• Another meeting was held later when it was decided that some of the younger Klan members would do the actual killings of the three civil right workers.
• Killen instructed the younger Klan members to purchase rubber gloves and they all met at 8:15 p.m., reviewed the plan on how the killings would take place and drove by the jail where the three were being held.
• Killen then left the group to attend a wake for his deceased uncle.

• Price freed the three jailed men around 10 p.m. and followed them as they drove down Highway 19.
• A high-speed chase between Price and the CORE group ensued, and Chaney, who was driving, soon stopped the car and the three surrendered to Price.
• The three men were placed in Price's patrol car and Price, followed by two cars of young Klan members, drove down a dirt road called Rock Cut Road.

• The three were taken from the car and and 26-year-old Wayne Roberts, shot Schwerner, then Goodman, then Chaney. Informant James Jordan told the FBI that Doyle Barnette also shot Chaney twice.
• The bodies were taken to a pre-arranged site owned by Olen Burrage. It was a 253-acre farm that had a dam site. The bodies were placed together in a hollow and covered with dirt.
• Price was not present during the disposal of the bodies.

• At 12:30 a.m., Price and Klan member, Neshoba County Sheriff Rainey had a meeting. Details of the meeting were not disclosed.
• On August 4, 1964, the FBI received information about the location of the bodies and they were uncovered at the dam site at the Old Jolly Farm.

A federal grand jury in Jackson, MS, upheld the indictments against the 19 men but on February 24, 1965, Federal Judge William Harold Cox, well known for being a die-hard segregationist, said that only Rainey and Price acted "under the color of state law" and he threw out the other 17 indictments.

The trial began on October 7, 1967 in Meridian, MS with Judge Cox presiding. The entire trial permeated an attitude of racial prejudice and KKK kinship. The jury was an all white with one member an admitted ex-klansman. Judge Cox, who had been heard referring to African Americans as chimpanzees, was of little help to the prosecutors.

Three Klan informants, Wallace Miller, Delmar Dennis, and James Jordan, gave incriminating testimony about the details that led up to the murder and Jordan testified about the actual murder.

The defense was made up of character witlessness, relatives and neighbors testifying in support of the accused alibis.

In the government's closing arguments, John Doar told the jurors that what he and the other lawyers said during the trial would soon be forgotten, but "what you 12 do here today will long be remembered."

On October 20, 1967, the verdict was decided. Out of the 18 defendants, seven were found guilty and eight not guilty. Those found guilty included, Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price, Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers, Wayne Roberts, Jimmy Snowden, Billey Posey, and Horace Barnett. Rainey and owner of the property where the bodies were uncovered, Olen Burrage were among those acquitted. The jury was unable to reach a verdict in the case of Edgar Ray Killen.

Cox imposed sentence on December 29, 1967.

• Price and Posey received six years.
• Roberts and Bowers received ten years.
• All others received four years.

Cox was later quoted in regards to his sentences, "They killed one nigger, one Jew, and a white man -- I gave them all what I thought they deserved."

Price was back home after serving four years. In May 2001, he died from a work related accident.

Decent people in Mississippi have not forgotten the legal travesty of those convicted or of those that were never convicted.

On October 6, 2004, marchers demonstrated, demanding that Attorney General Jim Hood prosecute Ku Klux Klan member and preacher Edgar Ray Killen for the three murders of the student-aged civil right's workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.

On January 6, 2005 Killen, at 79 years old, was charged with murder and on June 13, 2005, jury selection began, some 40 years after the three were murdered.

See Also: The Trial of Edgar Ray Killen

^{Source:
The Mississippi Burning Civil Rights Murder Conspiracy Trial by Harvey Fireside
Murder in Mississippi: United States v. Price and the Struggle by Howard Ball
Justice in Mississippi: The Murder Trial of Edgar Ray Killen by Howard Ball}