20 20 Abc Free to Murder Again
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— -- This is an uncorrected and unedited transcript of the "xx/20" broadcast which first aired June 14, 2000.
ABC NEWS
Practiced evening. And welcome to 20/twenty Wed. Diane and Charlie areoff. Tonight, we are devoting near of this hr to a special report.Explosive new developments in a standing investigation. Threemurders that have never been solved. They occurred during 1 ofthis country'south darkest chapters when discrimination bred violence and thelaw looked the other fashion. Ii black teen-agers offered a ride andthen killed in common cold blood. An elderly black farmhand shot to deathat close range. Decades have passed and their stories accept faded.Simply now, our investigation has brought these cases back to life andjust perchance justice will prevail at last.
(VO) THOMAS MOORE visits the grave of his brother Charles whowas murdered along with a friend 36 years ago. In that location was testify,informants, even 2 arrests, but nobody was ever bedevilled ofmurder.
(OC) What kind of men would practise that to someone like yourbrother?
THOMAS MOORE
Hate. Ignorant. Not being able to take a person as who they are.
ABC NEWS
(VO) He owns only a single image of his younger brother, a collegestudent. Of the other victim, Henry Dee, in that location isn't even a photo.Thomas has been plagued past the murders. When he returned fromVietnam, he earned a second higher degree and dedicated it in thename of his blood brother and in the name of justice.
THOMAS MOORE
I will pursue this as far as I can until I dice trying to observe out whodid this and why.
ABC NEWS
(VO) It was May 2d, 1964, Charles Moore and Henry Dee, both 19, wereoffered a ride in Meadville, Mississippi, taken deep into the nearbyHomochitto National Woods and beaten, their bodies dumped into theMississippi River. 2 alleged Klansman, James Ford Seale andCharles Marcus Edwards were arrested.
JT ROBINSON
When they made the arrests on those people, I didn't have any doubtin my mind that that's the 1 that done it. I didn't.
ABC NEWS
(VO) J.T. Robinson was police chief in nearby Natchez.
(OC) You think that Charles Marcus Edwards killed those two men?
JT ROBINSON
I remember he was office -- he was with James Seale and they done it.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Both suspects were soon freed. An FBI investigation peteredout. And every bit we learned in a surprising response to our inquiry, theentire FBI file on the case was destroyed in 1977 or then they thought.Until this headline appeared recently in the Jackson-Clarion Ledgerover a story by reporter Jerry Mitchell.
JERRY MITCHELL
And so then I was able to go back to the FBI and go, 'Await a minute,you know, those files weren't destroyed, here are copies.'
ABC NEWS
(VO) From a different source, 20/twenty obtained an unredacted copy ofthe FBI file. Nearly a thousand pages of reports, notes, diagrams,maps and photographs. Merely near revealing was the fact that the FBIhad one very important informant. An informant who remainedanonymous, refusing to bear witness in open courtroom for fear of retaliationfrom the Klan. Retired FBI assistant managing director Jim Ingram was at thetime a special amanuensis assigned to the case. He remembers theinformant code proper noun JN-30.
JIM INGRAM
JN-xxx was then important to the FBI that the agents themselves did notknow his identity, except two agents that worked or handled him.
ABC NEWS
Informant JN-30 provided the FBI with crucial information about themurders of Charles Moore and Henry Dee. From the beginning hither onHighway 84 in tiny Meadville to the murky depths of the MississippiRiver some 40 miles away. According to JN-30 the killers confided inhim in horrifying particular almost what transpired just after the twoyoung men were last seen well-nigh this roadside drive-in.
(VO) JN-30 said James Ford Seale picked upwards Charles Moore andHenry Dee. Followed by Charles Edwards and Seale's father, Clyde, ina pickup, they drove into the woods, tied the victims to a tree andbeat them. Reeling a shotgun, James Seale harangued them about animagined blackness Muslim plot to arm local blacks.
(OC) At that time, did you think it was possible that yourbrother was killed only considering the color of his pare?
THOMAS MOORE
Admittedly. No other reason. No other reason.
ABC NEWS
Did y'all suspect that Klansmen had killed him?
THOMAS MOORE
Yep.
ABC NEWS
(VO) According to JN-30, James Seale'southward brother, Jack, and a prominentlocal landowner, Ernest Parker, put the victims into the torso of acar and drove to a remote landing on the Mississippi River. Mooreand Dee were tied to a jeep engine block and dropped into the muddywater. Six months later, Navy defined found the engine cake, a skulland other evidence exactly where JN-30 told them to look. The FBIwas convinced their suspects were the killers. Simply in 1964, ThomasMoore knew non to expect justice.
THOMAS MOORE
Did I believe that they would be arrested and convicted? No. No. ABC NEWS
No mode?
THOMAS MOORE
No way.
ABC NEWS
(VO) And he was right. The FBI investigation soon hit a wall.
JIM INGRAM
We, in the FBI, felt there was sufficient evidence. But if theprosecutor is not going to movement forrard, that -- that stops it at thetime.
ABC NEWS
(VO) The FBI file shows that with the informant as well fearful totestify and a lack of other witnesses, the district attorney felt hecould not prosecute the suspects. Three of them lived out theirlives and died free men. The 2 who were arrested briefly in 1964are nonetheless alive. According to the file during questioning, i ofthem, James Ford Seale, was told the FBI knew he was involved in themurders. Seale replied: 'Yes, but I'm non going to acknowledge information technology. Youare going to have to evidence it.'
MAN
Hello. Mr. Seale?
JAMES SEALE
Yes.
MAN
How you doing?
JAMES SEALEPretty adept.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Today, James Seale travels the country in his luxury motor home.We plant him camped near Natchez.
JAMES SEALE
I accept nothing to say to you.
Human being
Nothing to say? JAMES SEALE
The best thing for y'all to do is become your donkey up that loma.
Human being
All right, sir. All right. Did you lot have anything to practise with thekilling of those two boys?
JAMES SEALE
Get up the hill.
ABC NEWS
(VO) According to the FBI file, when he was under arrest, CharlesMarcus Edwards confessed that he, Seale and others took the victimsto some woods and whipped them. Just he said they were still alivewhen he left. We found Edwards last year living quietly in thecountry outside Natchez.
(OC) Did you murder Henry Dee and Charles Moore?
CHARLES EDWARDS
I did not. I did not murder those 2 kids.
ABC NEWS
The investigators said that you told them that you and a couple ofother guys picked upwards Henry Dee and Charles Moore, took them to theforest…
CHARLES EDWARDS
They told y'all a prevarication because I hadn't said that.
ABC NEWS
Mr. Edwards, back in the 1960s, do you lot think you would accept calledyourself a racist?
CHARLES EDWARDS
Well, I was prejudice, yeah.
ABC NEWS
(VO) To this day, the unabridged instance remains in limbo. Just that couldsoon change. We have found the FBI's star informant, JN-30, and nowhe is ready to go public.
ERNEST GILBERT
I wish to God I would never have known about this. I really do.
ABC NEWS
In a moment, yous will run into the man they call JN-30. We'll be rightback.
Announcer
He was an imperial sorcerer of the KKK. Now he is speaking out for thefirst fourth dimension about the unsolved murders of two teen-age boys.
ERNEST GILBERT
They were taken to the Mississippi River, weights were tied on themand they were thrown in the river alive.
(Commercial break)
ABC NEWS
When the bodies of Charles Moore and Henry Dee, two black19-year-olds, were discovered in the Mississippi River in 1964, theirfamilies suspected information technology was the work of the Ku Klux Klan. They neverthought they would see the murders solved. But little did they knowthat ane was quietly trying to seek justice. Now, he tells his storyfor the beginning time.
ERNEST GILBERT
(From record) The white people in this state are going to war. And tohell with who tries to stop them.
ABC NEWS
(VO) He was a leader of the Ku Klux Klan who says he knew the killersof Charles Moore and Henry Dee.
Mr. GILBERT: They murdered those two young boys, common cold-bloodedmurder.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Now 36 years later, he's decided to go public for the first timeand reveal what he knows.
ERNEST GILBERT
I'grand doing that because I'd like to clear my conscience.
ABC NEWS
(VO) His name is ERNEST GILBERT
. (OC) Mr. Gilbert, were the killers of Charles Moore and HenryDee white knights of the KKK?
ERNEST GILBERT
Yes, they were.
ABC NEWS
Every unmarried i of them?
ERNEST GILBERT
Aye.
(From tape) Nosotros the officers and members of the original knightsof the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi…
ABC NEWS
(VO) ERNEST GILBERT
was once the KKK'due south principal spokesman and for a timeits leader in Mississippi.
(OC) Were y'all elected to the position of regal wizard?
ERNEST GILBERT
Imperial wizard.
ABC NEWS
That was your title?
ERNEST GILBERT
And the white knights.
ABC NEWS
(VO) He was as well chief organizer, secretly recruiting officers of thelaw.
(OC) Did you recruit sheriff's deputies? Sheriffs themselves?
ERNEST GILBERT
Yep, I did.
ABC NEWS
Police officers?
ERNEST GILBERT
Yes.
ABC NEWS
And they all secretly belonged to the Klan?
ERNEST GILBERT
They secretly belonged to the Klan.
ABC NEWS
(VO)Ernest Gilbert's home movies grade a silent archive of racistrallies, marches, parades and cross burnings. His married woman happily showsoff a shotgun. Here Gilbert pours himself a potable and reloads hisnub-nose revolver earlier going to bed. The audio is from one of hisspeeches.
ERNEST GILBERT
(From record I'll tell you lot this. I am a man of violence. I am. IfERNEST GILBERT
'due south going to do something, I'chiliad damn well going to getthe chore done and ain't nobody ever going to know near information technology.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Today, ERNEST GILBERT
says that was all only talk. That all thewhile he was torn up within because a friend and beau Klansman JackSeale and others confessed to him that they murdered Charles Mooreand Henry Dee.
(OC) How did you notice out who killed Moore and Dee?
ERNEST GILBERT
I was told by the members that committed the act. They came to meand told me all the gory details of it. And I asked them, `Why inthe hell are you telling me this?'
ABC NEWS
What did they say?
ERNEST GILBERT
They said, `Well, if annihilation ever comes of it and--and we want youto know then you lot tin can protect us.'
ABC NEWS
(VO) Even now Gilbert finds information technology difficult to repeat what he was told.
ERNEST GILBERT
Those kids were abused awful and beaten, and -- and they begged fortheir lives. I was told all of this. And then they were taken tothe Mississippi River, weights were tied on them and they were thrownin the river live.
ABC NEWS
Alive?
ERNEST GILBERT
Live.
ABC NEWS
How did you react to them?
ERNEST GILBERT
Like I said, I lost my mind. I lost my soul. And I finally decidedthat something had to be done.
ABC NEWS
(VO) You went to the FBI?
ERNEST GILBERT
Because in that location was no ane else I could turn to. I couldn't sleep. Icouldn't consume. I was beginning to die. Well, I did die within. AndI couldn't live with it.
ABC NEWS
(VO) And however, in his home movies, Gilbert appears at ease with JackSeale, one of the alleged killers. Hither they prepare for a Klanrally, Seale wearing sunglasses. Here Seale drives while tauntingthe camera. And and then began the dual life of Ernest Gilbert asinformant JN-30, an FBI mole inside the KKK, activated in Natchez,Mississippi, in 1964. Today, Natchez is a genteel identify, overflowingwith southern charm. Only in the mid '60s, it was an armed campsite in avirtual war between the White Knights and ceremonious-rights groups.
JT ROBINSON
The black people would watch at 10:00 in the morning time on Sat andthe Klan would ride all night long.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Police main J.T. Robinson patrolled the streets with a shotgunin this upside-down town where the Ku Klux Klan had an part on MainStreet and the NAACP worked hush-hush.
(OC) Which grouping did you nigh fearfulness?
JT ROBINSON
The White Knights.
ABC NEWS
(VO) In this rarified temper, Gilbert went to work preachinghate…
ERNEST GILBERT
(From file footage) I am damn proud of what I am because I know whata Klansman really is.
ABC NEWS
(VO) …while plumbing the depths of his friendships and generatingenough information for this stack of documents obtained past 20/20. Inthem, he names and quotes the alleged killers. Jack Seale, sayingthe victims were dumped in the river alive because shooting themwould have gotten blood all over the boat. James Ford Seale sayinghe had taped the victims' mouths and wrists. Ernest Parker, worriedthat the jeep-engine block the victims were tied to would be tracedto him. Clyde Seale saying that Charles Edwards had a bad case ofconscience.
(OC) Was information technology hard for yous to try and remain friends withthem even though in yous knew in your heart that y'all had told the FBIwhat they did?
ERNEST GILBERT
You better believe information technology. It'south hard to this minute. Were theyfriends? Yes, they were. And did I rat on my friends? Yes, I did.
ABC NEWS
Were you personally ever involved in the killings of Moore and Dee?
ERNEST GILBERT
Hell no, I was never personally involved.
ABC NEWS
(VO) The passing years take erased many of the details from hismemory. For instance, he remembers nothing of Charles Edwards. Buthe remains riddled with guilt because he does remember everything ofthe fiery speeches he gave when he was the leader of the Ku KluxKlan.
ERNEST GILBERT
(From file footage) I call back they ought to shoot down every damnnigger that goes out here to burn a building. Or, goes out here todemonstrate. I think they ought to take them guns and kill them justas fast as they stick their heads upwardly. How did I know that I'thousand notthe cause of--if you lot was in the Klan, yous had something to practise with itbecause you represented the biggest hate group that ever walked theearth.
ABC NEWS
Practise you lot now regret being a fellow member of the Klan?
ERNEST GILBERT
Y'all damn right I do. I would give annihilation in the globe if I hadnever heard the name of the Ku Klux Klan.
ABC NEWS
Exercise you regret the violence that occurred?
ERNEST GILBERT
You better believe I regret the violence that occurred. Why elsewould I be here?
ABC NEWS
(VO) Apparently, he does not want to offer himself as a witness,should this interview revive the case against the two survivingsuspects.
(OC) If James Ford Seale and Charles Marcus Edwards are broughtto trial, will you show against them?
ERNEST GILBERT
I will not show against them. They have all of the information.What adept is it going to practise me to become up there and testify -- and thepeople say, 'Well, hell he was 1 of them, how can he testifyagain?' Any juror is going to turn them loose.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Charles Edwards was turned loose soon afterwards he was arrested backin 1964. He said he's a religious human being who has been blessed with afull life ever since.
CHARLES EDWARDS
Information technology's been good. I've raised -- I've had a expert task all my life, and Iraised five kids, had the American dream.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Later on 36 years when Thomas Moore visits his brother'southward grave, hestill speaks of hurting.
THOMAS MOORE
I beloved you lot and I miss yous.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Merely now, he also speaks of promise and justice.
THOMAS MOORE
Hopefully, the end will come to this and we can residuum, and you lot canhave peace that justice did prevail.
ERNEST GILBERT
God told Cain, "Your blood brother's claret cries out to me from theground." I want -- I want -- I desire justice for those kids, that'south what Iwant.
ABC NEWS
That's why yous've come forward now?
ERNEST GILBERT
Yep. This is not about me. This is not about you. This is abouttwo little kids that were brutally murdered. And were innocent.
ABC NEWS
In light of our interview, Justice Department sources tell usa the FBIis reactivating the Dee/Moore murder case. FBI agents reportedlywill meet with Ernest Gilbert. As one source put it, "It's a wholenew ball game." Gilbert says he is still fearful of the KKK and askedus not to reveal his whereabouts. When we come up back, new evidence,new twists in another unsolved murder. And y'all'll hear from menwhose racist words will admittedly stun you.
Announcer
An innocent human being brutally murdered. A confession read in court. Sowhy did this juror vote, not guilty?
JOHN DAWSON
The just thing they ever proved to me was that that…(censored bynetwork)…was dead.
Announcer
Xxx-four years after, is it too belatedly for JUSTICE AT LAST, when20/20 continues?
(Commercial interruption)
ABC NEWS
At present to Adams Canton, Mississippi to the scene of another horrificmurder from the darkest days of the ceremonious-rights era. Now we shouldwarn you that some of the language you'll hear is racially chargedand offensive, but we've left information technology in our story so you can judge foryourself the state of mind of some of the people involved.
(VO) Deep in the Mississippi forest, Jesse White visits theplace where his father'southward bullet-riddled body was dumped over a bridge34 years ago.
JESSE WHITE
I miss him very much. I often recollect about the tragic fate that wasdealt to him.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Ben Chester White was a uncomplicated man, a 67-yr-old farmhand whokept to himself.
JESSE WHITE
He was a mild man, a serenity fellow.
ABC NEWS
(VO) He was not active in civil rights, yet he was killed by the KuKlux Klan. And despite the reported confessions of two suspects,there has been no justice for White'due south family unit for more threedecades.
JESSE WHITE
There's something that kind of like eats abroad at you lot, and knowingthat this isn't right --that -- when volition it be right?
ABC NEWS
(VO) It was hot and sunny on June 12, 1966, the day Ben ChesterWhite'south torso was institute confront-down in this creek virtually Natchez,Mississippi. He had been shot more than a dozen times with anassault burglarize and one time with a shotgun blast so powerful it blew thebrains out of his caput.
JT ROBINSON
Shot him with a shotgun.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Former Natchez police chief J.T. Robinson says during alate-night rendezvous soon afterwards the murder, he received aconfession from a Klansman named James Lloyd Jones.
JT ROBINSON
He said, "I'm going to tell y'all something." He said, "I was involvedwith something that's admittedly -- it'due south terrible." And he said, "Ican't live with information technology."
ABC NEWS
He confessed to you?
JT ROBINSON
What he said, he told me that Fuller, Avants had killed Ben ChesterWhite.
ABC NEWS
Claude Fuller and Ernest Gilbert.
JT ROBINSON
That'due south right.
ABC NEWS
(VO) He fingered 43-year-old Claude Fuller and 35-year-old ErnestAvants as the triggermen. In a and so-surreptitious FBI document, both werenamed every bit members of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. JamesLloyd Jones, a World War II veteran, confessed that he collection them andBen Chester White to the bridge where the murder took identify. ButChief Robinson knew that even with a confession, there would likelybe no justice.
(OC) Did you lot really feel it was incommunicable to convict a whiteman of killing a blackness homo?
JT ROBINSON
Yes, I did then. Yes, I did.
ABC NEWS
(VO) He says what happened in this Natchez court room proved himright. In that location was a hung jury in the trial of James Lloyd Jones.Avants received an outright amortization. Fuller was not even put ontrial. All 3 defendant were set gratis, which is where the casestood for more than 30 years, a grave injustice says Chief Robinson,ane he withal wishes could be rectified.
JT ROBINSON
I'm at a loss at how you can dig up annihilation on them. I mean, I'mjust, complete loss. I've tried to think, you know, what can we dofor these kind of cases, you lot know?
ABC NEWS
There were many questions most the murder of Ben Chester White. So,last spring we at 20/xx launched our own investigation. We wanted toknow how 3 accused murderers could exist set free, even though atleast one confessed. What happened to the evidence? We came here toa musty basement in the Historic Natchez Foundation, where wediscovered not only the transcript of the James Lloyd Jones trial,but his confession, in which he describes in listen-numbing particular theplanning and the execution of the murder, implicating himself and histwo co-accused, Claude Fuller and Ernest Avants.
1ST OFFSCREEN Vocalism
(Reading from Jones' confession) Nosotros rode on down at that place in thatforest, Claude Fuller claimed he had lost a shepherd canis familiaris and got BenChester White to go with us to chase the domestic dog.
ABC NEWS
(VO) We had an actor read excerpts from Jones' lost confessions, justas they were read into the record at his trial.
1ST OFFSCREEN VOICE
(Reading from Jones' confession) Fuller told me only as I got to thebridge to cease. That's the bridge where we killed him. He reachedand got his rifle and throwed a shell in information technology, then he opened thedoor where the old darky was sitting and said, 'All right, pop, getout!' When the darky seen him with that rifle, he said, 'Lord, whathave I done to deserve this?' He merely withered downwards in the back seat.The showtime shots were made by Fuller. He opened up that rifle andthere was two bursts of it. Then Fuller told Ernest Avants, 'Allright, at present yous shoot him.' And Avants shot him.
JT ROBINSON
Information technology blew his brains and things, in the car, on Mr. Jones.
ABC NEWS
Y -- yous hateful Mr. White's brains splattered on Mr. Jones?
JT ROBINSON
Yeah, on Mr. Jones. Inside the auto.
1ST OFFSCREEN Vox
(Reading from Jones' confession) I got out of the automobile and helped themdrag him out, and throwed him over the runway.
ABC NEWS
(VO) At the end of the week-long trial, a 12-man jury, nine white andthree blackness, went behind closed doors to deliberate Jones' fate. Butthey were unable to attain a verdict.
(OC) Information technology was a hung jury?
JT ROBINSON
That'due south right.
ABC NEWS
How is that possible?
JT ROBINSON
The Klansmen.
ABC NEWS
The Klansmen?
JT ROBINSON
On the -- on the -- on the jury.
ABC NEWS
(VO) We returned to that old edifice in Natchez and uncovered thejury listing. Nosotros found vii had died. Of the survivors, four agreedto return to the courtroom to talk nearly the case. Amid them therewere no dissenters.
(OC) How many of you lot thought that James Lloyd Jones was guilty?Without any incertitude?
RAY COLTER
Yes.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Alternate juror Ray Colter and the rest of this group sharedsuspicions about other members of the jury.
RAY COLTER
The remarks that -- that we heard, you know, in -- at lunch, dinner, backat the hotel, that I just got the feeling at that place were a couple ofjurors that were not going to vote for him to be guilty.
ABC NEWS
But they had their minds fabricated up before hearing the testify?
RAY COLTERYes.
ABC NEWS
Were these jurors white?
RAY COLTER
Yeah.
ABC NEWS
In fact, they were determined not to detect a white man guilty ofkilling a blackness man?
RAY COLTER
That was a feeling I had.
ABC NEWS
(VO) And so if the Klan had a sinker in the jury room, who was it? Thedocuments we recovered include the names of two other survivingjurors: Frank Nolan Dungan, who would not tell us how he voted, andJohn Dawson, who agreed to come across with our producer.
JOHN DAWSON
Come in.
PRODUCER
How you doing?
ABC NEWS
(VO) We used a home video camera to record an interview in which Dawsonconfirmed he voted non guilty.
JOHN DAWSON
But matter they ever proved to me was that that nigger was dead.That's all they ever proved to me, he -- he died, and he's dead. Whodone information technology? Own't never proved a…(censored by network).
ABC NEWS
(VO) But what about the confession?
JOHN DAWSON
Well, I never heard it if there was. Nobody ever -- never -- they neverbrought that out in no courtroom.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Really, the confession took upwardly about a third of the trialtranscript. But if Dawson didn't recall that, he did recallconfronting a black juror during deliberations.
JOHN DAWSON
I asked ane of them niggers i twenty-four hours, I said, `How you know he'sguilty?' He says, `They say he is.' They say? Well...(censored bynetwork)…I could have said it, you could take said that, information technology don'tmake it true.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Nosotros asked Dawson, was he a member of the Ku Klux Klan?
JOHN DAWSON
Nope. Now, y'all may get some people say I was, just I tell it to youor anybody else to evidence it that I was.
ABC NEWS
(VO) We took up the challenge and found records from this banking concern inNatchez dating dorsum to 1965. A signature carte du jour revealed that JohnDawson was a signing officer for the United Klans of America, Realmof Mississippi. Several cancelled checks bear his signature and theimprint of the Klan. The signature appears to match one on a34-twelvemonth-old hotel reservation, which includes the accost where JohnDawson lives to this twenty-four hours. We paid him some other visit, but this timethe reception wasn't as friendly.
(OC) (At Dawson's front door) Hello, Mr. Dawson, my name isABC News, I'm with ABC News. And we have cameras. Mr. Dawson?
(VO) There was no retrial of James Lloyd Jones. In the case ofClaude Fuller, there was no trial at all. Nosotros found out why in thoseboxes of court records. Information technology seems Jones and Fuller later claimed theywere physically unable to endure a rigorous murder trial. They gavethe identical alibi of ulcers and arthritis. Incredibly, the judgeagreed, ordered the charges withdrawn, and set Jones and Fuller costless.
Ernest Avants was also freed afterwards a brief trial ended with a juryfinding him not guilty.
(OC) Just recently, the FBI discovered a key slice of evidence,another confession past James Lloyd Jones, one given at a preliminaryhearing here at the courthouse in Natchez. And lately, even morelost court documents have been turning upward. In this document dug upby the Blaring Ledger, Ernest Avants confirms he was at that place on thebridge the dark Ben Chester White was murdered.
JERRY MITCHELL, REPORTER, THE Clarion LEDGER
It showed that Avants showed up at the sheriff's doorsteps, wasfrightened.
ABC NEWS
(VO) And fabricated his admission to the sheriff, Odell Anders and countyattorney Edwin Benoit (ph).
JERRY MITCHELL
Here you lot have a confession to -- not only to the sheriff, simply to theprosecutor in the case, and they don't use information technology.
ABC NEWS
(VO) The prosecutor Benoit is deceased. But he told the FBI hedidn't use the confession in part because avants had been drinkingwhen he gave it. The sheriff Anders is nonetheless live, but declined togive us an interview. Nosotros had other questions for him: about thisletter from the FBI to the governor of Mississippi and at to the lowest degree twoother independent FBI reports naming him as a secret member of the KuKlux Klan. In the by, Anders has denied information technology. As for the suspects,Claude Fuller and James Lloyd Jones both lived out their lives anddied free men. We found Ernest Avants concluding Baronial living in atrailer domicile parked in the tiny southern Mississippi town of BogueChitto.
ERNEST AVANTS
I can't inappreciably believe this.
ABC NEWS
Ernest Avants was happy to sit down and talk. Tried and acquitted 33years ago for the murder of Ben Chester White, he thought he was homefree. But 20/xx uncovered something that was nigh to give ErnestAvants the surprise of his life.
ANNOUNCER
An unsolved murder and a startling 20/20 discovery leads to an arrest34 years later the crime.
ABC NEWS
Mr. Avants! Mr. Avants!
Announcer
When 20/twenty continues later on this from our ABC stations. (Commercial break)
Ernest Avants is the last surviving suspect in the unsolvedmurder of an elderly black farmhand. For 34 years, the family of BenChester White has waited for justice. And right at present, it could becloser than ever.
(VO) The place where Ben Chester White has murdered has changedover three decades. The bridge is broken down. The route abandoned,taken back by the forest. And the victim forgotten past Mississippijustice. But for the man institute not guilty, Ernest Avants, somethings never seem to change. For example, his racist beliefs.
ERNEST AVANTS
A white homo has run this world. A white human being has run this UnitedStates. That'south why it'south corking like information technology is.
ABC NEWS
(VO) On local society in the '60s…
ERNEST AVANTS
The Jews own Adams County and the Catholics run it and the niggersenjoyed it.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Simply on the murder of Ben Chester White.
(OC) Did you kill Ben Chester White?
ERNEST AVANTS
No, I did not.
ABC NEWS
Did you shoot him with a shotgun?
ERNEST AVANTS
No, I did non.
ABC NEWS
Did y'all have annihilation to do with the murder of Ben Chester White?
ERNEST AVANTS
No, I did not.
ABC NEWS
This is part of the confession that was read at James Lloyd Jones'trial. `How many times did the shotgun shoot?' And Jones said, `Onetime.' `Who was the man who shot the shotgun?' `A beau namedAvants.' That'southward you.
ERNEST AVANTS
Merely I didn't hear -- hear that read. Whatever was read, and whateverJames Jones said, was a bold faced lie.
ABC NEWS
Why would he lie?
ERNEST AVANTS
Why?
ABC NEWS
Why would he implicate…
ERNEST AVANTS
Why if this nigger was killed like they said he was, why wouldn't thebuzzards swallow him? The buzzards won't eat nothing that die of rabiesor poison.
ABC NEWS
So let me go this straight. Yous are saying that because thebuzzards didn't go at Ben Chester White's body, that he had to havedied of either rabies or poisonous substance?
ERNEST AVANTS
Evidently.
ABC NEWS
Not gunshot wounds?
ERNEST AVANTS
Evidently.
ABC NEWS
(VO) But when Ernest Avants went on trial, two FBI agents testifiedthat he also confessed. They were questioning him on the truckbombing of a civil rights worker, when suddenly Avants changed thesubject to Ben Chester White.
ALAN KORNBLUM
He said, and I'k quoting him, "Yeah, I shot that nigger."
ABC NEWS
(VO) I of the agents, Alan Kornblum, agreed to an interview on thecondition that his face be concealed because he now works inintelligence. ALAN KORNBLUM
Nosotros were both stunned about his admissions, they were graphic, werevery specific. He said that the other individual had emptied hiscarving, the full mag, into Ben Chester White after which heemptiedb -- bhe fired the shotgun.
ABC NEWS
You were interviewed past two FBI agents, Alan Kornblum…
ERNEST AVANTS
Kornblum was from New York and he was a Jew.
ABC NEWS
(VO) According to Kornblum, Avants bragged that while he did shootBen Chester White, he could not exist plant guilty of murder.
ALAN KORNBLUMHe said he 'blew his head off with a shotgun, merely he was alreadydead. And my lawyers told me y'all tin't convict me for killing a deadguy.'
ERNEST AVANTS
No, my lawyers didn't tell me that. My lawyers told the -- jumped upand told the court that. Read the transcript.
ABC NEWS
And then your lawyers said you shot a homo in the caput, Ben Chester White,who was already expressionless?
ERNEST AVANTS
Yeah.
ABC NEWS
Is that truthful?
ERNEST AVANTS
No, it'south true he said it. Merely it ain't true that I done that.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Information technology was a racially mixed jury that acquitted Avants. And whiletwo jurors told us they felt he did murder Ben Chester White, theycouldn't convict Avants on the show produced at his trial.
JAY LEHMAN, JUROR
There must have been some more prove that wasn't presented. Theremust have been.
WILLIAM Bong, JUROR
The district chaser, he did a poor job.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Whether or not the DA botched the case may never be knownbecause the Avants transcript remains missing. But his acquittal isamazing. If only for the bear witness that he confessed to Special AgentAlan Kornblum.
ALAN KORNBLUM
I was shocked. I thought with that confession he would have beenconvicted.
ABC NEWS
(VO) But at present, time may be running out for this suspected murderer.
(OC) 20/20 has made a discovery that could give new life to thecase confronting Ernest Avants. We returned here to the scene of thecrime and discovered a simple fact that'southward been disregarded for 33years. The murder of Ben Chester White occurred on federal land,within the boundaries of the Homochitto National Wood, making thecrime a federal offense for which Ernest Avants could yet indictedafter all these years.
RON RYCHLAK
That'due south of crucial significance.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Professor Ron Rychlak is associate dean at the University ofMississippi Law School.
(OC) This actually ways he could be charged again, tried againand potentially constitute guilty.
RON RYCHLAK
Charged, tried and institute guilty.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Last fall in response to our original broadcast, the FBI openeda new investigation. And last week, armed FBI agents entered atrailer dwelling in Bogue Chitto, Mississippi.
2ND Vocalization
Go out.
ABC NEWS
They arrested 69-twelvemonth-old Ernest Henry Avants for the murder of BenChester White, 34 years agone.
ABC NEWS
Mr. Avants? Mr. Avants?
2ND VOICE
Get her out of here or I'1000 going to blow her brains out. Exit!Exit him alone. Ain't you got any Christian in you?
Grouping OF PEOPLE
(In unison) No.
BRAD PIGOTT, US ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN District OF MISSISSIPPI
The federal grand jury returned a i count murder indictment againstMr. Avants this afternoon. I, for one, want to express, on behalf ofour part, the gratitude to the diligence of the 20/20 program ofABC News.
ABC NEWS
Us Chaser Brad Pigott says it's the starting time known federal prosecutionof a civil rights murder instance.
MAN
It's our -- it'due south our professional person judgment that we take enoughadmissible bear witness to justify today'southward thou jury indictment of Mr.Avants and to try him for murder.
ABC NEWS
(VO) Federal prosecutors may rely on records uncovered past xx/20. Forexample, a motive, nosotros found, in the lost confession of James LloydJones.
Histrion
(Playing James Lloyd Jones) Fuller told me he had orders from higherup that the man had to become. The bargain was that they thought maybe theymight go erstwhile Martin Luther King.
RON RYCHLAK
It's chilling to read really, and they were trying to use this murderperhaps to lure Dr. Martin Luther Rex to that area and maybe make anattempt on his life.
ABC NEWS
(VO) At his arraignment in United states of america commune court, Ernest Avants pleadednot guilty. As he was led abroad in hand-cuffs and leg irons, heappeared somewhat unsteady. He did non respond to reporters'questions. But when we offset interviewed him before he was enlightened hecould confront another trial, Avants fabricated it quite articulate that he knowstimes accept changed since 1967.
ERNEST AVANTS
Yous just think if had a trial then and got acquitted, if I was triednow.
ABC NEWS
What would happen?
ERNEST AVANTS
Hell, I'd exist bedevilled.
ABC NEWS
Why do you say that?
ERNEST AVANTS
The -- the majority of white people is so sympathetic.
ABC NEWS
Dorsum then, white people probably would not convict a white person forkilling a black man.
ERNEST AVANTS
Like they will now.
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2826063&page=1
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