''Mississippi Cold Case'' is a 2007 feature documentary produced by

David Ridgen David Ridgen is an independent Canadian filmmaker born in Stratford, Ontario. He has worked for CBC Television, MSNBC, NPR, TVOntario and others. He is currently the writer, producer and host of CBC Radio’s true-crime podcast series, ''Someon ...

of the

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the government. ...

about the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...

murders of two 19-year-old black men, Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore, in Southwest Mississippi in May 1964 during the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

and

Freedom Summer Freedom Summer, also known as the Freedom Summer Project or the Mississippi Summer Project, was a volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi. ...

. It also explores the 21st-century quest for justice by the brother of Moore. The documentary won numerous awards as a documentary and for its investigative journalism. As a result of the documentary and related investigations, state and federal officials re-opened the case, prosecuting

James Ford Seale James Ford Seale (June 25, 1935 – August 2, 2011) was a Ku Klux Klan member charged by the U.S. Justice Department on January 24, 2007, and subsequently convicted on June 14, 2007, for the May 1964 kidnapping and murder of Henry Hezekiah Dee an ...

of Franklin County for the kidnappings and deaths. He was convicted in 2007 in federal court and sentenced to three life terms. Families of Dee and Moore filed a civil suit in 2008 for damages against

Franklin County, Mississippi Franklin County is a county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2010 census, the population was 8,118, making it the fourth-least populous county in Mississippi. Its county seat is Meadville. The county was formed on December 2 ...

, charging that its law enforcement officials had been complicit in these events. The county settled the suit with the plaintiffs in 2010 for an undisclosed amount.

Moore and Dee murders

On May 2, 1964, Charles Eddie Moore, a college student, and Henry Hezekiah Dee, a millworker, both 19 and from

, were picked up by KKK members while they were hitchhiking in Meadville. They were abducted, interrogated and tortured in a nearby forest They were locked in a trunk of a car, driven across state lines, chained to a

Jeep Jeep is an American automobile marque, now owned by multi-national corporation Stellantis. Jeep has been part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with remaining assets, from its previous owner American Moto ...

motor block and train rails, and dropped alive into the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

to die. Moore and Dee's mangled torsos were discovered on July 12 and 13, 1964 during the frantic FBI search for

James Chaney James Earl Chaney (May 30, 1943 – June 21, 1964) was one of three Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) civil rights workers killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by members of the Ku Klux Klan on June 21, 1964. The others were Andrew Goodman an ...

, Andrew Goodman, and

Michael Schwerner Michael Henry Schwerner (November 6, 1939 – June 21, 1964), was one of three Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) field workers killed in rural Neshoba County, Mississippi, by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Schwerner and two co-workers, James Chan ...

, the three civil rights workers who disappeared on June 21, 1964. When it was discovered that the bodies were those of two black men and not those of the civil rights workers, two of whom were white, media interest evaporated and the press moved on. While the FBI investigated the case and arrested two suspects in November 1964, the district attorney concluded that there was insufficient evidence for prosecution. The two suspects that were arrested for the murder case of Moore and Dee were James Ford Seale, 29, and Charles Marcus Edwards, 31. In the days after their arrest, Edwards admitted to the kidnapping and assault of the two men, yet would not admit to the murder of them.'''' After their arrest, the FBI became overwhelmed with the case of the three civil rights workers, so Moore and Dee's case was turned over to local authorities. The case was dropped by local authorities, some of whom were complicit in the crime, according to FBI and

HUAC The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...

documents. It was not until 2000 that the federal authorities re-opened the murder investigation and discovered documents to help assist in the conviction of Edwards and Seale. After Edwards admitted to the murders, he was granted immunity to testify against Seale, who was convicted in 2007.

Documentary

In June and July 2004, while preparing to shoot another documentary in Mississippi, Ridgen stumbled across a sequence that troubled him in a 1964, 16 mm film produced in Mississippi by the

.Cracking A Mississippi Cold Case http://nuweb9.neu.edu/civilrights/?page_id=1009 Northeastern University Law School As the sequence in the film '' Summer in Mississippi'' showed a body being taken from a river, he was struck by the narrative: The documentary film Ridgen was viewing in the CBC archive was called ''Summer in Mississippi'' (1964), it was about the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner, the three civil rights workers killed by Klansmen in a case that would become known by its FBI codename, "Mississippi Burning". Ridgen immediately wondered why the other body was "forgotten," and how it was determined that this person was "the wrong body". Looking into the story more deeply, Ridgen discovered the identity of the body: 19-year-old Charles Eddie Moore, an African-American youth. According to articles Ridgen read in ''

The Clarion Ledger ''The Clarion Ledger'' is an American daily newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi. It is the second-oldest company in the state of Mississippi, and is one of the few newspapers in the nation that continues to circulate statewide. It is an operating d ...

'' newspaper from 1999/2000,

Don Whitehead Don Whitehead (April 8, 1908 in Inman, Virginia - January 12, 1981) was an American journalist. He was awarded the Medal of Freedom. He won the 1950 George Polk Award for wire service reporting. He was awarded the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for Inter ...

's '' Attack on Terror'' (1970), and the

Southern Poverty Law Center The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white su ...

's online memorial, Moore was killed by Klan members who picked up him and his friend Henry Hezekiah Dee while they were hitchhiking on May 2, 1964. They abducted the two youths and killed them both, dumping them in the river. They were found on two successive days in July 1964. Forty-one years after the murders, weeks before Klan leader

Edgar Ray Killen Edgar Ray Killen (January 17, 1925 – January 11, 2018) was an American Ku Klux Klan organizer who planned and directed the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, three civil rights activists participating in the ...

was found guilty of manslaughter in the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, David Ridgen convinced Thomas Moore, older brother of Charles, to return to Mississippi to seek justice for his brother and Henry Dee. Moore had already been investigating the case. Filmmaker Ridgen and the CBC organized and funded the entire production. Ridgen has documented Moore on trips spanning over 26 months. A short version of the documentary (34 min.) premiered on February 11, 2007, on CBC. A one-hour version aired on MSNBC on June 9, 2007. A full-length feature version of the film has been completed.

Results of the documentary

Moore's quest and the documentary about it caused state officials to re-open their investigation into the case. The case had been re-opened in 2000 by then-US Attorney Brad Pigott, but closed again in June 2003 after Pigott and the USDOJ Civil Rights Division decided not to proceed based on the evidence. It was re-opened in early July 2005 after Moore and Ridgen visited US Attorney Dunn Lampton at his office. Previously, Moore and Ridgen had been told by a prominent Mississippi journalist that

was dead, as had been reported elsewhere in the media. Shortly after Ridgen and Moore arrived in Mississippi in July 2005, District Attorney Ronnie Harper told them that Seale was alive. They did not believe him. Later that day, Moore's cousin Kenny Byrd told Ridgen and Moore that Seale was still alive. He confirmed it by pointing out Seale's motor home a short distance away. Through the course of the production of ''Mississippi Cold Case'', Thomas Moore continued to press the murder conspirators and officials over more than 24 months. Additional evidence was discovered, including new documents and important witnesses willing to testify. The prosecuting US Attorney brought the case before a federal Grand Jury, which voted to indict the alleged kidnapper and killer, James Ford Seale. He was arrested in January 2007. On January 24, 2007, Seale appeared in federal court in

Jackson, Mississippi Jackson, officially the City of Jackson, is the Capital city, capital of and the List of municipalities in Mississippi, most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city is also one of two county seats of Hinds County, Mississippi, ...

and was charged with two counts of kidnapping, and one count of conspiracy to kidnap two persons. Seale pleaded not guilty and was denied bond on January 29, 2007, by U.S. Magistrate Judge Linda Anderson. Amid many motion hearings from the defense and prosecution, Seale's trial was set for May 30, 2007, in Jackson, Mississippi. Seale was convicted by a majority-white jury on June 14, 2007. On August 24, 2007, James Seale was sentenced to three life sentences for one count of conspiracy to kidnap two persons and two counts of kidnapping, where the victims were not released alive. On August 5, 2008, Thomas Moore and Thelma Collins, Henry Dee's sister, filed a federal complaint in a

Natchez, Mississippi Natchez ( ) is the county seat of and only city in Adams County, Mississippi, United States. Natchez has a total population of 14,520 (as of the 2020 census). Located on the Mississippi River across from Vidalia in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, N ...

court claiming state complicity in the deaths of Henry Dee and Charles Moore. They were aided by Professor

Margaret Burnham Margaret A. Burnham (born December 28, 1944) is an American lawyer and academic who is a professor at the Northeastern University School of Law and the founder of the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project. She is a Senate-confirmed nomin ...

and the

Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project The Civil Rights Restorative Justice Project is an initiative by the Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts, to document every racially motivated killing in the Southern United States, American South between 1930 and 1970. Th ...

(CRRJ) at the

Northeastern University School of Law Northeastern University School of Law (NUSL) is the law school of Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded as an evening program to meet the needs of its local community, NUSL is nationally recognized for its cooperative legal ed ...

. The suit claims that in Franklin County in 1964, Sheriff Wayne Hutto and his chief deputy, Kirby Shell, conspired with the Klansmen who abducted and killed Dee and Moore. The plaintiffs sought a federal jury trial for civil damages. On June 21, 2010,

agreed to an undisclosed settlement in the civil suit with the families of Charles Moore and Henry Dee.

Awards

''Mississippi Cold Case'' has won several awards, including Best of Festival, at the prestigious Yorkton Film Festival in Canada. The film also won Best Social Political Documentary, Best Director (David Ridgen), Best Research (David Ridgen), and Best Editor (Michael Hannan) at Yorkton; the Investigative Reporters and Editor's (IRE) Top Medal for Investigative Journalism; the Canadian Association of Journalism Award for Best Investigative Report Open Television; Best Director at the Canadian Geminis; The English Television "Wilderness" Award for Best Documentary produced in 2007 by the CBC; a Bronze Plaque at the Columbus Festival; and a CINE Golden Eagle Award. The film was nominated for a 2008 Emmy Award for Feature Investigative Documentary.

References

External links

* * https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/u-s-governor-censored-news-release-photos-in-civil-rights-cold-case-1.672700 CBC Story * https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/accused-in-1964-mississippi-race-slayings-wrote-hate-letter-1.668898 CBC March 2007 * https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/national/25civil.html New York Times * https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/03/us/03civil.html?ei=5088&en=8617809676350bcc&ex=1328158800&partner=&pagewanted=all New York Times * http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2007/200701/20070125.html CBC Radio One - The Current * https://archive.today/20110524123354/http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/MediaNews/2007/02/10/3578634-sun.html Toronto Sun film review * http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/01/25/3446753-cp.html Canadian Press * https://www.thestar.com/article/175121 The Toronto Star * http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_6017304 Denver Post/Associated Press * http://www.eenvandaag.nl/index.php?module=PX_Story&func=view&cid=2&sid=32151 Dutch Television * http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1884442.ece

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...