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SKS Season 3: Episode Two- “The Wrong Body”

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

VOICE 1: On March 20^th…

VOICE 2: Run!

[Heavy breathing and running]

VOICE 1: Only one movie experience this year will make you afraid to breathe.

VOICE 3: You won’t survive.

VOICE 2: We have to try.

VOICE 1: A Quiet Place: Part II. In theatres March 20^th. Tickets on sale now.

[Music]

ANNOUNCER: This is a CBC podcast.

[Music]

THOMAS: What is this, just kind of like a town hall or something?

VOICE 1: This is the village hall, yes.

THOMAS: Oh. The village hall. Oh.

VOICE 1: Okay, you write down who it's to, and all that, from, all the good stuff.

THOMAS: 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 enclosed 9 pages of FBI investigation into the murder of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Dee.

RIDGEN: You just happened to be the town that we were going through at the time...

[Sighs]

RIDGEN: So what are we doing here Thomas?

THOMAS: We received a call of Neil Schiff from the 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, we told him that we have 9 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.

[Music]

ANGELINE: You are listening to Someone Knows Something from CBC Original Podcasts.

In Season 3, 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 Dee, who were killed by the Ku Klux Klan in 1964.

This is Episode 2: The Klansman.

[Music]

[Thunder crashing]

THOMAS: Hey David, come here, come on, come on. See where that storm is over there?

RIDGEN: 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 Mid-western sky.

THOMAS: That is Mississippi. That's, that’s where we are going to go. Final destination, Mississippi.

[Thunder crashes]

RIDGEN: 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 Mazie. He told me about growing up in Mississippi, driving a mule cart, and 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.

[Singing]

RIDGEN: 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.

[Singing]

THOMAS: I mean, as far as my feelings, I would never trust a white male down here. Never.

Music]

THOMAS: Right now, the only guy that's even close to that is Jerry Mitchell as far as I'm concerned. Because I don't know anybody else down here.

RIDGEN: We’d be going to visit Jerry Mitchell in Jackson in just a couple of weeks.

RIDGEN: When you were in the army, was that the first time that you were sort of exposed to white people? Like in terms of talking and having to live with them.

THOMAS: 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 the white and to respect them as individuals. My platoon sergeant in Vietnam, this guy, white guy-- He knew I was scared. First mission, he said “you scared?” I said “yup!” He went back and got a fifth of liquor, told me to have a drink. We was on a helicopter, going on a mission. So, they took care of you. I mean, I respect that.

RIDGEN: The Vietnam war was the first major conflict where US 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.

THOMAS: You know, see, I get the feeling sometime 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?

RIDGEN: 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.

THOMAS: There has not been any more tragic thing happen in Franklin County than that.

THOMAS: I think Franklin County is like them movies I've seen. Something like the secret of Franklin County. Finally, somebody come back and set the record straight.

RIDGEN: We're making that movie.

THOMAS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

RIDGEN: You're the star.

[Phone ringing]

THOMAS: If that's this guy...

RIDGEN: It's Neil Schiff

[Phone continues ringing]

RIDGEN: It’s the FBI calling. Hopefully the documents we faxed them have jogged their memories about the Dee and Moore case.

RIDGEN: Hello?

NEIL NEIL: David?

RIDGEN: Uh, yeah. Is this Mr. Schiff?

NEIL: It's Neil Schiff. You may call me Neil.

RIDGEN: OK. [Laughs] OK, Neil.

NEIL: How you doing? We've got Deborah Madden on the line from the Jackson FBI office, also.

DEBORAH MADDEN: Hi, David.

NEIL: 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 and the state.

RIDGEN: Right. But that's exactly what I need someone to tell me, is that there was an FBI investigation and now there is nothing going on with the case. I need someone officially--

NEIL: That would be the US Attorney to say that. And so, we recommend you go there.

RIDGEN: Do you know when they decided there was not enough evidence? Is this a decision from way back or just recently?

DEBORAH: The final word from the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice was in our file as recently as June of 2003. They concurred with the United States Attorney's office here.

RIDGEN: 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.

THOMAS: 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 on-- in the Homochitto National Forest.

DEBORAH: My understanding was there were allegations that it happened in two or three different locations,

THOMAS: How? Whatcha mean--?

DEBORAH: And there was never any provable evidence to determine factually at which location it occurred.

THOMAS: Well, the FBI report said that they was picked up in Franklin County and taken nearby to Homochitto 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, 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…

NEIL: You know, I'm not reading the thousand pages. I don't have time to do that. But whatever we did, we turned over to the Department of Justice US Attorney's office. And in this particular situation, it was decided that the case would be closed.

RIDGEN: Is it possible for us to talk to any of the original investigating agents?

NEIL: Well, that would be for you to go through the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, because there is no one around from 1965.

RIDGEN: OK. And how do I get in touch with that society?

NEIL: Yes. I'll give you a phone number.

RIDGEN: OK.

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 US Attorney in Jackson. A man who will become very important for this case later on.

DEBORAH: The sitting US Attorney at the moment is a gentleman by the name of Dunn. D-U-N-N. Lampton.

RIDGEN: 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 US Attorney Dunn Lampton.

RIDGEN: OK. And he would be the person in the decision-making process with regards to this case then, Dunn?

DEBORAH: It was his office that determined we did not have enough evidence to provide federal jurisdiction.

RIDGEN: It was actually Lampton’s predecessor Brad Pigott who did not move forward on a federal case in 2000.

[Phone ringing]

RECEPTIONIST: Pigott, Reese, Johnson and Minor.

RIDGEN: Later, I contacted former US Attorney Brad Pigott to ask him why the case did not proceed in 2000.

BRAD PIGOTT: I'm afraid that, while we looked into that during my tenure as US Attorney, my memory is very scarce on that particular case, and I really can't share any specifics for that reason.

RIDGEN: I see. Do you recall why it didn't go forward in 2000?

BRAD: No.

RIDGEN: Why the case didn't go forward.

BRAD: Very generally but not anything that I could disclose, no. Sorry.

RIDGEN: There must've been something that happened, right, that made it not go forward?

BRAD: I don’t recall.

RIDGEN: Maybe Pigott’s successor in the role of US Attorney, Dunn Lampton, would be more helpful.

Then again, maybe not.

[Music]

RIDGEN: I remember these early phone calls with FBI and other officials were like talking to characters from a Kafka novel, unselfconsciously 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.

RIDGEN: OK. Well, if I have any more questions, I hope I can call you back.

NEIL: Yes David, if you have any questions, you call me, and we'll see what we can do.

RIDGEN: Thanks very much, Neil. Thank you, Deborah.

DEBORAH: Have a good trip to Mississippi.

RIDGEN: 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.

RIDGEN: What did you think of that?

THOMAS: [Laughs] What did I make of that? What did I make of that?

So far since yesterday, we are continued to prove that Mississippi is backwards. That Mississippi is in total denial. Like he made a comment you know, “I ain't got time to read a thousand documents.” Well, maybe everybody else feel that way too.

[Music]

[Dialing]

RIDGEN: Hello there. This is a message for Dunn Lampton.

I make an appointment for us to see US Attorney Dunn Lampton the following week. And, on the evening of July 7th, 2005 we cross the Mississippi river at the small town of Vidalia, Louisiana, and arrive in Natchez, Mississippi.

[Music]

RIDGEN: 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 Dunleith 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.

[Music]

THOMAS: Did you watch the news this morning?

RIDGEN: What was it?

THOMAS: Well, big explosion in London and some Al-Qaeda outfit is claiming responsibility. They had several explosions-- Underground system, at least one double decker bus. They know they have casualties but it's too early to figure out how many. Tony Blair, he spoke, saying they was a bunch of cowards. George Bush also spoke and referenced to being a bunch of cowards. They staying their ground against Al-Qaeda. Here we are in the 21st century dealing with a network Al-Qaeda. There are some similarities in today's Al-Qaeda and the ‘60s KKK.

[Music]

RIDGEN: 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.

THOMAS: 18 miles down into Crackerville!

[Laughs]

RIDGEN: And, very early the first morning after our arrival we headed to Meadville, just a twenty-minute drive from Natchez, to start that process.

[Cars whooshing by]

RIDGEN: 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.

THOMAS: [Laughs] Hey, David. You know-- I bet half of Franklin County know that I'm in town. You know, it'd 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 of the truck. He'd probably jump out.

RIDGEN: But Charles Marcus Edwards does not drive by and we decide to move out of sight.

RIDGEN: Good. Let's go.

[Music]

RIDGEN: You stopped wearing your seatbelt as soon as we got into Mississippi.

THOMAS: I don't know why.

RIDGEN: Maybe that's what you're used to.

RIDGEN: 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.

[Door slamming]

JOE LEE ROLLINS: Mornin'. How you doin'?

THOMAS: Hey, hey, hey! Mr. Rollins, how you doing?

JOE LEE: I'm all good. So, what's happening?

THOMAS: This is my friend David Ridgen.

JOE LEE: David? How you doing, David? Nice to meet you, come on in.

THOMAS: Oh, man.

JOE LEE: Have a seat. I'll be with you guys in one minute. Hold on.

RIDGEN: Joe Lee Rollins is a friendly, thicker-set man, bald, gray beard, and glasses. Thomas was the best man at Joe Lee’s wedding, and, once we’re settled at Joe Lee’s kitchen table, the two slip into the easy shorthand of old friends for whom years apart are meaningless. Joe Lee was reportedly one of the last people to see Charles Moore and Henry Dee before they were picked up by the Klan on May 2^nd, 1964 in Meadville.

[Music]

JOE LEE: On Saturday, May the 2nd, I was doing some grocery shopping at Hollinger's store in Meadville, Mississippi, for my mother. And when I went into the store, I saw two of my classmates, Charles Moore and Henry Dee. And I think the thing they was getting out the store was everybody—

[Laughs]

JOE LEE: We had these big sodas, they were called Gut Busters, they was 16 ounces and we used to get one of them and, most of the time, a honey bun. That was our favourite thing, you know, a big soda and a honey bun. And that's what both of them had in their hand. So, we hung out outside the store for a few minutes, just kidding around because we were 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.

RIDGEN: Tell me a little bit about Charles and then tell me a bit about Henry. Just the kinds of things you remember about them.

JOE LEE: Charles was the type of guy, he would 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? The centre on the football team?

I think the biggest guy on our team was probably me, and I think I weighed, what, about 160 pounds then. And everybody had these big players, and we used to always run trick plays on 'em. And we used to cheat on the tests, just like everybody in school do. We had—we had that down so good, it wasn't even funny. The teachers couldn't even catch us doing that.

None of us that hung in the group, never really did anything to be in trouble with nobody.

Henry was a guy—He, I guess, by him going to Chicago every summer, he used to tell us he was city slick. So, he would have a lot of things that he would try to take advantage of us with, but we said, hey man, we country boys, you can't beat us, and stuff like that.

But you know, I never known Henry to be into any problems. Just a lot of fun. We all just did the normal things that kids would do.

RIDGEN: When Henry and Charles spotted Joe Lee at the store, Joe Lee says they asked him to give them a ride home.

JOE LEE: 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 a store on the other end of town.

And they said, “Well come on and drop us off at the fork.” I said, “I'd be more than glad to, but my father got me restricted with the car today. I can't go out of the city.” So they said, “Okay, drop us off at the store.”

So, when we got up to the store, I dropped them out, and they went across the street 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 I'd catch up with them later. Because, you know, we'd said we were going to hang out a bit later that Saturday night. And actually, that was the last time that I actually saw them.

RIDGEN: The gas station was just a short walk away from the Tastee-Freez, where Henry and Charles were ultimately picked up.

[Music]

RIDGEN: Tell me about how hitchhiking worked at that time.

JOE LEE: 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 that's-- you would jump in the car with anybody that would stop because it was a common thing. And most of the time you got into the car with someone that you knew. If it was a stranger, we didn't get in the car with them. So, I'm pretty sure whoever got them, they knew who it was.

RIDGEN: Joe-Lee estimates that he last saw Charles and Henry around 10 or 11 am.

JOE LEE: Once somebody was saying that Charles's mother had passed him and told him to wait. She would pick him up on the way back.

RIDGEN: Afterwards, Thomas confirmed this story, that his mother Mazie had been feeling ill and decided to head to the doctor that Saturday morning. Mazie saw her son Charles hitchhiking, but was going in the opposite direction to the doctor’s. She told Thomas she decided to pick Charles up on the way back.

JOE LEE: As a matter of fact, I talked to her and she said she wasn't gone 10 minutes, and when she got back, they were gone, both were gone. And she never seen or heard from them.

RIDGEN: But there’s one additional piece of information about Mazie, that Thomas hadn’t heard before.

JOE LEE: I think after they found them, I think somebody put a, some kind of a threat on her.

RIDGEN: So Mazie Moore told you that she had been threatened?

JOE LEE: Mm-hmm.

RIDGEN: OK. Now tell me about that.

JOE LEE: One day when I was working at the store, Ms. Mazie came in and she had did some shopping. And I was bagging up the groceries, I was also a bag boy in the store. I had bagged up the stuff and I had took it out to the car 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. She said that they had told her to not try and do anything about her son being missing. To just leave it alone. I told her, I said, “Well, mama, you might need to think about moving away from out there.”

JOE LEE: She said, “Boy, that's been my home. I ain't leaving my house.”

THOMAS: I didn't realize that perhaps that she had been threatened.

JOE LEE: Mm-hmm.

THOMAS: But you know, we never talked about that. That time back then, we didn't want to remember.

JOE LEE: I guess it was because it was like a shock.

THOMAS: Right. It was a shock. She made me promise her that I wouldn't do anything. That was the reason it took so long. So long.

JOE LEE: I know. I know.

[Music]

RIDGEN: We go back over the events of that day Saturday, May 2nd, 1964, and the following weeks to see if Joe Lee can remember any other details.

JOE LEE: I didn't realize anything had happened to them until several days later. I was at Junior Hunts place, that's where we kind of hung out, we played cards, we shot pool 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 Dee. Then my father gave them permission to talk to me, and we went outside and I sat in the back seat of they car and talked in there 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 a dark blue. They found Henry and Charles in the river. And they had weights or something on them and they'd been dropped into the riverbed. And it was reported that someone fishing had found them. I was quite upset, and it was a hard thing at such a young age in my life to have to deal with.

[Music]

JOE LEE: I want to say something, David. You know I got the same--

RIDGEN: Say exactly what you want.

JOE LEE: I got the same kind of problem with my sister.

RIDGEN: Joe Lee leaves the kitchen for a moment, then returns with a photo album. Showing me a time-worn picture of a young woman.

JOE LEE: This is a picture of my sister. She was killed in a 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 sons is not satisfied with what was told to them, and I know the rest of us is not satisfied with it either. So, we gonna look at this. We got some peoples working on opening up an investigation down in the state of Mississippi on this also.

RIDGEN: So, you guys have something in common, both. Seems like everybody's got somebody that's been killed or--

JOE LEE: Exactly! Exactly. You know, this is what happens when we were living down there in this small town and the type of shit that was going on.

THOMAS: We didn't know all this stuff was going on. Like we'd find out that Franklin County was just infested with them Klu Klux Klan.

JOE LEE: It was. It was. It was.

RIDGEN: You picked up the two boys and dropped them off. And you weren't able to take them onwards.

JOE LEE: Right, because my father had me on restrictions with his car that day, I couldn’t leave out of the city limits with his car.

I feel regret back then. I felt it then, I feel it now and I will, probably would when I lay down in my last time, I will probably take it with me when I die.

THOMAS: And that's OK to feel that way because I feel guilty about it. I feel guilty that me and mama didn't talk. We just-- just never talked about it.

[Music]

RIDGEN: I’ve 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.

[Knocking]

RIDGEN: 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.

THOMAS: Ms. Collins.

THELMA COLLINS: Yes. How you doing?

THOMAS: How you doing?

THELMA: Good. Fine.

RIDGEN: Thelma Collins is one of Henry Dee’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 twelve children and lost a brother to murder.

THOMAS: I see your face and you resemble Henry Dee.

THELMA: Oh, yeah.

THOMAS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

RIDGEN: There were no known pictures of Henry Dee at the time, but Thomas saw his face in every one of his family members that we would eventually track down.

[Music]

Henry Hezekiah Dee was born on January 8, 1945. He was raised in the rural village of Roxie, Mississippi by his grandmother after his mother Icyphine was deemed mentally ill and had to be committed to a psychiatric hospital.

THELMA: Henry Dee was a good boy. He went to school, he tend to his grandmother, ‘cause that was his pride and joy, his grandmother.

RIDGEN: Henry had travelled 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.

THELMA: And he never did bother nobody. He would smile, if you bring up conversation Henry would talk. But other than that, he would smile. That's the kind of person he was.

RIDGEN: What did he want to do when he got older? What were his aspirations? What did Henry want to be?

THELMA: He wanted to look after his grandmother. Work and take care of his grandmother is the main thing he had on his mind, was his grandmother. That was his pride and joy. ‘Cause she had him since he was a little baby. My mama, you know she lost her mind. So, she left five head of us. And they had to, the family, some of them took two and some one, like that to take care of us...

THOMAS: When did she die?

THELMA: She hadn't died.

THOMAS: She still livin’?

THELMA: My moms is livin’. But 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 her birthday. But she just-- she left us and most of us were like five-year-old, six and like that.

RIDGEN: In fact, as of July 2017, Icyphine is still alive, in her late 90s, institutionalized, and still has no idea her son Henry Dee was murdered.

RIDGEN: Do you still see your mother?

THELMA: Yeah. We get together for my birthday party this month.

RIDGEN: Where is she?

THELMA: She's in Jackson, Mississippi. She's in a home. She's doing fine. Yeah, it hurts.

RIDGEN: So, your mom does not know that her son Henry Dee is dead.

THELMA: She don't know it yet. She don't even know her husband passed. We hadn't told her that.

RIDGEN: Henry Dee graduated high school in 1963. Afterward, he worked at the Haltom Lumber Company in Roxie, and on the day he was murdered, according to those who last saw him, he was on his way there to pick up his pay cheque. 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 rumours 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, Mazie Moore, Thomas’s mother, looked into the rumour on her own.

THOMAS: Mama came down here to visit you. Didn't she?

THELMA: Yeah, your mother came to my house and she told me, and that's when I found it out. She told me, she said, "Is my son and you brother here?' I said “No, they not here.” She said “they supposed to be. They came down here to get a job.” I said “no, they not here.” She said, “Lord have mercy. I don't know.” She said, “The boys come up missing and we don't know where they is.”

THOMAS: So, you didn't know that they were missing till mama came out?

THELMA: I didn't know they were missing till 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. It really hurt. It just hurt. I can't say how bad it hurt, but it hurts.

THELMA: ‘Cause like, right now it's killing me to talk about it. It hurts, but we have to go on. You know? Never.

RIDGEN: 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: Thomas Moore is doing a wonderful job and I appreciate him, and I thank him, because nobody else had picked it up. It was a dead case. Forgotten. They was just murdered and forgotten.

[Music]

[Crickets chirping and footsteps]

VOICE 1: On March 20^th…

VOICE 2: Run!

[Heavy breathing and running]

VOICE 1: ..only one movie experience this year will make you afraid to breathe.

VOICE 3: You won’t survive.

VOICE 2: We have to try.

VOICE 1: A Quiet Place: Part II. In theatres March 20^th. Tickets on sale now.

THOMAS: So, you got catfish, right?

SERVER: Yes.

THOMAS: You want a grilled cheese.

RIDGEN: You think the catfish is better?

THOMAS: I know it's better. You can get some grilled cheese at this-- this my friend from Canada.

RIDGEN: Back in Mississippi, Thomas and I visit Della Mae’s restaurant, a drive-in greasy spoon located at the entrance to Meadville.

THOMAS: He's from Canada. He don't know about all this, right?

SERVER: He don't know what fish is?

THOMAS: He know what fish is, but he doesn't know catfish.

SERVER: Lettuce and tomato. You want lettuce and tomato on your--

RIDGEN: No tomato.

SERVER: No tomato. OK!

[Laughs]

THOMAS: You can put lettuce and tomato on mine. I don't care. That's all right with me. Jesus Christ!

RIDGEN: Catfish and grilled cheese aside, our visit to the small restaurant at the entrance to Meadville was about more than sandwiches.

THOMAS: This is the ice parlor, they called it at that time the Tastee-Freez, that's mentioned in the reports.

THOMAS: The place where Charles Moore and Henry Dee was picked up.

RIDGEN: Just up the road is the gas station where Joe Lee Rollins last saw Dee and Moore. It’s easy to picture them walking in this direction, looking for a ride out of town.

THOMAS: On the morning of the 2nd of May, Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Dee was hitchhiking from this spot. They were picked up by a member of the Klu Klux Klan, the KKK, driven into the Homochitto National Forest, where they were beaten with bean sticks till they were unconscious.

RIDGEN: We drove into the forest, mostly towering pines with a few hardwoods, and stopped almost randomly at a dead-end overgrown road.

RIDGEN: Did you ever use to come here, when you were younger?

THOMAS: No.

RIDGEN: It's sort of like a National Park.

THOMAS: Well, blacks didn't hang around this kinda shit. Because it was predominantly white ruled, you know.

RIDGEN: What, you weren't allowed to come in here?

THOMAS: Well you just, nobody ever told you you couldn't come in. But you just didn't do no shit like that.

RIDGEN: 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 “beansticks.” Slender stripped new branches.

THOMAS: Just imagine a person tied to a tree, tape over the mouth, legs tied to the tree, probably a rope around their neck. And...

[Whipping]

THOMAS: And hitting like this the body.

[Music]

THOMAS: They, they, they-- they beat them unconscious, and wrapped their bodies in tarps so they wouldn't get fucking blood in the car. Like their goddamn car was more important than these two guys who they just beat the damn hell out of. But they want to protect their little fucking car.

RIDGEN: After being beaten bloody and unconscious, Dee and Moore were taken to Clyde Seale’s farm in the Bunkley Community deep within the Homochitto National Forest. From there, a phone call was made using the codeword KIWU, meaning “Klansmen I Want You.” Jack Seale and Ernest Parker drove from Natchez in Parker’s red Ford Galaxie to answer the coded Klan call for help. Jack Seale was James’s older brother and Clyde’s son. He was the Nighthawk of his local Klavern. Ex-Navy and a garbageman 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 Dee and Moore’s remains were found. After Parker and Jack Seale arrived at Clyde Seale’s farm in Bunkley, according to the FBI report, James Seale taped Dee and Moore’s mouths 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 Homochitto Forest on the Bunkley Road towards Meadville, Thomas reflected.

THOMAS: It's been 37-38 years since I travelled this particular road. I see things that flashing back in my memories, like certain things on the side of the road, certain curves, certain heel. And it make 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, eventually kill Charles Moore and Henry Dee. I'm sure they were beggin' for their life. Hollering, crying, praying, some time it makes you wonder. Some time it makes you wonder. How can a person like that survive? If the report is true, they took Charles Moore and Henry Dee up into the Tallulah, Louisiana area. This is the highway they had to travel because this is the only way you come across the Mississippi River in Natchez. So this has to be the road that they travelled. So here we go.

[Music]

THOMAS: I've never been here. Probably always wanted to come over, but it's my first time getting an opportunity to come into this place.

SFX - Birds bugs and walking to the old Mississippi

RIDGEN: As we grew closer to the kill site, Thomas became taciturn and irritable.

THOMAS: I don’t know. Probably sad, I’m sad.

[Music]

RIDGEN: Eventually we arrive at the place where Dee and 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.

THOMAS: He coming this way.

RIDGEN: That's okay. We'll tell him exactly what we're doing here.

PARKER: How you doing?

THOMAS: How you doing?

RIDGEN: 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, JN-30, the Klansmen were surprised to find that Dee and Moore had survived the journey from the Homochitto 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 Willy’s Army Jeep engine. Henry Dee was attached to some old train rails and fly-wheels. Jack Seale, James Ford Seale’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 Dee first, followed by Charles, and thrown overboard while still alive.

[Music]

THOMAS: 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 Dee were brought and prepared and tossed over into the Mississippi River.

[Music]

THOMAS: According to the reports, they were still alive.

THOMAS: [Sighs] Well my feeling's pretty mad, pretty angry. I just talked to a Parker and he said—he was nice talking guy. He coulda told us get the hell off, but he told us to go and do what we gotta do. We didn't see a posted sign. But it's a grim site, knowing this is probably the last minutes, seconds that Charles Moore and Henry Dee were on this face of this earth alive. And it's a goddamn shame. And I plan to do something about it.

THOMAS: And these little towns, like Roxie. That's a little old town. They have one red light in there. So, you talkin' about rural. This is rural Mississippi. You see how dead those trees are around there? They spray that insecticide on that to kill the tree.

RIDGEN: 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.

THOMAS: Office of the district attorney Ronnie Harper right here.

RIDGEN: Oh!

If the Dee-Moore case is to be taken up by a state level official, Ronnie Harper would be the one to do it.

[Door slams]

SECRETARY: Hello?

THOMAS: Hello. My name is Thomas Moore and I'm here to see attorney Ronnie Harper.

RONNIE HARPER: Sergeant. How you been, man?

THOMAS: Retired!

RONNIE: It's been a long time. You look good. Come on in.

[Door shuts]

RIDGEN: 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.

RIDGEN: So Mr. Harper, just introduce yourself.

RONNIE: My name is Ronnie Harper. I'm the district attorney for the 6th circuit court district in Mississippi which would include Adams, Franklin, Wilkinson, Amite County in the southeast, southwest corner of the state.

THOMAS: Well, here I am again.

RONNIE: I know you are and we're still trying. That's all I can tell you at this point.

THOMAS: You know, 1998 I came over and then the Connie Chung thing. I think I talk to you once or twice.

RONNIE: I think we did talk once. We've talked several times.

THOMAS: And of course, Ernest Gilbert died.

RONNIE: The one from Baton Rouge?

THOMAS: Right. From Louisiana. He was the one that said that they called him that night.

RIDGEN: 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.

KLANSMAN: A little later on, folks. We will have the burning of the cross. But right at this time, I would like to introduce now, a good friend from Mississippi, Mr. Ernest Gilbert.

[Applause]

ERNEST GILBERT: Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. 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.

RIDGEN: 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 Dee and Moore. Gilbert would supply the FBI with information about the Klan and their activities.

ERNEST: The black man, he is determined to cut the throat of the white man, and crawl into bed with the white man’s wife.

RIDGEN: For example, he assisted with the MIBURN case, identified the manufacturer of Klan robes, talked about Klan meetings, furnished the identities and roles of numerous Klansmen in over 12 Klaverns and 200 members including the activities of Sam Bowers the Imperial Wizard, and he also provided information about key pieces of the Dee-Moore case. Gilbert was confidential informant JN-30, the informant from which much of the information from our 9-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 Dee 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 Dee-Moore case did not move forward at that time and Ernest Gilbert has since died.

ERNEST: Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you very much.

[Applause]

RIDGEN: Back to Ronnie Harper.

RONNIE: This is basically an unsolved murder case. An open investigation. There were never any formal arrests, never any indictments returned, never any trial. So, you've got none of that. You 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. Hopefully get more information because obviously, I think we've talked about this before, I mean-- There was an extensive investigation into this case. There was a voluminous file.

THOMAS: You mean during that time?

RONNIE: During the time.

THOMAS: Yeah. Absolutely.

RONNIE: The FBI did it extensively. But even then, they didn't feel confident that they had enough evidence to file formal charges.

THOMAS: Well, you know they arrested those two guys?

RONNIE: They were arrested by the justice court in November and dismissed in January. There were never any hearings. I think they took them and 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. I've been around a lot of investigations; I've never seen an investigation as thorough as they tried to do that one. And the final analysis, they didn’t feel confident, even in federal court, apparently, that they could prevail, because they didn't file any charges.

RIDGEN: 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.

RONNIE: I initially requested a file from them at the beginning. And they wrote me back and told 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 that they did have a file on microfiche in Washington.

RIDGEN: This reporter was Jerry Mitchell at the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, someone Thomas and I will soon be visiting.

RONNIE: 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 gonna prosecute it. And I've tried to get assistance in getting it investigated. The district attorney’s offices is not really charged with investigating. We have to rely on the law enforcement agencies to do the investigations, but the biggest hurdles we had was 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. You know, I don’t know what to tell you.

THOMAS: I think we're running out of time.

RONNIE: Well, time of course, time, time is a problem.

THOMAS: Yeah, I think we're running out of time. I mean, 10 years ago, 9 years ago. I don't know.

RONNIE: All I can tell you is that I am trying to make sure that it moves as rapidly as it can move.

THOMAS: So, what you are telling me is that the case is still open?

RONNIE: Oh, absolutely. Of course, I can't speak for what the federal attorney will do.

THOMAS: No, I mean from you. From you.

RONNIE: Absolutely. I have never indicated that, you know, that we wouldn't do anything. Of course, I'm not an investigator. But as far as I'm concerned, the investigation is still ongoing. Yes. If that's your question to me.

THOMAS: So, I will stay in touch with you and periodically we'll talk about, “Hey, whatcha got?”

RONNIE: Absolutely.

THOMAS: If I come up with something, I'm looking at trying to get something going on my side as far as investigative work.

RONNIE: You may find out something law enforcement can't.

THOMAS: Well, that's what I'm hoping to do. I’m hoping to do some of that down here.

RONNIE: I know they talked to a lot of people back during that time. Some of the probably still livin', some of them not.

THOMAS: Right.

RONNIE: But it was apparent to me that a lot of those people were hesitant to talk out of fear or whatever. That may talk to you now that still may not talk to law enforcement.

THOMAS: Right. Right, whatever it takes. I mean, that's just the least I can do.

RIDGEN: 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.

THOMAS: We talked about the condition of the bodies. He told me that, later on, navy divers went down and there was skeleton. Partial skeletons still attached to parts of the engine block. I asked him, well, how was Henry Dee identified? He said well, Henry Dee had identification in his pocket. And 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 the time was JD Boyd, and he wrote this letter to Charles Moore. And it says, from the office of the president, Alcorn college. To Mr. Charles E Moore…“Dear student, you have been suspended from for conduct on the campus unbecoming of a student.” Now, according to Ronnie 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. Had it not been for this, he'd've been in College. The bottom line.

RIDGEN: 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 have 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 JD Boyd.

RIDGEN: 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 in Natchez, now back to Franklin County. Near Roxie, Mississipi, we stop in at what was then a BP gas station for a “snack,” Thomas’s euphemism for boiled peanuts or a massive sandwich. I generally stuck to fruit bars and cereal, being a vegetarian, much to Thomas’s needling and laughter. Thomas went inside to pay and came back to the van with an old friend of his, a cousin, actually. A man by the name of Kenny Byrd, who was wearing a straw hat and great blue coveralls with his name embroidered on the left breast.

KENNY BYRD: The name is Kenny Byrd.

THOMAS: Kenny Byrd.

KENNY: Yeah.

RIDGEN: And what's your story, Kenny?

Kenny Byrd’s story was about to change the entire course of our investigation.

THOMAS: Well, he-- he says he know where James Seale live at.

KENNY: Right there.

THOMAS: Right here.

[Laughs]

RIDGEN: James Ford Seale, who was supposed to be dead. Seale was the Klansman who had reportedly assisted with the pickup, whipping and murder of Dee and Moore. He’d also been arrested but then released along with Charles Marcus Edwards back in November 1964.

RIDGEN: Where does James Seale live?

KENNY: Right there, just right there. See that opening between those pine trees right there.

THOMAS: Yeah.

KENNY: Yeah.

RIDGEN: Hang on. Let me get out and get a shot of this.

KENNY: See that opening right there to the right down there? It's a mobile home.

THOMAS: Yup.

KENNY: One of them motor homes.

THOMAS: That, that-- that you can drive cross country.

KENNY: Yeah. Right.

RIDGEN: How-- how do you know he lives there?

THOMAS: Well, he live here.

KENNY: I stay here.

THOMAS: He lives here.

[Laughs]

KENNY: James Seale lives right down there.

THOMAS: And this is the guy that supposed to have been the torture guy.

KENNY: Right.

THOMAS: So, the-- the trailer sitting right there.

KENNY: Yeah. Come on. Come on. I'll show you all.

[Car door slams]

[Music]

ANGELINE: You have been listening to Episode 2: The Klansman.

Visit CBC.ca/SKS to see pictures of Thomas Moore in Vietnam, James Ford Seale, 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 Oke, Steph Kampf, Amil Delic, Eunice Kim and Executive Producer Arif Noorani, and mixed by Cesil Fernandes. Our theme song is “Terrorized” by Willie King.

[Theme music plays]

ANNOUNCER: For more CBC original podcasts, go to CBC.ca/originalpodcasts.

TRANSCRIPT: Someone Knows Something - Season 3, EP 2

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