State Attorney General Jim Hood says the "Mississippi Burning" case is now officially closed, after decades of investigation, and a single manslaughter conviction. It was 52 years ago today, civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were murdered in Neshoba County. MPB's Mark Rigsby reports.
Hood says investigators have exhausted all avenues in the murder case of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County in June of 1964.
"I have really been impressed by how those people sacrificed. I think all to the good of our state, because once justice has been served people will know we did all we could do," says Hood.
He says there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute the two surviving suspects, Jimmy Lee Townsend and James Harris.
"So we know there was some support there for them to be charged with involvement in this, but in the end those witnesses are now deceased, and we couldn't get a new witness to come forward," says Hood.
In 2005, white supremacist Edgar Ray Killen was found guilty of manslaughter for orchestrating the killings. Now 91 years old, he's serving 60 years in prison.
"I suspect those who have passed on have had to justify to our maker their roll in these murders. And so, their judgement day has come, and some as yet to come," says Hood.
The U.S. Department of Justice has released a 48-page summary of the decades-long investigation. Hood says if new information surfaces the case would be reopened.
