Reputed Klansman gets life in teen deaths
CBC filmmaker helped bring about conviction in 1964 slayings of two blacks in Mississippi
Aug 25, 2007 04:30 AM
Emily Wagster Pettus
ASSOCIATED PRESS
JACKSON, Miss.–James Ford Seale, a reputed Ku Klux Klansman found with the help of a CBC documentary maker, was sentenced yesterday to three life terms for his role in the 1964 slayings of two black teenagers in Mississippi.
Seale, 72, was convicted in June on federal charges of kidnapping and conspiracy in the deaths of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee, 19-year-olds who disappeared from Franklin County on May 2, 1964.
Their bodies were found more than two months later in a backwater of the Mississippi River.
Seale, who has cancer and other health problems, showed no emotion as U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate read his sentence and answered "No" when asked if he had anything to say.
Wingate told Seale the crimes committed 43 years ago were "horrific" and "justice itself is ageless."
Wingate denied a defence motion to allow Seale to go free on bond pending appeal, notice of which was filed by public defender Kathy Nester.
"Mr. Seale maintains his innocence to this crime," Nester said.
Seale was first arrested in 1964 on a state murder charge that was later dropped. Federal prosecutors say that happened because local law enforcement officers were at the time colluding with the Klan.
The prosecutors revived the case in 2005, largely at the urging of Moore's older brother, Thomas Moore, who, with CBC producer David Ridgen, found and had a brief confrontation with Seale, who had been reported as dead by several newspapers.
Thomas Moore read a statement directed at Seale: "I hope you perhaps spend the rest of your natural life in prison thinking of what you did to Charles Moore and Henry Dee and how you ran for a long time but you got caught," he said.
"I hope the spirit of Charles and Henry come to your cell every night and visit with you to teach you what is meant by love of your fellow man."
Ridgen said in an interview he feels proud of his involvement in Seale's jailing. "It feels good to be responsible ...," he said from his Arnprior, Ont., home.
"I would say 75 to 80 per cent of the evidence ... was brought up through the production of the film," Mississippi Cold Case, which aired this year on CBC-TV.
A Klansman who received immunity for testifying told court Seale and others abducted Dee and Moore near Meadville, forced them into the trunk of Seale's Volkswagen, drove them to a farm, tied them up and drove them across the Mississippi River into Louisiana.
He said Seale told him that heavy weights were attached to the teenagers and they were then dumped alive into the river.
With files from Canadian Press
