Relative of Defendant Testifies in Bomb Trial

A granddaughter of the former Klansman on trial in a 1963 church bombing that killed four black girls testified Friday that he had once crudely boasted about the attack.

Teresa Stacy of Keller, Texas, took the stand as prosecutors neared the end of their murder case against Bobby Frank Cherry, 71. The defense will begin presenting its case today.

Cherry is accused of helping plant the bomb that exploded outside the 16th Street Baptist Church in the deadliest attack against the civil rights movement.

Stacy testified that Cherry bragged about the bombing one day while sitting on the porch of his home in East Texas.

“He said he helped blow up a bunch of niggers back in Birmingham,” said Stacy, who said she was between 9 and 11 at the time and is now in her late 40s. “He seemed rather jovial, braggish.”

Cherry stared at Stacy as she took the stand. He described her as a “dope head” and prostitute in a 1999 interview.

Defense lawyer Mickey Johnson tried to damage the credibility of Stacy, who admitted on cross-examination that she started doing drugs at age 12 and was in rehabilitation by age 13.

“Cocaine was my drug of choice,” she said.

Stacy said she also is a recovering alcoholic and confirmed that she threatened to quit assisting the FBI unless agents helped secure a reduced prison sentence for her brother, who is behind bars for an undisclosed reason.

Stacy is the daughter of Tom Cherry, who has publicly contradicted one of his father’s alibis for the bombing. It was unclear whether Tom Cherry will testify.

Bobby Frank Cherry is accused of being part of a group of Ku Klux Klansmen who detonated a bomb outside the church on a Sunday morning the weekend after Birmingham’s public schools were racially integrated for the first time.