Ex-Klan Leader Freed for 1964 Killings Appeal

Former Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen was released from jail Friday on a $600,000 bond while he appeals his manslaughter convictions and 60-year sentence in the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers.

Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon said he was convinced by testimony that Killen, who is 80 and uses a wheelchair, was neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community.

“It’s not a matter of what I feel, its a matter of the law,” Gordon said, citing previous cases that were appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Killen refused to answer questions as he got into a car with family members.

He was convicted June 21 of masterminding the 1964 slayings of civil rights workers Michael H. Schwerner, James E. Chaney and Andrew Goodman. His conviction came 41 years to the day after the trio was mobbed and killed by Klansmen.

Jacob Ray, a spokesman for state Atty. Gen. Jim Hood, said the office was considering appealing Gordon’s decision to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

During the hearing Friday, a black jailer testified that he had felt threatened by Killen when booking him into jail after his conviction.

Kenny Spencer said that when Killen was asked a standard question for new inmates -- whether he was suicidal -- Killen told him, “I would kill you before I killed myself.”

Killen, who did not testify at his trial, said at the hearing that he did not remember making the statement and that if he had, it should not have been taken seriously. “Oh, it’d have to be joking,” Killen said. “I don’t do those things.”

Killen is the only person to ever face state charges in the three deaths, which shocked the nation and helped spur passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The three civil rights workers, all in the their 20s, were investigating the burning of a black church outside Philadelphia. Witnesses said Killen rounded up carloads of Klansmen to intercept the three men upon their release and helped arrange for a bulldozer to hide their bodies.