Cold case: The murder of Louis Allen

(CBS News) 

Five years ago, the FBI announced that it was reopening more than 100 unsolved murder cases from the civil rights era of the 1950s and 60s. The goal of the "Cold Case Initiative" was to try and mete out justice in what seemed to be racially motivated killings that were never prosecuted.

Not many 50-year-old cold cases ever get solved - memories fade, evidence is lost, witnesses and suspects die or disappear. But that's not the case in the death of Louis allen, a mostly forgotten, but historically significant murder that helped bring thousands of white college students to Mississippi in the Freedom Summer of 1964.

Reporting on an unsolved murder
Forty seven years after the murder of Louis Allen, "60 Minutes" goes to Liberty, Miss. in search of his killer.

The murder is still unsolved, but the case has never quite gone away, because the chief suspect is very much alive and walking the streets of a town called Liberty.

Liberty, Miss. is a small rural logging town not far from the Louisiana border. The FBI believes that some people there have been keeping a dark secret for nearly 50 years, from one of the ugliest periods in the state's history.

It was a time when civil rights activists were beaten and arrested, when state, and local politics were controlled by all-white citizens' councils, and when people like Louis Allen were murdered in cold blood and without redress.

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Got a tip or information about the Louis Allen case or any other civil rights era cold case? Send us an e-mail at [e-mail].

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Cynthia Deitle, a 15-year veteran of the FBI's civil rights division, was, until a few weeks ago, in charge of the Cold Case Initiative. She keeps a photo of Allen on her desk.

Asked why, she told "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft, "The case bothers me. I feel like we failed, and not just the FBI, but law enforcement."

Of the 100 unsolved racially motivated murders she has been charged with investigating, none has been more promising or frustrating than Allen's.

"Somebody knows something. Some husband came home with bloody clothing. Someone got drunk in a bar and said what he was doing last night. Someone knows something," Deitle said.

But in the early 1960s, people in and around Liberty knew to keep their mouths shut. A violent chapter of the Ku Klux Klan used cross burnings, abductions and murder to enforce the doctrine of white supremacy and to intimidate the black population, most of which lived in shacks with no electricity or plumbing, and were not allowed to vote.

Extra: Will this case be solved?
Extra: His father's murder
Extra: News of the murder

Civil rights leaders like Robert Moses, who came south to help them register, were frequently the target of violence.

"Liberty was not a place that I liked to go," Moses remembered.

Asked why, he told Kroft, "Because it was a place where you weren't safe if you were doing voter registration work."

It was in Liberty that Moses met Louis Allen, a rough-hewn World War II veteran who walked proud and was not afraid to stand up for himself. He ran a small timber business, was one of the few blacks in Liberty to own his own land, and always wore a hat, which he considered a sign of self-respect.

He was not the type to seek out trouble - Robert Moses says it found him.

"He was at the wrong place at the wrong time. He saw something that happened and he was deeply disturbed and affected by that. And so he had a basic life decision to make," Moses explained.

On Sept. 25, 1961, Allen was walking past an old cotton gin when he saw something that likely got him killed.

Produced by Graham Messick and Sumi Aggarwal

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[ceolwulf]

When I watched this yesterday, they mentioned at the very end that there was no actual physical evidence linking Daniel Jones to the murder. Am I the only one who thinks it's irresponsible to harass an elderly man and drag his name through the mud on national television when there's no actual physical evidence linking him to the crime?

I hope Daniel Jones and his family are allowed to live in peace after this smear piece by CBS, and I hope this irresponsible reporting doesn't cause them any problems.

[DidHeSayThat]

I didn't realize the FBI has solved all the cases that went on last week or last year.

[Intrepid_Iconoclast]

When an ex-sheriff is still living in Podunk, AL, and is still resenting others for their 'book smarts', you can say he has already been sentenced for life to self-made poverty.

[SandmanUSMC]

Let's hope SOMEONE in Liberty Mississippi has a CONSCIENCE enough GUTS to bring murderers to justice once and for all. Until then, the people of Liberty, Mississippi must live with this bloody skeleton in their closet.

[mike_hersh]

test1

[GloriousAmerica]

The black folks in Liberty, MS, are a decent lot. A true Christian breed to have not sought revenge of the same kind. That Mr. Jones has not been found crippled, with missing limbs, castrated, or dead is amazing.

[newmark3]

by Jehovahjireh773572 you are 100% right, God is dealing with the evil satanic people who forefathers did these demonic acts on man kind, white and black people were killed doing these evil times. the peole who did these killings, they are ALL burning in Hell. So even if they are not serving justice on earth they will be dealt with when they leave this earth. The sad thing about this is we still have racism going on in the world and the ignorant that it entail is SAD. Because these people will lose there soul, and there are evil and blind.

[bundye]

Thanks for bringing this to light...prayerfully this will be solved with justice.

[Reality-Checker]

I think it's totally appropriate to keep the case open and keep pursuing it. This man was working to help people use their constitutional rights. This man also was employed as a soldier and fought for rights of people who hated him over something he couldn't change. He was valaint and I wish I could see and meet a million just like him. He lived an extraordinary life and thats why his death was extraordinary. He died fighting for something good.

The enemies of the US constitution are sometimes terrorists who live next to you committing atrocities against our way of life. I am tired of the double standard that leads readers to believe that all terrorists live outside our country's boundaries.

The south is filled with loud mouths and terrorists who oppress and brag about their ignorance. It isn't a glorious lack of sophistication, it's ignorance and when a crime is involved, it should never be ignored.

[skoni655]

This was and is common behavior in these wonderful United States of America. If the mislead gang members would do some good and transfer their agression to these type of lawless criminal miscreants that killat will and exact justice from them instead of on thier own brothers that might make these killers stop and think before they act. Are you reading and listening Bloods & Crips, learn to read, write, and make and follow plans. Stop harming your own and start looking to help the FBI get rid of some of these unprosecuted criminals that remain around freely walking around on this GODS earthskinning & grinning and feeling NO remorse out in the open, in plain SIGHT!Let's all remember Hoover(plus)FBI =KKK they turned this man in to be killed by the local GRAND WIZARDS, DRAGONS,& Illiterates of the backwoods, masquerading as officers of the law instead of what they were. Cowardly, ignorant, imbeciles.