Reputed Klansman Denied Bond In 1964 Case

Bond was denied Monday to James Ford Seale, a reputed Ku Klux Klansman facing kidnapping charges tied to the 1964 slayings of two black teenagers in Mississippi.

Seale, 71, has been jailed since his arrest by federal authorities last Wednesday. He has pleaded not guilty to three charges of kidnapping and conspiracy.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Linda R. Anderson ruled during Monday's bond hearing in Jackson that Seale was a flight risk because he has no job or property, is a pilot and lives in a motor home.

Prosecutors say Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee, both 19, were seized and beaten by Klansmen in southwest Mississippi on May 2, 1964, then thrown into the Mississippi River to drown. Their bodies were found about two months later.

Seale, of the tiny Mississippi town of Roxie, told the court that he suffers from cancer and other ailments.

Seale's court-appointed public defenders had requested the bond hearing. They also filed a motion on Friday asking to have the charges dismissed. Seale's trial is set to start April 2, though that could be moved to a later date.

At his arraignment, Seale was shackled at the ankles and wrists and wore an orange jail jumpsuit, white socks and mismatched flip-flop sandals — one orange, the other yellow — as he appeared before Anderson.

Anderson asked Seale if he understood the charges, which carry sentences of up to life in prison.

"Yes, ma'am, I think so," Seale said in a calm voice.

The indictment alleges that Klansmen took Moore and Dee, both 19, to the Homochitto National Forest in southwestern Mississippi. Seale held a sawed-off shotgun on the men while other Klan members beat them with switches and tree branches, it said.

The teenagers were still alive when they were weighted down and dumped into the Mississippi River, the indictment said.

A second white man long suspected in the attack on Dee and Moore, reputed KKK member Charles Marcus Edwards, 72, has not been charged. People close to the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity said Edwards was cooperating with authorities.

The second suspect, church deacon and reputed KKK member Charles Marcus Edwards, now 72, was not charged. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales declined to explain why or to say whether Edwards had agreed to testify against Seale. Sources close to the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity have said Edwards was cooperating with authorities.

"Forty years ago, the system failed," said FBI Director Robert Mueller, who joined Gonzales and siblings of the victims at a news conference in Washington. "We in the FBI have a responsibility to investigate these cold case, civil rights-era murders where evidence still exists to bring both closure and justice to these cases that for many, remain unhealed wounds to this day."