Mugshot of Edgar Ray Killen, Arrested for Civil Rights Murder
Artist
American (American)
;
American (New Mexico) (American)
Date
December 7, 1964Medium
PhotographDimensions
Sheet : 5 x 4 in. (12.7 x 10.16 cm)Credit Line
Hope College CollectionObject Number
2020.35
Label
Edgar Ray Killen was an ordained Baptist minister and Ku Klux Klan organizer who orchestrated the murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in Neshoba County, Mississippi on June 21, 1964. After state officials declined to charge Killen for the murders, he was arrested by the FBI and charged with civil rights violations. His trial ended in a hung jury after one juror refused to convict him because he was a minister. Forty-one years later, in 2005, the State of Mississippi reopened the case and put Killen on trial once again. This time he was convicted of three counts of manslaughter and was sentenced to 60 years in prison. Killen died in the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman in 2018 at the age of 92.
