Bond denied reputed Klansman in alleged kidnapping in 1964
Published 7:40 pm Tuesday, January 30, 2007
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.
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.