Bio

Edgar Ray Killen was born on January 17, 1925, in Mississippi. He later became known by the nickname “Preacher” because he worked as a part-time Baptist minister. Killen also worked as a sawmill operator. During the civil rights era, he became involved with the Ku Klux Klan and served as an organizer and recruiter in Mississippi. His role in the Klan later became central to the case against him.

By 1964, Killen was connected to Klan activity in Neshoba County and nearby areas. He was not known as a public official, but he had influence among local Klansmen and helped organize people for Klan actions.

Before the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, Killen was involved in segregationist and white supremacist activity. His known criminal case centers on the June 21, 1964 killings of the three civil rights workers during Freedom Summer.

Murder Story

On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers disappeared in Mississippi. They were James Chaney, a 21-year-old Black Mississippian from Meridian, and Andrew Goodman, 20, and Michael Schwerner, 24, two Jewish civil rights volunteers from New York. The three men were working during Freedom Summer, a campaign focused on voting rights and civil rights for Black residents in Mississippi. They had gone to Neshoba County to investigate the burning of a Black church.

That day, Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were stopped and jailed in Philadelphia, Mississippi. After they were released from jail later that night, they were followed by a group of Klansmen. The men were forced off the road and taken to a remote location. They were shot and killed. Their bodies were later buried in an earthen dam. The disappearance led to a major FBI investigation known as “Mississippi Burning.”

Killen was accused of helping organize the group involved in the killings. He was not convicted as the shooter, but prosecutors later argued that he helped plan and arrange the mob that carried out the murders. In 1967, Killen was tried in federal court with other men accused in the case. Several defendants were convicted of violating the victims’ civil rights, but the jury could not reach a verdict on Killen. One juror refused to convict him because he was a preacher, and Killen was not retried at that time.

For decades, Killen remained free. The case was later reopened after renewed public pressure, investigative reporting, and new attention to civil rights-era killings. On January 6, 2005, Killen was arrested and charged in Mississippi state court. His trial began in June 2005. Prosecutors charged him with murder, but the jury found him guilty of three counts of manslaughter instead. The verdict came on June 21, 2005, exactly 41 years after Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were killed.

On June 23, 2005, Killen was sentenced to 60 years in prison. He received 20 years for each victim, with the sentences ordered to run consecutively. Killen appealed, but the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld his conviction and sentence in 2007. He remained in prison until his death.

Edgar Ray Killen died in prison on January 11, 2018. He was 92 years old. His case remains one of the best-known prosecutions from the civil rights era and is connected to the murders that became widely known through the FBI case name “Mississippi Burning.”