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This FBI file concerns Edgar Ray Killen, a White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan recruiter, and the 1964 murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman near Philadelphia, Mississippi. The records describe the original FBI investigation, code named MIBURN, and the FBI's reopening of the matter in 2004 at the request of the Mississippi Attorney General to assist a state murder prosecution. They include a September 2004 case-opening memorandum, background summaries of the 1964 investigation and 1967 federal civil-rights trial, correspondence and document transfers, and 2005 contractor invoices for witness interviews and trial assistance. A September 2005 report states that the FBI provided evidence and supplemental investigative support to state and local prosecutors because federal civil-rights charges were time-barred; later property records reflect consensual monitoring materials entered in 2012.

FBI file number: 44A-JN-30292 | Documents span: 1964-2012 | Released in 2 parts
Names in this file: Edgar Ray Killen, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, Sam Bowers, Cecil R. Price, Billy Wayne Posey, Alton Wayne Roberts, Jimmy Arledge, Horace D. Barnette, Jimmy Snowden, Jim Hood
Subjects: civil rights murders, MIBURN, Ku Klux Klan, Mississippi, state prosecution, FBI investigation