JACKSON, Miss. — Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee have been dead for more than four decades. James Ford Seale looks every minute of his 72 years. But as the judge in Seale's case told him Friday, "justice itself is ageless."
He sentenced Seale, a reputed Klansman, to the maximum three life sentences for kidnapping and conspiracy in the abductions and killings of the two young black men, whose decomposing bodies were dragged from a murky Mississippi River backwater in 1964.
The conviction never would have happened, prosecutors agreed, without Moore's brother Thomas, who refused to abandon his search for justice even when Seale's family insisted he was dead. In 2005, he and a Canadian filmmaker found Seale, old and sick, living just a few miles down the road from where the kidnapping took place.
"If it hadn't been for Thomas, this case never would've seen the light of day," said U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton.
Moore, 64, a retired military man from Colorado Springs, Colo., read from a prepared statement at Seale's sentencing hearing.
"I hope you perhaps spend the rest of your natural life in prison thinking of what you did to Charles Moore and Henry Dee and how you ran for a long time but you got caught," he said. "I hope the spirit of Charles and Henry come to your cell every night and visit with you to teach you what is meant by love of your fellow man."
Seale, shackled at the waist, wrists and ankles, never made eye contact with Moore or with Dee's sister Thelma Collins, though both stood about 10 feet from him. When asked by U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate if he had anything to say, Seale stood, shook his head and said: "No."
Collins talked about how the violent deaths affected her and her family.
"I don't have no hate in my heart, but I'm happy for justice," said Collins, 70, of Springfield, La.
Seale was convicted June 14 in the deaths of Dee and Moore, who were both 19 when they disappeared from Franklin County on May 2, 1964. Their bodies, mostly just skeletal remains, were found more than two months later.
The prosecution's star witness was Charles Marcus Edwards, a confessed Klansman who received immunity from prosecution for his admitted role in the abductions and his testimony. Edwards testified that he and Seale were the only ones who participated in the crime who are still alive.
He testified that Seale and other Klansmen abducted Dee and Charles Moore near Meadville, took them to the nearby Homochitto National Forest and beat them while asking questions about rumors that black people in the area were stockpiling guns. Edwards said that during the beating, the young men said — falsely — that weapons were being stored in a black church, Roxie First Baptist.
Edwards testified that he was absent later, but Seale told him about how Seale and other Klansmen bound Dee and Moore with tape, put them into a car trunk and drove them through part of eastern Louisiana to get to the area where the young men were dumped, still alive, into the river.
Seale was arrested on a state murder charge in 1964, but the charge was later dropped. Federal prosecutors say the state charges were dropped because local law enforcement officers in 1964 were in collusion with the Klan.
Seale plans to appeal his conviction. Wingate denied a defense motion to allow Seale go free on bond while his case is appealed.
"Mr. Seale maintains his innocence to this crime," Seale's attorney Kathy Nester said. Seale also denies ever belonging to the Klan, although witnesses testified that he had been in the group.
Wingate agreed to assign Seale to a prison where his health needs can be met. He has cancer, bone spurs and other health problems.
The case was among many unsolved civil-rights-era crimes that state and federal prosecutors across the South have revived since the early 1990s. Wan J. Kim, head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, said during a news conference after the sentencing that the FBI has compiled a list of more than 100 such cases.
Kim — who announced his resignation Thursday — said the Justice Department will pursue those cases, regardless of whether the Senate approves a cold-cases bill that would give the department more resources. A bill has passed the House and awaits Senate consideration.
Kim, however, cautioned that reviving decades-old cases can be difficult.
"While our commitment, our desire and our energy are manifest and there, we need to lower expectations because these are tough, tough cases to put together," Kim said. "And in many, many instances, because of the laws that existed at the time, there will not be federal jurisdiction for many of these offenses. We know that. But that doesn't mean we're not trying."