By JOSH FOREMAN
Staff Reporter
The prosecution rested its case Saturday, calling Fannie Lee Chaney, the mother of murdered civil rights worker James Chaney, to the stand. The 82-year-old mother of five recounted the last time she saw her son in 1964.
The defense also called three of its five witnesses. Family members of Killen and a longtime friend testified that they had been with him the day and night of the murders, although no one said he or she had seen him between the hours of 4 p.m. or 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. or 8 p.m.
Killen is being tried for the murders of Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman. The three, all in their early 20s, had been in Mississippi registering blacks to vote as part of the Freedom Summer project.
Fannie Lee Chaney, who used a walker to get to the stand, said she and James Chaney, known as “J.E.” to her, had been up late talking June 20, the night before he disappeared. The next morning she made breakfast, she said, and her son prepared to leave for the day with Schwerner and Goodman.
“Ben was sitting on the step crying,” she said, referring to Ben Chaney, James Chaney’s younger brother. “He wanted to follow James, but I wouldn’t let him.
“J.E. never came back,” she said.
Killen’s brother Oscar Kenneth Killen and sister Dorothy Dearing testified that they had been with Killen on the day of the murders from about noon to 4 p.m. or 5 p.m. It was Father’s Day, they said, and they had a family reunion which from 50 to 60 people attended.
At one point, Oscar Kenneth Killen lashed out at prosecutor Mark Duncan. When Duncan asked if he knew his brother was in the Klan, he said, “I’ve heard more talking to that your daddy and granddaddy was in the Klan, tell the truth,” he said. “I’d like to ask you one question.”
The judge ordered Killen’s comments struck from the record. When asked about it afterwards Duncan told reporters, “consider the source.”
The defense also called retired Baptist minister James Kermit Sharp to the stand to testify to whether Killen’s character was good. It was, he said.
Sharp said he had known Killen most of his life. “We were friends, neighbors and ministers together,” he said. “We were in high school together.”
In cross-examination he was asked if he thought the people responsible for the murders should be held accountable. “All sin will answer in payment sometime,” he said.
He was asked that, as a Baptist, if he objected to “mingling of the races.” Mitch Moran, Killen’s lead counsel, objected, and Gordon said that Sharp did not have to answer the question.
Gordon wanted to finish testimony and closing arguments Saturday, but two of the defense’s witnesses could not be brought into the courtroom until later that afternoon.
McIntyre and Moran had just learned about the other witness, David Winstead, earlier that morning, Moran said.
After court recessed for the day around 11 a.m., journalists and players in the trial walked to the front lawn of the courthouse. As Edgar Ray Killen was wheeled out of the courthouse and into his car, one woman began shouting that hate was destructive.
“Is there a difference between him and Osama Bin Laden?” Preston resident Dorothy Taylor said standing near the walkway about 10 feet from Edgar Ray Killen. “It’s hate. Hate is hate. God is love.”
On the stand, Fannie Lee Chaney said that after her son’s disappearance and the subsequent investigation and discovery of the bodies, she received so many threats she had to leave the state.
She endured “a car full of white folks coming by the house throwing eggs,” she said, gunshots at her house, and murder threats. “They were threatening me so bad — me and my little son Ben,” she said. “They said they were going to put dynamite under the house, blow us to bits.”
Ben Chaney, who was present in the courtroom, helped his mother off the stand and back to her seat beside Rita Bender, the widow of Schwerner. Bender clasped her hand when she sat and smiled at her.
