PHILADELPHIA, Miss., June 13 (UPI) -- International media began gathering outside a Philadelphia, Miss., courtroom Monday where jury selection was to begin for a 1964 racial triple-lynching.
Former part-time Baptist preacher Edgar Ray Killen, 80, is charged with the murders of three civil rights workers -- two whites and a black -- on June 21, 1967.
The victims were arrested for speeding while on their way to help register black voters. They were briefly jailed and released, but were chased by Ku Klux Klan members who forced them from the road and beat and shot them to death. The men then used a bulldozer to bury the bodies, but after a 44-day search, FBI agents recovered the bodies from under 15 feet of dirt.
Killen and 17 others were charged not with murder, but for civil rights abuses. Some were convicted, but Killen walked free.
This January, Killen was arrested, but in March broke both legs in a tree-cutting accident. CNN said the judge has rejected a request the trial be delayed, but has made provisions for the defendant to be made comfortable during the trial, which is expected to last about two weeks.
