JACKSON, Miss., Jan. 25 (UPI) -- James Ford Seale, pleaded innocent Thursday in the Mississippi deaths of two black teenagers 43 years ago.
Seale, a reputed Ku Klux Klansman and former sheriff's deputy, now 71, entered his plea in Jackson, Miss., to kidnapping charges in the 1964 abduction and slaying of hitchhikers Henry Dee and Charlie Moore, both 19.
The indictment says the two were beaten, tied with weights and pushed into a river where they were left to drown. Their bodies were found in the Old River near Natchez, Miss.
Seale, who was arrested near Roxie, not far from where the bodies were found, was not charged with murder. A second suspect, Charles Marcus Edwards, now 72, was not charged.
U.S. Attorney Alberto Gonzales, who held a news conference in Washington with FBI Director Robert Mueller, said the indictment against Seale indicated "charges that we believe we can prove." He declined to say why Edwards was not charged.
