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JACKSON, Miss., June 21 (UPI) -- The federal and state investigations into the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers in Mississippi are officially closed, the state attorney general announced "There's nothing else that can be done," Miississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said at a press conference Monday.
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In addition to these cases, the Justice Department has closed more than 100 other civil rights cold cases it re-examined, The Clarion Ledger reported.
"The FBI, my office and other law enforcement agencies have spent decades chasing leads, searching for evidence and fighting for justice for the three young men who were senselessly murdered on June 21, 1964," Hood said. "It has been a thorough and complete investigation. I am convinced that during the last 52 years, investigators have done everything possible under the law to find those responsible and hold them accountable; however, we have determined that there is no likelihood of any additional convictions. Absent any new information presented to the FBI or my office, this case will be closed."
The Justice Department released a 48-page report it prepared on the case.
"[James] Chaney, [Andrew] Goodman and [Michael] Schwerner gave their lives while struggling to advance the cause of civil rights for all," Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta said in a statement. "Though the reinvestigation into their heinous deaths has formally closed, we must all honor their legacy by forging ahead and continuing the fight to ensure that the founding promise of America is true for all of its inhabitants,"the head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights division said.
The so-called Mississippi Burning case was investigated thoroughly, Hood said, with decades of chasing leads and witnesses, and sifting through the evidence, WJTV reported.
Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner became well known to the public in 1988 when the movie, Mississippi Burning, loosely based on their stories, hit theaters.
The three were ambushed, then shot to death by members of the Ku Klux Klan in Philadelphia, Miss. Forty-four days after they went missing, their bodies were found at an earthen dam in rural Neshoba County.
The three were volunteers for a "Freedom Summer" campaign to register African-American voters, a campaign that helped pave the way for passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. They were also in Philadelphia, Miss., to investigate a hate crime in a black church there.
The decision to close the case came as no shock to Rita Bender, Schwerner's widow.
"Tragically for the people of Mississippi, and for our nation, many murders took place over so many years, in which people of color were targeted, and those who attempted to support them became the victims of brutality as well, all deprived of basic civil rights of citizens," said Bender, who lives in Seattle.
Bender said she hopes the Justice Department report will convince Mississippi officials to ponder other needs in the state, including education and "to face up to the past and for the people of Mississippi and all of our country to find the resolve to move forward."
Hood said most people, after reading the report, will realize everything that could be done was done to try to solve the murders.
"The stigma that this created for Mississippi is still here today.," he said. "I think the fact that we opened this up and tried it, justice was done as best we could do it.
