Timeline Of 'Mississippi Burning' Case

1964:

June 21: James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner are stopped for speeding and jailed briefly. Soon after they are released, they are ambushed by Klansmen and murdered. Their bodies are buried beneath a 15-foot earthen dam near Philadelphia, Miss.
June 23: President Lyndon B. Johnson expands the FBI investigation into the men's whereabouts, eventually bringing in hundreds of sailors to scour the countryside.
Aug. 4: The bodies are discovered. Goodman and Schwerner had died from single gunshot wounds to the chest, and Chaney from a savage beating.
Oct. 13: Klan member James Jordan confesses his involvement in the conspiracy to the FBI and agrees to cooperate in its investigation.
Nov. 19: Klan member Horace Barnette confesses and describes actual shootings. In the confessions, Jordan and Barnette name Edgar Ray "Preacher" Killen as the main instigator. Neither confession is ever heard at trial.
Dec. 4: Nineteen Klan members are arrested and charged with violating the civil rights of Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman.
Dec. 10: A U. S. Commissioner dismisses charges against the 19.

1965

January: A federal grand jury in Jackson reindicts the 19.
Feb. 24: Judge William Cox dismisses the indictments (except as against Price and Sheriff Rainey) on grounds that the conspirators were not "acting under color of state law."

1966

March: The U.S. Supreme Court reinstates the original indictments, overruling Judge Cox.

1967

Feb. 28: A new grand jury indicts the 19 conspirators.
Oct. 7: The trial of the Neshoba County conspirators begins. It is eventually determined that the civil rights workers were killed as result of a conspiracy between members of Neshoba County's law enforcement and the KKK.
Oct. 20: The jury finds seven conspirators guilty of federal civil rights violations. Nine men are acquitted, and the jury is unable to reach a verdict on three of the men charged -- including Edgar Ray Killen.
Dec. 29: The conspirators found guilty are sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to 10 years.

1970

March 19: After exhausting their appeals, the seven convicted men enter federal prisons. None of those convicted serve more than six years.
Sept. 8: Two of the conspirators are badly beaten by black inmates in a federal prison in Texarkana.

1974

Cecil Price is released from prison.

1983

In a secret interview with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Samuel Bowers -- who was found guilty in the case -- alleges that Killen was the main perpetrator of the 1964 murders. Bowers also admits he thwarted justice in the case.

1988

The 1964 murders and 1967 trial are dramatized in the movie "Mississippi Burning."

1998

Bowers is sentenced to life in prison for the 1966 murder of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer.
Jerry Mitchell from The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., gains access to portions of Bowers' tapes, which were to remain sealed until his death, and the paper published excerpts.
After Bowers' admission to "obstructing justice," Rita Schwerner-Bender, Schwerner's widow, writes to Philadelphia, Miss., District Attorney Ken Taylor, asking him to reopen the case.

Edgar Ray Killen

2000

Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore announces his intention to reopen the case. He asks the FBI to turn over its files on the case and the 1967 trial transcripts.

2005

Jan. 6: Edgar Ray Killen is arrested on murder charges in the 1964 slayings.
Jan. 7: In an arraignment, Killen pleads not guilty to three counts of murder.
June 13: Jury selection begins in Killen's murder trial.
June 21: Killen is found guilty of three counts of manslaughter in the 1964 slayings of the three civil rights workers. Jurors decided not to convict Killen on the more serious murder charges.