Read the Full '20/20' Transcript

— -- This is an uncorrected and unedited transcript of the "20/20" broadcast which first aired June 14, 2000.

ABC NEWS

Good evening. And welcome to 20/20 WEDNESDAY. Diane and Charlie areoff. Tonight, we are devoting most of this hour to a special report.Explosive new developments in a continuing investigation. Threemurders that have never been solved. They occurred during one ofthis country's darkest chapters when bigotry bred violence and thelaw looked the other way. Two black teen-agers offered a ride andthen killed in cold blood. An elderly black farmhand shot to deathat close range. Decades have passed and their stories have faded.But now, our investigation has brought these cases back to life andjust maybe justice will prevail at last.

(VO) THOMAS MOORE visits the grave of his brother Charles whowas murdered along with a friend 36 years ago. There was evidence,informants, even two arrests, but nobody was ever convicted ofmurder.

(OC) What kind of men would do that to someone like yourbrother?

THOMAS MOORE

Hate. Ignorant. Not being able to accept a person as who they are.

ABC NEWS

(VO) He owns only a single image of his younger brother, a collegestudent. Of the other victim, Henry Dee, there isn't even a photo.Thomas has been plagued by the murders. When he returned fromVietnam, he earned a second college degree and dedicated it in thename of his brother and in the name of justice.

THOMAS MOORE

I will pursue this as far as I can until I die trying to find out whodid this and why.

ABC NEWS

(VO) It was May 2nd, 1964, Charles Moore and Henry Dee, both 19, wereoffered a ride in Meadville, Mississippi, taken deep into the nearbyHomochitto National Forest and beaten, their bodies dumped into theMississippi River. Two alleged Klansman, James Ford Seale andCharles Marcus Edwards were arrested.

JT ROBINSON

When they made the arrests on those people, I didn't have any doubtin my mind that that's the one that done it. I didn't.

ABC NEWS

(VO) J.T. Robinson was police chief in nearby Natchez.

(OC) You think that Charles Marcus Edwards killed those two men?

JT ROBINSON

I think he was part -- he was with James Seale and they done it.

ABC NEWS

(VO) Both suspects were soon freed. An FBI investigation peteredout. And as we learned in a surprising response to our inquiry, theentire FBI file on the case was destroyed in 1977 or so they thought.Until this headline appeared recently in the Jackson-Clarion Ledgerover a story by reporter Jerry Mitchell.

JERRY MITCHELL

And so then I was able to go back to the FBI and go, 'Wait a minute,you know, those files weren't destroyed, here are copies.'

ABC NEWS

(VO) From a different source, 20/20 obtained an unredacted copy ofthe FBI file. Nearly a thousand pages of reports, notes, diagrams,maps and photographs. But most revealing was the fact that the FBIhad one very important informant. An informant who remainedanonymous, refusing to testify in open court for fear of retaliationfrom the Klan. Retired FBI assistant director Jim Ingram was at thetime a special agent assigned to the case. He remembers theinformant code name JN-30.

JIM INGRAM

JN-30 was so important to the FBI that the agents themselves did notknow his identity, except two agents that worked or handled him.

ABC NEWS

Informant JN-30 provided the FBI with crucial information about themurders of Charles Moore and Henry Dee. From the beginning here onHighway 84 in tiny Meadville to the murky depths of the MississippiRiver some 40 miles away. According to JN-30 the killers confided inhim in horrifying detail about what transpired just after the twoyoung men were last seen near this roadside drive-in.

(VO) JN-30 said James Ford Seale picked up Charles Moore andHenry Dee. Followed by Charles Edwards and Seale's father, Clyde, ina pickup, they drove into the forest, tied the victims to a tree andbeat them. Reeling a shotgun, James Seale harangued them about animagined black Muslim plot to arm local blacks.

(OC) At that time, did you think it was possible that yourbrother was killed just because the color of his skin?

THOMAS MOORE

Absolutely. No other reason. No other reason.

ABC NEWS

Did you suspect that Klansmen had killed him?

THOMAS MOORE

Yes.

ABC NEWS

(VO) According to JN-30, James Seale's brother, Jack, and a prominentlocal landowner, Ernest Parker, put the victims into the trunk of acar and drove to a remote landing on the Mississippi River. Mooreand Dee were tied to a jeep engine block and dropped into the muddywater. Six months later, Navy divers found the engine block, a skulland other evidence exactly where JN-30 told them to look. The FBIwas convinced their suspects were the killers. But in 1964, ThomasMoore knew not to expect justice.

THOMAS MOORE

Did I believe that they would be arrested and convicted? No. No. ABC NEWS

No way?

THOMAS MOORE

No way.

ABC NEWS

(VO) And he was right. The FBI investigation soon hit a wall.

JIM INGRAM

We, in the FBI, felt there was sufficient evidence. But if theprosecutor is not going to move forward, that -- that stops it at thetime.

ABC NEWS

(VO) The FBI file shows that with the informant too fearful totestify and a lack of other witnesses, the district attorney felt hecould not prosecute the suspects. Three of them lived out theirlives and died free men. The two who were arrested briefly in 1964are still alive. According to the file during questioning, one ofthem, James Ford Seale, was told the FBI knew he was involved in themurders. Seale replied: 'Yes, but I'm not going to admit it. Youare going to have to prove it.'

MAN

Hello. Mr. Seale?

JAMES SEALE

Yeah.

MAN

How you doing?

JAMES SEALEPretty good.

ABC NEWS

(VO) Today, James Seale travels the country in his luxury motor home.We found him camped near Natchez.

JAMES SEALE

I have nothing to say to you.

MAN

Nothing to say? JAMES SEALE

The best thing for you to do is get your ass up that hill.

MAN

All right, sir. All right. Did you have anything to do with thekilling of those two boys?

JAMES SEALE

Get up the hill.

ABC NEWS

(VO) According to the FBI file, when he was under arrest, CharlesMarcus Edwards confessed that he, Seale and others took the victimsto some woods and whipped them. But he said they were still alivewhen he left. We found Edwards last year living quietly in thecountry outside Natchez.

(OC) Did you murder Henry Dee and Charles Moore?

CHARLES EDWARDS

I did not. I did not murder those two kids.

ABC NEWS

The investigators said that you told them that you and a couple ofother guys picked up Henry Dee and Charles Moore, took them to theforest…

CHARLES EDWARDS

They told you a lie because I hadn't said that.

ABC NEWS

Mr. Edwards, back in the 1960s, do you think you would have calledyourself a racist?

CHARLES EDWARDS

Well, I was prejudice, yeah.

ABC NEWS

(VO) To this day, the entire case remains in limbo. But that couldsoon change. We have found the FBI's star informant, JN-30, and nowhe is ready to go public.

ERNEST GILBERT

I wish to God I would never have known about this. I really do.

ABC NEWS

In a moment, you will meet the man they call JN-30. We'll be rightback.

ANNOUNCER

He was an imperial wizard of the KKK. Now he is speaking out for thefirst time about the unsolved murders of two teen-age boys.

ERNEST GILBERT

They were taken to the Mississippi River, weights were tied on themand they were thrown in the river alive.

(Commercial break)

ABC NEWS

When the bodies of Charles Moore and Henry Dee, two black19-year-olds, were discovered in the Mississippi River in 1964, theirfamilies suspected it was the work of the Ku Klux Klan. They neverthought they would see the murders solved. But little did they knowthat one was quietly trying to seek justice. Now, he tells his storyfor the first time.

ERNEST GILBERT

(From tape) The white people in this state are going to war. And tohell with who tries to stop them.

ABC NEWS

(VO) He was a leader of the Ku Klux Klan who says he knew the killersof Charles Moore and Henry Dee.

Mr. GILBERT: They murdered those two young boys, cold-bloodedmurder.

ABC NEWS

(VO) Now 36 years later, he's decided to go public for the first timeand reveal what he knows.

ERNEST GILBERT

I'm doing that because I'd like to clear my conscience.

ABC NEWS

(VO) His name is ERNEST GILBERT

. (OC) Mr. Gilbert, were the killers of Charles Moore and HenryDee white knights of the KKK?

ERNEST GILBERT

Yes, they were.

ABC NEWS

Every single one of them?

ERNEST GILBERT

Yes.

(From tape) We the officers and members of the original knightsof the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi…

ABC NEWS

(VO) ERNEST GILBERT

was once the KKK's chief spokesman and for a timeits leader in Mississippi.

(OC) Were you elected to the position of imperial wizard?

ERNEST GILBERT

Imperial wizard.

ABC NEWS

That was your title?

ERNEST GILBERT

And the white knights.

ABC NEWS

(VO) He was also chief organizer, secretly recruiting officers of thelaw.

(OC) Did you recruit sheriff's deputies? Sheriffs themselves?

ERNEST GILBERT

Yes, I did.

ABC NEWS