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Former Deputy Charged in Civil-Rights Murders

A federal grand jury charges a Mississippi man with the 1964 killings of two black men, in the latest in a series of charges involving racially motivated killings from the civil-rights era. The two men had been hitchhiking when they went missing. Their bodies were found in the Mississippi River, shackled to an engine block.

James Ford Seale, 71, pleaded not guilty to the charges in Jackson, Miss. The former sheriff's deputy and reputed Klansman was one of two suspects originally charged in the deaths decades ago. But the FBI turned the case over to local authorities — at the time, the agency was consumed with the search for three missing civil-rights workers.

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Wade Goodwyn is an NPR National Desk Correspondent covering Texas and the surrounding states.