DEFENDANT CONVICTED FOR ROLE IN 1967 MISSISSIPPI
CIVIL RIGHTS-ERA MURDER

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A federal grand jury convicted Ernest Henry Avants of aiding and abetting a premeditated murder in connection with the 1966 killing of Ben Chester White, an elderly African-American farm worker in Mississippi, the Justice Department announced today.

The defendant, along with Claude Fuller and James Jones, lured White to Pretty Creek Bridge in the Mississippi Homochitto National Forest where he was shot multiple times with an automatic weapon and additionally shot in the head with a single barrel shotgun. The victim's body was thrown off a bridge and found two days later in the forest's Pretty Creek. The defendant aided and abetted in the murder because the victim was African-American and had attempted to lure Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to the area.

The District Attorney's Office for Adam's County brought state murder charges in 1967 against Avants and Jones. The jury trial resulted in an acquittal for Avants and a mistrial for Jones. Fuller, a third suspect who was never prosecuted by federal or state officials, is now deceased.

The Justice Department opened an investigation into the death of White in 1999, using a federal statute that prohibits murder on federal property. The defendant was indicted in June of 2000 in U.S. District Court in Jackson with aiding and abetting in the murder of an individual on federal land.

"Today's guilty verdict is a tremendous victory and brings a measure of justice to the senseless death of Ben White," said Ralph F. Boyd, Jr., Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division.

"Acts of violence motivated by hatred and bigotry will not be tolerated, whether they occur in 1966 or today."

"Justice was delayed but not denied in this case," said United States Attorney Dunn Lampton stated. "The FBI never gave up and I'm proud of Mr. Jack Lacy with my office and Ms. Paige Fitzgerald with the Civil Rights Division who devoted countless hours to bringing back to life a case that had been dead for 37 years. The jury's verdict speaks well for the racial progress that has occurred in Mississippi since the original trial."

The defendant faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

This case was investigated by the Jackson Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and jointly prosecuted by attorneys from the Criminal Section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney's office for the Southern District of Mississippi.

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