The case proceeded through the regular appeals process and has once again reached the Supreme Court. Seale filed a writ of certorairi seeking a hearing on the statute of limitations issue as well as the constitutionality of Seale’s confession when he was arrested in 1964. The government responded on August 9. 

  The case is important because it could affect the prosecution of other civil rights murders from the 60s.  The handicappers put it at 50-50 that the Court will hear it. the decision should come in early October.

The truth is Loh’s article was typical of  the superficial, hysterical, incorrect and inflammatory writing about the killing. His article contains very few facts; most of its superlatives about what a scary guy McElroy was. He repeats as fact that McElroy fell off a hay wagon as a youth and had a steel plate implanted in his skull and that was what made him so mean. This was a story, not a fact. The autopsy showed no steel plate, but it made for good snappy writing. I never ran into anyone in Skidmore who met the guy. He probably got his story over the phone. He sure as hell didn’t fact check it.

The press generally reported the killing as a “vigilante” killing, which means that the town, or at least a group of citizens, conspired to kill McElroy. I spent three years in the town and never found any evidence of such a conspiracy. “Vigilante” made for a good headline,  however.

Little wonder that the press has such a poor reputation with the general public. Writing like that in Loh’s article, which ran nationwide, doesn’t help it.

  Baird won has won election to the prosecutor’s post every four years since. He recently lost a Democratic primary by 25 votes. He told the Kansas City Star that maybe he had been there too long. 

  Baird was helpful to me when I was investigating the crime for my book In Broad Daylight. The suspicion always was that Baird didn’t indict Del Clement for the murder because either (1) He thought the town did the right thing, or (2) He was worried about his re-election if he did. I doubt either of those are true. I think Baird didn’t go forward, as he says, because he didn’t have the evidence–the evidence necessary to obtain a conviction of McElroy’s killer in Nodaway County. The evidence in those days would had to have been overwhelming to get a conviction from a local jury. With an acquittal, the defendants could not be charge again at a later time if new evidence developed. It would have been a circus, and while I think Baird had the stomach for it, he wasn’t inclined to go through it all if he thought he might end up with an acquittal at the end;. 

  When I returned to Skidmore a few years ago to take a new look at the case for the 25 year anniversary edition of the book, Baird was again helpful. He arranged for me to see the original investigatory files. But a long time has passed since the day McElroy was shot to death. His secretary had never heard of McElroy or the story of his killing. 

   So now the primary shooter, Del Clement, is dead, and the man who would have prosecuted him, David Baird, will soon be out of office. What’s next in this story that never seems to end? Is there a reality TV show in the works?

In my recent book, “The Past Is Never Dead, the Trial of James Ford Seale and Mississippi’s Struggle for Redemption,” I talked about some of the reasons for the rigidity of the almost universal  stereotype of Mississippi. One reason was it’s place on the bottom of almost all lists measuring well being, such as income, obesity, childhood diseases, education, and also the ever running movie “Mississippi Burning.” After reading Hertzberg’s remark, I have a new reason: it gives the already enlightened and competent a place to be snarky about. Everyone needs someone to kick around, particularly those who sees themselves as rightfully on the top of the pile.

I couldn’t say for sure, but I’d be willing to bet that Hertzerg has never been to Mississippi. Which is a real shame, since you can still hear the best blues in the world there.

I hesitate to criticize another writer, but in a story this written about there can be little reason for misstating such a key fact. This is particularly so when the author, as he explains, has lived in Mississippi for 30 thirty years.

There is another factual error in an introduction by the editor of the magazine,  who is writing about the murder of two black youths in Southwest Mississippi in 1964 and the 2007 prosecution of James Ford Seale for the crimes. He states that both youths were chained to an old Jeep’s engine block and dumped alive in an offshoot of the Mississippi River. As I detail in my book, “The Past Is Never Dead, The Trial of James Ford Seale and Mississippi’s Struggle For Redemption,” one youth was tied to an engine block and the other to rails.

This is a  small discrepancy and one barely worth noting. Misstating the place where Emmett Till was murdered is quite another matter indeed.

But it did set me to thinking about why I write. I believe that all writers want to be published, although I know there are many who get considerable satisfaction from writing for themselves. I remembered when “In Broad Daylight”  was first published, in 1989, and I was riding my bike by East High School in Denver. In the Esplanade was a young girl sitting under a tree reading a book. I thought of those who had read and would read my book, people I would never know, could never even imagine: a waitress sitting on a stoop in Brooklyn, a businessman flying across country in his private plane, a farmer in the Northwest sitting at the local cafe, a professor of history at a major university. (In fact, later I would receive a photo of a young woman sitting at a coffee shot not far from the collapsing Berlin Wall, reading the book). For each person who read it, I realized, it would be a different book. For each personality that absorbed the words, it would be a different story. It would bounce off their strings and sound a different song.

A person’s mind is their most private place. It is them, inside. To be invited into someone’s world, to become a part of a person’s consciousness, is truly an honor. You become a part of their story. Images from your words exist in their minds.

So, at the risk of sounding corny, I would say thank you to the readers, for allowing me in. That really is why I write.

As for who shot Ken McElroy, there was never any doubt in anyone’s mind that I spoke with that Del shot McElroy. There was an eyewitness identification, and there was another person willing to testify to Del’s involvement until, surprise, he suddenly changed his mind.

And it certainly fits Del’s style. He had been drinking. It was an impulsive, hot-headed act, not to mention being incredibly stupid. And ask yourself this: how much courage does it take to shoot a man in the back?

The federal appellate process can be long and tangled. On March 13 the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed James Ford Seale’s 2007 conviction in the kidnapping of two black youths in Southwest Mississippi in 1964. Earlier a three-judge panel of the Court had reversed the conviction on the grounds that the prosecution violated the statute of limitations. The full eighteen-member Court heard the matter last spring and split 9 to 9 on the reversal, which had the effect of reinstating the earlier conviction. The 5^th Circuit then asked the Supreme Court to exercise special jurisdiction and hear the statute of limitations issue. In October, the Supreme Court declined to hear the issue, with Justice Stevens and Scalia vigorously dissenting.

The matter was remanded to the three-judge panel to hear the other issues initially raised on appeal. It was denial of this appeal that occurred on March 13. It’s not over yet: the defense will now go back to the Supreme Court on the statute of limitations and the other issues. The odds are long that the Court will take it next fall, given that two justices have already expressed their desire to hear it. If the Court accepts the case in the fall, it will probably be argued in January and a decision issued sometime next spring or summer.

Meanwhile, James Ford Seale sits in his cell in the federal pen in Terra Haute, Indiana, alive but apparently not well.

Stay tuned.

I wrote the story once, and followed the advice of friends and editors that I needed to tell the story of who I was and why I did what it did. It turned into far too much of a memoir. I don’t write well about myself. It seemed glib and superficial (for reasons which only my therapist undertands). There was serious interest in the manuscript, but eventually I pulled it because I was unhappy with the mixture of memoir and prison.

So, I’m rewriting it now mainly as a prison book. People love prison stories, witness all of the stuff on TV, and it’s much different and worse inside than it has been represented in those shows. In fact, I don’t think you can imagine it. Which ends up, of course, being my challenge as the teller of the story.

I went to the island with 45 pages. After the second day, I threw those pages out and started over. I didn’t like the “voice.” I returned home a few days ago with 45 new pages. Let’s hope they survive. My goal is to have a draft manuscipt by the end of the summer.

The phrase was used in regard to a woman in Faulkner’s “Requiem for a Nun” who was trying to forget or overcome her past life, which involved murder and prostitution. It is Faulkner’s most memorable phrase, and there was a good deal of debate in the publishing house about whether a sentence made a good title. Finally, it was agreed that it best captured the theme of Mississippi’s effort at redemption from its past.  Let’s hope that its literal meaning isn’t true for Mississippi or for us.