![]() ![]() Inmates do not attend parole hearings under Alabama law, and no one showed up to speak on Blanton’s behalf. “We were at that church learning about love and forgiveness when someone was outside doing hateful things,” she said. Left with only one eye and recurrent problems with post-traumatic stress syndrome, the 65-year-old Rudolph asked the board to keep Blanton in prison. They died instantly, and Collins’ sister Sarah Collins Rudolph was seriously injured. The girls were inside the church preparing for worship when the bomb went off, sending stone and brick flying. The blast killed the 11-year-old McNair and 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Morris, also known as Cynthia Wesley. The automatic review was the first for Blanton.īlanton was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Sept. Clair prison, will again be eligible for parole consideration in five years, the board said. Lisa McNair, a sister of bombing victim Denise McNair, was relieved by the decision.īlanton, who lives in a one-person cell and rarely has contact with other inmates at St. The board rejected parole for Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., 78, who has served 15 years of a life term for being part of a group of Klansmen who planted a bomb outside Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church during the civil rights movement. (AP) - The lone surviving Ku Klux Klansman imprisoned for killing four black girls in a church bombing in 1963 will remain behind bars after Alabama’s parole board heeded the victims’ families Wednesday and refused an early release. Edgar Hoover had blocked prosecution of Klansmen in the bombing.Īssociated Press writer Daniel Yee in Atlanta contributed to this report.MONTGOMERY, Ala. Justice Department concluded that former FBI Director J. The investigation remained quiet until 1997 when agents went to Texas to talk to Cherry.Ī decade earlier, the U.S. But I’m not responsible for it.”Ī 1993 meeting in Birmingham between FBI officials and Black ministers led to the reopening of the bombing case against Blanton and Cherry. and that’s why I’m here,” Blanton told the television station from prison. “I think I was cleverly set up by the government. In a 2006 interview with Birmingham station WBRC-TV, he claimed the government used trumped-up evidence and lies to gain his conviction. “Tom Blanton saw change and didn’t like it,” Jones said in the trial.īlanton proclaimed his innocence years after being sent to prison. The targeted church was a rallying point for protesters. Attorney Jones, appointed as a special state prosecutor, said Blanton acted in response to months of civil rights demonstrations. Lisa McNair, the sister of Denise McNair, said she also hoped Blanton had repented and added: “I wish I could have sat down with him to find out if he had had a change of heart.”īlanton never admitted any role in the blast, but evidence showed he was part of a group of hard-core Klansmen who made a bomb and planted it on a Sunday morning.ĭuring the trial, then-U.S. "She hopes that he found Jesus Christ and repented,” George Rudolph said on behalf of his wife. The bodies of Denise McNair, 11, and Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley and Carole Robertson, all 14, were found in the downstairs lounge.Ĭollins’ sister, Sarah Collins Rudolph, survived the blast but lost her right eye and is known as the “fifth little girl.” Glass fragments remained in her chest, left eye and abdomen for decades after the explosion.Ī parole hearing was scheduled next year for Blanton, and Rudolph and her husband planned to attend in opposition to his release, which was denied during a previous hearing. 15, 1963, a bomb ripped through an exterior wall of the brick church, killing four girls who were inside preparing for a youth program. Cherry was convicted in 2002 and died in prison in 2004. Chambliss was convicted in 1977 and died in prison in 1985. The investigation into the bombing was stalled early and left dormant for long stretches, but two other ex-Klansmen, Robert Chambliss and Bobby Frank Cherry, also were convicted in the bombing in separate trials. Pope announces World Youth Day to return to Asia in 2027, urges young people ‘not to be afraid' ![]()
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