AP and staff reports

The FBI has joined forces with the state and county authorities investigating the 1964 deaths of two Franklin County black men allegedly at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan.

The agency decided to reopen the case after it discovered the killings of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee may have occurred on federal land in the Homochitto National Forest.

”The case has been reopened,” FBI spokeswoman Deborah Madden said.

The agency also recently discovered that a copy of the original investigation documents still existed. Jackson FBI officials believed the records were lost after the state copies were destroyed in the 1970s. But a copy was recently found at the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.

District Attorney Ronnie Harper, whose office would be responsible for prosecuting the case if it is ever brought to trial said the discovery of the files was a surprise. Harper said the missing files were simply an oversight.

&uot;I don’t think it was anything intentional,&uot; he said. &uot;It was apparently just an internal communication problem (at the FBI).&uot;

Harper said he welcomes the FBI’s help.

&uot;It’s good when the feds become involved in something like this, (because) they have more manpower and time to devote than other agencies simply because of the obligations the other agencies have around the state,&uot; Harper said. &uot;The more the merrier. Anytime you’re investigating a crime, whether it was yesterday or 30 years ago, (more investigators) better your chances to solve the crime.&uot;

Although the House Un-American Activities Committee questioned at least five men in connection with the killings of Dee and Moore, only two men were arrested – James Ford Seale, then a 29-year-old truck driver, and Charles Marcus Edwards, then a 31-year-old paper mill worker.

Three months after their November 1964 arrests, authorities dismissed those charges, and the case was closed.

In recent interviews, both Seale and Edwards insisted on their innocence.

Asked whether he had anything to do with the deaths, Seale replied, ”I ain’t in jail, am I?”

According to HUAC testimony, Edwards told authorities he, Seale and unnamed others beat Dee and Moore but left them alive.

Edwards, who lives in Meadville, has since denied making that statement. ”I don’t know where they dug that junk up. There’s not any truth to that,” he said in a recent interview.