The identity of a former Ku Klux Klan leader who alleges to have information about the unsolved 1964 murder of two Franklin County men was revealed before a national TV audience Wednesday night.

Ernest Gilbert, a former grand wizard of the White Knights of the Ku&160;Klux Klan, appeared in an interview on the ABC News program &uot;20/20.&uot;

Gilbert, known to FBI officials only as &uot;JN-30,&uot; said two of the original suspects, James Ford Seale and Charles Marcus Edwards, confessed to the murders of Charles Moore and Henry Dee, both 19 at the time.

&uot;I was told by the (KKK) members that committed the act,&uot; Gilbert said, adding their reason for confessing was so that Gilbert could help protect them if they were charged.

Seale and Edwards were arrested for the murders but were released and the charges were dropped.

Charles Moore’s brother, who was also interviewed on the program, said this week he is thrilled the case is closer to justice.

&uot;I think it’s just fantastic,&uot; he said.

While Moore still wonders why more people did not come forward in the 1960s, he said he understands that people were afraid of the KKK.

Jim Ingram, a retired FBI agent and former head of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, confirmed on Tuesday that &uot;JN-30&uot; was indeed an informant in the Dee and Moore murder case.

&uot;Those kids were abused awful, and they were beaten,&uot; Gilbert said. &uot;They were thrown in the river alive … alive.&uot;

The mutilated bodies of Moore and Dee were found by law enforcement authorities in a swamp of the Mississippi River near Tallulah, La.

Gilbert said he would not testify if the two suspects were charged with the murder. &uot;What good will it do for me to testify?&uot; he asked.

Gilbert said he became an FBI informant because hearing the confession upset him so much.

&uot;I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep,&uot; he said in the interview. &uot;I want justice for those kids. This is not about me. It’s not about you. It’s about two little kids who were brutally murdered … and they were innocent.&uot;

Last year, District 6 District Attorney Ronnie Harper asked the FBI, Mississippi Highway Patrol and the U.S. attorney’s office to assist in his reopening of the case.

This is one of several civil rights-era murder cases that have been reopened recently. Last week, Ernest Avants of Bogue Chitto was arrested on federal charges in the 1966 murder of Natchez handyman Ben Chester White.

Kerry Whipple contributed to this story.