NATCHEZ &045; Ronnie Harper’s letters date back to 1998.

In August of that year, the district attorney, whose office covers Franklin and Adams counties, began seeking files and information to investigate the murders of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee.

Moore and Dee, both Franklin County residents, were found dead in the Old River near Tallulah, La., in 1967. Authorities believe they were kidnapped, killed and dumped in the river. Two men were arrested but never charged or tried in the case.

After a visit from Moore’s brother, Thomas Moore, Harper wrote to the FBI, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety and the Franklin County sheriff seeking information on the case.

Franklin County Sheriff James Newman wasn’t able to provide any information.

&uot;I have diligently searched this office and have been unable to locate any files,&uot; Newman wrote back. &uot;I serve in a rural county, with limited resources and manpower; however, be assured that this department will assist in any way within our capabilities to solve this crime.&uot;

The Mississippi Department of Safety sent its files to Harper. It took the FBI nearly two years to locate the files, which were at an offsite location in Virginia, according to a letter dated Feb. 9, 2000.

On Friday, after a meeting of all of the parties that could help investigate the case &045; state, local and federal &045; Harper said he understands why it took so long to get everyone to the table.

With the caseloads that each agency handles, getting to a point when everyone had the time investigate the case has been difficult, Harper said.

&uot;I appreciate the ability to be able to work with these folks,&uot; Harper said. &uot;I’m proud they’ve made the effort to be involved with this case.&uot;

The pooling of those resources is crucial, he said.

&uot;It’s a manpower thing,&uot; he said.

For the next few weeks, that manpower will be concentrated on reviewing case files and trying to determine who is even still alive to question.

Prosecuting a case so old that never went to trial can be difficult. Old trial transcripts in this year’s prosecution of Edgar Ray Killen, convicted in the deaths of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, helped raise long-dead witnesses from the grave.

Harper and other investigators looking into Dee and Moore’s deaths, as well as the murder of Natchez’s Wharlest Jackson, have no such records.

And both Harper and U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton said they don’t know what evidence a judge might allow.

Jackson was killed when a bomb under his truck exploded as he left work in 1967 at Armstrong Rubber in Natchez. Jackson, an officer in the local NAACP at the time, had just been promoted to a so-called &uot;whites-only&uot; job.

The circumstances of Dee and Moore’s murders is cause for some speculation.

Charles Edwards of Franklin County was arrested in November 1967 in the slayings of the two men, but murder charges were later dismissed.

Edwards told federal and state agents at the time that he, James Ford Seale and others gave the two men a ”whipping” because Edwards’ wife claimed the men peeped through a window in her home, according to an Associated Press story from 1966.

But according to a 2000 story in The Clarion-Ledger, an FBI informant told investigators in 1964 that the killings were prompted by a false rumor that black Muslims were arming themselves for an insurrection.

The New York Times and AP both reported in 1966 that one of the suspects told authorities the men were killed because one of them had peeped through a window at the white man’s wife.

Edwards told investigators he and Seale only beat Moore and Dee and then and left them alive in a rural field. He said he did not know what happened to the men.

Seale was also questioned but refused to answer any questions, the 1966 AP report said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.