Dee, Henry and Charles Moore, Murders of

In May 1964 Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore, two young Black men, were tortured and murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Their disappearance went unnoticed by law enforcement, as it was overshadowed by the disappearance of three civil rights activists. In June 1964 FBI agents arrived in the state to look for Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman. On 12 June 1964, while looking for Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman, the FBI discovered the bodies of Dee and Moore in the Mississippi River.

Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore were both nineteen years old when they were murdered. On 2 May 1964 the two childhood friends met up in Meadville and decided to hitchhike toward Roxie. While standing on the side of the road, they were kidnapped by members of the Ku Klux Klan, including James Ford Seale. Neither Dee nor Moore had ever been involved in civil rights activism, but the Klansmen assumed that Dee and Moore were associated with the Black Panthers, based on a black bandana that Dee wore over his head.

The Klansmen took Dee and Moore into the Homochitto National Forest, where they beat them and interrogated them for information on the potential arming of “black militants” in their area. Under torture, Dee and Moore confessed that guns were being stored in First Baptist Church in Roxie. Then, Klansmen shoved Dee and Moore into the trunk of a car and drove them to the Mississippi River. Klansmen took Dee and Moore onto a boat, chained them to an engine block and railroad rails, and drowned them in the Mississippi River.

Soon after, the county sheriff investigated the First Baptist Church for a possible cache of guns but found no weapons. Local authorities did not investigate the disappearance of Henry Dee or Charles Moore.

The murders of Dee and Moore went unnoticed by federal authorities until June 1964 when the FBI arrived to investigate the disappearance of Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman in what was eventually dubbed the “Mississippi Burning” case. The deaths of these three men drew national attention to Mississippi, as Schwerner and Goodman were from New York, and all three men were civil rights activists. The FBI, along with help from locals, scoured the Mississippi River to look for their bodies.

On June 12, instead of the civil rights activists, authorities discovered the body of Charles Moore. Initially, they speculated that Moore, with a belt buckle that said “M” around his waist, might be Michael Schwerner. But the next day, they discovered the body of Dee and realized that these men must have been part of a different murder case altogether.

After investigating, the FBI arrested James Seale and Charles Edwards, who both gave partial confessions to the murders. However, federal authorities did not consider the case to be under federal jurisdiction, so they returned the case to state and local authorities, some of whom were colluding with the Klan. The charges against Seale and Edwards were dropped.

Years passed before the reopening of the case of Henry Dee and Charles Moore. During that time, James Seale seemed to disappear, and members of his family said he had died. However, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Thomas Moore, brother of Charles, began to push for his brother’s case to be reinvestigated. In 2000 the Jackson Clarion-Ledger discovered that the murders most likely happened on federal land, once again giving the FBI jurisdiction. After initial pushback, the Department of Justice agreed to reopen the case.

Between 2005 and 2007, Thomas Moore worked with a group of Canadian filmmakers to create a documentary titled Mississippi Cold Case to inform the general public about the overlooked murders of Henry Dee and Charles Moore. In the middle of filming the documentary, Thomas Moore discovered James Seale still alive in his home.

In 2007 the FBI arrested both of their original suspects, James Seale and Charles Edwards. Edwards agreed to testify against Seale in exchange for immunity. Prosecuted by attorney Dunn Lampton, Seale was convicted by a federal court on charges of kidnapping and conspiracy. On 14 June 2007, at seventy-one years old, he was given three life sentences. In 2011, at seventy-four, Seale died in prison.

Efforts to remember and honor Henry Dee and Charles Moore continue. On 15 July 2021 a new state historical marker was erected in Meadville to honor the two men who lost their lives. Thomas Moore told Mississippi Public Broadcasting that he hopes his brother and his friend “won’t be footnotes in the history of what the FBI called the ‘Mississippi Burning’ case.”