Byron De La Beckwith

From Metapedia

Byron De La Beckwith (b. November 9, 1920, Colusa, California – d. January 21, 2001, Jackson, Mississippi) was an American white supremacist and the convicted murderer of Black activist Medgar Evers. Beckwith was born in California and raised in Greenwood, Mississippi. De La Beckwith was a Marine Corps veteran of World War II, and was awarded the Silver Star.

The years following the war, Beckwith joined the Ku Klux Klan. In 1963 he was involved in the killing of Evers. De La Beckwith was twice tried for the murder in 1964. Both trials ended in mistrials with the all-white jury unable to reach a verdict. In the following years, he became a leader in the Phineas Priesthood, a branch of the Christian Identity movement.

A third trial in 1994, before a jury of eight Black and four White jurors, ended with Beckwith being convicted of the murder of Evers. The conviction was based, in part, on new evidence proving that he had boasted of the killing at a Klan rally and to others over the three decades after the crime. The physical evidence was essentially the same as was used during the first two trials.

Sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, De La Beckwith died at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 2001 in Jackson, Mississippi, aged 80. He had suffered from heart disease, high blood pressure and other ailments.