Robert Chambliss, convicted in 1977, and Bobby Frank Cherry, who was convicted in the bombing in 2002, have both died in prison.īlanton and Cherry were indicted in 2000 after the FBI reopened an investigation of the bombing. Long a suspect in the case, Blanton was the second of three people convicted in the bombing. attorney who prosecuted Blanton on the state charge, had previously said Blanton shouldn't be released since he has never accepted responsibility for the bombing or expressed any remorse for a crime that was aimed at maintaining racial separation at a time Birmingham's public schools were facing a court order to desegregate. Their deaths inside a church on a Sunday morning became a symbol worldwide of the depth of racial hatred in the segregated South.ĭoug Jones, a former U.S. Blanton, Jr., one of four Ku Klux Klan members suspected of planting the explosives that killed four African-American girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963, will appear. The girls, who were inside the church preparing for worship, died instantly in a hail of bricks and stone that seriously injured Collins' sister, Sarah Collins Rudolph. Blanton was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison on May 1, 2001. and Bobby Frank Cherry were charged with the murder of the four girls. The blast killed 11-year-old Denise McNair and 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Morris, also known as Cynthia Wesley. Herman Frank Cash was still one of the prime suspects, but before a case could be established against him, he died in 1994. church bombing up for paroleīlanton is the last surviving KKK member convicted of murder in the bombing of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church.īlanton was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001 for being part of a group of Klansmen who planted a dynamite bomb that exploded outside the church on Sept. Read More FILE-This undated file photo shows Alabama inmate Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., a one-time Ku Klux Klansman convicted in the 1963 church bombing that killed four black girls in Birmingham, Ala. He was 81.Ĭhambliss served his sentence in a prison near Montgomery, Alabama.Former KKK member convicted in Ala. He died in Lloyd Noland Hospital and Health Center in Birmingham on October 29, 1985, still proclaiming his innocence. In 1977 Chambliss was convicted of murder for the bombing and sentenced to several terms of life imprisonment. The files were used by Alabama attorney general Bill Baxley to reopen the case in 1971. Edgar Hoover stopped and shut down the investigation in 1968. Years later it was found that the FBI had accumulated evidence against the named suspects that had not been revealed to the prosecutors by order of J. The investigation was originally closed in 1968 no charges were filed. as suspects in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four young African-American girls. Edgar Hoover identified Chambliss, Bobby Frank Cherry, Herman Frank Cash and Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr.
Investigation and conviction Ī memo to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J. A member of the United Klans of America, Chambliss also firebombed the houses of several African American families in Alabama. Robert Edward Chambliss (Janu– October 29, 1985), also known as Dynamite Bob, was a white supremacist terrorist convicted in 1977 of murder for his role as conspirator in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963. (J June 26, 2020) was an American terrorist and convicted felon, formerly serving four life sentences for his role as conspirator in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 15, 1963, which killed four African-American girls (Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Col. Alabama’s parole board has decided against freeing a one-time Ku Klux Klansman convicted in a church bombing that killed four black girls more than 50 years ago.
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