Ku Klux Klan man dies four years after jailing for 1964 murders

James Ford Seale had died four years after being jailed for murders committed in 1964. Photograph: Associated Press

James Ford Seale, who in 1964 committed one of the most gruesome acts of the segregationist South when he tied blocks to the feet of two black teenagers and threw them still breathing into the Mississippi river, has died – for the second time.

Seale's death was first announced in the pages of the Clarion Ledger, the Jackson paper that helped to put him behind bars when in 2000 it launched an investigation into the killing of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee. But it took a further seven years before Seale was finally convicted, 43 years after the original murders. He was given life sentences for kidnapping and conspiracy.

Part of the reason that it took so long to obtain justice was that, after the Clarion Ledger investigation, Seale, a truck driver, went to ground. Neighbours in the small Mississippi town of Roxie said that he had died, a contention taken as fact and reported by several newspapers including the Los Angeles Times in 2002.

In July 2004 Moore's brother, Thomas, and a filmmaker from Canadian television went to Roxie to make a documentary about the killings. On camera Moore engaged a local in conversation, remarking how unfortunate it was that Seale had died before he could be brought to justice. "He ain't dead. I'll show you where he lives," the man replied.

Moore was taken to Seale's house where he confronted the murderer in his yard. Seale disappeared into the house, but not before his image was caught on film, which was then used to persuade local police to reopen the case.

When Thomas Moore was told on Tuesday of Seale's genuine death, aged 76, at the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Indiana, he said to the Clarion Ledger: "Ain't no rejoicing in it. I do offer my sympathies to the family."

The Moore and Dee killings were among the most horrendous of the civil rights era. Yet they received relatively little attention in 1964 because they were overshadowed by the notorious "Mississippi burning" murders the following month of three civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.

Moore and Dee, both 19, were abducted on May 2 1964 by Seale and other members of the Ku Klux Klan. They were taken into the woods where they were beaten with sticks. The teenagers were suspected of planning to engage in civil rights activities as part of the 1964 "freedom summer" that was then under way with the aim of empowering Southern blacks to vote.

The teenagers were then thrown into the boot of a car, driven around Louisiana and Mississippi and then dumped alive in the river weighed down with the engine blocks of a Jeep. When their decomposed bodies were discovered weeks later, a cursory police inquiry was held but in tune with the prejudiced nature of law enforcement at the time the case was closed after just three months.

Seale's death comes at a turning point in the attempt to bring Klansmen to justice. Some 122 killings – a third of which happened in Mississippi – remain unpunished. Five years ago the FBI set up a special unit to look at the cold cases, but already the agency has admitted defeat in 60 of them. The task is made more difficult with every month that passes as key witnesses and suspects die.