Devils Walking

by Stanley Nelson

  A key piece of information determined early in the probe was that the blasting cap’s leg wire found at the Jackson crime scene—a twenty-gauge duplex copper wire with yellow insulation—was manufactured by the Hercules Company in Wilmington, Delaware. It was used primarily with seismographic electric blasting caps. The bureau learned that this particular wire was produced prior to the summer of 1965. In Brookhaven, Mississippi, agents learned that the Southwestern Pipe Corporation had employed Robert Luther Hart as facilities manager from 1965 until November 1966, giving him daily access to thousands of explosives and Hercules blasting caps identical to the one used in the Jackson bombing. Agents also identified Hart as a Klansman who had attended SDG meetings in Mississippi in the months prior to the bombing.35

  ON MARCH 4, 1967, five days after the bombing, Pfeifer and fellow FBI agent John Brady pulled into the driveway of Glover’s home on Lee Avenue in Vidalia. This was the first interview with Glover following the bombing and the first of many to be conducted by Pfeifer over the next four years. Glover said that after he completed his midnight to 8 a.m. shift on February 27, he might have stopped for milk before returning home, as he often did. He ate breakfast, read the paper, and went to bed. While he was asleep, his wife went to work at noon at a five-and-dime store in Natchez. He awoke at 2:30 p.m., hung out, and later ate supper with his elderly mother, who resided in his home. He wasn’t certain but thought he might have visited with John Henry, a former Vidalia policeman, that afternoon. At 9 p.m., his wife returned from her job. He dressed and went to work at 10:45. As he approached the plant, he observed a roped-off area on Minor Street, where he later learned Jackson had been bombed almost two hours earlier.36

  The next day, as Pfeifer and Brady drove a bureau car along Lee Avenue, they were hailed by Glover, who wanted to let them know that in his opinion blacks might have been involved in the Jackson bombing. On March 11, Glover told the agents he had forgotten to mention that on February 27 on his way home from work he stopped at an auto parts store in Vidalia at 8:30 a.m. to buy a wheel cylinder kit. Additionally, he said that at 7 p.m., an hour before the bombing, he had driven by Head’s house for a brief visit.37 As Glover’s story evolved, it became obvious not only that was he trying to cover his tracks but that he had several opportunities to plant the bomb in Jackson’s pickup. The bureau, however, would never find an eyewitness.

  In interviews with Pfeifer and other agents in the months ahead, Glover, unlike the other SDG members, would never even admit to being in the Klan. He denied having heard of the SDG and denied knowing many of the Klansmen he had recruited. During the summer, Glover told agents the man who killed Jackson was a “nut” and advised them to “keep looking for that maniac.” Pfeifer would recall in 2011 that Glover “was the kind of guy you would pass and never remember . . . But he was in absolute and total emotional control of himself, as if he were standing 200 yards off and studying you. It was like talking to the great stone face. You could tell he was analyzing each question we would ask him and wonder where did these guys get this question from.”38

  Throughout 1967, Glover’s closest associates would find him happy one day, consumed with hatred the next, and almost suicidal another. Pfeifer believed this unevenness displayed a schizophrenic personality. “I have lived a full life,” Glover once said, lamenting that the FBI was on his tail from daylight to dark and predicting that the bureau would frame him for a crime. Indeed, agents were following his every move and that of other SDG Klansmen. Glover observed agents taking photos of him in his pickup at a traffic light in Natchez. Agents visited his home constantly, and neighbors, friends, and Klan associates informed him that bureau men were asking questions about him.39

  Glover was by nature suspicious, and by the spring he knew some of his own men were talking to the FBI. How else did the bureau learn about the SDG meeting in Lismore two months prior to the Metcalfe bombing? By what other means would agents know to question him about the murder attempt? Pfeifer’s arrival in March of 1966, two months after the failed bombing of David Whatley’s home, had coincided with an end to Klan beatings and murders in Concordia Parish. From that point on, Glover’s primary interest was to redeem himself in his own mind by seeking vengeance against Metcalfe, whom he despised with an unyielding passion. And if he got Jackson, too, that would be a lesson to other blacks who dared take what had been traditionally been a white man’s job at the tire plant. Pfeifer believed until his death in 2012 that Glover’s determination to kill Metcalfe and his growing paranoia concerning his subordinates led Glover alone to plant the bomb under Jackson’s truck. Seasoned FBI agents thought the same thing. Police Chief Robinson, who had known Glover most of his life, also was convinced that Glover acted alone.40

  There was no discussion of explosives at the meeting Glover convened at the truck stop in Vidalia a week before the Jackson bombing. By then, he knew all he needed to know about explosives, and from Morace he learned how to wire the turn signals. In the Metcalfe bombing, the explosion had almost injured white employees leaving the plant, a possibility Glover had not considered. He had followed Jackson’s route home so many times that he knew precisely when Jackson would engage the left turn signal, and he knew that the only potential collateral damage would be the black residents who lived along the street. As the lone bomber, Glover would eliminate the possibility of loose tongues.41

  The FBI’s surveillance soon prompted members of Glover’s inner circle to come clean—to a point. Many SDG members suspected in murder cases admitted their Klan affiliations and that they had attended the SDG fish fry in Lismore, but, out of loyalty and fear of violating their Klan oaths, none admitted to murder nor implicated others. So successful, however, was the FBI’s infiltration into the SDG that Jack Seale and L. C. Murray, McDaniel’s best friends and members of his UKA cabinet, became informants. Like McDaniel, both Seale and Murray were financially destitute and out of work by early 1967. Seale’s financial condition was so fragile that his utilities had been disconnected over nonpayment. For some time, the FBI was hesitant to pay Seale and Murray to inform. At the time, Seale had yet to be tried for the bombing of Oberlin Jewelers, and he was known to be involved in the murders of Henry Dee and Charles Moore. Agent Prospere and Chief Robinson considered Murray a suspect in the 1964 bombing of Natchez mayor Joe Nosser’s home. In a memo to FBI assistant director Alex Rosen, Inspector Sullivan wrote that the two Klansmen “have been moving forces in Klan and SDG activities in the Natchez-Vidalia area since these groups initiated their activities.” Their social status in the communities where they lived, however, had deteriorated to the point that “they are regarded as undesirables,” Sullivan noted, adding that Seale “is down and very nearly out.” During the previous weeks, each had provided the FBI with histories of the SDG’s origin and activities but now faced leaving the area to find employment. The only way they could remain locally would be as paid informants.42

  “We have, however, never really convinced them that there is a quid pro quo potential in dealing with the FBI,” Sullivan continued. “They have done some work for us but they keep expecting trouble for their efforts or, at best, to be paid off in chitchat, which, however pleasant, is hardly edible.” Pointing out that more than a half dozen murders, a series of bombings, and numerous beatings, shootings, and arsons were suspected SDG projects, Sullivan advised that it “would be naïve to anticipate that these men will involve themselves in the things they tell us. They will, we feel sure, tell us of other important things they know. If their disclosures lead ultimately to their own exposure, as may well happen, they are willing to face these problems when they arise.” Sullivan concluded: “Unusual situations call for different treatment than the flow of our regular business is afforded. Our crimes here are wanton and senseless products of a violent apparatus that is motivated by hatred and bigotry. This is a major apparatus in stature and will require special handling to overcome.”43

  In another memo to Rosen, Sullivan addressed a question of immu
nity. Sonny Taylor, as a paid informant, told the bureau about Glover’s journey to Baskin, Louisiana, to retrieve and relocate explosives and weapons. Taylor would later admit his involvement in the Metcalfe bombing, but he wanted a letter stating he wouldn’t be prosecuted. Attorney General Ramsey Clark ultimately denied Hoover’s request for immunity for Taylor. Despite that, Sullivan held out hope that Taylor would agree to be a witness in the Metcalfe case if it were prosecuted. Additionally, Sullivan advised, the bureau had used Taylor to create conflict within the SDG. He had loaned a chainsaw to Glover, who had given it to Hester. When the bureau found out about it, agents asked Taylor to make a stink about it within SDG circles. Taylor called Glover a thief, and SDG members took sides before Glover ultimately admitted Taylor’s accusation was true.44

  Informants like Taylor, despite their own sins, could be used to “neutralize the apparatus behind our crimes,” Sullivan wrote Rosen. “The deterrent effect of solving these crimes even without immediate prosecution would be enormous.” Sullivan also reminded Rosen: “We know that Raleigh Jackson Glover has plans for future violence that will bring us back again into the Natchez area with problems of such gravity that further specials will be necessary. This is about the fifth occasion we have required a special at Natchez.”45 While no one was ever arrested and prosecuted in the Metcalfe bombing or the Jackson, Morris, or Edwards murders, the FBI did effectively neutralize the SDG by the end of 1967. Informants were the key. At one meeting for coffee in Ferriday, four SDG members were in attendance. Later, when all four reported to their handlers, the FBI had a view of the meeting from all four perspectives. But none of the Klansmen reported admissions of murder on the others’ part.

  Glover’s thievery contributed greatly to the SDG’s demise. He had stolen liquor from the Bonanza Club at Ferriday at a time when Morace was working there as a bouncer. When Morace confronted him about it, Glover initially lied but later confessed. Glover had also convinced a number of SDG Klansmen to purchase automatic rifles from him as part of the offensive on the looming race war. But in 1967, those who had purchased the rifles or automatic conversion kits learned that Glover was making a profit off of his Klan brothers. Many of his closest associates were upset by the news, but Glover slowly regained the confidence of some. All the while, the constant pressure of FBI agents tailing their every move put most into retreat for good.

  During the spring of 1967, Glover’s wife learned of his longtime affair with a female coworker at the Armstrong plant and threatened to kill the woman. Glover quickly gave in to his wife’s demands to move to Kentwood, in southeastern Louisiana, where many of her relatives lived. Glover bought a house there but continued to work at Armstrong; he lived in various rentals and went to Kentwood on his days off. His paranoia reached a fever pitch during the summer, when he was arrested for the theft of a pasture mower in Jefferson County, Mississippi. A newspaper story about his booking caused him great embarrassment. Even though an FBI agent discovered the mower on Glover’s property in Kentwood, District Attorney Forman failed to get a grand jury indictment in the case, reporting that there was no eyewitness to the crime.46

  By late summer, several SDG members, including Glover, were convinced that Tommie Lee Jones, by now one of four new suspects in the Morris murder, was informing on the Klan. His propensity for talking too much while drinking was a concern to all. In August, agents confronted Jones with their knowledge of his involvement in the attempted kidnapping of Morris’s friend James White in February 1964, as well as other acts of violence. Jones had initially been hostile to agents in early interviews, but the details they had gathered clearly stunned him. He admitted he had committed violent acts but said they all fell short of murder. He refused to name any participants in any crimes and refused to admit or deny any involvement in the Morris murder, claiming that the FBI could never arrest him in that case without also arresting DeLaughter, a man Jones said was more involved in the Klan than the FBI realized. A few days later, Jones hired a lawyer and quit talking. By September, a handful of SDG members met along the riverfront park atop the bluff at Natchez to decide whether to kill Jones. While there was strong support for his murder, especially from James “Red” Lee, Glover nixed the idea.47

  By the end of 1967, the FBI had reached a dead end in the Jackson, Morris, and Edwards murders. The bureau had located no eyewitnesses and, despite tantalizing physical evidence, could not link the murders to the killers or build an evidentiary trail. Plus, none of the informants would have been willing to testify in court. In October 1967, assistant attorney general for civil rights John Doar called two informants to testify during the federal trial of the killers of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman. “All of you probably have an initial resentment against paid informers,” Doar told jurors during his closing argument. But he pointed out that without informants, no arrests would ever have been made in the 1964 murders.48

  While the WHARBOM murder investigations fizzled, the probe into the Morville Lounge gained momentum. At the same time, Pfeifer drove to Natchez to talk with Sullivan about the potential of a federal prosecution in the 1965 William Cliff Davis beating by DeLaughter, Drane, and Fuller. Pfeifer suggested that because DeLaughter was a sworn deputy, he could be charged under federal statues regarding police brutality. Sullivan discussed the matter with Justice Department lawyers in Washington, and soon that case, too, was placed under WHARBOM. However, the results of the presidential election of 1968 slowed the investigations. Republican Richard Nixon replaced Democrat Lyndon Johnson in January 1969, which meant there would be new U.S. attorneys appointed throughout the country. Pfeifer said the transition of the cases within the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Shreveport slowed but did not hamper the Morville case.49

  In 1970, DeLaughter, Drane, and Fuller were tried for the Davis beating in federal court in Monroe. All three defendants seemed smugly unconcerned with the government’s case until prosecutors called William Cliff Davis to the stand. Since he had disappeared from Concordia Parish in 1965, the trio never expected to see Davis again, but the FBI had found him in Chicago and escorted him to Louisiana to testify. Pfeifer watched DeLaughter’s eyes grow wide in disbelief as Davis walked into the courtroom. It was a moment Pfeifer would never forget. All three men were convicted for violating Davis’s civil rights, and each served more than a year in prison.50

  IN DECEMBER 1967, Noah Cross was reelected sheriff by fifty votes in a runoff with former state trooper Marion Barnette. One of Cross’s ex-deputies, Raymond Keathley, a friend to the FBI, and former state representative and future sheriff Fred Schiele were eliminated in the first round. “I am proud that intelligent citizens saw through the recent political smear tactics used against me,” Cross said after the election. All three of his opponents had promised to rid the parish of gambling and prostitution.51

  Although deputies in the past had harassed voters at the polls and bullied every transient passing through Concordia to vote for Cross, either in person or by absentee ballot, a new clerk of court ended much of that practice. The former clerk, Victor Campbell, who had been removed from office on charges of corruption, had been conditioned by Cross to hand over unsealed envelopes containing absentee ballots before the election results were announced. The envelopes were supposed to have been licked and closed after the voters filled out the ballots. If Cross needed more votes to secure his reelection or to elect a candidate of his choice in another race, he exchanged the ballots with his own and then personally sealed the envelopes. Campbell’s role in the absentee voting scam became so well known that it earned him the nickname “No Lick Vic.”52

  Few people were happier with Cross’s reelection than Red Glover, who had urged all Klansmen to support the sheriff. He reminded the SDG that Cross was a friend of the Klan, adding that the sheriff had protected him when the bureau was investigating Glover’s alleged break-in of a liquor store in Ferriday. The FBI, however, was disappointed in the results, having noted prior to the runoff that the defeat
of Cross and the “presence of responsible law enforcement in Concordia Parish would be a great boon to the cause of law and order in the Natchez-Vidalia area.”53

  Morville Lounge owner J. D. Richardson, manager Curt Hewitt, two pimps, a bookkeeper, and two prostitutes were indicted in 1969 and later pled guilty to violation of the Interstate Transportation in Aid of Racketeering Act. Cross and DeLaughter were indicted in 1971. Initially, Richardson refused to testify against Cross, but after a few months in the federal prison in Atlanta, where his job was to wash dishes alongside a malicious murderer, he changed his mind and outlined Cross’s involvement. A series of grand juries, a hung jury, and other proceedings followed, but the sheriff’s lies were eventually his downfall. He pleaded apathy to the illegal prostitution and gambling that financed the Morville Lounge, adding that he simply followed the unwritten customs of the parish, not the written laws of the state.54 “If you followed every law that is in the constitution of the state, you would never be elected anymore, I will put it that way,” Cross said during trial proceedings. He claimed that he went to the lounge: “I didn’t see nothing. It wasn’t none of my business to stay down there and watch. I got a family that I stay with at night.” He also claimed he never witnessed any prostitution.55