Justice Department concluded that former FBI Director J. The investigation remained quiet until 1997 when agents went to Texas to talk to Cherry.Ī decade earlier, the U.S. But I’m not responsible for it.”Ī 1993 meeting in Birmingham between FBI officials and Black ministers led to the reopening of the bombing case against Blanton and Cherry. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville, Alabama. “I think I was cleverly set up by the government … and that’s why I’m here,” Blanton told the television station from St. In a 2006 interview with Birmingham station WBRC-TV, he claimed the government used trumped-up evidence and lies to gain his conviction. senator, said in the trial.īlanton proclaimed his innocence years after being sent to prison. 15, 1963 bombing that killed four young black girls, won't be able to apply again for parole. “Tom Blanton saw change and didn’t like it,” Jones, now a Democratic U.S. Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., an 86-year-old Ku Klux Klansman serving a life sentence for the Sept.

The targeted church was a rallying point for protesters. Attorney Doug Jones, appointed as a special state prosecutor, said Blanton acted in response to months of civil rights demonstrations. Lisa McNair, the sister of Denise McNair, said she also hoped Blanton had repented and added: “I wish I could have sat down with him to find out if he had had a change of heart.”īlanton never admitted any role in the blast, but evidence showed he was part of a group of hard-core Klansmen who made a bomb and planted it on a Sunday morning.ĭuring the trial, then-U.S. “She hopes that he found Jesus Christ and repented,” George Rudolph said on behalf of his wife.

Thomas edwin blanton jr. cause of death