Former Klan leader faces murder trial for fifth time

Bowers, left, is escorted into court Monday

• A 'cowardly attack'
• Defense: Trial is media-orchestrated
• A 'love of Nazi ideology'
• Related stories and sites

HATTIESBURG, Mississippi (CNN) -- The widow of a man killed in a 1966 firebombing emotionally described her husband's death Tuesday as she testified in the fifth trial of the man accused of killing him.

Ellie Dahmer fought to keep her composure as she remembered when her husband, civil rights leader Vernon Dahmer, died in a hospital from injuries he suffered when their house was firebombed. The attack was allegedly ordered by former Ku Klux Klan imperial wizard Sam Bowers.

"I moved my chair around so I could look at his face," she said. "The next thing I know, he yells my name and fell back into my arms." That was when he died, she said.

Prosecutors say Bowers, now 73, and other Klansmen were upset that Dahmer had announced that fellow blacks could pay their poll tax at his grocery store.

The poll tax, designed to keep blacks from voting, was outlawed by the federal Voting Rights Act.

A 'cowardly attack'

Assistant District Attorney Bob Helfrich said in his opening statement Tuesday that two carloads of Klansmen, armed with shotguns and 12 gallons of gasoline, attacked Dahmer's home in January 1966.

Bowers, now the owner of a jukebox and vending machine business in Laurel, Mississippi, was not present during the attack on Dahmer's home, but is accused of ordering it.

"This cowardly attack was ordered by Sam Bowers," Helfrich said.

A newspaper headline tells the story of the 1966 firebombing

Dahmer saved the lives of his wife, three children and an aunt by remaining in the burning house and firing his rifle at the Klansmen as they escaped.

Dahmer's daughter Bettie was 10 at the time of the attack. She testified that she remembered her father's skin "hanging off his arms."

"He never complained," she said. "He just wanted to know if we were all right."

Bowers' four previous trials in the 1960s -- three state and one federal -- had all-white juries. They each ended in deadlocked juries.

The current trial has a jury of six whites, five blacks and one Asian-American.

Bowers eventually served six years in prison for violating the civil rights of James Cheney, Mickey Schwerner and Michael Goodman, three civil rights workers killed near Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1964. Their story was turned into the movie "Mississippi Burning."

Defense: Trial is media-orchestrated

Bowers' attorney, Travis Buckley, said in his opening statement that the new trial resulted from "a media-orchestrated and politically driven prosecution."

Though acknowledging the January 10, 1966, murder was "atrocious," Buckley urged the jurors not to give into emotion.

The only issue prosecutors will talk about, Buckley said, is "the burning of his family, the burning of his house. The witnesses they have are not credible."

The trial is expected to last about a week. The jury is sequestered.

Bowers, who is free on bond, could face life in prison with parole after 10 years if convicted. He has not uttered a word about the case outside the courtroom.

A 'love of Nazi ideology'

However, he is reportedly an unrepentant racist, telling a writer several years ago that he was called upon to eliminate those who didn't believe in racial purity.

"He had a tortured interpretation of Scripture that combined his love of Nazi ideology and racial theory of the 19th century to underwrite that idea that he had been called by God," said Charles Marsh, author of "God's Long Summer."

State and Forrest County prosecutors cited new evidence for the new indictment, but they also faced renewed pressure to reopen the long-dormant case.

The renewed indictment also names Charles Noble and former Klansman Deavours Nix. Noble is charged with murder and arson, Nix with arson. They have said they are innocent; trial dates have not yet been set.

A previous retrial of an old civil rights case turned out favorable for Mississippi prosecutors. In 1994, white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith was convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers. Beckwith had been tried twice before but met with hung juries.