Since the 1967 federal trial, Killen has refused requests for interviews and has preached occasionally in Mississippi churches. Last summer, a white supremacist announced that Killen would appear at the Mississippi State Fair, shaking hands and posing for pictures, but the appearance was canceled.
Killen is one of eight men still alive among the 18 who originally faced conspiracy charges, the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger reported Thursday.
Another is Sam Bowers, who was a leader of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Bowers is serving a life sentence for ordering the 1966 killing of Vernon Dahmer Jr., a civil rights leader, in Hattiesburg, Miss. Others include Pete Harris, Jimmy Snowden, Billy Wayne Posey, Richard Willis and Olen Burrage, the newspaper reported.
In Philadelphia, Fenton DeWeese, a lawyer, glimpsed one of the elderly witnesses -- a retired highway patrolman -- waiting outside the grand jury room, and knew the rumors of pending indictments were true.
"The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up," DeWeese said. "I'm still kind of floating."
James D. McIntyre, a Jackson, Miss., lawyer representing one of the men targeted by the state's investigation, said prosecutors risked opening old wounds and turning the clock back on years of racial reconciliation.
"This is a bad day for the state of Mississippi, targeting cases that occurred 40 years ago," said McIntyre, who would not identify his client. "They're probably spending one and a half million dollars a year to prosecute 80-year-old guys who are not a threat to society. You're trying to bring comfort to a few, and you're going to hurt the masses."
David Sansing, a retired professor of history at the University of Mississippi, said the arrest would stir up controversy, and that some in the state would argue against dredging up the past. He described his own mood as "elated."
"I know someone is going to ask me, 'Is it good for our image?' And I'll say I don't know, but it's good for our soul," Sansing said. "Those people in Philadelphia are trying to do right, and I am very proud of them. They are trying to do right."
Killen and any others indicted in the killings were to be arraigned at 11 a.m. today. Neshoba County Dist. Atty. Mark Duncan would not comment on the case, but said the grand jury had finished its work late Thursday.
"They will be out serving indictments today and in the morning," Duncan said. "I don't have any way to know who will be found tonight."
