Byron De La Beckwith Dies; Killer of Civil Rights Leader Medgar Evers
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JACKSON, Miss. — Byron De La Beckwith, convicted assassin of civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963, died Sunday night at University Medical Center.
Barbara Austin, a hospital spokeswoman, said Beckwith entered the hospital at 12:07 p.m. PST. She could not elaborate on his ailment or the cause of death.
“It’s a matter for the coroner’s office to determine,” she said.
Evers, 37, who as a field secretary for the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People pushed for an end to segregation, had stepped out of his Oldsmobile with an armful of “Jim Crow Must Go” T-shirts when he was shot in the back.
Beckwith was convicted at a third trial in 1994 after two mistrials three decades earlier. In his defense, three police officers claimed to have seen him in Greenwood, Miss., about 90 miles north of Jackson, half an hour after the shooting.
He was sentenced to life in prison.
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