Monday, June 18, 2007

[seale trial] Day 7: 'I Wasn't His Keeper'

by Matt Saldaña
June 7, 2007

R. W. Middleton, who was James Ford Seale’s pastor at Bunkley Baptist Church for several months in 1963, testified today against his “close friend” and fellow “gun fanatic.” Later, two witnesses with ties to Seale’s son, "Junior," and one to alleged co-conspirator Ernest Parker, took the stand. Seale, who was more active and vocal today than he has been thus far in the trial, patted Federal Public Defender Kathy Nester on the back when, early in the day, she argued successfully to keep deceased FBI informant and former Klansman Ernest Gilbert’s statements out of the trial.

Middleton testified that Archie Prather, an alleged co-conspirator in the Dee-Moore murders, approached the pulpit at the church to address allegations in 1963 that a “car full of niggers” had followed a woman to her home.

“Let me ride in the trunk and keep it halfway open. I’ll shoot every last one of them niggers,” Middleton testified that Prather said.

“I told him I didn’t think that it was an appropriate place to have those kind of meetings and say those types of things. A church is no place to talk about killing people. A church is supposed to teach you to love people,” Middleton said on the stand.

[View the entire article at the Jackson Free Press Road to Meadville blog.]