Accused murderer Edgar Ray Killen was injured in a logging accident Thursday afternoon in Newton County and was listed in good condition after surgery at a Jackson hospital Friday.
Killen, the reputed Klansman accused of killing three civil rights workers in 1964, spent much of Friday in surgery as doctors operated on broken legs he suffered in a logging accident.
“He’s out of surgery,’’ his brother Jerry Killen told the Associated Press late Friday afternoon. “He’s doing fairly well, I guess. They got his legs straightened out ... He was hurt pretty bad, I think he was hit on the head when the tree fell.’’
A University Medical Center spokeswoman on Friday told The AP that Killen had requested that no information, other than his initial condition, be released. The spokeswoman said Killen was in good condition.
An ambulance responded to a call at 148 Brooks McDill Road in the Conehatta community, said Newton County Sheriff Jackie Knight.
A tree fell on Killen and shattered the femur in both legs, knocking him unconscious, officials said.
An ambulance and fire department units were dispatched at 3:15 p.m. Killen was taken to Laird Hospital in Union and then to Rush Foundation Hospital in Meridian and was still in “a lot of pain but was awake and lucid,” Knight said.
Killen, 80, was indicted Jan. 6 for the murders of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County in 1964 and pleaded not guilty.
His murder trial is scheduled to begin April 18.
Neshoba County District Attorney Mark Duncan said Thursday night from his home that a serious injury would impact the trial.
“We will just have to wait and see what the extent of his injuries are. We can be ready for trial at any time but obviously if it’s some kind of serious injury it may affect the scheduling of the trial,” he said.
Circuit Court Judge Marcus Gordon said Monday from his Union office that he planned to meet with the defense attorney and Duncan later this week "to give me some kind of information about his condition and whether we can expect to go to trial. "If we are going to have an April 18 trial depends on the man’s condition," he said.
Killen’s attorney, W. Mitchell Moran of Carthage, said Killen was cutting a tree that had fallen on another tree when it fell and struck him on the head.
“It kind of drove him in the ground like a pile driver” and broke his legs, Moran said.
He said Killen was knocked out but that others were present to come to his aid. He did not have a condition report on Killen but said he had been talking but was being given drugs.
Jerry Edwards, Killen’s stepson, said that Killen was still in the emergency room at Rush at about 9 p.m., awaiting transfer to University Medical Center in Jackson.
Edwards said Killen was awake and alert.
“He was cutting trees and one had gotten stuck and he was cutting another tree to dislodge it. When it came loose it hit him in the head and knocked him to the ground,” Edwards said, breaking both legs.
The Associated Press and Democrat reporter Kenneth Billings contributed to this story.
Reader Comments
Posted: Saturday, June 11, 2005
Article comment by:
Liet
I wonder how someone who hates other people so much would become a preacher. Oh, wait... we saw the same 2000 years ago when some "God's men" killed a guy named Jesus. I've seen it!
Posted: Saturday, June 11, 2005
Article comment by:
Liet
I wonder how someone who hates other people so much would become a preacher. Oh, wait... we saw the same 2000 years ago when some "God's men" killed a guy named Jesus. I've seen it!
Posted: Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Article comment by:
ccahill
Re Edgar Ray Killen's injuries: Would it be apropro to say "The mills of God grind slowly but they grind exceedingly small" even in jokes? A log hit Edgar Ray in the head and broke his legs???
I can easily imagine the hysterical thigh-slapping he and his ilk would have done had the situation happened forty years ago to a Black logger. Sorry, but the irony makes it doubly funny.
