The Ghosts of Mississippi (20 page)

On Saturday morning, with the jury fresh after a night’s sleep, Waller began to introduce the highly technical evidence he would need to tie the murder weapon first to Thorn McIntyre and then to Beckwith. He called Francis Finley, the Memphis-based FBI agent who had collected fifty-three empty cartridge cases from Thorn McIntyre’s farm on June 24. He called Richard Poppleton, an FBI ballistics expert, who worked in the FBI laboratory in Washington. Poppleton had test-fired the Enfield and then compared the microscopic markings on the test casings with the shells retrieved from McIntyre. He testified that thirty of McIntyre’s casings had been fired by the rifle in evidence.

Poppleton’s most important job was to link the bullet that had killed Medgar Evers to that same rifle. He had first examined the six live rounds recovered from the chamber and found that they were factory-loaded Winchester .30/06 180-grain soft point bullets. They could be bought at any hardware store.

When Poppleton had received the bullet, the lead tip was squashed like a mushroom, and the sides of the copper jacket were folded back along the lower half of the base. Poppleton had to smooth back the sides — basically try to reconstruct the original contours of the bullet to examine it. Two fragments of the jacket had broken off when he unfolded it.

Poppleton could say for certain that the spent round that had killed Evers was the same type and manufacture as the bullets in the chamber of the Enfield. Then he ran into a problem.

The basis of ballistic comparison is the supposition that every gun has a signature: microscopic markings that are etched into a bullet as it passes through the barrel. No two barrels are exactly the same, and each leaves a distinctive “fingerprint” on the bullet jacket.

Poppleton was clearly proud of his skill in ballistics. He spoke lovingly, endlessly, of riflings and grains and land-and-groove impressions. But for all his expertise and precision he could not do the one thing Waller needed: he could not put that bullet back in the rifle.

The FBI man testified that the bullet that killed Medgar Evers was so mutilated that there were not enough identifiable markings to associate it with any particular gun. He could tell it had been fired from an Enfield, and he had found “some similarities” with other bullets test-fired from the rifle in evidence, but not enough to justify a scientific match.

It was a blow for the prosecution, and with it the first breeze of reasonable doubt wafted through the courtroom. Waller was able to get Poppleton to say that there was nothing about the bullet to suggest it had not been fired from the rifle, but Hardy Lott was ready to pounce.

In cross-examination Lott got Poppleton to admit that it was “remotely possible” that the spent round could have been fired from a different type of rifle fitted with an Enfield barrel. He had him testify that two million of this type of American Enfields had been manufactured during World War I and later sold as surplus. These rifles were now scattered around the country in the hands of private gun owners.

“And this spent bullet, Exhibit 18, in your firm opinion, could have been fired from any one of those rifles?” Lott asked.

“That’s correct.”

During breaks in the testimony Beckwith made a point of hounding Waller. Once he slipped a cigar into the astounded prosecutor’s breast pocket. Waller numbly handed it back. The little fellow was always trying to put his hands on his adversary, and Waller had to stay alert to keep out of reach. Beckwith sometimes managed to pat Waller on the back as he left the courtroom. Waller ignored him as best he could.

Beckwith just couldn’t keep still. He once walked over to the jury box and started to chat with the jurors before the bailiff herded him back to his seat.

After lunch John Fox took over the examinations. He called to the stand John W. Goza, known to folks around the Delta as “Duck” and proprietor of Duck’s Tackle Shop on Highway 8 East in Grenada, Mississippi. Duck did not seem happy to be in court. He said he knew Delay Beckwith well; the salesman would come by the shop every month or so to trade guns.

Goza told the court that Beckwith had telephoned him at his shop on May 12, 1963, to tell him that he was coming over to do some trading. Beckwith was calling from Greenwood, and he wanted to know how late Duck would be open that night. Goza told him eight o’clock.

Beckwith drove the thirty miles to Grenada that night. Duck traded Beckwith five dollars’ worth of .22 cartridges for an inoperable .22 rifle. There were other trades as well.

“I traded a nice .45 automatic for a lesser grade automatic, and I got four or five clips to boot. And then I — I wanted to go home. He said he had another trade to make, and I traded him a six-power scope, telescopic sight.”

“And what did you trade with him for the six-power scope?” Fox asked.

“A .45 automatic. … I was trying to run him out. I wanted to go home. He said, ‘I’ve got one more trade to make,’ said, ‘What will you give me for this .45 automatic?’ And I wanted to go home. I just noticed this scope laying there in the showcase, and I told him I’d trade him even.”

“Did you run him out of your shop?”

“I wanted to go home.”

Fox produced an invoice from United Binocular Company showing that Goza had received one Golden Hawk six-power scope on September 12, 1962. Goza testified that it had been the only one of its kind in his shop. It was the scope he had traded to Beckwith.

Stanny Sanders took the cross. He got Goza to say that Beckwith was just like any other gun trader who came into the shop — that he would come in and handle things, pick them up. Goza also agreed that when he had traded the scope, there hadn’t been anything unusual or secret about the deal.

The Court adjourned early that afternoon.

The trial of Byron De La Beckwith resumed Monday morning, February 3. The state was still making its case.

Ralph Hargrove was called to the stand to describe the fingerprint he had found on the Golden Hawk scope. This was crucial testimony for Waller, the very cornerstone of his case against Beckwith.

Hargrove, the captain in charge of the Identification Division, described his training. He had been on the force for twenty-three of his forty-three years. He described himself as a graduate of the Institute of Applied Science in Chicago.

When Hargrove dusted the rifle, he said, he found a number of smears on parts of the weapon, vestiges of fingerprints and palm prints, typical of the surface of a gun. In his opinion the weapon had not been wiped down after it was last handled.

Hargrove found only one clear, identifiable print. He said that latent print “practically jumped up” when he spread the powder over the right front section of the scope. Charts and diagrams and photos were produced on an easel for the jury to examine. Hargrove droned on about what a fingerprint is, how it is made.

Then Waller asked, “. . . do you have an opinion as to the age of that fingerprint, based upon all circumstances?”

Lott objected. He was overruled, and Hargrove was allowed to answer.

“A latent fingerprint will last according to its surroundings. It — the life of a print cannot be pinpointed, although a print will last, as I said, according to the things that come in contact with it. … I believe that the print is not over twelve hours old.”

Hargrove then compared Beckwith’s fingerprint card, taken at the time of his arrest, with the latent print lifted from the scope, and said he found a match with Beckwith’s right index finger. He marked fourteen points of comparison; he said he could have marked more.

The prosecution set up a slide projector to show the two prints side by side. Hargrove compared them, ridge by ridge, whorl by whorl, bifurcation by bifurcation, through the fourteen comparison points. He also pointed out a small scar visible in both prints. He said that the identification was “positive.”

Hardy Lott needed to destroy this testimony in a bad way. So he began chipping away at Hargrove’s expertise. He mocked Hargrove’s “degree” from the formidable-sounding Institute of Applied Science in Chicago. It was a correspondence course, the kind advertised on matchbooks and in detective magazines. Lott read from a magazine advertisement for the school: “Blue Book of Crime free! Given to men who want to get into crime detection — fingerprint identification — train at home — spare time . . . learn fingerprint identification — crime investigation — police photography — other subjects vital to qualifying for good-paying, secure, interesting jobs.”

Then Lott referred the captain to the slide projection of the two prints. The print taken in ink at the jail included the whole terminal joint of the right index finger and part of the second joint. Lott made much of the fact that the latent print taken from the rifle was of a smaller section of the fingertip, roughly between one-third and one-quarter the size of the jailhouse print. He referred to it from then on as a “fraction” of a print, while Hargrove insisted that it was a “large, plain impression” with more than enough information to make a comparison. It was simply narrower, showing only the natural contours of a fingertip as it would touch an object without rolling from one side to another.

Lott tried to inject skepticism into the minds of the jury — there were bits missing, smudges. And Lott tried to discredit Hargrove’s evaluation of the age of the print. He got Hargrove to admit that fingerprints can last indefinitely — months, even years — under certain circumstances.

Lott then asked whether Hargrove knew for a fact how long the rifle had lain in the honeysuckle, whether it had been in a case just before that or been wrapped in cellophane — something that would preserve a fingerprint just like new. Hargrove said he didn’t know.

Lott asked Hargrove if the dew that had collected on the hot, humid night of the murder might have destroyed the latent fingerprint. Hargrove countered that the dew was light, and he took that into consideration when he aged the print. But Lott had planted his seed: couldn’t the weapon have been placed there in the hours after the murder?

After lunch George Edward Goodreau, an FBI fingerprint examiner, took the stand to tie the prints to Beckwith’s Marine records. As with Hargrove, Hardy Lott tried to inject doubt that a man could be identified with only part of one fingerprint.

After hours of droning technical testimony, Waller decided to pick up the pace with something more dramatic. He called Herbert Richard Speight, the first of two cabdrivers who had said they saw Beckwith in Jackson the weekend before the murder.

Speight testified that he was sitting in his White Top cab outside the Trailways bus station around 4 p.m. on the Saturday before the murder, when Byron De La Beckwith had walked up and asked him “if I knew Negro Medgar Evers, N-double A-C-P leader.” Speight said he didn’t, so Beckwith walked back into the bus station, went into a phone booth, and came out with a map.

“He came back to my cab, and … he asked me if I knew where Lexington Street was. I told him I did, but that couldn’t be where the colored fellow lived because it’s an all-white section.”

“All right. What did Mr. Beckwith do then?” Waller asked.

“He turned around and went back to the bus station. He came back with another address on Buena Vista, if I recall right, and I told him that couldn’t be it, because that was a white section.”

Beckwith came back again with an address on Poplar, again a white neighborhood. He was, Speight remembered, “very calm.” He said another cabbie named Lee Swilley was sitting in the cab with him at the time.

After that Speight got a radio call to pick up a fare in North Jackson, and he pulled out of the bus station. He didn’t think about it again until Beckwith was arrested.

Stanny Sanders took the cross. He reminded Speight of the time when he and Hugh Cunningham had gone to Speight’s boardinghouse to talk to him. Although the prosecution didn’t have to reveal its witnesses, Speight had accidentally been served a subpoena, so Beckwith’s team had gone by to check him out. The conversation had lasted some forty-five minutes, and in that time Speight had told them he “guessed” he had been subpoenaed because he saw Beckwith “about a week before Evers was shot.” Speight told them he’d had a “general conversation” with Beckwith he didn’t really remember.

“And we asked you specifically, did we not, if the name Medgar Evers was mentioned, didn’t we?” Sanders asked.

“You did.”

“You told us no, didn’t you, Mr. Speight?”

“Yessir. I don’t talk to two parties at the same time.”

The courtroom broke up in laughter, and the sheriff was called in to keep order. Speight continued to admit that he had misled the defense lawyers.

“As I say, when I talk to one attorney, I don’t talk to another.” Speight also had lied about being alone in the cab when he saw Beckwith.

Speight then testified that he had been taken down to the police station for a lineup and had identified Beckwith among six or eight men. “I never forget a face if I ever see it once,” he said.

Speight said that he just didn’t know whether Beckwith was the only man in the lineup who wasn’t wearing a coat and tie, didn’t have a belt on, and happened to be wearing a shirt with the monogram BDB. “I didn’t pay that much notice,” he said. He just knew the face.

Waller, he testified, had told him not to discuss the case with anyone. Speight was sputtering and tongue-tied when Sanders got through with him.

“Were you acting under the instructions of Mr. Waller when you misrepresented yourself to us?” Sanders asked.

“I — uh — uh . . .”

The judge wouldn’t let Sanders ask it that way, but Sanders already had what he needed. The witness was dismissed.

After a brief recess Lee Swilley was sworn in and repeated the same basic story Speight had told. Beckwith was looking for Evers and had wanted to know whether he lived on Poplar, Lexington, or “Arbor Vista.” He added that Beckwith had told the cabbies, “I got to find where he lives in a couple of days.”

Swilley said he called the Jackson police on June 13 about the incident, and gave them a statement. He too picked Beckwith out of a lineup.