Crimes of the KKK
Cold Case Files
A&E / PodcastOne
4.1 • 8.2K Ratings
🗓️ 26 May 2026
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Klan leader Sam Bowers goes on trial for ordering the murder of an African-American storeowner 32 years prior, and investigators reopen the unsolved case of an African-American truck driver who was forced to leap to his death from a bridge by Klan members.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This program contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. |
| 0:04.3 | Listener discretion is advised. |
| 0:08.5 | There are over 100,000 cold cases in America. |
| 0:12.8 | Only 1% are ever solved. |
| 0:15.9 | This is one of those rare stories. |
| 0:25.5 | Thank you. is one of those rare stories. On the night of January 10th, 1996, in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, |
| 0:31.8 | headlights from trucks driven by members of the Ku Klux Klan illuminate a solitary farmhouse. Inside lives 58-year-old Vernon |
| 0:41.1 | Daimer, a black man and father of eight. Inside the house with Vernon are his daughter Betty |
| 0:47.4 | and his wife Ellie. This is Ellie. I heard the gunshots coming in. And a short time, they threw something in through the living room, |
| 0:57.0 | well, and it just scuffed in flame. |
| 0:59.0 | The flame was just roaring, coming after us. |
| 1:03.0 | And I was yelling to burn, and to get up, I believe they got it this time. |
| 1:07.0 | As the Klan sets Stamer's house on fire, |
| 1:10.0 | Vernon grabs his gun and begins shooting, hoping to provide cover while his family escapes the flames. |
| 1:16.9 | This is Vernon's daughter Betty. |
| 1:19.3 | I was screaming and crying because I was in pain, but when I could look at my daddy and see that the skin was literally hanging off him like |
| 1:29.2 | a sheet of paper, and he never complained. |
| 1:31.8 | He never cried. |
| 1:33.5 | He was just concerned that we stay out of the reflection of the light from the house so |
| 1:39.5 | that if they did come back, they couldn't find us to kill us. |
| 1:43.5 | Vernon Damer's farmhouse is burned to the ground. |
| 1:46.0 | The men in white sheets dissolve back into the night, and Daimer himself is left barely alive, |
... |
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