Murder in Mississippi: The Medgar Evers Assassination Case

REDACTED: Declassified Mysteries with Luke Lamana

Wondery | Ballen Studios

History, True Crime

4.3 • 668 Ratings

🗓️ 15 July 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For decades, justice for civil rights leader Medgar Evers remained out of reach. Assassinated in his own driveway in 1963, his killer walked free after two all-white juries refused to convict him. But the story didn’t end there. Nearly 30 years later, long-hidden government documents revealed possible jury tampering, reopening the case and leading to a dramatic trial in which his murderer was finally brought to justice.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Love unsettling stories.
0:02.4	Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to redacted, declassified mysteries, early and ad-free,
0:07.8	as well as another twisted tale from Bollin Studios and Wondery called Wartime Stories,
0:12.8	also hosted by me, Early and Ad-Free on Wondry Plus.
0:16.7	Start your free trial today. It was just after midnight in Jackson, Mississippi on June 12, 1963.
0:31.6	Medgar Evers was fighting to keep his eyes on the road.
0:35.6	The stillness of the night had him on edge.
0:38.8	Just yesterday he learned that the Ku Klux Klan had marked him for death.
0:44.6	Medgar was Mississippi's most prominent civil rights activist.
0:48.2	He served as the local field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of
0:52.7	Colored People, or N-A-CP,
0:55.5	and he was in the midst of a difficult battle.
0:58.2	The clan wanted him dead because he was fighting for integration.
1:02.5	Medgar checked his review mirror every few seconds, looking to see if he was being followed.
1:07.4	This had become a force of habit over the last few days.
1:11.2	Mississippi clunk tightly to Jim Crow laws.
1:14.4	Most black people couldn't vote, get a proper education, run certain businesses, or even drink from public water fountains.
1:21.7	Activists like Medgar were ramping up their efforts to change things, but lately the situation had gotten a lot more
1:28.3	dangerous. A week prior, some of Medgar's fellow activists staged a sit-in at the segregated
1:35.5	war's lunch counter in Jackson. They were berated and abused while the Jackson police
1:40.8	sat by and did nothing. This made national headlines, which then turned up the heat locally.
1:47.3	Since then, the threats against civil rights activists had picked up, especially toward Medgar.
	...

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