This episode examines a sensitive topic.

Please listen with caution.

Vernon Dahmer lived in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in the 1960s. He had a wife and eight children, seven sons, and

one daughter. He was a successful man who owned a cotton farm, a sawmill, and a grocery

store. He volunteered as music director and Sunday school teacher at his local

church. In addition to all of his other obligations, he served two terms as president of his local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, commonly known as the N-Double-A-C-P.

I think it's safe to say he liked to help people. He helped people of all skin colors, a quality that should have been admired and celebrated.

However, on January 10, 1966, the Ku Klux Klan committed the ultimate act of retribution.

They firebombed his home.

And as the flames incinerated the walls of his house, the smoke scorched his lungs, suffocating him.

At the age of 58, Vernon Dahmer was murdered because he believed all people were

created equal.

The memory of what happened that night will forever plague Vernon's wife,

Ellie Dahmer.

I heard the gunshots coming in.

And a short time, they threw something in through the living room and it

disgusting flame. The flame was just rowing coming after coming after us.

From A&E this is cold case files. Vernon Domer was born in 1908.

Vernon Dahmer was born in 1908.

His mother Ellen was identified as being biracial.

Her mother had been raped by a white slave owner.

Fern's father, George, was a white man, described as honest and hardworking.

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