28 Facts About Cecil Price

Cecil Ray Price was an American deputy sheriff and member of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

Cecil Price was a participant in the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner in 1964.

At the time of the murders, Price was 26 years old and a deputy sheriff in Neshoba County, Mississippi.

Cecil Price was sentenced to a six-year prison term and served four and a half years at the Sandstone Federal Penitentiary in Minnesota.

Cecil Price died following a fall from a piece of equipment at his job on May 6,2001.

Cecil Ray Price was born in Flora, Mississippi, on April 15,1938.

Cecil Price arrested the three workers, allegedly on suspicion of having been involved in a church arson, and locked them in the county jail.

Some time that same afternoon, Cecil Price reportedly met with fellow Klansmen to work out the details of the planned evening release and executions.

Cecil Price released the three following Chaney's payment of the speeding fine and followed them in his patrol car.

At 10:25, Cecil Price sped to catch up with the station wagon before it crossed the border into the relative safety of Lauderdale County.

Cecil Price ordered the three out of their car and into his.

Cecil Price then drove them to a deserted area on Rock Cut Road while being followed by two cars filled with other Klansmen.

Cecil Price then turned them over to fellow Klansmen who committed the beating of Chaney and subsequent murder of the three men.

Cecil Price returned to Philadelphia and resumed his duties as deputy while the bodies were being buried in an earthen dam that was under construction.

Cecil Price was invited by FBI Inspector Joseph Sullivan to assist in the recovery efforts of the bodies.

Sullivan suspected Cecil Price of being involved and wished to observe his reactions.

Cecil Price helped escort the three bodies to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, where the autopsies were performed.

On October 21,1967, Cecil Price was found guilty at trial of conspiracy and sentenced by Judge Cox to a six-year prison term.

Cecil Price served four and a half years at the Sandstone Federal Penitentiary in Minnesota.

Cecil Price was employed at times as a surveyor, as a truck driver for an oil company, and as a watchmaker in a jewelry shop.

Cecil Price was never charged with the murders of the three men.

Later in life, Cecil Price refused to speak publicly about the events of 1964 to 1967.

Cecil Price helped a black man, Marcus Dupree, a friend of his son Cecil Jr.

Cecil Price died on May 6,2001, three days after falling from a lift in an equipment rental store where he was working in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

Cecil Price died in the University of Mississippi Medical Center, the same hospital in Jackson where, thirty-seven years earlier, he had helped transport the bodies of the three slain civil rights workers for autopsies.

The first fictionalized version of Cecil Price appeared in the 1975 CBS 2-part TV drama, Attack on Terror: The FBI vs the Ku Klux Klan.

In HBO's 2016 movie All the Way, Cecil Price was portrayed by Colby Sullivan.

Archival footage of Cecil Price appears in the 30 for 30 documentary The Best that Never Was, which chronicles the life of National Football League player Marcus Dupree.