| Current Poll |
Are you for armed guards at schools?
View Results
|
|
Story Archives: Investigation sheds light on Morris case
- 2013 - 290 articles
- 2012 - 856 articles
- 2011 - 635 articles
- 2010 - 1276 articles
- 2009 - 1591 articles
- 2008 - 1763 articles
|
Investigation sheds light on Morris case
The Concordia Sentinel's reporting in this week's issue identifying a Rayville man as a suspect in the Frank Morris arson/murder was the result of fours years of work by Sentinel editor Stanley Nelson and others.
Since February 2007, Nelson – and a host of other individuals who possess more than a passing interest in unsolved civil rights-era murders – investigated the December 1964 arson of Morris' business, which lead to his death. A black man who owned and operated a shoe shop in Ferriday, Morris died at Concordia Parish Hospital four days after he was engulfed in flames in his shop. The shoe shop was set ablaze by a Ku Klux Klan "wrecking crew."
Not long after the Federal Bureau of Investigation released a list of the unsolved civil rights-era murders in which the Morris case was included, The Sentinel's Nelson helped found the Civil Rights Cold Case Project. The project focuses on unsolved civil rights-era murders in the South after World War II. It is led by the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) in Berkeley, Calif. Robert J. Rosenthal is executive director of CIR. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hank Klibanoff, the James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism at Emory University in Atlanta, is managing editor of the project. Others involved in the project include David Paperny of Paperny Films in Vancouver, Canada; reporters Jerry Mitchell of the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss.; David Ridgen of the Canadian Broadcast Corp.; John Fleming of the Anniston Star in Anniston, Ala.; and Ben Greenberg, a freelance reporter in Boston.
Besides the Civil Rights Cold Case Project, The Sentinel's other primary partner in investigating the Morris case is the Syracuse University College of Law's Cold Case Justice Initiative. Law professors Janis McDonald and Paula Johnson head the Syracuse effort.
The Sentinel interviewed three individuals last year who say Arthur Leonard Spencer of Rayville was involved in the Morris arson/murder. Those individuals were Bill Frasier and Brenda Rhodes of Minden and William "Boo" Spencer of Rayville. Frasier and Rhodes are siblings. Rhodes was married to Leonard Spencer at one time. Boo Spencer is one of Leonard Spencer's sons.
Frasier's, Rhodes' and Boo Spencer's testimony was compelling.
In an interview with The Sentinel last year, Leonard Spencer acknowledged he was a member of the KKK in the 1960s, but he denied any involvement in the Morris matter.
The Sentinel also utilized the FBI's own documents concerning the Morris case in investigating it. The documents were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
The FBI records do not identify Leonard Spencer as having played a role in the Morris arson/murder, but enough evidence exist – along with the statements made by Frasier, Rhodes and Boo Spencer – to compel the Justice Department to pursue an indictment in the Morris case. |
|
| Frank Morris Murder Series |
|
|
E-mail Story
Print Story
