|
A Time Line Of The Investigation of the
Bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church
|
Birmingham
Church Bombing Timeline |
| 2001
May 2 |
Ex-Klansman, Thomas
Blanton, gets life for '63 church bombing
|
2000
May 17 |
Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry surrendered
after an Alabama grand jury indicted them on first-degree murder
charges. They have also been charged with four counts of
"universal malice."
|
2000
May 4 |
A lawyer for Bobby Frank Cherry, a
long-time suspect in the bombing, says his client rejected a deal
in which he would receive probation if he pleaded guilty to
transporting explosives over state lines. Currently in a Texas
jail on rape charges, Cherry continued to deny any involvement in
the bombing.
|
1997
July 10 |
After a secret, year-long review, the
FBI reopens its investigation.
Read a July
1997 article on the bombing and the investigation.
Read Janet
Reno's Speech at the 16th Street Baptist Church on January 15,
1997.
|
| 1988
October |
Gary A. Tucker, dying of cancer, says he helped set
the bomb. Federal and state prosecutors reopen their
investigation, but new charges are never filed.
|
| 1985
October 29 |
At age 81, convicted bomber Robert Edward Chambliss
dies in prison of natural causes never having publicly admitted
any role he had in the bombing.
|
1980
|
After the US Dept. of Justice releases a report that
J. Edgar Hoover had blocked evidence that could have been used in
the investigation, an Alabama district attorney reopens the case.
No new charges are filed.
|
| 1977 |
Robert Edward Chambliss is convicted of
one count of murder in Carol McNair's death.
|
| 1971
|
The case is reopened by Alabama Attorney General
Bill Baxley.
|
| 1968 |
No charges are filed as federal authorities pull out
of the investigation.
|
| 1965 |
Saying that the chance of getting a conviction was
"remote", FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover blocked the
prosecution of several suspects.
|
| 1963
September 15
|
A bomb explodes at the Sixteenth Street Baptist
Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing 11-year-old Carol Denise
McNair and 14-year-olds Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins and
Carole Robertson. |
