Ex-FBI agent Jim Ingram dies at 77

JACKSON, Miss. — Retired FBI agent Jim Ingram, who helped state and federal officials reopen long-dormant investigations of killings from Mississippi's violent civil-rights era, has died. He was 77.

Ingram, a 30-year FBI veteran, died Sunday of complications from pancreatic cancer, said his son, James M. Ingram. The elder Ingram led bureau offices in Chicago and New York before retiring in 1982.

The Oklahoma native was among the agents who opened the FBI's first office in Mississippi in the weeks after three civil-rights workers disappeared in Neshoba County on June 21, 1964.

In what was known as the "Mississippi Burning" case, agents found the bodies of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman buried in an earthen dam on Aug. 4, 1964, several miles from where they had been abducted by Ku Klux Klansmen.

In 1967, seven men were convicted of federal charges of violating the civil rights of the men killed. None served more than six years in prison. The trial for Edgar Ray Killen, a reputed Klan leader and part-time preacher, ended in a hung jury.

In 2005, Ingram helped with the investigation as Mississippi prosecutors brought the first-ever state charges in the case. On June 21, 2005 — 41 years to the day after the three men disappeared — a Neshoba County jury convicted Killen on three counts of manslaughter for masterminding the slayings. Killen was sentenced to three consecutive 20-year terms and remains in a state prison.

Ingram is survived by his wife, Marie, and their three sons: Steven W. Ingram of Madison, Stanley T. Ingram of Edwards and James M. Ingram of Madison.