folo

On our developing topic of Bobby DeLaughter and the Beckwith Gun, I’ve had a story that smells significant from someone whose name would be familiar and credible to Jacksonites if I had permission to share it (you’ve seen it on folo before). My source isn’t a character in this story but has just refreshed their shared memory of it with one who is (whether Jerry Mitchell could speak to it, Source doesn’t know). Anyhow, here’s the tale:

Back when the Clarion-Ledger was pushing for the reopening of the Evers case, it had two reporters on the story (one being Jerry Mitchell, of course). The other one had questioned Bobby DeLaughter about the missing gun, been told it didn’t exist, and reported accordingly. But then another source of his — a guy later found dead beside his car on Amite Street around 7 o’clock one morning, supposedly a suicide — told Reporter Two that DeLaughter himself had the gun.

When he called Bobby to confront him, Bobby confirmed it — thereby starting the cascade of events that led to Beckwith’s conviction: Ed Peters’ office never “revealed” that they’d found the gun, but once it came out that, despite his previous statements, DeLaughter had it, they had no choice but to proceed.

“I’ve always liked DeLaughter,” Source writes,

but in the back of my mind there was that moment where, it seemed to me, he did not do the right thing because the big dogs did not want him to do the right thing. Then when he got caught, he did the right thing, and in that sense, in my view, Adam Nossiter’s piece in the NYT was absolutely accurate (I know you don’t agree). The fact is, DeLaughter is a Civil Rights hero, and he is innocent of all the pending charges until proven guilty.

But there is no question in my mind that the foreshadowing of today’s events starts with that long-ago issue of the gun.

Indeed.