JACKSON – Former Ku Klux Klansman Charles Marcus Edwards, a cousin to James Ford Seale, testified Tuesday about his role in the abduction, beating and murder of two black teenagers in 1964, saying one of them was suspected of being a Black Panther from Chicago and the other was just unlucky.

Seale is facing federal kidnapping and conspiracy charges and his cousin, who has been granted immunity, was the first prosecution witness in the trial that began after a week of jury selection. Both men are in their 70s.

Edwards, whose story has changed over the past 43 years, said he was finally telling the truth.

During a break in testimony, he also looked at the victims’ family members and apologized.

On May 2, 1964, Seale, who has pleaded innocent, and his brother, Jack, put Henry Hezikia Dee, 19, in a boat, chained him to a Jeep engine block and rolled him over the side into the backwater of the Mississippi River near Palmyra in southwest Warren County, Edwards said. Dee was still alive at the time, he added.

Charles Eddie Moore, also 19, was taken out in a boat this time, according to Edwards, although he did not say who was in the boat, and was tied to pieces of railroad rail and also dumped into the river.

Although Edwards didn’t witness the murders, he said Seale brought it up in conversation about 6 weeks later. He said both victims were &#8220very much alive” when they were pushed out of the boat.

In order to get to Palmyra Chute, Edwards said Seale had to drive through Louisiana, because that was the only way to get there from the farm of Clyde Seale, the defendant’s father.

Jay Cochran, retired FBI agent, said he witnessed the autopsy of the bodies after they were pulled out of Palmyra Chute.

He had been ordered to travel to Jackson to witness the autopsy because he thought they could have been the remains of three missing civil rights workers also missing from near Philadelphia that summer.

&#8220These bodies had been in the water a month or more, which predated the civil rights workers,” Cochran said. The bodies of Andrew Goodman, Mickey Schwerner and James Chaney were found later in Neshoba County.

Neither body in the Mississippi was in one piece, but a belt with an M on the buckle, and a wallet helped identify the victims as Moore and Dee.

Before being dumped in the water, Edwards said Dee and Moore were beaten and had their mouths duct taped. They were placed in the trunk of Seale’s car, Edwards said.

Edwards said there was a rumor in the small town of Meadville that Dee was part of a conspiracy to bring weapons into Southwest Mississippi for the beginning of a race riot. At a weekly KKK meeting, or as the Klansmen referred to it as the &#8220Bunkley Hunting Club meeting,” it was brought up that Dee should be targeted.

&#8220He looked like a Black Panther because of the black bandana he wore around his head,” he said. &#8220I said, ‘He’s the one we should get.’”

The morning of May 2, Edwards said Clyde Seale, James Ford Seale’s father, and Archie Prather met him at his home and they drove to meet James Ford Seale at the Bank of Franklin in Meadville. Edwards said the four men belonged to the local klavern the White Knights. All four of them drove down the highway until they saw Moore and Dee hitchhiking and James Ford Seale asked if they wanted a ride.

&#8220I never saw Moore before in my life,” Edwards said. &#8220He was just a victim of circumstance.”

Next, they drove to Homochitto National Park, where Edwards said only one or two cars ever drove by in a week. Seale, who was allegedly carrying a sawed-off shotgun, ordered the two victims to place their hands on a yellow pine tree.

Edwards said he, Clyde Seale and Curtis Dunn took branches the size of his little finger and struck both men 30 or 40 times each.

&#8220I guess we had to give them a spanking to get them to testify as to where the guns were,” he said. &#8220I asked them if they were right with God. I didn’t think they were gonna make it. They weren’t going to turn them loose.”

Eventually Moore and Dee falsely confessed that the guns were being held at the Roxy First Baptist Church, and Edwards went to the courthouse with Prather and the elder Seale to get a warrant to search the church. They found nothing. Edwards said he was then driven home, before going to a KKK meeting that evening which Seale and the others did not attend.

The next morning, Edwards, with his wife and four children, moved out of their neighborhood, closer to Seale and Prather.

&#8220I made a terrible mistake,” Edwards said &#8220My wife was afraid of living in an all-black neighborhood, scared of retaliation.”

He didn’t tell his wife what he or the other Klansmen had done the day before, he said, but she knew something had happened.

Since 1964, Edwards had been approached by the FBI five times, and either lied or said nothing. This time, he said, officials threatened to question his wife and children if he did not testify.

Although he has been a deacon for more than 40 years, Edwards said his oath to his brotherhood in the Klan was more important to him at that time.

Prosecutor Paige Fitzgerald asked Edwards to read from the White Knight’s constitution about his oath, when public defender Kathy Nester objected.

&#8220She is trying to do what they have been doing since the beginning by putting the Klan on trial, and I object,” Nester said.

The constitution mentioned an oath to secrecy that all members had to take before being admitted into the klavern. Because he took the oath more than 40 years ago, Edwards said he had to protect Seale.

At the end of Edwards’ testimony, Nester asked why Edwards lied dozens of times to FBI agents, police officers and the American Public during a &#822020/20” interview 8 years ago.

Edwards waved the constitution over his head and said in a raised voice, &#8220Does this mean anything to you? I did it because of my oath to the Klan.”

At the end of Nester’s cross-examination, she asked Edwards why the jury should believe his testimony. He said &#8220From the bottom of my heart I am telling the truth,” which is the same quote that appeared in the &#822020/20” interview transcript that Edwards called a lie.

Edwards joined the KKK because he wanted to keep blacks and whites separate, he said. To the families of Moore and Dee in the courtroom, he said, &#8220I’m sorry for that and I ask for y’alls’ forgiveness. I wanted to ask for your forgiveness for my part in this crime.”