Frank Morris

Case background and investigation

Frank Morris, 51, owned Frank's Shoe Service in Ferriday, a small town in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, across the Mississippi River from Natchez. His shop, one of the few Black-owned businesses in town, served both Black and white customers, and Morris was a well-known figure locally who also hosted a gospel music program on the radio. Around 1:00 a.m. on December 10, 1964, Morris, who often slept in the back of his store, was awakened by the sound of breaking glass. Two white men had spread gasoline around the building and set it alight. According to FBI records and later news accounts, when Morris tried to flee through the front door, one of the men leveled a shotgun at him, used a racial slur, and ordered him back inside the burning building. Morris eventually escaped, but he had suffered burns over essentially his entire body. Police officers found him with his clothing burned away and took him to Concordia Parish Hospital, where FBI agents interviewed him. Morris said he did not recognize his attackers. He slipped into a coma and died on December 14, 1964.

The FBI opened an investigation immediately, interviewing Morris's family, employees, dozens of local business owners and residents, police officers, and known members of the Ku Klux Klan. With no viable suspects, the bureau closed the case in May 1965. It was reopened in 1967 during the investigation of the Wharlest Jackson bombing in nearby Natchez, after a confidential source described as a high-ranking Mississippi Klansman told agents that four Klan members — E.D. Morace, Tommie Lee Jones, Thor Lee Torgersen, and James Lee Scarborough — had been involved in the arson. All denied involvement, and with no physical evidence the second investigation was closed in February 1968. Investigators and journalists have also pointed to Concordia Parish sheriff's deputy Frank DeLaughter, a Klansman reputed to be the most feared man in the parish, as a central figure; according to the LSU Cold Case Project, one account held that DeLaughter was angered after Morris refused him further credit at the shop. DeLaughter was never charged in the case and died in 1996.

In 2007 the FBI reopened the case a third time under its Civil Rights Era Cold Case Initiative, and in 2008 it announced a $10,000 reward. That same year Stanley Nelson, editor of the weekly Concordia Sentinel, began an investigation that ultimately produced more than 150 stories. In January 2011 the Sentinel reported that Arthur Leonard Spencer, a Rayville truck driver and former Klansman, had been implicated by his own son, ex-wife, and ex-brother-in-law, who said Spencer and a deceased associate, Coonie Poissot, had separately admitted taking part in the arson. Spencer acknowledged past Klan membership but denied any involvement in the attack. Nelson's reporting made him a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting.

Following the Sentinel's revelations, the Justice Department and the local district attorney presented the case to a Concordia Parish grand jury in 2011, but no indictment was returned. Spencer died in 2013, and on December 30, 2013, the Justice Department formally closed the case, citing evidence that fell short of the standard for prosecution, the deaths of the original suspects, and expired statutes of limitations. The DOJ's closing memorandum stated that evidence 'strongly suggests' Morace — who died in 1978 — was involved, based on self-incriminating statements reported by three separate sources in 1967, but no one was ever charged, and the murder of Frank Morris remains officially unsolved.