Church bomber denied parole

Associated Press

MONTGOMERY, ALA.

The lone surviving Ku Klux Klansman imprisoned for killing four black girls in a church bombing in 1963 will remain behind bars after Alabama’s parole board heeded the victims’ families Wednesday and refused an early release.

The board rejected parole for Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., 78, who has served 15 years of a life term for being part of a group of Klansmen who planted a bomb outside Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church during the civil-rights movement.

Blanton, who lives in a one-person cell and rarely has contact with other inmates at St. Clair prison, will again be eligible for parole consideration in five years, the board said. The automatic review was the first for Blanton.

Blanton was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Sept. 15, 1963, bombing. The blast killed the 11-year-old McNair and 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Morris, also known as Cynthia Wesley.

The girls were inside the church preparing for worship when the bomb went off, sending stone and brick flying. They died instantly, and Collins’ sister Sarah Collins Rudolph was seriously injured.