Final suspect in 1965 civil rights slaying dies in Alabama

Jay Reeves

September 01 2016 03:20 AM

Final suspect in 1965 civil rights slaying dies in Alabama | iNFOnews.ca — FILE - In a Dec. 9, 1965 file photo, three defendants go over a street diagram of area in Selma, Ala., where the clubbing death of a Unitarian Universalist minister Rev. James Reeb took place last March during civil rights strife. From left: Stanley and Namon Hoggle, brothers, and Elmer Cook, all defendants, and Robert Radford, investigator. An obituary says Namon Hoggle, the last of three men acquitted in the infamous civil rights slaying, died Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016. He was 81. (AP Photo/Horace Cort, File)

Original Publication Date: September 1, 2016 3:20AM

Publication Updated: April 27, 2025 6:25PM

The last of three men tried and acquitted in an infamous civil rights slaying in Alabama has died.

An obituary says Namon O’Neal Hoggle of Selma, Alabama, died Tuesday. He was 81, and services were scheduled for Thursday.

Hoggle was among three men acquitted in 1965 in the beating death of the Rev. James Reeb of Boston.

Reeb was a Unitarian minister who went to Selma in response to a call by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Reeb was white, and he was attacked by a group of white men after eating in a black-owned restaurant.

Hoggle, his brother and a third man were acquitted in the killing. All three men were white, as were all the jurors.

The FBI closed an investigation of Reeb’s killing in 2011 without filing any charges.

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