Byron De La Beckwith, Medgar Evers' killer, dies in prison

Beckwith was convicted in 1994, 31 years and three trials after Evers was murdered. The slain 37-year-old was field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People when killed.

Myrlie Evers-Williams, said Beckwith "now faces the ultimate judge."

"Beckwith was the epitome of evil, who forever embraced racism and hatred, and who caused so much pain and suffering of so many people," Evers-Williams, former national chairwoman of the NAACP, said in a statement Monday.

Evers was shot in the back on June 12, 1963, while standing in the driveway of his Jackson home with an armful of "Jim Crow Must Go" T-shirts.

Jim Kitchens, one of Beckwith's attorneys in the 1994 trial, said Beckwith "had a twisted idea of courage."

"He was a tragic figure because he was so consumed by racial hatred," Kitchens said. "He was very stoic about being in jail. He really thought he was a patriot."

Two all-white juries deadlocked in trials in 1964.

Twelve years ago, Evers-Williams asked then-Hinds County Assistant District Attorney Bobby DeLaughter to reopen the case.

DeLaughter and his officers came across new evidence, including negatives of photos of the crime scene and new witnesses who testified Beckwith had bragged to them about "beating the system."

At Beckwith's final trial, eight of the 12 jurors were black. He was convicted of murder, and the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the decision in 1997.

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