The notion that Scarpa strong-armed a Klan member into giving up information about one of the most notorious crimes of the civil rights era has been talked about in mob circles for years.
It supposedly happened during the search for civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, who were beaten and shot by a gang of Klansmen and buried in an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Miss. The case was famously dramatized in the movie “Mississippi Burning.”
Investigators struggled for answers in the early days of the case, stymied by stonewalling Klan members.
In 1994, the New York Daily News, citing unidentified federal law enforcement officials, reported that a frustrated J. Edgar Hoover turned to Scarpa to extract information. The Daily News said the New York mobster terrorized an appliance salesman and Klansman already under suspicion in the case and got him to reveal the location of the bodies.
Schiro testified Monday that she and Scarpa traveled to Mississippi in 1964 after he was recruited by the FBI. She said they walked into the hotel where the FBI had gathered during the investigation, and the gangster winked at a group of agents. She said an agent later showed up in their room and handed Scarpa a gun.
She said Scarpa helped find the volunteers’ bodies by “putting a gun in the guy’s mouth and threatening him.” She said an unidentified agent later returned to the room, gave Scarpa a wad of cash, and took back the weapon.
By any means necessary.
