JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP) — 1964 is remembered as a year of havoc in the South. It was the year racial tension escalated to a peak. Protests for equality were met with vandalism and even murder.
But Shelton and Alonzo Chappell remember 1964 as the year their mother was killed.
Johnnie Mae Chappell, 35, was walking down New King's Road in Jacksonville in search of a wallet that fell out of her purse. She had just finished cleaning a house on the white side of town and had gone to buy ice cream so her 10 children could celebrate Shelton Chappell's four months of life.
Meanwhile, four white men drove around the city listening to the news of a racial riot downtown. They talked about what they might do about it. One of them decided to kill the first black person he saw.
Chappell, a Baptist, had not been involved in the civil-rights demonstrations on March 23, 1964. Instead, she was scouring the sidewalk for her wallet. Suddenly she was shot through the side with a 22-caliber pistol. She bled to death in a “colored” ambulance as it made its way to the blacks-only hospital.
The only news coverage Johnnie Mae Chappell's death got at that time was a brief mention buried in a Florida Times-Union article under the headline “Large area is terrorized by negroes.”
J.W. Rich, who fired the pistol, got three years in prison for manslaughter. Although two of the three other men admitted under oath to participating in the murder, all three — Elmer Kato, Wayne Chessman and James Davis — went free without trial. Charges against them were dropped by the State Attorney's Office.
“People say this is a story about civil rights, but it's only about civil rights because of the time it happened,” Alonzo Chappell said. “This is about human rights. Every person has a right to live until they expire, not until they're shot by somebody.”
Alonzo Chappell, who was 6 years old when his mother was killed, remembers the night his father gathered the children and told them Mama wasn't coming home.
It was the night his childhood ended.
Not long after, the five Chappell brothers and a sister were shipped off to separate foster homes across the United States because their father's pay as a gas-station attendant wasn't enough to feed 11 mouths. The four older girls stayed at home with him.
“You would think they would give my dad some kind of assistance to keep us together,” said Alonzo Chappell. “We used to run away to go with Dad, and they would put us back in foster homes.”
Alonzo said he loves his siblings, but he doesn't spend much time with them because their separate upbringings made them independent. Today Johnnie Mae Chappell's children live in three different states and seldom get together. Despite their disrupted childhood, Johnnie Chappell's children have found a measure of success. Most of the men work in different areas of construction and the women have jobs including secretarial positions.
As a child, Shelton Chappell bargained with God. “I [told] God [that] if he would allow me … to know what happened to my mother … I would promise to serve him the rest of my life,” he said.
It wasn't until 1980 that his prayer was answered.
That was the year Shelton Chappell met Lee Cody, a white former detective who told him the whole story of his mother's death.
Cody and his partner, Donald Coleman — both of whom are white — lost their jobs after trying to expose Chief Detective J.C. Patrick's involvement in covering up the crime of Johnnie Mae Chappell's death. After that they got jobs driving garbage trucks. They were also accused of insubordination but found innocent.
Coleman and Cody, now retired, uncovered the story of Chappell's murder thanks to Cody's habit of looking through their lieutenant's in-box before cases were assigned.
Cody realized no detective had been assigned to investigate the murder. Not only that, but all the information concerning Chappell's death disappeared the morning after the crime. They knew something was wrong.
“It was as though it never happened,” said Cody, now 75.
The two detectives sneaked into Patrick's office to look for the records of Chappell's murder. Coleman found papers with information about the homicide scene stashed under the chief detective's chair pad.
They notified Sheriff Chief Dale Carson but were ignored, Cody said.
Later, on the day J.W. Rich went on trial, the .22 caliber pistol, which had been placed in the property room by Coleman and Cody, mysteriously disappeared. They were left with no evidence.
Cody called the Chappell case “one of the most compelling stories of political corruption anybody could ever dream up.”
Johnnie Chappell's husband, Willie, died before learning the entire story. The sheriff and chief of detectives also have since died of natural causes.
Cody started his search for Shelton Chappell in 1980 after spotting a front-page newspaper picture of him kneeling before his mother's tombstone.
Cody described his first encounter with Chappell: “I started telling him what had happened and he said, 'Would you help us tell the story?' I wanted to say 'no,' because I've spent 20 or 25 hard years trying to do what he was asking and I paid severely for it. But tears came down his cheeks. I said 'OK, son.'”
He's kept his promise. Every day Cody works to find justice for Johnnie Mae Chappell — to make Rich's accomplices and the police accountable for the crime and cover-up. He faxes papers. He writes to politicians. He meets with reporters.
Cody's life has been shaped by his quest, which some would call an obsession. He jokes that “all this anger” will drive him to the grave. He makes sarcastic remarks about this “wonderful nation.”
But unlike other civil-rights-era crimes that have been prosecuted years later, Johnnie Mae Chappell's case has become a dead end.
In Mississippi, a case similar to Chappell's finally was prosecuted this year. Former Ku Klux Klan member Edgar Ray Killen, now 80, was sentenced to 60 years in prison in June for his connection with the slayings of three college-age civil-rights workers.
Cody and the Chappells still hope for a similar result in Johnnie Mae Chappell's death. But because Rich already served a sentence for manslaughter, there is no chance he can be tried again. But what about the other three men in the car who aided and encouraged the shooter?
In July 2004, Florida State Attorney for the Fourth Judicial Circuit Harry Shorstein refused to reopen the Chappell case. He said prosecution would be too difficult after 40 years.
Because Rich was only convicted of manslaughter, Shorstein told Associated Baptist Press, it would be difficult for the men who didn't shoot the weapon to be found guilty of murder. The statute of limitations for a 1964 manslaughter has long since expired. So in his opinion, a successful prosecution is almost impossible, Shorstein said.
State Sen. Tony Hill (D-Jacksonville) sent Florida Gov. Jeb Bush a letter asking for the prosecution of the three men who had charges dropped in 1964.
Now, the case is being reviewed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement at the request of Gov. Jeb Bush. But before Bush's request in July 2003, the FDLE wrote the following in a letter to Cody:
“We are aware of no evidence supporting a conclusion that the responsible party was not tried and convicted by a jury of his peers. As you are well aware, the statue of limitations has expired on many of the allegations outlined in your letter. Based on the totality of the circumstances surrounding this incident and the fact that, after almost forty years, few witnesses and little physical evidence is available to dispute the findings of the court, we do not feel that further investigation or a grand jury probe is warranted.”
Despite Shorstein's conclusion, Cody argues it is legally possible to prosecute “three untried criminals” apart from the verdict of manslaughter received by J. W. Rich, because the three were indicted for murder in 1964. He said there is no need for physical evidence because two of the men confessed under oath in 1964 and implicated the third.
The Chappells filed a lawsuit against the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office alleging a cover-up conspiracy, but the U.S. Supreme Court blocked it.
Although justice in a courtroom eludes her family, Johnnie Mae Chappell has received recognition in other places. The Southern Poverty Law Center honored her by placing her name on a memorial wall with Martin Luther King. And the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Ala., has been rededicated in her honor.
Still, more than 40 years after the crime, Cody and the Chappells say they will not rest until Wayne Chessman, Elmer Kato and James Davis are prosecuted.
“The only thing the Chappell family asks of State Attorney Harry L. Shorstein and Gov. Bush is for them to impose the will of a grand jury and prosecute three men who were indicted in 1964,” Cody said.
Shelton Chappell said despite all the suffering these men caused his family, he has managed to forgive and asks God to have mercy on them. Willie and Johnnie Mae Chappell first met in the Jacksonville Mount Ararat Baptist Church, the same church the family attended after they were married.
“If I'm a Christian, I have to act like a Christian,” he said. “God forgives and God used those who were murderers, robbers and killers. But that doesn't mean I have to forget what they've done.”
According to a Florida Times-Union article, Florida Sen. Tony Hill (D-Jacksonville) is trying to determine if the surviving children of Johnnie Mae Chappell are entitled to reparations. The article also said Shelton Chappell tried to file a lawsuit in 1996 after learning that the Sheriff's office tried to cover up the murder, but the Supreme Court blocked the suit.
Alonzo Chappell recognizes the court system's failure but still hopes.
“It's sad that a case like this would have to be [tried] in the press instead of giving her a chance in the courtroom. You all [the press] are our ears and eyes. If it wasn't for that, it wouldn't get any attention.”
He paused.
“I think if the FDLE does a thorough search about all this, they'll see what we see and do the right thing.”