Man Indicted in 1966 Murder Plot
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A white man was arrested in Jackson, Miss., on charges that he killed a black farm worker in 1966 in what might have been a plot to lure the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to Mississippi so he could be assassinated. Ernest Henry Avants, 69, was acquitted in a Mississippi court in 1967. But federal prosecutors said the jury in that trial was never told Avants had confessed. Avants has maintained his innocence. He was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury in the killing of Ben Chester White on June 10, 1966. Authorities believe the killers meant to provoke a protest by King in Natchez, where he would be assassinated.
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