45 Years Later, Troubling Questions Remain About a Racially Motivated Murder

Forty-five years ago today, a man named Thad Christian died of a shotgun blast to the stomach on a rural stretch of road south of Jacksonville.

The headline in the Anniston Star the following day – “Shot Kills Negro; White Man Jailed” – embodied the defining issue of the time.

Earlier that year, civil rights workers and others had been killed in Perry, Dallas and Lowndes counties. Only a few weeks earlier, Willie Brewster, a foundry worker, had been shot and killed by night-riders outside Anniston.

The summer of 1965, the height of the civil rights movement, was a time of intense racial tension.

Yet, the death of Thad Christian did not garner the notice of the other killings that summer. It was covered in the press but quickly faded from the front pages even though the circumstances, according to news reports, were disturbing.

Stories in the Star and the New York Times said Robert E. Haynes, 41, was charged with murder for shooting Christian with a 16-gauge shotgun. Calhoun County Sheriff Roy Snead said at the time “apparently Christian and a companion were fishing in a creek, and this fellow went down to run them off.”

Perhaps one reason the case drifted out of history is that Haynes pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sent to a work farm near Fort Payne. Though he escaped, he was recaptured by the FBI and, according to family members, finished serving his time in Kilby Prison in Montgomery.

In legal terms, the case of Thad Christian seems to have been quietly adjudicated.

Yet questions about his killing remain 45 years later because the case is, in the eyes of the Department of Justice, still open.

And that is, the families of both men agree, somewhat curious. Robert Haynes, the only person charged in Christian’s death, served time and died in an automobile accident in 1968.

The Christian family members say the FBI contacted them more than a year ago with a handful of questions, but they have not heard anything from investigators since.

Thad Christian’s case is one of dozens listed in a Justice Department report submitted to Congress this summer. The case is part of the department’s Cold Case Initiative, an effort begun in 2007 that aims to identify and possibly prosecute suspects in racially motivated killings from the civil rights era.

The report contains 122 individual cases. Of those, 60 have been closed, while 62 remain open. There are a total of 17 from Alabama. Eleven of those remain open, while six have been closed.

Thad Christian’s killing caused great heartache not only for his family, but also for Haynes’ family. It was, as members of both families put it, devastating then and now.

Memories of a Saturday long ago

In a modest home in west Anniston, a brother and sister sit among an array of black-and-white photos as a cascade of memories pours out in conversation.

The Christian family, Walter Christian will tell you, was well-respected in the black and white communities in the mid-1960s. In this part of town most call the Thankful Community, they were looked to for leadership, were seen as solidly middle-class and, with seven children living under the roof, orderly, caring, resourceful and, above all, loving.

The glue to it all though, says Walter’s sister, Brenda Tyus, was their momma Roena, as strong a woman as they come, and her daddy, Thad, the hard-working provider.

“I was a daddy’s girl,” said Tyus. “If I wasn’t in school, I was with him, every second of the day. I loved him very much, and I miss him every day.”

So it is with some emotion that Tyus and her brother tell the story of the Saturday their father went fishing and never returned 45 years ago today.