‘Mississippi Burning’ killer Edgar Ray Killen

Edgar Ray Killen, a former Ku Klux Klan leader who was convicted of the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers in Mississippi, has died in prison at the age of 92, the state corrections department announced.

The one-time Klan leader was serving a 60-year prison sentence for manslaughter when he died in Mississippi State Penitentiary.

A post-mortem examination will take place, but no foul play was suspected, the statement said.

His conviction came 41 years to the day after James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, all in their twenties, were ambushed and killed by Klansmen.

The three Freedom Summer workers had been investigating the burning of a black church near Philadelphia, Mississippi.

The killings shocked the nation, helped spur passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and were dramatised in the 1988 movie Mississippi Burning.

The part-time preacher and lumber mill operator was 80 when a Neshoba County jury convicted him of three counts of manslaughter on June 21 2005.

Killen was the only person to face state murder charges in the case.

He did not say much about the 1964 killings during a 2014 interview with the Associated Press inside the penitentiary.

He said he remained a segregationist who did not believe in racial equality, but contended he harboured no ill-will towards blacks.

Picture: AP. Killen was serving a 60-year prison sentence.