Alabama board denies parole for Birmingham church bomber
MONTGOMERY, Ala. | Alabama's parole board decided Wednesday against freeing a one-time Ku Klux Klansman convicted in a church bombing that killed four black girls more than 50 years ago.
The decision to keep Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., 76, imprisoned was met with applause at the hearing. Relatives of the girls killed spoke against Blanton's release during the hearing.
Blanton is the last surviving KKK member convicted of murder in the bombing of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church.
Blanton was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001 for being part of a group of Klansmen who planted a dynamite bomb that exploded outside the church on Sept. 15, 1963. The blast killed 11-year-old Denise McNair and 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Morris, also known as Cynthia Wesley.
Read more: http://jacksonville.com/breaking-news/2016-08-03/story/alabama-board-denies-parole-birmingham-church-bomber
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