Birmingham church bomber denied parole

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The lone surviving Ku Klux Klansman imprisoned for killing four black girls in a bombing in 1963 was refused an early release Wednesday when Alabama’s parole board heeded the victims’ families.

The board rejected parole for Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., 78, who has served 15 years of a life term for being part of a group of Klansmen who planted a bomb outside Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church during the civil rights movement.

Lisa McNair, a sister of bombing victim Denise McNair, was relieved by the decision.

“Justice is served,” she said afterward.

Blanton, who lives in a one-person cell and rarely has contact with other inmates at St. Clair prison, will again be eligible for parole consideration in five years, the board said.

Blanton was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Sept. 15, 1963, bombing. The blast killed the 11-year-old McNair and 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Morris, also known as Cynthia Wesley.

The girls were inside the church preparing for worship when the bomb went off, sending stone and brick flying. They died instantly, and Collins’ sister Sarah Collins Rudolph was seriously injured.

Doug Jones, a former U.S. attorney who prosecuted Blanton on the state charge, said he shouldn’t be released since he has neither accepted responsibility for the bombing nor expressed any remorse.

“Whether it’s racial issues, whether it’s gender issues, whether it is terrorist activity similar to what Mr. Blanton perpetrated in 1963, the message is we have to stop the hate and we will punish those who kill or maim in the name of hate,” Jones said.