Opinion ID: 1671765
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the neighborhood

Text: ¶ 7. The Evers' home was located on Guynes Street, now Margaret W. Alexander Street, which runs West into Missouri Street which runs in a Southeast direction parallel to and into Delta Drive, now known as Medgar Evers Boulevard. Approximately 350 feet Southwest of the Evers' home, and located on Delta Drive were Joes's Drive-In and Pittman's Handy Andy Grocery. ¶ 8. Herbert Richard Speight testified that he was a cab driver in Jackson, Mississippi in 1963. On Saturday, June 7, 1963 he was parked at the Trailways Bus Station in Jackson waiting for a call. He testified that the man he later recognized as Beckwith approached him and walked up beside his car. According to the testimony of Speight, Beckwith asked me if I knew Negro Medgar Evers, NAACP leader. He stated that Beckwith then went back into the bus station and came back with a map. The following colloquy occurred in Speight's testimony: Q. Now, Mr. Beckwith asked you if you knew  what was the first thing he asked you when he came up to your cab? A. He asked me if I knew Negro Medgar Evans. I understood it to be Evans instead of Evers. NAACP leader. Q. And you told him that you did not? A. I told him I did not. Q. And that's when he went into the bus station and looked in the phone book? A. Right. Q. Then he came back. Did he come back to your cab a second  A. He came back to my cab and had an address on  he told me it was on Lexington Street. Q. What did he say to you then? A. He asked me if I knew where Lexington Street was. I told him I did, but that couldn't be where the colored fellow lived because it's an all-white section. Q. All right. What did Mr. Beckwith do then? A. He turned around and went back to the bus station. He came back with another address on Buena Vista, if I recall right, and I told him that that couldn't be it because that was a white section. Q. All right. What did he do next? A. He went back and come back with another address, which was on Poplar Boulevard, and I told him that couldn't be right because that was a white section. And then I left the bus terminal and I didn't see him no more. ¶ 9. According to the Evers' neighbor, Kenneth Adcock, he and Betty Jean Coley were walking in the neighborhood around 12:30 a.m. when I heard this loud boom come from my right side, and I thought I was shot or something... . It sounded like a shotgun going off side of my head is how loud it was. And it scared Betty too ... and I heard a lady scream. At the time of the shot, Adcock was standing East of a clump of bushes growing along Missouri Street behind the drive-in. After hearing the shot, Adcock heard someone running through the darkness. It [s]ounded like, you know, leaves and bushes and stuff cracking, and then whoever shot was running (bout) hard as they could back toward Delta Drive. ¶ 10. The prosecution offered the prior testimony of deceased witness Betty Jean Coley. Ms. Coley testified that she was with Kenneth Adcock around midnight of June 11, 1963 in the vicinity of Missouri and Ridgeway streets. She stated that around 12:30 she and Adcock heard a gun fire. The gunshot appeared to come from some nearby bushes and I heard a man running after the gunshot. According to her testimony, the person appeared to be coming from a clump of nearby bushes and was running toward the parking lot of Joe's Drive-In. ¶ 11. Barbara Holder testified that she was a twenty-two year old car-hop working at Joe's Drive-In in 1963. She was at the drive-in on the evening of June 11, 1963. She was not working at the time but all my friends hung-out there ... so I went by there. She stated that her friend, Martha Jean O'Brien, was car hopping that night. Holder was standing outside of the drive-in with Ms. O'Brien when she saw a vehicle pull in to the drive inn and back up to the corner of the lot. She stated that the car looked like a patrol car because it had a long ... antenna on the side of it, and it was awful muddy when it pulled in. It was a white car, but it had a lot of mud on it. She identified the vehicle as a white Plymouth Valiant. She stated that a man just sat in the car. She then left the drive-in and came back around midnight and stated that the car was still in the lot. She also testified that when the car had first backed into the lot: [W]hoever was driving the car pulled up to the bathroom. It didn't back up. It just pulled right straight up  the men's bathroom was on the back and there was a corner. The women's was on this side, and the men's was on this side. It pulled right up to the back and it  the gentleman got out and went into the bathroom. Then it backed back over to where it was originally parked. She identified the person who got out of the vehicle as about 5'7, 5'8, had on dark clothes and dark hair ... it was a white man. ¶ 12. The State presented the prior testimony of Martha Jean O'Brien, a witness who could not be located. According to Ms. O'Brien, she was a seventeen year old car-hop working at the drive-in on the night of June 11, 1963. She stated that she saw a Valiant automobile enter the parking lot between 8:30 and 10:00 p.m. She noted that it had a long radio aerial on the back and that it was real dirty. She saw a man get out of the Valiant and go to the restroom. She described the man as very tall, dressed in dark clothes, and in his early twenties. She stated that the man did not have a hat on. She also testified that she had seen a white Valiant automobile, shown to her by the police about a week after the shooting, and I told them it was the same car. ¶ 13. Ronald Jones testified that he was sixteen years of age in June of 1963 and worked part-time at Pittman's Grocery on Delta Drive. He and Robert Don Pittman, the son of the owner of the grocery store, were friends. Jones recalled getting off work around 9:00 p.m. on the night of June 11, 1963. He and Robert Don had a model airplane that they were flying in the parking lot of the store. The model plane landed on top of the store, where Jones went to retrieve it. While there he noticed a car driving slow on Delta Drive. The speed limit was  was forty miles an hour, and he was not doing  I don't think was doing forty miles an hour, and it brought my attention because it had an antenna on the back of it, and I thought it was a police car. Jones described the car as a white Plymouth Valiant with a whip antenna on the back. Jones reviewed photographs of Beckwith's automobile and stated that the photographs looked like the car he saw. ¶ 14. Robert Don Pittman testified that he was fifteen years of age in 1963 and lived on Delta Drive where his parents owned and operated Pittman's Handy Andy Grocery. He stated that he was acquainted with Medgar Evers who had taught him how to play baseball in his backyard. Pittman testified that on Saturday, June 8, 1963, he and a friend, Mark Acy, saw a white Valiant parked sorta beside the store around 10:30 p.m. He described this vehicle as a 1962 Valiant with a ten foot aerial antenna. It had some type of Masonic emblem hanging from the rear view mirror. Pittman identified a photograph of Beckwith's Valiant as the vehicle he had seen. He stated that the car had been backed into the parking lot, facing the street. He also identified photographs of an emblem attached to the defendant's vehicle as being the emblem he saw on the rearview mirror. ¶ 15. Pittman next testified that on the night prior to the death of Medgar Evers he was playing with a model airplane when the airplane went on top of the store. He stated that when he went on top of the grocery store with Ronald Jones to retrieve his airplane, that he saw the same car driving up and down Delta Drive doing about five, maybe ten miles an hour, real slow. Later that night Pittman again saw the car between 10:30 and 11:00 p.m. parked in the nearby drive-in parking lot. In response to questioning, Pittman on cross-examination also stated that he had earlier answered only specific questions put to him by investigators because my father  after ... the blacks started calling us and threatening to kill us and what have you, my father said, `Well, don't give them nothing they don't ask for,' and I obeyed him. ¶ 16. Ronald Mark Acy stated that he lived in Jackson in 1963, when he was sixteen years of age, and that he grew up with Robert Don Pittman. Acy was a meat cutter at the Pittman's grocery store on Delta Drive. He got off work from the grocery store around 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, June 8, 1963. He and Robert were walking down the street when they saw a white Plymouth Valiant backed into an alley between the store and some trees. He described the vehicle as a 1960 to 1962 Plymouth Valiant or Dodge Lancer. He described its color as light gray or off-white. He remembered that the car had a long antenna on the passenger's side and he saw some kind of emblem hanging from the review mirror... . He stated that the emblem had some kind of big star on it, and then it had some kind of big sword  looking thing running through it some kind of way. He described this as a Shriner's emblem. He positively identified photographs of Beckwith's car as being the car he had seen and the photo of the Shriner's emblem as being identical to the one he had seen.