The killing of civil rights activist James Reeb might have been solved if the FBI had shared the FBI: NPR

Reverend James Reeb's assassination has not been solved for over 50 years.

Then, last month, with the help of the FBI file, NPR identified a man who had participated in Reeb's attack but had never been arrested nor charged. William Portwood died less than two weeks after journalists Andrew Beck Grace and Chip Brantley confirmed his participation. At 87, Portwood was the last person alive that could have been held responsible for the murder of Reeb.

Alabama officials who could have sued told NPR that if the FBI had shared his case, they would have investigated the Reeb murder several years earlier.

It is impossible to say whether the state and local authorities could have closed the case. The Boston minister was killed during the 1965 voting rights campaign in Selma, Alabama, and three men were tried and acquitted of the crime. And the FBI has failed to solve the Reeb murder twice: one in 1965 and a second time in 2008, when he reopened the case as part of his Cold Case Initiative.

However, if the bureau had shared information after the reopening of its investigation, Alabama officials might have done what NPR had done – resolve the case with the help of the case file. FBI – but years ago.

"I have no problem in suing unresolved cases," said Michael Jackson, attorney for Dallas County, Alabama. It is fair to say that if the FBI had provided him with information about the case matters while he was still alive.

"I think that's no question," said Jackson, who successfully prosecuted the death of civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson in 2010.

Other Alabama officials told NPR that they too would have looked into the case.

"In 2008, Alabama had become a place that was trying to deal with its segregationist and racist past." said Troy King, attorney general of the state at the time the FBI reopened the Reeb file. "What I'm convinced we would have done is a good faith effort to evaluate the testimony, and we would have dedicated resources to it."

None of the state officials and local authorities interviewed by NPR remember that the FBI contacted them to share information after the reopening of the Reeb file.

"I am quite confident, even though I do not have access to the records of my mandate, that the FBI has never contacted us, presented them, or asked for help or cooperation," he said. King.

The same goes for Luther Strange, who took over the post of King in 2011, a few months before the FBI closes the Reeb file for the last time.

Alabama Sen. Doug Jones told NPR that he was disappointed that the FBI did not share the information locally.

"It was just a little disappointing not to go to the next stage to talk to people in the area and say," It does not seem like we have jurisdiction, but here are some people to whom you should speak, "" said Jones. As an American lawyer in the early 2000s, Jones was convicted of two former members of the Ku Klux Klan who had participated in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963.

So why did the FBI not share information with Alabama officials in the Reeb case? On the one hand, the office is known to be secretive.

"All of these documents have been grouped together … in the federal bureaucracy," Jones said. He co-sponsored a recently signed bill requiring the National Archives to publish certain government documents relating to civil rights criminal cases.

The office may also have been restricted by its narrow jurisdiction; in these cases, the FBI can only prosecute federally for bombings, kidnappings or murders during which the perpetrators of the crime cross state boundaries.

"With Reverend Reeb, this case has fallen on the pile" we can not do anything, "says Cynthia Deitle, who headed the FBI's civil rights unit at the reopening of the case.

It might have been thought that nothing could have been done at the state level either; three men had already been tried and acquitted of the crime.

"These officials are telling you," Hey, if the FBI would have done better or would have shared … we could have put a bad guy in jail, "said Deitle." But that is not a guarantee they would have."

Deitle does not remember exactly how his unit dealt with the Reeb affair. However, she acknowledges that, unless the office associates with local officials, the agents were not required to share the information contained in the FBI's file.

When asked why the office did not take the habit of sharing information, Deitle replied, "I see no reason why this should not happen in each of these new investigations."

NPR contacted the FBI for this story, but the office declined to comment on the case.

Nevertheless, a spokesman for the office said in an email to NPR that the FBI regularly shared information with its law enforcement partners. With regard to its current policy on sharing information on civil rights-related criminal cases with state and local authorities? The FBI refused to share it.

The complete story of who and what killed Reverend James Reeb is told in The podcast of NPR White Lies. To explore a visual account of the story – as well as photos, research, and evidence behind the NPR survey – visit the site npr.org/whitelies.