With foot.
dragging of their own, they failed to convict anyone for the crime by 1968. It was not until 1977 that the state convicted one of the bombers. (www.fourlittlegirls.com, internet).
In 1965 FBI director J. Edgar Hoover blocked the prosecution of severa; suspects saying the chance of getting a conviction was "remote" and in 1968 no charges were filed and federal authorities pulled out of the investigation.
In 1971 the case was reopened by Alabama attorneys General Bill Baxley and then in 1977 Robert Edward Chamblis was convicted for only one count of murder in Carol Mcnair's death. .
In 1980 the Alabama district attorney reopened the case when the U.S. Department of justice release a report that J. Edgar Hoover had blocked evidence that .
could have been used in the investigation. In 1985, 8 years after he was convicted, at the age of 81 convicted bomber Robert Edward Chambliss a formed Klan member died in prison of natural causes, Chambliss never did publicly admitted to having any role in the bombing.
Gary A. Tucker, one of the conspirators and former Klan member, died of cancer and admitted to having helped explode the bomb in 1963. Then the Federal and state prosecutors reopened their investigation, but no new charges were filed and no new evidence was found.
2.
In 1996 and 1997, Thomas Blanton of Birmingham, and Bobby Frank Cherry of Mabank, Texas, both in there 60's were the only two surviving suspects in the bombing, .
the FBI had a secret year long review "The investigation has been conducted in a covert .
fashion" FBI Spokesman Craig Dahle said. "The reason it's now becoming public is that we started to interviewing witnesses and we know word would get out sooner or later." Reopening its investigation, "It's a crime that has gone unsolved except one local conviction and it remains a sore part or American history that we would like to heal,".
said Joseph Lewis, FBI special agent in charge in Birmingham.
