The Civil Rights movement was in full swing in 1965. On the heels of the previous year’s landmark legislation outlawing discrimination based on race or color, another monumental act was passed prohibiting racial discrimination in voting. For blacks, legal equality was becoming a reality. For prejudiced whites, equal opportunity meant a fight. Tensions were high and racism was rampant, especially in the South.

James Meredith received death threats when he became the first black student admitted to the University of Mississippi in 1962. Three years later in neighboring Louisiana, Oneal Moore received death threats after becoming the first of two black deputies in the Washington Parish Sheriff’s Department.

On June 6, 1966, James Meredith was shot by a sniper but survived. A year earlier, on the evening of June 2, 1965, Deputy Oneal Moore had been shot; he was not as fortunate.

 

Deputy Oneal Moore

Forty-two-year-old David “Creed” Rogers and thirty-four-year-old Oneal Moore had endured countless incidents of harassment in the year after they became the first black deputies of the Washington Parish Sheriff’s Office in Varnardo, Louisiana, eighty miles north of New Orleans. The evening of June 2, 1965, was no different.

A pickup began tailgating the deputies as they drove along State Highway 21 near Bogalusa, five miles south of Varnardo. Shortly thereafter, the deputies pulled off State Highway 21 to investigate a small fire. Without leaving the patrol car, they observed it to be only trash, posing no danger.

Deputies David “Creed” Rogers And Oneal Moore

Washington Parish, Louisiana, Sheriff’s Department 

The deputies returned to patrol and were soon again being closely followed by the pickup. As the vehicle drew alongside the patrol car, a hail of bullets was unleashed, hitting both deputies multiple times. Their car rammed into a tree.

Crime Scene Photo

Deputy Oneal Moore, the driver, was pronounced dead at the scene. He left behind his wife, Maevella, and four daughters.

Deputy Creed Rogers lost an eye but survived. He told responding officers the shooters were at least two men in either a 1954 or ’55 black Chevrolet pickup with a confederate rebel plate in its front bumper. He thought the vehicle had a white side rail.

                                         Moore Dies       Rogers Survives

Approximately thirty to forty-five minutes after the shooting, a truck was stopped forty miles away in Tylertown, Mississippi. With the exception of not having side rails, the vehicle matched Creed’s description of the vehicle involved in the shooting.

The two people in the truck were both known to local police. The sources I found stated only the name of the driver, Ernest McElveen, a white supremacist and a member of the local Ku Klax Klan chapter.

Ernest McElveen

McElveen, a forty-one-year-old laboratory technician at the Bogalusa paper mill, was arrested and charged with the murder of Oneal Moore and the attempted murder of Creed Rogers. The KKK raffled a 1965 Mustang to raise the $25,000 for McElveen’s bail.

McElveen Is Arrested

The ambush of two black deputies on a rural highway in racist Louisiana at the height of civil rights tensions had all the earmarks of a classic Klan caper, but the local chapter denied any involvement in the shootings.

The KKK Denies Committing The Killing

Despite the offer of a $25,000 reward,  no one was willing to talk, the black community out of fear of the Klan, and the white community partly out of fear of reprisal as well, but more because of racism. In addition, many members within the local police department and courts were also Klan members, as was the Bogalusa city attorney.

No One Talks 

Creed Rogers had been unable to make out any features of the men who shot him. Nothing directly linked McElveen to the crime, and the charges against him were ultimately dismissed due to a lack of evidence.

Charges Against McElveen Are Dropped

Racial tensions increased in Washington Parish, but Sheriff Doyle Holiday refused to give in. Oneal Moore was succeeded by another black deputy.

Two weeks after the shootings, several shots were fired at Sheriff Holiday’s home. He ran outside and returned fire but did not hit the assailant’s car as it sped away. The car and its occupants were never identified, but authorities have little doubt that whoever shot at the sheriff had also shot and killed the deputy.

Washington Parish Sheriff Doyle Holiday

The $25,000 reward was later increased to $40,000, but the local population still refused to cooperate with the FBI, State Police, and local authorities.

The case of Oneal Moore was deemed inactive in 1967. It remained cold for over two decades.

The Case Goes Cold

Twenty years later, the FBI’s New Orleans Field Office was contacted by an informant and received letters from two other anonymous sources, all claiming to name the people involved in the shooting. One of the letters was specific in identifying the three individuals that were in the pickup as well as the truck’s getaway route.

As a result of the new information, the investigation into the murder of Oneal Moore was re-opened in 1990. The FBI investigated the three men identified in the letter and spoke with their family and friends. Agents believe the killers were KKK members, although they do not believe the Klan ordered the murder. The three Klan members are believed to have acted on their own.

Not enough evidence, however, was obtained to make any arrests. The FBI reopened the case again in 2001 and 2007 but again, nothing was found leading to any arrests.

Case Reopened

But Nothing Comes Of It

In a 2010 interview for the documentary Injustice Files, Donald Seal said he witnessed the murder of Oneal Moore.

Seventeen-years-old at the time, Seal says he saw the truck pull behind the deputies’ patrol car and that two men fired upon the lawmen. He says two of culprits are related to him.

Donald Seal

Donald Seal fingered his distant cousins Archie Seals, Shelly Seals, and their brother-in-law, Bobby Lang, as the men who fired the shots that killed Deputy Oneal Moore and wounded Deputy Creed Rogers. The three men all had ties to the KKK and were the three men named in the FBI investigation.

Donald Seal says Archie Seals was driving the truck when Shelly Seals and Bobby Lang fired on the deputies. Afterward, he said the men picked up the shell casings before fleeing.

The guns used in the shootings were never found. In 1990, the FBI received a tip that the weapons were buried under a slab beneath Archie Seals’ house. They were granted a warrant to excavate the home but found no weapons. Several fires had earlier occurred at the home; each time a new slab was added. It was rumored the FBI excavated the wrong slab.

Bobby Lang later became a deputy sheriff; he died in 1997. Archie Seals died in 1998. I could not find an obituary notice for Shelly Seals.

When questioned, Shelly Seals says he was home working on his car on the evening of the shooting. He contends Donald Seal is making up the claim implicating him because of a grudge against the Seals family.

                 Archie Seals                 Shelly Seals                    Bobby Lang

Donald Seal also said another distant cousin, Leroy “Slick” Seal, who worked many years in law enforcement, had information about the murder of Oneal Moore. At the time he lived near where the deputies were shot.

Like the Seals, Slick Seal was questioned but never charged in relation to the shooting. He died in 2016.

LeRoy “Slick” Seal

Ernest McElveen, the only person ever charged in the shooting of Oneal Moore and Creed Rogers, died in 2003.

Did McElveen Get Away With Murder?

Despite receiving continuous threats and being blinded in his right eye from the shooting, David Creed Rogers continued with the  Washington Parish Sheriff’s Department. He retired as a Captain in 1988.

Creed Continued His Career . . .

Captain David “Creed” Rogers died in 2007 at age eighty-four.

. . . And Lived Long

I believe Oneal Moore’s widow, Maevella, is still living.

She is shown here at the dedication of a plaque honoring her husband at the Washington Parish Sheriff’s Office.

Maevella Moore

By A Plaque Honoring Her Slain Husband

In 2016, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department recommended the investigation into the murder of Deputy Oneal Moore be closed due to the passage of time and because most witnesses and suspects in the case are now deceased.

Case Closed Without Closure . . .

. . . But Not Forgotten

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/204663452/oneal-moore

http://www.odmp.org/officer/9566-deputy-sheriff-oneal-moore

SOURCES:

• Chicago Tribune
• Indianapolis New
• The Injustice Files
• New Orleans Picayune
• Officer Down Memorial Page
• Unsolved Mysteries
• Washington Post