They were arrested for speeding, taken to the Neshoba County Jail in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and never seen again—at least not until weeks later when their bodies were hauled out of a swamp. These were kids, remember. The police had released them to a waiting mob, which had taken them away and done things to them that a child wouldn’t do to an insect. The sheriff in the case, a smirking, tobacco-chewing fat boy named Lawrence Rainey, was acquitted of negligent behavior.
