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Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr.

American convicted murderer

Summary

American convicted murderer

Field	Value
name	Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr.
image	Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. mug shot.jpg
caption	Undated mug shot of Blanton taken by the Alabama Department of Corrections
birth_date
birth_place	Washington, D.C., U.S.
death_date
death_place	William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility, Bessemer, Alabama, U.S.
known_for	Participant in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing
criminal_status	Deceased
parents	Thomas Edwin "Pops" Blanton Sr.
motive	White supremacy
conviction	First degree murder (4 counts)
partners	{{Plainlist
penalty	Life imprisonment

Robert Edward Chambliss
Bobby Frank Cherry Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. (June 20, 1938 – June 26, 2020) was an American terrorist and convicted felon. He was sentenced to four life sentences for his role as conspirator in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 15, 1963, which killed four African American girls (Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins, and Denise McNair). Blanton, along with Bobby Frank Cherry, was convicted in May 2001 in a highly publicized trial of the cold case. Future United States Senator Doug Jones successfully prosecuted Blanton and Cherry.

Early life

Blanton was born in Washington, D.C., on June 20, 1938, and was the son of Thomas Edwin "Pops" Blanton Sr., who was described in 2001 as a notorious racist in the Birmingham, Alabama, area.

Education and career

Blanton had a tenth-grade education and served as an aircraft mechanic in the Navy from 1956 to 1959. Blanton was a member of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1960s, along with the other suspects in the bombing.

Trial and imprisonment

At the time of his arrest in 2000, Blanton was working at a Walmart store and lived in a trailer with no running water.

Blanton was a suspect from early in the investigation, but J. Edgar Hoover reportedly prevented attempts by the Birmingham office or the Federal Bureau of Investigation to bring charges against Blanton and three other men. This was reportedly because Hoover thought a successful prosecution was unlikely. In a jury trial in 2001, Blanton was prosecuted by the state, and convicted of murder. He was sentenced to four life sentences in state prison.

He was housed at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. Blanton went before the parole board on August 3, 2016. Parole was denied and deferred until 2021.

Death

On June 26, 2020, Blanton died at William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility after 19 years of incarceration, from unspecified causes while serving his life sentence, six days after his 82nd birthday.

References

Sack, Kevin. (May 2, 2001). "Ex-Klansman Is Found Guilty in '63 Bombing". [[The New York Times]].
(2020-06-26). "Thomas Blanton, convicted in 1963 Alabama church bombing, dies in prison".
"16th Street Baptist Church bombing {{!}} History & Four Girls".
Reeves, Jay. (May 23, 2002). "Case closed; Cherry guilty". [[TimesDaily]].
(14 April 2001). "Birmingham's Painful Past Reopened". [[Los Angeles Times]].
https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/baptist-street-church-bombing
Genzlinger, Neil. (June 26, 2020). "Thomas Blanton, Who Bombed a Birmingham Church, Dies at 82". The New York Times.
(August 2023). "Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr.". [[Alabama Department of Corrections]].
Faulk, Kent. (July 14, 2016). "Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bomber up for parole next month". [[The Birmingham News]].
[https://www.wbrc.com/2020/06/26/thomas-blanton-th-street-baptist-church-bomber-dies-prison/ Thomas Blanton, 16th Street Baptist Church bomber, dies in prison]

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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