hours, 24 hours at the most. i was really scared. i moved out of my mother and father s house cause when i was started testifying, bennie hays came to my mom and daddy s house, looking for me, to shut my mouth, to keep me from talking. so, when my mother and father went to the store to guy groceries, i wrote them a note saying i moved out. i couldn t live here no more, and i started staying at the salvation army in pritchard. i honestly believed that they would have killed my mom and daddy. 29-year-old henry hays looked chipper as his capital murder trial got under way. security is tight at the trial where in his opening argument, acting district attorney tom harrison charged that hays and 20-year-old james tiger knowles went out looking for a black man and found michael donald.
so, we talked about it for a little while. we talked about it, and then it was over. never thought we would be affected by that. on wednesday night, the local klavern met on the property of bennie hays, who at that time, was the second ranking klansman in the state of alabama. at that klan meeting, they discussed what they thought would be the outcome of the trial. and bennie hays made a statement to the effect that if a black person, and he used another word, could get away with killing a white cop, then we ought to be able to get away with killing a black person,
speculation, shall we say, that mr. anderson would either be acquitted, or the case would result in a mistrial. the joseph anderson trial started the week before michael was, you know, killed, and i watched the trial the whole week. the fifth day of the trial, the case went to the jury. that evening, all of these people congregated on herndon avenue and waited to see what the 10:00 news was gonna report. the 12 jurors couldn t reach agreement according to the foreman. judge joseph hocklander said he was forced to declare a mistrial in the five-day-old case. the news came on and we was watching it, and i saw him coming out the courtroom. i got up from the tv, and got dressed, and went to my sister s house.
mobile country will consider the issue of whether or not to impeach me. galanos believes that grand jury will be empanelled december 5th. december 5th also is the date when the capital murder trial of henry hays is scheduled to begin, two work days after galanos dui trial is scheduled to begin. i went to rehab. i mean, it s not something that i m proud of, but that s what happened. chris had been charged with driving under the influence. chris is gonna leave immediately and he is gonna go into some kind of rehab and you re gonna have to try the michael donald case. i knew his case was going on, but i didn t have any idea what was going on in his case. then they told me that in this case, we really need to be careful. and i said, why? i m gonna try the case like whatever.