FBI Says The End Is Near For Investigations Into Civil Rights-era Cold Cases: ...The Department of Justice, under its 5-year-old "Cold Case Initiative" and the 2007 Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, has combed through that dark period of American history, seeking any cases that could still be prosecuted. Isolating 111 incidents involving 124 deaths, investigators have sought to determine whether those who died were victims of racially motivated crimes – and then whether there's anyone left to charge.
In about two-thirds of those cases, FBI agents have hand-delivered letters to next of kin, informing them that the government had taken things as far as they could.
In some cases, all of the suspects are dead; in others, suspect individuals have been acquitted in the past and cannot legally be retried. In a few, the agency can find no evidence that a crime was racially motivated – or even that the death resulted from foul play.
