Prosecution rests in Alabama bombing trial

Posted 8:06AM on Saturday 18th May 2002 ( 23 years ago )

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - Prosecutors in the trial of a former Klansman charged with a deadly civil rights-era church bombing closed their case after jurors heard haunting testimony from a survivor of the blast. Sarah Collins Rudolph, now 51, was temporarily blinded in the explosion that sent debris and glass crashing down on her and four other black girls in the basement lounge at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on Sept. 15, 1963. The blast killed Rudolph's sister, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, all 14, and Denise McNair, 11. Bobby Frank Cherry, 71, who now lives in Mabank, Texas, is charged with murder in the deaths of the girls and faces life in prison if convicted. Cherry's attorneys were to begin presenting testimony on Saturday. Rudolph said she was standing at a sink washing her hands and watching her sister tie the sash on Denise's dress when she heard a loud noise and was blinded by glass flying into her eyes. ``I began to call Addie. I said 'Addie, Addie, Addie,''' Rudolph said. ``Did your sister ever answer?'' prosecutor Doug Jones asked. ``No sir, she didn't.'' Rudolph, who later regained sight in one of her eyes, has now testified in all three trials of suspects in the church bombing, stretching over the past 25 years. Former Klansman Robert Chambliss was convicted in a 1977 trial and later died in prison. Another former Klansman, Thomas Blanton, was convicted of murder last year and is serving life in prison. A fourth suspect died without being charged. A granddaughter of Cherry testified Friday that he once boasted about the attack on the church - the worst act of violence in the civil rights era. It occurred the weekend after Birmingham's public schools were racially integrated for the first time. Teresa Stacy of Keller, Texas, said Cherry once bragged about the bombing while sitting on the porch of his home in east Texas. ``He seemed rather jovial, braggish,'' testified Stacy, who said she was between 9 and 11 years old at the time. Defense lawyer Mickey Johnson tried to question the credibility of Stacy, who admitted on cross examination that she started doing drugs at age 12 and was in rehabilitation by age 13. ``Cocaine was my drug of choice,'' said Stacy. Prosecutors also presented television logs from September 1963 and medical records to discredit Cherry's alibi that he had gone home the night before the bombing to care for his terminally ill wife and to watch wrestling on television. According to the records, Cherry's wife was not diagnosed with cancer until 1965 and wrestling was not on Birmingham television that night in 1963. Cherry sat silently at the defense table throughout the presentation of evidence. Dressed in a suit and tie daily, the retired trucker has had no visible response to any of the prosecution testimony.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/5/202185