several of whose members were incarcerated; she enjoyed none of the status of Ronda
Morrison. The Morrison murder remained the focus of everyone’s attention for months.
Ralph Myers was illiterate, but he knew that it was the Morrison crime that was
preoccupying law enforcement investigators. When his allegations against the sheriff didn’t
seem to be going anywhere, he changed his story again and told investigators that he had
been involved in the murder of Vickie Pittman along with Karen Kelly and her black
boyfriend, Walter McMillian. But that wasn’t all. He also told police that McMillian was
responsible for the murder of Ronda Morrison. That assertion attracted the full attention of
law enforcement officials.
It soon became apparent that Walter McMillian had never met Ralph Myers, let alone
committed two murders with him. To prove that the two of them were in cahoots, an ABI
agent asked Myers to meet Walter McMillian at a store while agents monitored the
interaction. It had been several months since Ronda Morrison’s murder.
Once Myers entered the store, he was not able to identify Walter McMillian among several
black men present (he had to ask the owner of the store to point McMillian out). He then
delivered a note to McMillian, purportedly written by Karen Kelly. According to witnesses,
Walter seemed confused both by Myers, a man he had never seen before, and the note itself.
Walter threw the note away and went back to what he was doing. He paid little attention to
the whole odd encounter.
The monitoring ABI agents were left with nothing to suggest any relationship between
Myers and McMillian and plenty of evidence indicating that the two men had never met. Still,
they persisted with the McMillian theory. Time was passing—seven months, by this time—
and the community was fearful and angry. Criticism was mounting. They desperately needed
an arrest.
Monroe County Sheriff Tom Tate did not have much law enforcement experience. By his
own description he was “very local” and took great pride in never having ventured too far
from Monroeville. Now, four months into his term as sheriff, he faced a seemingly unsolvable
murder and intense public pressure. When Myers told police about McMillian’s relationship
with Karen Kelly, it’s likely that the infamous interracial affair was already well known to
Tate as a result of the Kelly custody hearings that had generated so much gossip. But there
was no evidence against McMillian—no evidence except that he was an African American
man involved in an adulterous interracial affair, which meant he was reckless and possibly
dangerous, even if he had no prior criminal history and a good reputation. Maybe that was
evidence enough.
- Even though the restriction couldn’t be enforced under federal law, the state ban on interracial marriage in Alabama
continued into the twenty-first century. In 2000 , reformers finally had enough votes to get the issue on the statewide ballot,
where a majority of voters chose to eliminate the ban, although 41 percent voted to keep it. A 2011 poll of Mississippi
Republicans found that 46 percent support a legal ban on interracial marriage, 40 percent oppose such a ban, and 14 percent
are undecided.