Daniels, Jonathan M. (1938-1965)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1965 Aug 26 p. 1, 3

Birth date: 1938

text of obituary:

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Race Shootings Take Another Life, Minister, Priest Wounded

Shootings resulting from racial tensions have taken another life in the South and a Catholic priest and Protestant minister lie critically wounded in Alabama and Mississippi hospitals.

The priest, 26-year-old Richard Morrisroe of Chicago, was felled by a shotgun blast that killed Jonathan Daniels, 27, theology student from Keene, N. H., as the two stood with a group of Negroes near a country store at Haynesville, Ala., about 40 miles west of Montgomery. Daniels died at the scene, Morrisroe was rushed to a Montgomery hospital.

A white man charged in connection with the shootings was arrested and then released under $12,500 bond.

At Jackson, Miss., the 59-year-old Rev. Donald Thompson was seriously wounded in a night-time shotgun ambush as he walked from the parking lot to his apartment. Thompson, a native of Terre Haute, Ind., has had a pastorate in Jackson for two years and was connected with the Mississippi Council of Human Relations.

At Birmingham, Ala., some 350 persons attended the funeral services for Matt Murphy Jr., stormy Ku Klux Klan lawyer, who was fatally injured in a car accident. Murphy had gained national attention earlier this year as attorney for one of three Klansmen charged with the slaying of a white civil rights worker.

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Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1965 Oct. 7 p. 3

text of obituary:

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Acquittal of Alabama Sheriff Called “Appalling Situation”

The acquittal at Hayneville, Ala. of a deputy sheriff in the slaying of a young seminarian and civil rights worker brought nationwide consternation and dismay. U. S. Atty. Gen. Nicholas Katzenbach directed the Justice Department to look into the matter and Sen. Clifford P. Case commented, “This appalling situation is not one which the American people can view tolerantly. They do not expect their government to stand by helplessly.”

Deputy Sheriff Thomas I. Coleman who admitted he shot the 27-year-old student Jonathan M. Daniels said he did it in self-defense. A defense witness testified at the jury trial that he saw a knife in Daniels' hand, and that Daniels' companion, a Catholic priest, Rev. Richard Morrisroe of Chicago, held something that looked like a gun. The priest also was shot and critically wounded.

The jury of 12 white men dismissed the manslaughter charge and declared the deputy sheriff not guilty.