“Dynamite Bob” Chambliss, 79, stands in his cell. Bob was convicted for his role in the infamous 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, which killed 4 children, by the Klan. Due to the FBI withholding incriminating evidence, Bob was the only person tried for it until 2001 (Alabama, 1983) [2048 x 1726].

[16th Street Baptist Church bombing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_Street_Baptist_Church_bombing)

[“No Remorse”: Prison Letters of Klansman Convicted in ’63 Birmingham Church Bombing](https://www.apr.org/arts-life/2013-08-01/no-remorse-prison-letters-of-klansman-convicted-in-63-birmingham-church-bombing)

Bob was convicted in 1977 and died in prison in 1985. There had been enough evidence to prosecute him even without J. Edgar Hoover’s cooperation in the case. For example, his niece, Reverend Elizabeth Cobbs, testified testified that approximately one week after the bombing, she had observed Bob watching a news report relating to the four girls killed in the bombing. According to Cobbs, Bob had said: “It [the bomb] wasn’t meant to hurt anybody … it didn’t go off when it was supposed to.”

Following the convictions of Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry in 2001, Alabama’s former Attorney General, William Baxley, expressed his frustration that he had never been informed of the existence of incriminating FBI audio recordings used at the trials. Baxley acknowledged that typical juries in 1960s Alabama would have likely leaned in favor of both defendants, even if these recordings had been presented as evidence, but said that he could have prosecuted Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry in 1977 if he had been granted access to these tapes. A 1980 Justice Department report concluded that J. Edgar Hoover had blocked the prosecution of the four bombing suspects in 1965 and he officially closed the FBI’s investigation in 1968.