Minister: Klansman Confessed To Slaying

MOBILE, Ala. - Two days before his execution, a former Ku Klux Klansman broke down and allegedly confessed to the lynching of a black teenager, a crime he had denied for 16 years.

The Rev. Bob Smith mentioned the confession at Henry Francis Hays' funeral on Saturday, shocking friends and relatives.

Hays, 42, was executed in Alabama's electric chair early Friday for the 1981 slaying.

"He told me he was guilty," the Rev. Bob Smith said in an interview in yesterday's editions of The Mobile Register. "He said, `You're the only one who knows this.' "

Relatives and friends of Hays were shocked by Smith's statement, and some did not believe him, the newspaper said.

Smith, president of the Mobile chapter of the NAACP, said he met with Hays at Holman Prison near Atmore on Wednesday.

Hays, who had been on death row since 1984, reached over, grabbed Smith's arms and began a tearful, detailed, 40-minute account of the victim's death, Smith said.

He said Hays told him the Alabama Ku Klux Klan ordered the 1981 killing of a black person in retaliation for the slaying of a white Birmingham policeman.

Hays said he and fellow Klansman James "Tiger" Knowles got Michael Donald, 19, in their car by asking him for directions, beat him, slit his throat and left him hanging from a tree, Smith said.

Knowles pleaded guilty and testified against Hays.