The Hero Among Us: FBI Witness Hunter

Jim Ingram is to the FBI what Elliot Ness was to the Treasury Department—a larger-than-life symbol of American justice, a Klan-busting crime fighter who was involved with some of the highest profile FBI cases of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

Interestingly, after nearly 30 years with the FBI, Ingram was brought out of retirement in the 2000s as a cold-case investigator of Mississippi civil rights-era murders, casting him into his fifth decade of crime fighting. Among the historic cases worked by Ingram:

•The assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

•The “Mississippi Burning” civil rights murders.

•The assassination of Martin Luther King.

•The murder of Federal Judge John H. Woods, known by friends and detractors as “Maximum John.” The convicted hit man was actor Woody Harrelson’s father, Charles Harrelson.

•The bombing of Beth Israel Temple.

•The FBI counterintelligence operation known as COINTELPRO.

•The FALN bombings by Puerto Rican separatists.

In this memoir, Jim Ingram provides insider information on the above high-profile cases and others, along with a personal perspective on his nearly 30-year career of law enforcement. During that career, he headed up the FBI offices in New York and Chicago, and was in charge of the violent crimes civil rights desk in Mississippi in the 1960s, and served in the 1970s as deputy assistant FBI director in Washington, DC.

After his retirement from the FBI, Ingram served as Public Safety Commissioner for the State of Mississippi, which put him in charge of the Highway Patrol, an agency that had been heavily infiltrated by the KKK while he was head of the civil rights desk in Mississippi. Appointed by Governor Kirk Fordice, a conservative Republican. Ingram became good friends with the man despite their political differences.

Jim Ingram passed away in August 2009 of cancer, but worked on this memoir with his co-author, right up until his death. The book contains new, formerly classified information about a variety of cases.

“Jim Ingram made a big difference in Mississippi, and our folks will always appreciate him, his courage and his character. I was blessed to be his friend.”—Former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour

“This is a simple story about a complex man who had a lasting effect on Mississippi. Jim Ingram was from the “old school” in the best sense of those words. He treasured traits like loyalty to others and loyalty to the law. He abhorred bullies and was fearless in tracking the “night riders” who used terror as their weapon of choice. Question: who was the world famous Middle-Eastern dictator who took refuge in a “safe house” in Jackson, Mississippi…well, you’ll just have to read the book and be stunned to find who was in our midst.”—Former Mississippi Secretary of State Dick Molpus

“Jim was always a big case guy—a long ball hitter. He didn’t hit singles. He took the ball out of the park.”—Retired FBI Special Agent Bill Stokes

Journalist James L. Dickerson has published numerous biographies and histories, including Devil’s Sanctuary: An Eyewitness History of Mississippi Hate Crimes, Dixie’s Dirty Secret, Just for a Thrill: Lil Hardin Armstrong, First Lady of Jazz, and Yellow Fever: A Deadly Disease Poised to Kill Again.

An award-winning journalist, he has worked as a staff writer for three Pulitzer Prize-winning newspapers, The Commercial Appeal (Memphis), the Clarion-Ledger/Jackson Daily News (Jackson, MS) and the Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, MS). He is a leading writer of civil rights history and organized crime in the South. His writing is listed in the FBI’s Bibliography Related to Crime Scene Interpretation with Emphases in Forensic Geotaphonomic and Forensic Archaeological Field Techniques, compiled by Special Agent Michael J. Hochrein.