Crime: Mafia used to solve "Mississippi Burning" murders

AP reports the FBI used the Mafia to solve the 1964 disappearance of three civil rights volunteers in Mississippi - a case I have written about several times, and which was later dramatized in the movie "Mississippi Burning." Tom Paxton also wrote a song about the murders, "Goodman, Shwerner and Chaney"

The ex-girlfriend of Mafia hit-man Gregory Scarpa Sr., testified that he was recruited by the FBI to help find the bodies of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman. She said Scarpa later told her he put a gun in a Ku Klux Klansman’s mouth and forced him to reveal the whereabouts of the victims. The FBI has never acknowledged that Scarpa, nicknamed "The Grim Reaper," was involved in the case.

Schiro took the stand as a witness for the prosecution at the trial of former FBI agent R. Lindley DeVecchio, who is charged in state court with four counts of murder in what authorities have called one of the worst law enforcement corruption cases in U.S. history.