Jimmie Lee Jackson

Jimmie Lee Jackson, 26, was fatally shot in the abdomen by Alabama State Trooper James Bonard Fowler on the night of February 18, 1965, in Marion, after state troopers broke up a nighttime civil rights march and chased demonstrators into nearby businesses. Jackson had gone into a café trying to protect his mother and elderly grandfather from being beaten by troopers when he was shot at close range; he died eight days later of an abdominal infection from the wound. Fowler was not charged for more than four decades, until a grand jury indicted him for murder in 2007. In 2010, he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter and served roughly six months in jail — the only conviction the Emmett Till Act's cold case review process has produced since the law was signed in 2008. Jackson's death directly inspired the Selma to Montgomery march that began three weeks later, which state troopers violently broke up on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in an event that became known as Bloody Sunday.

Marion, AL · Perry County

• 1965: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• Victim identity and the February 18–26, 1965 date and circumstances, per the DOJ's public case file and extensive contemporaneous and historical reporting.
• James Bonard Fowler was indicted for murder in 2007 and pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2010, serving roughly six months — the only conviction the Emmett Till Act's review process has produced to date.

• Why Fowler was never charged for more than four decades after the shooting was never fully explained in the public record.
• The full circumstances inside the café in the moments before the shooting were disputed between Fowler's account and witness statements.

• U.S. Department of Justice — Notice to Close File
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs