Willie Edwards Jr. (November 13, 1932 – January 23, 1957) was a 24-year-old black American, husband and father, who was murdered by members of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan.
They got into a car to search for Willie Edwards, an African-American, who had recently been hired as a driver for Winn-Dixie whom they suspected was sleeping with a white woman.
In the statement to Attorney General Bill Baxley, Britt described how on the night of January 23, 1957, he along with three other men beat and forced Edwards to jump off the Tyler-Goodwin Bridge into the Alabama River.
Alabama Judge Frank Embry, however, dismissed the charges, in spite of Britt's sworn testimony, because no cause of death was ever established.
In 1999, the District Attorney presented the new case before a Montgomery County Grand Jury, which subsequently affirmed that Edwards's death was indeed caused by the KKK, but declined to indict anyone specifically of the crime.