Medgar Evers' body was exhumed and re-examined at the request of prosecutors preparing to try a white supremacist for a third time in the 1963 slaying, an official said. The original autopsy report is missing.
Evers' family consented to the opening of the grave Monday at Arlington National Cemetery. The civil rights activist and Army veteran was buried with full military honors.White supremacist Byron De La Beckwith awaits a third trial in the slaying. Beckwith, 70, was tried twice in 1964, but all-white juries deadlocked both times. Charges were dropped in 1969.
The case was reopened in 1989 amid accusations of jury and evidence tampering. A Hinds County, Miss., grand jury indicted Beckwith on a murder charge last December.
The autopsy was performed Tuesday at the Albany, N.Y., Medical Center by Drs. Michael Baden and Lowell Lavin, co-directors of forensic sciences for New York state police. Evers' body was reburied Wednesday.
Evers' widow, Myrlie, who lives in Los Angeles, said, "I hope and I pray , and I work to see that justice will be done in this case."