Mims, Fla. – The briefcase of Harry T. Moore, missing for more than a half-century, has been found in an abandoned Brevard County barn and will be returned Monday to the slain civil-rights leader’s daughter.
The leather case, filled with newspaper clippings and letters urging officials to investigate the mistreatment of blacks, was discovered about a half-mile from where a bomb destroyed the family’s home Christmas night 1951, killing Moore and his wife, Harriette.
A member of the North Brevard Historical Society, scouring the area for artifacts a few months ago, stumbled onto the satchel, which should have been stored in a property room at the county courthouse.
“Nobody knows, or at least nobody is saying, how it ended up in that barn,” said Moore’s daughter, Evangeline, by phone during a news conference at Attorney General Bill McCollum’s office in Orlando.
She is traveling from Maryland to Florida on Monday to retrieve the briefcase.
Moore said she thinks the briefcase’s discovery proves local law enforcement was either involved in her parents’ murders or wanted to make sure no one was arrested.
