What is the true story behind ';mississippi burning';? did they really use a mob guy to get the confessions?

I'm guessing you mean the 1964 disappearance of three civil rights volunteers in Mississippi?





The trail went cold until a man known as ';Mr. X'; revealed the locations of the body. The identity of the informant was a closely held secret for 40 years. There are two theories on who ';Mr. X'; was.





- Journalist Jerry Mitchell and teacher Barry Bradford supposively uncovered his real name. They claim it was a highway patrolman Maynard King who gave the information willingly to FBI agent Joseph Sullivan.





- Linda Schiro, testified in court in 2007 that Gregory Scarpa Sr., a soldier for the Colombo crime family and an FBI informer for three decades, had been recruited by the FBI to help find the volunteers鈥?bodies. She claimed that he was paid by the FBI to force a Klansman into revealing the burial site. Scarpa, according to her, flew to Mississippi where he was given some money and a gun by an FBI agent. Scarpa then tracked down the Klansman, named Lawrence Byrd a local TV salesman. Gregory then bought a TV set from him before forcing him to reveal the location of the graves at gunpoint.





(Linda Schiro was the ex-girlfriend of the mobster/FBI informant.)