Two white women plead guilty in hate crime killing of James Craig Anderson

Luther Vandross was outed as gay after his death.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Two women have pleaded guilty in connection with a series of attacks on African-Americans in Mississippi that included running over and killing a man.

The Clarion-Ledger reports that Shelbie Brooke Richards and Sarah Adelia Graves each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to violate the federal hate crime law. Richards also pleaded guilty to concealing from investigators information about James Craig Anderson’s killing. Both women are 21.

Anderson’s death outside a Jackson hotel in 2011 sparked a broader investigation into reports that young white men and women were driving from mostly white Rankin County into majority-black Jackson to assault African-Americans.

Six others also have pleaded guilty.

Richards’ statement said she encouraged one of those defendants to hit Anderson with his truck, then lied to investigators about it.

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