( CNN ) -- Retired FBI agent Jim Ingram is charged with chasing down stories and shadows more than four decades old . Retired FBI agent Jim Ingram is helping the bureau re-examine civil rights cases from the 1960s . `` I knew these old informants , I knew these old witnesses , '' Ingram said . `` Some of them can not hear , some of them have really lost their eyesight almost , but you still , most of them had good memories . `` And those are the ones that we called upon to testify . '' In the 1960s , as a young FBI agent , Ingram investigated civil rights cases in Mississippi . `` The 1960s were turbulent years in Mississippi . Oh , my goodness , '' Ingram said . `` Oh , we had a lot of action . '' In 2005 , after he 'd been retired for years , the FBI asked him to help re-examine dozens of unsolved civil rights cases that had slipped through history 's cracks . `` I never in my wildest dreams thought the FBI would call upon a 75-year-old man to assist them , '' Ingram said of his work in the bureau 's cold-case initiative . His tasks include sifting through old evidence , tracking down witnesses and re-interviewing them . Sometimes , he testifies in court . His work helped convict James Ford Seale , a former Mississippi sheriff 's deputy , of kidnapping and conspiracy in the 1964 deaths of black teenagers Henry Dee and Charles Eddie Moore . According to the Jackson ( Mississippi ) Clarion-Ledger -- citing FBI documents -- Dee and Moore were picked up by two men while hitchhiking on May 2 , 1964 . The men were members of the Ku Klux Klan , but they told the two teenagers they were law enforcement officials . Instead of giving them a ride , however , the men drove the pair deep into the woods and beat them . Later , they drove them across the Mississippi River , weighed them down with a Jeep motor block and dumped them into the Old River in Louisiana . A fisherman found one of the bodies in July of that year and reported it to authorities , the Clarion-Ledger said . Seale and another man were suspected in the case , but authorities had trouble lining up witnesses . Pursuit of the case dissipated over time , but as other civil rights-era cases were solved , notably the 2005 conviction of Edgar Ray Killen for the deaths of three civil rights workers , interest was regenerated . `` You can just imagine the terror of these two young men after being beaten in the woods , '' Ingram said . He and another FBI agent retraced the steps of that spring day with federal prosecutors , Ingram said . `` They knew they were going to die because ... [ the men ] told them what they were going to do . '' Seale will be sentenced later this year , Ingram said . Ingram says he does feel a sense of accomplishment for bringing Seale and others to justice . `` There is a feeling of satisfaction because I 've been at this thing for years , '' Ingram said . `` I entered the FBI in 1953 , and here it is , my goodness , 2007 , and I 'm still active in many ways , and I told the FBI as long as my memory holds up , I 'll help them , '' he said . E-mail to a friend .
Jim Ingram worked in the FBI 's Mississippi office during the turbulent 1960s . In 2005 , the bureau asked for his help in re - opening unsolved cases . His work helped convict Robert Ford Jackson for the 1964 murders of two women .