Says woman in exclusive interview
Pictures of 5
slain shown
before killings
DAILY TIMES-NEWS (Burlington)
July 8, 1982 p. 1A
By ALEX CHARNS
Special to The Times-News
RALEIGH — A Cannon Mills union organizer said FBI agents interviewed her about five leaders
of the Communist Workers Party a
week before the communists were
slain at the Nov. 3, 1979 Greensboro massacre.
In an exclusive interview with
the Times-News, Daisy Crawford,
43, said that less than a week before a contingent of the Ku Klux
Klan and American Nazi Party
fired on a communist rally, two
FBI agents visited her Salisbury
trailer home.
She said the two men identified
themselves as FBI agents and
flashed FBI badges. "Then I got
the shock of my life," she said.
"They showed me a picture of Sandy Smith."
The agents also showed her pictures of four men whom she believes may have been CWP members Michael Nathan, Cesar
Cauce, William Sampson and
James Waller. Smith and the four
men were killed in Greensboro.
Crawford said the agents did not
explain why they were showing
her the photographs.
"I was so shocked," said Crawford. "I admitted I knew Sandy,
then I said I was in a hurry and had
to go. You see, I got suspicious in a
hurry. (After the FBI agents left) I
immediately called Sandy."
Crawford said she told Smith to
warn the organizer of the Greensboro rally that "something is
wrong." Crawford said she believes Smith never passed on the
message.
The supervisor of the Greensboro FBI office, Andrew Pelczar
said soon after the killings that the
CWP was under investigation from
October 23, 1979 to Nov. 2, 1979.
The FBI later retracted that statement.
On Wednesday FBI agent
Robert Pence of the Charlotte
office said he could not comment
about an investigation of the CWP
before Nov. 3.
The U.S. Justice Department
has convened a special grand jury
in Winston-Salen to look into the
events surrounding the 'Death to
the Klan' rally.
On J,une 2, Crawford was interviewed by Justice Department
attorney Michael Johnson and
FBI agent Thomas Brerton, but
has not yet been called before the
grand jury to testify.
U.S. Attorney Nora Flannigan
said Wednesday that she could not
comment on whether Crawford
would be called to testify.
Crawford said the FBI visit challenges the claim that the federal
authorities were not investigating
the CWP before Nov. 3. She said
the visit in late October 1979 links
the FBI to the killings. "Sandy was
the only woman killed and she was
the only picture of a woman they
showed me. I think the FBI had a
lot to do with it."
Crawford became acquainted
with a number of CWP workers as
a result of her union organizing at
Cannon Mills and civil rights activities. She said she helped Smith
to get a job at Cannon Mills.
- The night of the FBI visit "I had
a terrible dream ... and the next
day I got this weird feeling that
something was going to happen
and I decided not to go to Greensboro," said Crawford.
Crawford was planning to go
with her sons and Smith to the rally. On the morning of Nov. 3. Crawford told Smith that she and her
sons were not going to Greensboro
because something "was very
wrong."
"Can you imagine about an hour
and a half later they (kids) are in
there watching cartoons and I
hear her (Sandy's) name and all
those other names," said Crawford, adding, "I went completely
berserk."
See MASSACRE on page 2A
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