'Mississippi Burning' KKK leader Edgar Ray Killen dies in prison

Edgar Ray Killen, the preacher and Ku Klux Klan leader convicted and imprisoned more than 40 years after he plotted the 1964 slayings of three civil rights activists in the "Mississippi Burning" case, has died, correction officials said on Friday.

Killen, who would have turned 93 on Jan. 17, was pronounced dead Thursday night at the hospital at Mississippi State Penitentiary, according to a statement on the state's Department of Corrections website on Friday.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Paul Simao)