Former Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen has been found guilty of manslaughter in the deaths of three civil-rights workers who disappeared exactly 41 years ago today.

On their second day of deliberations, a jury of nine whites and three blacks rejected murder charges against the 80-year-old Killen, delivering instead a verdict of manslaughter.

Killen, in a wheelchair and wearing an oxygen tube, showed little emotion as the verdict was read. His wife comforted him in the Philadelphia, Miss., courtroom.

The jury got the case on Monday, and told the judge they were deadlocked. They were ordered to return today and to keep trying to reach a verdict.

Killen was the first person to face state murder charges in the 1964 deaths of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.

The story of the murders was dramatized in the 1988 Hollywood film, Mississippi Burning.

Schwerner, 24, and Goodman, 20, came from New York to register black voters. Chaney, a 21-year-old black man from Mississippi, also participated in the voter drive.

On June 21, 1964, the three were in a car together, driving on Mississippi back roads in an attempt to investigate a church burning in the segregated south. Before they could get to the church, the three men were arrested for speeding and thrown into jail.

Prosecutors say that while the civil rights workers sat in prison, about 20 Klan members decided to hatch a plan to kill the three.

When the three were released, they were chased by Klan members, who forced their vehicle off the road, beat them and shot them to death at close range, authorities say.

Their bodies were found 44 days later, buried in an earthen dam.

Killen, a part-time preacher, was accused by authorities of being the ringleader. He was also the first person to be indicted for murder in the case.

But Schwerner's widow, Rita Schwerner Bender, said others should face justice for their part in he killings.

"Preacher Killen didn't act in a vacuum," Bender told reporters after the verdict was read Tuesday. "The state of Mississippi was complicit in these crimes and all the crimes that occurred, and that has to be opened up."

At the time of the killings, the state did not charge anyone with murder. Instead, in 1967, 18 people were put on trial on federal charges of violating the victims' civil rights.

Seven were convicted and served prison sentences of no longer than six years. Eight were acquitted, including Killen.

During his most recent trial, Killen's lawyers admitted their client was in the Klan, but insisted that did not mean he committed murder. Killen, who did not take the stand in his own defence, has long claimed he was attending a wake at a funeral home when the three victims died.

Now that he's been convicted of manslaughter, the part-time preacher and sawmill worker faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.