William F. Dukes FBI Scrapbook

William F. Dukes was born in Smith County Mississippi on January 15, 1927. The Duke family moved to Hattiesburg, Mississippi from the Carolinas when Mr. Dukes was very young. He attended elementary school and high school in Hattiesburg and upon graduation in 1944, enlisted in the United States Navy. While in the Navy he served in Florida and on anti-submarine patrol in the Caribbean. In June of 1946 he left the Navy and began his undergraduate career at Mississippi Southern College, now The University of Southern Mississippi. Mr. Dukes received his BA from USM and his law degree from the University of Mississippi.

In 1951 the Federal Bureau of Investigation accepted Mr. Dukes into service. He trained in Washington DC, spent a short time in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and then returned to Mississippi, where he was stationed in charge of the Gulfport office. While in Gulfport, Mr. Dukes worked to prevent organized crime from establishing a stronghold in the area, and he also worked on several civil rights cases involving the Ku Klux Klan. Three high profile cases on which he worked were the Mack Charles Parker civil rights murder case (1959), the Vernon Dahmer murder case (1966, code name: DABURN), and the murder of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman in Neshoba County, Mississippi (1964, code name: MIBURN). Mr. Dukes played a significant role in apprehending the alleged killers of Vernon Dahmer, and his brother, James K. Dukes, was a lawyer on the prosecuting team in the Dahmer case.

Mr. Dukes retired from the FBI in 1966 and began practicing law in Gulfport, Mississippi in 1968. William F. Dukes died on December 11, 2003.