A brief time in the life of Greg Scarpa is portrayed in a new movie starring Mark Wahlberg. The movie’s title, “By Any Means,” refers to the FBI’s urgent need to solve the murder of Vernon Dahmer in 1966. The subject is covered in chapter 3 of my award winning biography of Scarpa, Greg Scarpa, Legendary Evil. At the bottom of this blog entry is the “Background” section discussing the Dahmer murder. The movie, which wrapped up filming last year, has completed postproduction. Recently, it was announced that the movie would be released on September 4, 2026.
It will be interesting to see how the movie handles this episode in Scarpa’s life. By 1966, Scarpa had been an FBI informant for about four years. He would continue in that capacity for twenty-one of the next twenty-six years. One obvious option is to end the movie with the arrest and conviction of Lawrence Byrd, a primary actor in Dahmer’s death. That leaves open the question of how far back from the Byrd conviction will the movie go in exploring and explaining the relationship between Scarpa and the FBI?
On a different note, the movie’s IMDB page lists Edgar Ray Killen as one of the characters in the movie. Killen was not involved in the Dahmer murder. However, he was a primary planner of the killing of three civil rights workers in 1964 in Mississippi, a case Scarpa also allegedly assisted the FBI in solving. As I note in my Scarpa biography, “Killen was eventually convicted of manslaughter in the slayings. . . . Killen filed a lawsuit from prison in 2010 claiming that Scarpa, acting at the direction of the FBI, pistol-whipped and otherwise assaulted local citizens other than Killen to locate the bodies of the missing civil rights workers . . . Killen’s lawsuit was dismissed before it came to trial. He died in prison in 2018.” Killen wasn’t convicted until 2005. His presence in the movie may add context to the Scarpa/FBI story.
I’m not privy to any information about the movie other than what is generally available to the public. You can bet, however, that I’m going to see it. So far as I know, it’s the first feature-length film focused on any portion of Greg Scarpa’s life which obviously makes it of interest to me. I hope that people interested in the film will consider learning more about Scarpa either before or after watching the movie. If so, I can suggest a good book about the entire arc of Scarpa’s notorious life!
EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 3: GREG SCARPA, CIVIL RIGHTS ICON? FOUR CASE STUDIES
“Vernon Dahmer was killed by arsonists from the Ku Klux Klan in January of 1966. Dahmer was a Mississippi business owner and farmer who served as president of the Forrest County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). His work included registering African American voters. He even placed a voter registration booth in his store after passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
“On January 10, 1966, two carloads of armed Ku Klux Klan members drove onto Dahmer’s property near Hattiesburg, Mississippi, set fire to his store and house, and fired upon both buildings as they burned. While Vernon Dahmer returned their fire, his family fled to safety. Dahmer died later that day from damage to his lungs from the smoke and fire.
“One of the men convicted of arson in connection with the case was Lawrence Byrd, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and the owner of Byrd’s Radio and TV Service in Laurel, Mississippi, about thirty minutes from Hattiesburg. Byrd signed a twenty-two-page confession detailing his role in the conspiracy to kill Dahmer and burn his property approximately two months after the fire and Dahmer’s death. At his trial, he objected to the introduction of his confession into evidence on the grounds that it was coerced. The Supreme Court of Mississippi upheld Byrd’s conviction in 1969. In doing so, it noted, but did not otherwise comment on, the trial court’s overruling of Byrd’s evidentiary objection.”
