Rex Armistead

Rex Armistead (February 23, 1930 – December 24, 2013) was a private detective and former Mississippi state police officer and leading operative for the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, who was heavily involved in the Arkansas Project, a co-ordinated attempt in the 1990s to investigate former U.S. President Bill Clinton funded by conservative media billionaire Richard Scaife.

Early on a deputy sheriff in Coahoma County, Armistead worked as a Mississippi State Police officer for many years. In the 1960s, as head of the Mississippi State Highway Patrol, he was seconded to work for the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, a state body that helped to maintain Mississippi's then legal racial segregation laws. He was selected to investigate the "Dixie Mafia" (a term Armistead apparently coined) by the then-governor of Mississippi John Bell Williams, in particular the mafia's narcotics and prostitution operations, although he had no powers of arrest.

After working undercover, he became Chief investigator of the Highway Patrol, during which time he was present at the Jackson State Killings, when Mississippi police opened fire on African-American student protesters at Jackson State College, killing two of them. He was one of the police witnesses who controversially alleged the presence of a student sniper, providing a pretext for the shooting. This allegation was dismissed by congressional investigation. Armistead then became Chief Investigator of the Bureau of Identification, and then director of the criminal investigation section of the Mississippi Department of Safety, before becoming Head of Mississippi State police.

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