The four Klan members in the car—Collie Wilkins (21), FBI informant Gary Rowe (34), William Eaton (41), and Eugene Thomas (42)—were quickly arrested; within 24 hours, President Lyndon Johnson appeared on national television to announce their arrest. In order to avoid bad press, President Johnson made sure to focus on the positive work of the FBI agents' solving of the murder of Viola Liuzzo, in an attempt to divert scrutiny away from the fact that one of the men in the car, Gary Thomas Rowe Jr., was an FBI informant and therefore protected by the FBI.