Later in life, Price refused to speak publicly about the events of 1964 to 1967. During an interview for "The New York Times Magazine" in 1977, he stated that "he enjoyed watching the television show "Roots"". In the same article, Price said "We've got to accept this is the way things are going to be and that's it." Price also told an African American pastor that he had repented of his previous actions. He helped Marcus Dupree, a friend of his son Cecil Jr., get a commercial driver's license, allowing Dupree to establish a career after his retirement from the National Football League. Price died on May 6, 2001, three days after falling from a lift in an equipment rental store in Philadelphia, Mississippi. He died in the same hospital in Jackson where, thirty-seven years earlier, he had helped transport the bodies of the three slain civil rights workers for autopsies. At the time of Price's death, Mississippi attorney general Mike Moore and Neshoba County prosecutor Ken Turner were considering bringing state murder charges against some of the surviving defendants in the 1967 federal trial. Attorney General Moore saw Price's death as harmful to the ongoing investigation: "If he had been a defendant, he would have been a principal defendant. If he had been a witness, he would have been our best witness. Either way, his death is a tragic blow to our case."