During the investigation, the police concluded that the murder had to do with drugs, but Donald's mother, Beulah Mae Donald, knew that her son was not involved with drugs, and she decided to take action. She eventually talked to the nationally known civil rights activist Jesse Jackson of Chicago. Thomas Figures, Mobile's U.S. Attorney, contacted the FBI to take on the case under federal civil rights law. Knowles quickly confessed to the lynching. In 1983, James Knowles of the UKA's Klavern 900 in Mobile, was convicted for the 1981 murder of Michael Donald. His conviction resulted in a sentence of life in prison; he was granted mercy because he was 17 years old at the time of the killing. At trial Knowles said that he and Henry Hays killed Donald "in order to show Klan strength in Alabama".