Lawrence Rainey, 79, a Rights-Era Suspect

Lawrence A. Rainey, the Mississippi sheriff suspected but never convicted of involvement in the 1964 killing of three civil rights workers, died on Friday at his home in Meridian, Miss. He was 79.

Mr. Rainey had been suffering from throat and tongue cancer, said his son John, of Meridian.

The three rights workers -- Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, white men from New York City, and James Chaney of Meridian, who was black -- were in Neshoba County, Miss., in June 1964 to investigate the burning of a black church that was to have been used as a base for registering blacks to vote. Hundreds of rights volunteers were in Mississippi that summer in a registration drive.

On June 21, a car carrying the three men, all in their early 20's, was stopped by Deputy Cecil R. Price for speeding. After being jailed in the town of Philadelphia for several hours, the three were released, drove into the night and vanished.

Sheriff Rainey scoffed at fears that something had happened to them. ''If they're in Mississippi,'' he told reporters, ''they're just hiding out somewhere and trying to get a lot of publicity out of it.''

But on Aug. 4, after federal agents got a tip from a paid informer, the bodies of all three were discovered in an earthen dam. The murder of the rights workers galvanized much of the nation, became a defining event of the civil rights era and was later portrayed in the 1988 film ''Mississippi Burning.''

To outsiders and locals alike, Mr. Rainey appeared the very image of an old-style Southern sheriff. He was over 6 feet tall, weighed more than 250 pounds, chewed tobacco and carried a blackjack on his belt. While running successfully for Neshoba County sheriff in 1963, he said, ''I believe in our Southern way of life and will strive to keep it that way.''

After discovery of the bodies, people of the county speculated openly about whether he, Deputy Price and a number of local men known to belong to the Ku Klux Klan were responsible for the crime, but state murder charges were never lodged.

Federal authorities pursued the case, though, and by early 1965, the sheriff, his deputy and 16 other men had been charged with violating the civil rights of the victims.

Sheriff Rainey and seven other men were acquitted. Deputy Price and six other defendants were convicted. The jury could not decide on the remaining defendants.

A Klan leader and one other defendant got the stiffest sentences, 10 years in prison. Mr. Price, whom investigators suspected of delivering the victims to their killers, got a six-year term and served four and a half years. He died last year at 63.

After his term as sheriff ended in 1967, Mr. Rainey was unable to find further work in law enforcement. He worked as a security guard at a supermarket and at a shopping mall.

His survivors include his wife, Juanita; two sons, Lawrence Jr. of Vicksburg, Miss., and John; three stepchildren; and several grandchildren.

John Rainey said yesterday that his father was not as he had been portrayed over the years. ''He was a good man,'' Mr. Rainey said from his home in Meridian. ''He had nothing to do with what happened that night.''