Episode Summary
In 1983, a young Black man named Timothy Coggins is found brutally murdered in Spalding County, Georgia. But just as promising leads are uncovered, the case is inexplicably closed. And it remains that way for more than 30 years, until a new investigator comes across the file and realizes just how solvable this murder could be.
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Timothy Coggins
Timothy Coggins
Clockwise from left to right; Gregory Huffman, Bill Moore Sr., Frankie Gebhardt, Sandra Bunn, and Lamar Bunn.
The Adidas Shoes found in Frankie Gebhardt’s well.
Timothy Coggin’s brothers, Ramon (left) and Tyrone (right) posing next to the long-awaited headstone for Timothy.
Episode Source Material
- Fox 9 (Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN): Men charged with murdering black man because he ‘socialized with a white woman’.
- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta, GA): Spalding cold case trial: Missing evidence, doubts and a conviction, by Christian Boone.
- Cold Case Files: Love and Hate (Season 2, Episode 7).
- News8000 (La Crosse, WI): Jurors set to hear ‘crime scene scream’ in Timothy Coggins’ case, by Eliott C. McLaughlin (CNN).
- ABC 20/20: In the Cold Dark Night (Season 42, Episode 30).
- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta, GA): Officials reopen 34-year-old Georgia hate crime case, by Raisa Habersham.
- CNN: Cold case no more: Police arrest 5 in ‘torturous’ 1983 slaying, by Eliott C. McLaughlin.
- CNN: Killers meant to ‘send a message,’ sheriff says of 1983 slaying, by Eliott C. McLaughlin.
- ABC NEWS: How the racially-motivated cold case murder of young Black man was finally solved decades later, by Lauren Effron, Marc Dorian, and Anthony Rivas.
- GQ: A Brutal Lynching. An Indifferent Police Force. A 34-Year Wait for Justice., by Wesley Lowery.
- A & E: Here’s How a Georgia Prosecutor Got Justice for a Man Murdered Before She Was Born, by Robert Kahn.
- The Atlanta Journal Constitution (Atlanta, GA): Race takes center stage on Day One of Spalding cold case murder trial, by Christian Boone.
- The New York Times: Georgia Resident Convicted of Murder in ‘Heinous’ 1983 Killing of Black Man, by Melissa Gomez and Matt Stevens.
- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta, GA): Damaged evidence, shifty witnesses mark truck-dragging murder trial, by Christian Boone.
- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta, GA): Old doubts quashed, new ones raised as cold case killing goes to jury, by Christian Boone.