Speaker 1: My parents took me to see the Bonnie and Clyde
Speaker 1: death car when I was eight years old. The man
Speaker 1: that owned it let me sit in it. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: was not a criminologist at that time, but I was,
Speaker 1: I thought a Bonnie and Clyde expert. And what I
Speaker 1: realized in that moment when he let me sit in
Speaker 1: that car, there was nowhere I could move. There wasn't
Speaker 1: bullet holes. There was one hundred and sixty bullet holes
Speaker 1: in that car, and as small as I was at
Speaker 1: the time, I couldn't hide from any of them.
Speaker 2: So that told me the magnitude of what.
Speaker 1: Happened at that sine, the importance of that event taught
Speaker 1: me You've got to go to the sink. You've got
Speaker 1: to go to the source, you've got to walk it,
Speaker 1: you've got to understand it. And I never forgot that
Speaker 1: even years later when I wanted to learn more about
Speaker 1: the FBI, I wanted to go to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: To the FBI building and take the tour. I wanted
Speaker 1: to see it myself. I will tell you, as a
Speaker 1: cold case investigator, you cannot overstate the importance of going
Speaker 1: to the scene and understanding it.
Speaker 2: With the Bonnie and Clyde vehicle.
Speaker 1: There were three or four fake Bonnie and Clyde cars,
Speaker 1: people that actually took similar vehicles and shot them up
Speaker 1: so that they could make money with these cars. Ted
Speaker 1: Hinton put a stop to that because he at the
Speaker 1: time in nineteen thirty four marked that car in a
Speaker 1: place only he knew, in a way that only he knew,
Speaker 1: so that when it literally went to trial, he was
Speaker 1: able to pinpoint which vehicle was the authentic Bonnie and
Speaker 1: Clyde death car. Fifty miles east of it. On a
Speaker 1: small farm, jealousy brewed as hot as the Georgia sun.
Speaker 1: On July fourteenth, nineteen forty six, a sharecropper named Roger
Speaker 1: Malcolm was accused of stabbing a farmer named Barnett Hester
Speaker 1: with an ice pick. Mister Malcolm tried to run, but
Speaker 1: was captured by the Hester family and held until sheriff
Speaker 1: deputies could arrive. About six point thirty. Mister Malcolm went
Speaker 1: to jail that night. His wife was fearful that a
Speaker 1: mob would storm the jail and kill him, so she
Speaker 1: begged her boss. Lloyd Harrison, who owned the farm, was
Speaker 1: one of the largest land owners in Monroe County, to
Speaker 1: please go bail him out so they wouldn't kill him,
Speaker 1: and Lloyd Harrison said no. Two days later, a mob
Speaker 1: met about three miles south out on Highway one at
Speaker 1: Toller's Woods. Now there's no documentation of what that meeting
Speaker 1: was about, but I've always believed they met to plan
Speaker 1: the murder of mister Malcolm. Miss Malcolm asked Lloy Harrison
Speaker 1: repeatedly for the next eleven days to please go bail
Speaker 1: him out.
Speaker 2: To save his life. He refused.
Speaker 1: Then suddenly, on July twenty fifth, he told Miss Malcolm
Speaker 1: go get the Dorsey's and let's go to town and
Speaker 1: get Roger out of jail. Now Roger's bell was six
Speaker 1: hundred dollars today, that's about ten thousand dollars. Eleven days
Speaker 1: after the stabbing, Roger was a free man, and he
Speaker 1: and his wife, Dorothy, and George and May Murray went
Speaker 1: and got into Lloy Harrison's car and headed back to
Speaker 1: his farm. Mister Harrison did not go back on the
Speaker 1: paved road as the crow flies to his far He
Speaker 1: took the unpaved long way home. As he approached the
Speaker 1: small moors Ford Bridge, there was a mob waiting twenty
Speaker 1: to twenty five men were on that bridge and blocked
Speaker 1: him in the front and in the back in his
Speaker 1: car came to a complete stop. The men demanded that
Speaker 1: Roger get out of the car. There was a man
Speaker 1: in a three piece suit with a big brim hat
Speaker 1: that approached the car unmasked with a firearm, and he
Speaker 1: ordered mister Malcolm out of the car, and then he
Speaker 1: ordered mister Dorsey out of the car. Miss Dorsey recognized
Speaker 1: several of the men. She begged them by the name
Speaker 1: not to kill her husband. All four victims were tied together,
Speaker 1: and the man in the suit ordered everyone to shoot
Speaker 1: at the count of three. He repeated this instruction numerous times,
Speaker 1: ensuring that every single man on that bridge shot, so
Speaker 1: that everyone was guilty of murder, so that no one
Speaker 1: would break ranks and talk. Lloyd Harrison was unharmed and
Speaker 1: was able to go on his way. He told law
Speaker 1: enforce men he didn't recognize anybody on the bridge. Now
Speaker 1: he's the wealthiest landowner in this county, and he didn't
Speaker 1: recognize one man out of twenty five.
Speaker 2: Yet his young female.
Speaker 1: Worker knew several by name. I saw some similarities in
Speaker 1: these two cases. Now one was nineteen thirty four and
Speaker 1: the other case was nineteen forty six. And what I
Speaker 1: found striking was both cases started in a car. Someone
Speaker 1: in each of the cars was accused of killing or
Speaker 1: attempting to kill somebody.
Speaker 2: The shooters were laying in wait.
Speaker 1: On both cases, all shooters shot multiple times into the subjects.
Speaker 1: Crowds gathered at both scenes and took mementos from the scenes.
Speaker 1: Dead bodies had their pictures put in the paper. More
Speaker 1: than one person was shot at both scenes. Different weapons
Speaker 1: were used in both of these scenes. Subjects were unaware
Speaker 1: that there was a mob laying in wait. Clyde Barrow
Speaker 1: tried to join the Navy, and George Dorsey was in
Speaker 1: the service.
Speaker 2: He was in the Army.
Speaker 1: In both cases, women were also shot and killed, which
Speaker 1: was extraordinarily rare. Both cases, the subjects had just gotten
Speaker 1: something to eat, and in both cases they were set
Speaker 1: up to stop at a location where they were killed. Y'all,
Speaker 1: let's get into this case and let's talk about it
Speaker 1: from somebody that's been to the scene. And tonight I
Speaker 1: have the absolute honor to welcome Janie Duncan. Janis is
Speaker 1: a clinical therapist. She's a behavioral consultant and in her
Speaker 1: free time she has decided to be a doctoral candidate.
Speaker 1: She's a college she's a college professor. She is a
Speaker 1: former coworker of mine. She is my dear friend, and
Speaker 1: she is one of the most gifted investigative minds I've
Speaker 1: ever worked with. So Jannis Duncan, welcome to z Own seven. Hey,
Speaker 1: And I will tell you she's got a fabulous sense
Speaker 1: of humor, which when you work the type of cases
Speaker 1: that we do, it certainly is a gift.
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you I.
Speaker 1: Will tell you all that this case in particular, we
Speaker 1: had some good nights up in the war room. So Janie,
Speaker 1: I think it's important when we're talking about this case,
Speaker 1: I want to go ahead and tell the folks it's
Speaker 1: the Moor's Ford Bridge Lyncheon. It's the last mass lyncheon
Speaker 1: in the United States. And when we started the Cold
Speaker 1: Case Investigative Research Institute, Janis Duncan was one of those
Speaker 1: people that would come in early, stay late, come during
Speaker 1: a holiday weekend to make sure the students got all
Speaker 1: they needed in order to take these cases to the
Speaker 1: level that we needed them to get to to try
Speaker 1: to find some answers and solvability factors. Janice, Let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about back in the day on this case,
Speaker 1: in particular when we would be in the war room,
Speaker 1: sometimes past midnight, meeting with representatives and senators and political
Speaker 1: figures and religious figures, trying to navigate this case. When
Speaker 1: we first got into it, my memory is you and
Speaker 1: I were just having a blast that we were learning
Speaker 1: so much, and we were meeting some incredible people, and
Speaker 1: the students were just on fire with this back.
Speaker 3: They were I remember mostly first of all the human
Speaker 3: from our students, which was also very helpful. Yes, they
Speaker 3: were also very dedicated to their studies too, they.
Speaker 4: Wanted to learn.
Speaker 3: One of the things that we always remember trying to
Speaker 3: do with the students was to quote unquote give them
Speaker 3: hands on experience as best as we could without actually
Speaker 3: taking them out on an active crime scene. So you
Speaker 3: were always really instrumental in assisting us in recreating crime scenes.
Speaker 3: But I think that when we actually visited this scene,
Speaker 3: I don't know that we actually recognized it initially because
Speaker 3: by the end of it, after all those hours we
Speaker 3: were out there, I know you remember how emotional it
Speaker 3: actually got, particularly for me, And how do you go
Speaker 3: from laughing and joking to crying and shaking with anxiety.
Speaker 3: So I think that it's an experience that I'll never forget.
Speaker 3: It has always stayed with me, and I think that
Speaker 3: the students could also. Those former students can tell you
Speaker 3: that that was a defining moment in their educational careers.
Speaker 1: The education that we were given was so real and
Speaker 1: so raw because you had gone to a university. I
Speaker 1: don't even know how to properly say it. That the
Speaker 1: historical value that you were given as a young person,
Speaker 1: I don't think can be overstated. When you think of
Speaker 1: the Duskegee Airman, I mean, there's nobody that shouldn't stop
Speaker 1: dead in their tracks and understand what you're talking about. Right,
Speaker 1: So you had that at your university. You had the
Speaker 1: Lynching Museum, and I think a lot of people I
Speaker 1: didn't even know that exists. But that's one of the
Speaker 1: places that we tapped into while working this case.
Speaker 3: And I don't think I've ever shared this with you,
Speaker 3: but when I was actually a student there, well, you
Speaker 3: know how it was on one of those spirited nights
Speaker 3: that we were out laid, probably just come from a party,
Speaker 3: you know, had been drinking kool aid all night or something,
Speaker 3: and we actually ended up on the other side of campus,
Speaker 3: some friends of mine. It was completely on the opposite
Speaker 3: side of where our dormitories were.
Speaker 4: But anyway, we ended up over there. And this is long.
Speaker 3: Before like now, the campus is completely different almost as
Speaker 3: far as the renovations and the things they built. But
Speaker 3: we actually were able to see the inside of one
Speaker 3: of the areas where they actually kept these men that
Speaker 3: they experimented on, and everything was almost still intact. Now,
Speaker 3: of course it was dirty, it was dusty, but the
Speaker 3: beds were still there. You really couldn't see the bloodstains,
Speaker 3: but it was you could see remnants of where something
Speaker 3: was there. So, needless to say at that time, because
Speaker 3: that was back in the nineties, we got the hell
Speaker 3: out of there, but it was just unreal that it
Speaker 3: was actually still there intact the way that it was
Speaker 3: and they had never done anything with it at that point.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of history that you were witnessed to, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's remarkable, And I know our students there
Speaker 1: was a night up.
Speaker 2: In the war room and they.
Speaker 1: Had all the you know, maps on the wall, and
Speaker 1: they had the photographs and statements and all that sort
Speaker 1: of thing, and they.
Speaker 2: Were there was a group. Tammy was involved, Bates was involved.
Speaker 1: They were that group, and they were talking behind me,
Speaker 1: and you were sitting to my right and Don Bela
Speaker 1: was sitting to my left, and the students were just
Speaker 1: going back and forth about what can we do. It's
Speaker 1: been you know, seventy years, and can anything be done?
Speaker 1: And I just offhand said, well, bullets don't disintegrate. And
Speaker 1: then I remember we looked at each other and we're like,
Speaker 1: bullets don't disintegrate, right, let's go get them exactly so,
Speaker 1: and I remember at that point, you know, Dawn was like, well,
Speaker 1: you're gonna need a warrant. You know, always a lawyer, always.
Speaker 2: A downer, So stay down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you're like, we can get over that fence,
Speaker 1: are you kidding? But it was important because that night
Speaker 1: changed everything as far as what the Institute was absolutely
Speaker 1: going to be about. We were no longer going to
Speaker 1: be theory based. We were going to be action oriented
Speaker 1: and if we can go locate some evidence, then let's
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 2: For this case.
Speaker 1: The last mass lynching, Moore's Ford Bridge, you had at
Speaker 1: least twenty to twenty five people shooting a multitude of
Speaker 1: different weapons from handguns to long gun you know, rifles
Speaker 1: and shotguns, and this just barrage of gunfire that rang
Speaker 1: out and it ran right along the Appalachi River. There
Speaker 1: was one witness, remember that, Jennie, I do. So there
Speaker 1: was a little boy, y'all that was hiding in the field.
Speaker 1: He had been playing and he saw all the cars
Speaker 1: and he identified one car and said it was tan
Speaker 1: with you know, the red dome light on the top.
Speaker 1: It was a sheriff's vehicle and they thought from South Carolina.
Speaker 1: He kind of pinpointed exactly where this took place. And
Speaker 1: for us, again we say, well, let's go, let's go
Speaker 1: do what we do. We made the students understand the times.
Speaker 1: So when you work a cold case, one of the
Speaker 1: most important things is you have to understand nineteen forty
Speaker 1: six exactly.
Speaker 2: So we spent a lot.
Speaker 1: Of time up there explaining what is a sharecropper, what
Speaker 1: is a house worth? How do people work their whole
Speaker 1: lives and their children work, their grandchildren work, and they're
Speaker 1: still on the same farm because they can't get off
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 3: And I think they had the hardest time understanding that
Speaker 3: because of where their mindset and the way the world
Speaker 3: was at that time, they couldn't even imagine it. That
Speaker 3: was an interesting part. So I think it was really
Speaker 3: important that we actually took that step to go out
Speaker 3: there because they couldn't visualize it at all. To them,
Speaker 3: I think at some point it was, oh, this is
Speaker 3: just this is just history, This is just these are
Speaker 3: just words, you know, this is just the way that
Speaker 3: this was actually written and explained. But being there and
Speaker 3: actually feeling that changed everything for them about this case.
Speaker 1: When we were getting ready to go literally from classroom
Speaker 1: to crime scene, and we talked about you know, the times,
Speaker 1: what is the sharecropper, the voting rights, you know, the
Speaker 1: different politicians and things. What was the turning point for
Speaker 1: you other than meeting with Johnny Leecley.
Speaker 3: When I started in this field was private probation, then
Speaker 3: I went to the parole office, then I went to
Speaker 3: house arrest.
Speaker 4: Then I went to private directions.
Speaker 3: So it's almost like a part of me was kind
Speaker 3: of like a student at the same time, because at
Speaker 3: the same time I couldn't imagine it either. You know,
Speaker 3: crime was different than the way that law enforcement responded
Speaker 3: to crime was different at that time. To actually hear
Speaker 3: from someone who was causing the pain. I think was
Speaker 3: the turning point for me. I was a little reluctant,
Speaker 3: but I was actually interested, Like is this guy really serious?
Speaker 3: Is he really going to talk to us about these things?
Speaker 3: I just couldn't imagine that.
Speaker 1: For those that work in our world, this is like
Speaker 1: Super Bowl Sunday. You're never going to have the Imperial
Speaker 1: Wizard of the klu Klutzklan talk to you. You're you're
Speaker 1: never going to have that person lay out a case
Speaker 1: and why this is clan connected or why it's not.
Speaker 2: And so we had the opportunity to do this and
Speaker 2: it was real cloak.
Speaker 1: And dagger, and you know, again, Janis and I worked
Speaker 1: at a college predominantly African American with an African American president,
Speaker 1: and you know when you buzz in his office real
Speaker 1: quick and go, hey, we got a speaker next week,
Speaker 1: We're going to meet with great love it. I like
Speaker 1: it when y'all have people here, gets the students, you know,
Speaker 1: connected to the real world and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: And I'm like great, and he's like, who is it?
Speaker 1: The former Imperial Wizard of the plan. He's like, I
Speaker 1: think you need to have a seat, right, you got
Speaker 1: to talk about it a little bit, and then he
Speaker 1: understood and he got it, and then it was our
Speaker 1: job to now go tell the students because we couldn't
Speaker 1: take everybody. So we had picked who we thought was
Speaker 1: an eclectic group, a good group, a solid group. But
Speaker 1: I remember Bates looked right at me. Yeah, and she said,
Speaker 1: what do you mean, farmer? And I said, well, I
Speaker 1: have a good friend that's divorced but still has sex
Speaker 1: with her former husband. So I don't know what it means.
Speaker 1: I just know that that's how he introduced himself as
Speaker 1: the former.
Speaker 2: I said, but let's do this. Let's meet with him,
Speaker 2: see what he has to say.
Speaker 1: Because the reality is in this profession, when somebody calls
Speaker 1: the police, or you're assigned somebody during probation or parole,
Speaker 1: or you're working into jail, you don't get to decide
Speaker 1: who you work with. Absolutely, So you have got to
Speaker 1: be able to talk to anybody, you know, You've got
Speaker 1: to be able to get that information that you need
Speaker 1: to move this case in some way.
Speaker 2: So that's what we're going to try to do. And
Speaker 2: she was like, m but.
Speaker 3: I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 4: I wasn't really sold either.
Speaker 3: Initially, I was a little and I think that's just
Speaker 3: because because.
Speaker 4: I am black, and because.
Speaker 3: I don't know, that's just an emotional type of topic.
Speaker 4: And I don't know.
Speaker 3: Okay, of course we know that. You know, there are
Speaker 3: a lot of people that probably still have those types
Speaker 3: of beliefs, but they're not walking around in white sheets
Speaker 3: and hoods. But to actually, I don't think I ever
Speaker 3: thought I would actually be sitting that close to one
Speaker 3: and actually having that kind of dialogue. But once he
Speaker 3: got to talking, you know, I was sitting there giving
Speaker 3: him the side eye too quietly. But but once he
Speaker 3: got going, and you know, in the conversation, I could
Speaker 3: see how genuine he actually was.
Speaker 4: It just it poured out of him.
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you it's one of the most
Speaker 1: remarkable meetings I've ever seen, I think because I think
Speaker 1: I watched Bates more than anybody in that meeting, because.
Speaker 2: She was angry, but she wanted to go.
Speaker 1: She wanted to do the you know, professional thing, as
Speaker 1: it were, and she thought he might seriously have some
Speaker 1: great intel, which is what we were all hoping. But
Speaker 1: this gentleman's name was Johnny Lee Clearing, and Johnny Lee
Speaker 1: agreed to meet with us. He had had some death
Speaker 1: threats since leaving the clan, so he said, I will
Speaker 1: only tell you the address where I'll meet y'all that morning,
Speaker 1: and we went and we met with him kind of
Speaker 1: cloak and dagger, you know, right, and you know, when
Speaker 1: he started to talk, I was I went right in,
Speaker 1: you know, let's talk about more sport.
Speaker 2: Was it a clan ordered hit? You know?
Speaker 1: And he went, well, I'll get there, but is it
Speaker 1: okay with you if I talked to.
Speaker 2: The students first, and I was like, of course.
Speaker 1: And he started explaining his childhood, and one of our
Speaker 1: students had a similar story where her parents she had
Speaker 1: lost both of them to violence. And he started to
Speaker 1: explain that his mom died of an overdose and his
Speaker 1: dad committed suicide in front of him. And I watched
Speaker 1: Lashan and she kind of looked at me, and she
Speaker 1: looked back at him, and I'm like, Okay, this might
Speaker 1: go differently than any of us ever expected. And as
Speaker 1: he kept telling that story, and then he told of
Speaker 1: more trauma that he suffered and more abuse that he suffered,
Speaker 1: his story started to resonate with some of our students
Speaker 1: that had young people in their family that went toward
Speaker 1: a gang for comfort and money and family type feelings.
Speaker 1: They got it, they understood that. Wait a minute, he's
Speaker 1: telling me a story that's got nothing to do with
Speaker 1: race and everything to do with how he felt and
Speaker 1: what he needed.
Speaker 2: And what he wasn't getting. And you know, you're looking at.
Speaker 1: Some of these young people going, ain't that your story exactly?
Speaker 3: And you know, the funny thing about that is that
Speaker 3: I think that's when I was getting my second masters
Speaker 3: in psychology, which is why I'm a therapist today.
Speaker 4: But that right there, I think.
Speaker 3: When I had I remember having a conversation with a
Speaker 3: few of the students after that, and I was trying
Speaker 3: to explain to them too, you have to start looking
Speaker 3: at things you need to know or kind of try
Speaker 3: to get an understanding of what caused him to actually
Speaker 3: behave that way and actually to have those beliefs. And
Speaker 3: so we started revisiting that conversation that he had about
Speaker 3: the violence and abusive you know, that childhood that he had,
Speaker 3: you know, the violence that he saw, the violenceated witness,
Speaker 3: and that kind of trauma can cause you to go
Speaker 3: any kind of way anyway, like you said, joining gangs
Speaker 3: or doing all these things just to find some type
Speaker 3: of comfort, or it may have been almost like a
Speaker 3: coping skill form, you know, some way to kind of
Speaker 3: manage those feelings, you know, or as an escape. Some
Speaker 3: people turn to drugs, some people do other things. So
Speaker 3: I think he was pretty troubled the fact that he
Speaker 3: was able to actually get to a place in his
Speaker 3: life where he was actually able to leave the clan
Speaker 3: and actually start telling his story I think it was
Speaker 3: actually therapeutic for him too.
Speaker 1: And as his story went on, he told about making
Speaker 1: a lot of money. He talked about how he actually
Speaker 1: got into the Klan, that all his life he was
Speaker 1: told he was worthless, wasn't going to ever amount anything,
Speaker 1: was just white trash. And suddenly there's a guy one
Speaker 1: saying white people are the greatest, that white people invented
Speaker 1: airplanes and automobiles and everything else worth anything. And it
Speaker 1: shocked him because he had never heard anybody brag about
Speaker 1: his race. And he wrote the man basically a fan letter,
Speaker 1: and he didn't think anything else about it.
Speaker 2: That was it.
Speaker 1: And then one day this limousine pulls up and this
Speaker 1: man gets out and says, are you Johnny Lee Cleary?
Speaker 1: And he says yes, and he said, well, if you
Speaker 1: come with me today, you'll have a job, you'll live
Speaker 1: in a mansion, you'll go to school, and you'll have
Speaker 1: brand new clothes. And if you ever had a steak dinner.
Speaker 1: And he said, no, sir, I've never had a steak dinner.
Speaker 1: And he said, well you'll have one tonight.
Speaker 3: And imagine how that silence to someone who had been
Speaker 3: through his experiences.
Speaker 1: This kid was living in a trailer with his teenage
Speaker 1: sister and her boyfriend that were not great to him.
Speaker 1: To the right was a group of African American kids
Speaker 1: and he didn't fit in and he got beat up
Speaker 1: a lot. So when this guy comes along and offers
Speaker 1: him literally the world, he got in that limousine quick
Speaker 1: as he could and he started doing little jobs, just
Speaker 1: like some of our kids in gangs.
Speaker 2: He was just making deliveries.
Speaker 1: He was just taking packages and you know, doing errands
Speaker 1: for these grown men. He didn't know what he was
Speaker 1: really doing, but he was making crazy money. Right when
Speaker 1: you were working in probation, you saw this repeatedly, didn't you.
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 1: Some of these folks that are running gags, I mean
Speaker 1: they're grooming children just like sexual predators do.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and they're not just lip service. They're giving you
Speaker 1: what they say they're going to give you. And now
Speaker 1: you've got a pocket full of money and your brand
Speaker 1: new clothes, you're eating steak. And it ain't long before
Speaker 1: you did school. And Johnny Lee clearly lived it. And
Speaker 1: then it was time to get promoted. So he had
Speaker 1: to start earning his keep, so to speak. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's when his life really got. As they say for
Speaker 1: the folks at home, what started to happen was you
Speaker 1: had some good people trying to vote, and he was
Speaker 1: going to put a stop to it. And he was
Speaker 1: going to use intimidation, he was going to use any
Speaker 1: means that he had at his disposal, little Jo, you know,
Speaker 1: stop black churches from promoting voter registration. So one of
Speaker 1: the first things he did was he decided, well, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go over there and burn the church.
Speaker 2: And he did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and do you remember what happened The next morning
Speaker 1: He drove by to see his handiwork and they were
Speaker 1: singing in the ashes smoldering steel. They were standing and singing,
Speaker 1: and the preacher saw him drive by and waved to him.
Speaker 4: Come over.
Speaker 1: Johnny Lee was like, you got to be kidding me,
Speaker 1: Why is he waving at me? Why is he being
Speaker 1: nice to me?
Speaker 4: And see that moment could have been confusing for him.
Speaker 1: You should have been angry, you should have been afraid
Speaker 1: of me, you should be running. But they weren't. They
Speaker 1: were happy for all intentsive purposes, they were joyful. He
Speaker 1: did not understand it.
Speaker 3: I often wondered if he ever wanted to separate himself
Speaker 3: from that at some point prior to when he actually did,
Speaker 3: And was that like an internal battle that he had.
Speaker 1: I think possibly, because I think Reverend Watt spotted it.
Speaker 1: I mean he saw it in him. He saw that
Speaker 1: there was good in him. He saw that you don't
Speaker 1: have real hate for anybody.
Speaker 4: It's learned behavior.
Speaker 1: The first time we went out to the bridge, we're
Speaker 1: just walking, we're taking pictures. There's no activity, there's no reenactment,
Speaker 1: there's nothing. We just are visually looking at the bridge.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: Little two lane road out in the middle of nothing,
Speaker 1: surrounded by woods and farms.
Speaker 2: That was it.
Speaker 1: But I remember looking at the bridge and right there
Speaker 1: on the railing was spray paint KKK.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm like seriously, and.
Speaker 3: I'm like thinking, y'all ready to go to McDonald's.
Speaker 2: It was it was almost so ludicrous to me.
Speaker 3: So juvenile, but I was still looking for the keys.
Speaker 1: And I understand, but to me it was so juvenile
Speaker 1: and ridiculous. There was no fear in it for me
Speaker 1: because that was just almost so obvious that that's what
Speaker 1: you would spray paint.
Speaker 2: It was almost like you didn't even try.
Speaker 1: You know, this was something that you know, to me,
Speaker 1: was not part of the truth, that wasn't.
Speaker 2: Part of why we were even there.
Speaker 1: And I was not convinced that the Klan had anything
Speaker 1: to do with this lyncheon. I thought it was just
Speaker 1: the town's folk. I thought it was the Hester family
Speaker 1: and Lloyd Harrison and that group. Now, I want to
Speaker 1: be very very clear. That's not to say there weren't
Speaker 1: klansmen on the bridge exactly, but there were klansmen on
Speaker 1: the bridge the same that there were Methodists on the bridge.
Speaker 1: You just happen to be more than one thing. You
Speaker 1: can be a klansman and a Methodist and a doctor.
Speaker 1: You can be a klansman, an episcopagan and a lawyer.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can be all of these things at
Speaker 1: the same time. But it never felt to me that
Speaker 1: it was a clan orchestrated hit. And here's the thing
Speaker 1: about you. You and I, I would say, at times,
Speaker 1: our humor is beyond irreverent. We could get in trouble
Speaker 1: a lot, we could at work. It was funny. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't take any of it back. But I think that humor,
Speaker 1: again in this career, helped save you a little bit.
Speaker 1: It's is because I remember the night we went to
Speaker 1: the bridge. If you're living in it, and you're standing
Speaker 1: in these woods and y'all, there ain't no houses near,
Speaker 1: there's no street lights, there's no moon.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was dark, and all of.
Speaker 1: A sudden, out of nowhere, you see this truck coming
Speaker 1: down this little bitty two lane road, and you don't
Speaker 1: know what's going to happen. And you know that people
Speaker 1: know that you're there because there's nothing there. So when
Speaker 1: you stop at the only you know, gas station, and
Speaker 1: you stop at the only convenience store, and you stop
Speaker 1: at the only little tiny restaurant, they know you're there.
Speaker 1: And people sometimes come to see what you're doing. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they try to scare you off. But we weren't the
Speaker 1: group that was gonna be scared off.
Speaker 2: I tell you that, no and it.
Speaker 3: Was obvious they were trying to intimidate us because they
Speaker 3: literally they won't move it. And then all of a
Speaker 3: sudden they slowed down. Okay, it's miss Daisy, and now confused,
Speaker 3: why are you slowing down that much? And they literally
Speaker 3: their heads were literally turned and they were looking directly
Speaker 3: at us.
Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, directly at us. Well, you know again, when you.
Speaker 1: Have the last mass lynching, and that's how everybody calls it,
Speaker 1: that's what everybody understands it to be. And they know
Speaker 1: we've met with the ex Imperial Wizard of the Klan,
Speaker 1: and we've met with politicians and religious leaders. I mean,
Speaker 1: our students met some incredible people. We met some incredible people.
Speaker 1: For me, Moore's Ford Bridge it is a civil rights case.
Speaker 1: It is for me one of those cases that you
Speaker 1: just take with you and you say, you know what,
Speaker 1: when somebody says it's seventy years old, there ain't nothing
Speaker 1: you can do. I know they're wrong because we did
Speaker 1: a lot on this case. We did, you know, your
Speaker 1: area of expertise, and some of the other folks that
Speaker 1: we brought along, I believe anyway, put this case in
Speaker 1: a spotlight that it had never been in because we
Speaker 1: brought an our cheologists, we brought somebody from DNR that
Speaker 1: was an artifacts expert, we had a ballistics expert.
Speaker 2: We had you, we had me.
Speaker 1: I mean it was significant, and then we had prosecutors.
Speaker 1: And so when we set out to try to find
Speaker 1: some evidence, and we decided, well, there's only one way
Speaker 1: to get out there without a warrant, and that's just
Speaker 1: to get permission.
Speaker 2: And we did that.
Speaker 1: Ironically, it was a farmer and he's like, yeah, you
Speaker 1: can come out here and search it.
Speaker 2: And it's I think one.
Speaker 1: Of the greatest weekends that we've had as far as
Speaker 1: cold case investigative work.
Speaker 3: Of course, nobody ever expected to find anything. If you did,
Speaker 3: it might have been one little showcase and that may
Speaker 3: have been here.
Speaker 4: Had to dig for it.
Speaker 3: But the fact that they were literally sitting right there
Speaker 3: on top of the ground, like did somebody just come
Speaker 3: scattered these out here or what like? It was unbelievable.
Speaker 3: And I still can't believe they were, Like who actually
Speaker 3: walked that scene before the fashion investigate that scene? I
Speaker 3: know the times were different, but how do you leave all?
Speaker 4: How is that? How was it all?
Speaker 3: It almost seemed like it was still intact the entire
Speaker 3: crime scene. It was just still intact.
Speaker 2: Well, the first thing we had to do was clear it.
Speaker 1: And you remember, I mean even Huck was chopping down
Speaker 1: trees and you and Caroline were moving mattresses and beer cans,
Speaker 1: and right all the students.
Speaker 2: Went to work.
Speaker 1: Our students did the labor of clearing the area. Then
Speaker 1: the Kinnesaw students were the archaeologist, and then Georgia State
Speaker 1: brought students that had ground penetrating radar right and so
Speaker 1: we were able to show that the bullets that were
Speaker 1: not on top of the ground and the shellcasings that
Speaker 1: weren't right on top were two inches underground, straight down.
Speaker 2: This wasn't a cartoon. Bullets don't come out of a gun,
Speaker 2: change direction and goes straight in the ground.
Speaker 1: So that to me, when you started putting flags in
Speaker 1: where every bullet, fragment or casing was found, it started
Speaker 1: to be a very clear picture center mass, center mass,
Speaker 1: center mass, center mass, where the four victims were laying.
Speaker 1: And it was very clear to me. We had our
Speaker 1: first bullet in forty five minutes, and after three days
Speaker 1: we had over one hundred bullets, fragments, casinges or artifacts.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's remarkable to me.
Speaker 4: It still amazes me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think in that moment, Gus, when everything
Speaker 3: kind of I don't even think we're even joking anymore.
Speaker 3: After that, nobody was smiling. It was just emotional.
Speaker 1: The very first one, we're all high five and we're
Speaker 1: all excited because it actually happened, and we're making phone calls. Member,
Speaker 1: we called the president, we called other experts that couldn't
Speaker 1: make it that day, and we were telling everybody because
Speaker 1: we were just jubilant. I mean, there was no way
Speaker 1: we had just done this. And then we found five,
Speaker 1: and then we found eleven, and then we found twenty seven,
Speaker 1: and then again after the weekend is over, we have
Speaker 1: over one hundred. And I think there were a couple
Speaker 1: of significant things for me. One was a button, One
Speaker 1: was a cardboard casing for shotgun shell, and one was
Speaker 1: a nickel literally from nineteen forty six. I mean, you can't.
Speaker 2: Argue with that.
Speaker 3: To me, you can't.
Speaker 1: And then you know that there was twenty people and
Speaker 1: they all had different weapons, and now we have at
Speaker 1: least twenty seven different weapons. It was a remarkable day, no.
Speaker 2: Question about it. And do you remember, I'll tell you
Speaker 2: when it changed for me.
Speaker 1: The family member from the Malcolms was there, do you remember,
Speaker 1: And we had that first bullet. It was a bullet,
Speaker 1: not a casing, and he came over and he said,
Speaker 1: can I hold it? And I said, of course, and
Speaker 1: I put it in his hand and he asked me,
Speaker 1: is there blood on it? And I could hardly answer
Speaker 1: him right because I thought, this precious man literally thinks
Speaker 1: his loved one's blood could be on this bullet that
Speaker 1: he is now holding, and wants to know that, even
Speaker 1: though conceptually he knew with all the rain and wind
Speaker 1: and dirt and all that there's not blood left on it.
Speaker 1: But for him, that's where his heart went, and it
Speaker 1: was almost too much.
Speaker 3: It was I think just if it had been I
Speaker 3: think he felt like that would have been something that
Speaker 3: he a part of, that person that he could have
Speaker 3: just held on to. I will say when we got
Speaker 3: back to campus the following week, we could see the
Speaker 3: change in them. I Mean, they were always always so
Speaker 3: serious about the importance of, you know, learning from us,
Speaker 3: but I think if the entire semester, I think that
Speaker 3: right there it was all they needed. They always talked
Speaker 3: about hands on experience, hands on experience, and I think
Speaker 3: they felt a taste of that because of everything we
Speaker 3: experienced that day, the overall impact that it had on
Speaker 3: those students.
Speaker 1: Oh, and me one hundred percent, and and my children,
Speaker 1: I mean, Huck and Caroline, you know. But for me,
Speaker 1: what I loved also is all the intimidation. We even
Speaker 1: got hate mail, which I called fan mail.
Speaker 2: Right, you weren't going to stop them.
Speaker 1: Not one person dropped out, not one person didn't want
Speaker 1: to go, not one person didn't show up. If anything,
Speaker 1: we turned around and had students from other programs we
Speaker 1: didn't even know, right, and then they had you know,
Speaker 1: such you know, great support from some very powerful people.
Speaker 2: It was good work. Jannis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I tell you something, I miss bart of days.
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 3: I miss those days. To me, that's what.
Speaker 4: Education is about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, higher education is different depending on where you were,
Speaker 3: but we actually were making a difference.
Speaker 2: And you can tell it by the messages we get
Speaker 2: today from those students.
Speaker 4: Oh absolutely.
Speaker 1: But I can tell you our students that have gone
Speaker 1: into this field are some of the best out there.
Speaker 1: They are, and you put so much into them, and
Speaker 1: you're so proud of them, and they're doing extraordinary.
Speaker 3: Even when the dream Killer gave them one that they
Speaker 3: still came on back.
Speaker 2: They came back, They gave me the side.
Speaker 4: I ain't came on back.
Speaker 2: One more semester.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm gonna.
Speaker 3: Get out of it this time. You know, I don't
Speaker 3: give me this time.
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll see it works, it works, Yeah, Janie, I
Speaker 1: can't thank you enough for being with me on scene.
Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough for working with me all
Speaker 1: those years. And I can't thank you enough for being
Speaker 1: with me tonight.
Speaker 3: Oh those are time of the best years, some of
Speaker 3: the best years and save it West Thursday nights.
Speaker 2: But I appreciate you so much. And I'm going to
Speaker 2: end Zone seven the way I.
Speaker 1: Always do with a quote from somebody from my Zone
Speaker 1: seven And this quote comes from Representative Tyrone Brooks, and
Speaker 1: Representative Brooks said to me and Janice Duncan and our students. Quote.
Speaker 1: This crime got the attention of a college student, you know,
Speaker 1: a morehouse man, a seventeen year old who took the
Speaker 1: time to write a letter to the Atlanta Constitution because
Speaker 1: he was mad about the immortality of this racism.
Speaker 2: And the letter clearly showed that.
Speaker 1: He had a passion for social justice.
Speaker 2: The letter was signed very simply.
Speaker 4: M. L.
Speaker 2: King Jr.
Speaker 1: So you college students here with Cheryl and Janice can
Speaker 1: do something.
Speaker 2: You have done something. I'm Cheryl McCollum and this is Zone.
Speaker 1: Seven attacks such pagan