Farshchi Family Story
In 2017, authorities reopen the investigation into the 1983 murder of a young Black man in Georgia. When a young investigator at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation conducts a routine review of a cold…
Farshchi Family Story
In 2017, authorities reopen the investigation into the 1983 murder of a young Black man in Georgia. When a young investigator at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation conducts a routine review of a cold case, he notices details that hadn't been mentioned before. In the rural regions of the state, major crimes are handled by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which has 350 investigators. Every six months, the agency cycles its unsolved cases, even those that are decades old, to new investigators in the hope that fresh eyes spot something-which is how, in 2016, the long-abandoned Timothy Coggins case file landed on the desk of Special Agent Jared Coleman, a studious young investigator in his second year at the agency. He was immediately struck not by what was included in the relatively thin file but, rather, by what wasn't. Police interviews had pointed toward two men: Frankie Gebhardt and Bill Moore Sr., white brothers-in-law who lived in the trailer park near where Coggins's body was found. But although police did interview Gebhardt, neither man had faced much scrutiny. Gebhardt's alibi presented some obvious holes, yet detectives had never followed up. And, Coleman said, it didn't appear Moore had ever been interviewed at all. For three decades, the October 1983 murder of 23-year-old Timothy Coggins had haunted not just his family but all of Spalding County, a rural farming county 45 minutes south of Atlanta. Coggins's mutilated body-stabbed dozens of times, with an "X" like the Confederate battle flag carved into his abdomen-was found in Sunnyside, a poor white part of the county, beneath a massive oak known colloquially as the "Hanging Tree." But the investigation into his slaying had gone nowhere, effectively abandoned by the sheriff's department after just two weeks. The Coggins family had long ago given up any hope of closure, and at this point rarely discussed the particulars of the case.
Farshchi Family Story
Drama
Film Details
In 2017, authorities reopen the investigation into the 1983 murder of a young Black man in Georgia. When a young investigator at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation conducts a routine review of a cold case, he notices details that hadn't been mentioned before. In the rural regions of the state, major crimes are handled by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which has 350 investigators.
Every six months, the agency cycles its unsolved cases, even those that are decades old, to new investigators in the hope that fresh eyes spot something-which is how, in 2016, the long-abandoned Timothy Coggins case file landed on the desk of Special Agent Jared Coleman, a studious young investigator in his second year at the agency. He was immediately struck not by what was included in the relatively thin file but, rather, by what wasn't. Police interviews had pointed toward two men: Frankie Gebhardt and Bill Moore Sr., white brothers-in-law who lived in the trailer park near where Coggins's body was found.
But although police did interview Gebhardt, neither man had faced much scrutiny. Gebhardt's alibi presented some obvious holes, yet detectives had never followed up. And, Coleman said, it didn't appear Moore had ever been interviewed at all.
For three decades, the October 1983 murder of 23-year-old Timothy Coggins had haunted not just his family but all of Spalding County, a rural farming county 45 minutes south of Atlanta. Coggins's mutilated body-stabbed dozens of times, with an "X" like the Confederate battle flag carved into his abdomen-was found in Sunnyside, a poor white part of the county, beneath a massive oak known colloquially as the "Hanging Tree." But the investigation into his slaying had gone nowhere, effectively abandoned by the sheriff's department after just two weeks. The Coggins family had long ago given up any hope of closure, and at this point rarely discussed the particulars of the case..