Timothy Coggins Lynching Murder Solved 35-Years Later

On October 5, 1983, Georgia police found the mutilated body of 23-year-old Timothy Coggins underneath an oak tree known as “the Hanging Tree” in a poor white town called Sunny Side -about 45-minutes from Atlanta. He had been stabbed dozens of times, an X like the one decorating the Confederate battle flag carved into his abdomen. Coggins had been assaulted and dragged behind a vehicle before the killers left him for dead beneath the tree.

No one realized Tim was missing initially. He often took off from home and stayed gone for a few days at a time. He and sister Telisa visited a club together -the last time she would see him alive- when people told her three white men were outside the building asking for Tim. Telisa did not put a lot of thought into this, although interracial dating was heavily scrutinized in the area at this time.

When an officer showed up at the Coggins home holding a picture of Tim’s deceased body, Telisa was shocked and denied that it was him. She was in shock.

Soon thereafter, the family began receiving death threats. Someone even placed a decapitated dog in their home and threw a brick through a window with a note saying, “You’re Next.” Police never really took any of these things seriously.

Coggins Lynching Grows Cold

With little evidence, the case grew cold and police put the files away just two weeks after his death. More than 35-years later, long after the Coggins family lost hope of his murder being solved and years after his mother passed on, new evidence in the case led the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to reopen the case. With evidence in hand, police made five arrests in the case. Two people were charged with murder-Frankie Gebhardt and Bill Moore Sr., while three others -Milne Police Officer Lamar Bunn and his mother Sandra; and Spalding County Detention Officer Gregory Huffman were each charged with obstruction of justice.

Gebhardt & Moore Lived Near Crime Scene

Gebhardt and Moore were brother-in-laws who lived in a trailer park nearby where Coggins' body was found. Following the murder, several people came forward and told police that Gebhardt admitted to them that he committed the murders. He was in prison when the evidence came forward in 2017, serving time on a sexual assault charge. He used racial slurs and denied involvement with the murder when questioned by police.

Jurors No Show

During the trial, many of the jurors did not show up for court, causing the judge to threaten to physically pull them off the street to appear for jury duty. Once the jurors finally came to hear the case, they convicted Gebhardt on five counts of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, and concealing the death of another. The jury sentenced him to life plus 30-years.

Moore pleaded guilty to murder in exchange for a plea deal sentencing him to 20-years in prison.

"I Think They Know Who Did It"

In 2020, Telisa told GQ magazine that she always suspected that police knew who killed her brother. “I think they always knew who did it. But because it was a white man who killed a Black man, they didn’t care. They never really tried,” Telisa told Journalist Wesley Lowery.

More Information

https://www.gq.com/story/timothy-coggins-cold-case-finally-solved

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