Timothy Coggins Murder: Arrests and Convictions After 34 Years

The Timothy Coggins murder was the 1983 racially motivated killing of a 23-year-old Black man in Sunnyside, Georgia, that went unsolved for 34 years until two white men, Frank Gebhardt and Bill Moore Sr., were charged in 2017 and convicted in 2018. Coggins was stabbed, chained to a vehicle, and dragged before being left to die in a field off Minter Road. Investigators and prosecutors said he was targeted because he had socialized with a white woman.

What Happened in October 1983

Coggins’ body was discovered on October 9, 1983, near a power line in an open area outside Griffin in Spalding County.¹ An autopsy documented seven stab wounds to his chest, with additional cuts on his back that were allegedly shaped to resemble a Confederate flag. According to the Spalding County Sheriff’s Office, he had been chained to the back of a vehicle and dragged, then dumped by a wood pile and left to bleed out.

Family members described Coggins as someone who got along with everyone, known for his smile and his dancing, and who made a habit of walking younger relatives home at night to keep them safe.²

Why He Was Killed

Prosecutors said Coggins was killed because he had been seen dancing with Ruth Elizabeth “Mickey” Guy, a white woman, at the People’s Choice club in Griffin in the weeks before his death. Guy was the girlfriend of Frank Gebhardt. An informant later told investigators that Gebhardt said he and Moore killed Coggins because Coggins had been sleeping with her.¹

At trial, GBI Special Agent Jared Coleman testified that Gebhardt and Moore “felt like they were protecting the white race from black people” and were “proud of what they had done.”³ Chief Assistant District Attorney Marie Broder told jurors that Coggins “refused to follow societal norms” and that for a Klan member or racist “Timothy Coggins became a target.”¹ Guy left Georgia one to two weeks after the murder and never returned. She died in 2010, before the case was reopened.

Sheriff Darrell Dix later said there was no doubt the crime was racially motivated and would today be prosecuted as a hate crime.⁴ Georgia had no hate crime statute at the time of the killing or the trial.

Why the Case Stalled for Decades

The original investigation was closed after just two months. No suspects were identified, and physical evidence collected at the scene was lost over the years.⁵ Dix later described the environment in Griffin at the time by saying “racist white men basically controlled the city” and that “a young Black man being killed — that was not important to them.”¹

Fear ran deep enough in Coggins’ family that they left his grave unmarked for 34 years, worried the killers would return to vandalize a headstone.⁶

How the Case Was Cracked

In 2016, GBI Special Agent Jared Coleman was assigned to review the original file. It was thin, but it contained a lead nobody had acted on: in 2007, an inmate named Christopher Vaughn had come to the GBI with information about the murder. Coleman interviewed Vaughn in April 2017 and identified Gebhardt and Moore as the primary suspects.¹

Coleman brought the leads to newly elected Sheriff Dix, who reopened the case.⁷ The GBI and the sheriff’s office conducted hundreds of interviews. In 2017, the department made an unusual move: it publicly announced it was close to an arrest even though it did not yet have enough evidence. The gamble was to pressure reluctant witnesses. It worked. Media coverage drew out people who had held the story for decades.⁸

Witnesses said Gebhardt had once bragged about throwing the murder weapon down a well on his property. Using a Hydrovac system, the first time such equipment had been used for well excavation in Georgia, investigators recovered a white tank top, shoes, socks, a chain, and a knife. The shirt bore what appeared to be seven stab wounds, matching the autopsy.⁵

Under Dix, the sheriff’s office also located a small diary kept by a former deputy in the 1980s who had infiltrated the local Ku Klux Klan. The diary described KKK claims that the organization had placed members inside local police and sheriff’s departments.¹

The Five Arrests

In October 2017, five people were arrested. Two were charged with the killing itself; three were charged with obstruction, and two of those three worked in local law enforcement.

Frank Gebhardt, 59, charged with murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, and concealing a death.
Bill Moore Sr., 58, charged with the same offenses.
Sandra Bunn, 58, Gebhardt’s sister, charged with obstruction for allegedly telling Gebhardt how to avoid DNA testing.
Lamar Bunn, 32, Sandra’s son and a part-time officer with the Milner Police Department, charged with obstruction for allegedly passing Gebhardt information about the investigation.
Gregory Huffman, 47, a detention officer with the Spalding County Sheriff’s Office, charged with obstruction and violation of his oath of office for allegedly tipping off Gebhardt about the reopened investigation. He was fired on arrest.⁸

Gebhardt and Moore were denied bail. The obstruction defendants were released on bond.⁹

Gebhardt’s Conviction and Sentence

Gebhardt went to trial in June 2018 before Judge W. Fletcher Sams in the Griffin Judicial Circuit, with District Attorney Benjamin D. Coker and Marie Broder prosecuting.⁵ Prosecutors called witnesses who said Gebhardt and Moore had boasted about the killing for years. When questioned after his arrest, Gebhardt said he “didn’t like being around black people” and used racial slurs. A witness testified Moore had said while drunk that he “missed the good old days when you could kill a black man for no reason.”³

On June 26, 2018, after about six hours of deliberation, a Spalding County jury found Gebhardt guilty of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, and concealing the death of another. Judge Sams sentenced him to life in prison plus 30 years, telling him: “Hopefully, sir, you have stabbed your last victim.”⁴

Moore’s Guilty Plea

On August 16, 2018, Bill Moore Sr. pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and concealing the death of another. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison followed by 10 years of probation and was banished from the Griffin Judicial Circuit. The Coggins family and law enforcement had agreed to the plea.⁵¹⁰

The Appeal

Gebhardt appealed to the Supreme Court of Georgia on six grounds, including sufficiency of the evidence, statute of limitations, admission of hearsay and racial-climate testimony, jailhouse statements he said violated his right to counsel, and the search warrant for the well.¹¹ On December 23, 2019, the court affirmed his malice murder conviction. It found the evidence sufficient, ruled that any errors in admitting hearsay or racial-climate testimony were harmless given the “overwhelming evidence” against him, upheld the warrant, and rejected the right-to-counsel claim on the ground that the jailhouse informants had not acted as government agents. The statute-of-limitations challenge was moot because the trial court had already vacated the affected counts.¹²

After the Convictions

Timothy’s mother died in 2016, just before the case was reopened. His niece Heather Coggins called the start of the trial “bittersweet,” saying it was sweet to be there 35 years later but bitter that her grandparents were not.¹³ His brother Tyrone said after the convictions, “It was a long time coming.”¹⁴

With the arrests in October 2017, the family felt safe enough to mark Timothy’s grave. On December 30, 2017, they held a memorial service at Fuller’s Chapel United Methodist Church in Zebulon, Georgia, where Tyrone Coggins told mourners the headstone meant “34 years later, Tim made it home.”¹⁵

1
ABC News. Racially Motivated Cold Case Murder of Young Black Man
2
Seattle Times. Grave of Slain Man Finally Gets Headstone Decades Later
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WESA. Georgia Man Convicted in Slaying of Black Man in Decades-Old Cold Case
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NBC News. Man Convicted, Sentenced to Life in 1983 Racially Motivated Killing in Georgia
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Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Conviction in 1983 Cold Case Murder of Timothy Coggins
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Fox 29. Men Charged With Murdering Black Man Because He Socialized With a White Woman
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Griffin Judicial Circuit District Attorney. Timothy Coggins Murder Subject of 2020 Special
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CNN. Georgia Cold Case Murder Arrests
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NBC News. Georgia Police Arrest 5, Including 2 Law Enforcement Officers, in 1983 Cold Case
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WTVM. Second Man Convicted in 34-Year Cold Case Murder in Georgia
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Findlaw. Gebhardt v. State
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Justia. Gebhardt v. State, S19A1582
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WRAL. Prosecutor to Jurors: You Will Hear a Crime Scene Scream of What Happened to Timothy Coggins
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ABC News. Niece of Black Man Whose Murder Took 34 Years to Solve: Don’t Give Up
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The Toronto Star. 34 Years After a Man Was Murdered, His Family Finally Felt It Was Safe to Mark His Grave