George Dorsey.
Mae Murray Dorsey.
Roger Malcom.
Dorothy Malcom.
One was a World War II Army veteran, home only a few months.
One was a wife.
One was a field hand.
And one was an expectant mother.
All four were ambushed, pulled from a car, tied up, gunned down and brutalized in 1946 in Monroe, Ga. The Moore’s Ford Bridge lynchings are infamous in Georgia’s history, and they’ve never been solved.
A recent report offered a flicker of hope.
The FBI reportedly interviewed Charlie Peppers, an elderly Monroe man linked to the shootings of the two black couples, which stirred the possibility that at least some of the men responsible would finally be brought to justice.
Peppers, 86, told The Guardian newspaper that two FBI agents interviewed him recently about the murders. He insisted he was not involved. “I didn’t even know where Moore’s Ford was,” he told the newspaper.
FBI Special Agent Stephen Emmett confirmed that the investigation remains open, but the FBI won’t say whether it interviewed Peppers about the murders.
The lynchings of two women and a WWII veteran drew national attention in 1946, even prompting President Harry Truman to send 20 FBI agents to Walton County. Even though they identified 55 suspects, no one was indicted due to a lack of physical evidence.
Whether recent developments leads to justice is uncertain.
What is certain is that veteran George Dorsey, Mae Murray Dorsey, Roger Malcom and Dorothy Malcom — and her unborn child — deserve to be remembered.
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