Early one morning in the 1960s, two young boys bicycling to a favorite fishing hole happened upon this scene: a county prison farm trustee's dead weight hanging by the neck in a thorny bramble of Georgia hardwoods.

After they reported it to the local authorities, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's chief looked brie˛y at the scene and de-clared, "Suicide." This photograph was snapped, and the investigation was closed.

close window