SPALDING COUNTY, GA (CNN) - Police arrested five people in connection with a 34-year-old cold-case murder that officials say was racially motivated.
Timothy Coggins was just 23 years old when his brutally beaten body was found in Spalding County in 1983, abandoned near a power line.
Frankie Gebhardt, Bill Moore, Sandra Bunn, Lamar Bunn and Gregory Huffman are all facing charges. Two of those charged are law-enfocement officers.
Gebhardt and Moore were charged with murder, aggravated assault, aggravated battery and concealing a body, according to ajc.com, while Lamar Bunn, a Milner Police Department employee, and Sandra Bunn, Lamar Bunn's mother, were charged with obstruction. Huffman, a detention officer with the Spalding County Sheriff’s Office, faces obstruction and violation of oath of office charges.
New evidence came to light in March, prompting the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Spalding County sheriff to re-examine the case.
They reinterviewed original witnesses, received new information and spoke to previously unknown witnesses who came forward.
Authorities said there is no doubt that Coggins' killing would be prosecuted as a hate crime if it were committed today.
"We thought that it had just been forgotten. I mean it’s been so many years, we didn’t think anyone was thinking about Tim or his case or trying to solve or get the people who did this to him," said Heather Coggins, the niece of the slain man, WXIA reported.
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