Morris County Attorney Wants Justice In Unsolved Ga. Lynching

ROCKAWAY, NJ—Morris County Attorney Joseph J. Bell has filed a petition to the United States Supreme Court in connection with a 74-year-old unsolved Georgia lynching. Bell is seeking the unsealing of grand jury testimony in the case, which involved the brutal murder of four African-Americans in Walton County, Ga. in July 1946.

"We feel we have a legitimate case to have these records finally released," said Bell. "An atrocity was committed and no one was brought to justice, and we need to know why."

The murders, also known as “The Moore's Ford Lynching,” were committed by a white mob, angry that a black man had voted for the first time in the county. Four African-American farmhands were killed in brutal, grotesque fashion.

Bell said that one of the victims was shot more than 60 times. Another, George W. Dorsey, had just returned from serving in North Africa and the Pacific during World War II.

"This man comes home after serving his country in the war," Bell said, "and this is how he's rewarded, with a horrible death."

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the FBI each investigated the crime in the aftermath. Bell said 2,790 people were interviewed by law enforcement in connection with the case and 106 testified before a grand jury. But no indictments were handed down, the testimony was sealed, and the case was allowed to go cold.

But Bell, though his association with historian Anthony Pitch, took up the case seven years ago after hearing the details of the crime. As an attorney, Bell said the pure injustice of the circumstances—from the grisly murders to the lack of action by law enforcement—incensed him.

"Nearly 3,000 people," Bell said, the anger clear in his voice, "and not one person was ever brought to justice?"

Bell's current petition is the latest in a legal saga over the sealed grand jury records. Initially, he said, the government told him the transcripts were lost. When they were found, a federal appeals court ordered them to remain sealed, forever shielding the perpetrators.

If the U.S. Supreme Court hears the case, it will rule on whether the lower courts have the authority to keep the records sealed. Bell said it could be months before the court takes any action in the case, which he added remains the last unsolved mass murder in modern American history.

Still, the attorney said he would continue to try to achieve something the victims did not get more than 70 years ago.

"All we want," said Bell, "is a sliver of justice for these people."