White man found guilty in death of Black man 35 years later

Earlier this year, Our Weekly covered a story out of Georgia where five white people, two with law enforcement, were arrested in the death of a Black man who was murdered 35 years ago. On Tuesday (June 26), one of the three suspects, Frank Gebhart, was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in the murder of Timothy Coggins in 1983. The murder was determined to be racially motivated, all because Coggins allegedly dated a white woman. His murder was brutal, and now his family is finally getting justice. Prosecutors said Gebhardt and Bill Moore killed Coggins in a racially motivated murder by viciously stabbing him and then dragging his body behind a truck before dumping him in a field. “We the jury unanimously find on the count of malice murder, guilty. On the count of felony murder, guilty,” Spalding County Superior Court Judge Fletcher Sams read. Gebhart was taken straight to prison. The Coggins family shared their relief over the conviction, reports the Grio. “I’m so elated with joy I can’t even describe it in words,” Coggins’ niece, Heather Coggins, said. She gave credit to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Spalding County Sheriff Darrell Dix, for giving the case a second look after detectives testified that the earlier case had been mishandled. “It wasn’t just a murder. It was a brutal heinous killing, and now we don’t have to tell our kids and our grandkids anymore than no one cared for your Uncle Tim, and now we have someone who’s guilty, who will spend the rest of his life in prison,” Coggins said. Bill Moore, the other suspect, is set to be tried in the case sometime this year. Three other people were arrested in connection with the case for obstructing the investigation at the time of the murder, including two individuals who were in law enforcement at the time.