Georgia Resident Convicted of Murder in ‘Heinous’ 1983 Killing of Black Man

In the fall of 1983, the slashed, scarred body of a 23-year-old black man was discovered in a grassy roadside area in a small Georgia city, about 40 miles south of Atlanta. Then, for much of the next 34 years, the case went cold.

In October, authorities announced a break in the case. The man, Timothy Coggins, had been the victim of what the local sheriff called a “heinous” hate crime. He would not detail it, but said authorities had arrested two white men and charged them with murder.

On Tuesday, one of those men, Frank Gebhardt, 60, was convicted of murder, battery, assault and other charges in the killing of Coggins. He was sentenced to life plus 30 years in prison.

“Hopefully, sir, you have stabbed your last victim,” Judge W. Fletcher Sams of Spalding County Superior Court said as he handed down the sentence.

The other murder defendant, Bill Moore — Gebhardt’s brother-in-law — is awaiting trial later this year.

Throughout the trial, prosecutors laid out the disturbing details that had previously been withheld: Gebhardt and Moore, they said, had dragged Coggins behind a truck and stabbed him more than 30 times, leaving “X” marks cut into his body.

Witnesses said they believed Coggins had had a relationship with Gebhardt’s white girlfriend, District Attorney Ben Coker for the Griffin Judicial Circuit in Georgia said in a phone interview. They said they saw Coggins attend a predominantly black nightclub in Spalding County on Oct. 7, 1983, and then get into a car with Gebhardt and Moore.

Another witness, Coker said, spotted the group the next morning in Sunny Side, Georgia, a city in northern Spalding County, and said Gebhardt and Moore were arguing with a black man, Timothy Coggins.

Larkin Lee, a lawyer for Gebhardt, of Griffin, did not immediately return a message seeking comment Tuesday evening.

Coggins’ body was discovered on Oct. 9, 1983, in Sunny Side. The Spalding County Sheriff’s Office conducted an extensive investigation at the time, but the case went cold until March of last year, when authorities said new evidence surfaced.

By October, law enforcement had arrested Gebhardt and Moore and charged both men with murder and other crimes. Coker said Tuesday that witnesses had eventually come forward, saying that Gebhardt had bragged openly about having committed the crime.

At the time the charges were announced, Heather Coggins, the victim’s niece, told The New York Times that for years the family had known next to nothing about who had committed the murder, or how. She also expressed hope that her family would “see justice” before long.

Coker said: “Today means a lot for the Coggins family. It’s a long time coming.”