this is "nightline." >> tonight, cold case, a crime buried for decades in a small town outside of atlanta, a racially motivated murder and a brother found dead years later. >> to lose two brothers, i've always had this fear, hey, man, something will happen to me. >> a family's quest for answers. >> you feel that nobody really cares about the justice for your family and what has been done to your loved ones. >> then, new clues. what it would take to finally crack the case wide open. bringing a suspect to trial 34 years later. >> we the jury unanimously find as follows. good evening. thank you for joining us.

we start tonight's broadcast with breaking news, sad news. one of the giants in america's long battle for civil rights has tied. congre congressman john lewis has passed away. he was 80 years old. months ago he announced he was battling stage four pancreatic cancer. this was a man who participated in the civil rights era. he was on the front lines of so many vital moments of our nation's history. he was as kind as he was tough. a rare fixture in washington. this was a man who many people may have disliked his politics, but it will be hard to find a single person who did not like the man. again, congressman john lewis of georgia has died. we now turn to our original report to begin this broadcast tonight. it is the story of race, justice

delayed but justice finally received georgia. here now, deborah roberts. >> hi, welcome. >> reporter: it's a hot sunday afternoon at the restaurant in griffin, georgia. today's special, heather coggens' famous egg rolls. >> chili cheese egg roll, taco egg roll. >> reporter: the family roots run deep and wide in this small, southern town. >> we always tell everybody we don't have many friends because we have so many family members and so many cousins. >> reporter: a former miltown, griffin, 40 miles south of atlanta is no stranger to racial tensions. >> it may not be as much as it was back then. but there's still some pockets here, hot possibilities of racism here. >> reporter: and racism he suspects was behind the brutal killing of his 23-year-old brother tim in 1983.

stabbed almost 30 times, tim was chained to a truck and dragged along the power lines. for almost 35 years his family lived with the agony. when he was brutally murdered, how did that affect the family? how did that affect you? >> well, for me, it was terrible. to this day, i'm 53 years old right now, and it still affects me to this day. >> reporter: tim's mutilated body was found with the symbol of the confederate flag bloodily etched into his chest and back. those close to him suspected his murder have everything to do with the color of his skin. >> had to be a terrible thing out here in the black dark. know no one's coming. nobody's coming to your rescue. i know he at some point in time he had come to the point where he realized they're not only trying to hurt me, they're going to kill me. and that's exactly what they

did. that's exactly what they did. worst part about it, didn't kill him. autopsy showed he bled out. this is the place. this is the place. i can feel it. >> we were shocked, like who would hurt this guy? this was tim, this was the smooth 200guy, the guy that nev bothered nobody, always helped somebody. >> reporter: jesse gates, just one of a handful of black deputies at the time of murder knew tim well. >> tim told me he was dating a caucasian girl. i said you better watch yourself dating those sisters, some people don't accept things like

that. >> timothy cogen begi black man. any of those things would infuriate you and anger you to the point where timothy cogence became a target. >> reporter: gates and oscar jordan both deputies working at the spalding county sheriff's department say their investigation led them to a notorious trailer park on the whiteside of town. >> where tim's body was found i knew those people came from the trailer park, because who else knew about that secluded place. you had a lot of vicious people in that trailer park. for weeks, several of us worked on that case. when they took me off, they told me that it wasn't my job, because i was a road deputy, and i wasn't a, so-called, investigator, all because i was getting a little bit too close,

along with oscar jordan. >> reporter: jordan says i handed off all his information to the spalding county sheriff's office and georgia bureau of investigation. >> i reported back to the gbi at that time, and the sheriff. i was sharing everything that i learned, but i wasn't privy to whatever they were finding out. next thing i know it ended abruptly. it's coming to me saying okay, we've reached a dead end. we can't go any further. i don't think the attention that should have been put on this case was put on this case probably due to, you know, the color. >> they didn't care about bringing the media in to try to figure out what happened, because it was just another black person dead. >> reporter: for three decades, the coggens case went cold. 30-something years, no answers, no arrest.

what was that like for your family? >> you just feel that you're in a small, racist, south georgia town and nobody really cares about the justice for your family and what had been done to your loved one. >> reporter: no arrest in tim's case was hard enough for the family, then another stunning blow in 2001. >> i remember, i was laying down, and then i heard my mom scream as she burst into my room, and i asked her what was wrong, and she said he was dead. >> reporter: eugene coggins was timothy's oldest brother. >> he had come down the street to my grandmother's house hallucinating from something i guess he had taken. he had been beating on my grandmother's door the and th grandmother's door, and they called the police on him. >> reporter: when officers showed up, they say 46-year-old

eugene coggins put up a struggle. in a failed attempt to restrain eugene, a 526-pound officer laid across his back. another pepper sprayed him in the face. he was transferred to the spalding county jail. deputies got involved and another struggle ensued. eugene cogence was found in an isolation cell. he was found dead about two hours later. >> there was a lawsuit that resulted from the death of my brother eugene. with my brother tim, he being murdered. then 2001, my oldest brother eugene cogence. he'd get killed here. all i can tell you is that my family have been having a hard time with this department in spalding county. >> reporter: after eugene's death, they filed a civil suit. the medical examiner found eugene had been choked while at

the jail. the suit was eventually settled with the family receiving more than $450,000. >> we really don't know what happened to eugene in that jail cell. >> reporter: over three decades, and after the wrenching loss of two brothers, the coggins family moved on with their lives. >> these and all things we ask in your precious and holy name, amen. >> reporter: but never forgot about finding justice for tim. >> this case had already gone through maybe three or four sheriffs, and no one would reopen it. >> reporter: until 2016, when agents from the gbi, along with the newly-elected sheriff, began looking for new clues in this old case. >> we were looking for some of the missing evidence. we came up with this small black notebook right here. >> reporter: it would be a notebook full of secrets. but would it point to tim's killers? so i'm gonna hold on promoting you this quarter. cool?

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30 years had passed since

the brutal murder of her uncle tim, yet heather coggins and her family never stopped praying for justice. >> reporter: did that haunt the family, not having those answers? >> absolutely, absolutely. it haunted our family until july 26, 2016, when sheriff dix called and said hey, i think we're going to reopen tim's case. >> reporter: sheriff dowle dix was born and raised in griffin. >> without a doubt, it's the right thing to do. i want to give closure to the coggins family. i want to let timothy coggins rest in peace. >> reporter: heather remembers her grandmother calling out to tim from her death pedestriabed. >> she was like oh, tim, help me tim. she always wanted js tustice fo him. >> reporter: in 2016, agents from the gbi reached out to

sheriff dix. >> within the bureau of investigation, field agents are assigned cold case files, and i was assigned the cold case file of timothy coggins. i was able to identify a couple of investigative leads in the case. i came and met with sheriff dix at the spalding county sheriff's office. >> reporter: together, two agencies which had failed to solve the murder case decided to look for new evidence. >> we came up with a small, black notebook right here. >> reporter: that little black book shed light on both the sheriff's and police departments in the '80s. nothing in the diary helped solve the murder but did reveal shocking details about the departments. >> in this notebook, it there are some indications that there were things going on with the klan that some people here at the sheriff's office knew about. >> reporter: the notebook turned out to be the diary of a former

sheriff's deputy, written about a year before tim's murder. his writings detailing how he had infiltrated the local ku klux klan to gather information. >> 1982. 15 minutes after midnight, myself and deputy [ bleep ] were sworn into the order by johnny knowles. johnny knowles then stated he had a number of good klan in the police and sheriff's departments. star, at this point unsure who to trust. kind of sets the tone for the climate that was here, you know, back, you know, you're talking about a little bit around a year from the time from this writing till the time that timothy coggins' body was found. >> as we went out in the community and began to really shake the bushes, things started to come together on the case. >> reporter: many of the witnesses pointed investigators to two men, frankie again hart

and bill moore senior. >> coming up through the '70s and '80s, both of them had pretty good reputations of being pretty rough people. >> reporter: witnesses like willard sanders said said said d admitted his role. >> he said i hear you found that body. i said yeah, we found it. he said well, me and bill put him there. bill stabbed him and i tied the chain to him and drug him over to the power line. and i did report him, after he told him he and bill put him there, that's why i wonder why they're making such a big to-do about it now. if they wanted to do something, like to me they would have done it 30 years ago. >> reporter: many witnesses pointed to an old well on

gephart's property. >> reporter: when law enforcement went digging, they found what they hoped would be strong physical evidence, including an old shirt. >> in the back of that shirt were what appeared to be seven stab wounds. and according to the autopsy report, timothy coggins was stabbed in the back seven times. >> reporter: in october 2017, authorities charged frankie gephart and bill moore senior with murder. >> the victim's friends and family say now they can rest a bit easier. >> reporter: tyrone, what was that like for you to see two men, two white men, arrested in this case. >> 34 years went by, and you don't know who the killer is. to lose two brothers, i've always had this fear, hey, man, is something going to happen to me? >> reporter: gephart went to trial the next summer. it would be the first time the

family heard the details of his death. >> when the trial went on, i was so interested because i wanted to know really what happened. and to hear what happened was awful. >> at one time he told me they stabbed him 18 to 30 times, drug him up and town tdown the power and stabbed him again. >> that's what he told you. >> yes, ma'am. >> reporter: finally, three long decades later a verdict is in. >> we unanimously find count one, malice murder, guilty. count two, felony murder, guilty. count three, aggravated battery, guilty. >> reporter: a moment tim's mother never lived to see. a jury finds frankie gephart guilty of the murder of her son. he is sentenced to life plus 30 years. >> we are completely grateful to be here today. it has been 34 years for us to be here, and we are finally here. >> reporter: bill moore senior took a plea deal, and in august

2018 he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. today heather coggins has a message for the men who killed her uncle. >> you thought you got away with it, but you didn't. and now the days that you should be home, enjoying your family, living the rest of your days out on a rocking chair on the porch drinking your coffee, you are in a maximum security confinement, with no one. >> i think it's a different time in spalding county. we're a long way away from where we were in 1983. ke tng better the best of our ability. >> father god, we would like to thank you for allowing us to come together in celebration of timothy wayne coggins. >> amen. >> thank you for allowing the sun to beautifully set over all of us this morning. >> yes. >> and the joy we feel is so

profound. yes. [cheers and >> our thanks to debra. you can watch more about the coggins' family quest for justice on the cold dark night on hulu. we'll be right back. s? ok? that's 15 percent on top of what geico could already save you. so what are you waiting for? dj khaled to be your motivational coach? yo devin! remember to brush in a circle motion. thank you... dj... khaled. tiny circles, devin. do another one. another one. is this good? put in that work, devin. don't give up. geico. save an extra 15% when you switch by october 7th. save an extra 15% when you switch struggling to clean tough messes with wipes? try mr. clean magic eraser sheets. just wet, squeeze and erase icky messes in microwaves

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it was 19th centry william m clad stone who said justice delayed is justice denied. true then, true now. we'll see you right back here same time next week. good night. have a safe weekend. from hollywood, it's "jimmy kimmel live." with special guest host, iliza shlesinger. tonight, laverne cox. and music from margo price. and now, iliza shlesinger. >> hello, and welcome to "jimmy kimmel live." i am your guest host tonight, iliza shlesinger. i'm so excited for this because i didn't have to wear spanx or

shoes. do not pan down. with the world in crisis, and science being questioned in a violently divided country, i jumped at the chance to say something that potentially ends my career. having said that, let's talk about cancel culture. please don't cancel me. when the internet first started it was a whimsical way to chat with your friends, send your life savings to a nigerian prince, and limewire entire third eye blind albums. it came to your house on a cd and it was enjoyed sparingly. but then came twitter. and things got messy. people got messy. at first we were excited. we were like, "oh, wow, i can tell quiznos they suck while i'm on the toilet? what alien technology is this?" and we began to publicly post whatever we thought whenever we thought it. a 700-tweet thread about which del taco sauce is the worst? go for it. some dick is kicking your seat on a delta flight to houston? the world must know about this. that dress is black and blue, you idiots. tweet! oh, no, she brought up the dress. it all seemed like a good idea