New evidence found in 1946 Ga. lynchings

ATLANTA, July 2 (UPI) --

Investigators say new evidence has been found in the last mass lynching in U.S. history -- the slaying of four black Georgia sharecroppers in 1946.

The FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are following up on the new information, officials told CNN. That drew praise from Georgia state Rep. Tyrone Brooks, D-Atlanta, who says he and others believe some of the men who participated in the Walton County, Ga., lynchings of the two married couples, Roger and Dorothy Malcolm and George and May Murray-Dorsey, are alive.

"We just hope and pray they can bring some of these suspects to the bar of justice before they die, because they're all getting up in age," Brooks told CNN.

Officials say the two couples were shot hundreds of times and the unborn baby of one of the women was cut from her womb because local Ku Klux Klan members believed they were involved with the stabbing of a white man. About a dozen men are thought to have participated.

Residents of the area about 40 miles east of Atlanta were tight-lipped when agents sent by U.S. President Harry Truman first investigated. Investigators searched a farm that yielded some evidence, CNN said.

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