FBI Reviews 1946 Public Lynching Case

Nearly 60 years after a white mob lynched two black couples on a summer afternoon and got away with it, the FBI is taking another look at the case.

FBI agent Stephen Emmett said the case is being reviewed"to insure that any recent technology or techniques could be used to enhance the prior investigation." He would not elaborate and said a decision on whether to actually reopen the investigation has not yet been made.

The bureau refused to say why it had taken a renewed interest in the 1946 case.

Civil rights activists have pressed witnesses to come forward and break the silence, which they say is the nation's last unsolved public lynching.

"The African-American community in Walton County told me years ago if we're going to get justice it has to come from the federal government," said state Rep. Tyrone Brooks, president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials."Our hope is that the federal government will take this case and move it to a federal jury."

The Associated Press learned about the renewed federal interest when the FBI recently denied a 13-month-old request by the news organization to see the bureau's 3,770-page case file on the lynching. The FBI rejected the request, saying the release of the file could interfere with a pending investigation.