Willie Joe Sanford

Case summary

Incident

On Feb. 2, 1957, Willie Joe Sanford went missing. He was 24, living in his hometown of Cochran, Georgia, and working at a sawmill. Sanford’s older sister, Eva Mae Randall, stated in a May 2011 FBI interview that, shortly after Sanford’s disappearance, she searched for her brother with an individual named Arthur King. A friend of Sanford’s, King was a 50-year-old Black sawmill worker from nearby Hawkinsville in Pulaski County.

The FBI opened an investigation of the matter in 2009 pursuant to the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act. In a 2009 memorandum agents concluded that King had been with Sanford shortly before his disappearance. While Randall told the FBI in 2011 that King had a reputation in the community for gambling, limited information exists about King or what he might have known about Sanford’s disappearance. At the time of the investigation in 1957, Pulaski County Sheriff Andy Hill told a reporter for the Pittsburgh Courier that the incident was precipitated by a “ruckus” at a liquor store located in the “Dirty Spoon” section of Hawkinsville. A woman who lived across the street from the store disputed this claim, telling a reporter that she “didn’t see any trouble that day.”

A month later, on March 1, 1957, a fisherman named A.K. Vickers discovered a body in a creek about four miles from Hawkinsville. Tied to the underwater vegetation, the partially decomposed body was half submerged, naked save for a pair of shoes. Sanford’s arms and legs were bound with wire and his body showed signs of head trauma and stab wounds.

Randall recalled that a sheriff and deputy notified her in person that they had discovered a body they suspected might be Sanford. In her 2011 interview with the FBI, Randall stated that the officers drove both her and King to the creek to identify the body. On the way, the officers allegedly told Randall and King to lie down in the back of the car, warning them not to scream or say anything other than “yes” or “no” when they saw the body. When they arrived, Randall identified her brother. She recalled that the body was “open from the chest down and the top of his head was gone.”

A 1957 Baltimore Afro-American article reported that Randall was able to identify her brother’s body from his shoes and a surgical scar on his abdomen. One year earlier, the article said, a white man had shot Sanford in the stomach. Sanford underwent surgery to remove the bullet, resulting in a scar. The man who shot Sanford spent the night in jail, but further details about the incident are unknown.

Aftermath

Police took King into custody shortly after identification of Sanford’s body, holding him as what the FBI later called a “material witness.” King was incarcerated at a jail in Macon, about 50 miles away from Hawkinsville. Hill later explained to Pittsburgh Courier reporters that King had been held in Macon “for safekeeping.”

A state-led autopsy concluded that Sanford had been deceased for approximately 30 days. According to a 2012 FBI report on Sanford’s case, Sanford’s skull was fractured and he had been stabbed “numerous” times in the chest and torso. Sanford’s death certificate lists cause of death as “Homicide” resulting from having been “Struck by unknown object.” Sanford was buried at Pine Bloom Cemetery in Hawkinsville.

A March 1, 1957 newspaper clipping from an unknown publication included in the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s file on Sanford reported that, on the same day as the discovery of the body, “Rumors spread that Sanford’s death was the work of two white men who killed him in a racially motivated lynching.” Oconee Circuit Judge John K. Whaley, who presided over a Pulaski County grand jury investigation into the killing, initially seemed to agree. Various newspapers reported Whaley’s comments to the grand jury at its March 12 convening. Whaley told the jurors, “Whoever mobbed and killed this man did your city, your country and your state and the entire Southland a distinct disservice,” urging them to “rise up in righteous indignation” about what he termed “this rape of your law.” Whaley warned, “Next time it may be you or one of your family.” In a statement to reporters, Oconee Circuit Solicitor J. Wade Johnson added, “I would say that the guilty parties who killed the man were members of a mob, however large or small.”

The grand jury heard from 15 witnesses and then recessed. Johnson told reporters that the court had not set a date to reconvene. On March 23, Hill assured reporters that, although law enforcement had “drawn a blank” in identifying Sanford’s killers, the investigation by the Pulaski and Bleckley County sheriffs and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) was ongoing.

By early April, with the grand jury still in recess, Whaley and Johnson each deviated from their previous statements. They told reporters that while they believed one or more white men were likely responsible for Sanford’s killing, they did not think the crime was racially motivated. The Baltimore Afro-American quoted Whaley as stating, “Racial relations between white and colored people are most amiable and amicable.” Johnson added, “Had there been a racial issue… They’d have riddled him with bullets in the middle of the road or strung him up to a tree–and made no effort to hide it.” Johnson also said that he believed more than one person was behind the killing, since a “blunt instrument” was used to hit Sanford in the head and a different, “sharp instrument” was used to stab him.

Authorities released King from jail on April 5. Hill told reporters, “We couldn’t find any evidence in the case, so I didn’t feel in fairness to the man that he should be held any longer.”

Reporters from The Pittsburgh Courier and the Baltimore Afro-American attempted to interview residents of Bleckley and Pulaski counties about Sanford’s killing. Both publications noted that Black residents did not want to discuss the killing. According to the Afro-American, “The memories of the lynching of two colored men and their wives [George and Mae Murray Dorsey and Dorothy and Roger Malcom] near Monroe, Ga., 10 years ago, has not been forgotten by the adults of the community.”

The Pulaski County grand jury never reconvened. Authorities never identified any suspects nor made any arrests.

The DOJ and FBI reopened Sanford’s case following the 2007 passage of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act. In 2009, the FBI confirmed that both King and Johnson were deceased. That same year, the GBI informed the FBI that it did not have any records relating to the Sanford investigation. The FBI acquired the grand jury docket for March 1957, but it is unclear if a transcript of the March 12, 1957 proceedings exists.

In 2011, the FBI interviewed Randall. A year later, the DOJ contacted the FBI to inquire if it could interview her about the nonfatal shooting of Sanford in 1956. When the FBI attempted to contact Randall, agents learned that she passed away in August 2011, several months after her initial interview.

On April 2, 2013, the DOJ closed Sanford’s file, writing that, “despite a contemporaneous investigation and the recent Federal review, the perpetrators of this heinous murder have never been identified, and, as opined by the victim’s sister, it is likely that they are deceased.”

Media Gallery

Case summaries are compiled using government records and archival primary source material. These include, but are not limited to, investigative records, arrest reports, newspaper articles, court filings, census records, birth and death certificates, transcripts, and press releases. In many cases, the records contain contradictory assertions.

In addition to the incident files associated with this case, this summary relied on the following:

Genealogical Records

• Georgia Death Index, Georgia, United States, 1951, 1957
• Population Schedule for Bleckley County, Georgia, United States Federal Census, 1940, 1950
• World War II Draft Registration Card, Georgia, United States, 1942
• U.S. Find a Grave Index, Georgia, United States, 1973

Newspaper Articles

• “Knife-Punctured Body is Found Near Hawkinsville,” The Macon News (Macon, GA), March 2, 1957
• “Victim Definitely Cochran Worker, Sheriff Reports,” The Macon Telegraph (Macon, GA), March 4, 1957
• “Judge Blasts ‘Mob Violence’ in Slaying of Negro Worker,” The Macon News (Macon, GA), March 12, 1957
• “Pulaski Slaying Termed ‘Mob Violence’ by Judge,” The Macon Telegraph (Macon, GA), March 12, 1957
• “Mob Slaying,” The Valdosta Daily Times (Valdosta, GA), March 13, 1957
• “Pulaski Authorities Press Investigation of Slaying,” The Macon News (Macon, GA), March 13, 1957
• “Pulaski Jury Takes Recess in Death Quiz,” The Macon Telegraph (Macon, GA), March 13, 1957
• “Lynching in Ga. Goes Almost Unnoticed,” The Pittsburgh Courier, March 23, 1957
• “Only a Frenzied Mob Could Do it,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 23, 1957
• “‘Frenzied Mob’ Killing Still Without Clues,” Atlanta Daily World, March 26, 1957
• “Lynching Unsolved,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 30, 1957
• “Lynch Town Still Silent: No Clues, No Suspects!” The Pittsburgh Courier, April 6, 1957
• “Was It Lynching? Judge Says ‘No,’” Baltimore Afro-American, April 6, 1957
• “Man’s Body Found in Pulaski Creek,” The Macon Telegraph (Macon, GA), May 2, 1957
• “Body Found in Pulaski Creek is Identified,” The Macon News (Macon, GA), May 4, 1957