A quiet Sunday morning in Sylvester, the county seat of Worth County, Georgia, ended in brutality on August 11, 1974. Fourteen-year-old Christopher Carr was at the IGA convenience grocery store with his mother, Mrs. James Carr, as they opened for business when a man identified as William ’Billy’ Mitchell entered armed with a pistol. Mitchell robbed Mrs. Carr of $15 from her purse and $150 from the register, then forced both into a cooler at the back of the store.

Inside the cooler Mitchell shot Mrs. Carr in the back of the head and Christopher Carr in the chest, left briefly, then returned and shot both again. Mrs. Carr survived despite four gunshot wounds; Christopher Carr was killed. Mitchell was indicted for murder and the armed robbery, pled guilty to murder, and received the death sentence. Two men who had traveled with Mitchell from Jacksonville, Florida — Calvin Butler and James Alexander Robinson — were tried separately, convicted for their roles in the robbery, and each sentenced to life imprisonment.

Did anyone in Sylvester at the time remember seeing Mitchell and his companions in town the day before or on August 11, 1974?