In the winter of 1973, 67-year-old Roy Lee Sizemore Sr. was found dead in the back of the family’s grocery store in the small community of Chickamauga, Walker County, Georgia. His son Eddie Sizemore discovered him on the evening of December 14; Roy had been beaten and fatally shot in the chest during an armed robbery.

Authorities arrested Wilburn Wiley Dobbs a few days after the killing and charged him with murder. A jury later convicted Dobbs and imposed a death sentence plus life terms for related robbery charges. Decades of appeals followed; the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new sentencing hearing in 1998, finding Dobbs’ original lawyer had not adequately argued for mercy. A resentencing took place in December 2016, and Dobbs, then 67, received life without parole. Eddie Sizemore remained active in seeking justice for his father.

Does anyone have memories of the grocery or the Chickamauga community from that time that could add context to the case?