On January 3, 1980, the Roberts farmhouse in rural Mars Hill, Alabama, was the scene of a devastating multiple homicide. Verlin Roberts returned to the century-old home and found her siblings shot: 64-year-old Floy I. V. Roberts and 77-year-old Mae Bell Roberts on the floor, and bedridden 79-year-old James Columbus “Lum” Roberts dead in his bed. A fourth sibling, 72-year-old Walter Mack Roberts, was found alive with multiple gunshot wounds and died a few days later.

Investigators initially considered robbery as a motive after a trunk rumored to hold cash went missing; the trunk turned up nearly three years later with only old suits. Mae Bell’s thimble still on her finger suggested the attack was sudden. County officials later named two men, Roy Harris and Carlton DeMoss, as having intimate knowledge of the killings, but neither was charged; Harris was found dead in December 1984. In 1986 a sawed-off shotgun and a .38 pistol tied by ballistics to the murders were recovered and traced to the Hiett family. Jerry Hiett was convicted of grand jury perjury and received two life terms for lying about the case, though no murder charges were brought.

The Mars Hill murders remain unsolved. Does anyone have information about the family, the missing trunk, or the weapons traced to the Hiett family that could move this case forward?