On the morning of January 3, 1980, 77-year-old Mae Bell Roberts was found shot to death in the farmhouse she shared with her siblings in rural Mars Hill, Alabama. A family member who came to visit discovered a violent scene; Mae Bell appeared to have been sewing, a thimble still on her finger. All four siblings in the home had been shot.

Early investigators suspected robbery after a trunk reported to contain a large sum of cash was missing, but when that trunk turned up years later it held only old suits. The local sheriff identified two men, Roy Harris and Carlton DeMoss, as people of interest; DeMoss later died by suicide reportedly saying he had done a horrible thing, and Harris was later found shot to death. The murder weapons, a sawed-off shotgun and a .38 caliber pistol, were ultimately recovered from members of the Hiett family and ballistics matched them to the killings, but no one has been convicted of the murders.

Who in the Mars Hill area at the time might have known about the trunk, the Hiett family’s weapons, or any threats against the Roberts siblings?