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' LAW ENFORCEMENT SENSITIVE 6. Wednesday - August 31, 1955: a. August 31,1955 ~ early moming — Pecan Point Area on the Tallahatchie River, north of Philipp, Mississippi: b6 [ _FJRobert Hodges: Hodges testified he was b?c fishing when he "...seen two knees and feet,” about a mile from his house, on the left side, going down river, in Tallahatchie County. The body was hung up on a snag. Hodges reported finding the body to his father, who reported it to their land owner, B.L. Mims, at about six thirty or seven o'clock in the morning. Later in the day, Hodges, B.L. Mims, Deputy Sheriff Melton, Charlie Fred Mims and Hodges’ father went to the location of the body in two boats. Then "they brought the iope back there, and then me and this other boy was in a boat, and Mr. Melton was there, and they had the rope around the boy's legs and then they hung it on there, and they had it on this other boat, and then they carried it down the river and took it out on the other side there." Upon pulling the body out onto the bank they found a gin fan to be attached to the body with a piece of barbed wire that was wrapped around the neck. Hodges described the body as "beaten pretty bad in the back...and hips,”...and the head was "also gashed in on the side." Hodges witnessed the barbed wire being disconnected from the gin fan, the placement of the body and gin fan in a boat and the boat traveling to a landing. At the landing, Hodges observed Chester Miller, the undertaker, arrive, place the body in a box, and place the box in the coach. Hodges observed a silver ring to be on one of the body's fingers. At trial Hodgés was shown a ring which was engraved "May 25, 1943”, with the engraved initials "L.T." and he 69 LAW ENFORCEMENT SENSITIVE This document contains neither recommendations nor conclusions of the FBL It ts the property of the FBI and is loaned to your agency, it and its contents are not to be distributed outside your agency.