The murder of James Greene

There was no forensic breakthrough; there were witnesses who had waited thirty years. In 1971 Atlanta police had leads pointing to two members of a Black Liberation Army cell, but the Georgia Supreme Court later wrote that the prosecutor did not believe he had enough evidence to indict and win at trial, and the case stalled. One suspect, Twymon Myers, was shot dead by New York police and the FBI in November 1973. The other, Freddie Hilton, moved to New York and took the name Kamau Sadiki. In 2001 he was arrested there and, according to the court's account, told police he had information about the killing of two New York City police officers in the 1970s. New York officers contacted the Atlanta Police Department, and Detective Jim Rose and Fulton County investigator M.C. Cox set about finding the people who had been in the cell. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that they crisscrossed the country hunting witnesses who had either seen the shooting or heard the gunmen brag about it, and the Associated Press reported that the charges were revived after former Black Liberation Army members came forward. According to the Georgia Supreme Court, interviews with two of them led to Hilton's indictment on July 12, 2002. At trial three former members testified: one said Hilton woke him and said he and Myers had shot a cop and gave him a bag holding a .38 revolver and a badge to get rid of; one said Hilton told him he had taken care of business and showed him the badge and a revolver; one said the cell's leader had ordered the killing. Hilton denied taking part, and the judge excluded testimony offered by the leader's widow. A jury convicted him and the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed in 2010.