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It started as a normal day. What if the truth about the greatest tragedy of your life

was kept secret from you? Huge explosion occurred. This is the story of a scandal deliberately

buried in the chaos of the Iraq War. What really just happened.

Listen to NPR's embedded podcast and its latest series, Taking Cover.

The following podcast contains moments of violence, profanity, and uncensored racism.

It may not be suitable for all audiences.

This is Barry Trousse. I'm Hank Clibbinoff.

Hattie Bell Brasier had few options. For Black citizens, the criminal justice system

at Southwest Georgia was hopeless. Lots of criminal, very little justice.

There was no local investigation of her husband's killing and no interest from the state of Georgia.

The people who should have investigated the crime were the people who committed the crime.

The FBI did step in, but J. Edgar Hoover's men got nowhere. Even after, as we told you,

the Washington Post pretty much laid out the whole story for them.

Officer Wayman Cherry, the sadist, officer Randolph McDonald, the accomplice,

and Sheriff Zeke Matthews, the mastermind, were walking free.

Hattie Brasier had one lever of power. She could compel the men who killed her husband

to come to court and explain what they had done. In 1960, two years after James Brasier's death,

she filed a suit in federal court against Wayman Beach,

Randolph, E. McDonald, and ZT Zeke Matthews. They were responsible. Her suit charged for her

...