On a quiet Friday night in 1965, six friends stopped for gas in Villa Rica, Georgia.

Moments later, nine gunshots shattered the stillness.

Twenty-seven-year-old Arthur James Hill lay dying beside his car—shot by a white service-station attendant named Buner Lee Green.

Green claimed self-defense.

An all-white jury believed him.

Their deliberation took just twenty-two minutes.

Nearly sixty years later, The Grimes Files reopens the case — the shooting, the trial, and the silence that followed.

Using original court records, FBI and Department of Justice files, and firsthand accounts, host Joey Grimes uncovers how a small Georgia town buried a civil-rights killing in plain sight — and how the same men who defended the shooter later stood on courthouse steps at a Ku Klux Klan rally.

This is the story of Arthur James Hill:

Unarmed. Unmarked. But not forgotten.

🔎

In This Episode

Rare DOJ and FBI files obtained under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act

The 1965 shooting, the biased trial, and the all-white jury’s 22-minute verdict

The segregationist attorney who helped free the shooter — and later spoke at a Klan rally

What happened when the FBI reopened the case decades later

🎙️ The Grimes Files — The Death of Arthur James Hill (1965)

🕯️ True crime. Real history.

💰 Support future investigations

Every donation helps fund new case research, archival access, and travel costs.

Donate here👉 https://app.redcircle.com/shows/cef31eb2-a731-4b09-b2e4-f6b293fd4f4a/sponsor

🔗 All links, episode sources, and updates:

https://linktr.ee/thegrimesfiles