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Last in a series of stories about notable people from my adopted hometown, Jefferson, Georgia…

Solicitor General Floyd G. Hoard

The term “Dixie Mafia” is way overused. For decades, gangs of crooks around the South have used that name, or were given that name by law enforcement to make an arrest sound more impressive.

Back in the 1950s, Jackson County was home to a criminal enterprise that grew unchecked and became quite successful. It was called the “Dixie Mafia,” too. But really, the nickname gave them too much credit.

Rather than cohesive and well-organized, they were simply a loose coalition of local men earning a dishonest living by making moonshine, selling some in the nearby dry counties, and hauling the rest to Atlanta.

Their leader was A. C. “Cliff” Park from the tiny town of Pendergrass, known to his underlings as “the old man.”

The end for Park and his cronies came in 1967, after the killing of a local prosecutor and Park’s sensational murder trial.

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Floyd G. “Fuzzy” Hoard was born in 1927 in Fayette County, just south of Atlanta. As a young man, he briefly played professional baseball, and he served in the U.S. Navy. After World War II, he worked as a high school teacher and coach.

When Hoard married Imogene Westmoreland, the daughter of a Jackson County attorney, he moved to Jefferson and studied law through extension courses. He passed the bar exam in 1955 and joined the law firm of Imogene’s father.

Hoard proved to be a hard-working and respected attorney. In 1964, he was elected Solicitor General (now called district attorney) of the Piedmont Judicial Circuit, which covers Jackson and two other counties.

Hoard stepped into a job that was especially tough. In his jurisdiction, moonshiners and car thieves were not only entrenched, but also accustomed to operating with little interference.

But Hoard meant business. Within days of taking office, he threw down the gauntlet by ordering a raid on one of the car theft operations.

Over the next two years, he and his team hit the gangs hard and often. They kept up the pressure on the chop shops. They raided and padlocked Park’s home and business, confiscating large quantities of illegal alcohol. Park was forced to pay a steady series of fines, and he faced a barrage of criminal charges.

On the morning of August 7, 1967, Hoard ate breakfast as usual with his family in Jefferson. Later, he was scheduled to present evidence about Park to a grand jury. He told his wife he would try to be home early, in time for an evening softball game.

When he got in his car and turned the ignition key, dynamite wired to the car’s electrical system exploded.

The front half of the car was blown to bits. Hoard, 40, died at the scene.

From Jefferson to Atlanta, people were shocked, horrified, and indignant. State and local officials rose up, vowing to bring the murderers to justice and put an end to the moonshining and car-theft rings.

After Hoard’s death, papers were found in which he expressed his determination to eliminate the gangs in his jurisdiction. “We have  learned our lesson in crime,” he wrote. “We pledge activity for inactivity, courage for fear.”

At his funeral, one eulogist said of Hoard, “He made his decision, he had counted the cost, and yesterday, he paid the full price.”

The break in the case came when the girlfriend of a Northwest Georgia man, George Seay, told police Seay had admitted his involvement in the bombing.

The facts quickly came out. Ultimately, five men were arrested for Hoard’s murder: Park, 76, charged with ordering the killing; two members of Park’s gang, Douglas Pinion and George Worley, both 40; and two contract killers brought in from outside, Seay, 23, and John Blackwell, 24.

According to the testimony, Pinion passed along the orders from Park. Worley supervised Seay and Blackwell as they obtained the explosives and built the bomb.

In the early hours of August 7, Blackwell wired the dynamite to Hoard’s car as Seay and Worley waited nearby.

After the murder, Pinion made the agreed-upon payoffs: $2,000 to Worley, $2,000 to Seay, and $1,500 to Blackwell.

At the trial, Seay and Blackwell testified for the prosecution. They said Park wanted Hoard killed before he could testify to the Grand Jury on the morning of August 7.

Seay, Blackwell, Worley, and Pinion were sentenced to life in prison. Park pleaded not guilty and went to trial. He was found guilty and sentenced to death.

The Georgia Supreme Court reversed the verdict on technical grounds, and Park went to trial a second time. Again, he was found guilty and given a death sentence. The case remained in the courts for several more years. Ultimately, Park died in prison.

At the time of the murder, Floyd and Imogene Hoard had three daughters, ages 16, 9, and 7, and a son, age 14. When the bomb went off, the two oldest children rushed outside and waded into the wreckage, trying in vain to help their father.

Afterward, the son, Dickey, struggled to deal with his father’s killing. Being 14 is difficult enough, and Dickey’s anguish left him unable to find peace.

He tried to immerse himself in sports, at which his father had excelled, but quit in frustration. He alternately withdrew and rebelled, bounded from one crisis to the next, and threatened to run away from home. He alienated most of his friends, and at one point, contemplated suicide.

By the time he was 16, Dickey returned to the church, which he had abandoned after the murder. He recalled that he had a “spiritual awakening” that allowed him to accept the loss of his father and put his life back together.

A decade later, G. Richard Hoard entered the ministry. Today, he is pastor of the Oconee River Wesleyan Church in Watkinsville, Georgia.

Over the years, Hoard taught literature and composition in high school and speech communications in college. He also wrote two fiction novels.

But Hoard’s best known book was 1994’s Alone Among the Living: A Memoir of the Floyd Hoard Murder. The book documents the key events of the murder and follows the author’s life forward.

The book begins, “When I was twenty I came face to face with the old man convicted of paying five thousand dollars for the murder of my father.”

How did that encounter go? In a recent interview, Hoard said, “I didn’t care for that man. But the hatred I felt was less intense and was released in some way.”

Good evidence that forgiveness works in two directions.

Tribute to Hoard at the old county courthouse in Jefferson.

Floyd G. “Fuzzy” Hoard

Rev. G. Richard Hoard