Kevin Robinson

krobinson4@pnj.com

In 1974, five men from Atlanta came to Pensacola on a fishing trip and drowned in rough waters.

That's the official summation of the deaths of the "Atlanta Five," and for some people it leaves much to be desired. For family members, civil rights leaders and academics, questions still abound.

Why would five experienced fishermen be in a boat with no gear and without wearing life jackets? If the men were in the water for more than a week before being found, why were their bodies so well preserved? Why do witness statements about the events leading up to the deaths seem inconsistent?

Atlanta-based producer Edward Anderson will be in Pensacola next week attempting to tackle some of those questions. Anderson is filming a documentary about the Atlanta Five for the Storyline Group and SLG Media, and he is hoping his work will help provide five families the answers they've been seeking for the last 41 years.

"They want to make it clear they are not happy with the results of the investigation," Anderson said of the decedents' families. "They would like to publicize what happened to their loved ones in the event someone will come forward with more information."

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Anderson said he got involved in the project after meeting Janice Holloway Cameron, the daughter of one of the Atlanta Five. The woman told him the story of how her father disappeared, how officials said he died and what she and many others believe actually happened.

Lee Roy Holloway, Robert Walker, Marvin Walker, John Sterling and Lonnie Merritt, all black men, reportedly left Atlanta around 7:30 p.m., Nov. 29, 1974, for a fishing trip to Pensacola. It was an excursion they had reportedly made several times during a 20-year-span.

At about 10 a.m. the next day, Robert Walker’s son was informed his father’s boat had been found abandoned in the Santa Rosa Sound. Reportedly, the anchor line had been cut, life preservers were in the boat and the key was still in the ignition.

The men’s food, ice, fishing gear and bait were found in a nearby camper.

The U.S. Coast Guard and the Sheriff’s Office performed a search of the area, but the men were not located and the search was discontinued.

Their families requested assistance from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the civil rights group founded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and then-SCLC President Ralph Abernathy announced he would travel to Pensacola to look into the disappearances.

Soon after the announcement, “The bodies started washing up mysteriously,” said Rev. H.K. Matthews, an area civil rights leader who headed the local chapter of the SCLC.

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Matthews and Abernathy were able to view the bodies, and Abernathy described them as “natural looking,” according to the website atlantafive.com.

“John Sterling, after having been in the water for 12 days, still had his glasses on his face,” Matthews said. “That was something that troubled us.”

The prevailing unofficial theory is that the men were kidnapped in an act of racially-motivated violence, then killed and dumped in the Santa Rosa Sound when it was discovered there would be an outside investigation.

There is a witness account that the Atlanta Five had gotten into a verbal altercation with a local bait shop owner, and he had threatened at least one of the men’s lives.

There is another witness account from a man named Joe Sullivan who said he saw the men preparing to go out on the choppy water and warned them against it. He reportedly said he saw the men on Saturday evening, an apparent conflict with the timeline.

“Our thinking all along was that Mr. Sullivan was being used to cover up what we think was a murder,” Matthews said. “The whole thing was speculative, but there is enough evidence that the speculation is very strong.”

Matthews is just one of many who thinks the five men were victims of foul play.

The Atlanta Five case is being reviewed by Syracuse University College of Law faculty and students as part of The Cold Case Justice Initiative, a project that “seeks justice for racially motivated murders during the Civil Rights era on behalf of the victims, their families, local communities, and society at large.”

The group is delving into hundreds of cases from around the country, and has been assisting Anderson with research for his documentary. The groups are also working to have the case investigated under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, a federal initiative to resolve lingering race-related cases.

Anderson plans to spend three days filming and conducting interviews in Pensacola next week, with the hope that someone out there can finally provide some satisfactory answers.

"These folks are troopers," Anderson said of the Atlanta Five’s families. "They've been vigilant. Over the years their enthusiasm has faded some, but they've never given up. There are too many clues that seem to have been missed."