Now, the FBI says that all racially motivated crimes are a high priority, though the bureau declined to discuss the specific Hall case.

“Crimes of this nature are not only an attack on the victim, but are meant to threaten and intimidate whole communities of people,” FBI spokeswoman Samantha T. Shero said in a written statement to The Washington Post. “The FBI is committed to working with both our law enforcement and community partners to aggressively investigate these types of allegations and bring justice for the victims and their families.”

But at the time, the FBI conducted a tag-team investigation over the course of 17 months. The bureau rotated at least half a dozen agents through the Hall case. None were seasoned agents — the youngest investigator was just 24, the eldest 31. Fort Benning officials and military police also had a part in the probe.

The FBI ultimately identified two “best” suspects in the lynching. Both men lived in Block W, where Hall was last seen alive.

The first suspect was Sgt. Henry Green.

His neighbor, Mrs. S.S. Thompson, reported at the time that Green had been sitting outside his house with a shotgun, prepared to shoot a “colored Peeping Tom” who had been disturbing the residents. “There had been a number of reports of Peeping Toms turned in to the Provost Marshal’s office from this area immediately prior to the murdering of the victim, but none were made after his disappearance,” an FBI agent reported.

Green and his brother-in-law, Sgt. Ace Milliard Allison, were off work the day that Hall disappeared. The FBI developed a theory that the two men spent the day drinking at Green’s house and captured Hall when he was passing by on his way to the post exchange.

Green admitted that he had a gun and that he had said he would kill any black Peeping Tom who came to his window. But he denied that he sat outside waiting for one, and he denied having any involvement in Hall’s death.

The second suspect was Sgt. James C. Hodges.

Hodges’s house was along the route Hall took each day, walking between the sawmill and his barracks. According to the FBI, Hall was last seen alive in the vicinity of Hodges’s house. Capt. Marvin J. Coyle, who as provost marshal was head of the military police at Fort Benning, believed that Hodges had a motive to kill Hall and a reason “to commit this crime in the manner in which it was committed,” according to the FBI.