Marshall Johnson

Age 19

A young Black man who wanted to be paid for his work

Monroe, Louisiana

July 13, 1960

Marshall Johnson, 19, worked for a white man in Monroe, Louisiana, cleaning out septic tanks. His boss, 40-year-old Zennie William Fuller, who went by the name Robert, had a reputation for abusing and underpaying employees, the Louisiana Weekly, a local Black newspaper, reported in 1960. That summer, Fuller owed back wages to McFarland and four other young Black workers: Earnest McFarland, Charlie Willis, and brothers Albert and David Pitts.

According to reporting by the Louisiana State University Cold Case Project, Fuller invited the five men over to his home to get their money on July 13, 1960. Fuller claimed the young men were armed, which is why he grabbed his shotgun and fired at the group, fatally wounding four of his employees.

A witness later told the FBI that two or three of the victims were still alive after the initial round of gunfire and that another man, Fuller’s son, helped “finish them off” by shooting the survivors in the head with a pistol, according to a 2010 Department of Justice memo about the case. Johnson and the Pitts brothers died at the scene, while McFarland and Willis were taken to a hospital, where McFarland died the following day. Willis survived.

Initial Investigation

Fuller maintained that he shot the men in self-defense. A local newspaper reported that he talked to a neighbor shortly after shooting his employees. According to the neighbor, Fuller called her over and then directed one of the survivors: “tell her what you just told me.” She said the wounded man told her, “We came down here to hurt Mr. Robert.”

In the DOJ’s 2010 memo, it said that the survivor who talked to Fuller’s neighbor was likely a man named Willie Gibson, though it is now known that Gibson was not at the crime scene. The DOJ never mentions Willis in their memo.

The memo also said the FBI later interviewed someone who had heard the survivor was threatened with death if he did not support Fuller’s story. The same person had heard that Fuller and his son placed knives in the victims’ hands. According to an Associated Press article from 1960, police said they arrived at the scene to find all five victims armed.

Fuller was held on an “open charge” while police investigated the shooting but was eventually released on a $25,000 bond, according to newspaper reports from the time. The DOJ memo said Fuller was never indicted and that he would go on to become a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. Neither the DOJ memo nor news reports from the time of the killings make any reference to charges being filed against Fuller’s son. LSU reports that only Willis, the lone survivor, was charged for trying to murder Fuller and served time in prison.

Till Act Status

The FBI began to look into the case in 2007, and in the fall of 2008, initiated a review of the case pursuant to the DOJ’s cold case initiative and the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act. During that investigation, an agent visited Monroe in search of Gibson but was unable to find him. According to the Department of Justice memo, the FBI also searched local tax and hospital records for information about Gibson, without success. This is likely because, as LSU reported, the FBI searched for someone named “Willie Charlie Gibson” a name used in an initial account of the shooting, but that was later corrected by news organizations. There is no indication that the FBI ever looked for or realized that the other man present was Charlie Willis not Willie Gibson.

The memo said a review of records at the Ouachita Parish district court, in Monroe, did not uncover any indictments or other filing relevant to the case. Neither the Monroe Police Department nor the Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Office were able to provide records about the shooting. The FBI found a death certificate for Fuller, which showed that he had died in 1987, and did not investigate his son, as they believed he was also deceased. According to a DOJ memo, the FBI located a death certificate for a William Fuller, who died in 2005. However, according to LSU reporting, Fuller had two sons named William: William Herbert and William Archie. LSU reporting indicates that it was William Archie who was involved in the murders, and he died in 2016, six years after the DOJ closed the case again in 2010, citing the death of all subjects.

While the FBI was unable to locate Willie Gibson, in March 2020, FRONTLINE reached him by phone at his home in Rochester, New York. His account of events contradicts the DOJ report and contemporaneous reporting on the case. Gibson told FRONTLINE that while he had an altercation with Fuller’s son the day before the murders, he did not go with the four other men to Fuller’s home and was not at the scene of the shooting. He said that following the deaths, fearing for his own life, he moved to Rochester, where he has lived ever since.

Gibson said that no law enforcement official nor journalist had ever spoken to him about the murders of his four friends until FRONTLINE spoke to him. LSU reporters interviewed witnesses the FBI failed to find, including Gibson. That account brought to light the mistaken identity of Charlie Willis, who died in 1991.

DOJ documentation lists the victim as “Marshall Johns.” His last name has been corrected here to “Johnson” based on multiple contemporaneous news reports.

Editor’s Note: The LSU Cold Case Project and the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication have reported extensively on this case, publishing newly-discovered information in 2021 and 2022. This summary was last updated in June 2022 to reflect that reporting.

Un(re)solved

Begin the full experience

About the Project

This multiplatform investigation draws upon more than two years of reporting, thousands of documents and dozens of first-hand interviews. FRONTLINE spoke to family and friends of the victims, and witnesses, some of whom had never been interviewed; current and former Justice Department officials and FBI agents, state and local law enforcement; lawmakers, civil-rights leaders and investigative journalists, to explore the Department of Justice’s reopening of civil rights-era cold cases under the 2008 Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.

In addition to an examination of the federal effort, the project features the first comprehensive, interactive list of all those whose cases were reopened by the Department of Justice. Today, the list stands at 151 names. Among the victims: voting rights advocates, veterans, Louisville’s first female prosecutor, business owners, mothers, fathers, and children.

The project consists of a web-based interactive experience, serialized podcast, a touring augmented-reality exhibit, documentary and companion education curriculum for high schools and universities.

A project like Un(re)solved would not be possible without the historic and contemporary contributions of universities, civil rights groups, and the press, particularly the Black press, who have ensured the ongoing public record of racist violence in the United States. To pay homage to these groups, the web interactive begins with a quote from journalist, activist and researcher Ida B. Wells, one of the first to document with precision the horrors of racial terror in America. “The way to right wrongs,” she wrote, “is to turn the light of truth upon them.”

At the outset of the project, FRONTLINE forged a relationship with Northeastern University’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ), bringing them on as an academic partner. Launched in 2007 by Distinguished Law Professor Margaret Burnham, CRRJ is a mission-driven program of interdisciplinary teaching, research and policy analysis on race, history, and criminal justice. Their work has expanded beyond the names on the Justice Department’s list, archiving documents in over 1,000 cases of racially motivated homicides.

With support from the CRRJ, FRONTLINE reporters gathered what could be known about the individuals on the list, conducting interviews with family, friends and witnesses, delving into newspaper archives and gathering documentation including headstone applications, draft cards and archival photographs.

At the heart of the project has been a drive to center the voices of the families of those on the list. FRONTLINE partnered with StoryCorps to record nearly two dozen oral histories with victims’ next of kin, which are featured both in the web-based interactive and traveling AR exhibit. These oral histories will also be archived in the National Library of Congress.

To lead the creative vision for the web experience and installation, FRONTLINE partnered with Ado Ato Pictures, a premier mixed reality studio founded by artist, filmmaker, and technologist Tamara Shogaolu.

Shogaolu rooted the visuals in the powerful symbolism of trees. In the United States, trees evoke the ideal of liberty, but also speak to an oppressive history of racially motivated violence. In Persian myth, trees are humanity’s ancestors, while in Toraja, Indonesia, they serve as sacred burial sites.

“I was really inspired by looking at the role of the tree as a symbol in American history” Shogaolu said. “It’s been looked at as a symbol of freedom, we look at it as a connector between generations, and also there’s the association of trees with racial terror.” When designing the creative vision for Un(re)solved Shogaolu wondered whether she might be able to reclaim the symbol of the tree. “As a person of color, we’re often terrified of being in isolated places in the woods. And I thought it was kind of crazy that there are natural environments that instinctually give great fear because of this connection with racial terror and I wanted to reclaim that — to turn these into beautiful spaces.”

Un(re)solved weaves imagery of trees, which also recall family ties, into patterns and textures from the American tradition of quilting. Among enslaved African Americans forbidden to read or write, quilts provided an important space to document family stories. Today, quilting remains a creative outlet rich with story and tradition for many American communities.

We invite you to enter this forest of quilted memories — a testimony to the lives of these individuals, and the multi-generational impact of their untimely, unjust loss.

(Credits to come)