It was March 23, 1945, when 4 white cops entered Hattie DeBardelaben’s estate in Alabama, accusing her of manufacturing and selling untaxed whiskey.

The 46-12 months-old black mother of seven denied the allegations and consented to police searching her property.

However, law enforcement officials killed her by punching her repeatedly and breaking her neck in front of her 15-12 months-old son, who was arrested for attempting to defend his mother.

However, an FBI investigation conducted on the request of the NAACP concluded that she died of a heart attack and closed the case several months later. One of the cops involved in her death, Clyde Smith, later became sheriff of Autauga County.

The case remained secret for many years until last month, when the National Archives and Records Administration released 69 pages of documents from a Cold Case Civil Rights Records Act investigation signed by President Donald Trump in 2019.

The pending case of Hattie DeBardelaben was the primary set of records released under the act, providing closure for the victim’s grandchildren, whose parents never told how their grandmother died.

“I cried for days because I couldn’t believe what happened to my grandmother,” said 74-12 months-old Mary DeBardelaben AL.com.

“It was a cover-up,” said her brother, Dan DeBardelaben CNN. “That is exactly what happened – these documents clearly show that.”

The documents, which may be read here, here and here, make clear the horrific law enforcement murder case and the resulting government cover-up that, unfortunately, still continues.

“Hattie DeBardelaben’s name may not be familiar to most people, but her death at the hands of law enforcement officers in 1945 was sadly typical of the violence – and even death – that many black Americans experienced in the Jim Crow South.” – Margaret Burnham, co-chair of the National Security Review Board Civil Rights in preparatory proceedings, said the statement.

“Although federal agents investigated her death on the time, the perpetrators were never dropped at justice. “We hope, however, that the release of these recordings after so many years will provide some answers for her descendants, and at the same time shed light on a dark chapter in our nation’s history.”

Murder

Clyde White, who was an Autauga County sheriff’s deputy on the time, told the FBI that he had received complaints that DeBardelaben was selling illegal whiskey, so he contacted agents of the federal Alcohol Tax Unit, which was the forerunner of today’s Alcohol, Tobacco, and Federal Drug Enforcement Administration. firearms and explosives.

White said he drove as much as the DeBardelaben farm with three ATU agents: John H. Barrenbrugge, J.C. Moseley and L.O. Smith.

White said they only found a quart of whiskey and a couple of empty jugs of stinking whiskey, and decided to arrest her for the whiskey and Edward for interfering with arrest, although he didn’t describe exactly how the boy interfered beyond saying “these white sons of bitches don’t they’ll search this house.

White told FBI agents that they never hit DeBardelaben or her son and nephew and that DeBardelaben walked to the automotive without limping or complaining.

He also claimed that DeBardelaben died suddenly within the backseat of a automotive as they were driving to the Platville County Jail.

However, DeBardelaben’s 15-12 months-old son, Edward Lewis Underwood, gave a really different version of events to the FBI, telling investigators that he had just returned home from school when law enforcement officers stopped on the family farm within the countryside near Selma and asked his mother if she had some whiskey for sale.

He said his mother told officers she did not have the whiskey and that they may search the home although they did not have a warrant.

But then her 16-12 months-old nephew, James Callier, got here home from school and the officers ordered him to sit down on the bottom, but he didn’t seem to listen to them, so considered one of the officers walked as much as him and punched him, prompting Callier to take the seat next to Underwood.

“Leave him alone. She’s going to come back home,” DeBardelaben told police in defense of her nephew, which led to her beating and death.

Edward described a terrifying scene by which the identical policeman who had punched his cousin walked as much as his mother and punched her, knocking her down and causing her to fall onto a pot of boiling water she was using for laundry.

She tried to stand up, but then two ATU agents hit her again, causing her to fall onto a pot of boiling water.

“She stood up again and they each hit her again. This time she fell to her knees, keeping each hands on the bottom.

The agents then lifted her off the bottom and placed her in a chair, where she remained speechless, “panting and grunting like a person whose breath had been cut off.”

Edward said he called his two older brothers who were working within the fields to come back to the home, Johnnie and Bennie DeBardelaban, but after they approached the home, two cops pulled out their guns and ordered them to the bottom while the opposite two cops dragged them mother to the automotive, placing her within the backseat with Edward.

As they drove, Hattie begged the boys to stop and let her drink water from a close-by stream, but they ignored her request and continued driving.

She then began vomiting, so that they stopped the automotive and let her vomit on the side of the road. When she finished vomiting, Edward pulled her back into the automotive and they continued driving, but then she passed out.

They stopped the automotive again and White went to the stream, filled a bottle with water and let her son wipe her face and let her drink, but she was already dying.

“He’s my baby,” were her last words in reference to Edward, her youngest son, who was trying his hardest to assist his mother.

When they arrived at Plattville Jail, she was already dead, so that they locked Edward in a cell and contacted local undertakers to take his mother’s body to the funeral home.

Concealment

Dan Albright, a black undertaker at a neighborhood funeral home in Platville, told the FBI that the sheriff contacted him about collecting the body from the jail around 6:30 p.m. that evening. Albright said her body was still within the back seat of the police automotive and that she was “foaming from her mouth and nose, just like a boar’s foaming.”

He also said the sheriff contacted Dr. James Tankersley, who examined her body while it was still within the squad automotive and determined she had died of a heart attack despite signs of a broken neck.

“The only thing I noticed that was different from the other bodies was that every time we lifted the body, the head fell back,” Albright told investigators. “I didn’t tell the doctor anything in regards to the neck. After examination, the doctor concluded that she died of heart problems.

That evening, at Edward’s request, one other black undertaker, Fred Williams, picked up the body from the unique funeral home in Plattville and transported it to his funeral home in Selma, where the subsequent morning he examined it and determined that she had not died from a broken neck, but he reached this conclusion without performing a neck dissection.

He also emphasized that greater than 12 hours had passed since she was killed and rigor mortis had occurred, which might make it inconceivable to make a full determination.

According to A Medical examination from 2016it’s inconceivable to totally determine whether a neck fracture has occurred without performing a neck autopsy, concluding the next:

According to 1 researcher, rigor mortis, or the stiffening of muscles after death, affects the neck inside hours of death, peaking after 12 hours. Medical examination 2023.

The FBI also interviewed DeBardelaben’s doctor, a white man named J. S. Chisholm, who had treated her for 10 years, and told investigators that her health had all the time been high quality until a few month earlier, when she began complaining of shortness of breath and swollen feet.

He said he diagnosed her with a heart murmur and said she could probably live a standard life, “but it was not unusual for a person in her condition to die suddenly, especially if subjected to any unusual strain or excitement.”

This was enough for investigators to shut the case on June 30, 1945, concluding that the cops had done nothing mistaken, and of their report they stated the next.

After reading the documents of Dan and Mary DeBardelaban, whose father was Bennie DeBardelaban, considered one of the young men working within the fields when their mother died, they finally understood why the family never told them how their grandmother died, even when she visited her growing up within the grave . All seven of her children have since died.

“You know, my dad and his brothers and cousins ​​witnessed what really happened,” Dan told AL.com.

“I’m sure this example was extremely traumatic for my father and was considered one of the the reason why he never said a word nor did he or his other six sisters and brothers seek advice from us about what happened. “