Some crimes are so heartbreaking or shocking that they change laws, change society, or even

earn the label Crime of the Century.

But the stories that made headlines in decades past aren't necessarily remembered today.

I'm Amber Hunt, a journalist and author, and in each episode of this show, I'll examine a case that's maybe lesser known today, but was huge when it happened.

This is Crimes of the Centuries.

Music This is Crimes of the Centuries. This case was never huge in the media, but it should have been.

It raises a thousand questions about the difference between who we say we are

and who we really are. It calls into question the precepts of our laws and the truth behind our

humanity. It makes us confront fundamental beliefs that a lot of us still hold on to. It asks if we

really are people who protect children,

or if that's just plain bull.

In the spring of 1944,

while war still raged across the world,

George Junius Stinney Jr. was alleged to have killed two girls

in his hometown of Alcalo, South Carolina.

Alcalu encompassed just 4.5 square miles, and its population rested at just less than 500.

That's still what it is today. It was a company town where almost everybody worked at the same

lumber mill, bought their household goods and groceries

from the same company store, and owed their safety and security and a reasonably good life to one

family, the aldermans. This is on par with the coal mining towns we've talked about in previous

episodes. In company towns, the main business didn't just

employ people, but they built the roads and the schools and subsidized the housing. It was a double-edged

...