Uncovering secrets of the Georgia-based Dixie Mafia's criminal past | USA TODAY

The ringleader of the notorious Dixie Mafia, Billy Sunday Birt, died in 2017, but the secrets of his murderous reign are still being uncovered today.

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The unsolved murders 50 years ago of a car dealership owner, his wife and son in Boone, N.C., has remained a gripping mystery in that mountain town, but now some important answers have emerged from Northeast Georgia.

From out of the shadows of the past, law enforcement in Georgia and North Carolina now believe the killers on the night of Feb. 3, 1972, were Billy Sunday Birt, Bobby Gene Gaddis, Charles David Reed — all of Winder — and Billy Wayne Davis of Cobb County.

They were among the loose-knit gang of outlaws from decades ago known as the Dixie Mafia. Only Davis, now 81, is still alive, serving a life sentence in the Augusta State Medical Prison for an unrelated murder conviction in Douglas County.

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