Timothy Pettis

Timothy Pettis, a Black resident of Marshfield (now Coos Bay) and a veteran of the all-Black 24th Infantry Regiment, was murdered and castrated in July 1924; his body was left in the waters of Coos Bay, the same body of water where Alonzo Tucker had been lynched twenty-two years earlier. Black community members in Marshfield and Portland, along with members of the NAACP, believed the Ku Klux Klan was responsible and offered rewards for information; the Portland NAACP publicly declared that “Marshfield is infested with the Ku Klux Klan.” Oregon is believed to have had the highest per-capita Klan membership of any state in the country during the 1920s, with the organization's influence reaching into city, county, and state government and law enforcement. No one was ever charged in Pettis's killing.

Coos Bay, OR · Coos County

• 1924: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• Victim identity, background, and the July 1924 date and circumstances, per Oregon Historical Quarterly and OPB's “Oregon Experience” documentary.
• Black community members and the NAACP publicly attributed the killing to the Klan and offered rewards for information; no one was ever charged, per the same sources.

• No suspect was ever identified or charged in Pettis's death.
• The full circumstances of how Pettis's body came to be found in the bay were not detailed in available public accounts.

• Oregon Historical Quarterly — “Gendering White Supremacy” by Kimberly Jensen
• OPB / Oregon Experience — “Oregon's Klan in the 1920s: The Rise of Hate”
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs