On March 22, 1944, Betty June Binnicker and Mary Emma Thames went missing. They had been gathering wildflowers near the railroad tracks when George Stinney spotted them and attacked, beating 11-year-old Betty and 7-year-old Mary to death with a piece of iron. After the girls' bodies were found the next day, George confessed to the killing and showed officers where he had hidden the murder weapon. He was executed a few weeks later. According to teachers and some of George's peers, there was "never any doubt about who killed" Betty and Mary; George was a violent young teen who had attacked a classmate with a knife and threatened to kill one of Betty's friends the day before the two girls died. Another local boy of George's age later said "I think he got exactly what he deserved. He just didn't get it soon enough." One of the officers on the case considered it air-tight: "From the time I became involved, from the whole chain of events, there was not one link broken."