burdette killed in a hit and run accident that wasn t investigated until drew griffin started asking questions about it. drew discovered the case while looking into a similar case from last summer. both victims were african-american, both in pinola county, mississippi. last summer in rural pinola county, johnny lee, a 61-year-old black man, walking far off the shoulder of this road, was deliberately run over and killed by a car carrying three white teens. driver told police he thought he hit a deer. his two passengers both say the 18-year-old driver steered straight for him. the driver s charged with murder but there s no evidence to suggest a racial motive. johnny s brother says the white local law enforcement simply don t want to know the truth. do you believe the sheriff or district attorney don t want to or are afraid to know the truth? i actually think they don t want to.
no one in the pinola sheriff s department offered to do anything else did they come down these streets, handing out fliers, new yorking on doors, asking if they had seen anything? no, not out this way. you know in of any activity that way? no, no one said anything. so, how do you know they are investigating? well, they had put it on the paper, you know, when they found him dead and then they had put on there, and then they wrote it in the newspaper, they said there was a it was still being investigated. reporter: ruby burdette s hope rests in this one small news article from three years ago that says police are still investigating. cnn has learned they never really have. never had a case turned into us. reporter: in january, we asked the district attorney who covers pinola county to search his records to find out if anyone from the sheriff s office had contacted him regarding
looking for it. ruby burdet never misses it. she put it here three and a half years ago to mark the spot her son died and a mystery began. they know he was hit by a car? yes, that s what they say. did they ever find who drove that car? no. do you feel that they did an adequate investigation to find who did that? i don t really i can t say because they say they still investigating. i don t know. no one relates to me anything. they are still investigating? yeah. reporter: garrick burdenette was 41, he walked wherever he went, in rural pinola county that can be dangerous, especially if you are black. in november of 2009, burdenette s body was found on this site, the autopsy revealed multiple injuries consistent with being hit by a vehicle. for three years, there s been nothing more than this simple one-page incident report about what happened.