He holds her until the ambulance arrives.Ĭobb and Willard are quickly pursued by Clanton police. In the house, he finds his little girl in a critical state. But when he arrives home from work that day, he is greeted by a squad car in his driveway. Gwen is worried that Tonya's been kidnapped, but Carl Lee isn't concerned because the kids have gone missing for a night before and always turned up from a friend's house. She's alive, but in critical condition and rushed to the hospital.Įarlier that day Tonya's father, Carl Lee Hailey, receives a call at work, at the lumber mill, from his wife Gwen. She's soon found and brought to her family's home. They panic and drive all over town looking for a place to throw her into the river, but they can't find a spot without witnesses, so they just leave her in the road. The next morning, they try to lynch Tonya, but the branch snaps. They keep her tied up through the night, occasionally throwing beer cans at her, or urinating on her. Cobb and Willard kidnap Tonya, drive her into the woods, tie her up, and beat and rape her until they fall asleep. Tearing through the backroads, high and drunk, they ride up on ten-year-old Tonya Hailey as she's bringing a bag of groceries back to her family's home. Small-time drug dealer and recently released ex-convict Bill Ray Cobb and his best pal Willard take Cobb's new pickup truck on a joyride through town.

It's the early '80s in the small Mississippi town of Clanton, in Ford County, Mississippi.

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