Violation: Justice, Race and Serial Murder in the Deep South. David Rose

      DAVID ROSE

      VIOLATION

      JUSTICE, RACE AND SERIAL MURDER IN THE DEEP SOUTH

       DEDICATION

       For my mother, Susan, who gave me a sense of historyAnd my father, Michael, who taught me the meaning of justice

      CONTENTS

       Cover

       Title Page

Maps

Dedication

1 The Best Place on Earth

2 We’ve Got a Maniac

3 Ghost-Hunting

4 Dragnet

       5 The Hanging Judge

       6 Under Colour of Law

       7 The Trial

       8 A Benchmark for Justice

       9 To the Death House

       10 Violation

       11 Due Process

       12 Southern Justice and the Stocking Stranglings

       Epilogue

       Index

       Acknowledgements

       About the Author

       Praise

       Other Works

       Notes on Sources

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       MAPS

       Strangling Crime Scenes

      1 Ferne Jackson (17th Street)

      2 Florence Scheible (Dimon Street/Eberhart Avenue)

      3 Jean Dimenstein (21st Street)

      4 Martha Thurmond (Marion Street)

      5 Kathleen Woodruff (Buena Vista Road)

      6 Ruth Schwob (Carter Avenue)

      7 Mildred Borom (Forest Avenue)

      8 Janet Cofer (Steam Mill Road)

      9 Callye East’s house – Henry Sanderson’s gun stolen (Eberhart Avenue)

      10 Gertrude Miller – survived first attack by strangler (Hood Street)

       Other Locations

      11 Historic District

      12 Big Eddy Club

      13 Lynching of Teasy McElhaney 1912

      14 Lynching of Simon Adams 1900

      15 Carlton Gary’s apartment 1977–79

      16 Fort Benning

      17 Area of Land family holdings 1900–20

      18 G.W. Ashburn murdered 1868

      19 Dr Thomas H. Brewer murdered 1956

       ONE The Best Place on Earth

      Way down in Columbus, Georgia

      Want to be back in Tennessee

      Way down in Columbus Stockade

      Friends have turned their backs on me.

      Last night as I lay sleeping

      I was dreaming you were in my arms

      Then I found I was mistaken

      I was peeping through the bars.

      ‘Columbus Stockade Blues’ (traditional)

      ‘We don’t take just anybody as a member,’ said Daniel Senne, the Big Eddy Club’s general manager. ‘They have to be known to the community. It’s not a question of money, but of standing, morality, personality. And they must be people who conduct themselves well in business. Integrity is important.’

      We were talking in the hush of the club’s sumptuous lounge, perched on deep sofas, our feet on a Turkoman rug, surrounded by antiques. With the seasons on the turn from winter to spring, the huge stone fireplace was not in use, but there was no need yet for air-conditioning. From the oak-vaulted dining room next door came the muffled clink of staff laying tables for lunch: silver cutlery, three goblets at every setting, and crisply starched napery. The club’s broad windows provided a backdrop of uninterrupted calm. Framed by pines that filtered the sunlight, a pair of geese glided across the state line, making barely a ripple. Behind them, across a mile of open water, lay the smoky outline of the Alabama hills.

      The minutes of the club’s founding meeting were framed on the wall, a single typed folio dated 17 May 1920. On that day, ten of the most prominent citizens of Columbus, Georgia, led by the textile baron Gunby Jordan II, had formed