"Follows a homicide case committed in Georgia in 1927 from the crime to the executions of those convicted of the crime almost a year later. Along the way, the narrative highlights a number of issues impacting the death penalty process, many of which are still relevant in the modern era of capital punishment in the United States ... Moreover, the case in question illustrates a range of themes prevalent in post-Progressive Georgia and brings them together to create a broader narrative. Thus, issues of race, class, and gender emerge from what was supposed to be a neutral process; ... demonstrates that capital punishment cannot be administered in an untainted fashion, but its finality demands that it must be"--From Athenaeum@UGA website.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A modern classic of true crime, set in a most beguiling Southern city—now in a 30th anniversary edition with a new afterword by the author “Elegant and wicked . . . might be the first true-crime book that makes the reader want to book a bed and breakfast for an extended weekend at the scene of the crime.”—The New York Times Book Review Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. In this sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative, John Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case. It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman’s Card Club; the turbulent young gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the “soul of pampered self-absorption”; the uproariously funny drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young people dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a sublime and seductive reading experience.
Within the bucolic hill country of North Georgia, investigative journalist Kent Griffin is murdered with diabolic finesse. He's left Los Angeles to take over a failing weekly newspaper in Cleveland, Georgia. Soon he discovers secrets that the old boy establishment led by Roy Jinks, the county sheriff, cannot afford to read in the White County News. Jinks' once local crime family slowly expands into a widespread network of corrupt officials and ruthless thugs allied with the Dixie Maffia from Atlanta and beyond. Kent's young reporter, Ashley Brook, and her fianc�, Jim Lipscomb, join several of their friends for a convivial party with Linda and Kent the night before his death. Despite official pronouncements, they all know there was no suicide. Ignoring tremendous peril, Ashley and Jim delve headlong into an unfamiliar spiderweb of corruption and raw power-and the seductive mystique of a tiny Appalachian enclave nestling in the footings of Ash Mountain. They press to uncover the truth and to complete Kent's solo crusade, accumulating evidence implicating the entrenched criminal consortium. And at last, they must consider how to approach the authorities-uncorrupted authorities. But who are they?
Death in the Congo is a gripping account of a murder that became one of the defining events in postcolonial African history. It is no less the story of the untimely death of a national dream, a hope-filled vision very different from what the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of the Congo became in the second half of the twentieth century. When Belgium relinquished colonial control in June 1960, a charismatic thirty-five-year-old African nationalist, Patrice Lumumba, became prime minister of the new republic. Yet stability immediately broke down. A mutinous Congolese Army spread havoc, while Katanga Province in southeast Congo seceded altogether. Belgium dispatched its military to protect its citizens, and the United Nations soon intervened with its own peacekeeping troops. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, both the Soviet Union and the United States maneuvered to turn the crisis to their Cold War advantage. A coup in September, secretly aided by the UN, toppled Lumumba’s government. In January 1961, armed men drove Lumumba to a secluded corner of the Katanga bush, stood him up beside a hastily dug grave, and shot him. His rule as Africa’s first democratically elected leader had lasted ten weeks. More than fifty years later, the murky circumstances and tragic symbolism of Lumumba’s assassination still trouble many people around the world. Emmanuel Gerard and Bruce Kuklick pursue events through a web of international politics, revealing a tangled history in which many people—black and white, well-meaning and ruthless, African, European, and American—bear responsibility for this crime.
On May 12, 1960, as John F. Kennedy campaigned for the presidency, Chester Burge—slumlord, liquor runner, and the black sheep of the proud (and wealthy) Dunlap family of Macon, Georgia—lay in a hospital bed, recovering from surgery. He listened to the radio as the news reported that his wife had just been murdered. Police soon ruled out robbery as a motive, and suspicion centered upon the Ku Klux Klan, which two weeks earlier had descended upon his house to protest his renting of homes in white neighborhoods to black families. Then, on June 1, Chester was charged with the murder, and when the trial finally began, the sweet Southern town of Macon witnessed a story of epic proportions—a tale of white-columned mansions, an insane asylum, real people as “Southern grotesque” as the characters of Flannery O’Connor, and a volatile mix of taboo interracial relationships and homosexuality. This was a story as fantastical as a Greek tragedy, complete with a stunning conclusion. It is told in riveting detail in Richard Jay Hutto’s A Peculiar Tribe of People. Chester Burge was a walking streak of deception and sex. After weaseling his way to be the caretaker of the last Dunlap sister and forcing his way into her will, Burge and his family inherited a fortune as well as one of the family mansions. Then came his numerous assignations with men—including his black chauffeur—and, either single-handedly or with help from a lover, the murder of his wife. The trial would spawn the first testimony in Georgia history of a black man disclosing that he had been a white man’s sexual partner. Burge would be acquitted of murder, but convicted of sodomy. And yet, this Southern grotesque tale would take even more twists and turns before coming to an explosive conclusion.
A Murdered Husband. . . Gulf War veteran Doug Gissendaner would do anything for a friend, a stranger, or the wife who broke every rule in the marriage book. Now, investigators were scouring the Georgia woods not far from Doug's home. They'd already found the charred wreckage of his car. They knew they were looking for a body. . . A Hitman Who Killed For Love. . . Gregory Owen had been having an on-again, off-again affair with Doug's wife for years. Then Kelly Gissendaner told Greg it was time for her husband to die. With a knife and a plan, Greg forced Doug to drive into the woods. When Greg finished his savage, cold-blooded deed, Kelly showed up to make sure Doug was dead. A Woman On Death Row. . . This is the astounding true story of the only woman on Georgia's Death Row and the chilling, account of how she got there. From the hold Kelly had over a good and decent man to her dramatic, controversial trial, First We'll Kill My Husband captures the lies, schemes, and manipulations of a woman totally bent on murder. . . Includes 16 pages of shocking photos! Lyn Riddle is a freelance writer and journalist whose work regularly appears in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and The Atlanta Constitution. She is the author of Family Blood: The Murder that Shattered an All-American Home and Ashes to Ashes. She lives in Simpsonville (near Greenville), SC.
This indispensable history of the Eighth Amendment and the founders' views of capital punishment is also a passionate call for the abolition of the death penalty based on the notion of cruel and unusual punishment
The lives of notorious bad guys, perpetrators of mischief, visionary--if misunderstood--thinkers, and other colorful antiheroes, jerks, and evil doers from history all get their due in the short essays featured in these enlightening, informative, books. Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Georgia History features 15 short biographies of nefarious characters, from wicked pirate Edward Teach to John Gatewood, a ruthless Confederate guerilla fighter during the Civil War.
Rebecca and Ronald Akins and their three daughters appeared to be a typical suburban family in 1970 Macon, Georgia, but the attractive facade hid a family in crisis. The girls suffered physical and emotional abuse at the hands of their mother. Although he sometimes worked three jobs, Ronnie was never able to provide Becky the lifestyle she wanted. After their 1974 divorce, Becky took the children to South Florida where she pursued a life of gambling and partying. Fueled by popular books and films, she wanted to live in what she believed was the exciting world of organized crime and changed her name to Machetti. In only a few months, she found two men who joined her in her murderous fantasy which culminated in two deaths. The resulting legal proceedings went on for more than a decade. This is the story of Rebecca Machetti, a cold-blooded woman whose prosecutor described as pure evil and her three daughters who lived through years of abuse before finally finding peace and normal lives.
