WEBVTT - The Alabama Murders - Part 2: Coon Dog Cemetery Road 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:21.076 Pushkin Hello, hello Malcolm. Here, Before we get to the episode, 0:00:21.476 --> 0:00:23.076 I want to let you know. You can get this 0:00:23.476 --> 0:00:28.636 entire season now ad free by subscribing to Revisionist History 0:00:28.636 --> 0:00:31.356 on Pushkin Plus. Sign up on the show page on 0:00:31.396 --> 0:00:36.676 Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot fm, slash Plus. Pushkin 0:00:36.716 --> 0:00:42.636 Plus subscribers can access ad free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges, 0:00:42.956 --> 0:00:45.356 and bonus content for all Pushkin. 0:00:45.036 --> 0:00:51.036 Shows previously on Revisionist History. 0:00:51.796 --> 0:00:53.396 Was he a good feature? 0:00:53.636 --> 0:01:01.076 Evidently he must have been charismanic, Yes, very charis many flawreence. 0:01:01.196 --> 0:01:04.996 You don't get here by accident, and so the idea 0:01:05.196 --> 0:01:11.076 that someone was in this framework do something like Charles 0:01:11.076 --> 0:01:15.356 Sennett did was very disruptive. He worked very hard to 0:01:15.356 --> 0:01:19.236 make sure nobody knew outside that tight circle of biological family. 0:01:20.596 --> 0:01:22.996 When someone says I'm a member of the Church of Christ, 0:01:24.076 --> 0:01:27.756 that means that they are members of the True Church. 0:01:29.716 --> 0:01:33.436 That's not a denomination, that's not Protestant, it's not Catholic, 0:01:33.476 --> 0:01:33.836 it's just. 0:01:33.796 --> 0:01:34.436 The true Church. 0:01:48.796 --> 0:01:52.156 We're now into the hills. We're now into the Alabama 0:01:52.236 --> 0:01:59.996 hills of We're We're in a long, winding two lane 0:02:00.036 --> 0:02:04.316 road following an F one fifty pickup truck. Like much 0:02:04.316 --> 0:02:13.236 of this corner of Alabama, it's it's gorgeous countryside. We 0:02:13.276 --> 0:02:16.356 are way out in. I mean, we haven't passed up 0:02:18.396 --> 0:02:23.036 a house in quite some time. On one of our 0:02:23.076 --> 0:02:26.116 trips to the shoals, my colleague Ben Adaf Halfrey and 0:02:26.156 --> 0:02:28.356 I drove out to find the house where Charles and 0:02:28.436 --> 0:02:32.036 Elizabeth Sennett lived. We didn't have a precise address, just 0:02:32.116 --> 0:02:34.236 the name of the road, which turned out to be 0:02:34.276 --> 0:02:37.756 a long, winding gravel track that runs high along a 0:02:37.796 --> 0:02:41.036 mountain ridge. Coon Dog Cemetery. 0:02:40.556 --> 0:02:42.516 Road your destination. 0:02:44.796 --> 0:02:49.396 We're all all the best coon dogs alive find their 0:02:49.436 --> 0:02:51.036 final resting place. 0:02:51.676 --> 0:02:55.276 Oh my god, it's an actual Because we couldn't find 0:02:55.276 --> 0:02:58.876 the Senate house, we ended up at the cemetery. There 0:02:58.876 --> 0:03:02.636 were headstones, lots of American flags. There's a little sign 0:03:03.636 --> 0:03:06.436 with a coon dog on it. Only cemetery was kind 0:03:06.436 --> 0:03:09.876 in the world. Troop first Dog late to rest here 0:03:09.956 --> 0:03:14.476 September fourth, nineteen thirty seven. Then we met an older 0:03:14.476 --> 0:03:17.916 couple who gave us directions. We drove back the way 0:03:17.956 --> 0:03:20.116 we came and finally found it. 0:03:20.836 --> 0:03:20.996 Here. 0:03:21.116 --> 0:03:23.836 This is the driveway and there's the gate. 0:03:24.676 --> 0:03:30.436 Oh yeah, there's the drain pipe, the drain pipe. I 0:03:30.476 --> 0:03:33.796 think I see the remains. So it's just an overgrown 0:03:33.876 --> 0:03:39.156 gate with some posted signs. The house is gone now 0:03:39.156 --> 0:03:42.876 as it's a double wide trailer burned down a couple 0:03:42.916 --> 0:03:45.836 of years a couple of years ago. There's a pond 0:03:45.956 --> 0:03:46.476 back there. 0:03:47.236 --> 0:03:47.636 It's a. 0:03:49.236 --> 0:03:52.596 If we hadn't met that that guy, we would have 0:03:52.596 --> 0:03:53.396 had no idea. 0:03:53.956 --> 0:03:56.316 Yeah, you would not have identified this as I guess. 0:03:56.316 --> 0:03:58.876 There's the only thing is the gate that says private property. 0:03:58.956 --> 0:04:04.676 It's all overgrown. Now if you wanted to hide, let's 0:04:04.716 --> 0:04:09.276 just say this is a very good place to hide. 0:04:10.316 --> 0:04:19.756 Nobody's going to trouble you. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. 0:04:20.036 --> 0:04:25.476 This is the Alabama Murders. I talked in the last 0:04:25.516 --> 0:04:29.236 episode about the notion of the Failure cascade, a crisis 0:04:29.276 --> 0:04:32.676 that does not resolve itself, but rather accelerates in a 0:04:32.716 --> 0:04:36.876 way that we neither anticipate nor desire. In this episode, 0:04:37.236 --> 0:04:39.156 we're going to go deep into the crime that took 0:04:39.196 --> 0:04:41.676 place in the morning of March eighteenth, nineteen eighty eight, 0:04:41.836 --> 0:04:44.876 that kicked off the cascade and tore the Senate family 0:04:44.916 --> 0:04:48.956 apart before it accelerated and spread to countless others. 0:04:50.076 --> 0:04:51.876 Thirty five years. 0:04:52.396 --> 0:04:57.596 That's how long Elizabeth Sennatt's family waited for justice to occur. 0:04:58.756 --> 0:05:01.556 Thirty five long years. 0:05:02.476 --> 0:05:05.676 This is the Attorney General of Alabama, Steve Marshall, at 0:05:05.716 --> 0:05:09.516 a press conference in twenty twenty two. By the way, 0:05:09.636 --> 0:05:12.876 the senecase still wasn't over when it still had one 0:05:13.396 --> 0:05:15.716 final grotesque act to come. 0:05:17.036 --> 0:05:22.716 To give some perspective, almost half of Alabama's population wasn't 0:05:22.796 --> 0:05:28.676 even born when this malicious crime was committed. The well 0:05:28.716 --> 0:05:34.836 known axiom is true, the justice delayed is justice denied. 0:05:35.556 --> 0:05:35.716 No. 0:05:36.396 --> 0:05:39.836 What the senecase teaches us is that justice delayed is 0:05:39.916 --> 0:05:43.116 what justice is in the world we have chosen for ourselves. 0:05:44.236 --> 0:05:47.636 The question is why, how does a crime turn into 0:05:47.636 --> 0:05:54.876 a cascade? Episode two, Coon Dog Cemetery Road. 0:06:01.276 --> 0:06:03.836 So, then, have you seen pictures of this family of 0:06:03.956 --> 0:06:09.836 Charles Senate and Liz So Actually, Charles Senate kind of 0:06:09.916 --> 0:06:15.636 looked like a nineteen eighties TV evangelist. 0:06:16.516 --> 0:06:19.276 This is Lacy Kennemer, whose husband was one of the 0:06:19.276 --> 0:06:21.276 many lawyers drawn into the Senate case. 0:06:22.156 --> 0:06:29.676 He was hadsome, dark headed, kind of had that southern 0:06:30.276 --> 0:06:34.716 a little bit, a little bit redneck, but look, she 0:06:34.916 --> 0:06:38.716 was hungly as a mud fence, I mean, and and 0:06:38.876 --> 0:06:44.036 everything that I've read about him, and what I've never 0:06:44.116 --> 0:06:51.756 heard humly as a mud fence, I've never heard. You 0:06:51.756 --> 0:06:58.236 can imagine. Yes, So what I remember, what I recall 0:06:58.916 --> 0:07:06.916 about this was the fact that he was having an 0:07:06.956 --> 0:07:12.196 affair with a parishioner. There weren't seventy people that went 0:07:12.236 --> 0:07:15.196 to that church. How did they not know that this 0:07:15.396 --> 0:07:21.156 was going on? And then they lived. They lived out 0:07:21.436 --> 0:07:27.316 on what's called Kungdaks Cemetery Road, which is in rural 0:07:27.356 --> 0:07:32.516 part of Colver County. And when I say rule it, 0:07:32.516 --> 0:07:39.636 it's frighteningly rule, which makes me wonder about this guy. 0:07:40.036 --> 0:07:43.996 I mean, it had to be Kungdal Cemetery Road if 0:07:44.036 --> 0:07:48.356 you were on out on it. He had to live 0:07:48.436 --> 0:07:53.356 thirty two miles from his church building and a long 0:07:53.436 --> 0:07:59.796 way from his parishioners. I think the guy was crazy. 0:08:00.556 --> 0:08:04.356 On March eighteenth, nineteen eighty eight, just before noon, Charles 0:08:04.396 --> 0:08:07.676 Sennett returned home from a morning in town. His house 0:08:08.276 --> 0:08:12.076 was ransacked. The living room was a mess. A coffee 0:08:12.076 --> 0:08:15.836 table had been turned upside down its legs. Broken wood 0:08:15.876 --> 0:08:20.236 fragments were everywhere. A stereo and VCR were missing and 0:08:20.316 --> 0:08:22.596 lying on the floor. Of the den. In a pool 0:08:22.596 --> 0:08:27.396 of blood was his wife, Elizabeth dorleyan Senate. She'd been 0:08:27.436 --> 0:08:32.236 stabbed repeatedly. A white and blue afghan covered her face 0:08:32.276 --> 0:08:36.836 and torso. Senate called the Colbert County Sheriff's office. An 0:08:36.876 --> 0:08:40.796 investigator named Ronnie May answered the phone. Senate was hysterical 0:08:40.956 --> 0:08:43.876 and May couldn't understand him at first, didn't even know 0:08:43.916 --> 0:08:45.876 whether he was speaking to a man or a woman. 0:08:46.596 --> 0:08:51.436 May said, calm down, then again, calm down. Senate said, 0:08:51.876 --> 0:08:54.716 I've just come home. My house has been broken into 0:08:55.076 --> 0:08:58.916 and my wife has been killed. May said, stay where 0:08:58.916 --> 0:09:04.356 you are, we'll be right there. May and his officers 0:09:04.556 --> 0:09:08.156 drove out to Senate's house. It was raining heavily. As 0:09:08.156 --> 0:09:11.876 he walked in to the carport, came running towards him, 0:09:12.316 --> 0:09:16.516 wrapped his arms around him and said, Ronnie, Ronnie, they've 0:09:16.596 --> 0:09:20.596 killed her. They've killed her. Ronnie May walked into the 0:09:20.636 --> 0:09:24.596 den where Elizabeth Sennett's body was lying. He reached for 0:09:24.636 --> 0:09:30.276 a pulse, couldn't find one. Thought she was dead, but 0:09:30.316 --> 0:09:33.076 when the ambulance arrived a few minutes later, one of 0:09:33.076 --> 0:09:39.196 the paramedics found a faint pulse. Chuck and Mike Sennet, 0:09:39.396 --> 0:09:42.676 their two sons were twenty five and twenty three years 0:09:42.716 --> 0:09:43.476 old at the time. 0:09:44.276 --> 0:09:48.316 Mom was just the homemaker, kind, nurturing boiler every day 0:09:48.316 --> 0:09:49.916 after school, you know, growing up. 0:09:50.156 --> 0:09:53.236 You know, we never missed a time with her and Daddy. 0:09:53.756 --> 0:09:56.076 They later gave an interview to the local news about 0:09:56.076 --> 0:09:56.516 that day. 0:09:57.116 --> 0:10:00.076 Chuck got the news before I did. 0:10:00.436 --> 0:10:01.756 Laddy called me work. 0:10:02.396 --> 0:10:05.996 Yeah, Chuck called me at work, said something happened to 0:10:06.076 --> 0:10:08.916 Mom at the farm. Get out here quick. 0:10:10.076 --> 0:10:13.876 Elizabeth Sennet was taken by ambulance to Helen Keller Hospital 0:10:13.916 --> 0:10:18.116 in Sheffield. In the er, the medical staff tried frantically 0:10:18.196 --> 0:10:22.836 to keep her alive. The doctors started cardiac resuscitation, put 0:10:22.916 --> 0:10:26.476 in an IV, gave her fluid, put in a breathing tube. 0:10:26.756 --> 0:10:30.156 They took Elizabeth Sennate to the operating room, opened her chest, 0:10:30.716 --> 0:10:33.956 found no blood in her heart or vascular system. In 0:10:33.996 --> 0:10:35.956 one last attempt to save her life, they put a 0:10:35.956 --> 0:10:38.876 clamp across her aorda on the chance that the fluid 0:10:38.876 --> 0:10:40.156 would fill her heart chamber. 0:10:41.756 --> 0:10:45.116 We sat there for a while and then they invite 0:10:45.196 --> 0:10:48.316 you up to the second floor, which is where they 0:10:48.836 --> 0:10:50.236 delivered the bad news. 0:10:53.316 --> 0:10:57.116 Elizabeth Senate was pronounced dead at two five in the afternoon. 0:11:00.636 --> 0:11:02.876 Lacey kennemer knew one of the nurses who was there 0:11:02.916 --> 0:11:05.756 at the hospital when Elizabeth was brought in that day. 0:11:06.476 --> 0:11:11.756 So she's and the er, it's the doctor and the 0:11:12.516 --> 0:11:17.516 and miss Senate. And the doctor said, please go out 0:11:17.836 --> 0:11:21.676 and tell her husband. She is still hanging on. She's 0:11:21.716 --> 0:11:22.916 still with us. 0:11:23.516 --> 0:11:24.076 She said. 0:11:24.316 --> 0:11:26.636 I walked out of that I will never forget as 0:11:26.636 --> 0:11:30.556 long as I live. I walked out of that emergency department. 0:11:30.636 --> 0:11:33.676 I walked out of the emergency room room and went 0:11:33.756 --> 0:11:38.636 to him and tell him. And he was astounded. He said, 0:11:39.276 --> 0:11:40.276 that cannot be. 0:11:42.116 --> 0:11:42.636 Wow. 0:11:44.516 --> 0:11:49.356 It wasn't long before the speculation began. I'm just really 0:11:49.396 --> 0:11:54.236 curious about when the news broke about what had happened 0:11:54.236 --> 0:11:59.836 to Elizabeth or Elizabeth Orlean. Can you tell me about 0:11:59.836 --> 0:12:00.596 what that was like. 0:12:01.156 --> 0:12:03.876 I can tell you every minute of that one. 0:12:04.516 --> 0:12:07.676 This is Shirley Bill who went to Charles Sentence Church. 0:12:08.116 --> 0:12:10.556 When we stopped by to visit at the church the 0:12:10.676 --> 0:12:13.556 last time, where he was preaching. On the way home 0:12:13.716 --> 0:12:18.636 to visit our parents, he back handed his child. I 0:12:18.636 --> 0:12:20.876 don't know what the child had done. My husband was 0:12:20.916 --> 0:12:24.276 furious because he says, you just don't do that to 0:12:24.316 --> 0:12:27.116 a child across its face, you might hit its ear 0:12:27.156 --> 0:12:30.396 and causes the hearing to be gone. So he was 0:12:30.436 --> 0:12:33.036 really mad about it. So when we heard the news 0:12:33.116 --> 0:12:36.116 on the radio one morning at breakfast, Charles Sennett's wife 0:12:36.156 --> 0:12:39.276 has been murdered, my husband looked right straight at me 0:12:39.276 --> 0:12:43.316 and he said he did it. That's how convinced he 0:12:43.476 --> 0:12:48.396 was over that slapping, that the viciousness was there, that 0:12:48.436 --> 0:12:50.956 he could do something like that. I don't know, but 0:12:51.076 --> 0:12:52.996 that's where we heard it first. Was that sitting at 0:12:53.036 --> 0:12:53.836 the breakfast table. 0:12:55.036 --> 0:12:58.836 Carl Roden, a member of Sentence Congregation, spoke to Senate 0:12:58.916 --> 0:13:00.956 on the morning of the murder and drove him to 0:13:00.996 --> 0:13:01.636 the hospital. 0:13:02.516 --> 0:13:07.116 Picked him up at Highway seventy two, two forty seven. 0:13:07.676 --> 0:13:09.356 He was an animust and they got out. I got 0:13:09.356 --> 0:13:11.316 in the car with man. I brought him onto the hospital. 0:13:11.436 --> 0:13:12.316 Yeah. 0:13:12.436 --> 0:13:14.596 The only thing he ever said after, you know, you 0:13:14.716 --> 0:13:17.436 look back. He said, they shouldn't have learned her that way. 0:13:18.796 --> 0:13:20.236 Didn't really mean nothing at the time. 0:13:21.516 --> 0:13:24.356 Her funeral was the following Sunday at the West Side 0:13:24.396 --> 0:13:28.276 Church of Christ, her husband's church. Rodin watched Senate walk 0:13:28.316 --> 0:13:29.516 out of the service. 0:13:30.156 --> 0:13:33.876 After the clothing prayers and singing and all that family 0:13:33.916 --> 0:13:37.116 comes out first, and he has her pictures up against 0:13:37.116 --> 0:13:40.796 his chest with both hands hugging it. And he was 0:13:40.876 --> 0:13:43.396 just most fake thing I believe I've ever saw. And 0:13:43.436 --> 0:13:45.796 I told my wife was that most phoniest thing I've 0:13:45.796 --> 0:13:50.276 ever saw. He just had looked put on. 0:13:52.236 --> 0:13:54.716 Rodin lives in his small white house right down the 0:13:54.756 --> 0:13:57.276 street from the old West Side Church of Christ, now 0:13:57.316 --> 0:14:00.316 empty but still with the very Church of Christ's message 0:14:00.356 --> 0:14:04.316 on the sign outside, Time is precious? Are you spending 0:14:04.356 --> 0:14:07.276 time with the God who made you? As we were 0:14:07.276 --> 0:14:10.436 talking with Rodin, he told us about a friend, someone 0:14:10.476 --> 0:14:13.596 who'd worked the case when I first broke. He said, 0:14:13.636 --> 0:14:17.996 his name is is Mickey Ricky, Ricky, Ricky Miller, Ricky Miller, 0:14:18.516 --> 0:14:22.796 and he was one of the deputies investigating that the case. 0:14:23.596 --> 0:14:26.596 And and he's he's you to talk with. 0:14:26.876 --> 0:14:28.356 And so Rodent called Ricky up. 0:14:28.636 --> 0:14:31.076 When do you say, come from the here tomorrow? I 0:14:31.076 --> 0:14:37.916 don't know ship, Okay, get it over with. We'll be there. 0:14:37.916 --> 0:14:40.796 And he's there now. They're famine and everything. Get your 0:14:40.796 --> 0:14:44.436 hair combed won't be a movie. They get your hair combed. 0:14:44.436 --> 0:14:48.236 It you got a haircut today? Well, you don't got 0:14:48.236 --> 0:14:55.276 your hair cut. But no, they just writing a story 0:14:55.396 --> 0:14:57.916 or something. I don't really know. They pretty good Old 0:14:57.956 --> 0:15:02.116 Joe's any white fir or Yankees. It's just too of 0:15:02.196 --> 0:15:03.436 them with a microphone. 0:15:04.916 --> 0:15:09.236 Wow, okay, and be there in TIMI. 0:15:13.996 --> 0:15:15.636 So much, thank you appreciate. 0:15:30.756 --> 0:15:34.076 Carl Ruden's friend, Ricky Miller, lives in a small, immaculate 0:15:34.156 --> 0:15:37.756 house in a quiet part of Muscle Shoals. He's retired 0:15:37.876 --> 0:15:40.236 after a long career as an investigator in the District 0:15:40.276 --> 0:15:44.996 Attorney's office. Handsome quiet recently widowed, still had a law 0:15:45.076 --> 0:15:45.996 enforcement haircut. 0:15:47.156 --> 0:15:52.716 I assisted the Sheriff's department and investigating a case and 0:15:53.796 --> 0:15:57.076 it got interested. You know, the more you got into it, 0:15:57.076 --> 0:15:58.316 the more instant it got. 0:15:59.356 --> 0:16:00.916 He was part of the team that went out to 0:16:00.956 --> 0:16:03.756 the sentenced property after the murder to search the pond. 0:16:04.276 --> 0:16:07.996 They drained it found a survival knife, a fireplace poker, 0:16:08.396 --> 0:16:09.796 and a fireplace brush. 0:16:10.516 --> 0:16:14.076 There were so many leads and stuff we followed and followed, 0:16:15.036 --> 0:16:21.116 but at the time, the crime stopper's phone for our 0:16:21.236 --> 0:16:25.276 county was in my office and I entered the call 0:16:25.796 --> 0:16:29.076 and I got all the information on who done it, 0:16:29.556 --> 0:16:32.356 who was all involved in all the particulars. 0:16:33.676 --> 0:16:36.956 The anonymous caller named three young men, all in their 0:16:36.996 --> 0:16:41.796 teens and early twenties, Billy Gray Williams, John Forest Parker, 0:16:42.436 --> 0:16:46.516 and Kenny Eugene Smith. The caller had details right down 0:16:46.556 --> 0:16:50.156 to the location of key pieces of evidence. The caller 0:16:50.196 --> 0:16:52.036 said they had taken a VCR. 0:16:53.116 --> 0:16:55.876 And the call I received even told me whether the 0:16:55.996 --> 0:16:59.276 VCR was being used, and it was on Kenneth Smiths 0:17:00.196 --> 0:17:03.396 TV said it's sitting there right now, he's using it 0:17:04.316 --> 0:17:06.876 and come to find out that was racrate. 0:17:09.116 --> 0:17:12.236 Te of the young men were arrested. All three confessed. 0:17:13.316 --> 0:17:16.476 Kenny Smith explained that he'd been approached by Billy Williams 0:17:16.516 --> 0:17:19.996 a month earlier. He knew Williams from high school. The 0:17:20.036 --> 0:17:22.276 two of them had talked out on his front porch. 0:17:22.996 --> 0:17:26.636 Smith said, quote, Billy said he knew someone that wanted 0:17:26.636 --> 0:17:29.716 somebody hurt. Billy said the person wanted to pay to 0:17:29.756 --> 0:17:32.636 have it done. Billy said the person would pay fifteen 0:17:32.716 --> 0:17:34.036 hundred dollars to do the job. 0:17:34.676 --> 0:17:34.956 I think. 0:17:34.996 --> 0:17:36.996 I told Billy I would think about it and get 0:17:36.996 --> 0:17:39.796 back with him. Smith then says he agrees to do 0:17:39.876 --> 0:17:43.396 it and recruits John Parker to help. Two weeks later, 0:17:43.636 --> 0:17:46.036 Smith met with the man Williams had been in contact with. 0:17:46.636 --> 0:17:49.556 He didn't identify himself and they had no idea who 0:17:49.596 --> 0:17:52.956 he was. The man said he wanted someone taken care 0:17:52.996 --> 0:17:55.836 of a woman. The man said the woman would be 0:17:55.916 --> 0:17:59.116 at home, that she never had any visitors. The man 0:17:59.156 --> 0:18:02.116 said that the house was out in the country. They 0:18:02.156 --> 0:18:04.556 all met again at a coffee shop. The man drew 0:18:04.596 --> 0:18:07.516 a diagram of the house. It was supposed to look 0:18:07.556 --> 0:18:10.716 like a burglary that went bad. The man said they 0:18:10.716 --> 0:18:15.036 could take whatever they wanted. On the morning of the eighteenth, 0:18:15.076 --> 0:18:18.316 Parker and Smith met up at eight thirty. Parker brought 0:18:18.356 --> 0:18:21.596 a black handled survival knife. The two of them drove 0:18:21.636 --> 0:18:25.276 out to Koondog Cemetery Road in Parker's Pontiac Grand Prix. 0:18:25.756 --> 0:18:29.596 Smith told investigators John and I got to the Senate 0:18:29.596 --> 0:18:33.036 house around nine thirty. I think I knocked on the door. 0:18:33.476 --> 0:18:35.996 I told Missus Sennet that her husband had told us 0:18:36.316 --> 0:18:38.276 that we could come down and look around the property 0:18:38.556 --> 0:18:41.596 to see about hunting on it. John and I looked 0:18:41.636 --> 0:18:43.636 around the property for a while, then came back into 0:18:43.676 --> 0:18:46.196 the house. John and I went back to the door. 0:18:46.836 --> 0:18:49.316 We told Missus Sennet we needed to use the bathroom. 0:18:49.596 --> 0:18:52.636 And she led us inside. I went to the bathroom 0:18:52.676 --> 0:18:55.396 nearest the kitchen, and then John went to the bathroom. 0:18:55.716 --> 0:18:58.116 I stood at the edge of the kitchen talking with 0:18:58.156 --> 0:19:01.116 Missus Senet. Missus Sennet was sitting at a chair in 0:19:01.156 --> 0:19:03.996 the den. Then I heard John coming through the house. 0:19:04.836 --> 0:19:08.596 John walked up behind Missus Sennet and started hitting her. 0:19:09.276 --> 0:19:12.516 John was hitting her with his fist. I started getting 0:19:12.516 --> 0:19:16.876 the VCR while John was beating Missus Sennet. John hit 0:19:16.956 --> 0:19:19.676 Missus Sennet with a large cane and anything else he 0:19:19.676 --> 0:19:23.116 could get his hands on. John went into a frenzy. 0:19:23.756 --> 0:19:27.676 Missus Sennet was yelling just stop. We could have anything 0:19:27.716 --> 0:19:31.636 we wanted. As John was beating up Missus Sennet, I 0:19:31.716 --> 0:19:33.556 messed up some things in the house to make it 0:19:33.596 --> 0:19:37.076 look like a burglary. The last place I saw Missus Sennet, 0:19:37.516 --> 0:19:40.436 she was lying near the fireplace, covered with some kind 0:19:40.436 --> 0:19:43.076 of blanket. I had gone outside to look in the 0:19:43.076 --> 0:19:45.916 storage buildings when I saw John run out to the 0:19:45.956 --> 0:19:50.396 pond and throw some things in it. End quote. The 0:19:50.436 --> 0:19:53.316 next morning, the two of them read the newspapers and 0:19:53.436 --> 0:19:56.676 learned that the woman they had attacked was dead and 0:19:56.716 --> 0:20:09.676 that her name was Elizabeth Sennet. Did you at what 0:20:09.836 --> 0:20:14.396 point in the investigation did you come to suspect that 0:20:14.516 --> 0:20:16.236 Charles Senntt might be involved? 0:20:17.916 --> 0:20:21.316 The first thing that called our tension, the best I 0:20:21.316 --> 0:20:25.956 can remember, was he made too many alibis. You know, 0:20:26.036 --> 0:20:28.516 if you go about your casual day, you might run 0:20:28.556 --> 0:20:32.476 into one, maybe two people. But he had a pattern 0:20:32.836 --> 0:20:36.876 everywhere he went was to make him alibi. And when 0:20:36.876 --> 0:20:40.996 he won by Carl's house, Carlson said, told me you'd 0:20:41.036 --> 0:20:44.276 never been to his house except that one time. 0:20:46.076 --> 0:20:50.036 Eight to eight thirty Chill Kendrick eight thirty to nine, 0:20:50.436 --> 0:20:55.996 Sam Garrett Junior nine o'clock, Billy Alexander nine fifteen, Missus 0:20:56.076 --> 0:20:59.836 Louise Island sees them leave Westside Church nine thirty to ten, 0:21:00.396 --> 0:21:04.916 Carl roadin ten, Teresa Hall ten point fifteen, a phone 0:21:04.916 --> 0:21:08.356 call with Tammy Sue Wright, eleven am with Brenda sprayed 0:21:08.396 --> 0:21:12.196 on Woodmontre even Tscumbia, and on and on. 0:21:13.756 --> 0:21:16.836 He made too many of it. It was overkilled. You know. 0:21:16.876 --> 0:21:20.076 He stopped to see people that had never seen and 0:21:20.116 --> 0:21:23.116 that just threw up a red flag to us. Why 0:21:23.196 --> 0:21:26.276 is he seeing all these people for the first time 0:21:26.596 --> 0:21:29.476 that had to be at the time his wife's being murdered, 0:21:30.116 --> 0:21:33.596 you know, and even on his way home. I don't 0:21:33.596 --> 0:21:36.276 know if you're familiar where it happened at out in 0:21:36.356 --> 0:21:37.796 the county. Have you ever been there? 0:21:39.276 --> 0:21:42.236 Sat koondomps in the road, and. 0:21:42.676 --> 0:21:45.076 It's a good ways out there. People along the way, 0:21:45.156 --> 0:21:48.636 even on the highway two forty seven, Gord, they said 0:21:48.636 --> 0:21:51.116 he had stopped and said he had never stopped here before. 0:21:52.636 --> 0:21:55.636 He could tell you every time, everything, every day. Well 0:21:55.716 --> 0:21:58.236 it had my wife just been murdered in my home. 0:21:59.196 --> 0:22:03.276 I couldn't tell you nothing. My mind's gone, but he 0:22:03.396 --> 0:22:05.996 knew everything in detail. That's a red flag. 0:22:07.676 --> 0:22:12.076 So it's And then Carl told us that in the 0:22:12.116 --> 0:22:17.236 car Carl takes him to the hospital that night, he 0:22:17.316 --> 0:22:21.236 says said that Senate said to him they beat her 0:22:21.276 --> 0:22:24.276 up pretty bad or something like that. They shouldn't have 0:22:24.316 --> 0:22:27.676 done it that way. How does he know there's two. 0:22:27.916 --> 0:22:34.836 Yeah, yeah, when you use a word bay, yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:22:34.236 --> 0:22:40.636 I understand that. When Senate is he tells the story 0:22:40.676 --> 0:22:42.436 about how it comes back to the house, he sees 0:22:42.476 --> 0:22:46.436 his wife's body, and then they said, well what did 0:22:46.476 --> 0:22:49.396 you do? And he said, I didn't touch her, even 0:22:49.396 --> 0:22:53.396 though he was trained and surely that was another red flag. 0:22:54.356 --> 0:22:57.356 His wife was lying mortally wounded a few feet away. 0:22:57.956 --> 0:23:00.196 He didn't touch her. And this was a man who 0:23:00.236 --> 0:23:01.316 was trained in CPR. 0:23:02.116 --> 0:23:04.596 That was a question where I wonder, first thing you're 0:23:04.596 --> 0:23:07.236 going to do is go to your wife. If it 0:23:07.236 --> 0:23:12.156 had been my wife laying there plunging bloody and now, 0:23:12.796 --> 0:23:15.476 first thing I would have done was checked her, grabbed her. 0:23:15.836 --> 0:23:17.996 I would have had some kind of evidence on me 0:23:18.516 --> 0:23:22.116 that I had made contact with. He lived sixteen miles out, 0:23:22.996 --> 0:23:24.876 It's going to take him a while to get there. 0:23:25.436 --> 0:23:28.036 So what are you doing the whole time? Are you 0:23:28.236 --> 0:23:30.996 just standing there looking at her? Then you're not going 0:23:31.036 --> 0:23:33.716 to check her? That's a red flag. 0:23:34.996 --> 0:23:35.196 You know. 0:23:35.276 --> 0:23:37.276 There would have been some kind of evidence that you 0:23:37.316 --> 0:23:38.596 were to check your why. 0:23:38.956 --> 0:23:57.956 That he did not. In The Brothers Grim telling of 0:23:57.996 --> 0:24:01.116 Little Red riding Hood, a fairy tale beloved by small 0:24:01.196 --> 0:24:04.436 children for centuries, Little Red riding Hood is tricked by 0:24:04.436 --> 0:24:08.676 a wolf dressed as her grandmother and eating. She's in 0:24:08.836 --> 0:24:11.636 saved by a hunter who cuts open the wolf's belly, 0:24:12.076 --> 0:24:14.636 glimpses her red cap, and pulls her out. 0:24:15.436 --> 0:24:19.436 Ah, how frightened I have been? How dark it was 0:24:19.516 --> 0:24:23.596 inside the wolf's. Little Red riding Hood, however, quickly fetched 0:24:23.636 --> 0:24:26.516 great stones with which to fill the wolf's belly, and 0:24:26.596 --> 0:24:29.636 when he awoke, he wanted to run away, but the 0:24:29.676 --> 0:24:33.156 stones were so heavy that he collapsed at once and 0:24:33.316 --> 0:24:33.956 fell dead. 0:24:34.436 --> 0:24:37.236 Then another wolf stalks her jumps on the roof of 0:24:37.276 --> 0:24:39.876 her grandmother's house, and Little Red riding Hood and her 0:24:39.876 --> 0:24:43.196 grandmother foil him by putting a pot of sausage flavored 0:24:43.196 --> 0:24:44.396 water in front of her house. 0:24:44.956 --> 0:24:47.956 Then the smell of the sausages reached the wolf, and 0:24:48.076 --> 0:24:51.756 he sniffed and peeped down, and at last stretched out 0:24:51.756 --> 0:24:54.676 his neck so far that he could no longer keep 0:24:54.676 --> 0:24:57.836 his footing, and began to slip and slip down from 0:24:57.836 --> 0:25:01.476 the roof straight into the great trough and was drowned. 0:25:02.356 --> 0:25:06.076 But Little Red riding Hood went joyously home, and no 0:25:06.116 --> 0:25:09.116 one ever did anything to harm her again. 0:25:12.796 --> 0:25:15.916 Why do children so cheerfully indulge in a story that 0:25:16.036 --> 0:25:19.796 is about, let's be clear, a pedophile because the wolf 0:25:19.836 --> 0:25:22.356 gets his come upance in the end. It's the same 0:25:22.396 --> 0:25:26.476 principle that explains everything from Sherlock Holmes to the television 0:25:26.476 --> 0:25:30.116 show Law and Order to countless Tablady true crime podcasts. 0:25:30.876 --> 0:25:33.036 We are more than happy to wallow in stories of 0:25:33.076 --> 0:25:36.716 madness and depravity so long as order is restored in 0:25:36.756 --> 0:25:42.756 the end. Crime stories are exercises in moral assurance. With 0:25:42.876 --> 0:25:45.876 the Senate case, it's enormously tempting to tell a story 0:25:45.916 --> 0:25:49.196 this way. The case is pure Southern Gothic. I mean 0:25:49.396 --> 0:25:51.636 a preacher who has lost his way, a house on 0:25:51.676 --> 0:25:54.916 a lonely mountain road called for goodness sake, Coon Dog 0:25:55.036 --> 0:25:58.876 Cemetery Road, and then two local killers for hire, speeding 0:25:58.916 --> 0:26:01.916