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Speaker 2: Hello, everyone, welcome back to Facing Evil. I'm Rascha Peccarero
Speaker 2: and I'm Yvett Gentilay, and today we're talking about the
Speaker 2: murders of Charles Scudder and Joseph Odom, which is also
Speaker 2: known as the Corpsewood Manner Murders. And you guys, this
Speaker 2: one really has it all. Satanism, sex parties, and a
Speaker 2: creepy mansion in the woods.
Speaker 3: It sure does.
Speaker 2: But it's also about two people trying to break free
Speaker 2: from a society that did not accept them, and they
Speaker 2: ended up six at least for a little while, until
Speaker 2: that society came for them and did them in.
Speaker 4: Listeners familiar with the Satanic Panic Scare of the nineteen
Speaker 4: eighties might be familiar with this case, which took place
Speaker 4: in the Deep South. No less, and here is an
Speaker 4: interesting fact. Bobby Lee Cook, a famous lawyer who was
Speaker 4: involved with the Atlanta child murders and the case that
Speaker 4: inspired Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, played
Speaker 4: a part here. He represented the sons of one of
Speaker 4: the murder victims in the estate dispute that followed the murders.
Speaker 2: And that was the same lawyer that inspired the TV
Speaker 2: show Mattlocke that ran in the nineteen eighties and the
Speaker 2: nineteen nineties. Anyhow, today we are incredibly excited to welcome
Speaker 2: podcaster B. T. Harmon, who has also written about this
Speaker 2: case for Atlanta Magazine. I am incredibly honored to dig
Speaker 2: deep into the story of Charles Scudder and Joseph Odin
Speaker 2: with BT today. But first our producer Trevor is going
Speaker 2: to take us through today's case.
Speaker 5: They became not necessarily the classical interpretation of devil worshipers
Speaker 5: quote Satanists. They became basically earth worshiping people. Their architectural
Speaker 5: style of their home, their patterns for living, the total
Speaker 5: dependence on the earth and its source of power, their
Speaker 5: total dependence on their own food sources, their total independence
Speaker 5: from all embarrassed types of lifestyles.
Speaker 1: Charles Scudder and Joseph Odom were a couple who were
Speaker 1: murdered in their home in Treon, Georgia in nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 1: Charles and Joseph had moved to Chattooga County, Georgia, from Chicago,
Speaker 1: where Charles taught for many years at Loyola University. Charles
Speaker 1: was a lover of science, art, drama, and music, and
Speaker 1: considered himself extremely counter cultural. He kept a pet monkey,
Speaker 1: dyed his hair unusual colors, and heavily identified with the
Speaker 1: Adams family. Charles was also publicly a member of the
Speaker 1: Church of Satan, and would even drive into town in
Speaker 1: a jeep that he had painted with pentagrams. The Church
Speaker 1: of Satan supported the notion that anything goes between two
Speaker 1: consenting adults, and it was a place where he found
Speaker 1: acceptance in a time when mainstream American society didn't accept
Speaker 1: gay people. In the late nineteen seventies, Charles and Joseph Odam,
Speaker 1: then his live in housekeeper, decided to leave Chicago on
Speaker 1: a plot in rural Georgia. They cleared the land, laid
Speaker 1: the bricks and insalled a water pumping system for what
Speaker 1: they would call Corpsewood manor their dream house, on forty
Speaker 1: five acres. The home included a library with books on
Speaker 1: the occult human skulls and a pink gargoyle over the
Speaker 1: front entrance. There were also stained glass windows that Charles
Speaker 1: had made himself, and on the third floor of this
Speaker 1: building was a space they called the Pink Room, and
Speaker 1: that's where the couple would entertain guests. The walls were
Speaker 1: decorated with candles, whips, chains, and even a log book
Speaker 1: listing guest sexual predilections. And in nearby Treon, Georgia, rumors
Speaker 1: surrounded these quote homosexual devil worshipers, as they were sometimes called,
Speaker 1: but people would still visit just to see the place,
Speaker 1: and Charles would give visitors homemade wine and let people
Speaker 1: hunt on their property. One of those visitors was a
Speaker 1: troubled teenager named Kenneth Avery Brock. Avery, as he was known,
Speaker 1: had had a number of alleged sexual encounters with Charles Scudder,
Speaker 1: and he believed that Charles and Joseph were millionaires. As
Speaker 1: it turns out, this was not true, but on the
Speaker 1: night of December twelfth, nineteen eighty two, Charles and Joseph
Speaker 1: were throwing a party. Avery Brock came that night bringing
Speaker 1: his friend to Tony West. Together, Avery and Tony hatched
Speaker 1: a plan to rob their hosts. In the pink room,
Speaker 1: Charles served their guest homemade wine while Joseph stayed in
Speaker 1: the main house to clean up after dinner. That's when
Speaker 1: Avery stepped out and returned with a rifle, and he
Speaker 1: pointed it directly at Charles. Then Avery bound and gagged
Speaker 1: Charles with a bedsheet. Avery then went to the main house,
Speaker 1: where he found Joseph in the kitchen and shot him
Speaker 1: four times. He also killed the couple's two dogs. The
Speaker 1: killers then dragged Charles into the house, where they ripped
Speaker 1: off his gag and asked him where the money was.
Speaker 1: Then they shot and killed Charles. Avery and Tony then
Speaker 1: ransacked the house, but left with only a handful of
Speaker 1: coins and a few knick knacks. The pair were later
Speaker 1: arrested and both were eventually sentenced to life in prison.
Speaker 1: The trial and surrounding coverage of the murders played on
Speaker 1: fears that were widespread at the time, both about Satanism
Speaker 1: and about homosexuality. Years later, the abandoned Corpsewood Manor was
Speaker 1: vandalized and burned to the ground. Today, only ruins remain
Speaker 1: of the once elegant structure. In rural North Georgia. And
Speaker 1: so who were Charles Scudder and Joseph odom and how
Speaker 1: does their story reflect the dangers of living through a
Speaker 1: period of American history rife with paranoia, homophobia, and violence.
Speaker 2: Oh looha everyone, I am so excited to welcome our
Speaker 2: guest for today's episode. So joining us to discuss the
Speaker 2: murder of Charles Scudder and Joseph odom Or.
Speaker 3: As many of you know, this is.
Speaker 2: Also called the Corpsewood Murders is writer B. T.
Speaker 6: Harmon.
Speaker 2: BT has written at length about this case for Atlanta Magazine,
Speaker 2: and he is also the host of the true crime
Speaker 2: historical podcast Catolic. He joins us, now, welcome at Komo
Speaker 2: may to Facing EVILBT.
Speaker 7: Thank you, it's good to be here.
Speaker 3: We are so.
Speaker 2: Honored to have you here, and we're just going to
Speaker 2: dive right in. My sister and I of course have
Speaker 2: done a deep dive. We know who you are, but
Speaker 2: we want our listeners to know more about you. So
Speaker 2: if you could tell us a little bit about your history,
Speaker 2: particularly with true crime, and what brought you to historical
Speaker 2: true crime.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 8: So, I'm forty one years old, live in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 8: I grew up in a small town in Alabama called
Speaker 8: Florence and had a corporate job for a while, and
Speaker 8: then about six or seven years ago, launched out on
Speaker 8: my own to start a new career. So got into
Speaker 8: kind of creative consulting, working with small businesses, and in
Speaker 8: the midst of that, decided to launch two podcasts. So
Speaker 8: my first podcast was called Blue Baby's Pink. It's sort
Speaker 8: of my personal coming out story and very memoir esque.
Speaker 8: And then my second podcast was completely different, a total
Speaker 8: one to eighty. We went to from a personal story
Speaker 8: of faith and sexuality to true crime and history. And
Speaker 8: so I launched the podcast called cat Lick in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 8: and it covers a very unique span of time in
Speaker 8: Atlantis history between nineteen eleven and nineteen fifteen and four
Speaker 8: separate incidences that were playing out. All four really had
Speaker 8: sort of an angle of racism, racial terror, and the
Speaker 8: stories were just so unbelievably sensational. It was like something
Speaker 8: out of Hollywood, and all the newspapers in Atlanta were
Speaker 8: covering them simultaneously and not really That podcast was a
Speaker 8: result of about five years of very in depth research,
Speaker 8: getting very nitty gritty on the historical details, but I'm
Speaker 8: really proud of it and how it turned out.
Speaker 4: Wow, that's quite a transition, right to go into true crime.
Speaker 4: Can I just ask you a question, how did you
Speaker 4: come up with the name cat lick?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 8: So I just love a good, clever, creative name. And
Speaker 8: I discovered this word cat lick. It sort of has
Speaker 8: like an English British route and it's kind of a
Speaker 8: slang word for like imagine like a mom tells her child, Hey,
Speaker 8: go go wash up, and he comes back and he
Speaker 8: just sort of he didn't really wash, He just sort
Speaker 8: of dusted himself off, and she says.
Speaker 7: No, that's just a cat lick.
Speaker 8: It's like a cat lick do you write you know,
Speaker 8: you didn't fully wash.
Speaker 7: And so to me it was it was sort of a.
Speaker 8: Really great proxy for the way this nation has handled
Speaker 8: a lot of race issues.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 8: Yes, we've we'd like to think that we've done a
Speaker 8: thorough washing, but when you really get down to it,
Speaker 8: we really haven't.
Speaker 7: And it's just a little cat lick.
Speaker 8: And it has the letters at L right in the
Speaker 8: middle of the word catlick, which was you know, I
Speaker 8: just thought that was really cool.
Speaker 7: So to me, it was just it was it was
Speaker 7: the right name.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. How clever is that on
Speaker 4: every level? You know, let's just jump right into it.
Speaker 4: Can you tell us when you first heard about the
Speaker 4: Corpse Wood murders.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so it was actually in the midst of producing Catlic.
Speaker 8: I was releasing weekly episodes and I got an Instagram
Speaker 8: message from a fan who was listening to catlic and.
Speaker 7: He said, hey, your next podcast should be about the Corpse.
Speaker 8: Would Manner murders. And id ever heard of that before? So,
Speaker 8: of course, did what we all do. I googled it
Speaker 8: and boy, that was a whole rabbit hole and I
Speaker 8: probably spent I don't know, two or three hours just
Speaker 8: learning about that case. And it took place, you know,
Speaker 8: maybe forty maybe sixty miles north of where I live
Speaker 8: here in Atlanta, happened in the seventies and eighties, And
Speaker 8: so once I discovered that that was on my radar
Speaker 8: and I thought, boy, this is a this is a
Speaker 8: fascinating story on a lot of levels.
Speaker 2: I want to know so much more, bt so much more,
Speaker 2: like I mean, especially not having heard about it and
Speaker 2: then hearing about it from a fan.
Speaker 3: Do you know that area? And did it surprise you?
Speaker 2: That this type of thing or horrific murder would happen
Speaker 2: in that rural area in Georgia.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so the learn that took place. It's a county
Speaker 8: called Chattooga County. Like I said, it's about an hour
Speaker 8: hour and a half drive north of Atlanta. Of course,
Speaker 8: I'm in Atlanta for over a decade now. Love the city, progressive, global,
Speaker 8: big airport, a lot of just great arts and culture scene. Yeah, diversity,
Speaker 8: it's great. But you know, like a lot of states,
Speaker 8: once you get you know, a ways outside of the
Speaker 8: big city, things get very rural very quickly. And I listened.
Speaker 8: I grew up in a small town. I love small
Speaker 8: town USA. I think it's fantastic, and my heart is
Speaker 8: still there in some ways. But yeah, Chatooga County. The
Speaker 8: city is called Tryon, which is where these gentlemen lived. Yeah,
Speaker 8: extremely rural. And when I went there, you know, because
Speaker 8: again the whole story took place in the late seventies,
Speaker 8: so this was we just had the fortieth anniversary of
Speaker 8: the murders, right, And so when I went there, I
Speaker 8: was I was just shocked at how rural it still was, right.
Speaker 7: I mean forty years later, right, right, And something I.
Speaker 8: Can't imagine what this area was like, you know, forty
Speaker 8: years ago, because even today, I mean it's, you know,
Speaker 8: a beautiful area, but just impossibly different from Atlanta in
Speaker 8: so many ways.
Speaker 2: I would love to know what you personally thought, especially
Speaker 2: on your journey and going to try on and just
Speaker 2: seeing it for yourself. Did you feel like vibes? Was
Speaker 2: it haunted?
Speaker 3: What were your first instincts and feelings when you were there?
Speaker 8: Yeah, So one of the days I was there was
Speaker 8: the middle of the summer. It literally was one hundred
Speaker 8: and one hundred and three degrees that day, so just
Speaker 8: one of these sweltering southern hot days that you know,
Speaker 8: grow up in Alabama very familiar with. But yeah, visiting
Speaker 8: that area obviously, I wanted to get a feel for
Speaker 8: what's it like now? And it was really interesting.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 8: I had lunch at one of the few little cafes
Speaker 8: in town, and my waitress was maybe in her twenties,
Speaker 8: and I just said, you know, hey, have you ever
Speaker 8: heard of the Corpsewood Manor Murders? And her eyes, you know,
Speaker 8: they got real big, and she said, oh, yeah, that's over,
Speaker 8: that's over on Devil Worshippers Mountain. And you know, my
Speaker 8: all of high school, our friends would go up there,
Speaker 8: and one of my friends she stole a brick, and
Speaker 8: you know, if you steal a brick from the ruins,
Speaker 8: you're cursed. And sure enough her her parents were in
Speaker 8: a car wreck. So yeah, there was that kind of energy.
Speaker 8: And she told me, she's like, if you go up there,
Speaker 8: bring a baseball bat. And so, you know, it's just
Speaker 8: it's small town.
Speaker 7: It's folklore.
Speaker 8: At this point, those stories are, you know, etched in
Speaker 8: the minds of everyone in that county. And I got
Speaker 8: in my car and I drove up Mountain View Road.
Speaker 8: I mean, up this winding gravel road. All the houses
Speaker 8: have sort of these big, sort of impending fences and gates,
Speaker 8: and you know, rebel flags are flying and don't tread
Speaker 8: on me flags, and so, I mean it did have
Speaker 8: sort of this ominousness about it. And I got up
Speaker 8: there and it was remarkably creepy. I mean, I feel
Speaker 8: like that's.
Speaker 7: So cliche to say, and obviously there's a psychology thing.
Speaker 8: Going on there in my head, but yeah, it just
Speaker 8: had this it sort of had a heaviness about it.
Speaker 8: And the site is now privately owned and you technically
Speaker 8: aren't supposed to go there, but lots of people still
Speaker 8: go up there and trapes around the property and go
Speaker 8: through the ruins. The house has collapsed. It was burned
Speaker 8: shortly after the whole incident happened. Arson has set fire
Speaker 8: to it, so it is just a very haunted ruins.
Speaker 8: Now it's bricks. There's the old arch, one of the
Speaker 8: main arches from the gazebo that was there, overgrown with
Speaker 8: vines and so it's just dense woods. But yeah, it
Speaker 8: definitely has that energy to it.
Speaker 4: Do you think that Charles was, you know, into Satanic
Speaker 4: stuff or do you think he was just an atheist
Speaker 4: and just you know, he and Joseph were just living
Speaker 4: their lives doing you know, the things that they enjoyed doing.
Speaker 4: What do you think about that? Because it's like we create,
Speaker 4: you know, we create stuff in our head right of
Speaker 4: what we think people are doing, but are they actually
Speaker 4: doing that stuff?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 8: So this is where I again, I am not an
Speaker 8: expert on the Church of Satan. I grew up my
Speaker 8: dad was a Southern Baptist pastor, so you know, I
Speaker 8: don't have expertise here, but based off my research.
Speaker 3: Me either yeah, right, not like either.
Speaker 8: When the Church of Satan started, It wasn't they weren't
Speaker 8: committing duplicitous acts and you know, sacrificing animals. It's almost
Speaker 8: like a troll job, right, It's like for people who
Speaker 8: are atheists, this is a great way to kind of
Speaker 8: troll people of faith. So Charles Scudder was a he
Speaker 8: was a counterculture guy. I mean he I think I
Speaker 8: read at one point he had pink hair.
Speaker 7: I believe I read.
Speaker 8: And you have to fact check me. I think he
Speaker 8: had a pet monkey at one time.
Speaker 7: So yeah, that's it.
Speaker 8: And so I kind of viewed his involvement with the
Speaker 8: Church of Satan is like it was just another way
Speaker 8: to kind of be different. And you know, but he
Speaker 8: did the symbology. He definitely loved you know, when he
Speaker 8: built the Big Mannor there were statues of Baphomet, and
Speaker 8: there were stained glass windows with pentagrams, and of course
Speaker 8: there was this towering pink gargoyle over the main doorway.
Speaker 3: And so I've seen the photos.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, right, so you know they definitely I mean,
Speaker 8: he he was a card carrying member. They literally have
Speaker 8: found his name on rolls at the church. The membership
Speaker 8: role at the Church of Satan. So what level he
Speaker 8: was involved, we don't know, but we don't Again, there's
Speaker 8: no record of him doing anything criminal around his Church
Speaker 8: of Satan involvement.
Speaker 4: You know, when you think about Charles and Joseph like
Speaker 4: doing this so many years ago and the times that
Speaker 4: we live in now, right, it's crazy to go and
Speaker 4: do that. But back then, they had to have such
Speaker 4: tremendous courage, like just to go out in the middle
Speaker 4: of nowhere and build their dream home and do the
Speaker 4: things that they did, Right, I mean, don't you find
Speaker 4: that fascinating and interesting that they were definitely I would
Speaker 4: say ahead of their time back then.
Speaker 8: I think courageous is an appropriate word. I think there
Speaker 8: was also an element of desperation. Right, You've got these
Speaker 8: two men. They are living in the suburbs of Chicago
Speaker 8: or all intensive purposes, they're closeted. You know, this was
Speaker 8: a time where it was still very scary.
Speaker 7: To be gay, even in an urban area like Chicago.
Speaker 8: You know, we had the AIDS epidemic was just around
Speaker 8: the corner, you know, it kind of began early eighties,
Speaker 8: and so you know, it really shows the level to
Speaker 8: which these men were willing to go to kind of
Speaker 8: escape that closeted life, and there you know, there's a
Speaker 8: narrative here beyond just the sexuality piece. There's a narrative
Speaker 8: of just sort of being fed up with the trappings
Speaker 8: of modernity as it were, right like I think they
Speaker 8: were also just Scudder had been working at Loyola. He
Speaker 8: wrote extensively about the increased paperwork, and the students were
Speaker 8: less respectful, and his colleagues were kind of jerks to him,
Speaker 8: and so there's an element of that of just wanting
Speaker 8: to escape from the stress of modern life and get
Speaker 8: back to the land. So there's kind of that component.
Speaker 7: There's a lot of different narratives in this story.
Speaker 8: There's a sexuality angle, there's a satanic panic situation, which
Speaker 8: is a whole other angle that was happening and we
Speaker 8: were right in the throes of that in the late seventies.
Speaker 8: And then there's sort of this get back to the
Speaker 8: land angle as well.
Speaker 2: Do we think all the rumors when all that came out,
Speaker 2: especially when they were investigating the murders, you know, obviously
Speaker 2: their life lifestyle was on trial as opposed to the
Speaker 2: murderers being on trial. Do you think it was all
Speaker 2: surrounding homophobia and paranoia.
Speaker 8: Took a couple of days after the murders, but when
Speaker 8: the Atlanta media picked up this story, uh, one of
Speaker 8: the phrases that kept coming up in their headlines were
Speaker 8: homosexual devil worshipers. Right, what's the weight of that phrase.
Speaker 8: I mean, it's you know, if you're a journalist, that's
Speaker 8: fantastic clickbait as much as clickbait could have could have existed.
Speaker 3: Sensationalism and it's finest.
Speaker 8: That's it, right, And so so that that that became
Speaker 8: part of the narrative very early, and that was a
Speaker 8: significant piece. You have two men who were both sexual
Speaker 8: and religious minorities in a extremely rural, very uh you know,
Speaker 8: very conservative, uh, small town, and so.
Speaker 7: That that was a big part of it.
Speaker 8: I'll tell you an interesting, an interesting anecdote from this
Speaker 8: story in the newspaper clippings. The sheriff, who was the
Speaker 8: primary sort of investigator, once all that, once the murders happened.
Speaker 8: I believe even one of his court testimonies, the discussion
Speaker 8: of motive came up and he said, this is someone
Speaker 8: who was keenly aware of what was happening. He attributed
Speaker 8: fifty percent of the motive of the murders was robbery.
Speaker 3: Because the money they thought they had.
Speaker 7: Okay, yep.
Speaker 8: He chalked up the other fifty percent too, the fact
Speaker 8: that they were gay and that they were quote unquote
Speaker 8: devil worshippers. And when that came up with one of
Speaker 8: the suspects, I think it was Avery Brock. He said, basically,
Speaker 8: we gave those devil worshippers, you know what they had coming.
Speaker 8: That's a paraphrase. And so there was a hate crime
Speaker 8: element to this beyond just the robbery. And I think
Speaker 8: that was you know, again, it's this dehumanization thing. When
Speaker 8: we judge people so severely, we dehumanize them, then doing
Speaker 8: violence to them is no longer that big of a
Speaker 8: deal because they had it coming.
Speaker 2: Right, never thought about it that way, Yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: from their perspective, I've never thought about that. Yeah.
Speaker 4: It's just so interesting because you know, like Russia was
Speaker 4: saying about our great grandfather who had all these wild parties,
Speaker 4: you know, in the Franklin House here in Los Angeles,
Speaker 4: the same thing goes for you know, Charles and Joseph
Speaker 4: they were having you know, these sex parties and people
Speaker 4: coming in and out of the house. I mean, do
Speaker 4: you think that these guys were like wanting to take
Speaker 4: advantage of them in some way, you know, because one
Speaker 4: of the guys was having relations with Charles. So do
Speaker 4: you think it was definitely premeditated.
Speaker 8: Yeah, we definitely know it was very premeditated. The two perps,
Speaker 8: Brock and West, these were not smart people. Their backgrounds
Speaker 8: were very shady, you know, petty crime from an early age.
Speaker 8: One of the gentlemen actually murdered someone when he was
Speaker 8: a child. I think it was a relative or something,
Speaker 8: and so he.
Speaker 3: Was his brother.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, that's right, right, and so that was part
Speaker 8: of this. Uh so it was definitely premeditated. Again, it
Speaker 8: was a crime of opportunity and there in their minds
Speaker 8: they just assumed, well, these these guys have a big house.
Speaker 8: There must be money hidden in this house somewhere. So,
Speaker 8: you know, just not not the smartest guys on the block.
Speaker 8: But that definitely was that was the initial motive which
Speaker 8: got the ball rolling.
Speaker 4: This is just such a crazy story, you know when
Speaker 4: you think about it. Do they know who actually burned
Speaker 4: down the house?
Speaker 7: They don't know.
Speaker 3: They're probably like burn it, burn it to the ground.
Speaker 2: Whatever happened here, And all of the folklore that I'm
Speaker 2: sure is followed in the years after this horrific murder.
Speaker 2: It makes me so sad to see that this something
Speaker 2: like this would happen again. I know it was in
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties. We've come a long way yet, We've
Speaker 2: got so far to go. But do you think initially,
Speaker 2: of course, that their murders were, like you said, dismissed
Speaker 2: because these perps dehumanized them because they thought that they
Speaker 2: were xyz all these horrible things. Do we think that
Speaker 2: it was truly just because they were gay, or do
Speaker 2: you think it had a satanic thing too, or all
Speaker 2: of the above?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think it was the perfect storm.
Speaker 8: I mean, even now, if someone is a self availed
Speaker 8: homosexual and they are part of the Church of Satan,
Speaker 8: that that person would be shrouded in great taboo, right, Yeah,
Speaker 8: And so back then, of course, it was probably tenfold
Speaker 8: the level of misunderstanding that existed culturally on what it
Speaker 8: meant to be gay. I mean, it was just barely
Speaker 8: in the American conscience at that point, and as it
Speaker 8: existed in that conscience, it was fully taboo, fully disgusting,
Speaker 8: fully inappropriate here in the South, fully worthy of being
Speaker 8: damned to hell.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 8: I mean, that's the kind of theology that exists in
Speaker 8: the South certainly then and it still does today, and
Speaker 8: so so yeah, I do think that colored the way
Speaker 8: that people thought about this case.
Speaker 7: Back then.
Speaker 8: It was probably kind of easy to dismiss this as
Speaker 8: an issue of justice. Well that's what they you know,
Speaker 8: that's what they had coming. And there were there were
Speaker 8: quotes in several newspapers where they did any man on
Speaker 8: the street interviews with folks around Atlanta, and several people
Speaker 8: said that wow, which was certainly reflective of the times.
Speaker 4: So what do you think about the sentences that the
Speaker 4: two men got. Do you feel that it was a
Speaker 4: fair sentence?
Speaker 7: Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 8: I mean, the two gentlemen are still in jail to
Speaker 8: this day. They were just young, barely teenagers at the time,
Speaker 8: and they're becoming old men in jail, and so, you know,
Speaker 8: the justice system prevailed and they were you know, quickly
Speaker 8: apprehended within days of the crime, and they're still serving
Speaker 8: time for it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd have to agree with you on that. It's
Speaker 4: like it seems like this is the time that our
Speaker 4: you know, our system actually worked.
Speaker 2: As long as we've been doing this, it's rare that
Speaker 2: that has happened, especially in you know, I can definitely
Speaker 2: say that I believe this was a partial hate crime. Yes,
Speaker 2: it was probably, like you said, the perfect storm beauty.
Speaker 2: But I would love to know, on a personal note
Speaker 2: for you, especially, you know, being from Alabama and living
Speaker 2: in Georgia and being a for all intents and purposes,
Speaker 2: a happily gay married man, how do you relate, if
Speaker 2: at all, to Charles and Joseph. How has this case
Speaker 2: impacted you and your life?
Speaker 8: So I spent the first thirty ish years of my
Speaker 8: life deep in the closet, grew up again in a
Speaker 8: very very conservative Christian family, and the only thing I
Speaker 8: knew to survive through my childhood, teens and twenties was
Speaker 8: to just be closeted. And you know, my coping mechanism
Speaker 8: at that time was work. Once I graduated college, I
Speaker 8: became a workaholic. And so I can't say that I
Speaker 8: perfectly identify with how those two men felt, but I
Speaker 8: bet there.
Speaker 7: Was a lot of overlap.
Speaker 8: The feeling of soul crushing shame, the feeling of not
Speaker 8: being worthy, the feeling of the crippling fear of imagining
Speaker 8: what life would be like if those who knew this
Speaker 8: dark secret about you know, what they would do or
Speaker 8: how they would judge you. So yeah, I get it,
Speaker 8: and I understand why they would want to run from
Speaker 8: that life that they had in Chicago and just get
Speaker 8: away and build a castle in the woods to try
Speaker 8: to find peace. You know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 8: that's what everyone's looking for. We're looking for a way
Speaker 8: to exist and just live our lives. And I think
Speaker 8: that's what they were doing, and so I'm really thankful
Speaker 8: that that's not my story. And listen, I'm a very
Speaker 8: optimistic person. And as you said earlier, when it comes
Speaker 8: to LGBT rights, we've got a long way to go.
Speaker 8: But I will be the first to say I love
Speaker 8: where we are now. And the life that my husband
Speaker 8: and I have been able to build here in Atlanta
Speaker 8: is just beautiful. It is unbelievably mundane, right. I mean,
Speaker 8: we have two cats, we have a garden in the summer,
Speaker 8: and we watch Netflix at night.
Speaker 7: And the fact that we're able to do that like.
Speaker 8: Unbothered for the most part, and we have neighbors that
Speaker 8: are so incredibly supportive and love us.
Speaker 7: It's amazing.
Speaker 8: And so to me, that's another sub narrative of this
Speaker 8: story is people don't have to necessarily move to the
Speaker 8: woods anymore to escape the shame of the closet. You know,
Speaker 8: in some areas, you know they probably want to, but
Speaker 8: thankfully there are refuges where people can build really beautiful
Speaker 8: lives for themselves.
Speaker 2: You know what we do here on Facing Eveill we
Speaker 2: always look for the light in the darkness. And I
Speaker 2: know it's hard to find the light in some case cases,
Speaker 2: especially one as gruesome as this. But just in this
Speaker 2: short time that we've had with you, I know that
Speaker 2: you are a bright, shining light of optimism. Can you
Speaker 2: give our listeners and Yvett n I a little light
Speaker 2: in the dark. What do you see in this case
Speaker 2: that doesn't make it so dark for us?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 7: I think two things come to mind.
Speaker 8: I mean, we referenced it earlier, but the justice system
Speaker 8: in this case worked yes, yes.
Speaker 7: And again.
Speaker 8: And when you read some of the reports from law enforcement,
Speaker 8: you know they went out of their way to say
Speaker 8: in their investigation, to be clear, we don't care that
Speaker 8: these men were gay or were devil worshippers.
Speaker 7: We are here to serve justice beautiful and so that
Speaker 7: was inspiring.
Speaker 8: And these are small town police officers in rural North
Speaker 8: Georgia in the nineteen eighties, and they were pushing through
Speaker 8: to say justice matters, and we're going to find justice
Speaker 8: for these two men, despite what anyone thinks about them.
Speaker 8: And I found that really beautiful and inspiring. The second
Speaker 8: thing I would say is, you know, it's a lesson
Speaker 8: for today, but again, look.
Speaker 7: How far we've come.
Speaker 8: Yes, the fact that we have progressed so far and
Speaker 8: LGBTQ rights and people like me are able to build
Speaker 8: wonderfully beautiful, mundane lives is really remarkable, and so I
Speaker 8: think we all should step back and let that provide
Speaker 8: a little hope, because it's really really beautiful hope.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's the life, open healing, that is, that's what
Speaker 4: it's all about. We completely, one hundred percent enjoyed speaking
Speaker 4: with you today.
Speaker 3: BT.
Speaker 4: I love how you're so Southern and you love it
Speaker 4: and you just radiate in it, you know, in all
Speaker 4: that you are. So you know, what we can all
Speaker 4: wish for for ourselves and for others is just happiness
Speaker 4: at the end of the day. Just happiness.
Speaker 7: That's it.
Speaker 3: It's really simple, it's really simple.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you so much, BT for joining us. On
Speaker 4: facing evil, and we look forward to chatting with you
Speaker 4: again real soon.
Speaker 7: Cheers.
Speaker 4: This week's message of hope and healing goes out to
Speaker 4: the pioneers, people like Charles Scudder and Joseph Odom who,
Speaker 4: finding no acceptance in the real world, built a world
Speaker 4: all of their own.
Speaker 2: And they built a space where they could be who
Speaker 2: they were in a time when it was hard to
Speaker 2: find acceptance in the wider world, and they were happy,
Speaker 2: at least for a little while.
Speaker 4: Pioneers like these make new spaces and in doing so,
Speaker 4: pave the way for others. In an interview with Mother
Speaker 4: Earth magazine about building Corpsewood Manner, Charles Scudder wrote, people
Speaker 4: often fantasize about trying out different lifestyles, but few actually
Speaker 4: change the way they live. They just don't know that.
Speaker 4: All it takes is to realize a fan is a
Speaker 4: small amount of money, a bit of luck, and a
Speaker 4: whole lot of courage.
Speaker 2: In this moment, we honor that courage. Onward and upward.
Speaker 3: Ema Emua. Well, that's our show for today.
Speaker 2: We'd love to hear what you thought about today's discussion
Speaker 2: and if there's a case you'd like for us to.
Speaker 4: Cover, find us on social media or email us at
Speaker 4: Facingeblpod at Tenderfoot dot tv.
Speaker 2: And one small request if you haven't already, please find
Speaker 2: us on iTunes and give us a good rating and
Speaker 2: a good review. If you like what we do, your
Speaker 2: support is always cherished.
Speaker 6: Until next time, Aloha.
Speaker 1: Facing Evil is a production of iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV.
Speaker 1: The show is hosted by Russia Pacuerero and Avet Gentile.
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick and Alex Williams our executive producers on behalf
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio, with producers Trevor Young and Jesse Funk, Donald
Speaker 1: albright In Payne Lindsay our executive producers on behalf of
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV, alongside producer Tracy Kaplan. Our researcher is Carolyn Talmadge.
Speaker 1: Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Find us on
Speaker 1: social media or email us at facingevilpod at tenderfoot dot tv.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio or Tenderfoot TV, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.