June 5, 2025 • 46 mins
This week, Karen and Georgia cover Harper Lee’s investigation into Reverend Willie Maxwell.
For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes.
Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
That's Georgia Hartstar, that's Karen Kilkara, and we're here to
podcast for you once again.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
We're going to do it every week if we can,
if the mood strikes us.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
If we have the sweaters with the colors that are
needed to combine and be together, magenta and lime green.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
What would you call this? Lime green? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Right, yeah, with a little forest.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah, it's loud, it's very loud.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well it looks like a nice sixties polyesterra blouse.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Okay, no, no, it's fucking fast fashioned.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
No, I mean no fast fashion with a retro bent.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah. Yeah, speaking of retro and bent. I finally did it.
Watch Pride and Prejudice.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Oh wow, how to go?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
It went great? This was at a wrestling show. I
was alone on like a Saturday night with my one.
What do I do? I had caught up with the
Valley and so I was like, oh, holy shit, I'm
gonna do this. I There was not a moment I
was bored, right, not a fucking moment, right, yes, which
is like that's all I asked for in a movie. Yep,
(01:22):
you know, yes, I wanted more. I fucking loved it
so good. It was really fucking good, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It just really gets undersold as like a chick flick
or like ay oh Jane Austin, where it's like it's
such a gorgeous unfurling of a film and the fun
of you.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
I know, Vince would have loved it if you were home, Like,
I didn't need to watch it without him at all.
So good. In fact, it probably would have been better
with him. I don't know. It was your favorite part
the first dance dance party.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
When he slams her and then she slams them.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Back when they first go it. Yeah, and it's like
and then it's also like I know that actress, that actress,
I think every actress that's famous today, Yes, you know them. Yeah,
the mom could have done without.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Her Brenda Blethline. Well that was the idea.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I know. I know, it's like the point but.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Worst mom ever.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, yes, it was. Oh and then like I got
choked up, actually got me like, you know, I don't cry,
but when she fucking told him off when they were
on the cliff or whatever, yep, I got like emotional
when she.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Was like and you're dad. That was I was supposed
to take it as a compliment my family and think
I'm shit.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I can't believe I love you? Well, fuck you? Yeah,
you know, it was very it was good.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
That's Elizabeth Bennett. She does that in every circumstance. My
favorite is also the first dance when she because I'm
always like, how does one meet that type of rejection
which everybody fears it?
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
How would you do that with a smile on your
face and be like even if that partner was a
little plane.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Or whatever whatever the line is, and then walk away
where it's just like you devastating, Especially if it was
Matthew McFadden, you'd just be.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Like, huh, how come.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Devastating?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
She's kind of like whatever. Yeah, she's so many good lines. Wait,
here's my other best favorite part. Okay, because also you
should watch via the British Detective Show because the mother
plays a detective.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Okay, and I also need to watch the other versions
of pro Prejuice because everyone had a fucking opinion. Yeah
I'm not mad at them about this, I guess for
once in my life.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
God, So I want to watch the other versions and
find out for.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Sure this series is great because it's a binge that
then lasts.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
It's not just an hour and a half.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
It's like, however many episodes can't remember And that's the
great one with Colin Firth. Sure, he plays a different
kind of mister Darcy.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I don't know if i'd be attracted to Colin Firth.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, that's my feeling, right, But Matthew McFadden's coming across
that field that you.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I didn't think i'd be attracted to him ever, And
then yeah those pants fucking.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Hand.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
But how about Dame Judy Dench's star turn. Yeah, I mean,
would she comes to that house to be like, you
tell me if you are marrying my nephew can't be born.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
It can't be born.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
She's just like, I've got this.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
It's a perfect movie.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah, it's good. I enjoyed it.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
I'm so glad.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
So we're here, So here we are.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Well stop acting mad because I'm so glad. I'm so excited. Also,
it's one of those ones where like it's a go
back to because there's things you missed. Oh also we're
not even mentioning.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
What perfectly prepared potatoes. That part where the priest cousin
comes and that.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Guy a weird cousin was so good.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
And do you remember do you know he was from
season two White Lotus, the bad gay that Jennifer Coolidge
was hanging out with.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Oh my god, same.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
He's an eighties actor too, though he's been around.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
For a long time, but he is like one of
the best of the best.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Oh my god, he's a bad gay. Yes, Tom, these
bad gays, that's the line from it. We're not fucking Yes,
that's Jennifer Coolidge.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, being quote eight gays. They're gonna kill me.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
That's good.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Oh, I'm overjoyed.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Hey good, But let's move what do you have? What
if you got what? Let's move on from perfectly Prepared Potatoes?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
I want I'm just going to keep misquoting the movie,
which driving people who really know every word.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Of the movie.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
But people on TikTok have made t shirts with him
on it. And then it says, what perfectly prepared potato?
I wish I could remember it, but it's like it says,
what perfectly prepared potatoes? Right, it's just like him looking
down like it's a fan shirt.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, I love it so good?
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Can I just let you know real quick?
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah? What excellent boiled potatoes is the phrase, and it's
Tom Hollander.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Thank you, Mollie, Mollie, thank you. Wait, did you know
what excellent boiled potatoes?
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Off the dome?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I had to google?
Speaker 3 (05:39):
If I am going to be clean about this.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, please always be cleaning. There's no reason not to
thank you. There's no shame.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
I just did it wrong eight times in a row.
You get to do it wrong if you want to.
What excellent boiled potatoes? And what and what a perfectly
appointed room? Something like that? Just like bad small, so
good Okay, I'm so glad.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, thank you, Thank you guys for fucking yelling at
me until I did it. It was for my own good.
It's for my own good.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Do you feel different?
Speaker 1 (06:08):
I feel more open minded to movies like that because recommendation.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Okay, there's another one, and there's a couple versions of it,
and it's called Persuasion.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Okay. Someone else mentioned that in the comments.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
The original Persuasion is so good, okay. And it is
one of those love stories of like, it's too late,
she made the wrong call and.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
She lost him forever devastating Okay, but but did.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
She Jane Austen doesn't devastate? Permanently okay, And it is
so beautifully acting. It's the same thing where you're in
this place. It's so real, these houses that these estates
they live on whatever, and like the what it does
to people, what people are like, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
It's great barah and persuasion. I will do that.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
And you don't have to watch, you don't have to
go all the way into via. You'll just be blown
away with an amazing actress, Brenda bleth Lands because she's
like a completely different person and not that mother is
like the kind of mother that would say a thing
that would humiliate you and the whole family in front
of as many people as past.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
I have one of those.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
It's hard.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Oh I've met one of those before.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
It's painful.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And not even on purpose, that's the thing. I feel
like I have to say that, like, not on purpose,
that's your personality, right, it's tough.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Yeah, yeah, she's a little she's squeamish.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Well so we talk about merch for one second.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Oh sure, okay, because it's fucking hilarious this week.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Well, this is very exciting.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
So we each got to design our own merch, didn't
get to we just fucking did it. And then Nicole's like,
that should be real merch and they were like, okay.
So I designed my pitch was Hello, my name is
and then the name would be sucked because that's the
one I got Superintendent. I got it wrong. It was
(07:52):
episode four sixty five. You're kidding yourself sucked. So Hello
my name is Suped is now available as a mug
and a U and I have both right here with
no my name is up with my terrible handwriting.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
That's George's script, my actual scrawl, truly her design. So
then I also designed some merch and essentially people were
saying that after the election, me quoting my dad who
said we just have to Sally Forth was people were
really liking that online. So Nicole suggested we make shirts
of it, and she's like, what do you want the
(08:29):
shirt to look like? And so I picked up a
tiny legal pad and just very quickly sketched it and said,
what if it was something like this, just like a
little cartoon head of my dad saying that. And then
she was like, sounds good. What if we just do
it exactly the way you wrote it? So in this
same vein and in the same spirit, of George's merch.
We have t shirts that are my hand drawn picture
(08:51):
of my dad good which literally looks exactly like it
does saying we're gonna sally Forth.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yeah that's a perfect shirt.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
That's pretty great, I feel like for us in merch, Yeah,
this is where we want to be.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Yeah, like this is it strikes a good balance, So
I think, so this is your summer merch. Guys, bring
this to the beach.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
I don't know, I mean you could do you want
it on a towel?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Do you go to the beach?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Hello, my name is sucked on a towel.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
That's fun, great idea. I actually love that.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Do you go to the beach?
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Do you go? Do you like sand in your toes
and in your car? And then everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Purse people are like, we do people do a summer long?
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Should we do the rest of the exactly right updates?
So while we're here, sure we should.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
We have a network and it's called the Exactly Right
Podcast Network. And here are some of the updates. Well,
this is a big one. MFM Animated is brand new.
Nick Terry brings us the story of Peache the Bitter
Little Bird.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
It's my favorite. I say that every fucking time. It's
my favorite.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Yeah, this one is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
So many I get Peachy pulls a switchblade on me.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yeah it's great. I mean, no spoil.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
But George's physically threatened by a small bird to be
physically threatened by PG. So you can go find it
on YouTube right now. It's at YouTube dot com, slash
exactly right Media. And there are also seventy other episodes
of MFM animated, So if you like this one, you
might like the other ones too.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yes, please follow us on YouTube. It's very helpful. And
while you're there on YouTube, we've also got full episodes
of Buried Bones, this podcast Will Kill You, and the
little podcast called My Favorite Murder. There's tons of ideots.
Guys were making them for you. Please go check that
out YouTube dot com, slash exactly right Media. Thank you.
The end. All right, So it's summer. We need some
(10:42):
mental health time off, and so Carrie is going to
tell you a story this episode.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Yeah, we're gonna do some solo episodes, get our homework
done and go on vacation. Yeah, I have a story
for you that the book that was written about this
story I have recommended on this show so many many times.
It was one of those things where I was like, well,
I just read the one book, and I like the
one book.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
I did a.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Similar thing with The Man from the Train, which I
love so much. But I also did this with Casey
Sepp's book Furious.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Hours, Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Oh, so today I'm going to tell you about that
the case behind that book. So it starts off in
the late seventies in the small town of Alexander City, Alabama,
and a local literary icon has just moved to town.
It's none other than Alabama native and world famous author
of Takilla Mockingbird, Harper Lee. At this point, Lee has
(11:36):
won the nineteen sixty one Pulitzer for that book, which
quickly became an American classic, and Harper Lee became a
household name. But instead of embracing that celebrity, she became
even more private, and she bucked the literary world's expectations.
She didn't capitalize off the immense success of her book
and immediately cranked out a second novel. She just kind
(11:57):
of like receded. Now twenty years have passed since to
kill a Mockingbird's publication, and Harperly has never indicated that
she's doing anything else until now. Because Lee has come
to Alexander City on a mission. She's setting up interviews
throughout town and scribbling down notes all about a string
(12:18):
of suspicious deaths and a particularly sensational murder trial that
took place there in Alexander City. Harperly has been transfixed
by this case. She tells her friends it might be
the story that pulls her out of her hiatus. She's
even come up with a title for the book that
she plans to write about it. It's called The Reverend.
(12:38):
This is the story of Reverend Willie Maxwell, a black
Alabama preacher whose family members keep dying under mysterious circumstances.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Wow, I totally downloaded the audiobook and then didn't listen
to it, So this is good for me.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
This is a vacation listen exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
We build and build on these recommendations, so of course
Casey steps furious hours. The book all about this case
is the main source. Please order it from your local
independent book store.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Kay I get it from the library.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Everyone check it out and the rest of the sources
are in our show notes.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
If you want to see.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
What else are you quoting the poster that in the
library that says.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Check it out?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
If it has like the stack of books, what are
you doing that on purpose?
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Or that just probably came out of my childhood memory
because it's like a stack of books. Is there a
check mark anywhere on there?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah? I think at the top. But it's like because
you check out books, it's like a winky thing. Yeah,
And I think lying open a winky thing.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
It's just a little wiki thing.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Hey, librarians, if you have a good check it out
poster at your library, will you send us a picture
of it?
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Oh my gosh, post your photos of check it out
and you can hag us.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
And if you think you have the oldest check it
out post, like the most vintage, please let us see it.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Yes, please let us have our our.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Childhood memories come back to us. Okay, nice one, Okay,
side content.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
So we begin in the summer of ninth teen, seventy
seven years before Harper Lee arrives in Alexander City. It
is the third of August and the body of Mary
Lou Maxwell, a woman in her early forties, has just
been found in her car on the side of a
rural two lane road called Highway twenty two, and that's
just outside of Alexander City. Mary Lou's husband of twenty
(14:19):
years is a man named Willie Maxwell as sharply dressed,
captivating man in his mid forties who's often described as
being elegant. He's also a reverend. Willy preaches at various
churches and revivals throughout the area, and author Casey Sepp
writes in Furious Hours that quote, there wouldn't be anybody
nicer to you conversation wise, people said of him, You'd
(14:41):
think that man came from heaven.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
He was so smooth.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
So when Mary Lou is found dead, the reverend's reputation
takes a huge hit, and for good reason. Her death
is as suspicious as Willy's behavior. So, for example, the
night Mary Lou is found dead, Willie calls the police
and claims that he's worried she might have been in
an accident. He then directs the police straight to her car,
(15:06):
broken down on the side of Highway twenty two. So
not just a theory. When the police arrive, it's obvious
that Mary Lou was not in a car accident. Her
vehicle shows no signs of damage. The surrounding trees are untouched,
and it looks like the car has simply pulled off
the highway and been parked by the side of the road.
But Mary Lou's body has clearly been brutally attacked and strangled.
(15:28):
There's blood everywhere, including on the outside of the car,
which is hard to explain in a supposed crash. Plus,
rope is found on the ground nearby, which may have
been used as the murder weapon. It then comes to
light that things were tense between Willie and Mary Lou.
He'd been cheating on her with lots of different women,
and at the time of her death, the Maxwells were
(15:48):
in tens of thousands of dollars of debt. Then investigators
get bombshell information from the couple's neighbor. Her name is
Dorcas Anderson. She's in her late twenties, so Dorcas tells police.
Around ten pm on August third, Mary Lou had stopped
by in a panic, saying she'd just received a call
that Willie was involved in a bad car accident coming
(16:09):
home from a preaching gig, and that he'd crashed somewhere
off of Highway twenty two. Okay, So Mary Lou says
to Dorcas, I'm on my way to go get him.
But suspiciously, about an hour after this, Willie comes home
in a car with no visible damage. Mary Lou is
not with him, and Mary Lou never comes back. So
all that looks bad for Willy, but it gets even
(16:30):
worse when he immediately tries to cash in on several
of the life insurance policies that he had taken out
on hers. At that time, it was very easy to
take out life insurance policies.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
All you needed was a name.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Of birthday, a social Security number, and a talent for
forgery if you're doing it behind someone's back.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
They had machines like cigarette machines for life insurance at
the airport back then, like you just put a quarter in.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Worse feeling.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Also, what a brilliant person to think of those machines
where it's like total you know, where you get real.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Anxious about life and death.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Horrible Okay, So most of these policies were very cheap
for Willy to file, yet they promised to pay out
thousands of dollars in the event of Mary Lou's death,
and some had been taken out on her right before
the day she died, so before long, Willy Maxwell is
charged in his wife's murder. He hires a white attorney
named Tom Radney to defend him. Despite the overwhelming circumstantial
(17:31):
evidence against Willie, he winds up being acquitted after the
prosecution's key witness, who's Dorcas Anderson, changes her testimony. Suddenly,
Dorcas claims she can no longer remember what happened the
night that Mary Lou was killed. So now, even though
the people of Alexander City are deeply suspicious of him,
Willie Maxwell walks away a freeman, and with Tom Radney's help,
(17:53):
he also becomes a rich man because he is able
to cash in on his dead wife's insurance policies. The
insurance fully believe that Willie killed Mary Lou, so they
are reluctant to pay, but when they don't, Radney files
civil suits against them and ultimately forces their hand. It's
unclear exactly how much Willy makes off these policies, but
we do know that he gets a handful of checks
(18:15):
that add up to thousands of dollars, and then he
splits the money fifty to fifty with his attorney, so then,
like a twist from a soap opera, Dorcas Anderson's husband
dies and she becomes the next missus Willie Maxwell.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Okay, see where this is going?
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Not great.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
So, even after the mysterious death of his wife and
the suspicion he's involved, Willie Maxwell somehow manages to keep
on preaching, but he has to do it out of
town where the congregants are not aware of the story. Then,
in February of nineteen seventy two, about a year and
a half after Mary Lou's death, Willy's fifty two year
old brother John is found dead on the side of
(18:55):
the road about ten miles outside of Alexander City, and
according to Casey Sepp, John's cause of death is officially
listed as a heart attack due to over consumption of alcohol.
But when it comes to light that Willy has taken
out life insurance policies on his brother as well, locals
begin to theorize that Willy forced his brother John to
(19:17):
drink a lethal amount of alcohol and then left him
for dead.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Oh my god, that's how do you Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
It would be so long and like horrible.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
So the problem is that police can ever prove that
Willie Maxwell is involved, they simply don't have the evidence,
which is something that the reverend's attorney hammers home when
his client is taken in for questioning. All good things
most of the time, if people were like fighting for
people where it's like, hey, if you don't have evidence, yeah, no,
but it's like, but there is.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Evidence, right, just not yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
So Willy is never charged with any wrongdoing, and because
of that, the insurance companies have no choice but to
again pay him out, and they are not happy about it.
You don't want the insurance companies mad at you.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I just you can't take insurance out for whomever you want.
It just feels weird.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
It was the seventies, the early seventies.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Man might as well have been the seventeen twenty I'm
talking about. I was only two, okay, So then a
few months later, in September of nineteen seventy two, off
a highway called Route nine, the new Missus Reverend Willie Maxwell,
Dorcas Anderson is found dead in her car dear in
an eerily similar way to how Mary Lou Maxwell was found.
(20:32):
Dorcas is only twenty nine years old at the time,
and by all accounts, she was a very healthy woman.
Her autopsy notes bruises on her shoulders and elbows, as
well as a cut above one of her eyes, and
twigs and leaves stuck in her shoes, which could point
to some sort of violence or struggle, but her death
is deemed a natural one. So even though Dorcas and
(20:53):
the Reverend had only been married for about a year,
Willie had taken out about twenty life insurance policies on
his new wife, all of which were almost certainly done
behind her back.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, okay, he's just twenty gangbusters here.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
So Dorcas's loved ones are certain that the Reverend is
responsible for her death, but because it's not deemed a homicide,
and with the case against Willy being entirely circumstantial, no
charges are ever filed. So for a few years things
are quiet. The Reverend winds up marrying for a third time,
and this time to a woman named Ophelia. But little
(21:28):
more than three years after Dorcas's death, in February of
nineteen seventy six, Willy's twenty two year old nephew, James Hicks,
is found dead in his car off of Route nine
the fuck, the same highway where Dorcas was found. Authorities
to this day have never determined James's cause of death.
His car and the area around it don't have any
signs of damage, and an autopsy will show that James
(21:50):
only has a tiny bit of alcohol and caffeine in
his system. He has a few small cuts on his arms, legs,
and chest, and one on the inside of his mouth,
but they are the types of injuries that would kill someone.
James's widow, Mary tells investigators she is certain Willy Maxwell
is responsible. She even claims that his new wife, Ophelia,
had been calling trying to get James's social Security number.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Before he died.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Come on, so police track down the two local men
who tell them about their very damning interactions with the reverend.
One claims Willy tried to recruit him into committing a murder.
The other claims that Willy admitted to killing people with
pills containing some sort of poison that he would dissolve
into whiskey. So the police collect all that information about
Willy Maxwell's activities, but they don't arrest him, probably because
(22:38):
they would need harder evidence than just hearsay, and they
know this lawyer is going to be like waiting right there.
But until then, increasingly horrified locals fear that Willy Maxwell
is going to keep on getting away with murder. And
then one year later, in mid nineteen seventy seven, Willy's
sixteen year old stepdaughter, Shirley Ann Ellington, Ophelia's child, is
(23:00):
found along a nearby highway near Willie's car.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
At some point. The evidence is that everyone you freaking
now dies. Yes, that's the evidence.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Your immediate family keeps being killed. But unlike the other
suspicious deaths, Sureley Anne is not discovered inside the car.
She's actually been crushed underneath it. So the police think
this scene is staged because it's supposed to look like
Shirley Anne died in a terrible accident while changing a tire,
but none of the tires on the car are flat,
(23:31):
and Surely Anne's hands are very clean, while the tools
she would have been using are very dirty. That's the
kind of stuff it's insulting, where it's like, you're not
gonna even stage this with any energy. You're just gonna
put all the things together and be.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Like it'll work, yeah, because you know you can get
away with it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
On top of that, Shirley is found about a mile
from her house. It wouldn't make sense that she wouldn't
just walk home instead of attempting to change a car tire.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
So this is now the fifth suspicious death of someone
connected to and actively ensured by, Reverend Willie Maxwell. By
this point, the reverend has collected around ninety thousand dollars
from insurance. My god, would you like to guess how
much money that is? This is nineteen seventy.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Seven, and it's how much ninety.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
It's a crued from it's ninety thousand dollars accrued from
nineteen seventy two to nineteen.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
And today's money. I'm going to guess that is two
hundred and ten.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Seven hundred and fifty thousand, almost a million dollars.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Yeah, Okay, that was way off.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
I know. When I looked at that number, I was like, whoa,
But it's the seventies, which I want to tell myself
was twenty years ago.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
It was not one.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
So at this point, the Reverend's reputation is fully in
the gutter. He is now basically his name is like
he's the local boogeyman. Everyone who knows about him can't
stop talking about how he is just actively getting away
with murder Scott Free. Many people see him as a
criminal working the system in such a way that he's
able to evade the consequences for murder and he's making money.
(25:00):
Need a better explanation, so they start blaming voodoo and whodoo.
There's some overlap, but they are essentially different things. In
popular culture, they have been conflated for years because it's
from back in the seventies. These two terms are used
interchangeably in most of the reporting that Maren found, but
(25:20):
it is worth noting that these have been extremely misrepresented
in popular culture for a long time. Voodoo is a
formal religion. It blends traditional West African religious practices with Catholicism,
whereas whodoo is the African American tradition of folk magic
and medicine strongly associated with the South. So we don't
(25:42):
know if Willy practices either whodoo or voodoo. But as
author Casey Sepp explains in Furious Hours, historically it wouldn't
have been that unusual for a black Christian preacher in
the rural South to be echoing elements of voodoo in
his ministry. In these same rural areas, folk medicine is
sociated with hudo like herbal remedies and pultices often filled
(26:04):
in critical health care gaps for both black and white clientele.
So by the nineteen seventies, voodoo and hodoo have been
delighted and condemned by racist whites for so long the
popular culture comes to misunderstand them as just creepy and nefarious.
All that trickles down to the people in Willie Maxwell's world,
so they start making all kinds of wild claims about
(26:26):
the Reverend having supernatural powers. One rumor claimed that he
could turn into a black cat at will. They're just
trying to explain how somebody could be getting away with
this and just like basically kind of scamming their justice system.
But ultimately it's because the insurance policies give him money
to pay for a lawyer that's fighting for him. It's
(26:47):
like that's how the rich always never go to jail. Totally,
I'll tell you a thing or two about it. So
in June of nineteen seventy seven, Willie Maxwell makes the
bold choice of attending his stepdaughter, Shirley Anne Ellington's funeral.
About three hundred people attend this ceremony. One of the
mourners is Shirley Anne's thirty six year old uncle, a
(27:09):
man named Robert Burns. Robert Burns is known as a
very decent man. He's a loving dad, he is a
veteran from the Vietnam War. He's very hard working long
haul trucker, a very loyal husband to his wife of
eight years, Vera. But Robert is also very close with
his niece Shirley Anne. So during this funeral, he stuns
(27:30):
everyone in attendance by pulling out a gun and in
front of hundreds of witnesses, shooting fifty two year old
Reverend Willie Maxwell in the head, killing him. What at
the funeral?
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Oh man, I wasn't expecting that, right, It's.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
A real turn midpoint.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yeah, Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
So the Reverend's buried one week later. Casey Sepp reports
quote his funeral was one of the most well attended
in this part of Alabama. What people say about why
they went is to make sure that he was really dead.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
So they could see him in the casket and verify
that he was actually dead because they didn't think he
could be killed.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Holy shit. Yeah, I mean that's just wow. Imagine your
beloved niece, and you just know who did it, and
you know he's going to get away with.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
It, and you saw it coming, and he did it
to those other women where it's like Dorcas was just
a witness and suddenly she's probably got love bombed and
pulled in.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Horrible.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
So now in death, Reverend Willie Maxwell's notoriety has expanded
far beyond Alabama, attracting reporters from all over the country.
And this is when Harper Lee reads about the reverends
murder in the newspaper and of course immediately is like,
what is going on? I have to know more. So
it's a well established fact that Harper Lee is a
true crime fanatic. Casey Sepp mentions a quote Lee once
(28:53):
gave about the infamous axe murder Lizzie Borden, where she
jokingly empathizes with her, saying, quote, I know exactly why
she did it. Anyone burdened with long petty coats and
having had mutton soup for breakfast on a day like
that was bound to have murdered somebody before sundown.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Yikes.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
That's our girl, that's our Harper Lee.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
She's just like got it salty Shealty.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
She is a salty lady played by Sandra Bullock in
the movie The Trumen Capodi movie.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Interesting, So we know Harperley is deeply interested in the
themes that lie at the heart of the Reverend story,
things like southernness, race, vigilantism, and the American justice system,
all those themes that ran through to kill a Mockingbird.
So it's not too surprising that she decides to move
down to the Alexander City area so that she can
immerse herself in the Reverence world. While living there, Lee
(29:44):
interviews several people close to the case. She even develops
a friendship with Willy's longtime attorney Tom Radney, who, in
another surprising turn in this saga, winds up defending Robert
Burns after he's charged with the Reverence murder.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Oh man, this guy's just like, I'll take it. Well.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
I think it's like, is he the only lawyer for
a thousand miles? Maybe is it that feeling he's the
only one to take the black clients?
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Maybe?
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Maybe could it be that he was like I was
a part of this, and this horrible thing happened, and
now I need to be a part of this. Yeah,
Like atonement kind of yeah, maybe balance the scales, although
his client is the one that got murdered.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
But it's an interesting turn.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
So Tom Radney exchanges extensive notes with Harper Lee, likely
with the hopes that she'll write another bestseller that highlights
him as a particularly savvy lawyer. They also have some
fun together. Years later, Tom Radney's wife, Madeline will describe
harper Lee this way. She'll say, quote, I didn't spend
nearly as much time with her as the men did.
(30:42):
Harper Lee smoked and drank, and she had several four
letter words she contribute to any conversation.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
I love that and this.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
These are like southern women who we will go out
on a broach while you men talk and happily. I
guess you stay there too. Sorry mid quote. But she
had this really cute wit about her. She was smart,
and I enjoyed just listening to her, just sitting back
and listening to the conversation.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
So she liked it.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
She was a fan.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
So when Robert Burns's trial kicks off in September of
seventy seven, he pleads not guilty by reason of insanity.
So Tom Radney is now tasked with one of the
most difficult jobs an attorney can have. He not only
has to prove Robert's insanity at the time of the
reverend's death, which is very hard to do in court,
but he also has to defend a client who killed
(31:33):
his victim in front of three hundred.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Witnesses, right, Like, that's not in question.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Right, So there's no denying that part.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
But Radney is, of course a very good lawyer, even
though PTSD isn't something most people understood at the time.
Like in the seventies, he relates Robert Burns's temporary insanity
in the courtroom to the trauma he endured while serving
in Vietnam. At the same time, Radney plays on the
public's anxieties around the power of voodoo, and he uses
(32:01):
it to paint the reverend as basically Robert's complete opposite.
As Casey set puts it, Radney establishes Willy Maxwell as
quote the witchiest witch doctor and the vooduiest voodoo priest.
The South has ever known a man so mysteriously powerful
that no force of law could touch him, and so
feared that no neighbor would look him in the eye.
(32:23):
So reporting from this time seems to take Tom Radney's
narrative here and run with it, with Willy Maxwell becoming
known as quote, the voodoo priest in some faraway newspapers.
So it's a bit hypocritical, yeah, to take a turn
like that, it is, but maybe it's like, hey, I
was there in the front lines and like got involved
(32:44):
with this guy.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
I don't know totally.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
So the trial lasts two days. Robert Burns is acquitted
of the Reverence murder. Wow, because the jury ultimately accepts
his insanity defense. The courtroom reportedly bursts into applause at
the verdict, and that same year, the town of Alexander
City names Tom Radney.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
The Man of the Year.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Wow. Yep.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
And just so you get a full sense of Tom
Radney because this is like we're just making comments on
this kind of singular thing where it's like he, of
course probably had one hundred other clients and was, you
know whatever, So everyone knows. Attorney Tom Radney went on
to serve in the Alabama State legislature and he was
a vocal advocate for civil rights. He passed in twenty
(33:26):
eleven at age seventy nine after a long illness. So
he was the real deal in that way, like you said,
the only lawyer to represent black people at that time
or whatever it was he was doing, he kept doing
it after all of this, which is good to know.
And apparently Robert Burns is still alive and in his
eighties no way. Yeah, and he talked to Casey Sepp
(33:46):
as she wrote her book, and he's been quoted by
reporters a few times over.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
The past decade.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
That's so interesting.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
So with that, the story of Reverend Willie Maxwell comes
to a close. But we're still not at the end
of our story because the enduring mystery here involves Harper Lee, who,
despite all evidence suggesting that she was writing a book
on this case, never publishes one. In fact, nothing she
wrote in this era has ever surfaced, at least not publicly.
(34:13):
So while she was in Alexander City, Harper Lee conducted interviews,
including with Robert Burns after his acquittal, which imagine what
that must have been like. Yeah, she took copious notes.
She even sent pages of writing to Tom Radney for
him to review, and later Harperly's sister Louise will claim
that she read the entire manuscript of the book about
(34:34):
this case, and Louise reportedly declared that book to be
quote better than In Cold Blood. So it was written yeah,
oh my god, I mean, would her sister lie? Probably
not no, because she'd want her sister to get the credit, like,
oh no, she did it, yeah, and it was better
than In Cold Blood, which, speaking of we know Harper
Lee was a very skilled reporter, and she proved this
(34:56):
when she helped Truman Capoti, her childhood friend from in Roe, Bill, Alabama,
report on the death of the Clutter family in nineteen
fifties Kansas, the subject of the book In Cold Blood,
and that book is a hugely important piece of American
literature that helped legitimize true crime as a genre. But
we also know Harperly's feelings about it were very complicated,
(35:16):
mostly because of how close Truman Capote got with one
of the murderers in that case. And so author Casey
Sepp noted quote, While on the one hand, Harper Lee
seems to have been out to write her own In
Cold Blood, there were very distinct ways in which she
was trying to do something different. She had real concerns
about Capote's book about journalistic ethics, the role of the reporter,
(35:38):
and the way true crime writers can come to sympathize.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
With their subjects.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Interesting so Harperley once even wrote to Truman Capote's fact
checker at The New Yorker expressing her fears that while
they were working on In Cold Blood, it was, in
Harper Lee's words quote more novelistic than nonfiction. She'd also
written a letter to Gregory Peck, who played Atticus Finch
in the movie version of To Kill a Mockingbird, and
(36:04):
she said to him, quote, my agent wants peer gore
and autopsies, my publisher wants another bestseller, and I want
a clear conscience in that I haven't defrauded the reader.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Wow. Yeah, kotspa and what's the word I'm looking for? Yep. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Good standards, like actually trying to stand for something.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Also it makes it a little easier.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
She'd already gone through something before where it's like probably
as they went through the In Cold Blood process, it
was like is this right or wrong?
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Right? This doesn't feel good? But I didn't say anything
at the time. Yeah, she's the researcher. She doesn't get
to tell the author what to do totally. But then
but she gets to make her own adjustments. Yeah, Okay,
So there's theories on why her book never saw the
light of day. That's one of them, that she liked
the ethics of it. Some have also speculated she might
have been hamstrung by the fear of having to follow
(36:55):
up To Kill a Mockingbird, which, good Lord, I mean,
stay sexy and don't get murdered. How do we follow
that up? We haven't and we don't.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Others things she may have had really bad writer's block,
or that her publishers didn't like the idea of a
book that's centered around the lives of black people. Ultimately,
we don't know what happened to Harper Lee's writing about
the Reverend Willie Maxwell case, and she will never get
a chance to show us or tell us herself. In
twenty sixteen, at the age of eighty nine, Harperley passed
(37:24):
away in her sleep. Someday someone could discover Harperly's work
from Alexander City. After all, many thought that she'd never
publish anything after To Kill a Mockingbird, But then her
book Goes Set a Watchman was released shortly.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Before her death. In the meantime, if you live in
or near Alexander's City, please go check the Dusty corners
of your grandparents' addicts. Because in two thousand and nine,
a local man bought an encyclopedia from a Salvation army
and he found a handwritten note from Harper.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Lee buried inside. We don't know who the note was
written to. It's dated June eleventh, nineteen seventy eight, and
it says this quote, You simply can't beat the people
in Alexander City for their warmth, kindness, and hospitality. If
I fall flat on my face with this book, I
won't be terribly disappointed because of knowing that the time
(38:17):
I spent with you was not time lost, but friends gained.
This is not remotely goodbye, because I'll be coming back
until doomsday. And that is the story of the alleged
murders and murder of Willie Maxwell and the lingering mystery
around Harper Lee's The Reverend.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Wow. Okay, now I fucking know that story thanks to you.
What happened to the book?
Speaker 2 (38:42):
The idea that she left a note in an encyclopedia
for somebody to discover for forty years later, Yeah, is
so bad. Ask for her she knew that feeling. She's like,
I need to write a love letter to the city.
But if I do it officially, they'll try to give
me something and make it about me, and I just
want the actual people to know.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Yeah, so here ooh so good, it's so good, and
yeah she wants a reader to know. Yeah, and they
found treasure. Yeah, hate your atticts and go buy things
at garage sales.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
And if you live in Alexander City, will you please
send us any of your theorized harperly.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Yeah, treasure.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
It's like I found this manuscript in my grandma's night stand.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
That was an incredible, great job for a solo It
had everything you'd want and more.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
That's how we do these solo episodes. We provide, provide, provides,
and get the hell out because.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
We fucking sometimes need a moment.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Do you understand this?
Speaker 1 (39:39):
I don't understand why. It's been nine and a half years.
It's a lot, a lot of podcasting. We love it.
We're not complaining. We do love it, so grateful, but.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Man, it's nice to just have like two weeks yea,
not worry about stuff.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
You know, you do it from your job, right, so
we're doing it from our job.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
I mean, look, people, we just took a week off.
We do this sometimes yeah, but definitely any complaints please
write to.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
You bleep that you address.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Okay, Well, this is a special occasion because we're starting
to do this thing.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
We've been doing our harays where everybody writes them in
on the show, but now today we're doing it in
the car.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
We're doing punking horays. That's right. So this is presented
by Hyundai. We really appreciate you bringing us here and
giving us this lush car to sit in.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
The gorgeous Ionic five. Here we go, I drive this.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
This is actually Heren's car.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Do you want to go first?
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Sure? Okay. My horay is that today is my one
year sober anniversary. Wow. It's been pretty hard given the
state of things, but facing it sober means I can
do the work that needs to be done.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
That's from instagram from at Avon Gail.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Avon Gail's doing it even in the midst of full
global meltdown.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
That's important work.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
That's true. It's a hard time to be doing it.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
But good work.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
So the subject line of this email is horay, I'm
a pi Okay, okay, it says. My horay is that
I just completed my associate's degree in biology and got
a job as a private investigator.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Those are different.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Coolo, it is very This is the person who's living
the full range of life, multifaceted.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
I've been listening since I was fourteen. I'm now twenty one.
What how?
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Why is that math? Right?
Speaker 2 (41:39):
And working it's like liar and working on my bachelor's
degree in forensic science. Thank you for helping me find
my future career, hopefully working in DNA testing. There was
no name signed on this, but Mollie, our producer, Molly,
has a theory that they left their name off because
they're a pi.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Ooh, yes, they're smart. That is so badass.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Yeah, amazing job job, very cool.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Okay, this is an email says tonight, I'm sitting criss
cross apple sauce on the floor of my new home,
folding laundry. Will my future husband and the love of
my life is putting our baby girl to sleep.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
Two different people, no question. Sorry, sorry.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
So many people have thanked you over the years for
your kindness and your advocacy and your willingness to talk
about mental health. So I am just another one in
the bunch, but it's a large part because of you,
and because of this community, that I made it here,
and that my children are here. Hooray Melanie heart emoji.
And then it says, ps, my husband suggested naming our
(42:40):
next child son after his father, Gary. Baby Carrie be Gary.
It says, I simply cannot lol.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
I think if you name your child Gary, we have
merch for you. There is merch waiting for you if.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
You send us the birth certificate and proof. Yes, that
child Gary.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
We need pictures as a face, Yeah, we need pictures of.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
The feet and the worth.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Okay this email.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
The subject line is Horay a dog a dude in England,
and it says Hyah. After thirty three years of being
a hopeless non romantic, last year, against all odds, I
somehow met and fell for a suite charmingly befuddled englishman
and fellow teacher living in Tucson, Arizona. So naturally, after
only a few months of dating, he told me he
(43:26):
decided to move back to the UK at the end
of the school year. Well, cut to the Horay, I
packed up most of my life and moved to England
this past New Year's eave.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Well, it turns out that teaching is brutally hard on
both sides of the Atlantic. I'm loving building a little
British life with this kind and unexpected man. But the
real horay, I'm writing this from the airport on my
way back to the States to reunite with my dog,
my best friend of nearly nine years, to finally bring
him back across the pond with me. You'd not believe
the hoops required to move a dog to the UK.
(43:58):
But I'm endlessly grateful to my wonderful sister for taking
care of my Henry while I figured it all out.
Stay sexy and choose adventure over pragmatism every now and then, Katie.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
I love that I have life, build that British life,
phill it with scones and fundlements. Okay this is from
her email. Hi, my MFM queens. My horay is that
March marked four years being a registered nurse. Wow. Before
my nursing career, I was a teacher for four years
and slowly fell into a deep depression. In twenty eighteen,
(44:30):
I made the decision to go back to school for
nursing and I haven't looked back since. Now I have
four years in as an RN and I'm happier than ever.
It's never too late to change your life around.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Hooray Christina, Yes, Christina, it's so true.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
Never too late.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Also, if she just becomes a stand up comedian, now
she's done every job in my family. Oh yeah, oh Enviireman. Okay,
this is a combo because it's comment on episode four
seventy nine, No Bangs. They also horay in here from
Instagram and it says, going through a really hard phase
of life, but the joy from my kids is getting
me through it. I got them new pj's the other
(45:09):
day and my two year old goes dinosaurs.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
Yay.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
I could have cried, so hooray for dinosaurs and amazing
little humans.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
And that's at d shive le. Oh seven, that's so sweet.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
That's so sweet. Imagine having little children that bring you joy.
What's that like?
Speaker 3 (45:27):
What do we talk about?
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Is that it?
Speaker 3 (45:29):
That's it? I've done it all right.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Well, thank you Hyundai, and thank you listeners for sending
in your.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Hoorays, stay sexy and don't get murdered.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Goodbye, Elvis, Do you want a cookie?
Speaker 3 (45:47):
This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Our researchers are Maaron McGlashan and Ali Elkin.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Email your homecounts to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
Follow the show on Instagram at my Favorite Murder.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Podcasts and now you can watch us on exactly Right's
YouTube page.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
While you're there, please like and subscribe.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Goodbyebye,
Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
That's Georgia Hartstar, that's Karen Kilkara, and we're here to
podcast for you once again.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
We're going to do it every week if we can,
if the mood strikes us.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
If we have the sweaters with the colors that are
needed to combine and be together, magenta and lime green.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
What would you call this? Lime green? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Right, yeah, with a little forest.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah, it's loud, it's very loud.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well it looks like a nice sixties polyesterra blouse.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Okay, no, no, it's fucking fast fashioned.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
No, I mean no fast fashion with a retro bent.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah. Yeah, speaking of retro and bent. I finally did it.
Watch Pride and Prejudice.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Oh wow, how to go?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
It went great? This was at a wrestling show. I
was alone on like a Saturday night with my one.
What do I do? I had caught up with the
Valley and so I was like, oh, holy shit, I'm
gonna do this. I There was not a moment I
was bored, right, not a fucking moment, right, yes, which
is like that's all I asked for in a movie. Yep,
(01:22):
you know, yes, I wanted more. I fucking loved it
so good. It was really fucking good, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It just really gets undersold as like a chick flick
or like ay oh Jane Austin, where it's like it's
such a gorgeous unfurling of a film and the fun
of you.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
I know, Vince would have loved it if you were home, Like,
I didn't need to watch it without him at all.
So good. In fact, it probably would have been better
with him. I don't know. It was your favorite part
the first dance dance party.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
When he slams her and then she slams them.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Back when they first go it. Yeah, and it's like
and then it's also like I know that actress, that actress,
I think every actress that's famous today, Yes, you know them. Yeah,
the mom could have done without.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Her Brenda Blethline. Well that was the idea.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I know. I know, it's like the point but.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Worst mom ever.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, yes, it was. Oh and then like I got
choked up, actually got me like, you know, I don't cry,
but when she fucking told him off when they were
on the cliff or whatever, yep, I got like emotional
when she.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Was like and you're dad. That was I was supposed
to take it as a compliment my family and think
I'm shit.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I can't believe I love you? Well, fuck you? Yeah,
you know, it was very it was good.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
That's Elizabeth Bennett. She does that in every circumstance. My
favorite is also the first dance when she because I'm
always like, how does one meet that type of rejection
which everybody fears it?
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
How would you do that with a smile on your
face and be like even if that partner was a
little plane.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Or whatever whatever the line is, and then walk away
where it's just like you devastating, Especially if it was
Matthew McFadden, you'd just be.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Like, huh, how come.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Devastating?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
She's kind of like whatever. Yeah, she's so many good lines. Wait,
here's my other best favorite part. Okay, because also you
should watch via the British Detective Show because the mother
plays a detective.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Okay, and I also need to watch the other versions
of pro Prejuice because everyone had a fucking opinion. Yeah
I'm not mad at them about this, I guess for
once in my life.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
God, So I want to watch the other versions and
find out for.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Sure this series is great because it's a binge that
then lasts.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
It's not just an hour and a half.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
It's like, however many episodes can't remember And that's the
great one with Colin Firth. Sure, he plays a different
kind of mister Darcy.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I don't know if i'd be attracted to Colin Firth.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, that's my feeling, right, But Matthew McFadden's coming across
that field that you.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I didn't think i'd be attracted to him ever, And
then yeah those pants fucking.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Hand.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
But how about Dame Judy Dench's star turn. Yeah, I mean,
would she comes to that house to be like, you
tell me if you are marrying my nephew can't be born.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
It can't be born.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
She's just like, I've got this.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
It's a perfect movie.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah, it's good. I enjoyed it.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
I'm so glad.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
So we're here, So here we are.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Well stop acting mad because I'm so glad. I'm so excited. Also,
it's one of those ones where like it's a go
back to because there's things you missed. Oh also we're
not even mentioning.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
What perfectly prepared potatoes. That part where the priest cousin
comes and that.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Guy a weird cousin was so good.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
And do you remember do you know he was from
season two White Lotus, the bad gay that Jennifer Coolidge
was hanging out with.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Oh my god, same.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
He's an eighties actor too, though he's been around.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
For a long time, but he is like one of
the best of the best.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Oh my god, he's a bad gay. Yes, Tom, these
bad gays, that's the line from it. We're not fucking Yes,
that's Jennifer Coolidge.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, being quote eight gays. They're gonna kill me.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
That's good.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Oh, I'm overjoyed.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Hey good, But let's move what do you have? What
if you got what? Let's move on from perfectly Prepared Potatoes?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
I want I'm just going to keep misquoting the movie,
which driving people who really know every word.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Of the movie.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
But people on TikTok have made t shirts with him
on it. And then it says, what perfectly prepared potato?
I wish I could remember it, but it's like it says,
what perfectly prepared potatoes? Right, it's just like him looking
down like it's a fan shirt.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, I love it so good?
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Can I just let you know real quick?
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah? What excellent boiled potatoes is the phrase, and it's
Tom Hollander.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Thank you, Mollie, Mollie, thank you. Wait, did you know
what excellent boiled potatoes?
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Off the dome?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I had to google?
Speaker 3 (05:39):
If I am going to be clean about this.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, please always be cleaning. There's no reason not to
thank you. There's no shame.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
I just did it wrong eight times in a row.
You get to do it wrong if you want to.
What excellent boiled potatoes? And what and what a perfectly
appointed room? Something like that? Just like bad small, so
good Okay, I'm so glad.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, thank you, Thank you guys for fucking yelling at
me until I did it. It was for my own good.
It's for my own good.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Do you feel different?
Speaker 1 (06:08):
I feel more open minded to movies like that because recommendation.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Okay, there's another one, and there's a couple versions of it,
and it's called Persuasion.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Okay. Someone else mentioned that in the comments.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
The original Persuasion is so good, okay. And it is
one of those love stories of like, it's too late,
she made the wrong call and.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
She lost him forever devastating Okay, but but did.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
She Jane Austen doesn't devastate? Permanently okay, And it is
so beautifully acting. It's the same thing where you're in
this place. It's so real, these houses that these estates
they live on whatever, and like the what it does
to people, what people are like, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
It's great barah and persuasion. I will do that.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
And you don't have to watch, you don't have to
go all the way into via. You'll just be blown
away with an amazing actress, Brenda bleth Lands because she's
like a completely different person and not that mother is
like the kind of mother that would say a thing
that would humiliate you and the whole family in front
of as many people as past.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
I have one of those.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
It's hard.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Oh I've met one of those before.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
It's painful.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And not even on purpose, that's the thing. I feel
like I have to say that, like, not on purpose,
that's your personality, right, it's tough.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Yeah, yeah, she's a little she's squeamish.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Well so we talk about merch for one second.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Oh sure, okay, because it's fucking hilarious this week.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Well, this is very exciting.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
So we each got to design our own merch, didn't
get to we just fucking did it. And then Nicole's like,
that should be real merch and they were like, okay.
So I designed my pitch was Hello, my name is
and then the name would be sucked because that's the
one I got Superintendent. I got it wrong. It was
(07:52):
episode four sixty five. You're kidding yourself sucked. So Hello
my name is Suped is now available as a mug
and a U and I have both right here with
no my name is up with my terrible handwriting.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
That's George's script, my actual scrawl, truly her design. So
then I also designed some merch and essentially people were
saying that after the election, me quoting my dad who
said we just have to Sally Forth was people were
really liking that online. So Nicole suggested we make shirts
of it, and she's like, what do you want the
(08:29):
shirt to look like? And so I picked up a
tiny legal pad and just very quickly sketched it and said,
what if it was something like this, just like a
little cartoon head of my dad saying that. And then
she was like, sounds good. What if we just do
it exactly the way you wrote it? So in this
same vein and in the same spirit, of George's merch.
We have t shirts that are my hand drawn picture
(08:51):
of my dad good which literally looks exactly like it
does saying we're gonna sally Forth.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yeah that's a perfect shirt.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
That's pretty great, I feel like for us in merch, Yeah,
this is where we want to be.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Yeah, like this is it strikes a good balance, So
I think, so this is your summer merch. Guys, bring
this to the beach.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
I don't know, I mean you could do you want
it on a towel?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Do you go to the beach?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Hello, my name is sucked on a towel.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
That's fun, great idea. I actually love that.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Do you go to the beach?
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Do you go? Do you like sand in your toes
and in your car? And then everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Purse people are like, we do people do a summer long?
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Should we do the rest of the exactly right updates?
So while we're here, sure we should.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
We have a network and it's called the Exactly Right
Podcast Network. And here are some of the updates. Well,
this is a big one. MFM Animated is brand new.
Nick Terry brings us the story of Peache the Bitter
Little Bird.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
It's my favorite. I say that every fucking time. It's
my favorite.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Yeah, this one is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
So many I get Peachy pulls a switchblade on me.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yeah it's great. I mean, no spoil.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
But George's physically threatened by a small bird to be
physically threatened by PG. So you can go find it
on YouTube right now. It's at YouTube dot com, slash
exactly right Media. And there are also seventy other episodes
of MFM animated, So if you like this one, you
might like the other ones too.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yes, please follow us on YouTube. It's very helpful. And
while you're there on YouTube, we've also got full episodes
of Buried Bones, this podcast Will Kill You, and the
little podcast called My Favorite Murder. There's tons of ideots.
Guys were making them for you. Please go check that
out YouTube dot com, slash exactly right Media. Thank you.
The end. All right, So it's summer. We need some
(10:42):
mental health time off, and so Carrie is going to
tell you a story this episode.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Yeah, we're gonna do some solo episodes, get our homework
done and go on vacation. Yeah, I have a story
for you that the book that was written about this
story I have recommended on this show so many many times.
It was one of those things where I was like, well,
I just read the one book, and I like the
one book.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
I did a.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Similar thing with The Man from the Train, which I
love so much. But I also did this with Casey
Sepp's book Furious.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Hours, Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Oh, so today I'm going to tell you about that
the case behind that book. So it starts off in
the late seventies in the small town of Alexander City, Alabama,
and a local literary icon has just moved to town.
It's none other than Alabama native and world famous author
of Takilla Mockingbird, Harper Lee. At this point, Lee has
(11:36):
won the nineteen sixty one Pulitzer for that book, which
quickly became an American classic, and Harper Lee became a
household name. But instead of embracing that celebrity, she became
even more private, and she bucked the literary world's expectations.
She didn't capitalize off the immense success of her book
and immediately cranked out a second novel. She just kind
(11:57):
of like receded. Now twenty years have passed since to
kill a Mockingbird's publication, and Harperly has never indicated that
she's doing anything else until now. Because Lee has come
to Alexander City on a mission. She's setting up interviews
throughout town and scribbling down notes all about a string
(12:18):
of suspicious deaths and a particularly sensational murder trial that
took place there in Alexander City. Harperly has been transfixed
by this case. She tells her friends it might be
the story that pulls her out of her hiatus. She's
even come up with a title for the book that
she plans to write about it. It's called The Reverend.
(12:38):
This is the story of Reverend Willie Maxwell, a black
Alabama preacher whose family members keep dying under mysterious circumstances.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Wow, I totally downloaded the audiobook and then didn't listen
to it, So this is good for me.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
This is a vacation listen exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
We build and build on these recommendations, so of course
Casey steps furious hours. The book all about this case
is the main source. Please order it from your local
independent book store.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Kay I get it from the library.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Everyone check it out and the rest of the sources
are in our show notes.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
If you want to see.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
What else are you quoting the poster that in the
library that says.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Check it out?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
If it has like the stack of books, what are
you doing that on purpose?
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Or that just probably came out of my childhood memory
because it's like a stack of books. Is there a
check mark anywhere on there?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah? I think at the top. But it's like because
you check out books, it's like a winky thing. Yeah,
And I think lying open a winky thing.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
It's just a little wiki thing.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Hey, librarians, if you have a good check it out
poster at your library, will you send us a picture
of it?
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Oh my gosh, post your photos of check it out
and you can hag us.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
And if you think you have the oldest check it
out post, like the most vintage, please let us see it.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Yes, please let us have our our.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Childhood memories come back to us. Okay, nice one, Okay,
side content.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
So we begin in the summer of ninth teen, seventy
seven years before Harper Lee arrives in Alexander City. It
is the third of August and the body of Mary
Lou Maxwell, a woman in her early forties, has just
been found in her car on the side of a
rural two lane road called Highway twenty two, and that's
just outside of Alexander City. Mary Lou's husband of twenty
(14:19):
years is a man named Willie Maxwell as sharply dressed,
captivating man in his mid forties who's often described as
being elegant. He's also a reverend. Willy preaches at various
churches and revivals throughout the area, and author Casey Sepp
writes in Furious Hours that quote, there wouldn't be anybody
nicer to you conversation wise, people said of him, You'd
(14:41):
think that man came from heaven.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
He was so smooth.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
So when Mary Lou is found dead, the reverend's reputation
takes a huge hit, and for good reason. Her death
is as suspicious as Willy's behavior. So, for example, the
night Mary Lou is found dead, Willie calls the police
and claims that he's worried she might have been in
an accident. He then directs the police straight to her car,
(15:06):
broken down on the side of Highway twenty two. So
not just a theory. When the police arrive, it's obvious
that Mary Lou was not in a car accident. Her
vehicle shows no signs of damage. The surrounding trees are untouched,
and it looks like the car has simply pulled off
the highway and been parked by the side of the road.
But Mary Lou's body has clearly been brutally attacked and strangled.
(15:28):
There's blood everywhere, including on the outside of the car,
which is hard to explain in a supposed crash. Plus,
rope is found on the ground nearby, which may have
been used as the murder weapon. It then comes to
light that things were tense between Willie and Mary Lou.
He'd been cheating on her with lots of different women,
and at the time of her death, the Maxwells were
(15:48):
in tens of thousands of dollars of debt. Then investigators
get bombshell information from the couple's neighbor. Her name is
Dorcas Anderson. She's in her late twenties, so Dorcas tells police.
Around ten pm on August third, Mary Lou had stopped
by in a panic, saying she'd just received a call
that Willie was involved in a bad car accident coming
(16:09):
home from a preaching gig, and that he'd crashed somewhere
off of Highway twenty two. Okay, So Mary Lou says
to Dorcas, I'm on my way to go get him.
But suspiciously, about an hour after this, Willie comes home
in a car with no visible damage. Mary Lou is
not with him, and Mary Lou never comes back. So
all that looks bad for Willy, but it gets even
(16:30):
worse when he immediately tries to cash in on several
of the life insurance policies that he had taken out
on hers. At that time, it was very easy to
take out life insurance policies.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
All you needed was a name.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Of birthday, a social Security number, and a talent for
forgery if you're doing it behind someone's back.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
They had machines like cigarette machines for life insurance at
the airport back then, like you just put a quarter in.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Worse feeling.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Also, what a brilliant person to think of those machines
where it's like total you know, where you get real.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Anxious about life and death.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Horrible Okay, So most of these policies were very cheap
for Willy to file, yet they promised to pay out
thousands of dollars in the event of Mary Lou's death,
and some had been taken out on her right before
the day she died, so before long, Willy Maxwell is
charged in his wife's murder. He hires a white attorney
named Tom Radney to defend him. Despite the overwhelming circumstantial
(17:31):
evidence against Willie, he winds up being acquitted after the
prosecution's key witness, who's Dorcas Anderson, changes her testimony. Suddenly,
Dorcas claims she can no longer remember what happened the
night that Mary Lou was killed. So now, even though
the people of Alexander City are deeply suspicious of him,
Willie Maxwell walks away a freeman, and with Tom Radney's help,
(17:53):
he also becomes a rich man because he is able
to cash in on his dead wife's insurance policies. The
insurance fully believe that Willie killed Mary Lou, so they
are reluctant to pay, but when they don't, Radney files
civil suits against them and ultimately forces their hand. It's
unclear exactly how much Willy makes off these policies, but
we do know that he gets a handful of checks
(18:15):
that add up to thousands of dollars, and then he
splits the money fifty to fifty with his attorney, so then,
like a twist from a soap opera, Dorcas Anderson's husband
dies and she becomes the next missus Willie Maxwell.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Okay, see where this is going?
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Not great.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
So, even after the mysterious death of his wife and
the suspicion he's involved, Willie Maxwell somehow manages to keep
on preaching, but he has to do it out of
town where the congregants are not aware of the story. Then,
in February of nineteen seventy two, about a year and
a half after Mary Lou's death, Willy's fifty two year
old brother John is found dead on the side of
(18:55):
the road about ten miles outside of Alexander City, and
according to Casey Sepp, John's cause of death is officially
listed as a heart attack due to over consumption of alcohol.
But when it comes to light that Willy has taken
out life insurance policies on his brother as well, locals
begin to theorize that Willy forced his brother John to
(19:17):
drink a lethal amount of alcohol and then left him
for dead.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Oh my god, that's how do you Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
It would be so long and like horrible.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
So the problem is that police can ever prove that
Willie Maxwell is involved, they simply don't have the evidence,
which is something that the reverend's attorney hammers home when
his client is taken in for questioning. All good things
most of the time, if people were like fighting for
people where it's like, hey, if you don't have evidence, yeah, no,
but it's like, but there is.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Evidence, right, just not yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
So Willy is never charged with any wrongdoing, and because
of that, the insurance companies have no choice but to
again pay him out, and they are not happy about it.
You don't want the insurance companies mad at you.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I just you can't take insurance out for whomever you want.
It just feels weird.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
It was the seventies, the early seventies.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Man might as well have been the seventeen twenty I'm
talking about. I was only two, okay, So then a
few months later, in September of nineteen seventy two, off
a highway called Route nine, the new Missus Reverend Willie Maxwell,
Dorcas Anderson is found dead in her car dear in
an eerily similar way to how Mary Lou Maxwell was found.
(20:32):
Dorcas is only twenty nine years old at the time,
and by all accounts, she was a very healthy woman.
Her autopsy notes bruises on her shoulders and elbows, as
well as a cut above one of her eyes, and
twigs and leaves stuck in her shoes, which could point
to some sort of violence or struggle, but her death
is deemed a natural one. So even though Dorcas and
(20:53):
the Reverend had only been married for about a year,
Willie had taken out about twenty life insurance policies on
his new wife, all of which were almost certainly done
behind her back.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, okay, he's just twenty gangbusters here.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
So Dorcas's loved ones are certain that the Reverend is
responsible for her death, but because it's not deemed a homicide,
and with the case against Willy being entirely circumstantial, no
charges are ever filed. So for a few years things
are quiet. The Reverend winds up marrying for a third time,
and this time to a woman named Ophelia. But little
(21:28):
more than three years after Dorcas's death, in February of
nineteen seventy six, Willy's twenty two year old nephew, James Hicks,
is found dead in his car off of Route nine
the fuck, the same highway where Dorcas was found. Authorities
to this day have never determined James's cause of death.
His car and the area around it don't have any
signs of damage, and an autopsy will show that James
(21:50):
only has a tiny bit of alcohol and caffeine in
his system. He has a few small cuts on his arms, legs,
and chest, and one on the inside of his mouth,
but they are the types of injuries that would kill someone.
James's widow, Mary tells investigators she is certain Willy Maxwell
is responsible. She even claims that his new wife, Ophelia,
had been calling trying to get James's social Security number.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Before he died.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Come on, so police track down the two local men
who tell them about their very damning interactions with the reverend.
One claims Willy tried to recruit him into committing a murder.
The other claims that Willy admitted to killing people with
pills containing some sort of poison that he would dissolve
into whiskey. So the police collect all that information about
Willy Maxwell's activities, but they don't arrest him, probably because
(22:38):
they would need harder evidence than just hearsay, and they
know this lawyer is going to be like waiting right there.
But until then, increasingly horrified locals fear that Willy Maxwell
is going to keep on getting away with murder. And
then one year later, in mid nineteen seventy seven, Willy's
sixteen year old stepdaughter, Shirley Ann Ellington, Ophelia's child, is
(23:00):
found along a nearby highway near Willie's car.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
At some point. The evidence is that everyone you freaking
now dies. Yes, that's the evidence.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Your immediate family keeps being killed. But unlike the other
suspicious deaths, Sureley Anne is not discovered inside the car.
She's actually been crushed underneath it. So the police think
this scene is staged because it's supposed to look like
Shirley Anne died in a terrible accident while changing a tire,
but none of the tires on the car are flat,
(23:31):
and Surely Anne's hands are very clean, while the tools
she would have been using are very dirty. That's the
kind of stuff it's insulting, where it's like, you're not
gonna even stage this with any energy. You're just gonna
put all the things together and be.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Like it'll work, yeah, because you know you can get
away with it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
On top of that, Shirley is found about a mile
from her house. It wouldn't make sense that she wouldn't
just walk home instead of attempting to change a car tire.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
So this is now the fifth suspicious death of someone
connected to and actively ensured by, Reverend Willie Maxwell. By
this point, the reverend has collected around ninety thousand dollars
from insurance. My god, would you like to guess how
much money that is? This is nineteen seventy.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Seven, and it's how much ninety.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
It's a crued from it's ninety thousand dollars accrued from
nineteen seventy two to nineteen.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
And today's money. I'm going to guess that is two
hundred and ten.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Seven hundred and fifty thousand, almost a million dollars.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Yeah, Okay, that was way off.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
I know. When I looked at that number, I was like, whoa,
But it's the seventies, which I want to tell myself
was twenty years ago.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
It was not one.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
So at this point, the Reverend's reputation is fully in
the gutter. He is now basically his name is like
he's the local boogeyman. Everyone who knows about him can't
stop talking about how he is just actively getting away
with murder Scott Free. Many people see him as a
criminal working the system in such a way that he's
able to evade the consequences for murder and he's making money.
(25:00):
Need a better explanation, so they start blaming voodoo and whodoo.
There's some overlap, but they are essentially different things. In
popular culture, they have been conflated for years because it's
from back in the seventies. These two terms are used
interchangeably in most of the reporting that Maren found, but
(25:20):
it is worth noting that these have been extremely misrepresented
in popular culture for a long time. Voodoo is a
formal religion. It blends traditional West African religious practices with Catholicism,
whereas whodoo is the African American tradition of folk magic
and medicine strongly associated with the South. So we don't
(25:42):
know if Willy practices either whodoo or voodoo. But as
author Casey Sepp explains in Furious Hours, historically it wouldn't
have been that unusual for a black Christian preacher in
the rural South to be echoing elements of voodoo in
his ministry. In these same rural areas, folk medicine is
sociated with hudo like herbal remedies and pultices often filled
(26:04):
in critical health care gaps for both black and white clientele.
So by the nineteen seventies, voodoo and hodoo have been
delighted and condemned by racist whites for so long the
popular culture comes to misunderstand them as just creepy and nefarious.
All that trickles down to the people in Willie Maxwell's world,
so they start making all kinds of wild claims about
(26:26):
the Reverend having supernatural powers. One rumor claimed that he
could turn into a black cat at will. They're just
trying to explain how somebody could be getting away with
this and just like basically kind of scamming their justice system.
But ultimately it's because the insurance policies give him money
to pay for a lawyer that's fighting for him. It's
(26:47):
like that's how the rich always never go to jail. Totally,
I'll tell you a thing or two about it. So
in June of nineteen seventy seven, Willie Maxwell makes the
bold choice of attending his stepdaughter, Shirley Anne Ellington's funeral.
About three hundred people attend this ceremony. One of the
mourners is Shirley Anne's thirty six year old uncle, a
(27:09):
man named Robert Burns. Robert Burns is known as a
very decent man. He's a loving dad, he is a
veteran from the Vietnam War. He's very hard working long
haul trucker, a very loyal husband to his wife of
eight years, Vera. But Robert is also very close with
his niece Shirley Anne. So during this funeral, he stuns
(27:30):
everyone in attendance by pulling out a gun and in
front of hundreds of witnesses, shooting fifty two year old
Reverend Willie Maxwell in the head, killing him. What at
the funeral?
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Oh man, I wasn't expecting that, right, It's.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
A real turn midpoint.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yeah, Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
So the Reverend's buried one week later. Casey Sepp reports
quote his funeral was one of the most well attended
in this part of Alabama. What people say about why
they went is to make sure that he was really dead.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
So they could see him in the casket and verify
that he was actually dead because they didn't think he
could be killed.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Holy shit. Yeah, I mean that's just wow. Imagine your
beloved niece, and you just know who did it, and
you know he's going to get away with.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
It, and you saw it coming, and he did it
to those other women where it's like Dorcas was just
a witness and suddenly she's probably got love bombed and
pulled in.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Horrible.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
So now in death, Reverend Willie Maxwell's notoriety has expanded
far beyond Alabama, attracting reporters from all over the country.
And this is when Harper Lee reads about the reverends
murder in the newspaper and of course immediately is like,
what is going on? I have to know more. So
it's a well established fact that Harper Lee is a
true crime fanatic. Casey Sepp mentions a quote Lee once
(28:53):
gave about the infamous axe murder Lizzie Borden, where she
jokingly empathizes with her, saying, quote, I know exactly why
she did it. Anyone burdened with long petty coats and
having had mutton soup for breakfast on a day like
that was bound to have murdered somebody before sundown.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Yikes.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
That's our girl, that's our Harper Lee.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
She's just like got it salty Shealty.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
She is a salty lady played by Sandra Bullock in
the movie The Trumen Capodi movie.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Interesting, So we know Harperley is deeply interested in the
themes that lie at the heart of the Reverend story,
things like southernness, race, vigilantism, and the American justice system,
all those themes that ran through to kill a Mockingbird.
So it's not too surprising that she decides to move
down to the Alexander City area so that she can
immerse herself in the Reverence world. While living there, Lee
(29:44):
interviews several people close to the case. She even develops
a friendship with Willy's longtime attorney Tom Radney, who, in
another surprising turn in this saga, winds up defending Robert
Burns after he's charged with the Reverence murder.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Oh man, this guy's just like, I'll take it. Well.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
I think it's like, is he the only lawyer for
a thousand miles? Maybe is it that feeling he's the
only one to take the black clients?
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Maybe?
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Maybe could it be that he was like I was
a part of this, and this horrible thing happened, and
now I need to be a part of this. Yeah,
Like atonement kind of yeah, maybe balance the scales, although
his client is the one that got murdered.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
But it's an interesting turn.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
So Tom Radney exchanges extensive notes with Harper Lee, likely
with the hopes that she'll write another bestseller that highlights
him as a particularly savvy lawyer. They also have some
fun together. Years later, Tom Radney's wife, Madeline will describe
harper Lee this way. She'll say, quote, I didn't spend
nearly as much time with her as the men did.
(30:42):
Harper Lee smoked and drank, and she had several four
letter words she contribute to any conversation.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
I love that and this.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
These are like southern women who we will go out
on a broach while you men talk and happily. I
guess you stay there too. Sorry mid quote. But she
had this really cute wit about her. She was smart,
and I enjoyed just listening to her, just sitting back
and listening to the conversation.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
So she liked it.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
She was a fan.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
So when Robert Burns's trial kicks off in September of
seventy seven, he pleads not guilty by reason of insanity.
So Tom Radney is now tasked with one of the
most difficult jobs an attorney can have. He not only
has to prove Robert's insanity at the time of the
reverend's death, which is very hard to do in court,
but he also has to defend a client who killed
(31:33):
his victim in front of three hundred.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Witnesses, right, Like, that's not in question.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Right, So there's no denying that part.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
But Radney is, of course a very good lawyer, even
though PTSD isn't something most people understood at the time.
Like in the seventies, he relates Robert Burns's temporary insanity
in the courtroom to the trauma he endured while serving
in Vietnam. At the same time, Radney plays on the
public's anxieties around the power of voodoo, and he uses
(32:01):
it to paint the reverend as basically Robert's complete opposite.
As Casey set puts it, Radney establishes Willy Maxwell as
quote the witchiest witch doctor and the vooduiest voodoo priest.
The South has ever known a man so mysteriously powerful
that no force of law could touch him, and so
feared that no neighbor would look him in the eye.
(32:23):
So reporting from this time seems to take Tom Radney's
narrative here and run with it, with Willy Maxwell becoming
known as quote, the voodoo priest in some faraway newspapers.
So it's a bit hypocritical, yeah, to take a turn
like that, it is, but maybe it's like, hey, I
was there in the front lines and like got involved
(32:44):
with this guy.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
I don't know totally.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
So the trial lasts two days. Robert Burns is acquitted
of the Reverence murder. Wow, because the jury ultimately accepts
his insanity defense. The courtroom reportedly bursts into applause at
the verdict, and that same year, the town of Alexander
City names Tom Radney.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
The Man of the Year.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Wow. Yep.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
And just so you get a full sense of Tom
Radney because this is like we're just making comments on
this kind of singular thing where it's like he, of
course probably had one hundred other clients and was, you
know whatever, So everyone knows. Attorney Tom Radney went on
to serve in the Alabama State legislature and he was
a vocal advocate for civil rights. He passed in twenty
(33:26):
eleven at age seventy nine after a long illness. So
he was the real deal in that way, like you said,
the only lawyer to represent black people at that time
or whatever it was he was doing, he kept doing
it after all of this, which is good to know.
And apparently Robert Burns is still alive and in his
eighties no way. Yeah, and he talked to Casey Sepp
(33:46):
as she wrote her book, and he's been quoted by
reporters a few times over.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
The past decade.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
That's so interesting.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
So with that, the story of Reverend Willie Maxwell comes
to a close. But we're still not at the end
of our story because the enduring mystery here involves Harper Lee, who,
despite all evidence suggesting that she was writing a book
on this case, never publishes one. In fact, nothing she
wrote in this era has ever surfaced, at least not publicly.
(34:13):
So while she was in Alexander City, Harper Lee conducted interviews,
including with Robert Burns after his acquittal, which imagine what
that must have been like. Yeah, she took copious notes.
She even sent pages of writing to Tom Radney for
him to review, and later Harperly's sister Louise will claim
that she read the entire manuscript of the book about
(34:34):
this case, and Louise reportedly declared that book to be
quote better than In Cold Blood. So it was written yeah,
oh my god, I mean, would her sister lie? Probably
not no, because she'd want her sister to get the credit, like,
oh no, she did it, yeah, and it was better
than In Cold Blood, which, speaking of we know Harper
Lee was a very skilled reporter, and she proved this
(34:56):
when she helped Truman Capoti, her childhood friend from in Roe, Bill, Alabama,
report on the death of the Clutter family in nineteen
fifties Kansas, the subject of the book In Cold Blood,
and that book is a hugely important piece of American
literature that helped legitimize true crime as a genre. But
we also know Harperly's feelings about it were very complicated,
(35:16):
mostly because of how close Truman Capote got with one
of the murderers in that case. And so author Casey
Sepp noted quote, While on the one hand, Harper Lee
seems to have been out to write her own In
Cold Blood, there were very distinct ways in which she
was trying to do something different. She had real concerns
about Capote's book about journalistic ethics, the role of the reporter,
(35:38):
and the way true crime writers can come to sympathize.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
With their subjects.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Interesting so Harperley once even wrote to Truman Capote's fact
checker at The New Yorker expressing her fears that while
they were working on In Cold Blood, it was, in
Harper Lee's words quote more novelistic than nonfiction. She'd also
written a letter to Gregory Peck, who played Atticus Finch
in the movie version of To Kill a Mockingbird, and
(36:04):
she said to him, quote, my agent wants peer gore
and autopsies, my publisher wants another bestseller, and I want
a clear conscience in that I haven't defrauded the reader.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Wow. Yeah, kotspa and what's the word I'm looking for? Yep. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Good standards, like actually trying to stand for something.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Also it makes it a little easier.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
She'd already gone through something before where it's like probably
as they went through the In Cold Blood process, it
was like is this right or wrong?
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Right? This doesn't feel good? But I didn't say anything
at the time. Yeah, she's the researcher. She doesn't get
to tell the author what to do totally. But then
but she gets to make her own adjustments. Yeah, Okay,
So there's theories on why her book never saw the
light of day. That's one of them, that she liked
the ethics of it. Some have also speculated she might
have been hamstrung by the fear of having to follow
(36:55):
up To Kill a Mockingbird, which, good Lord, I mean,
stay sexy and don't get murdered. How do we follow
that up? We haven't and we don't.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Others things she may have had really bad writer's block,
or that her publishers didn't like the idea of a
book that's centered around the lives of black people. Ultimately,
we don't know what happened to Harper Lee's writing about
the Reverend Willie Maxwell case, and she will never get
a chance to show us or tell us herself. In
twenty sixteen, at the age of eighty nine, Harperley passed
(37:24):
away in her sleep. Someday someone could discover Harperly's work
from Alexander City. After all, many thought that she'd never
publish anything after To Kill a Mockingbird, But then her
book Goes Set a Watchman was released shortly.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Before her death. In the meantime, if you live in
or near Alexander's City, please go check the Dusty corners
of your grandparents' addicts. Because in two thousand and nine,
a local man bought an encyclopedia from a Salvation army
and he found a handwritten note from Harper.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Lee buried inside. We don't know who the note was
written to. It's dated June eleventh, nineteen seventy eight, and
it says this quote, You simply can't beat the people
in Alexander City for their warmth, kindness, and hospitality. If
I fall flat on my face with this book, I
won't be terribly disappointed because of knowing that the time
(38:17):
I spent with you was not time lost, but friends gained.
This is not remotely goodbye, because I'll be coming back
until doomsday. And that is the story of the alleged
murders and murder of Willie Maxwell and the lingering mystery
around Harper Lee's The Reverend.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Wow. Okay, now I fucking know that story thanks to you.
What happened to the book?
Speaker 2 (38:42):
The idea that she left a note in an encyclopedia
for somebody to discover for forty years later, Yeah, is
so bad. Ask for her she knew that feeling. She's like,
I need to write a love letter to the city.
But if I do it officially, they'll try to give
me something and make it about me, and I just
want the actual people to know.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Yeah, so here ooh so good, it's so good, and
yeah she wants a reader to know. Yeah, and they
found treasure. Yeah, hate your atticts and go buy things
at garage sales.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
And if you live in Alexander City, will you please
send us any of your theorized harperly.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Yeah, treasure.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
It's like I found this manuscript in my grandma's night stand.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
That was an incredible, great job for a solo It
had everything you'd want and more.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
That's how we do these solo episodes. We provide, provide, provides,
and get the hell out because.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
We fucking sometimes need a moment.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Do you understand this?
Speaker 1 (39:39):
I don't understand why. It's been nine and a half years.
It's a lot, a lot of podcasting. We love it.
We're not complaining. We do love it, so grateful, but.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Man, it's nice to just have like two weeks yea,
not worry about stuff.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
You know, you do it from your job, right, so
we're doing it from our job.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
I mean, look, people, we just took a week off.
We do this sometimes yeah, but definitely any complaints please
write to.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
You bleep that you address.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Okay, Well, this is a special occasion because we're starting
to do this thing.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
We've been doing our harays where everybody writes them in
on the show, but now today we're doing it in
the car.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
We're doing punking horays. That's right. So this is presented
by Hyundai. We really appreciate you bringing us here and
giving us this lush car to sit in.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
The gorgeous Ionic five. Here we go, I drive this.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
This is actually Heren's car.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Do you want to go first?
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Sure? Okay. My horay is that today is my one
year sober anniversary. Wow. It's been pretty hard given the
state of things, but facing it sober means I can
do the work that needs to be done.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
That's from instagram from at Avon Gail.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Avon Gail's doing it even in the midst of full
global meltdown.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
That's important work.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
That's true. It's a hard time to be doing it.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
But good work.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
So the subject line of this email is horay, I'm
a pi Okay, okay, it says. My horay is that
I just completed my associate's degree in biology and got
a job as a private investigator.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Those are different.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Coolo, it is very This is the person who's living
the full range of life, multifaceted.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
I've been listening since I was fourteen. I'm now twenty one.
What how?
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Why is that math? Right?
Speaker 2 (41:39):
And working it's like liar and working on my bachelor's
degree in forensic science. Thank you for helping me find
my future career, hopefully working in DNA testing. There was
no name signed on this, but Mollie, our producer, Molly,
has a theory that they left their name off because
they're a pi.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Ooh, yes, they're smart. That is so badass.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Yeah, amazing job job, very cool.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Okay, this is an email says tonight, I'm sitting criss
cross apple sauce on the floor of my new home,
folding laundry. Will my future husband and the love of
my life is putting our baby girl to sleep.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
Two different people, no question. Sorry, sorry.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
So many people have thanked you over the years for
your kindness and your advocacy and your willingness to talk
about mental health. So I am just another one in
the bunch, but it's a large part because of you,
and because of this community, that I made it here,
and that my children are here. Hooray Melanie heart emoji.
And then it says, ps, my husband suggested naming our
(42:40):
next child son after his father, Gary. Baby Carrie be Gary.
It says, I simply cannot lol.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
I think if you name your child Gary, we have
merch for you. There is merch waiting for you if.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
You send us the birth certificate and proof. Yes, that
child Gary.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
We need pictures as a face, Yeah, we need pictures of.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
The feet and the worth.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Okay this email.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
The subject line is Horay a dog a dude in England,
and it says Hyah. After thirty three years of being
a hopeless non romantic, last year, against all odds, I
somehow met and fell for a suite charmingly befuddled englishman
and fellow teacher living in Tucson, Arizona. So naturally, after
only a few months of dating, he told me he
(43:26):
decided to move back to the UK at the end
of the school year. Well, cut to the Horay, I
packed up most of my life and moved to England
this past New Year's eave.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Well, it turns out that teaching is brutally hard on
both sides of the Atlantic. I'm loving building a little
British life with this kind and unexpected man. But the
real horay, I'm writing this from the airport on my
way back to the States to reunite with my dog,
my best friend of nearly nine years, to finally bring
him back across the pond with me. You'd not believe
the hoops required to move a dog to the UK.
(43:58):
But I'm endlessly grateful to my wonderful sister for taking
care of my Henry while I figured it all out.
Stay sexy and choose adventure over pragmatism every now and then, Katie.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
I love that I have life, build that British life,
phill it with scones and fundlements. Okay this is from
her email. Hi, my MFM queens. My horay is that
March marked four years being a registered nurse. Wow. Before
my nursing career, I was a teacher for four years
and slowly fell into a deep depression. In twenty eighteen,
(44:30):
I made the decision to go back to school for
nursing and I haven't looked back since. Now I have
four years in as an RN and I'm happier than ever.
It's never too late to change your life around.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Hooray Christina, Yes, Christina, it's so true.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
Never too late.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Also, if she just becomes a stand up comedian, now
she's done every job in my family. Oh yeah, oh Enviireman. Okay,
this is a combo because it's comment on episode four
seventy nine, No Bangs. They also horay in here from
Instagram and it says, going through a really hard phase
of life, but the joy from my kids is getting
me through it. I got them new pj's the other
(45:09):
day and my two year old goes dinosaurs.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
Yay.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
I could have cried, so hooray for dinosaurs and amazing
little humans.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
And that's at d shive le. Oh seven, that's so sweet.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
That's so sweet. Imagine having little children that bring you joy.
What's that like?
Speaker 3 (45:27):
What do we talk about?
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Is that it?
Speaker 3 (45:29):
That's it? I've done it all right.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Well, thank you Hyundai, and thank you listeners for sending
in your.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Hoorays, stay sexy and don't get murdered.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Goodbye, Elvis, Do you want a cookie?
Speaker 3 (45:47):
This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Our researchers are Maaron McGlashan and Ali Elkin.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Email your homecounts to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
Follow the show on Instagram at my Favorite Murder.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Podcasts and now you can watch us on exactly Right's
YouTube page.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
While you're there, please like and subscribe.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Goodbyebye,
Hosts And Creators
Georgia Hardstark
Karen Kilgariff
Popular Podcasts
True Crime Tonight
If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.