June 1, 2022 • 63 mins
When Dr. Charles Scudder and Joey Odom moved to a remote location in rural Georgia, they sought to create their own, personal paradise — complete with drugs, sex and occult symbolism. Locals agreed the men were eccentric, but, by all accounts, friendly and non-threatening. They seemed set to continue living out their strange social experiment in peace — until one violent day changed everything.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nolan. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission Controlled deconds. Most importantly, you are you, You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. Look, folks, if you're listening, no
matter where you live. If you're like most people, you
(00:45):
live in an urban environment. But uh, no matter where
you live or who you are, you are familiar with
the trope of the small town. They can present some
of the best and worst parts of any society. Matt Nolan,
I have all had plenty of strange adventures in small towns.
And for the good part, you know, they are the
places where people band together, communities where everyone knows your name,
(01:09):
people chip in to help each other out when times
are hard. But those same places can also be home
to troubling things, deep prejudice, corruption that lasts for generations.
Maybe not so keen on outsiders. There's a lot of
local corruption, they can hide secrets beneath the surface, and
today's story, just to be clear, folks, contains graphic depictions
(01:31):
of sex and violence. As such, it may not be
appropriate for all listeners. This is close to home for us.
It takes place in our home state of Georgia, and
maybe the best way to set it up is to
say thank you because in an earlier listener mail segment,
one of our fellow conspiracy realists asked about a place
called corpse would Manner Here are the facts. Yeah, shout
(01:55):
out to Slayer who asked us about that or I
guess told us about that. It was one of those
things that we felt like we knew or we had
heard about, but didn't know any of the details at
the time. So thank you Slayer for letting us know
about that. Yeah, and you know, Chattuga County not to
be confused with Chattanooga, which is also not terribly far
from here in Atlanta. That's in uh Tennessee. Chattuga County
(02:17):
is a county in Georgia not very far from Alabama. Um,
and Ben you pointed this out. I did not realize
the proximity, but um a really cool outsider artist by
the name of Howard Finster has a incredible he's not
living anymore, but his I guess estate called Paradise Gardens
is also there in Chattuga County, UM, a population of
(02:41):
a little less than twenty five thousand people, beautiful outdoors
and some kind of odd like outsider art stuff. Um.
This guy like did a lot of album covers for R. E. M.
And he's you know, in a lot of modern art museums.
He's considered, like, you know, one of the great outsider artists,
very very interesting work. Um. But also Chattooga County is
(03:01):
home to the topic of today's episode, which is a
place called Corpse would Manor. Yeah, and uh, I you know,
even living in Georgia for some time. Uh, this this
one had been on my list of hey learn more
about this. But every every state is filled with obscure
(03:21):
stories that kind of fade from the news. So yes,
thank you to Slayer. I was excited to dive into
this one. Chattooga is in the very like up upper
northwest corner of Georgia, right on the border with Alabama.
Like you said, no, it's a small place. It's pretty conservative,
it's fairly religious. It's one of those places where if
(03:42):
you happen through it wouldn't particularly strike you as odd,
and you probably haven't heard of it unless you've heard
of Howard Finster. I was able to visit Paradise Gardens
a while back. It is well worth the day trip
if you're in the area, and his story alone is awesome,
maybe for ridiculous history in the future. Corpse would manor
(04:04):
is legit something you would call a castle? Uh? The
manner it's it's a compound, really. The manner itself is
built of stone by hand, pretty neat, and it's in
the middle of the Chattahoochee National Forest. Part of the
Chattahoochee National Forest is in Chattuga County. And it was
(04:24):
built by these two guys who stuck out like sore
thumbs in this otherwise sort of buttoned up, happy go
lucky town of Trion, which is the second largest community
in the county. Our main character, if we could call
him such, is a guy named Dr Charles Scudder. In
(04:45):
his previous life, Scudder was a Loyola professor of pharmacology
and assistant director of the Institute for the Study of
the Mind, Drugs and Behavior, and in nine seventy six
seventy even he does something really interesting. He leaves his
job and sells off like a bunch of his possessions,
(05:09):
like all like even the electronic appliances. And he and
his longtime housekeeper and partner, a guy named Joey or
Joseph Odom, they've been scouting out areas in the south
of the US and they landed on a place called
Taylor's Ridge, and they were there they wanted to build
their own sort of paradise. They definitely had a vision
(05:30):
in mind for construction. If you are a true crime
fan and you hear a name like corpse would Manner,
you immediately start asking yourself whether this is a work
of fiction or fact. It was the real name. Uh.
Scudder and Odom chose that name because when they arrived
at the site, they found what author Amy Potula calls
(05:51):
a graveyard of denuded trees. And I suspect, because Scutter
was a brilliant dude, I suspect that they were maybe
doing a little bit a word play, because you know,
copes is a word that describes a group of trees,
and it sounds really close to I mean, you know,
you get it. It's worth a laugh, is what I'm saying.
I feel like they planned that one. Yeah maybe, and denuded.
(06:14):
I didn't know what that meant until we looked at
you know, we're researching for this episode. But denuded, it
just means a tree that doesn't have any leaves on it,
so there's no like life to the tree that is
actually going to help it to continue to grow. Doesn't
necessarily mean that it's dead, but it's denuded. Uh. And
if there's a whole bunch of them, they're probably not
doing so great, So it would be kind of like
(06:35):
having a bunch of tree corpses exactly. Yeah, a copse
of tree corpses. And look, this is not the usual
run of daily events for the good folks of Treon.
Treon is one of those places where time seems to
move a little bit differently than it doesn't, say, bustling Manhattan.
(06:57):
A lot of officials keep their same jobs for years,
years and years. It's not a moving and shaking town
of drama and crime, and frankly, residents like it that way.
They just want to go about their business, you know.
But unfortunately, like any other area of the world, Trion
is not immune to evil nor as Chattooga County. In
the fall of two, a teenager named Judith Neely and
(07:23):
her husband Alvin Neely, who was born in Trion, embarked
on a series of brutal kidnappings, horrific assaults, and murders
before being caught. Neely, by the way, was the ringleader
of the operation. She could be an episode all her
own um. One of her last crimes was tricking a
(07:44):
once they have been caught in car story. One of
her last crimes was tricking another female inmate into a
suicide pact to have that person killed themselves. Yeah, a
motive unknown. But this is also part of the part
of the eight that's home to something we talked about
a number of years ago, the tri State crematorium scandal,
(08:06):
where this one guy had on his own just because
he didn't want to cremate bodies. He was saying that
he cremated them, and he ended up building a mass
grave that was only later discovered in the two thousand's. Anyway,
this is the what we're saying is appearances are not
always the true substance of a place, a person, a book,
(08:30):
et cetera. This is the context in which the corpse
would crimes occurred, and there's a lot to dive into here,
so we're keeping the facts brief. Let's get to it.
Here's where it gets crazy. So we've set up corpse
would we've introduced our main characters. Maybe we can learn
(08:50):
a little bit about how they got there in the
first place, because I think that really sets the stage
for the events to come. It's interesting. I mean, this
this kind of small town murder mysteries, and you know,
the idea of the kind of like degenerate underbelly of
you know, Middle America or the South, or you know,
(09:11):
a place that has this like Sylvan kind of patina
on top that there's like, you know, there's a rot
beneath um. You know, it's obviously a really good motivation
for some from fiction, like things like Twin Peaks Um,
where you know it's all about like what's happening in
the deep dark woods, you know, behind the scenes of
like the idyllic kind of country living kind of situations.
(09:33):
So that's what this makes me think of. But we
have our main characters Dr Scott Well characters Samfoni. Reverting
back to the fiction idea, because this stuff is stranger
than fiction. Um, we have doctor Scudder and Joseph Odom
who had lived together for uh tens of years, like
I believe at least twenty years, if not more, UM
before they decided to move to a remote mountain area
(09:56):
of Taylor's Ridge in a treon Um. They started looking
at multiple places and states around the South UM where
they could get land for a really good deal. They
got the land for ten thousand, five hundred dollars sane
when you think about how much land in real estate
costs these days. UM. On his fiftieth birthday, Scudder quit
(10:18):
his job and they began to prepare for the move.
And Scudder he packed for the occasion. He brought some
which could I guess colloquially referred to as party favors
with him UM three glass vials containing an estimated twelve
thousand doses of the highest purest LSD imaginable like you know,
(10:42):
research grade material, government grade LSD and just for funzies
to human skulls. Yeah, he he liked. He liked sigils
and symbols for sure. He had also gotten really into
the Church of Satan, the old CEO s not to
be confused with the Church of Scientology and whenever we
(11:05):
bring up Church of Satan, this particular CEOs, we need
to point out that it is not devil worshiping, right,
it's got its it's got its roots in atheism really
and this is this is the Church of Anton LaVey.
So also these party favors, to be clear, he stole
(11:29):
these when he resigned from from his position. That LSD
was part of his work at the at the school,
and because he was ascribing to these sort of headonistic
do what thou wilt tenants of the Church of Satan.
He and his partner Odom wanted to find a place
(11:52):
off the beaten path, you know, far from the maddening crowd.
To make a very bad pun and I know it's
far from the madding crowd. Just anyone who's going to
write the email, uh, And they wanted to pursue a
life where they made their own rules without interference. Like
we said, Taylor's around fifty at this time, Taylor's Ridge
(12:13):
seems perfect. They have a tough time getting down there, um,
but they make a splash. People who have never met
Scudder nor Odum will participate in the small town rumor mill.
And that's why you would hear a lot of things,
especially in the like late eighties, early nineties, during different
(12:35):
peaks of Satanic panics. You'll hear a lot of people
who would say he's like a sinister corruptor of the innocent,
or you know, other people say he's kind of liking
avuncular guy. He likes to hand out free drugs, you know,
if you if you catch them on a good day,
maybe he'll give you some acid. But people who did
actually meet him said that he was soft spoken, he
(12:59):
was charming and well mannered. He was very much not
a threatening person. He was like a stereotypical professor. He
definitely didn't look like the the trope of the devil
worshiper that people described during the Satanic panic. He didn't
have like a black cloak and fake fangs and all
these pentagrams all over him just saying no, forgive me,
(13:21):
I don't drink vine or whatever. He was. He was
just right right to the Sheriff of Chattooga County. So
it's like, yeah, maybe he's a vampire, but I tell
you what, he is the nicest vampire I have met
in quiet sometimes. Uh. But he did have he did
(13:44):
have a past and This is one that I think
will be of interest to a lot of our fellow
listeners today. During his time at that institute, he conducted
government funded experiments with psychoactive drugs. Again during this time, so, like,
think about it, we're talking the seventies, some of the sixties.
(14:06):
This clearly ties into the looming shadow of ka Ultra.
But that's just to mention. That's just we're just pointing
out the time laying there. Anyway, they must have underestimated
Ottoman Scudder. How even even trying to keep to themselves
occasional trips into town, we're going to get attention from
(14:30):
locals because they were newly arrived residents at a place
that frankly doesn't have a lot of people moving in,
and they would go, you know, like they would do
things where they go in the same store every eighteen
days to re up on supplies, or they go to
send mail because as we'll see, Scutter was a prolific
letter writer and in contact with a lot of people.
(14:51):
But while they were doing this, they were also doing
something amazing, which is they were building their own compound.
I I was curious about this, guys. I wanted to
ask you all would you live a rustic life, Like,
would you be ready to issue electronic appliances and go
(15:12):
for go for the simpler, you know, bucolic lifestyle of
wood stoves and candles and oil lamps, or you're like, no,
I need the Internet. Yeah, I would totally do that
as long as I had a generator that I could
play a video game if I absolutely had to that
doesn't need an Internet connection. I would do that just
(15:34):
to get the fixed, right, I'm with you. Yeah. But
the you know like at Corpse would Man or this
like castle in the woods that they built, You're like,
you're right, Ben. They couldn't get the utility to send
a line out to where their property was, so they
couldn't get standard old electricity. And they also couldn't get
any water pipes from you know, the municipal water supplies
(15:55):
out to them, so they just had to dig a well.
And it it just weird to think that you just
go around every day using candles as your only form
of light. Once it got dark and you're in the
middle of the woods. That seems kind of scary. Yeah. Yeah,
And they they were really affable dudes, though. This is
one part that I think gets lost in a lot
(16:18):
of the descriptions of the story. So they built this
thing by hand. They've got the well, that's of course
one of the first things they build their dig out,
and then they build the manner where they live. And
these two guys do have separate bedrooms and that's where
their kitchen is library Scudder's office. But for most of
the visitors, they have quite a few visitors. The big
(16:40):
events took place in a three story structure called simply
the Chicken House, which for some reason that name bothers me.
And you can you can see pictures of what we're describing.
You can see most of it online today if you
just search for the right images. This thing is three stories.
It doesn't if you look at the photos, it doesn't
(17:02):
look like a particularly opulent structure. It looks, you know, homemade,
I guess is a way to say it. It does
have chickens on the ground floor. They raised chickens. They
also had two dogs, two very big, uh no nonsense
bodyguards of dogs. Uh yeah, this the second floor. If
you go up to the second floor, then you're gonna
(17:23):
see a larger and kind of pantry stocked with canned
goods that they bought at the store makes sense, especially
if you're living semi off the grid. But on that
second floor also, they have a pretty extensive collection of pornography,
like such that you would call it a library. It's
not a few nudy mags under someone's mattress. This is
(17:43):
like VHS pornography, right, Like they would need to be
you know, stored in many, many shelves because like you
say that, we I think we made a joke about
this before May. We were talking about this place in
the original email when it came through the idea that
I had a whole floor debdic get into pornography and
we're like and then I was like, oh yeah, you
do the math. It's like they would have probably all
(18:05):
been like big, you know, VHS boxes, so it would
have required some space. I'm wondering if a lot of
it was print because of the electricity. That's a good point, Um.
And if it's print, then that just means it was
even more extensive if it took up that much of
the second floor. So this is the second floor is
the porn archive. Then we have the third floor was
(18:27):
referred to um affectionately as the pink room. And this
is the most mysterious for this story today. Outsiders and
visitors would later take to calling it the pleasure Chamber,
with Scudder's approval. By the way, Uh, and we don't
want to king shame here, folks. This is where the
(18:47):
conversation gets a little mature. Yeah, so second floor porn
can beans whatever. The third floor is just one large
room and it is built as the primo hangout spot
of the manner. You go into the pink room, say
Matt Nolan, I are visiting. Uh, We're not going to
(19:10):
find any chairs. We're gonna find an assortment of pink
sheeted mattresses. And we're also going to find an assortment
of very specific gear, the kind of stuff that will
be familiar with b d S m enthusiast whips, chains,
other implements often referred to as toys. And then you know,
(19:30):
some more pornography. Um and and and it's weird because
we really looked into this, and despite years of searching,
not not years of other investigators searching, people asking police
law enforcement, g b I, which is the state level,
uh FBI, it's the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, no one
(19:53):
to our knowledge has found an actual photo of the interior.
So when we're telling you these things, working off descriptions
from the police, there's one thing that's still really bugs
me about this whole thing. There is what I would
call a Schrodinger's guest book. Schrodinger's guest book because it
(20:14):
does or does not exist, depending on who you ask.
This thing keeps receipts. Visitors signed this thing, and most
of them are outsiders that have corresponded with Scutter. But
at least one of these people, and this this is
according to law enforcement, at least one of these people
was a prominent local resident. There were also notations about guests,
(20:39):
alleged sexual preferences, and compromising photographs. We don't have those photographs.
We'll tell you why this is Schrodinger's book in the
first place. Later, we don't have not only don't have
those photographs, we don't have any photographs of this floor
at all. It's all just based on kind of heresy,
(21:00):
I mean more than hearsay. It's in police reports and
such in descriptions. But I don't believe any investigators or
any investigators that have leaked any photos to the public
um have caught a shot of this place. YEP, that's correct. Uh.
They that's why we're saying, we're working off police descriptions,
so we have to just at that point you have
(21:21):
to ask yourself how much trust you put in your
local authorities? Right, Maybe that's a story for another episode,
but in in our outline, we've got what appears to
be an exterior shot of the Chicken House. Do we do?
We know if that's confirmed to be? Yeah, that is.
So if you look at it, you'll see, um, the
(21:42):
bottom area, it's a rectangular tower, so at the bottom
area you'll see the brickwork masonry, and then on two
sides there are two apertures for windows, but I don't
think they had glass in them, or they didn't at
this time, and a doorway, and then the second floor
and the third floor wooden. And this is what makes
(22:05):
it creepy. I don't know if this got to you
guys as well. The second floor they're tiny, individual windows
on each side they get smaller. And then the third
floor no windows. Yeah, there's gotta be a some kind
of opening in the roof. Maybe no, And they get
water in there. I wonder how they did that. I
wonder why. Yeah, it makes you think and uh, and
(22:28):
we're talking a lot about these visitors, but we have
to ask ourselves, how did these people in the middle
of the woods, right the closest town is still really small,
how did they get so many visitors from across the country. Well,
we're gonna pause for word from our sponsor, and then
we'll tell you the process of visiting Corpse would Manor.
(22:55):
And we're back. We've been talking about the physical corpse
would man Or location. They're out near Tryon, Georgia in summer.
Is it near Somerville too? Is that? Is that correct?
In Chattooga County? And we're we're talking about the physical location.
So the construction of the chicken house as well as
the castle, the brick castle that was Corpse would Manor. Um.
(23:20):
I just want to bring this up to you, guys.
Do you remember the movie Hereditary? I feel like, and
you tell me if I'm wrong here, I feel like
towards the ending, I don't want to spoil it, but
there's a tree house or something like that. It's a lot,
it looks a lot like this. You're not wrong. I
wonder there was some inspiration taken from that, you know.
(23:44):
I'm just saying it's the kind of stuff that that
director Ari Astir, He's really focused on details, and I
don't know that the location was necessarily even given for
where that movie takes place. I don't think it was
like very location forward, you know, in terms of like
we're in Portland or whatever. But it's like definitely in
a wooded area. Um. I could there are some characters
(24:07):
in it that almost have like Southern accents. I could
see it potentially taking place somewhere in the South. I
think the argument for Hereditary is that what you perceives
the known world or reality is all actually one small,
terrifying diorama at the at the mercy of uncaring gods.
And that's no spoiler. The first shot in the movie
(24:29):
zooms into a diorama, and that's where the first you know,
it's like, that's the house. That's what you know. It's
it's like, whether you want to take that as a
stylistic choice or as a indication of the greater kind
of meta uh, you know, almost like snow globe kind
of environment of that movie, that's up to you. But
(24:49):
I think it's the former props the Hereditary. Interesting stories
on the development of that script as well. But for
another another time, but yes, check it if you haven't
seen it yet, don't know if it's one you're gonna
want to rewatch with the kiddos. But it's worth Shane,
especially around Halloween, the most wonderful time of the year.
So how did all these people get there? How did
(25:10):
they get there? Well, they got there because they were
invited all the time, constantly by Scudder through letters. Again,
he's he's a man of letters, he's a professor, he's
a prolific correspondent, letter writer, and he is mainly writing
the dudes, people from all walks of life. People have
(25:32):
been in the prison system before, like his partner Odom,
people who are currently incarcerated at the time. He writes,
the teachers, he writes, the models, he writes to some
teenagers has to be admitted. And the conversations, although they
are but although the people he's writing to a wide
ranging in terms of demographic the conversations kind of have
(25:55):
a common theme hedonism, sexual activity. And he's very clear
about this when he's inviting people and saying, oh, you know,
come visit Joey and me at corpse would. He also
goes on to describe in detail, like body parts and
activities that they could engage with during their time at
(26:16):
the manor if they're into it. Another thing about this
guy is he's very um like open about consent, you know,
so that that's something that got missed later on in
the trials, which is important. So this is a success.
It's kind of a numbers game. You know, you're right
to x amount of people and then some certain percentage
(26:37):
say okay, I'll take you up on it. And so
they have visitors come for what they would call sex
and game parties. Scudder and Odom make their own wine.
They have this homemade wine. They may have been administering
some of that Primo LSD and then they would engage
in sexual activity. Again if people were down. They had
(26:59):
a lot of folks who visited who had no interest
in or knowledge of this activity. Like there would be
a lot of hunters in the area because it's a
rural environment, and they would be walking on on the
guy's land, but they would know it was private land.
So they would contact them and say, hey, is it
okay if you know I hunt deer or something around here,
and they would say, yeah, for sure, man, you want
(27:20):
to hang out. We got wide and hunters would hang
out and then you know, at some point right right, right,
And and usually if from what we could tell, if
someone said no, thanks, that's that's not um my area
of interest, they would say, oh, okay, yeah, fine, Well
(27:43):
you know, come by any time if you change me here. Well,
we got the LSD, we got the pink room. You know. Look,
we've we've been doing experiments with the mind for quite
a while, at least back then. Not anymore though, right sure, yeah,
(28:04):
And that's the thing. So, like the I would say,
there are two genres a visitor. There are the locals
who are curious or happened to be there for another reason.
That would include hunters. That would include um, college age kids,
that would include um even the police swing by of
course uh. And the the other genres, the visitors who
(28:27):
went on purpose because they had spoken via post with
Scudder and they wanted to have this experience. They believed
that they were going for a certain thing, and there
was a process. They had to arrive a few days
before things got rolling, and Scudder would conduct a kind
of medical exam that to him, established their physical and
(28:50):
psychological fitness for what was about to happen. Important to
note Scudder not a medical doctor. He's not. He has
a wide range of experience and scholarship in the workings
of the human mind. But that's not the same thing
as you know, being a cardiologist or GP or something. Anyway,
(29:13):
there's an example of what you could expect now we
found from a guy named Ben Bellinger. Ben Belinger, local
from the area, goes on to be an attorney, a
defense attorney. And in the trial we're about to learn
about and and Ben Bellinger says, you know, one time
when I was a kid, me and uh, me and
(29:34):
a friend of mine got got really interested from what
we heard from the room or mill, and we rode
up to Taylor's Ridge. We wanted to check out the
scene because we heard, you know, anybody can show up,
and we found quote, a bunch of college kids in
white robes who are apparently stoned out of their minds uh.
And again, I know it sounds like a weird vibe.
(29:56):
And yes there's uh, there's imagery everywhere that would be
familiar to demonologists and stuff like that. But almost everyone
who later spoke about their experiences at the manor usually
reported that they had a good time and if they
if they didn't, you know, engage in what Scudder was
(30:18):
super into. Uh. They still said, actually, they're really nice guys,
which kind of runs counter to the narrative of sinister
Satanist in the woods, you know. Yeah, and they were
described as kind of being like pretty unassuming, kind of
just regular regular joes. This is also kind of the
way people usually describe serial killers. Just for the records,
(30:40):
I'm gonna do this, I hope in that ending with Hereditary,
guess what they're all wearing up in that treehouse. The
ropes waked. You know, they're naked, but n then they
get naked so real Corpse would manner vibes, you know,
(31:01):
and you can't completely agree. No, got naked more quickly
than the than the folks in Hereditary though, and probably
the folks of Corpse would the guys in the New
Kids in the Hall. First, Oh my god, I'm that's
a spoiler. That's just let to let you know, folks,
(31:22):
if you haven't seen it yet. There's no like, there's
there's no lead up, there's no like hey, heads up,
like down. It's weird too, because it's not just like
a quick shot. It's like them they're stricted to jump
up and down and stuff. It's like the helicopter. Yeah.
And uh, anyway, we're all big kids in the hall
(31:46):
fans which were to the wise. Uh, they are going
to surprise you. I just watched the baby dropping sketch,
like the percentage of babies that's actually really percent percent.
Uh that is I want to rewatch that one. But yes,
(32:06):
So despite all the weirdness, the eccentricity, and let's remember
that people in this area are kind of familiar town eccentrics,
Howard Fenster is like in their minds. He's mainly a
bicycle repairment and a guy who occasionally is is very
vocal street preacher. But he also makes art and he's
(32:30):
part of the community, you know what I mean. He's
like our weird guy. Like every neighborhood in the city
has our weird person. We've got um. For many years
here in Atlanta, there was Baton Bob. Baton Bob is
who was local figure who used to go outside and
parade around in front of our old office. Pretty nice
(32:51):
guy and he just does these one person like, uh
Baton performances wouldn't hurt a fly, you know, uh, and
looked fabulous. It was it was definitely just an outfit
that you could you could spot from way down the
road right oh to Bob's coming. Yeah yeah, driving driving
(33:14):
friends from out of town, just like showing the office
or something, given the Nickel tour, and they would sometimes
say who the hell is that and I would say that, um,
that's Bob, and we go Bob, you don't and I
say baton, Bob, as though that explained everything, like they
would go, oh yeah, yeah. Anyhow, So the question for
some of the locals in this rumor mill is are
(33:37):
these guys dangerous they seem nice when we talk to them,
or are they, you know, just kind of harmless eccentrics,
like like that guy who fixed his bicycles up the
way and police come and visit them and say, you know, hey,
what's going on here? Just want to check in, And
they have a great conversation with law enforcement and they say, hey,
(33:58):
you know, it's it's great to me you, I know
your work. Do you want to come in? We got
we got wine and the cops. You know, there's there's
a little bit of hubbub as as things progress, because
some members of law enforcement want to see if they
can shut down these folks who are, from their perspective,
(34:21):
devil worshippers, and they can't because the US for now
practices freedom of religion. And this this is still intriguing though,
so they leave, but they've got their eye on folks.
And the mystery is compounded when some visitors say that
(34:42):
Scudder tells them essentially he's only kind of retired, and
that he is continuing some version of the experiments he
conducted at Loyola. He is fascinated by the inner workings
of the human mind. One eyewitness later goes on to
say that he kind of enjoyed poking at psychological mechanisms
(35:07):
like a quote kid poking at a nest or an
aunt hill or a snake with a stick. So it's
a weird vibe, for sure. It's a vibe. And we
can't can't over emphasize just how riddle this place was
with stuff that people would call satanic sigils. No judgment,
(35:27):
We're just saying, like, you know, they're like four chimneys
on top of the main manner. Each one is emblazoned
with a pentagram statues of Mephistopheles um. Who are some
of the other ones? And I know you guys know
there's also a Satanic bible. Yeah, those two giant mastiffs
that they had on the property were beazel Bub and
(35:48):
arson Af. Beazel Bub is a demon arson as is
from HP Lovecraft or it's a character that's not really
fair to the dog. That's a lot to remember, you know,
surely they have pet names. But but yeah, so they're
they're definitely going for a theme. Here is what is
(36:09):
what we're saying. But they're not harming anyone, and they're
asking for consent and they're like pretty pretty nice. They
welcome anybody wants to hang, including like bikers. Uh, there's
a there was a motorcycle club that felt pretty messed
up about the tragic events that would later occur because
(36:31):
they kicked it with these guys and they said, look,
these dudes know how to party. They showed us a
great time. They didn't judge us, and we feel like
we dropped the ball because we were very protective of them, right,
and this is um, this same friendliness on their part,
the same kind of trusting nature of people is ultimately
(36:53):
what led to their murders. So let's go to that.
It's December six too. We're gonna jump around a time
a little bit. There's a guy named Raymond Williams. He's
a friend of this couple. He goes by corpse would
to give them the unpleasant news or the sad news
that another one of their mutual friends has passed away.
(37:15):
When Raymond gets to the door, he sees their bullet
holes in the door. He sees their holes in the
window as well, so he ties high tails it out
and he alerts the authorities. They arrive on the scene.
They find that Charles Scudder and Joseph Odom have been
fatally shot. Charles was found in the library, multiple gunshot
(37:38):
wounds to his head. Joseph was found in the kitchen,
shot fatally in the head and neck around four times.
Those dogs were also dead, and it appeared that someone
around the same time it tossed the house trying to
trying to steal stuff. Right, it looked like a robbery.
It looks so much like a robbery that sorities were
(38:00):
convinced that that's what it was. Jewelry was taken like
a gold plated dagger, a lot of the strange symbolic objects.
So investigators found a witness uh named Teresa Hudgens eighteen,
who was UM, actually had a date lined up with
a guy named Joey Wells on December twelfth of nWo
(38:21):
and Joey's uncle it was a thirty year old man
named Samuel Tony west Um. Joey's car broke down and
Tony offered to give the kids and the teenagers a
ride back. He was also accompanied by another seventeen year
old named Kenneth Avery Brock. Brock and Tony actually lived
(38:42):
together and a trailer nearby. Um. Both had checkered, troubled pasts.
Brock had spent some time with Scudder and Odom Uh
previously and he thought they were rich, uh, and he
told Tony that they should rob them. Um, they should
rob but this eccentric couple living out on the ridge,
(39:03):
which they decided to do uh the moment they saw
an opportunity present itself, which it did on December twelfth.
They had an ulterior motive right for giving giving these
kids on a date a ride, And they had planned
this and on the on the way, on the way
they're going to corpse would manor And it feels like
(39:25):
it was slightly premeditated, right, because they did. They had
been thinking about doing this robbery. But you have to
wonder if they would have gone on December the twelfth,
if Joey Wells's card not broken down. Kind of bringing
it back to their minds, why is their mental state
subject of importance? Here? Well, on the way to corpse
(39:47):
would manner they weren't driving particularly responsibly. They were huffing
homemade uh, homemade concoction of theirs. It contained alcohol, paint dinner,
and glue. And and Matt, I think you're a you're
a fan of the name as well, right, yeah, tulu Uh,
it's so funny. At the Webby Awards, big Bird was
(40:11):
there and he accepted his award and his sign off
was totalu. And I just couldn't believe that there's a
thing called tutelu that is actually paint dinner that you huff. Um.
It's also oh yeah, well it's also I think it's
called too lean or something something to that effect. You
can look it up. It is an industrial solvent and
(40:33):
gets used for several things, but one thing you can
use is to huff and associate and have some really
bad effects on your body, right and your mind. So
they get their things go south quickly, Uh, Scutter and
Odo remember Brock from earlier, and they say, oh, hey,
you guys here, you want to hang out? This is great,
(40:54):
so let's go to the pink room. And they go
and hang out in the pink room. They're drinking wine,
and then after a brief hanging sash Brock goes back
outside retrieves a rifle from their vehicle. He comes back
and he holds Scudder at gunpoint or knife point, depending
on the story, but I believe it's gunpoint because you
(41:17):
can you can see some harrowing accounts of this where
in Scudder is kind of inebriated a little bit at
this point, and he's saying he first sees the gun
and he says bang bang ha ha, and then he
realizes they're not playing, and things just quickly escalate. Brock Inton,
you're telling this guy to produce the cash. They're convinced
(41:39):
their millionaires, right because they have a mansion in the
mill of nowhere. All they appear to do with party
and work on their mansion. But they don't know that
Scudder and Odom spent pretty much all their scratch building
this strange compound. In fact, they're living on about two
dollars a month. This is ideological for them. So at
this point I want to say, just if we can
(42:00):
practice empathy and imagine those poor kids, Joey Wells and Teresa.
This is the worst date ever. And in first the
car doesn't work, then people are huffing when they drive
you someplace. Then you know you're drinking wine under age,
and then it looks like, oh, I've accidentally been at
(42:21):
a robbery. I think the statue of limitations has past.
I'm pretty sure I've accedentally been at some robberies. And
as weird as it sounds, especially people with an unstable
mental state, they might not mention their true intentions until
it's too late for you to get out. So Joey
and Teresa immediately try to run, and they say, Okay,
(42:42):
we're gonna hop in this. You know what, We're gonna
just get out of here. We're gonna steal a car.
These guys are crazy. I'm sorry about my uncle, and
the car won't start. Rock murders Joseph Odham and the dogs.
Tony takes Scudder into the manner where he murders him
as well. Probably after again and try and you know,
say where's the money? Giving the money? And they ransacked
(43:05):
the house and turns out Scudder and Odam, we're telling
the truth. They don't have they have loads of cash
in some sort of secret treasure trove. Uh. The the
robbers find or they make off with some jewelry like
the gold plated dagger we mentioned, a couple other like
amulets and brick a brack basically, and then they flee
(43:28):
and they make it to Mississippi. They try to do
a carjacking on a Navy lieutenant I believe named Kirby Phelps.
Their original plan was to get Phelps out of the car,
tie them to a tree, steal the vehicle, but Tony
kills him and then eventually they split ways in Texas.
(43:50):
So Brock eventually turns himself in on December twenty, and
then a few days later, Tony is apprehended in Tennessee. Um,
the leads to an investigation and a subsequent satanic panic
right there in Chattuga County, Georgia. We're going to talk
about both of those things and how they relate to
(44:12):
one another. After another quick break and we're back. Um,
So the trial becomes an absolute public you know, pandemonium. Um,
it's absolutely a circus of epic proportions. You gotta remember,
(44:34):
this is a part of the country that has a
lot of deep rooted fears of things like Satanism, of
things like ritual sacrifice, of anything that runs counter to
kind of evangelical Christianity. And this is not pigeonholing. I mean,
we'd speak from experience. Even here in Atlanta, which is
much more of a kind of a liberal bastion. In Georgia,
(44:57):
you have plenty of folks that see the devil everywhere. Uh,
much more of the case once you get into more
rural parts of the state. Um, so we'll just imagine,
imagine there are a bunch of rumors going around about
somebody in town, you know, some pretty prominent place within town.
But it is rumors you've heard tell from maybe a cousin,
(45:18):
maybe somebody went to high school with, but you haven't
seen it a while, and they just mentioned something about it.
And then all of a sudden, down at the courthouse
of your small town, there's a big trial happening with
guys you know, who supposedly killed people who lived there
in that rumored place. And there are all there's all
this laundry, some of it dirty coming out about the
(45:40):
specific lifestyle, right, Like you said, Noel, that is not
common for that town, not openly, not practiced to openly
be the idea. Yeah, and this this is terrible because
there are two two flavors of investigation happening, two different
halls of court. Won the actual court of the US
(46:03):
won the court of public opinion. The murderers are on
trial in the actual court, but in the court of
public opinion, the lifestyle of the victims is on trial
just as much as the real crimes. And these guys
are labeled and this is not our phrase, this is
the phrase that was used at the time, both in
(46:25):
court and in the media. They're labeled quote homosexual devil worshippers.
And they are, like you guys are saying, they're super
easy targets of the satanic panic that's sweeping the nation
at the time. This is when Wuiji boards were considered
the number one mass produced way to speak to infernal forces. Uh,
(46:49):
because that's how they get you. I guess at the
games department in your local local department store. Oh, Milton Bradley,
you know, the devil's in anisle six I guess, but
but yeah, six narratives. So so Dr Anton Leavey is
(47:10):
aware of this, and he's clearly livid because he says, look,
you know what this is. These murders are evidence that
there are areas of the US where you are going
to be attacked for having beliefs that don't fit the
status quo. Right, huge proponent of freedom of religion, whatever
(47:31):
else be said about him, And for the record, this
is absolutely true. I mean, you know, we think about
people in the l g B, t q UM community
um being victims of hate crimes and beatings. I mean,
that happened in places other than the Deep South, but
it was certainly a little more prevalent. And now, with
(47:52):
you know, trans rights being kind of in the forefront
and getting more widespread adoption and respect, you have play
is in the South that are trying to pass laws
that prohibit um discussion of any kind of pronouns or
or trans related rights. UM. So we're kind of circling
back in a way to what Dr Levy was talking about.
(48:14):
It absolutely is a prejudice that exists in this part
of the country, very much so, and not just this country. Obviously,
there's still many, many areas of the world where people
are risking their lives in the legal system for being
who they are, you know, and and remember that the
true definition of state power is monopoly over violence, which
(48:36):
is a point I wish people would bring up more often. Anyhow, Yes,
the idea of homophobia plays a huge role in this trial.
The defense initially accuses doctor Scudder of spiking that homemade
wine with LSD because that would somehow make these people
(48:57):
more likely to quote participate in sex with him. But
law enforcement tested the wine and it not only didn't
have LSD in it, they have any other kind of
psychoactive drug. The only drug I had in there it
was alcohol because it was homemade hooch, So that that
defense falls through. And then when that fails, West argues
(49:19):
that he is m if not unintentionally drugged, he is
unintentionally intoxicated against his will. They get him drunk um
you know, to to lou Aside. And then the defense
even says in the trial at some point that Scudder
had a motive to harm these guys because he was
(49:40):
a homosexual. And then West, during his confession at some
point says, look, all I can say is they were
devils and I killed him. That's how I feel about it.
As you can see is are not the most sympathetic
of criminals. Yeah, and this this goes on, and honestly,
(50:01):
the the thing is because these people had a lifestyle
that folks found controversial in the area. Uh, you could
wonder what their ultimate sentencing would have been, but everyone
could agree, everyone in the court could agree that the
murder of the Navy lieutenant was indeed a serious crime.
(50:26):
And that's that's one of the things that really got
the judge to go hard on them. Um. One of them, Tony,
was initially given the death penalty, but due to what
was described as a lack of women in the jury
at the original trial, he got a retrial and then
he was given life in prison. Uh. The other guy
got life in prison as well. At the time of
(50:48):
this recording, both men are alive. They are incarcerated in
Georgia in two separate facilities. But you know, no matter
what what happened this to someone after they had murdered
a person, those murder those murder victims don't come back,
you know what I mean. And so you have to
(51:10):
wonder about justice. You have to wonder about seriously a
lot of things with this investigation. Let's go back to
this what we mentioned earlier. What happened to that guest
book that was described as a diary? Why why do
some people deny it existed at all? Dude lawyer? Several
lawyers in the murder case claimed that not only was
(51:32):
it not around, but that they had never heard of it.
So either they're embellishing or maybe the chain of custody
you broke down before it got to them. What do
you guys think? I don't know. It seems like one
of those things that you may have taken if you
knew what it was, if you know, you just committed
a crime there, because it does have records of people
(51:53):
who have been there, and probably including them, but who knows.
And you shared a really interesting link with us been
law dot Justia dot com, j U s t i
A dot com And in there you can see the
case West versus State. I think you might be able
to find it if if you search the number two
five two and then g A for Georgia one five six.
(52:19):
I know it's a lot of weird things, but you
can find it. It's got information in there that Ben
is referring to where their different attorneys kind of giving
some interesting arguments that occurred throughout the cases. There things
that I just didn't even know existed. But that's how
I learned about tutelu. Is there is there reber? I mean,
(52:39):
I think tutalu in the British parlance is spelled like
with a D, and this one is spelled to dash
a dash lou. Obviously they're referencing something similar. I don't
know what came first, but yeah, it's definitely tout lou
is just like a kind of a corny, almost British farewell.
But guys, is there a sense like, I mean, the
(53:01):
motivations for these murders seems pretty clear and tied to
a crime of opportunity, you know that went horribly wrong. Um,
but because of this guest book and the idea of
prominent local people being in it, potentially is there a
sense that that that this was potentially a hit job
or something more than the surface? Uh, you know, evidence
(53:23):
might suggest I see. This is something I went back
and forth on as well, because for people who are
a little more conspiratorially minded about this, there are a
lot of questions like you would have to ask yourself
about the extent of doctors Scudder's involvement with government sponsored experimentation. Right,
(53:46):
that's one. That's one unresolved string, not saying has anything
to do with the murder. It's an unresolved string though.
And then another thread would um. Another thread would be
good old fashioned prejudice or maybe self preservation if there was,
if there was, again this still unknown prominent local who
(54:06):
wanted to silence any evidence of their involvement with these folks,
because again, Scudder and oed Um kind of open books
in a lot of ways, Like if you ask them, hey,
do you know so and so, they probably say, oh, yeah,
so and so comes to all the time. Great guy
had a pegging sess yesterday. It was awesome, right right,
So it maybe something like that, but we'll never know
(54:30):
unless that guestbook surfaces or less. Someone could actually prove
it is real, like it's weird, because the trial witness
Tracy Bell Wilson and a former sheriff, Gary McConnell say
it was indeed real. McConnell encountered it. McConnell is on
(54:51):
record claiming, yeah, I saw it, I found it, I
turned it in as evidence. But I have no idea
what happened to it after it entered into the evidence room,
and to this date, no one knows where that book is.
Is it possible that someone purposely lost the evidence to
preserve the reputation of a prominent local, whoever they might be.
(55:12):
There's no solid proof of it, but I know for
a lot of us in the audience today, you hear
something like that, and you go small towns, they can
keep secrets. And I don't know if you guys found
this in your research, but there are some kind of
like expl I don't know, ghost hunter site exploration type
videos um with people going, you know, finding this place.
(55:36):
It's not the most straightforward place to find, but you
can't find it um and at least the site of it.
And there's one YouTube video in particular where some folks
are like, you know, backpacking through the woods and they
and they find their way to the site and there's
reports of spooky goings on at the site. Yeah, it's
on Google Maps, and if you look at the images
(55:56):
on there in search corpsewould manner, you can see kids
hanging out with their parents like little kids. Uh. They
saw one picture in particular, nol looks like Eden from
a couple of years ago, just hanging out by the ruins, like, hey, look, yeah,
garps would manner um because everything would manner sounds like
(56:17):
a location in elden Ring. I mean it really does.
It's it's got such a such a fantasy goth kind
of love crafty and vibe to it. Sure, yeah, yeah,
And today the manner, the manner has fallen to ruin.
You know, it's got, it's overgrown, there's graffiti on multiple surfaces.
(56:39):
And if you want to visit, you need to be
aware that um as as I mentioned in a first
conversation about this, it's on private land, So just have
that in your back pocket, right, you need to understand
that it can be considered trespassing to get there. Obviously,
that doesn't worry a ton of people, and obviously there
are mechanisms to ask whether you can go on that land,
(57:02):
just the same way that hunters used to ask Scudder
and Odum if it was okay to hunt deer there.
This still hasn't stopped people from speculating about some hidden
story behind these tragic events, And of course rumors are
not people. They don't have to respect trespassing laws. That's
why you hear so much scuttle But now where people
will say that there might be ghostly forces, you'll hear
(57:26):
rumors mature able to confirm or untrue about some hidden
underground layer, a lab of some sort that does not
appear to be the case. The main digging those guys
did was to create that. Well. You also hear people
say it has a deep kind of vibe um, a
vibration and emanation of sadness, you know, like folks who
(57:48):
feel that they are sensitive as as they would sometimes
be described, will say, you know something happened here. Uh,
that kind of stuff is really hard to prove whether
you know the legitimacy of that. But they will also
say they hear the ghost of gunshots, strange echoes barking,
They might even see glowing eyes in the night. But
(58:10):
what we can see in this case, what can be proven,
does not need to be supernatural, is the story ultimately prejudice, petty,
criminal motivation, and in some cases it's a story of
a small town home to some stuff they don't want
you to know unless the guest book comes out. Yeah,
did we even mention the rumor that Scudder supposedly summon
(58:33):
a demon to protect the manner and the property. We
did not, And part of that is because the the
a lot of this stuff I was reading, particularly the
book The Corpse would Manner Murders in North Georgia by
Amy Ptola. It it mentions that and says that they
couldn't find any evidence for it. But it is You're right, Matt,
(58:56):
that's one of like the long running at least rumors
from I could tell it's commonly accepted, is fact. I
just couldn't. Plus, how could you confirm that? You have
to have Scudder tell you right? I guess. So it
just seems an interesting thing, especially for anyone who wants
to go back out there. I can imagine why. That
makes it massively intriguing, still roaming the land, although it
(59:20):
did not protect Charles and Mr Odom. Well, that's the
thing about working with those sorts of forces. Uh, it's
typically in the world of those belief systems, it's not
a sustainable relationship. Yeah, henyone guys Glady talked about it again. Yeah,
it's uh, and it really has you know, especially the
(59:43):
part where the fiction mind you know, would take this
in a much more conspiratoral direction, would be that guest
book and who was in that guest book and was
it really a cover up? And were the rituals real.
It's like all the things that I think intrigued us
about Season one of True Detectives so much, h um,
you know, believing that maybe there was real magic. And
(01:00:03):
you know then of course the participation of high ranking
government officials, because even though we know Georgia and the South, uh,
these things don't fly publicly, this idea of free wheeling
sex parties and all of that stuff and you know,
hedonistic behavior. We also know what happens. We also know
politicians do that stuff and they cover it up because
(01:00:27):
of it's all about appealing to the voters and the constituencies,
and in those people are typically you know, the ones
that are really active and and make sure to have
their vote heard, or like older folks that uh are
very right leaning and and and don't you know, god
fearing types. So that's the fun part about, you know,
taking real stories like this and kind of crafting them
(01:00:50):
into critique on on society. I mean, I think there's
enough of that already built into the story in terms
of the critique on society part. But I'm fascinated by
the idea of taking like these kind of real true
crime stories and using them as fodder for for much
more outlandish fiction. But you really need to go much
more outlantist than the story already does. Well, and and
(01:01:13):
again just to get the legal department off the off
ban Key star in the future here, UH found no
solid proof of a cover up? Just where where is
the guest book? And I think that's a fair question
to ask. That's the question a lot of other people
have asked too. We hope you I don't think it.
Enjoy this episode is the right way to say it,
but we we hope you found it uh as fascinating
(01:01:36):
as we did, and we hope it left you with
some of the same questions. Um. Even more importantly, we
want to hear your stories about places like this or
occurrences like this in your neck of the global woods.
Let us know, fellow conspiracy realists, we can't wait to
hear from you. We try to be easy to find online.
You can find us on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube
(01:01:57):
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(01:02:18):
If you'd like to preorder, you can do that right now.
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(01:03:23):
Don't want you to Know is a production of I
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nolan. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission Controlled deconds. Most importantly, you are you, You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. Look, folks, if you're listening, no
matter where you live. If you're like most people, you
(00:45):
live in an urban environment. But uh, no matter where
you live or who you are, you are familiar with
the trope of the small town. They can present some
of the best and worst parts of any society. Matt Nolan,
I have all had plenty of strange adventures in small towns.
And for the good part, you know, they are the
places where people band together, communities where everyone knows your name,
(01:09):
people chip in to help each other out when times
are hard. But those same places can also be home
to troubling things, deep prejudice, corruption that lasts for generations.
Maybe not so keen on outsiders. There's a lot of
local corruption, they can hide secrets beneath the surface, and
today's story, just to be clear, folks, contains graphic depictions
(01:31):
of sex and violence. As such, it may not be
appropriate for all listeners. This is close to home for us.
It takes place in our home state of Georgia, and
maybe the best way to set it up is to
say thank you because in an earlier listener mail segment,
one of our fellow conspiracy realists asked about a place
called corpse would Manner Here are the facts. Yeah, shout
(01:55):
out to Slayer who asked us about that or I
guess told us about that. It was one of those
things that we felt like we knew or we had
heard about, but didn't know any of the details at
the time. So thank you Slayer for letting us know
about that. Yeah, and you know, Chattuga County not to
be confused with Chattanooga, which is also not terribly far
from here in Atlanta. That's in uh Tennessee. Chattuga County
(02:17):
is a county in Georgia not very far from Alabama. Um,
and Ben you pointed this out. I did not realize
the proximity, but um a really cool outsider artist by
the name of Howard Finster has a incredible he's not
living anymore, but his I guess estate called Paradise Gardens
is also there in Chattuga County, UM, a population of
(02:41):
a little less than twenty five thousand people, beautiful outdoors
and some kind of odd like outsider art stuff. Um.
This guy like did a lot of album covers for R. E. M.
And he's you know, in a lot of modern art museums.
He's considered, like, you know, one of the great outsider artists,
very very interesting work. Um. But also Chattooga County is
(03:01):
home to the topic of today's episode, which is a
place called Corpse would Manor. Yeah, and uh, I you know,
even living in Georgia for some time. Uh, this this
one had been on my list of hey learn more
about this. But every every state is filled with obscure
(03:21):
stories that kind of fade from the news. So yes,
thank you to Slayer. I was excited to dive into
this one. Chattooga is in the very like up upper
northwest corner of Georgia, right on the border with Alabama.
Like you said, no, it's a small place. It's pretty conservative,
it's fairly religious. It's one of those places where if
(03:42):
you happen through it wouldn't particularly strike you as odd,
and you probably haven't heard of it unless you've heard
of Howard Finster. I was able to visit Paradise Gardens
a while back. It is well worth the day trip
if you're in the area, and his story alone is awesome,
maybe for ridiculous history in the future. Corpse would manor
(04:04):
is legit something you would call a castle? Uh? The
manner it's it's a compound, really. The manner itself is
built of stone by hand, pretty neat, and it's in
the middle of the Chattahoochee National Forest. Part of the
Chattahoochee National Forest is in Chattuga County. And it was
(04:24):
built by these two guys who stuck out like sore
thumbs in this otherwise sort of buttoned up, happy go
lucky town of Trion, which is the second largest community
in the county. Our main character, if we could call
him such, is a guy named Dr Charles Scudder. In
(04:45):
his previous life, Scudder was a Loyola professor of pharmacology
and assistant director of the Institute for the Study of
the Mind, Drugs and Behavior, and in nine seventy six
seventy even he does something really interesting. He leaves his
job and sells off like a bunch of his possessions,
(05:09):
like all like even the electronic appliances. And he and
his longtime housekeeper and partner, a guy named Joey or
Joseph Odom, they've been scouting out areas in the south
of the US and they landed on a place called
Taylor's Ridge, and they were there they wanted to build
their own sort of paradise. They definitely had a vision
(05:30):
in mind for construction. If you are a true crime
fan and you hear a name like corpse would Manner,
you immediately start asking yourself whether this is a work
of fiction or fact. It was the real name. Uh.
Scudder and Odom chose that name because when they arrived
at the site, they found what author Amy Potula calls
(05:51):
a graveyard of denuded trees. And I suspect, because Scutter
was a brilliant dude, I suspect that they were maybe
doing a little bit a word play, because you know,
copes is a word that describes a group of trees,
and it sounds really close to I mean, you know,
you get it. It's worth a laugh, is what I'm saying.
I feel like they planned that one. Yeah maybe, and denuded.
(06:14):
I didn't know what that meant until we looked at
you know, we're researching for this episode. But denuded, it
just means a tree that doesn't have any leaves on it,
so there's no like life to the tree that is
actually going to help it to continue to grow. Doesn't
necessarily mean that it's dead, but it's denuded. Uh. And
if there's a whole bunch of them, they're probably not
doing so great, So it would be kind of like
(06:35):
having a bunch of tree corpses exactly. Yeah, a copse
of tree corpses. And look, this is not the usual
run of daily events for the good folks of Treon.
Treon is one of those places where time seems to
move a little bit differently than it doesn't, say, bustling Manhattan.
(06:57):
A lot of officials keep their same jobs for years,
years and years. It's not a moving and shaking town
of drama and crime, and frankly, residents like it that way.
They just want to go about their business, you know.
But unfortunately, like any other area of the world, Trion
is not immune to evil nor as Chattooga County. In
the fall of two, a teenager named Judith Neely and
(07:23):
her husband Alvin Neely, who was born in Trion, embarked
on a series of brutal kidnappings, horrific assaults, and murders
before being caught. Neely, by the way, was the ringleader
of the operation. She could be an episode all her
own um. One of her last crimes was tricking a
(07:44):
once they have been caught in car story. One of
her last crimes was tricking another female inmate into a
suicide pact to have that person killed themselves. Yeah, a
motive unknown. But this is also part of the part
of the eight that's home to something we talked about
a number of years ago, the tri State crematorium scandal,
(08:06):
where this one guy had on his own just because
he didn't want to cremate bodies. He was saying that
he cremated them, and he ended up building a mass
grave that was only later discovered in the two thousand's. Anyway,
this is the what we're saying is appearances are not
always the true substance of a place, a person, a book,
(08:30):
et cetera. This is the context in which the corpse
would crimes occurred, and there's a lot to dive into here,
so we're keeping the facts brief. Let's get to it.
Here's where it gets crazy. So we've set up corpse
would we've introduced our main characters. Maybe we can learn
(08:50):
a little bit about how they got there in the
first place, because I think that really sets the stage
for the events to come. It's interesting. I mean, this
this kind of small town murder mysteries, and you know,
the idea of the kind of like degenerate underbelly of
you know, Middle America or the South, or you know,
(09:11):
a place that has this like Sylvan kind of patina
on top that there's like, you know, there's a rot
beneath um. You know, it's obviously a really good motivation
for some from fiction, like things like Twin Peaks Um,
where you know it's all about like what's happening in
the deep dark woods, you know, behind the scenes of
like the idyllic kind of country living kind of situations.
(09:33):
So that's what this makes me think of. But we
have our main characters Dr Scott Well characters Samfoni. Reverting
back to the fiction idea, because this stuff is stranger
than fiction. Um, we have doctor Scudder and Joseph Odom
who had lived together for uh tens of years, like
I believe at least twenty years, if not more, UM
before they decided to move to a remote mountain area
(09:56):
of Taylor's Ridge in a treon Um. They started looking
at multiple places and states around the South UM where
they could get land for a really good deal. They
got the land for ten thousand, five hundred dollars sane
when you think about how much land in real estate
costs these days. UM. On his fiftieth birthday, Scudder quit
(10:18):
his job and they began to prepare for the move.
And Scudder he packed for the occasion. He brought some
which could I guess colloquially referred to as party favors
with him UM three glass vials containing an estimated twelve
thousand doses of the highest purest LSD imaginable like you know,
(10:42):
research grade material, government grade LSD and just for funzies
to human skulls. Yeah, he he liked. He liked sigils
and symbols for sure. He had also gotten really into
the Church of Satan, the old CEO s not to
be confused with the Church of Scientology and whenever we
(11:05):
bring up Church of Satan, this particular CEOs, we need
to point out that it is not devil worshiping, right,
it's got its it's got its roots in atheism really
and this is this is the Church of Anton LaVey.
So also these party favors, to be clear, he stole
(11:29):
these when he resigned from from his position. That LSD
was part of his work at the at the school,
and because he was ascribing to these sort of headonistic
do what thou wilt tenants of the Church of Satan.
He and his partner Odom wanted to find a place
(11:52):
off the beaten path, you know, far from the maddening crowd.
To make a very bad pun and I know it's
far from the madding crowd. Just anyone who's going to
write the email, uh, And they wanted to pursue a
life where they made their own rules without interference. Like
we said, Taylor's around fifty at this time, Taylor's Ridge
(12:13):
seems perfect. They have a tough time getting down there, um,
but they make a splash. People who have never met
Scudder nor Odum will participate in the small town rumor mill.
And that's why you would hear a lot of things,
especially in the like late eighties, early nineties, during different
(12:35):
peaks of Satanic panics. You'll hear a lot of people
who would say he's like a sinister corruptor of the innocent,
or you know, other people say he's kind of liking
avuncular guy. He likes to hand out free drugs, you know,
if you if you catch them on a good day,
maybe he'll give you some acid. But people who did
actually meet him said that he was soft spoken, he
(12:59):
was charming and well mannered. He was very much not
a threatening person. He was like a stereotypical professor. He
definitely didn't look like the the trope of the devil
worshiper that people described during the Satanic panic. He didn't
have like a black cloak and fake fangs and all
these pentagrams all over him just saying no, forgive me,
(13:21):
I don't drink vine or whatever. He was. He was
just right right to the Sheriff of Chattooga County. So
it's like, yeah, maybe he's a vampire, but I tell
you what, he is the nicest vampire I have met
in quiet sometimes. Uh. But he did have he did
(13:44):
have a past and This is one that I think
will be of interest to a lot of our fellow
listeners today. During his time at that institute, he conducted
government funded experiments with psychoactive drugs. Again during this time, so, like,
think about it, we're talking the seventies, some of the sixties.
(14:06):
This clearly ties into the looming shadow of ka Ultra.
But that's just to mention. That's just we're just pointing
out the time laying there. Anyway, they must have underestimated
Ottoman Scudder. How even even trying to keep to themselves
occasional trips into town, we're going to get attention from
(14:30):
locals because they were newly arrived residents at a place
that frankly doesn't have a lot of people moving in,
and they would go, you know, like they would do
things where they go in the same store every eighteen
days to re up on supplies, or they go to
send mail because as we'll see, Scutter was a prolific
letter writer and in contact with a lot of people.
(14:51):
But while they were doing this, they were also doing
something amazing, which is they were building their own compound.
I I was curious about this, guys. I wanted to
ask you all would you live a rustic life, Like,
would you be ready to issue electronic appliances and go
(15:12):
for go for the simpler, you know, bucolic lifestyle of
wood stoves and candles and oil lamps, or you're like, no,
I need the Internet. Yeah, I would totally do that
as long as I had a generator that I could
play a video game if I absolutely had to that
doesn't need an Internet connection. I would do that just
(15:34):
to get the fixed, right, I'm with you. Yeah. But
the you know like at Corpse would Man or this
like castle in the woods that they built, You're like,
you're right, Ben. They couldn't get the utility to send
a line out to where their property was, so they
couldn't get standard old electricity. And they also couldn't get
any water pipes from you know, the municipal water supplies
(15:55):
out to them, so they just had to dig a well.
And it it just weird to think that you just
go around every day using candles as your only form
of light. Once it got dark and you're in the
middle of the woods. That seems kind of scary. Yeah. Yeah,
And they they were really affable dudes, though. This is
one part that I think gets lost in a lot
(16:18):
of the descriptions of the story. So they built this
thing by hand. They've got the well, that's of course
one of the first things they build their dig out,
and then they build the manner where they live. And
these two guys do have separate bedrooms and that's where
their kitchen is library Scudder's office. But for most of
the visitors, they have quite a few visitors. The big
(16:40):
events took place in a three story structure called simply
the Chicken House, which for some reason that name bothers me.
And you can you can see pictures of what we're describing.
You can see most of it online today if you
just search for the right images. This thing is three stories.
It doesn't if you look at the photos, it doesn't
(17:02):
look like a particularly opulent structure. It looks, you know, homemade,
I guess is a way to say it. It does
have chickens on the ground floor. They raised chickens. They
also had two dogs, two very big, uh no nonsense
bodyguards of dogs. Uh yeah, this the second floor. If
you go up to the second floor, then you're gonna
(17:23):
see a larger and kind of pantry stocked with canned
goods that they bought at the store makes sense, especially
if you're living semi off the grid. But on that
second floor also, they have a pretty extensive collection of pornography,
like such that you would call it a library. It's
not a few nudy mags under someone's mattress. This is
(17:43):
like VHS pornography, right, Like they would need to be
you know, stored in many, many shelves because like you
say that, we I think we made a joke about
this before May. We were talking about this place in
the original email when it came through the idea that
I had a whole floor debdic get into pornography and
we're like and then I was like, oh yeah, you
do the math. It's like they would have probably all
(18:05):
been like big, you know, VHS boxes, so it would
have required some space. I'm wondering if a lot of
it was print because of the electricity. That's a good point, Um.
And if it's print, then that just means it was
even more extensive if it took up that much of
the second floor. So this is the second floor is
the porn archive. Then we have the third floor was
(18:27):
referred to um affectionately as the pink room. And this
is the most mysterious for this story today. Outsiders and
visitors would later take to calling it the pleasure Chamber,
with Scudder's approval. By the way, Uh, and we don't
want to king shame here, folks. This is where the
(18:47):
conversation gets a little mature. Yeah, so second floor porn
can beans whatever. The third floor is just one large
room and it is built as the primo hangout spot
of the manner. You go into the pink room, say
Matt Nolan, I are visiting. Uh, We're not going to
(19:10):
find any chairs. We're gonna find an assortment of pink
sheeted mattresses. And we're also going to find an assortment
of very specific gear, the kind of stuff that will
be familiar with b d S m enthusiast whips, chains,
other implements often referred to as toys. And then you know,
(19:30):
some more pornography. Um and and and it's weird because
we really looked into this, and despite years of searching,
not not years of other investigators searching, people asking police
law enforcement, g b I, which is the state level,
uh FBI, it's the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, no one
(19:53):
to our knowledge has found an actual photo of the interior.
So when we're telling you these things, working off descriptions
from the police, there's one thing that's still really bugs
me about this whole thing. There is what I would
call a Schrodinger's guest book. Schrodinger's guest book because it
(20:14):
does or does not exist, depending on who you ask.
This thing keeps receipts. Visitors signed this thing, and most
of them are outsiders that have corresponded with Scutter. But
at least one of these people, and this this is
according to law enforcement, at least one of these people
was a prominent local resident. There were also notations about guests,
(20:39):
alleged sexual preferences, and compromising photographs. We don't have those photographs.
We'll tell you why this is Schrodinger's book in the
first place. Later, we don't have not only don't have
those photographs, we don't have any photographs of this floor
at all. It's all just based on kind of heresy,
(21:00):
I mean more than hearsay. It's in police reports and
such in descriptions. But I don't believe any investigators or
any investigators that have leaked any photos to the public
um have caught a shot of this place. YEP, that's correct. Uh.
They that's why we're saying, we're working off police descriptions,
so we have to just at that point you have
(21:21):
to ask yourself how much trust you put in your
local authorities? Right, Maybe that's a story for another episode,
but in in our outline, we've got what appears to
be an exterior shot of the Chicken House. Do we do?
We know if that's confirmed to be? Yeah, that is.
So if you look at it, you'll see, um, the
(21:42):
bottom area, it's a rectangular tower, so at the bottom
area you'll see the brickwork masonry, and then on two
sides there are two apertures for windows, but I don't
think they had glass in them, or they didn't at
this time, and a doorway, and then the second floor
and the third floor wooden. And this is what makes
(22:05):
it creepy. I don't know if this got to you
guys as well. The second floor they're tiny, individual windows
on each side they get smaller. And then the third
floor no windows. Yeah, there's gotta be a some kind
of opening in the roof. Maybe no, And they get
water in there. I wonder how they did that. I
wonder why. Yeah, it makes you think and uh, and
(22:28):
we're talking a lot about these visitors, but we have
to ask ourselves, how did these people in the middle
of the woods, right the closest town is still really small,
how did they get so many visitors from across the country. Well,
we're gonna pause for word from our sponsor, and then
we'll tell you the process of visiting Corpse would Manor.
(22:55):
And we're back. We've been talking about the physical corpse
would man Or location. They're out near Tryon, Georgia in summer.
Is it near Somerville too? Is that? Is that correct?
In Chattooga County? And we're we're talking about the physical location.
So the construction of the chicken house as well as
the castle, the brick castle that was Corpse would Manor. Um.
(23:20):
I just want to bring this up to you, guys.
Do you remember the movie Hereditary? I feel like, and
you tell me if I'm wrong here, I feel like
towards the ending, I don't want to spoil it, but
there's a tree house or something like that. It's a lot,
it looks a lot like this. You're not wrong. I
wonder there was some inspiration taken from that, you know.
(23:44):
I'm just saying it's the kind of stuff that that
director Ari Astir, He's really focused on details, and I
don't know that the location was necessarily even given for
where that movie takes place. I don't think it was
like very location forward, you know, in terms of like
we're in Portland or whatever. But it's like definitely in
a wooded area. Um. I could there are some characters
(24:07):
in it that almost have like Southern accents. I could
see it potentially taking place somewhere in the South. I
think the argument for Hereditary is that what you perceives
the known world or reality is all actually one small,
terrifying diorama at the at the mercy of uncaring gods.
And that's no spoiler. The first shot in the movie
(24:29):
zooms into a diorama, and that's where the first you know,
it's like, that's the house. That's what you know. It's
it's like, whether you want to take that as a
stylistic choice or as a indication of the greater kind
of meta uh, you know, almost like snow globe kind
of environment of that movie, that's up to you. But
(24:49):
I think it's the former props the Hereditary. Interesting stories
on the development of that script as well. But for
another another time, but yes, check it if you haven't
seen it yet, don't know if it's one you're gonna
want to rewatch with the kiddos. But it's worth Shane,
especially around Halloween, the most wonderful time of the year.
So how did all these people get there? How did
(25:10):
they get there? Well, they got there because they were
invited all the time, constantly by Scudder through letters. Again,
he's he's a man of letters, he's a professor, he's
a prolific correspondent, letter writer, and he is mainly writing
the dudes, people from all walks of life. People have
(25:32):
been in the prison system before, like his partner Odom,
people who are currently incarcerated at the time. He writes,
the teachers, he writes, the models, he writes to some
teenagers has to be admitted. And the conversations, although they
are but although the people he's writing to a wide
ranging in terms of demographic the conversations kind of have
(25:55):
a common theme hedonism, sexual activity. And he's very clear
about this when he's inviting people and saying, oh, you know,
come visit Joey and me at corpse would. He also
goes on to describe in detail, like body parts and
activities that they could engage with during their time at
(26:16):
the manor if they're into it. Another thing about this
guy is he's very um like open about consent, you know,
so that that's something that got missed later on in
the trials, which is important. So this is a success.
It's kind of a numbers game. You know, you're right
to x amount of people and then some certain percentage
(26:37):
say okay, I'll take you up on it. And so
they have visitors come for what they would call sex
and game parties. Scudder and Odom make their own wine.
They have this homemade wine. They may have been administering
some of that Primo LSD and then they would engage
in sexual activity. Again if people were down. They had
(26:59):
a lot of folks who visited who had no interest
in or knowledge of this activity. Like there would be
a lot of hunters in the area because it's a
rural environment, and they would be walking on on the
guy's land, but they would know it was private land.
So they would contact them and say, hey, is it
okay if you know I hunt deer or something around here,
and they would say, yeah, for sure, man, you want
(27:20):
to hang out. We got wide and hunters would hang
out and then you know, at some point right right, right,
And and usually if from what we could tell, if
someone said no, thanks, that's that's not um my area
of interest, they would say, oh, okay, yeah, fine, Well
(27:43):
you know, come by any time if you change me here. Well,
we got the LSD, we got the pink room. You know. Look,
we've we've been doing experiments with the mind for quite
a while, at least back then. Not anymore though, right sure, yeah,
(28:04):
And that's the thing. So, like the I would say,
there are two genres a visitor. There are the locals
who are curious or happened to be there for another reason.
That would include hunters. That would include um, college age kids,
that would include um even the police swing by of
course uh. And the the other genres, the visitors who
(28:27):
went on purpose because they had spoken via post with
Scudder and they wanted to have this experience. They believed
that they were going for a certain thing, and there
was a process. They had to arrive a few days
before things got rolling, and Scudder would conduct a kind
of medical exam that to him, established their physical and
(28:50):
psychological fitness for what was about to happen. Important to
note Scudder not a medical doctor. He's not. He has
a wide range of experience and scholarship in the workings
of the human mind. But that's not the same thing
as you know, being a cardiologist or GP or something. Anyway,
(29:13):
there's an example of what you could expect now we
found from a guy named Ben Bellinger. Ben Belinger, local
from the area, goes on to be an attorney, a
defense attorney. And in the trial we're about to learn
about and and Ben Bellinger says, you know, one time
when I was a kid, me and uh, me and
(29:34):
a friend of mine got got really interested from what
we heard from the room or mill, and we rode
up to Taylor's Ridge. We wanted to check out the
scene because we heard, you know, anybody can show up,
and we found quote, a bunch of college kids in
white robes who are apparently stoned out of their minds uh.
And again, I know it sounds like a weird vibe.
(29:56):
And yes there's uh, there's imagery everywhere that would be
familiar to demonologists and stuff like that. But almost everyone
who later spoke about their experiences at the manor usually
reported that they had a good time and if they
if they didn't, you know, engage in what Scudder was
(30:18):
super into. Uh. They still said, actually, they're really nice guys,
which kind of runs counter to the narrative of sinister
Satanist in the woods, you know. Yeah, and they were
described as kind of being like pretty unassuming, kind of
just regular regular joes. This is also kind of the
way people usually describe serial killers. Just for the records,
(30:40):
I'm gonna do this, I hope in that ending with Hereditary,
guess what they're all wearing up in that treehouse. The
ropes waked. You know, they're naked, but n then they
get naked so real Corpse would manner vibes, you know,
(31:01):
and you can't completely agree. No, got naked more quickly
than the than the folks in Hereditary though, and probably
the folks of Corpse would the guys in the New
Kids in the Hall. First, Oh my god, I'm that's
a spoiler. That's just let to let you know, folks,
(31:22):
if you haven't seen it yet. There's no like, there's
there's no lead up, there's no like hey, heads up,
like down. It's weird too, because it's not just like
a quick shot. It's like them they're stricted to jump
up and down and stuff. It's like the helicopter. Yeah.
And uh, anyway, we're all big kids in the hall
(31:46):
fans which were to the wise. Uh, they are going
to surprise you. I just watched the baby dropping sketch,
like the percentage of babies that's actually really percent percent.
Uh that is I want to rewatch that one. But yes,
(32:06):
So despite all the weirdness, the eccentricity, and let's remember
that people in this area are kind of familiar town eccentrics,
Howard Fenster is like in their minds. He's mainly a
bicycle repairment and a guy who occasionally is is very
vocal street preacher. But he also makes art and he's
(32:30):
part of the community, you know what I mean. He's
like our weird guy. Like every neighborhood in the city
has our weird person. We've got um. For many years
here in Atlanta, there was Baton Bob. Baton Bob is
who was local figure who used to go outside and
parade around in front of our old office. Pretty nice
(32:51):
guy and he just does these one person like, uh
Baton performances wouldn't hurt a fly, you know, uh, and
looked fabulous. It was it was definitely just an outfit
that you could you could spot from way down the
road right oh to Bob's coming. Yeah yeah, driving driving
(33:14):
friends from out of town, just like showing the office
or something, given the Nickel tour, and they would sometimes
say who the hell is that and I would say that, um,
that's Bob, and we go Bob, you don't and I
say baton, Bob, as though that explained everything, like they
would go, oh yeah, yeah. Anyhow, So the question for
some of the locals in this rumor mill is are
(33:37):
these guys dangerous they seem nice when we talk to them,
or are they, you know, just kind of harmless eccentrics,
like like that guy who fixed his bicycles up the
way and police come and visit them and say, you know, hey,
what's going on here? Just want to check in, And
they have a great conversation with law enforcement and they say, hey,
(33:58):
you know, it's it's great to me you, I know
your work. Do you want to come in? We got
we got wine and the cops. You know, there's there's
a little bit of hubbub as as things progress, because
some members of law enforcement want to see if they
can shut down these folks who are, from their perspective,
(34:21):
devil worshippers, and they can't because the US for now
practices freedom of religion. And this this is still intriguing though,
so they leave, but they've got their eye on folks.
And the mystery is compounded when some visitors say that
(34:42):
Scudder tells them essentially he's only kind of retired, and
that he is continuing some version of the experiments he
conducted at Loyola. He is fascinated by the inner workings
of the human mind. One eyewitness later goes on to
say that he kind of enjoyed poking at psychological mechanisms
(35:07):
like a quote kid poking at a nest or an
aunt hill or a snake with a stick. So it's
a weird vibe, for sure. It's a vibe. And we
can't can't over emphasize just how riddle this place was
with stuff that people would call satanic sigils. No judgment,
(35:27):
We're just saying, like, you know, they're like four chimneys
on top of the main manner. Each one is emblazoned
with a pentagram statues of Mephistopheles um. Who are some
of the other ones? And I know you guys know
there's also a Satanic bible. Yeah, those two giant mastiffs
that they had on the property were beazel Bub and
(35:48):
arson Af. Beazel Bub is a demon arson as is
from HP Lovecraft or it's a character that's not really
fair to the dog. That's a lot to remember, you know,
surely they have pet names. But but yeah, so they're
they're definitely going for a theme. Here is what is
(36:09):
what we're saying. But they're not harming anyone, and they're
asking for consent and they're like pretty pretty nice. They
welcome anybody wants to hang, including like bikers. Uh, there's
a there was a motorcycle club that felt pretty messed
up about the tragic events that would later occur because
(36:31):
they kicked it with these guys and they said, look,
these dudes know how to party. They showed us a
great time. They didn't judge us, and we feel like
we dropped the ball because we were very protective of them, right,
and this is um, this same friendliness on their part,
the same kind of trusting nature of people is ultimately
(36:53):
what led to their murders. So let's go to that.
It's December six too. We're gonna jump around a time
a little bit. There's a guy named Raymond Williams. He's
a friend of this couple. He goes by corpse would
to give them the unpleasant news or the sad news
that another one of their mutual friends has passed away.
(37:15):
When Raymond gets to the door, he sees their bullet
holes in the door. He sees their holes in the
window as well, so he ties high tails it out
and he alerts the authorities. They arrive on the scene.
They find that Charles Scudder and Joseph Odom have been
fatally shot. Charles was found in the library, multiple gunshot
(37:38):
wounds to his head. Joseph was found in the kitchen,
shot fatally in the head and neck around four times.
Those dogs were also dead, and it appeared that someone
around the same time it tossed the house trying to
trying to steal stuff. Right, it looked like a robbery.
It looks so much like a robbery that sorities were
(38:00):
convinced that that's what it was. Jewelry was taken like
a gold plated dagger, a lot of the strange symbolic objects.
So investigators found a witness uh named Teresa Hudgens eighteen,
who was UM, actually had a date lined up with
a guy named Joey Wells on December twelfth of nWo
(38:21):
and Joey's uncle it was a thirty year old man
named Samuel Tony west Um. Joey's car broke down and
Tony offered to give the kids and the teenagers a
ride back. He was also accompanied by another seventeen year
old named Kenneth Avery Brock. Brock and Tony actually lived
(38:42):
together and a trailer nearby. Um. Both had checkered, troubled pasts.
Brock had spent some time with Scudder and Odom Uh
previously and he thought they were rich, uh, and he
told Tony that they should rob them. Um, they should
rob but this eccentric couple living out on the ridge,
(39:03):
which they decided to do uh the moment they saw
an opportunity present itself, which it did on December twelfth.
They had an ulterior motive right for giving giving these
kids on a date a ride, And they had planned
this and on the on the way, on the way
they're going to corpse would manor And it feels like
(39:25):
it was slightly premeditated, right, because they did. They had
been thinking about doing this robbery. But you have to
wonder if they would have gone on December the twelfth,
if Joey Wells's card not broken down. Kind of bringing
it back to their minds, why is their mental state
subject of importance? Here? Well, on the way to corpse
(39:47):
would manner they weren't driving particularly responsibly. They were huffing
homemade uh, homemade concoction of theirs. It contained alcohol, paint dinner,
and glue. And and Matt, I think you're a you're
a fan of the name as well, right, yeah, tulu Uh,
it's so funny. At the Webby Awards, big Bird was
(40:11):
there and he accepted his award and his sign off
was totalu. And I just couldn't believe that there's a
thing called tutelu that is actually paint dinner that you huff. Um.
It's also oh yeah, well it's also I think it's
called too lean or something something to that effect. You
can look it up. It is an industrial solvent and
(40:33):
gets used for several things, but one thing you can
use is to huff and associate and have some really
bad effects on your body, right and your mind. So
they get their things go south quickly, Uh, Scutter and
Odo remember Brock from earlier, and they say, oh, hey,
you guys here, you want to hang out? This is great,
(40:54):
so let's go to the pink room. And they go
and hang out in the pink room. They're drinking wine,
and then after a brief hanging sash Brock goes back
outside retrieves a rifle from their vehicle. He comes back
and he holds Scudder at gunpoint or knife point, depending
on the story, but I believe it's gunpoint because you
(41:17):
can you can see some harrowing accounts of this where
in Scudder is kind of inebriated a little bit at
this point, and he's saying he first sees the gun
and he says bang bang ha ha, and then he
realizes they're not playing, and things just quickly escalate. Brock Inton,
you're telling this guy to produce the cash. They're convinced
(41:39):
their millionaires, right because they have a mansion in the
mill of nowhere. All they appear to do with party
and work on their mansion. But they don't know that
Scudder and Odom spent pretty much all their scratch building
this strange compound. In fact, they're living on about two
dollars a month. This is ideological for them. So at
this point I want to say, just if we can
(42:00):
practice empathy and imagine those poor kids, Joey Wells and Teresa.
This is the worst date ever. And in first the
car doesn't work, then people are huffing when they drive
you someplace. Then you know you're drinking wine under age,
and then it looks like, oh, I've accidentally been at
(42:21):
a robbery. I think the statue of limitations has past.
I'm pretty sure I've accedentally been at some robberies. And
as weird as it sounds, especially people with an unstable
mental state, they might not mention their true intentions until
it's too late for you to get out. So Joey
and Teresa immediately try to run, and they say, Okay,
(42:42):
we're gonna hop in this. You know what, We're gonna
just get out of here. We're gonna steal a car.
These guys are crazy. I'm sorry about my uncle, and
the car won't start. Rock murders Joseph Odham and the dogs.
Tony takes Scudder into the manner where he murders him
as well. Probably after again and try and you know,
say where's the money? Giving the money? And they ransacked
(43:05):
the house and turns out Scudder and Odam, we're telling
the truth. They don't have they have loads of cash
in some sort of secret treasure trove. Uh. The the
robbers find or they make off with some jewelry like
the gold plated dagger we mentioned, a couple other like
amulets and brick a brack basically, and then they flee
(43:28):
and they make it to Mississippi. They try to do
a carjacking on a Navy lieutenant I believe named Kirby Phelps.
Their original plan was to get Phelps out of the car,
tie them to a tree, steal the vehicle, but Tony
kills him and then eventually they split ways in Texas.
(43:50):
So Brock eventually turns himself in on December twenty, and
then a few days later, Tony is apprehended in Tennessee. Um,
the leads to an investigation and a subsequent satanic panic
right there in Chattuga County, Georgia. We're going to talk
about both of those things and how they relate to
(44:12):
one another. After another quick break and we're back. Um,
So the trial becomes an absolute public you know, pandemonium. Um,
it's absolutely a circus of epic proportions. You gotta remember,
(44:34):
this is a part of the country that has a
lot of deep rooted fears of things like Satanism, of
things like ritual sacrifice, of anything that runs counter to
kind of evangelical Christianity. And this is not pigeonholing. I mean,
we'd speak from experience. Even here in Atlanta, which is
much more of a kind of a liberal bastion. In Georgia,
(44:57):
you have plenty of folks that see the devil everywhere. Uh,
much more of the case once you get into more
rural parts of the state. Um, so we'll just imagine,
imagine there are a bunch of rumors going around about
somebody in town, you know, some pretty prominent place within town.
But it is rumors you've heard tell from maybe a cousin,
(45:18):
maybe somebody went to high school with, but you haven't
seen it a while, and they just mentioned something about it.
And then all of a sudden, down at the courthouse
of your small town, there's a big trial happening with
guys you know, who supposedly killed people who lived there
in that rumored place. And there are all there's all
this laundry, some of it dirty coming out about the
(45:40):
specific lifestyle, right, Like you said, Noel, that is not
common for that town, not openly, not practiced to openly
be the idea. Yeah, and this this is terrible because
there are two two flavors of investigation happening, two different
halls of court. Won the actual court of the US
(46:03):
won the court of public opinion. The murderers are on
trial in the actual court, but in the court of
public opinion, the lifestyle of the victims is on trial
just as much as the real crimes. And these guys
are labeled and this is not our phrase, this is
the phrase that was used at the time, both in
(46:25):
court and in the media. They're labeled quote homosexual devil worshippers.
And they are, like you guys are saying, they're super
easy targets of the satanic panic that's sweeping the nation
at the time. This is when Wuiji boards were considered
the number one mass produced way to speak to infernal forces. Uh,
(46:49):
because that's how they get you. I guess at the
games department in your local local department store. Oh, Milton Bradley,
you know, the devil's in anisle six I guess, but
but yeah, six narratives. So so Dr Anton Leavey is
(47:10):
aware of this, and he's clearly livid because he says, look,
you know what this is. These murders are evidence that
there are areas of the US where you are going
to be attacked for having beliefs that don't fit the
status quo. Right, huge proponent of freedom of religion, whatever
(47:31):
else be said about him, And for the record, this
is absolutely true. I mean, you know, we think about
people in the l g B, t q UM community
um being victims of hate crimes and beatings. I mean,
that happened in places other than the Deep South, but
it was certainly a little more prevalent. And now, with
(47:52):
you know, trans rights being kind of in the forefront
and getting more widespread adoption and respect, you have play
is in the South that are trying to pass laws
that prohibit um discussion of any kind of pronouns or
or trans related rights. UM. So we're kind of circling
back in a way to what Dr Levy was talking about.
(48:14):
It absolutely is a prejudice that exists in this part
of the country, very much so, and not just this country. Obviously,
there's still many, many areas of the world where people
are risking their lives in the legal system for being
who they are, you know, and and remember that the
true definition of state power is monopoly over violence, which
(48:36):
is a point I wish people would bring up more often. Anyhow, Yes,
the idea of homophobia plays a huge role in this trial.
The defense initially accuses doctor Scudder of spiking that homemade
wine with LSD because that would somehow make these people
(48:57):
more likely to quote participate in sex with him. But
law enforcement tested the wine and it not only didn't
have LSD in it, they have any other kind of
psychoactive drug. The only drug I had in there it
was alcohol because it was homemade hooch, So that that
defense falls through. And then when that fails, West argues
(49:19):
that he is m if not unintentionally drugged, he is
unintentionally intoxicated against his will. They get him drunk um
you know, to to lou Aside. And then the defense
even says in the trial at some point that Scudder
had a motive to harm these guys because he was
(49:40):
a homosexual. And then West, during his confession at some
point says, look, all I can say is they were
devils and I killed him. That's how I feel about it.
As you can see is are not the most sympathetic
of criminals. Yeah, and this this goes on, and honestly,
(50:01):
the the thing is because these people had a lifestyle
that folks found controversial in the area. Uh, you could
wonder what their ultimate sentencing would have been, but everyone
could agree, everyone in the court could agree that the
murder of the Navy lieutenant was indeed a serious crime.
(50:26):
And that's that's one of the things that really got
the judge to go hard on them. Um. One of them, Tony,
was initially given the death penalty, but due to what
was described as a lack of women in the jury
at the original trial, he got a retrial and then
he was given life in prison. Uh. The other guy
got life in prison as well. At the time of
(50:48):
this recording, both men are alive. They are incarcerated in
Georgia in two separate facilities. But you know, no matter
what what happened this to someone after they had murdered
a person, those murder those murder victims don't come back,
you know what I mean. And so you have to
(51:10):
wonder about justice. You have to wonder about seriously a
lot of things with this investigation. Let's go back to
this what we mentioned earlier. What happened to that guest
book that was described as a diary? Why why do
some people deny it existed at all? Dude lawyer? Several
lawyers in the murder case claimed that not only was
(51:32):
it not around, but that they had never heard of it.
So either they're embellishing or maybe the chain of custody
you broke down before it got to them. What do
you guys think? I don't know. It seems like one
of those things that you may have taken if you
knew what it was, if you know, you just committed
a crime there, because it does have records of people
(51:53):
who have been there, and probably including them, but who knows.
And you shared a really interesting link with us been
law dot Justia dot com, j U s t i
A dot com And in there you can see the
case West versus State. I think you might be able
to find it if if you search the number two
five two and then g A for Georgia one five six.
(52:19):
I know it's a lot of weird things, but you
can find it. It's got information in there that Ben
is referring to where their different attorneys kind of giving
some interesting arguments that occurred throughout the cases. There things
that I just didn't even know existed. But that's how
I learned about tutelu. Is there is there reber? I mean,
(52:39):
I think tutalu in the British parlance is spelled like
with a D, and this one is spelled to dash
a dash lou. Obviously they're referencing something similar. I don't
know what came first, but yeah, it's definitely tout lou
is just like a kind of a corny, almost British farewell.
But guys, is there a sense like, I mean, the
(53:01):
motivations for these murders seems pretty clear and tied to
a crime of opportunity, you know that went horribly wrong. Um,
but because of this guest book and the idea of
prominent local people being in it, potentially is there a
sense that that that this was potentially a hit job
or something more than the surface? Uh, you know, evidence
(53:23):
might suggest I see. This is something I went back
and forth on as well, because for people who are
a little more conspiratorially minded about this, there are a
lot of questions like you would have to ask yourself
about the extent of doctors Scudder's involvement with government sponsored experimentation. Right,
(53:46):
that's one. That's one unresolved string, not saying has anything
to do with the murder. It's an unresolved string though.
And then another thread would um. Another thread would be
good old fashioned prejudice or maybe self preservation if there was,
if there was, again this still unknown prominent local who
(54:06):
wanted to silence any evidence of their involvement with these folks,
because again, Scudder and oed Um kind of open books
in a lot of ways, Like if you ask them, hey,
do you know so and so, they probably say, oh, yeah,
so and so comes to all the time. Great guy
had a pegging sess yesterday. It was awesome, right right,
So it maybe something like that, but we'll never know
(54:30):
unless that guestbook surfaces or less. Someone could actually prove
it is real, like it's weird, because the trial witness
Tracy Bell Wilson and a former sheriff, Gary McConnell say
it was indeed real. McConnell encountered it. McConnell is on
(54:51):
record claiming, yeah, I saw it, I found it, I
turned it in as evidence. But I have no idea
what happened to it after it entered into the evidence room,
and to this date, no one knows where that book is.
Is it possible that someone purposely lost the evidence to
preserve the reputation of a prominent local, whoever they might be.
(55:12):
There's no solid proof of it, but I know for
a lot of us in the audience today, you hear
something like that, and you go small towns, they can
keep secrets. And I don't know if you guys found
this in your research, but there are some kind of
like expl I don't know, ghost hunter site exploration type
videos um with people going, you know, finding this place.
(55:36):
It's not the most straightforward place to find, but you
can't find it um and at least the site of it.
And there's one YouTube video in particular where some folks
are like, you know, backpacking through the woods and they
and they find their way to the site and there's
reports of spooky goings on at the site. Yeah, it's
on Google Maps, and if you look at the images
(55:56):
on there in search corpsewould manner, you can see kids
hanging out with their parents like little kids. Uh. They
saw one picture in particular, nol looks like Eden from
a couple of years ago, just hanging out by the ruins, like, hey, look, yeah,
garps would manner um because everything would manner sounds like
(56:17):
a location in elden Ring. I mean it really does.
It's it's got such a such a fantasy goth kind
of love crafty and vibe to it. Sure, yeah, yeah,
And today the manner, the manner has fallen to ruin.
You know, it's got, it's overgrown, there's graffiti on multiple surfaces.
(56:39):
And if you want to visit, you need to be
aware that um as as I mentioned in a first
conversation about this, it's on private land, So just have
that in your back pocket, right, you need to understand
that it can be considered trespassing to get there. Obviously,
that doesn't worry a ton of people, and obviously there
are mechanisms to ask whether you can go on that land,
(57:02):
just the same way that hunters used to ask Scudder
and Odum if it was okay to hunt deer there.
This still hasn't stopped people from speculating about some hidden
story behind these tragic events, And of course rumors are
not people. They don't have to respect trespassing laws. That's
why you hear so much scuttle But now where people
will say that there might be ghostly forces, you'll hear
(57:26):
rumors mature able to confirm or untrue about some hidden
underground layer, a lab of some sort that does not
appear to be the case. The main digging those guys
did was to create that. Well. You also hear people
say it has a deep kind of vibe um, a
vibration and emanation of sadness, you know, like folks who
(57:48):
feel that they are sensitive as as they would sometimes
be described, will say, you know something happened here. Uh,
that kind of stuff is really hard to prove whether
you know the legitimacy of that. But they will also
say they hear the ghost of gunshots, strange echoes barking,
They might even see glowing eyes in the night. But
(58:10):
what we can see in this case, what can be proven,
does not need to be supernatural, is the story ultimately prejudice, petty,
criminal motivation, and in some cases it's a story of
a small town home to some stuff they don't want
you to know unless the guest book comes out. Yeah,
did we even mention the rumor that Scudder supposedly summon
(58:33):
a demon to protect the manner and the property. We
did not, And part of that is because the the
a lot of this stuff I was reading, particularly the
book The Corpse would Manner Murders in North Georgia by
Amy Ptola. It it mentions that and says that they
couldn't find any evidence for it. But it is You're right, Matt,
(58:56):
that's one of like the long running at least rumors
from I could tell it's commonly accepted, is fact. I
just couldn't. Plus, how could you confirm that? You have
to have Scudder tell you right? I guess. So it
just seems an interesting thing, especially for anyone who wants
to go back out there. I can imagine why. That
makes it massively intriguing, still roaming the land, although it
(59:20):
did not protect Charles and Mr Odom. Well, that's the
thing about working with those sorts of forces. Uh, it's
typically in the world of those belief systems, it's not
a sustainable relationship. Yeah, henyone guys Glady talked about it again. Yeah,
it's uh, and it really has you know, especially the
(59:43):
part where the fiction mind you know, would take this
in a much more conspiratoral direction, would be that guest
book and who was in that guest book and was
it really a cover up? And were the rituals real.
It's like all the things that I think intrigued us
about Season one of True Detectives so much, h um,
you know, believing that maybe there was real magic. And
(01:00:03):
you know then of course the participation of high ranking
government officials, because even though we know Georgia and the South, uh,
these things don't fly publicly, this idea of free wheeling
sex parties and all of that stuff and you know,
hedonistic behavior. We also know what happens. We also know
politicians do that stuff and they cover it up because
(01:00:27):
of it's all about appealing to the voters and the constituencies,
and in those people are typically you know, the ones
that are really active and and make sure to have
their vote heard, or like older folks that uh are
very right leaning and and and don't you know, god
fearing types. So that's the fun part about, you know,
taking real stories like this and kind of crafting them
(01:00:50):
into critique on on society. I mean, I think there's
enough of that already built into the story in terms
of the critique on society part. But I'm fascinated by
the idea of taking like these kind of real true
crime stories and using them as fodder for for much
more outlandish fiction. But you really need to go much
more outlantist than the story already does. Well, and and
(01:01:13):
again just to get the legal department off the off
ban Key star in the future here, UH found no
solid proof of a cover up? Just where where is
the guest book? And I think that's a fair question
to ask. That's the question a lot of other people
have asked too. We hope you I don't think it.
Enjoy this episode is the right way to say it,
but we we hope you found it uh as fascinating
(01:01:36):
as we did, and we hope it left you with
some of the same questions. Um. Even more importantly, we
want to hear your stories about places like this or
occurrences like this in your neck of the global woods.
Let us know, fellow conspiracy realists, we can't wait to
hear from you. We try to be easy to find online.
You can find us on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube
(01:01:57):
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(01:02:18):
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