On this week’s episode, we interview author Jodi McDaniel Lowery about her book, Murder, Mayhem, and Whitecapping; The Fall of the Northwest Georgia Whitecappers. Set in northwest Georgia in 1894, Murder, Mayhem, and Whitecapping; The Fall of the Northwest Georgia Whitecappers, is the story of two men who were attacked by a group of whitecappers, a group of men sworn by a blood oath to protect moonshiners, remove immoral people from their communities, and, most of all, protect their own. The area of northwest Georgia had a whitecapper membership of 800-1000 men. Henry Worley, a whitecapper himself, turns on his brotherhood and manages to survive the hangman's noose, but a week later Worley is shot and killed by men he once called friends. A few months later, William Roper, who has been turning in moonshiners for a profit, finds himself a target as well. He is attacked in the middle of the night by whitecappers, who shoot him and leave him for dead in an abandoned copper pit. After six days, he is rescued from the pit and eventually testifies in federal court against his attackers. The federal government would eventually charge more than 30 men, many of them prominent individuals in the county, with conspiracy. These two trials, as well as subsequent plea agreements, would eventually lead to the demise of the whitecappers in northwest Georgia. The trials would be covered extensively by The Atlanta Constitution. This daily newspaper, along with federal court transcripts, essays on moonshining and whitecapping, and other historical references, serve as sources for this historical, nonfiction book.
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