The Great Gaines Case remains the longest civil litigation in US History. The nearly six decade long court battle involved a wealthy Louisiana politician and merchant’s vast fortune, a hidden marriage and child and property in the heart of New Orleans business district. 

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Episode Sources

• The New Orleans woman who fought the longest court battle in US history, The Historic New Orleans Collection. (Viewed November 2023) https://www.hnoc.org/publications/first-draft/new-orleans-woman-who-fought-longest-court-battle-us-history

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Theme Song “Dark & Troubled” by Pantherburn. Special thanks to Phillip St Ours for permission for use. Meditation Impromptu One by Kevin MacLeod Licensed under Creative Commons.

One of the biggest news stories in October 1934 was the kidnapping of Alice Speed Stoll from her home in Louisville, Kentucky. Seven days later she was set free but her kidnapper remained on the run. Who kidnapped Alice and why?

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Episode Sources

• Money for Mrs. Stoll Is Ready Authorities Refuse to Reveal ‘Definite Leads’. Healdsburg Tribune, Number 290, 11 October 1934. (Viewed April 2020) <https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=HT19341011.2.4&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------1> 

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Alone with My Thoughts by Esther Abrami. Licensed under Creative Commons 

David Stringbean Akeman was one of the biggest stars on the Grand Ole Opry throughout the 1950s. The accomplished banjo player rose to national fame thanks to his appearances on the country variety show Hee Haw. In November 1973, Stringbean and his wife Estelle were  murdered at their cabin just outside Nashville. Their deaths forever changed Music City.

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Episode Sources

• Stringbean: The Life and Murder of a Country Music Legend by Taylor Hagood. University Press of MS (May 2023). https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p087110

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Theme Song “Dark & Troubled” by Pantherburn. Special thanks to Phillip St Ours for permission for use. Castleshire by Chris Haugen. Licensed under Creative Commons.

The death of Daisy Keeton is one of Mississippi’s most horrifying murder mysteries. In January Daisy Keeton disappeared. Days later mutilated remains were discovered near an isolated road in Jones County. The investigation led police to Daisy’s daughter who was arrested and quickly dubbed Mississippi's Lizzie Borden.

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Episode Sources

• The Legs Murder Scandal by Hunter Cole. University Press of Mississippi (August 9, 2010). https://a.co/d/9VahppU

Episode Music

Theme Song “Dark & Troubled” by Pantherburn. Special thanks to Phillip St Ours for permission for use. Leoforos Alexandras by Dan Bodan. Licensed under Creative Commons.

Savannah is Georgia’s first city and one of America’s most haunted. If you visit Savannah’s historic district and stroll the city squares, at some point, you are walking on the dead. Victims of war, yellow fever epidemics, fires, murder and enslavement who died during turbulent times in the city. Savannah is a city that lives upon the dead and some continue to make their presence known.

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Episode Sources

• “432 Abercorn Street: Haunted Mansion Or Just a Rumor Mill?”, The Savannah First-Timer’s Guide. (Viewed October 3, 2023)

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Theme Song “Dark & Troubled” by Pantherburn. Special thanks to Phillip St Ours for permission for use. Dark Times by Kevin MacLeod. Licensed under Creative Commons.

Demopolis, a small town in West Central Alabama, is the home to many a tale of ghosts and the unexplained, including at Bluff Hall. There is a dark history associated with the grand old home, including a funeral service for four members of the Smith family. The Demopolis Times called the discovery of their bodies in November 1934 “the most shocking tragedy that has happened in the city of Demopolis.

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Episode Sources

• “Tales of Ghosts Haunt Demopolis Landmarks River”, The Demopolis Times, Nov 1, 2019. (Viewed September 3, 2023) 

Episode Music

Theme Song “Dark & Troubled” by Pantherburn. Special thanks to Phillip St Ours for permission for use. Peace of Mind and Long Note Two by Kevin MacLeod. Licensed under Creative Commons.

On December 11, 1926 a small town bank near Austin, Texas was robbed at gunpoint by a 21 year old college student Rebecca Bradley. She wasn’t the typical bank robber of the 1920s. What secrets drove this “girl next door” to armed robbery and arson?

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Episode Sources

• “Drop Co-Ed Bandit Charge as Rebecca Becomes Mother”, El Paso Herald-Post, October 25, 1933. (Viewed on August 23, 2023).

Episode Music

Theme Song “Dark & Troubled” by Pantherburn. Special thanks to Phillip St Ours for permission for use. Dixie Outlandish and Castleshire by Kevin MacLeod. Licensed under Creative Commons

Meet sisters Caroline Martin, Virginia Wardlaw and Mary Snead. They left a long trail of devastation and death of family members from Kentucky to Tennessee and Virginia on to New Jersey where they were implicated in the mysterious death of a young family member. 

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Episode Sources

“Soule Sisters Series”, Daily News Journal, Sunday, October 2009. Accessed March 2, 2028. https://rutherfordtnhistory.org/rutherford-county-hosted-three-wicked-witches/

“Three Sisters in Black: The Bizarre True Case of the Bathtub Tragedy” by Norman Zierold. Accessed March 1, 2018.

“Ghosts of past still frighten New River Valley”, Collegiate Times, October 31, 2006. Accessed March 10, 2018. 

https://www.collegiatetimes.com/lifestyle/ghosts-of-past-still-frighten-new-river-valley/article_0b71ec43-ff02-5af4-a83e-8016c081891a.html

“Sister Act: The Bizarre Drowning of Ocey Snead”, The Lineup, July 19, 2018. Accessed August 1, 2023. https://the-line-up.com/the-bizarre-drowning-of-ocey-snead

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Otto Wood was a self–proclaimed one armed-bandit from North Carolina. He made a name for himself as a bootlegger who loved stealing from the rich. Being sent to jail only heightened his fame. He escaped prison so many times he was nicknamed the Hillbilly Houdini.

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Episode Sources

‘They started popping bullets’: Eyewitness recalls the day Otto Wood died. Salisbury Post. January 2015. Accessed August 1, 2023. https://www.salisburypost.com/2015/07/30/they-started-popping-bullets-eyewitness-recalls-the-day-otto-wood-died/

Wood, Otto.  Life history of Otto Wood: inmate, State Prison. Raleigh, N.C.: 1926. 

Otto Wood: North Carolina’s One Man Crime Wave. Old Hat Records. Accessed August 3, 2023. http://www.oldhatrecords.com/ResearchOttoWood.html

The not too well-known desperado. Accessed August 3, 2023. http://kronsell.net/woodenglish.htm 

McKenzie, T. (2021). Otto Wood, the Bandit: The Freighthopping Thief, Bootlegger, and Convicted Murderer behind the Appalachian Ballads. University of North Carolina Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9781469665672_mckenzie

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In June 1964, the Ku Klux Klan conspired with law enforcement in Neshoba County, Mississippi to kidnap and murder three young civil rights workers. James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were murdered in an effort to preserve segregation in the state and deter further civil rights activism. Despite dozens of indictments and a few trials, was justice served? What role did the state of Mississippi play in their murders?

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Website: southernmysteries.com

Episode Sources

• Mississippi Department of Archives and History. “Sovereignty Commission Online website”. (Viewed on July 29, 2023).
  

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