Today's Strange Country tale involves murder, racism and goats. The big three, as we like to say. In 1932, Jennie Merrill was murdered in Natchez, Miss. Her neighbors who lived in a dilapidated estate nicknamed The Goat Castle likely had something to do with it, but it was a black laundress named Emily Burns who was convicted of the crime. Because everything is garbage.

Theme music: Big White Lie by A Cast of Thousands

Cite your sources: 

Carter, L. M. (2018, September 21). Murder, She Rewrote. Country Roads. Retrieved August 2, 2021, from https://countryroadsmagazine.com/art-and-culture/history/murder-she-rewrote/

Cox, K. L. (2017). Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race and the Gothic South. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.

Neighbor Pair Held in Natchez Murder. (1932, August 9). The New York Times. Retrieved August 2, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/1932/08/09/archives/neighbor-pair-held-in-natchez-murder-rh-dana-and-his-housekeeper.html?searchResultPosition=2

Octavia Dockery, 84, Lived in 'Goat Castle'. (1949, April 23). The New York Times. Retrieved August 2, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/1949/04/23/archives/octavia-dockern-84-lived-ingoat-castle.html?searchResultPosition=1