Charles Scudder came from a wealthy family and worked as a professor of pharmacology at Chicago’s Loyola University — a “good job” by his own definition. Described by those who knew him as “brilliant,” “polished,” and “soft-spoken, but confident,” Scudder eventually grew fed up with city life and, in 1976, left the luxury of his Chicago mansion in pursuit of a simpler life.

As he put it, Scudder longed for an escape from “taxes, light bills, gas bills, water bills, heating bills, and the helpless feeling that resulted from watching my old neighborhood disintegrate into an urban ghetto.” So the 50-year-old chose an isolated spot in the north Georgia woods to begin his new life.

After leaving behind most of his worldly possessions, he decamped for the South with his lover, Joe Odom, constructing a new residence by hand in the depths of the forest. As Scudder said, “Within two short years we were living in an elegant mini-castle.”

They called it Corpsewood Manor, named for the hauntingly bare autumn trees that dotted the area.

To complete their country manor, the two added on a three-story “chicken house.” The first floor was for the poultry and food storage, the second for canned goods and the couple’s pornography collection, and the third for their “pink room,” also known as their “pleasure chamber.”

But Scudder’s homosexuality was far from the only secret he’d been keeping, for he was also an official member of the Church of Satan.