Books for the Armchair Detective in Your Life

Author Amy Petulla uncovers the curious case that left two men dead and the incredible story still surrounded by controversy, speculation and myth.

In 1982, Tony West and Avery Brock made a visit to notorious Corpsewood Manor under the pretense of a celebration. They brutally murdered their hosts. Dr. Charles Scudder and companion Joey Odom built the "castle in the woods" in the Trion forest after Scudder left his position as professor at Loyola. He brought with him twelve thousand doses of LSD. Rumors of drug use and Satanism swirled around the two men. Scudder even claimed to have summoned a demon to protect the estate. The murders set the stage for a trial vibrant with local lore.

On a sultry August morning in 1970, the battered body of a young woman was hoisted from a dry well just outside Hogansville, Georgia. Author and investigator Clay Bryant was there, witnessing the macabre scene. Then fifteen, Bryant was tagging along with his father, Buddy Bryant, Hogansville chief of police. The victim, Gwendolyn Moore, had been in a violent marriage. That was no secret. But her husband had connections to a political machine that held sway over the Troup County Sheriff's Office overseeing the case. To the dismay and bafflement of many, no charges were brought. That is, until Bryant followed his father's footsteps into law enforcement and a voice cried out from the well three decades later.

Many earthen fortifications defended the city of Savannah and its numerous water approaches after the Civil War broke out. One of these defenses, Fort McAllister, protected the entrance to the Ogeechee River and the strategic railroad and highway bridges upstream. From November 1862 to March 1863 the U.S. Navy bombarded the fort seven different times without success. The fort finally fell to General Sherman in December 1864; ironically, the final threat the fort faced was not from an enemy trying to get up the river, but from one trying to get down the river to the sea. In the 1920s auto magnate Henry Ford renovated the fort and focused new attention on its history. In 1960 the State of Georgia built on Ford's work and opened the fort as a State Historic Site to mark the centennial of the Civil War. Today visitors can quietly wander the massive, earthen walls and gun positions, gaze across the wide river and expansive marshes, and ponder the thundering, blazing reality that once played on this ground.

“Cold Case” Clay Bryant unravels a 20-year old cold-case murder. After a daring escape from certain death in a North Vietnamese prison, followed by years in a refugee camp in Thailand, Savang Phovixay and his family sought safety and a better life in the United States. That dream was shattered when their daughter Vieng disappeared in October 1987. In spite of substantial leads, she remained missing until 1989 when her skeletonized remains were found bound to a tree in rural West Georgia. The crime remained an unsolved tragedy for nearly two decades until Bryant took on the case in search of justice for Vieng and her family. 

Author Phillip Andrew Gibbs guides readers on a tour of Macon’s seedy underbelly. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Macon was coming of age. Numerous industries, banks and retail businesses dotted the city’s landscape, and magnificent Greek Revival and Victorian homes graced the tree-lined streets of its affluent neighborhoods. For those who enjoyed the arts, there was the Grand Opera House which hosted operatic and theatre productions. The city was also home to two institutions of higher learning. To residents and visitors alike, Macon seemed to be a flourishing, sophisticated city well grounded in strong spiritual and moral principles. But there were flies in the ointment. Much to the dismay of the city’s ministers and educators there was a vibrant sporting life in Macon. Pool halls, gambling houses, and saloons operated well within sight of the front steps of the city’s churches. Worse yet, the city council had established in the early 1900s a red-light district known as Tybee that operated freely without interference from local authorities.

Nearly two decades after the fact, tragedy meets justice. One day in 1987, Fred Wilkerson up and vanished in Troup County, Georgia. It was a mystery beset with suspicious circumstances, but the evidence never led anywhere, and the case went cold, Wilkerson's whereabouts unknown. That is, until a remarkable set of circumstances allowed author and investigator Clay Bryant to breathe life back into the case nearly two decades later. Diving into what had previously been overlooked, Bryant was able to locate and recover Wilkerson's remains and successfully prosecute the killer, who'd crafted a calculating plot to take everything the victim had and murder him in order to keep it. The story concludes with the Wilkerson Family finally getting closure and the killer getting sentenced to life in prison. Join Byrant as he unravels this West Georgia cold case.

As Atlanta finished rebuilding after the Civil War, a new horror arose from the ashes to roam the night streets.

Beginning in 1911, a killer whose methods mimicked the famed Jack the Ripper murdered at least twenty black women, from prostitutes to working-class women and mothers. Each murder attributed to the killer occurred on a Saturday night, and for one terrifying spring in 1911, a fresh body turned up every Sunday morning. Amid a stifling investigation, slayings continued until 1915. As many as six men were arrested for the crimes, but investigators never discovered the identity of the killer, or killers, despite having several suspects in custody. Join local historian Jeffrey Wells as he reveals the case of the Atlanta Ripper, unsolved to this day.

Atlanta is the only American city to have been destroyed by fire as an act of war, and it has its share of salacious stories. Wealthy felons hosted elaborate parties inside the federal penitentiary.

Billionaire bootleggers and murderous rich boys practiced corruption that reached all the way to the White House. Fast and fearless drivers, complete with glamorous reputations and criminal careers, gave rise to auto racing. Join author Laurel-Ann Dooley as she navigates the underworld of Atlanta's past filled with kidnapping, bribery, wives hiring hit men and all sorts of criminal debauchery.