Infamous America - DIXIE MAFIA: PHENIX CITY Ep. 3 | “The Murder”

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

Corruption and murder challenge the system of crime in Phenix City. Hoyt Shepherd and Jimmie Matthews work to rig local elections using every available method. They use illegal tactics to help the mayor during his campaign for a spot on the City Commission, and a victory party becomes the setting for a murder that could finally shake up the criminal status quo. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Noiser+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons. Hit “JOIN” on the Infamous America YouTube homepage.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm4V_wVD7N1gEB045t7-V0w/featured For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My relentless sleep problems have always come from an overactive mind. I lay in bed at night with my mind racing from one thing to another, and then, of course, I have a brainstorm about something new. That lights the fire, and then I'm in real trouble. To calm my mind, the only things that have ever worked with any consistency are sleep gummies. Sleepy Time Advanced Gummies from Mood.com come in various combinations of THC, CBD, and CBN, so you can get something that's very low in THC, but higher in CBD, which helps turn off the stress,

and CBN, which is the thing that makes you sleepy. The brain shuts up, the racing thoughts stop, and it's off to sleep. Mood is federally compliant. The gummies are legal and delivered right to your door. At Mood.com, get 20% off your first order with our promo code, Infamous. Go to Mood.com and use the code infamous to get 20% off your first order. your first order. And they have a 100-day satisfaction guarantee. Mood.com promo code infamous. Phoenix City, Alabama was a roaring good time in the late 1930s, even as the Great Depression still

gripped America. The most common date listed as the end of the Depression is 1939, but economic depressions don't simply stop overnight. They gradually fade away as the economy improves. So, Americans were still suffering from hard times in 1938, even though the economy was slowly getting better. That year in Phoenix City, the Ritz Cafe collapsed and killed 24 people. The Ritz was a gambling parlor that was owned by the two kingpins of the Phoenix City underworld, Hoyt Shepard and Jimmy Matthews. A gambling racket called The Bug was so popular that Shepard and Matthews rushed to add a new

room to the Ritz to accommodate all the people who wanted to try to win the daily three-digit lottery drawing. The new room was poorly constructed, and Shepard and Matthews had been warned by the city building inspector that there could be trouble, but they ignored the warning. In April 1938, the roof partially collapsed, and then the entire building imploded. The destruction killed 24 people, but the investigation resulted in no punishment for Shepherd or Matthews. Business continued as usual in the Girard neighborhood of Phoenix City. For more than 100 years, the Girard neighborhood, which was its own town before it merged with Phoenix City,

had been the home of illegal liquor, gambling, and prostitution in the east-central region of Alabama. Fort Benning, the U.S. Army infantry base directly across the Chattahoochee River and Columbus, Georgia, provided a steady stream of customers for all things illicit and illegal in Phoenix City. And the young soldiers were on top of the average everyday clientele of both Phoenix City and Columbus. In short, there was no shortage of people who went to the Girard neighborhood of Phoenix City for a good time. And in the spring of 1938, when the Ritz Cafe collapsed, the world was on the brink of another world war. Less than 15 months after the

the Ritz Café tragedy, Germany invaded Poland, and the nations of the world picked sides and began the fight. America committed to a direct role in the war in 1941 after the Japanese bombed the naval base, Pearl Harbor. Four years later, in May 1945, the Allied forces declared victory in Europe, and the war was essentially over. The war had ignited the American economy and led it into a period of incredible growth and prosperity. Little Phoenix City on the banks of the Chattahoochee was not left behind, but the prosperity in Phoenix City was a bit different than in most small towns and small cities. Phoenix City had developed its own formula for financial success.

The decade that followed World War II was the peak of the lawless years of Phoenix City. In the mid-1940s, immediately after the war, it was well known that you couldn't win an election in Phoenix City without the backing of Hoyt Shepard and Jimmy Matthews. Corruption was everywhere in the city, and a murder tested the limits of that corruption. For a while, the corruption held. It bent, but it didn't break.

But eventually, that single crime led to the cleanup and the renaissance of Phoenix City. From Black Barrel Media, this is Infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season were beginning the long and complex story of the Dixie Mafia. If you had to point to a place of origin, that place is one of America's original sin cities. Phoenix City, Alabama. This is Phoenix City Episode 3, The Murder.

In the summer of 1946, Hoyt Shepard was in a fine mood. Like the rest of America, he was optimistic about the state of the country, now that it was one year beyond the end of World War II. 300,000 American soldiers had died in the war, and 6,000 of those were from Alabama. Hoyt's younger brother Grady had made it through the war unscathed, though Grady was unlikely to take advantage of the opportunity of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944,

commonly known as the GI Bill. It was designed to help returning soldiers buy homes, attend college, or learn a trade after sacrificing so much for freedom. But Grady had no time for libraries or shops. He was going to join his brother in the family business. After all, the family business was thriving. Even though Phoenix City had declared bankruptcy during the Great Depression and continued to be grossly in debt,

Hoyt Shepard and his business partner Jimmy Matthews had made a fortune. They sold rigged gambling machines to operate throughout the region. They owned clubs and real estate on both sides of the Chattahoochee, and they had amassed their fortunes while staying out of jail and moving amongst respectable society. Hoyt Shepard could be found sipping a cocktail and keeping an eye on one of his clubs, and he could also be seen posing for pictures after donating to Phoenix City schools or attending a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new business in town. And the townspeople appreciated him, or tolerated, or tolerated him, because his clubs brought in the equivalent of millions of dollars of revenue.

Government officials in Phoenix City had long ago institutionalized a system by which saloons, gambling halls, and all other houses of ill-reput paid licensing fees to the city. In addition, the local legal system imposed far more fines on lawbreakers than it did jail sentences. After all, if someone was in jail, he or she couldn't spend money at the clubs. Between the licensing fees and the fines, Phoenix City made more than $200,000 in 1945. That would be $3 million in today's money. That was a powerful incentive to maintain the system. As Hoyt Shepard's personal wealth grew, and as he spread his wealth around the city, he gained more and more power over the city's government. He went straight

to the top of the local hierarchy. He helped the mayor get elected. He helped the county sheriff get elected. He had a hand in the choice for chief of police. That was the holy trinity of local government. Then he rallied fellow members of Phoenix City's criminal underworld to control the election for state senator, and then to influence the race for governor. Shepard and his fellow Russell County criminals had a variety of ways of influencing elections. Some were on the level. Most were not. First was legal, logical persuasion. They made sure voters knew that the vice of Phoenix City propped up the town.

If progressive, reform-minded citizens began to occupy seats of power, the city could fall even deeper into debt. Ordinarily, that would be a strange argument. But there was logic to it in Phoenix City. Then, of course, there were the illegal ways to affect an election. Simple old-fashioned intimidation worked. Scare the people at the polling places into voting your way and scare other people to stay home on election day.

Beyond that, round up people, drive them to the polls, and pay them to vote your way. The voter would give the name of someone who was dead, but who was still registered to vote. The practice was called Voting the Graveyard, and the votes were often referred to as tombstone votes. In 1946, very few people had photo IDs. Drivers licenses did not have photos on them, and in

1946, not every state required a license to drive. South Dakota didn't require a license until 1954, and California was the first state to put photos on licenses in 1958. Hoyt Shepard and the others kept going. They used their money and influence in the and influence in the Alabama state government to write new laws that made Russell County its own judicial district. Phoenix City, as the county seat of Russell County, would be the headquarters of the new district. Now, instead of a judge ruling over four counties, one of which was

Russell County, Russell County had its own judge, which really meant Hoyt Shepard had his own judge. So, by 1946, Shepard and his cronies had power over almost every part of the government and legal system in Russell County, and their reach extended up through the state government. And Shepard

would need every bit of that power in the fall of 1946 when he found himself accused of murder. Fiat Leiburn, whom everyone knew as fate, grew to notoriety in Columbus, Georgia, much the same way Hoyt Shepard and Jimmy Matthew

did in Phoenix City, with resourcefulness, influence, and a willingness to break the law. It was often said that when Prohibition was lifted, Fate Lieburn sold the first legal bottles of liquor in Columbus. But he had also been moving corn whiskey around the region for more than a decade before alcohol became legal again. With the end of Prohibition, he just made his operation legitimate and public. In 1938, the year of the Ritz Cafe collapse, he established the Columbus Wine Company distributors. It grew to be one of the largest beer, wine, and liquor distribution companies in Georgia. Lieburn's criminal exploits were not as widely talked about as those of the S&M syndicate, Shepard and Matthews, and Columbus

didn't have the reputation of Phoenix City. But it was safe to assume that if any illegal activity was going on on the eastern banks of the Chattahoochee, Fate Leiburn was probably involved. LeBurn owned a variety of other businesses, a furniture store that his son operated, an event company that provided games and audio equipment for parties, and in downtown Columbus, he owned the Cardinal Hotel with the attached Cardinal Cafe. While the Cardinal Hotel advertised itself as a great place for travelers and even families, it wasn't as wholesome as its newspaper advertisements made it seem. Fights, sometimes all-out brawls, were common.

The flashing lights of the Columbus Police Department could be seen there most Saturday nights. The hotel was right next door to a U.S.O. lounge where buses from Fort Benning dropped off and picked up soldiers. Soldiers knew full well that a rowdy good time was just a few years. yards away. And where there were soldiers on R&R, the working girls were never far away. Prostitution at Fate Lieburn's hotel got so bad that the commanding officer at Fort Benning wrote a letter to the mayor of Columbus, which stated the activity was,

adversely affecting the efficiency, health, and welfare of the military personnel at the fort. So, in Columbus, Fate LeBron ran all the same operations as Shepard and Matthews ran in Phoenix City. And because the Chattahoochee River separated Columbus and Phoenix City and also represented the state line between Alabama and Georgia, the two criminal groups could coexist without getting in each other's way. They had different state laws to contend with, different politicians to bribe, and much different kinds of turf to control. But they moved in the same circles, and there's evidence to suggest that they were allies or even friends. They were friends. They were friends. They were friendly enough for Fate Lieburn to help Hoyt Shepard and Jimmy Matthews in 1945.

Shepard and Matthews got jammed up in a police raid at a club in Columbus, where the two men did not hold sway over the authorities. And it was Fate Leiborne who marched into the police station and posted a $1,000 bond for each man. Whether it was a true friendship or an alliance between like-minded individuals was hard to tell. But whatever it was, it was officially done by the fall of 1946. Shepard, Matthews, and Lieburn found themselves in the same place at the same time, but this time it was in a club in Phoenix City. Shepherd and Matthews were celebrating, but the celebration took an abrupt turn. By the end of the night, one of the three men would be dead,

and the subsequent murder case would shake the foundation of Phoenix City. On the evening of September 16, 1946, Hoyt Shepard sat in the Southern Manor, a club on Opelika Road in Phoenix City. He had a whiskey in one hand, a cigar in the other, and the celebration was in full swing. Shepard had just won a re-election campaign. Of course, Shepard wasn't on the ticket, and he certainly wasn't running for office. The winner was Elmer Reese. Reese was the mayor, and he was also one of three. city commissioners. Reese was well known in the city as a populist and a proponent for civic improvements. His campaign ads read,

You believe in equal rights for all, a progressive city, a city of clean houses. Then let's do something about it. Reese had won his third term on the city commission, thanks to his close friend, Hoyt Shepard. Reese was a frequent guest at Shepard's Bama Club, where he enjoyed a substantial line of credit. and Reese had consistently used the mayor's office to keep state officials and local civic groups off the backs of his friends and supporters.

In one example, he pulled strings with the Attorney General on behalf of his nephew, Willis Buddy Jowers. Buddy was a member of the Phoenix City Police Force and had a reputation for shaking down unfriendly club owners, turning a blind eye to the operations of friendly club owners, and throwing the victims of assaults and muggings in jail rather than the assailants. Buddy had been charged with a felony, but Reese intervened with the Attorney General so that Buddy received probation and could stay on the force. Hoyt Shepard had fought hard to ensure that Elmer Reese won the race over local grocery store owner Otis Taff. Taft's campaign, which was endorsed by groups who sought to clean up Phoenix City,

had accused Reese of stuffing the ballot box. They alleged that Tombstone votes, votes by people who were dead, had been cast. They claimed Shepard's agents drove people to different wards in the city so that the fraudulent voters could cast a vote in each precinct. The groups accused Shepard of sending muscle to the polls to intimidate voters.

Some of the intimidators were thugs who worked directly for Shepard, but they could also be members of law enforcement. been like Buddy Jowers, who served Shepard first and the badge second. And for good measure, Hoyt Shepard bribed the officials who supervised each precinct. With all of those methods in play, there was no way Shepard could lose. And since he had bought every prominent figure in the legal system in the area, he wasn't scared of an investigation into voter fraud.

The groups who wanted to clean up the city could yell and scream all they wanted, but it wouldn't matter. When the election was called, Elmer Reese graciously thanked his opponent and the voters who elected him. Hoyd Shepard rounded up about 50 people and started the celebration at the Southern Manor Club. There was whiskey and cigars,

and if people wanted to test their luck, there was a private gambling room near the back of the club. Shepard's partner, Jimmy Matthews, was also there. So was Shepard's brother Grady, who ran the Bama Club for the S&M syndicate. An old ally was there, a guy named Clyde Yarborough, who, so the story went, had taught Shepard how to play cards

when he first came to Phoenix City without a nickel to his name. And, of course, the newly re-elected city commissioner, Elmer Reese, was there with several other members of the city government. The men laughed and drank and drank some more. No one at the scene reported anything strange, or that any of the men in Shepard's group were agitated or volatile. But that changed a little after 10.30 p.m. Fate Lieburn, one of the kingpins of Columbus,

walked in with a gorgeous blonde woman on his arm. Then everything in the Southern Manor went south real fast. Jeanette Mercer, a 19-year-old who was called a Dice Girl at the Southern Manor, recognized Fate Leiborne when he walked through the door and took a seat at a table near the bar. She also recognized Lieburn's date. The girl was Edna Roy, who was a hostess at Leiburn's Cardinal Hotel. Edna was also a beauty queen who had won the Miss Columbus pageant the previous year.

Fate and Edna, who didn't appear to be at the club that night for the re-election party, drank and chatted at their table near the bar. Fate Leiborne didn't even seem aware that the party was happening. Jeanette observed the scene from her post in a small gambling room that was next to the main bar where Fate and Edna enjoyed their evening. Jeanette's attention quickly shifted to her boss, Hoyt Shepard, as he and his brother Grady walked into Jeanette's room. Hoyt was drunk, and he pulled out a 32-caliber pistol that had been hidden somewhere in his

clothes. He laid the gun on the gambling table in front of Jeanette, and then handed her a $20 bill. He instructed her to take a walk and to, quote, go buy yourself some nylons. Then Hoyt grabbed his gun and the brothers walked out of the room. For whatever reason, Jeanette Mercer did not do as she was ordered. The Shepard brothers briefly went into the restroom. When they came out, Grady returned to the gambling room and gruffly told the only other man in the room to get out. The man didn't argue.

While Grady cleared out the gambling room, except for Jeanette, who still hadn't left, Hoyt walked over to Fate Leiburn's table. Leiburn was laughing, enjoying his whiskey, and enjoying the company of his date. When Hoyt put his hand on Leiburn's shoulder, Leiburn didn't seem startled. When Hoyt leaned down and whispered in Leiburn's ear, Leiburn didn't seem worried by the message. Leiburn was still smiling at Edna Roy when he stood up from the table and followed Hoyt into the gambling room. Hoyt and Fate joined Grady at the gambling table. then Hoyt's partner, Jimmy Matthews, walked in.

Jeanette Mercer would later say in her statement that the Shepard brothers were drunk and surly, but she also noted that Fate Lieburn did not seem concerned. Hoyt once again told Jeanette to get out of the room. She bravely responded that she was required to stay at the table. But the whiskey on Hoyt's breath and the glare of his bloodshot eyes finally convinced her to leave. Now, those two things,

and the pistol. When Hoyt pulled out his gun, Jeanette ran for the door. She said later that she heard two shots right away, and then a third as she made it into the main room. She screamed to the crowded bar, they've killed Mr. Lieburn. Some patrons of the Southern Manor rushed to the door of the gambling room to see what had happened. Others rushed to the exit. Many would say they had not heard the shots over the loud music in the bar, but Jeanette's cries had been enough to make them want to leave. Hoyt's partner, Jimmy Matthews, was one of those who hurried for the exits. He tried to blend in with the crowd and slip out unnoticed,

but he was identified as he fled the scene. The manager of the club called the police. The Shepard brothers pushed everyone out of the gambling room, all the patrons who had rushed in to see the action, and slammed the door shut until the police arrived. But the door had been open long enough for the party goers, to see Fate Lieburn's motionless body on the floor. Blood was already congealing around his mouth,

and he had been shot twice in the chest. Jeanette Mercer had been right. Fate Leiborne was dead. It took 15 minutes for the first police officer to arrive. For some perspective, if you were really generous with the boundaries of the city today, it would take about 15 minutes to drive from the extreme northern end of Phoenix City

to the extreme southern end. In 1946, you probably could have driven anywhere in town in less than 10 minutes. Fifteen minutes was plenty of time for the Shepard Brothers to make a critical change to the scenario in the Southern Manor Club. When the officer burst through the door of the club, he found shocked partygoers, a terrified Jeanette Mercer and an inconsolable Edna Roy. What the officer did not find was the alleged shooter. A few minutes after Hoyt and Grady closed the door to the gambling room,

Hoyt bolted and left his younger brother at the crime scene with the dead man and the murder weapon. The officer took custody of the gun and asked Grady what happened. I shot him, Grady said. I wish it hadn't happened like this. Grady was taken to the Phoenix City jail and then to the Russell County Jail. In his statement to the county sheriff, he claimed that Lieburn had pulled a knife and slashed him. Grady revealed a superficial cut on his forearm. He then admitted to shooting Fate Leiburn twice. At the crime scene, investigators found a small folding knife in Fate Leiborne's

jacket pocket, but it was closed and there was no blood or clothing fiber on it. Grady Shepard was booked for murder while questions about the knife and alternative motives swirled around him. On the advice of his quickly forming legal team, he refused to answer questions. And while Grady sat silently in jail, everyone in Phoenix City wondered about the whereabouts of Hoyt Shepard and Jimmy Matthews. For 36 hours after the shooting, they were ghosts. Then, 48 hours after the shooting, they reappeared. They had apparently used the time to get their stories straight. Hoyt and Jimmy gave statements claiming that Grady had acted. in self-defense. Leiburn had pulled a knife, Grady had pulled a gun. Conveniently, that same

morning, Clyde Yarborough, Hoyt Shepard's mentor, walked into the Phoenix City Police Station and produced a second knife. He claimed he had picked it up off the floor of the gambling room, where he said it had been laying just six inches from Fate Leiborne's hand. Of course, since Clyde had so graciously picked up the evidence and delivered it to the station, the police could neither prove nor disprove his story. When pressed about why he took the knife and why he waited so long to come forward, Clyde allegedly said that he preferred not to give a statement. When he was pressed about whether or not he witnessed the shooting, he also declined to comment. Either way, he had clearly been present at the club and had delivered a supposed piece of evidence.

He was a material witness, and it was routine for the police to detain material witness. for further questioning. Yet the chief of police allowed Clyde to simply drop off the knife and walk out of the station. At the same time all that was happening, friends, family members, and business associates of Fate Lieburn gathered for his burial across the river in Columbus. In Phoenix City, the apparent cover-up in the making probably looked obvious to an outside observer. Clyde Yarborough's story was absurd. Grady Shepard, story, short though it was, was full of holes. But at the same time, this was exactly the type of thing that could get easily covered up in Phoenix City. Hoyt Shepard owned the police chief,

the county sheriff, the county judge, and the mayor, just to name a few. But the murder of Fate Leiborne was not typical. Of all the nights for it to happen, it happened at a party with multiple city officials in attendance, including the newly re-elected mayor-slash-city commission. and the dead man was a prominent citizen of a different community in a different state. The crime was too sensational to sweep under the rug, even with Hoyt Shepard's resources. It dominated newspaper headlines in Alabama and Georgia. Grady Shepard waved his right to a preliminary hearing, which meant he would go straight to trial if he was formally indicted by a grand jury.

When the indictment came down two weeks after the shooting, including, Grady learned he would have company in his court case. His brother Hoyt would not get off so easily. Next time on Infamous America, the Shepard brothers go to trial for murder. Hoyt Shepard becomes a marked man. A defense attorney gets his first taste of the city's political and criminal machine. And a new reform group begins a long campaign to clean up Phoenix City. All that is next week on Infamous America.

Members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week for new episodes. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials, and they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships begin at just $5 per month. This series was researched and written by Jamie Lyko, original music by Rob Fowler. I'm your host and producer Chris Wimmer. Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia.com, or on our social media channels.

We're BlackBarrel Media on Facebook and Instagram and The Barrel Media on Twitter. And you can stream all our episodes on YouTube. Just search for Infamous America Podcast. Thanks for listening.