RedHanded - Episode 317 - Reverend Willie Maxwell: Harper Lee & The Killer Voodoo Preacher

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

In summer 1977, in Alexander City, Alabama, a man stood up in front of 300 mourners at the funeral of a 16-year-old girl – and shot a reverend three times in the head.When the shooter’s murder trial began, it caught the attention of the renowned author, Harper Lee, who went on to spend years researching the story for her next book.But it wasn’t the shooting that had piqued her interest.It was the series of suspicious deaths surrounding the reverend – Willie Maxwell – known in Coosa County, Alabama, as a serial killing voodoo preacher.Follow us on social media:InstagramTwitterVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And welcome to your final edition of September Red-Handed before we launch full force into our spooktacular that is October. Which you understand how the Gregorian calendar works. It's next week. But let us tell you anyway. Just to, you know, get the excitement juices flowing. Exactly.

But before we get there, we do have a very interesting case. One that I had not come across before. One that I haven't heard another True Crime Podcast cover, but I may well be wrong. But I'm very excited. I'm excited too. And I'm excited because we start off with one of my favourite people ever, Harper Lee. In the winter of 1977, novelist Harper Lee found herself sitting in the back of an Alabama courtroom, taking notes on a murder trial. It had been 17 years since she'd written the wildly successful, yet at the time divisive, To Kill a Mockingbird. And it had been 12 years since she'd helped Truman Capote research and write the true crime sensation In Cold Blood.

And after almost two decades, Lee had finally found the inspiration for her next story. And that's why she was sat there, pen and paper in hand, at a trial of a man who'd stood up in the middle of a funeral and shot a reverend, three times to be exact, in the head, in front of 300 witnesses. When Lee first heard about the shooting, of course it was shocking, but when she learned about a string of killings linked to the preacher himself,

she decided that she had finally found the subject of her long-awaited second book, The Reverend, the tale of an alleged black voodoo preacher in Alabama, around whom five people, including two of his wives, had died under very suspicious circumstances. Lee spent years researching and writing what she was certain was going to be her next masterpiece. But when she died in 2016, really not that long ago, the manuscript for The Reverend was nowhere to be found. Some people claimed that Harper Lee had finished writing the entire book. Others said that she'd

thrown 300 pages of it into an incinerator. What was found, however, were the countless interviews and notes Lee had made whilst researching the case. And thanks to author Casey Koepp, who picked up where Harper Lee left off with her book Furious Hours, Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee, we bring you this episode on Alabama's alleged serial killing voodoo preacher, Reverend Willie Maxwell. Willie Maxwell was born in Kellington, Alabama, to farmers Will and Ada Maxwell. He was the sixth of nine children, and the second of their five sons. And Kellyton was a tiny community, too small even to be considered a village. It was comprised of a few houses, a couple of shops, and numerous churches, due to, of course, the segregation of black and white worshippers. Nothing much ever happened in Kellyton, or in the rest of Coosa County for that matter. It kind of reminds me,

I know Maycomb isn't that small, but I just want to pretend that it's happening in Maycomb. The criminal activity of Kellyton was also mostly limited to things like bigamy, bastardry, hoboing, working on the Sabbath, and swearing in front of women. Now, not much is known of Willie's early life, which is pretty normal. The historical record for many black Americans in that time and place is just a glaring blank space in the archives. What we do know is that after he finished school in 1943, Willie joined two million other black Americans

in registering for the draft. He spent the war working as an aviation engineer and in 1947 he made his way back to Kellyton and he returned home a man, now six foot tall and 176 pounds. What it says there is 176.37, which seems extraordinarily accurate. Extremely, which is why I decided not to say that. Now, Willie Maxwell's voice was silky smooth, and his charm and charisma were something that most men in Kellyton could only dream of.

And back in his hometown, it wasn't long before tall, silky-voiced Willie met the love of his life. Mary Lou Edwards. She was two years his junior, born and raised in Cottage Grove, another tiny town in Coosa County. Mary Lou was still living with her parents when Willie got down on one knee. Of course she was, where else was she going to go? Exactly.

She said yes and the pair walked down the aisle on the 2nd of April 1949. During their first five years as husband and wife, Mary Lou and Willie worked growing crops for a wealthy landowner. The meagre pay sustained them for a while but in 1954 the pair of them lost their jobs, and they found themselves in dire straits. Still, as will soon become clear, Willie Maxwell was nothing if not enterprising. Before long, he was working three jobs. Preaching, pulping wood for paper, and powdering. Do you know what pulped wood smells like? Something horrible. Yeah, it smells like rotten broccoli farts. And I know that because my friend who lives in Port Townsend lives next to

a paper mill. And that is what it smells like. Yeah, yeah. Obviously, the industry, great. Jobs need it. But it's interesting how different towns take on various smells. So Burton-on-Trent just smells like gravy. Yes. I think there's a marmite factory there or something when i used to live up north you can smell the terry's chocolate orange factory oh that's lovely not every day uh every day for the your whole life also you could there's the round trees fruit pastel factory as well in the same. And you could tell in the shop who worked on the fruit pastel line because their hands would be cut from the sugar. Gloves, people. I mean, I think sometimes it just rips through.

And I'm talking about the 90s. Maybe we didn't have gloves then. Yeah. But let's leave that alone. Powdering, not pulping. Powdering was a dangerous job, which involved drilling down into rock quarry and using explosives to break rocks down to smaller pieces that could be crushed. And Willie was one of the best powderers his boss had ever seen. But one thing everybody noticed about Willie was how, despite being the hardest

worker there, he would be the only one not covered head to toe in powder at the end of a shift. And who else pulled that same trick? I can't remember. Jimmy Savile. Yes, you're right, you're right. Willie Maxwell, somehow, at the end of every shift, was always immaculately clean. In fact, Willie was one of the most dapper men in Alabama. His shoes were always shiny, his shirts were always crisp and white, and after seeing the way he'd deliver pulpwood wearing a three-piece suit people even started to joke that willie maxwell's clothes must be handmade by the devil himself that's all it takes yeah and i do have to say that i don't want to like

you know blue ball everybody with the whole voodoo thing we've got to put a hard alleged voodoo on it right we're not in october yet and i'm sorry to say that it's just a lot of accusations and it starts here with the fact that willie maxwell for a blue collar worker is very clean all of the time and people are like what's that your clothes are made of willie made by the devil and that's how it starts and it goes from there perfect thank you but for willie powdering and pulping were just a means to an end his real passion was preaching of course he could sing he could pray and he knew every line of the Bible by heart. And from the moment Willie was ordained in 1962,

everybody started calling him Reverend Maxwell. Willie's elegant, flowery turn of phrase might have been out of place on his other hands-on jobs, but it suited him perfectly in the pulpit. And pretty soon, Willie was one of the most sought-after preachers in the country. He was even awarded a Certificate of Theology study from Selma University in 1970. But despite excelling at now all three of his jobs, the Maxwell's financial situation didn't improve in the slightest. This was due, in no small part, to the fact that Willie Maxwell

lived a very lavish lifestyle. And I'm not just talking about his fancy devil suits. Willie and Mary Lou had moved into a brick house just outside of nearby Alexander City. Willie owed almost $100,000 in debt, which is $800, dollars in today's money it's big bucks it's big bucks and he owed this money obviously to numerous banks for the mortgage he had on his big house and he was also very behind on all of his car payments willie maxwell was also in debt with almost every store around lake martin mary lou did what she could to help with the mounting debt. She started working with Willie at the paper mill, but didn't help with the tensions in their marriage

that were starting to rear their heads. Yeah, I'd feel like at that time, you're like, my husband works three jobs, why do I also have to work a job? I should be at home, being a lady of leisure, having some kids. Exactly. Everybody close to Mary Lou knew a lady of leisure having some kids. Exactly. Everybody close to Mary Lou knew that she was not a happy bunny. And that was because, apart from the three job situation, strange

women were often phoning their house asking for Willie. As a referend, Willie Maxwell would often travel out of town for long periods of time and because of his role as a preacher it was completely fine for him to be alone with married women just not the kids say but then in 1970 Mary Lou's suspicions were confirmed when one of Willie's mistresses gave birth to his daughter and the good reverend just could not hide his philandering any longer

on the 21st of January that year Willie appeared before a probate court in Tallapoosa County to legitimate the six-week-old child. Now you might be thinking, why? Like, I would be thinking, back then, pre any kind of horrendous Jeremy Carl DNA test, I should be like, it's not mine. Yeah, right. It's not my kid.

Prove it. I've got loads of debt. I haven't got time for this. Exactly. But he goes along with it for reasons that will become clear later. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in US history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent

space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Start your free trial today. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite.

Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. This was obviously totally humiliating for Mary Lou. But she didn't believe in divorce, so she stayed put. She took her wedding vows very seriously, even if Willie didn't. And when Mary Lou said, until death do us part, she meant it, although she couldn't have known how soon that would become true,

or how tumultuous that end would turn out to be. When Mary Lou's sister came round the house on the 3rd of August 1970, she found Mary Lou in a bit of a state. Willie had lost his job at the mill. But before they could all discuss this, Willie said he had to leave. He was preaching his regular fire and brimstone show that night, and his sermons often went on until the early hours of the morning. So Willie left the house around 6pm and Mary Lou's sister left soon afterwards. Mary Lou then drove to visit her other sister and on the way home she stopped and spoke with her neighbour Dorcas Anderson. And look, Dorcas is not somebody I want to laugh at but that name Dorcas well what it makes me think it's a bad

name it's a bad name and it's also in the Simpsons when Bart says to Lisa well you are as we say in Latin yes a Dorcas Maloccas yes that is exactly what it is it sounds like the Latin term for the genus of being a dog sorry Dorcas so yes. So yes, Mary Lou goes to speak with Dawkus Anderson. Now, according to Willie, while all this was going on, he'd stopped at a service station and phoned his wife at home, but there was no answer. And when he got back home just before 11, she still wasn't at home. So Willie said he phoned his mother-in-law, who said she hadn't seen Mary Lou either. So, Willie phoned the police.

After speaking with Willie, officers headed to Dorcas' house. And she told them that Willie had woken her up with a phone call earlier that night, and that she'd even gone over to speak to him in person about Mary Lou's disappearance. But then, she told the police something she hadn't mentioned to the good reverend. Dawkus told them that Mary Lou had paid her not one but two visits that evening. On the first visit, Mary Lou had just come back from her sister's house. On the second visit, she'd been in a panic, saying that Willie had been in a car crash and needed her to pick him up. Dawkus also told the police officers that she had been asleep and hadn't heard

or seen Willie coming home at 11pm, like he claimed. But after she did speak with Reverend Willie Maxwell at about 2am, not only was Dawkus shocked to hear that Mary Lou was missing, but also that Willie's car, which he had supposedly crashed earlier that night, didn't have a single scratch on it. So when the police asked Willie about what Dorcas had told them, he said that there must have been some sort of misunderstanding. He hadn't been in an accident of any kind.

He said that he was sure that it was Mary Lou who had been in a car crash. And then he very specifically asked the police to check Highway 22. Let's just remind everybody this is a time when there are no mobile phones. He says he doesn't know where his wife is. Nobody knows where his wife is, but he's telling the police to go to a very specific location. And lo and behold, when the police go to check Highway 22, they found Mary Lou's Ford on the shoulder of that exact road, near a bunch of trees. Although the car hadn't actually hit these trees.

In fact, Mary Lou's car didn't appear as though it'd been in a crash at all. There was no damage to the vehicle. The engine was still running. The headlights were on and the doors were locked. But Mrs Maxwell was in the driver's seat. When officers opened the car door, they found Mary Lou slumped in the front seat. Her polka dot dress, her head, her arms and her legs were all covered in blood. Her face was swollen, bruised and covered with cuts. Her jawbone was broken and her nose had

been dislocated and she was missing a chunk of her left ear, which was later found in the car. All in a car that doesn't look like anything happened to it. No. Good work. The outside of the passenger door, the windshield and the rear window were also smeared with blood, although not damaged. So officers put two and two together and became pretty certain that somebody had beaten Mary Lou to death and then moved her car. Just at least crash it into the fucking trees. Just smash a window, you know. Anything.

Whilst looking for evidence, officers gathered fibres from the inside of the car and a claw hammer that had been left on the back seat. Classic accident evidence. Who has a hammer in their car? Somebody who got beaten to death with a hammer. Yes, true. No footprints could be found along the side of the highway, but officers did find blood in the driveway of a nearby church.

And that blood was very soon identified to be Mary Lou's. The coroner found extensive bruising around Mary Lou's neck as well as ligature marks and sand in her mouth. There are also bits of sand and leaves in the blood on Mary Lou's dress. So the coroner believed that somebody had tried and failed to strangle Mary Lou with a rope and that they likely fell to the floor together in the struggle before Mary Lou was a rope and that they likely fell to the floor together in the struggle before Mary Lou

was beaten to death. I have to say these police officers have got a lot of good information from this. Yes absolutely. Good work. So officers then headed to search the reverend's home and found that he'd been burning rubbish. A big red flag. But by the time they arrived, all the technicians could find in the ashes were remnants of cotton cloth and something like the remains of a straw hat or some sort of handbag. The police were stumped. They had absolutely no evidence pointing them in any direction. But all they knew for sure was that the reverend wasn't as holy as he seemed. A neighbour then told them about his numerous lady callers, and soon enough the police tracked down a number of these women, including one who was driving a brand new car

that Willie Maxwell was apparently making payments for, all the while being up to his neck in his own debts. Now, while the police were doing their digging, Willie and his lawyer, Tom Radney, organised Mary Lou's funeral and collected her last paycheck from Russell Mills. Then, the Reverend said about writing a letter to the Old American Insurance Company.

Why would you start a company called the Old American Insurance Company? Heritage. Heritage. Heritage. So, yes, he's writing to the old American insurance company. Ye olde American insurance company. Because he'd somewhat fortuitously taken out a $15,000 life insurance policy on his dearly departed wife just weeks before her tragic death now this life insurance policy this is just outrageous this life insurance policy for fifteen thousand dollars

which like even today is a good amount of money had cost willie just 25 cents and since it happened so soon after he took it out he hadn't even needed to pay the 12 dollar renewal fee do you think he just had it in his calendar he's like maybe get that done before the auto renew kicks in now when willie called ye olde insurance company he did leave out one little detail in his claim he said that mary lou had died in an automobile accident an automobile accident excuse me i'm just hopping into my automobile i'll see you at the automobile dealership ye olde

yes so he says she dies in a car accident and admitted the fact that it had actually been a homicide because the police have already decided this it's not like they don't know no they just don't know who did it well they think he did it rightly spoilers but they can't prove it's him but they do not for a second think it's an automobile accident. I am not saying that he's a good liar. No. I'm saying that ye olde American insurance company probably should have asked some different questions. Yes, more and different questions.

So let's take a brief sidebar to delve into the scintillating world of life insurance. The first recorded insurance policy actually dates back to the late 1500s in London, but it was fraught with scandal from the off. Before everybody switches off, do listen to this because it is very interesting. Insurance companies were operating more like betting companies. You could even take insurance out on whether someone else's marriage would last. They also allowed you to take out speculative policies on someone's life, even if you had no connection to that person whatsoever. That seems like a bad idea.

And inadvertently, but quite obviously, if you've got a policy on someone's life, you've got quite a large incentive to kill them. Especially if you have no connection to them whatsoever. Exactly. France, Germany and Spain eventually outlawed the practice of life insurance altogether. England just passed a law that only allowed you to take a policy out on someone you had an interest in staying alive,

family member, etc. Although it is illegal to insure children in this country. Because people were just having them and killing them. Still, fake suicides and mysterious deaths continued. As for the US, the life insurance industry absolutely exploded after the Civil War. And by the time our good reverend

was taking out policies in the early 70s, the industry was rife with all sorts of chicanery. You could buy huge policies, paid for in installments of pennies. And these policies could be bought from a door-to-door salesman, by mail across the country, or from newspapers. And autopsies almost never happened. All of which made it pretty easy to forge a signature,

lie about someone's health, fake a death, or straight-up murder someone. And make thousands in the doing of it. Oh, there you go. pretty easy to forge a signature, lie about someone's health, fake a death or straight up murder someone and make thousands in the doing of it. There you go. And the Reverend Willie Maxwell was a pro at this. He's a pro at most things. He really is. He's a jack of all trades, is

Willie. By 1970 he had taken out policies on everybody. From his wife to his mother, his brothers, his aunts, his nieces, his nephews, and also the six-week-old daughter he'd just legitimised. Willie bought most of these policies by mail from every corner of the country. They often cost him less than a dollar for the initial payments, with potential payouts in the tens of thousands. Even so, in the case of Mary Lou's death, the murder charges against Willie were quickly dropped

due to, like I said, they know it's him, but there is a total lack of evidence that they can specifically point to. But Herman Chapman, an agent from the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, the ABI, who was nicknamed Bear Tracker, refused to let it go. And whilst Chapman spent the following year gathering evidence, Willie and his lawyer, someone called Tom Radney, set about filing civil suits against the remaining insurance companies refusing to pay out for Mary Lou's policies. For Radney and Maxwell, it was a race against time before the Reverend

Willie Maxwell would have to stand trial. Yeah, because it's like even they know it's coming. They're like, the charges have been dropped for now, but he doesn't let go of his lawyer. He's like, hey, Tom, I'm probably going to need you to stick around because issues. Amazingly, a jury decided that the Reverend Willie Maxwell was entitled to a full payout from the three remaining life insurance policies on his late wife. But just three weeks later, almost a year to the day of Mary Lou's murder, Willie was indicted by a grand jury for first-degree murder. Quite the month for Willie.

It really is. Have all of this money. Psych. Murder. Yeah. Well, not murder. Quite the month for Willie. It really is. Have all of this money, psych. Murdered. Yeah. Well, not murder, murder trial. So one of Willie's mistresses, Ophelia Burns. It's better than Dorcas, isn't it? It is much better than Dorcas. Sorry, Dorcas, but it is. Was also charged for allegedly helping the Reverend attack Mary Lou outside the church that night. And that is, of course, the church, if you remember, where they found the blood outside. But when it came to the trial, the prosecution's case collapsed when their star witness, Willie's neighbour, Dorcas Anderson,

completely changed her testimony. Dorcas, like you will remember, had originally said that Mary Lou got a call from Willie claiming that he'd been in a car accident, an automobile accident, and needed picking up. And also, if you remember, Dorcas had originally claimed that Mary Lou got a call from Willie claiming that he'd been in an accident and needed picking up. She also mentioned to the police that night that the car hadn't had a scratch on it when Willie eventually returned home later that night and woke her up to tell her that Mary Lou was missing. But in court, Dorcas now claimed not to recall any of these things

and instead provided Willie with an alibi saying that he'd been at home the entire night. With that the jury had no choice but to reach a verdict of not guilty and Willie Maxwell walked free. But despite a jury deciding that Willie wasn't a killer certainly wouldn't be the last murder that the reverend would be accused of. All four of the churches where he preached banned him from returning, which meant he had to travel all the way to Pike County to spread the word of God. And that was likely just because the news of his murder trial hadn't reached them all the way out there. I don't know how this works. Can you just show up to any church and be like i'm gonna preach today because that's not how it works in catholicism i would be lying if i told you that i understood the inner workings of the various

different american churches in the 70s but maybe it was like you know like a locum you just turn up and you're like hey can i just have a couple of sermons? Yeah, I guess so. Maybe? However, the Reverend's reputation didn't fare any better when four months after the murder trial, he remarried. And who was his new wife? None other than the woman who saved him in court. His 27-year-old neighbour, Dorcas Anderson. Oh, Dorcas. Dorcas's husband, Abram Anderson, an army vet, was struggling with ALS and Dorcas had become his primary caregiver as well as having to provide for

their three children. A doctor had given Abram three years to live but just a few months after Willie's trial, Abram suddenly died in hospital at just 35. No autopsy was ever performed, and after Dorcas quickly remarried the Reverend, who was 18 years her senior, rumours began to swirl. Some believed that Willie had poisoned Abram, but the most persistent rumour was that he was a voodoo priest. It's the most fun.

It's the most fun, and the most unlikely, but maybe that's why it's the most fun for the god-fearing christians of the south willie being found not guilty of murdering his wife then remarrying his 27 year old neighbor after her husband conveniently died seemed a lot more like the result of a conjuring than coincidence why why good people of kellyton is that the conclusion you jump to it's the same woman and so where do these sort of rumors come from other than the fact that people are like oh look how that worked out for him he got away with it and he got this 27 year old new wife there's obviously the suits the suit thing with everybody being like

how are you always so clean also this was another little sprinkle on top of the satanic cake for willie maxwell because he was also said to be the seventh son of a seventh son uh-oh a concept from folklore it says that the seventh male child born in an unbroken line of male siblings to a father who is also the seventh male born in an unbroken line of male siblings has special powers granted by God. Or in this case, the devil. We fucking love sevens. We do. We love threes. We love sevens.

And twelves. All the goods. All the good numbers. The number seven is also, of course, very mystically and biblically significant. Seven deadly sins, seven virtues, seven sleepers, and seven heavens. Willie Maxwell, however, actually had four brothers and four sisters. But regardless, people believed what they wanted to. Details.

Minor details. Minor, minor details. But seventh son or not, Willie was certainly up to no good. Because the day after he and his new bride, Dorcas Malorcas, married on the 21st of November 1971, Willie Maxwell met with a new insurance man. Why is nobody tracking this? I mean, they are, but we'll get to that, I guess. And from that day forth, if anything were to regrettably happen to Mrs. Dawkus Anderson Maxwell, Willie Maxwell would receive $50,000 dues from six policies that he had taken out on her life. A few weeks after this, Willie found himself being summoned to the Rockford Courthouse once again, but only this time, he wasn't the one in trouble.

His alcoholic brother, John Columbus Maxwell, had been arrested for drunk driving and needed Willie to bail him out. Willie covered the $300 bond on the assurance that John would turn up to court for his hearing. But John would not turn up to court for his hearing. It would never happen because the day before the court date, John was found lying dead on the side of Highway 9. An anonymous caller phoned the police and reported a hit and run, but John's body didn't have a scratch on it. Instead, he reeked of alcohol and the toxicology report found that his blood contained 0.41 ethyl alcohol, which is more than enough

to kill even a seasoned drinker of his size. The eyebrows on every lawman in Alabama went skyward when they found out that the Reverend was the sole beneficiary of his deceased bachelor brother's life insurance policy. In the space of but two years, the Reverend Willie Maxwell had claimed $100,000 in life insurance policies, and that's half a million in today money. No wonder everyone thought he was a fucking booty bitch.

And he sure was going to need that half a million because just six months later, in May 1972, Dorcas gave birth to Willie's son. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them.

Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness. And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained.

Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't

my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me, and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha

exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Then, on the 20th of September 1972, eight months after the untimely death of Willie's brother, a car was discovered on the side of Highway 9. Again. of Willie's brother, a car was discovered on the side of Highway 9. Again, the engine was running, the headlights were on, the bonnet was slightly damaged and the windshield was cracked. When the people who found it took a closer look, they discovered a woman slumped over on the floor of the driver's seat. Absolutely zero prizes for guessing who that woman was. It was, of course, Dorcas Anderson Maxwell.

According to the recently bereaved two-time widower, the Reverend, this is what happened that fateful night. After Dorcas had made dinner for the kids and put them to bed, she went to visit her own mother around 9pm to pick up some fish that she'd caught earlier that day. But despite Dorcas' mother only living 11 miles away, hours passed and Dorcas was nowhere to be found. And when Willie phoned his mother-in-law, she told him that she hadn't seen or heard from Dorcas all day. Willie then claimed that he immediately woke up the kids, wrapped up the baby and left the house in search of his wife. But oddly, instead of searching for Dorcas along the route that she would have taken to her mother's house, the Reverend went the opposite way to speak with some neighbours. He asked them

whether Dorcas had stopped at their place instead of seeing her mother, and when he found out that she hadn't, he just went home. Good search. And by that point, Dawkus' body had already been found. And every police officer on the scene immediately got déjà vu of the night they found Mary Lou. Before the sun rose on the day Dawkus was found, her body had been taken to the local funeral home for autopsy. And Willie Maxwell phoned his lawyer, Tom Radney. Dawkus had small cuts all over her shoulders and elbows, and a large cut above her eye. Her toxicology report showed nothing out of the ordinary.

But she did, however, have a fractured hyoid. These are the bones that support your tongue. Oh my god. They sit in your throat. And we've talked about hyoids before. A fractured hyoid could be the sign of strangulation however and this is very interesting apparently it is not uncommon for the hyoid to become damaged during an autopsy itself okay so for example like cast your mind back to the gilgo beach case with

shannon gilbert for example people were like the only thing that really pointed to foul play was the fact that her hyoid bone was damaged everything else kind of pointed to the fact that maybe she had gone out onto that beach intoxicated and she had died of exposure after getting hypothermia so it is interesting to know that a hyoid bone can actually become damaged in an autopsy which could give you quite misleading results. And so yes that's also what they find in Dorcas's case and knowing that the hyoid bone can sometimes become damaged during the autopsy itself the authorities rejected this as Dorcas's cause of death and in the end despite the glaringly obvious the coroner declared that Dorcas had died of acute respiratory distress. Now this was despite the fact that the 29 yearcas had died of acute respiratory distress.

Now this was despite the fact that the 29 year old had no history of that illness and hadn't so much as had a cold in the previous year. So after this people grew more terrified of the quote unquote voodoo preacher than ever before. Locals were terrified to look him in the eyes out of fear that he might curse them with just a glance. And rumours spread that Willie could open locked doors with spells or kill you through walls. But as frightened as the people of Coosa County were, the insurance companies were incandescent. Three of them paid out a total of $16,000, but the rest weren't going to pay out shit without a fight. Willie had taken out four policies on his second wife the day after their marriage. Another two, two days later.

Another one, two days after. And numerous others in the following months. All in all, Willie had 17 separate life insurance policies on Dorcas. And he was ready to collect his fortune. And as for his lawyer, long-suffering Tom Radney, so began a long and painful series of court cases against almost every insurance company in the county. Before litigation began, Radney hired a private coroner

to carry out another autopsy on Dorcas. And this coroner pretty much agreed with the state coroner, carry out another autopsy on Dorcas, and this coroner pretty much agreed with the state coroner, bar a few key details. The insurance companies argued that if Dorcas had died of an acute respiratory illness, which hadn't been made clear in her insurance documents, then the policies were void. But Radney argued that it was the alleged car crash that had caused the respiratory condition that killed her, and therefore the policies were valid. Every single person in the courtroom knew that Dorcas had been murdered, just like Mary Lou,

but they were forbidden from mentioning it. The lawyers weren't even allowed to mention her broken hyoid bone. And despite the toxicology report on Dorcas coming back clean, there were numerous poisons readily available, for which there were no tests available at that time. In the end, Tom Radney somehow managed to recover $80,000 of the $131,000 worth of life insurance policies, and all of that went to Willie Maxwell. And in the words of Casey Koepp, for the Reverend Willie Maxwell, becoming a widower was proving to be a lucrative business. As horror stories of the murderous voodoo preacher

spread around the county, the Reverend continued to hold his head high, wearing his fancy suits and denying any wrongdoing. In fact, he claimed that he too was terrified of whatever or whoever was haunting his life, hunting down his loved ones. That's the oldest trick in the book. He's like, I'm scared too. I've been made a widower twice in just two years. Someone's out to get me. It's because I'm spreading the word of God. Exactly. And although he'd been banned

from preaching from the churches of Coosa County, Willie Maxwell found himself back at the altar, just two years after the death of his second wife. In November 1974, Willie Maxwell then took a third wife, Ophelia Burns, his former mistress, who, if you'll remember that name, she had of course been charged and acquitted of helping Willie kill Mary Lou. Most people had by this point forgotten about Ophelia's alleged involvement in Mary Lou's murder,

and she defended her new husband to the death. She said, he can't help it if people like to spread rumours about him. Just because he was accused of one thing, it's not right to think he's involved in everything. But you know, no smoke without fire. Quite. And just like Willie, Ophelia had a complicated family history. She too had been previously married, but got divorced after her husband found out that she was sleeping with Reverend Willie Maxwell. Obviously, they have a child. We know that.

So now, Willie Maxwell and Ophelia were both raising children from their previous marriages. And this included a young girl that Ophelia had taken from her sister, Shirley-Anne, who she did plan on one day adopting. So, in need of quite a vast income for all of those sproggs, given he'd found himself the head of a family and household once again, and he was no longer able to work as a preacher because of being a murderer, Willie went back to pulpwooding.

Using the fortune he'd made from the deaths of his wives and his brother, he purchased some land and began leasing it to a timber company. Despite the rumours, Willie managed to quickly disarm any and every concerned customer with his silky smooth words and crisp twinkly suits. One of the managers at the company, Frank Colquitt, described Willie as one of the best workers he'd ever had and joked, I wasn't afraid of Willie because I had insurance on him. Playing at him his own game. But other members of the pulpwooding crew didn't really have the same feelings.

A lot of them were absolutely terrified of the Reverend. Most of all, a young man called James Hicks, who happened to be the son of Willie's older sister. So that makes him what, a nephew? Yeah. 22-year-old Hicks kept his distance from his uncle at work, and once he left the job, he got married and moved in with his new wife nearby. The pair lived happily there, until 22-year-old James Hicks suddenly vanished. Two days later, a car was found on the shoulder of Highway 9, the very same road where Dorcas had been found, and the same road where Willie happened to live with Ophelia. And inside the car, officers found the lifeless body of James Hicks.

Apart from some minor scratches on his arms, legs, chest and lower lip, there wasn't really much sign of any injury on him. The toxicology report wasn't really much sign of any injury on him. The toxicology report wasn't of much use either. The young man only had some caffeine and a tiny amount of alcohol in his system. The extremely frustrated medical examiner noted that there was, quote, nothing which would adequately account for the death of this subject. That day, Willie phoned Tom Radney once again to discuss the death of another one of his family members. And during this call, Willie said something particular to his lawyer. There will be no evidence. The Alabama Bureau of Investigation, however, disagreed. When they found that an

insurance policy taken out on James Hicks' life was written in Willie's handwriting, they were determined not to let him get away with it again. It was circumstantial evidence, but it was still evidence. Once again, ABI agent Herman Chapman, the bear tracker, was on Willie's case. During the bear tracker's interview with James Hicks' widow, she made it clear that she was certain that Willie Maxwell had murdered her husband. According to her, a week before his death, the two of them were driving home when suddenly Willie drove up behind them and told them to pull over. Hicks got out of the car to speak to his uncle, and when he got back in the car, he refused to tell her what Willie had wanted. And then a few days later, she found out that Ophelia Maxwell

had been calling a bunch of their relatives to find out James Hicks' social security number. It's just unbelievable. So Chapman was now convinced that Willie was responsible. He certainly had the motive, and he now needed to find the means. After two months of investigating, the bear tracker Herman Chapman,

the lead agent from the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, who was after Willie, found a lead. That lead was in person shape. It was a person called Aaron Burton, and he swore under oath that a fortnight before James Hicks's body was discovered, Willie Maxwell had approached him in a grocery store. Willie asked Burton how dirty he was. To which Burton replied, I'm as dirty as you need me to be. It sounds like a come on. Is this cottaging? Is this what is happening?

That's what it sounds like. It's not where it goes, unfortunately. It goes to murder or attempted murder. But yeah, there you go. Anyway, they didn't hold each other in a loving embrace. They actually met up later that day. And after, Maxwell made Burton cross his heart and hope to die. And then he made him a sinister proposal.

The good reverend had asked Burton to help him murder two of his nephews, saying that they both owed him a lot of money, and therefore it was okay to kill them and get the insurance. And Maxwell said if Burton helped him, he would pay him $8,000. The plan had been to arrange for Hicks to meet Willie on Highway 9 and for Burton to come up behind him and distract the young man. Willie said he'd do the rest from there. But when Willie showed Burton the pair of gloves that he'd bought for him to avoid leaving fingerprints, Burton lost his nerve.

He told Willie he'd changed his mind and he didn't want any part of it. But still, as Willie drove him home, he showed him another spot on Highway 9. Here, Willie suggested, would be a good spot to run Hicks' car off the road. But Burton, clearly not as dirty as Willie needs him to be, once again refused. Burton then told Chapman to speak with a man called Calvin Edwards, who'd previously worked with Willie as a pulp putter. And Edwards' story was just as unbelievable. Edwards revealed that in February 1975, a year before James Hicks' death,

Willie had bailed him out of prison and given him a pulp-putting job, Edwards revealed that in February 1975, a year before James Hicks' death, Willie had bailed him out of prison and given him a pulp pudding job. And that not long after this, Willie had asked him, how dirty, and then asked him how willing he would be to break the law again. Willie then made him the same proposal that he'd later make Burton, to help him murder his two nephews. But different to his plan with Burton,

Willie had told Edwards that he had a special pill he could mix with whiskey that would discombobulate his nephew. Then the Reverend would just smother him and push his car off a cliffside. Easy peasy. Easy. Nothing like a nice little easy voodoo pill. Yeah, I mean, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The ABI agents believed both Burton and Edward's stories.

But there was still nothing they could do to bring murder charges against Willie Maxwell. After all, the coroner had concluded Hicks' death to be natural causes. And so the investigation had to end there. Willie claimed the money on his nephew's insurance policies and spent the following year living like any other family man. By 1977, Willie and Ophelia's adopted daughter, Shirley Ann, turned 16. And she was just as difficult as any other 16-year-old. But I imagine being brought up by a murderer is going to take its toll. And everybody thinks he's also some sort of voodoo

preacher. One night, Shirley Ann snuck out of the house, stole the car and disappeared. Ophelia thought Shirley Ann might be at her sister's house

but when her sister never called and Shirley Ann never came home, Ophelia phoned the police and set off in search of her daughter with Willie.

After a few hours of searching and no luck, they stopped at a police station to see whether they had managed to track Shirley Ann down.

And as luck would have it, they had. The officers led Willie and Ophelia to an old graveyard off the side of Highway 9, just over a mile from their house. There, they saw Willie's car parked up with a car jack lying next to it and Shirley Ann's body lying underneath the car. The officers explained that it seemed as though the 16-year-old had been changing a flat tyre when the car slipped from the jack and crushed her head. That's why I never learned how to change a tyre. The odd thing was, though, that the tyre she was supposedly changing wasn't flat. Details.

The devil is in the details. Yeah. It's like Alec Murdoch being like, oh, I need to change a tyre. He had no spare tyre in his car. Yeah. Excellent. And also,

the 16-year-old Shirley Ann's hands were not dirty. It's impossible to even pump up your tyres without getting oil over your fucking hands. Not to mention, Shirley Ann, being a 16-year-old girl who had just run off with her adoptive father's car, wasn't exactly the responsible type to change a tyre in the first place. Especially when she was just a mile from home. She could have walked home. Why would she be changing the fucking tyre? Also a tyre that isn't even flat. It made no sense. Nothing was

adding up. But yet again, another of the reverend's relatives had been found dead next to a road where multiple of his other family members had been found. And again, there were no witnesses. Shirley Ann's funeral took place in Alexander City on the 18th of June 1977, the day before Father's Day, it just so happened. Ophelia and Willie took their seats at the front by Shirley Ann's open casket. Her head has been crushed by a car

and you're giving her an open... That is barbaric. And behind them, in the baking, hot, single room funeral home were 300 morning friends and family. Oh my god, it's like fucking Christmas Day for bloody Reverend Willie Maxwell. He's just like eyeing up all the 300 friends and family he can put more insurance policies on. It's like a buffet.

One by one, the attendees went up to Shirley-Anne's casket to pay their respects. And not one of them returned to their pews without breaking down in tears at the sight of her mutilated head. I think I'd be doing a lot more than crying if I saw a 16-year-old's crushed head. I'd be doing a big vom, yeah. Yeah. Everyone was in tears. Apart from Shirley-Anne's stepfather, the Reverend Willie Maxwell. When one of Shirley-Anne's teenage sisters, Louvina Lee, noticed that Willie Maxwell didn't have a single tear in his eyes, she snapped.

She pointed her finger at the Reverend and shouted, you killed my sister and now you're going to pay for it. And at that moment, a man stood up, pulled a pistol from the pocket of his green suit and emptied three rounds into Willie Maxwell's face at point-blank range. The 300 horrified attendees were already stampeding out to the funeral home before Willie's head even hit the floor. When police arrived on the scene, after having forced their way through the crowd that had gathered outside, the killer willingly surrendered. His name was

Robert Burns and he was Shirley Ann Ellington's uncle. When the officers asked Burns why he'd done it, they already knew the answer. Everybody in Coosa County knew and to be honest everyone was glad that he had. In the back of the police car Burns told officers, I had to do it and if I had to it over, I'd do it again. That week, the Montgomery advisor reported that there was, quote, a sense of relief that Willie Maxwell was dead. Other papers wrote things like voodooist is slain at Alabama funeral and death of voodoo shaman lets town breathe easy. I know. That's why I said at the start, guys, like, there's literally no voodoo in this story. Just loads of random, unfounded accusations up there. But, you know, paper's gonna paper. So regardless of whether people viewed Burns as a hero vigilante or some

sort of crazed killer, he'd just shot a man three times in the face in front of 300 witnesses. He was gonna need a fucking good lawyer. And luckily for him, one of the best in the county just so happened to find himself in need of a new client. That's right. If you thought this story couldn't get any stranger,

you're wrong. Because Willie Maxwell's lifelong attorney, Tom Radney, took on his client's murderer's case. That is wild. Tom is... Tom Radney is the real money grabber in the entire story. Are there only 15 people in Alabama at this particular point in time?

Like, Jesus. I mean, it kind of feels that way, but it's like, this was the 70s. It wasn't like 1770. So believe it or not, the Reverend's wake attracted more people than Shirley Ann's did, but most people were there just to make sure that he was actually dead. Tom Radney didn't attempt, however. And whilst his old client was being put in the ground,

he was busy figuring out how to defend his killer. Up until the moment that he pulled out that gun and fired three shots into the Reverend's face, Robert Burns was by all means regarded as a kind-hearted family man. He'd served in Vietnam and had settled down near his brothers in Alex City, where he worked as a long-haul trucker. Burns was just 36 when he was indicted by a grand jury in Tallapoosa County. And just like his attorney Tom Radney told him to, Burns pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. It was pretty much the only move Radney could think of pulling out of the bag. The trial began on the 26th of September 1977,

and Tom Radney made it clear to the jury that his client didn't deny the murder, nor was he going to try and convince them that he didn't commit it. Well, that's pretty handy because he shot him in the face in front of 300 people. What he did do, however, was say that Burns, who had served in Vietnam, was having a mental episode during the murder. Now, PTSD wasn't a thing back then. It wasn't a recognised thing. It was happening. Yeah, obviously happening, but people didn't know what to call it. Shell shock. Understand it, exactly. But Burns's time in Vietnam had severely affected his mental state, there was no denying that. He'd lost a nephew in that war and witnessed

countless men in his unit get killed. Radney argued that when Burns shot Willie, he was temporarily insane and unable to distinguish between right and wrong. Therefore, he shouldn't be held responsible for the murder. Tom Radney then reminded the court who Burns had killed. Radney spoke of the five suspicious deaths, Willie's two wives, his neighbour, his nephew and his stepdaughter, all of which you Tom Radney helped him collect life insurance payments on, but yeah. And Tom Radney even threw in the accusations that Willie was in fact an evil voodoo preacher, just for good measure.

Radney then brought two expert witnesses to the stand. The first, a psychologist called Dr. Woodhouse, who told the court that Burns was suffering from a disease of the mind and that the murder was an irresistible impulse. He had diagnosed Burns with transient situational disorder. The second expert witness was psychologist Dr. Francis Goodrich Gunnels. Jesus Christ. Gunnels testified that she found Burns to be suffering from passive

aggressive syndrome. I know a few people who have that. Whereby he had suppressed his anger. This personality disorder is no longer recognised by the DSM-5, but in 1977, it was. And it was this, the psychologist argued, that made Burns predisposed to explode after something as shocking as finding out his niece had been murdered. I love the idea that shooting somebody in the face is just like due to passive-aggressive personality disorder. Just a build-up of passive aggression. And Gunnels ended her testimony by saying that

Burns was incapable of avoiding what had happened that day at his niece's funeral. And somehow, someway, it worked. And in the end, the jury found Robert Burns not guilty by reason of insanity. Though Dr Gunnels did later tell the press, killing Willie Maxwell was the sanest thing anybody did all summer. I really think this is a case of a community taking the law into their own hands. Yeah, yeah. Down to the psychologist.

The local psychologist. So after the verdict, Robert Burns was admitted to a psychiatric hospital on the 28th of September 1977. And he was released just a few weeks later and allowed to return to his family in time for Thanksgiving. I kind of don't care. I don't feel bad for that. Let him go home. Poor Robert. As for Harper Lee and her never-to-be-published book The Reverend, Tom Radney had heard from Lee on numerous times that the book was completed and on its way to the publishers.

One of Lee's friends recalls that Lee had announced the book was almost finished during a dinner. Another claimed to have actually read it and say that it was better than In Cold Blood. We don't know what's true, but we do know that Harper Lee spent years working on the story of Reverend Willie Maxwell. And that when Willie Maxwell's lawyer, Tom Radney, died in 2011, his eldest granddaughter found a letter tucked away in his things. It was from Harper Lee, and it included with it a chapter from the Reverend. Only she had written it as a fictionalised story of sorts. When Radney's granddaughter wrote a letter to Harper Lee about the Reverend, she got a response from Tonya Carter, Harper Lee's lawyer.

Carter heartbreakingly told her that Lee's health had deteriorated to the point that she no longer even remembered who Tom Radney was, and had no recollection of the years she'd spent researching Willie Maxwell. And by the time the unedited draft of Go Set a Watchman was published in 2015, Willie Maxwell had been dead for 40 years, Tom Radney had been dead for five, and Harper Lee herself would die just eight months later. So that's it, guys.

There you go. What a story. The story of the very un-voodoo, very slick yeah slick rick slick rick indeed slicky fucking dirty how dirty are you fuck off jesus christ willie maxwell but yeah the story of willie maxwell and all of his trifling behavior down in alabama exactly i always find it such an ethical dilemma when i don't feel bad that someone's been murdered. But this time I don't. I don't feel bad. I don't think we need to feel bad for a man who murdered a bunch of people and definitely,

definitely would have gone on to murder a bunch of more people, including children. Yes. Okay. He didn't give a single fuck. And obviously the legal system didn't seem too up to get him because they were just like, there's no evidence. So fuck willie maxwell thank you for your permission for me to not feel bad yeah and i hope you don't feel bad either listener you can join us on full fat red-handed next thursday or if you just cannot wait that long you can take yourself over to amazon music for shorthand where this week it is my favorite one because they eventually let me talk about sherpas so we have a shorthand on the sherpa

strike over on amazon music exclusively next week so make sure you go over there to find out all of the things that you need to know about the himalayas every single last thing that's in that episode i promise. And then from next week, we shall be in the month of October, which means it's Halloween here at Red Handed. We'll be kicking off with a shorthand on the Nazis and their love of all things occult, and

kicking off our main feed, full fat Red Handed, with an episode on the 67 exorcisms of Anneliese Michel. So thanks for listening, and We'll see you then. Goodbye. Bye. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America.

But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about.

Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real.

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