Witnessed: Devil in the Ditch - Devil in the Ditch | 8. Burials

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

The family gathers for Charlotte’s funeral. But as she’s put to rest, one local rumor about Presh’s murder comes back to life. Unlock all episodes of Witnessed, ad-free right now by subscribing to The Binge. Plus, get binge access to brand new stories dropping on the first of every month — that’s all episodes, all at once, all ad-free. Find out more about The Binge and other podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Camside media. On my very first trip to Greenville for this project. I took Johnny, a producer colleague, to my childhood home. It was late in the afternoon, the day before I first interviewed Charlotte and her son Richard. We had some time and I wanted to show him my old backyard. So, this is my Easter egg to you, which is, I grew up on top of a cemetery. Yeah, can you describe what was back here? Tall trees, patchy grass, and yes, three tombstones

that were in this yard long before I lived there. The property line technically ends right where this little cemetery begins, but it feels like part of the same yard. My dad would cut the grass over here and we set up our trampoline beside the oldest grape stone there since the late 19th century. I could remember bouncing on it with friends who were much less comfortable with the situation than I was.

Which was really fun when you're like having sleepovers as a little kid and you have kind of get a kick out of scaring people and so... I don't know, I always felt really close to some of the areas as a result of growing up with this. They never seemed like scary places, they seemed like very peaceful places and kind of always felt the same way about like the macabre and I don't know if it's because of this, but it feels very comforting back here. There's something about Greenville, where it's just a very Greenville thing. It feels like to have a cemetery in your backyard

and to have that be normal. Death is a big part of the culture down here. I mean, this place was built on a swamp, survived biblical flooding in plagues. Crembel author David Cohn once wrote that, quote, the delta was founded and wrought in pain. One story I've heard is that during one outbreak of malaria, men would propose to their intended by Riley asking, may I have the honor of buying your coffin?

Not sure how successful these proposals were, but you can see that the tendency down here to make light of mortality goes back generations. And persists. It's why you'll find Gaden's etiquette book on Southern funerals in the humor section. But, of course, making light of something does not mean you're comfortable talking about it. It's usually the opposite. Over the years, my family is told and laughed at and retold our favorite stories about Prash. So, even though I wasn't born the day Prash told my mom,

she wanted to take her and teaking, and instead ended up barging into a stranger's home, I can describe Prash rummaging through that woman's kitchen, looking for coffee, about as well as my mom can. It's the way we and a lot of other families keep the people we love alive. Talking about her violent death, does the opposite. Another reason I love cemeteries is pressure.

Just about every morning, she'd take a walk in the cemetery across from her house. When I was little, I'd join her. Cemeteries really are death at its most bucolic. The bodies have been dealt with. Many talked away under beautiful oak trees. And for much of the last 20 years, so is precious murder.

So why did you want, why do you want to do this story? I, I want to be able to ask these questions. I want to, I want to have permission to ask these questions. I got permission, of course. I recorded dozens of hours of interviews. Except getting permission to ask questions wasn't quite the same as getting permission to answer them. As I've worked on this, I've realized that the story I'm telling isn't the one anyone else in my family would tell.

As a journalist, I'm okay with that. I'm telling isn't the one anyone else in my family would tell. As a journalist, I'm okay with that. It's my responsibility to tell the truth as I see it. But as a niece, a daughter, a cousin, maybe my responsibility was not to ask, because then the truth can be what anyone wants it to be. Of course, now that I have asked these questions, what is the truth? From campsite media and Sony music entertainment, this is Witness, Devil in the Ditch, Episode 8, Bararials. I'm Larison Campbell. My great aunt Charlotte died in July, two weeks after the heart attack that left her in a coma.

She was 101. I called her son Richard to get an update on her a week earlier. He'd sound tired, but said he appreciated my call. He was lonely in his house without Charlotte, he told me. And he talked about the trip he took that morning to the grocery store. And how he realized, he'd probably never buy bananas for two people again. Charlotte's funeral was on July 25, five days after her death.

It was at the first Presbyterian church, just as precious had been. Richard didn't speak at the funeral, though he told everyone who'd gathered before the service that his mother would have been pleased with the turnout, she had actually planned out the service herself years before she died, which I guess makes sense, she wasn't her 80s then. But still, the Minister was impressed. These flowers didn't come by chance, she designed that arrangement in the chancel and prescribed it for her funeral long ago. I think it's just stunning.

The flowers were simple but elegant, two identical arrangements, white hydrangeas with twist of green bells of Ireland surrounding them. I had a good view. I sat in the second row with my family. It's not really all that often that we get to hear from the one who's died in their own worship service, but she collected a few things. I don't know that she wrote any of these things, but she may have, but she collected them and asked that they be communicated today.

Because of Charlotte's fourth thought, I'd actually had a preview of the service back in March. It was when we looked through those photo albums together at her house. She'd handed me this big black family Bible where she'd pasted things she wanted, said at her funeral, and then she read them aloud. There was a poem on love. We live, we love. These are the choices. And one on death. There is no death. There is no death. But life

of a soul on earth, last beyond, is a parting. You will always feel as a touch. There is also a meditation on friendship. All very sweet. The kind of readings I was used to hearing at events summing up someone's life. And then, the minister read a prayer about sin and forgiveness that Charlotte had chosen. We have not always sought or done your will. We have not lived as your grateful children, nor loved as Christ loved us." After the funeral, I found myself obsessively analyzing the service the same way I'd gone

back and analyzed my conversations with her with Richard. Was there a specific thing she was asking forgiveness for? Or was it us? The people in her family, whom she thought, quote, had not loved as Christ loved us. Or maybe it was just a traditional Presbyterian prayer, recited at a traditional Presbyterian service. I sat diagonally behind Richard on those same mahogany pews I knew from childhood. A lot of people turned out for Charlotte's funeral, especially considering she'd been pre-deceased by her closest friends by

well over a decade. My parents were there, so was one of my sisters. Greg precious foster son sat beside me during the service. But there were conspicuous absences, one of Charlotte's nephews, conspicuous absences. One of Charlotte's nephews and both of her nieces. That is my aunts, the ones who've long accused Richard. And of course my uncle, the one Charlotte had disinvited from her deathbed. So she got her dying wish. The reception was a small lunch for family at a downtown sandwich shop, which had been converted from the old Sears department store. The space felt cavernous given that there were only about 20 of us there. We ate sandwiches, cut into halves, and arranged on plastic trays. It was nice, but far from a traditional delta send-off. No good whiskey, no fine China, not even one of the top 10 funeral foods from

Gaden's book. Partly this was logistical. Richard was the last person in our family still living in Greenville, and it had been years since his and Charlottesome had been a place where somebody could host. But I'm also not sure the spirit for a real reception was there. Receptions are designed for lingering, and as we politely chatted over our chicken sandwiches and pasta salad, there was a sense among those of us who'd driven in from out of town that it was time to get back on the road. When my mother's father died at age 95, some of us continued that reception well past midnight.

But that had been a celebration of a long life. The feelings around Charlotte's death were so much more complex. Yes, her life had been long, but it had also been hard. She'd grown up in the shadow of a sister who got everything Charlotte had wanted. And then that sister's death had caused Charlotte so many of her most important relationships. So how do you celebrate a life that we perceive to have been so unhappy? And how do you mourn a death that felt to many people in the room, like a burden being lifted?

Of course I do mourn Charlotte. Not so much the life that ended, but the one she wanted didn't have. The one where all of her nieces and nephews and their families came to pay their respects, because they all still respected her. After the funeral, I spent the night with my parents at their house in Jackson. By the next afternoon, I was back home in Brooklyn. To my surprise, however, Charlotte's death didn't put to rest any rumors around her sister's murder. In fact, it woke up another totally false one, that the police had simply been waiting

until Charlotte died to arrest Richard. On one of my green bull reporting trips, I'd run into a group of locals while I was at lunch, and they'd wanted to know all about what I was up to. This particular group meets regularly at Jim's Cafe. It's a lunch spot down by the levee. Vinyl booths, pay at the register, yellowed photographs of Greenville life on its wood-panelled walls. The group is mostly Republican men,

with a handful of Democrats and women sprinkled in. They call themselves with some irony, the table of knowledge. When I'm in town, I make a point to swing by, get the lunch special, say hey, and field questions about my parents, my sisters, and, as word started to get around, this project. On one visit, one of the members asked if I'd speak to them over Zoom about this podcast. A few weeks after Charlotte's funeral, that's where I found myself. One visit, one of the members asked if I'd speak to them over Zoom about this podcast. A few weeks after Charlotte's funeral, that's where I found myself.

On my laptop, on a video call with the Table of Knowledge. Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Hey! Anyway. Over the summer, I'd been hearing this podcast was becoming as much a source of local curiosity, as precious murder itself.

People were gossiping about my intentions. One woman told me she'd heard my plan was to quote, Nail Richard to the wall. So the table of knowledge and accordance with its name wanted to know everything. What I'd found if there would finally be an arrest, whether my family was okay with my doing this. Oh, and that old rumor, newly revived and relevant.

They were waiting for her death and then it will come in and begin the accusation. That's just a rumor that I heard. In fact, I was driving downtown from my home to have to meet at the funeral. And I actually thought about maybe just kind of circling around by the church and see maybe at least cars were there. That's what we'd heard the years and years was. That he was gonna be arrested and so.

Of course, Richard has not been arrested because there isn't any evidence to make an arrest, and there never was. So no, police did not have some kind of deal with Charlotte, or anyone else in my family. It was one of those baseless rumors I'd brushed off the second I heard it. Though it was also strange enough that I figured, why not run it by each of the investigators I'd interviewed. Here's former Sheriff's Department investigator, Kelvin McKenzie's response. I don't take personal requests when it comes like that.

And when I ran the rumor by Pam Miller, who was with the DA's office, I don't believe that. The other responses from officials fell along the same lines of that's ridiculous. Which, considering that the calls to arrest Richard came from within my family was obvious, at least to me. But to other people in Greenville, the idea that was hard to wrap their heads around wasn't that a nice southern family would circle the wagons and protect their own. It was that a nice southern family wouldn't, that they'd go after their own.

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With episodes weekly, uncover is your home for in-depth reporting and exceptional storytelling. Find uncover wherever you get your podcasts. Un cover es tu casa para endejar y su apropiación y una historia de su historia. Fíjate un cover donde tienes las podcastes. para mejorar el contenido de tus corrios electrónicos, segmentar tu público, entre muchas cosas más, adivina menos y vende más con Intuitimale Sim. La marca número 1 en Emilio y Marketing y Automatización. Empieza hoy mismo en MailSim.com. Vas a vender a tus públicos de marcas competidoras en número globales de clientes en 2020 y 2022. I had this idea of how I wanted to end this. It would be with Richard, a big conversation just the two of us.

Because when I started this project, I really believed I was telling a story about two things, precious murder, and the unproven rumor of Richard's role in it. So I wanted to close this story by talking to Richard about everything I've learned, and asking him why this question of these unproven allegations still seems to hang over him. This October, I made plans to go back to Greenville for one last trip. I realized I could have had this conversation over the phone, but I wanted it to be in person. But when I called to give Richard a heads up,

he told me very plainly that he felt like he was done talking to me for this project. He said he'd be happy to see me, would be looking forward to it even, but he was done speaking about precious murder to me. Here's the thing, though. I wasn't done. In fact, I had just typed up four pages of questions for Richard.

Some of it's simple clarification stuff, checking details, elaborating on things he told me earlier, but a lot of it furthered the calls of investigating. Can you explain this contradiction in the timeline? Can you respond to this thing someone said about you? I've always been good at convincing people to see things my way. I'll let you guess who I get that from. So when Richard said he was done talking about the murder, I didn't really believe him.

And to be fair, in some ways it didn't feel like he was done. On the phone, he'd tell me he said everything he needed to say about the murder, and then continue talking about it for an hour. I went to Greenville anyway. I even brought along a producer. I figured once Richard and I started talking, he'd let me record the conversation. But I was wrong. Richard really was done with this project.

So I took him to lunch. He was in a good mood, joyful, if that's a word that can be applied to Richard. The day before he'd met with a mother and son who would sell all of Charlotte's antiques on consignment. Money was becoming a big concern he told me. This would help a lot. As with the boxes of records and sports-illustrated magazines, he'd kept since the 1950s. You know, he said, I never throw anything away. And then after, when I walked him from the car to his front door,

we ended up spending four hours talking there in front of his house. Richard, sitting on the front steps, me standing on that same walkway, our devil in the ditch as he'd put it. He didn't invite me in this time, but I didn't take that personally. By his own admission, the house had gotten harder to navigate and the three months Charlotte had been gone. The forecast that day had said 70, but to me it felt a little more like the low 60s. I was in just a flannel in jeans and starting to wish I brought a jacket. But the sky was this pure blue and the grass and trees were vibrant green with just a touch of fall yellow.

Since our conversation was off the record, I'm not gonna repeat what we discussed, but he did give me permission to talk about what he showed me. An old nylon laptop bag stuffed with papers. His roof has a leak, so they'd gotten wet. As we worked through, he spread each one out on the steps before us. They were yellowed, even without the water damage.

Everything in the bag dated back to 2003, 2004. And it was all about precious murder. Timelines of the day, fresh died, one for him, one for Charlotte. Notes about people he'd called, some scrolled on scraps of paper, the back of bank envelopes. Even the bill for that wedding brunch, the one that started this whole thing.

As I looked through Richard's notes, I recognized many of the names for my aunt's file, because Richard, just like so many people I've spoken to to was also building a file. But he shouldn't feel like he has to do that. If you're not arrested and not charged, you don't have to prove anything. At the end of my four hours with Richard, I talked about it with Lindsay, the producer who'd flown down to Mississippi with me.

The sun had started to set around five o'clock, and I'd spent the last hour in the yard with my hands dug deep into my pockets. Not bringing that jacket was officially a big mistake. So by the time I got to the car, I was shivering. But I remember also feeling a deep sense of calm. I feel like this whole conversation today changed the way I feel about this. I think it is about wanting to know what happened, but I don't think I can ever know what happened. And so I have like feelings about what I think happened, but I'm not going to like, I think at this point I'm not going to lie

to myself and say that those feelings are the truth. Is my mind going to still keep going? And am I still going to probably three times a week come to you and say, oh my God, I just thought about this. Oh my God, this could have also happened. Oh my God, what if this phone call was actually about this? Yeah, I'm going to still keep doing that. Like my mind is probably until I die, not going to go to sleep on that. Because I think that's what happens to all of us, but I don't, I don't know, I don't know that like, you know, my reality is reality. I don't know. I

I'm really, really glad I got to spend the day with him. There was one moment when I was at lunch with Richard that I couldn't stop thinking about. Halfway through, I got up to use the restroom. And when I came back, I saw one of the restaurant's employees chatting with Richard. For a long time, Charlotte and Richard had owned a cluster of cottages downtown that they rented out. This man had been a tenant and he'd stopped to thank Richard. For a long time, Charlotte and Richard had owned a cluster of cottages downtown that they rented out. This man had been a tenant and he'd stopped to thank Richard. He said Richard had always been understanding

about late payments, and he remembered that. I had forgotten, some people do see Richard and don't think about precious murder. You know, the whole time I've been working on this, I've been struggling with this idea, that telling the story of precious murder means we're going to view all 85 years of her life through the lens of how it ended.

I kind of hate that. It's not true to who she was, but maybe the same should also be said for Richard. I've also spent a lot of time this last year questioning the ethics of seeing Richard like a target. Not a target I'm trying to have arrested, but one I've decided I need to help me tell this story. And then going back to Greenville again, I was doing just that. I'm not sure I've been thinking enough about Richard's perspective.

Not just what his life would have been like over the last couple of decades, but how he'll feel when he listens to this. Will he appreciate that someone else in his family is finally saying the evidence is just not there? Or will he say I'm digging up something that should have stayed buried? It feels almost counterintuitive to try imagining how he experiences this project.

But that's because putting myself in his shoes is not something I've ever been encouraged to do. As I've said, my family's othering of Richard started decades before Prussia's murder. Some people have asked me if my family, particularly my aunts, have pressured me to say in this story that I think Richard killed Prussia.

I wanna be clear, they've never come close to suggesting that. I want to be clear, they've never come close to suggesting that. As I sit in the car, talking to Lindsay here in Greenville, I realize that one of the biggest things I'm taking away from all of this isn't confidence in Richard's guilt or innocence, but empathy for him. And in some ways, that's the scariest feeling of all for me. And in some ways, that's the scariest feeling of all for me. Because the one thing almost everyone in my family seems to agree that he doesn't deserve is that it changes how I want to talk about it.

I feel like the whole thing, just the longer I spend with it, the more nuanced it becomes. And like I completely understand why Anne would be consumed with us. I think our minds try to help us like try to try to guide us to cope in the best way our minds know. And I think for Anne the best way for her to cope is to really believe that he did this. Like I don't think a gray area or finding out that somebody else did that is... I don't know. I don't know that that's what... I don't know if that's what closure would mean for... we don't have evidence and so... we can all feel that things might have happened, but I don't know that there's any way we'll ever access the truth. Warning! This podcast contains juicy tales of a super dysfunctional family. Brothers betraying brothers, friends becoming enemies, and a mother trying her best to keep everything from falling apart.

No, this isn't a reality TV rewatch. a mother trying her best to keep everything from falling apart. No, this isn't a reality TV rewatch. I'm Dan Jones, your host, and this is one of my all-time favorite true stories. Join me on a trip to the Middle Ages to meet history's most dangerous dynasty, the Plantagenets. This season, the plots are thicker, the ambitions greater, and the betrayals are even more devious in the epic saga of the family that shaped our world.

From something else in Sony Music Entertainment, this is history, a dynasty to die for, season 2. Listen and follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Adam McCay, Director, Writer and most importantly, Podcast Host. In the first season of our show, Death at the Wind, we explored a series of tragic deaths from the wild world of 80s basketball. This season we're going back further to the 50s, the aftermath of World War II, and a series of tragedies in Hollywood. We'll tell stories of trailblazing actors who lived fast and die young. I hope you'll join us on

death on the lot. The idea that murders are solved to bring justice to the people who died is absurd. They're gone. The only just action would be to bring them back. But it can bring peace to the people who loved them. And as we know, in some towns like Greenville, that would be a lot of people. I don't think I felt I had to justify working on this when I first started. My justification would be, of course, getting the answers that everyone involved had wanted for so long. But as it's become clear that there isn't a definitive answer,

I've started to wrestle more with the question of where exactly the benefit lies in telling a story about these complex people and this complex place that I love. And of course, Presh was my grandmother. The story of her murder is my story to tell. But how much of this is really mine? Where does my experience of her murder end? And where do I begin barging into someone else's life? Especially when the most important people to this story, Richard, Charlotte, my aunts and my dad,

might feel like I've told the wrong version of it. Is there a right version of a story that isn't built on facts? The last and longest single interview I did for this project was with my dad. You've heard parts of it already talking about my reaction to precious death and everything that came after. But I also wanted to get his thoughts on one big question that had begun to nag at me while I've worked on this. What did you think when I told you I wanted to do this podcast? I had mixed feelings.

I guess my first thought was how would Mama feel about it? She was such a private person. I honestly was very conflicted. I wanted you to do it because I thought that it was something you felt passionate about. The conflict I had to work through in my own mind was, is this something that Mama would approve of? And I don't honestly, I don't know that I have a satisfactory answer to that.

I think it's more important for you to do what you're passionate about than it is to obsess over how she might feel if she were here because that's just not reality. So I feel good about this because I think what you're part of what you're doing is trying to get to the truth of what ended her life. And that in itself is its own way of showing a great deal of respect for her and her life and her legacy. And I think she and Daddy both would really respect that. That really is my, that has been sort of my, my two fears all along. One that,

pressure would hate this. I mean, you know, she didn't, it wasn't just that she was private, but she also, you know, she would have hated the parts where people were, you know, praising her. Absolutely. She would have hated the parts where people were praising her. Absolutely. She would have not wanted that. I think it is a very undelta thing to do.

You know, take a national platform and talk about your family stuff. Totally, totally. And you're gonna be criticized a lot for doing it and you know that and that's just part of it. But, you know know in so far as doing what Presh would not have wanted done, the reality is Presh wouldn't have wanted an obituary. Let alone a front page story in the Delta Democrat times

about her life and worse her death. If I'm going to sit here and talk about perspectives and points of view, there is one other member of my family I need to talk to about this project. Press. I sat down and wrote her a letter. Some of it's boring, at least to the general public. I told her about my kids, my life, the first

female vice president, a Democrat. But I wanted to share part of it here. Dear Presh. So yeah, I went into this project about your death knowing that it might not get your blessing. But you know, when it comes to doing what I think is right, other opinions be damned, I had a pretty significant role model. And that's probably the most important thing I got from this, is a really clear understanding of how much you've shaped the life that I'm living. You've brought me so much joy, not just when I was growing up, but now, even 20 years after you died, I can hear you and me

every time I say a meal is the best thing I've ever tasted. And while you might have hated the attention from this project, I've heard your voice in my head as I've worked on it. So thank you. Your death is not the death I would have chosen for you, for anyone. But there's so much about your life that I admire. The story editor is Sean Flynn. Studio recording by Ewan Lai Trumuen and Shiba Joseph. Sound design mixing and original music by Garrett Tiedemann. Additional music by APM and Blue Dot Sessions. Additional field recording by Johnny Kaufman and Ambreel Crutch

Felt. Fact checking by Ben Kin. Special thanks to Emily Martinez and our operations team Doug Slaywin, Alia Papers, Destiny Dingle, Ashley Warren, and Savina Mora. The executive producers at Campside Media are Josh Dean, Vanessa not share.