Download Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South AudioBook Free
In 1932, the city of Natchez, Mississippi, reckoned with an urgent influx of journalists and tourists as the lurid tale of an area murder was splashed across headlines nationwide. Two eccentrics, Richard Dana and Octavia Dockery, enlisted an DARK-COLORED man called George Pearls to rob their reclusive neighbor, Jennie Merrill, at her property. Through the attempted robbery, Merrill was shot and killed. The criminal offense drew nationwide coverage when it came up to light that Dana and Dockery, the alleged murderers, shared their huge, decaying antebellum mansion using their goats and other livestock, which prompted journalists to call the property "Goat Castle". Pearls was killed by an Arkansas policeman in an unrelated event before he could face trial. However, as was all too typical in the Jim Crow South, the white community demanded "justice", and an innocent dark-colored woman called Emily Uses up was ultimately delivered to prison for the murder of Merrill. Dana and Dockery not only avoided consequence but also lived to profit from the notoriety of the murder. Strange, amazing, and sobering, Goat Castle tells the story of this local feud, getting rid of, inspection, and trial, displaying how a true crime tale of fallen southern grandeur and murder obscured an all too familiar tale of racial injustice.
