Hi, I'm Holly. And I'm Hailey. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries, Tales from Appalachia. Well, welcome back.
They have returned. So have I. Yeah. You were this close to just having me just not to.
I was going to call and say I could be like, Hailey, I can't get me. No, I'm kidding. I wouldn't quit you. This isn't always fun.
No, this is like the highlight of the beginning of my week. Is it? No. That's really sweet.
I enjoyed this. You're making lunch for me. I am making lunch. I can kind of smell lunch.
It's in a hard pot. Yeah. I'm waiting for it to just waff in. It smells so good.
It's a pretty lengthy one with a lot of info. It is. It is a pretty lengthy one. We will kind of see this maybe a two-parter.
Yeah. See where we are. We're going to kind of dive in and see kind of how quickly we move through the information. Well, let's go ahead and do it.
And we'll just do it. We'll have to dive in. Yeah, let's do it. So this story, I got 90% of my information from an article, a media article by Loria Johnston, I think, wrote it if I can understand it correctly.
So if you are interested in a sort, please get retardical because it's so good and so lengthy. And really, I got this type of information. Okay. So, um, Hamei 14th, 1973, tragedy struck in Donaldsonville, Georgia.
Oh, we rarely do Georgia. We rarely do Georgia because really Appalachia only touches like Northern Georgia. Yeah. And I'm actually taking us to South Georgia, but it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter. We'll kind of link back up. We'll hit Virginia at some point. So we're kind of like, we're around.
We're in the area. We're in the area. Feel free to not just kind of email. East coast area.
It was a little bit of a stretch, but this story is so fascinating. So I'm right. I really want to. So Donaldsonville, Georgia, it's a tiny, tiny town about 20 minutes north of Lake Seminole, I think you say that.
And that's in the southwestern corner of the state. So probably near Florida. It's near Florida. Yeah, near Florida.
So we're going to kind of backtrack a little bit and talk about everybody, but the main part of our story happens in 1973. So everyone talking about is related to 1973 time. I don't know what Donaldsonville, Georgia looks like now, but it was very small and 73. Look it up.
The town is at this point was mostly agricultural land with some churches. There were two schools and one library. So small area that gives you any idea. On May 5th, 1973, so about 10 days prior, three inmates escaped the Poplar Hill Correctional Institute outside of Baltimore, Maryland.
So we're going to Maryland. One of these was Carl Isaacs, who was 19 at the time, and he had a pretty troubled pass. He'd been truant from school and to run away. He'd been diagnosed with depression.
He had pretty poor self-image and inability to handle any type of emotion. So just very impulsive, not able to reflect how self-regulate almost, and it was actually particularly hostile towards women. We had mommy issues. Yeah, never good.
Yeah. Carl had engaged in sex work for a room and board during one of his escapes from Foster Homes. So he had him from spring rough time. When he was 16 in 1970, he was pretty regularly stealing cars, breaking into houses.
So he was doing a lot of survival stuff, it sounds like. He was also arrested for the first time in 1970. So he made it a pretty good way without being arrested for the first time. Second arrest in Maryland got him sent to the Maryland State Peninsula in History on March 27th of 1973.
Two days later, a riot broke out and Carl was raped by fellow inmates for over eight hours. I think so. A lot of trauma. A lot of trauma.
Ten days later, he was transferred to the Maryland correction camp and then transferred again on April 25th to Ober Hill, which was a minimum security prison. So keep that in mind. Wayne Coleman, who was 26, was also Carl's half-brother and had been in trouble at Carl for most of his life. He'd been arrested for cart theft, burglary, all kinds of things.
He was already at Poplar Grove and had been there for two months when Carl arrived. It was kind of like a little family reunion. A little bit of a family reunion happened there at Poplar Grove. Wayne really didn't show out or crave attention in the way that Carl did.
So Wayne was kind of the shy, mild-mannered, doing-my-time kind of things. Leland Lo. That was also more of a follower. He easily talked into things, pre-gullible, sounds like.
Carl found Wayne pretty quickly, realizing you're in this new place and I have half-brother. I can see them out. And he easily talked Wayne into trying to escape, which is like, hm, Wayne. Wayne is greed to this, but only if you could bring a friend.
Oh, all right. So Wayne's like, yeah, I'll do it, but listen, we gotta go get my friend. We gotta make sure he's involved. Because he wants more time to his sentence as well.
Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I mean, if we were in jail together. Would you?
Yeah, that's really sweet. And we could escape together. That'd be great. Yeah.
Now we're just reflecting on what that would look like. I know, I'm like, would we do the plastic spoon digging out situation? Kind of like shawsh and credimps. Or would it be more of a, you know, trick-a-guard, stealer uniform, block out the front door?
Like whatever's easiest. So, yeah, probably not digging. I don't take a long time with a spoon. It's a long time.
Yeah, that'd be amazing. I don't have a cool nickname like Red. And I don't know if there's a place for us in Mexico where we could like meet on a beach or something. Like if something goes wrong, meet me here.
Yeah. Something happens. Yeah, I don't know. Hey, it was my friend.
Okay. Okay. Well Wayne's friend was George Dunge. I think that's how you say it's last night.
Nice. Dunge. Dunge. Dunge.
Dunge. Um, George was 36 at the time. And he had been incarcerated at Palmer Hillford Contenta Court and were not paying child support. Oh my gosh.
So he really wasn't in there for like, hardcore crimes. Hardcore crimes, you know. And nowadays he would just pay some fine or something. Yeah, right.
They probably wouldn't even like put him in jail. Yeah. So he was just, you know, hanging out. He also was like really, really close to being released.
I think within like a few months, like he was super close to being released. It was also remember that he had been in a relationship with Wayne. I mean, maybe. So that may be why he agreed to go with Wayne.
Yeah. You know, go be like his, his partner. Yeah. Carl was not thrilled about this about getting George.
And I don't think it would even seem because of the relationship piece. That was because Carl was super racist and George was like, hmm. So we're going to have a lot of routine qualities. Not just that, but he wouldn't approve of their relationship anyway.
Right. The fact that he was racist, he was probably homophobic too. I'm sure that that was like, yeah, no for him. Yeah.
But he, you know, was like fine. George can come. But Carl was not, you know, happy about it. At 3 a.m.
On May 5th, 1973, the men climbed through a bathroom window and tough into the woods. That's just it about one window. They don't have a bard and minimum security. Apparently.
Wow. And then they went through and hit the woods. And they hit out in the woods for a while. After several hours, they went into Baltimore and stole a blue thunderbird.
Nice. So the car, not the action of stealing. Right. Right.
Yep. So they went and stole this car. Sorry. Authority is a lot.
It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. You feel right?
You feel right? All right. Yeah. Authority is at Poplar Hill became aware of the escape.
But since none of these men were considered violent offenders, which they weren't because, you know, we've stolen some cars, we've broken in, no one's been injured. I didn't pay my child support. They didn't pay my child support. None of them were violent.
They weren't super worried. I mean, they were concerns because they were inmates on the lease. But it's not like, oh, God, they're going to go out and start, you know, murdering people. Yeah.
So it was not like the top priority for the police to be out there looking for these guys. They were obviously looking, but it wasn't like, oh my God, drop everything. Yeah. Fine these guys.
They were like, let me at least wish Madonna. Right. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. The men stayed in Baltimore for two days after their escape, and they're just kind of enjoying their freedom. I don't understand that. Why?
Why hang out there? Like, get out of dodge. Like, you have the Thunderbird, take it and beat it out of town. Like, why are you, you know, at the pizza hut?
Right. Yeah. Just hang it out. Just chilling.
Yeah. Yeah. So they, they were hanging out. Carl though decided he wanted to go pick up his 15 year old brother named Billy.
Oh, no, Billy sounds trouble. Billy was living in Townsend in Baltimore County with a female friend. Okay. Just a female friend.
Female friend. Sure. She kind of tells you a little bit about Billy. I idolized Carl.
Oh, Billy. Billy, no. Billy, no Billy. And he quickly agreed to go with him.
So I don't know what happened to the female friend. I think he just did. She was probably smart and she was like, oh, hell no. Yeah.
I'm not getting involved with this. I'm not sure she was even invited. I, Carl was like, Billy. Let's go.
Get in the Thunderbird, Billy. There's no room for you, female friend. And she said, good. Bye.
Yeah. Wonder where she is today. Probably a happy, healthy individual. I hope so.
Yeah. I hope so. Yeah. If you're out there, reach out.
Then spent a week driving around Maryland in Pennsylvania. They would occasionally break into homes to get cash, clothes, and guns. Obviously. Just in case.
I mean, when we go road tripping, that's clearly what we plan. Oh, you do. You know, you don't bring anything with you. You just hope that you break into the right house.
That's the best. Exactly. Yeah. Their plan was to head south and go to either Florida or Mexico in little life of drinking drugs and crime.
As many road trippers do. That's the dream. It really is. We broke out of Shawshank.
That was our plan. Drinking drugs and crime. Yeah. That's all you want.
So that was the plan. A lot. Yeah. So much.
On Thursday, May 10th, 1973, they were near McConnell's Burg, Pennsylvania, stealing a pickup truck. So I guess the Thunderbird was not going to do it for them anymore. They wanted to steal a pickup truck. Well, I guess they went to ditch that Maryland license plate.
Yeah. Get a feel in the heat a little bit. You know, get rid of that. Exactly.
Switching cars. You know, doing that. 19 year old Richard Wayne Miller, who was a member of the FFA. We talked about that.
That's not talking about the FFA. The future performance of America. That's right. Such a good organization.
I'm active in the FFA. Sorry. He witnessed the theft and chased the truck in his dark green at 1968. Shetty Super Sport.
Nice. I don't know what that is, but Holly does. So he was this 19 year old kid who was like, you know what, I'm selling this happen. I'm going to save the day.
Bad idea. Never do that. Just call the cops. Call the cops or write down the information.
Report it to the police. Be like, hey, I saw this happen. You don't need to be involved. You're stealing a car.
You don't need to be involved in that. Walk away. Don't do it. Not that I'm blaming him, but like he was trying to do the right thing and be like, I'm going to go save the day.
Unfortunately, Richard disappeared. What? He disappeared. He took the, we'll talk about him later, but he took off after them and then just, and then just, and then just, and then one heard from him.
No one heard from him. Oh, no Richard. So, on Monday, the 14th of May in Ice and Three, the four men were now in Richard Miller's car. So, that's not good.
That's not good. Not good. They were now in his car and they arrived in Donaldson, Bill, Georgia. Which by the way, if you wanted to know, the population in 2020 is 2,833 people.
It's extremely small. Tiny, tiny. And in the 70s, it was around the same. So by 1970, the population was, was more than it is now at 2,900.
Yeah. So, wow. Yeah. So it's tiny.
Tiny town. Very tiny town. They would recognize people who don't live there. Like they probably all know each other.
They do, but also probably don't see each other very often. Because they're all working farms. It's true. So, this crew arrives in this tiny, tiny town in Georgia.
All right. So, let's switch gears a little bit and we're going to talk about the all-day family. So on that day, the 14th, May 14th, 1973, the all-day family had started their normal routine on their farm that day. So that would include farm chores, breakfast, apparently, meal compels, plan, figuring out plan for the day and just getting, you know, getting going.
Everybody fed. Everybody fed and going. Yeah. And all day had eloped in 1935 and had a large family of nine children.
They worked hard and scraped together enough money to be able to buy a small house in Donaldson ville and eventually saved enough to purchase a farm with a large farmhouse on River Road. Nice. So, just a hard-working, sweet family. In 1973, the all-day farm had animals and they had crops, so they were doing all the work.
Ned and Ernstine lived in the farmhouse with their youngest children, Faye and Jimmy, in 1973. So all the other children had grown up and moved out and moved on or stayed local. Ernstine Jerry lived in a trailer a few miles down with his wife, Mary Campbell. And there was another son, Chester.
He lived with his wife, Barbara, in another trailer close to the farmhouse. So, he's got, we've got Ned and they've got these two sons and then there's some other family that lives nearby, you know, some brothers and sisters of Ned that are around. So, just kind of like, everybody stayed. Yeah.
Like, you were born in this community, you grew up in, you know, worked the farm and... It's what you knew. And you wanted to support your parents who supported you your whole life. So, yeah.
I feel like some of the kids did go off and like do other things, that these were the ones that like, stuck around and said, I want to work the farm, which is great. The all days were hard workers, they were avid churchgoers, just described as really, generally really good people, were well liked in the community. On the morning of May 14th, Ernstine was preparing the midday meal, doing some chores around the house, around noon, all the men arrived for lunch. We'd been working out the fields, they had a prayer and became eating, talked about, you know, remaining projects for the day, you know, what fields are we going to go work on, fence, lions, all kinds of things.
What can we get done before the sun goes down? Yeah. So, they took about an hour break, left home around one, leaving Ernstine to clean up lunch, even more household tasks, which is kind of the norm. Which I mean, if you're feeding that many people, she's doing a heck of a lot of dishes.
Yes, lots of dishes. And this was back, I mean, you cooked three meals a day. Oh, for sure. Because she was cooking three meals a day, I'm sure.
That was just like her, you know, that was her role. That's what she did. You clean it up, you're starting another meal, you just cook, cook, cook. And she's, I'm sure, doing laundry.
She's probably, if they had a vegetable garden, she's probably out there doing that. She's doing all the household tasks and chores, which is exhausting. Yes. I'm sure because I don't do the little household tasks that I do exhaust me.
So I can't imagine doing a lot. No, thank you. So about this same time, though, Carl, Wayne, George, and Billy were driving around Seminole County. They went as far as Jacksonville, Florida, and then they turned around and headed north again.
Just to try to figure that border. And they're like, nah, I don't like Florida. I'm not going to do that. Very human.
No, not doing that. So they headed north. Carl remembered seeing how rural Seminole County was and decided it would be, you know, a good place to try to find somewhere to steal some gas, find some people a rub, and not get caught. You know, seeing how rural and how spread out everything was, thinking, hey, I can roll up on one of these farms, steal some gas, rub some people.
The police won't have time to get to me if I'm called on. So you know, it's all a plan. But the one thing that I always think about is like, people on these farms that are like far away from others, they're packing. Usually yes.
They're packing us. There's like, oh, I mean, if I was thinking about where am I going to steal something, pulling up on some random farm in the middle of nowhere, not where I want to be. Chances are they're going to take you. Yeah.
Take it down. That's not where I usually want to be. So that was our plan. Around 4 p.m., Carl spotted a tank in a field, back to the view from the road, however it was a diesel tank.
So not, you know, not exactly what they were looking for. My son would have known that. He would have known. He would have known the differentities.
And known what vehicle it went in. Exactly. He knows that kind of stuff. They continued on for about 15 minutes down the road and found River Road.
On River Road, they ran into the trailer of Jerry and Mary L. Day. And it actually had a pump on the property. So which is not uncommon and small.
Rural, really, really rural areas where like you may not have a gas station. You probably, all these farms probably have their own pumps. A lot of times it's going to be diesel. They may have some, you know, rail and all the gasoline, ethanol on site because you're not driving your tractor into town to fill it up.
I do. I mean, you might. Or that's going to be a lot of cans you have to tote back and forth. And that's just too much time.
You don't have that kind of time when you're running a farm. So I'm sure they just had a, you know, tanker that would come by and refill. I think every so often. So that's probably what was happening there.
That's probably why they had a pump on the property if I had to assume. So they saw that there was one there decided, Hey, we're going to go steal that. Carl and Wayne began ransacking the trailer and they, you know, so they weren't home. They were still working out in the fields.
Four o'clock. You've still got sunlight. You're out. You're doing stuff.
And it's May. So yeah, some will go down for a while. Yeah. So Carl and Wayne are ransacking this trailer.
George and Billy are waiting in the car when they saw two men coming up in a blue Jeep. So I think the way that this, what I can understand, the way this trailer was kind of laid out is there was a front like off the road and then there was a back side where you would come in off the farm. Okay. So you wouldn't necessarily see anyone parked in the front.
You could come in up from the back. Gotcha. Is all I can understand. So they saw the blue Jeep coming.
But the boot you didn't see that. Right. So they went in and warned, you know, Carl that, Hey, there are people coming up. Yeah.
Jerry and Ned pulled in to the back of the trailer, not realizing, you know what was going on. Usually when the men got home from the farm, they sat and talked about the plan for tomorrow while Mary works in the garden. I'm sure they were getting ready to go back to the main house or she was going to bring dinner down. Like something was going on that just typical what they did.
However, this time when they went inside, they were met by Carl who ordered them inside and to the kitchen table at gunpoint and made them empty. They got a pin knife, a cigarette lighter, a wallet and some change off the two men. And this is where it just didn't get depressing. I'm just going to be real bad from like for the next little bit.
It's going to be real bad. They took Jerry who was 35 years old to a bedroom and shot at them. Carl actually had to assist Wayne in killing 66 year old Ned who had tried to fight back after being shot in the head. He was shot in the head and he like got up and was like ready to go, ready to fight.
So it took two people to get Ned. They shot him six times and Jerry had been shot four times. So he too did not go down without a fight. A full on fight.
A full on fight. Soon after this had all gone down. Jimmy drove up on a tractor, walked to the back door, knocked like normal. He was greeted by Carl who robbed him at gunpoint.
From Jimmy he got a hat, a pair of sunglasses and a nearly empty wallet. It's like they're not getting much from these people. Carl forced Jimmy into living room, made him lie on the sofa and he didn't shot Jimmy twice in the back of the head. Jimmy was 25.
I'm a couple years old. After killing Jimmy Carl went out to move the tractor, wanted it out of the way. Jerry's wife Mary then showed up. Carl jumped off the tractor and grabbed Mary and forced her into the trailer.
They robbed her, took her time to watch and dumped her curse out. Not this time Chester and Aubrey all day. Aubrey is Ned's brother. Yes, Ned's brother.
So they drive up. They're laughing, talking in the vehicle. Really weren't in that big of a hurry to come inside. Just hanging out.
So Carl went to get them since they were just hanging out out front. Carl took Billy with him and said we're going to get these guys out of the truck. They ordered them into the trailer at gunpoint. Carl I think at this point has had a full psychotic break.
He uses the two men of laughing at him. He's just in a blind rage. Just doing all this stuff has had a break, I think. I don't know.
It's just an all-in person. And based on what their plans were for the future, I think it was probably high. Probably on drugs. So they grabbed them, take them inside.
Chester saw Mary crying and was like what the hell's going on. They ordered Chester and Aubrey to sit on the kitchen floor. Wayne then went and got some towels from the kitchen and went into the bedroom that Ned had been killed in while Carl and George took Mary to the bathroom. They left George in charge of guarding Mary in the bathroom.
Chester who was 30 was in taking to the bedroom where Ned had been killed and was shot. Aubrey who was 57 was taken to where Jerry had been killed and was shot and killed. They both had been shot once. So far just to recap we have killed four men.
And we have this poor lady locked in the bathroom. Yes. Terrified. Okay.
We've killed five. We've killed Ned. Jerry, Jimmy, Chester and Aubrey. Okay.
Five. Five. Five. And then we have poor Mary locked in the bathroom.
Who has seen all of this? And then taken the bathroom to the kitchen where she was sexually assaulted by Carl Annouine. The men, then the line folded and gagged Mary and took her with them as they drove to a wooded area several miles away. Mary was dragged out of the car assaulted again.
And the men took photographs of her with an in-stematic camera. They found in the trailer, made her lie on her stomach and shot her in the back and once near the back of her head. And Mary was also 25 years old. So I told you it was really, really bad.
It's really awful. Men, men, they abandoned Richard Miller's car in the woods. They took Mary's car, which was a blue and white Chevy Impala, which they would later ditch in Alabama and take a different car. Clearly these murders shocked the community.
I mean, this was just an unthinkable thing. They murdered six people. Six people in one family. In one swoop and cold blood.
Yeah. Oh, that's six people. And like in an afternoon. Just took them all out.
On May 17th, 1973, all social commercial activities halted in Donaldsonville, Georgia. In Seminole County, as the all day funerals began. So we've got six funerals to get through. Now, the mayor had called for a day of mourning.
And the community responded and they closed all stores downtown. There was no one on the street. By the time the funeral services began for Ned, Aubrey, Chester, Jerry, Mary, and Jimmy, nearly all of the people in town with hundreds of others from the surrounding counties gathered at Spring Creek Baptist Church. This is a church that Ned actually had helped to build.
Wow. So they all had gathered there. The Alderman and Mary had been officers and teachers in a Sunday school. And that's where Chester and Barbara and Jerry and Mary had been married.
So they'd been married in this church. The church itself wasn't really big enough to handle six full-size coffins. And they expected, you know, a ton of people in attendance. So they made the decision to have the service on cemetery grounds, which I think were like right outside the church, to accommodate everyone who wanted to be there.
There were so many floral arrangements delivered that flowers were stacked on top of each other and around the coffins in the graves. There were state dignitaries that attended, including Governor Jimmy Carter's mother, Lillian, and one of his assistants attended funerals. So Carter would go in and emulate them and become president. Yes, yes.
And his mother was like this, I mean, almost like a saintly. Yeah, very artistic. Yeah, everybody loved her. She was just like the person that she was a good person.
Yolajis were given for the victims. Ned was remembered for being lively and for his sense of humor. Aubrey left behind a wife and six children. He was remembered for his skills with a farmer and his love for hunting and fishing.
Chester, who also went by Suji. So if you see, if you look up the sights, you'll see he's less at a Suji. He was remembered for strength and comedic nature. Jerry was remembered for just being kind of this quiet guy with quiet dignity.
That's what they described him as. Mary was remembered for her work in social service and her devotion as a wife. Jimmy was remembered for his youthful energy and pranks and his love of looking facts up in the family encyclopedia. I feel like that would have been you.
Totally, what do I mean? And all of them were praised for their hard work and service to their church and community team. So with that, poorableness. Oh, God, there's more poorableness.
I think we're going to end right there. You left that at a good place. We did. Yeah.
So next week, we will. Yeah, are we going to just jump in next week? That's a chore. Yeah.
Yeah, we'll just jump in next week. So you get two weeks of me talking to you. Oh, you're so lucky. Sure you are.
You are. You are. So you'll have, we'll kind of get into, thankfully, the capture of these four men will get into trials. We'll get into some of the craziness of all his trials, sentencing what happened to Richard.
What happened to Richard? We're going to get into all of that, but you have to wait a week. That's really cool. I know.
It's not to my face in the microphone. You know why? It's karma because we're making the wait a week. So now bail.
I know. Yeah. So now that we've gotten through kind of how we got here, what happened? We've gotten through the horrific murders.
We're going to get into some justice. Good. I can't wait. So that's it.
Well, Haley, if they want to get in touch with us to tell us their feelings about you making them wait, how cruel that is. How can they do that? You can find us on Facebook. Mountain Mystery is Tales from Appalachia.
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There is. It's a good time over there. We always have fun. We have a good time.
So if you have an extra $5 to spare a month, come get some bonus episodes and early access to our episodes. Yes. And, you know, I think you should. And they are ad-free over there.
Yes. Sometimes our episodes have some ads in them. So over there, there are no ads. So I want to leave us with a huge shout out to Pell City, Alabama.
Hey. Thank you so much for listening. We appreciate you and thank you everybody for listening. Haley, you promised it next week.
You got to give it to us. Oh, well, we'll be back here. We'll see you then. Bye.
Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.