Solving the West Georgia Murder of Gwendolyn Moore; A Cry from The Well (With Author Clay Bryant)

On this week’s episode we interview author Clay Bryant about his book, Solving the West Georgia Murder of Gwendolyn Moore; A Cry from The Well.  On a sultry August morning in 1970, the battered body of a young woman was hoisted from a dry well just outside Hogansville, Georgia. Author and investigator Clay Bryant was there as a young man of 15, witnessing the macabre scene, as he was tagging along with his father, Buddy Bryant, Hogansville Chief of Police. The victim, Gwendolyn Moore, had been in a violent marriage. That was no secret. But her husband had connections to a political machine that held sway over the Troup County Sheriff's Office overseeing the case. To the dismay and bafflement of many, no charges were brought. That is, until Bryant followed his father's footsteps into law enforcement, and a voice cried out from the well three decades later. Clay Bryant was born and raised in Troup County, Georgia.  After high school, he began a career in law enforcement in 1973 as a radio operator with the Georgia State Patrol.  In 1976 at the age of twenty-one, he became trooper on the Georgia State Patrol.  While with the State Patrol, he attended Dekalb College, Brenau University, and graduated from the Woodrow Wilson School of Law.  In June 1980, after the unexpected death of his father, he became Police Chief of Hogansville, Georgia and stayed in that position until 1992.  In 2002, he was employed as an investigator for the District Attorney’s Office in the five-county Coweta Judicial Circuit.  He currently serves as an Investigator for the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council. Bryant’s reputation for clearing seemingly impossible crimes from the past garnered him national recognition.  During his four years as an investigator for the District Attorney’s Office in the five-county Coweta Judicial Circuit, he was reportedly the most prolific cold case investigator in the country for instances of single event homicides.