The Corpsewood Manor Murders

This week we step away from the corridors of presidential power and head into the North Georgia mountains, to a hand-built stone castle on Taylor's Ridge and one of the most misunderstood crimes in the state's history. On December 12, 1982, Dr. Charles Scudder, a brilliant former Loyola University pharmacology professor, and his partner Joseph "Joey" Odom were robbed and shot to death inside Corpsewood Manor, the off-grid medieval-style home they had built brick by brick after leaving Chicago behind.Their killers, 17-year-old Kenneth Avery Brock and 30-year-old Samuel Tony West, had convinced themselves the eccentric couple was hiding a fortune, and that two openly gay men, one of them a documented member of the atheistic Church of Satan, were the kind of victims nobody would mourn. They were wrong about the money, and history has proven them wrong about the men.This episode hits especially close to home, Brian grew up just a few miles away and was only eight years old the winter the murders happened, and who has spent a career learning to tell the difference between rumor and evidence. We trace the whole arc, from Scudder and Odom's search for a simpler life and the truth about what the Church of Satan actually believed, through the rumors and the Satanic Panic that turned two kind hosts into the county's boogeymen, to the night of the killings, the murder of Navy Lieutenant Kirby Key Phelps during the fugitives' flight through Mississippi, the manhunt, the confessions, and a trial where a defense attorney argued in open court that a murdered man had bewitched his killer with a glowing golden harp.Brock remains incarcerated to this day; West died in prison. Listener discretion is strongly advised, as this episode contains descriptions of violence, murder, and the bigotry of the era.More than a true crime story, this is a study in how a frightened culture decides who deserves to be called a victim, and how easily fear becomes permission.Have a forgotten historical mystery, disturbing event, unsolved crime, or hidden conspiracy you think deserves investigation?Send your suggestions to [email protected] History is a dark history podcast exploring unsolved mysteries, secret societies, historical conspiracies, lost civilizations, and the shadowy stories buried beneath the surface of the past.Follow the show and enable automatic downloads so you never miss a deep dive into history’s most unsettling secrets.Because sometimes the truth is darker than fiction.