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Book

The man no one believed : the untold story of the Georgia church murders

Call Number

  • 364.1523 S5323 (CEN, OSH)

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Edition

First edition.

Publication Information

New York, NY : W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., [2025]

Physical Description

ix, 260 pages ; 24 cm

Summary

"The riveting story of a 1985 double murder, a long-overdue investigation, and the fight to exonerate an innocent man. In 1985, a white man walked into a South Georgia church and brutally murdered Harold and Thelma Swain, two pillars of the area's Black community. The killer vanished into the night. For fifteen years, the case remained unsolved. Then authorities zeroed in on Dennis Perry, a carpenter who grew up nearby. Convicted with devastatingly flawed evidence, Perry received a double life sentence. When award-winning journalist and South Georgia native Joshua Sharpe retraces the case, he discovers a winding path of corruption, devastating missteps, and secrets. Driven by the pursuit of the truth, Sharpe's investigation takes him through dusty courthouse archives, down winding dirt roads, and into intense interviews. But he keeps knocking on doors--even after they're slammed in his face. Sharpe uncovers explosive evidence that helps prove Dennis Perry's innocence. And he confronts a long-ignored suspect: an alleged white supremacist who had bragged about committing the murders" --

Contents

  • A note on dialogue
  • Prologue
  • Part I: Waves. The man in the vestibule
  • The officer's duty
  • The killer's face
  • A cross for everyone
  • Changing and staying the same
  • The smuggler
  • The relative
  • 'I'm the mother fucker'
  • Unsolved mystery
  • Part II: In darkened water. On the path
  • Baton
  • Cold shoulder day
  • Facing death
  • Surprises
  • Caged
  • Beginnings and endings
  • Undisclosed
  • Part III: The tide comes back. Through the glass door
  • 'If I had confessed to that'
  • 'I need your help'
  • More blood, more reckoning
  • A decision and a death
  • Endings
  • Epilogue
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes on sources
  • Index.

Subjects