- 29 minutes 18 secondsThe Murder of Lita McClinton, Part 1: The Marriage
In January 1987, Lita McClinton answered her doorbell in one of Atlanta's wealthiest neighborhoods and was shot dead by a man holding a white flower box with a pink rose. She was 35, the daughter of one of Atlanta's most prominent Black families, and on her way to court that morning for a pivotal hearing in her divorce from her white millionaire ex-husband, Jim Sullivan. Police were sure Jim had ordered the hit. They just couldn't prove it.
Writer Deb Miller Landau first reported on the case for Atlanta Magazine in 2004 — and never let it go. In this episode of Gone South, she walks us through her years-long investigation: an interracial marriage that began in 1970s Macon, a $2 million mansion on Palm Beach, a sloppy hit, a payphone call traced to a Georgia rest stop, and the long, twisting road to justice for Lita McClinton.Deb Landau's book is "A Devil Went Down to Georgia: Race, Power, Privilege, and the Murder of Lita McClinton":
https://www.amazon.com/Devil-Went-Down-Georgia-Privilege/dp/1639366830Subscribe to our newsletter:
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17 June 2026, 7:01 am - 31 minutes 9 secondsTommy Lee Walker: Executed in 1954, Exonerated in 2026
In 1954, Dallas executed a 19-year-old Black man named Tommy Lee Walker for the rape and murder of a young white woman near Love Field. Walker had no criminal record, eight alibi witnesses placing him across town at the time, and he recanted his confession the moment he was returned to his cell. None of it mattered. Three months after his arrest, a jury sentenced him to die in the electric chair.
Seventy years later, Innocence Project attorney Chris Fabricant set out to do something that had never been done before: exonerate a man who'd already been put to death. Jed talks with Fabricant about the coerced confession, the junk-science polygraph, the racial panic that swept Dallas in 1953, and what it took to finally clear Tommy Lee Walker's name.Subscribe to our newsletter:
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10 June 2026, 7:00 am - 27 minutes 55 secondsInside a Charleston Frat's Multimillion-Dollar Xanax Ring
In 2016, nine men tied to the College of Charleston's Kappa Alpha fraternity were arrested in what police initially described as a 40,000-pill Xanax bust. The real number was closer to three and a half million, along with cocaine, LSD, weed, luxury watches, a fleet of cars, and a grenade launcher. The crew had spent years pressing counterfeit pills in rented beach houses and shipping them across the country in Skittles bags, fueling an unregulated drug economy that ran straight through one of the most beautiful college campuses in America.
Jed talks with journalist Max Marshall, author of the book "Among the Bros," about how he embedded himself in this world, his hundreds of hours of late-night phone calls with an imprisoned ringleader, and what the case reveals about American fraternities and the lives of the men inside them.Max Marshall's book is "Among the Bros: A Fraternity Crime Story"
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3 June 2026, 7:01 am - 30 minutes 20 secondsMurder in Mississippi
When Australian comedian John Safran flew to Rankin County, Mississippi to confront a white nationalist named Richard Barrett with a surprise DNA test, he had no idea the man would be killed eleven months later — by a 22-year-old Black neighbor he'd hired to do yard work. Safran returned to Mississippi to write his first true-crime book, expecting a clear-cut story about racism and a perfect victim. What he found instead was something stranger: a town built on things left unspoken, a killer who scammed him for gift cards from jail, and a relationship between victim and killer that defied the assumptions he'd brought with him.
Jed talks with Safran about his book "Murder in Mississippi," the ethics of crime reporting, and what an outsider notices about the South that the rest of us miss.
John Safran's book is "Murder in Mississippi"
https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Mississippi-John-Safran/dp/034913426X
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27 May 2026, 7:01 am - 33 minutes 7 secondsThe Georgia Church Murders Part 2: Dennis Perry's Story of Wrongful Conviction and Redemption
In 2003, Dennis Perry was convicted of the 1985 murders of Harold and Thelma Swain at Rising Daughter Baptist Church in Spring Bluff, Georgia. He was innocent. He would spend the next 20 years, six months, and ten days behind bars.
This episode of Gone South tells the Georgia Church Murders story through Dennis's eyes — from his arrest and interrogation by detective Dale Bundy, to his trial, his two life sentences, and the years he spent inside Jimmy Autry State Prison waiting for someone to believe him.
It's also the story of Brenda Perry, the woman who knew Dennis his whole life, married him in a prison chapel, and never stopped fighting for his freedom. After reporter Josh Sharpe of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution exposed the truth and the Georgia Innocence Project secured his release, Dennis was fully exonerated. This is what survival looks like.Subscribe to our newsletter:
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https://www.instagram.com/gonesouthpodcast/20 May 2026, 7:01 am - 38 minutes 24 secondsThe Georgia Church Murders Part 1: A Wrongful Conviction, a Fake Alibi, and the Reporter Who Cracked the Case
In 1985, Harold and Thelma Swain were shot and killed during Bible study at Rising Daughter Baptist Church in Spring Bluff, Georgia. The double murder went unsolved for years — until a man named Dennis Perry was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to two life terms for a crime he almost certainly didn't commit.
In 2019, Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Josh Sharpe began investigating the case for the Georgia Innocence Project. What he found was damning: a botched investigation, unreliable witnesses, and a key suspect — Eric Sparre — whose alibi turned out to be completely fabricated.
This episode of Gone South follows Sharpe's six-month investigation into the Georgia Church Murders, the wrongful conviction of Dennis Perry, and the evidence pointing to the man many believe actually pulled the trigger. Based in part on Sharpe's book, The Man No One Believed.
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13 May 2026, 7:00 am - 32 minutes 26 secondsThe Axeman of New Orleans
New Orleans. 1918. A killer the papers call “The Axeman” breaks into homes at night, mostly targeting Italian grocers, and attacks with an axe taken from inside the house. No robbery. No clear motive. Just terror. The case is never officially solved.
In this episode of Gone South, former Times-Picayune editor James Karst walks Jed Lipinski through what the archives actually show: the earliest attacks, the infamous Axeman letter demanding jazz music, and the overlooked suspect Joseph Mumfre, a Black Hand linked extortionist whose name keeps resurfacing.Subscribe to our newsletter:https://jedlipinski.substack.com/
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6 May 2026, 7:01 am - 34 minutes 16 secondsThe T.M. Landry Scandal: How a Louisiana School Faked Its Way Into the Ivy League
A unaccredited private school in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana became a national sensation when its students began landing acceptances at Harvard, Stanford, and other Ivy League universities. The viral videos were inspiring. The story seemed almost too good to be true. It was.
New York Times reporters Katie Benner and Erica Green investigated T.M. Landry and uncovered a years-long college admissions fraud: fabricated transcripts, invented extracurriculars, and personal essays built on trauma the students never experienced. Behind it all was the school's charasmatic and manipulative founder, Mike Landry.
This episode explores the rise and fall of T.M. Landry, the college admissions scandal it exposed, and who really pays the price when a system built to exclude finally gets gamed.Subscribe to our newsletter:https://jedlipinski.substack.com/
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Katie Benner and Erica L. Green's book is "Miracle Children: Race, Education and a True Story of False Promises": https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Children-Education-Story-Promises/dp/1250759102
29 April 2026, 7:01 am - 27 minutes 16 secondsPatterson Hood and the Duality of the Southern Thing
Patterson Hood grew up in Florence, Alabama — a deeply conservative, Bible Belt town where his father was quietly making history. David Hood was a session bassist for the Muscle Shoals rhythm section, recording with Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones, and Wilson Pickett at a time when it wasn't always safe to go to dinner with the artists you were recording with. Patterson learned early not to mention his dad's job at school. When people asked what church his father attended, he changed the subject.
Decades later, Patterson co-founded Drive-By Truckers — a band that has spent 25 years wrestling with Southern identity, racism, abuse of power, and what it means to be American. In this conversation, he talks about growing up progressive in the Deep South, why he thinks a Black and white soul band should replace the Confederate flag as the symbol of the South, and what he hopes listeners will make of his songs 20 years from now.Subscribe to our newsletter:https://jedlipinski.substack.com/
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22 April 2026, 7:01 am - 29 minutes 26 secondsSputnik Monroe: The Wrestler Who Desegregated Memphis
Before the Civil Rights Movement's major victories of the 1960s, a pro wrestler named Sputnik Monroe was already integrating Memphis, Tennessee one arena at a time. Born Roscoe Brumbaugh in Dodge City, Kansas, Monroe became one of the most beloved figures in Memphis wrestling history, counting Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash among his friends and fans.
This episode of Gone South tells the story of how Monroe — a white heel wrestler with a bleached streak in his hair and a gift for provocation — used his fame to desegregate the Ellis Auditorium, challenge Jim Crow on Beale Street, and form one of the first interracial tag teams in the South. He was arrested repeatedly for socializing in Black nightclubs. He didn't stop.
Featuring interviews with music historian Robert Gordon, wrestling journalist Steve Johnson, and Jerry Phillips (son of Sun Studio founder Sam Phillips) plus archival audio of Monroe himself. A story about race, rebellion, and one of the most unlikely civil rights figures the South ever produced.
Check out Robert Gordon's book It Came From Memphis https://tinyurl.com/yys8pxdh
Steve Johnson has written many fine books about wrestling history, including
The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Heels
https://tinyurl.com/28h6nacmFollow Jerry Phillips on Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/p/Jerry-Phillips-61559154401992/Subscribe to our newsletter:https://jedlipinski.substack.com/
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15 April 2026, 7:01 am - 32 minutes 36 secondsThe Lampshade: A Post-Katrina New Orleans Mystery
After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was a city of wreckage, rumors, and strange things washing up where they didn’t belong. When transplant Skip Henderson buys a battered table lamp at a post-storm rummage sale, along with a set of drums and an Allen Iverson jersey, the seller casually drops a chilling line: “That’s a Nazi lampshade.”
At first, it feels like just another piece of post-Katrina chaos. But when Skip takes a closer look at the lampshade’s translucent, veined material, the object starts to haunt him. He ships it from friend to friend, trying to get it out of his life until it lands with veteran journalist Mark Jacobson, who can’t let the mystery go.
In this episode of Gone South, host Jed Lipinski follows the lampshade’s bizarre journey from the Lower Ninth Ward to DNA labs, Holocaust institutions, and a decades-old urban legend where the truth may be even harder to pin down than the myth.
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Follow Marc Jacobson on Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/markjacobson48/Marc's book: The Lampshade: A Holocaust Detective Story from Buchenwald to New Orleanshttps://www.amazon.com/Lampshade-Holocaust-Detective-Buchenwald-Orleans/dp/1416566287/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
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