Sword and Scale - Episode 95

Episode Date: July 24, 2017

Escapism is something most of us are guilty of. We retire to our TV shows, video games, podcasts... One would not assume that even the most esoteric escapes could be dangerous, but for two gay men in the mid 80's living in rural Northern Georgia, that would be a dangerous assumption.This is the story of a place called Corpsewood. The handbuilt manor castle in the remote woods was meant to be a solitary retreat for Dr. Charles Scudder and Joseph Odem, but instead it would become their final resting place in which a carnival-like media atmosphere of victim-blaming would descend.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sort and scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences Listener discretion is advised So soon as I came up here in 86, you know, I started hearing about the devilish first case and you know There's this castle and there was the pink room and there were these drugs and you know, so obviously It's probably the most bizarre murder case I've ever encountered. Welcome to Sword and Scale, Season 4, Episode 95. A show that reveals that the worst monsters are real. In this episode we venture back to the 80s and this topic that seems to come back again and again. The satanic panic era seems to have produced more strange stories than most would like

to admit. But this particular story has overtones that are relevant to this day in the form of bigotry versus religious fundamentalism and how the media can sometimes play a dangerous role between the two. Many of us, whether we choose to readily admit it, construct our lives around some form of escapism. Maybe your escap is a TV show waiting for you when you get home from work, or a weekend relaxing at a cabin in the woods.

It could be watching a football game on Sunday, going to the movies, reading a book, or listening to your favorite podcast. We need these little breaks, these escapes, to keep us from burning out. And for most of us, that's enough. But some people take escapism a step further, and seek to turn their escape into a permanent reality.

In 1976, Dr. Charles Scutter quit his job as an associate professor at Loyola University Chicago, sold off most of his possessions, and headed out to a rural plot of land he'd purchased in a remote corner of northern Georgia, with his partner, Joseph Odom. The two built a house on the land, and gave it the pretentious name of Corpse Wood Manor. When you think of the name Corpse Wood, what images does that name convey? Well, I mean, most people, when they think Corpse Wood, they think it's going to be, you know, a creepy old haunted house looking place that really is not what it was. It was actually a tiny castle or manor house. It was named because when the people who built it arrived at the location, it was in the middle of

uplizard, one of the worst blizzards in decades, all the trees around there were dead. And that's how they came up with the name corpse wood. I spoke to Amy Petula, who published a book on Corpse Wood Matter, and it's too peculiar inhabitants. Tell me about these two men, Charles Scudder and Joseph Odom. They were fascinating. Charles was a professor of pharmacology at Loyola University in Chicago at Strich Medical School part of the university,

and he was a brilliant man. He listed himself as a farmer for years, and then when he moved to Chicago, that's when he got his masters and then PhD in farm ecology, he was also the co-director of the Institute for the Study of Mind Drugs and Behavior, and they were doing experiments with psychoactive drugs. Joey was really nothing like Charles intellectually. He had come from a pork background. I think he had.

His education went to elementary school when he had dropped out. He loved to cook and he was the housekeeper and companion for Charles. They had lived together when they were in Chicago before they decided to check it all and move south, looking for a piece of land completely surrounded by the National Forest. Charles and Joey were together and although they were incredibly close, they were not exactly a couple. For decades, you know, people would say they were a couple and that's not really accurate. They, I think, had relations and in some ways they were closer than a married couple

because they lived together for, you know, over 20 years and obviously got along together, well, you know, moved together, what all, but they also, at least Charles and O'Hat, relations with many other men. So, but yes, they were gay. When they were in Chicago, as I understand, that was not something that they put out there when you're working at a Catholic university, even if it is in a

big city, back in the 70s and 60s, that was not something that you talked about. So it wasn't anything where they felt free to let that be known. And I think that was part of the reason that they decided to come down here, so they could be a little freer and do their own thing and they were a little bit on the eccentric side Didn't Scott or paint and play the harp? Yes, he had a golden harp that he played quite beautifully He painted he created stained glass He had kept it monkey for a pet for a while. He died his hair purple You know, it's not exactly what

you think of in academia. He was, as I said, extremely well-read on a variety of subjects. In the the library that was there at the house, there were, you know, all kinds of books found from pornography and sex books to esoteric psychological treaties. He had dabbled in or was very curious about and involved with the Church of Satan, and so there were some treatises about religion, both that, and I think there were some books there found on some, you know, pagan beliefs and things as well. With some money from an inheritance, Charles bought 40 acres of cheap land in the Appalachian foothills in 1975, and moved there with Joey the

following year. What made Charles and Joey want to leave Chicago behind and move there with Joey the following year. What made Charles and Joey want to leave Chicago behind and move to the middle of nowhere? Well, Charles, I know, had gotten sort of fed up with academia and the brown nosing that's associated with it. His descriptions of the students he was having to deal with were, you know, they were sort of super silly. As I imagined it a lot of the young people that were going to Loyola, that time came from

wealthy backgrounds. And probably we're not the most pleasant always to deal with. And there's politics involved in academia, just like any other workplace. He had a mansion in Chicago, but it was sucking up more and more money while it was losing value because the neighborhood was changing, the house was crumbling or whatever. And he got tired of working to stay in the rat race, you know, he figured, well, it doesn't really take all that much money if you do it right to live on your own without having to work for someone else for a paying job.

So that's, I think, why he decided to do that. And Joey, Joey was, you know, he was going to be doing the same sort of thing that he had before, but Joey's preference by far was to cook on a wood stove without, you know, all the electrical appliances and whatever. So moving down there, fit right in with Joey's dreams. And so in 1976, Charles and Joey headed out to their plot of land, which is not exactly easy to get to. Well, to get to the lot, you have to go to the end of the road and then drive on a dirt road for about another mile.

Watch carefully for the turn-off and then the place that you have to park now to get to it is just a little scraped out place on the side of the road. You have to know what you're looking for. So fairly remote. It sounds like you've been there. Yes, I've been there a few times when I was doing the research for the book. And once since then, just to go visit it, it's actually a really beautiful place. How many people did you say are living in that area?

Try and Georgia the populations around 1700. So, you know, small town. So, if you're out there in this place called Corpse Wood, how likely is it for you to run across someone else for someone to wander by, let's say? Because corpse would has quite a cult following and is becoming more well-known, it's not as unusual as you might think, just because there are people that are going out there specifically because they know this location is there. But as far as someone just wondering by who doesn't know anything about it, I mean, the odds

are infinitesimal. People aren't just going to wander by when you've had to go a mile after the road runs out to get there. It's safe to say that this land was off the grid. And after arriving in the middle of a blizzard, the two were not deterred. When they first arrived, as I said, it was in the middle of a terrible blizzard. It was actually the same one that created the day at Snowden Miami. And they got lost, spent their night in the Jeep in the morning when it was light out again.

They finally found their land. They couldn't find it that night. And there was a dead horse in the middle of the... I mean, you can refer to it as a driveway. It's probably 1,5 miles high if you're walking it. But yeah, stinking, rotting dead horse in the middle of the drive. So that's why they named it as a driveway. It's probably quarter to a half mile hike if you're walking it, but yeah, stinking rotting dead horse in the middle of the drive. So that's why they named it dead horse rub. Seems a bit ominous. I think they took it in a humorous vein, considering

what they named the road, what they named the house, or whatever. I think they came down there with optimism, and rather than seeing it as a bad omen, they just took it as another thing to deal with and went on their way. And then, without any building experience whatsoever, they constructed Corpse Wood Manor at the end of Dead Horse Road. Charles did most of the building. Joy was actually in a car wreck, not that long after they arrived. And intellectually, Joy had been a good bit more limited than Charles from

the beginning. And I think that the Carrick aggravated that as some. He also got some physical injuries in it that made it more difficult to lift, you know, that sort of thing. So I think Charles did most of the work with that. But as I said, my understanding is what he did was read a book on how to do it. But it is really impressive that he could do that with no experience. They cleared a section of forest and hand builtbuilt their house. They installed a pumping system, a caracene refrigerator, and an outhouse. According to Charles, they used 45,000 bricks to raise the walls of the house. Each accomplishment, they celebrated with a bottle of Joey's homemade wine,

and after two years, corpse wood manner was complete. Corpse wood is a very small oblong shape, kind of like a butter dish manner. It's built out of triple thickness brick with air spaces in between, so it was insulated really well. But the total square footage on one floor was about 700 feet, I think it's about 1400 total

with the two floors. So that's not very big at all? No, it's small, but it it's about 1,400 total with the two floors. So that's not very big at all? No, it's small, but it's what they wanted. It had a pink gargoyle over the entrance there to the gazebo. When you came in, if you went left, there was the kitchen dining room area. There was a tiny hallway in the middle, and then on the right side on the first floor was a study and library upstairs were the the bedroom areas you know again one on each side with a tiny hallway in the middle connecting them there was a lot of

stained glass around there were a lot of different pieces of artwork and this this is you said it was all-blown shape there were no corners in the house it was they were they were all rounded off I have heard one person speculate that And this is, you said it was all-blown-shaped. There were no corners in the house. They were all rounded off. I have heard one person speculate that this wasn't necessarily intentional, that it was because the builders didn't have any experience. I don't know. I tend to think that it was intentional, but yes, no sharp corners.

It was all rounded off. What else was on this land? Woods, acres and acres of woods. There was a small pond that was very close to where the home was. And they had built a couple of outbuildings. One was a privy in outhouse, but it was built of brick as well and also round. The other one was a wellhouse. And it was round as well, built of brick.

There was another structure as well that they built that's been referred to as a chicken house and that was a three story primarily wooden structure, although it did have a stone chimney with it. And that had an upstairs area called the pink room? Yeah, that was the third floor. That's correct. Did this did this home have any electricity or running water or anything like that? No, there was no running water No electricity they dug themselves a well That's what they used for water and created sort of a shower from that they used would Cut from the surroundings for heat they had wood burning stoves and that's what the house used for heat

Because it did have the triple layers of brick with the air in between that insulated at the same sort of way that a cave will, so it wouldn't get real extremes in temperature, hotter, colder, either one. And they lived almost entirely off the land. They wanted to get back to nature as much as possible. They bought what they had to, but they preferred to get as much as they could from the land.

So they had fruit trees, they preferred to get as much as they could from the land. So they had fruit trees, they bought the wheat, they said they bought it for $7 per 100 pounds, which they ground to make their own bread. They also had flower garden, you know, Joey had a extensive rose garden. So they were all about enjoying nature and what was there around them. And developing it, they also had a beehive, which they used for both honey and for the beeswax to make the candles that they lit the house with. And they made their own wine? Yes. And from what I understand, some of the wine was very good. Some of it was very bad. It was all pretty strong, but Charles from from what I understand made wine from a lot of different things, not just your standard fruits, but also from various vegetables that they grew.

So like I said, some of it, many people would deem not a success. But yeah, some of it, people would say it was very good. Everything I've ever heard about it, though, all said it was pretty strong. In the spring of 1981, Charles wrote an article for Mother Earth News in which he tells, in his words, the true tale of a delusion city dweller who opted for a remote castle in the country. In the article, Charles wrote, People often fantasize about trying out different and usually at least in the imagination far better lifestyles.

But few actually change the way they live. Social commitments, habit systems, and inertia stop most such dreamers cold. They just don't know that all it takes to realize a fantasy is a small amount of money, a bit of luck, and a whole lot of courage. Cutting ties that have taken a lifetime to form is a draining experience,

and throwing away professional security, and all its supposed conveniences and luxuries is like losing a piece of oneself. But for me, the change was like crawling out of an old, at-one skin. Charles was living out his fantasy, but the following year, that fantasy would be disrupted. Kenneth Brock, who at the time went by Avery, stumbled across corpse wood while out hunting one day. Avery, Kenneth liked to hunt, and he had been hunting on their woods and encountered Charles when he had been out there hunting one day. You know, they got to chatting and Charles had invited him over, shared some wine with him and wound up having sexual encounter with him. That continued over the course of a few different encounters that that occurred.

According to Kenneth Smother, he told her about discovering the strange castle in the woods. He said that he had been to a place out on the mountain that nobody would believe. And I said, well, well, you may know, but he believed. He said, well, they were some men that lived out there. And they grow their own vegetables. And they had skeleton heads and different things. And I said, well, what kind of people are there?

And he just described them as being funny. He also told his roommate, Tony West, about meeting Charles and Joey. Avery was Tony's roommate. He told Tony about these guys. And he brought Tony with him to Corpsewood. Tony made it very clear to them that he was straight and he didn't want any part of any homosexual activity. But so they had both been over there before. And I know they

had been in the chicken house. I've heard one person say they thought that Avery had been inside the the manner itself. They were a lot more restrictive about inviting guests into the manner. They had a lot of a lot of guests that they would invite to come visit with them up in the chicken house in the pink room, not so many that were allowed into the house itself. What did this pink room look like? It was covered with pink shag carpet. There was no furniture. There were mattresses decked out in pink sheets. According to the police who were there at the time,

they said there were some sexual devices that were up there, you know, for other people to dispute it. I have not been able to find a single photo from inside the pink room, so I can't say for sure. But I do know that the police who were in there during the investigation said that it appeared to be someplace that was used for entertainment of various sorts.

After visiting corpse wood with Tony, Kenneth started to resent Charles and Joey. Kenneth, when he told Tony about the sexual encounter, you know, like said, Tony was a straight thug redneck. And made fun of Kenneth. As you might expect, Kenneth got mad about it and that anger, he turned around in his mind against a scutter, twisted it so that basically he felt like he had been taken advantage of. Now, he was 17 at the time, but like I said, he'd been on his own and he'd had his fair share of experiences that I don't know as far as sexual. He'd been drinking before, whatever. He wasn't your innocent 17-year-old cheerleader type or anything like that.

But he worked it around in his mind that he'd been taking advantage of by these two queers and he went no queer, or at least that was, you know, what he was presenting to Tony. So he got mad or in mad and he wanted to do violence to them. Violence wasn't what motivated Tony as much as just the idea for some quick cash. Kenneth and Tony came up with a plan to rob these two men in their remote castle in the woods. And that is exactly what they would do. woods, and that is exactly what they would do. So what happened that night, the night of December 12, 1982? Well, as I said, you know, Kenneth was angry.

He was talking to Tony about, you know, he wanted to go get revenge on these two queers. Basically, what he had described wanting to do was take a welding iron and rape scutter with it. He did welding iron. Of course, the fact there was no electricity in the house kept that from happening. But he wanted to punish him. Tony said, I guess, turned it around or was saying, well, let's rob them. There are these two guys. They live in the middle of the woods. They don't work, they built themselves a castle. Like I said, it was a tiny castle, but that's the way that they saw it. They lived in a broken down derelict trailer, so to them, it was really fancy.

They must be rich, so they came up with the plan to go over there to rob them is what they eventually wound up saying the initial plan was. They had a couple of young people with them that night. Joey Wells is Tony West nephew and he was on a first date with a woman named Teresa Hudgens. And Teresa, I believe was 17 as well at the time. There's some dispute about whether or not Joey Wells knew what was going on. The murders have claimed he knew about this. We told him about this. Joey Wells, of course, said, at the time, no. I didn't know what was going to happen. Since then, he has never spoken a word about to anybody since the trials, about what happened

that night. But his position is no, he didn't know. But clearly, without a doubt, his date for the evening Theresa Huggins did not know what was going on. Tony and Avery said, hey, you know, we're going to go right and around. Do you want to come go right around with us? I have no idea why they thought it would be a good idea to bring a couple of teenagers along unless they thought they'd get Joey to help them. Maybe they thought it was cover or maybe they thought they'd be more likely to be let in if they had a couple of young people with them. But they went over that night and they had been huff and tuteloo on the way up there.

In case you aren't familiar with tuteloo, it's a drug. Tuteloo is something that the Avery and Tony and the two companions that they had with them, the teenage kids that brought along, were huffing. It's basically a mixture of glue and paint thinner, the solvent, talluene, which I guess would give them a brief high, you know, small rural town. That was an easy, cheap high that you could pick up the ingredients from the hardware store and mix it up. So Kenneth and Tony brought along Joey Wells and Teresa Hudgens, who were out on a first

date, to a robbery. Kenneth and Tony brought along Joey Wells and Teresa Huggins, who were out on a first date to a robbery. They'd been driving around huffing Tudoloo and then stopped to pick up cigarettes and a dollar's worth of gas. According to Teresa, that's when they headed to Corpsewood. So we already in the car was going towards the mountain and then we just got to the mountain. Then Mr. Skutter came out to the car. And first thing he said was, was, uh, y'all guys have a cigarette. So Tony and Avery gave him a cigarette.

Then he said, we could all get out and go to the chicken coop. Well, he called it a guest house. So we all got out of the car and went to the chicken cape guest house and Tall skudder said we could all talk sit down then Mr. Skudder said let me go down get some wine So he went down the ladder and went to the house for somewhere up a second and get the wine Then he came back up and

Then he started passing out the balls of wine. Scutter was always very a very genial host. You know, when people would come by to visit, he would like, almost always invite people up to the, to the pink room to hang out. And he did that that night. So they were sitting around the pink room. Scutter had gotten some flasks of wine, of his homemade wine.

And so they were drinking when Kenneth jumps up and says, oh, I gotta go get something. Then we were just sitting there, and they were sitting there to go down, get some more wine or the toot-loo, and get confused about it. And then, so Joey spoke up and said, no, we don't need no. A total of us said, there's plenty here. So they was all just sitting there out there talking about this man. I really don't know. Nothing really.

Kenneth went down to his car and got his hunting rifle that he'd taken from his mom. He'd said, he told her he was wanting to go hunt and rabbit at night. And so that's why borrowed the rifle from her then. Came back up with it. Scutter, everyone has always said that he had an uncanny ability to top people into or out of anything. There had been a number of occasions before. You might imagine in a town like this where some of the local red necks had come up with the intent of starting trouble. And he'd always managed to diffuse the situation. So when Kenneth came in with

the rifle, you know, came back up to, came up the ladder up to the third floor, Scutter treated as a joke. Whether or not he actually took it that way or whether or not he was just trying to diffuse the situation, I don't know. I would think, you know, most anyone would be a little bit alarm when they saw someone come climbing up with a gun, but Scutters response was to say, bang, bang, you know, what game do you want to play? I'll play your game. And it worked for a time. Kenneth laughed. He sat the rifle down in the floor and they had about another 20 minutes to sit around

chatting and drinking with the guns at right there. And then he just picks up the gun or what happens next? No, he pulled out a knife and held it to a scutters throat and started asking about, where's the money, where's the money, cut up one of the pink sheets and he gagged, scutter, and took the sheet, he cut slits in his coat that scutter was wearing and passed the sheets through that

and basically bound him with the sheets, continued to demand the money, and I guess periodically would take the gag down. So he could respond and Scutter said, you know, we don't have any money here, and that was actually the truth. They kept almost every last penny that they had in the bank. And then they started telling Mr. Scutder at and putting a gag on his mouth and asked me where the money was and who I was in the house. And then Mr. Skudder said that Joey was in the house and the two dogs. So everyone went down the ladder, went in the house and we heard several shots from the house as we were stepping the guest house.

And then they would come back up to the chicken coop and tell us that the two dogs enjoy out on the stage. So Kenneth said, I'm going to go take care of that man and those dogs. And went back down the ladder with his gun. I have a letter from Kenneth and I've also spoken to his niece and the story that I've gotten, or they're a little different from each other. And I think also different from what the evidence that came out of the trial. But the story that I got from his niece was that he had gone to the door of the house,

and that Joey was in the kitchen and reached for a gun, and that's why he shot him with a rifle. There's never been any evidence I've ever seen that there was a gun found anywhere near Joey Odom or any guns found other than the rifle that the murders brought with them and then a pistol that they took from upstairs that belonged to Charles Scutter but there was upstairs it wasn't down in the kitchen where Joey was. Anyway so he shot him. The dogs were actually curled around a wood stove, sleeping. I'm still not real sure why the dogs wouldn't have jumped up. Other than the explanation I was given is that the shots all came in a continuous burst, but the dogs were shot where they were sleeping

curled around the stove. So, who was it that shot, Joseph? Kenneth Brock did, every Brock. What he told me was it was an accident, that he was shooting, you know, he was shooting Not at Joey, but that it magically ricocheted sort of like I guess the Kennedy bullet and managed to hit him in the head four times in the arm one time and kill both the dogs with these magic ricocheting bullets and Scutter was still upstairs in the pink room in the chicken house at this point.

That's correct. They did hear the burst from the gun when Kenneth came back upstairs to the chicken house after that. He announced, you know, I killed that man and those dogs. There is some dispute about whether or not Joey was actually dead at the time. He appeared dead anyway, and Kenneth thought he was dead at the time. That all came out in the property case when there was an important issue about who died first for inheritance purposes. But he certainly appeared dead at the time and he looked dead to Charles when Charles saw him later on. Kenneth shot Joey Odom four times in the head and once in the arm and then headed back out to the chicken house to bring Charles into the main house.

Scudder's still bound, so they're having to try to get him down a ladder with his hands bound, so it was sort of a matter of handing him down. But yes, they get him downstairs and make the teenagers, Joey Wells and Theresa Huggins come with them. Now they had tried to get away when Kenneth had first come up with the gun, they tried to go to their car, Tony West followed them, forced them to come back inside, basically threatened them if they didn't come back in. Everyone entered the house. Joey was laying sort of, initially he had been in the kitchen area, his body was eventually found partway in the hallway area and still partway in the the kitchen dining area That's part of the reason there's some dispute about whether he was alive or dead because it sounds like his body had moved

But as soon as you come in the door as small as this house was you would see his body laying there and when scutters saw him it Obviously just freaked him out, you know He started moaning and in the meantime Kenneth and Tony don't really care about what he's feeling. They want to know where the money is. So that's what they led Mr. Scudder tied up and I'll down the ladder. And then we all went to the house and then we opened the door up and then there was Mr. Edwin's body laying there. He's already been shot.

Blood was all over him. We opened the door up and then there was Mr. Eldon's body laying there. He's already been shot. Blood was all over him. And then we stepped across his body to get in the loop with the library that cow did. And there was two dogs laying beside a heater and both of them was been shot and dead. They was dead. So we all sat down there and Tony wist through Mr. Scooter down the couch and asked him where a soldering iron was and money. Mr. Scooter said he didn't have a soldering iron because he didn't have electricity.

So then he said he didn't have any money. What was Dr. Scooter's last words? I asked for this. He said at the time his last words were I asked for this, which there's been some dispute about exactly what he meant at the time, but clearly it was something that he said in grief and mourning. Tony told him, sit back down or I'll shoot you, and he didn't, he kept kind of stumbling towards Joey, and so Tony West shot it. So Mr. Scudder just got up off the couch and when he stepped up off the couch Tony West

told him he didn't stop his on shooting. So Mr. Scudder just walked to his right and when he did Tony West shot him with a rifle twice and he had two or three times and he had, didn't he fail damn? And then Tony tells everyone to go upstairs and get the variables, what they could find. When Kenneth and Tony ransacked the house, the only cash they found was a bag of nickels and dives. They murdered Charles Scutter and Joey Odom over a bag of loose change. Teresa came forward, telling police that Tony West and Kenneth Avery Brock had murdered Charles Scudder and Joseph Odom.

Tony and Kenneth were on the run, having stolen Charles Jeep and headed down Highway 20. When they reached Bonneville, Mississippi, Tony and Kenneth decided to switch vehicles. While pulled over at a rest stop, Tony handcuffed a Navy lieutenant named Kirby Phelps, with a gun who was head, Tony led Kirby away from his car and into a nearby wooded area. As Kenneth was unloading the Jeep, he heard two gunshots. Tony had killed Kirby Phelps. Kenneth ended up back in Georgia, where he turned himself in on December 20th, 1982. Five days later, on Christmas Day, Tony turned himself into police in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Here's a clip from the police interrogation of Tony West. It's hard to make out exactly what he's saying, but if you listen closely, you'll hear Tony admit, at least partially, to planning on getting Charles up to the chickenhouse before robbing them. So you're going to fight with a decent kid? Not the napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's napkin's The next clip is also taken from one of Tony's interrogations. It begins with a discussion of Tony and Kenneth ransacking the house, then Tony talks about every shooting Joey, whom he coldly refers to as the big one Toward the end of the clip you'll hear Tony confess to shooting Charles in the side of the head been anymore sheep before we land. But he told me that I'm struggling, so I'm talking to him by the boat with him. I really think you're going to be there.

Oh, I think I was shot. One of them was facing me. You know what you want to show? I was a big one. I was a big one. I was a big one. I was a big one. I was a big one. I was shot. I went out to side, but I know it's shot. I was out there. I went outside. I was out there. I was out there. I was out there. I went outside. I was out there. I was out there.

I was out there. I was out there. I was out there. I was out there. I was out there. I was out there. The one that you had, when you first count, when you were all the boy, that was the greatest movie. The thing is, when it was laying on the floor, when you first went to hell. Yeah, I got through the thing. Did you just start the bushel, the short running?

Yeah, right. It was close to the inside of the game. Side of one. Side of the game. Side of the game. Side of the game. With the right. Yeah.

As startling as the events of these murders were, the abrupt deaths of Charles Scudder and Joseph Odom drew national media attention for other reasons. When police went out to investigate at Corpse with Manor, they found the house full of artwork. Some of it beautiful, some of it downright bizarre. Well, in the first place, there was a lot of Renaissance area furniture there, you know, 1500s or whatever, some very, very valuable, very heavy furniture. But then as far as the

artwork, he had a Mifastophili statue, which was probably one of the most valuable pieces that was there, as worth probably, I think, I'd read around $10,000. There was a large, they call it a dragon mirror, which was a, I mean, it's a dragon, you know, some people would say later on, oh, it looked demonic or whatever it was dragon. Holding a large mirror, there was Baffa Mae, which is the trademark symbol of the Church of Satan. It is an inverted pentagram goat's head. And Charles had created a stained-glass baffa-may that was hanging up upstairs. There were a couple of things he hadn't painted these,

but just some really some cheap drugstore-type pictures that were some skulls that looked like a woman sitting in the mirror when you're close up, when you're far back, it looks like a skull. But the most bizarre piece of art that was there was a self-portrait that Charles had created. From what I understand, it was Joey who actually had this dream and described it as Charles in the middle of the night, and Charles got up and painted it, and it depicted Charles gagged with five bullet holes in his head. Well, that's how he was found. While they were still alive, of course, Charles had painted a self-portrait based on a dream joeied hat.

This chilling self-portrait depicted Charles with his mouth gagged and five bullet holes in his head. On December 12, 1982, Charles died with his mouth gagged and five bullet holes in his head. Some people said after they found it, trying to explain away the eerie coincidence of the murderers must have seen it and tried to recreate it, but the murderers have said, no, we didn't see that, that didn't have anything to do with it. So that was just one of the many really bizarre things associated with this case, was it was a very prescient painting that he'd done.

As if being gay wasn't enough to turn the media against Charles and Joey in the 1980s rural south, memorabilia related to the Church of Satan found that corpse would matter was. Local and national newspapers alike had a field day reporting on the so-called gay devil worshipers. For any of our listeners who weren't around in the 1980s, the murders at Corpse would matter, occurred at the start of what would later be known as the Satanic Panic, a nationwide phenomenon that began in the 1970s and persisted into the 90s. During this time period, the country was plagued by an irrational and widespread fear of Satanists, whom were believed to be controlling secular

society. We have to give a blood sacrifice to Satan. It's supposed to keep you protected, it's supposed to keep you pure. He said that he told that to everyone who comes to kill us. It doesn't matter if you believe in Satan, it doesn't matter if you believe in demons. What's important is to know that there are people out there that do, and they're willing to do anything to accomplish the goal. Satanism is more than a hodgepodge of mysticism and fantasy, more than a Halloween motif. It's a violent impulse that phrase on the emotionally vulnerable, especially teenage, often lonely, lost.

It started out like the killing of animals, and there was always the head of mental music and the blood's down healthy. It attracts the angry and the power of who up and think of the secret mind. They asked me if I had ever thought about killing somebody just to watch and die, and they asked me if I would like to join us in Tana Cole. The death's lion obsessed with fascination with sex, and dropped, and yes heavy metal rock and roll. Hey, Kyle! Often Satanism seems to be a personal psychodrom, a kind of license for strain, sometimes violent behavior.

A bloodbath would be a cleansing and a purification of the planet that has been dirty and degraded for too long. Sometimes it's just half-baked, mumbo-jumbo-instrolled, simple, but other times it goes deeper. Deadly. Tommy God has been the essence of Mother Dave, but has no hands. I loved him dearly. But he also took away go away for my love. Satanism goes far beyond teenage obsession. Today there are cults that worship the devil,

engaged in secret ceremonies, believe and each who bizarre theology, all of it constitutionally protected as long as no laws are broken. I believe that hate is necessary and a controlled way just as much as love is necessary. The other face of adult Satanism is violent and deemed centered on sexual ritual and torture. Frequently descending into the vialist crime of all, sexual abuse of children.

Fundamentalists feared that bands like Metallica and games like Dungeons and Dragons were the tools of the devil, and that homosexuality was a satanic precursor to child abuse and rape. They believed in secret societies that linked the agenda of serial killers like Charles Manson and the son of Sam with that of kids toys and cartoons like Scooby Doo. I think that right now we should really re-enterate you parents that are watching today. It is your responsibility. If you allow your children to watch these cartoons, if you allow them to bring these comic books into the house, if you allow them to have these toys or you buy them for them, you're going

to be held responsible before God. God says not to bring an accursed thing into your house, lest you should be accursed as it is. These things are occultic, they're accursed, they teach the children to get into spells and to witchcraft and to serve demon powers and demon occultic pagan religions are the mystic religions of the East are all propagated through this.

And I pray in the name of Jesus today that any of you that have this bondage in your household, your children are rebellious and being drawn by these things, I pray in Jesus' name that God would break that bondage today. We lose it right now and we put the blood of Jesus over you, your family, and your children. God bless you now from the eagles nest." It was in this climate of unsubstantiated fear and paranoia that investigators recovered art pieces and stained glass featuring pentagrams and books on the church of Satan from corpse wood manner

It didn't matter that Charles Scutter and Joey Odom were completely innocent victims of cold-blooded murder The media demonized them anyway. They spread rumors that Charles Scutter and Joey Odom Worship the devil and the public erupted. How did the public react to this case? This is probably, I practiced law for 20 years and this is the most notorious case ever. You know, when I came up to Northwest Georgia, it was four years after it happened. People were still talking about it all the time. They're still talking about it to this day. It got picked up really early, got to the media pretty early on after the sheriff's office got there and found the bodies. And here's this castle with these satanic samples there and LSD found or whatever. So in a very small

tiny, exed rural town, you can imagine they went crazy. It actually made international news. Some of the international tabloids were talking about this case. They had helicopters flying over because the media wasn't initially allowed into the property. So that was you know some of the new stations got smart and said hey Well, we may not be able to come in on the road But we can by golly get the pictures from above So it created a fewer and like I said people are still talking about this case to this day on Sunday January 2nd 1983 the Chicago Times ran an article titled Death was the final visitor to the home of devil worshipers.

In the Des Moines Register on February 28, 1983, man goes on trial in devil slangs. What this case immediately became labeled was the devil worshipers case. The devil worshipers case. Charles wasn't involved with the Church of Satan. They're not devil worshipers. They don't believe in God or Satan. The name Church of Satan is just sort of a poke at Christianity. It's their own little humorous way to make fun. Taking advantage of Media bias and public fervor, Tony and Kenneth started claiming that they had been drugged by Charles with LSD. In 1984, Joanne Thompson created a documentary on the Corpsewood murders

for WGGS Dove Broadcasting that did not initially air as scheduled due to overt and extreme conservative religious messages and an obvious bias against the victims. In the documentary, this short, portly woman who resembles the clairvoyant in the original poltergeist movie speaks with Kenneth Smom, who was one of the many to believe that her son was a victim who had been drugged by devil worshipers. Tell me about the night that the murder occurred. What did your son say really happened? I've read, you know, like I told you, come to get my rifle to go hunting, and this

rifle was very special to him and to me because it belonged to his daddy, you know, that had died. And of course, it went unusual for him, you know, to get the gun and go hunting, because they, I'd always let him go hunting, you know. And they had started, they'd talked about going riding around. So he got my gun and put it in the car, you know, where it wouldn't get lost or nothing happened to it. And when they got out there, he said to him and Teresa, Huggins and Tony West and Joey Wells, you

know, all went out there. Just more or less to go out there to get some wine because this man furnished them with wine and I guess gave them drugs if they wanted them. And he didn't charge him anything for it, you know, just give it to him. And they didn't have any money at the time so they figured that would be a good place, you know, to get some wine. So when they got out there, they said that Dr. Scudder had taken them up to this place to call a chicken house. And in the bottom, he said they had chickens and it had a little letter going up, you know,

like he climbed up the side of the wall. And in the top was a room and they called it a pink room. It was painted pink. And in there, they said they had mattresses, you know, and on one hand and a chair, and I believe an old hand stove up there. And then he gave them some wine, gave the boy and a girl wine in one bottle, and Avery and my son, Kenneth and West, they gave him another bottle, and they drank theirs, and so he went to the house to get them another bottle.

After they returned to the second bottle, then they started to see and lines, and they were described it as the house looked like it was on fire other than it turned real red. And West, I believe, described it as said that looked like big lines were coming at him. So I felt like they were drugged, you know. I don't see that they could have did any of this without being drugged. What did West, did he think it was they were drugged too? Yeah, he said they were

drugged. All right, what happened? What did Avery tell you happened? Who shot? And what brought all the shooting? Avery said he went down to the house, went down first to the car, you know. And he said to check and see if the rifle was there. And then they got the rifle. He got the rifle out of the car and went down to the house where Odom was supposed to have been the housekeeper.

And the two dogs, he said he took the gun because he was afraid of the dogs, you know, afraid they were loose and he didn't want them to get a hold of it. And he said at the time that he was going down there, you know, that he could feel, he could see different flashes in his eyes and he said, when he got there that it looked like that Adam had a gun, was getting a gun, and he thought that Adam was gonna shoot him. And he told me the way he told me that he shot the dogs

and he didn't know where he hit Adam or not. And then later on, he said he just didn't know where he did or where he did. But the law we know down there said he did. So I don't really know, I don't believe he did. Okay, what happened to Wes? What was he doing? Wes was still up there with a scudder.

And they said that they had tore up sheets and tied him, you know, where he wouldn't try to get loose, try to, I don't know where the tight his hands behind him, but they said someone told me that they told him down the stairs, but they couldn't have done that because you know it been straight up and down, it had one been down at the bottom and it had his feet. I don't know how that man's got him down at anyhow. He must have walked down by his safe, you know, of course they'd had to hold him. I guess West held him by the shoulders or something. Were they going to hold him. I guess West held him by the shoulders. Were they going to rob him or what? What was the motive? They had said something

about they might have planned to rob him, but they hadn't, no intentions of killing me. And when they got down there, you see West told West said he made a statement that he told Scudder not to get up and that Scudder had seen Odom laying in the floor and mom laying or doing something. Anyway, he got up to go cross to him and they said, West shot him three or four or five times, however many times he shot him. They had to be drugged because he made where it's dead, you know, that when the autumn started across there, it looked like lines were coming at him. And with big teeth and so naturally anybody was a gun and see lines coming at him would go to shoot.

And that was the drugs that they had had that made their minds and their eyes see things, you know, that wouldn't really there. It would have to be. But when Joanne Thompson talked to Teresa Hudgens, who was there that night, Teresa told a different story. Was there any drugs involved? No, why you were there? No. No drugs. Did you see any evidence of any drugs about the place? No. No drugs. Did you see any evidence of any drugs about the place? No. What about the bottles of LSD that were found later? Did you know about those? No, I didn't see any bottles of them.

Okay. So as far as you know, there was no drugs. Did any of these three guys have Joey or the others Avery or West? Did they have any drugs? Did they bring any with them? No, just a paint thinner that they had, Tony never had. Well, Avery had it. Avery had it.

But he brought it with him. Right. He didn't get it from Dr. Scudder. Do you think Dr. Scudder had anything in the wine? No, I don't. You think the bottle of wine that you drank from was the same as what they had? Yes. Exactly.

What makes you say that? Well, I don't think they was drugged up or anything because they acted. I mean, just the way they acted, they acted just like I did except for being scared. I mean, they had sense. I mean, they knew what they was talking about when I was talking. And one time Avery said, when he shot Dr. Scudder, he said, now tell me in any cussed, and then he said, now tell me that I don't have enough

to kill somebody. And he was talking to Joey. And they had it planned. The defense suggests that maybe Scutter was drugging these kids with LSD. That was the defense at Tony West trial, but that wasn't true and I'll tell you why. In the first place, Kenneth Avery Brock had plent. They offered him a life sentence and he accepted that rather than face the death penalty, which is what, you know, they didn't offer Tony anything. He was facing death penalty, so he went to trial.

He had confessed about eight times by the time he finally went to trial. And in none of those confessions did he say one word about, oh, I was drugged, oh, I felt weird from what I had, until out, oh, I was drugged, oh, I felt weird from what I had until it came out a couple weeks before the trial. The state revealed to the defense that they had found three vows of government grade LSD. It was labeled LSD25. It was government LSD. It wasn't something someone had just cooked up in their own home lab. One of them was full. One of them was half full. One of them was empty. There was testimony at the trial that it totaled about 6,000 doses when they had all been full, it would have been 12,000 doses. And only after that was revealed, did Tony come up with this story? Oh yeah, I was drugged, you know, everything start was glowing and I was

floating in the air and saw my body from above, you know, and I saw all the dogs and I was floating in the air and saw my body from above. I saw all the dogs and I shot it because I thought it was a big-headed lion and all kinds of wild stuff that he had not said before. There's even some testimony in the trial where the prosecution had asked him about, well, you studied up on LSD and Tony screwed up. He said, first he said no and then he said, well, not till I got in here, you know, talking about jail. So, you know, obviously he'd been doing a little research about about what the effects would have been before he started talking about that. That was one of his his eight confessions, but like I said, that didn't come out until after it was revealed a

couple weeks before the trial that the drugs had been found that the states had they hadn't Revealed that before because they didn't think it was relevant Which is a little disingenuous if you know if you ask me Obviously something like that's gonna be pertinent to a certain extent But they did reveal it before trial. You know they had a couple weeks to prepare for that Kenneth Avery Brock was sentenced to three consecutive life terms Tony West was sentenced to death, but then resettanced to life in prison

after his death sentence was overturned. They are both still currently serving out their sentences. The night after investigators finished up at Corpsewood, the chicken coop and the pink room on top, burned down. Not long after, the residence was burned down as well. What remains of Corpse Wood Manor are a few worn down brick walls, slowly succumbing to the nature that surrounds them. Visitors still venture down Dead Horse Road, some to pay their respects to Charles and Joey while others simply seeking adventure, perhaps searching for ghosts after hearing rumors of a haunted So, we've walked for about 15 minutes and we're coming up on the actual building right

now. Welcome to Corpse Wood Manor. We're in a summer here, I think this is maybe the entrance? I'm out in the middle of nowhere. On the top of a ridge in the mountains, at a place called Corpsewood Manor. Some visitors swear that there is an aura about the place. As if they can sense Charles and Joey's presence enveloping the decrepit structure they once called their kingdom.

Some say you can still hear Charles plucking his harp, the notes still echoing in the wind. On the morning of his death, Charles recorded himself playing the harp and reciting William Blake's The Tiger, wondering what force could have created something so fearful as a tiger sneaking up on its prey. When the stars threw down their spears and watered heaven with their tears, did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the land make thee? Tiger, tiger, burning bright in the forests of the night?

What immortal hand or eye dare you think I do for a suitry? That wraps up this episode of Sword and Scale. We hope you've enjoyed it. You can read more about Corpse Wood in Amy Petula's book, The Corpse Wood Manor Murders in North Georgia. And also check out the story on swordandscale.com titled Murder at Corpse Wood Manor. If you enjoy the show, please consider donating to us on patreon.com slash sword and scale. Patreon is a service that lets fans like you donate a few bucks each month to support your favorite shows. And in return, we give you perks based on your level of support. For example, at the basic $5 level, you get early commercial

free access to all regular episodes and you get access to PLUS, a condensed version of sword and scale, which is not available anywhere else. At higher levels you get physical perks, like we just announced a really amazing Glonadark Skull Artwork t-shirt. It's available in all styles such as V-neck, T-neck, tank top, and racer back, and you get it free with your $15 donation. You do have to be active though on August 31st to qualify. It's going to be a great Halloween must-have, so make sure you get yours before they run

out. Thanks for listening, and until next time, stay out of the woods and stay safe. 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc

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