Episode 4: Murder in the Goat Castle

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Creators: This episode was created by Smith College students Ainsley Chrystal, Bailey Street, Gaia Santoro Lecchini, and Elisabye Slaymaker.

Transcript:

Ainsley​: ​Okay, guess what I’m thinking about: a story of two people, suing each other, crazy animals are involved, and there’s a murder.

Gaia: Oh I saw Tiger King too!

Ainsley: No, the Goat Castle Murder of 1932!

Bailey: I’m Bailey!

Ainsley: And I’m Ainsley! And in the booth with us we have our producers,

Elisabye and Gaia Gaia: I’m Gaia

Elisabye: and I’m Elisabye

Ainsley: to chime in! A quick disclaimer for our listeners, in the podcast we will be discussing a murder and gun violence and non-graphic racial tension, and so feel free to skip this episode if you do not feel comfortable. This episode also discusses someone with mental illness that was not diagnosed at his time. This podcast uses the term mentally unstable in his description. We know nothing of his mental health history and are using the term that our source used. We are in no way speculating about his condition or any other aspect of mental illness.

Bailey: And today on Gabe podcast in association with Forgotten Scandals we are exploring the Goat Castle scandal. Our source for this podcast is Karen Cox’s book, Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South where we’re not talking ​tigers​, but a horde of goats, hogs, and chickens that lived in an antebellum gothic southern mansion, in Natchez, Mississippi. This eventually led to a high profile murder.

[Music]

Bailey: These animals technically belonged to Octavia Dockery, a self-proclaimed writer, and Dick Dana, who were both rejects of the Southern elite. Dockery was Dana’s legal guardian because he appeared to be mentally unstable and was unable to live on his own. They squatted in Goat Castle for years, always escaping eviction. The goats roamed throughout Goat Castle, which was really named Glenwood, and onto Glenburnie, the property of an old and respected southern belle, Jennie Merril.

Gaia: The victim of the Goat Castle Murder.

[Music]

Ainsley: Jennie Merrill was the symbol of antebellum aristocracy and elitism. She came from the Merrill family, one of respected southern status. Prior to her birth during the Civil War, the Merrills owned a cotton empire, including over 1,000 slaves over numerous plantations. She was the daughter of the Ambassador to Belgium and was herself a reformer. Strangely for the time, she was unmarried and returned to Natchez, her birthplace, at the end of the 19th century. Once she arrived, she swiftly turned into a recluse and completely isolated herself from society. Merrill had no desire to become a part of modern life and continued to wear fashion from the 1890s, the prime of her life.

Elisabye: She might have expected these years of isolation to be peaceful as she settled down in her hometown, yet the interjection of Octavia Dockery and her goats into Merrill’s life would cause many legal battles and the eventual end of her life.

Bailey: Okay, let’s set the scene. Before the Civil War, around the 1850s, Natchez, Mississippi was an affluent place that had more millionaires than any other city in the United States. Natchez had miles and miles of huge antebellum cotton and sugarcane plantations that could be the setting for ​Gone With the Wind. N​atchez was a town steeped in old southern charm and values which included slavery. The city’s pride and wealth was built upon slavery. In fact the, quote, “second-largest slave trading post in the Deep South” was in Natchez at Forks in the Road, called the Mississippi River Trade. The First Lady of the Confederacy was born and raised in Natchez to give you an idea of the culture. During the Civil War, Natchez faced a drastic economic and societal decline alongside the collapse of the confederacy and thus slavery. Yet the white residents of the town would try and preserve their way of life for as long as possible.

Ainsley: At the time of the murder in 1932, Natchez was deeply embedded in the post-civil war era known as Jim Crow: an era based on racism and prejudice. Jim Crow restrictions aimed to reinstate the power relations that had defined slavery in the pre-Civil War South. White’s attempted to maintain what they thought of as their superiority, and black people had to endure violent attacks and exploitation in everyday life. This aspect of Natchez quickly came to light as the scandal of Goat Castle unfolded.

Bailey: In 1932 Dockery and Dana were broke. Neither of them had jobs, and what little money they did have mostly went to the lawsuits that occurred between Glenwood and Glenburnie as the animals that roamed Goat Castle destroyed Jennie Merrill’s property. Unfortunately for Dockery, Jennie Merrill had a lot more money. She was the owner of several lucrative plantations which underwrote her numerous lawsuits. She could sue Dockery endlessly and never break a sweat. Meanwhile, Dana and Dockery were barely hanging on in Goat Castle.

Gaia: But they didn’t have to live there, right? Why live in a house that’s so broken down?

Bailey: Yeah you’re right no one was forcing them to live there. In fact, so many people wanted them to move out because they had no claim on the house. But they just flat out refused to leave. Goat Castle was the only thing the two of them had. Eventually they, especially Dockery, wanted revenge on Jennie Merrill for her constant lawsuits, and they decided the best revenge was a robbery. On August 4, 1932, Dockery put her plan to rob Jennie Merrill into motion. She enlisted Dick Dana to help her, as well as George Pearls, an African American man who’d previously been denied work by Jennie Merrill. Pearls brought along Emily Burns, an African American woman whose mother operated a boarding house in Natchez where he was staying.

Gaia: Emily, who was taken with George Pearls, simply thought they were going on a romantic walk. But, when they ended up at Jennie’s estate, Glenburnie, Pearls told her of the plan and threatened to kill her when she tried to leave.

Ainsley: The plan was simple: threaten Merrill with a gun, then steal all of the cash she supposedly hid in her house, and leave. An in and out. Quick and easy. And no one was supposed to get hurt. But the robbers did not know that Merrill kept her own pistol on her and never had more than a few dollars on her at a time.

Elisabye: The whole robbery was doomed from the beginning because there was nothing to rob!

Ainsley: Pearls entered Glenburnie, gun held aloft, ready to scare the old woman and take her money. It should have been easy. What happened was anything but. Instead Pearls was surprised by a 60 year old woman of society pulling out a gun ready to defend herself. (insert gunshot noise) Shots were fired. Dockery and Dana rushed in at the sound of gunshots and were stunned to find Jennie Merill, the former belle of the South, dead on her floor.

Elisabye: They knew that Duncan Minor, her cousin and rumored suitor, came to Glenburnie almost every evening at 8 PM and would be arriving soon.

Ainsley: So in an attempt to hide the body and conceal the crime…

Gaia: Despite clear signs of struggle and blood everywhere

Ainsley: Dana and Pearls dragged her body out of her house and threw her in a ravine close by. Burns held a lantern to guide them, and what she thought would be a walk, had turned into something much, much worse. With nothing to show for the attempted robbery, the group quickly left the scene. They thought this would be the end of their problems with Jennie Merrill, but her death would change the lives of everyone at the crime scene in different and unjust ways.

Bailey: When the initial story of Jennie Merill’s murder broke out, it captured the fascination of people across America. Not only was an old, respected, southern belle murdered, but those potentially involved lived in a dilapidated, goat over-run, antebellum mansion –– a stark contrast to the evocative tales of the Old South. The residents, or really squatters, Dick Dana and Octavia Dockery, only fueled the image of southern degradation with their fall from elite families. The Goat Castle murder was a symbolic killing of the Old South by the new. For Americans everywhere, what remained of the pre-civil war south had finally been replaced.

Elisabye: It was replaced by a beaten down mansion filled with goats! There were so many components to this scandal, but I understand why Goat Castle got so much of the attention! I can’t even imagine one of those grand houses being filled with wild animals.

Bailey: No, I agree. The situation really was crazy. I think everyone, even now, has a picture of what those Southern mansions look like: the wrap-around porches, the banisters, the big windows, the pastel paint. They were these magnificent grand houses. But it’s more about what they represent. The Great Depression began in the 1930’s, arguably one of the worst times in American history. The Goat Castle scandal allowed people to step out of the horrors of the depression and into the glamour of what the Old South represented.

Gaia: Like Gone With the Wind! The highest grossing movie of all time, adjusted for inflation of course.

Ainsley: This was a scandal that could not be better if it was made for the big screen. And when I say scandal, I mean it! People could not believe what they were seeing. Goats in the kitchen, slaughtered pig in the bedroom, chickens on the grand piano –– it was truly the last thing white southerners wanted people to associate with who they were, yet the people, and thus the media, loved it​.

Elisabye: And I bet those animals, like Joe Exotic’s animals, were not cared for properly.

Ainsley: They might not have been the best caretakers, but everyone was captivated with Dana and Dockery. Dockery especially knew how to garner support from the media as she told stories of her back-breaking work keeping up Goat Castle to the best of her ability while also taking care of Dana. She complained about how her elite upbringing did not prepare her for this kind of lifestyle. A picture of Dana and Dockery shows Dockery looking like a farmer woman, far from elite and dainty, and Dana looking crazed with his hair tousled and mouth open. This image went viral, in 1932! It got to the point where they were hosting expensive Goat Castle house tours and concerts, and they even went on a traveling tour!

Gaia:While they were suspects in a murder case!

Bailey: Back in Natchez, when Dana first saw Sheriff Roberts, he stated, without questioning, quote, “I know nothing of the murder,” unquote. And at this point Jennie Merril was still considered missing.

Elisabye: Dana incriminated himself from the very beginning of the investigation causing Dockery and himself to be arrested.

Bailey: Jennie Merrill’s body was found early in the morning on August 5, 1932. She had bullet wounds to her neck and chest, and was declared murdered by the sheriff. Dana and Dockery were the prime suspects for her murder: they hated Jennie Merrill and had plenty of court cases to prove it, Dana knew about the murder before there even was a murder, and, when the Sheriff arrived to Goat Castle at ​midnight​ on the night of the murder, Dana was drying his shirt outside. This was a particularly strange occurrence as Dana was ​notorious​ for never washing his clothes.

Gaia: *cough* Blood. Stains.

Ainsley: Along with this, the first positive fingerprint from the crime scene belonged to Dockery! Another set of fingerprints came from a disfigured hand.

Elisabye: And guess who had a disfigured hand? Dick Dana.

Ainsley: A mess up with the fingerprints taken from Dana, along with a hold up of evidence and weird delays, lead to the fingerprints from the disfigured hand to never be identified. Yet it was still damning evidence against the two, although they insisted on their innocence.There was another troubling fact: a third set of bloody prints were found in Merrill’s house, meaning that Dockery and Dana were not alone. Not much thought was given to the prints at the beginning however. The sheriff was confident in his feeling that he had at least two of the three culprits.

Gaia: Let’s keep in mind, however, that while this investigation was happening, the prime suspects were not only gaining sympathy from white Natchezeans but white ​America​ as the case gained national attention.

Bailey: In fact, white locals were so enraged that the quote “helpless pair” unquote, Dana and Dockery, were being held in prison for a crime that the locals were sure they were incapable of committing, that they managed to cause enough of a ruckus that the judge ​released them,​ allowing the two to go home. Black media was far less sympathetic and actually pointed out the absurdity of the investigation into Emily Burns as ​all the evidence led elsewhere. I​ n fact, black media was the only media that showed any level of respect to Pearls or Burns, referring to them with proper titles and showing their side of the story.

Elisabye: How did the case come to Emily Burns?

Bailey: Well Duncan Minor, Merrill’s cousin, had told the police of a quote “strange” unquote, or otherwise ​unknown, ​black man who had been looking for work from Jennie Merrill, to which she refused, before her death. Duncan claimed his name was Pinky Williams, a man we know as George Pearls. The switching of names was a common “safety” tactic used by black migrant workers. Having multiple names allowed African Americans to escape harassment and exploitation and to travel with more freedom. It was common for whites to accuse black people, especially men, of commiting crimes against whites. Like if a man of color was accused with looking at a white woman in a quote “wrong” unquote way, they could use an alternate name to try to escape the white judicial system and stay alive.

Ainsley: The police then questioned local African Americans about a man named Pinky Williams, leading them to the boarding house of Burns’s mother. They searched the house and found a trunk that Williams had left with Burns for safe keeping. In it were quote “undefined burglary tools, several .32 caliber bullets like those collected from Jennie Merill’s home, and a number of life insurance policies made out to George Pearls” unquote. The sheriff quickly recognized this name belonging to a man who had just been shot dead by police in Arkansas. Burns and her mother were swiftly arrested and brought in for questioning. All of the clues pointed to George Pearls being the one to kill Jennie Merrill, and that Dana and Dockery were in the house at the time of the crime. But you can’t arrest a dead man, and Dockery and Dana were too adored, ​and too white​, to stay in jail. So all of the blame fell on Emily Burns. While Dana and Dockery were making a profit from a plot they had conceived of, Burns, who had been roped in unwillingly, faced intense interrogations by the white police force and had to stay in the Adams County Jail for months without even being officially charged. This was the reality of the Jim Crow South. People of color were frequently and wrongfully convicted and assumed guilty because of their race.

Elisabye: Emily Burns did the least of everyone involved, she commited no crimes and wanted nothing to do with the murder, yet she was taking full blame for a crime she did not commit!

Bailey: Deputies interrogated Burns for hours every day when she was in jail, and wrangled a confession out of her. One of them even placed a whip on the table to frighten her into telling them anything that would incriminate herself. Burns’s statements throughout the investigation and her trial changed, most likely because she was initially forced to say something, or else she would have been beaten. Despite there being a ​huge​ amount of evidence against Dockery and Dana, Emily Burns was the only person to stand trial for the murder of Jennie Merrill. She was given a life sentence for a crime she did not commit.

Ending

Bailey: Emily Burns’ trial illustrates how desperate everyone was to pin Jennie Merrill’s murder on a black person. From the beginning, Dana and Dockery were never the sole suspects just because of their race. While Pearls did kill Jennie Merill in revenge after being refused work by her, Dana and Dockery were let go due to their white privilege. Emily Burns was technically an accessory to the murder, but she did not deserve a life sentence because she was not involed in consipiring against Jennie Merrill, like everyone else. As shown, racism played a huge role in the investigation. Once the justice system had Emily Burns, they did everything in their power to make sure she was blamed for everything. And it worked! Jim Crow laws in the south meant Burns could not afford a lawyer, and she never stood a chance against the white police force or a jury of Adams County residents. Racism decided the fate of Emily Burns, and white privilege allowed Dana and Dockery to walk free.

Ainsley: Eight years passed and Dana and Dockery were still milking the fame they received from the Goat Castle murder. They continued living in the spotlight in an even more run down Goat Castle, while Emily Burns was struggling to get out of prison. She pleaded her case to three Mississippi Governors, until finally, in 1940, Governor Johnson, who called himself “the champion for the runt-pigged people” suspended her sentence. After serving eight years for a murder she did not commit, Emily Burns was free.​ ​While this scandal is bizarre and humorous to some extent, the themes within the story, like lack of black representation in media, an overbearing media, and the continuing effects of slavery and racism are ​still present today​. If we just look at incarceration statistics, like this one from the NAACP, quote “If African Americans and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same rates as whites, prison, and jail populations would decline by almost 40%,” unquote the incredible inequalities with the Justice System are clearly visible. Black people are still incarcerated for longer terms for lesser crimes, much like Emily Burns in 1932.

Bailey: The media played such a large role in determining the outcome for Goat Castle because they painted Dockery and Dana as victims of a crime they orchestrated and thus warped their story, allowing them to walk free. The media was influential in shaping the the outcome of the Goat Castle murder. It remains influential today. How the media spins a current story or scandal almost always helps in determining public opinion and perception. The media used the Goat Castle scandal to help gain sympathy and interest in Dockery and Dana, just as right now, the media is getting people to gain interest in Joe Exotic. Although Joe Exotic received attention after he was jailed, there are numerous petitions to free him. Exotic, Dockery, and Dana all conspired in or executed a murder, yet the media painted them with a sympathetic light and spun an intriguing story to make Americans view them differently. And, all three of them are white. If the facts had been presented for the public to interpret, both scandals may have had a different outcome. Americans during the Great Depression turned to movies and the news for entertainment, and the Goat Castle Scandal distracted them from reality, just like in quarantine during the Covid 19 crisis, Americans are using Tiger King as a distraction.

Gaia: I knew it would come back to Tiger King.

Sources

Cox, Karen L. ​Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South.​ North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 2017.

“Criminal Justice Fact Sheet.” ​NAACP​.