My First Murder

My first job was at the radio station in my hometown. Working Braves games on the FM station on weekends developed into working one night a week (Fridays) during football season. That developed to working weekend days on the AM station, playing country music. Then, two weekend nights on FM developed. Eventually, it worked into seven nights a week on FM, playing music I liked.

Eventually, the folks that ran the station eventually decided to make me full-time (working 70 hours part-time was fun enough). After doing sports for a little while, the news director got him a real job somewhere, and I moved to that job.

Doing news at a small town in Southeast Georgia is an interesting job. Particularly if you're from that town. But, being a small town, not much happens. But sometimes it does.

One night, I was at McDonald's with a girl I was dating and we had just finished eating and were getting in the car to leave. Suddenly, we heard all kinds of sirens and saw flashing blue lights and flashing red lights head by. Something was happening.

I asked her if she had a few extra minutes, that I wanted to see what was going on. She agreed, and we headed up the road (actually, down the road, but that's not that important) following the lights. We stopped at a little community outside town, just a few miles southeast of my hometown.

It was a house on fire and the firetrucks were trying to fight the blaze. Police and deputies were there. The road was a major US highway, but it was two-lane back then. I grabbed my tape recorder, my pad, and a pen and starting making notes. I had plenty of light, what with the flashing lights, headlights, and flames.

About the time they got the fire out, the firemen (all were men, so there) went through what was left of the house when suddenly one shouted. Turns out they found someone inside. Dead, of course.

First reports looked like someone had been shot in the head. Turned out later that he had been beaten in the head. Severly. So bad, it looked like a gunshot.

Anyway, I knew I'd be there a while, so I took the girl I was with to her house and came back to the crime scene. It was a difficult story for me to report. Not that I knew anyone involved, but it was the murder of a 72-year-old man. He was around the age of my grandfather, who had died earlier that year. Turns out the killer was his grandson and it was over money.

After the trial, he was sentenced to death, but it was commuted by the State Board of Pardons and Paroles.

While it wasn't the first murder trial I covered, it was the first murder where I was actually at the murder scene. And the only time I was at a murder scene when the body was discovered. And it was the inspiration for a book by Linda Berry.

Oh, I recently spoke to the detective who investigated this murder. He mentioned that the killer is up for parole later this month.