About this item
In 1932, the city of Natchez, Mississippi, reckoned with an unexpected influx of journalists and tourists as the lurid story of a local murder was splashed across headlines nationwide. Two eccentrics, Richard Dana and Octavia Dockery - known in the press as the "Wild Man" and the "Goat Woman" - enlisted an African American man named George Pearls to rob their reclusive neighbor, Jennie Merrill, at her estate. During the attempted robbery, Merrill was shot and killed. The crime drew national coverage when it came to light that Dana and Dockery, the alleged murderers, shared their huge, decaying antebellum mansion with their goats and other livestock, which prompted journalists to call the estate "Goat Castle." Pearls was killed by an Arkansas policeman in an unrelated incident before he could face trial. However, as was all too typical in the Jim Crow South, the white community demanded "justice," and an innocent black woman named Emily Burns was ultimately sent to prison for the murder of Merrill. Dana and Dockery not only avoided punishment but also lived to profit from the notoriety of the murder by opening their derelict home to tourists.Strange, fascinating, and sobering, Goat Castle tells the story of this local feud, killing, investigation, and trial, showing how a true crime tale of fallen southern grandeur and murder obscured an all too familiar story of racial injustice.
About the Author
I'm a historian of the American South with a particular interest in southern culture. I am the author of four books--Dixie's Daughters (University Press of Florida, w/new intro 2019) , which won the Spruill prize for the best book in southern women's history, Dreaming of Dixie (UNC Press, 2011) , Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South (UNC Press, 2017) , and my latest, No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice (UNC Press, forthcoming 2021) . I am also the editor of Destination Dixie (University Press of Florida, 2012) , a volume on tourism and southern history, and co-editor of Revisiting the 1930s South (LSU Press, 2018) .
