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• ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION RICHARD JEWELL REPORTER FULL

On Butch Kennedy, the local investigator first put on the caseīutch Kennedy is a sort of a born police officer. And he lived there and she helped him fight through these just explosive, terrible flashbacks that he had for years and years. And when he needed a place to go and deal with this dramatic PTSD that he had, she brought him into their home. Speaking with people who knew her, there's one story that always sticks out with me, and that was that one of her brothers was in World War II and he came back just really damaged from the experience. She wasn't out in the community quite as much because she was a homemaker and she doted after their adopted daughter, but she was very active at the church, she took minutes at the church mission meetings, she was involved in their outreach to people in need in the community. He would just show up, "Hey, do you need anything? What can I do for you? How can I help you?" And that is sort of how he is remembered around Spring Bluff, this person who you would never think would fall victim to a crime like this.Īnd his wife, Thelma, was much the same. He would go to neighbors' houses and ask if they needed help with yard work for no reason. Harold Swain was a retired pulpwooder, and he spent his time after that just sort of helping people.

And to the contrary, everyone had just glowing things to say about these people. I just never found anyone who had anything bad to say about these people. On the Swains, the couple murdered in 1985

ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION RICHARD JEWELL REPORTER FULL

You can read or listen to Sharpe’s full story on the AJC’s website, as well as watch the documentary with interviews from people close to the story. And I hope that the Swains’ family, that the Swains’ loved ones, get some peace as well.”

Whatever the courts and the people who are in charge decide is the right thing, I hope that thing happens. I just hope that the right things happen. “This story and the reporting process - it’s certainly been one of the most fulfilling, if not the most fulfilling, of my life and career. Sharpe joined On Second Thought to talk through details of the case, share recordings from his conversations with the former investigators and suspects, and reflect on what it feels like to have been a part of potentially exonerating someone. The AJC published Sharpe’s 32-page longform narrative last weekend, along with an online documentary and podcast that explain the dramatic turnaround in the 35-year old case. Sharpe’s findings led to new DNA evidence and, on May 12, the GBI reopened the investigation of the double murder. The close scrutiny on Perry’s conviction spurred reporter Joshua Sharpe, who covers criminal justice for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, to revisit an early suspect’s alibi. The Georgia Innocence Project got involved, and the Undisclosed true crime podcast uncovered new issues with how Perry was prosecuted, and other findings. Still, some details about the case have troubled investigators throughout the years. And in 2003, a man named Dennis Perry was convicted - despite questionable evidence - and is currently serving two life terms in prison. "On Second Thought" host Virginia Prescott spoke with Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Joshua Sharpe.īut after sitting unsolved for over a decade, the case got a jumpstart with a new investigator put on the case in 1998. Witnesses from the black congregation described a white man with shoulder-length hair who fled the scene.ĭespite years of investigation by both the local sheriff’s office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the case had gone cold by the end of the decade even the leads generated by a 1988 episode of Unsolved Mysteriesabout the case proved false. 11, 1985, Harold and Thelma Swain were shot in the vestibule of a Baptist church in rural southeast Georgia during evening Bible study. New details on the case, thanks in part to reporting done by AJC reporter Joshua Sharpe, led to the GBI reopening the case earlier this month. The Rising Daughter Baptist Church in Spring Bluff, Georgia was the site of a double murder in 1985.