91: The Sherry Murders, The Dixie Mafia & Corruption in Biloxi

Southern Fried True Crime

Erica Kelley

True Crime, Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 10.5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2020

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1987, a circuit court judge and his wife, a former city council woman, who wanted to be mayor, were murdered in their home in Biloxi, Mississippi. It was obviously a professional hit. Vincent Sherry was a former criminal defense attorney who had defended members of the Dixie Mafia. Now, he was putting criminals away. Margaret Sherry was a fiery republican in a public slap fight with the current democratic mayor. She wanted to clean up the Biloxi strip of seedy night clubs and gambling, which of course, the Dixie Mafia ran. And she wanted to expose corruption in city hall.

Who was the real target? It was a conspiracy that would take four years and the determination of their oldest daughter to unravel.

Written, hosted and produced by Erica Kelley
Researched by Haley Gray & Erica Kelley
Edited by Chaes Gray
Case Suggestion by listeners: Casey Porter, Eileen Mace & Drew Stuart
Suggested Reading: Mississippi Mud: Southern Justice & The Dixie Mafia by Edward Humes
Original Graphic Art by Coley Horner
Original Music by Rob Harrison of Gamma Radio

Sources: https://www.southernfriedtruecrime.com/91-the-sherry-murders-the-dixie-mafia-corruption-in-biloxi

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Southern Fried true crime covers cases that are not suitable for young listeners, and there
0:05.3	may also be some explicit language used.
0:08.5	Listener discretion is advised.
0:10.9	Friends, I again implore you to comply with social distancing and stay at home unless
0:16.4	your work is considered essential.
0:18.8	It's up to us to save the most vulnerable during the COVID-19 crisis.
0:28.0	In the late 1980s, Biloxi Mississippi was teaming with corruption run unofficially by the
0:34.2	Diximofia.
0:36.3	It wasn't exactly a secret.
0:38.7	By 1983, the FBI was investigating Biloxi and Harrison County where it's located.
0:45.3	Vincent and Margaret Sherry were pillars of Biloxi.
0:49.4	One local commented that if you just said Vincent Margaret, everyone knew who you met.
0:55.2	Once, a conservative Democrat was a circuit court judge and a criminal defense attorney.
1:01.4	Some of his former clients were in the Diximofia.
1:05.4	His wife Margaret, an old-school Republican, was a former city-houncil woman with ambitions
1:11.4	to be mayor.
1:12.9	She wanted to clean up crime and corruption in Biloxi.
1:16.8	They might have seemed like an odd couple.
1:19.3	Vince had defended the very criminals Margaret wanted put away.
1:23.1	But they were like bookends, perfectly complementing each other.
1:27.4	Both were natural-born politicians, gregarious and well-respected in their community.
1:33.7	When they were murdered in their home in September of 1987, it immediately looked like a professional
	...

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