"Baby, they done killed me" | S5 E3

Buried Truths

WABE

True Crime, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 2 September 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Rev. Clarence Pickett’s final days: his arrest, his beating and how he saw a doctor one day and was dead the next.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for the Buried Truths podcast comes from our presenting sponsor, Emory University,
0:06.0	where students and researchers turn big ideas into problems solved. Learn more at emory.edu.
0:13.3	Support for the Buried Truths podcast comes from UChicago Medicine, an academic medical health
0:19.6	system based on the campus of the University of Chicago for almost 100 years.
0:24.4	From groundbreaking research to life-saving treatments, UChicago Medicine is where the toughest cases meet the brightest minds.
0:31.8	Whether you need cutting-edge cancer care, complex surgery, or the latest clinical trials,
0:36.9	patients from all over the world come to
0:38.8	UChicago Medicine for world-class care. Learn more at UChicago Medicine.org, UChicago Medicine, on the forefront.
0:46.9	The following podcast contains moments of violence, profanity, and uncensored racism.
0:53.3	It may not be suitable for all audiences.
1:01.1	Episode three, baby, they done killed me.
1:05.6	We opened episode two telling you that Christmas was approaching in 1956 when Clarence Pickett was sent to the state
1:13.3	mental hospital at Millageville. He stayed for seven months before winning a temporary release
1:19.5	and returning to Columbus. It must have seemed a cruel twist for Pickett, a Christian man of the cloth,
1:29.5	a preacher for 40 years,
1:33.9	to find himself in another dark Christmas season.
1:37.2	A year after he was packed away to the asylum,
1:41.7	Pickett was struggling anew with both madness and drink.
1:50.8	The last day of fall, 1957, dawned cold in Columbus, as if making way for winter.
1:55.5	At daybreak on December 21st, 35 degrees.
2:03.5	Winter solstice was just a few hours away, but fall wasn't quite done. The sky was clear. The temperature climbed from nearly freezing to 65 by mid-afternoon, a perfect autumn day. And on this day,
2:12.2	Clarence Pickett would have three encounters with Columbus police. The first was relatively benign. The second ended in his
	...

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