Episode 83 Alabama’s Shocking Cesspool Murders

Southern Mysteries Podcast

Shannon Ballard

True Crime, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 918 Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2021

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

20 year old Herbert Hoover Gentry was the first deaf person in Alabama to be tried on a capital offense with an interpreter in the courtroom. Gentry was accused of killing his wife and her best friend after their bodies were discovered in a cesspool See photos and sources for this episode in the show notes at southernmysteries.com Support The ShowWant more Southern Mysteries? Hear the Southern Mysteries show archive and immediately access exclusive content when you become a patron of the show. Join now at patreon.com/southernmysteries ConnectWebsiteTwitterFacebook Music Theme Song “Dark & Troubled” by Panthernburn. Special thanks to Phillip St Ours for permission for use. Sense of Loss by Purple Planet Music https://www.purple-planet.com/ Licensed under Creative Commons. Virtutes Instrumenti, Drone in D, Ossuary 1 A Beginning and Atlantean Twilight by Kevin MacLeod. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Source: http://incompetech.com/. There’s Probably No Time, I Need To Start Writing Things Down and I Am A Man Who Will Fight for Your Honor by Chris Zabriske. Licensed under Creative Commons.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Is he a sly devil or a saint?
0:14.0	That headline flashed across the front page of the Birmingham News
0:18.0	during the 1949 murder trial of Herbert Hoover Gentry. Gentry.
0:24.0	20-year-old Gentry stood accused of killing two women,
0:27.0	his 19-year-old wife Floney and her 23-year-old best friend,
0:31.0	Louise.
0:32.0	Their bodies were discovered in a cesspool. three-year-old best friend Louise.
0:32.8	Their bodies were discovered in a cesspool
0:35.5	near the Gentry home.
0:38.3	Gentry was partially deaf,
0:40.2	and his murder trial was the state's first trial of a deaf person tried on a capital offense
0:46.3	with an interpreter in the courtroom.
0:49.8	Gentry was an attractive young man.
0:52.2	His photo was featured in Alabama newspapers
0:55.1	and women swooned over him
0:57.4	as they crowded into and around the courtroom
1:00.8	when the murder trial began. Many of them said in interviews with the local
1:04.8	papers that this beautiful man looked like a saint, not the devil. People were
1:10.6	making him out to be. But we all know if you judge from appearances,
1:16.0	you seldom find the truth.
1:19.0	Welcome to Southern Mysteries,
1:22.0	exploring history and mysteries of the American South.
	...

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