True Crime Historian Presents

Yesterday's News, Tales of the Scandals, Scoundrels and Scourges of the Past,

told as vintage newspaper reports from the golden age of yellow journalism.

Episode 459 unlocks the bizarre true tale of George Harsh, the Oglethorpe Thrill Slayer,

and his partner, Richard Gallagley, bored rich kids trade philosophy for a Colt 45 and a rash of

robberies that turn fatal. Harsh's journey spirals from university to death row, then from

chain gang surgeon to hero of the great escape.

Yeah, Paul Newman's great escape was based on that one. I'm true crime historian, and for your

horror and indignation, I give you George Harsh's great escape. From thrill slayer to war hero.

Barth, Atlanta, Georgia, October 7th, 1928.

Shooting at point-blank range, only a few feet away, a holdup man late Saturday night failed in an attempt to rob the A&P store at 1004 Hemphill Avenue.

I.V. Ellis, the manager, though wounded in the left arm and hand, along with his clerk, E.H. Meeks,

who was critically wounded in the abdomen and lying on the floor, blazed at the desperado and drove him

from the store. Intent on Saturday's receipts, the robber disregarded eight or

ten persons in the store, one a young woman, and fired without warning at the clerk behind the counter,

dropping him with a single shot. He then turned toward Ellis, who dropped the money he was counting,

grabbed a pistol, and met bullets with bullets. Ellis did not stop firing until his

gun was empty, and the robber had fled to a waiting coop which a Confederate was driving.

The A and P attempted robbery followed a hold-up by the same man a few minutes before at a

barbershop across the street from the store, in which $12 was the total loot.

This incident climaxed a series of hold-ups in several parts of the city,

some of them being carried out at approximately the same time as the Hemp Hill robberies.

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