"I still hear the screams" | S5 E2

Buried Truths

WABE

True Crime, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After enthralling congregations for several years, Rev. Pickett landed in the Georgia state mental institution, then a county jail where the jailer beat him to the edge of death.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for the Buried Truths podcast comes from UChicago Medicine, an academic medical health
0:06.5	system based on the campus of the University of Chicago for almost 100 years. From groundbreaking
0:11.9	research to life-saving treatments, U-Chicago Medicine is where the toughest cases meet the brightest minds.
0:18.7	Whether you need cutting-edge cancer care, complex surgery,
0:21.9	or the latest clinical trials, patients from all over the world come to UChicago Medicine for
0:27.1	world-class care. Learn more at UChicaggubMedicin.org, UChicago Medicine, on the forefront.
0:34.3	Support for WABE comes from Ameris. Committed to being an advocate in business
0:38.6	banking. Ameris believes it's never just business when it's your business. You can find your local
0:42.9	business banker at amarisbank.com slash business bankers, fiercely yours. Member FDIC,
0:48.3	equal housing lender. The following podcast contains moments of violence, profanity, and uncensored racism. It may not be suitable
0:56.7	for all audiences. Episode 2. I still hear the screams. As Christmas approached in December
1:08.8	1956, Clarence Pickett didn't have his own home or apartment.
1:13.9	He no longer had a pulpit or a viable marriage, 48.
1:18.1	He was living in Columbus, Georgia, with his sister, Lily Banks, who worried that he was drinking too much.
1:24.2	She believed alcohol was partly to blame for his odd behavior. In the South in those
1:29.7	days, odd behavior frequently landed a person and a mental institution. In Georgia, Clarence
1:37.0	Pickett's unpredictable ways, walking the streets, talking to himself, drinking too much,
1:43.6	led him to the state mental hospital in Millageville.
1:47.2	Millageville, the quaint little split personality town that was full of Georgia history and horror.
1:54.9	Millageville served as the state capital until shortly after the Civil War ended, and Atlanta became the government seat.
2:02.4	It's home to Georgia College and State University, and also to Andalusia Farm, where Flannery O'Connor lived and wrote of the lame, the halt, and the haunted inhabitants of the dark and Gothic South.
2:16.5	But to most people in the mid-20th century,
	...

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