In the backwoods of Georgia, in a dilapidated house, a 49-year-old recluse named Virginia

Ridley was found dead. A medical examiner ruled the death, a homicide. But who would murder

someone who seldom ventured out of her home?

Investigators found some clues in the note she had written shortly before her death.

The Ringgold, Georgia is a small rural town located at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Life is simple here.

The Main Street has only three traffic lights, and most of the town's 750 residents know or do business with each other. Alvin Ridley was a well-known figure in Ringgold. At one time,

he ran the town's only television repair shop. In 1966, he married 18-year-old Virginia Hickey, and almost immediately, Virginia cut off

all contact with her family.

Alvin said it was because her family was too intrusive.

Virginia's sister, Trixie LaCroixie, says Alvin forced Virginia to stay away from her family.

I sent them an invitation to every wedding, every death, every birthing in our family, to Noah

fell. Nothing was ever acknowledged, nothing. My father's death. My father went to his grave after making every effort possible to try to see his daughter.

Alvin Ridley had a reputation in Ringgold, and it wasn't a particularly good one. He was known for filing lawsuits against anyone he felt had wronged him, and in the

process, he had made a lot of enemies. He's always accusing. He's very suspicious. He trusts

no one, really. In 1984, after a minor traffic accident, he filed a series of legal actions and got hit

with a countersuit. He lost and had to forfeit his van as payment.

July of 1984, they seized my van without due process of law without a fair hearing.

And it, uh, somewhere in there, it turned all my customers and friends and suppliers and dealers and

creditors against me, and they wouldn't send me no more products, so it forced me out of best.

The loss of his van meant the failure of his television repair business,

which started a further downward spiral.

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