Some crimes are so heartbreaking or shocking that they change laws, change society, or even

earn the label, Crime of the Century.

But the stories that made headlines in decades past aren't necessarily remembered today.

I'm Amber Hunt, a journalist, an author, and in each episode of this show,

I'll examine a case that's maybe lesser known today, but was huge when it happened.

This is Crimes of the Centuries.

Thank you. This is Crimes of the Centuries. John Wallace's mother was a Strickland.

Now, this might not mean a darn thing to you, but it meant everything

to the folks of Meriwether County, Georgia in the first part of the 20th century. The Stricklands

owned 2,000 acres of hilly Georgia terrain on which they raised dairy cattle and grew cotton and

corn. The cotton was a solid cash crop.

The corn was good for making whiskey.

The dairy cattle were a fine cover for the moonshine distribution system they had working.

Milk jugs don't always have to carry milk that stretched all the way to New York and Chicago.

The Strickland's massive farm had been known as the Kingdom. that stretched all the way to New York and Chicago.

The Strickland's massive farm had been known as the kingdom for 150 years, and it mattered a great deal who was king.

Old man John Strickland, the most violent ever OG, died in a gun battle in 1932.

It was his choice, I guess, because he chose to pull his two fancy mother-of-pearl handled revolvers from his holster instead of sticking up his

hands when asked by the internal revenue men who had been staking out one of his most productive

stills.

Among the IRS men that day, and the one most likely to have killed the old man,

was the legendary G-man and ace tracker of the backwoods of Georgia, a man named Elsie Hancock.

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