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Criminal

The Reverend

Criminal

Vox Media Podcast Network

True Crime, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.738.4K Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2019

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1977, a man named Robert Burns went to a funeral and shot someone, in the head, in front of 300 people. He didn’t deny it, and his lawyer, Tom Radney, didn’t deny it. Burns told a police officer: “I had to do it. And if I had to do it over, I’d do it again.” The man he’d shot was Willie Maxwell, and everyone knew who Willie Maxwell was. 6 people who had been close to him had died in 7 years—including two wives, Mary Lou Edwards and Dorcas Anderson. We speak with Casey Cep and John Denson about Willie Maxwell, Robert Burns, and the events that brought Harper Lee to Alexander City, Alabama. Casey Cep’s book is The Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop. Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Support for this show comes from Krakan.

0:03.0

Krypto is like the financial system, but different.

0:07.0

It doesn't care where you come from, what you look like, your credit score,

0:11.0

or your outrageous food delivery habits.

0:13.7

crypto is finance for everyone everywhere all the time.

0:18.4

Krakhan, see what crypto can be.

0:21.3

Don't invest unless you're prepared to lose all the money you invest.

0:25.0

This is a high-risk investment and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong.

0:31.0

In small town life and in rural life one knows one's neighbors. Our life is slower there.

0:41.0

We simply entertain each other by talking.

0:45.0

It's quite a thing if you've never gone or if you've never known a southern small town.

0:52.0

This is Harper Lee.

0:54.0

Speaking to WQXR, a New York radio station in 1964.

1:00.0

The people there are not particularly worldly wise in any way, but they tell you a story every time you see one.

1:10.0

We are oral types. We talk.

1:17.5

Harperley was born in 1926 in Monroville, Alabama.

1:22.4

She's best known for her book to kill a mockingbird.

1:26.0

She submitted the completed manuscript to her publisher in 1959. Five days later,

1:32.0

she packed her things and moved to Garden City, Kansas, to research a crime

1:37.0

that had been making national headlines. The Clutters, a wealthy family of four, had been murdered.

1:45.0

She went with her childhood friend and next-door neighbor, author Truman Capote.

1:50.0

He'd invited her to be his research assistant.

...

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