God'll Cut You Down (40 page)

The Confederate soldier that greets every black person on his or her way to Rankin County courthouse, presumably including Chokwe Lumumba (above right), one of the killer’s elusive lawyers, who I finally caught at the Martin Luther King Day festivities. Plenty of Secret Society black folk at the festival, too, much to the annoyance of Earnest McBride.

Mississippi portraits. Eddie Sandifer (top left), the gay civil rights activist who saw Richard in action in the 1960s. James Drew (top right), who says he watched from his cell as Richard slipped jail with suspicious ease. Investigators Tim Lawless and Wayne Humphreys (middle), who first questioned Vincent McGee. And Curtis Rumfelt (below), who grew up on Richard’s street and found him to be a creepy houseguest as a boy.

Facing a back street, Mississippi’s State Capitol building is petulantly turned away from Washington, in a sulk after losing the Civil War. Inside (above right), Representative John Moore distanced himself from Richard, despite having been named in the dead man’s will.

Exhibit A: The knife Vincent says Richard threatened him with, in the woods where he threw it the night of the killing. Exhibit B: The photo of Vincent his defense lawyer Mike Scott told me was taken by Richard.

My encounters with Vincent started with a glimpse of him in court as he delivered his plea. It got stranger from there.

Thank you to Madeleine Parry for research assistance, photography, and general Harper Lee–ing in Mississippi; Earnest McBride for helping far more than reflected in the book; staff at Mississippi Department of Archives and History; all Mississippians in the book, and others who graciously gave their time and expertise; Lally Katz for Melbourne-based Harper Lee–ing; Team
Race Relations
from Princess Pictures and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation; Kevin Whyte, Georgie Ogilvy, and Token for care and haggling; Ben Ball and Penguin; and Laura Perciasepe and Riverhead.

I have changed the names of Richard’s sister and Vincent’s “white” girlfriend and her mother. Jim Giles’s address has also been changed so you can’t easily take him up on his offer to fight. I have also made minor edits to documents for grammar and clarity. A version of this book was published as
Murder in Mississippi
in Australia.

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