61 - The Alday Family Murders

[00:00:04] At the intersection of true crime and real estate, you'll find Crime Estate. I'm Heather.

[00:00:09] And my name is Elena. As real estate agents and true crime junkies, we view crimes through

[00:00:14] a different lens. So walk through the door of some of the most notorious true crimes with

[00:00:18] us and discover how sometimes the scene of the crime has its own story to tell.

[00:00:26] Hey y'all, welcome back to another episode of Crime Estate. Today's episode is brought

[00:00:31] to you by my friend and real estate agent, Elena. Hey lady.

[00:00:34] Hey, how's it going?

[00:00:35] It's good. And of course we always have Mel here running the board and helping us all with

[00:00:41] behind the scenes research.

[00:00:43] Love to be with you. Y'all are one of my favorite parts of every week.

[00:00:48] Thank you.

[00:00:48] Isn't it so nice? I think we've mentioned to our listeners that we're all boy moms and we

[00:00:52] are surrounded by boys all the time. I think, not that I don't love you both, but I think

[00:00:55] that's part of why we all love this time so much is there's just a little more female energy.

[00:01:01] In the room than where you stand.

[00:01:02] I agree. And no, no judgment zone, I feel like.

[00:01:04] Oh yeah.

[00:01:05] Like we can say whatever and drink whatever and...

[00:01:07] Yeah.

[00:01:07] No judgment.

[00:01:08] And support each other.

[00:01:09] Yeah.

[00:01:10] Yeah. It's good to be in a supportive moment and it's also kind of nice to take some time

[00:01:15] 100% for ourselves in the week. I know that we're all busy working moms and kind of nice

[00:01:23] to have a couple hours where it's just fun for us.

[00:01:26] Mm-hmm.

[00:01:27] Agreed. Well, should we jump right into today's story?

[00:01:31] Sure.

[00:01:31] I mean, we'll be dropping this, what, right around Thanksgiving. So is it a Thanksgiving

[00:01:35] story or not really?

[00:01:36] It's not. If I had looked at the calendar, I could have planned better, but it's not Thanksgiving.

[00:01:40] Okay. Well, I mean, I guess it's good that there aren't a lot of murders happening over

[00:01:43] the Thanksgiving table.

[00:01:45] Well, there could be. I just don't know about them.

[00:01:47] Next year.

[00:01:48] Next year.

[00:01:48] We'll be better prepared next year.

[00:01:50] All right. Let's go for it.

[00:01:50] Okay. So today we're going to be talking about a deeply felt mass murder in rural Seminole

[00:01:55] County, Georgia. Let's go back to 1973, a few years before we were all born. Just a few

[00:02:00] years.

[00:02:01] I mean, speak for yourself.

[00:02:03] What year were you born?

[00:02:04] 81.

[00:02:05] I mean...

[00:02:07] If I have to use more than one hand to count it, it is more than a few.

[00:02:11] All right. All right. And like I mentioned before, we're in Seminole County, Georgia,

[00:02:15] and that's about nine miles outside of the town of Donaldsonville. So Heather, you may

[00:02:20] be able to speak better about this since you grew up in rural Kentucky, but there's no city

[00:02:23] identified in relation to this crime. There was information about the location in relation

[00:02:29] to Donaldsonville, but there was no like city listed. It was just nine miles outside of

[00:02:34] Donaldsonville in Seminole County.

[00:02:36] Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, growing up in Kentucky, you referenced your county more

[00:02:41] than your town.

[00:02:43] Why?

[00:02:43] I don't know if it's because the county was the bigger thing that people would know. So

[00:02:49] like I think about my parents, they grew up in Casey County, but there would have been like

[00:02:52] three little bitty towns that made up Casey County. So potentially somebody wouldn't have

[00:02:57] heard of one of those other little towns, but they would understand the county. And then

[00:03:02] I think also if you're talking about agricultural towns or parts of the country, you know, there's

[00:03:09] a lot of like county extension offices or things that people associate with the county in terms

[00:03:16] of that's who provides the support.

[00:03:18] Okay. That makes sense. It was kind of like, I don't know your maiden name is not Guild,

[00:03:23] but you're married. It's always like, oh, you know, the Guild property in Blank and Blank County.

[00:03:27] Okay. That makes sense.

[00:03:28] I mean, even for us. So like when I meet people from other places, I'll live in, I'll say, you know,

[00:03:35] I grew up in Houston and then they'll be like, oh, you know, we're in Houston. And then, you know,

[00:03:40] you kind of start narrowing it down and then I'm like, well, actually it was kind of a northeast

[00:03:44] suburb, but you know, but from somebody from out of the area, it's easier to give the biggest city

[00:03:51] or biggest town that would help them. I happened to look up the All Day family murders and I just

[00:03:59] laughed that the very, you know, one article on the 50th anniversary of these murders, it starts

[00:04:05] about 12 miles south of Blakely towards Cedar Springs and Spooner Quarter Road. Turn there and

[00:04:12] then it'll be a straight shot to the site. Yeah. Yeah. So finding that I'm like, what?

[00:04:16] Give me an address. Yeah. At this point in time, is there really an address? It's more turn left,

[00:04:23] turn right. And it is a straight shot. Right. I'm going to have to ask my mom about this from

[00:04:28] fact check perspective, but I remember when my grandparents got an address, like a postal address

[00:04:36] that was a named street. Oh. Because I don't know if they just, I mean, surely they had an address

[00:04:45] before that, but it wasn't like, it was almost like sending it to like the guild property. Like,

[00:04:51] oh, so like the postal workers knew, oh, she lives there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Jason, my husband,

[00:04:57] I mean, his street that he grew up on got a name when he was like in either like middle school or high

[00:05:03] school. It was, it was like a County road, such and such number, number kind of thing. And then

[00:05:09] when he was in high school, it was named after one of the families that had the most houses on his

[00:05:15] street. I always thought that he kind of got gypped because his family had like six houses, but

[00:05:19] apparently the other family had like eight houses on the street. So they got to have it be Christian

[00:05:25] Road. Well, there is a Baston Road in Casey County, Kentucky. That's my maiden name. Interestingly enough,

[00:05:32] it is not named after my side, my Baston. Apparently there were two sets of Bastons in Casey County.

[00:05:39] I feel like if we traced it somewhere, some far. It's all right. I still have a really good picture

[00:05:44] of the sign because why not? Yeah. Why? Yeah. But now you blast it across the nation

[00:05:49] on our podcast. That's not your Bastons. It's not my Bastons. All right. Well, we digress. I'm sorry.

[00:05:56] So we're in this rural town. We're in this rural town. We're in Seminole County in May of 1973.

[00:06:01] And it's here that Jerry Alday, 34, Ned Alday, 62, Jimmy Alday, 24, Chester Alday, 30,

[00:06:10] Aubrey Alday, 58, and Mary Alday, 25, were murdered by escaped prisoners from Maryland.

[00:06:16] So all six members of this family? Yes. That's interesting. Okay. I'm surprised it was escaped

[00:06:23] convicts because I would think it was a family feud of some sort. That would have been where my,

[00:06:27] immediately where my mind went. Okay. And from Maryland because Seminole County, Georgia,

[00:06:33] not to be confused with Seminole County, Florida, which is quite far away as I looked up on Google.

[00:06:39] And Seminole County, Georgia is in, is literally the like Southwest County of Georgia. It is the only

[00:06:47] county in Georgia that borders both Florida and Alabama. And it's about an hour and a half north,

[00:06:56] or kind of like Northwest-ish from Tallahassee. So if you're picturing it.

[00:07:01] So nowhere near Maryland.

[00:07:02] Oh, no. Okay. And nowhere near like a big town. Like, you know, if I'm saying the biggest town is

[00:07:08] Tallahassee an hour and a half away, just to give you, you know, kind of an idea that,

[00:07:12] I don't know where we're going with the story, but it seems like very random.

[00:07:15] Mm-hmm.

[00:07:16] Question for you. If you were on the run from the law in 1973, because that's a different world,

[00:07:23] would you go to a little town or a big town? Where do you think you get lost easier?

[00:07:27] Big town.

[00:07:28] Big town.

[00:07:28] Okay.

[00:07:29] Totally.

[00:07:30] Little town. Everyone knows everybody, you know, you can definitely hide out, you know,

[00:07:36] go down to Miami and hide out and look for work there. I think a lot easier than, you know,

[00:07:42] going somewhere random.

[00:07:43] I would think so.

[00:07:43] Okay.

[00:07:44] Yeah.

[00:07:44] So in March 1973, Carl Isaacs was arrested for stealing and sent to the Maryland State Penitentiary.

[00:07:51] Carl had spent the majority of his 19 years in and out of foster care and just,

[00:07:54] he really didn't seem to have a fair shake to start with.

[00:07:57] Within days of his arrival at the penitentiary, a riot broke out and he was sexually assaulted

[00:08:01] for eight hours by inmates.

[00:08:03] Oh my God.

[00:08:03] I know. But because of this, he was moved to Maryland's Poplar Hill Correctional Institute.

[00:08:08] When he got there, he was reunited with his half-brother, 26-year-old Wayne Coleman, who

[00:08:13] was also locked up for stealing. Soon after arriving, Carl hatched an escape plan. Wayne

[00:08:17] agreed to go along with the plan as long as his friend, George Dungy, could come along

[00:08:22] too. George was 36 and wore thick black-rimmed glasses. He was pretty unassuming and was serving

[00:08:28] time for failure to pay child support. Carl agreed to have George join them and the men

[00:08:33] set their plan in motion.

[00:08:35] You know, I mean, as much as I hate, I hate someone who is not paying child support, it

[00:08:43] is kind of random that he was in jail and he was with, you know, these two guys.

[00:08:49] Well, he's black. I don't know what that might have played into.

[00:08:53] Oh, maybe having a harsher punishment.

[00:08:57] Yeah.

[00:08:57] Then.

[00:08:58] Correct.

[00:08:58] I mean, just possibly.

[00:09:00] I mean, I know many a woman who would like to put their ex in jail for not paying child

[00:09:05] support, but it just seems odd that he's in a penitentiary.

[00:09:09] Yeah.

[00:09:09] I agree with all of that.

[00:09:11] So on May 5th, around 3 a.m., the three men escaped the minimum security prison through

[00:09:16] a bathroom window and hid in the woods that surrounded the campus.

[00:09:20] I mean, that's not really much of an escape plan. Like, we're just going to go out through

[00:09:23] the window.

[00:09:24] I know. That's why.

[00:09:25] Good first step.

[00:09:25] Yeah.

[00:09:27] Well, that's why I had to mention that it's a minimum security prison.

[00:09:30] So when the men emerged from hiding, they stole a car and drove to the Baltimore area

[00:09:34] where they stayed for a few days. Carl decided to pick up his younger brother, 15-year-old

[00:09:39] Billy Isaacs, before they left Maryland. Billy was thrilled to hit the road with his big

[00:09:43] brother and the four headed south with plans to live as free men in Florida or Mexico.

[00:09:49] Billy would later say that the four of them wanted to get to Florida so they could, quote,

[00:09:53] see the ocean. And that really hurt my heart thinking about it. And even though, as you're

[00:09:57] about to find out, they all commit a horrific, brutal crime and nothing excuses that. But

[00:10:02] thinking about the hope that they may have had kind of hurts my heart a little bit. And

[00:10:06] I wondered what y'all thought about that. Can you have hatred for someone or excuse me,

[00:10:10] can you have hatred for something that someone did but still feel sorrow for who they could

[00:10:15] have been? Absolutely. I mean, like you said, it sounds like at least the first person you

[00:10:21] talked about in this crime grew up in a really rough house, did not have good role models. And

[00:10:27] I think we all can think, well, what would have happened or who would he have turned out to

[00:10:33] be if his life circumstances had been different? That doesn't excuse what he's about to do,

[00:10:38] but it can make you just feel sorry for the circumstances he was in that put him there.

[00:10:42] Yeah. And then also, I think this is a whole other conversation about, you know, the criminal

[00:10:48] justice system. But you also have to think, like, if this guy, let's say his worst crime

[00:10:54] is just not paying child support, which is awful, but then he lands in jail with like these hardened

[00:10:59] criminals, does that make him more apt to commit other crimes? Right. I don't know.

[00:11:05] Yeah. I know. It's a whole thing. Yeah. But people study. Like, that's what they do. They

[00:11:10] study this. Right. We haven't studied it. No, we have not. We're just speaking off the cuff.

[00:11:13] It's been a really emotional week here. So, you know, we've got lots of things going on.

[00:11:17] So, the group leaves Maryland and by the time they reach Pennsylvania, they were in need of money,

[00:11:22] food, gas, and another car. In McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania, they chose a random home to steal

[00:11:27] a car from. Neighbor, 19-year-old Richard Wayne Miller confronted the men in an attempt to thwart

[00:11:33] the theft. Excuse me. Thwart the theft. The theft. The theft. The men then kidnapped Richard,

[00:11:39] took him to a secluded area, and murdered him, leaving his body atop a pile of trash tucked deep

[00:11:44] into the woods. He would not be found for a few days. That's awful. I know. Yeah. You could have

[00:11:48] just knocked him out. Right. I'm already feeling less sorry for these guys. I know. I mean,

[00:11:52] it was easy to ask if we were being sympathetic to them and their probably bad home lives before

[00:11:59] we started seeing what is literally a senseless killing. Yeah. Well, it's going to get a lot worse.

[00:12:04] Okay. So, here we are nine days after their easy escape from Maryland's Popular Correctional

[00:12:10] Institute, and the quartet finally found themselves in Florida. However, because they could not quickly

[00:12:15] find a secluded enough location to lay low and remembering a little town in Georgia that they

[00:12:19] passed through, they turned around and drove back to Donaldsonville. I'm feeling this was a stupid

[00:12:26] choice. I mean, I think there's a lot of places to lay low. I think going in, I mean, maybe I've

[00:12:32] thought about this too much, but going to a tourist town, better place to lay low because a tourist town,

[00:12:37] you're going to always have an influx of new people coming in and out a lot versus a small town where

[00:12:43] anybody new would be immediately an eyesore. Well, and I don't think these boys from Maryland have any

[00:12:49] idea what they're getting into walking into a house in South Georgia. You know, like, I'm just

[00:12:55] thinking about where I grew up in 1973. Somebody just walks in off the street. I mean, my grandpa

[00:13:00] could have pulled a gun from like any place he was standing. So, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So,

[00:13:06] Donaldsonville is a quiet and unassuming city, a place where they literally do not lock the doors.

[00:13:11] It is the county seat of Seminole County, Georgia, and is known for its large mouth,

[00:13:15] which is hard to say, large mouth bass fishing. Okay. At nearby Lake Seminole, the men look for

[00:13:20] a place to rob when they are again in need of money, food, and a new car. And seeing a gas tank at a

[00:13:25] secluded mobile home, roughly nine miles outside of Donaldson city limits, half brothers Carl and

[00:13:30] Wayne broke into the home while Billy and George stood watch. The all day family farm consisted of 550

[00:13:36] acres. In addition to farmland, the property held the family farmhouse where Ned and his wife lived

[00:13:41] in a mobile home that Jerry and his wife called home. While the exact address of the Ned all day

[00:13:46] family is undocumented, it is known to have been on River Run Road. River Run Road is a 12 and a half

[00:13:51] mile road that runs along the Chattahoochee River and Georgia's border with Florida. The homes on that

[00:13:57] stretch of land, like others during that time in Seminole County, would have been simple one-story

[00:14:01] structures. They would have been modest in size and they would typically feature front porches

[00:14:06] providing a shaded space to sit and relax after working the farm all day. The farmhouses would

[00:14:10] have had large kitchens and cellars for food storage and preservation and outbuildings that

[00:14:15] would house farming equipment. Sounds about right. It was around that time that Ernestine all day was

[00:14:22] fixing lunch for her husband, Ned, and their son, Jerry, and other family members who helped tend the

[00:14:26] farm. Their daily routine consisted of waking up before sunbreak to work the farm, have lunch or

[00:14:32] supper as they would call it in rural Georgia, and the family farm... I'm sorry, you just nodded your head.

[00:14:37] Yeah, supper is the... Supper?

[00:14:40] Dinner. So we had dinner at lunchtime and then supper at dinner.

[00:14:45] Okay, so you had breakfast, dinner, supper. And supper.

[00:14:48] I always heard that was a kind of a southern thing.

[00:14:51] Well, and think about like, did you ever grow up with the term Sunday dinner? Like that would have

[00:14:55] been after church, like lunchtime. Yeah, I mean like, I mean I say that in terms of like maybe

[00:15:03] Easter dinner or Thanksgiving dinner where we might have it at two or three.

[00:15:09] So Ernestine's the mom. Ernestine is the mom.

[00:15:12] And she's fixing lunch for everybody that works the farm.

[00:15:14] She's fixing lunch. So their routine consisted of waking up before sunbreak to work the farm. They

[00:15:19] had their supper at the family farmhouse and they would then head back out to finish the afternoon

[00:15:26] doing farm work and then they return again to the family home to have dinner.

[00:15:30] Sure. Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:15:32] Before heading back to the field to work after their supper, they were planting peanut crops that day.

[00:15:38] Jerry Alday and his dad Ned went back to the mobile home that he shared with his wife,

[00:15:42] about a quarter mile from the Ned Alday family farm to refuel his tractor.

[00:15:47] Shortly after, Ned and son Jerry pulled up. The father and son were forced inside at gunpoint.

[00:15:52] Unfortunately, it was Jerry's mobile home that the men had spotted to rob.

[00:15:57] Once inside, they were separated into rooms on opposite ends of the mobile home.

[00:16:01] Carl Isaacs then shot Jerry four times in the head.

[00:16:04] Wayne Coleman shot Ned in the head once, but not being a fatal shot, Ned was able to stand and fight

[00:16:10] Wayne, but was stopped when Carl came in and delivered four more shots, killing the elder Alday.

[00:16:16] Within minutes, Jimmy, Jerry's brother, arrived at the home. He had started to get worried when the men

[00:16:20] did not return to the farm to work. Jimmy was forced inside and told us sit on the couch.

[00:16:24] There, Carl shot him twice in the head. Ready to leave, Carl Isaacs went outside just as Mary Alday,

[00:16:30] Jerry's wife, was unloading groceries from her car trunk. Carl, having spotted her first,

[00:16:35] snuck up behind her, forced her at gunpoint into the home, and sat her at the kitchen table.

[00:16:40] It was then that Jerry's brother, Chester, and Uncle Aubrey pulled up. Presumably,

[00:16:44] the men were also worried that Ned, Jerry, and Jimmy were now missing and came to look for them.

[00:16:49] Carl went outside, met them at gunpoint, and also led them into the home.

[00:16:52] Chester was taken into the room where his dad, Ned's body, lay lifeless. There, he was shot and

[00:16:57] killed by Wayne Coleman. Uncle Aubrey was taken into the room where Jerry lay dead. There, he was

[00:17:03] shot and killed by Carl Isaacs. When their bodies were found, Uncle Aubrey's hand lay over his nephew,

[00:17:08] Jerry's hand. The only member of the Alday family who was not immediately shot and killed was Mary.

[00:17:12] Mary was raped in the kitchen by Carl, then taken to a nearby remote location where she was tortured,

[00:17:17] raped, sodomized, and shot in the back of the head twice. While six Aldays were killed that day,

[00:17:22] the locals say that the men actually killed seven. Great links were taken to shield Mary's mother as

[00:17:27] to what actually happened to her daughter. But the day after the funeral, she found out about

[00:17:31] the trauma she endured. Five days later, she too died.

[00:17:34] Oh my God. That's awful.

[00:17:37] I knew you were going to need a break here.

[00:17:39] Yeah, and now the way you're telling this story makes more sense to me because I was thinking,

[00:17:44] how do these guys walk into somebody's house in Southern Georgia, like I said, and get away with

[00:17:49] this? But people were walking up to them unaware. Right. And so they were just totally taken off

[00:17:56] guard. It wasn't somebody coming into their home while they were already there. Right. Yeah,

[00:18:00] they're out in the fields and I mean, that is horrific. Just picking them off one at a time.

[00:18:04] I mean, this is like as truly random as random can be. Like there's wasn't, they knew anyone there.

[00:18:12] It wasn't even really that much. I mean, it was a little bit of robbery, but not really robbery.

[00:18:17] I mean, they were like getting gas. I mean, this was them driving down to what seemed to be a remote

[00:18:23] place and they weren't even getting ability to like be in a fight. I mean, this was

[00:18:31] senseless. If he hadn't needed gas for the tractor, there's a good chance they would have gotten the gas

[00:18:35] left and nobody would have been the wiser. Yeah. It was just compounded. I mean, and this wasn't in the

[00:18:40] middle of the night. It was in the middle of the day. I mean, bizarre. Yeah. Yeah, totally.

[00:18:45] It reminded me a lot of In Cold Blood, the clutter. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:18:50] It was also a farm. They were targeted because they were, the men were told in prison that this

[00:18:54] family had a safe full of money. So they were targeted. It wasn't random, but it sounds very

[00:18:59] similar. Yeah, you're right. When no one showed back up to the Alde farmhouse for a catfish dinner,

[00:19:04] neighbors went to search for the family. That is when they found the horrific scene.

[00:19:08] The community was devastated. The Alde's were absolute pillars of the community.

[00:19:12] They were very involved with the organization of Future Farmers of America and served in the church.

[00:19:16] The community rallied around the remaining Alde's and especially supported Ernestine by continuing

[00:19:21] to harvest the 1973 crops. Now, which one was Ernestine? Ernestine's the mom. Okay. Then who?

[00:19:27] Ned's wife. Okay. And also she lost her husband, three sons, and her daughter-in-law. No,

[00:19:34] her husband, three sons. Wait, how many is that? She had a brother-in-law.

[00:19:37] And a brother-in-law. I can't remember if I counted her. And daughter-in-law. Yeah.

[00:19:40] There were so many family members. I mean, this was the second largest murder in Georgia history.

[00:19:48] Five days after the discovery, the four men were apprehended by police. They basically

[00:19:52] followed the trail of stolen cars to catch the killers. At the time of their arrest, they

[00:19:56] were in possession of the weapons used in the crime and items stolen from the Alde home.

[00:20:01] They were tried and convicted in 1974 in Seminole County. And all but 15-year-old Billy Isaacs

[00:20:07] was sentenced to death. Billy flipped, turned state's evidence, pled guilty to a much lesser

[00:20:12] charge of robbery, armed robbery, and testified against the other three. However, in 1986,

[00:20:17] those sentences were overthrown on the grounds that pre-trial publicity made it impossible for

[00:20:21] them to have gotten a fair trial. Following the second trials, only Carl Isaacs, who committed

[00:20:27] the majority of the murders, were sentenced to death. Thirty years after the murder in 2003,

[00:20:32] Carl was executed. At the time of the lethal injection, he was the longest-serving prisoner

[00:20:38] on death row in the nation. He did not request a last meal, instead opting for the meal that the inmates

[00:20:43] were eating that night. But when it was brought to him, he refused to eat. Billy Isaacs was released

[00:20:48] from prison in 1993 and died in Florida in 2009. George Dungy remained in prison until his death in 2006,

[00:20:56] making Wayne Coleman the sole survivor, and he remains in prison to this day.

[00:21:01] In Florida?

[00:21:02] Georgia.

[00:21:03] Oh, yeah.

[00:21:04] Yeah. Oh, Billy, because Billy finally made it to Florida, I guess.

[00:21:08] Yeah.

[00:21:09] Billy was the 15-year-old younger brother that just got picked up and went along for the ride.

[00:21:14] Yeah.

[00:21:15] Okay.

[00:21:16] You wonder about that family. Yeah, I was reading about how

[00:21:21] George Dungy had pled guilty, but because he was mentally disabled, and at least that's the quote-unquote,

[00:21:28] he was only given the life sentence.

[00:21:32] Yeah. I mean, they're horrible people, and they never expressed remorse.

[00:21:40] Carl never expressed remorse. He, up until, he, like, laughed. There was reports of him laughing

[00:21:44] at the trial, and when the charges were presented, he was grinning, and he just said some horrible

[00:21:49] things.

[00:21:50] He was the one that when he first went into prison, he was attacked and raped.

[00:21:55] Mm-hmm.

[00:21:56] Okay.

[00:21:56] Yeah.

[00:21:56] I wonder if that just broke something in him.

[00:21:58] Could be. Because they were all in prison for child support and robbery.

[00:22:03] Yeah.

[00:22:03] Stealing.

[00:22:04] Nothing violent.

[00:22:05] Yeah, nothing violent. And then there was the guy in Pennsylvania, and then it just...

[00:22:09] Snowballed.

[00:22:10] Can I take this minute, because it just jumped into my head like things do sometimes. We had

[00:22:15] an episode a couple weeks ago where we were very confused. No, I was very confused about

[00:22:20] five years to life. You remember this conversation?

[00:22:24] Only, I actually more remember it because we've talked about it like three times since then.

[00:22:29] Well, when I re-listened, I was like, well, I sounded real dumb there. But can we just go

[00:22:34] on record as saying that we did figure out the answer?

[00:22:38] Yes.

[00:22:39] And it is. After five years, you are eligible for a parole hearing. I think my husband said

[00:22:46] it's called an indeterminate sentence. Something like that.

[00:22:49] You're totally fine.

[00:22:50] Yeah. So we were right. That's what we guessed.

[00:22:54] We didn't have the proper words.

[00:22:55] We didn't, and it took us a while to get there.

[00:22:57] But here we are.

[00:22:58] Here we are. Bringing it up again three months later.

[00:23:01] Yes.

[00:23:02] All right. So one of them's still in prison.

[00:23:04] One of them's still in prison.

[00:23:05] Yep.

[00:23:07] Okay. So like I said, I could not find the exact address of the home, but I was able

[00:23:12] to kind of piece together what happened with the 550 acres. It's really interesting. So

[00:23:17] because of Billy's testimony, they were able to determine the order of death for the family.

[00:23:22] Ned was the dad and he died first, and he had left the majority of his land to his son,

[00:23:26] Jerry, and his will. But because Jerry also died that day, his share would have gone to his wife,

[00:23:32] Mary. But because Mary was also brutally killed that day, her heirs would inherit the land.

[00:23:36] So Jerry and Mary had no children. So the bulk of Ned Alday's land went to Mary's parents. Also,

[00:23:44] a small piece had been deeded to Chester, who also died that day. So that became the property of his

[00:23:48] wife, Barbara. So finally, another small piece of land was sold off and given to Ernestine Alday

[00:23:54] for her home.

[00:23:55] That's fascinating that they went through who died first.

[00:24:00] I would not have even...

[00:24:02] Wow. That is interesting.

[00:24:05] And what would you do if you didn't know that?

[00:24:09] I don't know.

[00:24:11] Well, in three more months, I'll come back. I'll have an answer.

[00:24:15] John.

[00:24:16] Yeah. I don't... That's fascinating.

[00:24:19] Well, and one of the things I read was that because of, you know, there was no one left to

[00:24:25] work the land. This was a working farm. This wasn't a...

[00:24:29] They were hardworking.

[00:24:29] Yeah. This was not a gentleman's ranch. This was a working farm. And so they had to sell

[00:24:34] it off. And the broader Alday family just thought that was the final casualty of the whole scenario.

[00:24:43] Well, and I'm thinking about poor Ernestine. I mean, she's lost her whole family and now

[00:24:47] she's worried about losing her home too. I mean, that's awful. They could have leased out

[00:24:53] the land, I guess, and had somebody else like do like sharecropping or something like that. But

[00:24:59] I mean, that's the ultimate insult not to be in charge of what's happening to your family home.

[00:25:04] Right. Yeah. I think that was tough for the family. And then also because Carl sat on death

[00:25:11] row for 30 years, they didn't have a lot of closure. And I'm sure this... So this family

[00:25:15] went back generations in this area. Like they were there for generations. They're still all days in the

[00:25:22] area now. And everyone knows about this story over there. But so presumably people have died not knowing

[00:25:28] that this person ever served the sentence that he was given. Like he was to serve... He was to die

[00:25:33] in there. And after appeal, after appeal, it just ended up taking 30 years. I can't remember if I

[00:25:37] mentioned it, but he was the longest serving... I think I did mention that. The longest serving

[00:25:41] person on death row. Well, I would like to tell some interesting... Please. Like something really

[00:25:45] cool about the family. So Paige Barber. Did you read about Paige Barber? Yes. Yeah. So she is the

[00:25:50] granddaughter of Ned Allday. And she is the spokesman to this day for the Allday family. And she

[00:25:57] successfully lobbied in passing the Allday family bill in 2003, which makes it mandatory for state

[00:26:04] officials to contact the victims of death penalty cases twice a year. Because before that, it was

[00:26:11] really difficult for any of these crime victim families to really even get any information about

[00:26:16] new development in the case or the appeals. Or like when you have somebody who's on death row for like

[00:26:22] 30 years, you want to know what's going on. When's it going to happen? Is it going to happen?

[00:26:27] Et cetera. Just to spread the awareness. But because of her family's history, she got really

[00:26:34] involved. She became a probation officer. Then she started working in the legal system

[00:26:40] in cognitive behavioral programs. And she's been just an out-speaking advocate for victims' rights,

[00:26:47] but also criminal justice reforms. She even started a program in Georgia, which allows victims of

[00:26:55] violent crimes to have safe one-on-one meetings with the individual who committed to the crime to

[00:27:00] ask him questions. Because she was able to sit down and actually discuss the murders of her family

[00:27:07] with Wayne Coleman, who's the one that is still alive to the day. And as his story unfolded,

[00:27:14] she saw many times in his history, which gets back to what you were talking about, Elaine, at the very

[00:27:18] beginning about how, you know, I mean, not at all to, I mean, nothing's justified, but, you know,

[00:27:25] he had a really bad background. And that maybe there were as many times that he could have received

[00:27:29] treatment. The other men could see treatment and it just never would have ended up this way. But anyway,

[00:27:35] she actually has a river road CCS, which was created to honor the memory of the family and to help

[00:27:44] clients who struggle with substance use disorder and how that can impact them. So I just thought

[00:27:50] that was so powerful woman for her. And one great quote from her to finalize is she wrote,

[00:27:56] if someone had helped those who killed my family, maybe the all days would be still alive today.

[00:28:01] As my grandmother Ernestine all day said, so many young lives wasted.

[00:28:07] Oh, that's good.

[00:28:08] That's really good.

[00:28:09] Yeah. So I don't have the address, so I can't say, you know, what you normally say,

[00:28:13] but so I guess, would you live on the, would you build on the land? Like if they parceled it out,

[00:28:17] would you build on the land?

[00:28:19] Yeah.

[00:28:21] I mean, yeah, I'm more apt if I was using it for some sort of, you know, like reason to have land,

[00:28:29] farming. It's a lot of deaths in one place. A lot of deaths in one place.

[00:28:35] Yeah.

[00:28:36] I don't think I would only because of what it seems like that property means of the community.

[00:28:42] I don't respect for the community. I don't think I would not, but I don't think because of the

[00:28:46] murders, I think. It's a lot of land. 550 acres.

[00:28:49] Yeah.

[00:28:50] I could find a pocket somewhere.

[00:28:51] Yeah. And, you know, you said that the town rallied around them and helped her harvest the

[00:28:56] crops. And I just, that sort of gave me chills when you said it. Talk about a great community

[00:29:01] and knowing that your neighbors love you. Like that's such a beautiful thing to do.

[00:29:05] Yeah. Yeah. But so thank you for letting me tell the story. And if anyone in the area is listening,

[00:29:10] I hope that we did the story justice and it's fun. It was a good story to tell.

[00:29:15] Yeah. And maybe hug your loved ones this Thanksgiving, you know, give them an extra little hug.

[00:29:20] Mm-hmm. If you are ready to do a little bit of Black Friday shopping after your holidays,

[00:29:26] go check out all of the good wish lists we have at crimeestate.com slash shop. We've had a lot of

[00:29:32] fun putting these together. We even asked our kids, like, what would you put on here?

[00:29:35] Yes. I'm afraid that they think it was a ruse and they're like, oh, I'm getting everything.

[00:29:39] I tell my mom. They think it's like.

[00:29:41] Yeah. We keep telling them that's not it.

[00:29:43] I don't. I would think that if my parents are asking me.

[00:29:46] Oh, yeah. Well, it's not. If you all want to shop for things other than things for our children,

[00:29:53] go check it out. And we'll see you all next week. Of course, if you love the show,

[00:29:57] we hope you'll like, subscribe, leave us a five-star review, and even more importantly,

[00:30:00] tell your friends. Bye.

[00:30:02] Bye.

[00:30:04] Hey, y'all. Thanks for listening and being a part of our Crime Estate family.

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