October True Crime: Murder in Coweta County (dir by Gary Nelson)

Posted on October 14, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1948, one of the richest men in Georgia committed a murder.

John Wallace was a landowner, back when that title actually meant something. He was known as the boss of Meriweather County. Everyone in the county seemed to work for Wallace in one way or another. He controlled the county officials. The sheriff enforced the law only as far as John Wallace would allow him. The bootleggers had to pay Wallace for protection. When one bootlegger, a sharecropper named Wilson Turner, failed to do so, he was fired and kicked off of Wallace’s land.

Turner retaliated by stealing two of Wallace’s cows.

Wallace responded by murdering Turner.

Because Turner attempted to flee and Wallace chased after him, Wallace committed the murder not in Meriweather County but in neighboring Coweta County. What Wallace didn’t realize was that this meant the investigation didn’t fall under the jurisdiction of his hand-picked sheriff. Instead, Sheriff Lamar Potts of Coweta County headed up the investigation. John Wallace was eventually arrested by Sheriff Potts and he was eventually convicted of murdering Wilson Turner. At the time, the case drew a lot of attention both because of Wallace’s wealth but also because two of the main witnesses for the prosecution were the two black men who Wallace forced to help him dispose of Wallace’s body.

It’s an interesting story, largely because the history of America is full of men like John Wallace, people who set up their own little dictatorships. It’s often portrayed as being a Southern phenomena but John Wallace really wasn’t that much different from the crude political bosses who, for decades, dominated politics in city like New York and Chicago, the type who held onto power through a combination of intimidation and patronage. In my home state of Texas, George Berham Parr inherited the political machine that controlled Duval and Jim Wells County. Parr committed numerous crimes during his time as the “Duke of Duval” but he had important friends. He was the one who “found” the votes necessary for Lyndon Johnson to win a senate seat in 1948. (In return, Johnson got Harry Truman to pardon Parr for failing to pay his taxes.) Parr is also suspected of having been involved in at least one murder but it wasn’t until LBJ himself retired from politics that anyone truly investigated Parr’s activities. In 1974, he was again convicted of failing to pay his taxes and Parr was later found dead at his ranch. Suicide was the official police ruling.

As for the story of John Wallace, it was turned into a made-for-TV movie in 1983. Murder in Coweta County stars Andy Griffith as John Wallace and Johnny Cash as Sheriff Potts. Griffith, playing a soulless villain, is chilling as John Wallace. Wallace is all-smiles and good ol’ boy charisma whenever there’s a crowd around but, once it’s just him and his cronies, a different side comes out. Wallace thinks that he can get away with murder because he’s been able to get away with everything else. Sheriff Potts is determined to see that justice is done. Murder in Coweta County is an atmospheric Southern crime story, one that is so full of atmosphere that you can feel the humidity. While Johnny Cash was definitely a better singer than an actor, Andy Griffith’s villainous turn makes the film worth watching.

14 Days of Paranoia #3: The Lincoln Conspiracy (dir by James L. Conway)

Posted on February 17, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When it comes to conspiracy theories involving presidential assassinations, the theories surrounding JFK may get all the attention but it’s the theories surrounding the death of Abraham Lincoln are usually far more plausible.

Unless, of course, it’s the theories that are pushed in the 1977 docudrama, The Lincoln Conspiracy.

A mix of documentary-style narration and really cheap-looking historical reenactments, The Lincoln Conspiracy essentially indicts almost everyone who was alive in 1865 as being a part of either the conspiracy or the subsequent cover-up. Really, it’s remarkable how many historical figures are implicated in this film.

With the Civil War coming to a close, President Lincoln (John Anderson) hopes to pursue a generous reconstruction policy for the former Confederate States. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Robert Middleton), Senator Ben Wade (Dick Callinan), and a host of other are all opposed to this plan, both because they want vengeance and they also want to make as much money as possible off of the Southern cotton fields. They come up with a plan to impeach Lincoln but, in order to draw up the articles, they have to make sure that Lincoln is not seen for a few days. When Col. Lafayette Baker (John Dehner) discovers that an actor named John Wilkes Booth (Bradford Dillman) is planning on kidnapping Lincoln, Stanton and his conspirators decide to give Booth their unofficial support. However, when the plan changes at the last minute and Stanton decides that it would actually be a bad idea to kidnap Lincoln, an angry Booth decides to just kill Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, and William Seward.

Booth succeeds in shooting Lincoln and making his escape. The other members of Booth’s group all fail in their assignments. Andrew Johnson becomes president. Though grievously wounded, William Seward survives. Booth flees to Canada and …. oh, you thought Booth died? No, that was just a look alike who was shot by a bizarre soldier named Boston Corbett. By allowing everyone to believe that Booth was killed, Stanton is able to cover up any role he and his allies played in inspiring the assassination. Unfortunately, Col. Baker keeps a diary and it seems like he might be planning on revealing the truth but he dies mysteriously before he can.

(And, to give the film some credit, Col. Baker’s sudden death at 41 was an odd one. And, though it’s not really explored in the film, Boston Corbett, the man who shoot Booth, really was a weirdo who was described by contemporaries as being a religious fanatic who castrated himself and claimed to hear the voice of God.)

It’s a big conspiracy theory that is presented in The Lincoln Conspiracy. In fact, it’s a bit too big to really be taken seriously. The film pretty much accuses everyone in Washington of having a part in the assassination. The film itself has the cheap look of a community theater production and the use of Dr. Samuel Mudd as a narrator only adds to the film’s silliness. If you’re a fan of gigantic and thoroughly implausible conspiracy theories, as I am, the film is entertaining in its way. If nothing else, Bradford Dillman certainly looks like how most people probably imagine John Wilkes Booth to have looked. Otherwise, The Lincoln Conspiracy is far-fetched and not at all realistic, which is why I assume that a lot of people in 1977 probably believed every word of it.

Previous entries in 2025’s 14 Days Of Paranoia:

Italian Horror Spotlight: Cannibal Apocalypse (dir by Antonio Margheriti)

Posted on October 4, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1980 film Cannibal Apocalypse begins in Vietnam.

Sgt. Norman Hopper (John Saxon) leads his troops into a Vietnamese village. A dog approaches. One of the soldiers starts to pet it.

“Watch it, asshole!” Hopper shouts.

Too late. The dog explodes and takes the soldier with him. That’s just the first of many explosive events in the film. Minutes after the dog blows up, Hopper discovers two American soldiers being held prisoner in an underground cage. One of them is named Charles Bukowski (yes, I know) and he’s played by the great Italian actor, Giovanni Lombardo Radice. The other one is named Tommy (Tony King).

“Hey,” Hopper says, “I know these guys! They’re from my hometown!” He reaches down to help them out of the cage. Charlie and Tommy promptly take a bite out of his arm….

Suddenly, Norman Hopper wakes up in bed, next to his wife. He’s been having another nightmare. In the years since returning from Vietnam, Hopper has married, started a family, and bought a nice house in Atlanta. He seems to have his life together but he’s still haunted by what happened that day in Vietnam.

Charlie and Tommy are also still haunted. Unlike Hopper, they haven’t been able to get their lives together. Charlie’s a drifter and, when he shows up in Atlanta and calls Hopper at his home, Hopper isn’t particularly happy to hear from him. After talking to Hopper, Charlie goes to a movie where he watches a couple make out in front of him. Soon, Charlie is trying to eat the couple while panicked movie lovers flee the theater. (“What type of cinema is this!?” one man cries out.)

Forced to eat human flesh while being held prisoner, Charlie and Tommy are both cannibals today. However, as the film makes clear, cannibalism travels like a virus. Anyone who gets bitten by Charlie and Tommy becomes a cannibal themselves. That includes Hopper. For years, Hopper has managed to resist the craving but, as soon as he gets that call from Bukowski, he finds himself tempted to take a bite out of his flirtatious neighbor.

With the authorities determined to eradicate not only the cannibalism plague but also those infected, Hopper finds himself forced to go on the run with Charlie, Tommy, and an infected doctor (Elizabeth Turner). Eventually, everyone ends up in the sewers of Atlanta where people are set on fire, one unfortunate is literally chopped in half by a shotgun blast, and the rats turn out to be just as hungry as the humans….

And here’s the thing. You’re probably thinking that this sounds like a really bad movie but it’s actually kind of brilliant. I may love Italian horror but, for the most part, I’m not a fan of cannibal movies. But, thanks to the performances and the energetic direction of Antonio Margheriti, Cannibal Apocalypse transcends the limits of the cannibal genre. Obviously, gorehounds will find what they’re looking for with this movie but far more interesting is Cannibal Apocalypse‘s suggestion that war (represented by the cannibalism that Hopper, Tommy, and Bukowski bring back from Vietnam) is an infectious virus. Once someone gets bitten, it doesn’t matter who they are or what type of life that they’ve led. The infection cannot be escaped.

In an interview that John Saxon gave for the film’s DVD release, Saxon said that making this film actually left him feeling suicidal. It wasn’t just the fact that the film itself presents a rather dark view of humanity. It’s because it upset him to know that there was an audience that was as rabid for violence as Norman Hopper is for human flesh. Saxon said that he had never seen the film and, in the interview, he had to be reminded what happened to Norman Hopper at the end of the film. It’s a bit of a shame because Saxon gives a brilliant performance as Norman Hopper. Saxon plays Hopper as being a sad man, a man who knows that he can’t escape his fate as much as he wants to. There’s a tragic dignity to Saxon’s performance, one that gives this cannibal film unexpected depth.

Also giving great performances are Giovanni Lombardo Radice and Tony King. As played by Radice, Charlie is a living casualty of war, a man who served his country and came home to be forgotten. You understand Charlie’s anger and his resentment. (When Bukowski finds himself in a stand-off with the police, one the cops explains away Bukowski’s actions by dismissively saying, “He’s a Vietnam vet,” a line of dialogue that not only explains Charlie’s anger at America but also calls out America for not taking care of its veterans,) Meanwhile, Tony King gets one of the best scenes in the film when, seeing Hopper for the first time in years, he grins at him and yells, “Remember these choppers!?”

As strange as it may seem to say about a film called Cannibal Apocalypse, this is a film that will bring tears to your eyes. It’s one of the classics of Italian horror.

A Movie A Day #204: Tank (1984, directed by Marvin Chomsky)

Posted on July 31, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

If you had just moved to a small town in Georgia and your teenage son was framed for marijuana possession and sentenced to years of hard labor, what would you do?

Would you hire a good lawyer and file appeal after appeal?

Would you go to the media and let them know that the corrupt sheriff and his evil deputy are running a prostitution ring and the only reason your son is in prison is because you dared to call them out on their corruption?

Or would you get in a World War II-era Sherman tank and drive it across Georgia, becoming a folk hero in the process?

If you are Sgt. Zack Carey (James Garner), you take the third option. Sgt. Carey is only a few months from retirement but he is willing to throw that all away to break his son (C. Thomas Howell) out of prison and expose the truth about Sheriff Buelton (G.D. Spradlin) and Deputy Euclid Baker (James Cromwell, playing a redneck). Helping Sgt. Carey out are a prostitute (Jenilee Harrison), Carey’s wife (Shirley Jones), and the citizens of Georgia, who lines the road to cheer the tank as it heads for the Georgia/Kentucky border. It’s just like the O.J. Bronco chase, with James Garner in the role of A.C. Cowlings.

The main thing that Tank has going for it is that tank. Who has not fantasized about driving across the country in a tank and blowing up police cars along the way? James Garner is cool, too, even if he is playing a role that would be better suited for someone like Burt Reynolds. Tank really is Smoky and the Bandit with a tank in the place of that trans am. Personally, I would rather have the trans am but Tank is still entertaining. Dumb but entertaining.

One final note, a piece of political trivia: According to the end credits, the governor of Georgia was played by Wallace Willkinson. At first, I assumed this was the same Wallace Wilkinson who later served as governor of Kentucky. It’ not. It turns out that two men shared the same name. It’s just a coincidence that one played a governor while the other actually became a governor.