Nearly 20 years after To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee was living out of the public eye, drinking and suffering from writer’s block. Then she came across the sensational case of a murderous preacher ...
Nobody dies at a funeral. The dead arrive that way, and the living are supposed to leave that way. But the Rev Willie Maxwell walked into a funeral that he never left. It was 18 June, 1977, and Maxwell, a rural preacher living just outside Alexander City, Alabama, was at the House of Hutchinson Funeral Home – not to conduct a service, but to attend one for his 16-year-old stepdaughter, who had been murdered the week before. It was a stifling day, and with only one storey in the funeral home, there was nowhere for the heat to rise. Ceiling fans shuffled air around the chapel, and ushers offered paper fans to each of the 300 mourners as they made their way to the pews. Up in front of them, Shirley Ann Ellington’s slight body rested in an open casket.
After some hymns and a eulogy extolling the teenager’s warmth and energy, the mourners came forward to say their goodbyes, including the preacher and his wife. She was so overwhelmed after looking into the casket that she had to sit down, so her husband led her back to their pew. Despite the tragic circumstances, the couple had attracted more stares than sympathy that day: many of those in attendance believed that, far from grieving for his stepdaughter, Maxwell had been the one who had murdered her. As the last few mourners filed up, one of Ellington’s siblings pointed at him and shouted loudly enough for everyone to hear: “You killed my sister and now you gonna pay for it!”
Continue reading...from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2GUPcyJ
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