Creator Joshua Sharpe grew up in Camden County. (Picture by Max Blau)
On the night of March 11, 1985, pictures rang out inside Rising Daughter Baptist Church in Camden County, Georgia. When police arrived on the scene, they discovered 66-year-old church deacon Harold Swain and his 63-year-old spouse, Thelma, useless on the ground of the predominantly Black church’s entryway. Although a dozen witnesses have been current on the taking pictures, it will be over a decade earlier than an arrest was made and even longer earlier than the person now believed to be the killer was found.
Former Atlanta Journal-Structure crime reporter Joshua Sharpe’s The Man No One Believed: The Untold Story of the Georgia Church Murders (W. W. Norton) follows the winding path to justice for the Swains, together with a wrongful conviction and subsequent efforts to free the harmless man and uncover the true killer. Half true crime, half cold-case investigation and half exoneration narrative, it’s an empathetic, engrossing and tightly researched account that always disregards the larger image.
Sharpe’s narrative principally follows chronological order, outlining every investigator’s reasoning and blind spots as they interpret the proof. This method helps keep away from the sensationalism and narrative manipulation which are typically hallmarks of the true crime style. Nonetheless, it additionally scatters the narrative focus, making it tough at instances to maintain observe of the gamers and motion, and it breaks up discussions of the problems that affected the case — corruption, racism, greed, skilled conceitedness — earlier than they totally develop.
The textual content makes an effort to keep up a tone of journalistic neutrality all through the guide whereas noting the oversights, errors and biases of the officers concerned within the case. However Sharpe doesn’t focus on methods to carry these concerned accountable both for his or her half within the botched investigation or in future circumstances, regardless of claiming a want to carry energy to account. Nor does he straight focus on what they imply, why they matter or how they hook up with broader developments and norms. He additionally spends little or no time contemplating wrongful conviction and exoneration exterior of the Swain case — a shock, given the guide’s title. The authorial perspective typically feels muddled and cagey, as Sharpe skirts the sting of argument with out fairly getting into that territory. The result’s a story heavy on subtext however lacking a transparent thesis concerning the techniques that knowledgeable the response to the case.
This isn’t a difficulty in relation to the guide’s Camden County setting and other people. Sharpe, a Waycross native who grew up lower than an hour from Rising Daughter, reveals a definite familiarity with and appreciation for the area and inhabitants, giving crisp, intimate descriptions of each whereas usually avoiding sentimentality or moralizing. Sharpe’s consideration to the Swains is especially sturdy. He consists of loads of particulars about their historical past and anecdotes about their household and group life that set up the depth of their loss. He’s additionally good at placing readers within the footwear of investigators and suspects alike, presenting clear-eyed portrayals of sometimes-unsavory folks with out condemning them outright. His South Georgia setting will get the identical remedy. “In case you have been simply passing by way of, you may suppose Camden County was a forgotten nook of heaven,” he writes. “However in case you stayed there lengthy sufficient, you’d discover rot on the roots.”
That rot, Sharpe suggests, reveals within the “good outdated boy community” behind the area’s greatest firms and the Camden County Sheriff’s Workplace. Within the Seventies and ’80s, Camden County was a part of South Georgia’s so-called “Cocaine Lane,” and Invoice Smith, the division’s brash, larger-than-life sheriff, “invented a brand new option to make his county’s pushers work for him” by profiting from a Reagan-era legislation that allowed police departments to spend seized drug property.
With Smith in cost, the Sheriff’s Division was plagued with corruption rumors, and Sharpe implies that the Division had little incentive to finish the regular stream of medication and cash by way of the area, informing the circumstances that led to the murders and their aftermath. That is believable primarily based on the details as Sharpe lays them out, however he fails to adequately comply with by way of, elevating readers’ suspicions with out addressing them.
For instance, Sharpe mentions proof that Dale Bundy, the chilly case investigator Smith ultimately assigned to the Swain case, latched on to the primary potential suspect he got here throughout in his investigation and ignored various potentialities. However Sharpe doesn’t describe this proof or how this method in comparison with norms inside the Sheriff’s Division or elsewhere. He additionally notes that the investigator was a detailed pal of Smith’s however doesn’t focus on how which may have affected his remedy of the investigation.
Discussions of racism’s affect on the case additionally undergo from this lack of follow-through. The guide’s very long time span — starting within the Nineteen Eighties and ending within the 2020s — lends itself to exploration of 40 years of fixing attitudes towards policing and race relations. Early on, Sharpe summarizes the historical past of racial politics in Camden County and states that racial animus and White ignorance seemingly impacted the case. He peppers proof of racism and privilege all through the remainder of the narrative. Nonetheless, he neglects deeper exploration of the methods these components may need impacted the case or modified through the years, and he by no means brings up systemic racism as an element. This miss feels egregious, given the difficulty’s persevering with dominance within the nationwide dialog and the evolving concepts about racial justice over the many years because the murders.
With no thesis or sturdy sense of perspective to offer the narrative broader significance and assist readers perceive the larger image, it’s straightforward to shut this guide feeling like an skilled on the Swain case however having no deeper understanding of the bigger points at play. Nonetheless, The Man No One Believed, populated with distinct characters and sufficient twists and turns to maintain readers guessing, is well worth the learn.
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Rachel Wright has a Ph.D. from Georgia State College and an MA from the College Faculty Dublin, each in artistic writing. Her work has appeared in The Stinging Fly and elsewhere. She is at the moment at work on a novel.
