Talked to. Come in and order. Today. And a small town life in. One. Life . Is. Quite a go on my. Town. This is Harper Lee. Q x r a New York radio station 164. There are no. Worldly way anyway but. We're. Told. Harper Lee was born in 126. She's known for her book To Kill a Mockingbird. She submitted a completed manuscript her publisher in 19595 days later she packed and moved to Garden City Kansas to research a crime national headline. Had been murdered she was with her childhood friend. Truman Capote. To learn how to tell a true crime story. She later told a reporter the crime. Intrigued with crime. I wanted to. Go to the New York Public Library. During their 1st few reporting. Incredible reporter. In the New Yorker. In. Probably 6 years researching the book and her role was widely known to the people in Kansas the Truman Capote never acknowledged that she helped report or tell the story. Some people have speculated that he didn't give her credit because he was. To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee She won both the National Book Award and the surprise. In 1964. In 1997 people in Alexander City Alabama begin to see Harper leave around their town. A man named Robert Burns had gone to a funeral and shot someone in the head in the middle of the day in front of 300 people he didn't deny and his lawyer didn't deny. And Harper Lee thought it might be time to write her own true crime book. I'm Phoebe judge this is criminal. Robert Byrd was on trial for the murder of Willie Maxwell both men were middle aged both were African-American newspapers reported that on his way to jail Robert Burns told the police officer I had to do it and if I had to do it over I do it again. His defense attorney was a man named Tom Bradley. In his opening statement Tom Bradley told the jury. He killed them and he shot him 3 times and we admit he died as a result of the gunshot wounds that Robert Louis Burns put in. It's basically a prosecutor's dream he just admits to everything and says you know we're not going to dispute any of these facts but we're going to try and contextualize I mean we're going to give you a reason and of course you know that is a bold strategy. Willie Maxwell was a well known minister most people called him Reverend Maxwell and by the time he was killed in 1977 everyone knew who he was as one local paper reported the attraction of the case is expected to be generated more by Reverend Maxwell's life than by his death 6 people who have been close to him have died in 7 years most of them family members. In each case there were rumors that Reverend Maxwell had been involved with the police could never prove that people were afraid of him he was born in Cusa County Alabama in 1925 he was drafted into the Army during World War 2 where he became a sergeant when he returned from the war in 1947 segregation limited his access to jobs that paid well he works several jobs at once in the timber industry at a rock quarry and in the same textile factory that manufactured the uniforms that he'd worn in the Army. He married. The. Happy. So the beginning of. What happened. What had looked from the outside of the car. Because he'd. Told police. Quickly. That the marriage was happy had led folks to believe police went to speak with. Fact. She had probably been visiting that sister said. That she thought. That probably her sister. In the weeks after Mary Lou Maxwell's death Willie next well began to write letters to life insurance companies asking for his checks there was a kind of technical legal dispute over whether or not homicide constituted accidental death because he held all of these accidental death policies on his wife which again at the start of things isn't you know isn't odd in any respect obviously many of us insure our spouses and it's considered good family planning to make sure that you know if you were to die that your family would be provided for but in the case of the reverend there are actually a large number of policies and some of them had been taken out not long before his wife's murder Willie Maxwell's trial for the murder of Mary Lou Maxwell began and ended on the same day he hired a lawyer named Tom Bradley to defend him the neighbor Dorcas Anderson was slated to be the star witness because she was the last person to see Mary Lou alive the prosecution expected her to repeat what she told police but when she took the stand she told a different story. She testified that there was no way Willie Maxwell could have committed the murder. Later when Dorcas Anderson was called to testify in one of Willie Maxwell's civil lawsuits against a life insurance company she introduced herself as Dorcas Maxwell and I told her to where I told the jury before opening statement that. You're going to have a preacher here and I don't let that affect your ability to find him guilty of murder because he was preaching on Sunday and killing on Monday this is John Denson . He represented in insurance company in one of Willie Maxwell's civil lawsuits his job was to prove that if it really killed Mary Lou the life insurance policies he taken out on her would be invalid so I put her all and I told her to tell the jury her name and she said I'm Mrs Maxwell. And I said Ms Lamson you've changed your name and she said Yes I said well when do you who are you married to she said I'm married to the reverend. Robert Maxwell when was that she told me the date I said What happened your husband well he died suddenly and. I said well are will you tell the jury what you saw on the night of so and so and she said no I refused to testify against my husband so. That was my case and I had no witness really to refute his testimony so it was under spirited testimony for the jury that he was not at the scene of the of the murder between when Mary Lou Maxwell had been found murdered and the reference trial for her murder Dorcas Anderson's husband had died under way some folks in the area felt were suspicious circumstances and after his death she then married the Reverend Dorcas Anderson's husband had last his doctors thought he had years to live but in May have 971 he suddenly died no autopsy was performed the cause of death was listed as pneumonia you know there was there was a tremendous amount of gossip about how the Reverend had gotten away with all this and how he had made so much money the folks around Lake Martin really start to talk about the Reverend and they no longer think that he is just you know hardworking mill worker or a gifted preacher they start to wonder if he's not a voodoo practitioner this is specious death continue it. In February 1982 when the Maxwells brother was found dead attorney John Denson so his brother John Columbus Maxwell was found. Unconscious highly intoxicated condition of point 41 which is deadly I mean point 08 is this the level and people said there's no way the man could have drunk that much by himself he would have passed out so that the suspicion was that he had been forced the whisky had been forced down on him in me if that year dorkus the interest and really Maxwell had a child and then in September Dorcas Sanderson was found dead. She was found in her car on the side of the road just. Found. Her car was found abandoned on the side of a road in what seemed to be a stage car accident the external damage to the car didn't. Explain the contents of the car which was her body. In a kind of unnatural position and the police once again felt certain had been staged . To prove that any crime had occurred. Then. She collected. By 920. That you would have. You know he would. That that person. He had made. $3000.00. When these. Companies started to realize what was happening. And what happened what happens today in the event that you know you have a policy with. They try to stop payment you have to take that insurance company to court and that is what Tom. Behalf and you know again he did it for the $1000.00 for the $20000.00. These cases went before a jury you know the matter at hand was not only whether the policy was a political or enforceable but also to some extent whether some of these. Applied and just how much money the reverend was going to get because as far as the insurance companies were concerned dollars and as far as the reverend was concerned he was you know the face value of any of them so he succeeded most of the time in getting at least half of the face value of the policies and you know that happened death after death and you know a lot of people around. Were not only apprehensive of the. They were apprehensive of his lawyer and. So lucrative was the business of representing the Reverend Maxwell that when Tom Bradley had built a new law office folks around like Barton called it the Maxwell House and you know is really one of Tom Bradley his most notorious clients Tom Bradley filed so many lawsuits on Billy Maxwell's behalf that he was running out of potential jurors case the sec writes It seems there was hardly a man or woman who had not heard the reverend plead his case against one insurance company or another Casey Sept interview Tom Bradley before his death in 201148 long time Tom insisted on the reverence innocence and as far as the legal system was concerned he was owed all of this insurance money and it didn't matter that there was this pattern of death that followed him or this kind of profitable side to all of these deaths but you know Tom was just doing his job as a lawyer and he represented anyone so why wouldn't he have represented the Reverend Maxwell and you know while we were talking about it he would say you know of course a lot of African-Americans were denied the kind of legal representation they deserved. In 1976 Willie Maxwell's nephew James Hex was found dead in a car on the same road where Dorcas Anderson's body had been found. The medical examiner said there was nothing quote which would adequately account for the death of deception. At this point 5 people closely associated with Willie Maxwell had died he got married again. His 3rd wife was named Ophelia burns they lived with 2 children the son Maxwell had had with Dorcas Anderson and a teenage relative of Ophelia's named surely an Allenton in 1977 Shirley and Ellington was found dead a mile from their house she was 16. What the police thought when they arrived at the scene was that she had maybe been changing a tire. Or removed the wheel was off the axe. Was under the under the weight of the car and you know once again that was very quickly disproved by their investigation it had just been staged that way and then actually she had been at the corners finding was that she had been strangled to death that day in June. Once again after after their initial investigation the police thought the reverend was the most likely suspect and. Obviously. It was of course the fact that you know here again was another one of the relatives found dead under. Circumstances there was real terror and fear and again I think that inevitably when you look back at crimes like this. There's a kind of. In hindsight that makes obvious but for the people who lived in this part of Alabama you know the started in 1900. People didn't expect to come. With. You know 300 people were gathered into that funeral and they were already they were already. You know on top of the kind of you know. About murder. Methodology. Around the kind of supernatural stories people told about their. Some people said you know he had more powder on his body and some people said you know you could even look him in the eye so you know all of this was happening in this kind of saturated space of the funeral and there was so much talk. Of the end of it. One of her sisters. You know had been crying and had gone up to the casket to see her sister and cried out from the back of. My sister and now you're going to pay for it. One of. Us. Stood up in the pew behind. And fired 3 shots directly at his head you know it was a totally chaotic scene when the shots were fired and people didn't know what was happening and they didn't know where to go in there was a kind of stampede to get out of the funeral you know people on that street were instantly told you know Maxwell had been shot you know the reverend's been gunned down and so you know obviously there are 300 witnesses to this murder to some extent you know there were that many people there and some of them were so scared they couldn't count the shots and others of them claim to have you know waited outside the funeral home to learn more about who had done it once word spread about who had fired the shots it was a mediately explicable to people why to some extent it was a kind of instant narrative about you know this for. A man named Robert Burns Robert Burns was arrested when he was asked why he did it he said he was worried about the safety and well being of the people around Lake Martin he said he didn't want anyone else he loved to be murdered the monk Comrie advertiser reported that people felt a quote sense of relief that will swell with debt so after Shirley and funeral you know if you can believe it the reverence funeral is even larger because there were so many people who came just to make sure he was really dead. District Attorney Tom young so that the case against Robert Burns would be quote treated as an adult murder Robert berms hired Billy Maxwell's longtime attorney to defend him Tom Rodney takes this case yeah I mean one of the you know the kind of there are so many. Oddities an idiosyncrasy is about this case and you know it's not just the complexity of the insurance fraud and it's not just the kind of deep weirdness of the investigations in the failure to reach a kind of straightforward cause of death determination and the just the all of those kind of ins and outs of you know what people knew and when they knew it and who was related to whom and this sort of business yes one of the one of the kind of oddest things about this case is right away when the reverend is gunned down Tom Bradley this lawyer who spent so many years representing him and decides to take the case of the vigilante who murdered him obviously a lot of people wondered you know what was going on was he going to really defend Robert Burns was you know was this an effort to protect the reverend's reputation after his murder was it an effort to rescue his own reputation you know a lot of people thought well maybe Tom Bradley was just trying to change the narrative about who he was in the kinds of cases he would take and that this was his way of atoning for all the years he had represented the Reverend and all the money he had made the district attorney Tom Young and Tom Bradley had argued against each other many times in court before Tom Bradley had to figure out what if any defense he could make for Robert Burns and what defense Tom Young wouldn't see coming. He decided to move forward with the defense of not guilty by reason of insanity he had arrived at this defense partly because even though as before an official diagnosis of p.t.s.d. Even existed Robert Burns had served in Vietnam and had like a lot of men who served in Vietnam in combat had had a very harrowing experience and had lost another nephew during Vietnam and had seen many of his. Many of the men in his unit die and actually the episode in the church in the chapel when Robert Burns murdered the reverend was was just a p.t.s.d. Episode and that you know he had just been temporarily insane in that moment and not able to distinguish between right and wrong and that was that was what led him to murder the Reverend and he could not be held responsible because it was just an episode of p.t.s.d. Tom had me also reminded the jury about all of the Maxwells own relatives who died under mysterious circumstances. According to the Alabama Journal Radley question witnesses continually about Maxwell being an alleged practitioner and his involvement in the 5 death he was just trying to remind the jury that a very bad man had been killed and a very bad man who was menacing the community in a way the police couldn't stop was finally stopped by his client. Harper Lee. She met Tom rad. At the Democratic National Convention they got. He sent her a summary of the case when she was in tree she set up camp in Alexander City. In the end Robert Byrd was found not guilty by reason of insanity Tom Bradley had won the case. It's pretty incredible. She had done with Truman Capote when he was working. When they were investigating the clutter murders together she. Were involved in these cases and looked for evidence and primary source documents and you know went to the Department of Vital Statistics and obtained. A court reporter for a full transcript of the burns trial and. Relatives of the Reverend and relatives of the reverend. For almost a year. After the trial Robert Burns was briefly institutionalized at a psychiatric hospital in Tuscaloosa. A psychiatrist who evaluated him. In a way killing Willie Maxwell was the same thing anybody did all summer. I probably would have killed that man myself. When Robert Burns was released from the hospital early interviewed him twice she met with the family members of the people. That allegedly killed. Documents paperwork legal briefs everything bad. He told her. She was calling it the referent when she had finished the reporting of the Reverend and tried to do the right in. To have become difficult in the way that all writing projects have been difficult for her and even worse than that she was one of these writers who had. Strong feelings about how you know serious writing had to be difficult and you had to struggle for it and you know she would go around quoting Jean Fowler saying you know what happened when you sat down to the typewriter and waited for your forehead to bleed and I just think that can be such a self reinforcing notion about writing however you know optimistic and excited she was when she was in Alexander City when she left and she really struggled with the book over the years people have said all kinds of things about the status of the Reverend and whether the book exists at all in 190720 years after with Maxwell was killed Tom Bradley said that he and Harper Lee still spoke twice a year and that each time she told them the book was still in progress others have said that Harper Lee told them the book was nearly done that it just needed an ending someone said the book was finished and locked in a trunk someone else said they'd read it and it was even better. Writes that Harper Lee was so elusive that even her mystery have mystery. Harper Lee died in 2016. You know so many writers don't like to write. Hate to write. But they really. Want to get to worry. About Hard Knocks Well it's called furious. Murder fraud and the last trial of Harper Lee. Criminal is created by Laura and me. Producer Susanna proper since our system producer audio mix by Michael we feel and robbed by. Julian out Zander makes original illustrations for each episode of criminal you can see them at and this is criminal dot com and Facebook and Twitter at criminal show criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public Radio to be a un c we're proud member of radio topia from p.r. Acts a collection of the best podcasts around. This is criminal. And . Growing up I heard plenty of jokes about the way I spoke to her how you talk like a white girl do you think you sound white. But I couldn't help the way I sounded it's a default points just how I speak you see where I grew up in Las Vegas there were 2 types of black kids in school those who hung out only with other black kids and those who bounced back and forth between black and non-black friends I was in the 2nd group and with all that switching back and forth my voice which to and still does like when I'm on the phone with my sister. It's not something I'm always conscious of sometimes it just sort of happens. Now as an adult I have fun with it. But as a kid it wasn't always this way finding my voice was well just painful at school being told I sounded Whiteman only one thing I wouldn't be eating my corn dog and tater tots at the black kids' lunch table but that was then now a days and some schools corn dogs and tater tots have been replaced with tofu dogs and a green salad it got me wondering if the conversation among teens may have changed too. So I went to a place where I thought I might find some black teens who've been accused of talking like the skatepark. God people have told me that's all white boy like I don't know what it means to like talk white or Todd Black they would say not so white why did. They only do that because of my mom's white girl so. I have to speak respectable and they think since I'm black that's a ghetto and be stupid I guess tell you why I feel like. I don't know I want to say I speak in proper I get so I. Like how most white people talk or most normal be talk about. This conversation got me interested in talking to someone whose job depends on his voice I'm Joshua Johnson on the morning newscaster for k.q.e.d. Public Radio Johnson's been in radio for years he's African-American and he sounds pretty similar when he's on the air. It's Morning Edition on k.q.e.d. I'm Joshua Johnson and when he's talking with me in person this is your radio voice made my voice this is your voice so as your people ask me that a lot to like do a radio voice I'm like Have we not been talking for a theme of this is it you know my goal on the radio is to sound like me I don't want to sound like the news anchor who was enunciating the headlines at you but Johnson says he has experience surprise reactions when people realize he's black we did a show about race in diversity in Silicon Valley and somewhere in the show I mention that I'm African-American I forget what the context was but somewhere in the show I mention it and I got an email from a listener who basically wrote I never would have guessed that you were black Johnson says he doesn't let these reactions about his race really bother him like me he's heard it off the patronizing tone your son articulate you speak so well but Johnson thinks this ignorance can also be a lesson in disguise to show us assumptions we often make about race do you respond . About I did I did I told him it was a very good thing that you as a white person have to stop looking at me as a black person as other and presume that I sat like everybody on Bt I asked Johnson if he'd ever been accused of sounding white when he was growing up he tells me that he not only heard the accusation but he grew up with black adults insinuating that it was preferable to sound white was to sound high quality in my hometown of West Palm Beach Florida I remember the choir director Mr Richardson said I want you to sound so good that if I put you on stage behind a curtain and had you sing to the audience everyone would swear you were white to sound professionally marketable or quote unquote proper It's the goal most parents and teachers set out for kids I mean saying the word ate in my house what wore it aside glare from Mom that was just as bad as a spanking Johnson says he was very aware this is a child I always knew there was something blessid and something cursed about the way I spoke I knew that it would open doors for me and I knew that none of my friends was behind those doors but what is it about the fear of those doors closing because of the way we sound there's actually a name for it it's called linguistic profiling a term coined by Professor John Barr a Ph d. At Stanford University he did a study where he selected 5 racially diverse cities in the Bay Area to inquire about housing for rent 1st he called using an African American accent you know that . Yes My name is Michael Davis I was calling to see if you might have a houses for rent there might be available then he called again this time with a Latino actor Hello this is water Mares I think a lot about the apartment you have ever died in the paper with these accents Bob was told nothing was available but when he switched to what he called a neutral accent he was often invited to see the properties. I was linguistically profiled Recently I was working on a story that involved a support group for African-Americans many of them had a criminal record at 1st they seemed very open to being interviewed but then they turned cold days turned into weeks of messages without a return phone call when we finally met one of the coordinator is laughed I would have gotten back to you sooner if I would've known you were black and although we both laugh together about her comment I had a moment of deflation like eating that corn dog alone at lunch but as for my voice whether it works to my advantage or not it's just the one I got for crosscurrents I'm Lila de p r x. . Perfect. Perfect breath you know every year. I have that I do it. Pat. Bowlen. Want. To let you know. So this is. This is men with broken hearts which is the theme of mostly old country tunes all sung by sorrowful men and that is men typewriter it's actually the 5th typewriter and the names Michael Meehan and I sometimes go by pickle often to my friends I'm known as Pickle many Ms Burke Morrison and I am a Raiders slash priest I live with Paco. Started out in the Salinger or at least a certain generation people actually. Think their childhood or their grand time they. Are not even like that old just like the ninety's tapes. Told. Me to. A lot of them are from the street I mean the tape player itself is also found a street corner and a lot of the tapes are found just fine walking around in boxes but people don't want any more and there's something about listening to it audio quality of the tape there's something more intimate. Someone who has not only curated the music you're listening to. For you chosen a song is like any mix tape but they've done it laboriously they've been done it with a tape deck they've stopped and started. And there's something more involved about that. But I feel like it's too easy now for. Us that are old or clunky to be. Fed a shyest. I have to say. I got here when I was 18. I grew up in Massachusetts and I went to school in Vermont. Growing up there and I was like really scared and I didn't have any friends up there and it's like. What is like something I'm going to bring with me that I'll come for me and it's like for typewriters. And my roommate he hated me she was totally the opposite. They're great machines and they were around and popular for such a short but important period of time and they were so important to like so many great works of literature were created on a typewriter it's a lot easier to just say carry your little laptop but there are people out there who insist on having those and I think that's really comforting. And having 4 might be excessive but it's also kind of it's. Maybe the purpose that having old things serves is just to look nice like having 4 typewriters and that's fine and good whatever your relationship is with. To use that phrase again fetishizing where it becomes an unhealthy relationship with certain qualities of things that are a whole. Sort of the image that those. That those things yield rather than the actual relationship that they have with them with those objects you're more worried about intention that seeing a certain people use old things whatever the reason is doesn't matter really. Can he do it says her son Daniel was sensitive and shy as a kid but he always had like this inner strength he was one of those kids he had to teach right with from wrong because he kind of knew it he just that's just the way he was and I don't know everybody like Daniel there wasn't nothing not to like about him. But at the end of high school something shifted we 1st noticed that things were going on with Daniel at the end of senior year you know just all the typical science of mental illness coming out paranoia and some delusion set and you know other things like that by the end of summer he had his 1st psychotic break and was hospitalized. At the time to do it and her husband had no experience with mental illness she also says her son couldn't recognize that he was sick he would tell me a guy's after him is going to kill him because her delusions are real and you can sit and say you know no no no no that's not true if you could show them physically how it's not true and they were. True you don't know you don't understand. There were times to wait felt she needed help so she called the police for what's called a 5150 if you think a person suffering from mental illness might hurt themselves or other people a 5150 allows officers to forcibly take that person to a hospital to get treated they're kept there for up to 72 hours do it says it was always a traumatic experience was horrible and you know they slammed him with medication and we had no idea what was happening Daniel was eventually diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia but that was just the beginning of a long battle to get him help he came home and from there it just you know we he was really hospitalized time after time after time I mean he would try to stay on his medication for a while quite understand it didn't think there was anything wrong with him it just never lasted and no matter what we did we could not keep him in treatment was worried about what might happen but you could never have imagined what actually did in 2012 Daniel was charged with murder. Couldn't talk about the details for legal reasons so it's unclear exactly what happened but Daniel has been in a locked psychiatric facility ever since to love somebody for 18 years and to see that person. When they were well when they were happy when they were in school when they were normal get ill and then be it feels like they're thrown away by the system. Right now all their efforts are going to support. The program. To get. The kind of treatment. 'd Now not everyone agrees that. Treatment opponents a. 'd compassionate and effective. That's. Health care services. Back in February the Agency proposed the board of supervisors. It would only involve 5 people at 1st. Very very very small. To. 5150. Under. These people. Where the judge would discuss their treatment plan with professionals under the state law if the participants treatment they could be admitted to hospital for an evaluation basically a 51. But Briscoe says Alameda County pilot when you include the emphasis is less on threatening consequences and more in connecting people to resources knocking on the door and saying I want to come into care. How is it working for you and for those who keep saying no. Consumers who know your experience will say hey. I've been there consumers are people who use mental health services you don't want to dance again do you you don't want to be held for 72 hours against her will. Like there's things that work and work for me. Can I come back to my. I know that people want to be compassionate and caring and help people but helping people that don't want to be helped can be horrendous Sally's Inman is against the pilot program and as a whole for her it's personal one day back in the early seventy's. And no longer. Except that my name. Except that. Everybody she was living on the East Coast at the time and her parents private institution it was more common and easier for families to do this back then. In prison. And. She eventually got out and recovered on her own but she says her experience with. Her trust in the mental health system what I needed at the time when I. Was to have. Happened was taken away from. That sort of the core. Say they need to have. Their treatment not have it taken away. What happened to. Me to happen today in 1975 a Supreme Court ruling drastically limited forced psychiatric treatment except for an extreme circumstances and states to decide how do I know. That's what led California law but prison this law it's a step backwards it's not just about. I mean that but. It's about the direction. System when are we going to a a voluntary system of comprehensive services for people are really going to keep doing the same old thing that is based on force now Zimmerman is a leading advocate for mental health consumer rights she says what happened to candy to wit son doesn't represent the majority of people with mental illness most aren't perpetrators of violence and Zimmerman says we can't use that perception to take away people's civil rights. And. Other opponents of Laura's Law were present at a recent Alameda County Public Hearing people spoke for over 2 hours for and against the pilot program and. For. Every one of the. People on both sides of the debate agree on at least one thing the current system isn't working Alex Briscoe from the county's health care services agency even he isn't sure the county's version of Laura's Law will be successful but he says I believe we have you know this is my own personal position I believe that we have a moral obligation to say to try right now what they're trying to do is find a middle ground when Briscoe 1st proposed the pilot to the Board of Supervisors in February they sent him and the agency back to the drawing board they asked Can you achieve the goals of Lord law without adopting it at all the pilot program is still on the table but the agency will bring other ideas to the board of supervisors when it reconvenes later this month for crosscurrents I'm Liz Mack. With. RINGBACK RINGBACK RINGBACK RINGBACK RINGBACK RINGBACK RINGBACK RINGBACK RINGBACK RINGBACK The the. 'd This is our extreme acts with. The rising price. And commuter. Parking in this store just a neighborhood. But. Today. Morning. Boston may not be the center of the world but if you want to be in the know Greater Boston with Jim Brown he should be at the center of your weeknight viewing.