Murder in Coweta County is a 1976 True Crime book written by Margaret Anne Barnes.
It tells the story of John Wallace, a Georgia landowner who was tried for murdering a man who'd stolen cows from him in 1948. Wallace was known for his influence, but he made the mistake of pursuing the victim across the county line and into the territory of Sheriff Lamar Potts, who was not under his thrall. The tale of Potts' investigation and the arrest and trial of Wallace is faithfully recounted.
A Made-for-TV Movie adaptation, starring Andy Griffith as Wallace and Johnny Cash as Potts, aired on CBS in 1983.
Tropes:
- Adaptational Intelligence: Wallace's lawyer Huddleston makes far fewer mistakes in the movie than in the book.
- All a Part of the Job: In the final scene, shortly before Wallace is executed, Potts pays his adversary one last visit goodbye. He is then seen leaving the prison, not wanting to stick around for the carrying out of the sentence. Potts suggests to the secretary that he has to get back to town to enjoy a home-cooked meal at the diner; ergo, he takes no pleasure in seeing Wallace executed ... he just merely wanted to see him brought to justice and knows that he (Wallace) has already been dealt with by the justice system. That, and Potts' sense of duty: Help the powerless.
- Alliterative Name: Steve Smith, a diner owner and one of the witnesses to the abduction.
- Angry Fist-Shake: One of Strickland's relatives does this when Potts takes Strickland away.
- Army of Lawyers: Wallace has a large group of lawyers defending him.
- The Atoner: One of the witnesses against Wallace is motivated by guilt over how he was frozen in terror and didn't do anything to help when Turner was being attacked.
- Awful Wedded Life: Wallace's marriage is pretty emotionally abusive and lacking in love.
- Beneath the Mask: Wallace is a kind-hearted, charitable, benevolent philanthropist ... to most people in Meriwether County. Only those closest to him, or fall on his wrong side, know the man for who he truly is: a bloodthirsty, corrupt, power-hungry psychopath who will brutally beat his sharecroppers and kill anyone who betrays them, even going so far as to destroy their corpse to hide the evidence.
- Blatant Lies: In the film, When Potts asks Wallace how his clothes came to be stained with what appears to be gallons of blood, Wallace shows a tiny scratch on his arm and says he cut himself on a brier.
- Burn Baby Burn: How Wallace schemes to get rid of Turner's body ... by placing it in a large sack, setting it on a pyre, dousing it with gasoline and kerosene, placing jugs of moonshine around the perimeter and then throwing a flaming torch into the pyre.
- The Clan: Wallace's mothers family has deep roots in the area and several uncles and cousins of his appear throughout the story, mostly supporting him.
- Classic Villain: Wallace Seemingly embodies every villainous trope there is: Greed, power, ambition, intimidation
- Destroy the Evidence: What Wallace forces two of his farmhands, both African-Americans whom he has threatened with harm if they did not cooperate, to do: Cremate Turner's body in order to destroy evidence of the fatal brain injury suffered. However, in his own arrogance and over-ambitious attempts to get away with murder, he fails to realize that — after dumping the cremains in a nearby lake — there were still bone fragments and brain matter left behind; a crime lab would later identify these as human.
- Dispense with the Pleasantries: Potts doesn't let Wallace do any gladhanding when they meet, and immediately asks Wallace whether the blood-stained clothes he [Potts] found in Wallace's house are his. During the murder trial, Wallace tries to kiss up to Turner's widow, remarking about what a big boy his son has become. She simply walks away without a word.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: One of Wallace's henchmen is concerned about the effect of his arrest on his wife and son.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Wallace cannot understand why Potts will go to such great lengths to solve the murders and get justice for powerless individuals.
- Evil Laughter: After Wallace has set fire to Turner's body, he cackles evily and dares Potts to come after him now. His victory would be temporary.
- Foreshadowing: Sheriff Collier is seen touching his heart in his first scene and taking heart pills later on. He eventually dies of a heart attack.
- Friendly Enemies: Downplayed. Wallace and Potts have some tense exchanges earlier in the movie, but after Judge Boykin sentences him to death, Wallace is surprisingly calm toward the sheriff who brought him to justice. While Wallace is waiting for news on his appeals, they often have cordial conversations about topics unrelated to the murder and the trial.
- For Want Of A Nail: Wallace's plan falls apart when Turner is released from jail a few minutes early, giving him head start to flee when they had planned to abduct him outside of the jail, and giving him a chance to make it to Coweta County, outside of Wallace's thrall, where his abduction takes place in front of witnesses.
- Gothic Horror: Shades of this appear, through an old, supposedly psychic, woman Wallace consults about whether or not he'll be caught, and the brutal nature of the crime itself.
- Harmful to Minors: In-Universe, one of the witnesses (teenaged diner waitress Geneva Yeager) is told not to testify by Potts, despite being willing to, out of concern that the full details of the case (and being a witness against Wallace) would prove damaging to her.
- His Own Worst Enemy: In the end, Wallace becomes this. Already facing tough odds from a well-investigated case, in the real-life case (and depicted in the story) Wallace's attorneys reportedly advised him to not testify in his own defense. Wallace, sure that the jury would ignore the testimony from an eccentric soothsayer or the two African-American field hands, or in the very least dismiss it as nonsense, went against this advice and delivered a rambling sermon professing his innocence. It was widely believed this eccentric testimony sealed his conviction. It didn't help that his over-ambition and arrogance in killing Turner in the first place (he forgot to see there were still bone fragments left behind after the body was burned) led to his eventual capture.
- I Own This Town: Meriwhether County and its Sheriff are in John Wallace's pocket, and he would have never been caught if he hadn't gone to Coweta County.
- Informed Ability: It is constantly mentioned what a great tracker Potts is.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: The one witness to succumb to intimidation and outright testify in favor of John Wallace instantly has her testimony contradicted by the next witness, her own son.
- Kind Hearted Simpleton: Turner's mentally handicapped brother is described as being unable to understand his father's grief and the loss of his brother, but does his best to comfort his father throughout the ordeal.
- Law Procedural: The trial of Wallace provides a large part of the story.
- Man of the City: Sheriff Potts seems to know everyone in Coweta County, is passionate about enforcing the law there, and goes out of his way to do things like anonymously donating money to a poor family and asking a witness to the murder about his health.
- Miles Gloriosus: One witness, an insurance salesman named Keith is going on about how he'll testify until he realizes just who the killer was, and ultimately refuses to give testimony.
- Off on a Technicality: Wallace is clearly expecting this when it turns out that the victim was using a false name, and that technically the man he was charged with murdering is still alive, only to find out that the law does not work that way.
- Oh, Crap!: Several, as they relate to the murder of Wilson Turner:
- When Turner is released from jail and walks to his truck, seeing Wallace and his thugs waiting in a car parked down the street. He knows he's in deep trouble and makes a run for it.
- Essentially, Wallace's reaction when it becomes clear Turner's truck still has enough gas to make it to the county line, and that his driver had been unable to catch up to him. Later, when they realize that Turner likely died instantly after being pistol-whipped at the Sunset Tourist Camp, which was — by only a few hundred feet inside the Coweta County line — and that there were plenty of witnesses to the disturbance and struggle between him, his henchmen and Turner as Turner screamed pleaded for help.
- A look of pure shock and terror and horror come over the face an elderly man who directly witnessed Wallace delivering the fatal blow; Potts, who knows the man, comforts him when he arrives on the scene. The initial reactions of several others are seen as well.
- Pistol-Whipping: The way Wallace ends up killing Turner.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Wallace uses racial slurs often and outright says in his testimony that he was reluctant to hire Turner to work along with his African-Americans due to feeling it would promote social equality. Near the end of the book he describes beating an African-American alleged thief to death trying to get him to reveal where stolen goods where. When Potts asks him if he'd ever even considered that maybe the man was innocent and telling the truth, Wallace indignantly replies: "When has a n*gger ever told the truth?"
- Scarily Competent Tracker:
- Sheriff Potts once tracked a murderer from Georgia to Kansas.
- Sheriff Potts' subordinate, Elzie Hancock finds signs of where Turner's body was disposed of (including the width of some drag marks and a loose piece of fiber) when no one else can.
After his years of experience, Hancock could follow a trail and tell how old the tracks were, approximately what time of the day or night they had been made, and why the person who made them had gone into the woods. - Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: After Wallace receives the death penalty, local solicitor general Wright Lipford is offered five times his yearly salary if he won't challenge Wallace's appeal to commute his sentence. Lipford refuses the offer.
- The Sheriff: Lamar Potts, an able man who will not let any law-breaking in his county go unpunished. Wallace's crony Hardy Collier is a negative version.
- Small Name, Big Ego: In the end, all the wealth and power that Wallace had and his self-professed being "Master of the Kingdom" couldn't save him. The same applies to the lawyer whose confident he will get him off.
- The Sociopath: Wallace is presented as utterly confident in his own righteousness and invisibility, incapable of remorse about anything, quick to violently lash out and only seeing things in regards to how they related to him.
- Southern Gentleman: Lamar Potts is a blue-collar version of the trope, being a dutiful, well-spoken man who is always polite and courteous toward women, doesn't gloat about his victories and cares deeply about justice.
- Those Two Guys: Wallace's farmhands share most of their scenes.
- Too Dumb to Live: When John Wallace is being questioned for murder, he drives to the sheriff's office in the very car in which he killed Wilson Turner, while there are still bloodstains inside and while carrying the murder weapon.
- Tricked into Escaping: In The Film of the Book, Turner initially thinks he's been released from jail by Dirty Cop Sheriff Collier for lack of evidence, until he runs into Wallace and his men waiting for him outside, and they make it clear that they're about to kill him under the protection of the law.Wallace: No boy, you got it wrong. You ain't been released. You're escaping.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Arrogant Politically Correct Villain John Wallace is a respected figure in Meriwether County, having bought the populace's loyalty with various acts of philanthropy. The people of the neighboring counties, who haven't personally benefited from his actions, are more willing to believe the worst of him, though.
- White Sheep: Most of John Wallace's maternal relatives who appear in the story are members of his criminal empire, except one, who Wallace asks to visit while being driven to the state prison. The man is an honest farmer who views Wallace's actions as shameful, to Wallace's indignation.
