[ad]
FEMALE VOICE:
Chapter I.
BRIAN REED (narration):
When an antique clock breaks, a clock that's been telling time for 200 or 300 years, fixing it can be a real puzzle. An old clock like that was handmade by someone. It might tick away the time with a pendulum, with a spring, with a pulley system. It might have bells that are supposed to strike the hour or a bird that's meant to pop out and cuckoo at you. There can be 100s of tiny individual pieces, each of which needs to interact with the others precisely. To make the job even trickier, you often can't tell what's been done to a clock over 100s of years. Maybe there's damage that's been fixed, or fixed badly. Sometimes entire portions of the original clockwork are missing, but you can't know for sure because there are rarely diagrams of what the clock's supposed to look like. A clock that old doesn't come with a manual. So instead, the few people left in the world who know how to do this kind of thing rely on what are often called witness marks to guide their way. A witness mark can be a small dent, a hole that once held a screw. These are actual impressions and outlines and discolorations left inside the clock of pieces that might have once been there. They're clues to what was in the clockmaker's mind when he first created the thing. I'm told fixing an old clock can be maddening. You're constantly wondering if you've just spent hours going down a path that might take you nowhere, and all you've got are these vague witness marks which might not even mean what you think they mean. So at every moment along the way you have to decide if you're wasting your time or not.
Anyway, I only learned about all this because years ago, an antique clock restorer contacted me, John B. McLemore, and asked me to help him solve a murder.
[intro music]
JOHN B. MCLEMORE:
Something's happened. Something has absolutely happened in this town. There's just too much little crap for something not to have happened and I'm about had enough of Shittown and the things that goes on.
BRIAN REED (narration):
From Serial and This American Life, I'm Brian Reed. This is Shittown.
"John B. McLemore lives in Shittown, Alabama." That's the subject line that catches my eye one day in late 2012 while I'm reading through emails that have come into our radio show, This American Life. The email's from John B. McLemore. Shittown is captalized. "I am an old time listener who just recently rediscovered your show," John writes. "I live in a crummy little shit town in Alabama called Woodstock. I would like to tell your producers of two events that have happened here recently. I would hope you have the facilities to investigate."
One of the events, John writes, involves a local police officer with the county sheriff's department. John's heard that a woman's been saying this officer sexually abused her. The guy's still on the force. So, that's one.
The other event is a murder of a guy in his early 20s named Dylan Nichols. The murderer, John says, is a son of a prominent local family. His name is Kabrahm Burt. The Burts are millionaires. They own lots of land in the area as well as a large timber operation, with lumber yards and sawmills all over, one of which is right near John's. It's called K3 Lumber. John says it seems the But family has effectively made this event disappear, except Kabrahm is now going around and bragging about it. Quote, bragging about how it only took 30 seconds of kicking this boy, Dylan Nichols, in the head for him to become a paraplegic, and only a few more days for him to die.
"We really need people like you to come down to this pathetic little Baptist shit town and blow it off the map," John writes. "I would like to talk to you by phone if possible. This is just too much to type."
FEMALE VOICE:
Chapter I.
BRIAN REED (narration):
When an antique clock breaks, a clock that's been telling time for 200 or 300 years, fixing it can be a real puzzle. An old clock like that was handmade by someone. It might tick away the time with a pendulum, with a spring, with a pulley system. It might have bells that are supposed to strike the hour or a bird that's meant to pop out and cuckoo at you. There can be 100s of tiny individual pieces, each of which needs to interact with the others precisely. To make the job even trickier, you often can't tell what's been done to a clock over 100s of years. Maybe there's damage that's been fixed, or fixed badly. Sometimes entire portions of the original clockwork are missing, but you can't know for sure because there are rarely diagrams of what the clock's supposed to look like. A clock that old doesn't come with a manual. So instead, the few people left in the world who know how to do this kind of thing rely on what are often called witness marks to guide their way. A witness mark can be a small dent, a hole that once held a screw. These are actual impressions and outlines and discolorations left inside the clock of pieces that might have once been there. They're clues to what was in the clockmaker's mind when he first created the thing. I'm told fixing an old clock can be maddening. You're constantly wondering if you've just spent hours going down a path that might take you nowhere, and all you've got are these vague witness marks which might not even mean what you think they mean. So at every moment along the way you have to decide if you're wasting your time or not.
Anyway, I only learned about all this because years ago, an antique clock restorer contacted me, John B. McLemore, and asked me to help him solve a murder.
[intro music]
JOHN B. MCLEMORE:
Something's happened. Something has absolutely happened in this town. There's just too much little crap for something not to have happened and I'm about had enough of Shittown and the things that goes on.
BRIAN REED (narration):
From Serial and This American Life, I'm Brian Reed. This is Shittown.
"John B. McLemore lives in Shittown, Alabama." That's the subject line that catches my eye one day in late 2012 while I'm reading through emails that have come into our radio show, This American Life. The email's from John B. McLemore. Shittown is captalized. "I am an old time listener who just recently rediscovered your show," John writes. "I live in a crummy little shit town in Alabama called Woodstock. I would like to tell your producers of two events that have happened here recently. I would hope you have the facilities to investigate."
One of the events, John writes, involves a local police officer with the county sheriff's department. John's heard that a woman's been saying this officer sexually abused her. The guy's still on the force. So, that's one.
The other event is a murder of a guy in his early 20s named Dylan Nichols. The murderer, John says, is a son of a prominent local family. His name is Kabrahm Burt. The Burts are millionaires. They own lots of land in the area as well as a large timber operation, with lumber yards and sawmills all over, one of which is right near John's. It's called K3 Lumber. John says it seems the But family has effectively made this event disappear, except Kabrahm is now going around and bragging about it. Quote, bragging about how it only took 30 seconds of kicking this boy, Dylan Nichols, in the head for him to become a paraplegic, and only a few more days for him to die.
"We really need people like you to come down to this pathetic little Baptist shit town and blow it off the map," John writes. "I would like to talk to you by phone if possible. This is just too much to type."
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