The notorious true crime story of a sex party that ended in double murder in the woods of Chattanooga County, Georgia. On December 12th, 1982, Tony West and Avery Brock made a visit to Corpsewood Manor under the pretense of a celebration. Then they brutally murdered their hosts. Dr. Charles Scudder had been a professor of pharmacology at Chicago’s Loyola University before he and his boyfriend Joey Odom moved to Georgia and built their own home in the Chattahoochee National Forest. Scudder had absconded with twelve thousand doses of LSD and had a very particular vision for their “castle in the woods.” It included a “pleasure chamber,” and rumors of Satanism swirled around the two men. Scudder even claimed to have summoned a demon to protect the estate. But when Scudder and Odom welcomed West and Brock into their strange abode, they had no idea the men were armed and dangerous. When the evening of kinky fun turned to a scene of gruesome slaughter, the murders set the stage for a sensational trial that engulfed the sleepy Southern town of Trion in shocking revelations and lurid speculations.

On December 12th, 1982, a strange house in the remote mountains of North West Georgia became a bloody slaughterhouse for two men and their dogs. One of the victims-an accomplished scientist and university professor-experimented with the occult. A self-portrait found at the crime scene appeared to depict the professor gagged with gunshot wounds to his head, exactly as his body was discovered by investigators. Had he gazed into the future and witnessed his own death-or had the painting inspired the murder?The case became a media sensation with allegations of satanic cults, supernatural curses, and mind control experiments. The only thing stranger than the murders themselves was the legal odyssey that followed, resulting in four Supreme Court decisions and revelations that would stun the judicial system.After years of research involving court transcripts, audio recordings, and interviews with the participants in the case-including the murderers themselves-author Daniel Ellis peels back the layers of legend to reveal the truth behind one of the most bizarre true crime cases ever to emerge from the dark Southern woods-Corpsewood: A True Crime Like No Other.

Nestled deep in the north Georgia woodlands are the ruins of an estate appropriately and ironically named Corpsewood. The conservative residents of the small towns nearby all know of the two men who came from Chicago to live among them. When the blood drenched bodies of the men were discovered there not long before Christmas, the whole area is shocked by the heartless, vicious nature of the crime. They can't imagine who among them would commit such cold-blooded murders and they are even more shocked when a pretty teenaged girl comes forward to say that she was an eyewitness and willing to tell what she knows. The victims were two openly gay men, and rumors soon circulated that they were devil-worshippers who experimented with LSD and conducted Satanic rituals on the estate. It was said they participated in wild, sex-filled orgies and even had their own "pleasure palace" built onto their home. The buildings that once stood on the isolated grounds are now only brick remnants, covered in ivy and slowly being absorbed back into the woods, but strange tales persist and those who are brave enough to wander down the rutted dirt road and venture deep into the woods to explore the grounds tell stories of strange curses and hauntings. Even now, some thirty-three years after what happened there, nearly everyone in the area calls the place "the devil worshippers' house." What was the truth of that night? Only four people left alive really know what happened in that prophetically named house in the North Georgia hills, no matter what others might claim. The two murderers, still sitting in prison, have their self-serving stories. The other eyewitness isn't talking. Only one of the eyewitnesses, the former Teresa Lynn Hudgins, is stepping forward again to tell the truth.

"On a sultry August morning in 1970, the battered body of a young woman was hoisted from a dry well just outside Hogansville, Georgia. Author and investigator Clay Bryant was there, witnessing the macabre scene. Then fifteen, Bryant was tagging along with his father, Buddy Bryant, Hogansville chief of police. The victim, Gwendolyn Moore, had been in a violent marriage. That was no secret. But her husband had connections to a political machine that held sway over the Troup County Sheriff's Office overseeing the case. To the dismay and bafflement of many, no charges were brought. That is, until Bryant followed his father's footsteps in law enforcement and a voice cried out from the well three decades later"--Cover, page [4].

The specter of the marauding serial killer has become a relatively common feature on the American landscape. Reactions to these modern-day monsters range from revulsion to morbid fascination--fascination that is either fed by, or a product of, the saturation coverage provided by print and broadcast media, along with a dizzying array of books, documentary films, websites, and "Movies of the Week". The prevalence in Western culture of images of serial killers (and mass murderers) has created in the public mind a consensus view of what a serial killer is. Most people are aware, to some degree, of the classic serial killer 'profile.' But what if there is a much different 'profile'--one that has not received much media attention? In Programmed to Kill, acclaimed and always controversial author David McGowan takes a fresh look at the lives of many of America's most notorious accused murderers, focusing on the largely hidden patterns that suggest that there may be more to the average serial killer story than meets the eye. Think you know everything there is to know about serial killers? Or is it possible that sometimes what everyone 'knows' to be true isn't really true at all?

In 1982, Tony West and Avery Brock made a visit to notorious Corpsewood Manor under the pretense of a celebration. They brutally murdered their hosts. Dr. Charles Scudder and companion Joey Odom built the "castle in the woods" in the Trion forest after Scudder left his position as professor at Loyola. He brought with him twelve thousand doses of LSD. Rumors of drug use and Satanism swirled around the two men. Scudder even claimed to have summoned a demon to protect the estate. The murders set the stage for a trial vibrant with local lore. Author Amy Petulla uncovers the curious case that left two men dead and the incredible story still surrounded by controversy, speculation and myth.

From the mediums of Spiritualism's golden age to the ghost hunters of the modern era, Taylor shines a light on the phantasms and frauds of the past, the first researchers who dared to investigate the unknown, and the stories and events that galvanized the pubic and created the paranormal field that we know today.