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Occasionally, the idyllic lives of North Alabama people are interrupted by greed, lust, revenge and murder.
So writes Jacquelyn Proctor Reeves in the introduction of her new book, “Wicked North Alabama.”
Reeves, familiar locally as the curator of the Donnell House on the Athens Middle School campus, is also a freelance writer and the editor of “Valley Leaves” and associate editor of “Old Tennessee Valley.”
In her spare time she conducts ghost walks, cemetery tours and historical tours and has served on Huntsville’s Maple Hill Cemetery Stroll Committee for 14 years.
It makes for a full life when it’s populated by the living and the dead.
“It is not the home of backward hillbillies as is sometimes portrayed in Hollywood,” writes Reeves. “Yet the residents of Alabama are in no hurry to change that image for fear of an invasion of those who are not like-minded.”
She calls her husband, Robert Reeves, who shot many of the photos in her book, her “partner in crime.”
Long-time residents will probably remember many of the “Wicked North Alabama” incidents about which Reeves writes. If you lived in these parts about 30 years ago, you’ll remember when the Southwest Molester led a reign of terror in Huntsville.
And then there was the young Decatur father who murdered his wife in a fit of rage, dissected her body in the upstairs bathroom, wrapped each of eight parts in newspaper and plastic and buried her remains under his backyard fishpond.
But wickedness permeated North Alabama a long time before those two infamous incidents. There was the outrageous antics of Tallulah Bankhead, who was as Reeves writes, “Pure as the Driven Slush.”
There was the trail of Frank James, brother and fellow outlaw of Jesse James, who was accused of robbing a Muscle Shoals postmaster.
Folks in Jackson and Marshall counties no doubt remember vividly tales of Dan Harris, a southern man who joined the Union Army during the Civil War and brutally murdered fellow southerners, including four male members of the Roden family. Another Civil War tale concerns David Humphreys Todd, brother-in-law of Abraham Lincoln, who served as a Confederate prisoner of war camp administrator and gleefully and sadistically murdered his Union captives.
Back to modern times and closer to home, Reeves recounts some of the exploits of Limestone County Sheriff Mike Blakely, who once made an offhand remark to a local woman, Edna, who sought his advice about what to do about her husband, Rueben, when he drank and became abusive.
“I’d shoot him!” Blakely commented, jokingly.
So the next time her husband got drunk and abused her, she shot him.
“What have I done? He thought to himself, hoping that Reuben was alive, that Edna wouldn’t repeat what he said, that he wouldn’t spend the rest of his life as some prisoner’s girlfriend.”
Rueben was only grazed, much to Blakely’s relief.
There are more tales of drug busts, chases and mayhem.
“I’ve loved each moment of my life,” said Blakely Thursday from his office. “Maybe there are folks who like to write about it and some that like to read about it. I try to find humor in any situation. Truth really is stranger than fiction.”
Blakely terms what he and his employees do as a “24-7 job.” He said over the 27 years he’s been in office he has rarely spent a relaxing, uneventful Thanksgiving.
“Working a good murder or a robbery is more fun for me than sitting and watching a ballgame and eating turkey,” he said. “I guess you could just say I’m an adrenaline junkie.”
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