Appalachian Murder, Mystery And Legend · Larry Bentley

Love Thy Neighbor……Really

·39 min·5 clips

Larry Benton begins by placing the story in the Appalachian Mountains, where the setting itself carries the weight of generations. He turns that landscape into the backdrop for a violent break-in and a family nightmare. Kay ends up in an ambulance with a swollen-up head. Deputies search the house from top to bottom and are relieved when they do not find another victim. Becky Sears and her 19-year-old son Chris roll up in the backyard after Becky learns at work that Michael has called about the break-in. Becky cares most about whether Kay is all right, so she and Chris head for the hospital as fast as they can. Sgt. Evans then has to make the hard call to Kay's husband David, telling him he needs to get home from Georgia as fast as possible. David can tell something bad has happened, so he jumps on the next flight back. Benton leans into the detective work once Evans starts lining up the scene. The story does not pretend the violence was tidy, because it was not. The attack leaves one house battered and the next house torn up too. Benton treats the people who did it with plain disgust and no fancy language to soften the edges. Becky and a few of Kay's friends keep a vigil in the waiting room while the case hardens. By the time the pieces settle, the defendants have pled guilty to murder. The punishment is prison, with no parole hanging over the end of it. Benton closes the story the same way he runs the rest of it, with moral judgment out in the open and sympathy pointed toward the victim. It is a hard Appalachian tale, told by somebody who believes the truth ought to come with a little backbone.

As heard by us

A hard-edged Appalachian true-crime story told with plainspoken authority and a steady moral center.

The episode moves from a violent break-in and assault in the Appalachian mountains to the people left dealing with the aftermath: the deputies, the hospital waiting room, and the husband called back from Georgia.

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Why you'd press play

You want a break-in story that turns into a murder case and keeps the Appalachian voice.

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