Mountain Mysteries: Tales from Appalachia · Hailey and Holly

Anjette Lyles

December 11, 2025·50 min·3 clips

Annette says, "his mother won't see a penny of it," after Buddy's death.

1. Mountain Mysteries: Tales from Appalachia centers this episode on Annette Lyles and the Macon, Georgia poisoning case. 2. Holly and Haley host the show and guide the story as a conversational true-crime recap. 3. The episode asks how Annette Donovan Lyles moved from restaurant owner and mother to a suspect in multiple deaths. 4. Annette married Benjamin Franklin Lyles in October 1947 and quickly became pregnant, then had daughter Marcia Elaine in July. 5. Ben stayed out late, drank, gambled, and later sold Lyle's Restaurant for $2,500 while his VA disability was cut by 90 percent. 6. Annette then had to beg relatives for money while raising two children and trying to keep the household running. 7. Ben developed nose and mouth bleeding, delirium, swelling, rigid limbs, and a coma before dying on January 25, 1952. 8. Annette bought the restaurant for $12,000 in April 1955 and reopened it as Annette's with traditional Southern food. 9. Airline employees frequented the restaurant, and Annette met pilot and veteran Joe Neal Buddy Gabbert there. 10. She flew to Texas to visit Buddy, then woke a judge in New Mexico at 1:00 a.m. on June 24, 1955 to marry him. 11. Buddy then developed wrist pain, a severe rash, swelling, vomiting, and kidney failure before dying on December 2, 1955. 12. A nurse asked about insurance, and Annette said Buddy's mother would not see a penny because she had handled it. 13. Annette refused an autopsy at first, later dating Bob Franks, buying a Cadillac, and moving into a house in the suburbs. 14. Julia Lyle, Ben's mother, had nearly $100,000 in savings, refused to make Annette the beneficiary, and later became ill with vomiting blood, swelling, and fever. 15. Julia died on September 29, 1957, and Annette later produced a will that split the estate among Joseph, Annette, Marcia, and Carla. 16. Annette also practiced voodoo, wrote wishes on notes under candles, and kept dolls and other objects in the case file. 17. Marcia later developed a 106-degree fever, delirium, bugs-crawling sensations, and died on April 4, 1958. 18. Coroner Lester Chapman found arsenic in tissue samples, and witnesses testified about ant poison, forged signatures, and poisoned drinks. 19. The episode uses a chatty, joking style, with Holly and Haley mixing family stories, medical details, and case facts. 20. Listeners who like Southern true crime and courtroom poison cases will get the most from it, while people wanting a tight, serious narrative may skip it.

As heard by us

A chatty Appalachian true-crime episode that turns an odd marriage into something colder.

Mountain Mysteries turns a Georgia marriage into a grim little domestic mystery, and the weirdness builds fast. The show does its strongest work when it sticks to the plain facts: the sudden wedding, the hospital stays, the doctor’s suspicion of arsenic, and the insurance detail…

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Why you'd press play

Follow a Macon marriage that slides from sudden illness into arsenic suspicion, hospital stays, and a death in December 1955.

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