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| Six coffins, six victims (photo source: riverroadccs.org) |
May 14, 1973
Donalsonville, Georgia is a tiny hamlet in the southwestern corner of the state, 20 minutes north of Lake Seminole, 62 miles south of Albany and 36 miles east of Dothan, Alabama. Named for John Ernest Donalson, who built the first lumber mill in the area, kicking off the city's growth, its economy was mostly agriculture, and home to 13 churches in the city's roughly four square miles of land and the immediate surrounding area. The city has two schools (an elementary plus a middle/high school) and one public library. Two NFL players called Donalsonville home at one time and the two Anglin brothers who escaped from Alcatraz in 1962 came from a Donalsonville family. In all, it was an unlikely scene for what would become the second worst mass murder in Georgia history.
On May 5, 1973, the events which would culminate in the massacre of the Alday family began to form at the Poplar Hill Correctional Institute outside of Baltimore, Maryland.
Nineteen-year-old Carl Isaacs had been a truant and runaway that was diagnosed with depression, poor self-image and an inability to handle his angry emotions, with particular hostility toward women. He had prostituted himself out to a pedophile in exchange for room and board during one of his escapes from foster homes and the juvenile system and periods on the street. By 1970, when he was sixteen, he was regularly stealing cars and burglarizing homes, the same year he was arrested for the first time. A second arrest, for car theft and breaking and entering in Maryland quickly followed, and he was sentenced to the Maryland State Penitentiary, arriving there on March 27, 1973. Two days later, a riot broke out and the young and small Carl was raped by fellow inmates for over eight hours. Ten days later he was transferred to the Maryland Correction Camp and then on April 25, he was transferred to the minimum-security Poplar Hill.
Carl's half brother, Wayne Coleman, was 26 years old and had been in and out of institutions his entire life. Like Carl, he had been arrested for car theft and burglary and had already been at Poplar Hill for several months when Carl arrived. He did not crave control and admiration as his half-brother did but was reportedly a shy and awkward follower. Carl sought him out as soon as he settled in at Poplar Hill and with his fast talk and giant ego, easily swayed Coleman into the idea of an escape. Coleman only had one provision: he must be able to bring a friend with him.
That friend was George Dungee. Dungee was 36 years old, wore thick black-rimmed glasses and appeared innocuous. He had been incarcerated at Poplar Hill on a contempt of court citation for not paying child support. While at Poplar Hill, he had reportedly begun a homosexual relationship with Wayne Coleman. Despite the fact that he was to be released from Poplar Hill, Dungee, gullible and trusting, consented to go along with the escape scheme if only because Coleman wanted him to. For Carl Isaacs' part, he had nothing but contempt for Dungee as Dungee was a black man.
At three in the morning of May 5, 1973, the trio of Isaacs, Coleman, and Dungee climbed through a bathroom window and hid in the surrounding woods. After several hours, they then made their way into Baltimore, where they stole a blue Thunderbird with the same ease in which they had left Poplar Hill.
Authorities at Poplar Hill had, by that time, become aware that the three men had escaped but as nothing in their criminal history indicated grave public danger, they did not alert authorities that the capture of the escapees was of the utmost importance.
Isaacs, Coleman, and Dungee remained in Baltimore for two days following their escape, aimlessly enjoying their newfound freedom before Isaacs decided he wanted to pick up his 15-year-old brother, Billy. Billy was living in the Towson area of Baltimore County with a female friend but did not hesitate to immediately join Carl, as he idolized and worshipped his older brother.
The now-quartet spent the next nearly week driving around Maryland and into Pennsylvania, committing a multitude of home break-ins, scoring some cash, clothing, and guns. The plan, according to Carl, was to head south to either Florida or Mexico and live the good life, full of drinking, drugs, and crime.
On Thursday, May 10, 1973, they were near McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania stealing a pickup truck. Nineteen-year-old Richard Wayne Miller, an upstanding young man who was a member of the Future Farmers of America, spotted the theft of his neighbor's vehicle and gave chase in his dark green 1968 Chevy Super Sport. He then disappeared.
By Monday, May 14, 1973, the quartet, now in Richard Miller's car, arrived in Donalsonville, the tiny county seat of Seminole County, Georgia.
May 14, 1973 was a pleasant day in South Georgia, with temperatures that peaked at 73 degrees, seven degrees below normal. Partly cloudy first thing in the morning, most of the clouds had burned off by 9 a.m., leaving the area just slightly overcast. The Alday family had started a routine day, with no idea that evil was heading straight for their farm.
To Seminole County residents, the Aldays represented the decency and neighborliness that embodied southern virtues. Ned and Ernestine Alday had eloped in 1935, eventually become parents to nine children, and had scrimped and saved until they could afford a small house in Donalsonville, before saving enough to purchase the farm, with a large farmhouse, on River Road.
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| Ned Alday on the porch of the family home with youngest child Faye (photo source: The Lineup) |
By 1973, the Aldays' River Road property was a working farm with animals and crops. Ned and Ernestine lived in the big farmhouse with their youngest children, Fay and Jimmy. Their son Jerry, who had married Mary Campbell in 1970, had moved into a trailer a few miles down River Road from the farmhouse. Son Chester, known as Sugie, lived with his wife, Barbara, whom he had married in 1969, in a trailer that was parked only a few yards from the farmhouse. The Aldays were considered hard workers, who put backbreaking, exhausting work into their farm, and religious churchgoers. There had never been a police or court officer to enter the Alday home in an official capacity. No Alday had ever disturbed the peace, been on welfare, or been any type of blight to the community in any way.
Ernestine Alday spent the morning of May 14 as she usually did, preparing the midday meal and doing household chores. At noon, the Alday men arrived for lunch, bowed their heads for the traditional blessing, and then talked about the farm as they ate. Ned and Jerry were plowing a field, although at a slower pace than usual due to muddy patches from recent rains. Jimmy planned to finish plowing a flat field he had started and then plow the fields behind Jerry's trailer after lunch, while Sugie would join his Uncle Aubrey on equipment borrowed from a neighbor to work a field in the west. Their meal finished by 1 p.m., they all left the house, leaving Ernestine behind to clean up.
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| Ned Alday (photo source: riverroadccs.org) |
At roughly the same time, the Isaacs brothers, Coleman and Dungee were driving in Seminole County, after going so far as Jacksonville, Florida and then turning around and heading north again. Carl Isaacs had noticed rural Seminole County on the way into Florida and felt the area, with its remote locations and small police department, would be perfect for what he had in mind. Despite their burglaries, the party was out of money (the majority being spent on beer) and soon to run out of gas. Carl hoped to find either new targets to rob or gas to syphon - or both.
It was around 4 p.m. when he spotted a tank sitting alone in a field about 50 feet from the road. The tank, however, proved to be diesel and so they agreed to continue on. Fifteen minutes later, they appeared to find a perfect mark on River Road. It was the trailer belonging to Jerry and Mary Alday and it had a gas pump on the property.
Carl Isaacs and Wayne Coleman began ransacking the trailer, while George Dungee and Billy Isaacs waited in the car. Seeing two men in a blue jeep approaching, Billy warned his brother Carl.
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| Mary and Jerry Alday on Easter Sunday, one month before their murders (photo source: The Lineup) |
Jerry Alday and his father Ned pulled in behind the trailer in Jerry's jeep, unaware that the home was being burgled. They typically would return to Jerry's home after a day of hard work, to meet with the other men to plan the next day's farming while Mary would work in her flower garden in the front yard. Instead, they were met by Carl who, at gunpoint, ordered them inside to sit at the kitchen table and to empty their pockets. From the father and son, the quartet scored a penknife, a cigarette lighter, a wallet and some change. 35-year-old Jerry was taken to the south bedroom of the trailer and 66-year-old Ned was taken to the north bedroom. Carl then shot and killed Jerry, and had to assist Coleman in killing Ned as, after having been shot once in the head, Ned had risen from the bed he fell on to fight back. It had required multiple bullets from both Isaacs' and Coleman's guns to restrain and permanently silence him. The later autopsies showed that Ned had been shot six times with two different pistols, a .22 caliber and a .32 caliber, and Jerry had been shot four times with a .22 caliber pistol.
Shortly thereafter, Jimmy Alday, son of Ned and brother of Jerry, drove up on a green John Deere tractor, walked to the back door of the mobile home and knocked politely. He was greeted by a pistol held by Coleman, who robbed him of a hat, a pair of sunglasses, and a nearly empty wallet. Carl confronted Jimmy, accusing him of coming to the trailer because he had heard gunshots, to which Jimmy truthfully denied but likely realized at that moment that someone, probably his brother, had been shot. Carl took him to the living room, where Jimmy was forced to lie on the sofa. Carl then shot the 25-year-old in the back of the head. His autopsy later revealed that Jimmy had been shot twice with a .22 caliber pistol.
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| The lost Aldays (photo source: Macon Telegraph) |
After murdering Jimmy, Carl went outside to move the tractor, which had been parked in front of their car. Mary Alday, Jerry's wife, drove up in her car to the now-crowded driveway. Seeing her, Carl jumped off the tractor and came up behind the unsuspecting woman, who had pulled a paper bag of groceries from the car. Pulling a pistol on her, he ordered her into the trailer, where his first act to demean her was to knock the bag of groceries from her hands. As had been done to her husband, father-in-law, and brother-in-law, she was robbed of the few possessions she had, including a Timex watch, when Carl dumped her handbag, containing her car keys, perfume, and her wallet with one dollar inside, out in front of her.
That was when two men in a pickup truck pulled up -- Sugie and Aubrey Alday, the son and brother of Ned Alday. They were laughing and made no effort to get out of their vehicle so Carl, taking Billy with him, decided to go and get them. Each taking a truck door, the two ordered the men out and into the trailer at gunpoint, where Carl accused the men of laughing at him. Sugie and Aubrey spotted Mary, crying uncontrolloably, as they were ordered to sit on the kitchen floor. Wayne Coleman collected towels from the kitchen table and headed to the north bedroom, while Carl and George Dungee took Mary to the bathroom, where Dungee was tasked with guarding her.
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| Aubrey Alday, one year before his murder (photo source: The Lineup) |
Sugie, who had turned 30 years old exactly a week earlier, was taken by Coleman to the bloody north bedroom where his father lay dead. He was then shot and killed. Aubrey, 57 years old, was taken by Carl to the south bedroom where Jerry's body lay and killed there. Their autopsies revealed that Aubrey had been shot once with a .38 caliber pistol and Sugie had been shot once with a .380 caliber pistol. When he was found, Aubrey's fingers lay folded over Jerry's, as if in the last moment of his life, he reached out to hold his nephew's hand.
Mary was taken from the bathroom and to her kitchen table where she was raped, first by Carl and then by Coleman.
The prison escapees, plus Billy Isaacs and a blindfolded, gagged, and terrified Mary Alday, then drove to a heavily wooded area several miles away where Mary was dragged out of the car by her hair and raped twice more by Carl and once by George Dungee. Photographs were taken of her with an Instamatic camera stolen from the trailer (one photo was later found of a frightened and nude Mary, only moments prior to her death) before Dungee made her lie on her stomach and shot the 25-year-old once in the back and once near the back of her head. Her autopsy would reveal that not only had she been repeatedly raped but she had been shot with a .22 caliber pistol.
The killing quartet abandoned Richard Miller's car, nearly out of gas, in the woods close to where they left Mary's body and took her car, a blue and white Chevy Impala, which they would later abandon in Alabama.
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| Outside the home of Jerry and Mary Alday, now a crime scene (photo source: Dead Man Coming) |
The murders shocked and terrified the peaceful, close-knit community of Donalsonville but it also drew the already devoted community closer together. The Aldays' neighbors, many of them eking out a living as the Aldays had, stopped by the farmhouse on River Road to bring with them what they could - food and small sums of cash - and offer whatever help they could extend.
In Colquitt, Georgia, the hometown of Mary Campbell Alday and eighteen miles from where her body had been found, her death had been agonizing for the community. The terrifying details of Mary's last hours of life were kept from her mother, who had been in declining health. Mrs. Campbell was told only that her daughter had been shot and died instantly from her wound. Unfortunately, a neighbor unintentionally revealed to Mrs. Campbell all the facts then known about Mary's last moments, including that she had been the last to die, after having witnessed at least two murders herself, and that she had been found nude and probably raped. It was too much for Mrs. Campbell, who sank into a diabetic coma shortly after learning the details and died a few hours later. For many of the authorities, her death made her the seventh victim; the murdering trio, in their opinion, had put a gun to her head as much as they did the six Alday victims.
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| Remembering the victims (photo source: riverroadccs.org) |
On May 17, 1973, social and commercial activities came to a halt in Donalsonville and Seminole County as the Alday funerals began. The mayor called for a day of mourning and the community responded by closing all the stores downtown, leaving the streets deserted. By the time the funeral services began for Ned, Aubrey, Sugie, Jerry, Mary, and Jimmy, nearly all the townspeople, joined by hundreds of others from surrounding counties, had gathered at the Spring Creek Baptist Church - the church that Ned had helped to build, where the Alday men and Mary had been officers and teachers in its Sunday School and where Sugie and Barbara Alday and Jerry and Mary Alday had married. As the church itself was not equipped to handle six full-sized coffins and the expected large number of people in attendance, the decision was made to have the services on the cemetery grounds, to accomodate all who wanted to attend. So many floral arrangements were delivered that flowers were stacked on flowers around the coffins and the graves. Various state dignitaries attended, including Governor Jimmy Carter's mother, Lillian (or Miss Lillian, as she was affectionately known) and his special assistant.
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| The freshly dug grave for the Aldays (photo source: Dead Man Coming) |
Eulogies were given for the victims. Ned was remembered for being lively and for his sense of humor. Aubrey, who left behind a wife and six children, was remembered for his skills as a farmer and his love of hunting and fishing. Sugie was remembered for his strength and comedic nature. Jerry, the most reserved of the Alday men, was remembered for his quiet dignity. Mary was remembered for her work in social service and her devotion as a wife. Jimmy was remembered for his youthful energy and pranks and his love of looking up facts in the family encyclopedias. All of them were praised for their hard work and service to their church and community.
Caught and Convicted
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| The guilty (photo source: My Life of Crime) |
George Dungee, the first of the killers captured, was taken into custody, somewhat karmically, on May 17 - the day of the Alday funerals. For over two hours, he told a disquieting tale of assault, rape, and murder. He confessed that he had been unable to sleep since "what we had done to that woman" and that only Billy Isaacs was innocent of rape and murder. Ballistics showed, however, that the Aldays had been killed with four different types of guns, one of which Billy Isaacs had been carrying.
Wayne Coleman's story differed somewhat from George Dungee's, as well as his demeanor. Whereas Dungee told his story with a certain level of remose and sorrow, Coleman appeared to have a good time recounting the sorrowful last moments of the Alday family. He boasted that he had personally killed every victim, proud of any level of cruelty and brutality, smiling as he told law enforcement of the tragic end of six lives. Also unlike Dungee, who had a clearer remembrance of details and timing, Coleman was fuzzy; so much so that he asked officers if Alabama was part of Georgia and if Louisiana was a county in Mississippi.
Billy Isaacs' account was very similar to that of George Dungee, insofar as which Alday family members arrived at the trailer and when, and in which order they were killed. He claimed that he had not murdered anyone.
Only Carl Isaacs of the four refused to say anything about May 14, 1973, other than it was "a pretty May day."
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| Carl Isaacs under arrest (photo source: Dead Man Coming) |
The four escaped inmates were returned to Seminole County on May 24, 1973 - just 10 days after the murders - to be arraigned at the courthouse in Donalsonville. They each faced six counts of murder, as well as the felony charges of rape, kidnapping, armed robbery, and the theft of Mary Alday's car.
Whereas the community had been shocked and saddened by the murders, they were now outraged and demanding that if the defendants were indeed guilty, justice be served. "Fry 'em," was often heard, and it was alleged there were suggestions to form a lynch mob and execute a swift form of street justice. The four defendants being placed in four separate jails miles apart only seemed to bolster the rumors.
With the Issacs brothers, Coleman, and Dungee under arrest, the long wait for the family of Richard Miller, the missing Pennsylvania teen, was finally about to come to an end. With the discovery of his car at the Mary Alday body site, and eyewitnesses in Pennsylvania who gave accounts of the men that Richard was chasing, authorities suspected that the boy was likely dead but wanted to locate his body to return to his family. Following several hours of negotiation in which he was assured that nothing he said or did could be used against him, Wayne Coleman agreed to return to Pennsylvania to aid in recovering Richard's body. Shortly after his arraignment on May 24, he was taken by plane to Maryland, where he laughingly told authorities that he had pulled the trigger himself ("I didn't want the others to have all the fun.") For three days, he led heavily armed officers in circling routes around the Pennsylvania-Maryland border, eventually convincing them that while he knew plenty about the homicide, he had no geographical sense. Coleman was then returned to Georgia.
With Coleman's failure at locating Richard Miller's body, authorities were surprised to find Carl Isaacs willing to aid. Like Coleman, he was transported to Pennsylvania and also like Coleman, he was utterly devoid of any sign of remorse. Unlike Coleman, Isaacs had a nearly photographic memory of landmarks and where they had traveled. He easily directed the police on the exact route they had taken, from when Richard Miller had taken pursuit to when they had kidnapped him. The group was taken to the small town of Flintstone, Maryland, where Isaacs gave the police detailed instructions on where to find Richard's body; the unrepentant killer did not want to accompany them on their grim discovery.
The body of Richard Wayne Miller was found exactly where Carl Isaacs said it would be, up a logging road and to the left of a debris-strewn trash dump. His killers had tied his hands behind his back, forced him to his knees and then argued over who would be the one to kill him, over his pleas to spare his life. He was then shot in the back of the head, his body left among the trash. Isaacs was flippant about the death of the teenager. From the moment Richard Miller had approached them, he said, he was a dead man.
Before the first trial started, that of Carl Isaacs, Billy Isaacs made a deal with prosecutors, who felt that Billy, being illegible for the death penalty due to his age and less culpable than the other defendants, was the best eyewitness. Rather than going to trial, Billy would be sentenced to two twenty-year terms for burglary and car theft, the maximum sentence he could receive, and would testify against the three defendants.
The State of Georgia vs. Carl Isaacs commenced at 9:30 in the morning of December 31, 1974 before Judge Walter Geer with voir dire. Special prosecutor Peter Geer, the nephew of Judge Geer, had known Ned Alday, as well as other family members. He had fished with them and been a guest in their homes. He was more than eager to prosecute the men accused of killing them and to institute Georgia's then new capital punishment statute. He managed to seat a jury on that first day, following a relatively speedy voir dire, and began the presentation of his case on New Year's Day, January 1, 1974, at 9 a.m. He proved to be as speedy with his presentation as he was in voir dire, as he called Bud Alday, the brother of Ned and Aubrey, as his first witness, to be rapidly followed by the sheriff, eyewitnesses to the defendants being in the vicinity of the Alday property on May 14, 1973, to one of Mary Alday's coworkers (who identified her Timex watch that was found in the possession of the defendants) and Sugie Alday's wife Barbara (who identified a briefcase belonging to her husband containing his driver's license, fishing license and a dental appointment card that found in the defendants' possession) to police officers, crime lab technicians and the doctor who performed the autopsies before he arrived at his eleventh witness. That was his star witness, the one the anxious courtroom was waiting to hear, the now sixteen-year-old Billy Isaacs.
Billy took the stand on the afternoon of January 4, only feet away from four of the surviving Alday children and his brother Carl, who glared at him from the defense table. Over the next two hours, he recounted meeting up with Carl, Coleman, and Dungee following their escape and their tortuous path to River Road. He spoke, as George Dungee had, of the Aldays' last painful moments of life, of the prolonged torture inflicted on Mary Alday, and the death and destruction wreaked in the small trailer of Jerry and Mary Alday. Particularly painful to the Alday family in attendance and to those who had known and cared for the Alday victims, was Billy's testimony that Carl Isaacs, after robbing him, had asked Jerry Alday if he were married, to which Jerry had responded truthfully, but told Isaacs that there was no need to wait for his wife as she never had more than a dollar or two with her. Only after seeing a look in Carl's eye did Jerry realize he had made a grave mistake and begged Isaacs not to hurt her. According to Billy, the reason the four didn't depart the trailer immediately after killing Ned and Jerry Alday was solely to wait for Mary, whom Carl Isaacs, in addition to raping, had also hit multiple times, once hard enough to cause her to lose consciousness.
Billy also testified that when Carl had gone to kill Aubrey Alday, as Wayne Coleman was killing Sugie Alday, his gun had only clicked in the empty chamber; Carl had shot it so many times that it ran out of bullets. He had run to Billy, grabbed his pistol and then gone back into the bedroom, after which Billy testified he heard one or two shots. Carl, Billy said, was laughing when he came out of the bedroom, saying that "that damned bastard begged for mercy."
Both the prosecution and the defense made their closing arguments on January 5 and the case then went to the jury. Sixty-eight minutes later, the jury reached its verdict, finding Carl Isaacs guilty on all counts.
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| The jury in Carl Isaacs' 1974 trial (photo source: Ebay) |
The penalty phase of Carl's trial began on January 7, with Peter Geer stressing that it was the jury's duty to protect the citizens of Seminole County from the likes of Carl Isaacs and the only way to be absolutely certain that he could never commit such a crime again was to impose death upon him. Carl yawned and appeared bored by the entire proceeding. Thirty-eight minutes after Isaacs' lawyer gave a plea for his client's life, the jury voted for death.
The trial against George Dungee began nine days later and followed the same format as that of Carl Isaacs. Fifty-eight minutes after the jury got the case, they returned with their verdict of guilty on all counts. Although Dungee's attorney offered an eloquent plea for his client's life and against the death penalty in general, the jury deliberated less than two hours before voting for death. Dungee reportedly received his sentence without emotion.
Wayne Coleman's trial was the last but like the two previous, it was a three-day affair that ended with a guilty verdict on all counts after a jury deliberation of fifty minutes. Coleman, who had wrung his hands nervously and fidgeted during his trial, was sentenced to death fifty minutes after his attorney pleaded for his life. After Judge Geer pronounced his sentence, he smiled broadly and said, "Thanks, Judge!" before being led away.
The Waiting Game
Although the trials and convictions were quick, carrying out the sentences themselves would not be. Judge Geer had set the execution dates initially as February 15, 1974, feeling that as the Aldays had died together, so too should their killers, but it was a mere formality as mandatory and automatic appeals were made to the Georgia Supreme Court.
Over the next decade, multitudes of appeals and filings were made by the three defendants, with new execution dates set and then postponed due to those filings. All appeals and motions were denied - until a discovery motion in 1979 was granted, putting into gear what would lead to retrials in 1988.
In 1975, Billy Isaacs, being the only one of the four defendants not under a death sentence, was returned to Maryland to stand trial for the kidnap and murder of Richard Wayne Miller, being charged as an accomplice. He was found guilty and sentenced to 60 years, which would run concurrent to his 40-year sentence in Georgia, meaning he could potentially serve 50 years before being eligible for parole.
In the spring of 1974, Carl Isaacs agreed to an interview with a writer from the Albany Herald, sparking off multiple interviews and a passion by Isaacs for fame. He claimed, among other things, that on the first anniversary of the Alday murders he would send a note to Wayne Coleman, whose own Death Row cell was down the hall, a note wishing him a happy anniversary. His life's ambition, he said, was to murder a thousand people. His backup plan was even more laughable: to be a practicing attorney. His did concede, in possibly the most wildly understated remark in history, the bar would never accept him. He threatened his younger brother Billy, saying that he would "never live to hit the streets again" and if both of them were free, Billy would be the first person he would kill. He claimed not to think about the Alday murders themselves but in the same breath, gave a respect of sorts to Mary Alday for being the only one who put up a fight, as "the rest just lay down and got shot." He admitted he'd like to get out and "kill more of the Aldays," as they represented the type of society he didn't like: churchgoing folks, humble, and hard workers.
For all the vitriol Isaacs had for the Aldays (even going so far as to claim that nobody gave a damn about them until he killed them, the "only thing the Aldays ever did that stood out was getting killed by me," and they were "just farmers"), he had a great deal of sympathy for himself. He found prison an affront to his humanity. Being locked up, it prevented him from being out in the world, doing something to ease the hate he had within him. He said prison was full of peril for him and two groups within the prison wanted him dead, one of whom had allegedly put a $5,000 bounty on his head. So deep was his self-pity and utter lack of self-awareness that he believed the surviving Alday family should feel sorry for him, as he was on Death Row. Prisons, he felt, shouldn't make people suffer so much before they were put to death and the public should have more compassion.
Maybe surprisingly, maybe not, Isaacs' own mother called for his execution, stating that she didn't want her sons (Isaacs and Wayne Coleman) around if they were going to be killing people.
On the morning of July 28, 1980, four inmates on Georgia State Prison's Death Row escaped, simply walking out of the prison during the early morning shift change. While three were caught by July 30 and the fourth was discovered murdered, it came out that the mastermind behind the escape was none other than Carl Isaacs. Isaacs had been planning such an escape since 1974, had gotten a guard involved in helping, had arranged for five men to be transferred to his cell block to more easily facilitate the escape (the fifth man got cold feet at the last minute) and had not participated in the actual escape only as he had been transferred from Reidsville to the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center in Jackson a few hours before the men broke free. Isaacs' only message to the three escapees who were duly returned to Reidsville was that he would "like to kick their asses for being out that long and not getting a piece and wasting somebody."
In 1983, two books and one movie about the Alday murders were released. In the film, it was the character of Billy who provided the narration and was the main voice. It was a wholly sympathetic portrayal of him, erroneously showing him as an innocent boy who had never gotten into any trouble prior to the murders. The film also takes creative license with how the defendants were eventually caught, choosing to have Billy's character pull a gun on Carl to prevent him from taking a young girl hostage, rather than surrendering under threat of gunfire by police, rather than surrendering under threat of gunfire by police.
On November 26, 1985, a guard at the Georgia Classification and Diagnostic Center in Jackson, Georgia discovered the entire front portion of a ventilation system in Carl Isaacs' cell had been cut through. So close had Isaacs been to a potential escape that layer after layer of screens, louvers, and metal backings had been penetrated through to the plumbing chase behind the cell, leaving only a single set of thin, steel bars in the skylight above the chase. Isaacs' planned escape, with three other inmates, had been due to take place only hours later.
Retrials
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| Carl Isaacs escorted from court in 1988 (photo source: The Macon Telegraph) |
The Clock Ticks On
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| Ernestine Alday in 1993, holding a photo of her murdered husband and children (photo source: avoc.info) |
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| Carl Isaacs (photo source: Georgia Department of Corrections) |
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| George Dungee in 1987 (photo source: Amazon.de) |
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| Billy Isaacs (photo source: My Life of Crime) |
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| Wayne Coleman (photo source: Georgia Department of Corrections) |
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| The final resting place for Ned, Aubrey, Jerry, Sugie, Jimmy, and Mary Alday (photo source: riverroadccs.org) |
