 |
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.
 |
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.
 |
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.
 |
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.
 |
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.
 |
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.
 |
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.
 |
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.
 |
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
 |
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."
 |
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.
 |
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
 |
Carl Isaacs escorted from court in 1988
(photo source: The Macon Telegraph) |
On December 9, 1985, a three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals concluded that due to the "inflammatory and prejudicial pretrial publicity," Isaacs, Coleman, and Dungee could not have received fair trials, that each of the defendants should have been granted a change of venue and the error in not doing so was an unconstitutional judicial one. Thus, the convictions and death sentences of Carl Isaacs, Wayne Coleman, and George Dungee were set aside, despite the "overwhelming evidence" of their guilt. All three were granted new trials.
On August 18, 1986, Isaacs, Coleman, and Dungee were transferred from Death Row to the Chatham County jail in Savannah to await new trials. Only a few days later, Judge Walter C. MacMillan, Jr. of Sandersville was appointed to preside over all three trials. On August 30, he appointed six new lawyers to defend Isaacs, Coleman, and Dungee. Lawyers for Coleman and Dungee filed a motion challenging MacMillan, charging that he was prejudiced against both poor and black defendants. Despite the motion being denied, after a hearing, the defense lawyers appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court, adding an additional seven-month delay to the entire process.
In November, following an alleged nine-day hunger strike, Carl Isaacs filed suit against Chatham County for "inhumane treatment" he alleged he had suffered while in custody. On March 12, 1987, he filed another suit charging that he had been illegally transported from Chatham County, making subsequent movements across the state illegal. Arguments were heard on April 2 and dismissed a few days later.
The first week of May 1987, the Georgia Supreme Court at last ruled judgment on the matter of Judge McMillan and disqualified him. It would take a nearly two-month search to replace him, this time with Judge Hugh Lawson, Jr. of the Oconee Judicial Circuit. On August 13, Judge Lawson selected Perry, Georgia, a small town in Houston County, to be the site of the retrials. The first case would be that of Carl Isaacs.
Jury selection began in the first days of January 1988, nearly fourteen years to the day of Isaacs' first trial. It would prove to be an almost duplicate of the first trial, with the notable exception of Ernestine Alday deciding to testify. Billy Isaacs, now in his thirties and alone out of the four defendants to have been charged and convicted with the kidnap and murder of Richard Wayne Miller, was disappointed and dismayed that it was entirely possible that Carl Isaacs, Wayne Coleman, and George Dungee could walk on the Alday murders, while he was facing serving fifty years before being eligible for parole. He was hesitant over testifying against them yet again until prosecutor Charles Ferguson showed him a photograph of Ernestine, the woman who had lost her husband, brother-in-law, three sons and a daughter-in-law back in 1973. Ernestine had never spoken out in vengeance against Billy Isaacs, nor called for the death penalty for him. Upon seeing her picture and hearing that, Billy agreed to testify.
Unlike the first trial, which had moved along with unbelievable rapidity, this second trial did not start until nine volumes of defense motions and voir dire examination had been completed. It was January 3, 1988 before Ferguson stood before the court to begin his case. Worried that the presence of the crying Alday family members in the courtroom might "prejudice" their client's rights, Carl Isaacs' attorneys made a motion for a mistrial and once it was denied, requested that the court order the spectators to be quiet or be removed. Judge Lawson acted in an abundance of caution and so issued the warning that displays of emotion would not be tolerated and that anyone who could not control their emotions would need to leave the courtroom until they could resume control. This stung for the Aldays, who noted that while they were taken to task for crying, the Isaacs family was free not only to cry in the courtroom but on the stand as well. Ernestine Alday, the matron of the devastated family, managed to hold her composure while on the stand until shown a picture of the trailer taken the day after the murders. When she saw her late husband's pipe in the ashtray on the kitchen table, she wept.
It was nearly 1:30 in the afternoon of January 23, 1988 when Billy Isaacs took the stand. He repeated the events of May 14, 1973, without a single substantive alteration in detail from what he had testified to fourteen years earlier. His brother's attorneys attempted to shake him but to no avail.
The state called a writer-filmmaker by the name of Fleming Fuller to the stand. Fuller had interviewed Carl Isaacs in Reidsville in 1976 and Isaacs agreed to tell his story on film. In a world of the weirdly ironic, Carl Isaacs became a witness against himself during his second trial.
He was shown on camera, his voice emotionless and monotone, as he recounted the Alday murders. Besides getting the sequence of the shootings incorrect, he mentioned that while leaving Aubrey Alday in the bedroom to take Billy's gun from him, Aubrey had managed to get ahold of a 12-gauge shotgun that had been standing in the corner and only be sheer bad luck for Aubrey had Carl managed to shoot him first. He also blamed Mary Alday for her own death by claiming that he had told her if she gave them no hassle, it would save her life.
Isaacs' attorneys called no witnesses on their client's behalf.
On January 25, 1988 at 6:45 p.m., after deliberating for just over two hours, the jury reached a verdict. They found Carl Isaacs guilty on all six counts of murder.
The penalty phase in Carl Isaacs' trial began on January 26. Ferguson argued for the death penalty, citing not only the heinous nature of the crimes but Isaacs' two nearly successful escapes from prison and his boastful accounts of them. Ferguson also brought up Isaacs' evil nature, calling to the stand as a witness a WSB-TV reporter who had interviewed Isaacs several years after the murders. The reporter recalled that he had asked Isaacs if he had it to do all over again, would he have committed the murders? Isaacs had replied that he would.
Isaacs' attorneys called one witness on their client's behalf, a woman whom he had been corresponding with since 1974. She testified that Isaacs addressed her as "Mom," that they talked about the Bible and participated in Bible study courses together. According to her, in 1979, Isaacs had been baptized in her church and later graduated from the Baptist Christian College in Louisiana, where he had taken correspondence courses, and received a Master of Bible Theology from the International Bible Institute. She was convinced that Carl Isaacs was the kind of person who could reach out and help anyone.
In his closing, Isaacs' attorney claimed that the rape of Mary Alday had not really been a rape at all but rather Carl Isaacs' way of assaulting his own mother, for whom he had a virulent hatred.
The jury deliberated for one hour and 52 minutes before finding that Carl Isaacs should be put to death.
Wayne Coleman's retrial took place in Decatur, Georgia, outside of Atlanta, in April. Coleman was only 41 but he had lost all his teeth, hair hair was nearly white and his body haggard and emaciated. His attorney blamed Carl Isaacs ("one of the most manipulative persons you will ever meet") and Billy Isaacs, whom he described as exactly like Carl, "a killer, a manipulator, who cut a deal with the state." He also called two clinical psychologists to the stand; one to testify to Carl Isaacs' psychological makeup and one to testify as to Coleman's.
Prosecutor Ferguson once again presented much the same case that had been presented back in 1974, relying upon the physical evidence and Billy Isaacs' eyewitness testimony to prove Coleman's guilt.
On April 29, the case went to the jury, who enjoyed a hamburger dinner before finding Wayne Coleman guilty of six counts of murder.
As with Carl Isaacs, the penalty phase for Wayne Coleman began the next day. Unlike Isaacs, Coleman's attorneys put the clinical psychologist who had interviewed and administered tests to Coleman on the stand. The doctor testified to Coleman's passive, follower-type personality, his overall depression as a human being, and his character being ripe for picking by someone like Carl Isaacs. He also claimed that Wayne Coleman not only felt guilt over the murders but that he had prayed to God for forgiveness.
Coleman's attorneys had also gotten his mother - and also Carl Issacs' mother - to relent and testify on Coleman's behalf. She testified that as a boy, Coleman was good, worked on farms and had never gotten into any kind of trouble. She said that while she believed Carl and Billy, her other two sons, could pull the trigger of a gun and kill somebody, Wayne could not. This viewpoint was confirmed by Coleman's sister Ruth, who followed her mother to the stand. Ruth burst into tears when she admitted she loved Wayne and despite the court's admonition during Carl Isaacs' trial that emotional outbursts would not be allowed, no step was taken to get Ruth Isaacs under control.
Unlike the penalty decision in Carl Isaacs' case, this one was not quick in coming. From the moment the jury retired to deliberate, there was a stalemate. One juror, a 22-year-old woman, had stated flatly that she would not vote for the death sentence. Despite her apparently inflexibility, deliberations had continued, complete with bursts of arguments, screams, and crying for the next six days. At 10:20 a.m. on May 11, following a reported 25-hour straight deliberations, the jury foreman sent word to the judge that there wad a deadlock and the jurors were unable to agree on a sentence. Judge Lawson was forced to declare a mistrial and under Georgia law, this meant that Wayne Coleman would receive a life sentence and be eligible for parole in 15 years.
Satisfied that the jury spared his life, Coleman opted not to appeal.
George Dungee had been the next, and last, in line for retrial but in 1988, the Georgia General Assembly had decreed that mentally retarded individuals could not be executed in Georgia. Dungee, who had repeatedly been given IQ tests and had never scored higher than 68, met the requirements as the state judged people whose IQs were lower than 70 to be mentally retarded. And son on July 14, 1988, George Dungee pleaded guilty by reason of mental retardation to six counts of murder and was sentenced to six consecutive life terms.
The Clock Ticks On
The years continued to roll by, while Coleman, Dungee and Billy Isaacs served their sentences and Carl Isaacs continued to appeal his death sentence, the appeals of which were basically reset on his reconviction.
For the Alday family, the years brought new tragedies. With the deaths of five Alday men, all farmers, the family business simply couldn't be sustained. Following their murders in 1973, neighbors in Donalsonville pitched in to help tend the crops and bring them in but it wasn't feasible to continue through that first year and the farming equipment was sold off. Worse, prior to his death, Ned Alday, advancing in years, had deeded his property to three of his sons: Jerry, Sugie, and Jimmy. He knew they would never take advantage of him and felt it was the safest way to protect the land should anything happen to him. None of them could have guessed that the Isaacs/Coleman brothers and George Dungee would destroy their family. With Ned's death, the property passed to Jerry, Sugie, and Jimmy, all of whom died shortly after he did. As Mary officially outlived them, she inherited the entire lot, save for a small acreage that went to Sugie's wife Barbara. With her death, it meant her heirs inherited the Alday land. The 500-plus acres that the Aldays had sweated and toiled over for many decades, that Ernestine Alday had lived on for 40 years, was now now longer hers. The land was eventually sold off in plots, with Ernestine keeping a small parcel of land, where she built a modest home for herself.
With each book and movie, none of which any Alday family member received a penny, and with each new legal action and maneuver made by one of the killers, the Aldays were forced to relieve that terrible day in May of 1973.
In 1993, Billy Isaacs was released from prison following a 1991 agreement that he be paroled. He had served 20 years.
 |
Ernestine Alday in 1993, holding a photo of her murdered husband and children
(photo source: avoc.info) |
In October of 1998, Ernestine Alday died. She was buried alongside her husband and children in the Spring Creek Baptist Church Cemetery. Less than a year later, in September of 1999, her sole surviving son and oldest child Norman, who had been serving in the military at the time of the murders and who had risen to the rank of Command Sergeant Major in the Army, died in Colorado at the age of 63.
 |
Carl Isaacs
(photo source: Georgia Department of Corrections) |
On May 6, 2003, 30 years and one day after escaping from prison in Maryland, Carl Isaacs' time finally ran out. Requesting a regular institution tray for his final meal (pork and macaroni, pinto beans, cabbage, carrot salad, dinner roll, chocolate cake and fruit punch), although neglecting to touch it, he was given a lethal injection and pronounced dead at 8:07 p.m. No one from the Isaacs family was present at his execution; he was supported by his attorney and two ministers, who witnessed the execution. Isaacs denied making a final statement but did request a final prayer, to which he reportedly mouthed "Amen." Members of the surviving Alday family were present for the execution, marking the first time in Georgia that members of a victim's family were permitted to watch an execution. Isaacs became the second condemned inmate to be put to death in Georgia in 2003 and the 32nd in the U.S. that year. He holds the dubious record of being on Death Row longer than any other inmate in the United States.
In the years since Carl Isaacs' execution, he has been connected with the January 1973 shotgun murder of 58-year-old Anne Elder of York County, Pennsylvania. Ms. Elder, who had met Isaacs in November of 1972, was killed during a period that Isaacs had escaped from a detention facility.
In 2003, Paige McKeen, the granddaughter of Ned and Ernestine Alday and the niece of Jerry, Mary, Jimmy and Sugie Alday, was instrumental in passing the Alday Family Bill, which makes it mandatory for state officials to contact the families of victims in death penalty cases twice a year. Prior to the passing of the bill, it was difficult for crime victims to gain information about any developments in their cases. She shares the Alday story to spread awareness for victims of crimes. In 2015, she spoke directly with Wayne Coleman about the murders of her family members.
 |
George Dungee in 1987
(photo source: Amazon.de) |
On April 4, 2006, George Dungee died of a heart attack in the prison of Reidsville, Georgia. He was 68 years old.
 |
Billy Isaacs
(photo source: My Life of Crime) |
On May 4, 2009, almost 36 years to the day that his brothers escaped from prison, Billy Isaacs died in Florida, where he had relocated. He was 51 years old.
 |
Wayne Coleman
(photo source: Georgia Department of Corrections) |
Wayne Coleman continues to serve his sentence at the Georgia State Prison in Reidsville. Although eligible for parole, he has been denied. He is currently 74 years old.
 |
The final resting place for Ned, Aubrey, Jerry, Sugie, Jimmy, and Mary Alday
(photo source: riverroadccs.org) |
