Crooked Snake: The Life and Crimes of Albert Lepard

Description

In 1968, during Albert Lepard’s fifth escape from a life sentence at Parchman Penitentiary, he kidnapped Lovejoy Boteler, then eighteen years old, from his family’s farm in Grenada, Mississippi. Three decades later, still beset by half-buried memories of that time, Boteler began researching his kidnapper’s nefarious, sordid life to discover how and why this terrifying abduction occurred. Crooked Snake: The Life and Crimes of Albert Lepard is the true story of Lepard, sentenced to life in Parchman for the murder of seventy-four-year-old Mary Young in 1959. During the course of his sentence, Lepard escaped from prison six times in fourteen years. In Crooked Snake, Boteler pieces together the story of this cold-blooded murderer's life using both historical records and personal interviews—over seventy in all—with ex-convicts who gravitated to and ran with Lepard, the family members who fed and sheltered the fugitive during his escapes, the law officers who hunted him, and the regular folks who were victimized in his terrible wake. Throughout Crooked Snake, Boteler reveals his kidnapper’s hardscrabble childhood and tracks his whereabouts before his incarceration and during his jailbreaks. Lepard’s escapes take him to Florida, Michigan, Kansas, California, and Mexico. Crooked Snake captures a slice of history and a landscape that is fast disappearing. These vignettes describe Mississippi’s countryside and spirit, ranging from sharecropper family gatherings in Attala County’s Seneasha Valley to the twenty-thousand-acre Parchman farm and its borderlands teeming with alligator, panther, bear, and wild boar.

Get the book

Amazon.com

Search the book

eBay.com

Search the book

Similar books

• 

  The Enforcer: A Life Fighting Crime

  By Graeme Pearson

  We arrived to find the shop owner had three trusted staff who had worked with him for a number of years. The four staff dispensed loans from behind a ...

• 

  Silent Death: The Killing of Julie Ramage

  By Karen Kissane

  At 12.10 pm, Juliedropped by Warren's office and said, 'I didn't have any breakfast and I'm ... Warren wason the phone;she said briefly, 'No worries.

• 

  Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South

  By Karen L. Cox

  There, Charles became the rector of St. James Church in Port Gibson, a small town about halfway between Natchez and Vicksburg. Why he left after serving Christ Church for nearly three decades is a mystery, though his marriage to a ...

• 

  Texas Lawmen, 1835-1899: The Good and the Bad

  By Clifford R. Caldwell, Ron DeLord

  A 04 - Cherry Wesley 34-W: 18 11, D. 19 - Christian, James Ineligible 22, D, 14 - Clark. Alvin A. On File 21, A, 13 - Clark. David Ineligible 26. A 12 - Clark. William A. 59–E: 25 19, D, 16 - Clendennen, Robert Ned 45–W: 24 09, D 09 ll.

• 

  Poisoned Vows

  By Clifford L. Linedecker

  There was no sign in the house of the $10,000 Clark had withdrawn from the credit union the previous day or of his billfold with the $500 to $600 pocket money he usually carried around with him. Two rings he wore were still on his ...

• 

  Smooth Operator: The True Story of Seductive Serial Killer Glen Rogers

  By Clifford L. Linedecker

  Rogers spent the night at the Clark County Detention Center, and was released the next afternoon. ... The white 1979 Mercury was owned by Russell E. Wright of Hamilton and still carried the Ohio license tags when the officers spotted it ...

• 

  Monster

  By Allan Hall

  Including exclusive photographs and previously unseen evidence, this is a truly heart-stopping record of one of the most elaborate and disturbing cases of abuse in modern times.

• 

  Missy's Murder: Passion, Betrayal, and Murder in Southern California

  By Karen Kingsbury

  Three years later, a surprise witness exposed the murderers as Missy’s two best friends—one of whom was Karen. New York Times–bestselling author Karen Kingsbury delivers a story full of twists, turns, betrayals, and confessions.

• 

  Deep Deception: The relentless investigation to bring George Gibney, Derry O’Rourke, Ger Doyle and other abusers to justice

  By Justine McCarthy

  Linda Jones of Howard House, a child abuse therapy centre in north London, has described organised networks as working 'in cells, like terrorist cells. No paedophile who is linked knows of more than one other, so they'll use a child, ...

• 

  Buckinghamshire Murders

  By Dr Jonathan Oates

  Hatto had earlier worked for Mr Plummer of Gray's, near Henley. The farmhouse was a modern brick building and was located on the site of the ancient Abbey Farm, having been rebuilt for John Pocock (now deceased) some years previously.