by Karen L. Cox
CHAPTER TEN
HOLLOW VICTORY
Emily Burns’s conviction and life prison sentence did not satisfy every white Natchezean, least of all Book Roberts and Octavia Dockery. The sheriff had spent countless hours collecting evidence that he was sure would return indictments against her and Dick Dana. Yet not only had the pair been allowed to leave jail on their own recognizance and earn money from their notoriety, but District Attorney Clay Tucker refused to indict either of them for alleged lack of evidence. On the other hand, Octavia felt certain that the sheriff had besmirched her name by arresting her and then charging both Dick and her with murder.
Emily’s conviction proved to be a hollow victory for both the sheriff and the Goat Woman. In Book Roberts’s mind, the murder of Jennie Merrill remained an open case until Octavia Dockery stood trial for the role she played. And as far as Octavia Dockery was concerned, her reputation had been injured by the whole affair, and she held the sheriff responsible. Their disdain for one another simmered for months following the trial. Then, almost a year to the day Jennie Merrill was found dead, those frustrations boiled over.
Life in Natchez slowly returned to normal in the months following the trial. While people continued to discuss the case, most were relieved that the tragedy of Jennie Merrill’s murder, the circus-like atmosphere surrounding the investigation, and the revelations stemming from Goat Castle were behind them. Or so they thought.
Locals busied themselves preparing for the second annual pilgrimage of homes. The Natchez Garden Club, buoyed by the success of the first pilgrimage, was steadily working with homeowners in anticipation of the onslaught of visitors from around the country eager to experience antebellum grandeur. The nation’s leading newspaper, the New York Times, advised visitors to set aside at least two days to see all of the twenty-two homes scheduled to be open, while Better Homes and Gardens planned an illustrated feature story with Katherine Miller, the garden club’s publicity chair. Black Natchezeans were instrumental to the success of the pilgrimage, too. Several of the women planned to dress as mammies and serve food, while men in top hats and tails intended to work as carriage drivers taking tourists from home to home. A blended choir from several black churches also spent hours practicing for a concert of Negro spirituals called “Heaven Bound” to raise money for their schools.1
Dick Dana and Octavia Dockery inside Glenwood with their goats, ca. 1933. This and other images of the pair and their goats circulated in newspapers nationwide.
The people advising Dick Dana and Octavia Dockery assisted them in promoting their ruinous home and estate among pilgrimage visitors, too, taking advantage of the groundwork laid by the garden club. In the months following their release from jail, the pair regularly welcomed paying tourists to Glenwood. Twenty-five cents allowed people to see the grounds, and an extra twenty-five cents gained them admission to the house.
In anticipation of the thousands of visitors who were expected to be in Natchez for the annual pilgrimage, Dick and Octavia’s advisers, the group known as “the committee,” printed and distributed flyers inviting those same tourists to visit “beautiful historic Glenwood.” At least that was the caption that accompanied the photo of the run-down house on the leaflet. In even larger letters, it advertised “GOAT CASTLE” as “Internationally Famous.” And because they showcased family heirlooms, the two listed their home as the “Dana and Dockery Museum.” The flyer was marketed directly to pilgrimage visitors who were promised entertainment, namely one of Dick’s piano recitals. There was also their plea to “Help the ‘Old Folks’ Restore Glenwood.”2
Goat Castle flyer advertising tours and promises of restoration, ca. 1933. (Courtesy of the Thomas H. and Joan W. Gandy Photograph Collection, Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections, Special Collections, Hill Memorial Library, Louisiana State University Libraries, Baton Rouge.)
Of course, little restoration took place at Glenwood. It was too far gone. Dick and Octavia, in fact, could not even afford to pay taxes on the place and had not done so for years. Charles Zerkowsky’s heirs, who owned quite a bit of dilapidated property in town, including the home Emily and her mother had rented on St. Catherine Street, held title to Glenwood. Yet collecting admissions is how Dick and Octavia survived for years following the trial, not one cent of which went to paying their debts.
Members of the Natchez Garden Club never publicly mentioned Goat Castle, since their goal was to promote the splendor of the Old South. They tried ignoring it, but the media would not let them. Several years of successful pilgrimages did not prevent the Saturday Evening Post from mentioning the unmentionable in a lengthy article intended to promote the now nationally famous tourist event. “There is [an] independent Pilgrimage, so to speak, of which Natchez would just as [well] not talk,” the article stated. “For twenty-five cents the visitor may see another old mansion, Glenwood, better known since 1932 as Goat Castle, a side show which might have been plagiarized from a story by William Faulkner.” Tucked in between beautiful photographs of Natchez, the article referenced the murder of Jennie Merrill, and the magazine reminded its readers that while Dick Dana “was absolved of the crime,” it did not happen “before squalorous Goat Castle had been described in word and photograph in every paper in America.”3
While Dick and Octavia made money off of their notoriety, Book Roberts decided to tell his side of the story to a crime writer from Memphis named Homer G. Wells. Wells, a former coroner and detective, regularly wrote for crime magazines and offered to write about the by-now nationally famous Merrill murder for Master Detective. In a five-part series that began in May 1933, Wells offered a dramatic retelling of what he called “The Crimson Crime at Glenburney Manor.”4
Several details that were public knowledge made it into the Master Detective series, as well as behind-the-scenes revelations. The sheriff’s story “as told to” Wells provided details and dialogue that may or may not have occurred but helped to dramatize an already vivid tale of intrigue. In newspaper coverage, for example, the public learned very little about Emily’s mother, Nellie Black. In Wells’s account, though, she comes to life. Nellie is described as a “typical ‘old mammy’ whose portly figure was topped by a gingham bonnet that covered graying hair braided close to the scalp.” Readers also “hear” from Nellie in this retelling as she discusses her daughter’s relationship with George Pearls. “My gal and dat scampish nigger from the No’th lef’ de house befo’ dark dat evening and dey didn’t come back’til late dat night,” she allegedly told Sheriff Roberts, who believed that “her voice had the ring of truth.” Whether she looked as Wells described her, said those words, or spoke in the dialect that he used may never be known. But it was in keeping with the stereotypes people believed about southern black women of the time.5
If the story is to be believed in its entirety, readers learn why Edgar Allan Poe Newell was not charged as an accessory in the murder of Jennie Merrill. Emily Burns made several confessions implicating him. Deputies arrested Newell and went so far as to take him to Jackson to secure a confession. Yet in Book’s retelling of the story to Wells, Ed Newell claimed to be in downtown Natchez at the time the crime occurred and provided the names of “several reputable citizens” who could testify to his whereabouts.6
While Homer Wells freely used the real names of nearly everyone associated with the crime and investigation, the names and relationship of Dick Dana and Octavia Dockery are changed, even though photographs of the pair and their home illustrate the story. Anyone familiar with the case, however, would know that “Mr. Jack and his wife” are Dana and Dockery. Yet Book Roberts, who vowed to continue the investigation after Emily Burns’s trial, needed to be careful not to use their real names in the event the pair was eventually indicted for murder.7
Octavia may have heard about, or even read, the Master Detective series. Even if she had not, she remained convinced that the sheriff was responsible for exposing the life she once led in the shadows of Glenwood. Aside from him and t
he deputies who frequented the estate to settle disputes between her and Jennie Merrill, and the local blacks who lived and worked nearby, most people in Natchez had no idea that Octavia lived in such filth and decay. Neither were they aware of Dick’s mental state and his “wild” habits. It had all remained hidden from public view until their arrest. As the anniversary of that day approached, her anger reached a tipping point.
That August, against the advice of “the committee,” Octavia Dockery filed a civil lawsuit against Book Roberts on her own and a separate one on Dick Dana’s behalf seeking damages in the total amount of $32,000 for their false arrest, mistreatment, and the humiliating publicity that followed. She named the National Surety Company of New York as a codefendant since it provided the official bond on the sheriff and insured him against such lawsuits. The firm of Brandon and Brandon in Natchez, and very likely Gerard Brandon himself, drafted the documents, but she personally filed both cases without hiring any attorney to represent her.8
Octavia Dockery in front of Goat Castle, 1933. (Courtesy of the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.)
In her civil suit, Octavia claimed that Sheriff Roberts came to Glenwood “late at night, being early in the morning of the 5th day of August,” and entered the house and the “bedroom to which she had retired for the night” and falsely arrested her “without any warrant, without just cause, and without reasonable ground to suspect that [she] had committed a felony.” Her suit also alleged that the sheriff did not inform her of why he was there and “at no time during her false arrest and imprisonment did [he] make any formal charge against her.”9
The suit went even further in its allegations by complaining that Sheriff Roberts and his deputies also subjected her “to cruel and humiliating questionings, examinations and inquisitions, and to humiliating associations with criminals and persons charged with the crime.” The latter part of Octavia’s accusation revealed her anger for having her name associated with the two black persons held responsible for Merrill’s murder — George Pearls and Emily Burns. Her lawsuit also alleged that the sheriff and his deputies “did brow-beat and threaten [her] with physical violence,” something Emily Burns experienced though without any recourse of the law. These same men, Octavia believed, used “unlawful means and trickery” in an attempt to “extort” a confession from her for a crime of which, she adamantly declared, she was innocent. Octavia also claimed that they took her fingerprints “forcibly” and then “subjected her to being photographed, viewed, and interviewed under humiliating circumstances,” even though she posed for the camera and spoke freely of her life with reporters. All of it, she claimed, caused her “to suffer great mental anguish, humiliation, shame, and physical suffering,” not to mention the “loss of sleep and rest.”10
In addition to her alleged personal suffering, Dockery held Roberts responsible for the items that went missing from Glenwood in the days following the pair’s arrest. Not only had he not kept away trespassers, but she also claimed that by failing to provide a custodian for the property he was responsible for the personal property removed from their home, which she valued at $1,000. That amount, along with the $10,000 in damages she sought for false arrest and imprisonment and the $5,000 in punitive damages, brought the total to $16,000 — the very same amount she sought on Dick’s behalf.11
Book Roberts once told a reporter, “I hope I never see Dana and Miss Dockery again.”12 Together they had made a spectacle not only of themselves but also of the murder investigation. A year after the case seemed to run its course, there was still no relief. Octavia had filed a civil suit and another one on Dick’s behalf seeking damages against him and the company that insured his work as an officer of the law. But through his attorneys he answered back and filed a “notice under the general issue” detailing the evidence he intended to produce at trial.13
According to Sheriff Roberts, it was while he was in the process of investigating the whereabouts of Jennie Merrill that “he was informed [she] had been killed” prior to the time he arrested Dockery, a clear reference to Dick Dana’s unsolicited statement “I know nothing of the murder.” Book had first arrested Dick, who then rambled on about what had happened earlier that evening and subsequently implicated Octavia, which is why the sheriff went back inside Glenwood and arrested her, too. In response to Dockery’s allegations, Roberts also referred to the “conduct and statements” she had made to him and his deputies, which gave them “just and reasonable cause to believe” that she was “connected with [the murder] either as a principal or as an accessory before or after the fact.” Given this, he regarded it as his duty to arrest her without a warrant and that he was legally justified in entering her residence and taking her into custody so he could question her about the “facts and circumstances surrounding the killing [of] Miss Jane Merrill.” He did not even mention the numerous visits he and his deputies had made to Glenburnie and Glenwood to settle arguments between Merrill and Dockery over trespassing animals, including a particularly vicious exchange in the days before Merrill’s murder.14
Book Roberts’s response to the civil suit made it clear that he believed Octavia acted “either as a principal or as an accessory” in the murder of Jennie Merrill. He also maintained that keeping her in jail was “reasonable and proper” and replied to her allegations of physical threats and browbeating by arguing that she had never been mistreated and that interrogations of her were made legally and during “reasonable hours.” Octavia knew very well why she was in jail because he had “fully advised” her of the reasons for her arrest “and of the crime then being investigated.”15
Dick and Octavia’s claims of humiliation did not go unanswered. Here, Roberts finally got in his licks. Not only had they not suffered from embarrassing publicity, his attorneys countered, but also both of them “made capital thereof, and by written advertisements and publication . . . created much additional publicity.” Dockery distributed flyers “throughout the State of Mississippi and the State of Louisiana and elsewhere.” She even “took unto herself the stage name of ‘Goat Woman’” and called her home with Dana “Goat Castle.” Under their advertised names of “Wild Man” and “Goat Woman,” the pair traveled throughout Mississippi and Louisiana and made public appearances “in alleged concerts and performances.” While doing so, they “greatly benefited financially” and “made large profits” based on the circumstances surrounding their arrest, an arrest the lawsuits against him claimed to have caused them both great injury.16
Last, and in response to the allegation of “humiliating associations” with those who were subsequently charged with the crime, Roberts’s attorneys were clear. In the advertising and publicity of Dana and Dockery’s public performances, they made “unmistakable reference” to their connection with the crime and its principals by the use of “Goat Woman,” “Wild Man,” and “Goat Castle”— nicknames given to the pair and their home “through newspapers and magazines” that covered the crime and by which the story circulated throughout the country. In sum, Dick and Octavia had capitalized on their arrest and confinement.17
For over a year, Book Roberts had demonstrated the patience of Job where it concerned the couple from Glenwood. The civil lawsuit, however, was the last straw. As the November term of the Adams County Circuit Court approached, little did Dick and Octavia know that Roberts had been busy securing evidence needed to indict the pair for Jennie Merrill’s murder. Octavia, who filed her civil suit in August, was ready for her face-off with the sheriff when Deputies Joseph Stone and Pat Mulvihill showed up at her door on Wednesday, November 15. Both she and Dick assumed the men were there about the matter of their civil suit. Instead, the deputies were there to arrest them — again — for the murder of Jennie Merrill. They vigorously protested to no avail as the deputies took them into custody and straight to the Adams County jail, where they were held under a bond of $1,000 each. Later that day, they were arraigned before Judge Robert Corban, where District Attorney Clay Tucker read alo
ud the joint indictment of the pair as accessories in Merrill’s murder.18
Dick and Octavia’s indictment for murder came on the very day that their civil suit against Sheriff Roberts was to be heard. Gerard Brandon, Ed Ratcliff, and Everett Truly from Truly and Truly in Fayette had just signed onto the civil suit, since Octavia had filed it without an attorney. So, when they went into court that day, they had not counted on representing her and Dick Dana in the murder charge, too, even though they subsequently requested to be their court-appointed attorneys. Given the short timeline, their first action was to request a continuance in the civil suit while they dealt with the murder charge. Ratcliff then stated that he planned to file a motion for the couple’s release.19
Book Roberts was ready. His attorneys, Laurens Kennedy — who had previously defended Octavia Dockery in her cases with Jennie Merrill — and C. F. Engle, objected to a delay in the civil suit, arguing they were prepared for the case. For his part, the sheriff ordered his deputies at the jail “not to release the two without his personal sanction of the bond.” Judge Corban, the same judge who had presided over Emily Burns’s trial, declared the entire proceeding “the most peculiar [I’ve] ever known since being on the bench.” But he gave lead attorney Gerard Brandon only until the following morning to make the case for a continuance, adding that Book Roberts, as the chief officer of the county, could not perform his duties with “a civil suit pending against him indefinitely.”20