In his new book, “The Big Eddy Club: The Stocking Stranglings and Southern Justice,” author David Rose examines issues of race and the death penalty. The book relates the story of Carlton Gary, who was convicted of capital murder in 1986 and remains on Georgia’s death row for the rape and murder of several elderly women in Columbus, Georgia. Rose, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, links Gary’s conviction to a history of bias in Columbus and the South.
“The Big Eddy Club” details the connections between past and present Southern justice and uses these links to further examine the broader issues of race, corruption, and the criminal justice system. Rose maintains that racism in Columbus may have resulted in an unfair trial for Gary. His investigation of the case found that many of the community’s prominent judges and attorneys, as well as most of the victims, were frequenters of the Big Eddy Club, an exclusive all-white club in Columbus. He also reveals a connection between the Gary case and a 1912 lynching of a black man who had been tried for murder and acquitted. Rose found that the trial judge first assigned to Gary’s case in 1984 was the son of the mob leader who led the eventual lynching. (The New Press, 2007; posted June 19, 2007). See Books and Race.
