The Alabama Murders - Part 3: A Peculiar Institution

0:00I am Nina Khrushcheva, the great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union in 1962. And I'm Max Kennedy, the nephew of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. We explore what was a terrifying moment in history. The story of the Cuban Missile Crisis. How close the world came to nuclear war. And what they had to do to pull it back from the brink. The bomb, Kennedy and Khrushchev. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

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1:11Previously on Revisionist History. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth and its family waited for justice to occur. He backhanded his child. I don't know what the child had done. You just don't do that to a child across its face. 35 long years. And I answered the call, and I got all the information on who done it, who was all involved, and all the particulars. The viciousness was there that he could do something like that. I don't know.

1:54When Elizabeth Sennett was murdered, Patterson Hood, one of the lead singers of the legendary southern rock band The Drive-By Truckers, was living in the Shoals. Obviously, it was the big front page story for, you know, weeks because it was such a horrific, grisly murder. And all of the different as as more details started coming out about it, you know, it just kept getting worse and worse. He was 24, working at a pharmacy in Florence, looking for a way out. They closed the Ford plant in 1982, which was the year I graduated from high school. And when it was gone, not only was it gone, but then all these other businesses that depended on people who made the money working at the Ford plant, that stuff started going.

2:44It's really bounced back in the last 15, 20 years. The town's almost unrecognizable because of all the really positive things that have happened. But in 88, it was pretty fucking grim. Years went by, and the story of what happened to Elizabeth Sennett stayed with him. I don't know why it resonated with me, but I first started writing it thinking in terms of writing it more as like a short story or a book or something like that. And I kind of wrote it in that form and then at some point started turning it into a song. The song was called The Fireplace Poker. He released it on the album Go-Go Boots, which came out in 2011.

3:26Maybe you've heard it before.

3:31I've done it by God, new in high school. He and her friends should do her in and make it look like a rock. Patterson Hood got his inspiration from what one of the regulars in that Florence drugstore, a local police officer, told him back in 1988. He was the chief of police in Florence, And so he was all up in any police business anywhere in the area, whether it was in his jurisdiction or not. So he would come in and just talk about stuff. And it was interesting to hear, for sure. He theorized really early on that it wasn't like it was supposed to be looking like it was. What everyone first thought was that Elizabeth Sennett had been murdered by two local kids, Kenny Smith and John Forrest Parker.

4:32They were the ones who drove out to Coondog Cemetery Road on that March morning. It was Parker's knife found in the pond behind the house. They confessed. They were charged with capital murder. Everything that would happen in the Senate case over the course of the next 35 years, the controversies, the outrage, the moral calamity that would ultimately take place in Holman prison, was based on the assumption that the justice system in Alabama had correctly determined who was responsible for what happened that morning. Namely, Charles Sennett was the mastermind who ordered the hit on his wife, and Parker and Smith were the killers.

5:10But that's not what the Florence police chief told Patterson Hood.

5:42We'll be right back. The Reverend did his wife in Fifteen whacks of fireplace poker The Reverend came home from work and found the Mrs. dying. Life was falling from her grasp, but still she lay there trying. No one will ever know what she told him or know what he told her because the Reverend did his wife in. Fifteen whacks of fireplace poker. Wait, the Reverend did his wife in?

6:45by the murder could have been averted. The counterfactual version of events, the what-ifs. Episode 3, A Peculiar Institution.

7:11I've had, you know, other cases that technically were probably factually more complex, but this is the one that is still on my mind, even without child coming. Tom Heflin was John Forrest Parker's attorney. He remembers exactly where he was the day Elizabeth Sennett was murdered. I had been to Red Bay, Alabama, which is on the Mississippi border, down the same highway where this happened. happened. I may well have seen John Forrest Parker and Kenny Smith in their car. I don't know that for a fact, but I may well have. Then I got the call that the court was going to appoint me and Gene Hanby to represent.

8:04Heflin is the son of the former U.S. Senator from Alabama, Howell Heflin. In his living room, Heflin has a portrait of his famous father, and father and son look very much alike. The Heflins have large leonine heads and a kind of rumbling Southern gravitas. So you were court-appointed attorneys. Court-appointed attorneys. Yeah, yeah. How much of your practice would have been that kind of work in those days? Zero. This is unusual. So how did it come about? I think we'd had a string of capital murder cases, and everybody kind of is expected to serve.

8:45Parker's trial took place in May of 1989 at the Colbert County Courthouse, a graceful white neoclassical building on the town square in the center of Tuscumbia. All right, we're at the Colbert County Courthouse. If we look across, you see a three-story building with a razor wire around it and a fence. That's the county jail. Halfland gave my colleague Ben Nadav Hafrey a tour of the courthouse. Well, we don't have four lights.

9:19The courtroom was small, gray and white. On the wall, there's a portrait of the judge in the Parker case, Inga Johnson, long blonde hair, blue eyes. So where did you guys sit? There. And so the jury box, that's interesting. It sort of faces the judge. Jury box is there. witness would be there court clerk over there, obviously judge court reporter here some of the jurors would have had a direct view of John like from feet away yeah, he would have been we probably would have sat him there I think we did inside where we block him off to a certain extent why do you want to block him off? well, he is shackled you know that's basically I just don't want to emphasize that he is a prisoner at that point.

10:12Even everybody knows he is. Most criminal trials, particularly older ones, don't have an audio or video record. There's just a transcript created by the court reporter. The transcripts can run for thousands of pages, and they're their own unique literary form. Because there's no description or elaboration or context, they read as flat, banal. It takes a little bit of time to learn how to use your imagination to fill in the empty spaces. And in the case of John Parker, what becomes clear when you learn how to fill in those empty spaces is that the prosecution's case was really, really weak.

10:57The state's problem started with Parker sitting there in the docket a few feet from the jurors. This was a case about a murder for hire, a contract killer. And he just didn't look the part of a contract killer. Tell us about Parker. Parker was like 18. Actually a good family. Solid people. He had had some prior childhood trauma that I think probably created a little mental. He had some drug problems. Tell me more about your impressions of him.

11:38A kid who had been drugged out and didn't know what they were doing? John Forrest Parker had been arrested on multiple occasions for minor crimes, breaking into cars, stealing gas. He'd failed ninth grade three times. In one of his psychiatric evaluations done after one of his previous arrests, there's this, quote, John's childhood history includes a brain concussion at the age of two. He reportedly was unconscious for 36 hours following his concussion. His parents reported that due to his brain concussion, they had not expected very much of John.

12:19On the drive to Koundog Cemetery Road, on the morning of Elizabeth Sennett's murder, Parker and Smith had a bottle of whiskey between them on the front seat. Parker injected himself with a healthy dose of opioids on the way over. Charles Sennett gave them some money to buy a gun. They used it to buy drugs instead. In every description of the crime, they come across as completely clueless. Parker is 19, Smith 22. They're so lackadaisical that after beating and stabbing Elizabeth Sennett, they threw the knife and the walking stick they used into the pond behind her house. when there are literally thousands of acres of wooded wilderness on the drive back home where something could be thrown away and it would never, ever be found.

13:05Yes, Parker and Smith hurt Elizabeth Sennett badly and took money to commit acts of violence. But when we hear the phrase contract killers, we think of assassins, mafia hitmen, stone-cold, hard-bitten, lethal. These were screwed-up kids.

13:25One of the biggest points of weakness for the prosecution emerged in the testimony of the surgeon who was on duty at Helen Keller Hospital when Elizabeth Sennett was brought into the ER, David Parks McKinley. He was the one who first saw her injuries, who tried to save her life, who pronounced her dead. The direct examination by the prosecutor is brief and to the point. The police had found a knife, a hunting knife, in the pond behind the Senate House. This was a knife that both Smith and Parker admitted to bringing with them to Coondog Cemetery Road. The prosecution just wanted to establish the connection between that knife and Elizabeth Sennett's death.

14:07Question. Doctor, can you tell us what you recall about her physical appearance? Answer. The most striking thing was multiple stab wounds, particularly over the right side of the chest and at the base of the neck. There were also some wounds of the forehead and scalp. McKinley testified that the cuts on the forehead and scalp looked like they were from a blunt object. The wounds to the chest and neck were caused by a knife. He went on to say, It is likely that the chest wounds were by and large the cause of her death. Prosecutor, thank you, doctor. That's all. Halfland knew the prosecution was calling McKinley, So he did a little homework beforehand.

14:52We're starting trial on the Tuesday following Memorial Day. I know they're calling. The state medical examiner was coming up to testify what the fatal wounds were, described them. Then they were bringing the doctor who treated her in the emergency room there. And I called up the doctor and said, what are you going to say tomorrow? And we talked about it and visited, kind to each other. What the doctor told him made Heflin realize he could lay a trap. So in court, Heflin gets up and in cross-examination asks McKinley about the knife. Question. Have you ever been shown the knife that the state removed from the pond in this case?

15:40Answer. I have not seen it, no sir. Heflin turns to the prosecutors. Do you all have the knife? This is one of those moments when the transcript is of little help. You have to fill in the empty space. The prosecutors are anxious. They thought the identity of the murder weapon was a settled fact. So why does Heflin want McKinley to see it? They hesitate. The judge immediately intervenes. Can I see y 'all at the bench? Both sides huddle with the judge. The judge says to Heflin, Do you just want to show him the knife? Heflin says, Uh-huh. The judge turns to the prosecutor. Why don't you get it? More hesitation from the prosecutors.

16:22The judge repeats herself. Y 'all go get it. The prosecutors rummage in their evidence box. Take it out. Heflin hands it to the doctor. I asked Heflin to read aloud from the trial transcripts from the crucial moment of his exchange with McKinley. You saw the wounds inflicted on Ms. Senate Fresh when she came in the hospital, didn't you? Yes, sir, I said. Examining that knife, do you have any opinion whether or not that was the instrument that could have inflicted those wounds? And McKinley answers simply. I would frankly be surprised this was the knife based on what I saw or the sharp object based on what I saw on the patient.

17:05I don't have any further questions. The government's own witness testifies that the alleged murder weapon isn't actually the murder weapon. The chest wounds are of a much smaller knife than was the neck wounds are consistent with the large knife that Kenny and John have. The chest wounds, which are the fatal wounds, seem to be made by a smaller knife, and we can't find the smaller knife. That's right. From there, you would think, the reasonable doubts grow. Were Kenny Smith and John Parker actually the ones who stabbed Elizabeth Sennett to death? The pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Elizabeth Sennett's body testifies.

17:50She described Sennett's chest wounds as rapidly fatal. When asked about this by prosecutors, she said bluntly, I don't think she lived very long after those wounds were inflicted. Once again, one of the government's own witnesses undermines their case. Think about the timing. At 11.44 in the morning, Charles Sennett calls Ronnie May in hysterics to report that his wife has been attacked. At 12.15, the paramedics discover that Elizabeth Sennett has a pulse. At 1 p.m., she arrives at Helen Keller Hospital, and she's still alive. McKinley, in fact, doesn't pronounce her as dead until 2.05. a full hour later.

18:34But according to the prosecution's own witness, John Parker and Kenny Smith were back home in Florence by 11.30 that morning. It's a 30-40 minute drive from Coondag Cemetery Road to Florence, and it's pouring rain outside. The timing doesn't work. They must have left the Senate's house by at least 11. There's no way Parker and Smith could have inflicted rapidly fatal wounds at mid-morning if she was still alive at 2 o 'clock in the afternoon, meaning Smith and Parker must have been long gone by the time the fatal wounds were inflicted.

19:10Later in the trial, another pathologist who had examined the Senate autopsy made the same point. Here is Heflin questioning him. Question. If the evidence in this case shows that the Cherokee rescue squad detected a heartbeat on Mrs. Sennett at approximately 12.15 p.m. on March the 18th, 1988. Based upon your years of experience as a pathologist and your review of the exhibits that you just named, do you have an opinion as to what time prior to 12.15 p.m. the fatal wounds were delivered? Answer, within a very few minutes. The judge, the jury, the lawyers on both sides, the journalists covering the trial are all listening to this testimony with its unmistakable implication.

19:59Someone else must have stabbed Elizabeth Sennett in the chest with a smaller knife. And who was the only person at the House at the time of the 911 call? Charles Sennett. If Sennett does it, the timing makes a lot more sense. He shows up after they've left. Stabs, calls. Stabs and calls. Yeah. Or even had called and then stabbed. Yeah. A knife that doesn't fit, a timeline that makes no sense. And if the jury still had any lingering doubts about Charles Sennett's culpability, there was also what they heard from Elizabeth Sennett's friend, who had a front-row seat to the inner life of her marriage.

20:42That's after the break.

20:57I am Nina Khrushcheva, the great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union in 1962. And I'm Max Kennedy, the nephew of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. We explore what was a terrifying moment in history. The story of the Cuban Missile Crisis. How close the world came to nuclear war. And what they had to do to pull it back from the brink. The bomb, Kennedy and Khrushchev. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

21:29Susan Mosley was a nurse at a weight loss clinic in Muscle Shoals. Elizabeth Sennett was one of her patients. And I noticed she was extremely quiet, introverted, no self-esteem, but was a brilliant, brilliant one. Mosley sat down with a local reporter named Lee Hedgbeth, who has written about the Senate case and did some interviews for us. She shared with him what she remembered about Elizabeth in the months leading up to the murder. So she would come once a week to the clinic, and I would go over, I would weigh her to her blood pressure, talk to her about, okay, how's your weight doing? Mosley said that Elizabeth's Senate didn't seem happy.

22:18She would sit in the waiting room with a napkin crushed in her fist. One day, Mosley decided to confront her.

22:28And I said, Liz, now listen to me. You have been going up and down on your way. So I'm going to close this chart. I'm just going to turn it down and shut my eyes. Take a deep breath. And how about you? You can close your eyes. and just tell me what you think is the biggest problem. If you eat potato chips like I do every night, we'll get baked ones or we will do something. So just let me know. And I nearly opened my eyes and I heard the cheer, Russell, and I still felt it show. And she said, Hey, Doc, open your eyes. She said, turn around here. And I'll never forget, I turned to my left. I found her around like this, and she was standing there.

23:19And I'm going to tell you before we go any further. I'm going to go. She had my thunderblows. And put it down from about an inch above where a short sleeve would come.

23:42All in her chest. Even if I liked it. Or butts. Or legs. To a certain area where a skirt would come. It was black. Black. The Senate was covered in bruises. I got up and I just told you, I didn't ask no questions. I didn't ask anything. I had to button her little phone back up and I went like that and she sat down. You want to talk about this? and she began to tell me the story about her relationship with Mr. Simmons. She began to tell me that she didn't know how but that he was going to kill her and that she knew this and she had been saving her money

24:43for the boys.

24:49and then the attorney she was going to is going to charge her$400. She said, I'm worried about this. You worried about this? I'll do this. He was his shirt.