In 1912, 18-year-old Ella Barham left her family’s farm near Pleasant Ridge, Arkansas, on an ordinary errand and never came home. Her brutal murder shocked Boone County and led authorities to a neighbor accused of killing her after years of rejected romantic interest. More than a century later, Ella Barham’s murder remains one of Arkansas’ darkest and most troubling true crime stories.

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Episode Sources

• Gould, Nita. Remembering Ella: A 1912 Murder and Mystery in the Arkansas Ozarks. Butler Center Books / University of Arkansas Press, 2018. (rememberingella.com)
• Barham, Ella (Murder of) - Encyclopedia of Arkansas
• Gould, Nita, ed. The 1913 Trial of Odus Davidson: The Official Witness Testimony. Companion volume to Remembering Ella.
• Encyclopedia of Arkansas — 'Barham, Ella (Murder of)' (encyclopediaofarkansas.net)
• Encyclopedia of Arkansas — 'Davidson, Odus' (encyclopediaofarkansas.net)
• Find a Grave — Ella Lillian Ethel Barham (memorial #40832262)
• Find a Grave — Odus Davidson (memorial #31134642)
• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette — 'The verdict: Guilty of murder' (review of Remembering Ella by Tom Dillard, December 9, 2018)
• AY Magazine — 'Murder Mystery: In Memoriam: Ella Barham' (aymag.com)
• Case file: State v. Davidson, No. 183 (Ark. Cir. Ct. 1913). Boone County Circuit Clerk's Office, Boone County Courthouse, Harrison, Arkansas.
• Case file: Davidson v. State, 108 Ark. 158, S.W. 1103 (1913). University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law / Pulaski County Law Library, Little Rock, Arkansas.
• Boone County Court Record Book L, County Clerk's Office, Boone County Courthouse, Harrison, Arkansas.
• Lead Hill, Arkansas newspaper, November 22, 1912 — first published account of the murder (via Chronicling America, Library of Congress, loc.gov)
• Batesville Daily Guard — editorial on circumstantial evidence and the Davidson verdict
• Shiloh Museum of Ozark History — 'Scenes of Boone County' (shilohmuseum.org)

Episode Music

Out of the Mines, courtesy of Ross Gentry, Asheville, North Carolina.

One of the Civil War’s most controversial events unfolded on June 11, 1863, when Union forces entered Darien, Georgia, an undefended town of little strategic importance, and left it in flames. Homes, churches, businesses and one of the oldest Black congregations in the South were destroyed. The troops ordered to take part included the famed 54th Massachusetts, one of the first official Black regiments of the Civil War. But the story of who set the destruction in motion is more complicated than many people came to believe.

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Episode Sources

• Burchard, Peter. “One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment.” St. Martin’s Press, 1965.
• Burchard, Peter. “We’ll Stand by the Union: Robert Gould Shaw and the Black 54th Massachusetts Regiment.” Facts on File, 1993.
• Coulter, E.M. Writings on the burning of Darien, including his characterization of the destruction as a “barbaric act” and “wanton vandalism.”
• Duncan, Russell, editor. “Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw.” University of Georgia Press, 1992.
• Duncan, Russell. “Where Death and Glory Meet: Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry.” University of Georgia Press, 1999.
• Emilio, Luis F. “A Brave Black Regiment: History of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1863-1865.” Boston Book Co., 1894.
• Francis Lieber, “Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field,” General Orders No. 100, April 24, 1863.
• Georgia Historical Society historical marker, “The Burning of Darien,” erected in 2001.
• Historical Marker Database, “The Burning of Darien,” marker transcription and location information.
• King, Spencer Bidwell Jr. “Darien: The Death and Rebirth of a Southern Town.” Mercer University Press, 1981.
• Levin, Kevin M. “James Montgomery, the Burning of Darien, and the Innocence of Robert Gould Shaw.” “Civil War Memory,” Oct. 23, 2023.
• Levin, Kevin M. “Vindicating Col. Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th.” “Civil War Memory,” May 19, 2013.
• Massachusetts Historical Society, “The Destruction of Darien, Georgia,” “The Beehive,” Oct. 25, 2017.
• National Museum of African American History and Culture, “The Combahee Ferry Raid.”
• National Museum of the United States Army, “Robert Gould Shaw.”
• National Park Service, “54th Massachusetts Regiment.”
• National Park Service, “Combahee River Ferry & Harriet Tubman Bridge.”
• National Park Service, “We Called Ourselves Combee: Freeing the Enslaved People of the Combahee River.”
• Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume XIV.
• Shaw-Minturn family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, including Robert Gould Shaw’s June 1863 letters describing the burning of Darien.
• St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Darien, Georgia, church history materials.
• “Written in Glory: The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment,” entries related to June 1863, July 1863 and the burning of Darien.

Episode Music

Out of the Mines, courtesy of Ross Gentry, Asheville, North Carolina.

In July 1911, Louise Beattie was found mortally wounded after a late-night drive outside Richmond, Virginia, and her husband insisted a stranger had stepped from the darkness and fired the fatal shot. But the story he told began to crack almost as soon as investigators looked more closely at the road, the evidence, and the life he had been hiding. What followed was a murder case filled with scandal, deception, and testimony that gripped the nation. In this episode, Southern Mysteries examines the death of Louise Beattie and the trial that turned a Virginia killing into one of the most infamous crimes of its time.

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Want more Southern Mysteries? You can hear the Southern Mysteries show archive of 60+ episodes along with Patron exclusive podcast, Audacious: Tales of American Crime and more when you become a patron of the show. You can immediately access exclusive content now at patreon.com/southernmysteries

🎧 Explore More Southern Mysteries

Visit SouthernMysteries.com for more episodes and source lists.

📱 Follow on Social Media:

Facebook: Southern Mysteries Podcast Instagram: @southernmysteries Email: southernmysteriespodcast@gmail.com

Episode Sources

• Style Weekly Richmond — 'Finding Beulah' (styleweekly.com)
• Virginia Chronicle Digital Newspaper Archive — The News Leader, September 7, 1911 (virginiachronicle.com)
• San Francisco Call — August 29, 1911 — Paul Beattie testimony (California Digital Newspaper Collection, cdnc.ucr.edu)
• Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection — Rocky Mountain News, September 9, 1911
• Pottsville Republican — November 24, 1911 — Beattie confession and execution (newspapers.com)
• Old Songs — Henry Clay Beattie folk ballad, Kelly Harrell 1927 recording (lizlyle.lofgrens.org)
• Find a Grave — Henry Clay Beattie Jr. (memorial #11571632), Louise Wellford Owen Beattie (#11571649), Henry Clay Beattie Sr. (#11571129)
• WikiTree — Henry Clay (Beattie) Owen — Wellford Beattie name change record
• William & Mary Law School Digital Repository — A Full and Complete History of the Great Beattie Murder Case (scholarship.law.wm.edu)
• Trotti, Michael Ayers. The Body in the Reservoir: Murder and Sensationalism in the South (University of North Carolina Press, 2014)
• Grossman, Mark. The Trunk Dripped Blood: Five Sensational Murder Cases of the Early 20th Century (Exposit Books, 2018)
• A Full and Complete History of the Beattie Case, Most Highly Sensational Tragedy of the Century (Phoenix Publishing Co., 1911) — Harvard CURIOSity Digital Collections and WorldCat
• Virginia Museum of History & Culture — Richmond automobile culture and Kline Kar history, 1911 (virginiahistory.org)
• Venture Richmond / Wikipedia — Manchester neighborhood history and 1910 consolidation with Richmond
• Chesterfield Historical Society of Virginia — Russ Lescault, board member, quoted in Style Weekly

Episode Music

Out of the Mines, courtesy of Ross Gentry, Asheville, North Carolina.