05x09 - "k*ll"igraphy

[bunniefuu]

Narrator: in the backwoods of georgia

In a dilapidated house,

A -year-old recluse named virginia ridley

Was found dead.

A medical examiner ruled the death a homicide.

But who would m*rder someone

Who seldom ventured out of her home?

Investigators found some clues

In the notes she had written

Shortly before her death.

Narrator: ringgold, georgia, is a small rural town

Located at the base of the blue ridge mountains.

Life is simple here.

The main street has only traffic lights,

And most of the town's residents

Know or do business with each other.

Alvin ridley was a well-known figure in ringgold.

At one time, he ran the town's only television repair shop.

In , he married -year-old virginia hickey,

And almost immediately,

Virginia cut off all contact with her family.

Alvin said it was because her family was too intrusive.

Virginia's sister, trixie lecroy, says

Alvin forced virginia to stay away from her family.

Lecroy: I sent them an invitation to every wedding,

Every death,

Every birthing in our family, to no avail.

Nothing was ever acknowledged--nothing.

My father's death...

My father went to his grave

After making every effort possible

To try to see his daughter,

Never having seen her after...

She...

Got, you know, mixed up with mr. Ridley.

Narrator: alvin ridley had a reputation in ringgold,

And it wasn't a particularly good one.

He was known for filing lawsuits

Against anyone he felt had wronged him,

And in the process, he had made a lot of enemies.

Man: he's always accusing.

He's very suspicious.

He trusts...no one, really.

And, um...

So that obviously put him at odds with a lot of people--

City government on licensing issues,

The city chief of police, of course,

The county sheriff.

Narrator: in after a minor traffic accident,

He filed a series of legal actions

And got hit with a countersuit.

He lost and had to forfeit his van as payment.

Man: july ,

They seized my van

Without due process of law,

Without a fair hearing.

And it... Somewhere in there,

It turned all my customers and friends and...

Suppliers and dealers and creditors against me,

And they wouldn't sell me no more products,

So it forced me out of business.

Narrator: the loss of his van meant the failure

Of his television repair business,

Which started a further downward spiral.

He was known as "crazy alvin" by the townspeople.

His reputation was not helped by the fact

That no one had seen alvin's wife virginia--

Not even her family--

In the years she was married to alvin.

Lecroy: what I couldn't understand--if she was mad at her family,

Why did she not go to the door for friends?

So that kind of made me believe

That maybe, possibly,

He had given her instructions not to.

He'd get angry...

At her, maybe,

And told her not to, and i--

The thought crossed my mind, maybe she was being kept c*ptive.

Narrator: what went on in alvin ridley's secluded house

Was the subject of town gossip.

But on the morning of october , ,

It became news.

Virginia ridley was found dead in her bed,

Fully clothed.

By the time medical personnel arrived,

Rigor mortis had set in--

An indication that she had been dead for at least hours.

Trixie lecroy was asked to identify her sister's body.

I could not do it. I could not do it.

So my sister's husband was with her,

And the two of them went in,

And she came back out, and she said...

You know, "I'm so glad you didn't go in. It was not a pretty sight."

She said,

"Her hair has not been combed in years.

"It's just...it has so many knots in it.

"It has not been combed in years.

"She can't weigh pounds.

She's skin stretched over bone."

Narrator: new rumors began to surface in ringgold, georgia,

About alvin ridley

And the role he might have played

In his wife's death.

Narrator: in october of ,

Virginia ridley was found dead

In a house with no phone,

No running water,

And infested with ants and cockroaches.

She had been dead at least hours

Before medical personnel arrived, which prompted questions.

Why had it taken her husband alvin

So long to call for help?

Virginia's sister, trixie lecroy, believes

If he had called earlier, her sister might still be alive.

Lecroy: there's no doubt in my mind

That this man was responsible,

Directly or indirectly, for my sister's death.

You cannot convince me of anything else.

Narrator: investigators traced alvin's steps

On the morning of virginia's death.

You awake? Honey.

Narrator: alvin said that when he woke up, his wife was dead.

He got into his truck and went looking for a telephone.

He admitted driving by the local fire station,

Which could have provided emergency assistance.

Instead, he continued driving to a telephone

Outside of town.

He did not call the local hospital,

Minutes away.

Instead,

He called a hospital in chattanooga, tennessee--

Some miles away.

They told him to dial

For local assistance, which he finally did,

Leaving this message...

Man, on tape: catoosa . Where is your emergency?

Ridley, on tape: inman street.

What's the problem?

I think my wife passed out.

Inman street?

Yeah.

Is she breathing?

I don't think so. It's behind the steel plant there.

I'm calling from a pay phone booth.

You don't have a phone at your house?

There's no phone. Uh-uh.

There's no phone there?

Narrator: investigators were struck by the lack of concern in alvin's voice.

It was unlike most emergency calls they receive.

The initial examination of virginia's body was done

By the local coroner, vanita hullender.

In virginia's eyes,

The coroner found petechial hemorrhages,

Which are broken blood vessels often seen in cases

Of strangulation or smothering deaths.

Decedent is a female in her late s.

Decedent is malnourished,

Petechial hemorrhages around her eyes...

Narrator: the next day, a full autopsy was performed.

The medical examiner, dr. Fredric hellman,

Found something not noted during the initial examination--

Deep bruising on the muscles of virginia ridley's neck,

Another possible indication of strangulation.

Virginia ridley's death was ruled a homicide,

And her husband alvin was charged with m*rder.

To those in ringgold

Who knew alvin ridley as "crazy alvin,"

The news came as no surprise.

Poston: everybody thought he k*lled his wife back in the sixties

Or the early seventies.

And there was even talk that he'd k*lled her long, long time ago.

And, um, and then one day,

He calls , and there is a...

Recently dead body in the bed,

And that's his wife.

Narrator: because of the petechial hemorrhages in the eyes

And the condition of the body,

The coroner suspected foul play,

And police could find no indication

That virginia had received routine medical care in the recent past.

Lecroy: I think they checked a - to -mile radius.

No doctor...

No physician...

No pharmacy...

No hospital.

This girl had not been anywhere

In years.

Narrator: the town of ringgold was gearing up

For the biggest trial in its history,

And investigators were in for another surprise

When alvin ridley gave his explanation

For how his wife d*ed.

Narrator: trixie lecroy regularly visits the grave

Of her sister--a woman with whom she has more contact

In death than she did in life.

That's because trixie and the rest of her family

Hadn't seen virginia at all during the years

She lived with alvin ridley, the man now accused of her m*rder.

Lecroy: I will say this-- that if there is a god almighty above,

If there is a day of reckoning for all of us,

Which I believe there is,

I would not want to be him.

Narrator: alvin ridley steadfastly maintained his innocence.

Ridley: I felt terrible, sad,

Depressed 'cause I lost a loved one

That cared a lot about me.

We was married years.

Sweet, happy, christian married life.

I never hit her a time, she never hit me a time while we was married.

Of course, we got in a few arguments, but that is all.

Narrator: alvin's defense attorney,

Mccracken poston,

Knew that the case against his client wouldn't be easy.

Alvin's reputation and behavior after his wife's death

Made his defense a unique challenge.

Poston: several members of my family just said,

"He's crazy. He's capable of anything."

Um...

I was about to get married,

And several members of my wife's family were fearful

Of...my getting involved

In defending alvin.

Alvin had developed for himself

Somewhat of a reputation as a panhandler

Or a con man.

Narrator: poston visited alvin's run-down house

On the edge of town,

And amid the cockroaches and broken windows

Saw something he hadn't expected.

The walls of the house were plastered

With handwritten notes.

Poston: some were letters to congress that alvin had written,

But I began to notice a distinct handwriting

That I knew was not alvin's.

And I asked him, "who wrote this?"

And he said, "well, virginia did."

And I grabbed a piece off the wall and, you know, said,

"Alvin, this will save you. I've got to have all of this."

Narrator: there were hundreds of notes,

All apparently in virginia ridley's handwriting.

Some dealt with everyday matters,

Like what she had watched on television.

In notebooks, entire chapters of the bible

Had been transcribed repeatedly.

But most were love letters...

To alvin.

Ken poston did not believe the love notes

Were the writings of a woman being held against her will,

But could he prove to a jury

That virginia had actually written the notes?

Brian carney,

A forensic document examiner,

Analyzed the letters.

Carney had little to work with,

But he did have some known signatures of virginia ridley

On some official documents written years earlier,

And he found a number of unmistakable similarities.

Carney: the obvious features that you can see

Just at a glance are, for example,

The is in "virginia"

Are very tall, comparatively speaking.

They're lower-case letter forms, cursive writing,

But if you were to draw

A horizontal line right across the top of this "i"

All the way to the end of the name,

You would see that all of the is

Are taller than the other internal letter forms.

And you scan down through the series

In comparison of questioned and known,

You can clearly see that this "i" feature

Is a habitual writing movement of this particular writer.

And I was able to state that there were strong indications

That virginia was the writer of the comparable entries.

So what we're essentially talking about is

Those letter combinations that have--

That are the same as the name "virginia"

And the signatures that have the given name "virginia" in them.

Narrator: virginia's family told investigators

That virginia suffered from epilepsy as a child.

Epilepsy is a neurological condition

In which uncontrolled electrical charges from the cerebral cortex

Can result in violent seizures and convulsions.

According to her writings, virginia had stopped taking

Her epilepsy medication years earlier,

Relying instead on her faith in god to heal her.

The defense consulted dr. Braxton wannamaker,

Who is a neurologist.

He said the petechial hemorrhages

Around virginia's eyes were consistent

With what is called "sudden death epilepsy."

Dr. Wannamaker says sudden death epilepsy occurs

In patients who stop taking their medication

Or haven't been properly diagnosed.

Wannamaker: I've had other patients who are sleeping with their spouses,

And they wake up and find that their spouse is dead.

So people may or may not witness the seizure,

And there are some of us who are not certain

That all of these deaths are associated with seizure per se,

But may have some epileptic activity in the brain

That changes heart rhythms

Or changes respiratory mechanisms such that people die from that.

Narrator: alvin ridley said his wife had seizures on a regular basis.

He said she had a particularly bad one

On the night before she d*ed.

Ridley: after she had the seizure and got over that,

I says, "are you going to be all right?"

And she smiled at me, says, "yes, honey. I love you."

So, you know,

I thought she'd be all right, so I went off to sleep.

Narrator: but according to alvin,

She was dead when he tried to wake her the next day.

Alvin said the seizures were the reason

No one had seen virginia in all those years.

She was so embarrassed about her seizures,

She wanted no contact with the outside world,

Not even her family.

But the defense had one last hurdle--

How to explain the bruising on virginia ridley's neck,

Evidence that the medical examiner said

Pointed to homicide.

Narrator: judge ralph van pelt presided over alvin ridley's m*rder trial,

And immediately had him evaluated by a psychologist.

Van pelt: he certainly probably would have qualified, I think,

For mentally ill under the georgia statute,

But that's only if you're found guilty but mentally ill.

The report indicated that he was competent to stand trial,

Could assist his attorney in a defense, and knew right from wrong.

Narrator: at the trial, alvin's defense team needed

To refute the prosecution's contention

That the bruises on virginia ridley's neck

Were evidence of strangulation.

Dr. Robert goldberg,

A forensic pathologist hired by the defense,

Discovered that an employee in the coroner's office

Had drawn blood from virginia ridley's neck

For a toxicology test,

Which was a complete break from standard procedure.

Goldberg: this is highly irregular

And is something that, procedurally, is an error.

Narrator: when the autopsy was conducted the next day,

Dr. Goldberg believes the needle marks had developed into bruises,

Which are known as "artifact"--

A term for any changes in a body caused

By postmortem evaluation.

Goldberg: I think it would be absolutely essential

That any coroner have some autopsy experience.

Even if they don't conduct the autopsy themselves,

They should know the appropriate procedures.

It was clear to me that this coroner was way out of line

With appropriate procedure.

Narrator: in georgia,

The coroner is an elected official,

And this was the first suspicious death

Vanita hullender investigated after her election.

Alvin's attorney believes that the coroner's inexperience

And her own personal suspicions about alvin ridley

Affected her judgment.

Poston: when that body went to the state crime lab

And she accompanied it,

She reported when they arrived,

"This woman has been locked in a basement for years."

The state pathologist that conducted the autopsy...

I think that was an improper suggestion,

Based on no fact,

That made it easy for him to conclude

"Homicide by asphyxiation."

Narrator: alvin ridley took the stand in his own defense.

He said he drove by the local fire station after his wife's death

Because he had had a prior run-in with the people there, and didn't trust them.

He said he called the hospital in chattanooga

Because that's where he'd taken his mother years earlier.

It was the only facility he was familiar with.

After two hours of deliberation,

The jury acquitted alvin ridley of all charges.

He claims it was his wife virginia,

Testifying through her letters,

Who kept him from a life behind bars.

I felt like my wife, actually,

And the lord saved me...

And the jury.

Narrator: alvin ridley still lives in the same dilapidated home

On the outskirts of town,

And still talks about restarting

His television repair business.

He visits virginia's grave regularly--

A privilege he enjoys because of the role

Science played in proving his innocence.

Goldberg: I guess he was a strange man.

I understood him to be a hermit.

I understood him not to have the social skills...

That the rest of society has.

And unfortunately,

I believe that had a great deal to do

With the fact that he was tried.

Fortunately, the truth won out...

And he was acquitted.

Good lord.

If it hadn't been for this scientific evidence...

The risk was so high

That the local community prejudices and biases

About alvin ridley and his...

Years and years of strange behavior

Would have been difficult to overcome.

I think it's a story about how the system works--

That someone has their right to make the state prove that they're guilty,

Prove that they did it beyond a reasonable doubt.

And a fellow with just very modest resources

Was able to come in and... Prove that he was not guilty,

Establish that he was not guilty.