Mississippi Delta: A Southern Gothic family mystery

Just because the police can't solve a murder, doesn't mean other people won't find someone to blame. Hi, I'm journalist Laris and Campbell, and this is the newest season of Witnessed, Devil in the Ditch. Listen, as I return to my Mississippi hometown to re-examine one of its most notorious unsolved cases, the murder of my grandmother, Prush. She was killed on Friday the 13th, and her parlor, the likely murder weapon, a brass candlestick. Listen here to an excerpt from episode one, where I start back at the scene of my grandmother's murder. The last time I saw Prush with my eyes, I was giving her a hug in her driveway. My great-ance experience was very different. She was at the crime scene. Do you remember the last time you saw her? Today she was killed. In fact, she found her sister's body. She and Prush were close, especially in terms of geography. They lived on the same street just a couple of blocks apart. They spoke on the phone daily and saw each other almost as often. That day they had plans. They were going to see this beautiful operator. A hairdresser at the salon whose husband had just died. My great-ance said she had been expecting Prush to pick her up around 3.30 that afternoon. So earlier that morning, she gets some errands done. She runs down to Daddles, a dress shop, to pick up a blouse. Then swings by the grocery store next to it. It all takes about 45 minutes. When she gets home, she makes a few calls, then eats lunch with her son who lives with her. When she's done eating, she calls Prush, who doesn't answer, which my aunt thought was odd enough that she tried Prush and some of Prush's friends several more times over the next 3 hours trying to track her down. And what y'all do in between lunch and sitting on the couch around 3? I got ready for it to come get me. And I waited and waited for her to pick me up. And she didn't come, it didn't come. She doesn't show. And I said, I think I'm going to the house and see what's holding her up. So Prush's sister says she tells her son to wait at the house in case Prush happens to arrive while she's gone to check on her. So I went over the aisle. She was lying on the floor with a rag over her face. She finds Prush's face is covered with a dish towel. For a minute, Prush's sister says she's confused. Is she doing some type of workout? It's a big on exercise, you know. And you're people would call it that. And I said, what in life are you doing on the floor? And I took the cloth off of her face. She was dead. I was so stunned. You can imagine. And I called the ambulance service. And I said, my sister has been killed. And she has all the flow come immediately. I know it was in the evening time and we were about to get off. And it was a Friday. Ricky Sprattlin, now retired from the Greenville Police Department, then Lieutenant Chief of Detectives, and one of the first officers on the scene. It was really stormy outside. It was terrible. Prush's house sat on two corner lots, right in the center of Greenville. Her driveway also ran the length of the property, making it more or less a shortcut between the neighborhood and a busy four-lane street. We could sit at the kitchen table and watch cars cut through all the time. A thicket of Elie Agnes and hydrangeas made it easy to forget how centrally located you were. But from the outside, it was probably the most visible and accessible home in Greenville. They've been directing me out to the back of the house, showing what they first found. I noticed that there was a lawn chair with a newspaper and a coffee cup. They were just playing there. So then they took me into the sun room, which nothing was locked. And that's when I saw them. She was laying on the floor. She severed a blunt force trauma right on the front forehead area. The hole it left was bad enough that officers first thought she'd been shot. They began to examine her surroundings. Most of her house appeared in order. A few feet behind her body was the breakfast room where she displayed a lot of her silver in China. That room was totally undisturbed. The only sign of disarray was her purse. It was open on the table above her, its contents spilling onto a wooden chair below. Coins, an address book, an empty bank envelope. Investigators began to look for a murder weapon right away. Well, they looked at their work, trying to find what the weapon would have been, but she had a lot of stuff in that house. Precious wasn't much of a housekeeper, and she loved antiques. Every surface was covered with something glass or brass or silver. I knew she had had a lot of candle holders and things around, and I looked at one and I said, you know, it could have been used. And we wanted to have neglected it and sent it off. Friends and neighbors had started gathering in the street outside Precious House, and my family began making their way to Greenville. Well, my first reaction when I heard about Precious Murder was that your daddy would never be okay. My mom. She and my dad were living two hours away in Jackson when Precious was killed. Pretty much a blur. My dad again. I can remember your mother saying, he loved her so much. So, at that point, I think we both decided we needed to pack a suitcase because we were going to be there for several days. I remember pulling up there and there were lots of cars, and I got out and somebody grabbed me. And told him Precious's sister was over at one of the neighbor's houses. She wasn't doing well. It was pretty much a basket case. She was kind of shaking. It was, she looked the most nervous I've ever seen her look. She had just found Precious dead. I mean, it flashes in your brain. I mean, there you are. And you keep seeing the body. You know, whereas we just miss her. We don't have that grisly, horrifying image stuck in our brains. And the way her body was left was a big clue for detectives. She was placed. Of course, she wouldn't look so bad. Her feet were together, and there was a dish rag over her face. That tells me right there who ever did it. Newer and couldn't stand as soon as they were looking like that. That's some of the training I've had. If you see something like that, that's going to be your first clue to keep in your notes and your mind. From campsite media and Sony Music Entertainment, Witnessed Devil in the Ditch is available now. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts to binge all episodes now, or listen weekly, wherever you get your podcasts.