The Georgia Church Murders Part 1: A Wrongful Conviction, a Fake Alibi, and the Reporter Who Cracked the Case

Summary

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Gone South – S5E1: The Georgia Church Murders Part 1: A Wrongful Conviction, a Fake Alibi, and the Reporter Who Cracked the Case

Podcast by Audacy Podcasts | Hosted by Jed Lipinski | Original Air Date: May 13, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode marks the beginning of Season 5 of Gone South, with host Jed Lipinski investigating the harrowing story of the 1985 Rising Daughter Baptist Church murders in rural Georgia. The episode centers on the wrongful conviction of Dennis Perry, the faked alibi of another suspect, and how Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Joshua Sharp unraveled the case’s mysteries—ultimately helping to exonerate Perry and reigniting the quest for true justice. Through interviews, historic tapes, details from the Georgia Innocence Project, and firsthand reporting, Lipinski and Sharp reexamine a tragedy that would shape a community for four decades.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Joshua Sharp’s Introduction to the Case (02:52–06:23)

• Background: Joshua Sharp, a crime reporter passionate about deep investigations, is approached by the Georgia Innocence Project about a double homicide committed in 1985.
  • Quote: “Figuring out things will never not be fun to me, especially things other people want to know.” – Joshua Sharp (03:02)
• Surprise: Despite its brutality and proximity to his hometown, Josh had never heard of the Rising Daughter Baptist Church murders.
  • Quote: “How do we not talk about this every year on the anniversary? How are there not plaques?” – Joshua Sharp (04:17)
• Initial Skepticism: The Innocence Project doubts that the case is solvable due to missing records and police missteps, but hopes Josh can draw attention to it.

2. The Night of the Murders and Early Investigation (07:04–14:43)

• The Crime: On March 11, 1985, Harold and Thelma Swain, beloved community leaders in Spring Bluff, are shot during Bible study by an unidentified white man.
  • Memorable moment: Thelma is found with her hand comforting her husband’s head as they both died (09:04).
• Evidence: A pair of crude glasses with white hairs—believed to be the killer’s—is found at the scene (10:00–10:20).
• Suspects:
  • Local Dealer: Bragged about killing black people in a church but lacked evidence.
  • Eric Spahr: Allegedly confessed on a family tape and owned similar glasses, but offered an alibi as a Winn Dixie employee; not charged.
  • Dennis Perry: Came up on a tip due to resemblance to the sketch. He was ruled out: his alibi placed him four hours away with no car.

3. Case Goes Cold and Resurgence (19:32–23:49)

• Stalled Years: The case fizzles for more than a decade. In the late '90s, political pressures reignite interest.
• Dale Bundy’s Investigation: Unorthodox investigation led by a non-homicide specialist, Bundy.
  • Quote: “He did not record interviews typically, and he did not take notes either... some of them weeks, months later.” – Joshua Sharp (23:49)
  • Bundy’s “Bundy method” leads to reliance on 13-year-old eyewitness IDs and the testimony of Jane Beaver, a mentally unwell local woman.

4. The Wrongful Conviction of Dennis Perry (24:38–29:55)

• Prosecution: Perry’s alibi is challenged; his timecard goes missing, alleged to have gotten to the church on the back of a friend’s motorcycle.
  • Quote: “The evidence that they presented against Dennis Perry was some of the biggest nonsense I’ve ever heard in my life. The story makes no sense.” – Joshua Sharp (28:11)
• Omissions and Motive:
  • Jury never told Jane Beaver received $12,000 in reward money, or about her mental illness.
  • Perry convicted; accepts two life sentences to avoid the death penalty.

5. Reopening the Case: Sharp’s Breakthrough (32:08–36:53)

• Eric Spahr Revisited: Sharp dives into Spahr’s alleged alibi and discovers it’s a complete fabrication.
  • Quote: “All of the personal details that were given for that person [Spahr’s supervisor], the name, the telephone number, the Social Security number, the birth date, none of that matched any person who had ever existed anywhere on earth, as far as I know.” – Joshua Sharp (35:11)
  • Finds that fear of Spahr runs deep in Spring Bluff: “People were very afraid of this guy” (32:36).
• Confrontations: Sharp alerts the police and DA; Bundy, confronted, angrily retires.
  • Memorable moment: Bundy’s reaction: “Fuck that.” (37:14)

6. DNA and Exoneration (39:43–42:34)

• Hair DNA Test: Innocence Project obtains a mitochondrial DNA sample from Spahr’s mother—matching the hairs on the glasses to Spahr’s maternal line, ruling out 99% of the population (40:13).
• DA Reopens Investigation: More than 10 witnesses recall Spahr confessing in some form; authorities search his home, finding “a long sleeve button up shirt that was one giant confederate flag” (41:35).
• Perry Freed: Judge overturns Perry’s conviction 20 years after arrest. Perry is exonerated after another year.

7. Aftermath: Spahr’s Arrest and Ongoing Saga (43:09–44:03)

• Spahr Arrested: December 2024, Spahr is indicted for the Swains’ murders.
• Mistrial: October 2025, trial ends in mistrial due to a pretrial order violation; a new trial is scheduled for July 2026.
• Sharp Reflects: Perry, now free, thanks Sharp at his homecoming—“There was a parade of people coming to say hello to [Perry] and... everybody kept thanking me.” (42:44)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “How do we not talk about this every year on the anniversary? How are there not plaques and how are there not local history books and stuff? This is serious history here.”
  — Joshua Sharp (04:17)

• “[Bundy] did not record interviews typically, and he did not take notes either... some of them weeks, months later.”
  — Joshua Sharp (23:49)

• “The evidence that they presented against Dennis Perry was some of the biggest nonsense I’ve ever heard in my life. The story makes no sense.”
  — Joshua Sharp (28:11)

• “The alibi’s the only reason they stopped looking at him as a suspect. So he doesn’t have an alibi. Now what do we do, right?”
  — Joshua Sharp (36:01)

• “[Bundy] narrowed his eyes at me, and he said, fuck that.”
  — Recounted by Joshua Sharp (37:14)

• “And he had his wife of 11 years there at his side. They could finally be together.”
  — Joshua Sharp, on Dennis Perry’s exoneration (42:06)

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Important Timestamps

• 02:52–06:23 — Joshua Sharp is first introduced to the case.
• 07:04–09:36 — Chronology and personal details of the night of the murders.
• 10:00–14:43 — Key evidence and original suspects.
• 19:32–23:49 — Political context leads to re-investigation; Bundy takes over.
• 23:49–25:49 — Critique of Bundy’s investigative methods; Jane Beaver’s credibility.
• 24:38–29:55 — The path to Perry’s wrongful conviction.
• 32:08–36:53 — Sharp exposes the fake alibi of Eric Spahr; impact on investigation.
• 37:14–38:44 — Bundy’s confrontation and abrupt retirement.
• 39:43–40:13 — DNA breakthrough implicates Spahr’s maternal line.
• 42:06–42:44 — Dennis Perry’s exoneration and release.
• 43:09–44:03 — Spahr’s arrest and ongoing legal developments.

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Language and Tone

Throughout the episode, the tone is tenacious, methodical, and quietly outraged by the miscarriage of justice. Joshua Sharp’s drive and dogged reporting, coupled with Lipinski’s narrative clarity, give the episode a brisk, relentless feel—yet the pain and humanity at the heart of the case are never lost.

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Closing Note

This riveting episode not only unravels one of Georgia’s most haunting unsolved crimes, it exposes the lingering dangers of unreliable investigations and the crucial role of determined individuals in correcting injustices. As the series continues, listeners will hear directly from Dennis Perry and his family, closing the loop on a tragic story still seeking justice after 40 years.

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End of summary.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

I was never on the investigative team. I was somebody who was always investigating, you know, and I was always covering South Georgia. Figuring out things will never not be fun to me, especially things that other people want to know, other people are trying to know.

[A]

In his spare time, Josh spent months investigating a potential cancer cluster in his hometown of Waycross, Georgia, and whether industrial pollution might have caused it. He'd also reported on the Fort Stewart III soldiers at a local army base who'd spent 25 years in prison for murder before their convictions were overturned. His coverage helped the men get compensated for the decades they'd lost. Josh had worked with the Innocence Project on that case. Now they wanted to tell him about a different case. A double murder in 1985 at a Baptist church not far from his hometown.

[B]

Now, this was a shock to me because the murders at Rising Daughter Baptist Church, as I say, took place 40 miles from the house I grew up in, but I had never heard of it.

[A]

The crime itself was horrific. The two victims, a black couple in their 60s, were in the midst of Bible study when the killer walked in and shot them both. Josh was born the year after the murders. He was amazed it wasn't more well known.

[B]

And how do we not talk about this every year on the anniversary? How are there not plaques and how are there not local history books and stuff? This is serious history here.

[A]

The Innocence Project told Josh that they'd recently begun reinvestigating the case. They believed the man convicted of the crime was innocent, but they had their doubts that the case could actually be solved.

[B]

I remember speaking with one of the attorneys there and asking what they thought, like, could it be proven who did it, you know, at all? And they told me they were kind of skeptical that it could be proven because it had been so long. And also the police had made these big mistakes and big oversights and had huge gaps in some of the records.

[A]

The Innocence Project thought Josh might be able to draw some attention to the case, maybe get the story on the front page. They did not expect him to devote the next six months of his life to it. Digging up old leads, tracking down the original investigators, and confronting the central figures in the case. And they definitely did not expect Josh to uncover evidence that would force the state to reopen its investigation, help free an innocent man, and lead to the arrest of a man many now believe committed the murders. But that all happened later. First, Josh Sharp had to understand more about what happened that night at Rising Daughter Baptist Church. I'M Jed Lipinski. This is gone south. Joshua Sharp was not the first person to become obsessed with what's known today as the Georgia church murders. Many people had spent years down various rabbit holes. The most recent were the creators of a podcast called Undisclosed, an investigative show hosted by three attorneys that reexamines unsolved cases and questionable convictions. The Innocence Project recommended Josh listen to their episodes about the church murders.

[B]

You know, you start to look into a situation and you realize this is a 24 hour podcast about it. You better listen to the podcast.

[A]

You know, they literally had done a 24 hour podcast based on this case.

[B]

If you added up all the episodes, Yeah, I mean, it wasn't billed as a 24 hour podcast.

[A]

Josh listened to all 24 hours. One of the attorneys had actually moved to South Georgia for a month to investigate and knock on doors. Josh wondered what he could possibly add to what they'd already done. Either way, the podcast provided a kind of crash course on the twists and turns of the case, starting with the night of the murders.

[B]

Around 8:39pm on March 11, a Monday night in 1985, strange white man shows up at the church and he enters the vestibule. There's a little vestibule area between the front door and the sanctuary. It's a very small church. You're walking right into the sanctuary, you know, after the vestibule. This guy stopped in the vestibule, though

[A]

around that time, a woman with the Bible study group walked out and was startled to see a strange white man she didn't recognize just standing there.

[B]

And she asked if she could help him. And he said that he wanted to talk to somebody. And she said, who? And she opened the sanctuary door to let him look in and see who was in there. And he pointed to Harold Swain.

[A]

Harold Swain was one of the 13 people at the Bible study that evening, and the only man. He was there with his wife, Thelma. Both of them were longtime residents of Spring Bluff, a small, close knit community in southeast Georgia. They'd spent much of their lives in Rising Daughter Baptist Church.

[B]

And I always say if Spring Bluff had a mayor, it probably would have been Harold Swain. Harold Swain was a pillar in the community. He was known for going around and helping people. He worked at a place called Choo Choo Barbecue. That was what he did in quote, unquote, retirement from logging. And he was just known as one of the nicest people you could meet.

[A]

The Bible study member who'd greeted the stranger didn't see any cause for alarm. The church was known for helping people in need, and she thought the man might have needed something to eat or perhaps money for gas. As Harold Swain came out to meet him, the woman walked outside to her car. She was halfway there when she heard gunshots ring out. Back inside, the women in the Bible study scattered. All except for Harold's wife, Thelma.

[B]

Thelma Swain is the only one who keeps going to the vestibule. And as soon as she opens the door, the man shoots her in the chest. And Harold and Thelma Swain fall dead in the vestibule of the church where they had grown up and lived their lives. And one of the things that really stuck with me is when the police arrived, Harold and Thelma were in the vestibule, and Thelma's hand was touching the back of her husband's head, almost like she was comforting him. But they were dead.

[A]

The killer escaped into the night, but the cops were confident they would track him down. Spring Bluff never had more than a few murders per year, let alone a double homicide in a church. They figured there could only be so many people in the community who would do such a thing. The police zeroed in on a key piece of evidence left at the scene. A pair of glasses it appeared the killer had left behind.

[B]

On the floor near the swains bodies, inches from the swains bodies, there's a pair of glasses. Those glasses are very beaten up. They're actually cobbled together from a few different pairs of glasses. And there are a couple of hairs stuck in the hinge of those glasses. And those hairs obviously belong to a white person.

[A]

The cops also worked with witnesses to create a composite sketch of the killer. Investigators circulated the sketch to the local media. They interviewed dozens of suspects, focusing on men with poor eyesight, but they failed to connect anyone to the glasses. Then a month or so later, the cops got a promising lead. An inmate at the Camden county jail said he'd heard a local drug dealer bragging about the murders at a party. The dealer had been drunk and ranting, the inmate said, and at one point, he'd claimed to be God.

[B]

He's saying he's God. He pulls out a gun and he's waving it around, and he's saying, I'm God. Because God can give life and God can take life. And I've taken the lives of two black people in a church, and that makes me God. And the police are very, very interested in this man as a suspect, and they begin to focus on him, and they find other people who heard that statement that he made about killing black people in a church and being God.

[A]

An arrest warrant was drafted, but the cops couldn't convince the district attorney to file charges. The man may well have said those things, but there was no physical evidence tying him to the crime scene. And the witnesses who'd heard his statement at the party all had criminal records. The DA knew they wouldn't hold up in court. A year passed before another big lead came in. The tipster was an older woman from the area. She explained that her daughter had once been married to a local guy named Eric Spahr. The two had gotten divorced a few years earlier, and ever since, Spahr had been harassing their family.

[B]

He's been calling them and menacing them. He's been posting up in some nearby woods and shooting a gun toward our house. And they say that he hates black people. And they give this tape over to the authorities.

[A]

At a certain point, the family had started taping their calls from Spahr with the intention of giving them to the police. In the tape they gave to authorities, Spahr threatened to kill them just like he'd killed Harold and Thelma Swain and

[B]

sang words to the effect of, I'm the motherfucker who killed the two N words in the church, and I'm gonna kill you and your whole family if I have to do it in a church.

[A]

That wasn't all. Spahr's ex wife also connected him to the scene. She told investigators that he'd owned a pair of glasses that matched the description of the ones recovered from the church. Investigators met with Spahr soon after. He denied any involvement and offered what appeared at the time to be a solid alibi. He'd been working at a local Winn Dixie the night of the murders. He said his supervisor later told investigators he was on the clock and even produced a timesheet to back it up. And so, despite the alleged confession and the similar pair of glasses, the cops moved on. Two more years passed. The case was officially cold when a tipster called in to report another possible suspect, a man who many years later would become synonymous with the Georgia church murders. His name was Dennis Perry, and the

[B]

reason he came up as a suspect is apparently because he resembled the composite sketch drawing. And I'll say, I'll describe the sketch for you. It's a white guy with shoulder length, kind of wavy, light brown, dark blonde hair. And if you look at this picture, especially if you're somebody like me who's from that area, you recognize that this looks like half of the men I've known looked at the time. This was the white country boy look of the day.

[A]

The tipster added that Perry had lived not far from the church. But as investigators looked into him, the tipster's theory fell apart. It turned out that at the time of the murders, Perry was living in Jonesboro, a small town near Atlanta and a four and a half hour drive from Spring Bluff. Perry worked for a concrete company there. And like the other suspect, Eric Spahr, he had an alibi. Time cards indicated he'd worked until 5pm on the day of the murders. Harold and Thelma Swain were killed at 8:45. There was no way Perry could have made it from Jonesboro to Spring Bluff in that time, especially because Perry didn't own a car.

[B]

Also, there was no motive, no real reason that made any sense. So they didn't believe it and they moved on.

[A]

And yet, 10 years later, Dennis Perry would be arrested and charged with killing Harold and Thelma Swain. He was later found guilty and given two life sentences. When the Georgia Innocence Project approached Josh in 2019, Perry had been locked up for 19 years. How was that possible? To understand what happened, Josh would wind up moving back to his hometown in South Georgia and conducting his own investigation. You know that feeling when you're at the grocery store just staring at all the meat options, trying to figure out what's actually good? I used to overthink it every single time, and it made grocery shopping feel exhausting. It made me procrastinate when it's such an important task. That's honestly why I recently switched to good ranchers. I'm a subscriber now and it takes that whole decision off my plate. I know I'm getting high quality 100% American meat from local farms and ranches and it shows up right at my door. It's simple, it's reliable, and it makes cooking at home feel a lot less overwhelming. Start your plan today and you'll get free meat for life and $100 off your first three orders. Or if you just want to give it a try, you can get $40 off your first order instead. Just go to goodranchers.com and use my code SOUTH at checkout. That's $100 off your first three orders or $40 off your first order. With my code SOUTH this month only. Goodranchers.com American meat delivered as part of the gone south community. You know that reexamining stories we inherit can change the way we see both the past and the present. And the same is true for the stories passed down in our families. That's where the new podcast Family Lore begins. Each episode opens with a family legend. A grandfather who claimed to have flown before the Wright brothers, A great uncle tied to the killing of a Texas ranching heir. Stories passed down through generations, long believed, rarely questioned. Family Lore gently pulls at the edges, not to tear those stories apart, but to understand them and to uncover the histories that may have been lost along the way. Family Lore is available now, wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're curious, stay with us. There's a preview waiting at the end of this episode. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about how much easier life feels when your wardrobe just works. When you've got pieces that are comfortable, versatile and still make you feel pulled together without having to plan it out too much. That's where Quince has really been a game changer for me. Their spring staples make getting dressed feel simple again. I'm talking about 100% European linen shorts and shirts starting around $34. Their 100% Pima cotton tees are another favorite. Super soft, really clean and fit and just an instant upgrade from basic basics. And even their pants have that same feel feel relaxed comfort but still tailored enough to wear out and about without thinking twice. What really surprised me is the quality for the price. Everything is typically 50 to 80% less than similar brands because they work directly with ethical factories and skip the middlemen. I recently added a linen shirt to my rotation and it's become one of those items I keep reaching for. It just looks good every time we refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to quints.com GoneSouth for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's quince.com GoneSouth for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com GoneSouth. The days of local news reporters spending months on a single story without publishing a word are pretty much over. Reporter Joshua Sharp had always indulged in investigations on his own time. But not long after the Georgia Innocence Project told him about the Georgia Church murders, something miraculous happened at the Atlanta Journal Constitution. As part of an initiative to improve the writing at the paper, they brought in a legendary investigative editor who'd worked for the AJC years before.

[B]

She was gonna work with three people on three different stories, and I pitched this story and it was one of the three that was accepted. And because it was part of that, like upper management sponsored initiative, I guess it was easier for my Direct boss to say, it's okay, Josh, for you to leave your beat and go to

[A]

South Georgia on the newspaper's dime. Josh checked into a decaying old comfort suite just down the highway from Rising Daughter Baptist Church. He stayed for a month before the bill got too high and he had to relocate to his aunt's place a few towns over.

[B]

But I got away with staying down

[A]

there for quite a while. Robert Caro, the famously obsessive biographer of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson, is known for his mantra, turn every page. And that's what Josh did. Holed up in his hotel room, he read dozens of newspaper articles and police reports and thousands of pages of court documents. He even re listened to episodes of the undisclosed podcast to rule certain subjects out.

[B]

Oh, that person, Ted, who they went to talk to. I don't need to talk to Ted. That isn't going to get me anywhere. So I saved time that way. Way, you know.

[A]

As Josh learned, the church murders case went cold for more than a decade after Dennis Perry was ruled out, the two original investigators both left law enforcement. Then, in 1998, the case suddenly lurched back into motion. That year, Josh says, the sheriff of Camden county was facing strong opposition from a black Democratic candidate. The sheriff was anxious to hold onto the votes of the county's black community. He also had an emotional connection to the church murders.

[B]

He's someone who considered Harold Swain a personal friend. He had known Harold Swain his entire life, and Harold Swain had known his father, who was also the sheriff. So this did mean a lot personally to the sheriff.

[A]

According to Josh, the sheriff saw solving the Harold and Thelma Swain cold case as a way to curry favor with voters who were still stunned that the murders remained unsolved. More than a decade later, the sheriff got approval to spend about $40,000 in seized drug money to hire a specialist for one year. The man he hired was Dale Bundy. His only assignment was to reinvestigate the Swayne case. But as Josh discovered, Bundy was not a seasoned homicide investigator. Earlier in his career, he'd worked as a jail administrator before transitioning into it and getting a job with IBM. And yet, within days of starting the job, Bundy landed on a prime suspect, Dennis Perry, the same man investigators had ruled out 10 years earlier. How did this happen? The turning point, Josh said, was a woman named Jane Beaver. After taking the case, Bundy had gone back through the old case file. The tips that had come in, the names that had surfaced and. And then gone nowhere. One of those names led him to Jane Beaver. Beaver was the mother of one of Dennis Perry's ex girlfriends. And she told Detective Bundy an incredible story. Weeks before the murder, she said, while Perry and her daughter were still dating, Perry had come by the house angry and stewing. He told Beaver that he had asked Harold Swain for money, but that Swain had laughed and turned him down. Perry was humiliated. And according to Jane Beaver, he'd threatened to kill Harold Swain. Not long after, Harold and Thelma Swain were dead. With that, Detective Bundy began building a new case against Dennis Perry. He started showing an old photo of Perry to witnesses at the church. Two of them identified him as the killer. He then tracked down Perry himself at his home in Jacksonville, Florida. Perry gave the same basic alibi that he was in the Atlanta area when the murders happened. But Detective Bundy was suspicious. He felt like Dennis wasn't telling the whole truth. Some of this was captured in Bundy's police reports. But as Josh learned more about Detective Bundy's process, he started to question everything he wrote.

[B]

And it turned out, though, that the detective conducted his investigation in a rather counterintuitive way, if you're trying to be accurate, because he did not record interviews typically, and he did not take notes either. He sat down later, he said, and wrote his notes. And this is, you know, some of the weeks, months later.

[A]

That's right. Bundy didn't tape, record his interviews or even take contemporaneous notes. He often waited months before writing up his reports.

[B]

This is what Dennis, attorney at trial called the Bundy method, which is the method where you don't record interviews, don't take notes, but then testify with strong authority years later to what people said.

[A]

Bundy's note taking style wasn't the only problem. He'd also relied on eyewitness identification thirteen years after the murders. Decades of research show that eyewitness IDs are a leading cause of wrongful convictions.

[B]

We've known that since the 80s. And the most credible eyewitness identifications happen within days, weeks, not months. Definitely not 13 years.

[A]

Still, there was the question of Jane Beaver. She was the woman who claimed Perry had shot Harold Swain out of spite for not lending him money. But as Josh spoke with people in Spring Bluff, he learned that Jane Beaver was not the most dependable source.

[B]

Jane Beaver had had an absolutely horrific, traumatic life. She'd lost two children. She had a toddler who died, and the father was convicted of murder. When her son was 14, she comes home to find him hanging. All these things happened to this woman, and she's got no mental health support. That didn't exist in south Georgia in 1985. And her friends said that she'd lost touch with reality.

[A]

And yet Bundy seemed to have taken Jane Beaver's story at face value. Based largely on Bundy's investigation and the account provided by Jane Beaver, the sheriff's office arrested Dennis Perry for the murders of Harold and Thelma Swain. It was now the year 2000, 15 years after the killings. DNA testing had advanced significantly since the 80s, and investigators still had the hairs found lodged in the hinge of the eyeglasses recovered from the crime scene. So they tested them.

[B]

They don't match Dennis Perry. And the way that the state handled it was, those glasses must mean nothing if they don't match Dennis Harold Swain. You know, he was such a helper. He picked trash up on the side of the road. Maybe he found them on the side of the road and put them in his pocket and then they fell out of his pocket during the scuffle.

[A]

Before the trial, the state offered Perry a 10 year plea deal if he pleaded guilty. Perry refused.

[B]

And Dennis Perry says, I'm not taking any deal. I don't care what it is. I'm innocent.

[A]

With that, the case went to trial. One question at the heart of the case was how Dennis Perry could have committed the crime despite being 260 miles away just hours before the murders occurred. Remember, Perry was living in Jonesboro, Georgia at the time. That's a four and a half hour drive without traffic from the church in Spring Bluff. A time card had originally shown Perry clocked out just after 5pm The Swains were killed a little over three hours later at 8:45. Also, Dennis Perry didn't own a car. So how does a man without a car cover a distance of 260 miles in under four hours? Under the best of circumstances, you'd have to average around 80 miles an hour and much of it on back roads. But Dale Bundy and the prosecutors said it was feasible. They claimed that Perry had jumped on the back of a friend's motorcycle, left the Atlanta area as soon as he got off work and simply made the drive south fast enough to be at the church that night. They told jurors the distance only mattered if you assumed Perry drove like everyone else. Josh Sharp was appalled by the idea.

[B]

So the evidence that they presented against Dennis Perry was some of the biggest nonsense I've ever heard in my life. The story makes no sense.

[A]

And yet Perry's defense team faced an uphill battle. Even though no recordings existed of Perry's interrogation, prosecutors said Perry had admitted in his own words that. That he could have been there. Also, Perry's former employer had shut down, and his time card showing he'd worked until 5 o' clock had somehow gone missing. Meanwhile, Jane Beaver gave the jury a clear motive, saying Perry had explicitly planned to kill Harold Swain. And perhaps most importantly, jurors were never told certain facts that could have easily changed their minds. They were not told that Jane beaver had received $12,000 in reward money after Perry's arrest. They were not told that she had a history of serious mental health issues. They were not told that the original investigators had cleared Dennis Perry back in 1986. In the end, the jury found Perry guilty of killing the Swains. Perry was in disbelief.

[B]

He's totally blown away, can't believe it. And the prosecutor comes and says, well, how about this? We can forget about the death penalty if you'll accept two life sentences and you'll agree to not appeal the case. He was able to speak with his lawyers, and they said, buddy, I think we got a hanging jury here, and I think they're going to hang you if you let them, so maybe you ought to take it. And he took it, and he received two life sentences and, yeah, went away.

[A]

By the time Josh got involved, Perry had been in prison for 19 years. Josh believed he was innocent, partly because of the obvious flaws in the investigation. But there was another reason. In his reporting, Josh had identified a far more promising suspect than Dennis Perry, a man that police had also looked at early on but dismissed because of his alibi. His name was Eric Spahr.

[C]

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[D]

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[A]

Joshua Sharp had first come across Eric Spahr's name while listening to the undisclosed podcast's analysis of the murders. Over the years, investigators had considered hundreds of possible suspects. Eric Spahr was just one of them. As we said earlier, Spahr was the guy who'd apparently admitted to killing the Swains in a recorded phone call that his ex wife's family gave to the cops. While undisclosed, didn't thoroughly investigate Spahr. Josh said they singled him out as someone whose history and alleged confessions deserved more attention.

[B]

They mentioned him on the show and they basically said something to the effect of like, boy, if I had a checklist for a good suspect for this crime, it'd be this dude. But he had an alibi.

[A]

During his stint in South Georgia, Josh interviewed dozens of people. He spoke with witnesses at the church, former investigators and people who'd known Harold and Thelma Swain. He also talked to people who knew the suspects, including Dennis Perry and Eric Spahr.

[B]

There was a range of responses. When asked about Dennis Perry, nobody had ever heard of him. When I asked people about Eric Spahr, sometimes they wouldn't even open the door all the way. People were very afraid of this guy.

[A]

Those who were willing to talk painted a dark picture of Eric Spahr. Spahr was a reported white supremacist, they said, with a history of violent and racist behavior. Harold Swain's position as a leader in Camden County's black community, some thought may have been reason enough Spahr to target him. Others suspected that Spahr had killed Harold Swain after an encounter at Choo Choo barbecue where Swain worked. The story was that Spahr had attacked a mixed race person at the order window.

[B]

Harold Swain may have been a witness to that incident and may have been going to testify. That's another idea.

[A]

There were other more far fetched theories, but investigators had dismissed all of them for the simple fact that Eric Spahr had an alibi. Josh had covered hundreds of homicides in his career. He'd seen plenty of people fake alibis. He wondered, was it possible that Eric Spahr had faked his?

[B]

I looked at the police document that contained all of the information about Eric Spahr's alibi and it said that he had been on the night of the murder that he had been working at a Winn Dixie grocery store in the town of Brunswick, which was the nearest larger town to Spring Bluff, where the church was located.

[A]

In the document, Josh found a record of two calls between a detective with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and a man claiming to be Eric's supervisor at Winn Dixie. In the calls, the supervisor explained that he'd found Spahr's time cards, which showed that on the day of the murders, Spahr had worked all day and into the night.

[B]

The boss also said they had talked with people who remembered Eric being there on the night of the murder. And that immediately struck me as bizarre because this alibi was being looked into a year after the murder, so it seemed weird that somebody would remember that.

[A]

After finishing the document, he reached out to the detective who'd spoken with Spahr's supervisor on the phone.

[B]

And I said, back in 86, you know, before Google and everything, where would you have gotten a guy's boss's phone number? And he said, well, I might have gotten it directly from Eric himself.

[A]

At that point, Josh reached out to the person listed as Spahr's supervisor at Winn Dixie. It wasn't easy to find him.

[B]

It was extraordinarily difficult to track that person down. And I was using my laptop, looking on LexisNexis and just going through and figuring out, yeah, look, this Social Security number belongs to a woman who's died in the 70s. It's supposed to be a man. The telephone number, as I had found out, to Winn Dixie, was not even to a business. It was someone's home. And I eventually figured out that all of the personal details that were given for that person, the name, the telephone number, the Social Security number, the birth date, none of that matched any person who had ever existed anywhere on earth, as far as I know.

[A]

Josh immediately texted his editor at the newspaper. He wrote the alibi's fake. The implications of this were huge.

[B]

The alibi's the only reason they stopped looking at him as a suspect. So he doesn't have an alibi. Now what do we do? Right.

[A]

The discovery that Eric Spahr, a man that many considered a prime suspect in the murder of Harold and Thelma Swain, had faked his alibi sent Josh into overdrive. He met with one of the original detectives who dedicated years of his life to the case and who'd always been skeptical about Dennis Perry's guilt. Josh walked him through how Spahr's alibi couldn't be substantiated.

[B]

He realized instantly, holy hell, this could mean more than ever that Dennis Perry is innocent. He looked across the table at me and he said, my God, man, this might be something that opens up a whole new door. This might be something that gets Dennis out of prison and solves this thing for once and all.

[A]

Next, Josh paid a visit to Dale Bundy, the man the sheriff hired to reinvestigate the swain murders in 1998 and who helped convict Dennis Perry. Josh learned that Bundy still worked out of the Camden County Sheriff's Office. One afternoon, he dropped by his office and said he wanted to talk about an old case of his.

[B]

He said, which case? I said, the Dennis Perry case. And he narrowed his eyes at me, and he said, fuck that.

[A]

Bundy explained that his name had been dragged through the mud by the Innocence Project, the undisclosed podcast, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution, even though Josh had yet to write a word about him. He slammed the door in Josh's face and locked it. But Josh persisted. He knocked on the door again and waited. The office door was made of glass, and he could see Bundy inside, which made the whole thing kind of awkward. Eventually, Bundy came back and stared at Josh through the glass.

[B]

He doesn't unlock it, but we're standing face to face. He says, what do you want? And I said, I think we got off on the wrong foot. He stepped back, unlocked the door, walked out, walked past me, stomped up the sidewalk toward the main sheriff's office building. I called out, I said, sir, I haven't done anything to you. And he turned back and shouted, and you won't neither.

[A]

That was the last Josh saw of Dale Bundy. Josh later discovered that Bundy had put in for his retirement. That very day, after his visit to Bundy's office, Josh wrote Eric Spahr a letter. He explained that he was having trouble verifying where Spahr was the night of the murders. Josh asked if he could help him figure that out. A few days later, Spahr called him.

[B]

He told me he had nothing to do with the church murders. He said he didn't know who did it. He said they hoped that the guy in prison really did do it. And he said, I don't even know where the church is, even though I'm from over there.

[A]

Josh proposed they meet up, but Spahr said he was too busy and hung up. It was then that Josh presented his finding to the Georgia Innocence Project, the same people who'd sent him on this journey six months before. As you may remember, a key piece of evidence in the case were the glasses found at the scene of the murders. Two hairs were found stuck in the hinge. The glasses themselves were long gone, but the hairs had been tested before Dennis Perry's trial in 2003. The DNA did not match Dennis Perry, but no one had ever tested Eric Spahr. After hearing Josh's story, the Innocence Project came up with a plan. Rather than go to Spahr, who they assumed wouldn't cooperate, they went to his mother instead.

[B]

And the investigator went to the door, asked his mother, Ms. Gladys, and explained who he was and that he was investigating the church murders and said, you know, people have said that your son did this, and we can clear this up if I just get a clipping of your hair because you have the same mitochondrial DNA as him and we can just use your hair. And she says, okay, I know my son didn't do this. And the detective produced a brand new pair of scissors and took a clipping of her hair and took it away.

[A]

Mitochondrial DNA can't identify one specific person. Unlike regular DNA, it's shared by anyone descended through the same maternal side. Still, it can narrow things down. When the results came back, they ruled out more than 99% of the population. They also pointed to a rare maternal profile, one that belonged to roughly 1 in 250 people in the area. And among the people known to fit it, Eric Spahr was the only one who'd allegedly told multiple people he killed the swains. Around that time, Josh published his first story about the case. It noted that Eric Spahr's long standing alibi did not hold up under scrutiny and that a mitochondrial DNA test was consistent with Eric's maternal line. It was that story, along with pressure from the Georgia Innocence Project, that caused the Camden County DA to reopen the case. Investigators were soon back in South Georgia, interviewing people who knew Eric Spahr.

[B]

And they found that he had allegedly spoke to more than 10 people about killing two black people. And a few times he said that it was in the church in Camden County.

[A]

They also searched Eric's home, running metal detectors over his property and rifling through his shed.

[B]

A couple of things they took out one, they took out a few small cannons that appeared to work, and they confiscated those because that's apparently illegal. And a long sleeve button up shirt that was one giant confederate flag.

[A]

Investigators also looked into Dennis Perry and determined the evidence used to convict him had been corrupted. At a court hearing, the state pushed back vigorously in an effort to keep him locked up. But the evidence of his innocence was overwhelming.

[B]

A judge who was a veteran judge there overturned Dennis Perry's conviction 20 years after he had originally been arrested. And he had his wife of 11 years there at his side. They could finally be together. Then, about a year after Dennis release. He was totally exonerated of the crime in court and charges were dropped. And he was a free man, apart from the burden that he would carry for the rest of his life.

[A]

On the day of Perry's release, Josh was one of the people outside the prison waiting for him. He shook Perry's hand and Perry invited him back to his house.

[B]

By the time I got there, he had changed out of the goofy, giant prison clothes that they had given him to leave in, and he just looked like a normal person who'd lived there, you know, and when I showed up, there was a parade of people coming to say hello to him and, and, you know, I kept getting introduced and everybody, everybody kept thanking me.

[A]

In December of 2024, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrested Eric Spahr. He was indicted soon after for the murders of Harold and Thelma Swain. Less than a year later, the case finally went to trial, but it barely got off the ground. After testimony began In October of 2025, the judge declared a mistrial, citing a violation of a pretrial order about what witnesses could and couldn't say. Which means after 40 years, the case is still unresolved. Spahr is scheduled for a new trial in July. Last year, Josh published a book about the case titled the man no one Believed. That man, of course, is Dennis Perry. In the next episode, you'll hear directly from him and the woman who waited for him. That's how we survived is by faith

[B]

all them years in 15 minutes.

[A]

Yeah, faith in 15 minutes. If you have information, story tips, or feedback you'd like to share with the Gone south team, please email [e-mail] that's gonesouthpodcastmail.com for bonus content, you can follow us on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram at Gone Southpodcast. You can also sign up for our newsletter on substack at Gone south with Jed Lipinski Gone south is an Odyssey original podcast. It's created, written and narrated by me, Jed Lipinski. Our executive producers are Leah Rees, Dennis, Maddie Sprung Keyser and Lloyd Lockridge. Our story editor is Katie Mingle. Gone south is edited, mixed and mastered by Chris Basel. Production support from Ian Mont and Sean Cherry. Special thanks to Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney and Hilary Schuff. Thank you for listening to Gone South.

[E]

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[A]

so here is what I want to understand. Yes, what made you so interested in all this? Ancestral lines and ancestral influences.

[F]

So I've been interested in it for so long that I can't remember when it started.

[A]

But all I can tell you, like in childhood.

[F]

Childhood?

[B]

Did you do the DNA test?

[F]

I've not done that. I wasn't all that interested in the statistical breakdown of my DNA. I'm more interested in the stories.

[A]

The stories of your ancestors.

[F]

My ancestors and the circumstances that moved them around the planet. Every family has its stories. Your grandparents met on a blind date or your great grandmother passed through Ellis Island. But every once in a while, you'll hear something a little more unusual.

[B]

I have a really vague memory of somebody saying, did you know your great uncle killed somebody? I've heard my whole life. That she invented the margarita.

[A]

He gets a patent one month before the Wright brothers. Oh my God.

[F]

Some of these stories are hard to believe. Others are hard to imagine. And as these tall tales get passed down through the generations, they become something more than a family story. They become family lore. My name is Lloyd Lockridge, and in this podcast I'm going to have people on to tell stories about their families. And then we're going to investigate those stories and find out how much of it is true.

[A]

To go into the archive and find what you think is like not just the secret of your family's life, but the explanatory secret of your family's life.

[B]

Wow. You know, maybe this old family story that I overheard in my grandmother's kitchen is true.

[F]

This is Family Lore, a new series from Odyssey Podcasts.

[A]

You're always wondering why your dad is a certain way. Well, here's one answer I love when

[B]

I hear somebody says I have a boring family history. They didn't do anything.

[A]

I said it's because you don't know

[F]

anything about your history, please follow and listen to family lore on any of your podcast apps.