← Revisionist History: The Staten Island Problem
Revisionist History: The Staten Island Problem
The Alabama Murders - Part 3: A Peculiar Institution
00:46:11
Loading summary
Transcript112 lines
- [00:00]
Malcolm Gladwell
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:04]
Narrator/Interviewer
In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster and level up every tool in their arsenal. T Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network according to the Experts@ookla Speedtest. And they're using that network to launch Super Mobile. The first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built in security and seamless satellite coverage. That's your business. Supercharged. Learn more@supermobile.com seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the US where you can see the sky. Best business plan based on a combination of advanced network performance, coverage layers and security features. Best network based on analysis by OOKLA of speed test intelligence data 1h 2025 Military life isn't predictable, but earning your Master's degree can be. With American Military University's 40 + flexible online master's programs, you can stay mission ready while you get market ready. Learn anywhere, anytime with an education built to keep pace steady, reliable and always accessible. Plus, military service members, veterans and their families can save up to 45% on master's tuition with AMU's special rates and grants. Learn more at Amu Apus Edu Amu steady through every mission Malcolm Glabel here. I'm excited to share that Revisionist History is a Signal Awards finalist in two categories. The Signal Awards recognize the top podcasts that define culture all. Our episode the Joe Rogan Intervention is up for best Conversation Starter and our episode Running Hot is up for best writing. We're thrilled to be nominated and from now until October 9th, you can help us win by voting for us. Vote@vote.signalaward.com that's vote.signal S I G N A L award.com we're thankful for your support, Pushkin.
- [02:21]
Malcolm Gladwell
Hello.
- [02:21]
Narrator/Interviewer
Hello, Malcolm here. Before we get to the episode, I want to let you know you can get this entire season now ad free by subscribing to Revisionist History on Pushkin Plus. Sign up on the show page on Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin FM Plus. Pushkin subscribers can access ad free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges and bonus content for all Pushkin shows. Previously on revisionist history. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth Sennett's 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.
- [03:15]
Malcolm Gladwell
And I answered the call and I got all the information on who done it who was all involved and all.
- [03:23]
Narrator/Interviewer
The particulars, the viciousness was there that he could do something like that. I don't know. When 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.
- [03:46]
Patterson Hood
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.
- [04:04]
Narrator/Interviewer
He was 24, working at a pharmacy in Florence, looking for a way out.
- [04:09]
Patterson Hood
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 brand, that stuff started going. It's really bounced back in the last. Last 15, 20 years. The. The town's almost unrecognizable because of all the really pos that have happened. But in 88, it was pretty fucking grim.
- [04:39]
Narrator/Interviewer
Years went by, and the story of what happened to Elizabeth Senate stayed with him.
- [04:44]
Patterson Hood
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.
- [05:02]
Narrator/Interviewer
The song was called the Fireplace Poker. He released it on the album Go Go Boots, which came out in 2011. Maybe you've heard it before. Reverend had his wife running I got you in high school. The end of friends should do her in. Make it look like a rhyme. Patterson Hood got his inspiration from what one of the regulars in that Florence drugstore. A local police officer told him back in 1988.
- [05:39]
Patterson Hood
He was the chief of police in Florence, and so he was all up in any. 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. That it wasn't like it was like it was supposed to be looking like it was.
- [06:06]
Narrator/Interviewer
What everyone first thought was that Elizabeth Sennett had been murdered by two local kids, Kenny Smith and John Forrest Parker. They were the ones who drove out to Coondog Cemetery Road on that March morning. It was Parker's knife found in a pond behind the house. And 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 home and 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. But that's not what the Florence police chief told Patterson Hood Reverend came home from work found the Mrs.
- [07:06]
Malcolm Gladwell
Dying.
- [07:09]
Narrator/Interviewer
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. Cause the reverend did his wife and 15 wax fireplace poker. The reverend came home from work and found the missus 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 15 wax fireplace poker. Wait. The reverend did his wife in? My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This episode of the Alabama Murders is is about the trial of John Forrest Parker, one of the three young men charged in the killing of Elizabeth Sennett. And all of the ways the catastrophe that unfolded in the Shoals, the failure cascade set in motion by the murder, could have been averted. The counterfactual version of events. The what ifs. Episode three A peculiar institution.
- [08:54]
Malcolm Gladwell
I've had, you know, other cases that technically were probably factually more complex, but this is. Yeah, this is the one that I will. It's still on my mind, even without job coming.
- [09:13]
Narrator/Interviewer
Tom Heflin was John Forrest Parker's attorney. He remembers exactly where he was the day Elizabeth Sennett was murdered.
- [09:21]
Malcolm Gladwell
I had been to Red Bay, Alabama, which is on the Mississippi border, down the same highway where this happened. I may well have seen John Forrest Parker and Kenny Smith in their car. I don't know that for a fact, but it may well have. Then I got the call that court was going to appoint me and Gene Hanby to represent him.
- [09:46]
Narrator/Interviewer
Heflin is the son of the former US 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 they're kind of rumbling southern gravitas. So you are court appointed attorneys?
- [10:03]
Malcolm Gladwell
Court appointed attorneys, yeah. Yeah.
- [10:06]
Narrator/Interviewer
How much of your practice would have been that kind of work in those days? Zero. This is unusual. So why?
- [10:14]
Malcolm Gladwell
What.
- [10:15]
Narrator/Interviewer
How did it come about then?
- [10:17]
Malcolm Gladwell
I think we'd had A string of capital murder cases. And, you know, everybody kind of is expected to serve.
- [10:28]
Narrator/Interviewer
Parker'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.
- [10:38]
Malcolm Gladwell
All right, we're at the Coburn 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.
- [10:52]
Narrator/Interviewer
Heflin gave my colleague, Ben nadaff Haffrey a tour of the courthouse.
- [10:56]
Malcolm Gladwell
Well, we don't have full rights.
- [11:02]
Narrator/Interviewer
The 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.
- [11:11]
Malcolm Gladwell
So where, 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. Like some of the jurors would have had, like a direct view of John, like from feet away. Yeah, he would have been probably. We probably would have sat him there. I think we did. Well, because inside, where we block him off to a certain extent. Why do you want to block him off? Well, he is shackled. Yeah, you know, that's basically. I just don't want to emphasize that he is a prisoner at that point, even everybody knows he is.
- [11:58]
Narrator/Interviewer
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. The 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.
- [12:55]
Malcolm Gladwell
Parker was like 18, actually. A good family, solid people. He had had some prior childhood trauma that I think probably created a little men. He had some drug problems.
- [13:14]
Narrator/Interviewer
Tell me more about your impressions of him.
- [13:20]
Malcolm Gladwell
A kid who had been drugged out and didn't know what they were doing.
- [13:25]
Narrator/Interviewer
John Forest 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 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. On the drive to Coondog 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 Senate, 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. Yes, Parker and Smith hurt Elizabeth Senate 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. One of the biggest points of weakness for the prosecution emerged during 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. Doctor, can you tell us what you recall about her physical appearance? 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. Thank you, Doctor. That's all. Haflin knew the prosecution was calling McKinley, so he did a little homework beforehand.
- [16:34]
Malcolm Gladwell
We'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 describing. 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 of knew each other.
- [17:06]
Narrator/Interviewer
What the doctor told him made Halflin realize he could lay a trap. So in court, Heflin gets up and in cross examination asks McKinley about the knife. Have you ever been shown the knife that the state removed from the pond in this case? 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. The 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.
- [18:20]
Malcolm Gladwell
You saw the wounds inflicted on Ms. Senate fresh when she came into 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?
- [18:35]
Narrator/Interviewer
And McKinley answers simply, I would frankly be surprised.
- [18:40]
Malcolm Gladwell
This was the knife based on what I saw, or the sharp object based on what I saw on the patient? I don't have any further questions.
- [18:52]
Narrator/Interviewer
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.
- [19:01]
Malcolm Gladwell
Yes.
- [19:02]
Narrator/Interviewer
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.
- [19:14]
Malcolm Gladwell
That's right.
- [19:16]
Narrator/Interviewer
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 Sennott's body testifies she 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 Sennott 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 1pm 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. But 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 to 40 minute drive from Coon Dog 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. Later in the trial, another pathologist who'd examined the Senate autopsy made the same point. Here is Heflin questioning him? If the evidence in this case shows that the Cherokee Rescue squad detected a heartbeat on Mrs. Sennett at approximately 12:15pm on March 18, 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 12:15pm the fatal wounds were delivered? 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. Someone 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.
- [22:02]
Malcolm Gladwell
Or even had called. And then.
- [22:05]
Narrator/Interviewer
Yeah, 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. That's after the break. Foreign this episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. October 10th is World Mental Health Day, and this year, let's flip the script and focus the attention on thanking the therapists who have made an impact on people's lives. Thank you Therapists. As it turns out, there's a therapist who's made an enormous impact on my life. My mom, who I'm happy to say put all of her considerable training and expertise in the service of giving me and my brothers a happy home when we were kids and who I have watched over her 94 years enrich and support the lives of countless other people. So mom, in honor of World Mental Health Day, thank you for being so kind and understanding and a reminder of how much value and love therapists can bring to the world. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, Having served over 5 million people globally and it works with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews. This World Mental Health Day, we're celebrating the therapists who helped millions of people take a step forward. If you're ready to find the right therapist for you, BetterHelp can help you start that journey. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com Gladwell that's better. H-E-L-P.com Gladwell Military life isn't predictable, but earning your Master's degree can be. With American military universities 40+ flexible online Master's programs, you can stay mission ready while you get market ready. Learn anywhere, anytime with an education built to keep pace, steady, reliable and always accessible. Plus, military service members, veterans and their families can save up to 45% on master's tuition with AMU's special rates and grants. Learn more at Amu Apus Edu Amu steady through every mission in today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster and level up every tool in their arsenal. T Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network according to the experts at OOKLA Speed Test and they're using that network to launch Super Mobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built in security and seamless satellite coverage. With Super Mobile, your performance, security and coverage are supercharged. With a network that adapts in real time, your business stays operating at peak capacity even in times of high demand with built in security. On the first nationwide 5G advanced network, you keep private data private for you, your team and your clients. And with seamless coverage from the world's largest satellite to mobile constellation, your whole team can text and stay updated even when they're off the grid. That's your business Supercharged. Learn more@supermobile.com seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the US where you can see the sky. Best business plan based on a combination of advanced network performance coverage layers and security features. Best network based on analysis by OOKLA of Speedtest Intelligence data 1H2025 Susan Mosley was a nurse at a weight loss clinic in Muscle Shoals. Elizabeth Sennett was one of her patients.
- [26:16]
Susan Mosley
And I noticed she was extremely quiet, introverted, no self esteem, but it was a brilliant, brilliant line.
- [26:31]
Narrator/Interviewer
Mosley sat down with a local reporter named Lee Hedgebeth 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.
- [26:43]
Susan Mosley
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?
- [26:54]
Narrator/Interviewer
Mosi said that Elizabeth Sennett didn't seem happy. She would sit in the waiting room with a napkin crushed in her fist. One day Mosley decided to confront her.
- [27:08]
Susan Mosley
And I said, liz, now listen to.
- [27:10]
Malcolm Gladwell
Me.
- [27:12]
Susan Mosley
You'Ve been going up and down on your weights. So I'm going to close this chart and I'm just going to turn around, I'm going to shut my eyes, take a deep breath and how about you 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 and we will do something. So just let me know. And I heard, I nearly don't heard the chair rustle and I still kept it shut. And she said, I need a doctor. Open your eyes. She said, turn around here. And I'll never forget. I turned to my left, I found around like this and she was standing there and I'm going to tell you before we go any further, I'm going to. She got the blouse and pointed out from about an inch.
- [28:13]
Narrator/Interviewer
Above.
- [28:16]
Malcolm Gladwell
When a.
- [28:17]
Susan Mosley
Short sleeve would come all in the chest.
- [28:25]
Malcolm Gladwell
In her butt.
- [28:28]
Susan Mosley
Her butt, her legs to a certain area where a.
- [28:32]
Malcolm Gladwell
Skirt would come.
- [28:34]
Narrator/Interviewer
Was black, black. This senate was covered in bruises.
- [28:42]
Susan Mosley
I got up and I just hope that I didn't ask no questions. I didn't ask anything. I had to button her little thing back up and I done like that. And she sat down. You want to talk about this? About her relationship with Mr. Simmons? She began to tell me that she was, didn't know how but that he was going to kill her and that she knew this, that she had Been saving her money for the doors. And then the way that the attorney she is going to is going to charge her $400. She said, I've worried about this and worried about this because once I'll do this, he will lose his truth. She said, I know. I don't think I'll ever be clear with me was before he kills me.
- [30:02]
Narrator/Interviewer
She didn't know how, but he was going to kill her. And she didn't think she could break free. Mosi said she tried to help Elizabeth to find a way to leave Charles, leave the marriage. She told Elizabeth, you can come and live with me if you want. She tried to help her find the words to communicate to her husband. It had to end.
- [30:24]
Susan Mosley
We would sit there and I would, I would limb me right off the zipline, say, okay, now say this, Charles, we need to talk. I cannot continue to go over with all these meetings and then go to church on Sunday and we and try to cover up all this. Wear a long sleeve shirt and at 100 degrees out, somebody is going to figure this out. I can't believe you do this.
- [30:51]
Narrator/Interviewer
Mosley gave a deposition to investigators and her testimony was recounted to the jury by Ronnie May from the Colbert County Sheriff's Office in the flat, effectless tone of official speak. But even then it's impossible to miss the power of what she saw. Listen, this is what May said. Mrs. Moseley said that she had been told by Mrs. Sennett that around Christmas of that year Charles family came to visit and they had come up from Florida. Mrs. Sennett stated that some of the family went hunting. She stated that Charles became extremely upset over some conversation between he and members of the family. And Mrs. Sennett stated that during that outburst at Christmas with his family members, he laid down on the floor and screamed and cried and seemed to be paralyzed at different times. Mrs. Sennett stated that this went on for some time at the house and as a result Charles family left and returned to Florida. Mrs. Moseley stated that Mrs. Sennett told her during this argument that Charles at one point had pulled and waved a gun in the direction of his father. On one of my visits to the Shoals, I sat in Tom Heflin's living room and tried to make sense of all the things the jury learned about Charles Sennett who had taken his own life so quickly after his wife's murder. I mean of. Of all of these three potential murderers, Parker, Smith and Sennett, Senate is the only one with a documented history of violent, highly aggressive behavior. He's the one who beat his wife. To me, this is all about Charles Sennett. The whole thing. He sets the whole thing in motion. He's the charismatic, persuasive adult who. He's a predator. He really should be the one on trial.
- [32:47]
Malcolm Gladwell
And without having gone back. Maybe we didn't try him hard enough.
- [32:56]
Narrator/Interviewer
This I think is what was on the police chief's mind when he gossiped about the case with Patterson Hood, lead singer of the Drive By Truckers at that drugstore in Florence.
- [33:06]
Patterson Hood
I can't remember how soon they figured out that he, that, you know, the preacher had finished the job and all that, but it was, you know, it was pretty obvious, pretty quick, you know, that those guys, they were fuck ups. They took what was going to be a simple go in, you know, killer, make it look like a robbery and turned it into this gruesome thing and she was still alive. And so the preacher did what you know, he then did. And I mean it's God, it's just, it's just such an awful story on every imaginable level.
- [33:46]
Narrator/Interviewer
Which is why Patterson Hood wrote the crucial verse. Reverend came home from work and found the Mrs.
- [33:56]
Malcolm Gladwell
Dying.
- [33:59]
Narrator/Interviewer
Life was falling from her grasp. Still she lay there trying. No one would ever know know what she told him or know what he told her. Cause the river ended his wife and 15 wax fireplace poker. To read the John Parker trial transcript with the full knowledge of what would happen over the following decades is to get angry. Especially afterwards. What happened next? The sentencing. Military life isn't predictable, but earning your Master's degree can be. With American Military University's 40 + flexible online master's programs, you can stay mission ready while you get market ready. Learn anywhere, anytime. With an education built to keep pace steady, reliable and always accessible. Plus, military service members, veterans and their families can save up to 45% on master's tuition with AMU's special rates and grants. Learn more at AMU APUS. Edu AMU steady through every mission. In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster and level up every tool in their arsenal. T Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network according to the experts at Ookla Speed Test. And they're using that network to launch Super Mobile. The first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built in security and seamless satellite coverage. With Super Mobile, your performance, security and coverage are supercharged. With a network that adapts in real time, your business stays operating at peak capacity even in times of high demand. With built in security on the first nationwide 5G advanced network, you keep private data private for you, your team, your clients. And with seamless coverage from the world's largest satellite to mobile constellation, your whole team can text and stay updated even when they're off the grid. That's your business. Supercharged. Learn more at supermobile.com seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the US where you can see the sky. Best business plan based on a combination of advanced network performance, coverage layers and security features. Best network based on analysis by Ookla of Speedtest Intelligence Data 1H 2025 Malcolm Glebel here. I'm excited to share that Revisionist History is a Signal Awards finalist in two categories. The Signal Awards recognize the top podcasts that define culture. Our episode the Joe Rogan Intervention is up for best conversation starter and our episode Running Hot is up for best writing. We we're thrilled to be nominated and from now until October 9th, you can help us win by voting for us. Vote@vote.signalaward.com that's vote.signal S I G N A L award.com we're thankful for your support. What was it like when you were sequestered?
- [37:36]
Gary Highfield
We spent eight days over here in the Ramada Inn.
- [37:40]
Narrator/Interviewer
Gary Highfield, foreman of the jury in the Parker trial, talking to my colleague Ben Nadaff Haffrey.
- [37:46]
Gary Highfield
It was good. I mean, you know, they fed us and I mean, we got to go home and get clothes and all that kind of stuff and then, you know, go down there. But they told us to prepare for clothes for a week. We got them and, you know, went to the hotel. I mean, it was all good.
- [38:04]
Malcolm Gladwell
Did you guys hang out when you were semester?
- [38:08]
Gary Highfield
We really they told us not to, you know, we just kind of. We did get to go to the pool. We did go to the pool one day.
- [38:16]
Narrator/Interviewer
Highfield was 30 years old at the time, married one kid and another on the way sold insurance. He says, looking back, that the news coverage of the killing made the job of the defense very difficult.
- [38:28]
Gary Highfield
I think it kind of handcuffed them because people had an idea of what had happened. There was so much put out there beforehand. And it's when you get some when a person gets something in their mind, you know, it's kind of hard to change.
- [38:55]
Narrator/Interviewer
So when they heard all of the discrepancies about the timing and the weapon and the character of Charles Sennett, it was hard for them to square that with their understanding of John Parker. He had agreed to go out to Coondog Cemetery Road. He had admitted he brutally assaulted Elizabeth Sennett. A dispassionate reading of the trial transcripts today, years later, supports the idea that Parker should have been acquitted of the murder charge. Just gotten something like conspiracy to commit murder or assault in the first degree. But this was a year after the crime and it was very hard to be dispassionate.
- [39:31]
Gary Highfield
But I mean, look, in that kind of situation, if you had. He. He meant to kill her with that pipe. I mean, if you mean to do something, you may not actually be the one that committed the death, the actual death, but torturing somebody that bad was. Man, it was awful, dude. If you, if you're not, even if you're not the one that caught, that was the one that fatally killed her. You did, you. I mean, it was proven that you did every bit of that stuff to this lady. I mean, she might as well been dead. But anyway, I don't know, it's just. I mean, I. I don't even like to think about it too much. I don't know which one of them killed her. I really don't. But I think both of them got what they probably deserved, legally and morally.
- [40:48]
Narrator/Interviewer
They found Parker guilty of murder. So Parker's attorney, Tom Heflin, lost that round. But the prosecution was asking for the death penalty. And here the jury hesitated. The picture that Heflin had painted of his client as a mixed up kid in over his head had left an impression. So the jury voted overwhelmingly, 10 to 2 for life without parole. The jury didn't think Parker deserved to die.
- [41:17]
Gary Highfield
I just don't think some of these people that were on the jury, they didn't want that to be on their conscience the rest of their life. Putting somebody into the death penalty.
- [41:29]
Narrator/Interviewer
At this point, the cascade could have stopped, right? A cascade is unique as a category of catastrophe because it requires multiple stages in sequence. Remember our proverb from episode one. You need the nail, the shoe, the horse, the rider, the message. And the battle for the kingdom to be imperiled. And if any of those stages fall out along the way, if the rider loses his horse but quickly finds another, the kingdom is fine. A life sentence for Parker brings the whole saga to a close. Because it means that Kenny Smith was. Would almost certainly get a life sentence as well when his time came. And for all intents and purposes, the case would be closed, justice would be served. The rider found another horse. The kingdom is just fine. Except that's not what happens. Why? Because this is Alabama. To understand what happens next requires a brief Digression into an obscure legal doctrine known as judicial override. Judicial override arose in the mid-1970s in response to the supreme court's insistence that states be more rigorous in the way they use the death penalty. The court wanted standards rules. So the court divided capital cases into two stages. First, a jury was required to rule on the defendant's guilt. Then the supreme court said it wanted juries to do something they don't do in normal criminal cases. Decide on the appropriate sentence. Alabama's response was to pass a law giving the final word to the judge. And if the judge wanted to override the jury's decision to turn, say, life without parole into the death penalty, they could. A handful of states did something similar, like Florida. But in Florida, the law said that the judge had to give, quote, great weight to the jury's decision. In Alabama, a judge could do whatever they wanted. And over the next 40 years, judges did just that. The override was used over a hundred times in Alabama, almost always to allow a judge to execute someone whose life the jury wanted to save, with judges saying all kinds of crazy things along the way. Like the time an Alabama jury went easy on a murderer because he was mentally disabled, and the judge overrode them because, and I'm quoting the sociological literature, suggests gypsies intentionally test low on standard IQ tests. So in the Parker trial, the jury rules in the first stage that he's guilty. And in the sentencing stage, they say, no death penalty, life without parole. And what happens next? The judge, Inga Johnson, the one with the portrait on the wall in the courtroom, overrides the jury recommendation and sentences Parker to death. Heflin was not exactly surprised. When you heard her override decision, your reaction was you saw it coming.
- [44:39]
Malcolm Gladwell
Saw it coming, yeah.
- [44:43]
Narrator/Interviewer
Do you? Did she?
- [44:44]
Malcolm Gladwell
I think she. I think she. I think she. Now, she's generally a good judge. I think she listened. I think she. You know, I'm not saying she had totally prejudged it, but I think she, you know, it.
- [45:02]
Narrator/Interviewer
She doesn't give in her sentencing decision. She doesn't really give specific reasons as to why she's overriding the jury's recommendation.
- [45:13]
Malcolm Gladwell
In Alabama, you're not required to.
- [45:18]
Narrator/Interviewer
The whole thing makes no sense. Of course, if the supreme court wanted the states to make the application of the death penalty less arbitrary, how does just handing over power to judges to do whatever they want, for whatever random reason, fix the problem? Gary Highfield, the jury foreman, is still angry about it.
- [45:39]
Gary Highfield
What reason did I have to spend a week over a week In a jury listening to this, when she has the right to overturn my decision. Our decision.
- [45:52]
Malcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- [45:53]
Gary Highfield
I mean, I felt like there was no reason for me to even be there. That's the problem I have with. That's the only problem I have with the whole thing. I don't. I mean, I just felt. I felt useless spending all that time on a jury, and then she has the right to come back. I mean, there's no sense in even having a jury if you. If you're going to be able to overturn the jury. If a judge can overturn the jury.
- [46:27]
Narrator/Interviewer
Parker gets sent to death row at Donaldson prison in Bessemer, Alabama, just outside of Birmingham. This is 1989. His lawyers keep him alive, filing appeal after appeal. 13 years pass, he's still alive. And he gets one final chance by way of a new supreme court case. In Ring v. Arizona, the court throws out Arizona's practice of allowing judges to make sentencing decisions independently of the jury in death penalty cases. Cases, they said it violates the sixth amendment, which reads, in case you've forgotten, in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury. If your life is at stake, then what happens to you shouldn't be left up to the whims of whatever judge you were assigned. Only a jury should be allowed to make the call of life or death. And that protection is right there in the constitution. In response, Indiana, which had an override statute on its books, shuts it down. Everyone on death row in Indiana who was there because of a judge's override gets their original life sentence back. All eyes turn to Alabama. Surely they have to follow suit, right? John Parker's going to live.
- [47:42]
Malcolm Gladwell
When I heard that it was done as John's off, my feeling was John was off death row.
- [47:49]
Narrator/Interviewer
This was 2002. For the next eight years, Parker got up every morning, waiting for the state of Alabama to acknowledge the fact that the law that put him on death row was unconstitutional. He waits and waits. Do you know when Alabama finally got around to abolishing judicial override? 2017. When it was too late to make any difference for Parker. In fact, it took Alabama 41 years to come to their senses. And even then, they couldn't help themselves. They say this reversal only applies to future cases. Anyone who's already on death row because of a judge's override in the previous 42 years stays on death row. In the years before the civil war, there was a phrase southern slave owners would use to describe Their practice of owning their workforce. They called it their peculiar institution. A euphemism, a nice way of saying that things were done a little differently in their part of the world. Judicial override is, I think, a very good example of another Alabama peculiarity. And if you are at all curious about how this particular peculiarity works, I would direct you to the discussion that took place on April 17, 2024 in a hearing room at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery.
- [49:15]
Malcolm Gladwell
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to welcome you to the House Judiciary Committee. We're glad to have each and every one of you here with us today.
- [49:25]
Gary Highfield
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
- [49:26]
Malcolm Gladwell
Members. All right, Mr. England, you want to talk about 27? Absolutely.
- [49:32]
Narrator/Interviewer
Representative England, is Chris England, that rarest of species in Alabama. A Democrat represents Tuscaloosa. He was the co sponsor of the legislation back in 2017 that ended judicial override. Now he wants to make an amendment to that law, House Bill 27.
- [49:51]
Malcolm Gladwell
What this bill does or seeks to.
- [49:53]
Gary Highfield
Do is to make that application retroactive. So I believe 33 individuals that are currently sitting on death row as a result of override could be re sentenced.
- [50:06]
Narrator/Interviewer
Representative England says we've all finally agreed that judicial override violates the constitutional right to a jury trial in death Bentley cases. So we should go back and restore the jury's decision in the case of all those people who are only on death row because it took us 40 years to realize that back in 1975, we made a big mistake.
- [50:26]
Malcolm Gladwell
Mr. England, I hear what you're saying, and I understand that an individual tried today would be subject to a different set of laws. And I've got you, but the. The individuals that were shot prior to the time we changed the law were subject to those laws that were in effect at that time. And the law that was in effect at that time allowed judicial override. And these judges, in their discretion, overrode.
- [50:51]
Narrator/Interviewer
Then comes this priceless bit of nonsense.
- [50:54]
Malcolm Gladwell
Consequently, it's very difficult for me to second guess or in effect override that which the judge overrode at this.
- [51:07]
Narrator/Interviewer
There are lots of nods up and down the committee. This is the Alabama peculiarity. I have Southern friends who get mad correctly at the way Northerners always bring up slavery or get all worked up because people drive around with Confederate flags. But come on, this isn't a random thing. This is a characteristic. There is something in the psyche of places like Alabama that really, really, really doesn't want to address the consequences of past moral failures.
- [51:37]
Malcolm Gladwell
All right, is there a motion to give this bill a favorable report? Thank you. And a second. Okay, I think we've had plenty of discussion. You asked for a roll call. Go ahead, Brandi.
- [51:48]
Narrator/Interviewer
Maybe you see where this is going. They vote it down. There will be no overriding of the override. It seems really clear to me that John Forrest Parker didn't kill Elizabeth Sennett. He was back home in Florence when she received the stab wounds that killed her. He should never have been convicted of murder. But he was. And if he was going to be convicted, he should have served out the sentence given to him by a jury of his peers. Life without parole. But he didn't. And once he was on death row, Alabama should have ended the practice that robbed him of a just result. But they didn't get around to it for over 40 years. And even then, they couldn't bring themselves to override the override. John Forrest Parker never stood a chance. Next time on the Alabama Murders. This is how lethal injection actually kills you. It kills you by burning your lungs up. So the last thing that you know, you may know, is that you're on fire from the inside and the blood is filling up your lungs as you die. Is this too graphic?
- [53:17]
Gary Highfield
Look, if you come back here and you start coming and these guys ask you to go all the way with them, you gotta be willing to go. And I said, what's all the way? He said, well, you know, if they're executions and if they ask you to be with them, you need to be willing to go. And if you're not, just don't come.
- [53:41]
Narrator/Interviewer
Revisionist History is produced by Ben Nadaff Haffrey, Lucy Sullivan and Nina Bird Lawrence. Additional reporting by Ben Nadaff Haffrey and Lee Hedgepeth. Our editor is Karen Shakurji. Fact checking by Kate Furby. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Engineering by Nina Byrd Lawrence. Production Support from Luke LeMond. Original scoring by Luis Guerra with Paul Brainard and Jimmy Bod. Sound design and additional music by Jake Gorski. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm Glabel here. I'm excited to share that Revisionist History is a Signal Awards finalist in two categories. The Signal Awards recognize the top podcasts that define culture. Our episode the Joe Rogan Intervention is up for best conversation starter. And our episode Running Hot is up for best writing. We're thrilled to be nominated and from now until October 9th, you can help us win by voting for us. Vote atvotecsignaward.com that's Vote Signal S I G N A L Award.com we're thankful for your support.
- [55:05]
Malcolm Gladwell
This is an iHeart podcast.