Dirty Work - Snap Classic

Summary

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Snap Judgment – "Dirty Work" (Snap Classic)

Date: September 11, 2025
Host: Glynn Washington
Production: Snap Judgment & PRX

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Episode Overview

This episode of Snap Judgment, titled "Dirty Work," weaves together powerful storytelling about people who take on difficult, hidden, or morally ambiguous jobs—roles that often carry stigma, secrets, or ethical gray areas. The stories blend vivid personal experiences, reflection, and drama, providing perspectives on survival, control, friendship, and the toll of being necessary but unseen.

The episode features two main stories:

1. The Trial of Alvin Ridley: A bizarre, deeply human courtroom drama about a reclusive man accused of killing his wife in a Southern town, and the determined, outcast lawyer who represented him.
2. Carnival Cons & Coming of Age: The journey of a math-whiz turned carny, exploring friendship, deceit, and growing up on the fringes.

Throughout, the original tone is wry, intimate, and poetic, with Snap’s trademark musical undercurrent and candid narration.

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Key Segments & Discussion Points

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1. Glynn Washington’s Crossing Guard Story: Setting the Theme

[01:01–05:45]

• Glynn Washington opens with a personal anecdote from elementary school about becoming a crossing guard, drawn by the promise of “respect and admiration.”
• The reality, however, is humiliation and cold isolation—serving nobody but one snot-nosed kid, “Jerry,” while suffering through Michigan’s brutal winters.
• Humorous, self-deprecating narration: “I hate Jerry. I hate his mother and I hate the principal for sending me out there.” (02:41)
• Point: Sometimes “dirty work” is thankless, unseen, and unexpectedly punishing—even when undertaken with pride.

Notable Quote:

“But see, in Michigan, there are two seasons, winter and almost winter. And September doesn’t count.” – Glynn Washington (02:31)

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2. The Alvin Ridley Murder Trial

[06:29–34:21] Produced by Joe Rosenberg

2.1. Introducing McCracken Poston & Alvin Ridley

[06:29–11:59]

• Ringgold, Georgia: Small town, close-knit, everyone knows everyone and their secrets.
• McCracken Poston: Former state senator, turned small-town lawyer, affectionately called a “loser” for his failed political campaign.
• Alvin Ridley: Town “boogeyman,” reclusive TV repairman, the center of suspicion after police discover his wife, Virginia, dead at home.
• Town learns shocking truths: No one knew Alvin was even married; rumors swirl of captivity, murder, and madness.

Notable Quote:

“He had become more and more reclusive... The feeling of neighbors and children was that he was the boogeyman.” – McCracken Poston (07:51)

2.2. Suspicion, Isolation, and Taking the Case

[11:59–15:12]

• Virginia Ridley’s family accuses Alvin of holding her captive for 30 years.
• Alvin’s odd behavior on the 911 call and towards authorities (“flat,” unemotional, uncooperative) places suspicion on him.
• McCracken, motivated partly by his own disenfranchisement, decides to represent Alvin: “I almost wanted to represent him to get back at the town who had rejected me.” (14:04)

2.3. Pre-Trial Struggles

[15:12–21:18]

• McCracken faces a defendant who baffles and sometimes repulses him, yet whom he comes to see as vulnerable and pitiable.
  • Anecdote: McCracken, complaining about Alvin’s unwashed neck brace, is then sprayed by a skunk, leading to ironic role reversal.
• The medical examiner’s report: Petechial hemorrhaging on Virginia’s body—suggests strangulation/asphyxiation, deepening doubt about Alvin’s innocence.
• McCracken struggles to prepare a defense: “I had nothing as a defense.” (18:50)
• Jury selection is fraught; even the local journalist covering the case, Kimberly Barnes, ends up on the jury.

Notable Moment:

“I said, Alvin, do me a favor before we go to court... because it’s really getting hard to sit next to you, buddy. Well, I was working at my office that night, and a skunk was in my air conditioning duct and it sprayed... I go to court the next day. And Alvin Ridley gets to say to me, I don’t know if I can sit next to you.” – McCracken Poston (15:56)

2.4. Breakthrough Evidence

[21:52–28:30]

• Discovery: Medical literature shows epilepsy can cause similar hemorrhages as seen in Virginia’s death, supporting reasonable doubt.
• Thanksgiving: McCracken’s visit to Alvin’s house (with food) finally gets him inside, discovering thousands of handwritten documents by Virginia—evidence of “hypergraphia,” a compulsion to write due to her epilepsy.
• These writings chronicle 27 years, revealing Virginia’s reclusive but self-chosen life with Alvin, her intense fear of public places due to seizures, and her perspective: “All of her writings were Alvin and Virginia... She was choosing to be there.” (27:09)

Notable Quote:

“Virginia had something... called hypergraphia. It compelled her to write down everything... I found something from just about every month of 27 years.” – McCracken Poston (25:09)

2.5. The Trial: Drama & Revelation

[26:12–32:24]

• Comic relief: On trial day, McCracken is fighting off cockroaches escaping from Alvin’s battered suitcases, which turn out to be filled with Virginia’s writings, not evidence of squalor and abuse as the town suspects.
• Writings are read into evidence, recasting the story: Virginia saw Alvin as her family and protector.
• Virginia’s own words reveal she stopped taking her epilepsy medication, trusting in God, clarifying why treatment had failed and supporting natural death by epilepsy.

Notable Moment:

“...when he opened [the suitcases] up, what they were, were Virginia’s testimony. And the jurors were leaning forward, spellbound, because here is the mystery woman... speaking out from the dead.” – Kimberly Barnes (27:09)

2.6. Verdict, Aftermath, and Closure

[29:07–34:21]

• Against McCracken’s advice, Alvin demands to testify after a vision—heightening courtroom tension.
• The defense’s evidence, including Virginia’s voice from beyond, sways the jury: Not guilty on all counts.
• Emotional, cathartic moment: “We had been through a war together... I was not only praying with him, but I had my arm around him tight, shoulder to shoulder.” – McCracken Poston (30:19)
• Post-trial revelation: Alvin chose McCracken as his lawyer because Virginia, while alive, had been an admirer of McCracken’s political campaign (“She always liked you.”)

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3. Pete Fenton’s Carnival Education: The Art of the Con

[36:23–50:09]

3.1. The Offer He Couldn’t Refuse

[36:23–37:08]

• Early 1960s, Michigan. Pete Fenton, shy math whiz, is approached by Jackie, the charismatic junior “Rat Pack” kid.
• Jackie lures him with a $20 “business card,” offering a chance to build a casino in his basement: “How would you like to have more money, more broads, and more booze than you’ve ever had in your life?”

3.2. Learning the Hustle

[37:33–39:23]

• Jackie mentors Pete in rigged gambling and carnival games, teaching him how to fleece high school jocks and locals.
• Pete enjoys the power switch—winning respect and building a bond with Jackie, both wounded by difficult home lives.

Notable Quote:

“We were best friends. And it seemed like he considered it the same way.” – Pete Fenton (39:16)

3.3. Carnival Life: Glamour, Guilt, & Grifting

[39:48–42:15]

• Jackie recruits Pete to travel with the carnival post-graduation.
• Pete is enthralled by the sights, sounds, and wild freedom of carnival life, quickly learning every game is a scam—but initially feels guilty about cheating friends.
• Turns out, even carny life is a hustle: Pete discovers Jackie’s been cheating him out of his rightful (10%) share of the profits.

3.4. The Indiana Bust Out

[43:39–47:39]

• After confrontation, Jackie offers Pete a “year-end bonus” that never materializes.
• A final contest—an all-day, head-to-head “Indiana Bust Out” bet—will settle the score. The winner of the day’s earnings takes all; the loser gets nothing.
• Pete turns the tables by secretly bribing the judge/carny to pad his total, winning “the carnival way.”
• Afterwards, their friendship is quietly severed; Pete realizes it was always transactional.

Notable Quote:

“He said, you know... I always knew that you were stealing money from me. Don’t worry about it. You stole less from me than the other guys. So it kind of evened out.” – Jackie (49:15)

3.5. Bittersweet Farewell & Takeaway

[47:39–50:09]

• Final moment of vulnerable honesty: Jackie reveals he’s done with carny life, planning for business school, and admitting deep distrust learned from his own family.
• Pete leaves, rueful but matured, reflecting on honesty and loyalty in a world where grift is everywhere.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “I hate Jerry. I hate his mother and I hate the principal for sending me out there.” – Glynn Washington (02:41)
• “He had become more and more reclusive... The feeling of neighbors and children was that he was the boogeyman.” – McCracken Poston (07:51)
• “All of her writings were Alvin and Virginia... She was choosing to be there.” – Kimberly Barnes (27:09)
• “We had been through a war together... I was not only praying with him, but that I had my arm around him tight, shoulder to shoulder.” – McCracken Poston (30:19)
• “I always knew that you were stealing money from me. Don’t worry about it. You stole less from me than the other guys.” – Jackie (49:15)

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Takeaways

• Dirty Work = unseen, often stigmatized labor—sometimes unjustly maligned, other times morally ambiguous.
• Real lives are messy; people play roles they never expected, sometimes thrust upon them by desperation, hope, or the gamble of trust.
• The episode is less about absolution than about intimacy with complexity, the invisible ways people survive, connect, and sometimes betray.

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Sound Design & Credits:

• Original scores by Renzo Gorio, Leon Morimoto, and Davey Kim. Stories produced by Joe Rosenberg and Davey Kim.
• Host: Glynn Washington.
• For more Snap Judgment, including the “A Tiny Plot” series, visit snapjudgment.org.

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Transcript

[A]

SNAP Studios.

[B]

Hi, I'm Shaina Shealy. I've been a producer on Snap Judgment for nearly a decade. And years ago, I started following a small group of homeless people in Oakland, California, documenting their epic battle for their own place on their own terms. I got totally sucked into this group's drama and I couldn't stop. And now we're finally bringing that story to you. A Tiny Plot. A five part series about scarcity, survival, and the one thing people in this group wanted most. Control over their own lives. A tiny plot. A story told by the people who lived it. A Tiny Plot is out. Now listen on Snap Judgment.

[A]

Okay, so this is a story about a trick. A trick played on me with great fanfare and elaborate execution. Fifth grade, Fancher Elementary, Mount Pleasant, Michigan. First day of school. Big assembly in the multipurpose room. And the principal himself steps forward and says he's looking for a new crop of young heroes. Tells us that school crossing guards ensure the safety of our community and are afforded great respect and admiration. Who's up for the challenge? I am. And all of us with our hands in the air were taken up front and solemnly presented an orange vest. They whisk us to another room and tell us all about crossing the streets. They give us a pen we can stick on our vest that reads Crossing Guard and a whistle. And finally they hand out posting assignments. Mine was far away, at the outskirts of the Fancher Elementary School territory. But I don't mind. Put on a vest that demands me respect, authority. And I wait to help someone across the street. And that's when a pack of seventh graders show up.

[C]

I hold out my hand in an.

[A]

Exercise of raw power and they smack me around the nose and ears and promise a jalapeno wedgie if I ever try that again. Lesson learned. So I wait. And I wait. And I wait. And there's just one kid. One kid who needs a crossing guard. Gerald Snot. No, second grader. So I walk little Jerry across the street. And that's it for Jerry. I gotta stand there for 35 minutes. Them's the rules. Alright, I've got no problem with that. But see, in Michigan, there are two seasons, winter and almost winter. And September doesn't count. By October, the chill comes quick. By November, the entire state is unlivable. But I have to stand there like an idiot, waiting for little Jerry who most of the time never shows up because his mother drives him to school in a heated car comfort. So he doesn't get his little earsy, wierzy, coldy wodey I hate Jerry. I hate his mother and I hate the principal for sending me out there. And one night, one of the coldest nights ever in recorded history, I know that school's gonna be canceled the next morning and it's gonna be awesome. It would be cruel and inhumane to send kids out into an ice storm. I go to bed with a smile on my face, planning out all the fun I'm gonna have when I finally get out of bed next morning, turn on the TV and watch in horror as they list every single school district in the area except for mine. It's a cold one out there today, folks. Stay indoors if you can. And I'm supposed to go out and wait in the blizzard for Little Jerry, who 99% chance, is in the car with his mother drinking hot chocolate. No, no, I can't do it. I just can't. So I hide out for a little while. Just hide out warm and sneak into school with my orange vest on like, what's up? What's up? And yeah, after the first bell, snot nosed little Jerry wanders in, cry. Nobody was there to help me. Across the street, the principal's all like their election of duty and someone could have been seriously injured and you have to apologize. Ms. Jerry's mother makes sure to drive her pride and joy every day after that. Saves a dirty look from me. But next year, when a new principal gives the same speech about how he's looking for a new crop of young heroes, I can't believe I raised my hand. I don't know, I figure maybe finally I get the respect I deserve. Zan Snap judgment from WNYC and npr. Dirty work. Amazing stories from real people doing the job nobody wants to do. My name is Glenn Washington. Please bring some hot chocolate for your crossing guard because you're listening to snap judgments. Snap this. For our first piece, I want to let you know that if you're not comfortable with things like autopsies and quarter inch reports, this story contains some graphic imagery. That said, I strongly encourage you to keep listening because our guest name has to be the coolest name of anyone we've ever had on the show. Snap producer Joe Rosenberg takes it from here.

[D]

The town of Ringgold, Georgia, is your classic Southern small town, nestled in the northwest corner of the state along the border with Tennessee. It's the kind of place where everyone knows everyone's story, which means that everyone knows the story of what happened to McCracken Poston today. McCracken is a lawyer with a small practice in town, but 20 years ago, he was the district's state Senator.

[C]

And in 1996, I lost by landslide. I raced for the United States Congress. I was the first Democrat since the Civil War to lose this district. And I lost every county. So I said my goodbyes, gave my concession speech for the media. I basically saw everybody out, thanked them all, locked up the campaign office on the end of the block of this old historic block in Ringgold. And I was walking back to my vehicle when I heard this voice that was coming from a long shuttered Zenith television repair shop. And it said, you got beat, didn't you? And the voice from the shadows belonged to Alvin Ridley. Alvin Ridley had been a TV repairman in town for all of my childhood. But the place had been shuttered inexplicably in the early 1980s, and everybody said he just kind of lost his mind. He probably was there that night posting some of the missives on the inside of the glass that he always did, accusing the local government of running all his customers off. He had allegedly threatened people's lives when they had crossed him. And he had become more and more reclusive. His house was frightening looking. It was boarded up. The once open porch had been closed in with keep out and no trespassing. And the feeling of neighbors and children was that he was the boogeyman. It didn't scare me, but, you know, I continued walking. I didn't think of him anymore. And then October 4, 1997 happened. I went into town and people were excitedly talking about that there was a dead woman found at crazy Alvin Ridley's place. People just didn't know if this was a rotting corpse or skeletal remains or the last thing on anybody's mind was a freshly dead woman, which is what it was. So when that word came out, everybody was saying, well, who is that? Who's missing? And then the wave of information came out that he says it's his wife.

[D]

Did you know he had a wife?

[C]

No. It was a shock. I had no knowledge that he had a wife. Nobody that regularly interacted with him knew that he had a wife.

[D]

The deceased's name was Virginia Ridley, and records confirmed that she had in fact been married to Alvin for many years. But beyond that, no one knew anything about her. Where'd she been all this time? What had she been doing? More to the point, perhaps, what had Alvin been doing?

[E]

Probably the thing that kind of made everybody suspicious from the beginning was that Alvin did not behave like you would expect someone to behave if you woke up and found your spouse in bed. With you dead.

[D]

This is Kimberly Barnes. She was the editor of the local paper back in 1997. And she says that although there wasn't much solid information at first, what was eventually learned about Alvin's behavior on the day of Virginia's death didn't look good.

[E]

In the conversation that he had with the 911 operator, he was very, you know, flat. It was very much, my wife is dead. There was no emotion. You got nothing.

[D]

Alvin told the authorities that Virginia had died from an epileptic seizure. But death from epilepsy is incredibly rare in this day and age. So Alvin's story just didn't ring true to either the coroner or the medical examiner.

[E]

And when the coroner got to the house, he didn't want to let them in the house, which, of course, made them think, okay, what are you hiding?

[C]

Well, they found family of his wife and had them come identify the body. And they told a story that Alvin Ridley had been holding their loved one against her will since approximately 1968.

[D]

Virginia's family had tried multiple times over the years to see her, but Alvin had always told them that she didn't want to be bothered even to go to her own father's funeral. They had a hard time believing that, as did everyone else now.

[C]

And the story was that he kept her in a basement, only let her out when he was home, and then just decided to kill her.

[E]

So if you wanted to paint a grim picture, you got that picture, you know, very plainly now.

[C]

They had not charged him yet, so he was walking about free. And so just a matter of days after that news came out, I started running into him. And in the exact same spot every day. And the second day, I remember, he just cast a look at me and nodded his head back and kept going. And I started realizing that it was by design that he was waiting on me. And so Monday or Tuesday of the next week, just as a kind of a test, I just stopped in my tracks. And I said, how are you doing, Mr. Ridley? And he screwed his mouth up and looked almost like a child that was had his feelings hurt. And he started crying out. He was lashing out.

[D]

Alvin started rambling about a long list of grievances, conspiracy theories, vendettas. The town he was sure was out to get him. It was as if the suspicions surrounding his wife's death were just the final straw.

[C]

He said, oh, yeah, and they're saying that I held her for ransom and then I killed her. Well, the first thing out of my mind was just what I had been through in My campaign, because this was a town who had completely rejected me. And I said, I know exactly how you feel. And I think it just was kind of a joke for me. But it. It just kind of hit him as somebody who was connecting with him. And so he. He thought he could talk to me.

[D]

But as they kept talking, it started to become clear to McCracken that Alvin wasn't just looking for a sympathetic ear. He needed a lawyer.

[C]

And where in the past I would have been very wary that Alvin Ridley was guilty, how is this going to affect my politics? Suddenly, with a vengeance, I didn't care. I almost wanted to represent him to get back at the town who had rejected me. So I said, if you want me to help you, we've got to meet.

[D]

When Alvin was arrested for Virginia's murder, To everyone's surprise, McCracken not only represented him at the hearing, but was able to get him out on bail.

[C]

Of course, everybody's pointing and whispering and talking about him and seeing me with him, you know. Their once state representative and failed congressional candidate started another wave of whispers. And the rumors were so prevalent that Alvin had kept his wife hostage. They weren't even saying allegedly. They were saying, you know, did he kill her after keeping her hostage for 30 years?

[D]

Meanwhile, the only person who was really getting to know Alvin was McCracken. And McCracken wasn't sure what to think.

[C]

He. He was 56 years old, and he looked much older. I don't think anybody would choose to have the life that he had. He always was wearing clothes that were old. He always did keep his hair combed well. And he was always shaved, which I thought was interesting, since he didn't have running water in his home. So he had a bit of pride about him, but he was starting to fall apart. He started wearing this neck brace. It was like one of these collars that people who fake car accidents wear. It was a pacifier in a way. It allowed him to look pitiful and feel pitiful at the same time. But this one was so old and sweaty and brown that it really just reeked. Finally, I said, alvin, do me a favor before we go to court. I want you to go down to the truck stop shower, take you some clean clothes, because it's really getting hard to sit next to you, buddy. Well, I was working at my office that night, and a skunk was in my air conditioning duct, and it sprayed up where I visibly saw spray. It settled on all of the files of the case. It got on me, and I go to court the next day. And Alvin Ridley gets to say to me, I don't know if I can sit next to you. And it was a realization that sometimes we can't help our circumstances.

[D]

McCracken ended up with a lot of anecdotes about Alvin, like this ones, where Alvin would somehow manage to turn the tables on him in a fun way. But Alvin never really seemed threatening to McCracken. If anything, he just seemed confused and scared, harmless.

[C]

And then finally, I got the state discovery packet. And this is when I first saw the autopsy.

[D]

Before McCracken had represented him, Alvin had been obsessed with trying to get the state not to perform an autopsy. And now McCracken thought he could see why.

[C]

It was some pretty damning stuff. The medical examiner looked at a body that was a delicate, small, framed woman, about 49 years old, with petechial hemorrhages around her eyes and mouth, which are indicative in cases of asphyxiation.

[D]

What did that say to you about your client?

[C]

Well, you know, I knew that bad things happen to good people. I didn't know if it was possible that they had had a fight. I kept. I tried to keep my mind open, but I felt like he had probably done it, that he was grieving terribly over it and. But it was. It was what I thought.

[D]

Compounding that was the issue of Alvin's home, where they'd found Virginia's body. The same house with all the keep out signs and boarded up windows.

[C]

And I'd been asking to get in his home for months with a camera. And he just wouldn't let me. He was acting so strange not letting me in. So here we were a couple of weeks before a potential murder trial. And I had nothing. I had nothing as a defense.

[D]

Then there was the matter of jury selection.

[C]

It's very hard to pick a jury in a small town for somebody like Alvin Ridley. Almost all of them knew him by reputation. Almost all of them had heard about the case. That was a huge thing to overcome. And I was not completely confident with the jury that we got.

[E]

I honest to goodness, never in a million years thought I would be picked on that jury. Never. I mean, it was a joke for me even to be there.

[D]

This is Kimberly Barnes again, the journalist. She just happened to be called for jury selection that day. But of course, she had been covering Alvin's case. In most courtrooms, even having read an article about a case is enough to get you kicked out of the jury pool.

[E]

And then it was like, okay, yeah, I'll go down there. I'll collect my 40 bucks and you know, they will dismiss me and say, ya, ha, ha ha, glad to see you go on home. Yeah, that didn't go so good.

[C]

Apparently that's not enough to get you off the jury. And she got on and I thought, now how is this really going to work?

[D]

Did you feel like, were you regretting taking on this case at this point?

[C]

Oh, it was not just me. I had a judge tell me, well, everybody's saying you two deserve each other. And so, you know, it was another, another potential failure in the making.

[A]

When Snap Judgment, the Dirty Work episode returns. The trial of Alvin Ridley. Don't miss a moment. Snap Judgment, the Dirty Work episode. Stay tuned.

[F]

I'm Peter Sagal. NPR is very serious. Mostly it treats newsmakers with all due respect almost all the time. It brings you the most important information about the issues that really matter usually. And it never asks famous people about things they don't know anything about, except once in a while. Join us for the great exception. Listen to Wait, Wait, don't tell Me the news quiz from npr.

[A]

Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the Dirty Work episode. And know this, Snappers. We're about to play the second part of a two part story on the murder trial of Alvin Ridley. If you're just joining us on the radio, stop now. Take this opportunity to subscribe to our podcast and listen to part one. And if you're listening to these words for the second time because you took my advice, you made a very good decision, our own Joe Rosenberg takes it from here.

[D]

In hindsight, it's easy to see that McCracken Poston had made a terrible mistake. One shouldn't go out of one's way to represent the scariest man in town on a murder charge. But he had. And now McCracken was beginning to suspect that one judge was right, that he and Alvin deserved each other. Just before jury selection, he had found two key pieces of exculpatory evidence. It turned out that another autopsy of someone who had died from an epileptic seizure demonstrated that such a seizure could produce the kind of petechial hemorrhaging around the eyes and mouth found on Virginia that would support Alvin's version of events. But for McCracken, it wasn't enough.

[C]

It mitigated toward reasonable doubt. And that's the only way I thought about it right there because I still had that nagging doubt. You know, why would the woman not want to get out and see her family? Why would she not want to go to her father's funeral? You know, what is going on with this mystery woman. And here's his own lawyer begging to get in that house. And he keeps putting me off. Well, Thanksgiving came, and toward the end of Thanksgiving dinner, my parents said, we want to package up some food and we want you to take it to Mr. Ridley. Well, that's the last place I wanted to go on Thanksgiving. But without calling him or anything, I drove back to his house. And I've got a couple of grocery bags. And he comes to the door and opens it. And I said, alvin, my folks wanted you to have some food for Thanksgiving. He looked at the bags, he looked at me and he said, wait just a minute. And he closed the door. And I can hear him inside like he's talking to somebody. And then he comes and opens the door. And I get to go into this very, very strange place. The first door is a closed in porch. And it was not a pleasant place to be. There was a lot of vermin and a lot of just odor. But when you turn to the right, you go into basically the main room of the house. I can't see anything. Well, because the whole room is dark. And it's illuminated by like a single red, large Christmas light bulb. But then a regular bulb comes on. And right there in front of me, along one whole wall and part of another wall, there's all this stuff. And it was just about every type of paper or cardboard that you can imagine, anything that could bear ink. And it was attached to the wall in every way you could attach such to a wall. The cardboard, the heavier stuff was nailed, stapled, the paper was taped.

[D]

And when McCracken looked closely, he could see that every item was covered from top to bottom in writing.

[C]

And it was all done in this very unique hand. And I said, alvin, what is this? And he said, well, Virginia wrote it.

[D]

Virginia had something that's not uncommon in patients with epilepsy, called hypergraphia. It compelled her to write down everything that she possibly could write down. She'd had the condition for decades.

[C]

And from the tens of thousands of documents, I found something from just about every month of 27 years. She talked about the moon landings. There's a poem, there's a funny reference to something going on in town. She wrote three U.S. presidents. The most interesting thing was that she had written a proposed script for the TV show Unsolved Mysteries. And I couldn't believe it. I said, alvin, I gotta have this. The problem was, Alvin said, you can't have any of this. That's all I've got left of her. And so I Had to compromise with him.

[D]

On the first day of the trial, When Alvin and McCracken walked into the courtroom, everyone noticed the same thing.

[E]

Alvin's got these suitcases that looked like they were from 1954. And we were all wondering what was in the suitcases. And at one point, the suitcase is sitting open, and you see McCracken kind of reach over with his foot and kind of start stomping. And that foot keeps stepping out further and further away from the desk. And. And he's. He's stomping roaches.

[C]

I had cockroaches crawling all over me. I had to be on constant watch. They were crawling on our table. They were crawling up my tie. They were. They were about to drive us crazy.

[E]

And, of course, the jurors all are sitting over there just, you know, cracking up, you know, because we didn't know what was crawling out of those suitcases next. But when he opened them up, what they were, were Virginia's testimony.

[C]

And the jurors were leaning forward, spellbound, because here is the mystery woman that no one knew existed speaking out from the dead.

[E]

Whether it was on the back of an envelope or a grocery receipt, the answers were there. You know, this whole thing of, you know, that, you know, he kept her locked up and away from her family. Well, no, because she had written that her family was now Alvin. All of her writings were Alvin in Virginia, Alvin in Virginia, Alvin in Virginia. So she was choosing to be there.

[D]

In her writings, Virginia explained how she never ventured outside because of her epilepsy. She'd always been painfully shy, and her greatest fear was going out in public and then having an epileptic fit.

[C]

And in one of the five Bibles that she filled up the margins with her own writing. On a date in 1977, she wrote, I've stopped taking my medicine today. God has told me he's going to take care of me from here on. And she lived 20 years not medicating. And that, of course, set her up for the classic sudden death and epilepsy case.

[D]

The same kind of sudden death and epilepsy that produces the same petechial hemorrhaging around the eyes and mouth that the medical examiner had interpreted as a sign of strangulation.

[C]

And what was happening is the better things happened, we started getting a little following in the courthouse. And one of my lawyer friends, he came up and said, you've got this thing won as long as you keep Alvin Ridley off the stand. And I just said, yeah, that's the plan. There's no way I'M going to put him on the stand. And, of course, that's when I sent Alvin to lunch. And Jesus appeared to him in a vision during lunch. And told him that he had to testify.

[D]

Were you surprised when Alvin took the stand.

[E]

Floored. And you kind of saw McCracken when Alvin was going to the stand. This look on his face like, well, it's all done with now.

[C]

And I was very frightened that something was going to come up that I wasn't expecting. Alvin had done enough strange things. And what made it more frightening for me was that this man is innocent.

[E]

I didn't know what to think. I wasn't convinced that the prosecution had made their case. That, yes, you know, he had done these things that he was accused of. But, you know, we are all capable. I was still sitting on that fence. But when Alvin took the stand. I remember somebody asking, did you have children or why didn't you have children? And his response was very sad in no, we were never blessed. So what you got was Virginia was his whole world.

[C]

And as we were waiting for the jury, he got very quiet. And I saw the concern on his face. Because any sentence of just about any length with Alvin. Would have been like a death sentence. I didn't know if I had done enough. I didn't know if I could do enough. And as I stood in the corner of the courtroom. At the window, kind of facing out. I realized that I was not only praying with him. But that I had my arm around him tight, shoulder to shoulder. I didn't smell him. Nothing about him bothered me at that moment. We had been through a war together. And then the court clerk lets the judge know that the jury has a verdict. And you just would have to hear his voice just this booming. In the Superior Court for the county of Catoosa, State of Georgia. Criminal action number 98cr836. The state of Georgia versus Alvin Eugene Ridley. And all this buildup and you're quaking in your seat. Verdict? We, the jury, find the defendant. Count one, not guilty. Count two, not guilty. Count three, not guilty.

[E]

The courtroom erupted. McCracken probably fell out of his chair. And Alvin started crying. I truly don't think he believed that it was going to come back not guilty.

[C]

And then we walked together out on the courthouse steps. Which was a special place for me. Because that's where I had accepted my first election. That's where I had conceded my last defeat in politics. And being with Alvin on those steps was the best of all of those.

[D]

Times for Virginia's family. They, the courthouse steps also had a special meaning. They were the last place they or anyone else had seen Virginia in public 27 years before.

[C]

Joe, I have one more thing that I left out. Throughout the case, I would get frustrated with him and I would ask him, I would say, why did you stalk me? Why were you constantly making sure we were running into each other? And why did you pick me? And he would always say, I'll tell you one day. But that was such a classic put off from Alvin. I didn't think anything of it. And then at the very end of the trial, we were in my office and I just, you know, I guess I just said, alvin, thank you. You know, this is a special thing for me to be a part of. And I said, why? You told me you were going to tell me one day why you picked me. And he said, I'm going to. And he has a VHS cassette. And on it was my name in Virginia's handwriting. I pop it in the VCR.

[A]

And.

[C]

It is the one televised debate of my congressional race in 1996. And he said, she always liked you.

[A]

McCracken Poston continues to practice law out of his offices in downtown Ringgold. Alvin Ridley's house sits just a few blocks away. Now, we reached out to Alvin for this story, but he declined an interview, saying that he values his privacy and that he still loves and misses his wife. It's been 19 years since she passed away. The original score for that story was created by Renzo Gorio and the piece was produced by Joe Rosenberg. Now, when Snap Judgment continues, we're gonna get some cotton candy, some deep fried Coca cola, and a big fat pickle. The Dirty Work episode returns in just a moment. Stay tuned.

[G]

At Radiolab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry, but.

[A]

But we do also like to get.

[H]

Into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing or politics, country, music, hockey, sex of bugs.

[G]

Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers and.

[H]

Hopefully make you see the world.

[G]

An adventures on the edge of what.

[A]

We think we know.

[H]

Wherever you get your podcasts.

[A]

Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the Dirty Work episode. My name is Glenn Washington, and today we're exploring those times in every life when you have to roll up your sleeves and do that which you do not wish to do. Our next story takes us back to the early 60s small town Michigan, when Pete Fenton was a shy math whiz. That all changed his senior year in school. Snap Judgment.

[G]

Pete was heading out of his favorite class, geometry. When the unthinkable happened.

[H]

Jackie, tall, slick back hair, junior Rat.

[G]

Pack guy, pulled him aside to talk business.

[H]

He hands me a $20 bill, and at the bottom was his phone number.

[A]

41 5.

[H]

He says, that's my business card. How would you like to have more money, more broads and more booze than you've ever had in your life? And kind of took me back because I hadn't had much of any of it. 998. Listen, Pete, I want you and you only to help me start a Las Vegas style casino in my basement. Are you with me? After a pause, where a lot of stuff was going through my head, I said yes.

[G]

You see, Pete idolized Jackie. He may not have completely trusted him, but he had a girlfriend, drove a Thunderbird, and now maybe he could taste some of that too.

[H]

Then the meeting ends. He says, wait a minute, I'm low on business cards. Could you give me that one back and I'll return it to you later? Of course, being the $20 bill that he gave me, I gave it to him. Never got it back.

[G]

After school, in Jackie's basement, Jackie would train Pete in the art of the con. Jackie's parents ran a traveling carnival and Jackie ran to games. So he showed Pete his marked blackjack cards, loaded dice, a modified craps table, and Pete soaked it up.

[H]

Opening night, they start trickling in early on. By midnight, it was just packed. Everybody was there. The football players, all the cool kids who wouldn't have anything to do with me before. And we're supplying them with free drinks. I was on the other side of the table. They maybe never gambled before in their lives. That was just, wow. All I've got to do is stand there and take in the money like the jocks. Oh, boy. I loved taking their money. But other people that I'd been friendly with, I felt guilty about taking the money from them.

[G]

But a business is a business, right? And they were pulling in hundreds of dollars a night. Also, for Pete, the best part of the casino came after the casino, when they would just be normal guys and hang out.

[H]

We'd watch monster movies, we'd joke about them. Which, of course, we thought the jokes we were making were the best ever. Jackie had a couple of pinball machines. One of them didn't work. He opened it up and it was filled with girly magazines. So we'd browse through those. What brought us really together is we both had a wound. Jackie, his mother would yell at him from the moment he walked in to the moment he left, his father never said a word to Jackie or anyone else or his wife. On the other hand, my father was an alcoholic. My mother was for many years. And we bounded over that, even though we never spoke of it. The relationship I had with Jackie was. We were best friends. And it seemed like he considered it the same way.

[G]

Then one day a week before graduation.

[H]

Jackie came to me and said, the casino, it's over. We're done. I said, why? We're doing really well. I said, you know what? This is good, but I got something better. You know that I work on the carnival. I want you to come along with me. Would you be willing to do it this time? I didn't have any kind of qualms about it whatsoever. Yes.

[G]

So after graduation, the boys hit the road with the carnival. And to Pete, it felt like freedom.

[H]

What I enjoyed most about being a carny was the atmosphere. All the colored lights at night, smells of the cotton candy, shrieking rain. Each of which had its own music system. And it all kind of melded together in just some sort of sensory overload. So I had that adrenaline rush every day. As hard as it is to believe I was like a visiting rock star. Girls would come up to you just because you were a carny. They were enthralled by you. You know, it was exciting that a celebrity actually wanted to go out on a date with them. Plus, I was being paid $25 a day. Very, very respectable for the time.

[G]

Jackie also showed Pete how to run the games, like the duck pond and the cat rack. And every booth Pete manned was rigged. Like in the cat rack, the game where you knock down the cats with the ball. Well, Pete controlled the cats with the secret lever by his foot.

[H]

They're so excited by the fact that they're almost winning this big prize. They don't pay attention to anything. Other than nobody in the whole history of the time I was doing this ever figured it out.

[E]

Aw, man.

[H]

At first, I had a few qualms about it, but then I would be able to impress the person who was important to me. And so, to be honest, it didn't bother me.

[G]

After each day of ripping off customers, the boys would hang out in Jackie's Airstream trailer and count their dough. Then Jackie would take Pete to the local town and introduce him to the world of the senses.

[H]

I had my first sip of alcohol with him. I started smoking cigarettes, put them in my mouth and pretended to smoke. Good music. All of the Motown artists. I had my first sexual involvement with a lady of the night. So it wasn't romantic, but at least I got that out of the way. Everything was going fine until one of the veteran carnies talked to me and he asked me to go down, buy a couple of six packs and he'd pay me back. And I said, I don't have the money to buy the six packs. He says, you gotta be kidding me. The game you're working on, you should be rolling in the money. And I said, no, I'm only making $25 a day on this. And he said, no, you're supposed to be getting 10% of the total take every day.

[G]

10%? That would be like hundreds of dollars.

[H]

Wait, are you kidding me? I'm Jackie's buddy. Of course he's giving me the right thing. He said, no. The guy said, the veteran carnies deal with that as we ho. You hold out the amount of money warranted from working that game. It was an eye opener. I was still buddies with Jackie, we were still getting along great. But I started hoing. No more and no less than 10% of the money. At first I felt guilty about hoing, which was weird because here I am essentially stealing money from the people who walk down the midway. But I felt guilty about doing it with a friend of mine. Eventually, I just couldn't ho anymore. So I went up to Jackie and told him I knew what was going on. And he said, pete, I got a business here. I really can't afford to pay you the full amount right now, for one thing, because I don't have the cash flow. And secondly, you're a new guy. I'm giving you the opportunity to do this. So how about this as an alternative? I'll pay you the correct percentage, But I will give you the fair percentage when the season is done. It's going to be like a year end bonus. So, you know, he's been my buddy and I, so. Okay, fine, year end bonus, that's good.

[G]

Over the summer, Pete became the top dog carney. Jackie's right and left hand man.

[H]

But there was still a fly in the ointment, and that was that. Jackie had promised that he was gonna give me this bonus at the end of the summer.

[G]

So on the second to last day of summer, Pete hosted a kickback at his motel room with Jackie and some guys, including a carny who went by fireman there.

[H]

He finally asked Jackie, what about my bonus? The fireman speaks first and he says, bonus? Nobody ever gives somebody a bonus at the end of the year. That's a bunch of baloney And I said, come on, Jackie, you know, we talked about it. You know this. And Jackie, you know, he just won't respond. Here we go. I realize, okay, there isn't going to be any bonus at the end of the year. This has been all a bunch of crap. Finally, after a long back and forth, we settled on something that I had never heard of before. The Indiana Bustout.

[G]

The Indiana Bust out is an ancient carny tradition. Over the course of one day, the boys would go head to head in every booth, using every carny trick up their sleeve to pull in customers and get that money. The bet was double or nothing. The fireman would total up their earnings at the end. And if Jackie won, Pete got nothing. But if Pete won, Pete would get the bonus doubled.

[H]

It was hard to sleep that night. And I woke up that following morning, Took a shower, put on my coolest suit.

[G]

Jackie and Pete lined up at the first booth to begin the bust out while the other carnies took bets. And with the ring of the cowbell, the Indiana Bust out was on.

[H]

Hey. Hey, guys. Yeah, you three guys over there didn't even know the winning duck is in there. These things just don't fly. They're made out of plastic. So right over here. The winning duck is right over here. Oh, man, that was so close. I can't believe it.

[A]

No, I'm sorry.

[H]

On the corner. Yeah. Five for three. The fourth one's free. A little too soft. You gotta arc.

[C]

Oh.

[H]

All right. Sir, how we doing? Right. Ready? Oh, go ahead. Forget about Pete. I'll cut you a better deal. I'm sweating at the corner of the eye. It seems like he's doing better than me. There were some of the games that I had never worked before. When I'm doing this, I'm kind of reviewing the arc of the relationship. From the first time that we met to the casino, to him helping me out. And then me learning that he was screwing me. I wondered, had we ever really been friends, or was I simply a really good employee? Usually I don't. I'm trying to give away every prize. Before I quit, you just came by at the right time. Boss would call me if you quit this, but give me a dollar, I'll give you two out of three in a few. So that's it. We're done. We walk over to Jackie's trailer, We break out some drinks. It took a long while to count the money. Then finally the fireman says, okay, here you go, Jackie. You brought in 2,183 bucks. Wow. I said dude, that's a lot. Fireman turns to me and says, okay, Pete, I hate to tell you this, but you won 2,586. You win what? Cause he started out with, I hate to tell you this. I didn't grasp that I had won. Jackie was ticked off. He took off. It was quite a moment because I had just beaten him. But. But I have a little bit of secret. I had paid the fireman ahead of time to miscount me into winning more money than Jackie. Then the fireman said, listen, Jackie won playing this thing fair and square. But that doesn't matter. You won playing it the hundred percent carney way. Jackie never thought of that. So you are the true carney. You won't. For the first time that summer, Jackie and I didn't get together in his Airstream. And this was the last day.

[G]

So Pete packed up his stuff and rolled out. He rode his motorcycle to the nearest bar to grab a drink, and that's when he saw Jackie.

[H]

I couldn't believe it. I don't know what's going to happen when I go over to him, but I decide that I've got to do it. He looks at me and he says, man, you did well. I thought it wouldn't be close. I had kind of a winner's remorse that I'd beaten the only guy that I looked up to. Jackie says, I have to be honest with you. You know, we never talk much about our feelings, but I've had it with this carnival business. I was raised in the ticket booth. My mom tried to make me a profit center from practically the day that I came out of her womb, for which she never stopped blaming me. I grew up not trusting anyone. Everybody I knew was a puke who was out to take you for anything they could. This is the kind of environment I grew up in, and I don't want to be in that. I want normal. I'm going to business school and leave this all behind. That was kind of stunning, you know, he'd never really been open with me in that way before. Then he says to me, you know what? I always knew that you were stealing money from me. Don't worry about it. Wait a minute. If you knew, why didn't you fire me? He says, you know all of the guys, every carney holds out. But I figured that because you were my friend, you would steal less than the other people because you would feel guilt. I was right.

[E]

Right?

[H]

You were relatively honest. You stole less from me than the other guys. So it kind of evened out. I had mixed feelings about it. On one hand he was acknowledging that I was relatively honest person, but then on the other hand there was kind of a rupture there. I had learned everything I could from Jackie and he had gotten what he needed out of me, which may be a friend or quasi friend. So we said our goodbyes. At that point I rode my motorcycle off. It was like I was walking off into the I didn't know whether it was a sunset or a sunrise.

[A]

Thank you Pete Fenton for sharing that store with snap. Now after that summer, Jackie quit his family's traveling carnival and went on to business school. To learn more about being a first class huckster, check out Pete's book Eyeing the the Making of a Carnival Con Artist. We'll have a link on our website snapjudgment.org Original sound design for that story was by Leon Morimoto and Davey Kim. It was produced by Davey Triple Threat Kim Snappers if you missed even a moment, know that an entire world of Snap Judgment storytelling awaits on the Snap Judgment podcast, including snap's entire A Tiny Plot series. The story of one group's journey to find a place called home. Snap Judgment's secret Fortress of Solitude is hidden from the bowels of KQED in San Francisco. No SNAP studios content can be used for training, testing or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. On Team snap, the union represented producers, artists, editors and engineers are members of the national association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications workers of America, AFL CIO Local 51. Snap is brought to you by the team that always goes the extra mile. Except of course for the uber producer, it's Mark Ristich. Mark might get you an extra kilometer because he's all continental and everything. Now there's Nancy Lopez, there's Pat Mercede Miller, there's Anna Sussman, Renzo Goriot, John Facile, Shayna Shealy, Taylor Ducat, Flo Wylie, Bo Walsh, Marisa Dodge, David Exme and Regina Bediago. And this is not the news. No way. It's not a fact. You could be working away under the hood of a car like they do in the movies in some city slicker could roll in with his clean white shirt and sneer, hey, look here, you're doing it all wrong. And you can have a point because you don't in fact know which end of a wrench to hold or how you ended up under an Oldsmobile. But even then you would still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is P R X.