A Peculiar Tribe of People: Murder and Madness in the Heart of Georgia

On May 12, 1960, as John F. Kennedy campaigned for the presidency, Chester Burge—slumlord, liquor runner, and the black sheep of the proud (and wealthy) Dunlap family of Macon, Georgia—lay in a hospital bed, recovering from surgery. He listened to the radio as the news reported that his wife had just been murdered. Police soon ruled out robbery as a motive, and suspicion centered upon the Ku Klux Klan, which two weeks earlier had descended upon his house to protest his renting of homes in white neighborhoods to black families. Then, on June 1, Chester was charged with the murder, and when the trial finally began, the sweet Southern town of Macon witnessed a story of epic proportions—a tale of white-columned mansions, an insane asylum, real people as “Southern grotesque” as the characters of Flannery O’Connor, and a volatile mix of taboo interracial relationships and homosexuality.

 

“This story, with its nexus of lust, race, and class set among the columned mansions of cotton-town segregation, oozes all that fertilizes Southern Gothicka, including a bestiality anecdote; a sabbatical at the State Insane Asylum; ‘Baby Frances,’ the ‘Fat Lady’ circus performer who weighed 826 pounds; the obligatory cameo by the Ku Klux Klan; and a string of mysterious deaths, ending with the spectacular immolation of Chester Burge himself.” —11th Hour magazine