The Goat Castle Murder: A True Natchez Story That Shocked the World

"Since the Merrill murder occurred in 1932, the same year that Pilgrimage began, I found many references to the Goat Castle story in those early newspapers and magazines," Callon said. "After I finished my Pilgrimage research, I returned to the Goat Castle subject." After completing his investigation of the famous story, Callon collected more than one hundred photographs, made slides from them, and wrote a commentary to accompany them. The resulting slide lecture about Goat Castle was an immediate hit; in the past two years, Callon has presented the program dozens of times to enthusiastic audiences. In one of Callon's first audiences was Mrs. Smith, a regular contributor of feature stories to The Natchez Democrat, a daily newspaper. The Goat Castle story was as fascinating to her as to Callon. "I had heard parts of the story for years," said Mrs. Smith, "and I had lived in Glenwood Subdivision, the site of the antebellum house, Glenwood, which was called Goat Castle." After seeing Callon's slide lecture, Mrs. Smith approached him for assistance with a series of stories about Goat Castle which The Democrat's editor, John Mathew, had approved to run in the newspaper in August, 1984. Callon readily agreed to help, and on August, 12, 19, and 26, 1984, a series of Goat Castle stories by Mrs. Smith appeared in The Natchez Democrat; she also wrote a single, lengthy story on the subject which appeared August 26, 1984, in The ClarionLedger/Jackson Daily News of Jackson, Mississippi. Readers' responses to the Goat Castle saga attested to its wide-spread fascination. So many readers encouraged Callon and Mrs. Smith to publish a book about the sub ject that in early 1985 they decided to do so. The two collaborated once more, further researched and lengthened the story, and added more photographs, some of which have never been reproduced before.