0:03

Peewee. Gaskins implicated Jim Batty

0:05

in the two assassination

0:08

of death row inmate Rudolph Tyner.

0:11

When poison snuck into the

0:13

prison didn't work, Gaskins

0:16

Conjim into mailing him fifty

0:18

ft a wire that he used to

0:20

detonate the bomb that blew off

0:22

Tyner's head. Mortified

0:25

at his unwinning involvement in the murder,

0:28

denied from ever communicating with Peewee

0:31

again, and concerned for

0:33

his family, Jim ditched

0:35

the book he was writing about Peewee, and

0:37

the family moved from South Carolina for

0:40

a fresh start. As

0:42

the babies began this new phase of their

0:45

lives, Peewee sat on

0:47

death Row awaiting his

0:49

fate. Peewee

0:55

was a proponent of the death penalty,

0:57

believe it or not, except his own, and

1:02

when that first bolt hit him, she

1:04

jumped out of her seat and screen just

1:09

grab slow. But the grand letter

1:12

tell you there's

1:17

nobody's friend. From

1:23

my heart radio and doghouse pictures,

1:26

this is is not

1:28

my friend. My name is Jim Batty

1:30

and I'm Jeff Keating. The

1:44

Peewee saga left a full impression

1:46

on everyone in the Beatty family. Jim

1:50

was nearly finished with the manuscript about

1:52

the life and times of Peewee Gaskins

1:55

when he heard the shocking news about

1:57

Peewee's final murder. I

2:00

learned from the newspaper that Phebe

2:02

Gastons had committed this murder

2:05

of Rudolph Kiner, and quite

2:07

frankly, my first thought was, well,

2:10

there goes my manuscript. I

2:13

somehow always wanted to

2:15

see some good or something

2:17

worthwhile in Gaston's himself,

2:20

and I spent so many hours with him

2:22

finding out that there were human

2:24

traits that no one

2:27

ever mentioned or ever talked

2:29

about. So when I

2:31

heard what had happened, I realized

2:34

I would never get to visit him again. Jim

2:38

was barred from visiting the prison for

2:40

a second time in his life. The

2:43

first was as a child when

2:45

two inmates killed the prison captain

2:48

in a failed attempt to assassinate his

2:50

grandpa Wilson, the prison warden.

2:53

The second as a forty two year

2:55

old professor when pe We implicated

2:58

him in the murder of Rudolph

3:00

Tyner. These

3:03

events weighed heavily on Jim,

3:05

and in spite of Anita's encouragement,

3:08

he didn't have the heart to finish

3:10

the book. I

3:13

said, it just looks like the way I wanted

3:15

to go with the book, I can't and here

3:18

he's murdered again. And

3:20

she really was very consoling

3:23

that she always has been with this

3:25

entire project. We discussed

3:28

that and she said, oh no, the book,

3:30

that's not over. But I did put

3:33

it aside. Not

3:36

only did Jim put the manuscript on the shelf,

3:39

but he and Anita decided it was

3:41

time to move. We

3:44

visited Atlanta every Christmas

3:47

and loved it. We loved

3:49

to Atlanta. I

3:52

worked at Georgia Tech on this right

3:54

away in their grant division.

3:57

I wrote grants all my adult life.

3:59

It was just something that I knew how to

4:01

do. I

4:04

taught to the freshman English classes

4:06

and they wonderful Western lived class.

4:09

I think they called it English to oh one.

4:12

Those are the only three courses that I

4:14

taught at Georgia State, always

4:16

console my students and telling them that

4:18

they were not in the lowest form on the campus,

4:21

the part times instructure. I

4:26

left Georgia State to teach it as a wonderful

4:28

place called it was people heightst

4:30

Bible College then and it

4:32

became university. But that's

4:34

the reason stop teaching at

4:37

Georgia State. I had a full time canue

4:39

job at Bull Heights. I

4:44

did poverty work all my life. So

4:46

we went to the Open Door Community, which is legendarily

4:49

historic, and it's opening up Atlanta

4:52

to homelessness as an issue, and

4:54

they're offering sheltering. A

4:58

bitter winter day in teen eight

5:00

five, proof of life changing. We

5:04

were volunteering at the Open Door Community

5:07

on a Saturday, taking

5:09

our children to do their community

5:11

duty. The

5:13

mother walked in and she had

5:15

this blond, blue eyed baby in her arms.

5:18

So I just reached out and she thrust

5:21

him into my arms. He was dripping

5:23

wet with no diaper, but

5:25

he was young. I couldn't tell how old he was.

5:27

He looked old enough to be walking, but

5:30

he couldn't walk because he hadn't learned. And

5:32

he smiled the whole time. It

5:34

was cold. His eyes were

5:37

running his room me it. He was putting

5:39

on his ears, and it was freezing cold

5:41

that day had been nine degrees a night. She

5:45

asked me to come over and she puts

5:47

him out to me to take, and

5:50

I took him, and he smelled like a urnal, and

5:53

he was putting his little ears and his big

5:56

blue eyes were so gorgeous, but

5:58

there's running those jeff A

6:00

mesh.

6:03

So when she got ready to leave, she grabbed

6:05

him, took him out, tied him

6:08

in a metal stroller with a

6:10

rope of rags. And he

6:12

was going back out in this bitter

6:14

cold, freezing weather with no

6:17

cap, no scarf, no gloves, nothing,

6:19

and his little hands were red, his face

6:22

was wind burned from the cold. And

6:24

he reached back, not at me, but you

6:26

know the warmth, I'm sure, and she

6:28

slapped him and said bad boy.

6:31

And I just stood there weeping. I

6:35

found myself looking for this little

6:37

mom and baby on the streets, and

6:40

so I called the TV station and said, you got

6:42

to do something about this baby. This mother, the

6:44

baby's gonna die out this weather,

6:46

and unknownst to me, they called Defects

6:49

and I had called the Effects too, and Defects

6:51

took custody of him and called

6:53

me and said you put your money where your mouth is.

6:56

We have a baby and we need you to take him now

6:58

tonight, and

7:02

I need to call me out at Georgia State

7:04

working. She said, can we have a baby this

7:06

weekend? And I said, I don't know, but I'll certainly

7:08

give it a try and

7:10

she said, that's not what I mean. So

7:13

I riding my motorcycle into the

7:15

driveway and our little house

7:18

on Moor's Mill Road, and

7:20

I opened the door, and here comes this little

7:22

toddler toward me, and he puts

7:24

out his alarms when he gets to me, and

7:30

I picked him up, and

7:34

I'll remember telling my grave,

7:37

it's a little hot hand on the back of my neck.

7:40

And I walked into the living room and said

7:42

to the worker there who had brought him,

7:45

holy sh it. And

7:49

sure enough he never left,

7:52

and we immediately got into

7:54

the adoption track. Adopting

7:58

a homeless child had fired and changed

8:01

Jim and Anita. While

8:03

looking to save a toddler from the freezing

8:05

streets, Anita met

8:07

members of an ad hoc group formed

8:10

by Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young after

8:13

seventeen people on the street froze

8:15

to death in This

8:18

group soon became the Metro Atlanta

8:21

Task Force for the Homeless, and

8:23

Jim and Anita were the first two

8:25

people hired to run the nonprofit

8:29

leadership positions they held

8:31

for over thirty years. As

8:34

the Nonprofits executive Director,

8:37

Anita opened the doors wide to

8:39

those others cast aside

8:42

Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young said

8:45

Anita didn't just adopt a child, she

8:48

adopted thousands of people whom

8:51

she accepted responsibility for. Jim

8:56

worked for the Task Force, taught

8:59

at Beau of the Heights, and returned

9:02

to his passion as a writer. He

9:04

authored a faith based English grammar

9:06

book called Sacred Ground that

9:09

he used to teach adults in preparation

9:12

for g E ED exams. I

9:15

learned through Peewee an

9:18

entire level of societies

9:20

that I didn't know anything about, and

9:23

then from there we

9:25

grew into our contact

9:27

with homeless people. I didn't

9:30

dream that people lived like

9:32

this, and I didn't dream that

9:34

there would be a myriad of

9:36

our society who have totally

9:39

left out. But

9:43

I learned of a world of

9:45

people that I would have never been

9:47

introduced to. Had it not been for those interviews

9:50

with Pee Wee Gaskins, Letting

9:53

go of the book and letting go of

9:55

the story would be difficult for

9:57

Jim. Of

10:00

worse, there was a lesson Jim Batty

10:02

learned through his fifty plus interviews

10:05

with the murderer, dubbed the meanest

10:07

man in America.

10:10

Peay says, there was Nobody's friend.

10:31

I've written that so many people in South

10:33

Carolina where I grew up, loved the sizzle

10:36

of the electric chair pee Wee

10:38

did. He believed that

10:40

people deserve to die for

10:42

things that they did, and he of course

10:45

proved that with his own behavior.

10:48

Pee Wee was a proponent

10:50

of the death penalty, believe it or not. Except

10:53

his own he of course was against

10:55

that. Brian, Brian,

10:58

Brian, the ticket love

11:00

is kind of right by the minion, shave

11:03

his head and apply the town. Peewee

11:16

Gaskins murdered fourteen people. His

11:19

victims were mostly poor with little

11:22

education. They were friends,

11:25

lovers, carnival workers,

11:28

crew members from his burglary ring, and

11:31

murder for hire. Eight

11:33

of his victims were women, and

11:36

most of them under twenty five

11:38

years old. Janis

11:41

Kirby and Patty Allsbrook were beaten to

11:44

death. Peewee poisoned

11:46

Clyde Dix and threw her body on the side

11:48

of the road. He drowned

11:50

pregnant Dorrian Dempsey and her

11:52

two year old biracial daughter Robin. He

11:55

shot dead his friend Johnny Sellers. He

11:58

stabbed Jesse Judy, supposedly

12:01

the love of his life. He killed

12:03

Barnwell Yates and a murder for hire. He

12:06

stabbed Diane Bellamy and her boyfriend

12:08

Avery Howard with a campbell soup knife.

12:12

Peewee killed Kim Gelkins with that

12:14

same knife. He

12:17

shot Dennis Bellamy and his brother

12:19

Johnny Knight, and finally

12:22

he blew up Rudolph Tyner in prison

12:24

with a handmade bomb. Police

12:29

discovered that Pewee Gaskins murdered

12:31

these victims while they were searching for

12:33

Kim Gelkins. He

12:36

was a liar and a killer, and

12:38

while he avoided the death sentence for murdering

12:41

thirteen friends, family,

12:43

and theft ring members, he was

12:45

a dead man walking for killing Rudolph

12:48

Tyner. And right before

12:50

he was put to death, it

12:53

was reported that Donald Pewee Gaskins

12:56

tried to commit suicide by

12:58

slashing his arms about only four

13:00

hours before his slated execution.

13:03

He was found unconscious but alive and

13:06

received twenty stitches. Here's

13:09

Brenda Peyton Chase. She

13:11

interviewed Peewee Sun for the local news

13:14

and was chosen to join a pool of witnesses

13:17

for the execution. In

13:20

nineteen I was working

13:23

at the Florence Morning News. We

13:25

found out that I was going to get to witness the execution

13:28

maybe a couple of weeks beforehand. We didn't have a

13:30

lot of notice, so that's when we really started

13:32

ramping up the coverage and kind of going back and

13:35

reviewing all of the different cases that he

13:37

was involved with. People

13:42

I was trying to right for the opinions.

13:45

The night of the execution.

13:48

I can still see a lot of that night

13:51

in my mind because we met at

13:53

the very front of the

13:55

Central Correctional Center in Columbia,

13:57

South Carolina. A

14:00

rowdy crowd of about four people

14:02

in favor of the death penalty came to the Broad

14:04

River Correctional Institution to cheer Peewee

14:06

Gaskin's death, but

14:09

some had personal reasons to come, like family

14:11

members of some of Gaskin's murder victims,

14:13

Dennis Bellamy, Johnny Knights,

14:16

and Diane Nearly Why our sister

14:19

and brothers killed

14:22

a long time ago, so good

14:25

night ain't gonna bring them back. It

14:31

was midnight or so. We met at the front

14:33

and then they loaded us all onto a van and

14:36

we were driven back. It

14:44

felt like about a mile. We were driven to the

14:47

very back where they housed the electric

14:49

chair at the time. We

14:55

had to sign these forms and they put us in this

14:58

room and it was almost like

15:00

little miniature movie theater kind of a venue.

15:02

There were three or four rows of seating and I was on

15:04

the second row, and the curtains

15:06

were drawn at the time, and then all

15:08

of a sudden, the curtains opened and

15:12

this chair is just sitting there,

15:15

and it was kind of ominous at the time.

15:21

South Carolina's electric chair was

15:24

purchased in nineteen twelve. It's

15:26

made of oak and copper, and

15:29

it's the size of a standard rocking chair.

15:32

Over the past hundred years, it

15:35

is killed more than two hundred and fifty people,

15:37

including two women and

15:40

a fourteen year old boy. After

15:42

we were seated, they brought him in. A

15:47

much smaller crowd gathered outside the governor's

15:49

mansion for a candlelight vigil against the

15:51

death penalty,

15:57

and there were three or four employees

15:59

who brought him in to the room.

16:01

And it was amazing because at that point he had shaved

16:03

his head and he had put on a lot of weight

16:05

in jail over the years, and he kind of looked

16:07

like a grandpa. It was kind of like, oh,

16:10

my gosh, this man couldn't hurt anybody.

16:12

What are they doing? And he

16:14

kind of shuffled in because they had him in handcuffs

16:16

and chains, and he still

16:19

had some bandages on his wrist where

16:21

he had tried to kill himself, and they

16:24

put him in the chair, and I've always

16:26

wondered to this day if they had given him

16:28

some type of sedative because he seemed way

16:30

too calm or relaxed. But

16:35

no last minute stays came through and

16:37

Peewee Gaskins was strapped into the electric

16:40

chair and

16:44

his attorney sat right in front

16:46

of me Kelly, and he gave her a little thumbs

16:48

up sign like I'm okay, it's okay, because she

16:50

was visibly upset and

16:53

she was just trying to hold it together. When

16:57

asked if he had any last words, pee

17:00

Wee said, I'll let my

17:02

lawyers talk for me. I'm

17:04

ready to go. And

17:08

then they put the covering

17:10

over his head and started

17:12

attaching the piece that

17:15

went on top that was going to electrocute

17:17

him.

17:21

When they covered his face, she really became

17:24

very upset, and I found the

17:26

reaction of her more disturbing than what

17:29

was going on with him, because she had worked with him

17:31

for years trying to get him off and just get

17:33

it commuted to a life sentence. They

17:37

left the room and I believe there were

17:39

three short vaults

17:41

of electricity that lasted second.

17:47

The first vault of electricity went

17:49

into him, the body does kind of reflex

17:52

even though he was strapped down, and

17:54

then it was like all the breath went out of him.

17:56

And then I believe they do two

17:59

more like vaults of electricity just to make

18:01

sure it's complete,

18:11

and there was no reaction at that, and

18:15

then they came in and pronounced him dead.

18:24

Electricity was turned on

18:26

to the electric chair at one oh four, that

18:28

turned off at one oh six. He

18:31

was pronounced dead at one. We

18:34

have carried out this execution with

18:36

as much humanity and dignity as possible.

18:42

I think one of the most dramatic things for me

18:45

and the most disturbing. I can still see

18:47

it to this day. His attorney, Kelly, was

18:49

right in front of me, and when that first

18:51

vault hit him and she saw the reaction

18:53

of him, she jumped out of her seat

18:56

and screamed and then faced away

18:58

to the wall. She wouldn't look anymore. And

19:02

all witnesses were required to sign off

19:04

on the death certificate and then

19:06

driven back to the prison entrance in

19:09

South Carolina. Executed

19:11

inmates are cremated and then offered

19:14

to any interested next of ken. If

19:17

not, they are interred on

19:19

prison grounds. The

19:22

jeering applause from spectators as

19:24

his body was driven away seemed

19:26

to end the saga that would forever leave

19:29

its mark on the state. Peewee

19:35

Gaskin's ashes were claimed by his daughter

19:38

and scattered near Prospects, South

19:40

Carolina. Jim

19:53

and Anita move their family to South Carolina

19:56

in nearly

19:58

a decade before Peewee was executed.

20:01

The day of Peewee's execution, they

20:04

were out of town. Anita

20:06

and I were visiting our son Frank, in

20:09

New York City, and we

20:11

happened to read New York

20:13

Times, uh not knowing

20:15

that the execution had taken place the

20:17

day before, and the

20:20

left hand column of

20:22

the first page of the New

20:24

York Times had an article about

20:27

the state having executed

20:29

him. And the reason that he

20:32

made the front page of the New

20:34

York Times is that he was one

20:37

of those rare and unbelievable

20:40

instances where a white

20:42

person was executed

20:45

for killing a black person in

20:48

America. This is highly

20:50

unusual, rare,

20:53

but it happened that

20:56

New York Times article is entitled

20:59

rarity for US executions White

21:01

dies for killing Black. Of

21:04

the nearly sixteen thousand executions

21:06

carried out in the United States, only

21:09

thirty have been whites who killed blacks. The paper

21:11

reported in the history

21:14

of South Carolina, no white

21:16

person had been executed for killing a black

21:18

person since eighteen eighty.

21:22

He loved making the front page,

21:24

but not for the reason that it really

21:26

happened. The ultimate

21:29

irony is he experienced

21:32

the justice of the state on

21:34

him for killing an African

21:36

American teenager. The

21:41

Peewee saga was the biggest news story

21:43

in South Carolina between nineteen

21:45

seventy and ninety

21:47

three, and then again for the

21:49

month leading up to his execution. The

21:52

whole saga impacted many people. In

21:54

this podcast, Holly

21:57

Gatling had been a young police reporter

21:59

for the Aareence Morning News. Sometimes

22:03

think this story is behind me, And

22:06

then I got an email from

22:08

the husband of

22:11

Doreen Dempsey's half sister,

22:13

and this was a few months ago. I really

22:16

felt that we needed to find out

22:18

where Doreen was buried,

22:20

and there was no information about

22:22

that anywhere. So I spent

22:24

a few years kind of looking into

22:26

it a little bit and renames.

22:29

Where is Doreen's body and

22:31

the baby? They can't find

22:33

a grave, they can't find

22:35

a paper trail for where the

22:37

remains may be, where they cremated,

22:40

Are they in the funeral or like I

22:42

would really like to find the resting place

22:45

the names. I think Laurence

22:48

Cecil Chandler was a TV reporter

22:50

in Myrtle Beach. This

22:52

is something you read about our

22:54

watch on television, but you don't actually

22:56

think it happens in your area. Let

22:59

me tell you this happened in Florence County and

23:01

it was a real deal for

23:03

a man that killed more than a dozen people. And

23:06

Margaret O'sheay was in her twenties and

23:09

a newspaper reporter in the late nineteen

23:11

seventies. Even

23:13

though bringing it up again is hurtful

23:16

to some people, it offers closure

23:18

to others. It's definitely

23:21

not a glorification of a criminal,

23:23

but something that kind of puts into historical

23:26

context why things happened

23:29

sooner or later Down the road. Eventually

23:32

we may understand it as a piece of a

23:34

big repuzzle. But my

23:36

assignment was that Irah Parnell

23:38

was twenty two years old when he

23:41

searched Peewee's burial ground. We

23:45

were not able to give Peewee to destinalty

23:48

for all these other frolks that he killed because

23:50

of the strangeness of the law at

23:52

the time, But since he

23:54

did do a murder for higher of a

23:56

convicted murderer himself in

23:59

prison, we were able to give him the definitely

24:01

and executed. So just

24:03

a grand slow, but it does grand.

24:06

It was quite to tell you. Dick

24:08

harpoot Lean was the lawyer who sought

24:10

the death penalty for Rudolph Tyner's

24:13

murder. You're

24:17

doing your job. If it becomes personal, you

24:19

need another kind of work to do. Mean,

24:21

frankly, his execution wasn't

24:23

something I'd written down. I mean, I prosecuted

24:25

the case. I'd been invited to go

24:27

to the execution. I just thought that was ghoulish.

24:29

I wasn't going to do that. So

24:32

Chief Stewart calls me and says, Peewee's dead.

24:34

We've just been executed. Next

24:37

morning, world run back to normal. As

24:46

the world went back to normal, Jim

24:48

and Anita were deeply involved working

24:51

for homeless and underserved people,

24:54

and the Peewee story would forever

24:56

remain a family conversation here's

25:00

Jim Beatty Jr. Talking with

25:02

his dad and sister Lisa. There

25:06

was a moment when Dad described

25:09

to me the knife going

25:12

through the neck and throat

25:14

of one of the victims and how

25:16

it gave as it went

25:19

through. And it may have been the torso I can't remember,

25:21

but there was something about the description

25:24

of how pee wee

25:26

killed that particular victim

25:29

that had a great deal of impact on me.

25:32

That was Jesse Judy. He stabbed her

25:34

in an abdomen and lifted

25:36

up. Yeah. I could

25:38

have gone the rest of my life without hearing

25:40

that one. Mark Beatty

25:42

is one of the older children in the family. Here

25:45

he reminds his parents of a particular

25:48

time in Jim's home office. One

25:51

time, it was late, it was dark. You're

25:54

at a desk and the lamp was there,

25:56

and I walked up and

25:58

You're like, how about us? And you

26:01

plopped down a black and white and it

26:03

was a police photo. I'm

26:05

not sure which young woman it was. Now

26:08

he had poured acid on her.

26:10

It was almost unrecognizable as

26:12

a person, and I think he just

26:14

kind of wanted to joke me a little bit, you know

26:16

what I mean. I was in college. It was Okay, it wasn't like

26:18

I was eight. Well. One of the

26:20

things that happened was the younger

26:22

three needed more protection

26:25

because y'all were older.

26:27

And I'm not sure who dared him to look at autopsy

26:31

because remember Dad's desk, and

26:33

he locked most of those horrible

26:35

things in his desk. You ever looked at it? I

26:38

knew they were there, I never looked. Well,

26:40

somehow the little wins got hold of

26:42

it. The younger ones

26:44

were scared to death to pe They pretended

26:46

they could seem little tiny hands at the

26:48

windows him so, but it

26:51

wasn't because Dad didn't protect everybody.

26:54

He protected us extremely

26:56

well. As

26:59

we began this season of our true crime

27:02

podcast series called Crime Traveler,

27:05

Jim was back editing the manuscript

27:07

about Peewee Gaskins. There

27:10

were so many stories to tell, so

27:12

many characters to introduce, and

27:15

so many facts to flesh out that

27:17

Jim and Anita talked through it regularly.

27:21

Jim wrote and rewrote chapter after chapter

27:24

with number two pencils on yellow

27:26

legal notepads. Anita

27:30

typed and retyped each page.

27:33

Every decision about the story was reviewed

27:35

together. How to unfold the

27:37

characters and how they talked how

27:39

the murders were tied together, and

27:42

how much detail to give, how

27:44

much to depend on Peewee's own storytelling,

27:47

and how much to rely on legal documents

27:49

and Jim's own research. The

27:53

characters around pee Wee bring

27:56

to mind the various

27:58

characters in Charles Pickens, the

28:01

marvelous way that he has depicted

28:04

so many different people. And

28:07

I saw or felt

28:10

as all was writing the same

28:12

kind of thing with these characters

28:15

that surrounded Peewee. Everybody

28:17

from Johnny Sellers to Dennis

28:20

Bellamy to Diane

28:22

Bellamy nearly my

28:24

gym is so wonderful

28:27

in capturing everything about

28:30

Peewee, not just the horror,

28:32

not just the seemingly emotionless

28:34

killer, but also an

28:37

aspect of Peewee that shouldn't

28:39

be just ignored. In discussing

28:42

him as a mass murder, he didn't

28:44

redeem him because he wasn't redeemable,

28:47

but he did bring those in and I

28:50

think that's part of the genius of the way Jim

28:52

wrote that book. The

28:55

attention given to the victims and their

28:57

intimate moments became part

28:59

of Jim and Anita's own relationship.

29:02

They discussed the people Jim wrote about in

29:05

this book he had his favorites.

29:08

Johnny Sellers, he was a cut

29:11

above all the others. He was

29:13

the one that I thought had most promise.

29:16

And I also like Jesse Judy

29:18

because she was based on Anita. Anita

29:20

was Jesse Judy. Johnny Sellers

29:23

was Carl Seller's older brother who

29:25

was never in trouble with the law and went

29:27

to work for Peewee, stealing Delon's

29:30

Peewee would say, and just walked

29:32

out one night to his death. I

29:34

beg your pardon. That was on a Sunday around noon

29:37

him, right before he killed Jesse. So

29:41

much time spent thinking about these real

29:43

life victims became a focal point

29:46

in Jim's view of the world. His

29:49

voice in this podcast gives

29:51

them a humanity that television

29:53

and newspaper reporters didn't

29:55

have the airtime or printed words

29:57

to develop. A fellow

30:00

professor encouraged Jim to finish polishing

30:02

his manuscript, which he did

30:05

as he battled with lymphoma and

30:07

began this podcast. His

30:10

friend encouraged him to send it to a publisher.

30:13

It sits ready to be read.

30:16

The story born from the interviews between

30:18

these two men, Peewee

30:20

and Jim.

30:24

The day that I didn't return the radio

30:26

to Peewee's mother as I promised I would.

30:29

I was going to make a talk that night

30:32

at Coastal to somebody about

30:34

the book, and people

30:37

waited for the book and wanted it, and

30:40

surely, here enough, forty years later, is going

30:42

to be Our podcast has

30:46

been the story of how a murderer influenced

30:48

a writer. While Jim's

30:51

battle with cancer was going well, he

30:53

was diagnosed with COVID pneumonia and

30:56

hospitalized two days after his eighty

30:58

five birthday in the spring of

31:00

two thousand twenty one. Three

31:03

weeks later, with his family

31:06

at his bedside, he heard

31:08

the first episode of Pee Wee

31:10

Gaskins Was Not My Friend, just

31:14

a few hours before he passed

31:16

away. I

31:19

think that those two years that I was with Peewee

31:22

helped cement what I

31:25

considered to be the theme of

31:27

our family through

31:29

it all. At the end

31:31

of the day, when the sun

31:33

goes down, the love

31:38

that can hard to say it without crying. Love

31:42

that we have for each

31:44

other is constant

31:47

and will remain always.

31:51

We are a family whose

31:53

foundation is love. Pee

32:06

Wee Gaskins Was Not My Friend? Is a joint production

32:09

from My Heart Radio and Doghouse Pictures

32:11

produced and hosted by Jeff Keeping. Executive

32:13

producers are Courtney DeFries and Noel Brown.

32:16

Written by Jim Roberts, Courtney DeFries

32:18

and Terry James, Edit, mix and sound

32:20

design by Jeremiah Kolani. Prescott

32:23

music composed by Diamond Street Productions,

32:25

Spencer garn and Ian Newberry. Special

32:28

thanks to Jim and Anita Baby. Additional

32:30

thanks to the University of South Carolina, Moving

32:32

Image Research Collections and the University

32:35

of South Carolina.