1973 Georgia Murders Back in Courts (original) (raw)
Advertisement
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
- Jan. 4, 1988
Credit...The New York Times Archives
See the article in its original context from
January 4, 1988
,
Section A, Page
TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers.
About the Archive
This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.
Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.
Fourteen years after six members of a south Georgia family were murdered, the case, which has caused many Georgians to debate the justice of the legal system, is before the courts again.
Three men were convicted in what Jimmy Carter, who was then Governor, called ''the most heinous crime in Georgia.'' But their verdicts and death sentences were overturned in 1985 by a Federal appeals court that said they were entitled to new trials because of ''inflammatory and prejudicial pretrial publicity.'' The decision caused 100,000 Georgia residents to send Congress a truckload of petitions calling for the judges' impeachments.
A retrial for one of the three men, Carl J. Isaacs, is scheduled to begin Monday before Judge Hugh Lawson Sr. of Superior Court in Perry, halfway across the state from rural Donalsonville, where the crime occurred. Two other Georgia judges had disqualified themselves, and a third was removed from the case by the Georgia Supreme Court for possible prejudice.
The two other defendants are awaiting separate trials. Boasting Is Reported
Mr. Isaacs, who is now 34 years old, was sentenced to die in 1974, along with his half-brother Wayne C. Coleman, now 41, and Mr. Coleman's friend, George E. Dungee, 49, for the murders.
Since Mr. Isaacs's trial, a number of fellow prisoners and law-enforcement officers have said that Mr. Isaacs spoke openly and even boasted about his role in the murders. In an interview with The Atlanta Constitution in 1976, Mr. Isaacs said he committed the murders and expressed remorse.
According to evidence at Mr. Isaacs' first trial, the members of the family were shot to death over a period of several hours on May 14, 1973, as they returned to the home of Jerry Alday after a day of work on the family farm. The victims were Ned Alday, 62; his brother, Aubrey, 57, and three of Ned Alday's sons, Jerry, 35, Jimmy, 25, and Chester, 32, as well as Jerry Alday's wife, Mary, 25, who was shot to death after being raped.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Advertisement