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Summary Of Karen L. Cox's 'Goat Castle Murder'

1051 Words5 Pages

The “Goat Castle murder” was an intersection of class and culture norms that played into a case that if it occurred today, the case would be featured on Dateline. Karen L. Cox’s Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South gives an assessment for readers to understand the reasons for the court decisions and the influence of public opinion. Throughout the history of the United States’ judicial system, the people appointed to juries have been influenced by outside influences. Whether from social norms or simply personal beliefs, judicial decisions are made by people with flaws. The “Goat Castle murder” was a robbery that turned into the murder of Jennie Merrill, a prominent plantation owner (pg 67-68). However, Cox’s view of …show more content…

The following two chapters discuss the other individuals involved with the crime, yet the chapters did not draw the reader into the story as chapter one. That is not to say the other characters were not interesting. Dockery and Dana had jobs in the arts before assuming positions at their farm (pg. 39, 44, 47). The characters lose relevance because of what Merrill symbolizes. Cox used her to show that the ideas about the Old South would not apply to this event. By contradicting old ideas of the Old South, the reader gets intrigued and ready for an unusual story. Chapters four through nine go over the crime, trails, and conviction. Chapter four describes the crimes as it unfolds, but switches between what mattered about each character to create a reenactment that focused on the most suspenseful material (pg 63-71). This is a reasonable approach because it is what makes True Crime so entertaining and interesting for readers. However, by using the True Crime model in the book, Cox also consequently falls victim to many of True Crimes weaknesses in her

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