Hold My Sweet Tea
Where True Crime collides with chilling ghost stories and Southern folklore. Join us, sip sweet tea, and uncover shocking tales of murder, mystery, and the supernatural, all with a healthy dose of Southern charm and a touch of sass!
Hold My Sweet Tea
Ep. 28-Was the Devil in the Details?: The Corpsewood Manor Murders
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Deep in the Georgia mountains stands the haunting ruins of Corpsewood Manor, a handcrafted brick sanctuary built by two men seeking escape from modern society. Their dream of peaceful isolation ended in bloodshed on a cold December night in 1982.
Dr. Charles Scudder wasn't running from anything specific when he left his prestigious position as a pharmacology professor at Loyola University. At 50, with his marriages behind him and children grown, he simply craved something different—a life untethered from societal expectations. Alongside his companion Joseph Odom and two massive mastiffs named after demonic figures, he purchased 40 acres near Tryon, Georgia, and began building what locals would come to call "the castle."
What they accomplished was remarkable. With no construction experience beyond what Scudder learned from books, they laid 45,000 bricks by hand, created stained glass windows, established gardens, beehives, and a vineyard. They lived modestly on $200 monthly, keeping their wealth in banks rather than their home. Their eccentric residence featured occult imagery, pink gargoyles, and a notorious "Pink Room" in their three-story chicken coop where they entertained guests with homemade wine and hallucinogens Scudder had brought from his research days.
The story turns tragic when Kenneth Avery Brock, a local allowed to hunt on their property, shares details about the "homosexual devil worshippers" with his roommate—a man with a previous murder conviction. What began as a robbery attempt quickly descended into horrific violence, leaving Scudder, Odom, and their beloved dogs dead, their killers fleeing with little more than trinkets and coins.
This wasn't just a random crime—it reflected the emerging Satanic Panic of the 1980s, when alternative lifestyles were viewed with suspicion and fear. Corpsewood shows how prejudice can transform into violence, and how living authentically can sometimes come at an unimaginable cost.
Visit our website to see images of Corpsewood Manor and learn more about this fascinating case where the American dream of freedom collided with the darkest aspects of human nature.
Sources:
https://www.northgeorgiahistory.com/post/death-comes-to-corpsewood-manor
Luke Gregson, October 21,Fearful Symmetry in the North Georgia Woods. 2024https://oxfordamerican.org/oa-now/the-corpsewood-manor-murders
The Corpsewood Manor Murders in North Georgia - Amy Petulla (2016)
Mother Earth News - A Castle In the Woods by Charles Scudder - April/May (1981)
Various newspaper articles from 1982-1983
Ellis, David “Corpsewood: A True Crime Like No Other”, 2016
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JSJ1BJC/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Grey, Orrin “House of Horror: The Brutal Murders at Georgia’s Corpsewood Manor”, 2019
https://the-line-up.com/corpsewood-manor
Petula, Amy “The Corpsewood Manor Murders in North Georgia”, 2018
https://www.amazon.com/Corpsewood-Manor-Murders-North-Georgia-ebook/dp/B01IFYLMZ4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1548036178&sr=1-1
Scudder, Charles “A Castle in the Country”, 1981
https://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/castle-in-the-country-zmaz81mazraw
West v The State, 1984
https://law.justia.com/cases/georgia/supreme-court/1984/40134-1.html
Introduction to Corpsewood Manor
Speaker 1Today we're delving into a story that's equal parts bizarre, tragic and deeply unsettling. We're talking about Corpsewood Manor, and this is Hold my Sweet Tea.
Speaker 2Hey everybody, I'm Holly and I'm Pearl, and that's all I got to say about that. I was like is there something else?
Speaker 1But apparently no, nope, I'm Holly and she's Pearl.
Speaker 2I'm.
Speaker 1Pearl, we're done.
Speaker 2Episode over. That's all I got to say about that.
Speaker 1I got nothing else to say about that. Right, right, right just that, I'm pearl so I am, I have a really long episode, yeah yeah, you're good you know it's a lot of information and we want to, we want to tell it the best way.
Speaker 2I know how tell it like it is.
Speaker 1Tell it like it is I don't want to leave stuff out because then it's a chopped up story and you're you're left wondering like what happened with this and what happened with that? But I am going to start with a big old disclaimer on this one. So so the following episode of Hold my Sweet Tea contains sensitive and potentially disturbing content related to the murders at Corpsewood Manor in Georgia. We will be discussing acts of asexual nature, violence, and may touch upon themes of drug use and alleged occult practices. This content is based on publicly available information and sources, but listener discretion is strongly advised.
Speaker 2You got all the things in one, all of it, all the things.
Speaker 1I keep finding, like you know, the best stories, right, I read them and go. I don't know if I should do that. Yep, I want to do this. But I've heard this one a while back on a podcast. It's been like a few, like years ago and I just like happened upon it again and I'm like, oh yeah, I heard about this one, so I started digging into it. I'm like, oh yeah, I heard about this one, so I started digging into it and I definitely want to do it.
Speaker 2All right, let's do it, let's do it.
Speaker 1So the early part of this takes place in the late 70s. We're going to move into the 80s later, but we're going to start in the 70s with Dr Charles Scudder. He was a pharmacology professor at Loyola University in Chicago, a man described as brilliant, confident and eccentric. He decided that he had enough of city life. He was married a couple of times, he had three kids. They had moved out and he also had a housekeeper, slash cook, that lived with him, whose name was Joseph Odom. He went by Joey, but there's another Joey later on down in the story. So I'm going to call him Odom and Scudder, kind of like Mulder and Scully, but not that's what I think of. So I'm like okay, well, I mean, that works Right. So, like I said, he had enough of city life. At the age of 50, he had resigned from his comfortable academic position, fueled by a desire for peace and quiet, far from the urban decay that he had witnessed around him. Like he was done, just like people suck, yeah.
Speaker 1So, like I said, dr Scudder held a PhD in pharmacology from Loyola and he was an associate professor in the school's department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. Oh, was he like shocking people. It's a possibility. It was the late 70s, so he was also the associate director of the Institute for Mind Drugs and Behavior at Loyola. Oh, this was a government-run program. Oh, oh, oh, oh. While in this position, dr Scudder did conduct experiments involving hallucinogenics, lsd, of course, psychoactive drugs, shrooms, things of that nature. However, the availability of information does not explicitly state that this work was part of a government program, but it was said in many, many articles that it was.
Speaker 2It's like some under the table type stuff.
Speaker 1Yeah can you imagine the, the strength of government?
Speaker 2lsd whoa yeah, that would have been insanity I wonder if they're testing that for some warfare purposes.
Speaker 1I'm like are they testing this? This on chimpanzees or something or people?
Speaker 2They're trying to make an LSD bomb.
Speaker 1Yes, Everybody's like what is that dragon in the sky? It's not, it's a plane. So, like I said, his marriage had dissolved, his three children had grown up, moved out and he decided he's going to move with Odom to the North Georgia woods.
Speaker 2Okay, so Dr Scudder and Odom run off to the woods together. Run off to the woods.
Dr. Scudder's Off-Grid Sanctuary
Speaker 1Okay, along with Dr Scudder's two bull mastiffs. Oh, poochies, puppy dogs. Their names were Beelzebub and Arsonath. Oh, my goodness. Arsonath is noted to be similar to a character in an HP Lovecraft novel, and we all know who Beelzebub is. Yeah. If you don't you weren't born Right, so they made their way out to their property that they bought. They bought 40 acres near Tryon Georgia.
Speaker 2They were going to try on the 40 acres Tryon Georgia. They were going to try on this life.
Speaker 1They got out there. There was a storm going on. They got out there in the middle of the night, couldn't find where they were going, so they decided, hey, we're going to go ahead and just sleep in the Jeep. We got these two bull mastiffs. They'll keep us warm.
Speaker 2it's fine, they'll keep you warm and protected right and protected, very protected.
Speaker 1They're viciously protective. Uh, they got up the next morning and started looking around and everything and there was a dead horse in the road.
Speaker 2No horse around at night. Wake up to dead horse in the road. No horse around at night. Wake up to dead horse in the morning.
Speaker 1Right, dead horse. So Dr Scudder had a very twisted, quirky sense of humor and stuff so he decided we're going to name the road leading up to here Dead Horse Road, right, so Dead Horse Road it is.
Speaker 2I don't know if they got out there and moved it or not. But oh, did they drive around it in the grass or something? I mean it ain't easy to move a big dead horse and it's snowing, so it's probably like frozen.
Speaker 1Oh my gosh, we'll just wait till it thaws right. So they got up to you know where they were gonna, um, build their house? Because they were building this. He, literally, he had an expansive collection of books. Okay, he literally had a book on how to build a house.
Speaker 2Huh so he's building his own house using a book building a house using a book.
Speaker 1No juggles, oh no youtubes.
Speaker 2No.
Speaker 1YouTubes. Okay, man, so he wanted to live off the grid before. Living off the grid was cool, okay, so he and Odom set about building this house. It was an incredible feat of dedication. Within just two years, they were living in like a little camper trailer and the Jeep. While they were building it, scudder and Odom built their own secluded sanctuary, corpsewood Manor, and they got the name from like the wood, the dead wood that was laying all around.
Speaker 2Okay, so that's Dead Horse and Corpsewood.
Speaker 1Yes, got you Dead Horse Road, corpsewood Manor. So 45,000 bricks were laid by their own hands, that's incredible. Yeah, in two years.
Speaker 2I'm tired just thinking about that.
Speaker 1There was a brick gazebo, a three-story chicken coop, even a chemical outhouse, so they had a chemical toilet and everything they wouldn't have to deal with that. They had a well on the property that they dug, no electricity, like I'm talking completely off. Going all the way back. Scudder said I do not want to owe anyone anything. Hmm.
Speaker 2So they had he's talking about some serious debt free right, anything. Hmm, so they had he's talking about some serious debt free right there, right, and this is how how much they got into it.
Speaker 1They had their own winery, like they grew grapes for their own wine. They had bees and then they would make the beeswax candles that they would use in their house. Oh, they were making their own candles. Yes, that's fun. So you know, they were out there living life off the grid and just having a good old time.
Speaker 2Yeah, the wine and the bees, the wine and the bees. They're living my dream, but I still want electricity.
Speaker 1Right, because I need some air conditioning Georgia's hot yes, ew, absolutely. I need some air conditioning Georgia's hot, yes, ew, absolutely. So Scudder was fascinated, like I said, by quirky, funny things, whatever. But he was also fascinated by the occult and he was a member of the Church of Satan. Looky there, yeah, and everybody's like clutching their pearls, pearls, going, oh my God, devil worshipers. But just for religious context and common misconceptions about the Church of Satan, I'm going to explain to you, like what it entails, because just the name alone can like conjure images of like ritualistic devil worshipping and demons and all that stuff. But the members don't actually worship Satan as a deity. It's an atheistic or non-theistic organization. So if you're an atheist, you don't believe in worshipping anything. You don't believe that there's a higher power or God or anything. There's nothing. No, if you belong to the church of satan, which is atheistic, you wouldn't worship satan, because that makes no sense so it's like the church of we believe in nothing, right?
Speaker 2but so I guess it's kind of comical to name it right.
Speaker 1It was kind of like thumbing your nose at Christianity.
Speaker 2I see Like a joke, yeah, like a little joke and everything. So that was the whole Some satire.
Speaker 1Right. So, like I said, they don't worship Satan. I want to say, like the Church of Satan is more, more about individualism, like self-care. You worship yourself and you do for yourself like my body is my temple right type thing.
Speaker 1So you know, okay, that was, that was the whole thing behind anton lave's church of state. They would, they would indulge. They don't believe in suppressing natural human instincts and advocate for indulging in them responsibly, which scutter apparently didn't understand by bringing 12 000 doses of lsd with him from chicago oh, I don't know how many vials that is.
Speaker 2But I'm like holy moly, that's one hell of a party, right there. Right, and I guarantee he's not having parties so like that between him and the other guy.
Speaker 1What the hell Well there might be some little parties. Little parties some little parties, little parties, maybe little parties. Okay, we'll get into the chicken coop in a minute.
Speaker 2Oh Lord, chicken Voldemort, that sounds terrible.
Speaker 1So Corpsewood Manor was not only a home, it was an outward expression of Scudder's nonconformist views.
The Pink Room and Secret Lifestyle
Speaker 1It was adorned with macabre decorations, including skulls, gargoyles, one which was painted pink that's fun, my daughter would be like cool and stained glass windows that scudder made himself, featuring Medusa and Baphomet and if you don't know who Baphomet is, he's the horn god with the. You know, two fingers up as above as below. So below, yeah. Scudder's personal artwork also reflected his darker sensibility. Scudder's personal artwork also reflected his darker sensibility. Paintings flanking the entrance to the second floor depicted a baby emerging from the womb on one side and a skeletal infant on the other. Ew, I'm wondering if he was on LSD when he painted this.
Speaker 2Yeah, I was about to say was he, maybe he was on LSD when he he painted? Yeah, I was about to say was he? Maybe maybe he was on lsd when he was doing all of this? Possibly maybe he just stayed like microdosed and stayed that way all the time and the house.
Speaker 1Just to say this the house had no square corners. It was rounded. Oh, everything was rounded. The manor they called it was like this there's no sharp corners, no corners.
Speaker 2Wow Okay, interesting.
Speaker 1Perhaps the most disturbing was a self-portrait. He created A chilling premonition, or perhaps a morbid fascination, showing himself bound, bleeding, with bullet wounds to the head.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, that sounds like a tri head. Oh yeah, that sounds like a tripping painting too.
Speaker 1Yeah, type painting and everything. Yep, yeah, it's kind of like meh. Then there was the pink room. This was located on the third floor of their elaborate chicken coop. Why, they had this big three-story elaborate chicken coop with a pink room on top. It had pink shag carpeting, pink walls, mattresses laying about.
Speaker 2So there's no chickens up there no chickens up there.
Speaker 1Maybe just chicken heads huh Right, see them other chicken heads.
Speaker 2I'm doing some crayshon over here. Well, I mean, this is like pink shag carpet and all I can think is chicken poop, and that would be terrible, like how am I ever, ever gonna get this chicken poop out of this shack carpeting?
Speaker 1well, I guess I'd have had all the stuff mattresses, whips, chains, you name it. Okay, it had it. So it was all the locals whispered about and they called it the pleasure room. I'm like, how do the locals know? Are they like peeking in the chicken coop?
Speaker 2Right, I'm like you're supposed to be off the grid, right? What the hell you got people coming and touring your place.
Speaker 1This is the chicken coop and that is the pleasure room above it. Oh, I wonder if it smelled like chicken. That's what I thought.
Speaker 2It's like it stinks in chicken coops what the hell.
Speaker 1So here in the pink room, scudder and Odom would entertain guests sharing homemade wine because they made their own wine and people said it was like superb LSD. I'm sure he read a book about it, probably so he's like I'm going to make some wine, I have a book, and they would smoke marijuana, take LSD, drink some wine and engage in intimate encounters.
Speaker 2Disease spreading.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2So intimate encounters.
Speaker 1Even though they were together, they weren't a monogamous couple. Ok, so they they did their own thing, but also, you know, they did other people's things too. Yeah, they openly explored their own desires and even keeping detailed notes on like preferences of each one's partners. So they would go into town and apparently in Georgia there was some curiosity going on. So they were like, hey, want to come back to the chicken coop with me.
Speaker 2I'll take you up to the third floor pleasure room, show you my shag While we're out getting supplies and stuff, we'll just come on back to the pleasure room.
Speaker 1So I guess that's how people started talking and they that must be.
Speaker 2That's what I was about to say.
Speaker 1If they were like picking up friends, yes, Just you know, random town having little parties with their open lifestyle and and partaking, partaking in partiesaking in partays. But you know this, this open lifestyle would ultimately lead to tragedy. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2People going to get jealous. Mm, hmm, mad, absolutely. Don't tell nobody what I did here, and then you told somebody what I did here.
Speaker 1There's so many possibilities.
Speaker 2Now people are talking yeah.
Speaker 1So let's talk about Kenneth Avery Brock. He was a 17-year-old that Scudder and Odom had encountered while on their property. He was hunting and they were like you know what? It's fine, you can hunt on the property, just let us know that you're out here. So we know that you're hunting and it's fine. But you know, brock was going to go last name, because there's a lot of people in here. Later on, brock was intrigued by the rumors of the homosexual devil worshippers, and that's a quote that's what they were calling them.
Speaker 1Yes, wow, okay, in the mountains. So he, he accepted their invitation to uh go back to the manor, to the infamous pink room I'm wondering how do you ask somebody back to your pink room? I, I think it was just out of, like I said, sheer curiosity he wanted to see for himself if it was actually did he go, maybe?
Speaker 2uh, you know, I heard right be like oh, I can hunt here.
Speaker 1Is it real, right? Is it real? It's their creation. It's their creation, absolutely 100%. So fueled by strong homemade wine and drugs, brock's inhibitions lowered because he was a straight guy, apparently. So he says. So he says and he engaged in some sexual acts with Scudder. They didn't say what kind of sexual acts, but there was. You know, there was some things going on and, like I said earlier, he was 17. Back in the late 70s, early ages, ages, late early grady 80s early 80s just late early grady 80s, early 80s.
Kenneth Brock and The Setup
Speaker 1The age of consent in georgia at that time was 14 14. If you haven't listened to gallatin street, you should go listen sorry, but what is? Wrong with people, but sodomy was still illegal. Yeah, yeah, okay, I think it's really. I think it's illegal and still in several states it wasn't in here in Louisiana it was illegal for like the longest time, I'm like, but regardless, you know, brock visited the pink room more than once. He went back for seconds, maybe thirds.
Speaker 2He was like I, like it well. Sometimes you don't know until you try.
Speaker 1That's right to each their own, so later brock shared his experience at corpwood, with his corpsewood, with his roommate, samuel Tony West, which we're going to call West. Okay, they had become, you know, roommates and he was joking around and he said something about it and West was, like what do you mean? You went over there, Like what did you do? Are you a homosexual? And just kind of like, went off on him and stuff.
Speaker 1So then it became like he's all Right, he's like no, no, I just wanted to see what they had in there, you know, and see like what was going on, and blah, blah, blah, blah blah. It's so sad to have to hide your nature because people are ugly Right but okay, because you know he was being a man, right, so was also a truck driver. We know how that goes.
Speaker 2Truck drivers do dirty stuff with, no matter what gender you are. Come on now, why?
Speaker 1is he judging Glory holes? Yeah, why is he judging?
Speaker 2Why is he?
Speaker 1judging, he also had a conviction for the murder of his two-year-old nephew. Holy crap, I'm like how are you out?
Speaker 2Why are you out here existing? You killed a child, yeah.
Speaker 1So hearing about the isolated couple and their seemingly opulent lifestyle? The manor, the land, the rumors of a golden harp.
Speaker 1Oh, so now there's like motivation, like they have things I can steal the antique furniture yeah a sinister idea began to form in in west's mind because rock was in on it, because he's like oh yeah, yeah, yeah, there's all this stuff in this house and blah, blah, blah, blah. So west is like you know what? They would make really easy targets out in the middle of the woods nobody's there to see everybody thinks they're homosexual devil worshippers.
Speaker 2Anyway, yeah, nobody likes them, we should go out there and rob them. Yeah, that's what I figured was about to happen when you start talking about things.
Speaker 1Yeah, but they knew that scutter had the two large inguus mastiffs. So they were like we're gonna bring a weapon because we could probably take them down, maybe, but the dogs, we need a weapon. So they brought a shotgun okay brock went on a scouting mission first, so he was like I'm gonna go in the woods, act like I'm hunting and seeing if I can get into the manor and see what they have in there, easy way to bring his weapon.
Speaker 1But you know he was denied entry to the manor. Oh, Most of their little flingy parties and things happened in the chicken coop in the pink room, not in the actual house. So they wouldn't let people in their house, just in the actual house, so they wouldn't let people in their house Just in the chicken coop, so this prevented him from assessing the potential loot.
Speaker 1They did, however, underestimate the couple's finances, so Scudder and Odom lived very frugally on just $200 a month, keeping the bulk of their money in the bank, so they would only take out just a little bit, just so they could go to town get some stuff.
Speaker 2Yeah, I was going to say whatever they couldn't make themselves, they were forced to purchase.
Speaker 1Yeah, so and the rest of the money just sat in the bank because he really had no interest in like paying anybody anything. It just sat there and it was probably for his kids or whatever when they got older or whatever when they got older. So they didn't have a bunch of money laying around like these two buffoons thought they did. Yeah, yeah. So then we slip into. You know, this is about 1982. And also around the time of the birth of the satanic panic.
Speaker 2And around the time that I was teething on a metal what are those lighters? Oh, zippos, yes, I was teething on one of those, probably right about this same time.
Speaker 1Wow, perfect thing to let a baby chew on, by the way, here. Here's a dangerous fuel-filled lighter Chew on that it's fine. Fine, we're okay great grandparents.
Speaker 2That I had right. I like here chew on this zippo thanks, grandma it's grandpa actually who did that right, grandma she probably was fussing at him the whole time, but he still did it anyway. She'd be like you're an asshole red don't be giving that baby a zippo.
Speaker 1But and this was, this was the time of the satanic panic that it kind of took over and you automatically think of the west memphis three but like the same satanic panic was like from the early 80s into the 90s. So it it was a good span there there's a long time. Yeah, there were companies like procter and gamble that were no longer able to use their logo and call themselves procter and gamble, because they were apparently devil worshipers because there was a moon and star on their label so this was you know people just went wild with it.
Speaker 1Yeah, everything was bad. Right On December 12th of 1982, brock and West, accompanied by West's nephew Joey Wells, where the other Joey comes in Gotcha, so we'll call him Wells. Well, we'll just call him Joey, since he's the Joey in here, since he's the Joey in here, joey. When they contacted him, they were like hey, we need you to come along, we need you to help us with this. He's like oh well, I just met this girl not too long ago named Teresa Hudgens. We're on our first date, just bring her along.
Speaker 2Oh my God, this poor girl. We're going to bring some strange girl who you just met on her first date with this dumb fuck.
Speaker 1It's gonna go with them to rob it, yeah these, these guys, homosexual devil worshippers that they call them the yeah, that no. So along the way to the manor they decided that they were going to get high on a dangerous mixture of alcohol, paint thinner and glue and they called this Toodaloo.
Speaker 2Toodaloo, toodaloo, motherfucker. Yeah, pretty much there goes your brain cells Bye-bye.
The Robbery Turned Bloodbath
Speaker 1So upon arrival, the four visitors join Scudder in the pink room. I was like these are children? But okay, Because I'm sure. But 14. 14. Yeah, One was 17. One was 30. But the nephew and girl, they were not of age.
Speaker 2No, but I'm saying, like you said, age of consent was 14. Yeah, it was 14.
Speaker 1So they were like let's go to the pink room. I've got 12,000 hits of LSD, so after about 20 minutes in the pink room, you know of them drinking and getting high and take a little trip with me exactly in the pink room. Yeah, brock started like getting impatient. He was like this is taking too long. I need to get into that house. I don't need to be in this pink room with all this shit. The toodaloo is where I don't mean to laugh, because this is very tragic.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 1I'm not laughing at the tragedy.
Speaker 2To name something Toodle-oo, Toodle-oo, but I guess I mean it makes sense.
Speaker 1It makes sense, but it still can't I can't.
Speaker 2I'm with you, I can't stop laughing at that name of the drug.
Speaker 1Right. So he decided to go to the car and retrieve the .22 rifle. He he was like I've had enough of this. We're not getting into the house.
Speaker 2Like now he's angry.
Speaker 1Yeah, like I'm done with this. When he returned to the pink room, scudder, in a bizarre and perhaps naive moment, simply said bang, bang, as if he were playing along like it was a game. Wow, are we role playing with the 22? No, no, it was a game. Wow Are we role-playing with the 22? No, no, no, okay, well, so at this point Wes tied up Scudder and demanded to know where the money was.
Speaker 2Although Scudder probably also thought that was part of the plan Right, he's like oh okay, bang bang, tie me up.
Speaker 1Scudder told him the truth it's all in the bank. There's no money here. Yeah, we don't keep it just lying around in suitcases, it's in the bank. So this, you know, infuriated them. And as this situation escalated, joey, the, the nephew, and theresa this poor girl tried to escape. They headed down the ladder of the chicken coop. They were like mm-mm, we're out of here. So Wes pursued them. They said toodaloo, toodaloo. So Wes decided to pursue them and threaten them. He was like no, you have to come back in, you have to help us.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh. Yeah, like you're part of this, no matter, right You're, you're an accessory now.
Speaker 1So, yeah, ok, in the chaos, well managed to coax them back inside, like, come on, Well, we're going to, you know, go up out this way and we're going to head to the car, but the car wouldn't start, but the car wouldn't start, so he forced them back inside. So, frustrated beyond belief, brock went down to the manor and demanded that Odom come out with the dogs. I'm like, not the dogs, no, so Joey Wells. So Odom's in the house. Odom was in the house with the dogs, so Scudder was up there doing his thing.
Speaker 2By himself.
Speaker 1Yep, okay, yep.
Speaker 2Got it. He was indulgent For some reason. I thought maybe they were both up there. But I'm clear now.
Speaker 1So Joey Wells pleaded with his uncle, but his pleas were ignored. He's like let's just go, let's just go, they don't have anything. Let's just go Like, put the gun down, let's go. Then a barrage of gunfire erupted. Odom had opened the manor door and Brock gunned him down along with both of the beloved Mastiffs. So he just started, like you know, in there and shooting the dogs and Odom. The two intruders forced Scudder and the others into the manor. Seeing his murdered lover, Scudder, who was now gagged, let out a muffled scream of anguish. West removed the gag and demanded money and even asked for a soldering iron to torture him with. Yeah sure, my soldering iron is over there. Go ahead and get it and torture me with it, Like what?
Speaker 2Yeah, no, not going to tell you where that is Right.
Speaker 1What the hell? So Scudder, with grim irony, because apparently his sense of humor was still there. His twisted sense of humor pointed out their lack of electricity. It's like brah, you can't do anything, right? Yeah, you're gagged and bound, but he's like no electricity, no lights no light, no, no, no plugs. In a desperate attempt to reach Joseph, odom, scudder tried to force his way toward him like moving muttering and saying to himself I ask for this. Hmm, I guess he meant like he's the one that brought all of that stuff there.
Speaker 1He's the one that had the like did all the things, did all the things, and he's like, created the love room Right and he's like the controversy. It was a matter of time before somebody was going to come and try to like rob them or kill them or do something.
Speaker 2But you know what? People should be able to live their lives Exactly, without fear of something like that. And if they want to, or saying that it's their fault that that happened. Because they are that way and if somebody?
Speaker 1consented to go there and do something. You're an adult, yeah. Or not, or at least age of consent, according to the state of Georgia, you were yeah.
Speaker 2According to the state of Georgia, as long as you were 14, you had the option yeah.
Speaker 1So for his defiance, tony West shot Scudder in the face. He continued to reach out for Joseph and he shot him again. And then one last attempt, west, four times, pop, pop, pop, pop, like shot him until he was like gone. This was a a robbery that turned into just a murder, a bloodbath yeah, and they got nothing but charges.
Speaker 1So you know, for the first time the name corpsewood held a horrifyingly literal meaning. Yeah, like it was crazy. So wells and brock ransacked the manor, finding little of value some jewelry, a few coins. They found a bunch of dimes and nickels like, oh, here's some dimes and nickels, a gold-plated dagger, some silver candelabras, a pistol pistol, a leather jacket. But then their own car wouldn't start, so they stole Scudder's Jeep. They tried to take Scudder's golden harp but it wouldn't fit. I'm like it's a harp, it's pretty big.
Speaker 2Dumbasses.
Speaker 1Right as they were about to leave, brock heard gurgling sounds coming from Scudder and a final act of callous brutality shot him between the eyes with his own pistol, because, remember, they found a pistol.
Speaker 2How the hell is that man still alive? After all that I was like dude the will to live in that one was strong. It was fallacy, maybe I don't know, I just live in that one was strong. It was the LSD, maybe, I don't know. I just couldn't feel what was happening. That's just crazy.
Speaker 1The group fled, but their troubles were far from over. They held Teresa Hudgens against her will for four days.
Speaker 2So now they've kidnapped this poor boy's date Right.
Speaker 1They were fearing that she would go to the authorities. Well duh, she should. I mean, like this poor girl is like never going to be the same. So eventually she managed to contact her uncle and like get out, and she told him everything. By December 13th, brock and West were in Mississippi where they committed another senseless murder at a rest stop, killing a man named Lieutenant Kirby Phelps for his money and vehicle.
Aftermath and Legacy of Corpsewood
Speaker 1So, back in Georgia, sheriff Gary McConnell received a report of strange going on at Corpsewood. When they got there, they discovered a horrific scene. They could smell death in the air. The kitchen door was blasted full of bullet holes and the eerie decor only amplified the sense of dread. Sure, yeah, scudder and Odom's body, along with their mastiffs, lay in pools of blood. By now, the escape plans of Brock and West quickly fell apart. By December 18th, brock had ditched West in Texas and was hitchhiking back to Georgia where he was apprehended shortly after calling his mother for a ride. West continued to wander, eventually walking to a police station and walking up to an officer in Chattanooga, tennessee, on Christmas Eve and just finally gave up yeah.
Speaker 1He was like I can't do this anymore. Within a month, justice began to move. Brock accepted a guilty plea and was sentenced to life in prison. West went to trial and, despite the initial death sentence that was overturned due to jury issues, he eventually accepted a plea deal of consecutive life sentences in 1985. So he got two.
Speaker 2So he used to serve two in a row, unlike when they're concurrent, you're serving two sentences at the same time, right?
Speaker 1The story of Corpsewood Manor didn't end with the convictions. In late 1983, the manor itself was destroyed by arson, leaving only the skeletal brick structure behind, and I'm sure a lot of people went out there and was like you know, we have to go see where they were killed. We have to go see all this stuff.
Speaker 2It's a whole spectacle.
Speaker 1At that point, the strange tale of Corpsewood Manor continues to fascinate. After Scudder's estate trial, his golden heart, his statue of Mephistopheles and his disturbing self-portrait came into possession of a local lawyer, Bobby Lee Cook, and eventually found their way into a private collection in North Georgia. The ruins of Corpsewood Manor remain today. Some describe walking through the skeletal remains of the house and the eerie gazebo getting an overwhelming, profound sadness. It wasn't a place of malignant devil worshippers. It was the dream of two men who sought a different life. However, unconventional people thought it was Right. You can go there today. You can walk through the ruins and go through everything. I'm pretty sure the gargoyle is still up there, Mm-hmm. But you know the house, it's just the skeletal remains of it.
Speaker 2Right, whatever, didn't burn.
Speaker 1Scudder and Odom, whatever their eccentricities or beliefs, did not deserve the brutal end they met. They were someone's family members, with their own hopes and dreams. Their lives were tragically cut short by the truly evil intentions of callous opportunists, ultimately consumed by violence and greed. Teresa Hudgens, who was consistently portrayed as a witness of the gruesome murders and victim of circumstance, wrote a book called Corpsewood the Eyewitness Account further supporting her role as an observer and survivor of the tragic events.
Speaker 2Yeah, I was going to say she's kind of a victim herself.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean at least she told her side of the story, because she I'm on a first date and I'm like what's going on and then I'm being held captive, yeah, like what? But yeah, that that is my story.
Speaker 2I will never date again, right.
Speaker 1Well, it didn't go as long as I thought it would. No, yeah, it did good, but it was a very interesting story. I'm sure there was like a little bit more I could have expanded on, but I was trying to keep it within reason and give you the bones of the story. Yeah, and I mean details, without the bones of the story.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I mean details without details sometimes really good.
Speaker 1Yeah, but if you want to check out, you can go read Teresa's book. Yeah, there's tons of Hit up Audible and listen. Yeah, there's tons of podcasts that have covered Corpsewood.
Speaker 2Manor. Yeah, so plenty of places to just delve a little further into the whole story.
Speaker 1If you're up in Georgia and you're like you know what.
Speaker 2I'm going to drive over, I'm going to drive by Corpsewood Manor and go see it.
Speaker 1You absolutely can. Yeah, Interesting. There is a place where you can park and you can walk up to it and you can see the whole thing. There's lots of videos on YouTube of Corpsewood the ruins and all that stuff. And I will post lots of pictures of the, you know, the gargoyles and the inside and some of the decor. That once existed that once existed, well, some of it.
Speaker 2Some of it's still there.
Speaker 1No, some of it got sold, auctioned off oh yeah, okay, that's right. So whatever the collectors have, I got you yeah, because it was from the mind of a, a genius madman.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I only wonder if it was the lsd that made him the way he was yeah, you know I was like was it mind enhancing, yet still made you a little cuckoo.
Speaker 1I think most geniuses are a little crazy yeah, absolutely regardless so ask anybody who was in the gifted program what they're doing today.
Speaker 2They're like nah Norman Bates yes.
Speaker 1But I mean sometimes a genius. Your mind has to go somewhere. Like sometimes it does fall into madness and unfortunately things happen, but they were just trying to live their life and they were trying to do it. Should they have been hitting on men.
Speaker 2They should have just stuck with themselves yeah, I mean, I feel like you just ran away from people and then you drug people into your space and drug drug them. Yeah, like drugged people right.
Speaker 1here's some wine, here's some free drugs, like you're in the early 80s and they're like free drugs Sure. Right Today, free drugs, sure.
Speaker 2But are they really free?
Speaker 1Well, there was a price to pay, apparently.
Speaker 2Yeah, and then somebody spoke a little bit too much of it and then had to backtrack and go be like I'm not gay. Everybody's got a motive.
Speaker 1Yep, I feel bad for the doggies, poor little. Beelzebub and Arnath.
Speaker 2It always upsets me because it's like they don't have a choice.
Speaker 1Nope, they were just like. I'm going to protect my owners.
Speaker 2I love my humans, and now I'm dead. It was interesting.
Speaker 1True crime. Spooky A little occult-ish, you know.
Speaker 2We hope that y'all just keep on listening.
Speaker 1Yes, Even though we're weirdos. That's what makes us awesome. Just two weird girls, two broke girls. Two broke weird girls Two broke weird girls, there we go.
Speaker 2We're going to start a new show, but our theme music is by Patti Salzada and, by the way, she said on a comment on YouTube that she knew she was going to be sausage from the jump.
Speaker 1I love Patti.
Speaker 2We had tons of interaction on that update stuff and there were things on our YouTube.
Speaker 1There were comments. We had tons of interaction on that update stuff, so that was cool. And there were things on our YouTube. There were comments, we had likes, we've had follows, so y'all keep it up.
Speaker 2It's awesome Lots of little mini conversations and stuff like that, so it was really fun to be able to actually interact with people for a change Even on TikTok, because we answer it.
Speaker 2Absolutely, we absolutely will. But but again, keep on listening. Yes, keep on sharing links with your friends so they can also listen. Follow us on the socials Facebook, instagram, tiktok, youtube. Make sure you're there, subscribe to everything, because sometimes there might be like little video things or whatever, some shorts or something like that. Like we go on our little trips and we make videos.
Speaker 1You can't see those on apple podcast right, so we put the shorts on youtube so you can you know, yeah, see us in all of our glory, yeah and oh. Emails, yeah, email steeped. Yeah, we almost forgot the emails steeped at holdmSweetTeacom. Sorry, there you go.
Speaker 1It's all right, hold, my Sweet Tea is a Drunken Bee production. You guys remember to say safe out there. I don't know why I'm tripping over my words so bad today. It's been a long one. Just because she's tripping Doesn't mean I can't have 12,000 hits of LSD and start dipping. Bye, bye, don't do drugs, kids. Thank you.