A Murder Trial Gone Wrong: The Cruel Story of one Man's Destroyed Life

In 1986, Carlton Gary, a black man, was convicted of the 1979 rape and strangulation murders of seven elderly white women in the small but prosperous (for some) town of Columbus, Ga. Some of these women had ties to an exclusive group of wealthy and influential white families called The Big Eddy Club. Since then, Gary has been sitting on death row. He now waits for his final appeal.

Those initial crimes were horrific. But, the criminal justice system failings that followed were equally deplorable: Forced to produce and convict a killer, a frustrated and increasingly embarrassed set of local law enforcers, detectives and prosecutors subjugated crucial defense funds and evidence. Also eviscerated was the "due process" clause of the 14th Amendment that states, "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

With elegant prose and striking narrative, award-winning journalist David Rose investigates the deprivation of that due process and recounts the human and systemic toll of this crime within a crime in his book "The Big Eddy Club: The Stocking Stranglings and Southern Justice." The book is a vivid and thoroughly captivating exploration of the American criminal justice system. It is also impossible to put down.

"The Big Eddy Club" is as much about Gary's clash with the Southern justice system as it is a condemnation of the system's racial and economic bias -- a particularly cruel reality when it's not merely one's liberty, but one's life, at risk.

Early in the book, British citizen Rose, points out that, unlike America, his country abolished the death penalty, as did the rest of Europe. And what started as a piece for the British newspaper the Observer on why parts of America still find the death penalty so attractive became a decade-long investigation of the stocking strangler case and the American criminal justice system.

Rose doesn't come out and say whether he believes Gary is innocent or guilty, but he lets a conglomeration of suppressed information, faulty investigative methods, and the actions of seemingly biased law officials tell its own story. Rose presents a glimpse into the heart of the American capital punishment that is profoundly enraging and disturbing.

Against a backdrop of post-Civil War Southern history and with poetic language and intricate details, Rose has penned a book as compelling as any John Grisham novel or his nonfiction work "An Innocent Man," with the haunting imagery of Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood." Carlton Gary is by no means presented as a pillar of virtue. But, it's about time we held our justice system to a higher virtue than Rose's gripping book reveals.

Recently, I had an opportunity to sit down with Rose over coffee in New York City and ask him questions about his amazing work and dedication to it:

Nomi Prins: You mention in "The Big Eddy Club" that everyone asks you whether you believe Carlton Gary is innocent or guilty, and you don't answer them directly. Why?

David Rose: I look at the matter in terms of different question, and that is, was Gary given a fair trial? The answer to that is no.

Were there times during this decade of investigation that you wanted to just say, I can't do this anymore? What made you keep going?

After 9/11 nobody seemed interested in these issues. I know in England they didn't like the death penalty -- but what mattered to me was getting America to see this, particularly the people in Columbus, Ga. They had to know. So the timing of publication is extraordinary. As we speak, it is more fortuitous; Judge Land must decide whether to allow a new trial. Since the book was written, Judge Land has already granted an evidentiary hearing on Feb. 14, 2007. I think the bite cast (taken at one of the crime scenes) and its comparison to Gary, excludes him to certainty beyond a reasonable doubt. The bite cast taken from the victim showed small and crooked teeth. Gary's are straight and always have been. He used to be a model; his smile was part of his attractiveness. They compared the original bite cast and Gary's impression last summer -- there were significant differences between the two. The state hasn't challenge the evidence, but they have said it's too late. The defense has argued that if you consider the bite cast and other evidence, Gary should get a new trial. The prosecution is arguing that the defense didn't exercise due diligence at the time of the original trial in pressing the bite cast issue (though, at the time of trial, defense counsel was not granted the funds to conduct an independent examination. The state's trying to say that if the prosecution was lying, the defense should have commented at the time.