Zenith Man: Death, Love, and Redemption in a Georgia Courtroom by McCracken Poston Jr. goes over a highly bizarre case in the mid-90s in Ringgold, Georgia, where Alvin Ridley, a much-feared man in his neighborhood and a recluse, was accused of murdering his wife, whom no one has claimed to have seen in public for decades. I credit the Noble podcast for first hearing about McCracken Poston Jr. as an attorney. In that case, he was an attorney for Brent Marsh in which it was another highly unusual and odd case of a man who hid bodies in his own backyard of his crematorium business, also in Georgia. After having read Zenith Man, I can now fully understand why he would have stepped in to defend Brent Marsh in that highly unusual case as well. Although the details of that case are more under wraps than those of Alvin Ridley’s case, I highly urge readers to look that case up if you got a kick out of reading about Zenith Man here.

A lot of credit for Zenith Man obviously goes to McCracken Poston Jr. for defending Alvin Ridley. Given how difficult of a client he was, hardly anyone would blame him if he chose to quit the case. Back in those days, autism was only just beginning to be defined and understood. Therefore, the behavior and attitudes of people afflicted with that syndrome, such as Alvin Ridley himself, were often classified as either weird, strange, or just plain mysterious to downright scary by his neighbors. We also have to credit the author for making light of the situation at times and inserting some clearly hilarious moments into an otherwise very depressing story. The first part of the book goes over how the author worked diligently for over a year to prepare the case. Since Alvin was such a difficult and closely guarded person to begin with, this made things even more difficult for him. The second part of the story then shifts over to the ensuing courtroom drama that lasted for a week or two in the beginning of January 1998.

From the very beginning, I always thought that the state of Georgia had a very, very weak case against Alvin Ridley to begin with based on what was presented in this book. They couldn’t even prove a clear motive on why Alvin would want to have murdered his wife. Many have suggested that Alvin has kept his wife and mother against their will in his house for over three decades, and yet the investigators botched that theory up by clearly not having requested a warrant to go over the entire residence to look for clues. In fact, one of the counts against Alvin Ridley didn’t even include that crime. All the state seemed to have was that there were some petechiae found on his wife during post-mortem examination and zeroed in on how Alvin had suffocated his wife. As McCracken Poston Jr. mentioned, it was indeed weird how it was the defense that brought in more evidence than the prosecution side. There were no murder weapons found, no fingerprints, no warrant for the searching of his house, no neighbor complaints, and no clear motive.

Zenith Man is a fun and highly interesting read due to the bizarre nature of the case and the defendant. It’s also touching to learn that both of them have still kept in touch every week since their time together in the mid-90s, in addition to how some of his staff have gone on to work and help other people with autism.