Crime Con in Nashville!

​I'm heading to CrimeCon in Nashville next week and for those who will be attending, here are some true crime facts about the area:

It Happened in Nashville!
 

• Out on parole from a 1983 armed-robbery conviction, Paul Dennis Reid traveled to Nashville to pursue a career in country music. Early in the morning on Feb 16, 1997, Reid, finding himself short on cash, visited Captain D’s at 2633 Lebanon Road. There he shot two employees then used the money from the cash register to put a downpayment on a car. On March 23rd, he stole $3,000 from the McDonald’s on 3470 Lebanon Road (3.4 miles from Captain D’s) and shot and killed three employees. When a fourth tried to escape, Reid stabbed him 17 times. The employee survived and later testified at trial. Reid was captured, convicted, and received seven death sentences, which at that time, were the most ever handed down to a single person in the state. Because of several stays, Reid ended up dying just shy of his 56th birthday at Nashville General Hospital (1818 Albion Street) from complications due to pneumonia, heart failure, and upper respiratory issues.

 

• On August 29, 1996, children’s book illustrator Janet Gail March (33) disappeared from the home she shared with her lawyer husband Perry and their two children on Blackberry Road. Perry claimed Janet left home two weeks earlier for a 12-day “vacation” following an argument they’d had. Police found Janet’s abandoned car, containing her purse and toiletries, on September 7th in the parking lot of the Brixworth Apartments on Harding Place in West Nashville. Janet was declared legally dead in 2000. Perry’s father later confessed to helping his son move her dead body after Perry murdered her around August 15th. Although Janet’s body was never recovered, a jury convicted Perry of murder in 2006. He is currently serving his 56-year sentence at Morgan County Correctional Complex.

 
 
While you’re there, don’t miss…
 
 
Nashville’s Dark Secrets: Murder and True Crime Tour (18+, 90 min) and Nashville's Lost Spirits: Murder and True Crime Haunted Pub Crawl (ages 21+, 2 hrs., both from $35, see https://www.gonashvilletours.com)

• Murder in Music City Night-Time Ghost Walking Tour of Nashville (90 minutes, $35, ages 16+, see https://ghostcitytours.com)

 

• The castle-like, 800-cell Tennessee State Penitentiary (located on Bomar Blvd, six miles west of downtown Nashville), opened in 1898 and once housed James Earl Ray, the convicted killer of Martin Luther King. More than one hundred inmates were executed here; others were just exploited as cheap labor in its working farm, warehouses, and factories. Rampant mistreatment led to riots: one in 1975 resulted in one death and thirty-nine injuries; ten years later, inmates rioted again, setting fires, taking guards hostage, and causing $1.7 million in property damage. Now the penitentiary sits empty, having been forced to close in 1992 due to overcrowding. However, it still serves a purpose, having appeared in movies like “The Green Mile” and “Walk the Line,” and music videos by such artists as Eric Church and Cage the Elephant. Many claim the building is haunted.