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Revisionist History

The Alabama Murders - Part 2: Coon Dog Cemetery Road

with Lacey Kenimer, Shirley Bill, Carl Roden, Ricky Miller, Billy Warren

Published October 2, 2025
View Show Notes

About This Episode

Malcolm Gladwell continues his exploration of the Alabama Murders by reconstructing the 1988 killing of Elizabeth Dorleen Sennett, the investigation that followed, and the early suspicions that her preacher husband Charles may have orchestrated the crime. Through interviews with congregants, investigators, and locals, he details the killers' confessions, the red flags in Charles Sennett's behavior, and the eventual revelation of Sennett's infidelity and suicide. Gladwell contrasts the messy, ongoing reality of this case with the tidy resolutions of typical crime stories, introducing the idea of a 'failure cascade' in the justice system.

Topics Covered

Alabama legal system Murder trials Police work and detective work Media coverage of crime Small-town life Religion and spirituality Criminal psychology Systems thinking Trauma

Disclaimer: We provide independent summaries of podcasts and are not affiliated with or endorsed in any way by any podcast or creator. All podcast names and content are the property of their respective owners. The views and opinions expressed within the podcasts belong solely to the original hosts and guests and do not reflect the views or positions of Summapod.

Quick Takeaways

  • The 1988 stabbing of Elizabeth Dorleen Sennett initially appeared to be a burglary gone wrong but quickly raised suspicions about her husband, preacher Charles Sennett.
  • An anonymous Crime Stoppers call naming three young men led investigators to confessions that detailed how the murder was arranged and carried out on Coondog Cemetery Road.
  • Investigators grew suspicious of Charles Sennett due to his overproduced alibis, lack of physical contact with his mortally wounded wife despite CPR training, and his remark that "they" had harmed her.
  • The case exposed how rigid religious norms and shame surrounding infidelity may have contributed to Sennett's catastrophic decision to arrange his wife's killing.
  • Gladwell argues that unlike neat crime narratives where justice is swiftly restored, the Sennett case became a prolonged failure cascade with delayed and imperfect justice.
  • Community members and congregants noticed disturbing aspects of Sennett's behavior long before the murder, including harsh treatment of his child and seemingly performative grief at the funeral.
  • Charles Sennett confessed to an affair but denied involvement in the murder during questioning, then killed himself seven days after his wife's death.
  • The episode challenges listeners to question comforting crime story structures that promise closure, emphasizing instead the long-lasting damage and unresolved complexity real crimes often leave behind.

Podcast Notes

Introduction and framing of the season and case

Reminder of the 'failure cascade' concept

Gladwell recalls explaining in the previous episode how some crises accelerate rather than resolve, becoming failure cascades.[2:42]
He says this episode will focus on the crime that began the cascade and tore the Sennett family apart.[6:36]

Contextualizing the crime's long timeline

Gladwell notes that Elizabeth and her family waited 35 years for justice to occur.[6:45]
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall emphasizes at a 2022 press conference that nearly half of Alabama's population had not been born when the crime occurred.[6:59]
• Marshall quotes the maxim "justice delayed is justice denied" to underscore the delay.
Gladwell counters that the Sennett case shows justice delayed is in fact how justice often operates in the world we have chosen.[7:33]
He poses the key question: how does a crime turn into a cascade?[7:39]

Visit to Coondog Cemetery Road and search for the Sennett home

Driving into the Alabama hills

Gladwell narrates driving on a long, winding two-lane road in the Alabama hills, following an F-150 pickup truck.[3:50]
• He and his colleague remark on the gorgeous countryside and how remote the area is, noting they haven't seen a house in some time.

Attempting to find the Sennett house

Gladwell and his colleague, producer Ben-Nadav Haffrey, go looking for the house where Charles and Elizabeth Sennett once lived.[4:22]
• They have only the road name, which turns out to be a long, winding gravel track on a mountain ridge: Coondog Cemetery Road.

Encountering the Coondog Cemetery

Because they cannot find the Sennett house at first, they end up at the Coondog Cemetery.[4:49]
• Gladwell describes headstones, many American flags, and a sign proclaiming it the only cemetery of its kind in the world, with the first dog laid to rest in 1937.

Locating the overgrown Sennett property

An older couple they meet at the cemetery gives them directions back toward the Sennett property.[5:07]
They eventually find a driveway with an overgrown gate, posted signs, and identify remnants of the former house site.[5:26]
• Gladwell notes the house was a double-wide trailer that burned down a few years earlier, with a pond still visible on the property.
He observes that without meeting the local man who guided them, they would not have recognized the site as a former home.[5:48]
Gladwell comments that the overgrown, isolated property would be a very good place to hide, as nobody would trouble you there.[5:59]

Introducing The Alabama Murders and Episode 2

Series and episode identification

Gladwell introduces himself by name and states that this series is called "The Alabama Murders."[6:14]
He announces the title of this installment as "Episode 2, Coondog Cemetery Road."[7:42]

Portraits of Charles and Elizabeth Sennett and early perceptions

Description of Charles and Elizabeth from Lacey Kenimer

Gladwell asks Lacey Kenimer if she has seen pictures of the family, Charles and Elizabeth (Liz) Sennett.[7:49]
Lacey says Charles Sennett looked like a 1980s TV evangelist: handsome, dark-haired, with a Southern, slightly "redneck" look.[7:59]
• She notes that Elizabeth, whom she calls Liz, was described as "homely," prompting Gladwell to mention the phrase "homely as a mud fence."
Lacey recalls that the shocking element was that Charles had been having an affair with a parishioner in a church with fewer than 70 attendees.[8:59]
• She expresses disbelief that such a small congregation could be unaware of the affair.

Lacey's impression of the rural isolation

Lacey emphasizes that the Sennetts lived out on Coondog Cemetery Road in a rural part of Colbert County.[9:16]
She describes the area as "frighteningly rural" and suggests that Sennett must have lived a long distance from his church and parishioners.[9:21]
• She comments that the situation makes her think he was crazy, hinting at suspicion about his choices.

The murder of Elizabeth Dorleen Sennett and hospital efforts to save her

Discovery of the crime scene by Charles Sennett

On March 18, 1988, just before noon, Charles Sennett returned home from town and discovered the house had been ransacked.[9:50]
• Gladwell describes an upside-down coffee table with broken legs, wood fragments scattered, and missing stereo and VCR.
In the den, Sennett found his wife, Elizabeth Dorleen Sennett, lying in a pool of blood, stabbed repeatedly and partly covered with a white and blue afghan.[10:11]
Sennett called the Colbert County Sheriff's Office, where Investigator Ronnie May took the call.[10:24]
• May recalled that Sennett was hysterical, to the point that May couldn't initially tell whether the caller was male or female.
• May had to ask Sennett several times to calm down before he could understand that Sennett was saying his wife had been killed.

Emergency response and medical treatment

May and other officers drove to the Sennett house in heavy rain; Sennett ran toward May, embraced him, and said, "Ronnie, Ronnie, they've killed her."[10:43]
May checked for a pulse and initially assumed Elizabeth was dead.[11:18]
• Paramedics arriving shortly afterward detected a faint pulse and rushed her to Helen Keller Hospital in Sheffield.
At the hospital, staff initiated cardiac resuscitation, started IV fluids, and intubated her.[12:10]
Surgeons opened her chest in the operating room and found no blood in her heart or vascular system.[12:17]
• In a final attempt, they placed a clamp across her aorta in hopes that fluid would fill the heart chambers.
After these efforts failed, Elizabeth Sennett was pronounced dead at 2:05 p.m.[12:41]

Recollections from the Sennett sons

Gladwell plays a local news interview with sons Chuck and Mike Sennett, who were 25 and 23 at the time of the murder.[11:28]
• They describe their mother as a homemaker, kind and nurturing, always present after school, and consistently there with their father.
The clip recounts that Charles called Chuck first and then Chuck called Mike, telling him something had happened to their mom at the farm and urging him to get there quickly.[11:53]

Nurse's account of Charles Sennett's reaction

Lacey Kenimer shares a story from a nurse friend who was in the ER when Elizabeth arrived.[12:48]
The doctor asked the nurse to tell Charles that Elizabeth was still hanging on, that she was "still with us."[12:58]
• The nurse recalled telling Sennett this and being struck by his astonished response: he said, "That cannot be."

Community reactions and early suspicions

Shirley Bill's memory of hearing the news

Gladwell asks church member Shirley Bill what it was like when news broke about Elizabeth's murder.[13:51]
Shirley says she remembers every minute, linking it back to an earlier visit to Sennett's church.[13:51]
• On that visit, she and her husband saw Sennett backhand one of his children; her husband was furious, worrying about potential damage to the child's ear and hearing.
When they later heard on the radio at breakfast that Charles Sennett's wife had been murdered, Shirley's husband immediately said, "He did it."[14:21]
• She attributes his certainty to the earlier incident of slapping, which showed a viciousness that made him believe Charles capable of such a crime.

Perceptions of Sennett's behavior at the funeral

Congregant Carl Roden recalls driving Sennett to the hospital on the day of the murder and later attending Elizabeth's funeral at Westside Church of Christ.[14:42]
Roden notes that in the car, Sennett only said, "They shouldn't have done her that way," which did not seem significant to him at the time.[15:01]
At the funeral, Roden watched Sennett walk out carrying Elizabeth's picture against his chest with both hands, appearing to hug it.[15:19]
• Roden says the display looked fake and put on, calling it "the most phoniest thing" he had ever seen, and he told his wife as much.

Setting and culture of the Westside Church of Christ

Roden lives in a small white house down the street from the now-empty Westside Church of Christ building.[15:35]
• The church sign still carries a message typical of Church of Christ teachings: "Time is precious. Are you spending time with the God who made you?"
Gladwell reminds listeners, via earlier clips, that in the Church of Christ context, members see themselves as part of the "true church," not merely a denomination.[6:06]

Meeting investigator Ricky Miller and reconstructing the police investigation

Connecting with Ricky Miller through Carl Roden

While interviewing Roden, Gladwell learns of Ricky Miller, a former deputy involved in the original investigation.[16:10]
Roden calls Miller and urges him to talk to Gladwell and his producer, joking about getting his hair combed for a 'movie.'[16:24]
• Roden reassures Miller that they're just "two of them with a microphone" and says they'll arrive in ten minutes.

Ricky Miller's background and search of the crime scene

Miller lives in a small, immaculate house in a quiet part of Muscle Shoals and is retired from the district attorney's office.[20:32]
• Gladwell describes him as handsome, quiet, recently widowed, and still wearing a law-enforcement-style haircut.
Miller says he assisted the sheriff's department in investigating the case and notes that the more they got into it, the more interesting it became.[20:46]
He was part of the team that went to the Sennett property to search the pond.[20:55]
• Investigators drained the pond and recovered a survival knife, a fireplace poker, and a fireplace brush.
Miller recalls that there were numerous leads that they followed.[21:08]

The crucial anonymous Crime Stoppers call

Miller explains that the county Crime Stoppers phone line rang in his office, and he personally answered the call that broke the case open.[21:20]
The anonymous caller provided names of those involved, details of who did it, and where evidence could be found.[21:40]
• The caller named three young men: Billy Gray Williams, John Forrest Parker, and Kenny (Kenneth) Eugene Smith.
The caller claimed the stolen VCR was currently being used on Kenneth Smith's TV and described that it was sitting there at that moment.[22:09]
• Miller later confirmed that this information about the VCR was accurate.
All three young men were arrested, and all three confessed to involvement in the crime.[22:06]

Confessions and narrative of the murder from Kenny Smith's statement

Initial approach and planning

Kenneth Smith told investigators that about a month before the murder, he was approached by Billy Williams, whom he knew from high school, on his front porch.[22:14]
Williams asked if Smith knew anyone willing to "beat up" someone for money, eventually pushing the idea further into killing.[22:40]
• Smith said that Williams mentioned there was "a man" who wanted someone "taken care of," specifically a woman.
Smith decided to participate and recruited John Parker to help him with the job.[23:11]

Meeting the unidentified man and staging a fake burglary

Two weeks later, Smith met with the man Williams had been dealing with; the man did not identify himself and Smith and Parker did not know who he was.[23:11]
The man said he wanted a woman taken care of, that she would be at home and rarely had visitors, and that the house was in the country.[22:48]
At a coffee shop meeting, the man drew a diagram of the house and said the crime should look like a burglary gone bad.[23:00]
• He told them they could take whatever they wanted to support the burglary cover story.

Carrying out the attack on March 18, 1988

On the morning of March 18, Parker and Smith met at 8:30; Parker brought a black-handled survival knife.[23:13]
They drove to Coondog Cemetery Road in Parker's Pontiac Grand Prix and arrived at the Sennett house around 9:30 a.m.[23:17]
Smith said he knocked on the door and told Elizabeth that her husband had said they could look around the property to see about hunting on it.[23:33]
• After walking the property for a while, they returned and asked to use the bathroom; Elizabeth let them inside.
Smith used the bathroom near the kitchen, then Parker did; Smith stood at the edge of the kitchen talking with Elizabeth, who was seated in a chair in the den.[23:47]
Smith heard Parker coming through the house; Parker walked up behind Elizabeth and began hitting her with his fists.[23:58]
• Smith said he started taking the VCR while Parker was beating Elizabeth.
According to Smith, Parker struck Elizabeth with a large cane and "anything else he could get his hands on," going into a frenzy.[24:14]
• Elizabeth reportedly pleaded for them to stop, saying they could have anything they wanted.
Smith says he disturbed items in the house to make it appear like a burglary, while Parker continued beating her.[24:28]
The last time Smith saw Elizabeth, she was lying near the fireplace, covered with a blanket or afghan.[24:34]
• Smith states he then went outside to check storage buildings and saw Parker run to the pond and throw items into it.

Realizing the victim had died and her identity

The next morning, Parker and Smith read news reports and learned that the woman they attacked had died and that her name was Elizabeth Sennett.[24:50]

Developing suspicion of Charles Sennett and investigative red flags

Pattern of excessive alibis

Gladwell asks Miller when investigators began to suspect Charles Sennett's involvement.[25:08]
Miller says the first thing that caught their attention was that Sennett made too many alibis.[25:11]
• He contrasts normal daily interactions (one or two people) with Sennett's deliberate pattern of visiting many people on the day of the murder.
Miller describes Sennett's detailed itinerary that morning, listing times and people he saw or phoned between 8:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.[25:24]
• These included visits or contacts with individuals such as Jolt Kendrick, Sam Garrett Jr., Billy Alexander, Mrs. Louise Allen, Carl Roden, Teresa Hall, Tammy Sue Wright, and Brenda Sprague.
Miller says Sennett stopped to see people he had never visited before, which raised a red flag.[26:11]
• Roden, for instance, told Miller that Sennett had never been to his house before that day.
Miller notes that people along Highway 247 out toward Coondog Cemetery Road also said Sennett had never stopped there before.[26:44]

Sennett's knowledge and language as clues

Miller emphasizes that Sennett could recount his timeline in great detail, which struck investigators as odd given the trauma.[26:58]
• Miller remarks that if his own wife had just been murdered, he wouldn't remember much; his mind would be "gone," but Sennett remembered everything.
Miller recalls that in the car with Roden, Sennett said they had "beat her up pretty bad" and that "they shouldn't have done it that way."[27:17]
• Miller points out that Sennett's use of the word "they" implied knowledge that more than one assailant was involved, before police had disclosed that.

Failure to attempt aid despite CPR training

Gladwell notes that when asked what he did upon discovering his wife, Sennett claimed he did not touch her, despite being trained in CPR.[27:53]
Miller says investigators all wondered why he hadn't checked his wife, calling it another red flag.[27:45]
• Miller explains that a typical spouse would immediately go to their injured partner and would likely have physical evidence on them from contact.
• He points out that given the 16-mile drive from town, Sennett would have had significant time before help arrived; it seemed implausible he would simply stand there.

Crime stories, Little Red Riding Hood, and the illusion of neat endings

Gladwell's retelling of Little Red Riding Hood

Gladwell recounts the Brothers Grimm version of Little Red Riding Hood, focusing on the wolf tricking the girl and being killed after a hunter rescues her.[31:52]
• He describes how the wolf is first cut open to free her, then later another wolf is drowned after being lured by sausage-scented water outside the grandmother's house.
He emphasizes that the story ends with Little Red Riding Hood going home joyously and never being harmed again.[32:52]

Moral assurance and crime narratives

Gladwell argues that Little Red Riding Hood is essentially a story about a pedophile who is punished, and children tolerate it because the villain is defeated.[32:52]
He generalizes that people enjoy stories of madness and depravity-from Sherlock Holmes to Law & Order to true crime podcasts-so long as order is restored in the end.[33:25]
• He describes crime stories as "exercises in moral assurance," giving audiences the comfort that justice prevails.

The seductive but misleading Southern Gothic version of the Sennett case

Gladwell says it's tempting to tell the Sennett story as pure Southern Gothic: a preacher lost his way, a lonely mountain road named Coondog Cemetery Road, and two local killers-for-hire fleeing with a VCR.[33:41]
He notes that a version of this tidy story exists online, presented as a dramatic tale of a God-fearing family betrayed from within.[33:58]
• He quotes language from that version emphasizing betrayal, deceit, and a murder that rocked a small-town Alabama community.
Gladwell insists that this Little-Red-Riding-Hood-style ending is an illusion and does not reflect what really happens after such crimes.[34:24]
He points out that, in reality, a child attacked by a predator would spend years recovering, and the real NYPD is far less effective than Law & Order portrays.[34:31]
He says everyone involved wanted the Sennett case to end neatly and tidily, but instead it "didn't end" and "kept going."[34:46]

Community fear and uncertainty after the murder

Town historian Billy Warren's perspective

Gladwell speaks with Florence town historian Billy Warren about the case's impact when it first broke.[35:29]
Warren recalls abject horror throughout the community and days of gory headlines.[35:14]
• He notes that fear intensified because the killers were initially unknown and still at large, so people didn't know the motive or who was responsible.
Warren emphasizes that early on, the community did not know that the minister had hired young men to kill his wife.[35:35]
He says the mystery and unknowns made the case gripping for the entire community.[35:42]

Motive, shame, and the Church of Christ context for Charles Sennett

Sennett's poor cover-up and possible mindset

Gladwell questions why Sennett did such a bad job covering his tracks, noting several obvious connections that pointed back to him.[36:01]
• He mentions that Sennett's first contact, Billy Gray Williams, was his tenant, and that Sennett had previously loitered at another murder scene as if studying police procedure.
• Sennett even obtained money for the hit from his lover, leaving a clear trail.
Gladwell suggests it was as if Sennett was not even trying to hide, almost turning himself in before committing the crime.[36:32]

Shame, sin, and the Church of Christ

Gladwell recalls theologian Lee Camp from the previous episode, who described how Sennett's affair would have filled him with shame within the strict Church of Christ community.[36:56]
He reminds listeners of Sennett's joke that in the Church of Christ, it might be easier to get forgiveness for murder than for divorce.[36:57]
• Gladwell interprets the joke as a sign of how rigorous the community is, casting out members for 'second-degree' transgressions like adultery as surely as for 'first-degree' ones like arranging a murder.
He speculates that in Sennett's tangled mind, the leap from an affair to a killing may not have felt like a leap at all because he already saw himself as beyond redemption.[37:27]

Interrogation of Charles Sennett and his suicide

Questioning and shifting blame

Police called Sennett in for questioning; he admitted to the affair but denied any role in his wife's death.[37:59]
He tried to shift suspicion onto a Black man from Cherokee, Alabama, claiming this man had a feud with his son.[37:54]
During a later round of questioning, when an officer mentioned Kenny Smith's name, Sennett turned beet red.[38:05]

Family conversation and Sennett's final act

After leaving the police station, Sennett drove to his son Michael's house and told his sons he had failed a lie detector test and had been involved with another woman.[38:11]
• His sons describe trying to process both the confirmation of the affair and the implications for the murder investigation.
Charles then left, got into his Chevy truck, picked up a .22, and shot himself.[38:31]
• The sons recall hearing the shot while he was in the truck.
They note that he killed himself seven days after their mother was killed, saying, "Lost them both in seven days."[38:54]
• One of them reflects that you don't know how much you can take until you go through something like that.

Gladwell rejects this as a tidy ending

Gladwell observes that in a neat crime story, this would be the end: killers in custody, the mastermind dead, the victim buried.[39:17]
He reiterates that he is not telling that neat version; instead, he says, "we're just getting started."[39:29]

Preview of the next episode and production credits

Teaser for the trial of John Forrest Parker

Gladwell previews the coming focus on the trial of John Forrest Parker, one of the young men involved.[39:37]
A voice reflects that some jurors likely did not want the death penalty on their conscience for the rest of their lives.[39:46]
Another voice, recalling the case, says it remains the one still on his mind, even after leaving child custody work.[40:05]
Someone notes that the Florence chief of police theorized early on that the crime scene was not what it appeared to be.[40:07]

Production credits

Gladwell lists the production team, including producers Lucy Sullivan, Ben-Nadav Haffrey, and Nina Byrd-Lawrence.[40:34]
He credits additional reporting by Ben-Nadav Haffrey and Lee Hedgepeth, editing by Karen Shakurgy, and fact-checking by Kate Furby.[40:43]
He names Jacob Smith as executive producer, Nina Byrd-Lawrence as engineer, and Luke Lamont for production support.[40:48]
Original scoring is by Luis Guerra with Paul Brainard and Jimmy Bott, and sound design and additional music by Jake Gorski.[40:53]
Gladwell signs off by name at the end of the episode.[40:56]

Lessons Learned

Actionable insights and wisdom you can apply to your business, career, and personal life.

1

Real-world problems, including crimes and justice, rarely resolve in the neat, morally satisfying way portrayed in stories, so it's crucial to distrust overly tidy narratives and look for the messy, ongoing consequences.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in your life or work are you assuming a neat ending instead of preparing for long, complicated fallout?
  • • How might questioning the 'tidy story' around a current situation change the decisions you're making about it?
  • • What is one narrative you regularly consume (news, entertainment, company story) that you could scrutinize this week for oversimplification or missing complexity?
2

Patterns of behavior and small inconsistencies-like overproduced alibis or oddly precise recollections under stress-can be more revealing than dramatic evidence when assessing someone's actions or credibility.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What subtle behavioral red flags have you noticed recently that you may have brushed aside as unimportant?
  • • How could you build the habit of paying closer attention to people's patterns, not just their words, in professional or personal contexts?
  • • Which current relationship or project would benefit from you stepping back and calmly listing all the small inconsistencies you've observed?
3

Rigid social or moral environments can turn moderate failures (like personal misconduct) into psychological catastrophes, driving people toward far worse decisions because they feel already beyond redemption.

Reflection Questions:

  • • In what areas of your life do you or your community treat certain mistakes as unforgivable, and how might that shape behavior under pressure?
  • • How could creating more realistic paths to repair and forgiveness in your team, family, or community reduce the risk of people hiding or escalating their mistakes?
  • • What is one context this month where you could explicitly signal that admitting a smaller failure is safer than covering it up?
4

Community impressions and informal observations often capture important truths long before formal institutions act, so leaders and investigators should take local knowledge and gut reactions seriously, while still verifying them.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Who in your environment tends to notice things early but is rarely consulted when decisions are made?
  • • How might systematically gathering and then testing informal observations improve your understanding of a current problem?
  • • What is one decision you're facing where you could pause and deliberately ask a few trusted 'locals' what they really think before proceeding?
5

Traumatic events do not simply end when the official case closes; they create long-term cascades that affect families, institutions, and communities for decades, so planning for long-term support and follow-through is essential.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Which past crisis in your life or organization are you treating as 'over' even though its effects are still playing out?
  • • How could you design longer-term check-ins or support structures for people affected by a recent upheaval or failure?
  • • What is one concrete action you could take this week to address the lingering impact of an old event rather than assuming time alone will fix it?

Episode Summary - Notes by Hayden

The Alabama Murders - Part 2: Coon Dog Cemetery Road
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