Southern Rites Page #4

race was a big issue.

I remember as a child

how my mom and dad would get the old truck

and Dad would have his shotgun

as he'd go to the neighbors

and take them to the voting poll,

because there were fear

of retaliation if...

the blacks voted.

I was here during the cotton picking days.

It was totally segregated.

But as time progressed,

they could attend the movies,

they could attend the restaurants.

We had to go to the back

door to get our sandwich,

but we was just so happy to

be able to go to Dairy Queen,

we didn't mind going to the back door.

We didn't mind going in the

back in there of the movie,

because we was just so happy to go.

We just thought that was a way of life.

And probably felt like it would be the way

the rest of our lives,

but you know, it changed.

Conaway:
When the schools was segregated,

I was one of the first three

to be sent to the high school

here in Montgomery County.

When I went to the white school,

there was just so much we were missing.

Our books were so old.

A lot of us were excited because,

"I got a new book," you know?

When Dr. Martin Luther King

came through the scene and

when he marched in Albany,

I was just 50 miles from there,

so I felt like I was a part of that.

And it seemed like everything

started smoothing out.

But then as time moved on,

the racial began to sneak back in,

very sneakily-like.

You know, but having come

through it, I knew it wasn't gone.

Conaway:
You know, it's

not so much our young

white and blacks that are slow to change,

it's the older set.

They are afraid

to integrate.

Clark-Jones:
If you are

invading the whites'

privacy, as they would call it,

they still feel that they

are dominant over you,

so you somewhat have to

swallow your tongue a lot.

And if you feel like you

need to stand up for yourself,

it's going to be a rough time.

- This is Meiah. This is my little girl.

-

Dedee:
Justin has a

three-year-old daughter, Meiah,

and I pretty much take care of Meiah now.

Say what's up, Meiah. Say what's up?

Meiah, you're on camera getting recorded.

I'm wondering how long

I'm going to keep this?

I might keep this for a long time.

And you're going to get old and you'll see.

Nighty-night.

Dedee:
Since he's passed away,

Meiah's mother actually works a lot,

and she is under a lot

of pressure right now,

because in her eyes,

she has to work very hard, because she...

she doesn't feel that

she has that support because Justin's gone.

-

- I had Meiah August 8th, 2008.

She wasn't due till September,

but I had her in August.

I had just turned 18 then.

- This is mine.

- This is your daddy's name.

- That's not my name.

- Justin.

- This is your name, see? Meiah.

- This is my name.

McKirnie:
She used to ask all the time,

"Where's my daddy," you

know? "Where is he at?"

And I couldn't really talk to her for

a while about it, because I'd just cry.

This is a "W."

He was a good father.

He was a good father.

I got my arms around him.

The DA, he said that...

he said that...

it will be hard to get a guilty verdict...

in Toombs County.

In Toombs because of...

the people that he know.

And that's my father, Thomas

Eugene Maddox, and my brother...

little brother, Matt Maddox.

He claimed at one point he was

the godfather of the Dixie Mafia.

-

- I don't know. That would of been before I was born,

but with the stories he has

to tell, it would have...

could of happened.

So, he... oh, another thing that he said,

he said he got tired of hiring

lawyers, so he decided to have him one.

That's where they got me.

Yeah, I see Norman, he's in here.

Norman's a good guy.

He had never been in any trouble.

He said he had a speeding

ticket in the 1960s.

When he came to see us the first time,

I remember him being very upset.

Not because he was facing criminal charges,

but because he had taken someone's life,

and I don't believe that

he meant for that to happen.

When this all started,

-

- everyone thought that this was a...

an old redneck motorcycle riding guy

that had shot a black kid.

Well... and even the judge

had that impression initially.

When the facts were laid out,

it opened a door, now,

to just talk about what actually happened

and what crime was actually committed.

We're here. This is Norman's driveway.

Hamilton:
There were any

number of folks that believed

that there was self-defense

involved in this.

But if you look at the

technicalities of the law,

self-defense goes away

when somebody is attempting to escape,

that they're no longer a threat.

So what crimes were

actually committed there?

This is the back door of Norman's house.

It's where the boys

exited the house that night.

And so, yes, it was reckless conduct

on the part of Norman

because he created a situation

in which violence could ensue.

Based on what they had

indicated in their reports,

they had initially met up in this bedroom,

smoked a blunt, a marijuana blunt,

and then parted.

It was a series of mistakes,

the whole night.

The first one happened when

the girls invited them over.

There was a 15-year-old who was having sex

with an 18-year-old.

Granted, under Georgia law,

that's only a misdemeanor,

but they shouldn't have been doing that.

There was a large part

of the community thought

that Norman did what everybody had

a right to do in their own home.

And then there were a

lot of people that thought

that he had shot at someone

under racial motivation.

You can see that he had to

come through the kitchen.

But this is his bedroom back here,

and at the time,

he always slept with a gun by his side.

Oddly enough, he... not really oddly,

around here it's kind of normal.

I actually have a gun at my house.

It's really important to

know that Norman had had

other young men who were black

visit his child.

He let children of all kinds come visit.

They didn't do it at 3:00 in the morning,

because that's not the time to visit.

He had two strange people in his house.

They were athletic.

Mr. Neesmith is not athletic.

I hate to say feeble, but he is disabled.

The boys actually came over, they snuck in,

they brought things they

shouldn't have brought

and they were doing things that

they shouldn't have been doing.

It was two boys looking for a booty call

and it all went wrong.

Justin Patterson

was ultimately able to make it to

right there where those trees are.

His brother ran on for help,

but that is where Justin Patterson died.

For a county that even

when I was in high school

had separate proms,

which was 1998 and 1997,

to go from that

to investigating a case

to that extent is...

we made a lot of headway.

Man:
Ease on down.

Make your way to the alter real quick.

-

- (choir singing)

I love you. You know I love you.

Woman:
It's gonna be all right.

(singing continues)

Dedee:
Today is the one

year that I lost Justin

and it's... it's real hard.

But I believe in God,

- and I know that he will...

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