 Okay you guys, the story that I have for you today is a story teller's dream. We have debauchery, we have Satanism, we have the occult, we have murder, and of course we have some paranormal activity. Now we are departing from Savannah, but don't worry. We will be back to Savannah shortly. Today we're heading up to the North Georgia Mountains. But before we go any further, you know what to do, hit that subscribe button and give us a like. Welcome to Esoteric Atlanta, my name is Bryce, and today we're gonna be talking about the Corpse Wood Manor Murders. The Scudder was born on October 6, 1926 in Wisconsin. Charles Scudder was a very smart man. He went to the University of Wisconsin and ended up getting a PhD in Pharmacology where he ends up being a professor and a researcher in Chicago, Illinois. Not only was Charles Scudder a respected scientist in his field, but he was also a lover of the arts. He was a peculiar man for the times. He was known to dye his hair different colors, which for us today is no big deal. But back in the mid-20th century, that type of behavior was seen as a fringe type behavior. Charles Scudder also liked to use psychedelics and study the way the human mind reacted to the psychedelics given to it. This was common. We see this also with a man named Richard Alpert, who became later known as Ram Dass, where universities would allow professors to use LSD or other types of hallucinogenic drugs to study the human mind and the human consciousness. Charles Scudder was married twice, and out of these two marriages, he ended up having four children, all boys. Now along the way, something happened. I read that his second wife passed away, but nonetheless, he ended up being the sole caretaker of all four of his children while living in Chicago. For all intent and purposes, Charles Scudder was a very devoted father. In 1959, Charles Scudder met a man named Joseph Odom. Joseph Odom was 12 years Charles's junior, and they developed a very, very, very intense relationship. Now, of course, most people assume that it was a homosexual relationship, but we don't actually know for sure if it was a homosexual relationship or not. But nonetheless, Joe, Joey Odom moved into Charles Scudder's house and became his cook and his housekeeper and helped him raise his four sons. Now, of course for us today, homosexuality is absolutely no big deal. It just is what it is. But back then, it was seen as rather taboo. Maybe not so much in Chicago, as it would later be more taboo in their new home in Georgia. You see, in 1976, on Charles Scudder's 50th birthday, he handed in his resignation as a professor in Chicago. You see, over the course of time, Charles Scudder and his lover, his companion, Joey Odom, decided that they wanted to live off the grid in a simpler life. They were tired of living in a city, paying high taxes, paying high bills, dealing with all these people. Also, some years before this decision, Charles Scudder lost his youngest son. Now, in some accounts I read, the death of his youngest child deeply affected him and really pushed him to want to not only leave Chicago, but dive deeper into the study of the occult. You see, Charles Scudder was a skeptical atheist. He had developed a pen pal relationship with Anton LeVe, who was the head of the Church of Satan. Now, I know we've spoken about this before, especially in our Al Statue episode here in Atlanta, but I feel like I really, really, really need to go deeper into this for this particular story. Now, the Church of Satan is very, very different from Luciferian practices. A lot of times people get confused between the two. Most people who are a member of the Church of Satan are not believers in a God. They don't actually worship Satan. They say see Satan as a symbology of the adversary to the Abrahamic religions like Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. They believe more in following their human instincts, not the laws set before them in other religions. However, in Luciferian cults, that is where you see the practice of cannibalism, of human and animal sacrifice, of all sorts of devious and criminal activity. Are there crossovers between the two faiths? Maybe. But I do believe that out of all my research that Charles Scudder was not a bad person. There is nothing to indicate that he was practicing Luciferianism. Everything points to the fact that he was simply just a member of the Church of Satan and was a member of the Church of Satan because he wanted to explore his own human instincts. In fact, from people who knew him, say he never forced anybody to do anything that they didn't want to do. In fact, most people who knew Charles Scudder and Joey Odom said that they were some of the kindest people you would ever meet. And in fact, Joey Odom was never a member of the Church of Satan. In fact, Joey Odom was a Catholic. And even though I am not a parent to a human child, I do have a dog baby. But I can very easily understand how losing a child would push a human to want to explore different avenues of reality. Hence why he took up penmanship and started writing Anton LeVe. He started getting into the cult. He was already a scientist. He was already looking at these hallucinogenic drugs and what it did to the human mind. And I think he was really just searching for answers. And it's also important to note that Charles Scudder didn't leave his job in Chicago and move out of Chicago until the other three boys of his had already moved out of the house and were starting their own lives. He didn't abandon anyone. He just was ready for something new. And so Joey Odom and Charles Scudder took all the money they had and they purchased 40 acres in the North Georgia mountains right outside of Somerville, Georgia. Now I am personally very familiar with Somerville, Georgia. It is very close to where I grew up. And in fact, when I was a child, my parents had a lake house in Mentone, Alabama, that is right over the Alabama state line. Somerville was the city or the small town, rather, that we drove through in order to get to our lake house. In fact, the town that Mentone where we had our lake house was so small back then that there wasn't even really a grocery store. So most of the time we would stop in Somerville to do our grocery shopping before heading into Alabama. Somerville is in Chautuga County and it is near the Chattahoochee National Forest. So in 1976, these two men from Chicago moved down to this tiny, tiny town at in the North Georgia mountains. They had their 40 acres and they decided that they were going to build their manor with their own hands. Now they did have a trailer on the property to live in while the house was being built. And when I say they wanted to live off the grid, they legit wanted to live off the grid. There was no electricity in this house. There was no running water. And in fact, they even planted and grew their own vegetables. They ground it up their own wheat and they decorated their house with very peculiar and gothic decor. They had a big pink gargoyle outside of their corpsewood manor. And by the way, they named it corpsewood manor. It did not become corpsewood manor because of the murders there. That was the name they gave it. They also had stained glass windows of the demon Baphomet. And it is said that when Charles Scutter left his job at the university in Chicago, he took with him a couple of human skulls that were in the house and also left with a few vials of LSD. Charles Scutter and Joey Odom also had a chicken coop on the property as well. And this chicken coop would be the source of a lot of scandal for this small town. The very first floor of the chicken coop was for poultry and canned goods. Now, the second floor of the chicken coop was for pornography. And the third floor of the chicken coop was known as the pink room. And this room is where they supposedly had sex parties. Now, according to locals who had been on the property or knew of these gentlemen and even in the court documents from the later trial, as I said in the beginning of this story, Charles Scutter never forced anybody to do anything that they didn't want to do. He wasn't forcing people to take drugs. He wasn't raping anyone. There was nothing going on in this pleasure pink room that wasn't consensual. That's very different from the Luciferian practices. The Luciferian practices always take advantage of people against their will. That's not what Charles Scutter was doing. And even though I am not a member of the Church of Satan, nor am I a Luciferian, nor do I ever want to be a part of any of those organizations. I absolutely believe in our freedom of religion in this country. And as long as you're doing something that is only for yourself and isn't involving people who don't want to be involved, I have no problem with that. God bless America. You have that right. But when it comes to these Luciferian cults that are hurting people, killing people, possibly eating human beings, there's a problem and it becomes criminal. Now, around the 1980s and into the 1990s, we had a phenomenon happen in this country and in neighboring countries called the Satanic Panic. Now, it appears that the Satanic Panic was actually kicked off in Canada by a book that was released called Michelle remembers. This was about a woman who through therapy was starting to have memories of being involved in Satanic ritual abuse. Now, I want to be very clear that I believe and in my opinion, Satanic ritual abuse is a very real thing with the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein. We're starting to see how real this Luciferian cult actually is. And in fact, a lot of our very famous celebrities as and as well as politicians and of course, Prince Andrew with the royal family have now been under scrutiny for their involvement in things like human trafficking, possible human sacrifice or murder and the possibility of allegedly cannibalizing some of their victims. But all of this is knowledge that we now hold in the year 2020 because ironically, hindsight is 2020. But in the 1980s, we were not aware that Satanic ritual abuse or SRA isn't a part of the Church of Satan. It's part of the Luciferian cult, which is very different. But nonetheless, the Satanic Panic hit our American continent like a wildfire with the onslaught of heavy metal music and even a game we see pretty innocently now done Dungeons and Dragons was looked at as a portal into this Satanic life. In fact, average Americans were convinced that devil worshipers were everywhere and nobody was safe. Kenneth Avery Brock was a 17 year old kid that lived in the Somerville area near Corpsewood Manor. On many accounts, I read Kenneth Avery Brock's interaction with Charles Scudder and Joey Odom started as him merely wanting to hunt on their property. This was common. Apparently, a lot of people would ask Charles Scudder for permission to hunt on his property. And of course, Charles Scudder and Joey Odom being the hospitable kind people that they were usually did not have a problem with that. And as time went on, Charles Scudder became a bit of a mentor to our young 17 year old Kenneth Avery Brock. There is some rumors that perhaps Brock was also homosexual and possibly got involved in a romantic relationship with Charles Scudder or Joey Odom or both. But that has not been proven. And in the year 1982, Brock moved into a trailer with a man named Samuel Tony West. Now, West was 30 years old and again, Brock was only 17. West already had a rap sheet. It seems that he had shot someone in the past and had done some time. He just was not a respectable young man in the Somerville society. And over time, West convinced our young 17 year old Brock that Charles Scudder was taking advantage of him. He played on this satanic panic that these two men were obviously double worshipers and it would be better for society and better for Brock if they were to kill these men. They also figured that these guys were millionaires. Here they were living in this beautiful homemade manner out on 40 acres of land. What they didn't realize, though, is that Scudder and Odom had spent every penny they had on the land and on their house because they were planning on living their lives off the grid on December 12th of 1982. Brock and West came across two of their friends who were out on a date. And this was a guy named Joey Wells and Teresa Hutchins. Now, Joey and Teresa were teenagers. They were closer to Brock's age, not West's age. So Joey and Teresa, being two bored teenagers without a car, decided that they were going to go hang out with Brock and West and go up to Corpsewood Manor in hopes to find some fun. Now, at this point, they were doing a drug called Tootaloo. I personally had never heard of this drug, but apparently involved like huffing glue and paint or something. I don't know. I mean, I wasn't even born yet in 1982, so I don't I don't know. I've never heard of this drug before. But regardless, they were high AF. When they got to Corpsewood Manor, Charles Scudder welcomed them in as he always did and allowed them to go up into his notorious pink room. Once they were up there, Charles Scudder offered them some some refreshments, something to drink and proceeded to talk and chat and laugh with them. Nothing, absolutely nothing from what I read indicated that anything inappropriate happened with the kids there. It just seemed like Charles Scudder was like, yeah, come on in my house, kids like hang out, I'll give you some refreshment. And then after a while, Brock decided that he was going to go back down to his truck to get more of his Tootaloo. Now, this, of course, was just a facade. He was going to his truck to get his gun. When he came back to the house, he first shot Joey Oden. And sadly, he shot their two dogs who were sleeping peacefully by the fire. Brock went back up to the pink room to confront Charles Scudder. He ended up handcuffing or tying Charles Scudder's hands behind his back. At this point, Teresa started to get really emotional and scared because remember, Joey and Teresa are two teenagers out on a date. We're not privy to the information that Brock and West were going there to murder these devil worshipers and rob them blind. Teresa's testimony of what happened next is quite heartbreaking and definitely talks and tells of the character of Charles Scudder. As Charles Scudder was being handcuffed behind his back and Teresa was freaking out, Charles Scudder was concerned, concerned was for Teresa. He kept trying to comfort her, even though he was the one that was being attacked. As soon as they were able to, Joey and Teresa ran out of the pink room down the stairs and tried to get in the car along with West. When the car wouldn't start, West decided that it was a sign that they needed to finish their job. West proceeded to go back into the property to help Brock. And I, we assume from the research that multiple reports that I read that Teresa and Joey at this point just ran for it to get back into town. Now, Brock had threatened Teresa and Joey saying if they said anything to anybody that he would murder them too. However, back at the property, Brock took Charles Scudder into his out of the pink room and into his house and made him look at his dead partner, Joey Odom, as well as his two dogs with his hands tied behind his back and a gag in his mouth. It didn't take long for Brock to realize that the money he was looking for just simply wasn't there. Charles Scudder ended up with five bullet wounds in his head. And ironically, many days later, a self-portrait that Scudder had done was of him with a gag on his mouth and five bullet wounds in his head. Many believe that with his practicing of occult magic, that perhaps he had had a premonition of his own death. In fact, it is said that his last words were, I brought this on myself. Brock and West took their Jeep, Charles Scudder and Joe Odom's Jeep and fled the property. Now we have to remember again, there was no electricity on this property. Obviously, there were no phone lines. And Joe Odom and Charles Scudder were the only two residents of the property. It took a couple of days before the bodies were discovered. And the bodies were only discovered because one of their friends drove up to their house to inform them about a death of a mutual acquaintance. When he got to the house, he noticed their Jeep was gone and there were bullet holes in the door. That's when he walked in and discovered the bodies of the deceased men and their deceased dogs. In the meantime, Brock and West had made it all the way to Mississippi. Their goal was to get to Mexico. But unfortunately, while they were in Mississippi, they decided to rob a man named Kirby Phelps. Now, Kirby Phelps was a military man, and he was on his way to visit his mother for Christmas. The robbery went terribly wrong. And Kirby Phelps became another victim of Brock and West. Back in summer bowl, after the men's bodies were discovered, Teresa decided to go to the police. Now, again, she had been threatened by Brock that if she told anybody that he was going to kill her too, but now that they were out of town, Teresa felt confident that she could go talk to the police about what happened. And it was her testimony that sent the alert and sent the arrest for the arrest of both Brock and West. Before that, the police had no idea who had done these murders. Unfortunately, neither man made it to Mexico. In fact, Brock ended up turning himself in on December 20th in Georgia. And then West proceeded to turn himself in on December 25th in Tennessee. Now, during the trial for their murders, I really believe that these boys thought that they could rely on this satanic panic to get them out of the mess that they were in. They claimed that Scuttered and Odin had drugged them with LSD and were attempting to do satanic things to them. Well, it just so happened that inside the house, the police found all these vials of LSD that Scuttered had brought with him from Chicago. Unfortunately for these boys, the LSD at this point had gone bad and would not have been affected. They also had the eyewitness testimony of both Joey and Teresa to cooperate what really happened. You see, it appears that Charles Scutter and Joey Odin, although they were probably involved and maybe some French beliefs were not these horrible satanic Luciferian people. In fact, they were very loving, hospitable neighbors that were cherished by the town they lived in. And it was Brock and West who were the bad guys and decided that they wanted to murder people that had a weird lifestyle for the time just to get their money. Seventeen-year-old Brock ended up pleading guilty, and he was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences. West, our 30-year-old, was found guilty and sentenced to death. This was because he had prior arrest records for being a violent member of society. However, West's death sentence was overturned in appeal, and he too is serving a life sentence for murder. Now, you would think the truth would have obviously come out during the trial and the need for satanic panic around this case would have vanished. We know from the trial who the bad guys actually were, but that's not the case in small town, Georgia, because you see the house corpse would have been left in a manner and its property was left to Scudder's three remaining sons. But in 1983, a religious group got on the property and decided to burn it down. Today, the house is still left in ruins from this fire. Now, the sons ended up selling the property. And I'm not 100 percent sure who owns the property now. However, you can still go see the property. If you look on your GPS maps, if you're in the area, you can just type in corpse would manner and they will show you the trail to get there. You do have to park your car and walk down a long trail before seeing the ruins. Now, Charles Scudder was buried in Wisconsin on his family's plot, but Joey Oden was cremated and had his remains scattered all over the property in Georgia. Now, many people will say when they go to the property, they do feel like somebody is watching them. I also read many stories of people taking a brick from the property and bringing it home only to be met with bad luck. This, of course, encourages them to bring the brick back to the property in order to change their circumstances. And I will leave you with probably the most haunting of stories that I came across when researching this murder. It comes from a book and I will link the book below in the description in case you want to read it. This story goes as follows that there were some friends that went up to the property to check it out once they got to the ruins. They saw two men sitting in what appeared to be yard chairs, just looking around and relaxing. They had conversations with these two men and these two men proceeded to tell this group of young kids, venturers, hikers that they come up here every year just as part of their ritual. The young group of explorers and hikers decided they were going to go off and look around the property and the men said to have fun. A few minutes later when they came back to the property, though, the two men were gone later on when talking to the person who saw these men were shown a picture of Charles Scudder. Their face went completely white because that was the man that they saw at the property. So it appears that even in death, Dr. Charles Scudder and his long time companion, Joey Oden, are still welcoming people on to their property to enjoy it and to have a fun time. All right, guys, thank you so much for sitting through another story. I believe there is also an old I.D. episode where Teresa is telling the story of her night at Corpse Wood Manor if you care to look that up as well. Again, as the book I'm going to be putting in the description. Thank you so much again to Josh McKay for doing our music and Todd Roderick for helping us edit. I'll see y'all next time. Bye.