Journalist Larrison Campbell investigates her grandma’s death in new series Witnessed: Devil in the Ditch
Journalist Larrison Campbell’s grandmother was found by her sister bludgeoned to death in her sunroom. This new podcast probes what happens when blame replaces truth.
When questions go unanswered, myth replaces truth, suspicion swamps perception and whispers become history.
A new podcast from Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media starts with the unsolved murder of podcast host and journalist Larrison Campbell’s grandmother Presh in her hometown of Greenville, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta.
Presh, 85, was found by her sister bludgeoned to death in her sunroom in 2003. A dish cloth covered her face. The murder weapon was likely a brass candlestick. Campbell learned of her grandmother’s death on Friday the 13th. She was at work in New York and fell apart.
Campbell’s beloved grandmother, with whom she drank boxed wine and did crosswords, was murdered in her home for a motive unknown. It’s the kind of family tragedy that can’t be forgotten, that cracks fissures across generations.
Witnessed: Devil in the Ditch is about family, trauma and what happens when blame replaces truth.
Without the truth the mind creates answers, patching gaps in knowledge with dark imagination.
Campbell tells listeners her grandmother was a character, a devout Democrat who drove cross-legged with her left foot on the gas and a papier-mache man – yes, for real – in the back seat of her Ford. She could eat a pint of ice cream in one sitting, rarely remembered to lock her doors and entertained a steady stream of visitors.
Campbell wants to know the truth behind her grandmother’s death and interrogate the impact on her family.
She tells listeners: “This is a story about what happens when you don’t know.
“Secrets and mysteries metastasise. Questions demand answers. And if the police won’t supply them, the mind will. Suspicions harden into belief. What’s true becomes less important than what we believe. Eventually it’s hard to tell the difference.”
About 85 per cent of murders in Greenville remain unsolved, Campbell says.
Witnessed: Devil in the Ditch is a true-crime murder mystery but it’s also a story of trauma that reverberated through Campbell’s family. It’s a story delicately told by someone who directly felt the pain of the loss and witnessed what happened when festering wounds remained untreated.
Listeners hear Campbell interview her great-aunt about discovering Presh’s body and the journalist remains remarkably professional. It’s extraordinary, and the series strikes the right balance between rigorous journalism and empathetic exploration. Likewise as she goes over the autopsy report and the crime scene. There was a bloody shoe print at the crime scene, her grandmother’s house, and scattered on the floor were droplets of blood.
A police report notes Presh had a single black bobby pin in her hair.
Campbell tells listeners: “All I picture is her that morning standing the bathroom mirror sliding it into place. And I was wondering what she was thinking about. That kills me.”
What do we get from exploring family trauma for journalism or art? Is it about closure or masochism? Listeners can make up their own minds.
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