The Corpsewood Manor Murders

The Corpsewood Manor Murders

From Disturbing History by Disturbing History-True Stories

May 31, 2026 · 60 min

About this episode

This episode explores the misunderstood murders of Dr. Charles Scudder and Joseph Odom at Corpsewood Manor in Georgia.

This week we step away from the corridors of presidential power and head into the North Georgia mountains, to a hand-built stone castle on Taylor's Ridge and one of the most misunderstood crimes in the state's history. On December 12, 1982, Dr. Charles Scudder, a brilliant former Loyola University pharmacology professor, and his partner Joseph "Joey" Odom were robbed and shot to death inside Corpsewood Manor, the off-grid medieval-style home they had built brick by brick after leaving Chicago behind. Their killers, 17-year-old Kenneth Avery Brock and 30-year-old Samuel Tony West, had convinced themselves the eccentric couple was hiding a fortune, and that two openly gay men, one of them a documented member of the atheistic Church of Satan, were the kind of victims nobody would mourn. They were wrong about the money, and history has proven them wrong about the men. This episode hits especially close to home, Brian grew up just a few miles away and was only eight years old the winter the murders happened, and who has spent a career learning to tell the difference between rumor and evidence. We trace the whole arc, from Scudder and Odom's search for a simpler life and the truth…

People in this episode

Host: Brian

Topics covered

  • true crime
  • murder
  • Satanic Panic
  • history
  • LGBTQ issues
  • Georgia

Keywords

  • Corpsewood Manor
  • murder
  • Charles Scudder
  • Joey Odom
  • Kenneth Brock
  • Satanic Panic
  • true crime
  • Georgia history

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Loyola University, Church of Satan

Places: Corpsewood Manor, North Georgia

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