Was this small-town TV repair man “a harmless eccentric or a bizarre killer” (Atlanta Journal Constitution). For the first time, Alvin Ridley’s own defense attorney reveals the inside story of his case and trial in an extraordinary tale of friendship and an idealistic young attorney’s quest to clear his client’s name—and, in the process, rebuild his own life.
In October 1997, the town of Ringgold in northwest Georgia was shaken by reports of a murder in its midst. A dead woman was found in Alvin Ridley’s house—and even more shockingly, she was the wife no one knew he had.
McCracken Poston had been a state representative before he lost his bid for U.S. Congress and returned to his law career. Alvin Ridley was a local character who once sold and serviced Zenith televisions. Though reclusive and an outsider, the “Zenith Man,” as Poston knew him, hardly seemed capable of murder.
Alvin was a difficult client, storing evidence in a cockroach-infested suitcase, unwilling to reveal key facts to his defender. Gradually, Poston pieced together the full story behind Virginia and Alvin’s curious marriage and her cause of death—which was completely overlooked by law enforcement. Calling on medical experts, testimony from Alvin himself, and a wealth of surprising evidence gleaned from Alvin’s junk-strewn house, Poston presented a groundbreaking defense that allowed Alvin to return to his peculiar lifestyle, a free man.
Years after his trial, Alvin was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, a revelation that sheds light on much of his lifelong personal battle—and shows how easily those who don’t fit societal norms can be castigated and misunderstood. Part true crime, part courtroom drama, and full of local color, Zenith Man is also the moving story of an unexpected friendship between two very different men that changed—and perhaps saved—the lives of both.
AUTHOR BIO
McCracken King Poston Jr, is a criminal defense attorney and former state legislator in the Georgia House of Representatives. He gained national attention for his handling of several notable cases that were featured on CNN Presents, Dateline NBC, A&E’s American Justice and Forensic Files.
Website: https://www.mccrackenpostonjr.com/
Twitter: https://x.com/RealZenithMan
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mccrackenpostonjr/
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3MR4iaL
PRAISE
“A wild ride of love, death, and justice in small-town Georgia . . . McCracken Poston, Jr shares intimate knowledge of a sensational case. This highly engaging read combines the best parts of hard-boiled true crime with a host of colorful characters, a small-town Southern setting, and Poston’s natural gift for gab. The results beg for an eight-part Netflix series." —Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Wildly entertaining…Zenith Man by McCracken Poston, Jr. is a true crime book but the events described seems more like a John Grisham novel.” —Mystery Tribune
“McCracken Poston is a good storyteller and has a good story to tell, with the kinds of twists and turns that will make readers think it’s great fiction—except it all happened.”
—Jon Meacham, New York Times bestselling author, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
“Poston found himself defending a guy he knew was guilty in what appeared to be a slam-dunk murder case. But the amazing truth in this true crime drama is there was no crime at all. It’s one hell of a story.”
—Jonathan Karl, author of Betrayal, Chief Washington Correspondent for ABC News
“Poston is a natural storyteller in the great Southern Gothic tradition. He sees the pain, but finds the humor, too, and ultimately the humanity, turning a tale of murder into a remarkable story of love, friendship and justice.” —Rory Kennedy, Emmy Award‑winning documentary filmmaker
“Autistic, paranoid, and a recluse, Alvin Ridley is charged with murdering his wife, only to be found innocent thanks to overlooked peculiar evidence and a dogged small-town lawyer struggling with his own demons. McCracken King Poston Jr.’s skillful account in Zenith Man is a warning about prejudice, a rush to judgment, and how Americans who are different can be swept up unfairly in our justice system. An inspiring tale about courage and how both lawyer and client helped each other find redemption. A must-read.”
—Pete Earley, New York Times bestselling author of The Hot House, Crazy, and No Human Contact
“Poston's unique voice has brought to life two fascinating characters thrown into a case that challenges our basic assumptions about law enforcement, the courts, and the media. You won't be able to put down Zenith Man until the very last word.”
—Charles Bosworth, Jr, and Joel Schwartz, authors of Bone Deep
AUTHOR INTERVIEW
On writing:
How did you do research for your book?
Since my book is about a murder trial in which I was the defendant’s lawyer, the research was first done for the trial. Beyond my case file, I did other research in the media archives and other places to piece together the strange story of Alvin and Virginia Ridley.
Which was the hardest character to write? The easiest?
Unplanned, my book also became the true story about the relationship between me and my father. I wrote it truthfully, but any time you are writing about a loved one, it can be hard. The easiest character to write about was my client, Alvin Ridley, although he was a tough client!
What made you write a book about the Zenith Man?
This was the most incredible story to live through. After the trial ended, I immediately felt that this would be a good book.
Where do you get inspiration for your stories?
So far, I have written nonfiction.
There are many books out there about true crime. What makes yours different?
My story is the inside account of being the criminal defense lawyer for a most unusual defendant.
What advice would you give budding writers?
Write the bones of your story down quickly. You can add the other stuff later. Save the stories!
Your book is set in Ringgold, Georgia. Have you ever been there?
I grew up in the very small town of Graysville, Georgia, in Catoosa County. Ringgold is the county seat, and where my law office is situated.
In your book you state....”The voters would get their change, but mostly the faces would stay the same.” Why is that?
The rash of partisan party-switching that took place in Georgia after my last political race (and first defeat).
If you could put yourself as a character in your book, who would you be?
I did!
Do you have another profession besides writing?
I am a full-time criminal defense lawyer, thanks to the second act that Alvin Ridley gave me, and for 28 years I have been a part-time juvenile court judge.
How long have you been writing?
I have been writing down experiences and stories all of my adult life. Social media allowed me to share vignettes and short tales, all true stories.
Do you ever get writer’s block? What helps you overcome it?
Maya Angelou once said “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Until recently, I understood this agony. She was speaking to me.
What is your next project?
I have been blessed with many interesting legal cases, but I am also drawn to trying my hand at fiction - perhaps based on true stories.
What genre do you write and why?
Nonfiction. The story I had to tell is a true story.
What is the last great book you’ve read?
I recently reread The Water is Wide by Pat Conroy
What is a favorite compliment you have received on your writing?
Someone I know told me that they could hear my voice in the writing of my book.
How are you similar to or different from your lead character?
Arguably, I am one of the characters, so not much different!
If your book were made into a movie, who would star in the leading roles?
I refuse to jinx it, but the Alvin Ridley role is Oscar bait!
If your book were made into a movie, what songs would be on the soundtrack?
I would love classic 1980s Athens, Georgia music, to wit: Pylon, B52s, R.E.M.
What were the biggest rewards and challenges with writing your book?
I was frustrated in the telling of the story in other ways over the years.
In one sentence, what was the road to publishing like?
For years like the tortoise, then at once like the hare!
What is one piece of advice you would give to an aspiring author?
Keep at it.
Which authors inspired you to write?
Grisham, Turow, King
What is something you had to cut from your book that you wish you could have kept?
My first draft was 177,000 words. Obviously, lots had to go. But I think it came out about right.
On rituals:
Do you snack while writing? Favorite snack?
Coffee only.
Where do you write?
I wrote this book in several places. Coffee shops, libraries, at home, at my client’s old TV shop location, for inspiration.
Do you write every day?
I did for several months. I am currently figuring out what comes next.
What is your writing schedule?
Most evenings. All weekends.
Is there a specific ritualistic thing you do during your writing time?
No.
In today’s tech savvy world, most writers use a computer or laptop. Have you ever written parts of your book on paper?
Early on, I preserved stories that comprised my book by jotting down notes of story structure.
Fun stuff:
If you could go back in time, where would you go?
I’d like to see what places I am familiar with looked like through history. So I’d go to famously historic places, and small towns few are familiar with as well.
Favorite travel spot?
Kazakhstan
Favorite dessert?
An occasional cookie.
If you were stuck on a deserted island, which 3 books would you want with you?
Survival books on what I could eat, and what I could build, and how I could escape.
What’s the funniest thing that ever happened to you? The scariest? The strangest?
There are literally too many to mention.
What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done?
I challenged convention by introducing and passing lobbying regulation in the Georgia legislature.
Any hobbies? or Name a quirky thing you like to do.
I walk, obsessively.
If there is one thing you want readers to remember about you, what would it be?
That I believed in the U.S. Constitution and its promise to the individual charged by the government.
What is something you've learned about yourself during the pandemic?
I first learned to embrace the slowing down of life.
What TV series are you currently binge watching?
The History of the United States Navy on streaming TV.
What is your theme song?
“Crazy” by Pylon
What is your favorite thing to do in the fall?
To go on a walk.
What is a favorite fall holiday tradition (or memory)?
My community has a good Halloween tradition.
What song is currently playing on a loop in your head?
There are many. At once. It's a cacophony.
What is something that made you laugh recently?
Everyday something makes me laugh. Usually people.
What is your go-to breakfast item?
I don’t eat breakfast. Type 1 Diabetes method that has been effective.
What is the oldest item of clothing you own?
My high school letter sweater.
Tell us about your longest friendship.
My good friend Doug and I went to Junior High, High School, Undergraduate College, and law school together. He died two years ago from a rare cancer.
What is the strangest way you've become friends with someone?
Until twenty years ago, all meetings were random and unpredictable.
Who was your childhood celebrity crush?
The June Taylor Dancers.
BOOK EXCERPT
Prologue
October 4, 1997
Emerging from his late parents’ run-down house on Inman Street, itself for years the target of local innuendo, Alvin Ridley, failed television repairman and the town bogeyman, abruptly turns to lock the door. Glancing around to see if his perceived tormentors are watching him, he pulls open the formidable homemade gate and then slowly drives a thirty-two-year-old Chevrolet pickup truck through it. Then he jumps back out and quickly closes and locks the gate with chains and a padlock.
Two-tenths of a mile down Evitt Street, he carefully drives the 25 mph speed limit right past the local volunteer fire department, visibly staffed with an ambulance and professional EMTs always on the ready, and turns south on U.S. Highway 41, away from town. Thinking better of it less than half a mile later, he pulls into the roadside monument for the 1863 Battle of Ringgold Gap and turns around.
Continuing to drive slowly, as if it were a usual lazy Saturday morning, he pulls into the ShopRite parking lot and tries the pay phone on the exterior wall. Unsuccessful with this attempt, he gets back into the truck and drives through two parking lots to a pay phone located along LaFayette Street, behind the Catoosa County Courthouse Annex and Jail. He puts coins in the phone and calls, if you believe the later speculation, a funeral home to retrieve a dead body from his house. He most certainly calls Erlanger Hospital in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee, but is instructed that this is a matter for the Catoosa County authorities.
Reluctantly he dials 911. The Catoosa County 911 office is just across the street. The operators could look out the single window facing LaFayette Street and see the stooped figure making the call.
“Catoosa 911. Where is your emergency?”
A pause, and then he answers flatly, giving his home address.
“What’s the problem?”
Again, lacking emotion, he says, “I think my wife’s passed out.”
The operator confirmed the address.
“Yeah.”
“Is she breathing?”
“I don’t think so—it’s behind the steel plant there.” He adds matter-of-factly, “I’m calling from a pay phone booth.”
“You don’t have a phone at your house?”
“There’s no phone there.”
This is the portion of the 911 call, in the detached voice of the caller, that is instantly spread around the world upon the revelation that a dead body was found in the ramshackle house on Inman Street. The immediate problem for investigators is, who was this soul? Certainly not the alleged spouse of the infamously solitary Alvin Ridley. Ridley said it was his wife, but can produce no identification for her. The body of the woman he calls his wife—Virginia—is declared dead by the coroner Vanita Hullander, who plans to take it to the hospital across the county in Fort Oglethorpe, and the next morning,deliver it to the state crime lab in Atlanta.
The portions of the 911 call not shared with the public or played on the news stations were the parts where the caller shared that his wife was, in his words, “epi-letic”, or that he ended the call with a request: “Please hurry.”
Later that morning, five miles to the south, an extremely hungover failed politician, failed husband, and marginally failing lawyer, rises. Too down and broken to even drive to Athens to see his beloved University of Georgia Bulldogs play, and seeking something for his blinding headache, he drives slowly into town.
GUEST POST
WHAT I LEARNED IN REPRESENTING THE ZENITH MAN.
I was frustrated from the outset of my attempt to represent Alvin Ridley, a former TV repairman and failed Zenith brand salesman, who was at first suspected of and then accused of keeping his wife captive in their basement for decades before killing her. He seemed hellbent on kneecapping the defenses I was trying to develop. He was recalcitrant, even outright hostile toward my efforts. He obsessed over seemingly unrelated old civil litigation, preferring to discuss it over the charges about his late wife, Virginia. He bolted from courtrooms. He took legal advice from a “salesman” on a bicycle over mine. For fifteen months, I dealt with this frustration.
I stuck with this difficult client, probably because my father liked Alvin, and certainly because our congressman, my former political opponent, did not. I had recently suffered a series of big losses, professional, political, and personal. At first, taking on Alvin was in part to spite the community who had rejected me, and now, through criminal charges, rumor, and speculation, was going after him.
I learned over time that Alvin, while unconventional, seemed to be deeply grieving his loss, in his own way, and not in the typical ways our community and culture expects us to act.
I also learned that Alvin was smart. He had been a master TV repairman in the picture tube era. But there also seemed to be a method in the madness that he was putting me through. Requiring me to study “ancient” fifteen-year-old failed civil litigation made no sense until doing so educated me about Alvin and Virginia’s long history.
I learned to accommodate Alvin and his peculiar ways in order to keep things moving toward his murder trial. He was obsessive about some things, grudge-holding, and demanding. But he was very religious, and transactional, and I learned how to employ both traits. In doing so, I learned to ignore the real and perceived disapproval of the community that I was once myself obsessed with seeking approval from. And I learned a lot of unconventional, human things that were as important as the legal stuff.
Finally, I learned that the end of the criminal trial did not mean the end of my relationship with Alvin Ridley, and we all learned over twenty years after the trial that Alvin is an adult with autism spectrum disorder. After learning that over five million neurodivergent adults in the U.S. are yet undiagnosed, I learned to write a book, and to tell this important true story so that we are all more educated, and hopefully spare others what Alvin had to go through to have not only justice, but to ultimately find support and even affection from his own community.
FOLLOW THE BLOG TOUR
Comments