‘The Man No One Believed' recounts a shocking murder and delayed justice

Washington Post

2 days ago

Justice gone off the rails in the rural South? Not surprising, we think, surmising that a Black man with limited resources has been convicted of a crime he didn't commit. But it turns out that corruption, incompetence and bad luck imperil a wide range of victims.
The title character in Joshua Sharpe's involving but labyrinthine work of nonfiction, 'The Man No One Believed,' happens to be White. Dennis Perry, a carpenter, was found guilty in 2003 of murdering Herbert and Thelma Swain, a Black couple who were shot in 1985 at the Rising Daughter Baptist Church in front of numerous witnesses.
The killing shocked the South Georgia community of Spring Bluff, stymied investigators and reverberated through the state for decades. The crime was featured on the television show 'Unsolved Mysteries' in 1988, and 30 years later it was the subject of 'Undisclosed,' a multi-episode podcast produced by the Georgia Innocence Project. It took nearly two decades to put someone behind bars — and it was, we know from the start of Sharpe's book, the wrong man.
All that time, the motive remained baffling. Sharpe describes the Swains' church as 'a place of refuge against the terror of Jim Crow.' Herbert Swain was the deacon, and the couple were beloved by their neighbors.
Yet there were almost too many possible motives and suspects. Spring Bluff was nestled along a popular drug-smuggling route, and the Swains had a family tie to a man police had linked to that world. Could their killing have been an attempt to a deliver a message to a delinquent or turncoat drug dealer? Was it a murder-for-hire plot with an eye on life insurance money? An armed robbery gone wrong? Or possibly a racially motivated hate crime?
As Sharpe repeatedly stresses, investigators initially discounted the hate-crime theory, which could have led in a fruitful direction. Despite the shadow of drug smuggling, the town was 'one of the most peaceful, low-crime corners' in its South Georgia county. In the mid-1980s, Sharpe writes, Black people there 'didn't voice their concerns around white people,' and 'white community members liked to imagine that racism was history.' As a result, investigators had 'enormous blind spots,' Sharpe suggests, and 'didn't think racism made much sense as a motive.'
As they sorted through tips, suspects, reported confessions and conflicting witness statements, what followed was a 'seemingly endless investigation fraught with lies, missteps, and tragedy.'
One suspect, Donnie Barrentine, an alleged drug smuggler convicted on gun charges in another case, had reportedly boasted of complicity in the double murder. But he denied any involvement to police. Another, Erik Sparre, a serial domestic abuser and avowed white supremacist, was caught on tape confessing to the murders. But he, too, proclaimed his innocence — and produced a work-related alibi.
As the years passed, the community clamored for closure, the Swains' relatives and friends endured an agonizing wait, and witnesses died. In 1998, a former sheriff's deputy, Dale Bundy, was hired to reexamine the case. Working on a tip, he homed in on Perry, the carpenter, whom previous investigators cleared.
The evidence was sufficiently flimsy that prosecutors offered Perry a sweetheart plea deal. Perry, knowing he was innocent, decided to take his chances at trial. Big mistake. In the end, the jury chose to believe the testimony of a mentally unstable (and possibly bribed) witness, even though no forensic evidence — or plausible motive — tied Perry to the crime and he, too, had an alibi.
Perry escaped the death penalty only by promising not to appeal his conviction. He got two life sentences instead. It was a bitter fate mitigated only by a loyal family, a devoted new wife and a congenial cellmate. And the hope that, in the end, justice would prevail.
Enter Sharpe, an award-winning investigative reporter for the Atlanta Constitution-Journal who grew up just 40 miles from Rising Daughter Baptist Church. Sharpe had an emotional, as well as geographic, connection to the story: One of his great-uncles had died in prison after being convicted of a murder that his family believed he didn't commit.
Sharpe had never heard of the Georgia church murders before the Georgia Innocence Project approached him in August 2019. In the face of intense cost-cutting pressures, his editors at the newspaper gave him the time and resources to pursue the story. As he dove into the voluminous file and knocked on doors, he learned that the crime had sparked 'multiple confessions by different suspects, major disagreements between the detectives, and a rumor mill that was still spinning.'
Much of 'The Man No One Believed' describes the investigations prior to Sharpe's involvement. But its serpentine narrative really springs to life when he digs into the case. Probably his greatest contribution was to discredit the alibi of a former suspect, who had claimed to be working at a grocery store that night. A year after the crime, one investigator had confirmed the story with a phone call to a man he believed to be the suspect's boss. But Sharpe discovered that none of the boss's identifying details were accurate, and the actual supervisor had no memory of any such call. Could the man who vouched for the suspect have been the suspect himself? There was no proof to the contrary.
Improved forensic technology supplied another important piece of the puzzle. The Georgia Innocence Project managed to procure a DNA sample from the mother of that same suspect. It matched a hair sample found at the murder scene. Despite the district attorney's resistance, the new evidence was enough, finally, to exonerate Perry, who spent more than two decades in prison before his release.
In December 2024, another suspect was arrested in the case. (Spoiler alert: It was Sparre, whose DNA was found at the scene, and whose trial is pending.) Even after all the investigations, the motivations behind the double murder remain murky, and it is unclear whether other people may have been involved.
In the end, 'The Man No One Believed' inspires powerful, mixed emotions: fury at the failings of the justice system, and gratitude for organizations like the Georgia Innocence Project and indefatigable journalists like Sharpe. He deserves the victory lap he has taken in this illuminating book.
Julia M. Klein is a cultural reporter and critic in Philadelphia whose work has appeared in the Atlantic, the Nation, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Slate, Mother Jones and other publications.