He traces every step that Cobb and Willard would take during their preliminary hearing. Carl Lee cases the Ford County Courthouse in Clanton. Cat doesn't ask any questions, he just takes Carl Lee and Lester out on the town, and by the end of the day, there's a fully automatic M-16 in the trunk of Carl Lee's car. Carl Lee asks Cat for an M-16, like they used in Vietnam together. Cat is a big-time strip club owner who also deals in arms and drugs. He drives to Memphis with Lester to visit an old friend named Cat. They don't take his threats seriously.īut Carl Lee does mean his threat very seriously. Both Walls and Jake agree that he's saying what any father would say at this juncture. Out of obligation, Jake informs Sheriff Walls that Carl Lee told him he's thinking about killing those two boys. It would be much harder to acquit Carl Lee as a Black man who killed two white men. Carl Lee feels confident that Jake could get him off, like he did his brother, but Jake explains that Lester killed a Black man. He explains that he would be tried for murder if he killed them-capital murder-and would thus face the death penalty. Jake advises Carl Lee against any rash decisions. Shortly after hearing about the rape, Carl Lee approaches Jake and asks him what would happen if he were to take matters into his own hands with regards to Cobb and Willard. A few years back, Jake represented Carl Lee Hailey's brother, Lester Hailey, in a murder case, so Jake knows the Hailey family fairly well, and he's pretty shaken to hear that Carl Lee's little girl, Tonya, has been raped. Jake is married to Carla, and they have a four-year-old girl named Hanna. His criminal law practice is finally getting off the ground and slowly earning a good reputation in the region. Meanwhile, Jake Brigance is a young lawyer living in a picturesque Victorian home with a shiny new five-thousand-dollar coat of paint on it. Cobb and Willard's trials are set, and the case seems very clear-these two are guilty. Walls arrests Cobb and Willard, and after a brief interrogation, he produces a signed confession from Willard. Sheriff Ozzie Walls sends an informant into Cobb's preferred honky tonk, where he's already bragging about the rape to the other men at the bar. He holds her until the ambulance arrives.Ĭobb and Willard are quickly pursued by Clanton police. In the house, he finds his little girl in a critical state. But when he arrives home from work that day, he is greeted by a squad car in his driveway. Gwen is worried that Tonya's been kidnapped, but Carl Lee isn't concerned because the kids have gone missing for a night before and always turned up from a friend's house. She's alive, but in critical condition and rushed to the hospital.Įarlier that day Tonya's father, Carl Lee Hailey, receives a call at work, at the lumber mill, from his wife Gwen. She's soon found and brought to her family's home. They panic and drive all over town looking for a place to throw her into the river, but they can't find a spot without witnesses, so they just leave her in the road. The next morning, they try to lynch Tonya, but the branch snaps. They keep her tied up through the night, occasionally throwing beer cans at her, or urinating on her. Cobb and Willard kidnap Tonya, drive her into the woods, tie her up, and beat and rape her until they fall asleep. Tearing through the backroads, high and drunk, they ride up on ten-year-old Tonya Hailey as she's bringing a bag of groceries back to her family's home. Small-time drug dealer and recently released ex-convict Bill Ray Cobb and his best pal Willard take Cobb's new pickup truck on a joyride through town. It's the early '80s in the small Mississippi town of Clanton, in Ford County, Mississippi.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |