Column: Memories from my first witnessed murder trial were recently brought full-circle

Editor’s observe: This column is the primary in a four-part sequence.The primary time I ever sat in a courtroom for a Southern Gothic homicide trial, I used to be 17.Again then, I didn’t know there was a reputation for it as a result of I had but to learn “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner or “A Good Man Is Exhausting To Discover” by Flannery O’Connor. My first Southern Gothic expertise — the place isolation, violence, grotesque creatures or conditions, oppression and small cities come collectively to create distinctive tales that always have moments of darkish humor — is memorable.As a excessive schooler, I used to be in a gifted program that was extraordinarily difficult and guided by an exquisite instructor named Mrs. Betty Childs.