Mississippi Delta: A Southern Gothic Family Mystery

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As true crime lovers, especially Southern
crime, y'all know that just because the

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police can't solve a murder doesn't mean
other people won't find someone to blame.

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In the newest upcoming season of Witnessed
Devil in the Ditch, journalist Laris and

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Campbell returns to her Mississippi hometown to
re examine one of its most notorious unsolved

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cold cases, the murder of her
grandmother Presh. She was killed on Friday

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the thirteenth, and her parlor the
likely murder weapon, a brass candlestick.

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From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, Witnessed Devil in the Ditch is available

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now. Subscribe on Apple podcasts to
binge all episodes now, or listen weekly

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wherever you get your podcasts. Now
Sit tight, I'm about to play you

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an excerpt from episode one, where
Campbell starts back at the scene of her

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grandmother's murder. Here we go.
The last time I saw Prussia my eyes.

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I was giving her a hug in
her driveway. My great aunt's experience

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was very different. She was at
the crime scene. Do you remember the

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last time you saw her? Today? She was killed. In fact,

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she found her sister's body. She
and Presh were close, especially in terms

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of geography. They lived on the
same street, just a couple of blocks

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apart. They spoke on the phone
daily and saw each other almost as often.

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That day, they had plans they
were going to see this Beauga Pola

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operator, a hairdresser at the salon
whose husband had just died. My great

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aunt says she had been expecting Presh
to pick her up around three thirty that

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afternoon, so earlier that morning she
gets some errands done. She runs down

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to Daddle's, a dress shop,
to pick up a blouse, then swings

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by the grocery store next to it. It all takes about forty five minutes.

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When she gets home, she makes
a few calls, then eats lunch

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with her son, who lives with
her. When she's done eating, she

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calls Presh, who doesn't answer,
which my aunt thought was odd enough that

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she tried Presh and some of precious
friends several more times over the next three

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hours, trying to track her down
and which I'll do. In between lunch

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and sitting on the couch, around
three I got ready for to come get

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me, and I waited and waited
for her to pick me up, and

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she didn't come and didn't come.
She doesn't show and I said, I

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think, I'm oh, go to
the house. Let's see what's hold up.

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So Precious sister says, she tells
her son to wait at the house

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in case Presh happens to arrive while
she's gone to check on her. So

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I went over with ay she would
lie out the floor with a rag of

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a face. She finds precious face
is covered with a dish towel for a

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minute. Precious Sister says, she's
confused. Is she doing this some type

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of workout? Big on exercise?
Said yeah, and you if you're able

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to call it that, And I
said, what a light are you doing

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on the floor? And I took
the cloth off of a facy she was

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dead. I was so stunned,
you can imagine. And I'm called the

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abulous service and I said, my
sister has been killed. And she hits

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on the floor. Come of.
I know it was in the evening time

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and we were about to get off
and it was a Friday. Ricky Spratlin,

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now retired from the Greenville Police Department, then lieutenant chief of Detectives and

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one of the first officers on the
scene. It was really stormy outside.

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It was. It was terrible.
Prussia's house sat on two corner lots right

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in the center of Greenville. Her
driveway also ran the length of the property,

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making it more or less a short
cut between the neighborhood and a busy

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four lean street. We could sit
at the kitchen table and watch cars cut

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through all the time. I think
it of eliagnos and hydrangeas made it easy

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to forget how centrally located you were. But from the outside it was probably

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the most visible and accessible home in
Greenville. They've been direct me out to

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the back of the house showing what
they first found. I noticed that there

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was a lawn chair or the newspaper
and a coffee cups laying there. Okay,

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so then they took me into the
sun rain, which nothing was locked,

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and that's when I saw she was
laying on the floor. She suffered

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a blunt force trauma right right on
the front forehead area. The hole it

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left was bad enough that officers first
thought she'd been shot. They began to

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examine her surroundings. Most of her
house appeared in order. A few feet

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behind her body was the breakfast room
where she displayed a lot of her silver

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in china. That room was totally
undisturbed. The only sign of disarray was

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her purse. It was open on
the table above her, its contents spilling

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onto a wooden chair below, coins, an address book, an empty bank

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envelope. Investigators began to look for
a murder weapon right away. Well,

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he looked there were trying to find
what the weapon would have been. But

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she had a lot of stuff in
that house. Press wasn't much of a

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housekeeper, and she loved antiques.
Every surface was covered with something glass or

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brass or silver. I knew she
had had a lot of candleholders and things

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around, and and you know,
I looked at one. I said,

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you know, it could have been
used, and we want to have and

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collected it, sent it off.
Friends and neighbors had started gathering in the

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street outside Pressio's house, and my
family began making their way to Greenville.

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Well, my first reaction when I
heard about precious murder was that your daddy

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would never be okay, my mom, she and my dad were living two

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hours away in Jackson when Prescius is
killed, pretty much a blur my dad

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again, I can remember your mother
saying he loved her so much. So

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at that point, I think we
both decided we needed to pack a suitcase

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because we were going to be there
for several days. I remember putting up

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there and there were lots of cars, and I got out and somebody grabbed

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me and told him. Prescio's sister
was over at one of the neighbor's houses.

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She wasn't doing well. It's pretty
much a basket case she was.

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She was kind of shaking, it
was. She looked the most nervous I've

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ever seen her. Look she had
just found Presciu Dad. I mean flashes

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in your brain. I mean,
there you are, and you keep seeing

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the body, you know, whereas
we just have we just miss her.

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We don't have that grizzly, horrifying
image stuck in our brains. And the

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way her body was left was a
big clue for detectives. She was placed.

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Of course, she wouldn't look so
bad. Her feet were together and

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there was a dish rag over her
face. That tells me, right there,

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whoever did it? Newer and constant
us there looking like that. That's

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some of the training I've had.
If you see something like that, that's

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going to be your first clue to
keep in your notes in your mind.

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From Sony Music, Entertainment, and
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