TRUE CRIME: Satanic Orgies, Murder, and The Occult Wait For You At Corpsewood Manor

Back in 1977, a home was built by a known Satanist couple in the rural part of Georgia. Secluded and hidden from the big city, the couple could worship their god as they saw fit. Hand-built in 1977 by Dr. Charles L. Scudder, a retired professor at Loyola University in Chicago, and his partner Joseph “Joey” Odom, the mansion served as the couple’s dream home until their deaths.

The couple would invite others over to their house for LSD fueled orgies in their “Pink Room” located in the 3 story chicken coup on the property grounds. Locals speculated on what was REALLY going on their for many years but the truth was far more terrifying than they could have imagined.

Dr. Scudder and his dog Beelzebub.

In December of 1982, the pair were gruesomely murdered, along with their two bullmastiffs, as a result of an attempted robbery by two acquaintances, Avery Brock and Tony West. Both mastiff’s were shot in the head while sleeping beside the furnace. The dogs names were Beelzebub and Azathoth(named after a demon created by author H.P. Lovecraft). The more deputies looked around the house, the more Satanic items and statues were discovered. Also the couple had a huge library of mainly Occult related books about Satanism.

A painting was found that depicted Dr. Scrudder bound and gagged with 5 bullet holes in his head and was splayed out on the canvas. Coincidently…or perhaps not, Dr. Scudder was found next to this painting with the exact same amount of bullet holes in his head and tied up the same exact way.

The whole house had been ransacked. Letters were found between Dr. Scudder and various pen pals all over the country.

During the ensuing investigation and trial – fueled partially by a local media circus – a mythos evolved in which the victims were vilified as “evil devil worshippers,” drawing from Dr. Scudder’s interest in the occult and the pair’s open homosexuality. Kenneth Avery Brock was brought into custody 8 days after the murder and gave a full confession to the murders. It was later discovered that Brock had been a frequent guest of the Doctor’s and was building a relationship with him. The case came to an end on Christmas Eve when a man approached a deputy asking to be taken in. It was Samuel Tony West the other accomplice of the murders Tony West was a friend of Brock’s and convinced him that Dr. Scudder was abusing him (Brock was only 17 when all this was occurring) taking advantage of him and could be blackmailed for this. The two were hopeful that the Doctor had money in the house as well as various riches. By Christmas Day 1982, both murderers were arrested and the mystery behind who killed these two Satanist’s in the woods of Georgia.

Despite having been very well-liked in the community by those who knew them, the horrendous mythos continues to this day, and many locals still refer to the area as, “Devil Worshippers’ Mountain,” and claim that taking a brick from the property will lead to being cursed for life.

A narrow gravel drive, unmarked after all these years, leads to this site of forgotten history in the woods. Following a turn marked by a large stone with a cross and bearing the initials “CW” in spray paint, pilgrims to the site pass through the forest via trail before arriving at the ruined remains of the couple’s mansion.

Though a fire destroyed much of the manor’s non-brick elements in the mid-1980s, much still remains intact apart from the main house; the homestead’s original outhouse, well room, and gazebo, still rising from the middle of the north Georgia mountains, suggesting the squandered potential not of devil worshippers, but two people who simply received no peace in death.

As of this writing the site of the Manor is little more than over grown by the forest around it. Be warned as this is private property and you must get permission to visit.