The Southern Women Who Shocked Me More Than the Killers
And other things I learned making 40 episodes of a Southern true crime podcast
Last week, we released the 40th and final episode of Season 4 of Gone South. Over the past year, I interviewed drug smugglers, murderers, Ponzi schemers, con men, cemetery thieves, DEA and FBI agents, and Dick Harpootlian.
But the people I can’t stop thinking about were a handful of Southern women, mostly over 60. They were fierce, hilarious, profane and intimate. They told me things I didn’t expect to hear, sometimes seconds after answering the phone.
Despite its classification as a true-crime podcast, Gone South has always been about characters. And this season, the most unforgettable characters were women who’d seen it all—and didn’t care what you thought about them. Here are a few that stand out.
Toni Thompson | “Batman and Darryl, Part 2”
This was the episode about Darryl Smith, the medical student turned speed manufacturer for the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang. Toni dated Darryl in the early 80s, and she hid him in her apartment for months after he escaped from prison. “I was happy to do it,” she bluntly told me when I asked if she felt any uneasiness about harboring a fugitive. Nor did she take issue with Darryl’s decision to shoot an attorney while on the lam. “The guy was an asshole,” she laughed, before adding: “I mean, sometimes people deserve what they get. Okay?”
Monte McCoin | “Breaking Into Prison, Part 2”
Monte dated Alex Friedman in the years before he broke into Nashville’s new prison and stashed guns and “escape kits” in the walls for some reason. Mere seconds after I got Monte on the phone, she was divulging the most intimate details of her sex life with Alex. After noting that their BDSM relationship was entirely consensual, she told me, “50 Shades of Grey would have been a nursery rhyme compared to the types of things that we did together.”
Claire Ursin | “Concerned Citizens”
If you listened to Season 1, “Who Killed Margaret Coon?,” you may remember Claire. She took Margaret’s aerobics class in the mid-80s and worshipped the ground Margaret walked on. We caught up with Claire again for this episode about the fall of St. Tammany Parish’s most powerful politicians, including the disgraced DA Walter Reed.
Claire dated Walter for about 10 years, before reporting him to the FBI for allegedly trying to blackmail her. Her cooperation contributed to Walter’s conviction on public corruption charges. “I know more about Walter than he knows about himself,” she confessed. “Which is why I’m probably going to go missing one day.”
Diane Fanning | “Interview with a Serial Killer”
Diane is a prolific true-crime author who struck up a years-long correspondence with serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells. She also helped exonerate a mother wrongly convicted of killing her son. What stuck with me most was Diane’s inability to emotionally detach from the people she writes about. “I cry with them,” she told me. “I get angry with them. Because this kind of human trauma is so defining to those people's lives, I can't help but be exposed to it and have it define mine as well.”
Mary Jane Marcantel | Multiple episodes
I’ve already talked a lot here about Mary Jane, who passed away in June at the age of 77 (see this post and this one you don’t know who I’m talking about). So I’ll just say that I miss her voice and no-nonsense attitude. Getting to know her this season reminded me why we tell these stories.
Of course, inspiring women were just one of the takeaways from Season 4. Here are some others.
Northerners Need to Talk About the South
About halfway through the season, I realized something odd: most of the people I’d interviewed weren’t Southerners at all. They were Northerners who’d experienced something wild, criminal, or transformative in the South. And they needed to talk about it.
Was I avoiding actual Southerners? Or were Southerners just less likely to view the unusual things that happened to them in the South as story-worthy? I’m still not sure. But it reinforced my own belief that, for many of us from the North, life tends to get more interesting once we cross the Mason-Dixon line.
The Surveillance State Has Its Perks
In the 1980s, women just vanished. No pings, no cameras, no way to trace them. One minute they were running a household. The next, gone — and no one could prove what happened.
I have a deep nostalgia for the 80s. But you can say one thing for 2025: Women disappear a lot less than they did back then.
Criminals: Surprisingly Relatable
Jimmy Cox was a Mafia hitman. Darryl Smith made speed for bikers and shot a man. Dickie Lynn smuggled tons of cocaine and got seven life sentences. And I love all three of them.
I didn’t know these men during their criminal heydays. So I can’t be sure if prison softened them, or if they were always good-hearted men who just made disastrous choices. But their stories forced me to wonder: If a few things in my life had gone differently, could that have been me?
Miracles Happen
A grieving mother just happens to hear investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell on NPR. Diane Fanning just happens to see a 20/20 segment that results in freeing an innocent woman. A history professor realizes he’s living in the exact spot where a crucial scene in his book takes place.
This season didn’t make me a believer exactly, but it provided some of the best evidence I’ve seen for the existence of some kind of higher power.
Louisiana: Still #1
We tried to branch out this season, and we succeeded, covering stories from the Carolinas, Tennessee, the Florida Keys, Alabama, and elsewhere. But more than half our episodes touched Louisiana — especially New Orleans. And honestly, that felt right.
As someone put it on Spotify: “Louisiana is the abandoned crack house of the United States. No surprise that so many episodes of this season have taken place there.” That may be true.
But I tend to see the state more like a gifted pro athlete who’s managed to thrive into his early 40s through a combination of superior genetics, unpredictability and a touch of madness. I have a feeling we’ll be back for Season 5.
That’s it for now. Next time, I’ll share a few things this season taught me about storytelling—and what I want to do differently in Season 5.
Jed
It’s been a fantastic season. I look forward to the new episodes every week. It will be hard waiting for Season 5. All the best