Everything She Ever Wanted (24 page)

"Yes-only when he said for Mother to bring the gun down and when he

said, 'Junior!
 
Get the hell out of here!"
 
Carolyn recalled that she

saw her mother-in-law start down the steps with the gun and that she

had wrestled with her, trying to take it away from her.

"Why?"

"I didn't want her to go-I didn't want her to get killed."

Mother Allanson had been distraught.
 
Carolyn had heard her say, "If I

see him, I'll shoot him!"
 
Then she told the detectives that Mother

Allanson had said something while she was going down the stairs.

'qA%at?"

"Just before she was shot, she cried out, 'Tommy!
 
Tommy!
 
Tommy, don't

hurt Daddy!"' The detectives stared at her.
 
How could she forget that

for days?
 
And then Zellner asked quietly, "Did you hear anything else

?

She nodded.
 
"I heard a man's voice-not Daddy's-shouting, 'Shut up!

Shut up!
 
Shut up!"

"Was it Tom's voice?"

"I can't swear that it was."

Carolyn said that Mother Allanson had been carrying the hunting rifle

in front of her as if she was ready to fire it.
 
It was at that point

that everything had exploded.
 
Little Carolyn had started down the

steps after Big Carolyn, Walter had shouted to her to "Get the hell out

of here," and she had heard a blast.
 
She saw her mother-in-law just

sit down, and a burst of red begin to blossom over her left breast.

Little Carolyn had known her mother-inlaw was dead; there was so much

blood and she just sat there like a wax figure.

Carolyn said she had fled, but that she heard what seemed like five or

six consecutive shots.
 
"Pop!
 
Pop!
 
Pop!

And then she thought she had heard another blast.

The noose was tightening around Tom Allanson.
 
His former wife must

have had reasons to want to incriminate him, but would she deliberately

"remember" details to make him look even more guilty, or was she simply

coming out of her shock and telling the truth?
 
Detectives doubted that

she was the killer herself, despite the Radcliffes' suspicions.

Tom Allanson was arraigned on Monday, July 8, 1974, before East Point

Municipal Court Judge R. M. McDuffie.
 
There would be no bail.
 
On

August 2, the Fulton County grand jury returned a true bill charging

Walter Thomas Allanson with two counts of murder.
 
If convicted, he

could face the death penalty.

On August 8, Judge Charles Wofford heard arguments over whether bond

should be granted to Tom Allanson.
 
Tom had new counsel.
 
Although Cal

Long was a perfectly adequate attorney who had successfully represented

the Radcliffes in lesser matters in the past, Pat wanted Tom to be

represented by the top criminal defense lawyers in Atlanta.
 
But that

would take a great deal of money-ironically, it would take more money

than she had originally planned to spend to turn Kentwood into a

showplace.

Tom had needed four thousand dollars by July 15 to retain a new law

firm.
 
His aunt Jean had lent him two thousand dollars, but he had to

pay that back within a week.
 
Pat paid Jean back with a check that, to

her chagrin and Jean's anger, bounced.
 
To raise money for Tom's

defense, the Radcliffes mortgaged their Tell Road farm for as much as

they could get: thirty-five hundred dollars.
 
Then they put the farm up

for sale.

Tom wrote to his grandparents, Nona and Paw, begging them to help

Pat.

Despite his own predicament, it was Pat's desperation that seemed to

eat at him.
 
"Please help my Pat."
 
She had no money to pay the

utilities on the farm, and no "spending money."
 
Paw and Nona were slow

to respond with money, although they were backing Tom emotionally.
 
The

elderly Allansons were the only resource Tom had.
 
Pat had quickly

managed to alienate Jean Boggs by dismissing any of her suggestions

about how to help Tom.
 
Tom explained to Paw that Pat would go to work

in a minute if she could, but a job would kill a woman in such delicate

health.
 
She was already selling off her precious antiques to help

him.

Still Paw held tight to his cash.

Unsure of where the money for legal representation would come from, Pat

nevertheless retained the firm of Garland, Nuckolls and Kadish,

assuring them that she had adequate funds.
 
She wanted Tom free, and

somehow she would find a way.
 
Reuben A. Garland was the canny, grand

old man of the firm, and his son, Colonel Edward T. M. Garland, was a

brilliant and colorful man in his late thirties.
 
You couldn't do any

better in Atlanta than to have the Garlands represent you.

Father and son would be assisted by John Nuckolls, who now pleaded for

Tom's release while he awaited trial.
 
Pat was there in the courtoom,

along with Margureitte and the colonel and old Paw Allanson.
 
Nuckolls

argued that Tom had absolutely no record of violent behavior prior to

the crimes he stood accused of.
 
And he was sorely needed at home.

"Your Honor," he pleaded.
 
"There's a serious financial problem in

connection with that stable [Kentwood] due to a mortgage.
 
The farm was

purchased five months ago.
 
It was purchased on a down payment with a

balloon and that balloon is coming due, and they are fixing to lose

that farm because of the inability to meet the notes.

Even worse, Nuckolls pointed out, both Tom's wife and his grandmother

were in very poor physical condition, and his continued incarceration

wasn't helping.
 
"Your Honor, I have two letters from doctors

concerning his [Tom's] wife's condition."

Nuckolls explained that Pat was suffering from pulmonary emboli, a

release of clots into the bloodstream that would ultimately pass into

her heart and lungs.
 
"She has had open heart surgery and has an

umbrella valve implanted in the heart.
 
Her condition is reported by

her doctors at Emory Hospital and her private physician, Dr. -William

J. Taylor, as undoubtedly terminal with a life expectancy of two years

or less."

Pat certainly appeared to be ill.
 
Since the shootings, she had lost so

much weight that she looked like a skeleton.
 
Her mother and her aunts

had tried everything they could to get her to eat; if she did eat, she

threw up.
 
Her aunt Thelma made her special homemade soup, and Pat

couldn't even hold that down.

The defense had a number of prestigious character witnesses, including

Colonel and Mrs. Radcliffe, standing by to vouch for Tom's

gentleness.

Nona and Paw wanted him out on bond too.
 
If he were to be released,

his counsel assured the court that he would go straight to Kentwood and

stay there, leaving only to assist his defense team from time to

time.

William Weller, for the Fulton County District Attorney's Office,

quickly erased the picture of Tom Allanson as gentle, describing him as

"a mountain of a man" who was charged with "blowing his mother's heart

out."
 
Although he had known Tom and his family for years, Judge

Wofford reluctantly agreed with the state that there would be no bond

and that Tom would remain in jail, but he set the earliest trial date

possible', the first Monday morning after Labor Day: September 9,

1974.

Tom's defense team had lost only the first round, but already Ed

Garland could sense trouble.
 
Although she obviously hadn't the

foggiest grasp of the way the law worked, Pat Allanson clearly didn't

trust her husband's lawyers.
 
She would not allow Tom to confer with

Garland unless she were present.
 
She watched him like a hawk,

monitoring and editing his responses even as they emerged from his

mouth.
 
She spoke for him whenever possible.
 
Why was she so concerned

about what her husband might say?
 
She was almost hysterical about

losing "her Tom.

Garland detected that Tom ached to talk to him alone, that the man had

a heavy load on his mind.
 
There might well be extenuating

circumstances, something a top defense lawyer could build a case on,

but Pat seemed to be afraid to let Tom speak freely.
 
In her zeal to

protect him, she became a defense lawyer's nightmare.

Worse, Ed Garland could see that Tom trusted his wife implicitly.
 
The

man was addled by love, consumed by love; he would gladly die for

her.

Ed Garland sincerely hoped it would not come to that.

In less than a year, Pat had fallen in love with Tom, married him, they

had purchased Kentwood Morgan Farms, and now it was all gone.

She was far too ill to live in Kentwood alone, and she couldn't

'possibly do the chores or handle the horses by herself.
 
What was the

use?
 
They were probably going to lose Kentwood anyway.

Without Tom, she could never meet the balloon payments.
 
When fall came

round again, Pat was back living with Margureitte and the colonel on

Tell Road, while Ronnie stayed on in Zebulon so the place wouldn't be

empty and a target for vandals.
 
He wouldn't be sixteen until November,

but he had always hastened to help his mother.
 
He never refused

anything she asked of him.

Tom Allanson awaited trial in a sweltering jail cell.

Margureitte Radcliffe traced all the misery in her family to 1974-to

the passionate alliance between Pat and Tom and the violence that

followed so soon after.
 
Once things started to slide, it was ll:ke an

avalanche.
 
A pebble or two at first, and then the flowers and grass