Crooked Snake: The Life and Crimes of Albert Lepard

by Lovejoy Boteler

In 1968, during Albert Lepard's fifth escape from a life sentence at Parchman Penitentiary, he kidnapped Lovejoy Boteler, then eighteen years old, from his family's farm in Grenada, Mississippi. Three decades later, still beset by half-buried memories of that time, Boteler began researching his kidnapper's nefarious, sordid life to discover how and why this terrifying abduction occurred.

Crooked Snake: The Life and Crimes of Albert Lepard is the true story of Lepard, sentenced to life in Parchman for the murder of seventy-four-year-old Mary Young in 1959. During the course of his sentence, Lepard escaped from prison six times in fourteen years.

In Crooked Snake, Boteler pieces together the story of this cold-blooded murderer's life using both historical records and personal interviews--over seventy in all--with ex-convicts who gravitated to and ran with Lepard, the family members who fed and sheltered the fugitive during his escapes, the law officers who hunted him, and the regular folks who were victimized in his terrible wake.

Throughout Crooked Snake, Boteler reveals his kidnapper's hardscrabble childhood and tracks his whereabouts before his incarceration and during his jailbreaks. Lepard's escapes take him to Florida, Michigan, Kansas, California, and Mexico. Crooked Snake captures a slice of history and a landscape that is fast disappearing. These vignettes describe Mississippi's countryside and spirit, ranging from sharecropper family gatherings in Attala County's Seneasha Valley to the twenty-thousand-acre Parchman farm and its borderlands teeming with alligator, panther, bear, and wild boar.

Genres: True Crime

225 pages, Hardcover

First published February 19, 2019

Reviews

[Charlie Spillers · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-written and fascinating book.

“I don’t know how many people were kidnapped in Mississippi in 1968, but I was one of them,” writes author Lovejoy Boteler in the first sentence of the “Crooked Snake: The Life and Crimes of Albert Lepard” (University Press of Mississippi.) Kidnapped at 18 by murderous escaped convicts, Boteler pens a fascinating account of the life and crimes of one of his kidnappers, Albert Lepard. In this remarkable book the author puts readers in the minds of convicts, lawmen, and dozens of victims. He takes us along on desperate escapes, intense manhunts, and lives scarred by crimes Lepard committed.

Sentenced to life in Parchman for the murder of an elderly woman, Albert Lepard escaped from prison six times in 14 years. During one of those escapes, Lepard kidnapped Lovejoy Boteler, stuck a gun in his ribs, and forced him to drive Lepard and another escaped convict from Grenada to Memphis. During the trip, young Botelor’s quick thinking averted an armed robbery and possibly another murder.

In “Crooked Snake,” Boteler pieces together the story of this cold-blooded murderer’s life using historical records and personal interviews with ex-convicts who ran with Lepard, family members who sheltered the fugitive during his escapes, the lawmen who hunted him, and the people he victimized.

[Lynn Shurden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read and well written. Having worked at Parchman as a librarian in the 80’s, I found it to be very interesting.

[Mary Rebekah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I might be biased as Lovejoy is my uncle, but the history lover in me found this to be a fascinating read.. I knew Lovejoy was a wonderful storyteller, but he is also a very good writer.

[Tara Woodward · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was actually a good book. I usually don't read this kind of books, but it was an easy and interesting read.

[Greg S · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such an unexpected and wonderful surprise. It is a genuine window into the complicated real life of Albert LePard, a poor man born into difficult circumstances that led to poor choices, a life of crime, incarceration, and numerous escapes from the Parchman Farm State penitentiary in Mississippi.

The author, Lovejoy Boteler, became a victim of Albert’s when he was 18 years old in the late 1960’s and lived to tell the tale (Not a spoiler as it is mentioned in the opening sentence of the book).

Not only does Lovejoy tell his story, but first he shares many compelling stories about Albert and those he crossed paths with. The book does an amazing job of bringing to life what life was like for those surrounded and impacted by Albert from the time of his birth, amidst the Great Depression, to his last escape and time on the run in the mid 1970’s.

The stories within are told with such vivid imagery and care that, as a reader, you can easily immerse yourself in the character of the time, places and people within. This really is not something that most true crime novels tend to achieve with their facts and sterile statements.

Don’t get me wrong I am drawn to true crime books as I am interested is why people do the things they do, and have read many, but this book felt very different, in a good way.

This is definitely a worthwhile read that tells a very sad human story. By the end of the book I was quite moved and felt a real compassion and empathy for Albert’s victims, his family, and surprisingly, the tragic life of the criminal himself.

[Arthur W. Renkel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished this last night and as a person who lives in the Mississippi delta near where most if this book takes place and a person who loves Mississippi culture and history I loved this! A beautifully written and researched tale that reads like melted butter on a hot knife. Oddly, there have been numerous escapes from notorious Parchmans prison farm in the last few days, but nothing compares to Albert Lepard! What a sociopath! This was Boteler's first book and he was in it! One can only hope he sees fit to write more books, especially with Mississippi locales.

[Andrew Neely · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read. Much of what was interesting came in the evocation of the particular time and place evoked --- mostly Attala County, Mississippi and Parchman prison, but also backwoods Mississippi generally from from 1950s to the 1970s (roughly). The author really does a good job putting you in that place.

The author also makes you think twice about a guy who became a pretty bad hombre (he murdered in cold blood). Americans have often loved their outlaw stories. This book does a good job interrogating this strange facet without ever directly saying it is interrogating it.

[C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

4-5*

Wasn't expecting to think much of this,BUT, it is actually a very interesting background into a 1960s convicted murderer and how his life experiences shaped him into doing what he did...so much so that by the end you almost feel sympathy for him... The story had quite a lot of detailed action and would be a great film or tv show to document Albert Lepard, his family and the 50s/60s/70s of Mississippi.

I found this by accident, if you do too, read it (or listen to it on audiobook) .

[Ricardo Shimoda · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's an interesting book about brutal lives in a brutal part of the country with brutal people and brutal circumstances. I'm not sure this book needed to be read. It definitely needed to be written - because it serves more as a theraphy for the author then as a story for the readers

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book.

[Sarah D Bunting · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like a 3.5 but them’s the breaks. Overwritten but evocative of a time and place. Full review at bestevidence.fyi next week!

[Susan DePue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent story telling. The writer's descriptions take you into the story.

[Marjorie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never knew his many escapes.

[Bobby Daugherty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Biography of a low-level criminal that escaped prison numerous times. He initially killed an 74 year old woman during a robbery. He escaped numerous times and committed numerous robberies.

[Alesha Cary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it is generally very interesting when a kidnapping victim lives to tell the tale, and then chooses to tell the tale in his own way. Such is the story of Lovejoy Boteler, which sets out one day to tell the story of his kidnapper, Albert Lepard.

What is surprising about the book is it’s deep level of respect for the central character, especially given the nature of his crimes. As you learn about Lepard’s early years, it is impossible not to feel empathy for his suffering and abuse. This quickly turns to a cold sort of shock when Lepard brutally murders his aunt, with the help of a cousin.

There is an odd sort of Faulknerian dignity to Albert Lepard. You can’t help being a bit in awe of him…and you definitely wouldn’t want to meet him on a road at night. Or in the daytime. It is an odd, grudging respect created by a writer who personally has reasons for wanting to connect with this man.

As Boteler tells recounts his hours with Lepard, there is a definite sense of how close he came to death, and as that sinks in the truest glimpse of his reasoning appears: he let me live. Why? I don’t know that he ever finds the answer to that question, but he seems to find an even more important one.

Near the end, Lizzie asks Lovejoy Boteler a question: “Why you chasing a ghost?” His answer resonated with me. I imagine it will with you too.

“Sometimes you have to catch a memory to let it go.”

Indeed.

[Mary Coker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good reading.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good story, one that ends in Scott County, Mississippi where I grew up. (Nice bonus!)