The winding footpath that once connected the next-door homes of the two men is now overgrown, lost in a tangle of waist-high weeds and the shadows of the ancient oaks that green this serene Cedar Creek Lake area. Tom Cherry, wandering his back yard with his dogs, points toward the property he had helped clear in preparation for the home where his aging and notorious father, Bobby Frank Cherry, used to live. He takes a long drag on one of the Kools he chain-smokes and shakes his head. The dogs rush to his side, barking in concert, as if recognizing some hidden torment Tom...
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Top: AP/Wide World Below: Carlton Stowers
In September 1963, four young girls attending services at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church were murdered when an explosion ripped through the church. Above, firemen and ambulance workers tend to the dead and examine the aftermath. Below, Tom Cherry, the son of Bobby Frank Cherry, has a standard answer to those who ask if his father really lit the dynamite that day: "I wasn't there."