Old, scratchy photo from the 50s of Bronson County in northeastern Alabama, featuring a muddy stretch of old Highway 5 and a sign pointing out its popular Murder Spot (lighted until 2:00 AM on the weekends).
This is believed to show the third sign erected after the first came down during an out-of-season toad-strangler, and the second was accidentally backed over while the driver of the rig was taking what we now call a “selfie,” but which back then had no special name distinguishing it from an everyday “snapshot.”
In an effort to keep down costs to the underfunded sheriff’s department, in 1958 a secluded area off of Highway 5, between Boone’s Hump and the Kettle Woods, was designated as an official “murder spot” or “death ditch.”
Folks were encouraged to either kill their victim upon arrival at the spot, or to lug the body to the spot after the killing, where bodies could be collected en masse every second Thursday.
For a time, other states to adopt the murder spot philosophy included: Georgia, Virginia, West Virginia, Florida, Maryland, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee, along with demi-states such as Libertarum, Teslavia and Gruenwaldia, until the interference of activist judges.