In 1985, a white man walked into a South Georgia church and brutally murdered Harold and Thelma Swain, two pillars of the area’s Black community. The killer vanished into the night. For fifteen years, the case remained unsolved. Then authorities zeroed in on Dennis Perry, a carpenter who grew up nearby. Convicted with devastatingly flawed evidence, Perry received a double life sentence.

When award-winning journalist and South Georgia native Joshua Sharpe retraces the case, he discovers a winding path of corruption, devastating missteps, and secrets. Driven by the pursuit of the truth, Sharpe’s investigation takes him through dusty courthouse archives, down winding dirt roads, and into intense interviews. But he keeps knocking on doors—even after they’re slammed in his face. Sharpe uncovers explosive evidence that helps prove Dennis Perry’s innocence. And he confronts a long-ignored suspect: an alleged white supremacist who had bragged about committing the murders.

But the fight for the truth is not easily won. When a key figure in the investigation turns up dead under suspicious circumstances, Sharpe’s sources and editors insist that he could be in danger. And even as evidence mounts of Perry’s innocence, local officials work to keep him in prison—until Sharpe’s reporting forces the state to launch a new investigation—thirty-five years after the Swains’ murders. Driven by Sharpe’s tireless reporting, The Man No One Believed tells the unbelievable story of one of the most confounding cases in Georgia history, the extraordinary fight to free an innocent man, and how state officials worked against the odds to deliver justice for the Swains after all.

This book contains mentions of domestic abuse, sexual assault, and suicide.

I’m a firm believer that truth can be stranger than fiction, and while I love novels, it’s often nonfiction that I turn to when trying to understand the world we live in. Some true crime can feel exploitative or sensationalist, but when done well, it can offer fascinating insights into society, human behavior, and the criminal justice system. The Man No One Believed tackles themes of race, religion, and justice, bringing to light a case that had been kept in the darkness for decades.

The Man No One Believed unravels the murders of Harold and Thelma Swain in South Georgia in 1985. As they hosted Bible study, the deacon and his wife, beloved pillars of the Black community, were gunned down by a stranger with no apparent motive. With elegantly interwoven research and narrative, Joshua Sharpe evokes the tragic events of the night the Swains were killed, exploring how corruption and carelessness resulted in a wrongful conviction that left an innocent man in prison for twenty years.

As a Georgia native, Sharpe brings a strong sense of atmosphere to the story, a dark Southern mood that settles over the story like an oppressive humidity. He fights to reopen the case, trying to untangle the murders and their aftermath to find the true killer. The Man No One Believed reveals how a violent crime can affect a community for decades after, leaving questions, blame, and resentment in its wake. This is a true story with high stakes, plot twists, and shocking revelations to rival a crime novel.