Still visiting her grave
Ringgold’s Alvin Ridley looks back 20 years after being falsely accused of murdering his wife.
RINGGOLD — Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 4, was beautiful. It’s early fall, the sun is shining, birds chirping and a man once accused of killing his wife walks gingerly through a small cemetery to pay his loving respects on the 20th anniversary of her death.
People may not know Alvin Ridley, but anyone who has ever spent a significant amount of time in Ringgold has probably at least heard his name — which made headlines in 1997 after he was falsely accused of murdering his wife of 31 years.
Ridley met and married his wife, Virginia, in 1966. Years later, Alvin owned and operated a TV repair shop along Nashville Street in historic downtown while Virginia was a housewife.
The couple loved each other and lived an introverted life to say the least. They didn’t have a telephone, never had visitors, and their house was somewhat dilapidated.
For the majority of their marriage, Virginia never left the couple’s home on Inman Street.
She’d suffered from epilepsy since childhood, which resulted in episodes of sometimes violent seizures. By the time the 1990s rolled around, Virginia had quit taking her medication for her condition and hadn’t been seen by family or townspeople in years.
So, on the morning of Oct. 4, 1997, when Alvin Ridley drove to a pay phone and called 911 after finding Virginia unresponsive, whispers began to surface in town that he’d killed her.
The Catoosa County Coroner’s Office also thought he’d killed her after concluding that Virginia showed signs of petechial hemorrhaging around her eyes and attributed it to possible strangulation.
Ridley claimed Virginia had suffered a severe seizure and died in her sleep, but nonetheless was arrested and charged with murder, assault and false imprisonment.
“Crazy Alvin,” as he’d long been dubbed by residents, was being accused of what some thought had already happened years earlier — that’d he’d killed his reclusive wife.
With little to no money to his name, Alvin sought the services of young attorney McCracken Poston to defend him. That inquiry initiated an often rocky attorney-client relationship that has since blossomed into a two-decade friendship.
“I was still licking my wounds from not yet a year beyond a big defeat in my offer for the United States Congress,” Poston remembers. “Just out of the state legislature, and newly divorced from a failed first marriage, I was trying to figure out whether I even wanted to stay here and continue practicing law at all. I felt I had little reason to stay, and I was actively investigating various appointments and other job possibilities in Atlanta ... and then Alvin Ridley came calling.” McCracken Poston Alvin Ridley met and married his wife, Virginia, in 1966.
The accusations just didn’t hold water. Medical experts testified that Virginia’s epilepsy was the cause of the petechial hemorrhaging in and around her eyes, not strangulation.
Virginia’s own words also shined light on the misconceptions of the couple’s life together. She documented everything. The letters told the story of a woman in love, who stayed isolated at home because she was embarrassed about her condition, not because she was being kept against her will.
During his trial Poston said he had misgivings about Ridley taking the stand but Ridley — dealing with not only the loss of his wife but also the possibility of life in prison — said he needed to.
“The reason I testified then was because I didn’t have nothing to hide,” Ridley said. “The main thing was just telling the truth about everything. Contributed photo
It got to me and I even cried, and the jury saw me crying.”
Ridley was ultimately acquitted of the charges, but his quirky personality became notorious after the story made national news.
The case was even featured on the crime documentary series “Forensic Files.” The episode, titled “Kill-igraphy,” can currently be seen on Netflix (Collection 3, episode 10).
Though he’s a free man, the now 75-year-old Ridley still keeps to himself mostly, except for his lunch outings with the one attorney in town who took a chance on defending him.
“Alvin is a unique character,” Poston said. “He and I went round and round on stuff, but we’ve kept in touch. It started out he’d come by my office here and there, then it turned into us having lunch at least once a week.”
Wednesday afternoon, after lunch together, Poston drove Alvin down the road a ways to a small cemetery in Tunnel Hill where Virginia now rests.
With tears in his eyes, Alvin unclutched the flowers he brought for his wife and recalled what a lovely, loving person she was.
“I loved her,” Ridley said as he placed flowers on Virginia’s grave. “She was a sweet girl and I wish she was still alive. ... I’ll get to see her again one day.”