This Chilling Tale Is Perhaps The Most Famous Murder In Georgia
By Marisa Roman|Published October 28, 2021
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Marisa Roman
Author
A New Jersey native with over 15 years of writing experience, Marisa has studied at both New York University and Florida International University. She has lived all over the country, including a decade stint in South Florida. Marisa is well-versed in exploration as she travels a good majority of the year in her self-converted Sprinter van. Her articles have been featured in various notable publications over the years, she has a published collection of short stories, and three completed screenplays under her belt.
We’re taking you back for this one – way back to May 1973. The scene was Donalsonville, Georgia, the tiny town in the southwest corner of the state. While the area was known for an agricultural-based economy and 13 churches in a four-square-mile radius, the town eventually became known for something else entirely. This small hamlet of an area would become the scene of the second-worst mass murder and the most famous murder in Georgia history.
May 5, 1973 - a troubled young man named Carl Issacs had quite the rap sheet for crime throughout his home state of Maryland.
Issacs eventually found himself in the Poplar Hill Correctional Institute outside of Baltimore, Maryland with his half-brother Wayne Coleman. It was there that a plan was hatched to escape the facility with the help of a friend named George Dungee.
The three men picked up Issacs' younger brother Billy and began to terrorize the area, driving around Maryland and into Pennsylvania stealing, burglarizing, and breaking into homes.
By May 14, the four men made it into Donalsonville, the quiet county seat of Seminole County in a stolen vehicle, for which the owner mysteriously disappeared. They were quickly running out of money for beer and gas and decided this small town was the perfect place to go en route to Florida.
Around 4 p.m., Issacs found a giant gas tank sitting alone in a field with a diesel gas pump on the nearby property. It was the farm and home of the Alday family - a quiet family known throughout town as upstanding citizens and good-mannered folk.
On this fateful day, Issacs and his band of misfits attempted to rob the Alday farm but eventually were met with varying members arriving home at different times. The men spent the afternoon murdering different members of the Alday family that arrived home, shooting each in the back of the head in different rooms of the house.
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Six members of the Alday family were massacred that day, leaving the town of Donalsonville to mourn. Eventually, on the day that the Alday funerals began, George Dungee was captured and taken into custody, with the three other men being caught not long after.
Convictions came easily for each of the men, but it was years before true justice was served. Meanwhile, the town of Donalsonville was left with a gruesome day in its wake, one that would change the history of Georgia forever.
Did you ever hear the story of the Alday Family murder before? Did you know it was the second-largest mass murder in Georgia behind the Woolfolk murders in 1887? Share with us your thoughts in the comments section below.
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