On May 14, 1973, six members of the Alday family were murdered in Donalsonville, Georgia. The victims named in reports are Chester Alday, 32; Jerry Alday, 35; Mary Alday, 26; Ned Alday, 62; Jimmy Alday, 25; and Aubrey Alday, 57. The killings followed a chance encounter when four escaped prisoners from Maryland decided to burglarize the mobile home of Jerry and Mary Alday. As family members returned to the trailer during the day they were confronted at gunpoint; Chester Alday and his uncle Aubrey were forced inside a bathroom, and Chester was murdered there by Wayne Coleman. Mary Alday was also raped before she was killed.

Investigators traced a stolen car used by the suspects to near the Alday home, leading to an all-points bulletin and the capture of Carl Junior Isaacs, Wayne Carl Coleman, George Elder Dungee, and 15-year-old William Billy Isaacs five days later in West Virginia. Weapons tied to the killings and victims’ belongings were recovered in their possession. The four were extradited to Georgia on murder charges.

Trials and appeals followed, with initial death sentences handed down in 1974 and later retrials after a federal appeals court overturned convictions because of pretrial publicity. One defendant agreed to testify in exchange for a lesser sentence. Does anyone have further details about the scene that afternoon or about family members who survived?