The Labor Day Ghost: A Murder, Its Cover-Up, and the Long Road to Justice

In Corsicana, Texas, Shelley Watkins, the charismatic young wife of Jerry Mack Watkins, disappeared on Labor Day, 1993; her body, tied and taped in plastic and chained to concrete blocks, was found in the Trinity River eight days later. Although a wealth of circumstantial evidence pointed toward Jerry Mack, corruption and its legacy have kept the investigation and legal proceedings in limbo for decades. Now, as DNA evidence offers hope for a long-overdue resolution, author Carol Dawson chronicles both one woman’s tragic story and the history of violence in small-town Texas.

Beginning with Shelley’s life before she arrived in Corsicana, Dawson reveals how her death perpetuates a Gothic history of crime within the town—including a devastating number of murdered women. She also delves into the closed culture of financial control and how the Watkins family became one of the town’s wealthiest, and pulls new details from the witnesses, cops, and prosecutors connected with a case that has haunted her for thirty years. Rooted in the complex history of author Carol Dawson’s hometown, and framed by her family connections to the case, The Labor Day Ghost delivers an arresting narrative that traces the way this tragedy has continued to split Corsicana’s citizenry during the long deferral of justice.