The Alabama Motel That Served More Than Chili

During the late 1970s in rural Alabama, Clint Orson ran a small roadside motel called The Blackwood Inn, fifteen miles from the nearest town. Travelers loved it: cheap rooms, warm coffee, and Clint’s famous homemade chili. Locals called him polite, lonely, always smiling—“the kind of man who could fix anything but his own loneliness.”

In the fall of 1978, a salesman named Jack Raynor stopped for the night. He was heading to New Orleans. At check-in, Clint asked, “Anyone know you’re traveling this way?” Jack laughed.

Around midnight, Jack woke to humming in the hallway—an old country tune. Through the crack under the door, he saw boots standing still. The doorknob turned. Jack dove through the window and ran barefoot into the woods.

By dawn, police found him tremblin ...