LUDOWICI — For most towns of 1,700 souls, a murder case featuring soldiers accused of planning to overthrow the government would be the biggest thing ever. For Ludowici, a town known statewide and even nationally as a highly efficient speed-trap, it’s the latest in a string of sensational crimes, oddities and really big small-town worries.
At the top of the worry list: how Long County will pay for not one but three trials for the accused anarchist soldiers, whose alleged crimes were committed in Long County even though the defendants were stationed in neighboring Liberty County, at Fort Stewart.
Add to that the cost of a completely unrelated murder trial involving a body that turned up in Long County but a defendant who lives in Liberty County.
“Why does everybody come to Long County to kill [someone]?” said Karin “Kadee” Dasher, a German woman who has lived in Ludowici since the mid-1980s.
To compound the budget crunch, the Marine Corps has proposed an expansion of the Townsend Bombing Range. If the corps succeeds in taking the more than 25,000 acres it wants, Long County will say goodbye to a considerable portion of its tax base.
Beyond that, there’s the hassle over the county’s most recent election, which is in danger of being invalidated because the U. S. Justice Department rejected the county’s redistricting plan.
Finally, of course, there’s the widely rumored “terror training camp” just a few miles down the road in Jesup.
No wonder country residents sometimes feel at the mercy of outside forces, whether criminal or federal.
Subscribers can read our full report on Ludowici’s trials and tribulations in Sunday’s AJC or on our subscription tablet app.
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