Alabama Snake (2020) Movie Script

1
Some people call me a folklorist,
sometimes a filmmaker.
Some people call me
a closet anthropologist.
I'm a retired professor,
but still a student
of southern Appalachia, really.
The archives started
back in the late '60s.
A colleague and I studied folklore
and talked folklore,
and we wanted to preserve it.
So that's how the Archives of Appalachia
was established.
I find that in collecting their
life stories, traditions, and beliefs,
it's really one way of understanding
our own history.
This is oral history and folklore.
Appalachian folklore.
With people that I've researched
and recorded,
it gives them a little bit
of immortality.
In one case, we made a documentary
about mountain people
and the tradition of handling serpents.
Now, we have, three rattlesnakes,
our guests tonight.
I know that according to what
the scripture said in Saint Mark 16,
was that they shall take up serpents.
Not many places left where you can
obey God in the fullest
and then without fear of reprisal.
While we were filming the service,
one of those church members was bitten.
What happened in that church
had a profound effect on me.
In the name of Jesus!
Lord, in Jesus's name...
The law is final. Yes, God.
That night was my initiation
into serpent handling.
And of course, I didn't know
that it would lead to over 40 years
of studying Pentecostal
serpent handlers.
But out of all of my experiences,
there is one that stands out
from all the rest.
This story is a story
of the Serpent and the Spirit.
My name is David Kennamer,
born and raised here in Scottsboro.
I'm a paramedic. And, this is
my partner, Bobby, who is an EMT.
He was my driver that night.
Well, working on the ambulance,
you eat when you can.
We was here at the Piggly Wiggly
when they gave us the call
and that's when we said, "Well, we're
not gonna get to eat anytime soon."
We got the call to head out
to Barbee Lane to a snake bite victim.
At the time, we didn't know any more
about it than a possible snake bite.
We have gotten calls like this before,
but when you get there,
there's nothing to it.
And as we got closer,
they told us to go in Code One,
which is with the lights and sirens off.
They didn't know exactly why, but if the
patient or whoever's calling says this,
you need to listen to them,
there's a reason for this.
And it was dark.
There's no streetlights.
So the only lights we had
were what was on us.
I don't like snakes.
You don't come to me with a snake.
That'd be like pointing a gun at me.
This lady was walking towards us.
It's a critical situation.
It was black.
The skin was starting to die.
That's when I got real concerned
because that gets in your blood stream,
it can go to your heart.
We've gotta get this girl
over there in a hurry.
There were lots of strange things,
lots of strange things.
You never know what's coming in.
This snake bite was different.
We didn't see a lot of snake bites
to the magnitude of...
the one that occurred that night.
With us, we don't carry any antivenom.
This is for the doctors to decide
if they need it, what kind they need.
We treated her, but you know,
small county hospital,
we didn't have antivenom.
Then we load her back up and I tell
Bobby, "Get me to Birmingham."
I can only get a limited amount
of information in the ambulance.
She described a very gruesome story
of her husband trying to kill her.
Back then, I was working as a patrolman.
Been a police officer for...
in March, it'll be 30 years.
I was here two years,
when this all happened.
All I thought about was the pain
and what was going through her head
mentally,
you know, whether she'd live or die
and make it to the hospital or not.
And the idea that somebody
close to her...
made her get bit.
Allegedly.
Drop the gun! Drop it!
Our officers practice
on different scenarios
with making contact with bad people.
I've been in meth homes before
that they actually had pet rattlesnakes
in the house.
I've heard this story since I was a kid.
My dad was an investigator
at the sheriff's office
when, Chief Dawe... when this...
when this whole case went down.
It's not a story you hear every day,
anywhere else in the world.
Religion, relationships, and murder.
- Booze.
- And booze.
Tie all four of those together,
and you've got a story,
there's no question there.
Scottsboro police say
this 5-foot-long poisonous rattlesnake
was used as a weapon.
This snake and 15 others are owned
by Glenn Summerford.
But earlier this week, police say,
Summerford used the snakes
to assault his wife, Darlene Summerford.
Well, I was the lead investigator.
But as to whether that qualifies me
or not, I don't know.
I was just a police officer doing a job.
Well I received a report one morning
about a woman being bit
by a rattlesnake.
We went out to her husband's house.
He gave us permission
to search his property.
He carried us out there
to where they kept the snakes.
He had them in a locked shed
or something.
And he unlocked it, and we went in,
and in these cages...
is where the snakes were.
That was the weapon
that was used in the crime.
And this is collected as evidence.
The snake became the evidence.
- Bring this new box out here.
- All right. Let me get this top down.
Yeah, please, get the top down.
Holy smoke.
The biggest one, a big diamondback.
Big snake.
They put this noose around him
and took him out and yeah, he...
he put up a fight.
Get that sucker.
Holy... Should get that on him, yeah.
Oh, mercy!
We confiscated all of them.
Because all of them were potential
weapons that could be used.
It's the first time I've ever
had anything like that happen.
And nothing else since.
We got all the snakes,
and then we went inside the house
and we searched inside the house.
Just about every room was disarranged.
You know, I mean there was chairs
turned over, covers strewn around.
I couldn't really determine
if there had been a fight or not,
because of everything just strewn around
like it was.
We didn't find any weapons
or anything of that nature.
There was a purse,
one of these bag-like purses
hanging on the on the door.
And it started moving.
And I thought, "Now we're gonna
find a snake in there."
A raccoon jumped out of the purse
and ran off up the wall.
Within a few days,
Glenn Summerford was arrested,
and they ended up charging him
with attempted murder
and carried him into court.
But your facts and your evidence
is what makes your case.
Your biggest thing you had
was her statement against him.
"Well, he forced me with a gun
to do this, and I was bitten twice."
And then him saying she had gone
out there to commit suicide.
and they'd had an argument,
and he got drunk, passed out,
and when he woke up,
she'd got bit by the snake.
This hinged mainly on the victim.
So I was surprised that we got in there.
I didn't think the case
was that strong.
Why did these people have snakes?
They handled them
in their religious service.
There was some videos
collected as evidence.
We turned them over
to the district attorney.
You need help?
Before you go in.
They ain't started nothing.
Now come on, what you asking for?
Everybody's in church.
Yeah, Lord.
- Praise you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus.
- Glory to God Jesus.
Praise God, praise God, praise God.
Glory.
I think people that live up
on the mountain
tend to take care
of their own problems.
They don't... they don't need
or want the policing
that you would find here in Scottsboro.
Back then, you know,
people didn't realize
that that element had moved
down here in the valley in Scottsboro
and was, you know, operating here.
I don't think any person in Scottsboro
would like that to be prevalent
in their city.
I think they're ashamed of
the whole idea of snake handling.
You know, a lot of people were like,
"Well, we didn't know they were here."
They didn't know.
Until something bad happens.
In opening arguments here
this afternoon,
the prosecution painted
Glenn Summerford
as a brutal, jealous husband
who tried to kill his wife
using rattlesnakes as the weapon.
To the defense,
Darlene was a troubled woman
trying to send her husband to prison
by fabricating a murder story
based on the reptiles
with whom she was obsessed.
The evidence will show that this lady
is a snake handler from way back,
and that if she handled any snakes
and was bitten,
she did it voluntarily
and no one forced her to.
He was trying to kill her. He was going
to try to get away with killing her
by saying she got bit by a snake
accidentally.
Jesus lives, that's all I know to say.
Glenn Summerford was tried
for attempted murder.
He tried to kill me. I know that was
what he done. He tried to kill me.
What do the people in the church
think about this?
They believe I just told
this whole story,
and just made this whole story up.
The man was put on trial not for
what he did but for what he stands for.
For serpent handling. The word of God.
And it is the word of God.
I really don't know that much
about their religion.
What they did at their church,
that's their business.
She testified before the jury.
On Friday, after she got bit,
he wouldn't let her go to the doctor.
The following morning, on Saturday,
he carried her several places.
Then after dark on Saturday,
he forced her hand down
in that snake cage again,
and she was bit one more time.
She says one thing and he says
something else, so did it occur?
I can't tell you yes or no.
Because it wasn't my decision to decide.
Go to the court if you want
to know what happened.
These are boxes going back
at least 30 years
of all the cases in Jackson County.
Back before steno machines went digital,
they used to write to paper.
We're looking for January through June
of 1992.
I bet this is it.
State versus Glenn Summerford.
I'm the one that sits there and writes
everything down that's said in court.
It's typing in a different language.
Court reporters are certified
at 225 words a minute,
so if you tried to type on a regular
keyboard, there is no way.
I mean, your fingers would be burning,
smoking, everything,
so that wouldn't be possible.
So this is shorthand.
Instead of symbols, we use letters.
"He started screaming and hollering
and accusing me of running around.
And then he said that he was
going to go...
make me get bit and die,
and say it was going
to look like a suicide,
and he was going to tell everybody
when I died, he just woke up."
"Question: Did he carry you
anywhere then?"
"He grabbed me
and held this gun to my head,
and he made me go out to the shed.
He said if I didn't reach over there
and pick up that snake,
he was going to stick my face in it.
He had me by the hair of the head
and the gun right here.
I was praying, and I reached in there
and got to get it.
I picked it up,
but it bit me on the thumb."
She was bitten two different times,
and he did not allow her
to seek medical attention,
which is attempted murder.
The jury found Summerford guilty.
He had two prior felony convictions,
and under our habitual offender act,
the least sentence was 99 years,
so I didn't have much choice.
When I first started
researching this story,
it wasn't about reopening
Glenn Summerford's case,
it was about understanding it.
These are the tapes that I made
relative to the Glenn Summerford trial
and the incident of his being put
in prison.
Interview with Glenn Summerford
at Limestone Correctional Facility.
Y'all still filmin'?
My name is Doris Summerford.
I'm Glenn Summerford's wife.
Was.
I've always liked to sing,
but, see, according to my family
I can't carry a tune in a bucket,
so I just mostly sing to me.
And the good Lord. He don't complain.
I met him when I was in the first grade.
He run up and hollered
he was gonna marry me,
and I said, "No, you ain't."
September 14th of '63, we got married,
which tells you how dumb I was.
When I gave my heart away,
I gave it all away. I loved him...
...and I tried to do about
anything he said to do.
It was taken right after we got married.
He had been down there in the shed,
him and one of his buddies, boxing.
He loved to fight before we got married,
and he still fought
after we got married.
If he was out drinkin', you come up
and said something to him,
got in his face, you might wind up
sittin' on the floor.
Glenn was a really rough, tough person
in the early part of his life,
before he was really converted.
That was the kind of person
they knew Glenn to be,
especially when he was drinking.
Earlier in his life,
he was convicted of two,
what were then considered felonies,
and he had a history of conflict
with the law.
He always said somebody
caused the house fire.
But it, never was provable.
Glenn Jr. was the one that woke us up
about 4:30, 5 o'clock in the morning.
I was reaching for her
when I caught on fire.
Come on!
He said he saw my hair blaze up,
and he grabbed me,
and, well, was trying to put me out,
and I was fighting him,
and he said we both went out the window.
He tried to get back in the window
and some of the...
neighbors had got there
and... they held him back.
I kept hollering, "My baby! My baby!"
Sarah was one year, eight months,
twenty-five days old when she died.
But in her short life,
she had a... a lot of love.
He carried us to the hospital.
I was leaving my baby,
and I wasn't liking it.
But there wasn't nothing
I could do about it.
Glenn wasn't the same after that.
He would go down
and sit at the cemetery.
He wouldn't talk that much about her.
He... I don't know whether
he kind of blamed his self
'cause he couldn't get back in there
to her.
We did pretty good most of the time,
but... you didn't argue with him.
I loved him,
but at times I was afraid of him.
Fear and love. They went together.
I had to be very careful what I said
and what I did.
To me, he was just abusive...
at times.
He could be good, he could be bad.
Do you think Glenn's capable of murder?
Possibly.
The original story, I presume,
of the "serpent" in the Bible
begins in Genesis.
Satan appears in the form of a serpent
to tempt Eve with the fruit of knowledge
of good and evil.
As result of her eating the apple,
some people believe that women
are symbolic of temptation and sin.
Darlene, Glenn, and the good Lord
is all that knows what happened.
'Cause I have heard
both of 'em tell the truth,
and I've heard both of 'em tell lies.
I don't know exactly when him and her
started seeing each other,
but in '74, I think it was,
him and her got married.
They got married on my birthday.
I always told him he wanted to make sure
I didn't forget.
I ain't never going to talk to nobody
about it, you know...
Not never been somethin' that I cared
much about talkin' about, but...
Heck, I lived it though.
I was probably the poorest kid that ever
went to Scottsboro School, you know?
Got picked on a lot. Fought a lot.
Daddy always told me,
"Boy, don't you ever start a fight.
But if someone else starts it
you better finish it,
or I'll finish it when you get home."
He was probably the toughest man
I ever seen.
He cast a big shadow, you know?
Hard to hold up to that.
I gotta be careful with what I say,
but...
Daddy, when he was mad at somebody,
he didn't really have a conscience
before he got church.
There was this one guy,
tried to hit on my mom.
He was drunk, they was drinking,
and he kept trying to hit on my mom.
Daddy end up whooping him like that,
knocking his eyeball out.
And he did that
with a pair of vice grips.
I mean he... he didn't care.
He threw him off a waterfall for dead.
We just left him.
Glenn was the kind of person,
if he wanted her dead,
she would be dead.
That was the kind of person
they knew Glenn to be
up to this point
that he became redeemed.
When he went through that redemption,
then he was a holy man
who was intent on doing right.
And to him,
this would explain his innocence.
Holiness Pentecostals like Glenn
believe a man can be redeemed
from previous sins
and attain a new state
of sanctification.
Glenn wanted to be a man of God.
Holiness Pentecostals
go out to a stream or to a lake
and baptize by immersion
for the remission of sin.
Born again by the water and the Spirit.
Why does anyone have a conversion
from one life to another?
That's... that's a psychological,
emotional experience
that would be different
in every individual's life.
Why? A lot of people
hit the bottom and die.
A lot of people hit the bottom
and don't die.
Some of 'em hit the bottom
and find Jesus.
A crime happens and you go out
to your usual suspects, right?
And you go ask them about the crime
and then,
you know, "Oh, no, no, I'm good,
I don't do that no more,
I go to church and..."
But, you know... it's just all a farce.
When he started going to church,
it was hard for people to understand
how somebody could change that quick.
And I might be part of
the reason he got in church.
He wanted to be a better daddy.
There's always something good
that comes of it.
The night he got the Holy Ghost,
he prayed all night long. I remember it.
It was pretty wild.
He dranked all the time before that.
He quit that instant. He was done.
Tears rolled up in his eyes and he said,
"I'm not that man no more."
'Cause he didn't just change one thing,
he changed his whole life.
I mean everything.
It was like someone else
just stepped in his body
and it wasn't even him no more,
you know?
He was on his knees all night.
His knees was on fire.
When he got up, the whole knees
of his pants was gone.
It was like he was a whole new man.
Nothing could hurt him
when he was in the Spirit.
Glory to God.
A lot of serpent handlers believe
that they should be anointed
with the Holy Spirit
in order to handle serpents
or do these other signs,
and that confirms that
they have God's power.
The principle verse in...
Those are the so-called five signs
that will follow them that believe.
Daddy always said
he was just a man, you know?
He wasn't nothin' without God.
He couldn't do nothin' without God.
I've seen him pray for people
in wheelchairs,
and they'd get up and walk.
Like 80-year-old people
that hadn't walked in 20 years.
They'd get up and run
all over the church.
It had to be God 'cause nothin' else
could do nothin' like that.
Praise God tonight.
We've got power tonight.
I saw demons cast out.
I saw my daddy do it.
I wasn't but about eight, maybe nine.
I saw him cast one out of a guy
one night at church,
and it literally came out
and run across the floor.
I mean, it was... it was crazy looking.
But there was somethin' come out of him
just run right across the floor.
And it was runnin' around everywhere
trying to get back into somebody else.
And they just kept prayin'.
It was almost like a fog-like...
I don't know what it was...
it was... you can't explain it.
There's more evil today
than there ever has been.
So if you get scared enough,
you gonna pray.
But it's supposed to be scary.
Fear the Lord.
I don't think nobody's ever
really told the truth about it.
And I know right there
where she said she got bit,
a 'coon bit her about a week
before that.
And that's the only bite marks
I've seen on her.
I don't know if she got bit or not.
Yeah, she handled snakes all the time.
They wouldn't bite her neither.
I mean, you know, she could've got bit.
I ain't saying she didn't.
But I've always kinda questioned it
to myself, you know?
I've never really asked her that.
Never really talked to her about it.
She's not a person that you
can really talk to like that, you know?
It was always hard for me
and her to get close.
She had lost a kid before.
Before she was married to Glenn,
she had a child, Bobby Joe,
and it was taken away from her
because of her misconduct.
And I think that had a profound
effect on her,
doing anything that would prevent her
keeping Marty.
One way of looking at this whole thing
is like in a witch trial in New England.
If Darlene was bitten, that would prove
that, that she was guilty.
If she handled the serpents
and wasn't bitten,
then it very likely would prove
that she wasn't guilty.
He would be using the serpent
as divine verification.
The next morning, they get up
and they go to return videos
at the video shop.
There was a note that was found.
A suicide note.
Seemed like it was written to the boy.
"Marty, I love you. I love.
Do what Daddy says. Daddy was asleep.
I tried to fix everything,
but it didn't work out.
Don't blame Daddy because he loves me
and trying to help me.
But I wouldn't listen.
Daddy's asleep and he don't know
what I'm doing.
Marty, always remember,
I love you for the good, not the bad,
but love you.
Try to get right. Your mama.
I went out and got snake bit.
Glenn is asleep and don't know.
You and Daddy live right, okay?
I love you."
"Question: Is it the note
you wrote on that occasion?"
"Answer: Yes."
Do you... Do you remember
the note that you left?
Oh, yeah, that...
He made me write that note.
Yep.
And...
Nobody knows what really happened.
We have what Glenn says happened,
and we have what Darlene
says that happened.
There were no other witnesses
that know what happened that night.
Except maybe Marty.
Daddy tried hard to live for God.
He tried real hard.
And I always heard
the harder you try to live for God,
the harder the devil
will fight to keep you.
I remember it. I was a kid.
I didn't want 'em fightin', you know?
I didn't know what was really going on.
They'd been fighting and chasing
one another around the yard.
And I just walked up, and you know,
the first thought that went through
my head,
I had a bow and arrow in my hand.
I just whiz one by him.
I was tryin' to protect my mama,
I thought.
It's a scary thought thinking
you could've killed your daddy, though.
Some things are best forgotten.
So they called my brother-in-law
and sister to come and get me.
The next morning, they get up,
and they go to return the videos
at the Lakeside Grocery and Video Shop.
Darlene goes in to return the videos.
And she says her hand is swollen
at that point, somewhat.
Right.
Everybody says this is a cruel world.
This isn't a cruel world.
It's a lovely world, it's a good world.
But the people that are in it,
is what's making it cruel.
There was a point, in the interviews
that he was saying that he didn't drink.
He would say things like,
"If I had been drunk,
then there would have been a problem.
I could have lost it, or gone off,
and done some real serious
damage or something."
But I talked to several other people
and they said
he was obviously inebriated.
It was supposed to be
addressed to her son.
It states about three different times
that, "Daddy doesn't know about this."
"Daddy loves us." "Daddy's asleep
and doesn't know that I'm doing this."
"You and Daddy live right."
And it just keeps not referring to her,
but kept giving Glenn an alibi.
He grabbed me by the hair...
Let go of me.
No! No!
The trial lasted
only two and a half days
and ended with Glenn being found guilty
of attempted murder.
He was a former two-time offender,
and the judge had no recourse
but to give him 99 years.
The career of Glenn Summerford,
Pentecostal minister, snake handler,
and now convicted felon, is over.
I say, thank you, Lord.
I mean, that's all I can think of,
you know, just...
I know that he got it,
you know, what he deserved.
With their minister headed
from the pulpit to prison,
many say the future of
the Church of Jesus is in jeopardy.
Others remain convinced
Glenn Summerford isn't guilty.
All right,
let me ask our psychologist.
How does she deal
with going back to her community,
where the people believe the minister?
There will be some who believe
the minister and some who don't.
I... I think with great difficulty,
because it's almost like a double abuse,
you know, you're abused by the person
and then when you go out in public
and you're not believed,
you're abused again.
I think it will take a lot of support.
I lost both my parents.
I didn't get to live
with neither one of 'em.
It affected me a lot
'cause I really didn't know
how to raise the kids, you know?
I didn't have no experience.
I got good kids, though.
My kids are great.
I really love 'em.
I'd do anything for 'em.
I tried not to be as tough as my dad.
I wanna be a good father.
Yeah, this is my daughter,
Hayley, here's the...
My little mini-me.
Yeah, I made sure they always
had a mom and daddy, you know.
I grew up on deer and dove
and rabbit and squirrel...
- All that stuff, so...
- Country as cornbread, I guess.
I guess we was kinda made
for one another.
We fought hard to have what we have now.
Yeah.
And last week we was married 20.
I don't know why she's crazy about me,
but she is.
I always been kinda crazy about her,
I reckon.
I look back at it now and it's like,
if I'd stayed there,
then ain't no tellin'
where I'd be right now.
I never really been
a real religious man,
but I got family, that's all I need.
Do you think we believe
what we want to believe?
It might be the other way around.
We believe things whether
we want to or not.
In one of those services
that I had gone to earlier,
the preacher came back in a service
and anointed me with oil.
And I kind of wanted to feel,
at that point,
the infusion of the Spirit, you know?
Have a real...
real spiritual experience, you know.
But nothing happened.
We may want to believe,
and it would be nice to have
an experience like Glenn,
but I never got that.
Glenn believes in the providence of God.
If God wants him to be left in prison,
then he'll be left in there.
If He wants him out,
then that will be provided.
The last time I saw him
was before the escape.
The whole story of Glenn Summerford
has become Appalachian folklore
just like some of the scriptures.
The name "Pentecostal"
comes from a verse in Acts
in the second chapter,
the day of Pentecost.
The scripture says,
"There was a loud noise
like a great thunder.
And then cloven tongues,
like as of fire,
descended and sat on them.
And they were filled
with the Holy Spirit."