Walk into any bar on Liberty Street or Jones Street on a Tuesday night and mention Jim Williams. Someone will look up. They’ll probably have an opinion. Savannah is a city built on top of its dead, literally—the squares are resting on old cemeteries—and it’s a place where the line between high society and high drama is basically nonexistent. When people whisper there's been a murder in Savannah, they aren't usually talking about the nightly news. They’re talking about "The Book."
John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil turned a local scandal into a global obsession. But behind the Spanish moss and the eccentric drag queens lies a very real, very messy legal history that changed the city forever. It’s not just a story for tourists on trolley tours. It’s a case study in how wealth, Southern gothic aesthetics, and four separate murder trials can turn a crime into a legend.
The Mercer House Shooting That Started It All
The date was May 2, 1981. Jim Williams was the king of Savannah restoration. He had money. He had the Mercer House, a massive Italianate mansion on Monterey Square. He also had a volatile, part-time assistant and lover named Danny Hansford.
By the end of the night, Hansford was dead on the floor of Williams' study.
Williams claimed self-defense. He said Hansford pulled a gun—a Luger—and fired first. The police saw it differently. They saw a crime scene that looked a little too staged. The paper on the desk wasn't disturbed. The trajectory of the bullets didn't quite match the story. It was the beginning of an eight-year legal marathon that is still, frankly, exhausting to read about.
Savannah is small. Back then, it was even smaller. Everyone knew Williams, and everyone knew Hansford’s reputation for having a "hair-trigger" temper. This wasn't just a trial; it was a social reckoning.
Four Trials and a Hoodoo Priestess
Most people don't realize how rare it is for someone to be tried four times for the same crime. It’s almost unheard of. The first conviction was overturned. The second ended in a mistrial. The third resulted in another conviction, which was also overturned because of prosecutorial misconduct.
Finally, the fourth trial was moved to Augusta, Georgia. Why? Because by that point, you couldn't find twelve people in Savannah who didn't already have their minds made up. In 1989, Jim Williams was finally acquitted.
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He moved back into Mercer House. He went back to his parties. But the victory was short-lived. In 1990, less than a year after his acquittal, Williams dropped dead in the very same room where he had shot Hansford. People in the city still talk about the "voodoo" or "hoodoo" aspect of it.
Williams had famously consulted Minerva, a hoodoo practitioner from South Carolina. He’d go to the cemetery at 11:30 PM—the half-hour for "good"—and stay until 12:30 AM—the half-hour for "evil." It sounds like something out of a movie, but in the lowcountry, these traditions are taken seriously. Minerva was a real person. She was the wife of Dr. Buzzard, a famous root doctor. This wasn't just flavor for a novel; it was Jim Williams' actual life.
Why Savannah Can't Let the Murder Go
If you visit today, you’ll see the "Bird Girl" statue (or at least the spot where she used to stand in Bonaventure Cemetery before she was moved to a museum for protection). You’ll see the Mercer House. You’ll see the tours.
But why does this specific crime stick? Savannah has seen plenty of violence since 1981.
Honestly, it’s about the contrast. It’s the "Garden of Good and Evil" thing. You have this incredibly beautiful, manicured, polite society where everyone cares about who your grandmother was. And then you have this raw, violent, sexualized undercurrent. When there's been a murder in Savannah involving its elite, it cracks the veneer.
The Real People Behind the Characters
The book makes them feel like fictional archetypes, but they were real neighbors.
- The Lady Chablis: She wasn't an actress playing a part; she was a pioneer. She forced a conservative Southern city to look at her and acknowledge her.
- Joe Odom: The ultimate professional guest. He lived in houses he didn't own and threw parties with money he didn't have. He represented the "charming grifter" energy that Savannah still cultivates.
- Sonny Seiler: Williams’ lawyer. He was also the owner of the UGA mascots (the Uga bulldogs). His involvement anchored the case in the heart of Georgia culture.
These people existed. They walked the squares. They drank at Churchill’s. When you walk through Savannah now, you’re walking through a crime scene that has been turned into a theme park. It’s weird. It’s kind of macabre. It’s very Savannah.
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Exploring the Sites Today Without Being a Total Tourist
If you're heading to Savannah because you're fascinated by the case, don't just go to the gift shop. You have to understand the geography to understand the crime.
Monterey Square and Mercer House
The house is still there. You can tour the bottom floor. It’s filled with the same antiques Williams spent his life collecting. Standing in that house, you realize how claustrophobic it must have felt for Hansford, a kid from the "wrong side of the tracks" living in a museum.
Bonaventure Cemetery
It’s not just a place for photos. It’s where the city’s history is buried. If you go, look for the Lawton family plot or the Gracie Watson monument. It gives you a sense of the weight of the past that Jim Williams was trying so hard to preserve through his restoration work.
Clary’s Cafe
This is where the locals in the book ate breakfast. It’s still there on Abercorn Street. Order the hoppel poppel. It’s greasy and perfect. It’s one of the few places that still feels like the Savannah of the 1980s before the tourists took over every square inch of the historic district.
The Legal Legacy and the Truth
Is there a "truth" to what happened that night in 1981?
The physical evidence suggested the shooting happened while Hansford was down. The prosecution argued Williams shot him, then moved the body, then fired a shot from Hansford's gun into his own desk to simulate an exchange. Williams maintained until his death that Danny was a dangerous, drug-addicted young man who finally snapped.
We’ll never actually know. That’s the point. Savannah loves a secret more than it loves a fact.
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The case changed Georgia law regarding how many times a person can be retried and how evidence is handled in high-profile cases. It also essentially invented the modern Savannah tourism industry. Before the book and the murder, Savannah was a sleepy, decaying Southern town. Now, it’s a powerhouse.
What to Do If You're Visiting Savannah for the History
If you want to actually "feel" the history of the case without the fluff, follow these steps:
- Read the Trial Transcripts: Don't just read the book. Look at the actual court records. You can find summaries in the Georgia historical archives. The nuance of the "blood spatter" evidence is way more interesting than the movie version.
- Visit the Telfair Academy: They have the original Bird Girl statue. Seeing it in person, away from the mossy cemetery, makes you realize how small and fragile the symbol of the case actually is.
- Walk the Squares at Night: Get away from the ghost tour groups with their neon EMF detectors. Walk Monterey Square at midnight. Look up at the windows of Mercer House. The silence of Savannah at night is when the history actually starts to speak.
- Support Local Preservation: Jim Williams was a "preservationist," but he was also a complicated figure. Support organizations like the Historic Savannah Foundation. They are the ones actually keeping the buildings from falling down, minus the murder drama.
Savannah isn't a museum; it's a living city. People still live in those houses. They still shop at the Kroger on Gwinnett Street. The murder of Danny Hansford is a chapter in the city's biography, but it’s not the whole book. It’s just the part everyone wants to read twice.
When you're standing in Monterey Square, look at the cobblestones. They were brought over as ballast in ships hundreds of years ago. They’ve seen everything. They saw Jim Williams drive his Rolls Royce. They saw the ambulances. They’re still there.
If you want to understand the real Savannah, stop looking for ghosts and start looking at the people who are still here, keeping the secrets.
Next Steps for Your Savannah Trip:
- Check the hours for Mercer House: Tours are limited and often sell out during the peak spring season.
- Book a reservation at The Olde Pink House: It has nothing to do with the murder, but it’s the best way to understand the "high society" world Williams was so desperate to belong to.
- Download a map of Bonaventure: It’s easy to get lost, and the most interesting graves aren't always on the main path.