A Small Town With a Very Dark Secret
LaGrange, Georgia is the kind of place where people know their neighbors, look out for each other, and generally mind their business. With a population of fewer than 25,000 people, it is the sort of community where a familiar face goes a long way. It is also, as it turns out, the kind of place where a woman can shoot her boyfriend, drop his body down a well, cover the whole thing up, and walk around free for nearly two decades before anyone figures it out.
That woman was Connie Quedens, and her story is one of the most coldly calculated cover-ups you will ever come across.
Fred Wilkerson: A Good Man in the Wrong Relationship
Willie Fred Wilkerson was 49 years old and well-liked around LaGrange. He drove trucks for a living, served as chief of the Troup County Volunteer Rescue Squad, and was by all accounts a devoted father to his two kids, Tim and Tracy. Friends described him as a hardworking, generous man who wore his heart on his sleeve. Unfortunately, that generous nature is exactly what got him killed.
Somewhere along the way, Fred fell hard for a woman named Connie King Quedens. By 1986 the two were in a full-blown relationship, even though Connie was still legally married to her husband Gary. That fact did not seem to slow either of them down much. Fred was reportedly head over heels for her, and together they poured their time, money, and energy into building a home on a piece of land in Troup County. Fred contributed materials, labor, and eventually signed over his half of the property deed to Connie because he trusted her completely.
That was the mistake that would cost him his life.
The Setup: How Connie Pulled the Rug Out
In September 1987, things took a sharp turn. Connie had Fred and his son Tim arrested and removed from the property. Just like that, the man who had helped build the house was out on the street with nothing to show for it. To make matters worse, Connie quickly married Gary Quedens, which under Georgia law gave her a much stronger claim to the land.
Fred was not the type to just roll over and accept it. He fought back the only way he could and filed a lawsuit against Connie, seeking compensation for the materials and work he had put into building the home. It was a reasonable legal move. It was also, in hindsight, the thing that sealed his fate.
Just two days before Thanksgiving 1987, Fred served Connie with the lawsuit papers. Connie then invited him over on November 27th to talk things through and settle the dispute in person. Fred agreed and showed up that evening. His son Tim saw him that night. After that, nobody ever heard from Fred Wilkerson again.
Thanksgiving Weekend and a Whole Lot of Lies
When people started asking questions about where Fred had gone, Connie had a story ready. She told investigators that Fred and a police officer had shown up at her house, that some kind of argument broke out, and that they all left together. She said she later got a threatening phone call warning her that her children would be harmed if she talked. It was a wild, unverifiable story that investigators found hard to swallow from the start.
Meanwhile, the physical evidence was telling a different story entirely. About a month after Fred disappeared, his car turned up in the long-term parking lot at Atlanta’s airport. The doors were unlocked, the keys were still inside, and two uncashed checks were sitting on the seat. That is not how a man who voluntarily skips town behaves. People who run away from their lives do not leave money behind.
On top of that, a neighbor came forward and said that on the night Fred disappeared, Connie had asked the neighbor’s 19-year-old daughter to drive her car up to the Atlanta airport so Connie would have a ride home after dropping off a “friend.” The young woman made the trip but never saw any friend or any other car. What she had actually done, without knowing it, was help Connie ditch Fred’s vehicle and establish a fake paper trail.
Investigators had their suspicions but no body, no weapon, and no hard proof. So the case stalled and quietly gathered dust for the next sixteen years.
The Cold Case Cracks Open
In 2003, investigators Clay Bryant and his team took another look at Fred’s disappearance. New statements started coming in from people connected to the case, and one detail kept nagging at everyone. There was an old well on the property where Fred and Connie had built their home. At some point after Fred vanished, the well had been filled in and covered over, on Connie’s orders.
In September 2003, investigators showed up at Connie’s door with a search warrant. They told her they were going to search the old well. Her response was telling. She said, “If he’s down there, I don’t know anything about it.” That is a strange thing to say when someone asks if your missing friend might be at the bottom of a well.
Sure enough, after 90 minutes of digging, they found him. Skeletal remains, clothing, and dentures belonging to Fred Wilkerson were pulled from that well. The medical examiner determined he had been shot at least once in the back of the head, execution style. He had been down there for sixteen years.
Connie Quedens was arrested the same day.
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The Trial: Circumstantial but Convincing
The prosecution’s case was built almost entirely on circumstantial evidence. There was no video footage, no eyewitness to the actual murder, and the gun was long gone. What the prosecution did have, though, was a mountain of details that all pointed in one direction.
Her estranged husband Gary testified against her. He told the court that when he came home from a Thanksgiving trip to Florida that same weekend in 1987, he found a loaded Walther PPK pistol lying on the floor downstairs. The gun had been fired. He believed it was the murder weapon.
Even more damaging was a recorded conversation. In 2003, Connie had secretly recorded a conversation with Gary about dividing up their marital property. During that conversation, Gary brought up the gun and reminded her it was the one “from 17 years ago, during the Fred thing.” Connie went quiet. She never denied it. That tape was discovered in her purse when she was arrested and played for the entire jury.
Connie’s defense team argued she was physically incapable of moving a body from the house to the well on her own. The prosecution pushed back on that point and noted that Connie was a strong, capable woman who worked with chainsaws, hauled fence posts, and owned horses and an ATV. She also had nearly a full day to move the body before anyone came looking. The jury was not impressed by the defense’s argument.
After just three hours of deliberation, they came back with a guilty verdict. Connie was convicted of malice murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. She was sentenced to life in prison.
The Appeal That Went Nowhere
True to form, Connie refused to accept responsibility even after the verdict. She appealed her conviction all the way to the Georgia Supreme Court, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to support a guilty verdict. The court disagreed and upheld the conviction in full.
In 2006, Fred’s children Tim and Tracy filed a separate civil lawsuit against both Connie and Gary Quedens, seeking 22 million dollars in damages for wrongful death and fraud. The suit alleged that the two of them had conspired to trick Fred into signing over the property and then killed him when he tried to fight back legally. The RICO claim portion of the lawsuit was allowed to proceed, which suggested the court took the conspiracy allegations seriously.
Justice Served, Sixteen Years Late
Fred Wilkerson spent sixteen years at the bottom of a well, just yards from the home he had helped build with his own hands. His family spent those same sixteen years without answers, without closure, and without a grave to visit. Two days after Connie’s trial ended, Tim and Tracy were finally able to give their father a proper burial.
As for Connie, she remains incarcerated at Pulaski State Prison in Hawkinsville, Georgia. She has maintained her innocence throughout and showed little remorse during the entire process. Before the verdict came in she told reporters, “I did not kill anyone. And I did not know of that body in that well.”
The jury, quite reasonably, did not believe her.
Investigator Clay Bryant, who helped crack the case open after all those years, later wrote a book about it called “Untangling the Black Widow’s Web.” He described Connie as someone who truly spun a web of lies and deceit and said solving the case was one of the most gratifying moments of his career. Given that a good man spent sixteen years in a covered well while his killer walked free, it is hard to argue with that.
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Lisa Crow contributed to this article. She is a true crime junkie and lifestyle blogger based in Waco, Texas. Lisa is the Head of Content at Gigi’s Ramblings and Southern Bred True Crime Junkie. She spends her free time traveling when she can and making memories with her large family which consists of six children and sixteen grandchildren.
