I was with her the night she died. It was a warm night in early June and we had just graduated from Milledgeville High the week before. I was eighteen at the time and looking forward to college in the fall. I had a full scholarship to the University of New Hampshire where I planned to study art in the Pre-Renaissance period. Madison was not the academic that I was, but what she lacked in brains she made up for in appearance. She was what came to the mind of Northerners when they thought of a Southern Belle; beautiful, poised, charming and armed with a thick southern drawl, reminiscent of the days of the Confederacy.

Our mothers were sisters who grew up and still lived on the plantation land of their great grandfather. Madison and I lived just across one of the old cotton fields from each other in almost identical Georgian style homes.

That night when she dropped me off, after we had dinner at Payton’s Diner downtown, I said goodbye and stood on my porch as she drove back to the main road. She wasn’t going home. She was going to see her boyfriend Robert who lived down Cottonmill Creek Road. They had been dating since she was sixteen; he was a year older than us and was working with his father to learn the family business. Every fall Madison and I would go out to Robert’s house and ride horses out to the pecan orchards where the harvesting took place and watch the massive machines shake the trees. Then we would wave to Robert as he came behind the massive shakers with a sweeper that pushed the nuts and debris into the middle of the rows. Later the three of us would climb into the full wagons and eat all the pecans we could while staring up at the stars. I was always a little jealous of Madison; the way she and Robert looked at each other. They had found love, and I was finding one boy after another, all of them fillers.

It was during one of those nights in September of last year that Madison told me she wasn’t going to leave Milledgeville. At the time it came as a shock to me, but I guess I had known all along that her home was here and always would be. She told me later that she planned to marry Robert, and she would have too, if she hadn’t driven her car into Johnson’s Bridge.

Johnson’s Bridge is an old wooden bridge that survives from the 1800s. The entire structure is made of hand cut wood and held together by wooden pegs. Signs are posted at both entrances warning of single lane traffic and weight limits. It looks more like a barn with both sets of doors open than a bridge, and is more of a local concern now that the front column has a deep gash in it. For the longest time the gash was filled with flowers to commemorate what had happened there. But now, the only flowers are left by Robert and me, and more often than not the red paint left in the recesses of the gash shine around the flowers in a sickly halo.

The bridge is three miles from Robert’s. Madison had almost made it. If she could have just held out for those three miles she would still be here today. But she didn’t see any other way. Not that I blame her, but I don’t like to think about how blinding desperate situations can be.

I don’t go down to Johnson’s Bridge that often anymore. When I’m on Cottonmill Creek Road, I rarely make it further than the wooden cross on the right side just five miles from my driveway. The cross used to be white, but the inconsistent Georgia weather has faded it to a dusty grey. It’s not a very big cross, just big enough to be seen, without being overpowering. Robert had made it out of an old fencepost that was in the pile beside his barn. It was crude, but lovingly built. It was here that Madison decided to stop living.

It’s here that I always turn around and head home. It’s here that I think of whenever I see a sheriff’s car. The Georgia back roads are crawling with the good ole’ boys in uniform. With their windows down and a straw hat on, they seem like concerned neighbors when they pull you over, like they want you to slow down because they value your life and not their quota. Besides, most of the sheriff’s deputies are our neighbors and family friends. That’s why Madison pulled over that night when the lights came on behind her.

She had no reason to believe that stopping would be the death of her. She simply turned the radio off and waited for the deputy to come and gently chastise her for speeding. But the man who came to her window was not the friendly face she expected. He was new, an officer Teddy Blank from somewhere out west. He had recently moved to Milledgeville and had been watching Madison. When he pulled her over he threw a shirt over the mounted camera that was supposed to record every traffic stop, but he left the windows down and the sound continued to record, that’s how we know what happened.

Teddy Blank sat in his car long enough to let the taillights up ahead disappear around the bend. Then he walked up to Madison’s window. He asked her where she was hurrying off to and she dutifully replied in her deep accent. No doubt she fluttered her eyelids at him, to make him go easy on her. He paused and asked for her license, which was later found in his pocket. After he walked to the back of her car and pocketed her license, he instructed her to get out of the car. She complied and he tells her to stand with her hands on the trunk of her vehicle. She does this too. He says, “I’m going to frisk you and then we’re going to talk.” Madison makes no reply. Teddy Blank then says to her, “So, Maddi, what are we going to do about this?” Again she makes no reply and he continues.
“Surely we can work something out, you’re a pretty girl and I’ve had my eye on you; what do you say we come to an agreement.”

There is the sound of flesh hitting flesh and Madison begins to scream. Later Blank will deny that he hit her or touched her in any way, but a scuffle ensues and Blank is recorded saying, “You little bitch, you are going to cooperate or I will make your life hell.” Madison then says her first words since getting out of the car. “I would rather die.” Blank groans loudly and Madison jumps into her car and speeds off.

Blank returns to his patrol vehicle cursing, turns on his siren and pursues Madison. In the course of the next four miles the shirt falls away from the camera and Madison’s car can be seen ahead on the winding, tree-lined road. In the bottom corner of the video the speed of the sheriff’s car is recorded, he was flying down the middle of the road nearing 90 miles per hour. Madison pulled further away; she was going 97mph when she pointed her car into the column of Johnson’s Bridge. Some speculated that she lost control, but the video taken from Teddy Blank’s patrol car shows a skilled driver who never altered her course.

Madison was thrown from the car and into the creek below the bridge. She died on impact. Teddy barely had time to stop his own car before colliding with the remains of Madison’s. He called for backup and reported that on a routine speeding stop, Madison had run from him and he gave chase. He had forgotten about the camera in his car.

I said I never went past the cross on CottonMill Creek road anymore, but I did go to the trial. Turned out that Teddy Blank had been fired for soliciting sexual favors in traffic stops out west, but no one bothered to do a complete background check. They were just filling uniforms.