A Murder In Dixie
Abduction of UFC fighter’s stepdaughter ends in tragedy
Auburn is one of the fastest-growing small cities in Alabama, a thriving college town nicknamed “the loveliest village on the plains” after a poem called The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith. The poem, penned in 1770, evokes “Sweet Auburn,” a hamlet in 18th-century Ireland.
The town is a little more than 50 miles down I-85 from Montgomery, Alabama’s capital city. Montgomery was the first capital of the Confederacy, the city where Rosa Parks claimed a forbidden seat on a city bus and helped change history, and the site of a great deal of turbulent civil-rights history.
In other ways, Auburn is a million miles away from the Alabama capital. While Montgomery became synonymous with malignant racism during the troubled 1960s, Auburn was integrating schools, restaurants, public restrooms, and drinking fountains in a fairly uneventful way. The town prides itself on a forward-looking image.
Aniah Haley Blanchard, a 19-year-old from the Birmingham suburb of Homewood, probably felt safe in Auburn. That’s part of what this college town sells — a wholesome, safe atmosphere for the…
