For more than 30 years, Marsha Dotson wanted nothing more than to see the man who viciously murdered her husband put to death for his crimes.
More than once she thought, “If I ever see him, I’ll kill him myself,” she said of Edmund Zagorski. Then she turned 60, and her views shifted.
“I think it was a combination of old age and going to church that softened me,” said Dotson, now 63. “I’ve come to realize that it’s not my place to condemn somebody, to let them die. I can’t play God.”
Last goodbyes
In 1983, Marsha Dotson was 28 years old. She and her husband, John Dale Dotson, 35, had been married for 8 years and had three children from prior relationships: two sons, both 11, and a daughter, 13.
On April 23, the last night she would see her husband alive, the couple was at the Eastside Tavern in Dickson, and John Dale Dotson was making plans with his friend Jimmy Porter, also 35, to meet a man they knew as Jesse Lee Hardin to buy 100 pounds of marijuana.
“I never heard the name Edmund Zagorski until after...” Dotson said, seemingly unable to complete the sentence.
Thursday, the state of Tennessee plans to execute Zagorski, now 63, for the murders of Dotson and Porter.
Marsha Dotson will be at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution for the execution, but she doesn’t intend to watch. Her son will watch, and she says she plans to support him.
First meeting
Marsha Dotson said she felt sorry for Zagorski the first time she saw him. It was raining, and he was walking down a gravel path, headed towards a Hickman County trout farm.
“This was a few months before (the killing), and we picked him up and gave him a ride,” she said.
Zagorski was friendly with a man they knew who worked at the trout farm.
“We used to take our children down there to let them fish, so we saw (Zagorski) again. At first, it was twice a month or so, but towards the end of March, it got to be every week.”
Despite the frequent meetings, Marsha Dotson said her husband and Zagorski were never more than acquaintances. Posing as Hardin, Zagorski told them he’d worked as a mercenary in South America and met their friend, the trout farm worker, while drilling for oil near New Orleans.
“He didn’t really speak a whole lot. He was reserved, not outspoken or outgoing,” Dotson said of Zagorski. “He would respond when questioned, and I thought it was strange that he carried a gun (a rifle on a shoulder strap) with him everywhere he went, but there were no real alarm bells.”
The victims were supposed to meet Zagorski in Hickman County.
When her husband didn’t return home after the meeting on April 23, Marsha Dotson knew immediately something had happened. Although search efforts began right away, the bodies of Porter and Dotson weren't found for about two weeks.
Never the same
One of Richard Hicks’ strongest memories is watching the body of his uncle, John Dale Dotson, being brought out of the woods in a body bag on the local news. He was 13.
“Nobody told us he had died before it was everywhere,” he said. “That’s how we found out, watching the news.”
A Humphreys County resident, Hicks, now 48, says he grew up with John Dale Dotson’s two children in a relationship that was more like siblings than cousins. His uncle, he said, was a jokester who loved to coon hunt and was very good at his logging job.
John Dale Dotson was his mother’s brother, Hicks said. His mother was the oldest of five children in a tight-knit family he says was never the same after Dotson died.
“My mother had a nervous breakdown over it,” Hicks said. “I think it really, really hurt all of them, but everyone handles it different.”
For his part, Hicks has read every document in the case, including all 22 of Zagorski’s appeals.
“This is never over," he said. "It constantly comes back up, and every time he gets a new appeal or something gets filed, it’s like it happens all over again.”
For Marsha Dotson, remembering the fun she had with her husband helps with the pain. John Dale loved four-wheel driving, mudding and watching truck pulls.
She and her husband had known Porter for about five years. They often frequented his bar, the Eastside Tavern. The establishment, which used to sit across from the Dickson County Fairgrounds, has since been torn down. The lot where it stood remains empty.
Porter's family declined requests for interviews.
Marsha Dotson has never remarried.
“His death ruined me, it turned my world upside down and I just lost it,” she said, choking back sobs. “For 34 years, they’ve let his killer sit on death row. If they were going to kill him, they should have killed him years ago.”
Reach Nicole Young at 615-306-3570 or nyoung@tennessean.com.