Sweet Tea Murders
True Crime from the Gulf Coast
The Gulf Coast has a long memory.
Behind the quiet streets, historic courthouses, and moss-covered oaks are stories of murder, mystery, and justice that most people have forgotten.
Sweet Tea Murders brings those stories back to life.
Hosted by Michael Earl Simmons, a retired police sergeant, former homicide detective, and police historian, this site explores real crimes from Pensacola and the Gulf Coast—cases pulled from old newspapers, courthouse records, and years of historical research.
Here you’ll find:
- Forgotten Gulf Coast murder stories
- The Sweet Tea Murders podcast
- Historic Pensacola crime history
- Live storytelling events and walking tours
- Books and research on Southern crime
So pour a glass of sweet tea and step into the darker side of Southern history.
Because along the Gulf Coast…
the tea is sweet — but the stories can be murder.
Daily Old Southern Crime Stories Served with Sweet Tea & a Side of Shadows
In the South, we take life like a southern river…easy. Slow and easy…
Because of that, secrets linger. They settle into courthouse steps. They drift beneath Spanish moss. They echo down brick streets and along quiet bayous where the air hangs thick and heavy. Some stories are sweet. Others are not.
Sweet Tea Murders is where I tell the true stories of old homicides from Pensacola, across West Florida, throughout the state, and into the deep corners of the Southeast United States.
These are not legends whispered for drama. They are real cases — drawn from archives, faded arrest reports, newspaper columns browned with age, and sometimes from my own years of working the streets as a patrol officer to working crime scenes as a homicide detective. They are stories of victims whose names deserve to be remembered, of lawmen who answered the call, and of communities tested by violence under the Southern sun.
I tell them the way they should be told — with context, with history, and with respect.
From waterfront saloons of the 1880s…
to pine-shadowed backroads of rural Florida…
to courthouse trials that gripped entire towns…
Each story is grounded in place. Each murder left a mark. And each case still echoes.
Pour a glass of sweet tea.
Pull up a chair.
The South remembers.
— Michael Earl Simmons
Retired Police Sergeant and Southern Crime Historian
Enjoy true crime history?
Join the Sweet Tea Murders list to receive new stories, podcast updates, and a free copy of
“Five Forgotten Murders in Pensacola Before 1950.”