1 Published BooksMcCracken Poston Jr.
McCracken Poston Jr. is a criminal defense attorney, former Georgia state legislator, and author of "Zenith Man: Death, Love, and Redemption in a Georgia Courtroom" (Citadel, 2024).
He served four terms in the Georgia House of Representatives before returning to private legal practice. In 1999, he defended Alvin Ridley, a reclusive television repairman in Ringgold, Georgia, who was accused of murdering his wife after she hadn’t been seen in public for nearly 30 years. Poston’s discovery of Virginia Ridley’s extensive writings helped prove her agoraphobia and epilepsy — and led to Alvin’s acquittal in one of the most misunderstood criminal cases in Georgia history.
More than two decades later, Alvin was diagnosed with autism at age 79, casting the case in an entirely new light. Poston remained close to Alvin until his death in 2024, and their story is the basis of Zenith Man, a literary true crime memoir about justice, misunderstanding, and late-life redemption.
In 2024, "Zenith Man: Death, Love, and Redemption in a Georgia Courtroom" was named a finalist for both the Georgia Author of the Year Award in Memoir and the Clue Award for True Crime Book of the Year at CrimeCon. In May 2025, Poston’s Reddit AMA about the case reached over one million views in just 18 days.
He resides and practices law in Ringgold, Georgia.
