Untold stories of Harvey Updyke's last confessions and plot to kill Auburn's Toomer's Corner trees

• It has been 12 years since the 2010 Iron Bowl sent rage through Harvey Updyke's veins.
• Updyke, an Alabama football fan, couldn't stand losing to Auburn or watching the Tigers run to the BCS national title behind Cam Newton.
• In one of the most notorious revenge acts in sports history, Updyke poisoned Auburn's oak trees at Toomer's Corner.
• What happened next is part tragedy, part absurdist comedy and part whodunnit like you've never heard it before, from Paul Finebaum and the people who played a role in taking this saga to epic heights.

AUBURN, Ala. — Stickers disguised the color of the car but made it twice as memorable. Through the office window, elephants and various sizes of the cursive Alabama “A” were visible. They were layered on top of one another in a slapdash arrangement, like a scrapbook collage. Maybe the car was crimson. Maybe it was white. It was clearly a clunker, though. Receptionist Erin Walker imagined the stickers probably made up for missing patches of paint.

Its driver stood within two feet of Walker’s desk. At eye level from her seat, his belly was hanging out of his T-shirt. It was January, but he wore Bermuda shorts. 

“I want to kill out a couple acres’ worth of trees,” he announced. Five or six TruGreen Lawn Care employees occupied the small Opelika office that day. One stood and asked for details.