Dark and Bloody Ground (53 page)

Resentful and discouraged, Lester was yet not entirely displeased. He was in the news again, which meant that he was still an actual person and not just a numbered item of federal property; and, he believed, he had caused Judge Siler some discomfort. If the action had failed, for a few months it had given Lester hope.

He did the rest of his time as a model prisoner, receiving the highest marks for his library work, attending church services each Sunday,
and spending many hours discussing issues of crime, guilt, and punishment with the prison chaplain, who he thought was the only man in the place concerned about what would happen to inmates when they got out. As the jailhouse lawyer he won reductions in terms for other prisoners, including a Mississippi judge who invited him to come fishing some day. He took some mischievous glee in forcing the government to send him W-2 forms for his ninety-cents-an-hour wages as the antibureaucratic gadfly. He counted each day until the next visit from Asonia; he saved and often reread cards and letters from well-wishers and kept track of the several so-called friends who abandoned him, including a minister who explained that visiting Lester Burns in prison might be misunderstood by the congregation. When Dr. Acker sent sympathetic cards, Lester replied at length.

He spent his last month before parole at the federal prison in Lexington, the most unpleasant phase of his incarceration, locked up in the state he loved and had dominated. On the bus that took him there along with other manacled felons, the driver recognized and greeted him—"Hey, Lester! Come on up here and ride shotgun!"—a kindness that buoyed and humbled him.

Then the homecoming. Would they be glad to see him, or would having him around now be only an embarrassment? When he saw that his daughter who lived in New Orleans was there to greet him with her husband and his other daughter and son-in-law and the grandchildren and neighbors waving and shouting, he had to hide his face in Asonia’s shoulder. A new Ford Explorer wrapped in yellow ribbons stood in the driveway. She had picked it out herself, Asonia said, but the car was to him from all of them, to let him know how they felt.

When spring came Lester’s friends threw a big party for him out at the farm. It seemed as if half the people in the county showed up. A Greek neighbor butchered a lamb and they roasted it with a little porker on a spit outside, and there were banjos and fiddles and guitars. It had been no fun at all with Lester away, everybody said, and he proposed a toast:

“To justice! I believe in justice! I have fought for justice all my life! And I have received justice! I have had so much justice,
it’s giving me diarrhea!
”

It was on that night that Lester decided that the farmhouse had to go. He could not bear to be inside it, there were so many ghosts, voices from the past, not least of all his own. And he wanted to have the pleasure of knocking it down himself. He had built it, he would wreck it, and he would build a new one in its place.

Pals of his standing nearby that afternoon when he sat on the bulldozer warned him not to hit the house straight on or too fast; he could ruin the blade and knock himself for a loop. But Lester was not in a cautious mood. He backed off farther, revved that engine, threw her into gear, and headed for the corner like one of Patton’s tanks. He smashed into the stone at an angle and took a good chunk out, sending chips flying and cracks spreading in every direction. He let out a whoop and reversed to make another run.

A year later, the new house—of brick, two stories, higher up for a better view of the lake—was ready. He called it “Asonia’s Monster.” She had designed it and ordered every fixture and persuaded him that they should sell their other place and move to the farm full-time. He knew how right she was.

Not being able to practice law frustrated Lester, along with having to report to a parole officer; but he kept as busy as ever farming, developing a shopping center, attending land auctions and buying up property around his old law office, tinkering with a Chevy Eagle coupe that was nearly as old as himself and had a wooden trunk strapped to its rear that he joked would be perfect for holding cash. He planned to apply someday for the return of his attorney’s license, for symbolic reasons, even if he never used it. “I hate criminals,” he said. “God, how I hate them. But it’s nice to think you’re good for something. Just making money is a useless kind of life, although it beats not making it.”

At the party to celebrate the new house, somebody noticed an old violin case with Lester’s name pasted on it in silver block letters, lying in a corner.

“An old man gave that fiddle to me,” Lester said. He opened the case and began the story.

SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

F. Chris Cawood, an attorney practicing in Kingston, Tennessee, who acted for Sherry Sheets in two of her divorces, began gathering material for a book about her and the Acker crimes several years ago. I am grateful to him that when he decided not to write the book himself, he turned over his materials to me and continued to help with the research through the completion of my manuscript. His initial interviews with Sherry were invaluable and formed a basis for my subsequent talks with her. Mr. Cawood also was my guide on my first trip through Eastern Kentucky and East Tennessee, and my wife and I wish to thank him and his wife, Sara, for their hospitality.

Most of the research for
A Dark and Bloody Ground,
notably the extensive interviews and exploring of the territory, was carried out jointly by my wife, Suzanne O’Brien, and myself. We alternated asking questions and taking notes, comparing impressions and conclusions afterwards. She organized itineraries, made follow-up contacts, and was the first reader. Her contributions have affected every aspect of this work.

Sherry Sheets talked to me and eventually to Suzanne through many evenings. In explaining why and how she could be so open and detailed about personal and criminal matters, Sherry said that she
wished to have her story known so that her daughter and other young women would not be tempted into her mistakes. I have tried to convey the spirit as well as the facts of her part of the story.

Lester Burns contributed to this book simply by existing, but he also gave freely of his time, supplied important documents, and was an inexhaustible source of Kentucky lore and of the history of his fascinating life. I also thank Asonia Burns for permitting me to stay in her home and for enduring my phone calls. Coming to understand her devotion to her family was most important to me.

I must thank Donald Terry Bartley for talking to me at the State reformatory at La Grange and on the telephone; thanks also to Jim Irwin of the Kentucky Department of Corrections for arranging this contact. On the advice of their attorneys, Roger Dale Epperson and Benny Lee Hodge refused my requests for interviews.

While I attempted to interview surviving members of the Acker family, Dr. Roscoe J. Acker and his daughter preferred not to relive their tragedy once again, it being already well documented in court transcripts, police records, and the press. Some months after the trial, Tawny Acker married KSP Trooper Tim Hogg, who works out of the Hazard post and is a cousin of Judge Byrd Hogg’s. My impressions of the late Tammy Acker are derived from various sources, all of whom asked not to be identified. I wish to thank Mr. Jonathan Taylor of Harvard University for helping me obtain information and documentation relative to Dr. Acker’s background.

Special Agent Wilburn R. Kincaid of the FBI was the person who suggested that I ought to meet Lester Burns, because of my interest in local color and idiom as well as for the sake of the story itself. For that alone I am indebted to him, but Mr. Kincaid also enlightened me about the FBI’s role and provided me with his own analysis of everything relating to ACKMUR. Through him I was also able to interview Florida agents William Fluherty III and Charles Boling. I also wish to thank Belinda Maples of the Bureau’s Washington, D.C., headquarters, who cleared my FBI contacts and was helpful in leading me to other sources. I must add that the Bureau’s personnel as a whole were extremely courteous and helpful, doing everything within legal and practical limits to help me.

Lieutenant Danny Webb of the Kentucky State Police was most generous with his time and insights. Although Kentucky’s “open records” law makes all case documents, including police reports,
available to the public, actually obtaining these without help would have been another matter; nor would I have known what to look for had Lieutenant Webb not guided me. Bits and pieces of his knowledge and opinions are scattered throughout the last third of the book. At the present writing, the lieutenant continues to hold a pair of my reading glasses in custody, but I am sure they are safe at the Hazard post.

Detective Frank Fleming, formerly of the KSP, was very helpful and candid about a case that proved emotional and difficult for him; he is the obvious source of material that could only have come from him and that, until now, was known only to him and a handful of others. He and his wife also let me borrow their file of press clippings on the Acker and Morris cases, without my even asking.

When Alice Cornett, an editor, reporter, and biographer from London, Kentucky, learned that I was researching this book, she took the trouble to write me in care of my publisher, offering to turn over to me all of her files on the Acker and Morris cases, both of which she covered as a reporter and photographer. I must say that I remain at a loss to explain this generosity, so uncharacteristic of writers, which turned out to be of invaluable help. I was also able to benefit from talking to her in person and on the phone. She had at one time thought about writing about this case herself, but turned instead to completing a biography of the novelist James Jones, a much anticipated work.

Equally generous were Tom and Pat Gish, owners and publishers of the
Whitesburg Mountain Eagle,
and their son Ben Gish, who gave me copies of the relevant editions of their remarkable newspaper and permission to use photographs, and offered insights based on intimate knowledge and love of their native grounds. Close friends of the late Harry M. Caudill, the Gishes lead the campaign to build a library in his name, which will add to Whitesburg’s distinction as the cultural center of Appalachia.

In Whitesburg I also must thank Judge F. Byrd Hogg, Commonwealth’s Attorney James Wiley Craft, and Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Mike Caudill. Mr. Caudill and his wife were the first people my wife and I interviewed there and helped us make other contacts; Judge Hogg responded in person and through correspondence; Mr. Craft granted us an interview and was invariably responsive to follow-up inquiries.

In Kentucky others who were helpful included the Hon. Elizabeth Meyerscough, Assistant Attorney General, of Frankfort; Gary E. Johnson, Assistant Public Advocate; Judy Jones, formerly with the
Lexington Herald-Leader,
who recommended background reading; and John and Donna Ward of Lexington, who helped in a most timely and crucial way.

I also wish to express gratitude to Jack C. Oxley of Tulsa, Oklahoma, who first introduced my wife and me to Kentucky many years ago and who provided transportation and hospitality for us throughout our research, solving logistical and other problems with his usual kindness and grace.

In Tennessee I wish to thank Gil Monroe, Warden of Brushy Mountain State Prison; Catherine Still and Eldridge Douglas, both formerly of the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department; and several residents of Roane and Anderson counties who asked not to be identified.

I wish to thank the following people for specific help: Robert W. Davis, chairman, F & M Bank of Tulsa, for information on federal banking regulations; Charles B. Clement for guidance on Southern legal and business practice; Gailard Sartain and Brent T. Beesley for contributions involving local speech patterns and idioms; Guy Logsdon and John Wooley for help with folk and country music; Gary DeNeal for historical background; Blanche Hausam for information on techniques of Southern cooking; O. B. Hausam for answering important questions about early techniques of building-foundation construction; Gary Casey for Kentucky lore; Kevin Cavaness for facts about firearms; and Molly O’Brien for ideas on narrative structure.

I also wish to thank my colleagues in the English Department and the administration at the University of Tulsa for their continuing enthusiasm and support for my work.

The printed sources for this book include material from many big-city and small-town newspapers throughout Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida, the most important of which was the
Whitesburg Mountain Eagle.
These were obtained through personal files, various county libraries, the McFarlin Library of the University of Tulsa, and the libraries of the newspapers themselves, especially that of the
Louisville Courier-Journal.

For historical background, I consulted numerous works: the literature of Kentucky and Tennessee is voluminous; writers have always
found those states alluring. For me the two most helpful books have been Harry M. Caudill’s
Night Comes to the Cumberlands
(New York, 1962) and David E. Whisnant’s
All That Is Native & Fine
(Chapel Hill, 1983), subtitled “The Politics of Culture in an American Region.”

Transcripts of the following trials and legal proceedings have been invaluable:
Commonwealth of Kentucky Versus Epperson and Hodge,
Letcher Circuit Court, 1986;
Commonwealth of Kentucky Versus Epperson and Hodge,
Laurel Circuit Court, 1987;
United States of America Versus Lester H. Burns, Jr.,
London, Kentucky, 1987; and
U.S. Versus Dale B. Mitchell,
Lexington, Kentucky, 1987. Other transcripts, depositions, appeals briefs, and various official documents examined are voluminous and seem too cumbersome to list here.

It remains for me to thank the two people who, after my wife, have been most important to the inception and completion of this book.

Robert Gottlieb, Senior Vice President, Member of the Board, and Head of the Literary Department at the William Morris Agency, has been my agent and friend for many years. He is a man of ideas who has made writing a far less lonely activity. It is a pleasure to express my continuing gratitude to him.