The Cornbread Mafia: A Homegrown Syndicate's Code of Silence and the Biggest Marijuana Bust in American History (61 page)

The story arc of Bobby Joe Shewmaker in this chapter and the rest of the book is based largely upon the court documents from his 1985 trial. Shewmaker declined requests to be interviewed for this book. Plans for a CCE prosecution are revealed in internal task force documents, released through FOIA.

The sources for the early history of Catholics in Kentucky, including the foundation of Holy Cross, will be covered in my notes for Chapter 1.

The concept of "God's Law" versus "Man's Law" bubbles up in several family histories but is specifically mentioned by one newspaperman to another in an episode from 1958 that will be covered in Chapter 2.'The parade of Prohibition-era headlines comes from the Lebanon Enterprise from 1919 to 1933.

Information about Al Capone's last trip aboard the Dixie Flier comes partly from Capone: The Life and World ofAl Capone by John Kohler and partly from interviews con ducted at the Kentucky Railway Museum in New Haven, Kentucky, where Engine No. 152 is housed.'Ihe sources related to John Dillinger will be discussed in the notes for Chapter 1.

'Ihe story of Hyleme George getting caught in 1946 with sugar ration stamps came from the file kept on Hyleme by the librarians at the Courier journal. Details about who played Club Cherry come from interviews with Obie Slater and others.

On page 76 of The Life and Times of Little Richard, the Authorized Biography by Charles White, Richard says, "`Lucille' is after a female impersonator in my hometown. We used to call him Queen Sonya. I just took the rhythm from an old song of mine called `Directly from My Heart to You' slowed down, and I used to do that riff and go `Sonya!' and I made it into `Lucille."'

The fact that "Sonya" became "Lucille" at Club Cherry in Lebanon was confirmed in an interview with Bill Samuels Jr., former president of Maker's Mark distillery. Samuels hired Little Richard to play one of his lavish Derby parties and invited among his many guests Elmer George, who brought Obie Slater as his guest. During an intermission, Samuels witnessed Obie and Little Richard reminiscing about old times, where Little Richard confirmed the story that "Lucille" was named after Lucille Edelen, manager of Club Cherry.

In Tina Turner's authorized autobiography, I, Tina, written with the help of MTV newsman and Rolling Stone editor Kurt Loder, there is nothing to confirm or disprove the relationship between the Turners and Hyleme George at Club 68.

"It's Gonna Work Out Fine," released as a seven-inch single in 1961 by Sue Records, became Ike and Tina's second hit record.

Anecdotal references to the connection between the return of soldiers from the Vietnam War and the rise of the marijuana-growing industry were verified by reviewing a government report from 1974: The Vietnam Drug User Returns, commissioned by President Nixon, which concluded that only 41 percent of Vietnam soldiers had smoked pot before the war and that they were mostly from cities on the West Coast; over 90 percent of soldiers became exposed to drugs in Vietnam, and in nearly 75 percent of the units, pot smokers outnumbered nonsmokers. In addition to the 41 percent who smoked before the war, 28 percent of American soldiers began smoking pot in Vietnam, 11 percent within their first forty-eight hours in-country, making marijuana second only to alcohol as the US military's drug of choice; when other Vietnam veterans returned home elsewhere in America, most found that their old friends had discovered marijuana in the two years they had been away, and one in five found that more than half of his friends were getting high.

Before Vietnam, the nation's exposure to marijuana and other drugs was largely confined to major cities, but after Vietnam, drug patterns across geographical regions became indistinguishable. In short, Vietnam marijuanafied America and Marion County along with it.

The parade of pot-related headlines comes from the Lebanon Enterprise from 1979 to 1989.'Ihe quotations from Johnny Boone at the end of the chapter come from interviews I conducted with him in 2007 and 2008.

PART I

CHAPTER I

The history of the Catholic settlements comes from a variety of sources, including Humble Beginnings: A Bicentennial History of St. Charles Parish and Early Catholicity of Marion-Nelson- Washington Counties 1786-1986, by Joseph E. Mudd; An American Holy Land.•AHistory of the Archdiocese ofLouisville, by Reverend Clyde F. Crews; History ofSt. Charles Church and the Centenary of the Congregation, 1806-1906, by the Reverend J. J. Pike; History ofMarion County, Kentucky, Vol. 1, compiled by the Marion County Historical Society; Kentucky Moonshine, by David W. Maurer with the assistance of Quinn Pearl and the microfilm archive of local newspapers, including the Lebanon Enterprise and its antecedents.

'Ihe story of the Reverend DeRohan, the drunk Irish priest, comes from Humble Beginnings, Chapter 3, where Mudd states, "Somehow, this alcoholic priest had wandered down into Tennessee ..." and "Father DeRohan knew that he was his own worst enemy and did not attempt to blame anyone else for his problem." In his footnotes, Mudd cites "Mattingly, M. Ramona, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THE KY. FRONTIER, p. 43" as his source on DeRohan.

My interview with Jacky Hunt, retired state police detective, was conducted in 2011 and continues throughout the text.

The date of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix was verified using a source from its period with lots of cultural insensitivity crammed into the title and subtitle, Red Men of the Ohio Valley: An Aboriginal History ..., by J. R. Dodge, published in 1860, from the Harvard College Library.

'ere is no shortage of sources for marking the foundation of Holy Cross by Basil Hayden in 1785, so for simplicity, I will cite the Reverend Crews's An American Holy Land, pages 36-39.

Bishop John Lancaster Spalding's estimate of "fifteen hundred Catholic souls" killed by the natives comes from Humble Beginnings, page 32, and Mudd cites as his footnote Spalding's biography of his uncle, The Life of the Most Reverend M. j Spalding, D. D., page 16.

The Reverend Badin's honor of being the "first priest ordained in America" can be found in numerous sources, including Bishops and Priests of the Diocese of Bardstown, by John A. Lyons, 1976, and An American Holy Land, page 44.

"'Ihe Kentucky Robespierre" comes from the Reverend Crews's An American Holy Land, page 40.

"By 1840 ."The facts listed here come from the "History of Lebanon," by Dr. J. F. McElroy, published in the Lebanon Enterprise in installments in 1910.

Kentucky is one of twenty-nine states with a town named Lebanon and one of thirtythree states with a town named Springfield.'Ihere are twenty-two states with both a Lebanon and a Springfield; of those twenty-two, Kentucky's Lebanon and Springfield are the nearest to each other at nine miles.'Ihe Lebanons and Springfields of New Hampshire and New Jersey tie for second-nearest at forty miles apart; and the Lebanon and Springfield in Colorado are farthest apart at 428 miles.

"Hurrah for ... Uncle Ben!" comes from an account written for the Enterprise by Mrs. Ellen C. Jenkins on July 14, 1914, and reprinted in the History of Marion County, Vol 1. The source for the paragraph on the prewar distilling years comes from History of Marion County, Vol. 1, pages 140-145.

"'They are having a stampede in Kentucky ..."'Ihis telegram from President Lincoln has been reproduced many places, including page 167 of Lincoln of Kentucky by Lowell Hayes Harrison and in "Raiding Strategy: As Applied by the Western Confederate Cavalry in the American Civil War" from the journal ofMilitary History, Vol. 63, Issues 1-2.

"'Ihe day after ... oath of allegiance." Information from this paragraph comes from Dr. McElroy's History ofLebanon.

The letter from Englishman William Bradbury comes from While Father Is Away: The Civil War Letters of William H. Bradbury, edited by Jennifer Bohrnstedt, University Press of Kentucky, 2002, page 112.

The statistics related to Lebanon's commercial activity immediately following the war come from Dr. McElroy's History of Lebanon. The census figures from 1870 and the list of bourbon brands produced before Prohibition come from the History of Marion County, Vol. 1.

The June 8, 1872, abstinence rally at St. Mary's comes from a contemporary press account. All the news related to the beginning of Prohibition comes straight from the Enterprise microfilm.

The fact that a crude steam still could produce three hundred to one thousand gallons of moonshine a day comes from Kentucky Moonshine, by David W. Maurer, University Press of Kentucky, 1974, page 69.

The connections between the heists of Marion County liquor and George Remus, the gangster from Cincinnati, become evident when one reads Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, by Daniel Okrent, pages 198-199.

The reporting on John Dillinger comes from a variety of sources, beginning with an interview with Eula Ray Kirkland, a local Gravel Switch historian.'Ihe date of Dillinger's parole from prison comes from FBI.gov.'Ihe quote "gambling and enjoying the gay night life of the city" comes from an account in the Lebanon Enterprise, as do all the headlines and details of the story, including the license plate number of the blue De Soto coupe.

The 2004 book john Dillinger: The Life and Death ofAmerica's First Celebrity Criminal, by Dary Matera, confirms much of the reporting in this book regarding Dillinger's Kentucky connections. Matera confirms the connection to Gravel Switch's Frank Whitehouse on page 72, ". . . Matt Leach and his [Indiana] state police detectives were in Kentucky connecting Dillinger to the Whitehouse brothers and scrutinizing the freshly repainted stolen DeSoto from Dillinger's White Cap days. Frank Whitehouse, nabbed for a subsequent stick-up, agreed to trade what he knew for the quick release of his brother George, who he claimed was clean. He told investigators about Dillinger's World's Fair trip, but little more ..."

On pages 374-375, in a footnote to explain why Dillinger's wallet was "overflowing with fifties" (p. 62), Matera details the Gravel Switch robbery, confirming that the indictment handed down in October named "Maurice Lanham, James Kirkland, and John Dillinger as those responsible for the holdup of the People's Bank of Gravel Switch on August 8 ..." But Matera says the getaway car was a "blue Dodge," not a DeSoto.

CHAPTER 2

I was given the 1877 edition of the History ofKentucky in 2006 by Suzie Smith, my gifted English teacher from Marion County High School.'Ihe statistics for each commodity by county were in an index in the back of this tome. Discussion of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 can be found in Perspectives on Drug Use in the United States, by Bernard Segal, 1986, page 14. Discussion of hemp production in the Philippines by the American military dates back to at least the 1903 printing of Description of the Philippines: Official Handbook ..., compiled in the Bureau of Insular Affairs, War Department, Washington, D.C., including this passage on page 243:

"The productiveness of the volcanic soils is such that the Islands enjoy a practical monopoly of the world's hemp markets.'Ihe fine, pliant fiber common to the so-called Manila product defies competition and has no successful imitator."

In Linda K. Menton's Rise ofModern Japan, she writes on page 137, "On the same day of the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese attacked the Philippines."

Descriptions of hemp farming in Marion County come from several interviews, including with Joe Downs and Al Brady, who provided the quote, "I think ... made me drunk," as well as the story about saving the bottle of hemp seeds.

News ofJohnny Boone's young achievements in 4-H farming contests comes from an article in the April 2, 1961, edition of the Springfield Sun; stories about Boone's childhood come from interviews with him in 2007 and 2008.

The story of the 1958 bombing of the ABC agent's house and subsequent raid led by Public Safety Commissioner Don Sturgill comes from interviews of locals and press accounts in the and the Lebanon Enterprise, including all the quotes mentioned, including "If a crook. . ." and "But prostitution is a sin against God ..."'This last quote is the first example in print I found to articulate the distinction between God's Law and Man's Law, as understood by the residents of Marion County.

The fact that Lloyd Price opened the first show at Club 68 in 1964 comes from interviews with Obie Slater. Price's lyrics for "Gonna Get Married" (EMI Music Publishing) were found at LyricsMode.com.

Sources for the story of the "hot air-conditioner incident" include the Lebanon Enterprise, police files released through open records requests and interviews, including with Sr. Mary Dominic Stine, who passed away on September 19, 2008.'Ihe information from the paragraph about the nuns' fundraising for air conditioners comes from the Enterprise. Information from the early days of theft from the GE plant comes from interviews with Joe Downs.

"I never really saw Hyleme ..." comes from an interview with Sr. Mary Dominic Stine at the St. Catherine convent in Springfield, when she was in her nineties.

Details of the case, such as the check number written by Stine, come from an open records request to the Kentucky State Police.

Details about the Bickett family history come from interviews with several Bicketts, particularly Charlie.

"'Me people who attended this meeting..." comes from the Enterprise.

Stories about Charlie Stiles come from interviews from a variety of sources, including outlaws like Johnny Boone and Jimmy Bickett, and law-abiding citizens like retired state policeman Jacky Hunt.

The fact that a meeting occurred at the state police headquarters on June 17, 1971, concerning Charlie Stiles comes from Detective Ralph Ross's notes of the meeting, released through an open records request, and from Al Cross's unpublished reporting on the subject, which he supplied as a background source for this book.

Descriptions of the activities of the "Stiles detail" come from the police file released through the Stiles file kept by Al Cross and supplemented by an open-records (KORA) request, including quotes like "his is a typical ...," "Stiles is aware ..." and "I'm going to go home ..."

Plenty of speculation surrounds the actual events of the death of Charlie Stiles on September 5, 1971, but because none of it is provable at this point (Al Cross could not pin it down in the early 1980s, either), the story sticks to the official police report as its primary source. Charlie Stiles's "rap sheet" was included in his police file.