Posted on 5/16/2004, 1:01:46 PM by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
HENRIETTA -- For almost 60 years, the dense red earth of Clay County covered both the body of Harold Eugene "Buddy" Vest and the secrets of his death. Now that earth has been removed. Vest's body lies in a forensic anthropologist's lab in Denton, awaiting examination. A death once thought to be a bizarre, autoerotic suicide could be a murder. And skeletons may rattle in a few closets in Gainesville. The chance that history may be rewritten in that town rose with Vest's coffin on April 23. Standing by, as that rusted casket was lifted from the ground of Hope Cemetery in Henrietta, were a middle-aged man, his jaw set in determination, and an elderly woman who stared fixedly toward the grave.
They were Herb and Ruth Vest, son and widow of the man in the coffin, two principals in a tale of jealousy and murder, a story brought to light by a wealthy man's determination to learn the truth about his father's death. It began on the evening of June 27, 1946, as Ruth Vest, a young bride with a 22-month-old son, waited in a modest home on the outskirts of Gainesville for her husband to return from work at his cabinet shop downtown. Buddy Vest spent long hours in that shop. The Vests, married for four years, were just starting out in Gainesville, a town of about 14,000 that was reaping the benefits of an oil boom. The young couple had moved there from Henrietta with their infant son, Herb, only a few months earlier -- a young family with little money and no car, but hope for the future.
When midnight neared and her husband had not arrived, Ruth Vest became worried. She roused a neighbor and asked for a ride to her husband's shop. There, she found the building padlocked and dark except for the glow of a single bulb, dimly evident from the closed bathroom at the rear. Frightened, she sought the aid of a stranger, a sailor who was hitchhiking his way through town. Together, the two entered the shop and headed toward the light. At the bathroom, the sailor stepped to the front, gingerly cracked the door and turned to look at Ruth Vest. "And when his eyes met mine, I knew my husband was dead," she said, "and I don't remember another thing from that night."
Burying the past
Buddy Vest, 25, was buried quietly a few days later. Ruth Vest's father, mayor of Henrietta and a protective parent, told his daughter little of her husband's death, though she inferred that Buddy had hanged himself. Ruth Vest told her son even less. Even as Herb Vest earned degrees in both law and accounting, as he served in Vietnam, then built a staggeringly successful accounting business and became a multimillionaire, she never told him. "Over the years I tried to draw some comfort from the thought that if Buddy killed himself, it must have been his choice and he wanted to die," she said. "But I couldn't understand why he would want to die and I couldn't bring myself to tell Herb."
Then, 30 years after that night in Gainesville, a thoughtless comment from another relative bared something even more distressing to Ruth Vest. "She said, `You know your husband was found dead wearing women's underwear, don't you?' I didn't know and I didn't know what to think when she told me." The implication was chilling: that her late husband had died in the process of inducing strangulation to enhance masturbation. For years Ruth Vest kept that information to herself as well. Then, seven years ago, shortly after she turned 75, she decided to tell her son what she knew of his father's death. Herb Vest took the news in stride. Years before, at age 12, he had found old letters in an attic that hinted that the death was self-inflicted. The women's undergarments, however, was disturbing news. He waited several years, then in September 2003 decided to investigate. He called Danny K. Williams, a private detective he had used in the past.
Puzzling details
Williams began searching for records and was amazed at what he didn't find. First, Harold Eugene Vest's name was missing from the index of the late Justice of the Peace L.V. Henry's death reports. When Williams finally found the inquest report, he saw that it included several errors -- uncharacteristic for the meticulous Henry -- and was torn in two above the line that would have included Henry's signature. The death certificate, a separate document, was handwritten, the only handwritten one in stacks of typed certificates. In addition, it was in a script vastly different from Henry's left-handed style and bore a signature for L.V. Henry that several who knew Henry have identified as an obvious forgery. Even more puzzling were some of the details of the incident. Vest had been hanged, the inquest states, with a leather drive belt taken from one of his woodworking machines and nailed to the facing door. Not only was Vest clad only in socks, "ladies' panties" and a girdle, but he was bound, his left arm pinioned to his side by a small rope around his waist. His feet were tied as well, with another rope that was wrapped just above the ankles and fastened to the wall with an "eye" screw.
Vest's feet were not touching the floor and a block of wood, approximately 10 inches long and 4 inches square, was lying nearby, as was "an open knife." There is no reference to Vest's driver's license or wallet, neither of which was given to the family. In addition, Williams found a newspaper account from 2 1/2 weeks after the hanging that stated that a "Harold F. Vest" had checked into the Wichita Falls hospital. Williams found no other "Vest" listed anywhere in the area, and no record of the person being dismissed. "It sounds like someone used his driver's license to check into the hospital and they got the middle initial wrong," Williams said. "This didn't seem like any suicide or autoerotic death to me. It sounds like some sort of cover-up."
Moreover, there are no police records of the incident, no reports by the officers who investigated the death, no records of any other deaths in that year or subsequent years for decades. "We don't know what happened to the records," said Gainesville Police Chief Carl Dunlap. "I came in 1980 and I can't find any arrest reports, any investigative files or even any personnel records before the 1970s, and they should be there. I don't know if they didn't make them, or threw them away."
Cryptic letter arrives
Herb Vest had a series of experts on autoerotic deaths review the details of his father's hanging. When they agreed that it was inconsistent with such a death, Williams placed a newspaper ad, offering a $10,000 reward for information about Vest's death. "Then, I got a letter," Williams said. The letter, as described by Williams and the Vests, was in a strange format: a typed, three-page, single-spaced document with no paragraphs and little punctuation. It told an even stranger story. The writer, who identified herself only as "M. Smith," wrote that she knew what had happened to Buddy Vest and that she had caused it.
"M. Smith," Williams said, wrote that she had gone to Vest's cabinet shop on the evening of June 27 to attempt to seduce Vest and make her boyfriend, a married police officer, jealous. The plan backfired, she claimed, when the police officer and two other men followed her to the shop and confronted her with Vest. The men forced her to strip, then forced Vest to don her girdle and underwear to humiliate him. They then sexually assaulted her in front of Vest and took her from the shop. The writer claimed that she later learned that the men had hanged Vest, possibly by accident in the process of intimidating him. "It said that she'd never told anyone, but she felt responsible," Williams said. "It also said that one of the men is still alive, but he has a `poor memory.' " The letter was filled with details that dovetail with what Williams had learned of Vest's death and several that only someone who knew Vest could supply. It went on to say that although the writer would not decline a reward, money was not her motive. It instructed Williams to contact her at a general delivery address in a nearby town.
"We tried, but we never got a response. We've even increased the reward to $25,000, but we've never heard from `M. Smith' again," Williams said. Still, based on that letter and the peculiarities surrounding the case, Cooke County Justice of the Peace Dorthy Lewis issued an exhumation order, allowing Vest's body to be taken to the University of North Texas. There, Dr. Gil King, a forensic anthropologist, will examine it for evidence of trauma other than that to the neck. King's report is expected some time this month.
"If Dr. King finds evidence of a homicide, I can change the ruling in this death," Lewis said. "If they had a witness, I could change it. Otherwise, I don't know that I can, just based on this anonymous letter. "Not that the letter may not be true. There are certainly a lot of things about the way this case was handled that aren't right."
Piecing together clues
Williams' inquiries have stirred the rumor mills in Gainesville, where some longtime residents, such as "Pud" Albert, have their own theories. Albert, 81, who owned a café where Buddy Vest used to eat, has no memory of Vest or his death, but has been instrumental in helping Williams locate people involved in the case. "I think it may come out," Albert said. "I figure `M. Smith' is somebody fairly important who can't afford to have this known about her. But there are bound to be others who know things that can be pieced together." For his part, Herb Vest has said he is willing to go to any reasonable length to learn the truth about his father's death -- even if it means paying for the defense of one of the men who participated in killing him.
"I want the truth and that means speaking to `M. Smith' and this man, the remaining witness," Vest said. "I want to stress that I don't want revenge. I never really knew my father. I just want to know what happened to him. "It's unlikely they could prosecute this case at this point anyway, but I want him to know that I will never press for prosecution and, if there is any effort to prosecute him, I'll pay for his defense. "I'll do whatever is necessary and I don't intend to stop until I find out what happened to my father."
1 Timothy 5:24 The sins of some men are quite evident, going before them to judgment; for others, their sins follow after.
1 Timothy 5:25 Likewise also, deeds that are good are quite evident, and those which are otherwise cannot be concealed.
btt for later read
Interesting post.
Mark for later...
Quite a story.
Show be an episode of "CSI-Gainsville Cold Case Files" any day now.
I think she also posts on FR.
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