Posted on 04/12/2006 7:37:22 AM PDT by Diddle E. Squat
MEMPHIS - An Alabama booster convicted of bribing a high school coach to get a top recruit for the Crimson Tide was killed in his home after a fierce, bloody struggle, police said Tuesday.
Police had not confirmed the body was that of Logan Young, but his defense attorney said it was the 65-year-old Memphis resident.
Police were not sure how he was killed, but investigators found "a lot of blood," police Sgt. Vince Higgins said.
"The nature of the attack was brutal," Higgins said. "The entire house is a crime scene."
Higgins said there were signs of a struggle in the house, a two-story stone Tudor home in one of Memphis' most exclusive country club neighborhoods.
Investigators don't know a motive or if the attack was related to Young's federal conviction, Higgins said. Police haven't determined how his home was entered or how many attackers there might have been.
While police waited for fingerprints and dental records to identify the body, Nashville defense attorney Jim Neal confirmed the victim was Young.
"I've had two or three calls about it, all to the same end, found killed in his home. ... I heard that there was blood everywhere," Neal said.
Higgins said Young's housekeeper found the body after she arrived for work Tuesday morning, and the pool boy told police he saw Young as he was leaving the house late Monday.
"All we can tell is (the killing) happened sometime overnight - late night or early morning," Higgins said.
Memphis police said there had not been any recent police calls to Young's address before his body was found.
Young was free pending appeal of his 2005 conviction on money laundering and racketeering conspiracy charges in a federal case involving the recruiting of defensive lineman Albert Means.
Young was sentenced last June to six months in prison, plus six months' home confinement, then two years' supervised release.
His attorneys had argued against any jail time because Young needed a kidney transplant and could not get proper medical care in prison. Final briefs in his appeal were to be filed July 14, according to court records.
Young was the son of a wealthy businessman in Osceola, Ark., and was never a student at Alabama, but he was widely known as the Crimson Tide's most influential booster in Memphis.
He claimed to be a friend of Alabama coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and was the original owner of the Memphis Showboats of the USFL in the early '80s.
But last year he became one of the first college football boosters ever to be sentenced to federal prison for recruiting violations.
Former high school coach Lynn Lang, who avoided jail time after pleading guilty to taking part in a racketeering conspiracy, testified against Young, saying the booster paid $150,000 to get Means to sign with Alabama in 2000.
The NCAA has said it believed Means was unaware his football talents were being brokered. The player later transferred to Memphis, where he finished his college career.
Lang testified at Young's trial that other universities, including Georgia, Kentucky, Arkansas, Memphis, Ole Miss, Michigan State and Tennessee, offered him money or jobs to get Means.
No charges were filed against anyone with those schools.
Means' recruitment became part of an NCAA investigation that led to sanctions against Alabama in 2002, costing the Crimson Tide scholarships and bowl appearances.
Attorney Tommy Gallion, who represented former Alabama assistants Ivy Williams and Ronnie Cottrell in a defamation suit against the NCAA and others, called the news tragic.
Memphis attorney Phillip Shanks was assisting Gallion on the lawsuit in May 2004 when he was attacked in his office and left unconscious. Key case documents were stolen, he said. No one was ever charged in the case.
"I have no idea who could be behind this. I was shocked that Phillip Shanks was beaten, and this was more shocking," Gallion said in a statement read by his secretary.
Cottrell said he was horrified when he heard Young had been killed.
"I couldn't believe it. Logan was a friend, and he has been through so much already. Certainly for his life to end this way was a tragedy. My prayers are just with his family right now," Cottrell said.
Defense attorney Robert Hutton said he last talked with Young last week and called his death a total shock and a real loss.
"He was very generous man. He was generous with people around him. A pastor of a Catholic Church, he asked for money for some program, for the roof or something, and he gave him the money. Logan wasn't even Catholic," Hutton said.
Attorney Tommy Gallion, who represented former Alabama assistants Ivy Williams and Ronnie Cottrell in a defamation suit against the NCAA and others, called the news tragic.
Memphis attorney Phillip Shanks was assisting Gallion on the lawsuit in May 2004 when he was attacked in his office and left unconscious. Key case documents were stolen, he said. No one was ever charged in the case.
Just damn.
BTTT
Rumor has it that his own son did it. Apparently, he is a drug addict and had just moved back in with him. I heard this on a radio station here in TN. Police had taken the son into custody all according to the rumor.
I'm not sure that the part about Shanks was ever on the up and up. IMO, it was kind of shady... I'm not so sure it ever even happened.
Surprise, surprise ... Farese and Ballin, the attorneys for Mary Winkler, the Tennessee minister's wife who shot and killed him three weeks ago and then fled with their 3 children, are also the attorneys now for Logan Young III, to wit:
~~~~
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060412/NEWS/60412001/1001
April 12, 2006
The Latest: Death of Logan Young
By Tim Gayle
Montgomery Advertiser
Memphis Police returned to Logan Young Jr.’s home in the Chickasaw Gardens neighborhood this morning to continue their investigation into the millionaire’s death.
The badly beaten body of Young, a former University of Alabama athletic booster, was discovered Tuesday morning by a housekeeper, but the cause of death remains uncertain.
“We’re continuing our investigation,” Memphis Police Sgt. Vince Higgins said late this morning. “No cause of death has been determined.”
The identity of Young, a wealthy businessman convicted in 2005 of federal racketeering charges in connection with an NCAA investigation of Alabama football, was determined through fingerprint identification.
Police initially said they believed Young was the victim of a vicious attack, but are releasing few details while they continue the investigation.
Higgins said Young’s 39-year-old son, Logan Young III, arrived at the police department on Tuesday night to give a statement to investigators. Higgins did not describe him as a suspect.
“He was very cooperative and forthcoming,” Higgins said.
Young III is being represented by attorneys Steve Farese and Leslie Ballin. The pair is also defending Mary Winkler, the Selmer, Tenn., woman accused of killing her minister husband.
Farese is considered one of the top defense attorneys in America. Ballin is another high-profile attorney who is representing country music singer Hank Williams Jr. against recent allegations of harassment made by a waitress at Memphis’ Peabody Hotel.
Young, 65, reportedly has assets valued at $14 million and was the former owner of the United States Football League’s Memphis Showboats as well as a food and beverage distributor. Although Young attended college at Vanderbilt University, he developed a passion for Alabama’s athletic program after building a relationship with former Crimson Tide football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant.
In 2000, an NCAA investigation of the Crimson Tide’s football program centered on reports that Young spent $150,000 in an effort to get Trezevent High coaches Lynn Lang and Milton Kirk to steer prize recruit Albert Means to the University of Alabama.
In early 2002, Alabama was penalized by the NCAA for recruiting violations and was stripped of 21 scholarships over a three-year period and placed on a five-year probationary period. The school also was ordered to cease all contact with Young and two other boosters, forcing the Memphis booster to surrender a rented luxury suite in Bryant-Denny Stadium.
In October 2003, Young was indicted by a federal grand jury in Memphis on racketeering charges stemming from the NCAA case. He was later convicted and sentenced to six months in prison, but remained free while the case was on appeal.
~~~~~
What the ? It's such a small world isn't it? This is very interesting...
Your average town has a lot of criminal defense attorneys, but usually only a handful who have the skills and wherewithall to defend a high-profile criminal case.
If somebody I knew got into BIG trouble (e.g. a highly publicized murder), there are really only two, maybe three attorneys in this area that I could wholeheartedly recommend.
So it's really not odd that a couple of high profile murder cases wound up in the same lawyers' office . . . that's what I would expect.
Check this out. Looks like it was an accident and not a homicide.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/local/article/0,2845,MCA_25340_4618742,00.html
Sorry, the "surprise, surprise" remark was sarcasm--I should have marked it, I suppose. It's a Gomer Pyle-ism. The two attorneys are not partners, so it is unusual to have them teaming up on selected cases.
As it is, they've done a fabulous job for Logan Young III, turning it into a non-crime! They've tried the same thing with Mary, so far to no avail, but "the night is young," so to speak.
Yeah, saw that a while ago. How bizarre to fall, get a fatal injury, then go around the house and even upstairs, trailing blood everywhere, before dying. Who would've thought that? I'd love to know the CSI-type thought processes that led the ME to his about-face.
The autopsy results, following the trail of blood backwards, and finding blood on a stationary object too heavy to lift would result in this change of thinking.
At least law enforcement in Memphis isn't afraid to change their theories when the evidence changes . . . unlike the DA in Durham . . .
Yeah, I understand about the head injury and how that *can* happen, but I was amazed that he could've walked upstairs in that condition - that his body could do that, lots of energy required.
Most of all, though, I was so puzzled (still am) because the first stories said that he was unrecognizable and that dental records, fingerprints and DNA had to be used to identify him! I thought his face and body must have been hamburger meat. No way a fall could do that. Still scratching my head over it all - but like you said, it took $ome courage on the ME's part to reverse his observation$.
I hope you're not implying with those dollar signs that somebody paid for this one to go away. That's a mighty serious charge to make against a D.A. or a medical examiner for that matter. I wouldn't make it unless I knew the man was corrupt (and since I have lived in the City of Atlanta for 51 years I know it when I see it.)
Stranger things have happened. I just don't see how a "fall" could be deduced from that. Why not he "was pushed," especially if they thought his son was around or somehow knew something? Just funny, to me, that it all changed when the defense attorneys got involved.
The amateur murderer often forgets that the police are way ahead of him in terms of their experience in the field . . . .
A story I found yesterday went into very great detail on the crime scene, so I am more satisfied now that it *most likely* was an accident.
The reconstruction of events showed that evidently Young had fixed himself a salad and a soft drink and was headed upstairs with them. At the top step (landing), his salad bowl was overturned and contents scattered, his drink in a Crimson Tide plastic cup was spilled, and other items indicated he slipped or tripped right before the top step.
The fork from his salad landed at the bottom of the stairs, on the floor. He fell down the stairs, hitting several places (blood, I think was found) before landing very hard against an iron post at the bottom of the stairs.
They believe he laid there unconscious for a while, then came to, got up and walked into the kitchen to clean the blood off of himself. He used a hand towel to wrap around his bleeding head. He had a recent kidney transplant and was on blood thinners, so the blood was even more profuse than it would have been otherwise.
He left the kitchen, still bleeding everywhere, and went to several other rooms, before going upstairs and taking a shower, using even more towels to try to stop the bleeding. He laid down in bed, then got up again and evidently realized he was in worse shape than he thought. It seems like they found 6 bloody towels total upstairs.
He was reaching for the phone and fell onto the floor in the bedroom and then died. The ME felt all of this took about 30 minutes from start to finish.
The son had an alibi and all doors and windows were locked tight. His wallet and all his money and other valuables were intact and in place.
When I put $$ signs to indicate my suspicions about the change of the cause of death, I did not mean that someone gave the ME money to change his mind. I meant that the guy with the $$ often has the attorney who can strike fear in the hearts of LE as to being picked apart and second-guessed and shadowed by outside PIs.
Sometimes, weaker men suddenly "see the light" and revise their findings to go along with the implied "correct" way of analyzing things. It does happen. This same team of lawyers has spun the shooting of minister Winkler in the back, as confessed to by his wife, as possibly an accident. That's why I questioned the Young findings and I'm glad to read the detailed scenario the ME and LE were able to piece together. That much detail is not usually heard until or unless there is a trial.
Poor man! What a horrible way to die!
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