Posted on 04/28/2005 9:05:25 AM PDT by kingattax
PIKEVILLE — Folks in this eastern Kentucky town are demanding an apology from the A&E network after an episode of “City Confidential” that they say was unflattering and unfair.
“Obviously, being labeled the town from hell can not be interpreted in any way as positive,” City Manager Donovan Blackburn wrote in a letter to network.
Blackburn said local residents cooperated in the production of the documentary show, which revolved around murders committed by a group of occultists, after a producer told them the town would be portrayed positively.
A&E had no immediate response to the complaint. A network spokeswoman said Wednesday that Blackburn’s letter is being reviewed.
“City Confidential” is billed as a show that “goes inside a unique American city and explores its colorful characters, its peculiar history, and the truth behind its hidden mystery.”
Blackburn said he watched the show when March 26 and was shocked that Pikeville was portrayed as a hillbilly haven, a stereotype people throughout the region have fought vigorously to overcome.
“You start the piece by showing a rebel flag on Julius Avenue, an overweight man without a shirt smoking a cigarette and an old pickup with a few women in the back,” Blackburn said. “As I am sure you would agree, you can go to almost any city in America and find the same.”
A description of the show on A&E’s Web site describes the Appalachian town of 6,300 as “a place where most kids will do anything to escape. Like in April of 1997, when one Pikeville girl and her five fellow teenagers took a road trip to hell.”
The show delved into the 1997 kidnappings and murders of a Tennessee couple and their 6-year-old daughter by six eastern Kentuckians now serving life sentences in prison. The couple’s 2-year-old son also was kidnapped and shot, but he survived.
Tennessee prosecutors said the six held a bizarre ritual in a Pikeville motel room that included self-mutilation and bloodletting before they left on the road trip. The reputed ringleader of the group, then 19-year-old Natasha Cornett, had told her attorney she was the daughter of Satan.
According to prosecutors, Cornett saw the movie “Natural Born Killers,” decided she wanted to traverse the country killing people and began recruiting people to go with her.
Blackburn claimed in his letter to the network that the show was filled with “unbelievable misrepresentation of fact.” As a result, Mayor Frank Justice II and city commissioners passed a resolution on Monday demanding a public apology.
Justice said he fears the show has put Pikeville in such an unfavorable light that industrial recruiters will find it more difficult to convince companies to move into the town.
“We’re a progressive town,” Justice said today
For the Pikeville Chamber of Commerce call BR-549 -- ask for Junior.
ROFL
The A&E show on Houston was all about the cheerleader's mom who took out the murder contract on her daughter's compeditor.
If'n ya'll member back fur'nuf, Pikevil's th' place whar Les Moonveees went to get some folks fur that thar show called the New Beverly Hillbillies.
(I'm from the county next to Pike County and speak fluent hillbilly.)
New York City? Detroit? Chicago? Boston? Never. They are not nearly as refined and diverse as the South.
You are dead on, there are a lot of attorneys, but the county population (not city) is well over 6,000.....
God only knows how many people live in those hills =)
So, there is nothing wrong with having an old pickup and a few wymins in the back.
Spares, doncha know........
So where are you from Bluegrass? It may interest you to know that Pikeville is not under Democratic control... and you'll find the same things in EVERY Ky town that you see in Pikeville, including yours! If you want, I'll show you pictures...lol
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