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The Dixie Mafia"BANNED BY EDICT from smuggling drugs, the Italian American Mafia missed out on the most lucrative crime wave of the twentieth century. It was left to others to profit from the $100 billion a year market in cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamines. Those best placed, by geography and criminal tradition, were the loose-knit groupings of the South, known to law enforcement as the "Dixie Mafia."
The term was first coined by Rex Armistead, the Director of the Organized Crime Strike Force in New Orleans in the 1970s. Less famous than the Cosa Nostra, the Dixie Mafia was, and still is, far more dangerous. During a ten year period from 1968 to 1978 when the Italian Americans were in the headlines for a spree of thirty murders, their redneck counterparts quietly dispatched 156 victims.
"There wasn't a well from Mississippi to West Texas that didn't have a dead body floating in it," said Armistead. "The big difference was the lack of ceremony. It was just 'I'm going to get rid of Ambrose today; I don't need permission; and I go out and do it.' As simple as that. And that's the end of Ambrose. It hasn't changed much either."
"I see."
The Dixie Mafia formed a ring of interlocking interests that covered Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Tennessee, and above all Arkansas. Their spiritual capital was Bill Clinton's hometown of Hot Springs, famous for its racetrack, its ornate bathhouses, its casinos, its prostitution, and its epic defiance of Prohibition.
The coat-and-tie yuppies of the modern Dixie Mafia are the children and grandchildren of bootleggers, a provenance they share with Bill Clinton. The trade has evolved. Clinton's grandfather used to serve moonshine from behind the counter of his store in Hope. Now the business is a high-tech operation involving fleets of aircraft, off-shore banking, and reach deep into the U.S. federal government.
Armistead warned me not to push my luck anywhere in the old Confederacy, but especially not in Arkansas. That counsel was on my mind as I drove through the backroads of the state with a box of documents slipped to me by dissidents in law enforcement."
The Sun Herald
Staff Written
Sept. 15, 1990
In early 1972, Coast politicians and law enforcement officers summoned club owners to a meeting to lay down rules of operations.
On Feb. 7, 1972, the meeting was held in the City Court room in Biloxi. At the meeting were:
The new rules lasted less than a month.
By March 13, B-drinking and stripping were rampant in the Coast joints, state investigators rampant in the Coast joints, state investigators reported.
The failure of the "vice would clean any hope that Sheriff Leroy Hobbs up the Coast.
The election of Hobbs in 1971 had been heralded by many law officers as the beginning of a new era on the Coast. Recalling those days, a veteran state officer said recently: "When we heard on the radio that he had been elected, we cheered. "
Hobbs' 12-year reign turned cut just as corrupt, if not more so, than those of his predecessors. Hobbs became a close associate and co-conspirator of such notorious Dixie Mafia figures as Jim Blackwell and D.J. Venus III, as well as a friend of New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello.
Before his last term was over, Hobbs would become the first Harrison County sheriff sentenced to prison.
A surveillance report on Hobbs in 1978 said: "Hobbs is easily influenced by anyone with money and a good-looking woman."
Enter Hobbs
In his campaign for sheriff in 1971, the 38-year-old Hobbs projected the image of a crusading crimefighter - a handsome, strong-jawed, steely-eyed man of integrity.
Within months after his election, Hobbs, by his own admission, was taking kickbacks and bribes. That was just the beginning of his crimes in office: his downfall was more than a decade away.
Hobbs had shown remarkable promise and progress as a young law officer. He had worked his way up from dispatcher to chief of the Gulfport Police Department. His performance in that post earned him letters of commendation from law enforcement officials around the country, including FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
Despite growing awareness that Hobbs was involved with the Dixie Mafia, he was re-elected twice. Even after he was indicted in 1983 on racketeering charges that included extortion, bribery, drug dealing and murder conspiracy, Hobbs won nearly 20 percent of the vote in his last election bid, the first that failed.
That was two months before he pleaded guilty to racketeering.
In May 1984, U.S. District Court Judge William H. Barbour sentenced Hobbs to 20 years and told the fallen officer: "You disgraced yourself and the law enforcement profession. You violated your public trust. You still want to five the high life and associate with high rollers even when facing your sentencing. You sold your soul to the devil."
In June 1983, six months into Hobbs' last year in office, a federal task force caught him as he waited for an airdrop of cocaine. The drugs were to be dropped from a plane onto a farm in north-central Harrison County. The farm was run by Hobbs' close friend, D.J. Venus III, a Dixie Mafia criminal and ex-bootlegger.
What Hobbs and Venus and their cohorts did not know was that the airdrop was bogus. It was a sting set up by federal agents.
They were so confident they were beyond the reach of the law that Hobbs' chief deputy, Craig Monroe, bragged about the deal a few hours before it was to take place.
Monroe, who had been Gulfport's chief of police before becoming chief deputy, did not realize he was talking to federal undercover agents when he crowed about the impending drug deal. fie even bragged that he and Hobbs had provided protection for variety of crimes, including murder.
Monroe told them that if anyone showed up to interfere with the airdrop, somebody would "just have to die."
Laying the trap
Federal agents had been preparing Hobbs' downfall for five years. A confidential federal report on organized crime in Mississippi written in 1978 focused on Coast crime figures and officials who were doing little or nothing to curb them.
The report, which listed many associates within the Dixie Mafia and the Mafia, featured Hobbs prominently.
It said Hobbs:
The agents' observation was borne out early in 1982, when Hobbs turned but to be at the center of a plot to kill Larkin Smith, Gulfport chief of police, whom Hobbs feared would run against him in the next race for sheriff.
Confidential informants close to Hobbs told federal agents that the sheriff and Salisbury were planning to assassinate Smith.
One of the informants said that Hobbs told him that Smith would be "blown away" by Salisbury before July 4, 1982.
Salisbury, a convicted felon with a lengthy arrest record, was never charged with conspiring to murder Smith, but was arrested June 16, 1982, and convicted of weapons violations.
The D'Angelo murder
In 1983, a federal grand jury investigating the murder of Biloxi striptease joint owner Dewey D'Angelo heard testimony that revealed even more about Hobbs' corruption.
James Edward Creamer, the contract hitman who confessed to murdering D'Angelo, testified that he was instructed to leave the body in Hobbs' jurisdiction. That way, Creamer said, Hobbs could protect the murder conspirators by controlling the investigation.
The hitman's helper, Phillip Martin Hale Cryer, said that Hobbs collected $150 a week in payoffs from the striptease joint owners. Cryer worked in one of the joints, the Show Club.
Cryer also told the grand jury about the Smith assassination plot.
He testified that a few weeks after the D'Angelo murder, for which he was paid $5, 000 for his help, Creamer asked him if he wanted to take another contract. This one would pay between $50,000 and $60,000 because "There will be a lot of heat," Creamer said, according to Cryer.
"Who was it?" a federal prosecutor asked.
"Larkin Smith," Cryer replied.
"Did (Creamer) ever tell you who wanted Larkin Smith killed, who had put the contract out?" the prosecutor asked.
"Yeah. Leroy Hobbs, you know, because he wanted - I guess because of the election," he said '(Hobbs) can make that back in six months.' " Cryer said.
Creamer tesitifed that Salisbury was the one who ended up with the contract.
He said that Salisbury had been offered the contract on D'Angelo. When Salisbury found out that Creamer already had done it, "He told me that it just saved him the trouble," Creamer testified.
The plot to kill Smith had even more twists. Cryer told the grand jury that a Dixie Mafia member, Louis Rapp, also was offered the contract on Smith.
Rapp and a Dixie Mafia companion, Leonard Shipley, had bought their way out of County jail with a $29,500 payment to Hobbs through Venus.
In a 1985, federal racketeering trial against former District Attorney Albert Necaise, Hobbs admitted getting the money and testified that he gave half to Necaise. Necaise denied the allegations and, in the trial, was cleared of the charges.
Rapp was offered the contract on Larkin Smith at more than $100,000, Cryer testified. The men who put out the contract were the same ones who paid to have D'Angelo killed: Jim Blackwell and D.J. Venus, both Dixie Mafia members with strong ties to Hobbs.
Cryer testified that Rapp was afraid to take the contract. Rapp was worried that he would be double-crossed by Hobbs, who would want to make a show of quickly finding and punishing Smith's killer. Cryer told the grand jury that Rapp said: "They're goign to find out what time I'm doing it, and the sheriff (Hobbs) will just run in right after that and blow me away."
Prison time
The plot to kill Larkin Smith not only failed, it became one of the charges in a 28-count federal racketeering indictment handed down against Sheriff Hobbs in December 1983. The racketeering indictment superseded charges filed against Hobbs six months earlier for conspiring to import cocaine.
Hobbs pleaded guilty in January 1984 to violating the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, or RICO. He was sentenced to 20 years, which he is serving at an unknown location.
Also in 1984, D.J. Venus III and Jim Blackwell were convicted on state charges of conspiracy to commit murder in the death of Dewey D'Angelo and pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges in the Hobbs case. Both men were sentenced to 20 years in each case, to run concurrently, and are serving their time at the Federal Correctional Institution in Memphis.
Smith was elected sheriff in 1983 and became 5th District congressman in 1988. He was killed in a plane crash last year.
Joe Price replaced Smith as sheriff. As a Highway Patrol investigator in the 1960s, Price learned the faces of the old Dixie Mafia. Many of those members are dead or in jail. But he sees younger faces in their place, and they are turning more and more to the big profits of drug trafficking in the major cities of the Southeast.
With Hobbs out of the picture, and the strip joints and laissez-faire attitude of law enforcement less prevalent in Harrison County, the Coast became less attractive to the Dixie Mafia as the 1980s passed.
But the organization still exists, said Gulfport Police Chief George Payne.
"Some of the same players are still here, still in operation. Some of the player's families are here, doing some of the same things. There's a new wrinkle to them, but they're still here, still operating." Payne said.
"I think law enforcement has also come to an evolution. We're better educated, better trained and better organized. And I think, for the whole, there's more integrity now in our organizations.
The faces have changed and so have the crimes, but the Dixie Mafia still plagues the Coast.
"The Dixie Mafia has evolved from the days of black market liquor, to prostitution and gambling, into narcotics trafficking," Gulfport Police Chief George Payne said. "As they've evolved, they've become more sophisticated in their operations, but they're still here."
Harrison County Sheriff Joe Price, considered an expert on the loosely organized gang that haunts the Southeast, said the Dixie Mafia's presence on the Coast has diminished since its heyday in the late 1960s, when hundreds of members were in and out of the Coast regularly.
The network, which does not have an organized hierarchy like the American Mafia, specialized in armed robbery, scams, burglaries, safecracking and murder-for-hire.
More recently, some of its members have been indicted in connection with a million-dollar scam run out of Angola prison in Louisiana. And a Dixie Mafia hitman has been accused by an Angola inmate of killing judge Vincent Sherry and his wife, politcian Margaret Sherry, of Biloxi.
The investigation into the scam and murders, which the FBI and sheriff s department believe are linked, has proven how long the tentacles of imprisoned Dixie Mafia members can reach, Price said.
For Dixie Mafia members who are still operating outside prison walls, drug trafficking is the crime of choice. Although drug distributors concentrate in big cities such as Dallas, Memphis and Miami, they do drop off drugs on the Coast, Price said.
Said Phillip M. "Mickey" Ladner, the newly appointed director of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics: "We have intelligence information that some of the people that we call the Dixie Mafia are involved in drug trafficking on the Gulf Coast."
Ladner worked on the Coast for 24 years with the state Highway Patrol.
The high profits associated with drug trafficking proved to be an irresistible lure.
The man law enforcement has identified as the Coast kingpin of the Dixie Mafia, strip joint owner Mike Gillich Jr., has never been directly linked to the drug trade. Gillich owns the Golden Nugget, Dream Room and Horse Shoe Lounge in Biloxi.
But one of his close associates, Glenn Joseph Cook Sr., was arrested March 3 for cocaine trafficking.
Cook, who managed two of Gdlich's clubs in the 1970s, was arrested in Florida when Broward County sheriff s deputies stopped him for driving 64 mph in a 55 mph zone, according to a complaint affidavit.
A drug detection dog sniffed out three kilos of cocaine hidden in a compartment under the front passenger seat of Cook's 1987 Chevrolet. The wholesale value of a kilo of cocaine is about $18,000. The officers also found a. 38-caliber Smith and Wesson in a gym bag on the floorboard.
Gillich put up his house next to the Horse Shoe Lounge on Veterans Avenue as collateral on a $100,000 bond to get Cook out of jail five days after his arrest.
On March 19, Cook was formally charged with armed trafficking of more than 400 grams of cocaine, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. The case is set for trial Oct. 2 in Broward County.
Efforts to arrange interviews with Cook and Giflich were unsuccessful. No phone number is fisted in Biloxi for Cook and he refused a certified letter from The Sun Herald. Gillich failed to return phone calls or to accept a certified letter from The Sun Herald.
Dewey D'Angelo died with the taste of his ear on his lip.
"I cut his ear off ... let him see it, and I even had him to bite it," Dixie Mafia contract killer James Edward Creamer told a federal grand jury in December 1983. "If you want the truth about it, I said, 'now bite on it."
D'Angelo, a Biloxi strip joint owner and operator of illegal gambling games, was stabbed to death shortly after midnight on March 1, 1982. But unlike more than a dozen other Dixie Mafia killings in as many years, the D'Angelo murder was solved because anticipated protection from the county's top law officer - Sheriff Leroy Hobbs - broke down.
Creamer confessed after FBI agents, working on an investigation of Hobbs, came across information about the D'Angelo murder. That information lead them to a jail cell in Douglasville, Ga., in October 1983. Creamer, who was serving time on federal charges of bombing a Georgia nightclub, soon admitted that he had killed D'Angelo.
He was sentenced to life in prison for D'Angelo's murder.
Also arrested for the murder were two of Hobbs' friends, Biloxi racketeers and charter Dixie Mafia members Jim Blackwell and D.J. Venus III. They admitted in 1994 that they had conspired to kill D'Angelo and were sentenced to 20 years in prison. Their confession let them avoid capital murder charges.
Hobbs himself went to prison in 1984 for racketeering.
Creamer goes hunting
Probably nobody knows exactly how many dead bodies, like D'Angelo's, have been left behind by members of the Dixie Mafia. Some were innocent victims. Many were the killer's own former comrades.
In Creamer's words, a killer just doesn't "keep a diary" of such things.
Creamer testified before the grand jury investigating D'Angelo's murder and openly told of his role as the hitman and of the conspiracy that led to the slaying.
The motive for murdering D'Angelo was typical of Dixie Mafia hits. "There was some kind of cross on a dope deal," Creamer testified.
The mutilation of D'Angelo before he died was not typical of Dixie Mafia murders. In this case, the killer had a personal grudge as well as a $10,000 contract for the hit.
Creamer used a knife on D'Angelo because he had been selling drugs to Creamer's wife and had ignored Creamer's warning to stop.
Creamer, a career criminal who said he specialized in armed robbery, was living in Biloxi between penitentiary terms when he killed D'Angelo.
Normally, "we didn't do (crimes) in our own back yard," Creamer said. But he made an exception with D'Angelo when he was offered the contract because it was D'Angelo's fault that Creamer's wife was strung out on drugs.
The first contract feeler was put out at Blackwell's lounge, the Chaparral, about two weeks before D'Angelo's death.
Blackwell told Creamer that there was a man that he and Venus wanted killed, and that it had to be done where Hobbs could control the investigation.
When Blackwell named D'Angelo as the intended victim, "I told him I had a personal reason there; that I would be interested," Creamer said.
D'Angelo's fate was sealed at a second meeting at Blackwell's lounge a day or two before the murder.
Venus was in Blackwell's office when Creamer got there for the second meeting, but "went out to the bar" while Creamer and Blackwell discussed terms and price, Creamer said.
Venus put up the $10,000, Creamer said.
Creamer decided to use Phillip Martin Hale - a bartender, bouncer and general manager at Caesar's Palace on Biloxi's West Beach - to get to D'Angelo.
Hale, who later received immunity for his grand jury testimony on his role in the killing, could help Creamer get inside D'Angelo's house.
D'Angelo, 56, was cautious and kept his doors locked, but would open up to someone he knew well.
"Marty (Hale) used to go over to Dewey's house and they'd sit around once in a while, You know, and smoke grass," Creamer said.
The night of the murder, Hale went to work so he would have an alibi. In his testimony before the grand jury, Hale said Creamer called him at the club about 8:30 and asked if he was ready to make some money, without specifying what was planned.
Hale picked up Creamer about 9 p.m. at his apartment at 4827 Greater Ave. They pulled in to a convenience store on Pass Road. Hale called DAngelo from a pay phone and arranged to stop by.
Taking a ride
When they got to the house on Southern Avenue, Creamer said, "Marty knocked on the door and Dewey opened the door and told him to come on in. Well, I just went right on in behind him. And Dewey - you know, naturally, he knew something was wrong because of the way I came in. He started to put up a resistance but I popped him up side of his head with a pistol that I had."
The blow knocked D'Angelo to his knees, "and I got him up and I told him we was going to take a ride."
Creamer said he handcuffed D'Angelo's hands behind his back, took a case containing several different kinds of drugs from a bedroom closet, and ushered D'Angelo out to his car.
Creamer said Hale knew the area and drove D'Angelo to the death site while Creamer followed in Hale's pickup. Creamer said Hale told him he chatted with D'Angelo on the way, trying to make him think he was in for a beating, not death. Hale, however, testified before the grand jury that Creamer drove D'Angelo while Hale followed in the truck.
They stopped on a dark stretch of back road in North Biloxi
Creamer pulled D'Angelo from the front seat of his car and told D'Angelo that he hadn't heeded Creamer's warning to quit selling drugs to his wife. "You're going to listen to me now," Creamer told D'Angelo.
D'Angelo begged for mercy. He offered Creamer $12,000 to let him go and promised not to report the kidnapping. Desperate, D'Angelo said he would get even more money for them.
Creamer was unmoved. He opened the trunk of D'Angelo's car and ordered him to crawl in.
"Dewey got in the trunk and he huddled up," Creamer said.
Creamer looked down at D'Angelo, then turned and asked Hale to lend him the buck knife Hale carried on his belt.
Creamer reached in and sawed off D'Angelo's ear. Then he ordered the terrified man to bite down on it.
Then it was time to finish the job. "I took the knife and pulled his head back and I said, 'Dewey, this is your last,' and I whacked a little - you know, it wasn't very hard - and then I just took the knife and stuck him."
"You cut his throat and you stabbed him?" Assistant U.S. Attorney James Tucker asked.
"Yes," Creamer answered.
The getaway
When he was satisfied that D'Angelo was dead, Creamer closed the trunk and drove D'Angelo's Lincoln Continental to the Delchamp's parking lot in D'Iberville and left it. He joined Hale in the pickup and threw the knife and D'Angelo's wallet into the Back Bay as they crossed the bridge into Biloxi.
Creamer said Hale dropped him off at his trailer in Ocean Springs, where he pulled off his bloody shirt and cowboy boots and threw them into a dumpster.
He put D'Angelo's ear and identification, which he'd taken from the wallet, in a plastic sandwich bag and hid them under a board in the trailer.
Creamer put on fresh clothes, grabbed the sandwich bag and went to Blackwell's club. By this time it was early Tuesday morning.
He was eager to show D'Angelo's ear and ID to Blackwell as proof that the job was done. Still, he was leery of walking into the club with them on him. He hid the bag in a small flower bed outside the club, then went inside.
Blackwell asked several questions to make sure the murder had taken place in the county - where Hobbs would have jurisdiction - and then handed over two $5,000 packets of $100 bills. He said he didn't have to see the ear and ID.
Creamer took his money and left. He went over to the flower bed, scratched around and dug up the plastic bag.
The ear was gone.
"It scared me to death," Creamer said. "You know, I couldn't figure out where I'd dropped it or where it was left. "So I looked all over the car, looked under the seat, even - even, you know, the side where I was sitting in the driver's seat; you know, I felt all down in the cushions. Couldn't find it and it wasn't on me.
"Just like I said, you know, it scared me to death about where it could be, you see."
When he got back home, he found the ear. It had slipped out of the bag when he hid it under the board.
Creamer showed the ear to his wife, to scare her. He told her there was one less drug dealer, and that anyone who sold her drugs would meet the same fate. "After I showed it to Debbie, I threw it in - in the hallway there's a door into a bathroom - I threw it into, the commode," Creamer said.
"Flushed it?" Tucker asked.
"Well, yes. I flushed it," Creamer said.
Creamer said he gave $5,000 to Hale. Then Hale and Creamer set about spending the cash.
Hale was vague when he told the grand jury what he'd done with his money. He said he used it to buy "things."
Creamer said he spent his share "getting some work done on my car and spent some for a bedroom suite, some at this lounge ... and just general living expenses."
Creamer's deal
D'Angelo's body was found by Hobbs' chief deputy, Eddie McDonnell, four days after the murder, and D'Angelo's friends went looking for the killer.
One of those friends was McDonnell, former two-term sheriff. McDonnell heard that Hale went to see D'Angelo that night, and he started asking lots of questions.
Creamer said McDonnell was "causing so much aggravation" that Hobbs was called for a meeting.
"We met Leroy that night at the Rodeway Lounge," Creamer said. Hobbs was told that McDonnell was hassling Marty. "I don't know what Leroy ever said to Eddie McDonnell, but after that, Eddie McDonnell quit coming over and quit saying anything, you know, and quit hassling Marty."
McDonnell committed suicide in June 1986.
In exchange for a guilty plea in D'Angelo's murder and his testimony against Blackwell, Venus and Hobbs, Creamer received a written agreement from the government that a life sentence would be recommended to the sentencing judge, that the sentence would run concurrent with a 15-year sentence he was already serving for the Georgia nightclub bombing, and that Creamer would be considered for parole or work release at the earliest possible date.
But Creamer told the grand jury it wasn't because of the government's promises that he was testifying; it was because of D'Angelo's drug dealings with his wife.
"My time in Georgia, I'll have to (do) there -- I'm a 54-year-old man, so I'll be - by the time I get turned aloose, I'll be useless, anyhow," Creamer said.
"If it hadn't have been for the dope, it wouldn't have been done," he said.
"And it's not because - it's not because they are promising me anything," Creamer said, beginning to cry. "I've got a wife. . . "
While investigators are certain the slayings were Dixie Mafia "hits," few cases have ended in murder convictions. Few witnesses willing or able to testify have been available.
These are some of those hits either identified as Dixie Mafia killings or suspected of being connected to the gang:
Pauline Pusser, 33 - Aug. 12, 1967. The wife of "Walking Tall" Sheriff Buford Pusser was killed in an ambush in McNairy County, Tenn., that blew away the bottom half of the sheriff's face. Pusser, who died in an automobile accident in 1974, was obsessed with bringing to vengeance the four ambushers and the man he learned had ordered the hit from a prison cell.
Pusser got a telephone call about 4 a.m. on Aug. 12, 1967. It was someone supposedly reporting a disturbance out in the country in McNairy County, Tenn., which was Pusser's territory. f he sheriff and his wife were up gnd ready to leave that morning for a vacation to visit her folks in Virginia. She decided to go along.
On the night of Aug. 11, four men had checked into the Shamrock Motel, which straddled the line between Alcorn County, Miss., and McNairy County. They were Dixie Mafia leader Kirksey McCord Nix Jr., Boston mob star Carmin Raymond Gagliardi and two Dixie Mafia hitmen, Gary Elbert McDaniel and George Albert McGann. They left the motel before 4 a.m. in a black Cadillac.
Sheriff Pusser and his wife drove down the lonely New Hope Road shortly after 4 a.m. looking for the disturbance that had called them out. As they passed the New Hope Methodist Church, a black Cadillac that had been hiding behind the church sped out and pulled up alongside. One of the four men inside fired at the sheriff. The bullet missed Pusser but hit Pauline Pusser in the head. Pusser sped away, leaving the Cadillac behind.
When he thought he had lost the attackers, he pulled over to tend to his wife. Suddenly the black Cadillac loomed up and the men opened fire, seriously injuring Pusser. They drove off, leaving him for dead.
Over the next seven years, the sheriff, who had made a career of bringing Dixie Mafia thugs to justice became obsessed with revenge for his wife's murder according to W.R. Morris, author of "The Twelfth of August," about Pusser and the ambush.
Pusser told confidantes that he had found out who the four man were, and that he had learned that Carl Douglas "Towhead" White of Biloxi had ordered the hit in revenge because Pusser had killed White's girlfriend. The woman, Louise Hathcock, had shot at Pusser when he tried to arrest her on a robbery warrant Pusser learned that White, who was in prison in Texarkana, Ark., for moonshining, had called Nix, his best friend and confederate on many Dixie Mafia robberys and arranged for Nix to murder Pusser.
Pusser's revenge was almost complete when he died in an automobile accident in 1974.
Before Pusser died, Gagliardi was found dead in Boston Harbor, McDaniel and McGann were shot dead Texas and White was shot down in Mississippi. All were considered mob or Dixie Mafia hits, but investigators believe Pusser was behind all four.
Pusser was intent on wreaking revenge on Nix, but a Louisiana jury took care of Nix first. In 1972, Nix we convicted of murdering a New Orleans grocery executive in a break-in at the man's home, and began serving a life sentence without parole.
Harry Bennett, 65, Dec.16, 1967. Co-owner of Biloxi gambling club Caesar's Palace, he was gunned down after midnight in the parking lot of the Gallery Apartments, near his Biloxi gambling club. Evidence pointed to two Dixie Mafia members who were Bennett's business rivals, but an ex-convict, Harold Diddlemeyer, was convicted. A lie detector test and other evidence indicate Diddlemeyer had nothing to do with it.
L.B. Kelly, 31 - June 4, 1968. Kelly was a gambler, burglar and associate of Jim Blackwell, a Biloxi club owner and Dixie Mafia member. Kelly was found beside Lake Texoma near Denison, Texas, shot three times with a .380 automatic. He was last seen going into a meeting with Dixie Mafia members William "Hoke" Huddleson, Glen Burnett and George McGann. No one has been convicted of Kelly's murder.
Ellwood T. Steube, 21, - Aug. 10, 1968. Steube was the son of the Pass Christian police chief. He fell into bad company and paid for it with his life. He was shot in the head, at pointblank range, by Dixie Mafia associate Thomas Pearce, 24, who for several months had been telling everyone he saw that he intended to kill Steube. The murder occurred in front of witnesses in a Biloxi apartment. Instead of first-degree murder, Pearce pleaded guilty to manslaughter and received a 15-year sentence.
George Fuqua, 45; Doris Ann Willingham Grooms, 28 - Nov. 27, 1968: Fuqua was a gambler, bookmaker and strongarm enforcer. Grooms was his girlfriend. They were kidnapped at gunpoint from an apartment in Dallas and driven to Piano, Texas, where each one was shot in the stomach and head. Their bodies were dumped on the side of a road. Dixie Mafia hitmen George McGann and Carl Douglas "Towhead" White of Biloxi had been seen with them shortly before their deaths. No one has been convicted of the two murders.
Deputy Sheriff E.R. "Buddy" Walthers - Jan. 13, 1969. Walthers was a deputy in the Dallas Sheriff's Office. He was shot to death when he went to a motel to question a Dixie Mafia member, James Walker Cherry. Cherry pulled a pistol and a gun battle followed. Walthers was killed and Cherry wounded. Cherry was convicted and sentenced to life for the murder.
Gary Elbert McDaniel, 24 - Feb. 2, 1969. McDaniel was a burglar and Dixie Mafia hitman. He was shot three times with a .380 automatic and his body was thrown into the Sabine River in Texas, where it was discovered on March 2. For several months before his murder, McDaniel was closely associated with Dixie Mafia members Kirksey McCord Nix and William Mansker Clubb. On Nov. 25,1968, McDaniel was in a traffic accident near Pensacola. Police found a pistol in his car and, in his pocket, a hand-drawn map of the home of Escambia County Prosecutor Carl Harper, plus a description of Harper and his habits. Police learned that three of Kirksey McCord Nix's friends had hired McDaniel to assassinate Harper. McDaniel was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and was released on bond. No one has been convicted of McDaniel's murder.
Margie George - Feb. 18, 1969 - She was one of 24 people in a trailer camp near Covington, La., who were chained up by a ski-masked gang of four. The elderly woman was ordered to open a safe and when she refused, she was struck in the head with a hatchet, then shot. Police had a witness who told them that the four were Dixie Mafia leader Kirksey McCord Nix Jr., and his friends William Mansker Clubb, Charles Floyd Yandell and Bobby Gail Gwinn. Charges against them were dropped when Gwinn, the state's key witness, was murdered. No one has been convicted of the murders of George or Gwinn.
Carl Douglas "Towhead" White, 32 - April 2, 1969. White, who got his nickname because of his blond hair, was by all accounts one of the best-looking men in Biloxi.
While was also a Dixie Mafia hitman and an armed robber. Evidence points to White as the man who ordered the murder of Sheriff Buford Pusser, a hit that failed but killed the sheriff's wife.
On the night he was murdered, White took Shirley Smith out drinking. She was the wife of Dixie Mafia member Barry "Junior" Smith. At 11:50 p.m., White and Smith's wife drove up to the El-Ray Motel, on the outskirts of Corinth, Miss., and parked in front of Room 3. When White stepped out of the new green Chrysler, an assassin lying in wait on the motel roof put a bullet through White's head, killing him instantly.
Junior Smith immediately confessed, saying he had killed White in self-defense. In White's hand was a gun, registered lo Shirley Smith. A jury acquitted Junior Smith. Investigators believe Smith had nothing to do with White's murder; they think it was a hit arranged by Pusser in revenge for his wife's death.
Bobby Gale Gwinn, age unknown - Oct. 15, 1969. Gwinn was a Dixie Mafia burglar whose body was found in a ditch beside Interstate 20 about 20 miles west of Shreveport. He had been shot several times with a .45 caliber automatic. His 1969 Oldsmobile was found Oct. 16 at the Quality Courts Motel in Shreveport where Gwinn and Dixie Mafia member Stanley Lee Cook had t en staying. Gwinn and Cook had been arrested five days earlier, on Oct. 10, for possession of burglary tools. When he was questioned about the tools, Gwin told the Jefferson Parish Sheriff Department deputies that he believed Dixie Mafia member William Mansker Clubb had hired someone to kill him to keep him from talking about a trailer camp staying. No one has been convicted of Gwinn's murder.
Donald Lester "Jimmy" James, 43 - Jan. 11, 1970. James was shot down in front of a Biloxi beachfront gambling club, Caesar's Palace, at 7:20 p.m. James was the partner of Dixie Mafia gambler Harry Bennett, who was shot down three years earlier. James had participated in a scam that bilked $70,000 out of several associates of Carlos Marcello, head of the New Orleans mob. No one has been convicted of James murder.
Jack Howard Joy, 38 - Feb. 6, 1970. Joy was a Dixie Mafia burglar who died hard. He was shot in the chest, soaked and set on fire. His charred body was found in a roadside ditch near his Lafayette, La., home the next morning. Informants say it was a revenge hit ordered by the Carlos Marcello family for the burglary of a friend's home. No one has been convicted of the murder.
Winston Fairley, 41 - March 10, 1970. A Dixie Mafia associate of Jimmy Fairley lived on the Coast. Two 15 year-old boys discovered Fairley's body parts in two bags under Foster Creek Bridge in the Barlow community near Hazelhurst. The body had been under the bridge about three weeks. Fairley's arms, legs and head had been chopped off and stuffed into two laundry bags. Because there was no blood at the scene, law enforcement officers speculated that Fairley had been murdered elsewhere and his body dumped later. No one has been convicted of Fairley's murder.
George Albert McGann, age unknown, and Jerry Michael Meshell, 30 - Sept. 30, 1970. McGann was a Dixie Mafia pimp, gambler, forger, burglar and hitman with a long crime record, including the theft of 126 Magnavox television sets that police found in a piggyback trailer near Dallas. Meshell, also a Dixie Mafia figure, was a convicted burglar and robber on parole from the Texas state penitentiary.
The two were shot dead in a private home in Lubbock, Texas. McGann was shot once in the heart with a .30-caliber pistol and twice in the back with a .45-caliber pistol. Meshell died with a .38-caliber slug in his heart and one in his stomach. Ronnie Eugene Weeden, 31, a pimp and gambler with Dixie Mafia connections, confessed and went to prison. Police remain troubled, though, by his inability to remember details of the shooting, including what gun he used.
Clifford Hugh Fuller, 38 - Dec. 21, 1970. Fuller was a Dixie Mafia burglar and an armed robber. Fuller was gunned down in DeKalb County, Ga. He caught several blasts from a 12-gauge shotgun, tired through a window into the house. The house belonged to John Lester Elienberg, a Dixie Mafia associate. Fuller had been ready to talk to police about Dixie Mafia doings in exchange for leniency in an armed robbery case. Before Fuller went to the police, Dixie Mafia hitman John Elbert Ransom called Fuller and they went out to eat. A few hours after Ransom talked to Fuller, the shotgun blast killed Fuller. No one has been convicted of the murder.
Johnson, Tracy, 34 and William Mulvey, 32 - Dec. 6, 1972. Johnson was an Atlanta prostitute and Mulvey was an armed robber on parole. He and Johnson drove from Atlanta and chocked into the Glenrose Motel in New Orleans, then went to the Black Hat Club in Covington, about a half-hour away. Two days later a woman looking for a Christmas tree in the woods in Hancock County discovered their bodies. Both had been shot and dumped into a ditch.
While at the bar, Mulvey and Johnson spent time at a table with James Granger and Walter Burnett. A confidential informant told police that Granger had been plotting something with John Ransom earlier at the club, and the Informant also said that she overheard Granger say "It'll be a pleasure to blow Mulvey's head off." No one has been convicted of this double murder.
Stephen Jeffrey Lee, 26 - Nov. 7, 1974. Lee, a lieutenant of pornography king Michael G. Thevis, was found murdered and sprawled beside his waterbed in his rented house in Sandy Springs, an affluent area north of Atlanta. He had been shot over his right eye and at the base of his skull with a small-caliber revolver.
Lee was murdered one month after he testified in federal court in Atlanta that he had sold a pistol to John Ransom. Ransom was convicted on a firearms charge in the case, and was sentenced just two months earlier to 10 years in prison for other weapons violations. Ransom was out of jail on an appeal bond when Lee was murdered. Ransom is now suspected of being the triggerman in the murders of Vincent and Margaret Sherry in Biloxi in 1987.
Lee had once produced albums and records for country music star Joe South. Both South and Thevis were questioned at length about their connection to Lee. Thevis, who once owned several bookstores in Biloxi, told police that he had hired Lee as his assistant four months before Lee was murdered.
Ransom was a suspect in the Lee slaying, but no one has been convicted.
Dewey D'Angelo, 56 - March 1, 1982. D'Angelo was a Biloxi striptease joint owner and Dixie Mafia drug dealer and gambler. He was stabbed nine times, his ear was cut off and his body was left in the trunk of his Lincoln Continental in the parking lot of a D'Iberville supermarket. A contract killer, James Edward Creamer, confessed, and two Biloxi racketeers and charter Dixie Mafia members, Jim Blackwell and D.J. Venus III, admitted in 1984 that they conspired to kill D'Angelo and hired Creamer for the job.
WELCOME TO AMERIKA! The Dan Lasater Drug Trafficking Organization - (Part 1) The Dan Lasater Drug Trafficking Organization - (Part 2)
Just for you.
Thanks! I was involved in the case of the contract on Larkin Smith, via a snitch from my LEO days down in Central Florida. I was the first to warn Larkin [who was sheriff of Harrison County at the time and later US congressman for the 5th District], then inform his brother who was a Justice Court judge at the time. Believe me, I didn't know for sure that it was for real in the beginning and it was a year and a half before the FBI moved on 'Little Henry'. My snitch used to play music for D. J. Venus in the mid-70s.
By ANITA LEE
By GENE SWEARINGEN
Since the 1960s, the Dixie Mafia has been exacting its own brand of swift justice and revenge, and dumping the results in ditches and woods and even in laundry sacks across the Southeast.
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To: Chapita
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By the way, you are right about Rex. If we only knew the half of it!
No joke!!!!!!!!
bump
Bump back at you. 8-)
Wasn't Larkin Smith [along with a few others] involved in investigating something pretty heavy duty preceding his death?
OPENING REMARKS OF MICHAEL C. RUPPERT for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
"When I made my statement to Director Deutch I spoke of three specific Agency operations called Amadeus, Pegasus and Watchtower. I would like to speak of them briefly.
The Watchtower missions surfaced around 1990 when an affidavit allegedly written by Col. Ed Cutolo of the 10th Special Forces Group, Airborne surfaced through retired Lt. Col Bo Gritz whom I have met twice. Although not actually written by Cutolo the affidavit has since been corroborated by a number of supporting affidavits, military records, Freedom of Information Act inquiries and dedicated research - some of which has been contributed by me.
Cutolo was killed in an accident in England in 1980 after expressing his concerns about illegal operations. His death has been linked to the murder of four other Special Forces Colonels including the legendary Bo Baker and Nick Rowe. Among the murders and mysterious deaths listed in the affidavit are those of Archbishop Romero and Congressman Larkin Smith."
The CIA's Secret Drug Wars
"Chief Warrant Officer (WCO) Hugh Pearce, who also received a copy of Cutolo's affidavit, also died in June 1989, as a result of a helicopter accident. Pearce had commenced to help the others with their enquiries. Prior to his death he had directed Col. Rowe to an address at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, and state politican, Larkin Smith. Both Col. Rowe and CWO Hugh Pearce died prior to a scheduled meeting with Smith - both having previously agreed to "go public" and call for a "full investigation into the events described in Col. Cutolo's affidavit" following the arranged meeting. Smith, died in August 1989 - in an airplane accident. Others to conveniently die included Colonel Bo Baker and Colonel Robert Bayard - who was murdered in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1977, just prior to his meeting with Israeli Mossad officer David Kimche."
Celebrities Who Died in Airplane Crashes and Other Incidents
"August 13, 1989: Representative Larkin Smith (45) of Mississippi and the pilot were killed when their Cessna 177RG plane crashed near Janice, Mississippi. The plane spiraled out of control after the non-instrument rated pilot got disoriented when they ran into weather requiring the use of instruments."
Aviation Accidents 1985 to 1989
08/13/1989 21:25
LOCATION: Janice, Mississippi
CARRIER: Private FLIGHT:
AIRCRAFT: Cessna 177RG
REGISTRY: N1976Q S/N:
ABOARD: 2 FATAL: 2 GROUND:
DETAILS: The aircraft was flying from Hattiesburg to
Gulfport. The non-instrument rated pilot lost control of
the aircraft after encountering instrument meteorological
conditions resulting in the airplane spiraling
into the ground in a wooded area.
U.S. Representative Larkin Smith, 45, was killed.
Good show.
That refreshes my memory somewhat.
Larkin and his brother, H.K., were friends.
Mike the Greek was probably killed by Harari!
I suspect the following, involving the then-chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, was also a part of the WATCH TOWER and OPLAN ORWELL efforts, probably through Ed Wilson on behalf of Manuel *El Sapo* Noriega- see also the CANTON SONG and DEA DeFeo Report investigations.
Interestingly, Lee Harvey Oswald was another figure reported as having been one of the visiting characters at the McNairy County state-line clubs in the early 1960s.
-archy-/-
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19981105_xex_grizly_saga_.shtml
The grisly saga of Pixie Grismore
By H.J. Halterman
© 1998 WorldNetDaily.com
Two years ago, on a Windy City evening in the month of
August 1996, Indiana's then-Governor Evan Bayh
appeared before the delegates gathered in Chicago at the
Democratic National Convention to deliver the keynote
speech that would finalize the nomination and re-election
of William Jefferson Clinton to the presidency of the
United States. It was a high point in Bayh's political
career, a steppingstone, perhaps, to greater things, and it
was surely an event in his life which would have brought
special pride to his mother -- had she lived to her son's
special evening.
His father, former Sen. Birch Bayh, had survived to
share that moment in history with his son, and he must
have carried enough parents' real pride to make up for his
late wife's absence.
Evan Bayh was elected yesterday to the U.S. Senate.
He's been talked about as a possible vice presidential
candidate for Al Gore in 2000. And since the kind of
scandal that has plagued the White House in recent years
has never touched the Bayh family, he might make a
logical choice.
But perhaps not if the people of Indiana -- and the rest of
the United States -- begin asking questions about Pixie
Grismore.
Mary Beth Grismore was strangled and found in a car
trunk in Ohio, May 3, 1978. Most of the people who
knew Mary Beth while she was still alive called her
Pixie.
Born and raised in Iowa, Pixie was talented and beautiful,
once a runner-up in the Miss Iowa contest and a gifted
musician. She left her home town to find employment,
married a co-worker and moved to her husband's Indiana
home. She brought life to a pair of sons, tried to fit into
the rural setting of her new life, grew older and wiser,
and finally divorced her Hoosier husband. She fell in love
again, and just after Christmas of 1977, she remarried, to
an Iowa farmer who lived just a few miles from her old
hometown. For a too-short while, she was happy again.
By February of 1978 she was packing her belongings and
memories for the move from her Indiana residence to her
new home in Iowa and began to say her farewells to the
friends and neighbors she'd known and lived among for a
decade. On Feb. 21, 1978, she drove her new husband's
Ford Thunderbird from her home near Marshall, Indiana,
to the nearby city of Terre Haute for a going-away party
with two of her friends -- nothing fancy, just a meal at the
local lobster joint, a movie and a few hours dancing at
some of Terre Haute's nightspots. The trio returned to
Marshall just a little before 1:30 a.m., and that was the
last time that anyone will admit that Pixie Grismore was
ever seen alive.
Later that day her friends came by to help her finish
packing for the move to Iowa but found that she wasn't
at the rural farmhouse. Neither was the car, though the
clothes that she'd worn the previous night and her purse
were. Her worried family notified the local sheriff's
department and the search for Pixie began. It ended in
Whitehall, Ohio -- near the Columbus, Ohio, airport -- on
May 3, 1978, when the Whitehall police opened the trunk
of a Ford Thunderbird with no license plates that had
been left in the parking lot of a local Holiday Inn near the
airport that serves Columbus. For almost two months the
car sat there until finally, suspicious police opened the
trunk. They found a murdered body with a rope around
its neck, but 10 weeks of decay and decomposition had
so ruined the remains of the former beauty pageant
contestant that investigators could not initially even
determine if the remains were male or female. Dental
records were consulted, and they proved that the body in
the car was that of Pixie Grismore. She was 26 years
old.
Investigators were eventually led to question Pixie's
supervisor at Indiana's Turkey Run State Park, where
she had worked as a lifeguard in the summer of 1977. On
June 16, they interviewed him again, in Indianapolis -- and
this time they read him his rights. Under questioning he
admitted to evasion and falsehood in his first meeting with
the FBI agents, and this time he told them a new story.
Patrick Ralston admitted that he began a romantic affair
with the pretty lifeguard in July of 1977. His wife had just
given birth to their baby on June 2 and then underwent
surgery in early July, and she had been recovering while
staying with her family in Terre Haute. His home was so
empty and he was so alone, and he began to spend more
time supervising things around the swimming pool where
the cute young lifeguard worked. Ralston explained to the
investigators that he and his wife drifted farther apart and
by November of 1977 he filed for divorce.
On Jan. 15, 1978, Ralston was seriously injured when a
frozen water heater exploded at the park. He spent seven
days in a Terre Haute hospital and another week
recuperating at home. By mid-February he was feeling
better but things had changed: His relations with his wife
had improved and Pixie surprised almost everyone who
thought they knew her by marrying a farmer from the
area in Iowa she had once called her home.
On Feb. 16, Ralston telephoned Pixie and suggested they
get together one more time for old times' sake. She
agreed and they met at the bar of the Cloverdale, Indiana,
Holiday Inn. Pixie rented room 215 on the hotel's south
side, and while there she called her new husband in Iowa
from the hotel room phone.
Up to that point nothing that Pat Ralston had told the FBI
particularly removed him from consideration as a suspect,
but then he played his ace: While he and Pixie were in
the bar, Ralston told the FBI, she told him that she had
done something the day before -- Feb. 15 -- that she had
always wanted to do. Pixie told Ralston that P.A. Mack,
Indiana Sen. Birch Bayh's chief of staff, had arranged for
her to meet with the senator at the bar of an Indianapolis
motel and that she partied with the senator and his
entourage for a while and that she had then gone to the
senator's hotel room with him and that she had "slept with
him." Pixie said that she had left Bayh's hotel room early
on the morning of the 16th, Ralston told the FBI agents.
So the feds checked it out: A registration card for the
night of Feb. 15, 1978, indicated that one B.E. Bayh of
2919 Garfield Street NW, Washington, D.C., had indeed
stayed in room 579 of the Indianapolis Airport Holiday
Inn while he was representing "USS" -- that is, the United
States Senate. The room cost $24.
By dragging the senator into the investigation, Ralston
virtually guaranteed the end of FBI consideration of his
past relationship with the murdered woman. If Ralston
had ever been charged with the crime, he would only
have had to point out that Sen. Bayh's brief but intimate
relationship with Pixie was at least as strong a motive for
murder as Ralston's own affair with the dead victim.
Since Pixie had been a county coordinator for Sen. Bayh
and had been seen in public with him, any such revelation
could have left the senator's political future as dead as
Pixie Grismore.
It's been said that the only things that can destroy an
Indiana politician are to be found in bed with a live boy, or
a dead girl. When Pixie's body was found, Bayh was in a
political fight to place officials loyal to him in certain key
state positions. Though Bayh's own office seemed
secure, consolidation of power was a necessary step if
Bayh was to reach on for higher glories -- and he had
been considered as a presidential candidate before.
But if a story, any story, about an illicit affair with a
married woman who was murdered a week later had
awakened the public's attention, Bayh's political future
could have ended in a heartbeat. Hoosier humor about his
cheatin' heart and other parts would have been bad
enough, but at the time of the senator's alleged tryst with
Pixie Grismore, Bayh's own wife, Marvella, was dying of
cancer. Reports that Sen. Bayh had cheated on his dying
wife could have reasonably been expected to have had
results similar to those that befell Ohio Rep. Wayne Hays
two years earlier. Hays suffered the loss of all the
political currency that he had gained for his state in his 28
years as a U.S. representative, and also his politically
powerful position as the chairman of the House Ways
and Means Committee, when it was reported that he had
placed his mistress, Elizabeth Ray, on the federal payroll
as a clerk though she could not take dictation, type, or
show up for work.
Since there is no statute of limitation for the crime of
murder, the investigation of Pixie's homicide is still
officially open. Even though then-Sen. Bayh headed the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and was in
charge of the oversight committee that supposedly
supervises the CIA, NSA and, oh yes! the FBI, all their
investigation couldn't catch the killer -- or killers. But at
least the investigators kept Pat Ralston's romantic
connection to the victim, and especially her association
with former Sen. Bayh, as a closely held secret -- until
now.
The secret's been kept, all these years, and the Bayh
political dynasty continues -- Birch's son Evan, who was
until recently Indiana's governor, and thereby the boss of
any Indiana state police agencies still investigating Pixie
Grismore's murder, has even been suggested as a future
Democratic presidential contender, just like his Dad once
was. And Evan gets to hobnob with President Clinton,
who needs some good advice on how to handle
embarrassing reports about affairs with former
girlfriends. As governor, Bayh the Younger got to appoint
men like witness P.A. Mack, his father's old fixer-upper,
to important positions like trustee of Indiana University.
And men like Pat Ralston as head of Indiana's
Department of Natural Resources in 1989.
Ralston became the Democratic Party chairman of
Indiana's Vigo County -- the Bayh family powerbase -- in
January 1995. Ralston, as county party chairman, was
instrumental in fund-raising efforts on behalf of
newly-elected Indiana Gov. Frank O' Bannon, formerly
lieutenant governor for Evan Bayh. O' Bannon, with
political considerations involving both his old boss and a
key fund-raising party chairman, had been reported to be
considering the reappointment of Ralston as DNR
director, but that was not to be: On Feb. 21, 1997, 19
years after Pixie Grismore's final party with her friends in
Terre Haute, Ralston was instead announced as the new
governor's choice to be the director of the Indiana State
Emergency Management Agency.
H.J. Halterman is a veteran journalist and
Dispatches contributing editor.
Order November issue of Dispatches magazine for
the complete story.
In post #11, Chapita wrote:
Larkin and his brother, H.K., were friends.
Mike the Greek was probably killed by Harari!
Not unless a waiter was also killed by mistake. That's a signature of Hararri's past style, and part of the reason he's too well known to actively work sub rosa for the Israeli intelligence services and has to operate for the drug kingpins instead.
-archy-/-
Mike was not even close to being a waiter! Don't understand you post!
In post #14 above, Chapita wrote:
To: archy
Mike was not even close to being a waiter! Don't understand you post!
14 Posted on 02/14/2000 12:35:09 PST by Chapita
Nope, he wasn't a waiter. But the Moroccan waiter he and his pals mistakenly killed in '73 was. And 26 years later, the Israelis essentially admitted it.
[source at: http://www.shamash.org/jb/bk990129/iworld.htm ]
Norway may drop case against Israeli
OSLO (JTA)-- A Norwegian state attorney is recommending that the state drop its case against an Israeli suspected of killing a
Moroccan waiter in 1973 in an apparent case of mistaken identity.
The move by the attorney comes after his office conducted an informal investigation of the suspect, retired Mossad agent Michael
Harari. In 1996, Israel agreed to pay compensation for the killing of the Moroccan, who was mistaken for the Palestinian
mastermind behind the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.
For more JTA stories, go to http://www.jta.org
You mis-red!
The Israelis aren't particularly tolerant of failures, [or at least weren't then] especially public ones on their job, even if Harari was a hatchet man for one of Israel's founding fathers.
But I'd be glad to pull additional info regarding the murder of the Moroccan waiter who Harari had thought was the *Red Prince* associated with the Black September terror gang responsible for the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre. From there, he had to make a buck however he could, including deals with Noriega and crooked American politicos with interests in that part of the world. Then, he was a handy middle-man who was a useful business contact, but now there are some in the US who might see him as a liability, and for him that's likely not good news.
But I bet he's watching the news close, to see if the son of his old pal George Bush gets elected. Then he might be safe again, for a while.
December 29, 1989
U.S. troops capture Israeli aide to Noriega
Washington Post News Service
PANAMA CITY, Panama -- U.S. officials announced Thursday the capture of several top associates of Gen.
Manuel Antonio Noriega, including Israeli mercenary Mike Harari, as the deposed strongman remained holed up
in the Vatican's embassy for a fourth day.
The development came as the new government of President Guillermo Endara continued to extend its authority,
reopening banks Thursday and receiving $6 million confiscated by American troops from Noriega's houses and
safes. The banks had been closed since U.S. forces invaded Panama Dec. 20, dismembering Noriega's 16,000
strong Panama Defense Forces and triggering days of looting and chaos in the capital.
As calm continued in Panama City, U.S. officials said America plans to withdraw its troops from the streets of the
Panamanian capital by Feb. 1, but it may be months before military occupation forces are able to return the rest of
the country to Panamanian control.
With U.S. troops at the Vatican embassy continuing to wage psychological warfare against Noriega by blaring rock
music over loudspeakers and greeting him with a hearty "Gooood Morning Panama," the general's small circle of
supporters shrank further with the reported capture or surrender of at least six top associates, including three
colonels.
In Rome, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro said he believed the fate of Noriega, -who took refuge in the papal
nunciature Christmas Eve, would be determined "maybe in the next few days," as urgent negotiations continued
"at every level" between the Vatican and United States.
According to Lt. Col. Jerry Murguia of the U.S. military's Panama-based Southern Command, Lt. Cols. Rafael
Cedeno, Arnulfo Castrejon and Carlos Belarde walked out of the Vatican embassy Wednesday and surrendered to-
U.S. forces.
Cedeno, a staunch Noriega loyalist, served as his personal assistant before taking over as military intelligence
chief following a failed coup attempt Oct. 3. Castrejon, a Noriega spokesman who last served as Navy
chief, turned himself in to the new government's security force last weekend before seeking refuge at the papal
nunciature, officials said. Belarde had been the PDF chaplain.
Also arrested by U.S. forces were Luis Gaspar Suarez, a former classmate of Noriega's at a militilry school in Peru,
who ran a group of pro-Noriega paramilitary toughs. Suarez was captured when trying to leave the Cuban Embassy
in a diplomatic car, a senior U.S. Embassy official said. U.S. forces have invoked what they say is a right to search
vehicles entering and leaving diplomatic missions under an article of the Vienna convention covering wartime
conditions.
The U.S. official said Suarez was among about 65 people, including Noriega's wife, Felicidad, who sought asylum at
the Cuban Embassy after the U.S. invasion. U.S. forces, which have surrounded the embassy with armored vehicles
and blocked off streets near it with concertina wire, have been refusing to allow any vehicles to enter or leave the
premises unless they agree to a search for weapons or non-diplomatic personnel.
Another pro-Noriega civilian arrested by U.S. forces was Rigoberto Paredes, who ran the district of Arraijan near
the capital. Officials of the new government say he is wanted on charges of corruption and abuse of power.
But perhaps most satisfying to the Endara government was the arrest of Harari, a shadowy former officer of
Israel's Mossad intelligence service who became one of Noriega's most influential advisers. Besides maintaining
lucrative business interests in Panama, Harari helped train Noriegas bodyguards and his elite Special Anti- Terror
Unit.
It was Harari who influenced Noriega to change the name of the National Guard to the Panama Defense Forces
after Noriega took over as military commander in 1983. Israel's army is officially called the Israel Defense Force.
No details were immediately available an how Harari was captured. "We have him." a senior U.S. Embassy official
told reporters today "He's a POW (prisoner of war) That's all That's all I know" Israeli television reported last
week that Noriega and Harari had been spotted together on Contadora, a resort island off Panama's Pacific coast.
A spokesman for the Endara government, Louis Martinez, said Harari was arrested Wednesday night. "Everyone
is really delighted here," he said. "It's big news. Second to Noriega, he was the most important person in Panama.
He had tremendous influence on Noriega"
An Israeli government official said Thursday that Harari was "absolutely not connected in any way to the
government, and his activities in Panama have no connection to any official Israeli organization or body."
The Israeli government has vigorously renounced any responsibility for Harari since his relationship with Noriega
was again publicized last week.
"He's definitely not on the government payroll," said the official, who asked not to be further identified. "He's
definitely a private citizen."
Martinez said the United States had no reason to charge Harari, but that Panama does, and that the Endara
government would plan to prosecute him on as yet unspecified charges.
The New York Times News Service contributed to this report.
************************************************************
Arrested Israeli helped develop Noriega's army
New York Times News Service
PANAMA CITY, Panama Mike Harari, the former Israeli intelligence officer arrested Thursday by U.S. troops in
Panama, is widely regarded as Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega's closest associate and played a major role in
developing Panama's armed forces.
He is known to have recruited and trained the general's personal security detail, which at one time included former
Israel soldiers and Cuban military advisers.
Harari, 62, who retired in 1979 as head of the Israeli intelligence service in Central America and Mexico, also has
been identified as a longtime business associate of the deposed Panamanian strongman.
Honorary consul in Israel
Beginning in the early 1980s, he was Noriega's commercial attache and honorary consul in Tel Aviv.
Israeli officials have denied any official connection with Harari, describing him as a private citizen, but some
Panamanian officials say he was long an unofficial go between for Noriega to the Israeli government.
Tuesday, Panamanian officials said another Israeli citizen close to Noriega, identified as Eliezer Ben Gaitan, left
the papal nunciature in Panama City, where he had taken refuge with Noriega and about 30 other loyalists, and
surrendered to U.S troops.
Ben Gaitan was said to be a civilian supervisor of the Noriega security detail.
Eduardo Herrera Hassan, a former Panamanian envoy to Israel who returned last week on a U.S military aircraft
to help rebuild the national police force, has asserted that Harari took kickbacks from Israeli businessmen seeking
to invest in Panama during the 1980s and split the proceeds with Noriega.
"We call Harari 'Mr. 60 Percent' because he gets that much from any deal that he makes," Herrera said last
spring.
Ties to Contras
What, if anything, Harari has been charged with or whether his reported arrest came at the initiative of the United
States or at the request of the new Panamanian government was not clear.
The sensitivity of the matter was heightened by the fact that Harari has been linked to reported shipments of arms
to the U.S. backed Nicaraguan rebels that were financed by drug proceeds.
The allegations, never substantiated, were made in testimony to Congress by Richard Brenneke, an Oregon
businessman who said he had ties to both the CIA and Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service.
Jose Blandon, a former Noriega aide who defected, told Congress that Harari had obtained the aid of active Israeli
intelligence agents to protect Noriega on foreign trips.
Others say Harari played a key role in arranging Noriega's first official visit to Israel in June 1984. Noriega later
bought a seaside house there.
Harari is said to have been introduced to Noriega in 1973 when the general was chief of intelligence for Brig. Gen.
Omar Torrijos Herrera, the Panamanian leader who died in a 1981 plane crash.
Israeli commando leader
In the 1970s, Harari, a specialist in anti-terrorist tactics, helped lead an Israeli commando operation aimed at
hunting down terrorists who killed a group Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.
Harari, who shunned publicity is said to have begun his military career in the late 1940s as a member of the
Palmach force, who smuggled arms and illegal immigrants into what was then British controlled Palestine.
January 9, 1990
Mike Harari is not Mike the Greek! Mike the Greek would never be mistaken for a waiter. Who all were on the plane with Omar Trujillo?
On 15 FE 2000, Chapita accurately observed:
Mike Harari is not Mike the Greek! Mike the Greek would never be mistaken for a waiter. Who all were on the plane with
Omar Trujillo?
18 Posted on 02/15/2000 13:33:44 PST by Chapita
That should, of course be then-Panamanian de facto head of state Omar Torrijos and though I don't [yet] know precisely, there were seven aboard, one of course being Omar Torrijos Hererra. [Not *Harari!] Figure that two were pilots/aircrew, which would leave four. I'll check accounts from the date of the crash , 30 JU 1981 and see if I can find an accounting or manifest.
In the meantime, you might find the following exchange and interview with Frederick Kempe, author of *Divorcing the Dictator* to be of interest.
And he mentions Mike [the Israeli][Not the Greek!] Harari in more than just passing:
AMB: Let me go to chapter 17, because it seemed to be a good place to talk
about -- I mean, it's way into the middle of the book and there's so much that
we're not going to cover here, but it seemed to be a good place to talk about our
own government and what happens inside. But first I want to ask you -- and the
name comes up first page of this chapter -- who Michael Herrari is.
KEMPE: Michael Herrari is a very interesting character. He was head of -- I
think it was called special operations in the Mossad. And after the ...
LAMB: In Israel.
KEMPE: Right, in Israel. He's an Israeli Mossad agent and was very -- and he
was on his way up to the top of the organization at and then he led the teams after
the massacre at the Munich Olympics of -- not massacre, but the killing of Israeli
athletes at the Munich Olympics. He led the team that was to hunt down the
Palestinian terrorists. Unfortunately, in Norway he killed a Moroccan waiter
instead of a Palestinian terrorist. It was a great embarrassment to the Mossad and
to the Israeli government.
He was able to get away from that, but it harmed his career. He was sent off to
Mexico to be station chief for the Mossad. Somewhere in this period he got to
know the dictator Omar Torrijos. Omar Torrijos' wife was Jewish. At one point
Michael Herrari intervened because Torrijos' wife's father was not very happy
with the fact that she was married to this Panamanian dictator who was, of
course, not Jewish. And Michael Herrari did some brokering and it was a
personal favor to Torrijos and Torrijos was very touched. Apparently this started
a close relationship. Noriega was the intelligence chief under this dictator. Michael
Herrari, being a Mossad man, of course, worked very closely with him.
And this relationship -- again, this is one of the things in the book where I don't
write nearly as much as I was told, simply because I couldn't corroborate a lot of
it, but one does know that Herrari was very close to Noriega, that Noriega
trusted few Panamanians and that he did trust Herrari. He trusted him with certain
domestic political missions, carrying messages to certain politicians, and
apparently he trusted him also in matters regarding the arms trade. Although I
wasn't able to confirm this with documents, the Panamanian government is said to
have provided end user certificates for the Israelis when they want to provide
arms to certain parts of the world where they can't get the end user certificates.
LAMB: What's that? What's an end user certificate?
KEMPE: End user certificates -- if you want to buy weapons from a government,
there are certain governments that aren't allowed to buy weapons during an
embargo. For instance, Iran, during the war with Iraq, was not allowed to buy
weapons from many different countries in the world. So Panama would provide
an end user certificate. In other words, Panama would be buying the weapons,
but they would never go to Panama. They would go to Iran.
LAMB: Didn't I read that they went from the Soviet Union to Iran through
Panama?
KEMPE: Yeah. Well, the weapons themselves, of course, would never have
gone to Panama, but the end user certificate would read Panama. They may go
through another means.
LAMB: But you had an Israeli working for a Panamanian brokering arms from
the Soviets to go to Iran through Panama.
KEMPE: Exactly. Exactly. And it didn't stop there. The embassy -- Panama's
embassy in Vienna was a passport factory for intelligence agencies that wanted to
operate in Eastern Europe. The Israelis, of course -- the Israeli passport was a
problem. You didn't get into parts of Eastern Europe with that sort of passport,
or the Soviet Union. But a Panamanian passport was accepted everywhere, and
so the Jewish Panamanian ambassador in Vienna was a very useful conduit for
passports for Israeli agents, according to intelligence sources that I had for the
book.
LAMB: We're talking about this book called "Divorcing The Dictator," and our
guest is Fred Kempe. Are you still on leave from The Wall Street Journal?
KEMPE: I've come back to The Wall Street Journal. As a matter of fact, I am,
after this book is out and I've made my rounds, I'll be taking over as The Wall
Street Journal's first Berlin bureau chief covering East-West relations.
LAMB: And when will you go to Berlin?
KEMPE: June 1st will be the official opening date of the bureau, but I'll travel off
there next month already.
LAMB: Michael Herrari: Where is he now?
KEMPE: Mike Herrari's back in Israel, and The Wall Street Journal ran a story
-- a very interesting story -- that outlined how he got there, and it certainly
suggests that someone helped him out of the country and that there was a
conscious decision made not to arrest him.
LAMB: Someone, meaning...
KEMPE: One can only guess that it was either Israeli agents on the ground who
helped him get out or American agents on the ground who helped him get out.
But he certainly did get help in getting out.
LAMB: Let me ask a question for the many viewers that have called about this
over the last couple of months. Michael Herrari, an Israeli, former Mossad agent
-- was he there in Panama on behalf of the Israeli government?
KEMPE: That's a very good question, and I don't think I have a satisfactory
answer. All I know is Mossad agents, when they retire, do go into their own
private businesses. Herrari obviously did have private businesses in Panama. In
fact, he was known as Mr. 60 Percent for the large commissions he would take
from Israeli businessmen who would try to set up operations in Panama. And
these were legitimate businesses. That being said, I'm told by intelligence experts
that these Mossad agents are on call. When the Israeli government needs their
services, they will be called upon. And obviously, Mike Herrari has built up a
number of contacts and important intelligence contacts over the years, and those
don't evaporate just because you've decided officially to retire.
LAMB: Chapter 17 again, US Policy Follies. Who was Colonel Herera Hassan?
KEMPE: Well, Colonel Herera Hassan was the chief of security for Omar
Torrijos, the dictator Omar Torrijos. He is of the opinion that Noriega was
involved in one way or another with the suspicious helicopter -- excuse me --
plane crash in 1981 that took the life of Torrijos. Two years later, after some
maneuvering, Noriega was able to take over power. He was -- because of his
closeness to this dictator, Noriega pushed him off into various embassies. At the
time that the US turned against Noriega, Herera Hassan was the ambassador to
Israel. Interestingly enough, though, it was really Mike Herrari, the Mossad agent
we were talking about, who was running the embassy. Herera Hassan was there
and Mike Herrari was watching him. And so you see there are all sorts of
intrigues all over in this story.
[-more-:]http://www.booknotes.org/transcripts/50132.htm
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btt
"El Griego" was NOT Harai! Look back at my original mention of Mike the Greek; how could you infer that Mike Harari killed Mike the Greek if he was one in the same?
On 14 FE 2000: in post #8, metalbird1 asked:
Wasn't Larkin Smith [along with a few others] involved in investigating something pretty heavy duty preceding his death?
8 Posted on 02/14/2000 00:15:37 PST by metalbird1
***** *****
You could say that. In addition to the material mentioned by NSA employee Paul Neri before his own death, the following eulogy delivered by US Representative Christopher Cox makes for some intersting reading. Cox, Chairman of the House Policy Committee is the highest-ranking Californian in Congress....
-archy-/-
THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 101st CONGRESS
WASHINGTON, SEPTEMBER 13, 1989
TRIBUTE TO LARKIN SMITH
Mr. COX. Mr. Speaker, I could not help but think when I was listening to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania,
that when he died and when a flag was draped over his coffin, there could have been no more suitable use of our American
flag than to honor such a man.
If anyone who had known Larkin Smith, and I know many people watching on C-SPAN from Mississippi did know Larkin,
as they worked to get him here, if these people had the opportunity to get to know Larkin Smith, he probably would have
been their best friend. His office, as it turned out in our freshman class, was just down the hall from mine, and I used to drop
in on him once in a while and he on me during the week. He had that infectious personality, that wry wit, genuine concern
for others that is the mark of the truly likable person. As a result, he was a natural in politics. People just loved him, and so
did we, all of us freshman classmates.
So the discovery, when we were on our August recess, that he had died in a plane crash, could not have come as a more
hurtful shock to all Members, and we were scattered, his classmates, all over the country. Quickly, we were in telephone
contact, and in the 7 1/2 months that we had been together, we had already grown close. This tragic occurrence brought
Members even closer together still. For half a day, all we knew was that Larkin's single engine plane had disappeared,
disappeared from radar screens about 9:25, on Sunday evening. It was not until the next morning that we found out, for
certain, that he had hit a tree and he had been killed instantly in a small plane.
President Bush personally directed the personnel from Kessler Air Force Base in their ground search, and the Customs
Service, with which Larkin used to work in drug interdiction. More than 500 people spread out in that effort, and each new
detail and news report came as a surge of electricity to all. Of course, in the end, we found out Larkin was no longer to be
here. Just 7 1/2 months after our journey started together, one of our fellows is gone, but this tragedy, I think, has brought all
Members closer together than ever before.
We will all remember Larkin as someone who towered among the Members of this body. His beliefs were so strong, and
his arguments in behalf of those beliefs so strong that each Member could not help but feel that we were proud to be part of
Larkin's team. I think we have discussed tonight, and Members have heard about the series of 28 speeches that he began,
because he was so discomfited as a member of the law enforcement community for 23 years, that up here on Capitol Hill
we were setting up road blocks, getting in the way on the war on drugs and in this series of speeches he pointed out the
more than 80 committees and subcommittees and task forces were hampering the efforts of our drug czar, Bill Bennett. I
still remember the day he took the floor and challenged the Members, Members on both sides of the aisle, with the following
words which I would like to quote verbatim.
"Mr. Speaker, with the recent introduction of the Administration's comprehensive crime bill, I would like to
take this opportunity to issue a challenge to my distinguished colleagues on both sides of the aisle. It has
become increasingly apparent that the war on drugs and crime cannot be fairly characterized as such. What
we are currently waging is, at best, a public relations campaign. The war on drugs, in my opinion, has not even
begun."
Mr. Speaker, imagine Larkin Smith, this big guy, this Mississippi county sheriff, standing out here and challenging all the
Congress and saying this.
"We need to reduce the bureaucratic mire of 80-plus congressional committees overseeing the work of the
drug czar into one single oversight committee. The lines of command need to be clearly drawn, and the battle
plans must be laid. Congress has the opportunity to seize the offensive and to declare a sunset for the end of
this war on drugs and crime.
"I urge my fellow soldiers not to grow weary, but to put on the full armor of battle. If we are serious about the
scourge of drugs and crime in our nation, we would be advised to adopt General MacArthur's admonition to
Congress in 1951, when he stated: In war, there is no substitute for victory."
Larkin, we are not going to grow weary. We will remember your words. We are going to fight on in your name and in your
stead, all of us, the freshman Members of your class, and I hope and I know all of us here today hope and pray that we will
be successful in those efforts because they meant so much to Larkin, to the people of Mississippi who sent him here and to
all the people of America.
-30-
Thanks for the post.
Perhaps you saw Uncle Bill's post at 9 re: Larkin Smith...
For some reason his [Larkin's] death makes me think as well of Sonny Bono's...
In post #23, metalbird1 wrote:
Thanks for the post.
Perhaps you saw Uncle Bill's post at 9 re: Larkin Smith...
For some reason his [Larkin's] death makes me think as well of Sonny Bono's...
In the case of Bono, over his reaction to the Waco churchburning and his reaction to the police death squad that was involved, I think. In the casse of Larkin Smith, over the Dixie Mafia/Operation Watch Tower drug smuggling, which still continues in the Biloxi area.
Come to think of it, the sudden and convenient death of Idaho Senator Frank Church after his hearings into intelligence community illegalities comes to mind as well...*measles,* I believe they call it, when they can maki it look like a death from a natural illness....
-archy-/-
Perhaps you might take a moment or two to do a search at APB Online on the death of Sonny Bono--as well as an archived audio interview at sightings.com of his friend, independent investigator Robert Fletcher...
Bono had, just like Larkin, been digging into drug trafficking. When he [Bono] couldn't get satisfaction with it from the DEA, he decided to go at it independently of them and get his own proof.
You will note from the APB piece about his death, if my memory is serving me correctly, that the DEA both has files on Bono [I believe relating to his independent efforts] and are withholding them as well...
Yep, and I just wonder if Bono, with his California ties, had been in touch with his fellow Californio congressman Christopher Cox, who gave that fine public eulogy for former cop, sheriff and narcotics investigator Larkin Smith.
And many of those Watch Tower happenings were right around the time of Tennessee lawman Buford Pusser's death too, and he was known to have taken on the Biloxi/Nashville/Hot Springs drug gangsters before- and had the ability to have the whole country look over his shoulder with the visibility those *Walking Tall* movies and books gave him.
Say, when was it that they put a governor away for accepting bribes to let convicted felons out on parole- about that time, wasn't it?
You might find the material Alamo-Girl has in her DSL listings and commentary regarding Pusser and the State-Line mob to be of interest, including a link to the discussions here, and some other material on Pusser and his battles with the Dixie Mob and others:
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a38a466b5742a.htm
By Chris Davis
Just a little over a hundred miles east of Memphis, on U.S. Highway 45, two ruined buildings straddle the Tennessee/Mississippi state line like a toothless old hooker, leering at passersby and enticing them to stop and poke around. The windows are blown out, and the dim interiors are lit by narrow shafts of sunlight pouring through the roof, onto the dirty ceramic tiles below. Looming above a cluster of young trees, a faded sign reads "Motel" in shattered white neon, and if you pull back some of the undergrowth you can see a smaller metal sign, its message long erased by the elements, in the shape of a four-leafed-clover.
This is all that remains of the Shamrock, once a thriving den of vice, where many a hungry traveler stopped in, lured by the prospect of a 49-cent country ham breakfast, only to find himself robbed and beaten. If the unfortunate party threatened to tell the law, he was good as dead, wrapped in logging chains at the bottom of the Tennessee River. Word has it the Shamrock's breakfasts were quite good, but not nearly as tempting, or as lucrative, as the gambling, drinking, and whoring that went on in back.
Throughout the 1950s and '60s, several such establishments flourished in the rural stretch between McNairy and Alcorn counties, where illegal hooch was smuggled in from Missouri and white lightning poured like tap water. The state line was a cooling-off spot, where major-league thugs hid out between hits and heists. Carl Douglas "Towhead" White, a psychotic megalomaniac and lieutenant in the "Dixie Mafia," considered Corinth, Mississippi, to be his home, and even Lee Harvey Oswald was known to partake of the state line's dark delights. The law had been bought off, so with pockets full of cash, and easy access to easier girls, bootleg booze, and games of chance, the mobsters could live here like sultans. Of all the joints, the Shamrock was the most notorious.
Louise Hathcock, who managed the Shamrock for her cowardly, dim-witted ex-husband Jack, willingly took a brutal beating from Towhead White (an occasional and reluctant lover) in order to gun down her hated former spouse and claim self-defense. The sadistic White, whose only interest in Hathcock stemmed from the piles of money the Shamrock raked in, no doubt took double pleasure in assisting his dupe to the rank of sole proprietor. That's just the kind of good country people they were.
When Hathcock waited tables at the Shamrock, she carried three items in her apron: a notepad, a pen, and a ball-peen hammer -- her weapon of choice. On his first trip to the state line, a 17-year-old boy named Buford Pusser watched Hathcock beat a sailor to death with that hammer. It was a sight that would haunt him for years to come, until, as the sheriff of McNairy county, he bore witness to images of mayhem that made that first bloodletting look like a Disney feature. He ultimately rid the area of its criminal infestation, but it cost him dearly.
Pusser never intended to be a lawman. After chronic bouts with asthma led to his discharge from the Marines, he left Tennessee to attend mortician's school in Chicago, where the 6'6," 250-pound Pusser worked in a box factory and took up professional wrestling to supplement his income. It was at a wrestling match that Buford "The Bull" met Pauline Mullins, a divorcee and mother of two. They were later married, and after Pauline gave birth to their daughter Dwana, the Pussers returned to McNairy County to raise their family.
"Do you know Western State Mental Hospital in Bolivar? Well, after what all I went through, they would let me in there free of charge, and I could just sit on a bench and wave at people all day long," says Dwana Pusser Garrison. Now 38, Garrison is a county commissioner and the proprietor of Pussers' restaurant in Adamsville, Tennessee, where huge cartoon images of her famous father (designed by Jerry "The King" Lawler) adorn the walls, and entrees come in "Buford-sized" portions.
"I still sleep with the television on," she continues, blinking her eyes rapidly beneath a calculated explosion of blond hair. "When I was a little girl, I figured that if [the state-line mob] was going to get me, they were going to get me. There was nothing I could do about it, and I just didn't want to hear them coming."
As sheriff of McNairy County, Pusser refused the $1,000-a-month bribe he was offered to "look the other way." And the mobsters threatened to take his children out in the swamp, "and cut their pretty little heads off."
"I still carry a gun," Garrison says calmly. "There were a lot of people who really didn't like Daddy."
Those who didn't like him had good reason. During his tenure as sheriff he jailed more than 7,500 criminals, and he dismantled 85 illegal stills in 1965 alone. His methods were unconventional; extreme by the estimation of some. The stories of his fighting crime with nothing but a big stick are largely exaggerated, though on one occasion he did use a fence-post to extract his peculiar brand of justice, and on another he solved a domestic squabble with a good old-fashioned hickory-switching. In the beginning Pusser vowed not to even carry a gun, but he soon realized that his enemies weren't playing with sticks and stones, and after a number of violent confrontations, he strapped on a .41 Colt magnum.
"He was on a mission to clean out the state line, and he had the higher power with him every step of the way," says Jimmie Powers, a longtime employee of the Buford Pusser Home and Museum. "Louise Hathcock put a gun right to his head and it misfired. A gun dealer said that the chance of that gun she had misfiring was one in a million. He had the higher power -- I believe that in my heart."
Pusser, in the space of his career, was stabbed seven times, and shot eight.
As the sun rose on the morning of August 12, 1967, he and his wife were ambushed on New Hope Road, a short-cut between Adamsville and the state line. Pauline was killed, but Buford, whose jaw was blasted almost entirely off, survived. The press christened him the unkillable cop, and from that point on, he pursued the state-line mob with a thunderous vengeance, until all of the undesirables were either gone, dead, or in jail.
On August 21, 1974, Pusser attended a press conference in Memphis to announce that he would be playing himself in Buford, a sequel to the loosely adapted bio-pic Walking Tall. Shortly thereafter he lost control of his Corvette and crashed into an embankment. His daughter Dwana was one of the first to arrive at the scene, and the girl pulled her giant father away from the burning wreck. "He had suffered so much," she's on record as saying. "I couldn't just let him burn up."
Raised in the shadow of fear and orphaned at 13, Garrison says of her childhood experience: "I was just having my own pity party when my grandma said to me, 'Honey, your daddy left you something that not too many other people have. He left you a legend.'"
It took nine guest-books to contain the names of those who turned out for Pusser's funeral. Actor Joe Don Baker, who portrayed the big sheriff in Walking Tall, was there, and even a brooding Elvis Presley lurked somberly in one of the children's bedrooms throughout the service.
Situated near Pickwick and the Shiloh Battlefield, Adamsville is a sleepy little town that springs to life once a month during its free all-day bluegrass jamborees. The Buford Pusser Home and Museum (which has suffered financial woes in recent years) houses memorabilia ranging from the grim to the mundane, and is a fascinating part of the Pusser legacy. But it's a small part. From Pat's Kountry Kitchen, where folks reminisce over bottomless 50-cent cups of joe about how Buford used to hand out $100 bills to the poor, to room 110 of the Old Home Motel, where he once lived, Adamsville is a living museum. Nearly everyone you encounter there has a story to tell about that famous lawman who walked so very tall.
I was unaware there was any curious timing coincidences with the death of Church. Why doesn't someone like Boxer die in a plane crash , she's not doing anything important. It's always the people making waves that die. mmmmmmmmm
Kirksey Nix comes from a wealthy Oklahoma family. I know some guys who are a lot closer to him than I would want to be. One spent ten years in Angola with Nix for murder. We are related to the same person.
There is a reason I keep name-dropping Bill Clubb. And you already know part of it. Lonnie Keith Lee died in Washington Parish, Louisiana last year and I shed not one tear. I have outlived the good and the bad! And you know who saved my bacon!
THE STATE LINE MOB - By W. R. Morris
Millions read of Buford Pusser and the State-Line Mob in THE TWELFTH OF AUGUST, and millions more watched them at war in the WALKING TALL movies. Now after more than twenty years-of research - W.R. Morris tells part of the story that could not be told until this time.
In the mid-1950s a cast of dangerous characters migrated to the Tennessee - Mississippi border after being run out of Phenix City, Alabama, where they had run the gambling halls and whorehouses that thrived on the army paychecks from nearby Fort Benning, Georgla.
Once settled at the state line, they began a twenty-year run of rigged gambling, robbery, bootlegging, prostitution, murder, bribery, and payoffs that far exceeded their earlier activities. It was into the clutches of this group that young Buford Pusser stumbled.
In February 1957, he was robbed of his mustering-out pay from the Marine Corps and severely beaten, requiring 192 stitches to close his wounds.
In the early 1960s a new face appeared at the Tennessee - Mississippi state line, that of Carl "Towhead" White. Fresh out of prison, White's ambition was to become the "Al Capone of the South." As a professional hit-man, he robbed banks, gambling joints, and various businesses across the South and throughout the Midwest and became the mastermind behind the state-line mob's evil empire.
It was this mob that Buford Pusser confronted when he pinned on the McNairy County sheriff's badge In 1964, and it was White who masterminded the ambush murder of Pusser's wife, Pauline, in August 1967. From that day on Pusser was obsessed with avenging his wife's murder, for which no one ever stood trial.
During the twenty years it has taken to write The State-Line Mob, gang "Insiders" - some on their deathbeds - told W. R. Morris the stories of what happened: who did what to whom, when, how, why, and for how much money. In the end, the criminals put themselves out of business, cleansing the border by murdering one another. Today the state line is a tranquil stretch of highway, its terror existing only In the memories of its victims and their families.
W. R. Morris is a veteran Journalist who has written on the subject of
crime for more than twenty years. The author of THE TWELFTH OF AUGUST,
which sold more than 1,500,000 copies, he also is author of BUFORD: A
BIOGRAPHY, MEN BEHIND THE GUNS, and ALIAS OSWALD. He lives In Shiloh,
Tennessee.
W.R.Morris. THE STATE LINE MOB: A True Story of Murder and Intrigue. Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill Press, 1990.
ISBN 1-55853-082-7
Available locally at:
Spice of Life Book Store
1801 S. Harper Rd.
Corinth, MS 38835
601-287-9471
Also, by the same author:
THE TWELFTH OF AUGUST
Authorized biography of Buford Pusser
Cherokee Press
National Booksellers
Box 63
Reagan, TN 38368
(901) 967-1341
Humes, Edward: MISSISSIPPI MUD: SOUTHERN JUSTICE AND THE DIXIE MAFIA
Carl Douglas [Towhead] White was from a little place in Tallahatchie County named Sumner. I saw him whip two tough guys at once in Drew one night; he was capable.
I think Louise is buried over in West Point. Don't know what they did with White's carcass!
Ask Razorback-bert, he may know!
Kind of strange maybe, but Larkin was looking into small time drug dealers on the coast, D. J. Venus, Albert Necaise, Leroy Hobbs and their MO was always a couple .22 shots to the head from an ambush. And nobody did anything on the coast before stopping by to see Mr Mike!
Trent Lott brought Larkin up behind him. FWIW!
Kirksey Nix comes from a wealthy Oklahoma family.
When I was a kid in Oklahoma in the 1960s, the Dixie Mafia was talked about.
And the name of Kirksey Nix was just about always mentioned when the subject came up.
But you certainly never saw any sort of newspaper or TV expose of the Dixie Mafia.
Bmp.
Here's a Dogpatch bump for this thread!
bttt
AP Staff
January 6, 1998
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) -- Sonny Bono, a 1960s pop star-turned-politician, was killed in a skiing accident Monday evening at the Heavenly Ski Resort. He was 62.
Bono, an avid skier, had been reported missing about two hours before his body was found. A ski patrol had been searching the Nevada side of the mountain, said his spokesman Frank Cullen Jr.
The preliminary investigation indicated that the death was an accident, said sheriff's Lt. Ross Chichester.
The cause of death has not been determined, pending an autopsy, Chichester said.
Heavenly, located 55 miles southwest of Reno at the California-Nevada state line, is one of the region's premier ski resorts.
Bono was on a vacation with his wife, Mary Whitaker, and their two children, 6-year-old Chianna and 9-year-old Chesare, when the accident happened.
"They were enjoying a family vacation," Cullen said Tuesday. ``He was a very proficient skier. He skied frequently with his family and, yes, he was an athletic guy -- he skied and played tennis.''
It was the second high-profile skiing death in less than a week.
On New Year's Eve, Michael Kennedy, the 39-year-old son of the late Robert F. Kennedy, died when he skied into a tree in Aspen, Colo., while playing football on skis.
Bono was first elected to Congress in 1994 as a Republican from Palm Springs, where he served as mayor from 1988-1992. At one point after going to Congress, he was the second-most requested draw at members' events behind House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Bono gained fame in the 1960s as half of Sonny and Cher with hits like "I Got You, Babe" and "The Beat Goes On."
The two moved to television with "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour," which ran on CBS from 1971-74, and then again during the 1976-77 season, after they divorced.
He worked as a restaurant owner and management consultant from 1982 to 1995. He first entered politics in 1988, when he became mayor of Palm Springs.
Bono, who divorced Cher, married Ms. Whitaker in 1986. He had two children with Cher, including lesbian activist Chastity Bono, and two children with Ms. Whitaker.
[End of Transcript]
|
March 1, 1999
By Tami Sheheri
NEW YORK (APBnews.com) -- The United States Drug Enforcement Administration is withholding three pages of documents on the late Sonny Bono because, the agency says, release of the information is potentially life threatening to a source.
 |
View the DEA Response |
Bono, who initially rose to fame as a rock 'n' roll songwriter and singer in the psychedelic 1960s, went on to become a restaurateur, local government leader and a two-term congressman before dying in a ski accident in 1998 at age 62.
Even the page numbers are secret
In explaining why it would not release any part of the file, the DEA cited an exemption in the FOIA law that allows it to withhold information that if released "could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety" of someone. Even the page numbers of the secret Bono file are secret, the DEA said.
At the time of his death, Bono was involved in combating illegal drugs. An original co-sponsor of the Methamphetamine Elimination Act of 1997, he also pledged to fight in Congress to make eradication of the illegal drug trade a top national priority.
During a failed run for Senate in 1992, Bono bristled when reporters asked him if he ever did drugs during his Hollywood years. "That's none of your business. I'm absolutely anti-drug now, and I was anti-drug then."
According to Kathy Myrick, chief of the FOIA Operations Unit, the secret documents contain information provided by a confidential source whose identity might be disclosed if any portions of the file were to be disclosed. She said the confidential information provided to the DEA appeared to be "intelligence reports or debriefings of other people" that were "given to us by a third party" and mentioned Bono's name.
Documents date to the '80s and '90s
The documents were created in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to Myrick. Around that time, Bono was the mayor of Palm Springs, Calif.
According to Frank Cullen Jr., former press secretary of Sonny Bono and current press secretary for Mary Bono, who has taken over her late husband's congressional seat, there was a noted increase in drug trafficking in the Palm Springs region when Bono was mayor. The documents "might relate to some of [Bono's] support or work with interdiction efforts," he speculated. "Smugglers were using that region with increasing regularity."
In its letter, the DEA explained that another reason it refuses to make the Bono files public is because such a release could compromise the internal rules and practices of the agency.
According to an expert on government secrecy, the fact that the DEA doesn't offer much more than a refusal to release the information is "provocative." Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, speculated the agency is probably protecting a source from someone who might be involved in drug trafficking. "There's a strong public interest in protecting sources in ongoing criminal investigations. But how you get from there to Sonny Bono is beyond my powers of speculation."
The executive director of the Association of Former Federal Narcotic Agents, Gaston Booker, refused to speculate on what the documents might be. "I have no idea," said Booker. "They could be almost anything when you're talking about records."
Bono died after skiing into a tree while on vacation with his wife and two children at the Heavenly Ski Resort near South Lake Tahoe, Nev. Shortly after the accident, Mary Bono told a reporter that her husband was addicted to painkillers to curb chronic back and neck pain. She later apologized for claiming the drugs made him act erratically and for stating she was "100 percent convinced" the drugs played a part in his death by impairing his judgment on the slopes. A toxicology report found no alcohol or illegal drugs in Bono's system, and two prescription medicines detected were consistent with normal therapeutic dosage.
APB News has announced it will appeal the DEA decision to withhold the documents.
Tami Sheheri is an APB News staff writer (tamis@apbnews.com).
The South China Morning Post
Ian Markham-Smith
November 30, 1998
Family and friends of late singer-turned-politician Sonny Bono are calling for a new investigation into his death because they are no longer convinced it was an accident.
"We believe he could have met with foul play," said Shirley Cole, a lawyer for Sonny Bono's 83-year-old mother, Jean Bono.
"There is something really wrong. It just doesn't make sense."
Jean Bono, who is outraged at claims by her son's fourth wife, Mary, that he was addicted to painkillers and tranquillisers, is questioning the post-mortem report which said there were traces of drugs in her son's system. "I feel there is something going on here. I don't think we know all the facts," she said.
Sonny Bono, 62, who found fame and fortune in the 1960s as half of the singing duo Sonny and Cher, died of massive head and neck injuries in January when he slammed into a tree while skiing in California.
His widow claims he was taking up to 20 prescription painkillers and tranquillisers a day in the weeks leading up to his death.
Mary Bono told TV Guide she was "100 per cent convinced" drug use contributed to his death.
"What he did showed absolute lack of judgment. That's what these pills do," she said.
Now the 36-year-old widow, who stood for and retained her late husband's US congressional seat, wishes she could unsay what was said.
"In hindsight, I wish I hadn't said anything. Sometimes I am too honest," she told the National Enquirer.
Mary and Jean Bono have been locked in a bitter feud since the death.
Cole said: "To people who knew Sonny well, Mary's allegations about drug abuse are just too ridiculous for words."
[
Reply |
Private Reply | To 34 | Top | Last ]
You're good, that's for sure...
I had not seen that last piece before, "Bono's death could have been foul play..."
That South China Morning Post, it's almost like what you'd expect a real paper to be. Pity we couldn't swap it for the Washington Post...
I have heard some question the bono fides of Mary Bono's agonizing in the snow that day...
If there might be merit to that, and there was foul play, that might suggest she was more than an intimidated victim...
Sonny appears to have had this weird notion, that coming to Washington was really about representation. Perhaps a deadly mistake...
You tossed off your motive recently for trying to tie a name with my screen-name; "water under the bridge" or something else flippant. You accused me of putting your name in the open. Most of us have a valid reasoning for not having our names brought into the open.
There are others who now question your motives here on FR. You operate at times as though you are two different people, which is the reason I broke off communications quite a while back.
You seem to have an underlying desire or motive to I.D. as many folks as possible on FR as attested by your attacks on both Metalbird1 and myself, possibly others, and your e-mail offline discussions. Why don't you explain it. Are you actually two different personalities or persons? Does this light your fuse? :-)
I don't even think I remember hearing the outlaws called "Dxie Mafia" until around '72!
But who really was behind all this?
Owney Madden
(1892- 1964)
English-born New York bootlegger, gangster and murderer. Madden, a leader of the murderous Gopher Gang on NYC's West Side, was involved in hundreds of gang fights from 1903 to 1919. He was an expert user of the blackjack, brass knuckles, and his favorite weapone, a lead pipe wrapped in newspaper. By the time he was 21, he had been arrested more than 40 times, charged with robbery, assault, and murder. In 1914, he was convicted of killing "LIttle Patsy" Doyle, a rival gang leader and sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison. Released on parole in 1923, Madden became an important bootlegger and speakeasy owner in NY and worked with such criminals as Dutch Schultz, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Abner "Longy" Zwillman. In the mid-1930s he retired from the NY world of crime and moved to Hot Springs, AR where he died in 1964.
1. You tossed off your motive recently for trying to tie a name with my screen-name; "water under the bridge" or something else flippant.
answer; What does "tossed off your motive" mean? I didn't 'try to tie a name with your screen name', I did! "Water under the bridge" ? Can't put the genie back in the bottle, know what I mean, Dan?
2. You accused me of putting your name in the open.
answer: I sure did and sure do!
3.Most of us have a valid reasoning for not having our names brought into the open.
asnswer: I started out back in the spring of '97 using my real name. Then I realized that my temper could embarrass my employer [disgust at queerdom], so I started using a screen name. I can't read book print any longer and no longer work for that company, but my old boss is still my friend and I will still protect him. [You betray that and we will have a problem!]
4. There are others who now question your motives here on FR.
answer: I suspect those would be people I don't care about anyhow!
5. You operate at times as though you are two different people, which is the reason I broke off communications quite a while back.
answer: It's called DENIABILITY, and 'breaking off communications' is one thing, BETRAYAL OF TRUST is another!
6. You seem to have an underlying desire or motive to I.D. as many folks as possible on FR as attested by your attacks on both Metalbird1 and myself, possibly others, and your e-mail offline discussions.
answer:Dan, I understand paranoia, mine probably was good for my health. I won't question the validity of your paranoia. Metalbird1 kept on with the B/S until I had a stomach full, and I didn't attack her or you! But I do know that you did betray a confidence by giving her my name, and who knows what else. My private e-mail discussions worry you?????
7.Why don't you explain it. Are you actually two different personalities or persons? Does this light your fuse? :-)
answer: Do you want me to post all my "email offline discussions"? You'll have to deal with your own paranoia! Two different personalities? Absolutely! One doesn't care what is attributed to him, the other most certainly does! Do you find that unusual? Why aren't you open with your identity?
As far as I know, everyone I would have had to worry about is dead! And I am not running too far behind! So I really only want to keep from embarassing family and friends. I am sure you know what I mean!
ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD LIKE TO DISCUSS IN PUBLIC, DAN?
"[You betray that and we will have a problem!]
! So I really only want to keep from embarassing family and friends. I am sure you know what I mean!
ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD LIKE TO DISCUSS IN PUBLIC, DAN?"
You seem to want to make things that disagree with you some kind of a personal confrontation. Then you have numerous times made what could be considered by some as veiled threats. In that aspect you're not all that different from some on here that are/have been labeled "operatives" by many observers.
A note about "family and friends" --- I have no concern about embarassing either Family or Friends. Do you intend to construct something along those lines?
You've got a game going.
Dan, I am afraid that you are a sick person! Why are you acting surprised that I knew who had betrayed my confidence?
Has the thought ever crossed your mind that I have entrusted many others on Free Republic with much more than I have you? I got worried about you when I realized how paranoid you are.
I have long since lost track of all the people here who know my name, who I work for, where I live, my phone number, my street address, etc
What would you like to discuss in public? Or would you prefer going private? You could always cut and paste my responses to a post here; funny why your friend didn't! Or do you feel more comfortable in public?
JimRob knows more about me than you do! I am going to the hospital in the morning and spending the weekend with my kids. So don't think I am on my way to Branson, Missouri!
You think I am hiding from people? I have entrusted a hell of a lot more personal info with Uncle Bill than I ever would with you! I may be wrong, I was about you, but I have a gut instinct that tells me that I don't have to worry about Uncle Bill betraying me, AS YOU DID!
Just to satisfy myself on a detail, I did some searching. It turns out that way back, for whatever reason, you brought out who you were working for, under your name. That's point number 1.
Then to see if somehow I'd slipped and put your name out in the open, other than when we communicated in the open on FR before you changed screennames, I reviewed for that. I found nothing. That's point 2.
Then I reviewed that 'similar to this' tirade that you created with MB1 where you kept calling MB1 "girlie" and some pretty derogatory personal slams. In that thread you listed your name, address etc. as though someone cared. Very off-the wall ranting similar to this. That's point 3.
Since you've done that, and I asked where you thought either of us had bandied your name about in public, the only reference I've found by another was you being called 'jimmie'.
Since you appear to be neither logical, reasonable, nor thorough in your actions I'll have no further communication with you either publically or privately. Have fun, don't bust a vessel :-)
How do you "put the genie back in the bottle"? You betrayed a request for confidentiality with that lard-assed welfare queen. Too bad! Can't be undone!
Best you run along! Everybody you are talking to may realize that I am the one who has been honest, NOT YOU!
BTW: is Metalbird1 Betty Bopp? Save it! I really don't give a sh-t!
"Then to see if somehow I'd slipped and put your name out in the open, other than when we communicated in the open on FR before you changed screennames, I reviewed for that. I found nothing. That's point 2."
YOU BETRAYED MY TRUST BY GIVING MY NAME TO METALBIRD1, WHO THOUGHT SHE HAD INFO NOBODY ELSE COULD GET. YET, THERE ARE PROBABLY 50 PEOPLE ON HERE WHO KNOW ME!
It's the principle! You are not trustworthy!
"Since you appear to be neither logical, reasonable, nor thorough in your actions I'll have no further communication with you either publically or privately. Have fun, don't bust a vessel :-)"
You and your girl started this, so don't expect me to back off! Look back at #39!
Logical? Reasonable? Thorough? And you trot along hawking this crap on a public forum when you can go private and still be able to cut and paste what you wish?
Don't worry about me 'busting a vessel', I am having a rather good time letting you display yourself on a public forum!
And I know people who think you are in competition with Michael Rivero; so gnaw on that one before you post your next post!
In post #29, Chapita wrote:
Kirksey Nix comes from a wealthy Oklahoma family. I know some guys who are a lot closer to him than I would want to be.
One spent ten years in Angola with Nix for murder. We are related to the same person.
Kirksey Nix, Senior was a fairly well-known judge in Oklahoma, who again made the news around last Halloween:
Gamefowl breeders sue anti-cockfighters again
By The Associated Press
TULSA -- Members of a group seeking a ban on cockfighting in Oklahoma say the Oklahoma Gamefowl Breeders
Association is trying to harass them with a second lawsuit.
An attorney for Kelly and Kara Barger and the OGBA filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Pawnee County District Court alleging
that three members of the Oklahoma Coalition Against Cockfighting maliciously disseminated grossly untrue statements about
the gamefowl industry.
Coalition chairwoman Janet Halliburton, Steve Eberle, who heads the group's Tulsa office, and volunteer Kel Pickens said the
judge whose ruling made cockfighting legal had ''gone to prison for taking bribes,'' the lawsuit alleges
Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Kirksey Nix overturned the conviction of several cockfighters in 1963, saying the
state's animal cruelty statutes did not pertain to fowl. The late Nix retired from the bench in 1971.
''Judge Nix was a man of honor and integrity,'' plaintiffs attorney Larry Oliver said in a news release. ''These animal rights
activists would stain his reputation in their zeal to make criminals out of thousands of law-abiding Oklahoma gamefowl
breeders.''
Ms. Halliburton, Eberle and Pickens also are named in a lawsuit in Sequoyah County. Both the lawsuits seek $20,000 in actual
and punitive damages for statements the cockfighters say they made.
The group says the cockfighters are trying to intimidate people involved in the petition drive to get the issue put on the
November 2000 ballot.
''This is another attempt to keep proponents of the petition from exercising constitutional rights,'' Ms. Halliburton said. ''It won't
work. Clearly, this is protected political speech.''
Oliver said the lawsuits are not a ploy to distract or intimidate the petition effort.
''She brought all that up,'' he said. ''We're responding to it.''
The petition drive, which began Sept. 14, has until 5 p.m. Dec. 13 to obtain at least 69,887 valid signatures from registered
Oklahoma voters to put a cockfighting ban on the ballot.
-30-
Story at:
http://www.ardmoreite.com/stories/100799/new_gamefowl.shtml
-archy-/-
Uncle Bill:
This letter to the editor from about two weeks after the article you posted goes alonmg with it, and makes a couple of interesting points of its own
The Memphis Flyer
July 15, 1999
Walking Tall, Part II
To the Editor:
Since I am hopeful that The Memphis Flyer values its reputation for accuracy as
much as the late McNairy County Sheriff Buford Pusser -- the subject of your "Blood
and Thunder" piece by writer Chris Davis in the July 1st issue -- valued his own
reputation for accuracy of another sort, I thought I'd correct at least one minor error
in your article and add a few details.
Mr. Davis states that "after a number of violent confrontations, [Pusser] strapped on a
.41 Colt Magnum." During the three occasions that I met with the sheriff, in 1969, he
carried not a Colt, but a Smith & Wesson Model 57 .41 Magnum revolver. The
more important detail here was the caliber: Colt never produced a revolver
chambered for the big .41 favored by Sheriff Pusser.
And while you mention that Pusser pursued those of the state-line mob he thought
responsible for the murder of his wife Pauline "with a vengeance," you sort of
neglected to go into detail on just how comprehensive and wide-ranging the manhunt
actually was for those who he suspected were actively in on the shooting.
Carmine Gagliardi was found shot to death and floating in Boston Harbor in 1969.
Similarly, in March 1969, Gary McDaniel, who was under indictment for conspiracy
to murder a Mississippi prosecutor, was found floating in the Sabine River after
having been shot in the head and back. McDaniel's partner George Albert McGann
was shot three times, through the heart and back, in Lubbock, Texas, in September
1970. And Towhead White was shot in the head near a motel by a shooter from a
nearby roof in April 1969. Only Kirksey Nix remains alive, pulling hard time in the
Louisiana State Farm at Angola, though if he should ever be released, his chances
likely aren't much better than those of the others.
So far as I know, no one was ever arrested or convicted in any of that terrible string
of almost unrelated killings, though ballistics reports of the caliber of weapon(s) used
would at least show that it wasn't a ".41 Colt Magnum."
In the aftermath of his wife's murder, Sheriff Pusser was at least aware that no one
had been put to death for a capital crime in Tennessee since 1960, and that if he was
to obtain real justice for her, he'd have to look elsewhere.
H.J. Halterman
e-mail (Memphis)
The Memphis Flyer encourages reader response. Send mail to: Letters to the
Editor, POB 687, Memphis, TN 38101. Or call Back Talk at 575-9405. Or
send us e-mail at letters@memphisflyer.com. All responses must include
name, address, and daytime phone number. Letters should be no longer than
250 words.
-30-
At the time of Pauline Pusser's murder, no convicted and sentenced murderer had actually been put to death, though Tennessee's governor Blanton was later jailed for selling pardons that got a few out of prison, and Kirksey Nix was desperately trying to come up with enough bribe money to accomplish the same thing, well AFTER Sheriff Pusser was safely in his grave, probably at least part of the cause of the deaths of Judge Sherry and his wife in their Dixie-mafia hit in Biloxi.
Not finding any great faith in the Louisiana prison system, Nix has now been moved to a federal supermax, though I don't recall if it was the one at Marion, IL or the new one at Florence, Colorado. In either location I expect the business dealings Nix and his road dogs ran from Angola in Louisiana will be a good deal less frequent.
-archy-/-
[15 July 99 Memphis Flyer LETTERS:]
http://www.memphisflyer.com/backissues/issue543/lett543.htm
The old man encouraged dog fighting when he was visiting the coastal counties. Don't know about any cock fighting.
In post #41, janus asked:
But who really was behind all this?
Owney Madden (1892- 1964)
English-born New York bootlegger, gangster and murderer. Madden, a leader of the murderous Gopher Gang on NYC's
West Side, was involved in hundreds of gang fights from 1903 to 1919. He was an expert user of the blackjack, brass
knuckles, and his favorite weapone, a lead pipe wrapped in newspaper. By the time he was 21, he had been arrested more
than 40 times, charged with robbery, assault, and murder. In 1914, he was convicted of killing "LIttle Patsy" Doyle, a rival gang
leader and sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison. Released on parole in 1923, Madden became an important bootlegger and
speakeasy owner in NY and worked with such criminals as Dutch Schultz, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Abner "Longy"
Zwillman. In the mid-1930s he retired from the NY world of crime and moved to Hot Springs, AR where he died in
1964.
Sure, one of the holdovers from the *5 points Gangs* traditions of the days from when gangs of Irish descent, rather than Italian, were the crime problem of New York City. Though they never organized and moved out to outlying towns in quite the style the Italians, who had the example of the influences from the Old Country to guide them in such subtleties as political bribery and union organization, they also never received the public attention the Italians got from the Mafia novelists and Godfather movies, long past and recent.
That may change. Director Martin Scorsese, a wop himself, is said to be readying a film about the *Dead Rabbits Gang* to star actors Robert De Niro, another Guinie hood, and Leonardo DeCaprio, another greaseball immigrant, who snuck into Hollywood aboard the Titanic before she sank. The comparison between the Pusser *Walking Tall/big stick* movies should be obvious, but too the *Dead Rabbits* posse got their moniker from the quaint decorations they mounted as trophies on the clubs they carried, a totem not known to have been used by Pusser though he might have noted the lads' sense of style, but it might have gone down well with the Lakota, known to use crook-sticks generally known as *Coup-sticks* to their whiteyes and bluecoat enemies.
Ah, for the good old days, when we all got along....
Neither was Madden the only mob guy to retire to Hot Springs or to lay over there: that was where the FBI hotshots nabbed Frank *Jelly* Nash, shortly to be killed by a fed with a borrowed shotgun during what became known as the *Kansas City Massacre* at that town's Union Station. Agent Lackey popped Nash, with whom he shared the back seat, the driver of their car and the Sheriff in the front seat from whom Lackey had borrowed the Winchester pump gun with the tricky trigger after he'd been wounded and attempted to fire in return, pumping away with the trigger held down. The FBI coverup, a masterful work of fiction, has remained in place to this day, and was the likely cause for both Director Hoover's insistance that his Agents get a little better training in the handling and use of firearms, and the development of a wonderful scientific laboratory where embarassing ballistics reports wouldn't ever eventually come to light.
There were quite a few Chicago mob graduates who retired to the Hot Springs area around the time that Madden did, as once the Everleigh sisters closed their establishment and Prohibition had been repealed, the good old days in the Windy City must have seemed gone forever, and a dreary place with harsh winters.
Some favoured the Hoosier facilities around the Indiana resort at French Lick, however, including a few who'd had dealings with Madden.
-archy-/-
I found your information very interesting dated 2/13/2000..concerning Larkin Smith... I was involved with case from the very beginning ... to set the record straight... first Larkin was Chief of Police in 1982 when Leroy Hobbs contracted with Henry to kill Larkin.. second.. his brother K was not told what was going on until after arrest were made... he was not told for several reasons 1. for security reasons 2. because K could not be trusted to keep his mouth shut and 3. Larkin was not that close to K. The FBI was involved in the case immediately .... not a year or so later. I was involved in every detail of this case.... Larkin was one of the finest gentlemen God ever put on this earth and he will be deeply missed!! Justice
In Post #37 Uncle Bill noted for metalbird1 :
Sonny Bono Dies in Ski Accident
AP Staff
January 6, 1998
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) -- Sonny Bono, a 1960s pop star-turned-politician, was killed in a skiing accident Monday
evening at the Heavenly Ski Resort. He was 62.
[snip!]
from Alamo-Girls DSL *Clinton Death lists:
Jim Wilhite
Vice Chairman, Arkla, Inc.
died: 12/21/92 - Died in a one-person skiing accident. -
Wilhite had extensive ties with Clinton
and Mack McLarty, with whom he visited by telephone just hours before his death.
Arkla, as in Ark-La/ Arkansas-Louisiana?
-archy-/-
I don't even think I remember hearing the outlaws called "Dxie Mafia" until around '72!
Bump! and a howdy back at 'cha!
You are probably better on the time frame than I was in my initial post.
It probably was more like the early to mid 1970s when I heard about Nix and The Dixie Mafia.
How the years fly by!
That was back when I was giving a lot of money to Mr. Mike in Biloxi every weekend at the El Morrocco and what Mr Mike didn't get Charlie Acevedo did!
don't forget the still unsolved shot gunning at tulsa's southern hills c.c. in the early '70's.
BTTT
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