The Bluegrass Conspiracy

by Sally Denton

  A group of Florida investigators were going to fly into Lexington the next day, and wanted Ralph to assign some men to assist them. He agreed to give them as many men as they needed. He would locate witnesses, and then accompany the Florida police officers while they conducted the interviews. The case became Ralph’s top priority— along with finding Drew Thornton. Ralph suspected Drew had something to do with the death, but had no way of knowing that Drew—still a fugitive from the China Lake indictment—was at the Kellys’ house the night of the murder.

  The Florida cops had compiled a list of passengers who had traveled by commercial airline from Lexington to Fort Myers, Florida, around the time of the murder. Ralph’s men conducted background checks on everyone, interrogating them about why they had gone to Florida. The Florida detectives were swamped, and needed all the help they could get. Kentucky was but one of the angles they were following. They were pursuing every avenue, rumor, and motive that surfaced. A lot of political pressure had been applied upon the police and district attorney’s office to solve the case as fast as possible.

  The cold-blooded events gave Ralph an eerie feeling. Why would anyone kill a prosecutor? he wondered. Witnesses and informants were occasionally blown away, but it seemed fruitless to kill a prosecuting attorney—an abundance of replacements would always be waiting on the sidelines.

  The Company was once again playing by its own rules. Just four days earlier, during surveillance at a favorite Lexington hangout of Drew’s, one of Ralph’s spies had overheard a conversation between two members of the group. “There’s going to be a wave of killings now,” one man said to another, apparently referring to reactions to the large number of defendants who were plea-bargaining in the China Lake case.

  Even after learning of that comment, though, Ralph assumed the group would begin reprisals against each other. Instead, their first target was a government official. Ralph thought the next victim could be a Lexington television reporter who had broadcast an expose of the Company’s Kentucky members. Recent messages left on Drew’s Cincinnati answering service included a thinly veiled reference to a plot against the news reporter: “Desperate situations call for desperate actions,” the message said, regarding the reporter who had become a thorn in Drew’s side.

  Catching Gene Berry’s killer became Ralph’s obsession, even though the crime had occurred a thousand miles away. Solving the case became a matter of principle to Ralph.

  For the first time, Ralph considered Company members a threat to his personal safety. It seemed they had no qualms about killing anyone who got in their way.

  Rumors circulated that Berry had accepted a bribe to ensure that Mike Kelly wasn’t convicted, and had then failed to produce his end of the bargain. “We bought him [Berry], but he didn’t stay bought,” one source told Ralph. Revelations that Berry had recently applied for a job with the attorney general in Kentucky sparked conjecture that such a position could have been a payoff. For obvious reasons, the Florida State Attorney’s Office did not encourage pursuit of such motives. Ralph didn’t believe the bribe story anyway. By all accounts, Berry was a “policeman’s prosecutor.”

  Still, Ralph was convinced it was a highly unusual slaying. “It’s not a contract killing,” Ralph said to his partner Don Powers one day when the two men were mulling over the various possibilities. “Think about it…it takes a special kind of individual to walk up to a guy’s front door on a Saturday night and shoot him point-blank in the heart. We’re talking about a ruthless, brutal individual who probably had a personal ax to grind with the guy. Not a hired gun.”

  “His life was a brief candle because of a shadowy, faceless creature who crawled out from under a rock last Saturday and committed a cowardly act,” the Reverend Henry Galloway told the six hundred people who gathered at the United Methodist Church to pay their final respects to the man who was Charlotte County’s chief criminal prosecutor. “Throughout history there have been those who thought they could kill the idea by killing the man. The principles of truth, honesty, and justice for which Eugene Berry gave his life have not died.”

  Blasts from a twenty-one-gun salute. A lone bugle. Fifty police cruisers in a mile-long funeral procession. The grief-stricken widow held the American flag in her lap. Eugene Berry’s parents and his five children huddled together at the grave site under a green canopy as the casket was carried to the grave. Politicians, judges, lawyers, journalists, and community leaders spoke to each other of the senselessness of the crime. Court dockets in five counties were canceled in official mourning.

  “A person has to feel useful in this world,” a friend quoted Berry, in his eulogy. “To hit a lick against what’s wrong, say a word for what’s right—even though you get walloped for saying that word. There’s right and there’s wrong in this world. You’ve got to do one or the other.”

  With that, Eugene Berry—a man who had committed his life to the belief that good surpasses evil in the end—was laid to rest.

  Born September 2, 1935, Berry had been a car salesman without a high school diploma until 1970. He had met Trudi and married her the year before—the second time for both. At thirty-five years of age, he decided to fulfill his dream of becoming a lawyer. He moved his five children to Iowa, where he attended four years of undergraduate school while also holding down a full-time job. “This was in a period of unrest on campuses,” Berry once said. “I was a man with a family, and in a hurry. I didn’t have any time to waste. I picked a college I didn’t think was likely to be disturbed by demonstrations. After three years of law school at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee, he accepted a job offer as a criminal prosecutor in coastal Florida. In a state mired in drugs, it was inevitable that Berry would find himself immersed in drug-smuggling investigations.

  “He despised drugs,” his widow said at the time of his death, “He saw what they did to people. My only frustration is that sometimes I feel like he was pushing back the wind. Florida needs help. The crime rate is terrible, it’s a disgrace, and most of it boils down to drugs.”

  Quickly gaining a reputation as a tough prosecutor who successfully demanded lengthy jail sentences for major drug conspirators, Berry accepted the rumored threats against his life as part of the job description. Six months before his death, he appealed to his local zoning commission for a variance to build a five-foot wooden fence around his property. “I’ve had some [security] problems in the past, and I anticipate some in the future,” Berry wrote in a letter to county officials. Berry wore a gun holster while at work and was usually armed in public. One week before his death, he had taught Trudi how to use a handgun. But those closest to him said Berry had no idea his life was in imminent danger, nor had he received any direct threats. He probably, however, had heard the street talk referring to vague contracts on his life—most of which was linked to Mike Kelly’s sentencing just weeks before Berry’s death.

  Killing a prosecutor was but one step removed from killing a cop. Thirty-three investigators, working twelve-hour shifts and twenty-four-hour days, appealed to the state for additional funding to continue for an indefinite period. Assisting the local authorities were the FBI, DEA, the Kentucky State Police, other law enforcement agencies in Florida, Texas, Georgia, South Carolina, California, Maryland, and Canada, and more than a dozen civil agencies including the Department of Transportation, telephone companies in three states, car rental companies, motels, and airlines. More than fifty thousand documents were obtained, their data fed into computers and crossreferenced—creating a task-force approach to the most intense criminal investigation in Florida history.

  Though the woman jogger had not yet been identified, and other suspects had not yet been located, the thrust of the murder investigation was undeniably focused on one area: Berry’s stubborn pursuit of drug smugglers and organized crime—particularly, the Company.

  By late January 1982, Kelly’s Kentucky associates were the sole focus of the prob
e, and police were convinced, but couldn’t prove, that the mysterious female jogger was in fact the trigger woman.

  It was a clear and cold winter afternoon in North Carolina. The eleven-year-old Piper Aztec Drew had been flying, which belonged to his friend Richard Merrill, was in dire need of repair of a hydraulic leak. He decided to take it for servicing to the Southern Pines Airport, located near Fort Bragg Army Base, where he knew he would not attract attention to himself. He had flown in and out of the rural airport a hundred times over the past years; Bradley Bryant’s mother lived in the area, and the two men used to meet there to discuss their deals.

  Drew didn’t know that Customs in Louisiana had tracked the twin engine airplane ever since Merrill’s arrest months earlier in New Orleans. Though the plane had not been seized in that arrest, radio communication between the smugglers on the ground and Drew Thornton in the airplane had been intercepted. Customs had been stung by Drew’s ability to evade capture that time; to add insult to injury, there had been several near-misses between Drew and Customs in the ensuing weeks.

  Customs told local police that an “armed and extremely dangerous” fugitive who was wanted on federal drug charges in Fresno, California, would be landing in Southern Pines. Described as six-foot tall, 180 pounds, with black hair and blue eyes, Drew’s nickname was Slick. The Customs agent found himself snickering at the mere mention of that name. Not slick enough, he thought.

  Drew was paying the mechanic at the local airport when he sensed warm, unfriendly breath behind him. Remaining calm, he turned slightly. Before he could evaluate his situation and explore his fightor-flight body mechanisms, several police officers had jumped him.

  Maybe it was time to change his nickname, one of them suggested.

  It was 1 p.m., January 29, 1982. Drew put up no resistance as he was searched. Silently, he must have considered his circumstances. Things had definitely taken a turn for the worse. Their luck had turned as soon as Bonnie blew the prosecutor away; she wasn’t a professional. First Bonnie had bungled Berry’s murder two weeks earlier, and now this. U.S. marshals were already en route to retrieve Drew and transport him to California for arraignment. He knew that his bail would probably be so high that it would take him a few days to round it up. The first thing he did was to call his Lexington lawyer and friend—Randy Reinhardt.

  North Carolina police seized all the items in Drew’s possession, taking inventory, copying all paperwork, and packing them to be turned over to Customs: A .22-caliber handgun; numb-chucks—a Japanese weapon made of two wooden sticks and joined by a chain, used for grabbing a choke hold on one’s enemies; a parachute; and the bulletproof vest he was wearing at the time of his capture.

  In his wallet were two business cards, one for John Carter, a Miami attorney—an alias for himself—and one for his girlfriend, Rebecca Ann Sharp. Written on the first page of his address book were several oriental symbols and the words Monitor; Challenge/Test; Discover/Invent; Realization; Analysis; Requisition; Simulation. His personal philosophy was encapsulated on a printed card that he carried in his shirt pocket.

  If a warrior is not unattached to life and death, he will be of no use whatsoever. The saying that “All abilities come from one mind” sounds as though it has to do with sentient matters, but it is in fact a matter of being unattached to life and death. With such nonattachment one can accomplish any feat. Martial arts and the like are related to this insofar as they can lead to the Way.

  His address book and personal items were placed into a plastic bag, and Drew was driven forty miles to the Cumberland County Jail.

  The next day, Drew was taken to Greensboro, North Carolina, where a federal magistrate set his bond at $1 million and ordered him removed immediately to California. While awaiting his transfer, Drew received two visitors: Henry Vance and Randy Reinhardt.

  Ralph adjusted his bifocals, furrowed his forehead, and scanned the list of numbers for the hundredth time,:

  606-532—LEX

  317-316-SAV

  305-789—MIA

  215-043—PHIL 1-7 2-0 3-6 4-1 5-4 6-5-1 7-9 8-3 9-8 0-2

  41-44 3R-35 2L-79 R-95 4L-35 3R-20 2L-31

  The first group obviously referred to a relatively simple series of numbers that transcribed the telephone area codes of Lexington, Savannah, Miami, and Philadelphia. Despite his years of military training as a cryptographer, Ralph had trouble deciphering the next two groupings of codes.

  But it was the fourth set of numbers that intrigued him the most: 172.000; 171.450; 172.200; 171.600; 171.825; and 166.500. Those numbers were the carefully guarded, highly secret radio frequencies used by the DEA to monitor body bugs. Drew also had in his possession codes for DEA transmitters, and a six-digit number referring to “Internal Security.”

  While it was surprising that Drew Thornton would carry the codes with him, even more intriguing were the non-published, home telephone numbers for DEA agents that were listed in his personal address book. One of those agents—Tom Zepeda, from Detroit, Michigan—was the special agent in charge of a task force investigation code-named CENTAC 26. The target of that special DEA probe was Drew Thornton. Why would the hunted be communicating with the hunter? Ralph wondered. Only two possibilities would make sense. One, that Drew was working for the DEA as an undercover informant. Or, two, that certain agents in the DEA had been compromised and corrupted, and were assisting Drew in his drug-smuggling activities. Ralph had long ago discounted the theory that Drew was working in either an official or semi-official capacity for the DEA.

  Convinced that DEA agent Harold Brown was associated with Drew, Ralph now wondered if Drew’s contacts within the DEA were even more insidious and widespread. He turned to a Philadelphia DEA agent working the China Lake case for further information on the subject. The agent insisted the Drew was neither a DEA snitch, nor were any DEA agents partners with Drew in the drug business. Ralph thought the agent seemed more than a little testy when questioned about the issue. Like Ralph, Customs agents also thought Drew’s DEA connections significant. They pursued those links through their own channels, and also received emphatic denials from the DEA. Andrew Carter Thornton II was not one of theirs, DEA contended.

  Drew’s address book contained the personal phone numbers of his contacts throughout the world. Interspersed with the members of Lexington’s elite horsey set were the names and numbers of government officials and military generals in Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Equador, Haiti, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Panama. Also listed were the private numbers of Lexington police officers, as well as other law enforcement agents from various parts of the globe—including an officer with the Narcotics Bureau of the Royal Hong Kong Police.

  The same phone numbers for the CIA in Washington that Bradley Bryant had had in his possession two years earlier turned up again in Drew’s book. One of the CIA numbers—202/449-9944—would inform the caller whether or not the phone he was using was being tapped. As usual, the CIA would neither confirm nor deny the existence of the number, nor any relationship with Drew Thornton.

  Then there were the women. Dozens of them, first names only. Bambi, Deborah, Teri, Candi, Julie, Barb, Tanya, Caroline, Donna, Delanna, Sally, Fran, Sue, Lucy, Nancy, Louise, Patricia, Carrie, Nola, Sandy, Kathy, Leslie, Betty, and the ubiquitous, and obviously special, “Rebecca.” They lived all over the country. Almost as numerous were the names of lawyers—located in El Paso, Lexington, Miami, New York, Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

  Not very professional, Ralph concluded. Drew had violated one of the most obvious codes of a covert operative—government-sanctioned or not.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  On January 26, an Avis Rent A Car employee in Lee County, Florida, identified a composite drawing as that of a twenty-nine-year-old Lexington, Kentucky, woman named Bonnie Lynn Kelly. Bonnie Kelly had rented automobiles at the airport four times during the past month. During her most rece
nt visit, she had listed her destination as the Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge in Punta Gorda, located within blocks of Berry’s home. With this piece of information, Bonnie officially became a suspect in the murder of Eugene Berry. Several leads also pointed to Stephen Taylor: His relationship with Mike and Bonnie Kelly; his scheduled court appearance before Berry on cocaine sale charges; the fact that Mike Kelly had provided Taylor with twelve thousand dollars to bond out of jail; the suspicious one-car accident in a car owned by the Kellys that gave Taylor an alibi; and rumors that Taylor and Bonnie had become romantically involved since Mike’s incarceration.

  WIFE OF CONVICT SOUGHT IN SLAYING OF PROSECUTOR, the headlines read in the St. Petersburg Times on February 1, 1982. Any delusions Bonnie possessed about her immunity from suspicion vanished on that day. Terrorized by the widening net, Bonnie scrambled for an alibi. She turned to her mentor in this sloppy errand— Henry Shelden Vance.

  The button-down-collared son of an eminent Lexington family had, so far, escaped being muddied by the negative publicity generated by the disappearance of Melanie Flynn, the murder of Judge Wood, the death of Rebecca Moore, the arrest of Bradley Bryant, and the China Lake indictments. By February 1982, most members of Henry Vance’s inner circle—comprised of former high school classmates, boyhood friends of the country club and cotillion set, and police colleagues— had either been indicted, convicted, or were running scared.

  His comrades—Mike Kelly, Bradley Bryant, Harold Brown, Drew Thornton, Steve Oliver, and Jack Hillard—were each in a world of trouble. Kelly was serving his sentence in Florida; Oliver and Hillard had pleaded guilty to drug-conspiracy charges in Fresno; Brown had been shamed into early retirement; and Thornton had just been snared. Yet Henry Vance had somehow remained unscathed.

  The single skeleton in Henry Vance’s closet had been his dismissal from the narcotics unit of the Fayette County Sheriff ’s Department in 1972. The clean-cut preppy, like his best friend Drew Thornton, had originally been attracted to law enforcement in order to avidly pursue hippies. After numerous internal charges that he was a drug abuser himself, coupled with his overzealous pursuits, his police career came to an end when Vance ordered two dozen .44-caliber pistols from Lexington gun dealer Phillip Gall and forged then-Sheriff Maurice Jackson’s name on the voucher. The suspicious gun manufacturer alerted the sheriff. Sheriff Jackson fired Vance, but Vance was never criminally prosecuted in the matter, so only a handful of people knew about the incident. Ralph Ross had never forgotten it.