The Bluegrass Conspiracy

by Sally Denton

  His expensive clothing and white Jaguar sparked one acquaintance to comment: “He reminded me of a rich polo player, a jet-setter, a Paul Newman type.”

  Drew’s generosity proved to be slightly unsettling for some of his friends. A two-page, handwritten will shone an unmerciful light on Drew’s beneficiaries. Bequeathing the lion’s share of his estate to longtime friend Henry Vance, other assets were divided among friends and family. One thing was certain: Each of Drew’s heirs would become subjects of the federal government’s inquisitive eye. Such scrutiny would prove embarrassing for U.S. Customs agent Jay Silvestro, among others.

  The will, dated June 18, 1984, provided for the distribution of assets without placing a value on the total estate:

  I, Andrew Carter Thornton II, do this 18th day of June 1984 set pen to paper to write my last will and testament.

  Being of sound mind and body at the time of this writing I leave the following monies and properties to the following people. I leave J. Randall Reinhardt, Attorney-At-Law, as my Executor, and specify that he receive $5,000 as his fee.

  To my father, mother, brother and sister—my horses, to share + share alike.

  To my nieces (sic) + nephews—the proceeds of my whole life insurance policies with Northwestern Mutual Life Ins. Company.

  To Sally Ely Sharp McCloud [Rebecca’s aunt], a personal communication in the form of a letter, which will be left with Phil Clements, Randy Reinhardt, or my parents.

  To Rebecca Ann Sharp, a personal letter to be left with Phil Clements, Randy Reinhardt or my parents.

  To Henry Vance, my Jessamine Cty. property, my Jerrico + Eli Lilly stock + my oil well interests (Contact Richard Harris, Fresno, Cal.)

  To Louis Andrew Silvestro, son of Jay Joseph Silvestro, my godson, my interest in Pino Altos Limited Partnership.

  To Tony Dehner, my interest in 411 Kenilworth Ct.

  To Billy Rhodes, my parachute gear.

  To Henry Vance, Jamie Thachaberry, Tim Thornton + Rebecca Sharp + Phil Clements, my weapons, share + share alike.

  To Rebecca Sharp, those stocks remaining at my death other than those given to Henry Vance.

  The remainder of my personal property to include but not limited to cars, clothes, books, etc. is to be disposed of by Sally Ely Sharp McCloud + Rebecca Ann Sharp as they see fit.

  There is to be no funeral. After useable body parts (eyes, kidneys, etc.) are removed I want to be cremated. Release my ashes in air over my parents farm + then have a party.

  Each page of this two-page document is signed by me

  Randy Reinhardt—a partner in the prominent Lexington law firm of Bullitt Kinkead Irvin and Reinhardt—was conspicuously absent in the immediate days following Drew’s death. Though Drew had named Reinhardt executor of his estate, Reinhardt begged off, citing a hectic schedule. Drew’s family then asked the Probate Court to appoint Louisville attorney G. Fred Partin to take Reinhardt’s place.

  Drew’s death was also dicey for his retinue of loyal allies. Though he had specifically requested that there be no funeral, his parents, who were deeply religious, overrode his wishes. In a poignant ceremony on a chilly Kentucky morning, two hundred mourners paid their respects. Despite certainty that drug agents would infiltrate the funeral, shooting photographs and recording names and license numbers, the bereaved braved their way to the Bourbon County gravesite—filing past the giant wreath signed I will always love you, Rebecca. Among those grieving, the media noted, was Jimmy Lambert. Not among them, reporters observed, was former Governor John Y. Brown, Jr.

  “He went out like an Eagle Scout,” said his former wife, Betty Zaring. “He loved the concept of the warriors who fall from the sky.”

  The family requested that in lieu of flowers donations be sent to the United States Parachute Association in Alexandria, Virginia. A month later, the association had received only one contribution: A dime taped to a blank piece of paper.

  Threave Main Stud—Drew’s childhood home and serene adult retreat—assumed a dark, mournful appearance as autumn turned to winter. True to their character, the Thorntons contributed to the mystique surrounding their strange son. They refused to be pitied, withdrawing further and further into their code of silence. That year their standing studs were named “Silent Dignity” and “Best of It.”

  Drug agents continued their multistate search for the remainder of Drew’s cocaine shipment for several weeks. But they weren’t the only ones engaged in the treasure hunt. Forest Service officials reported record numbers of “hikers” combing the Chattahoochee Forest. Pilots in private airplanes used binoculars to scout the rugged countryside. A two-hundred-pound bear discovered one of the duffel bags, and died of an overdose after burying his face in the powder. In Cherokee County, Georgia—north of Atlanta—a parachute with its straps cut was found in a residential backyard that was adjacent to a vacant field. Neighbors remembered a maroon car that was parked nearby on the night of Drew’s last jump.

  That car was traced to David “Cowboy” Williams, who had been a member of Drew’s off-load crew and who was to be responsible for driving the nine hundred pounds of cocaine from Knoxville to the “stash house” in Daytona, Florida, where it would be turned over to the Colombians’ distributors. But, like so many others whose paths intersected with Drew Thornton, the owner of the maroon Mercedes-Benz with vanity plates that read SKYDIV would not live long enough to provide clues.

  At noon, on September 29, 1985, “Cowboy” was doing what he did every weekend: He boarded himself, a pilot, and fifteen recreational skydivers onto his commercial Cessna 208 Caravan. Operating out of the West Wind Sport Parachute Club—a remote landing strip located three miles from the Kitchens’ farm in Jenkinsburg, Georgia—“Cowboy” regularly ferried loads of jumpers on his $750,000 single-engine turboprop. He charged the sky divers a standard rate of $1.00 per thousand feet of altitude. The plane, which had been purchased by Williams four months earlier, was coveted by Williams’ competitors, so admired was it for its speedy climbing capability. Williams regularly took the plane to so-called “jump-boogies” in various parts of the country, where it was the envy of everyone.

  On this particular Sunday, two and a half weeks after Drew’s deadly jump, Williams—a Vietnam helicopter pilot and longtime associate of Drew’s—intended to parachute in formation with the other jumpers when the plane reached twelve thousand feet. The plane barreled down the runway at seemingly normal speed, but was airborne only a few seconds before witnesses on the ground heard sputtering. When they looked up, they saw the expensive aircraft spiraling downward in an uncontrollable nosedive.

  All seventeen people on board were killed instantly when the plane crashed into the ground.

  Investigators swarmed to the scene. From the meadow where the plane crashed, officials held a press conference at which they announced findings almost too weird to be believed: The plane’s fuel had been contaminated. Someone, it seemed, had added sugar to the gas tank.

  The FBI’s Atlanta office assigned twenty agents to investigate the suspected sabotage.

  Gary Scott, a Savannah pilot and former associate of Drew Thornton’s who had been convicted in connection with the DC-4 seized in Lexington five years eailier, speculated from his jail cell about the events. Admittedly bitter at taking a fall for one of Drew’s deals, there was no love lost between the two men. “A lot of people were glad when Drew died,” Scott said. “He was kinky and greedy, and known as a rip off.” In Scott’s scenario, the Colombian cocaine supplier had sabotaged “Cowboy’s” Caravan to avenge the botched cocaine scheme. “It was a classic scam,” Scott said in an interview with the author shortly after Drew’s death. “Drew would pick up the coke in Colombia, deliver it to the distributors in the U.S., then return to Colombia short of money. He’d lie to the Colombian suppliers who had fronted him the coke, telling them that certain distributors had refused to pay
. The Colombians would retaliate by killing the people Drew had fingered.”

  Scott was not the only Company insider speculating about a massive cocaine theft attempted by Drew Thornton, “Cowboy” Williams, and their co-conspirators. The Macon Telegraph & News reported that the Caravan was sabotaged because of a “sizeable amount [of cocaine] skimmed from the shipment going to Tennessee.” The thought that Colombian drug dealers would kill sixteen innocent people in order to eliminate one man—”Cowboy” Williams—was to many people incredible.

  Law enforcement analysts familiar with the Colombians’ more standard modus operandi discounted the revenge theory.

  Still other “anonymous sources” hypothesized to newspapers that “Cowboy” Williams was suspected by Drew’s organization of being the snitch who was responsible for Customs following Drew’s plane. So vengeful and cold-blooded was Drew’s faithful Kentucky cadre, that killing sixteen innocent victims would serve as a powerful message to any future Judases.

  Conjecture in this vein did not seem farfetched to Ralph Ross. He knew that Drew’s group was capable of anything. He believed with all his heart that if “Cowboy” bore any responsibility whatsoever for Drew’s death, then he would pay with his life.

  On the other hand, Ralph was puzzled by the DEA’s attempts to downplay “Cowboy”’s relationship with Drew. He knew that the two men had been associated for more than a decade, and that surveillance reports in the possession of the Kentucky State Police Intelligence Division would prove such a connection. But neither the DEA nor the FBI seemed to want to pursue those links.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  AUGUST 1989. Eindhoven, Holland

  The tulips were at their peak, the fragrance of hyacinths permeating the countryside. But Bertram R. Gordon—the dignified Miami millionaire and pilot—could not appreciate Holland’s beauty from his solitary confinement cell. Suddenly, a man accustomed to blanketing the globe, living on yachts and island estates, charging high-priced items at Neiman Marcus and maintaining a life of luxury at his Jockey Club apartment, flashing a Canadian passport and socializing with leaders of Caribbean and South American countries was ensconced in secrecy.

  To an undiscerning eye, the sixty-two-year-old man would appear to be a refined grandfatherly type individual; an international financier who was said to have made a fortune as an airplane salesman; a gray-haired, balding, affable fellow with a light heart and animated tale. “The nicest guy in the world,” said a longtime acquaintance.

  But to listen to a rash of American and international law enforcement agents tell it, Bertram Gordon was the most wanted man in the world.

  Bert Gordon bought airplanes. Lots of them.

  The DEA believed that Gordon provided aircraft for the entire Medellín Cartel—the Colombian cocaine import and distribution network responsible for 80 percent of the cocaine entering the United States and Canada. Gordon, according to the DEA, worked directly for Carlos Lehder—the convicted Colombian billionaire whose cocaine empire was part of his political vision to destabilize America.

  The reason the DEA knew so much about Bert Gordon was because Gordon worked for them. Or did, until one of his planes crashed, unmanned, into a North Carolina mountain.

  Gordon had been on the lam for several years before his apprehension in February 1989 in the Netherlands. Though frequent sightings of him had been reported in Spain and the Bahamas, he was apparently always one step ahead of the authorities. Following a 1988 federal indictment in Florida charging him with importing cocaine from Paradise Island into Fort Lauderdale, Gordon had decided to skip out. That indictment, according to friends, was but one more thorn in Gordon’s side.

  Perhaps the least worrisome of his myriad problems was a second indictment charging him with the death of Andrew Carter Thornton

  II. But this charge was also the most perplexing, for Bertram Gordon didn’t believe that the body that fell from the sky over Knoxville, Tennessee, four years earlier was really Drew Thornton.

  Ralph Ross wanted to get to Bertram Gordon before the talkative old con man might be killed by one of his vast circle of international enemies.

  What had begun with the death of Drew Thornton had risen to a level of international intrigue that surpassed even Ralph’s active imagination and musings.

  Ralph sat in the living room of his Anderson County, Kentucky, home. Out the window, he could see the vivid green grass spreading before him down to the fence line that ran along the creek, separating Ralph’s land from his neighbor’s. A few newborn leaves were barely attached to the tree limbs, struggling to survive until all threat of snow and ice storms had passed.

  Ralph had built what he hoped would be his last home. He had designed and constructed his two-story house to provide enough space for separate living quarters for his daughter, son-in-law, and first grandson.

  Downstairs, Ralph had built a bachelor’s apartment to match his needs—a bedroom, a bathroom, a living room, a kitchen, and a garage large enough to house a tractor. Equipped with heavy, masculine furniture, an antique oak dining table, an electric coffee maker, a television, VCR, stereo, telephone-answering machine, and a few decorative items, the dwelling provided Ralph with a stable sense of “home” that he had been lacking for nearly a decade.

  Propped up against one wall, as if awaiting Ralph’s judgment as to whether or not it deserved a place of prominence, was a limited-edition print depicting the hat and accoutrements of the Kentucky State Police trooper. Ralph’s mixed feelings about the artwork that had been presented to him following his wiretapping conviction by his daughters, Connie Zoe and Christie Jo, were as unreconciled as his thoughts about law enforcement.

  On this spring day in 1989, Ralph drank a glass of Chablis as he listed the questions he intended to ask Bert Gordon. Although Gordon’s visitation rights were severely restricted, Ralph had decided to use whatever connections were necessary to invade Gordon’s privacy. For it was Gordon, Ralph had come to believe, who held the key to the mystery of Drew Thornton.

  Fighting extradition back to the United States, where he faced a slew of federal drug trafficking charges, Gordon was said to be offering deals right and left with the DEA, FBI, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Interpol, and Dutch officials.

  Further complicating matters was the ubiquitous presence of a CIA operative from Miami who floated in and out of the various investigations, a man described by DEA agents as a “close family friend of

  Gordon’s,” and with whom Gordon had apparently been in regular contact for many years.

  Ralph’s mind was once again in overdrive. When he first learned of Gordon’s arrest the previous spring, Ralph was only vaguely familiar with the name. He had read in this newspaper a couple of years earlier that Gordon was the man who had posed as a Colombian representative, along with an undercover DEA agent, to elicit information from Rebecca Sharp about the circumstances surrounding Drew’s death. That confession had resulted in Sharp’s indictment in Tennessee, but a federal magistrate had dismissed the charges, ruling that Sharp’s “confession” had been coerced by the two men.

  The DEA in Knoxville had somehow co-opted the Drew Thornton investigation, and Ralph thought they had pursued it from the beginning with a minimum of enthusiasm. It would have made more sense for the federal authorities in Florida to direct the investigation, since Drew’s drug run had originated in Fort Lauderdale. Ralph found it particularly odd that DEA made so few inquiries with state or federal agencies in Kentucky about Drew. One would have thought, considering Drew’s long-standing history of smuggling activities in Kentucky, that such exploration would have been pro forma.

  Ralph set out to reconstruct the events leading up to Drew’s death. He contacted sources in FDLE that were spearheading the investigation against Gordon. The thrust of their investigation, Ralph was told, was based upon the following set of facts: Gordon, a DEA informant o
f many years standing, was in charge of transport for the Medellín Cartel. In that capacity, he provided the airplanes and pilots for most of the cocaine importation into the United States. One of Gordon’s most agile and experienced pilots was Drew Thornton.

  Gordon was in the unique and enviable position of having cocaine fronted by the Colombians, having money fronted to him by the cartel’s American distributors, receiving thousands of dollars in compensation from the DEA for his informant services, and eliminating his competitors in the drug business by snitching them out to DEA.

  The similarities in methods and personalities between Gordon and Drew were striking.

  Drew had been living with Gordon at the Jockey Club in the weeks prior to the September 1985 drug run, and, according to friends, was edgy and nervous about the planned operation. As late as the day before he flew to Colombia, Drew was trying to round up a companion for the trip. He told friends that he didn’t need a copilot, but merely someone who could “watch his back,” or conduct countersurveillance.

  Gordon, meanwhile, had been yanked from his DEA “control” agent, who internal inspectors had come to believe was allowing Gordon to run rampant. Reassigned to DEA agent Kieran Kobell, Gordon found himself suddenly under enormous pressure to produce a significant case for the DEA—not to merely throw them a bone by informing on a competitor.

  Gordon reluctantly agreed to inform on a deal in the works involving Drew Thornton. But Kobell would find that Gordon continued to dig in his heels, insisting on telling Kobell only bits and pieces of the plans. According to Gordon, the following scheme was underway: Bert Gordon had purchased a Cessna 404 for Drew, and had introduced Drew to the Colombian suppliers; Drew was to fly to Colombia and pick up four hundred kilos of cocaine, for which he would be paid four thousand dollars per kilo, plus the airplane; the cocaine would be brought into Knoxville, Tennessee, where it would be off-loaded by Drew’s crew, and trucked back to a stash house in Daytona, Florida, where it would be whacked up by the Colombian cartel’s American distributors.