A Murder in Music City

by Michael Bishop

  In exchange for insights into her ex-husband, the former Mrs. Henderson made me promise that I would not, under any circumstances, alert Jesse that I had found her or had met with her. And I kept my promise.

  She explained to me that, in the early years of the 1960s, Jesse had quite a track record of checking himself into the VA hospital when he needed to avoid creditors or the consequences of some unflattering behavior.

  When I asked her point-blank if she thought her ex-husband would have had the capacity to kill an eighteen-year-old college coed in 1964, she thought about her reply, and then said, “Yes, he might have been able to do it, but he'd never be able to shut up about it.”1

  A year later, I called Betty again to ask if she could put me in touch with her daughter, because I was sure the daughter could help me find the now-missing father.

  “Can you help me with the city and state where she currently lives. And her last name?” I pleaded.

  “No, I cannot,” she said.

  Ignoring the silence, I said, “I'm grasping at straws here; I really am.”

  “I can only say she doesn't live in Tennessee.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line, and then she said the words that I needed most:

  “Try ‘Daggets’ near Black Mountain, North Carolina. That's the best I can do for you.”

  I breathed an audible sigh of relief, and said, “Thank you.”

  A few days later, on my way toward dialing every “Daggets” in and around the Asheville, North Carolina, area, a man answered his home phone in the middle of the day.

  “Good afternoon, my name is Michael Bishop. I'm calling to reach the daughter of a Mr. Jesse Henderson, a man who lived in the Nashville, Tennessee, area, and may still live in the Nashville area, but that's what I'm trying to confirm by speaking with his daughter.”

  “What's the nature of your business with Mr. Henderson?” he asked.

  “That's a good question,” I said, while smiling and silently fist-pumping an I've found her! “I got to know Mr. Henderson years ago, and he was helping me with a story of the early days of Metro Nashville, and then, just like that, he vanished. The nursing home he was living in closed down, and the residents were sent elsewhere. I could never find him after that.”

  “Must be an important story,” he responded.

  “Yes, sir, it is. I'm hoping his daughter can help me find him. It would mean a great deal if she could call me, please.”

  “If you leave your number, I'll pass it along to her, but don't expect a call is all I'm saying. Okay?” he said.

  But within twenty-four hours, she did call, and she was more than intrigued. After a lengthy conversation that involved me doing most of the talking and her vetting my motivations, I explained my need to speak with her father as soon as possible.

  “I don't know you,” she said.2

  “You certainly don't,” I responded.

  Her reply was unexpected. “He's in a better place now.”

  My heart sank, and I bowed my head, knowing what was coming next. “He's dead, right?”

  “Oh, no. He's doing just fine,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, but I want to know the story that is so intriguing that you wouldn't give it up. And how is my father involved?”

  I took a deep breath, switched the phone to my other hand, and thought about the reply for more than a few seconds before responding.

  “Here's the deal. The story involves your father and the first big murder case to take place in Metro Nashville history. The murder was that of an eighteen-year-old college student. The girl's little brother slept through the tragedy, which took place in their ranch-style brick house in the suburbs of Nashville. Your father knew some of the…well, let's just say your father knew the man convicted of the crime and leave it at that. That's why I need to speak with him.”

  “You think my father was involved in the murder?” she said.

  “No, I'm not saying that at all.”

  “If it's this important to you, there must be something wrong with the outcome and that's why you're on it,” she said.

  “You're a very smart woman. That is what I believe, and I also believe your father may know the other players involved,” I said.

  “I'll speak with him and ask if he's willing to see you. Is that fair enough?”

  “It's more than fair; it's gracious of you,” I replied.

  “And you say he'll remember your name?”

  “I have no doubt; just please tell him that the Cheap Detective wants to stop by and say hello.”

  A day later I was in New England in a hotel room, preparing for a work meeting with a client, when my cell phone rang. I walked across the room to look out at the Boston skyline as I answered the call. A team was sculling the Charles River across from Harvard University in the late afternoon sunlight.

  “I was hoping that was you,” I said with a smile.

  “It is. My father will see you.”

  “That's wonderful news. Thank you. How is he and where is he?”

  “He's in a new nursing home, because the last one, if you can call it that, kicked all of their residents out on the street and closed down.”

  “I'm sorry to hear that, though I can't say I'm surprised,” I said. “When I went back to visit Jesse, the place was empty and looked like an abandoned house, which I suppose it was. Your father has had a tough life, I take it?”

  “Yes, his father took off when he was young, and his mother raised him while she worked as a nurse in Nashville. He used to tell me that one of his girlfriends would put out her lit cigarettes on him while he was sleeping. Not exactly a happy life,” she said.

  I let this last comment go by without a response and pondered why I had never asked Jesse what his mother did for a living. “Where do I find him now?” I asked.

  “Oh, no, you're not getting off that easily. I want to hear the story.”

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “My father said he witnessed a murder, and that's why you're after him.”

  Exactly one week after hearing Jesse Henderson's puzzling confession through his daughter, I was allowed to enter a locked nursing home facility south of the Davidson County line. It was a hot steamy day in late July 2011, and I was taking an early lunch hour in hopes of visiting my favorite local World War II Veteran.

  After signing in, I asked the young man at the receptionist desk if Mr. Jesse Henderson was available. I was met with the usual suspicious facial expression that implied I was either a lawyer stopping by to take a deposition from one of the residents regarding some facility malfeasance or perhaps a state inspector, so I quickly cut to the chase.

  “I'm an old friend of Mr. Henderson. He's expecting me, and I haven't seen him in years.” Moments later, I was at Jesse's doorway, looking inside at the same kind of image I had seen a few years earlier—a very thin man lying in bed on his back reading a book, a white sheet pulled up under his arms. He had an ancient pair of reading glasses riding at a sharp angle on his nose in an attempt to increase the magnification of the lenses.

  He was due for a shave, as his white beard had a few days of growth, and his short white hair was as wild looking and uncombed as ever. His hospital bed was propped up at an angle so he could read, and he had a private room with a good window to see the outside world.

  I wasn't without sympathy for the old man; his daughter, who obviously cared a great deal for her father, had told me that he had spent a life filled with anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. I had no reason to doubt any of it. She remembered that he would write poems and songs from time to time, though the subject matter of his creative side was too dark for any commercial success.

  “I thought you'd left the country,” I announced.

  He looked in my direction. “Who's that?”3

  I walked over to his bedside and stuck out my hand. “It's your old friend, the cheap detective. Remember me?”

  He offered a weak hand; h
is long thin fingers seemed even longer, with yellow nails that had not been trimmed in many days.

  “Yeah, my daughter said you'd be coming to see me. You finished writing that book yet? What was the name of that guy that shot that girl?” he asked.

  “No book yet,” I said. “I did speak with your daughter, and she helped me figure out what happened to you after you left Joelton.”

  “She's my pride and joy,” he said.

  “So they kicked you out on the streets after they closed the place down in Joelton. That wasn't very nice of them. Getting good treatment here, I hope?”

  “Yeah, can't complain. What can I do for you?” he asked.

  “After I lost track of you, I was certain I'd never meet up with you again. It's been a while. It's good to see you.”

  He adjusted his reading glasses and then fumbled with the book now resting open on his chest.

  “Jesse, you ever speak with your old friend BlueSky?” I asked.

  “No, I reckon he's dead,” he replied.

  “You're probably right. He'd be getting on up there in years if he were still around. You too, for that matter,” I noted. At this point, I considered pulling a chair up near the bed, but I decided to just stand on his right side and chat for a few minutes.

  “You know, I never met BlueSky or spoke with him when he was alive,” I stated.

  “His family had money. He had an uncle who was rich as anything,” he said.

  “Jesse, it's been about a half century since you and BlueSky and Lizzie made the trip for them to get married in front of a judge in Alabama. Did you realize that?”

  “It was that long ago? Not much of a marriage, I don't reckon.”

  I had wondered whether Jesse Henderson would take the bait, and he had.

  “How did Lizzie's first husband die?” I asked.

  “I reckon he drank himself to death,” he said.

  “You know Paula Herring's father drank rat poison, and then his loving wife was the first one to find him.”

  Jesse Henderson looked directly at me and asked, “You think that was the first time she ever did that?”

  My puzzled facial expression must not have been enough, so I asked, “Did what?”

  “Went to look for her husband,” he replied.

  “Just my opinion, but I bet she couldn't have cared less where he was any other time,” I said.

  “I imagine she went looking to make certain he was dead, don't you?” he said.

  I could sense that Jesse was in a talkative mood and was enjoying dribbling out little gems of information, so I moved the conversation along with a political question.

  “Didn't you tell me you were a veteran?” I asked.

  “Yeah, and I used to hang out with a bunch of them down at AMVETS.”4

  “Like American Veterans of World War II, that group?” I inquired.

  “Yeah, me and Red Clarke, BlueSky, the mayor, a bunch of us used to hang around there and drink a cold one from time to time,” Jesse said.

  “You're talking about Mayor Briley. He was dead and gone before I ever moved here,” I said.

  “We were all Navy men. During the war I was on an oiler, and the mayor was on a destroyer.5 Plus, they'd leave the mayor alone in there. He could get out of the office a few hours without being bothered,” Jesse said.

  Without missing a beat, Jesse Henderson looked out the window at the sun-filled parking lot full of cars. “Hey, who was paying for that girl's tuition? You reckon her momma paid for it with insurance money?” he asked.

  I turned my gaze to the window as well, “I don't think so. That insurance money paid for a house on Timberhill Drive.”

  “I'm thinking a government official might have been involved with that Herring woman.”

  “Now, why would a government official be paying for Paula Herring's tuition?” I asked.

  “I used to know a patient at Vanderbilt Hospital who'd keep whiskey in his locker over there.”

  “Yeah, I know of more than one politician who spent some time drying out at Vanderbilt,” I said.

  Jesse Henderson was on a roll, and I was content to let him guide the conversation. The hallway behind me had little noise, and no one was bothering us at this point.

  “Wonder what caused that girl to get killed anyway? You think it might have been drug related?” he asked.

  “I've actually heard that once before.”

  “I thought they kept pretty good track of those medicines,” he said.

  “I guess it depends on who's counting them,” I said.

  “Lizzie used to have a key to the medicines when she worked at the hospital. She could be vicious. No evidence that the Herring girl was involved with drugs, was there?” Jesse asked.

  “Paula Herring? Nothing in my research indicated that she was,” I said.

  I heard a noise behind me, and a young nurse with a medicine bottle and paper cup in her hand entered the room. I introduced myself as an old friend of her resident and then stepped to the other side of the room while she gave Jesse the medication.

  As she fussed over the old man, I could see his sense of humor was having a positive effect, and she seemed to enjoy his witty personality.

  After she left the room, I suggested that Jesse was getting treated like royalty, attempting to tease him in a friendly way, but his response surprised me.

  “I wonder why they treated that Herring woman like she was royalty?” he asked.

  Before I could respond, I glanced at the old man and realized that whatever medicine the nurse had just administered, it was having a fast impact. Jesse's eyes were closed, and his breathing rate was slowing down. I knew my time with him was at an end for this visit. So I said goodbye and told him I'd be back in a few days with a handful of books for him to read.

  Before I turned away, he opened his eyes, looked up at me, and then slowly moved his hand in my direction. “You know, sometimes, they're innocent. You know that, right?”

  I smiled back at him, and said, “I know. I'll see you later.”

  But six days later, Jesse Henderson was dead.

  Jody Ellis, a former Nashville Central High School star athlete in the late 1940s, helped coach the Donelson High School boys’ basketball team to a state championship in 1964.1 In 1965, he coached the Donelson High football team to the Clinic Bowl championship by beating a neighboring rival, Lebanon High School, twenty-eight to zero, whereupon he was named Coach of the Year, in Tennessee.2

  In 1963, Jody's wife, Dorothy Ellis, was teaching and coaching at the new John Overton High School in the southern part of Nashville. With the impending departure of the first graduating class of seniors at Overton High, Dorothy Ellis decided that the timing was right to move on to other challenges with fond memories of her favorite girls’ basketball team, the one led by Captain Paula Herring.

  After Paula Herring's class graduated from Overton High, Dorothy Ellis took a teaching job at another Metro school, while her husband stayed at Donelson. The husband and wife coaching duo were still relatively young adults in 1964, with Jody Ellis barely age thirty-five at the time of Paula's tragic death.

  When I caught up with Dorothy Ellis by phone several decades later, she was still haunted by the murder of one of her favorite players.

  “I can hear a sad note in your voice,” I said.

  “Yes, I was so distraught over that for such a long time. Paula was a dear person. Her whole life seemingly wrapped up in basketball and her little brother. It was tragic. Is Paula's mother still living?” she asked.3

  “No, she passed away in 1976 in Texas. I'm told it was alcohol related,” I replied.

  “I got a call early that Sunday morning that Paula had been killed. I thought I was dreaming at first, I was so distraught and caught up in the bitterness of the whole thing.”

  “I'm sure that was not a call you were expecting,” I said.

  “Detectives called me, or at least one of them did, or maybe it was an investigator, but they wanted to know if
Paula had long fingernails. I answered everything as best I could.”

  “Do you remember anything else about that weekend?” I asked.

  “That night, Saturday night, my husband was taking me out with another couple. The four of us were going to a basketball game. We were supposed to go a tournament, but I'm not sure where the tournament was. No, I remember, it was Donelson girls versus Overton girls, but the game was in Madison, Tennessee.”

  “But you were not the Overton girls’ coach at that time?” I asked.

  “No, I left Overton when Paula's class graduated in 1963. But Paula had called that day. She had come in from the University of Tennessee for the weekend. This goes back a while, but I remember it like it was yesterday. Paula wanted to go to the game,” she said.

  “Excuse me? You don't mean on Saturday night when she was killed, do you?”

  “Yes, I do. She wanted to ride with us to the tournament on Saturday night. I wasn't sure we were even going to go, because I didn't feel well, but we did go with another couple, just the four of us. And we didn't have room in the car. I remember thinking, ‘Oh if only she had gone with us.’ But she ended up babysitting I guess.”

  “I'm so sorry,” I responded.

  The coach continued: “I adored that whole team, and they were full of fun, too. I was showing one of the girls how to tape her ankle, when a mouse got loose in the house, and I jumped up on a table. What they had done was to make me think one of the girls needed her ankle taped, and instead of a mouse they stopped by and let a hamster out in the room while I did the taping.

  “Paula was a sweet girl. Basketball was everything to her. She could be a lady and she could play tough. I remember Paula adored her little brother. It was so sad; Paula had her whole life ahead of her. Let me ask you something, what about the man convicted of the murder?”

  “John Randolph Clarke? He's dead.”