by Sally Denton
It appeared Drew never intended to make police work his life-long career. Drew did not, however, attempt to downplay his job as a cop. He drove a squad car to school and prominently displayed his weapons during class. He bragged to classmates about his involvement in what he called “high-level police work,” and gained a reputation as a cavalier blueblood with mediocre scholastic aptitude.
Melanie Flynn’s disappearance was not the beginning of Ralph’s suspicions of the motives of Drew Thornton, but rather the impetus for an exploration of seven years of curious events. Reflecting on the number of times that the actions of Drew and his cronies—a handful of narcs—had come to his attention, Ralph began to see a pattern develop.
It was in 1971 that Ralph Ross initially learned that Drew Thornton and the Lexington police were selling drugs. The disappearance of a substantial amount of marijuana from the evidence room of the
Lexington Police Department was the first incident to incite Ralph’s suspicious nature. Following up on an informant’s tip, Ralph’s men had searched Drew Thornton’s property for the stolen pot. The missing marijuana was found hidden in a fencerow behind Drew’s house. The packages were still marked with police evidence tags and case numbers. When no disciplinary or criminal action was initiated, even after the chief of police had been informed of the discovery, Ralph became convinced that high level officials in the Lexington Police Department were protecting Drew Thornton.
A few months later, another of Ralph’s undercover men filed a report with the state police about drug dealing by the Lexington police narcotics unit. In that report, a trooper claimed that one of the Lexington narcs admitted that he not only used drugs, but intended to leave law enforcement to enter the drug business using the contacts he had made as a cop. The Lexington cop then handed the trooper a chunk of hash.
Bill Canan was the unofficial tactician of the drug squad at the time, and notoriously encouraged the brutal and unrestrained conduct that became the unit’s trademark. Though the narcotics unit was making hundreds of arrests, its minuscule conviction rate was raising eyebrows within the department, as well as within the city.
On the heels of the alleged hash incident, the Fayette County sheriff fired one of Drew’s closest friends and lifelong associates—Henry Vance. Vance was detailed on special assignment to work with the Lexington narcotics unit at the time. Vance had forged the sheriff ’s name on a purchase order for two dozen .44-magnum revolvers. The guns were to be shipped to New York, where they were allegedly to be received by Jay Silvestro—a former Lexington narc who had become a federal agent.
Henry Vance too escaped criminal prosecution—a fact Ralph attributed to his parents’ social prominence. Vance’s great-grandfather had been treasurer of Transylvania College; his grandfather had been a renowned surgeon and president of the state medical association; and his parents were pillars in the community. Henry Vance was the only child of Hank Vance—an insurance entrepreneur, and his wife Alice, who was active in Junior League. Around the same time, an informant told Ralph that Drew and Vance were selling large quantities of narcotics obtained from a local wholesale drug company. They would never be caught, Ralph’s source claimed, because they operated under the auspices of law enforcement.
In those early years, Ralph had felt powerless to initiate a probe of the Lexington Police Department on drug-smuggling charges. He had been around Lexington enough to realize it was the kind of town where problems were often handled with one phone call to the right person. A country boy such as himself didn’t stand a chance against the Lexington establishment. So he decided to pull his men out of Lexington, keep an eye on events from a distance, and bide his time until Drew and his cohorts made an inevitable error.
Immersing himself instead in statewide organized crime and racketeering cases, he was unsurprised at how frequently the tentacles of these investigations would lead back to Lexington. Whenever Ralph’s men ventured into Lexington, they were under surveillance by the Lexington police, and a mutual distrust evolved between the two agencies.
Meanwhile, Ralph had ordered his Intelligence Unit to systematically collect and file bits and pieces of information on Drew Thornton’s activities through the years. Ralph made a mental note of the close relationship that had developed, both professionally and socially, between Thornton and Harold Brown—the regional head of the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
Ralph and Drew maintained their imposed distance, each becoming increasingly aware of the threat they posed to one another. When they met, they circled like male dogs, eyeing each other with curiosity while remaining on guard. Drew must have known that Ralph was champing at the bit for him to slip up somehow. Drew probably didn’t know, however, how transparent his actions were, and how badly Ralph wanted to catch him. Drew seemed to feel safe, as long as he operated within his own domain. In Lexington, insulated by his police credentials and high social standing, Drew thought he was invulnerable. Ralph recognized that insulation and realized the limitations of his jurisdiction. He watched patiently as Drew branched out across the state, relying more and more upon protection from his accomplice in the DEA, Harold Brown.
In the weeks prior to Melanie Flynn’s disappearance in January 1977, Drew received his law degree, quit police work, and joined a legal practice of marginal legitimacy.
His informants in Lexington had told Ralph that Drew was plying his government-trained skills in the private sector—specifically in the profit-making world of drug peddling. If that were true, what would Drew’s motive be in eliminating Melanie Flynn?
Ralph also speculated on the role con man Mario Crespo might have played in Melanie’s disappearance, wondering if a relationship existed between Drew and Crespo. The two men would certainly have crossed paths in the horse industry, if not in other social circles as well.
Among Crespo’s dicey business ventures was a thinly disguised escort service ring for which he solicited pretty Southern coeds to audition as “models and actresses.” The applicants—seated alone in a small, dingy motel room—were asked to expose their breasts in the presence of a video camera anchored to a tripod. Melanie was among the “select few” who were chosen, and who were then transported to Florida and the Caribbean to tan their nude bodies. It was not long before Crespo’s operations were awash in rumors of scandal. The FBI and state police were investigating reports that Crespo’s girls were compromising state government officials on videotape for the purpose of extortion and blackmail. The nubile beauties lured the politicians to hotel rooms that had been wired for sound and equipped with hidden cameras. Weeks after the seduction was consummated, the damning evidence would turn up unexpectedly to haunt the unsuspecting state legislator or city councilman. Intimidated by the threat of public exposure, the married victims were forced to respond favorably to the subsequent political demands made upon them.
Such demands involved protection for organized crime elements who had immigrated to Kentucky from their homelands of Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Miami. Had Melanie been a call girl for the mob? Ralph wondered.
By the time Melanie returned to Lexington in 1976 Crespo had been forced to sell his stud farm and mansion, and was on the verge of skipping town. One week before Melanie disappeared, Crespo had taken six Lexington girls to Florida. The girls were told they would be “trained” to film commercials, and would then be paid to model lingerie at the Library Lounge—Lexington’s infamous disco and favorite hangout of drug dealers and police officers. Melanie had been scheduled to accompany them, but had failed to show up.
Drew and some of his police colleagues had moonlighted for Crespo, providing security for his horse farm in their off-duty hours. It wasn’t clear how far such “security” extended, but it was an obvious conflict of interest for police officers to conduct private jobs for individuals they should have been investigating.
Such conflicts were not unique for the Lexington Police
Department. Ralph thought the agency had historically been a tool of the elite, a puppet of the ruling class. It was the kind of department that routinely abandoned or initiated criminal investigations at the whim of the socially prominent. A well-placed phone call from a well-heeled citizen could stop a murder probe dead in its tracks. Ralph knew that a seemingly innocuous reference to a suspect such as “he’s good people,” could result in the casual disappearance of an entire case file.
Raymond James Ryan seemed to have the world by the tail on a downhill pull. He had outlived most of his enemies, he had money to burn, and he spent his days and nights doing whatever pleased him.
One pleasant day in October 1977, he walked out the back entrance of the Olympia Health Club into the bright Evansville, Indiana, sunshine. He looked at his watch and saw he had plenty of time to make his 1:30 p.m. appointment. He slid his tall, fit, seventythree-year-old body behind the wheel of his Lincoln Continental Mark V and started the ignition. His eyes on the rearview mirror, he backed out of his parking space. Within seconds, an explosion ripped his body into indistinguishable shambles.
Ryan’s movie-star good looks and high-stakes gambling had made him a legend in the underworld. He had learned the rackets as a kid, bouncing around northern Kentucky and other gaming hot spots. His organized crime ties were said to have originated with Frank Costello—-the former head of the Mafia in New York. Ryan had invested his winnings in oil and real estate ventures, and was a partner of the actor William Holden in the plush Mount Kenya Safari Club in Africa. Famous for his betting, playing, and capacity to “lay off ” record amounts, Ryan’s wins and losses were romanticized. Oddsmaker Jimmy the Greek once wrote: “…in one afternoon Ryan had pissed away fifteen million dollars betting horses that ran second.”
By 1977, the old hoodlum was enjoying a more sedate life than the hectic days of his youth. He spent most of his time in Palm Springs at the El Mirador Hotel he owned. Ryan also frequented his resort in Lake Malone, Kentucky, and was often seen publicly in the company of Lexington cops. A lot of people probably wanted Ryan dead. But his chief enemy was Marshall Caifano—a Chicago mobster and hit man. For a while, for several years actually, Ryan assumed Caifano would kill him. Seventeen years earlier, Caifano had tried to extort money from Ryan. “Caifano was shaking Ryan down and Ryan wouldn’t shake,” said an old-time gambler familiar with the situation, and in 1964, Ryan had testified against the mobster, which resulted in Caifano’s conviction.
Ryan had just begun to think that he had escaped Caifano’s wrath. He had apparently been mistaken. When the FBI dispatched laboratory experts from Washington, D.C., to the crime scene, the death was immediately labeled a “professional organized crime-type hit.” Ryan was killed, the FBI believed, in retaliation for his testimony against Caifano.
In October 1977, one of Drew’s partners—a Lexington cop named Rex Hall—had approached Ryan peddling services that included round-the-clock bodyguards and an electronic security system. Hall owned and operated a private security firm called World Centurion, whose clients included Mario Crespo. His company, which employed off-duty Lexington police officers, provided security to several Lexington motels that were widely known for illegal prostitution and gambling—another blatant conflict of interest that was tolerated by Lexington Police Department higher-ups.
Ryan listened to Hall’s proposal, and then agreed to travel to Lexington to pursue the financial negotiations. The two men met at the Hyatt Regency Hotel to discuss the security contract and to establish Hall’s credentials with Ryan. The details of their discussion have never come to light.
A few weeks after Ryan’s death, Hall telephoned the Evansville Police Department Intelligence Section and, falsely identifying himself, solicited information about the progress and status of the Ryan bombing investigation.
As head of the Organized Crime and Intelligence units of the Kentucky State Police, Ralph Ross had more than a passing interest in Ryan’s murder, considering the mobster’s long-standing ties to Kentucky. But it wasn’t until April of 1978 that an FBI teletype message turned his interest into obsession: “[The] Evansville Police Department has developed suspects [in the Ryan murder] who are all former Lexington, Kentucky, police officers.” Ralph took one look at the teletype and guessed what was coming next. He heaved a whatelse-is-new sigh when he saw the two names—Rex Denver Hall and Andrew Carter Thornton.
A fingerprint taken from the steering wheel of Ryan’s ill-fated blue Lincoln matched the left middle fingerprint of Drew Thornton.
Hall had resigned from the Lexington Police Department six weeks after the bombing. Ralph noted the convenience of both Rex Hall’s and Drew Thornton’s resignations at the height of the Ryan and Flynn investigations.
An Air Force veteran, who had been trained by the FBI Academy, Hall had moved from Kentucky to Florida. Ralph tracked him to Orlando, where Hall had recently been arrested for possession of a mini-arsenal of concealed weapons that included handguns, shotguns, an M-1 carbine, a Mauser 308-caliber rifle, handcuffs, wiretapping equipment, gas grenades, grenade launchers, and a significant quantity of ammunition. Tools of an assassin.
Though not directly related, the Flynn and Ryan cases shared a number of common traits. The most obvious link was Drew Thornton—a suspect in both incidents. Since Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and the FBI in Indiana were handling the Ryan investigation, Ralph’s participation in the probe was merely peripheral. But because the government’s suspect was from Lexington, Kentucky, the federal agents working the case made frequent inquiries with Ralph about “Drew Thornton’s gang.” Ralph steered them in the right direction, providing access to the Drew Thornton dossier he had compiled, but he had no official involvement in the case.
Likewise, the Melanie Flynn case could be considered an ongoing state police investigation only in the broadest sense of the term. Not only was the trail of evidence cold by the time Ralph had legitimate jurisdictional access, but the Lexington Police Department systematically thwarted any attempts Ralph made to pursue leads in the Lexington area. Basically, there were three theories about Melanie’s demise. Or four, if one included Sergeant Bizzack’s claim that she was alive and well, which Ralph didn’t bother entertaining. One—that Melanie had threatened to tell Bill Canan’s wife about their love affair. Two—that she knew too much about the drug-smuggling activities of Drew Thornton and other members of the Lexington Police Department. Three—that she was on the verge of exposing the extortion and blackmail ring that had compromised dozens of public officials.
Ralph was inclined to believe that Melanie Flynn just knew too much about everything. One thing was clear: Drew Thornton’s organization, in its most formative and burgeoning stage, could not risk a loose cannon such as Melanie. Though discretion had never been Melanie’s strong suit, whatever semblance of propriety she possessed had been further dimmed by a drug and alcohol dependency.
Convinced of the relevance of Melanie’s sex life to her current set of circumstances, Ralph decided to explore an avenue generally considered off-limits: He turned his attention to the queen of party-girl providers—the bluegrass baroness, Anita Madden.
Her stone house cannot be seen from Winchester Road, but once inside the gilded iron gates the awesome splendor of Hamburg Place is immediately felt. The grounds of the two-thousand-acre horse farm are immaculate, yet somehow eerie. Dark and tragic tales swirl around the fabled estate—tales of suicide and insanity, opulence and excess. Named for a famous thoroughbred, the estate was founded in 1897 by John E. Madden—nicknamed “The Wizard of the Turf.” At one time, more Kentucky Derby winners had been foaled and bred at Hamburg Place than at any other farm—all of whom now rest in a horseshoe-shaped burial ground. Madden’s son, I.E. Madden, Jr., didn’t share his father’s love for racing. When he acquired ownership and operation of the farm, he made it famous for the breeding of polo ponies. A gloomy, brooding man, J.E, Madden, Jr., com
mitted suicide, leaving the farm to his sons Preston and Patrick, By 1977, when it attracted the attention of Ralph Ross, Hamburg Place was notorious not for its horses or ponies, but for its outlandish mistress. Known for her cascade of platinum blond hair, her see-through gold lame’ dresses and feather boas, her retinue of Las Vegas celebrities, hustlers, and showgirl types, and her million dollar annual pre-Derby extravaganzas, Anita Madden possessed everything in the world to which Melanie Flynn aspired.
Anita wasn’t born into the wealth of the Madden world. In fact, she came from as far on the other side of the tracks as possible. Raised in Ashland—Kentucky’s steel, coal, oil, iron, and railroad center—Anita Myers was the epitome of what Lexingtonians considered an outsider. She came from a broken home with little money, but effervesced with cheerleader charm and friendliness. She attended Western Kentucky University for two years before transferring to the University of Kentucky in Lexington in 1952. Known as a free spirit on the University of Kentucky campus, Anita did not excel in academics. She began dating Patrick Madden, the eccentric heir to Hamburg Place, and, according to legend, she was on the verge of marrying Patrick when his handsome and dashing brother Preston literally snatched her away. “She jumped on the back of the motorcycle and came back home with me and has been with me ever since,” Preston Madden once told the Louisville Courier-Journal.
The couple moved into the stone house that was built in the 1930s by Preston’s father as a guest dormitory for visiting polo teams. Patrick, a science fiction writer, continued living in the estate’s main house, taking no part in the horse business. Patrick retreated into a life of solitary confinement, eventually taking an equally reclusive bride.