The Bluegrass Conspiracy

by Sally Denton

  But as Shasta sat with Ralph Ross in September 1979, matter-offactly relating her series of visions, she was clearly overwhelmed and frightened by the murky world into which she felt she had been thrust. She drew a diagram on a piece of paper in Ralph’s notebook. The crude drawing showed a body bag hanging between two rocky ledges. She then told Ralph she believed the crevasse where the body was hanging was located somewhere in Herrington Lake—a man-made lake fifteen miles southwest of Lexington.

  Ralph arranged for himself, Shasta, and several of his investigators to take a state police boat onto Herrington Lake. Shasta guided the police officers to a picturesque setting amid cliffs and rolling hills. When they neared the stone abutments of an old covered bridge that had been torn down, Shasta told them to stop the boat. “It’s here,” she said, when they had almost reached Camp Nelson.

  Ralph cocked one eyebrow as he looked at her. “Are you sure?” he asked.

  When Shasta nodded yes, Ralph said: “This is where Melanie’s purse was found.”

  “Isn’t Drew Thornton’s farm right around here?” Ralph asked the detective who had researched Jessamine County land records in order to locate the seventy-acre parcel that Drew, Canan, and another Lexington policeman named Danny Murphy had purchased the year before. Sure enough, Mary Shasta had unknowingly directed them to the back boundary of Triad—the fertile and wooded riverbank farm where Drew and Bradley had stockpiled the Company’s weapons.

  For days, Ralph Ross’s state police divers searched the Kentucky River and Lake Herrington for Melanie Flynn’s body, to no avail.

  Disappointed, Ralph thanked Mary Shasta for her time and assistance, and asked that she contact him if the dreams persisted. But he was not prone to placing much stock in matters of the supernatural or spiritual even though he found Shasta to be remarkably credible and her deductions uncanny. He contemplated the possibility she raised that Drew was involved in the occult. Ralph had little knowledge or experience relating to such matters, and saw nothing in Drew’s personality to suggest such a fascination except for Drew’s obsession with the martial arts. But then again, Ralph knew that a lot of cops and soldiers studied karate and other oriental fighting techniques.

  Coincidentally, Ralph had suddenly been receiving complaints about suspicious activity on Triad. Neighbors had reported to state police that a cult of devil worshipers frequented the remote property, and that the constant firing of automatic weapons could be heard. Dozens of people wearing military camouflage uniforms were seen rappeling from the back cliffs of Triad.

  Ralph had dispatched one of his investigators to the Recorder of Deeds in Nicholasville—the county seat—while sending another detective to the location to take a look.

  “The private road to Triad is blocked by a locked gate,” the detective wrote in his case report to Ralph. “A sign on the fence surrounding the property reads: NOTICE—TRESPASSING ON THIS PROPERTY MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH.” The word Triad was painted on a sign at the entrance to the farm; a horse-shoe-shaped symbol under the letter “i” depicted the devil’s pitchfork, the state policeman noted.

  Other federal agencies had also been enticed by rumors of arms-stockpiling and mercenary training at Triad. U.S. Customs agents in New York, who were monitoring the activities of Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, briefly entertained the possibility that Triad was a subsidiary of Khashoggi’s Triad America Corporation. The fact that Khashoggi was frequenting Lexington added fuel to the speculation.

  Ralph knew that the FBI in Lexington had received reports that foreign “dark-skinned” soldiers of unknown nationality—possibly Libyan or Nicaraguan—were being trained at Triad in guerrilla warfare techniques. Some of the reports suggested that Triad was CIA-sponsored. Ralph was also aware that ATF had conducted an investigation into activities at Triad that had concluded that those attending the “camp” were “survivalists who on occasion dress in military fatigues and play war games—i.e., shoot at each other with plastic bullets containing red blood-like dye, parachute from airplanes, firearms training, etc.” Triad evidently offered training in self-defense, advanced first aid, radiation detection, and the perfection of individual survival skills. ATF investigators found that trainees rappelled off the back cliffs of the farm down to the Kentucky riverbank, while avoiding automatic fire. But ATF found “no information indicating any connection between above-described activity and foreign/domestic terrorism, guerrilla warfare, and other activity possibly in violation of neutrality laws.”

  Then, an unidentified man called the state police. A few days earlier he had seen a white twin-engine airplane gliding low over Triad. “I heard the engines start as the plane came out of a glide. Then duffel bags dropped out of the plane and the plane turned northeast toward Lexington. A few days later, a single-engine Piper, silver with red stripes, flew low over the same route, also dropping its cargo onto the Triad property.”

  The description and tail number of one of the aircraft matched that of a Piper Navajo that had been temporarily seized off the coast of South America. That plane, flown by Bill Canan and another former Lexington police officer named Steve Oliver, was identified by U.S. Customs the previous month, August 1979, as ferrying handguns to the remote Dutch Antilles Island of Aruba.

  Canan and Oliver had flown the aircraft from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Aruba and somehow aroused the suspicion of Dutch officials.

  The plane departed Aruba, but then returned a week later, piloted by Oliver and Lexington policeman Danny Murphy. Having coordinated with U.S. officials, Aruba Customs agents decided to search the plane upon its second arrival. They found that all of the passenger seats had been removed, and extra fuel tanks had been installed. Found on board the aircraft were a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson with ninety-nine rounds of ammunition and a 9-millimeter Walther PPK with twenty rounds of ammunition.

  During questioning, Oliver and Murphy flaunted their police credentials and claimed they were in Aruba on official law enforcement business. Although Dutch and U.S. Customs agents suspected the Kentucky men were involved in some type of gun trafficking that violated neutrality laws, they had no real evidence. They ultimately decided against detaining the men, while seizing the aircraft and notifying Ralph Ross at the Kentucky State Police.

  Oliver and Murphy caught the first possible commercial flight back to the United States. A month later, an associate of Drew’s—a Lexington lawyer and pilot named Randy Reinhardt—traveled to Aruba to retrieve the plane. Reinhardt told authorities he represented Aero Sport, Inc., the company that owned the airplane. He flew the plane back to the States, stopping briefly in the Dominican Republic.

  “The plane was illegally detained,” Reinhardt would say when questioned by the media. He would refuse to identify the actual owner of the plane, or discuss the matter further, and no charges were ever filed. But the plane was sighted frequently landing and taking off from the Triad property.

  U.S. Senate investigators somehow got wind of the mysteries swirling around Triad. On the heels of these incidents, the Senate Committee on Security and Terrorism asked the state police and FBI about the possibility that Triad was in fact a full-scale “terrorism school.”

  Ralph decided to send in a team of undercover agents to sneak onto the property. His men found evidence that Triad was indeed a paramilitary training ground, but there were no maneuvers underway at the time the state police infiltrated. The physical layout was consistent with a military training ground. Most of the acreage had been carefully groomed, but in the middle of the manicured area was a clump of trees, within which were situated rows of barracks. Ralph dispatched a state police airplane to obtain aerial photographs of the property. The pictures showed the tire tracks of large vehicles, possibly tanks, heading toward the barracks area.

  The day after the state police plane conducted its surveillance, Ralph received a phone call from Lexington Police Sergeant John Bizzack. Bizzac
k told Ralph he was conveying a message from the owners of the property—Drew Thornton, Bill Canan, and Danny Murphy: If the state police flew over Triad again, the plane would be shot down.

  Ralph blinked in disbelief. The Lexington police had no jurisdiction over the Jessamine County property.

  Following the surveillance of Triad and the reports from U.S. Customs of the trip to Aruba, all indications suggested to Ralph that Bradley and Drew were trafficking as heavily in arms as in dope. The paramilitary interests of the group, the soldier-of-fortune aura they emulated, and their military and police training in weapons, led Ralph to believe they were committed to munitions as the currency of both the present and the future. Drugs might be no more than a sidelight to their real business—that of funneling guns to foreign governments and right-wing rebels.

  Was it possible that Melanie Flynn had posed an even greater threat to the organization than Ralph previously considered? Had Melanie been privy to the sources for their weapons? Had she known the identity of the military insiders who provided them with guns, ammo, and explosives?

  Did her knowledge of the secret operations of Triad prove fatal for her and leave her floating lifelessly in a body bag on the shore of the mysterious property, as the psychic believed?

  Convinced that Bizzack, as lead investigator on the Melanie Flynn case, had less than total commitment to solving Melanie’s disappearance, Ralph decided against sharing with him the psychic’s revelations.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Bradley Bryant slid three pieces of luggage onto the scale at the Delta Airlines ticket counter, checking them through to Atlanta. With his free hand, he kept a tight grip on the handle of his aluminum attaché case. The ticket agent remarked on Bradley’s cowboy hat.

  “Pierce,” Bradley said, when the agent asked his name.

  As he turned to leave, Bradley must have sensed he was being watched. Within moments, Bryant felt both his arms being grabbed. “Philadelphia police,” his captors said.

  In what police believed to be a routine drug-smuggling investigation, they seized Bradley’s luggage from the conveyor belt, the attaché case at his side, and handcuffed him. While he rode in the backseat of a police vehicle to headquarters, back-up narcotics officers were raiding Suite 608 at the Sheraton Airport Inn. Bradley, his cousin, Larry Bryant, and one of his bodyguards, Roger Dale Barnard, had been staying in the suite for the past week.

  As it turned out, they stayed one day too long.

  Hotel maids had grown suspicious when they noticed marijuana smoke wafting out from under the door. The three men had refused maid service, tipping chambermaids a hundred dollars to stay out of their rooms. Each day, an individual who identified himself as “Doug Clark” paid for the rooms in cash with one-hundred-dollar bills. Finally, on January 3, 1980, the hotel manager decided it was time to call the police.

  Assuming the search of the Bryants and the suite of rooms would probably net marijuana, and possibly cocaine, police were surprised to find no illicit drugs.

  What they did find puzzled them.

  In Bradley’s luggage at the time of his arrest were semiautomatic weapons that had been threaded for silencers; commando daggers; disguises; and a dozen fraudulent Kentucky drivers licenses. There were also telephone numbers for the CIA and other contacts in various parts of the world, stolen Texas license plates, and mysterious ledgers with references such as: “$10,000 to the Mayor.” Follow-up investigation revealed that Bradley planned to travel from Philadelphia to Denver, where he had reservations at the Fairmont Hotel, to attend a fundraiser for a mayoral candidate in that city.

  They also found confidential pamphlets including Ten Lethal or Incapacitating Drugs Stored by the CIA and The Top-Secret Registry of

  U.S. Government Radio Frequencies. A complete airline schedule for Europe and the Middle East as well as Russian, Spanish, and English dictionaries were also in his luggage.

  Bradley’s notebook contained the names and addresses of several former and current Lexington policemen—including Triad owners Drew Thornton, Bill Canan, and Danny Murphy—and references to planned missions named Blue Fin and Aqua. Investigators also found what they believed to be an assassination kit, raising suspicions that Bradley was involved in something other than a standard drug operation. Since Senator Edward Kennedy had been scheduled to speak in Philadelphia, the Secret Service was alerted to take extraordinary precautions.

  In the attaché case Bradley so carefully guarded—a tiger decal on both sides—police seized $22,800 in cash, a Walther PPK semi-automatic pistol, a two-shot Derringer, a telephone scrambler, a passport, five different wallets, and pistol permits issued in Georgia and Nevada. The cash was later traced to the Federal Reserve in San Francisco, and had been part of a bulk shipment delivered to Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

  In the Sheraton suite, police found four more attaché cases containing weapons, silencers, scramblers, shoulder holsters, and numerous rounds of ammunition, including “velet,” a rare type of ammunition that detonates on contact with a target. A variety of sophisticated electronic devices capable of intercepting, identifying and monitoring law enforcement frequencies were of particular interest to the cops. The only articles of clothing found in the suite and in Bradley’s luggage were ten blue sweatshirts, two black ski masks, and three flight suits, all of which were brand new.

  A sheet of Caesars Palace stationary found in an unmarked envelope in Bradley’s possession contained the home address of a Las Vegas resident named “George Haddad,” a physical description of him, his place of employment, the license number and description of his ear, and details about Haddad’s girlfriend and their social habits. Three candid photographs of Haddad were in the same envelope.

  When Philadelphia police contacted other investigative agencies about the identity of Haddad, they were told he was an “intelligence agent” who did work for both the U.S. and Libya. Haddad denied his involvement with the intelligence community and claimed not to know Bradley Bryant. “Frankly, I was petrified,” Haddad said, seemingly incredulous that he was an apparent target for a contract murder. “I was questioned by police and I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know anything about Bradley Bryant or why my name would be associated with him. He even had pictures of me. I’m a simple working man, in the hotel business…not the gun business, and I’ve never even been to Las Vegas.”

  Haddad said police told him that Bradley was in the midst of a weapons deal with a foreigner, and that the transaction was scheduled to take place in Fort Worth, Texas. Bradley apparently planned to retain Haddad as a translator for the deal, although Haddad denied any knowledge of such a venture. “I’m Lebanese and I speak the Arabic language.” Haddad swore it was a case of mistaken identity. “But like I said, I’m just a simple living human being and I was petrified when I heard my name associated with that group,” he said, referring to the Company.

  Documents in Bradley’s possession that were seized by Philadelphia police included manuals describing the production of counterfeit drivers’ licenses, passports, and birth certificates.

  Always when operating in the field and on assignment, false identification should be used, one document read. It is always best to assume the actual identity of a totally foreign and innocent party. This can be done by researching deaths of infants and obtaining identification in the dead babies’ names.

  Other materials stated that “our people should be collecting obituary pages in newspapers from areas where they may be on assignment.” It was unclear to police who our people were.

  Realizing they had inadvertently busted a member of a large-scale weapons network, the Philadelphia police solicited the help of ATF. ATF systematically inventoried the electronic equipment seized, fascinated by its sophistication and similarity to government-issued instruments used to locate covert transmitters from body wires or room bugs; mini-scopes used to repair electronic eq
uipment; telephone scramblers to be used so telephone conversations could not be monitored by outside parties; devices used to match transmitters with antennas; microphones; transceivers to communicate with mobile or base operations; and an electronic language calculator containing capsules that convert English to Spanish, German, and French.

  Philadelphia officials were seduced by the case. “The case reeked to me of international espionage,” said Frank Scafidi, the Philadelphia Police Department’s chief of detectives.

  “It was an exercise in the bizarre,” said then assistant U.S. Attorney Roberto Rivera-Soto.

  When ATF agents interviewed the three Kentucky natives, the suspects divulged little information.

  Larry Bryant revealed he had recently retired from the Air Force after twenty years of service “specializing in defeating Russian radar systems.” At first he said that he and Bradley were involved in a clandestine CIA attempt to steal a sophisticated Soviet radar unit from Libya. He later retreated from that story, claiming he would discuss the matter only with an electronics expert.

  Barnard, the bodyguard and muscleman who was described as Bradley’s “silent shadow,” revealed nothing substantive.

  Bradley was the most secretive of all.

  “We’re good guys, not bad guys,” was the only thing Bradley would say.

  Ralph Ross was one of the first police officers in Kentucky to learn about the Philadelphia arrests. ATF agents briefed him on Bryant’s activities and on the items seized. In turn, Ralph gave them information on Bryant’s background and on his associates.

  “We know about Chandler,” one agent said to Ralph. “He offered to post seventy-five thousand dollars’ bail for Bradley. What else do you have on him?”

  “He worked for John Y. Brown at Kentucky Fried Chicken in public relations until Brown sold the company,” Ralph answered. “Chandler left Kentucky when he was charged with federal income tax evasion. The story goes that his friend Brown got him set up in Las Vegas. He still owes half a million dollars in back taxes.”