by Sally Denton
Ralph and Powers responded without missing a beat. They told him that one of the more pressing criminal matters in Kentucky involved the group in Lexington—Drew Thornton, Bradley Bryant, and Jimmy Lambert. They told Welch about the Company, and what was required in order to tackle the outfit—primarily electronic equipment and manpower. They had been conducting surveillance for a long time, they told him, but the state police didn’t possess the necessary sophisticated equipment and they had never been able to obtain approval from state police higher-ups to purchase it. The legislature had always dragged its feet, and the state police bureaucrats had thrown up obstacles at every turn.
So it came as no surprise when the state police hierarchy fought Welch’s reorganization of the state police as a subsidiary of the Department of Criminal Justice. Particularly threatened by Welch was the state police commissioner, Marion “Butch” Campbell. Fearing a loss of control and authority, Campbell battled Welch every step of the way, lobbying behind the scenes against Welch’s proposed budget.
But Welch sitting stonefaced before his critics in the legislature, coolly deflecting their barbs eventually got his budget approved. He promised Ralph and Powers plenty of free rein and assigned them to select a group of men and begin training them, setting up their surveillance teams and putting them into operation, leaving Welch to fight off the political backstabbing.
Almost immediately, Welch referred to Ralph as his “right-hand man.” Known in certain circles for his legendary abilities as a sound man, Ralph was a technician trained in the most sophisticated audio intelligence techniques available in the United States. Ralph and Powers, best friends since their rookie days, had always gotten their kicks from hounding the ubiquitous crooked politicians and hoodlums. Though both men laughed dozens of times during a day—their humor heightened by the vernacular and drawl of their version of the English language—both were like pit bulls with golden retriever veneers. Despite their aw-shucks, country affability, Ralph Ross and Don Powers were considered formidable adversaries by their targets.
John Y. Brown, through Neil Welch, had inadvertently created what became known throughout Kentucky as the God Squad—an apparatus that would eventually lead to the governor’s downfall.
His fifty-member Special Operations team was far from ready, but the time had come to establish the priorities. He had recruited his officers and was in the process of training them in complex surveillance and undercover techniques. He had arranged for the purchase of vehicles, and ordered them equipped with “bird-dog” tracking devices. He intended to send some of his recruits through the National Intelligence Academy in Fort Lauderdale, whose curriculum included courses called “Surveillance City,” “Wiretapping,” “Microphone Links,” “Listening Posts,” “Optical Devices,” “Entering Undetected,” and “Countermeasures.’’
On Ralph’s desk sat stacks of surveillance and intelligence reports, investigative files, witness interviews, photographs, and fingerprints dating as far back as 1970—what amounted to a decade of suspicions of a sinister netherworld.
Finally, it seemed, he had the wherewithal to accomplish his mandate.
Though Ralph’s unit was a long way from ready, he put a few men undercover in Lexington right away to get a feel for what was going on. At the same time, he occupied himself with the task of interviewing men for the Special Operations team and traveling around the country buying electronic equipment. Ralph’s men did two things right off the bat in Lexington: First they opened a “storefront” office so the Lexington police wouldn’t know state police had entered their territory, staffing it with auditors and investigators; second, they rented two or three buildings under assumed names, and then headquartered the surveillance teams there. Ralph enrolled some of the guys in bartender schools, then placed them undercover in local saloons, and assigned a few more to drive taxicabs. He put scramblers on all their cars so the Lexington police wouldn’t be able to monitor their movements.
The first thing Ralph ordered his men to do was to put Jimmy Lambert under surveillance. Bradley Bryant was never around town long enough to make surveillance worthwhile; and Drew was in and out all the time. It wasn’t clear how active Henry Vance was, but he was working for the legislature in Frankfort so it was easy to keep an eye on him. Ralph decided that if they targeted Lambert, then all the other ducks would probably fall into a row. Not only was Lambert the governor’s best friend, but he also had an almost inseparable relationship with socialite Anita Madden.
Known as a high-stakes gambler who would bet on horses and anything else that wiggled, Jimmy Lambert seemed oblivious to the constant observation. He backed his gray Cadillac in and out of his garage at all hours of the day and night, usually accompanied by various blond, long-legged women. Wearing cowboy boots and sunglasses, a gold chain around his neck, the governor’s buddy and business partner acted as if he were a man without a care in the world.
Ralph had been curious about the flamboyant nightclub owner for several years, beginning in the mid-1970s when Lambert and John Y. Brown, Jr., shared the plush ranch-style residence on Lexington’s Old Dobbin Road. John Y. had purchased the house following his divorce from Ellie, and had later sold it to Lambert for $130,000 when he married Phyllis George. While John Y. and Lambert occupied the residence, neighbors in the fancy subdivision whispered and speculated about the nonstop activity.
Most nights and weekends, Mercedes-Benzes and Cadillacs lined the circular driveway, overflowing onto the secluded street. Tracing the license plates, Ralph and his men found that Lambert’s regular guests were politicians and gamblers, narcs and drug dealers, horsemen and lawyers, models and world poker champs, doctors and veterinarians, jockeys and trainers, and a slew of national sports figures and prostitutes.
Drew Thornton and Anita Madden appeared regularly, accompanied by an array of Lexington policemen, local bookies, heiresses, and coeds.
Neighbors told Ross’s men that the Old Dobbin location was particularly lively during the evenings following University of Kentucky basketball games. That information, combined with reports that Lambert had spent thousands of dollars rewiring the house, sparked allegations that a full-scale, illegal gambling ring was operating— complete with hookers and drugs.
Pulling together his files during the summer of 1980, Ralph was able to compile an interesting dossier on James Purdy Lambert. Born October 26, 1938, in Henderson, Kentucky, Lambert was one of four sons of a grocer. He attended the business school at the University of Kentucky. After graduation, his college buddy, John Y. Brown, Jr., offered him a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise in Newport News, Virginia. Lambert and John Y.’s father later opened a franchise together in Caracas, Venezuela. John Y. Brown, Sr., once told a Kentucky newspaper that Lambert had made a million dollars on his Virginia franchise, but that the South American venture went bust. “‘I wanted Jimmy because he knew how to run a place,’ the elder Brown said. ‘But after a brief spurt when the franchise expanded from one to four outlets, the deal went sour.’ Because so many people in Venezuela are poor and hungry, Brown Sr. said, the stores were often robbed.
‘Besides, Jimmy likes basketball, football and horse racing,’ Brown Sr. continued. ‘He didn’t want to stay down there all year to control things. We folded and took our losses.’”
In 1971, John Y. used Lambert as the figurehead for his purchase of Lum’s from the Perlmans, and Lambert apparently ended up with some Lum’s hot-dog franchises. Lambert tried another business partnership with John Y.’s father, investing in an H. Salt Fish and Chips franchise. But when that deal also died on the vine, Lambert decided to switch horses. In August 1973, Lambert and another Kentucky businessman bought a shopping mall near the University of Kentucky campus, opening a Big Daddy’s liquor store and the soon-to-becomeinfamous Library Lounge. The Library Lounge was inconspicuously located in the bland strip center. Windowless and cavernous, its heavy wooden doors gave no hint of
its lively innards. The nightclub grossed half a million dollars in its first year of business.
Four years later, in 1977, Lambert, John Y., and former Green Bay Packer Paul Hornung entered into a venture together in Cincinnati— a nightclub similar to the Library Lounge, which they called Trumps. Installed at Trumps as manager was Phil Block—the nephew of former Kentucky governor Julian Carroll. The financial details of the partnership were vague. Trumps would eventually swirl with rumors of the murder of a waitress, and become the target of a drug and prostitute investigation by Ohio police. But by the time Trumps was awash with scandal, John Y. would deny involvement in the business.
Blights on the apparently successful career of Jimmy Lambert were interspersed throughout the dossier. The first incident to attract Ralph’s attention had been in March 1974 when Lambert claimed to be the victim of a robbery and attempted kidnapping. Lambert reported to the Lexington police that at 2:30 a.m., as he was leaving the Library Lounge and carrying $180,000 in cash, three masked gunmen forced him into a car. After having been “hit over the head,” and robbed of all the money, Lambert claimed to have fought and escaped his captors, even though all three were armed with .38-caliber handguns.
Conveniently, or coincidentally, Drew Thornton handled the investigation for the Lexington Police Department. Among other questions raised, wasn’t $180,000 a lot of cash for a local barkeep to be carrying?
Then, in 1977, a state police detective filed a report with the agency: He had interviewed a Lexington undercover detective who had attended a party at the Old Dobbin residence, which had not yet been sold by John Y. to Lambert. Guests at the party were described by the detective as “suspected organized crime figures and illegal drug dealers.” Hearsay, but useful, nonetheless.
Ralph’s Organized Crime unit had determined that Lambert had ties to known Florida crime figures Meyer Lansky and Hymie Lazar. Lambert also traveled frequently between Lexington and Fort Lauderdale, where he stayed at John Y.’s Le Club.
From his desk drawer, Ralph retrieved the year-old FBI memorandum identifying Jimmy Lambert as one of the “subjects” of a RICO investigation: “Lambert presently has in his household a manual from the Audio Intelligence Device [AID] Corporation… and he has apparently expressed or shown interest in a telephone actuator, a receiver for such, a sub-miniature transmitter for the body which can be hidden easily on the person, a wall transmitter, an AC wall outlet, and a one-watt transmitter.”
Since AID is not open to the public, but only to law enforcement officers who have completed training at its sister facility—the National Intelligence Academy (NIA)—Ralph concluded that someone on the Lexington police force had pirated a copy of the manual for Lambert.
The memorandum continued: “Lambert reportedly travels with bodyguards and has commented that he has Lexington Police [officers] on his payroll.” Surveillance reports confirmed that police officers frequented both Trumps and the Library Lounge, “which is apparently the reason why Lambert has commented that he has complete protection from the City of Lexington, Kentucky.”
In August 1978, according to the memorandum, a regional narcotics task force initiated a narcotics investigation of Trumps. Ohio police were investigating reports that Lambert was in the process of opening a discotheque in Cleveland to be called 23 Skiddoo, which would be financed by a Miami crime figure, and another disco to be located at Caesars Palace in Vegas.
“Telephone calls have been made from…the Library Lounge,” the FBI report said, “to bookmakers in Miami, Florida, who have alleged ties to Meyer Lansky.”
The blackened windows and heavy drapes in the plush house on Old Dobbin Road prevented state police detectives from watching the internal activity, so Ralph set about to infiltrate the Lambert “parties” with informants and snitches.
Ralph’s informer told him that the governor was even closer to Lambert than previously believed. Since Ralph’s men were watching the house they knew that John Y. visited Lambert regularly. Ralph chose not to dwell upon the relationship between Lambert and the governor, assuming that to do so would place Neil Welch, and the Special Operations team, in a delicate position with their boss. He kept Welch apprised of the day-to-day details of the Lambert investigation—purposely neglecting to mention John Y.—and received guidance and strategic input from Welch.
Ralph had spent his entire professional life working within systems—in both the military and law enforcement. Not only did he believe that a successful criminal investigation was comprised of compartments of stratified information, but he also understood the significance and necessity of maintaining appropriate channels.
Ralph always assumed that a Bureau agent of Neil Welch’s caliber and reputation would have thoroughly investigated John Y. Brown’s background before deciding to come to Kentucky. Ralph therefore had considered it imprudent to mention his suspicions about John Y. to Welch when Welch had first arrived upon the Kentucky scene. Ralph didn’t believe that Welch had severed his ties with the Eye, “Deep down, I thought Welch had come to Kentucky to do a number on Brown.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
When beautiful Rebecca Moore left her Cincinnati apartment on December 16, 1980, she told her parents that Jimmy Lambert had invited her to a party he was hosting for Trumps waitresses to celebrate the sale of the nightclub.
“We never saw her again, and later found out there had been no party,” Rebecca’s mother tearfully recalled.
The twenty-four-year-old art student worked at the Cincinnati club owned by Lambert, Governor John Y. Brown, and Paul Hornung.
Ralph’s surveillance team hadn’t taken particular notice of the petite blonde entering the Old Dobbin house. To observers, the coed would have been but one of many attractive young women entering or leaving the cream-colored residence.
Normally, a Missing Persons Report filed with the Kentucky State Police would not have grabbed the attention of Ralph Ross. But when the missing person was a “pretty young thing” who had last been seen alive by Jimmy Lambert, Ralph could hardly contain his interest in the case. He pored over the available information, vague and disjointed though it was, searching for clues in the disappearance.
A reconstruction of events would determine that “Becky” drove her old Chevy Nova from Cincinnati to Lambert’s house in Lexington. Sometime that day, she accompanied Lambert to Boonesboro, where Lambert owned a cabin located on the bank of the Kentucky River.
The state police surveillance of Lambert did not include the cabin property, so the activities of Jimmy and Becky had gone undetected.
Dr. John Moore, a Cincinnati veterinarian, and his wife, Barbara, hired a private detective when Becky failed to return home. “She was due back on Friday, December 19, to help me with the last of the Christmas shopping,” recalled Mrs. Moore.
Worried sick, the Moores finally retained investigator Peter Thielen on Christmas Eve. The sketchy report that Thielen provided the Moores a few days later raised more questions than it answered. Oddly, one of Thielen’s first tasks was to contact Jimmy Lambert and Lambert’s Mends on the Lexington police force. Thielen apparently did not believe in subtlety or discretion, and seemed eager to tip his hand.
Leaving several phone messages for Lambert at Old Dobbin, Trumps, and the Library Lounge, Thielen received a call from the Lexington businessman.
“Lambert… explained that Becky finished finals on Wednesday and drove to his home on Old Dobbin,” Thielen wrote in his report to the Moores. “She was ‘strung out’ from lack of sleep (awake three days) preparing for her finals. Upon leaving the home Becky asked if she would need her warm, dress coat. James said ‘no’ and they left the coat at the house… James and Becky left the house with her suitcase in the backseat. They first picked up a painting from a local artist paying $1,800 in cash. They went to dinner. Another $100 was spent… The night was spent at Lambert’s cabin on Upper Amster Grove Road.
/> “Becky awoke the next morning (9:00 a.m.) and went for a walk alone. Lambert stayed in bed. He heard Becky return, take a shower and then leave again around 10:00 or 10:30. He did not get up until 2:00 that afternoon. All of Becky’s belongings were left in the cabin, including her purse and wallet.”
Lambert said he hadn’t reported Becky’s disappearance because he assumed she had intentionally wandered off—probably with the idea of running away to Florida. According to Lambert, Becky borrowed a black leather jacket from him, which had eleven hundred dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills in the pocket, when she went out to walk along the riverbank that morning. She said she wanted to find a cabin downriver from Lambert’s that her father had once owned. Lambert noticed she took a sketchpad along, and assumed she was planning to draw. When she never came back, Lambert told the private eye, he decided that she had ripped him off—stealing his leather jacket and cash.
“On noon Friday, 12/19/80, Lambert returned to his Lexington residence with Becky’s things. He moved her car from the side to the rear of the house,” Thielen’s report stated.
When Thielen asked Lambert for the name of a Lexington police officer who might assist Thielen in locating Becky, Lambert provided him with the names of John Bizzack and Drexel Neal—-the same detectives who had unsuccessfully investigated the disappearance of Melanie Flynn.
Thielen called Sergeant Neal and told him of his plans to travel to Lexington to personally search for Becky and interview Lambert. Thielen then drove to Lexington to rendezvous with Neal at a Howard Johnson’s restaurant. After providing Neal with all the information he possessed regarding Becky’s disappearance, Thielen drove to Lambert’s rustic, remote cabin on the Kentucky River.
He drove down a narrow dirt road until he reached the last house located at the dead end. Seeing no vehicles near the cabin, he assumed the house was vacant. When he walked up onto the front porch, Thielen noticed the front door was wide open. Apparently undaunted, Thielen made the decision to enter the cabin and search it for evidence of Becky.