The Bluegrass Conspiracy

by Sally Denton

  The day after Berry’s murder, Bonnie had reported back to Vance in Lexington. She briefed him on the details of Berry’s death—how she had feared she would lose the confidence to carry out the bloody act, how he had slithered back down the hallway, how she had looked into his widow’s eyes. She felt pacified by Vance’s apparent lack of paranoia and emotion. But as the days turned into weeks, and it became evident to Bonnie that investigators were focusing upon Stephen Taylor, she feared it was only a matter of time until the finger was pointed at her. Vance suggested to her that she kill Taylor, but matters were further complicated in that she had fallen in love with her husband’s former cellmate.

  By early February, Bonnie had already been interrogated twice about her and Taylor’s whereabouts the night of the murder. As she related her fears to Vance, he assured her that he would provide an alibi for her. No one would challenge Vance’s word, he told her, for he enjoyed an impeccable statewide reputation as a powerful, behindthe-scenes, political strategist and lobbyist.

  Vance suggested to Bonnie that she return to K-Mart in Lexington, where she had purchased the wadcutter ammunition that she had used to kill Berry, and steal the records of that transaction.

  Following Vance’s directions, Bonnie and her sister, Betty Gee, went to K-Mart. Bonnie had signed a registration book using her real name the day she had purchased the ammo. She had watched the clerk place the receipt book in a particular drawer. When she and her sister returned to the discount department store, they were able to locate and retrieve the book and walk out of the establishment escaping notice.

  Bonnie, Betty, and Taylor then went to Fort Lauderdale, where they went on a binge of booze, cocaine, and sex—the sisters alternately sleeping with Taylor.

  The series of events that had propelled Bonnie into this mess had been set into motion the previous December. Stephen Taylor and Mike Kelly had spent several months in jail together, during which they had numerous conversations about Eugene Berry and Linda Bailey. Berry had sentenced Kelly to forty-five years as a result of his prosecution; Taylor was facing criminal conviction and a lengthy sentence at the hands of Berry—unless he would dispose of Bailey, the government’s main witness. When Taylor bonded out two days before Christmas, he immediately set about to plot the death of Bailey, enlisting Bonnie’s aid. Taylor wanted Bailey killed before January 13—the date she was scheduled to be deposed by Gene Berry in Punta Gorda, Florida, in the criminal case against Taylor. On January 9, Bonnie had traveled to Waycross, Georgia, in an attempt to find Bailey. From there she phoned Vance with a physical description of Bailey—a tall, thin, young black woman—apparently hoping to enlist his assistance in locating her.

  She returned to Lexington a few days later, having been initially unsuccessful in finding Bailey. Time was running out. Taylor’s trial date was set for Monday, January 18. Home in Lexington, Bonnie dyed her hair and using an alias, flew from Knoxville to Atlanta to Fort Myers. She arrived in Fort Myers at noon, leaving her two and a half hours to get to the Charlotte County courthouse to find Bailey.

  She paid for a rental car by charging it to her Visa card—a move that would prove to be a major mistake, as it would later provide a paper trail for investigators. Roaming the halls of the courthouse, she frequently reached into her purse to feel her gun. She found a place to wait which allowed her a direct line of vision to the entrance of the D.A.’s office. A half hour later, Linda Bailey emerged, under the protective custody of a sheriff ’s deputy. Bonnie scrambled to follow the two, who entered an unmarked police vehicle.

  Maintaining an inconspicuous distance behind the police unit, Bonnie watched the deputy drop Bailey off at her home and then depart. She scanned the neighborhood to see how she would escape after shooting her victim. Once certain the police officer was definitely gone, Bonnie turned her attention back to her target. Bonnie watched as the woman walked toward her front door. She felt a pang of envy when several little kids ran up to Bailey, greeting her with hugs and laughter. Bonnie’s heart softened as she realized she was incapable of pulling the trigger on the mother of those children.

  Never having killed before, she was taken aback by her emotional responses. The business of death was more serious than the business of drugs, she decided. Putting her rental car in reverse, Bonnie retreated from her mission, driving aimlessly until she spotted a pay phone outside a grocery store.

  “I couldn’t find her,” she lied when Taylor answered the phone back in Lexington. She looked at her watch: 3:22 p.m. ‘I’m coming home,” she said.

  Two days later, under the assumed name of Brenda Rankin, Bonnie had returned to Florida to put Taylor’s alternate plan into action—to kill Gene Berry. She chose not to dwell on her inability to pull the trigger the first time. This time it would be different. She had no ax to grind with Linda Bailey; didn’t even know the woman. But she hated Gene Berry.

  Richard Hollimon—a black man she had never met before, picked up Bonnie at the Fort Myers Airport at two o’clock the morning of January 16. Bonnie insisted on telephoning Taylor back in Lexington before proceeding. She had two reasons: To inform him that she had arrived safely, and to confirm that Hollimon was indeed the main who was supposed to be her driver.

  She listened as Hollimon spoke to Taylor.

  “Watch her back,” Taylor told Hollimon. “Take care of her down there and make sure nothin’ goes wrong. Can you do that, Richard? You’re either in or out.”

  She listened as Hollimon assured Taylor that he was “in.”

  Convinced she was in the right hands, Bonnie accompanied Hollimon to a local motel where they registered under the names of Joe and Brenda Rankin. There in the room, Bonnie showed Hollimon the contents of her aluminum attaché case: Two guns and a silver dagger. She bragged to him that she was a professional hit woman who was paid seven thousand dollars per job.

  Hollimon was impressed. He was barely able to eke out enough to keep himself alive, much less enough for the court-ordered child support he was supposed to be paying.

  Hollimon and Bonnie both slept fitfully that night. Having paid cash in advance for the room, they left in the morning without checking out. They drove to a motel located in Berry’s suburban residential neighborhood. Bonnie waited in the car as Hollimon registered, stupidly using his own name. The two then found a K-Mart, where Bonnie purchased a jogging suit and some heavy-duty tape to cover their license plates. Bonnie made her phone call to Mike’s attorney to confirm Berry’s address, then made a trial run through the shaded streets of Charlotte Harbor, casing the entrances and exits from Berry’s home.

  The hours passed quickly, and before they both knew it, the darkness they awaited had finally crept upon them.

  The Merrick Inn sits at the crest of a knoll, as inviting and formidable as the stately mansion it once was. Known for serving some of the best meals in Lexington, the restaurant takes reservations on a priority basis from residents of Merrick Place—a compound of townhouses and condominiums that have been developed on the original farm property. Offering traditional Kentucky fare at moderate prices, its menu includes such classics as beaten biscuits, hush puppies, old-fashioned hoe cakes, corn fritters, wall-eyed pike, country ham, hot browns, and chess pie, served in the elegant splendor of the nineteenth century.

  Hung on the darkly painted walls are prints depicting fox hunts, the red-jacketed riders languidly traversing ridges. Oil portraits of famous horses, winners who have won the hearts of the locals with their racing victories or stunning bloodlines, are also displayed.

  The bar is less formal, its dark paneling dotted with brightly colored jockey silks like the clubhouse at a racetrack. It is this room where residents of the enclave can meet, bring their guests, and hold court as if at their private club. A back door leads from the bar to an outdoor patio used in the springtime. In the dead of winter, the door usually remains locked.

  Among the regulars a
t the Merrick Inn in the early 1980s were Drew Thornton and Henry Vance. Both men were comfortable in the slightly stuffy environment, for they had been raised in rooms like these.

  On the Saturday night of February 27, 1982, the two men had much to discuss. Over dinner and late-night cognacs, their conversation ran the gamut. Bonnie Kelly and Sally Sharp—Rebecca’s aunt, joined them at different times.

  Drew had recently returned from Fresno, where, ten days earlier, he had been freed on bail. The judge had agreed to reduce his bond from $1 million cash, allowing Drew to post $75,000 in cash and $920,000 in personal surety. Drew guaranteed the surety with the deed to Triad and conveyed to the court his ownership interest in three racehorses. He was forced to surrender his passport and ordered not to leave Kentucky. He was scheduled to return to Fresno a few days later to enter his plea in the international drugs and weapons conspiracy. Anxious to avoid a jail sentence, Drew couldn’t decide how he should plead to the charges. He knew if he stood trial he’d certainly be convicted since the federal conspiracy laws were so all encompassing. He considered that his best bet would be a nolo contendere plea, or “no contest.” Though officially considered to be a guilty plea, Drew preferred the sound of it. He would enter it amid hints that, though technically guilty, he had been operating at the behest of an unnamed entity, i.e., the DEA or CIA, or in some other national security capacity. Like his ex-friend Bradley Bryant, one of the legal avenues open to Drew Thornton was to convince the federal judge that he was a “good guy, not a bad guy.” He would then have to inundate the court with letters from prominent Lexingtonians and high-level federal intelligence agents who would vouch for his moral character and reputation, and beg for a suspended or probated sentence. Or he could contend that the charges were simply untrue, but that it would be exorbitantly expensive and a drain on his professional and personal life to battle the legal system.

  Henry Vance and Bonnie Kelly had their own problems. Neither Henry nor Bonnie knew it yet, but both Stephen Taylor and Richard Hollimon had agreed to cooperate with Florida authorities in the Berry murder investigation. Taylor had been found guilty on cocaine charges and decided to make a deal with the government. In exchange for a lesser sentence, he would tell them everything they wanted to know about the assassination of the Florida prosecutor. Hollimon had found himself in a similar situation, suddenly beholden to the government’s demands.

  Without knowledge about the deals that Taylor and Hollimon had made, Henry and Bonnie had been lulled into a false sense of security. Henry had told Florida detectives that he was with Bonnie Kelly on January 16—the day of the murder. Vance said he had met Bonnie in a Lexington parking lot to discuss an insurance policy that he had sold her. His statement had provided both of them with an alibi.

  Bonnie was less confident. She knew she was a suspect in the murder; the cops had been all over her. Her freedom hinged upon Henry Vance’s loyalty to her, and the decade of dirt they had on each other.

  By 11 p.m., Drew, Henry, and Sally Sharp decided to leave the Merrick Inn, selecting the back-door exit from the bar. Drew emerged first, his companions following behind him. As he crossed a boardwalk leading onto the patio, Drew collapsed onto the walkway.

  Within seconds, one of Drew’s drinking buddies flew out of the doorway. A local veterinarian whom Drew had known most of his adult life hurried to Drew’s side in order to administer first aid.

  “Drew was in shock,” the vet would later tell a newspaper reporter. “I opened up his shirt and there were bruises. Whoever it was must have been using a silencer, and it must have been at close range.” The doctor neglected to mention the fact that the bulletproof vest Drew had deflected the impact of the bullets.

  No one in the restaurant had heard a thing.

  Moments later, as if by telepathy, since no one would admit having summoned them, a fire department ambulance and Lexington Herald photographer arrived upon the scene. Drew was photographed lying on the ground, writhing in agony as paramedics hooked him up to oxygen. Soon he was whisked off to a local emergency room to be treated before undergoing questioning by Lexington Police Sergeant John Bizzack.

  Ralph, who was vacationing in Florida at the time, didn’t learn of the shooting until the following Monday when Neil Welch called him to tell him that someone had tried to kill Drew and that the Lexington police were working on the case.

  Ralph called Bizzack to find out what was going on. Bizzack explained that the assailant had stepped out from behind a tree and shot Drew with a .38 using wadcutter bullets—a flat-nosed slug such as a wadcutter would have a hard time penetrating a bulletproof vest. Bizzack related the sketchy description Drew had provided—Tall, white male, about six feet two, medium build, darkly tanned face, dressed in dark clothing and wearing a ski mask.

  “Kind of sounds like me, doesn’t it,” Ralph said to Bizzack.

  “Sure does,” Bizzack answered.

  “Let me ask you something,” Ralph continued. “How in the hell did Drew know the guy had a suntanned face if he was wearing a ski mask?”

  Bizzack fell silent. Ralph asked him for a copy of the investigative file, but when it arrived, he found it devoid of any substance, and even lacking witness statements. He wondered why the police hadn’t sealed off the scene and interviewed all the people at the restaurant. Why hadn’t they asked the standard questions such as Did you hear any shots? Did you see anything or anyone suspicious? Did you notice anyone standing behind a tree? What did you observe when the shooting occurred? Basic investigative procedure. Instead, their entire investigative file consisted of Drew’s one-page statement to them.

  Ralph didn’t believe there had been a shooting. It seemed to him that if someone wanted to kill Drew he would have aimed for his head. He thought the whole thing was a well-staged plot. Ralph figured Drew had hung his bulletproof vest on a fencepost earlier that day, and taken a couple of shots at it, then faked some bruises on his chest at the same places as the bullet holes.

  Drew had several possible motivations for setting up such a phony act. He might be trying to frame Ralph by describing an assailant who resembled Ralph; or he might be hoping to get sympathy from the judge in California by claiming his life would be in danger if he went to jail; or maybe he was hoping to deflect attention from him and Bonnie and Henry by making it look like whoever killed Gene Berry was also out to get Drew Thornton. It was more than coincidental that the same type of weapon and ammunition was used for both the Berry murder and Drew’s shooting. Regardless, Ralph knew that Drew couldn’t have pulled it off without inside assistance from someone in the Lexington Police Department who could guarantee the incident would receive but a whitewash of scrutiny.

  Public association with any members of The Company had never sullied Henry Vance’s name. But after the “shooting” at the Merrick Inn, Vance’s boss—the Speaker of the House—was questioned by the press about Vance’s relationship with suspected international drug smugglers.

  Speaker Bobby Richardson initially defended Vance’s friendship with Drew. “While I may not approve altogether of his friends, it’s nothing that I think affects his ability to do his job,” Richardson told the Louisville Courier Journal.

  But when Richardson learned from reporters that Vance had been in regular contact with Drew while Drew was a fugitive, and that Vance had visited Drew in jail in North Carolina and lied on the visitor registration by claiming to be Drew’s attorney, then Richardson lost his patience. “I expect him [Vance] to exercise discretion and I would be much happier if he had no further association with Thornton.”

  Finally, when a Lexington television station reported that Vance had been questioned three times in connection with the Berry murder, Vance was forced to resign his thirty-six-thousand-dollar-a-year position with the Kentucky State legislature.

  The Special Operations team had been under the direction of Don Powers for several months by the tim
e the Berry murder investigation was heating up in Kentucky. Neil Welch had put Powers in control in order to free Ralph up for availability to Welch on other special assignments. Most of the undercover detectives were working on the Jimmy Lambert drug investigation and the Rebecca Moore homicide, and though Ralph was kept informed of the status of the probes, he was not involved with the day-to-day details.

  By March of 1982, Powers had become concerned with “leaks” from the team. It seemed to him that members of the Lexington Police Department and Lambert himself knew too much about the team’s operations. Powers reported the security problem to State Police Commissioner Marion Campbell. A few days later, Campbell approached Ralph Ross and practically begged him to retake control of the surveillance team.

  Ralph was skeptical of Campbell’s request. The rivalry between Campbell and Neil Welch had become legendary among the ranks. Campbell was a “good ole boy” from Morehead, Kentucky, who had fought long and hard to become state police commissioner—traditionally an extremely powerful position in state government. But Governor John Y. Brown, Jr., had emasculated him when he recruited Neil Welch and created a separate Criminal Justice Cabinet under Welch’s direction. For the first time in Kentucky history, the state police was not a fiefdom for the powers that be. Technically, the chain of command precluded Campbell from exerting any power or influence over Ralph or any of the men from Welch’s special forces—a situation that greatly irked Campbell.