The Bluegrass Conspiracy

by Sally Denton

  Drew, meanwhile, would travel from Knoxville back to Lexington with Rebecca Sharp.

  Drew, according to Gordon had selected Tennessee, because it was the hub for Federal Express, and he thought he could avoid radar detection by blending in with the courier planes.

  Although Gordon consistently failed to hold up his end of the agreement with Kobell, Kobell learned independently that a few days before the drug run Gordon had purchased the aircraft and had it ferried to Fort Lauderdale International Airport, where Drew arranged to have the plane modified to accommodate extra fuel tanks and the removal of the seats.

  Gordon had promised to notify Kobell when Drew took off, so that Kobell could arrange to have the plane tracked. Distrusting Gordon, however, Kobell took the initiative and alerted the U.S. Customs Air Support division in Miami that an aircraft, tail number N128SP, was preparing for a run to Colombia.

  It was shocking for Kobell, therefore, to be watching the national news two days later and to learn of Drew Thornton’s death, since Gordon had never told Kobell that the plane had taken off. Gordon claimed to be as surprised as Kobell, and, in his defense, Gordon explained that he had intended to inform Kobell about the load after it was trucked into Daytona. Such a decision was not Gordon’s to make, Kobell told him, as it became obvious to Kobell that Gordon had intended to let Drew get away, while busting the underlings in the conspiracy.

  Kobell’s angst was but one of Gordon’s mounting problems, as the Colombians held him responsible for the millions of dollars’ worth of cocaine that was missing. The Colombians dispatched Gordon to Kentucky to talk to Rebecca Sharp to find out where the coke had gone.

  “I’m going with you,” Kobell told Gordon, in no uncertain terms.

  Kobell ignored Gordon’s protestations, insinuating himself in Gordon’s every move.

  Identifying himself as James Vincent—a representative of the Colombians, Kobell watched as Rebecca pulled on her white gloves. For a split second Kobell thought maybe she was about to pull out a gun and blow them both away. But instead, to Kobell’s relief, she recounted what seemed to him to be a remarkably pat story: Drew and his mysteriously anonymous companion were being “chased by two Citations and a Black Hawk helicopter,” and were forced to throw the cocaine out, set the plane on auto pilot, and jump.

  Further, the attractive, well-groomed blonde said that she would kill anyone in Drew’s organization who failed to hold up his end of the bargain.

  Surely, Rebecca was mortified to learn many months later, that the two undercover DEA operatives would use her statements against her, that she had unwittingly confessed every detail of the smuggling conspiracy to two undercover DEA operatives who, prior to Rebecca’s statements, possessed zero knowledge about Drew’s tragically thwarted mission.

  Kobell was as baffled as anyone when Customs denied having launched any chase planes the night of September 10, 1985.

  It wasn’t until April 1989 that Ralph Ross learned the details of Rebecca Sharp’s statement, and recognized their possible implications.

  Ralph thought that the report of Rebecca’s story seemed too specific about the aircraft. She didn’t say that the two men learned, perhaps by monitoring Customs channels, that they were being chased. She said they saw the three airplanes out the window. But Ralph’s research indicated that in September 1985, only a handful of Customs pilots were certified to fly a Citation jet, and that the agency was still using the Cobra helicopter—not the Black Hawk.

  Further, Customs consistently maintained that they were not chasing Drew Thornton. If any log reports or radio transmissions existed regarding such a chase, Customs denied their existence to DEA. Even had Customs “gone up,” as they refer to a launch, it is highly improbable that Drew Thornton would have seen them out the window, as they usually fly at least two thousand feet higher than the suspect aircraft.

  What reason would Customs have for denying such a chase? Ralph wondered. Had one of the pilots decided he’d teach the smuggler a lesson by whacking him with a wingtip? Would that explain why Drew’s body had been mutilated from top to bottom when it was found in the old man’s driveway, and why he was half-dead during his fall?

  Ralph pulled out the autopsy report and pathologist’s findings, and examined them once again—Drew’s back was broken in two or three places, 70 percent of the circumference of his aorta was lacerated, his pelvic area was separated from his abdomen by a gaping hole, his chin and neck were full of bruises and abrasions, his teeth were fractured, several of his ribs were broken, and his spinal cord was torn.

  It sounded more like a man who had been run over by a Mack truck, than an experienced skydiver who had jumped out of an airplane with two chutes in perfect working order.

  Those who examined the corpse, Ralph learned, had speculated privately that perhaps Drew had not died in the scenario put forth, and generally believed, by the medical examiner: That the bag of cocaine knocked Drew semiconscious, leaving him incapable of maneuvering.

  So what had happened? Had Drew been knocked across the chest by a chase plane? Had he been hit across the face by his own plane’s stabilizer? Why was he wearing expensive Italian shoes if he intended to jump? Was he killed on board and thrown out?

  One mystery, however, could be eliminated: That the body was indeed that of Drew Thornton, and was neither a “double” nor a convenient “stiff.” The Knoxville Police Department had matched the corpse’s fingerprints to the FBI’s prints of Drew.

  Ralph racked his brain for a plausible explanation of the circumstances. Although the DEA denied publicly that they had ever identified Drew’s accomplice, Ralph knew that they had, and that the man was a Lexington bodybuilder and martial arts expert named Bill Leonard. Why hadn’t Leonard ever been charged in the conspiracy?

  The DEA in Knoxville had concluded that Drew had intended to throw the cocaine out of the airplane in designated areas, to be retrieved by the ground crews and trucked back to Florida. But Ralph had problems with that theory, considering it too risky to drop millions of dollars of cocaine into national forest attached to parachutes. It seemed like a needle in a haystack.

  Maybe it had indeed been a rip-off scheme, in which Drew planned to throw the dope out in previously specified areas, using remote bodies of water as landmarks, to be picked up by his organization on the ground, then skydiving to safety while pretending to have died in the plane crash.

  What about “Cowboy” Williams and the crash of the Caravan? It was strange that the feds had reneged on their original determination that the plane had been sabotaged. Was one agency protecting another government agency? Was “Cowboy” killed by Drew’s people for failing to fulfill his obligations? Or by the Colombians for participating in the rip-off?

  Ralph suspected that Drew had not flown an empty plane to Colombia; he was much too shrewd to waste such an opportunity. Drew had probably taken a load of weapons south. For it was Ralph’s conviction, having pursued Drew Thornton for nearly two decades, that he was a gunrunner first and a doper second. It was clear to Ralph that Drew fancied himself an elite soldier in Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North’s formerly secret war. If Ralph was right, then where had the guns gone? Was that why his smuggling escapade had not been pursued with vigor, and why Customs denied any knowledge?

  In the years that had transpired since his criminal conviction in 1982, Ralph Ross had finally grown comfortable with his new role as an “unofficial adviser” to the various law enforcement agencies whose investigations led them to Lexington.

  It had been at Ralph’s urging that the FBI supervision of the organized crime and narcotics squad in Lexington instigated a dogged pursuit of Henry Vance. In December 1986, FBI agent James Huggins had persuaded Bonnie Kelly to testify against Henry Vance. On January 12, 1987, Henry Vance was indicted by a federal grand jury in the murder conspiracy of Florida prosecutor Eugene Berry. The indictment came just
four days before the statute of limitations would expire. Ralph had felt a strong sense of personal satisfaction and completion when, on October 29, 1987, Vance was convicted and later sentenced to fifteen years in a federal penitentiary.

  Vance’s conviction and Drew’s death were but a blip on the screen as far as the continuing criminal conspiracy was concerned. Ralph knew that Drew’s associates continued to operate at full force, perhaps with even more sophistication. Lexington remained a hotbed of drug smuggling and murders. Drew’s organization might have dissipated when it lost its most notorious member, but his enforcers were still roaming the territory, and planeloads of cocaine were landing regularly on Kentucky’s remote airfields. The group was still “favorite sons” in the community, as evidenced by Henry Vance’s inclusion in the 1989 edition of The Society Registry: Blue Grass Blue Book.

  But now, with Bertram Gordon’s detention in the Netherlands, Ralph saw the denouement of the dramatic odyssey that started in 1970 when Ralph Ross and Drew Thornton were thrust into conflict. He sensed that Gordon’s arrest was the climax before the resolution. Finally, the promise of a just conclusion to years of bloody battles seemed imminent. Ralph saw the possibility of hitting the group at its core. He made plane reservations to Amsterdam, dug out his passport, and cleared his schedule. As soon as he received word that he would be granted an audience with Gordon, Ralph was ready to take off.

  Ralph actually felt excited about the group’s vulnerability. They had dismissed him as a threat years ago. But he was just gearing up for the final scene. Armed with the knowledge of Rebecca’s statement and the identity and whereabouts of mystery man Bill Leonard, he knew he could convince the FBI and the U.S. Attorney of the need for a specially convened federal grand jury to be seated in Lexington. DEA in Knoxville had just announced it had closed its investigation, so they couldn’t claim an invasion of turf.

  Though Ralph had suspected it all along, now he had proof—the smuggling conspiracy that resulted in Drew Thornton’s death had been spawned and fulfilled in Lexington. The three main players— Drew, Rebecca, and Bill Leonard—lived in Lexington. What had convinced Ralph more than anything else that Rebecca Sharp was a more significant player than the little-girlfriend-keeping-the-homefiresburning image she struggled to project was her statement: “…they know I will have them killed.”

  Pretty strong stuff, he thought.

  Though his legal pad was full of questions for Gordon, there was only one to which he felt he absolutely must know the answer: Why had Drew Thornton taken the “hit list” on board his last flight? Had there been a contract “let” on the life of Ralph Ross? Had Drew taken the dossier with him to Colombia and hired cartel assassins to get the job done? Or had he taken it to Miami to be turned over to a Mafia hit man? Had the contract been voided with Drew’s death? Or was it still pending, unfinished business for one of Drew’s foot soldiers?

  Despite his hope for a grand jury before which Rebecca, Leonard, Kobell, and Gordon would be called to testify, Ralph Ross’s realism reminded him that anything could happen in the hands of bluegrass justice.

  On a personal level, Ralph was totally comfortable with his life. He had a thriving private investigations business—having teamed up with his longtime partner, Don Powers. Ross and Powers Associates charged a high hourly rate, and served clients from around the United States.

  His bitterness had subsided, and he was now able to look at the decade’s tragedies with a sense of irony and humor. He spent his free time trying everything he had ever fantasized about. He dated regularly and, finally, was a happy and free man.

  It had been a tumultuous and trying seven years since his felony conviction; and even a rocky four years since the death of his nemesis, Drew Thornton. But now, he was back in the game.

  Ralph knew he had survived intact when he realized that once again, the chase was fun. Though he couldn’t deny his subjectivity, he recognized his pursuit of Bertram Gordon for what it was. A game that he was winning. Not a war that he had lost.

  AFTERWORD

  LANCE ALWORTH

  Building on a business he happens upon at the end of his football career in Dallas, Alworth expands All Aboard Mini Storage, what he calls “a little company,” into a self-storage facility empire with millions of square feet of space from Florida to Hawaii. Following their divorce, his first wife Betty marries Arkansas Lt. Governor Jim Guy Tucker who succeeds Bill Clinton as Governor when Clinton is elected President and who subsequently resigns himself under a cloud of scandal. In 1999 Alworth reportedly lives with his third wife, Laura, in Del Mar, California, where the local San Diego Union Tribune, apparently oblivious to Alworth’s Kentucky connections, notes in one story that “nothing…untoward” has ever happened to the former NFL star, known affectionately to his fans as “Bambi.”

  JOHN BIZZACK

  He retires from the Lexington Police Department after 25 years, and becomes “Dr. Bizzack” in 1993, having obtained a “Ph.D. in Administration/Management” from Walden University in Minneapolis, known for its correspondence degrees. In 1996 Kentucky Governor Paul Patton appoints him State Commissioner of Criminal Justice Training. By the turn of the century Bizzack boasts authorship of some six books dealing with “leadership” in criminal justice affairs, including one listed with Amazon.com as Police Management for the 1990s: A Practitioner’s Road Map, and reportedly lectures widely on professional standards for police officers. He owns Bittersweet Station, a imposing cattle farm on Winchester Road, is known as an enthusiast for British luxury sports cars, and not least is celebrated as a composer of country-and-western music, winning the Hank Cochran Song Writing Contest for his “Courage to Say Goodbye.”

  JOHN Y. BROWN, JR.

  After a bitter divorce from Phyllis in 1997, the next year he weds his third beauty queen, a 1988 Miss Kentucky, Jill Louise Roach, who is 27 years his junior. The lavish ceremony beneath the white plantation columns of Brown’s mansion on Old Cave Hill Lane is attended by former Governor Brereton C. Jones, Preston and Anita Madden, F. Lee Bailey, his son John Y. Brown III (Kentucky Secretary of State), and other local notables. “Man can’t live alone,” Brown tells the Lexington Herald-Leader. “Once you’re a family man, you need a family to survive.” In 1991, with country music entertainer Kenny Rogers, he has founded Kenny Rogers Roasters, an international chain of wood-roasted chicken restaurants said to have average annual sales of a million dollars per unit, and two years later launches another chain in South Florida called Roadhouse Grill. By the mid 1990s he sells his stake in both concerns to what the Miami Herald describes as a “Malaysian conglomerate.” Along the way through the decade he has been a guest of his old friend, President Bill Clinton, in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House. In the spring of 2001 he plans to build yet another restaurant chain radiating from Florida, this one with former University of Louisville football coach Howard Schnellenberger, to be called “Coach Schnellenberger’s The Original Steakhouse and Sports Theater,” where patrons may dine on steaks, chicken, ribs, and lobster while watching sports on six-foot-by-eightfoot video screens. “Life’s full of opportunity,” the 65-year-old ex-governor and onetime presidential aspirant says at his third wedding, “if you look forward and not look back.”

  BRADLEY BRYANT

  He is convicted of charges in the China Lake conspiracy and serves out his time in a federal penitentiary. In the mid-1990s he is reportedly in Savannah, Georgia, and is said by some to have undergone a religious deliverance as a “born-again” Christian. But by the latter decade he disappears from further public view.

  WILLIAM TAULBEE “BILL” CANAN

  On January 15, 1994 the forty-seven-year-old former Lexington narcotics officer is sentenced to seventeen years, eight months on federal drug charges. An FBI search of Canan’s apartment on Garden Springs Drive in Lexington has turned up more than a score of arms, a blow gun with steel-tipped darts, stiletto knives, a
police badge, a bag of cocaine, and hundreds of cassettes apparently containing tape-recorded conversations which are coded and indecipherable to federal agents. Also found are books on weapons and explosives, including a three-volume set entitled How To Kill, a hand-drawn chart labeled “Canan’s Alley” showing a bulls-eye ringing photographs of various local officials, and a confidential publisher’s manuscript copy of The Bluegrass Conspiracy. At the trial, a DEA agent has sworn that Canan was never affiliated with the agency, while other witnesses testify to his drug-dealing and his own dark inferences of killings, including the murder of the still-missing Melanie Flynn. “A vengeful man at the center of a tangled web of fear and intimidation,” as the Herald-Leader describes him, the shackled Canan, wearing a trademark blue windbreaker and black Lee jeans and defended by a court-appointed attorney, smiles cryptically and rocks incessantly in his chair at the defense table. When later interviewed in prison by federal agents about the Melanie Flynn case, he smirks and says only: “That name sounds familiar.”

  JAMIEL “JIMMY” CHAGRA

  In 1996 his brother Joe, having served six years in a federal prison for conspiracy in the Judge Wood murder, dies in an automobile accident near El Paso. Less than a year later, Jimmy’s wife Elizabeth, who was serving a thirty-year sentence for plotting to kill the judge, dies in prison from complications of ovarian cancer. Acquitted of the Wood murder himself but found guilty of conspiracy charges involving both drugs and obstruction of justice, and of still another murder, the last surviving Chagra brother serves out his life sentence at a maximum security federal penitentiary.