Suspicion next fell on a white family who lived near one of the churches. Their son had been heard to use the “N” word and to complain about all the “hollering” during Wednesday night prayer meetings. But why would he burn a second church? And living where he did, with the transportation he had, how could he have gone to Kentucky or Georgia? He, too, passed a polygraph.
Next we got some more likely suspects: white teenage dropouts who hung out nearby drinking and using dope, often on bridges over rural roads in the county. One girl said she heard some of the boys talking about other church arsons and laughing and saying maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. “It was driving them niggers crazy,” they allegedly said. Many of this loose gang of hardcore rednecks rode motorcycles and worshipped gangs. Some wore the traditional black jeans and jackets with cutoff muscle sleeves with hard-core patches on them and other wannabe paraphernalia. After a couple of preliminary interviews, I told the ATF agent in charge there was one thing I wanted him to do: Bring back Joey. If anyone could help with these guys, it was Joey. Besides being a master interrogator, his knowledge of cycle culture would impress them.
Being promised it was only a temporary detail, Joey came back. Most of our local agents had known him and had heard on the law enforcement grapevine that he was working undercover somewhere, yet even they were surprised at his forked beard and long, dirty hair. We kept Joey away from the other agents and used him mostly to interview the teenagers. We soon learned that their name for themselves was “huffers,” which referred to their habit of sucking in gasoline fumes siphoned from people’s trucks. The more we tried to question them, the more we were puzzled. These people could not think straight. They could not remember things.
Most people who can’t tell the same story the same way twice are usually lying. A classic interrogation technique is to have a suspect tell his version chronologically first, then tell the same story in reverse order. Liars usually can’t do it. But these guys were not even sure they knew what backward was. The FBI profilers and psychologists we had on call at the lab back at Quantico, Virginia, said this was typical of huffers. Sniffing gasoline fumes had fried their brains. Already no candidates for a Rhodes Scholarship, these guys were felony stupid. No way they could coordinate two fires. Besides, even they seemed to feel bad about the church fires. I still remember one shaking his head and saying, “Them niggers didn’t deserve that. They wasn’t hurting nobody.” Just to make sure, we gave some of them polygraphs, or tried to. The examiner came out each time after ten minutes or so and said, “This guy’s brain is so fried he can’t think straight. Any reaction I get will be useless. He’s worse than a meth-head.”
Several weeks went by with no progress. I got to spend a lot of time with Joey and one thing he said surprised me. “John, these Bandidos are not all that bad. They think a lot like I do. In some ways, they’re pretty conservative (yeah right). Of course they break the law, but they’re not nearly as bad as I thought, just fucked up by strong drugs and bad childhoods.” This was not the Joey I knew. I asked him what he liked about them. “Well, for instance, a few weeks ago this one guy came up to me and wanted to trade punches. He was littler than me, so I told him I didn’t want to hurt him. He insisted and went first and hit me on the side of the jaw. I felt a tooth come loose, and my mouth was bleeding.” Joey went on. The guy said, “Take your time. Get you a drink before you get your lick in if you want to. Let your head clear.” Joey said his head was already clear and his adrenaline flowing. “I cold-cocked that SOB as hard as I could. He went down with blood flowing everywhere. He was out cold. The other guys laughed themselves silly and began pouring water on him. When he came to, he put his arm around my shoulder and said something about brotherhood and led me off to drink beer out of a keg. It was a funny feeling I’d never really had before, but I liked the feeling.”
Joey paused and gave me a long, searching look. “John, you and I are friends. I trust you. These bureaucrats are telling me I’ve been under too long and need to come out for my own good. What do you think?” I looked into Joey’s light blue eyes and knew I had to answer his question carefully, without sounding preachy or bossy or like a virgin at a whorehouse. I finally said, “Joey, by the way you are asking me the question, I know you know the answer already. It’s just a hard answer to accept.” Joey grabbed my shoulder, then walked away without saying a word.
I didn’t see Joey for a while after that and heard that he had gone back to the Gulf Coast and was “phasing out” of the Bandidos with as much evidence and as little chance of reprisals against him as possible. He had not told them much about where he was from and definitely wanted to go on living in Oxford where his wife and children were happy. A bad exit from the biker gang and somebody could get hurt. He might even have to relocate.
Early one Saturday morning, I got an urgent call that someone thought they had caught the church arsonist. He was picked up by an ambulance with third-degree burns over half of his body. While in the ambulance, in severe pain and loaded with morphine, he had babbled on about how he hated all churches and all religions. When asked how he got burned, he said he was burning a church when the fire blew back on him. He rambled on about being on a mission and said he couldn’t recall how many churches he’d burned, but it was a lot. When they got him to the hospital, his girlfriend showed up to visit him, and she told the nurses about some of the fires. She then asked for a lawyer and one was appointed. Investigators and prosecutors from all over the country would be flying in soon.8
They had called us first because the girl, who had very little education, somehow seemed to remember the fires in Mississippi better than any of the others because she had seen them replayed on local T.V. She had grown up in a trailer park in a poor part of southern California and had never even learned to drive a car. Totally dependent on her boyfriend the arsonist, she rarely knew or cared what state they were in. She just did what he said. She remembered Mississippi because she had worked for a few weeks as a stripper at a joint near Corinth and people had been nice to her there. She also remembered it because that was the only time her boyfriend had burned two churches back to back like that. Her attorney said she had told him the whole story of their arson spree and was ready to testify if we’d make her a deal. She was in Indianapolis, Indiana. “We’ll be there right after lunch,” I told the agent who called me.
On a hunch, I called Joey’s house. He answered. He was home for one day but getting ready to go back to Gulfport. “Joey, you’re the man. I’ve got to have you with me to meet this girl. We can get a direct flight from Memphis to Indianapolis in a couple of hours.” Joey said he’d really like to, but looked too bad. “I’ll scare her to death, Hailman, looking like I do. I’m in full gang regalia, nasty and smelly. You won’t know me.” No matter. “I’ve got to have you, Joey. Come on over and pick me up.” Joey was right about one thing. I hardly knew him. His hair was dirty and matted in all directions. His beard was even longer and still forked. He had on all black with grease on his black jeans. “You said to come in character,” he said.
We were in Memphis in an hour, split up in the underground parking lot and went to the Delta counters separately. Me in my suit and tie with Joey in his get-up would have made an odd couple. We were on the flight to Indianapolis in an hour. On the way up to Memphis in the car, Joey filled me in on further details he’d gotten over the phone from other agents. The most amazing fact was the arsonist’s thinking. A white man in his mid-twenties, he had been raised by ultrastrict holy-rolling Pentecostals in rural Indiana. For a variety of reasons, he had developed a fierce hatred for Christianity and all churches, but especially for small churches out in the country where he’d apparently had bad experiences growing up. The story the girl told her attorney had one most amazing twist: the young white man had nothing at all against blacks or black churches. In fact he had burned several rural white churches, more of them in the north than the south.
Racial tensions being what they were, everyone had
jumped to the same conclusion: it had to be racial and southern. But it definitely was not. In fact, it was more of a “magic word” thing as the girlfriend explained it. Certain Biblical phrases and names like “Zion” or “Gilead” or “Pisgah” seemed to set him off. When he saw one of those magical names on a church sign, his eyes would sort of glaze over, and he would head straight for a filling station and fill the big gas can he kept in his trunk. He’d then drive around behind the church, open a window, pour in the gas, and light it with one of those long automatic lighters they use to fire up charcoal grills. That last night in Indiana he had accidently overlooked a burning heater under the window and set himself on fire. The girl apparently never participated in starting any fires but was always with him acting as lookout and was with him when they checked into motels afterward so he could watch his fires on the local T.V. news.9
Having been awakened from a sound sleep, I had planned to sleep on the plane ride, but it was not to be. I was seated by the window with the aisle seat occupied by a guy who had to weigh 350 pounds, much of it muscle. I asked him if he played pro football. He nodded. About that time a tiny hand started patting him on the shoulder from behind. A pretty, petite woman put her head between us and said to him, “Why don’t you move back here. The seat beside me is empty.” It sounded good to me and the football player never hesitated. The bright, perky woman moved up beside me. She was so energetic she literally bounced up and down on the seat. “Where are you going?” she asked. “Indianapolis.” She told me she was a dancer and was dancing that night with a ballet troupe. I told her that was interesting, congratulations, and turned to take a nap.
“Why are you going to Indianapolis?” she asked. “Just business, nothing interesting like you.” She peppered me with questions: where did I live, what was my business, did I enjoy it, how long was I staying. I told her it was totally routine and boring. Her reply was unusual. “I don’t think it will be boring at all. I didn’t move to help the football player. I wanted to sit by you.” Now I am as egotistical as the next guy, but I am not used to attractive, totally unknown young women hitting on me on airplanes. “Why do you say that?” I asked. “Because I saw you in the parking lot. You were riding with that Hell’s Angel guy up there, the scary-looking one everybody’s been staring at. What are you, his lawyer?” This flaky bag of nerves would never keep the truth a secret, yet what could I tell her? For once, I was able to think quickly on my feet, or more accurately, on my bottom.
Starting off slowly, I told her that what I did was strictly confidential. “Oh, I won’t tell a soul.” Right. Fat chance. “I cannot tell you who I am or who the other gentleman is, but I can tell you what I do for a living. Maybe that will help. I am a psychiatrist.” Having dealt in court with so many shrinks for so many years, I somehow figured I could pull it off. I knew how they talked and how they thought. “And that Hell’s Angel guy is your patient?” she asked. “I am not allowed to talk about such things, so let’s just say, in the abstract entirely, that some people, entirely harmless, have interesting fantasies.” She was such an avid questioner that at some point she wormed out of me that we would give him the made-up name of “Joey.”
I told her a few more things I’ve forgotten to lead her off the trail, then excused myself and actually went to sleep. When I woke up at the Indianapolis airport, she was already down the aisle toward the exit. At the baggage claim I met back up with Joey. “Hailman, who was that good-looking woman beside you? I could hear her talking six rows up. Who was she?” Before I could answer, a tiny hand patted Joey on the back. The woman sort of danced up on tip-toes beside her boyfriend who looked on suspiciously. She looked into Joey’s eyes and said, “Don’t worry about it, Joey. John is going to make everything all right,” and danced away with her boyfriend in tow. “Hailman, you sorry SOB. What on earth did you tell that woman?” I had my reply readier than I expected: “I told her you were crazy, Joey.” After dealing with her, our interview with the arsonist’s girlfriend’s lawyer was a piece of cake.
To make a long story short, the girlfriend testified and her boyfriend was indicted for arsons all over the South. She pled guilty to conspiracy in our three cases. The arsonist, facing the death penalty in Georgia because a responder to one of his fires had died, pled guilty to all charges from all districts and received life in federal prison without the possibility of parole. Joey left the Bandidos and went off to be an instructor at the ATF training academy. He is now a U.S. Marshal.
The Other Jake Gibbs10
Die-hard New York Yankee fans know Jake Gibbs as a catcher during the glory years, a buddy of Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford. Die-hard Ole Miss football fans remember Jake Gibbs as the star quarterback in the glory years of Ole Miss football. Retired to Oxford where he is a fixture at athletic and social events, Jake Gibbs was well known to me. Then a tall, athletic, young FBI agent from Mississippi named Kevin Rust introduced me to another Jake Gibbs who represented a very different side of Mississippi and American life. The other Jake Gibbs was black and, although much smaller and not a famous athlete, he too had had an interesting life.
For nearly forty years, he had labored at building and repairing railroads, a John Henry–like life of long days swinging ten-pound hammers. A widower, Jake Gibbs was in his early seventies but still fancied himself a ladies’ man. Agent Rust had visited his neat trailer home and seen numerous pairs of well-shined, fashionable shoes and boots neatly aligned under his bed with plenty of flashy Fred Sanford–like clothes in his little closet. Although no Redd Foxx in his talk, Jake Gibb’s lifestyle reminded me of the popular actor and comedian. His hair was white, and he walked with a slight limp from his years of arthritis-producing labor. But he still liked the ladies—young ladies in particular.
One fine day that Jake Gibbs put a case of cold beer in a cooler in his car, which he kept neat and clean with his railroad retirement money. Although technically old, he had young ideas. He liked to flirt with the young girls who strolled around Walnut and Falkner, Mississippi, near where he lived. On that particular day, like most Saturdays, he invited young women for rides in his car to drink beer with him. How far he got with them no one knew, but the police never had a single complaint about him. That day, after many beers, Jake Gibbs ran his car into a ditch. No one was hurt, and if there was a woman in the car with him when it happened, she got away before anyone saw her. A passerby found Mr. Gibbs passed out behind the wheel and, seeing his age, called 911. Chief deputy sheriff Willard Butler, the only deputy on duty, came to the scene. He woke up Mr. Gibbs, called a tow truck, and carried him back to town. Butler knew Gibbs’s reputation as a quiet, friendly man.
Although Gibbs was obviously drunk, Butler thought he was harmless and did not handcuff him when he put him in the back seat of his patrol car, where he figured Mr. Gibbs would soon fall back asleep. His patrol car had no protective screen between the front and back seats. Somewhere between the remote county road and Ripley, Mr. Gibbs got sick and threw up not only on Butler’s car but on Butler, who then handcuffed him. When they got to the jail, just two people were present, the dispatcher and a local police officer, both white. They later told the FBI that Mr. Butler walked Mr. Gibbs into the booking area, took off the handcuffs, and began savagely beating the old man with a slapstick, a sort of blackjack used by old-time Mississippi officers to deal with arrestees without using deadlier force like a gun. A slapstick is made of flexible lengths of metal wrapped in leather. It leaves bruises but usually doesn’t cut. It can stun and subdue a drunk without seriously hurting him, but if applied too hard to a bone, it can break an arm or leg. A blow to the head with a slapstick can kill a man.
The eyewitnesses told us Butler made no attempt to hide what he was doing. He beat Gibbs unmercifully, breaking several ribs, but did not hit him in the head. It was apparent to the witnesses he was punishing Gibbs for something, probably for throwing up on him and making a stinking mess of his patrol car, but Butler never told the eyewitnesses any reason for it.
Nor did Butler ever say in our interviews that Gibbs did anything else wrong. I presented the case to the federal grand jury which at the time was predominantly white. They were outraged and eager to indict. Gibbs made a highly sympathetic witness. To me even more powerful were the dispatcher and the police officer, both of whom said they had received threats and open public criticism for siding with an old black drunk against a popular and respected deputy sheriff. Butler also had a good reputation, and what he had done seemed totally out of character. In a selfish way, I wished briefly there’d been more blacks on the grand jury to observe the courage of the white police officer and dispatcher who had told the truth and taken the heat for it and would probably continue to do so. One officer said he would probably have to resign and get out of law enforcement, which he did when the trial was over.
As the trial approached, Kevin Rust told me we had a problem with Mr. Gibbs. He was terrified, convinced a white mob would come and pull him from his trailer and lynch him. We told him, “Mr. Gibbs, those days are over. When all the facts come out, half the white people will be on your side.” He didn’t believe us. Kevin asked if we shouldn’t get a material witness warrant for Mr. Gibbs and keep him in FBI custody at a motel until trial to assure him he was protected and to make sure he showed up. Kevin then withdrew his own request. “Don’t worry, John, he’ll come with me. It’s not right to lock up the victim.” To his credit, Butler had made no threats to Gibbs, personally or through intermediaries. He had excellent retained counsel in Steve Farese, who proclaimed his innocence. I wondered how, aside from raw racial solidarity if he got a mostly-white jury, he thought he could beat the case.
From Midnight to Guntown Page 26