Monday, October 5, 2009

Sparkman Case Gets Weirder


Things just keep getting weirder in the case of Bill Sparkman, a U.S. Census worker whose corpse was found tied, naked and asphyxiated by a rope in Clay County's Hoskins Cemetery.

The Times-Tribune is reporting that they've received a fax regarding Sparkman titled "I Did It" which seems to state that he was killed because he was working for the Federal Government. The fax has been turned over to the FBI.

That same Times-Tribune article brings something even stranger to the table:

One police investigator, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Times-Tribune that Beyer’s statement indicated law enforcement officials were apparently still entertaining the notions of accidental death or suicide.

One press report indicated that Sparkman’s feet were touching the ground when police found his body. “If his feet were touching and he was hanging from a limb, you’d want to know if it was a broken limb or if the rope slipped,” the investigator continued, saying, “if it appeared his feet were touching when he was tied, it would make you start to think.”

The investigator suggested reporters research the death of David Carradine, an actor whose body was found bound in a closet following death by apparent autoerotic asphyxiation.

Meanwhile, conservative blogger Stacy McCain has written up extended remarks about his recent visit to the scene of the crime, and underscores the mystery fairly succinctly:

If Bill Sparkman hadn’t just driven up here to Hoskins Cemetery to enjoy the scenery, but rather had been lured up here or brought here by his killer, then whoever killed him was almost certainly a local resident, someone familiar with the area. No way somebody from out of town, a stranger to the area, would have driven past many other possible places to dump a body in order to reach this isolated location...

This cemetery was far away from town, and even farther from Sparkman’s home in Laurel County. Sparkman’s truck had been parked up here when his body was found. How did the truck get here? Did Sparkman drive up here, or had he been kidnapped by someone?

What had Bill Sparkman been doing up here in the middle of the woods? Who brought him here? Why did they kill him?

Fascinating as it sounds, I really can't buy the theory that Sparkman was romping around naked in cemeteries performing acts of Carradine-style sexual self-asphyxiation. (David Carradine, you may recall, was found half naked, bound, and hanging in a closet in a hotel this year. Curiously, in his final interview, which just aired on the show Celebrity Ghost Stories, he confessed that he feared a ghost in his closet was haunting him.)

However, neither can I really buy the idea that Sparkman was killed by druggies or militiamen (even though the coroner has now officially confirmed that the word "Fed" was indeed scrawled on Sparkman's chest with a felt-tip pen). The absolute last thing those kind of people would want is to cause a big scene that would focus the entire world's attention on little old Clay County, KY. They would have just disappeared Sparkman's body, simple as that.

Sparkman's son Josh has been voicing concern about the mixed messages and slow signals being given by the police in the matter. So far, law enforcement officials have still refused to rule out the possibility of suicide or accident as a cause of death. (Accident?? Seriously?) Josh insists that Sparkman was absolutely not capable of suicide, and he should know. He also points out that Sparkman had just won a lengthy battle with lymphoma. "No person on this planet is going to fight cancer like he did, then turn around and kill himself a year or so later."

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Have you read the Berea College Pinnacle story about this? I read it yesterday and it had an account from an eyewitness to the body that talked about how it was all taped up in ducttape and whatnot that I haven't heard any other place.

Unknown said...

"However, neither can I really buy the idea that Sparkman was killed by druggies or militiamen (even though the coroner has now officially confirmed that the word "Fed" was indeed scrawled on Sparkman's chest with a felt-tip pen). The absolute last thing those kind of people would want is to cause a big scene that would focus the entire world's attention on little old Clay County, KY. They would have just disappeared Sparkman's body, simple as that."

I don't know about this paragraph. There are quite a few druggies that have been watching the likes of Steve Austin on tv and listening to Jim Morrison, etc, that would like to make a name for themselves.

So, let's say one of these people wants to make themselves out to be cool like Charles Manson or something, then it turns out that they've got a relative with some political clout, and all of a sudden the killer starts worrying about what they've done then their relative with political clout says, "Don't orry Jimmy, we'll just sweep this under the rug?"

JSH said...

By "druggies" I meant people running meth labs or operating pot fields, which has been a prevailing theory to explain away Sparkmans death in many quarters. I'm still not buying it because the odds are against someone jeopardizing a zillion-dollar drug operation just to "make a name for themselves".

Unknown said...

Okay. I doubt that anyone with a big marijuana operation going would be very likely to have done the Sparkman murder. Even though I think it could happen. I also doubt that someone with a good sized moonshine operation would do it too. Even though moonshiners have hated "feds" for a long time, at least according to popular media, so I don't think that would be that likely either. Especially if the shiner or pot grower have been running lucrative businesses with their wares for years.

However, it is my understanding that a lot of people making meth in their kitchens are more impressionable young folks just making meth for a lark or private weekend parties or personal use and they wouldn't be such astute business people imo.

Something that struck me after what I wrote last night was that the Sparkman incident took place around the same time that the History Channel, etc, were running shows on Manson, since it was close to the anniversary of those murders.

What, if Sparkman stumbled upon some teenagers or early 20 somethings brewing up some meth in their kitchen for their and their friends own personal use, so they killed Sparkman, dragged him out to the cemetery, and they had remembered from watching the Manson special on tv that one of the victims had "pigs" carved on their body and they thought that was cool, then that would explain why they wrote "fed" on his body.

That article in the Berea College paper said "Sparkman had his census id taped to him with duct tape. I haven't heard anything like that in other sources, and that would make me lean more toward the murder theory if true.