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  • From: Leigh Hauter <lh AT pressroom.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Re: crime in rural america
  • Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 23:19:47 -0400

here's a good 'crime in rural America' story for y'all.

Over a decade and a half ago a friend of mine died. He was the step-son of a man who inherited a very, very large fortune. And once in a while, when his step-father felt generous, my friend would get a gift.

So when he died he had been living in a large house on 30 or so acres near Middleburg, VA. that his step-father had bought him.

Now Middleburg, Virginia, for those of you who don't know, is an upscale town in the middle of beautiful rolling hills full of very large horse estates owned by very wealthy people.

It so happens that many of these extremely wealthy people's sole interest in life is dressing up in strange clothes and riding their horses through the countryside in hot pursuit of a pack of hounds which are allegedly chasing a fox.

Well, when my friend wrecked his airplane (another gift form step-daddy) and died, everything he owned went to his mother, who lived on top of a skyscraper in Chicago, and she said to my wife, 'I hate Virginia and the fox hunting crowd. Why don't you live in my son's house for as long as you like.'

Of course we moved out of our small farm house and into this large modern house immediately. And lived their several years.

However, there was one problem.

The fox hunters' hounds followed by the fox hunters themselves all dressed up in their peculiar fox hunting regalia, astride their expensive fox hunting horses, would cross my friends' property (or now it was his mothers' property) once a week during 'hunt season' in the hope of running a scrawny, wormy, mangy, flea bitten fox to ground.

(actually, the hunt didn't just cross the property, but it often cut across the front yard, less than a dozen yards from the front door).

One day, while I was giving my friend's mother a periodic report on the condition of her property, I mentioned the hunt, and their race across the front yard.

She was horrified. 'I hate fox hunters, I hate that entire set of people. Put a fence up so they can't trespass across my property.'

Well, I did.

And no sooner had I, then the leaders of 'the hunt' would have one of their hired hands come over while we were at work and tear the fence down.

This went on for almost a year. I would build a fence. It would be torn down. I would rebuild it, it would be demolished again.

And then the week before the next fox hunting season started rolled around.

I still remember that day. Cold, damp, snow still on the ground. My wife and I drove off to work and no sooner had we got there than we both got phone calls: 'your house is on fire.'

Someone had taken my clothes out of my closet and tossing them on our bed poured gas or some other flammable on them and lit it.

Burning down the house.

There was no doubt on the part of the sheriff. It was arson.

And the first thing they asked was: 'Why did you burn down your house?'

Our pleas of innocence were mostly of no avail. In fact when we reported that the head of the fox hunt had told us, 'you will be sorry if you cause the hunt any more trouble. You'll come home one day and you won't have a house.' The sheriff ignored us.

(we found out later that soon after the fire a woman, very involved with the fox hunt, had given the sheriff a ten thousand dollar campaign contribution.

So we moved back to our little farm house, worried that the people that had burnt down the house would sneak up on us one night and finish the job they had started.

And all the time the sheriff's office is asking everyone about us. Going into our background, questioning our bosses.

Until...

Until they found out that we, as house sitters, were uninsured. That we lost all of our possessions in the fire. Our books, our furniture, our clothes, everything. And none of it was covered by insurance.

It was then that they realized that we had absolutely no motive for destroying all of our personal possessions by burning down the beautiful house where we were living, and could go on living for years, rent free.

With that, the sheriff dropped his investigation into the fire. Finished, another unsolved rural crime.

But we wouldn't let it drop. We asked around, and asked and snooped and we found people who were witnesses to people in this very exclusive fox hunting club saying that they were going to have our house burnt down if we continued to cause them trouble.

In fact, we got so close to finding out exactly what happened that a couple who had been working for one of the multi-multi millionaire fox hunters suddenly packed up all of their things in the middle of the night and disappeared.

The sheriff, when confronted with the evidence said: 'the case is closed. It's unsolved. And anyway, its none of your business.'

and I guess that it wasn't. An arsonist paid by one of the wealthiest people in this country burnt down the house we were living in, destroying all of our possessions.

And the sheriff, when it was apparent that the wealthy were behind the fire, dropped the case.

I don't know which was the bigger 'crime in rural America' the arson or the cover up of the crime.







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