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  • From: "Bill Shoemaker" <wshoemak AT inil.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Re: crime in rural america
  • Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 08:30:03 -0500

If local officials are covering up a crime, it's a federal offense. Perhaps
the media would take interest in this case. Particularly if there are some
contributers to national campaigns.



-----Original Message-----
From: Mark A Abner <wizard1 AT kih.net>
To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Sunday, September 19, 2004 11:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Re: crime in rural america


>maybe I am just an old KY fueder but I think the sherrif and some fox
hunter
>would have gotten into an argument on some back road one night and have
shot
>each other
>
>Mark
>
>Leigh Hauter wrote:
>
>> 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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>
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