	id AA06439; Thu, 10 Nov 94 08:45:38 CST
Subject: Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 2 Num. 75


              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 2  Num. 75
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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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ARKANCIDE II
============
 
More info on recent "Arkancides", courtesy of CN readers
 
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[...Portion deleted, see CN Vol. 2 Num. 69 for background...]
 
ALLEGED HARASSMENT
 
"They've seen gunshots, they've gone to nursing school. There is 
no way they would have missed the wound described on the autopsy 
as having been on her left temple."
 
 
[Ruddy/Ruling doubted...PART 4] 11/4/94
 
While it's unknown why Ferguson died, just before her death she 
was the center of conversation among her colleagues because of 
her former husband's work for then-Gov. Clinton and the 
controversy over Clinton's alleged sexual hijinks, especially the 
one involving Paula Jones.
 
Houston recalled his last conversation with Ferguson, on the day 
before she died. "There are times I wish I didn't know as much as 
I know," he remembers her saying during a discussion of her 
former husband's work for Clinton.
 
Houston said he had once asked her if she had ever been harassed 
by Clinton when her former husband served on the governor's 
security detail. She responded with an account--which is 
consistent with what other personnel at the hospital say Ferguson 
told them on separate occasions--of having been "blocked in the 
kitchen" of the governor's mansion as the then-Gov. Clinton made 
unwelcome advances on her.
 
Sherry Butler said that Ferguson, in speaking of that same 
incident to her, had said that Clinton "shoved her against a 
counter" and wouldn't let her leave the kitchen.
 
Butler added that Ferguson had been firm in her belief in Paula 
Jones' testimony. "That girl is telling the truth," Butler 
remembers her friend saying about Jones in the presence of 
several hospital workers sitting at the cafeteria table. "Don't 
put anything past" Clinton, Ferguson said.
 
The White House did not return a call for comment on this matter.
 
The Arkansas chief medical examiner's office referred press 
inquiries to the Sherwood Police Department and the Pulaski 
County Coroner's Officer. The coroner's office did not return 
repeated calls for comment.
 
Sgt. John Dodd, a spokesman for the Sherwood Police Department, 
said the case was initially treated as a homicide--as police 
procedure calls for in apparent suicides. He said that the 
investigation revealed there "is no reason to believe it is 
anything but a suicide." Dodd also said he knew of no 
"controversy" concerning the wounds and that the police stand by 
the report.
 
Dodd was irate about suggestions that Ferguson's death had any 
connection to the Paula Jones case. "Pure and utter b--- s---," 
he said. "It's just a rumor someone started. So what if she did 
(know about Paula Jones), she shot herself, in the head."
 
FAMILY REACTS
 
And Ferguson's father, Lorris Carter, acknowledged being 
skeptical at first because of the nature of the wounds, but that 
he has subsequently accepted the autopsy report based on an 
explanation by his son-in-law, who happens to be a pathologist. 
(Called about this matter, the son-in-law declined to comment.)
 
But despite his acceptance of the autopsy report, Carter said 
he'll "never be 100 percent satisfied she did kill herself."
 
Carter is bothered by what the police claim was a suicide note.
 
"It's not" a suicide note, he said, "It's just a note." Indeed, 
the note seems to be simply a few lines written to Shelton 
telling of her intent to leave the apartment.
 
[PART 5 continued next note=====>  Bev]                     
[Ruddy/Ruling doubted...PART 5] 11/4/94
 
But, notwithstanding the father's ambivalence and the others' 
denial, almost every person interviewed for this report had the 
same nagging question:  Why would this very beautiful and vain 
woman kill herself--especially with a gun, when drugs, for 
instance, were so available to her at the hospital?
 
One colleague who worked with Ferguson throughout the latter's 
career at the hospital described her as "the most dynamic young 
woman I ever met in my life...Miss Personality Plus. She had a 
figure out of this world, her hair was long, never an eyelash out 
of place; she worshipped her body, exercised daily."
 
Dr. Houston charges that the handling of the case was 
unbelievable," and that the police reached the conclusion of 
suicide "at supersonic speed."
 
He faults the police for never having come by the hospital to 
talk with Ferguson's co-workers, and he finds the police report 
on the death puzzling.
 
The report notes that the fatal bullet was found in front of 
Ferguson and the bullet's casing in an ashtray next to her.
 
Houston has difficulty reconciling a bullet that supposedly went 
from temple to temple winding up in the ceiling, and similar 
problems with a casing (which flies off to the side of the gun) 
landing next to the body in an ashtray, given the position the 
gun would have to have been in when fired.
 
The police report claims that gunpowder was found on Ferguson's 
right hand and that the fired bullet was found to her left, an 
indication that she might have fired the gun from her right side.
 
'KIND OF A MESSAGE'
 
Houston said that in mid-October he made a complaint about the 
Ferguson case to FBI agents in the office of Kenneth Starr, who 
is the independent counsel investigating alleged illegal dealings 
of the Clintons.
 
Along with his complaint, he turned over his notes and other 
pertinent documents. Several days later longtime Clinton critic 
Larry Nichols showed up at Houston's office with the very 
documents Houston had turned over to Starr's office.
 
Nichols said that he had found these documents stuffed into his 
mailbox.
 
Houston doesn't for a moment think Starr had anything to do with 
this. "It was kind of a message" from someone in Starr's office, 
he said. "'We're stuffing it back, screw you.'"
 
Debbie Gershman, a spokesperson for the independent counsel 
Starr, confirmed that Houston had met with the FBI, but was 
baffled as to how any of his papers would have been relinquished 
by her office.
 
She refused to confirm that the Ferguson matter is under 
investigation.    ---- END OF STORY #1 -----
 
 +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +
 
[Another Chris Ruddy story coming up as soon as I get some 
circulation back into my fingers. #2 is about the deaths of those 
two Arkansas boys found on the train tracks...Bev]
 
P.S. Call Starr's office and put some heat on them about this. 
He's got a Clinton mole loose in the woodwork...
 
 
STORY #2 by Christopher Ruddy 11/4/94                       
in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, p. A1                     
                                                            
Suicide disputes common in Arkansas                         
                                                            
The challenged rulings of suicide, first in the case of Deputy 
White House Counsel Vincent Foster and now Kathy Ferguson, are 
not unique in President Clinton's home state.
 
Any informed Arkansan can expound on "the boys on the track"--the 
unsolved murder of two Salina County boys, Kevin Ives and Don 
Henry, who had gone out spotting deer with flashlights one August 
night in 1987 and whose bodies were subsequently found run over 
by a train. Bill Clinton was then governor of the state.
 
Police told both sets of parents that the boys had committed 
suicide by deliberately lying on the tracks before an oncoming 
train.
 
One parent, Linda Ives, found that explanation totally 
unacceptable.
 
As a result of her protests, the state medical examiner, Dr. 
Fahmy Malak, looked into the case and ruled the death of her son 
"accidental." He suggested that high levels of marijuana found in 
the boy's blood indicated he may have been in a stupor before 
lying down on the tracks.
 
But Linda Ives still wasn't satisfied, and so a grand jury was 
convened and ordered the boys' bodies exhumed.
 
An autopsy, the second performed, revealed that one boy had been 
stabbed and that the other's head had been crushed before the 
train ran over them. Further, the marijuana levels were found to 
have been exaggerated as a result of an erroneous test.
 
The foreman of that Salina County grand jury said, in an 
unofficial statement, that he thought the boys' deaths were 
related to drug trafficking--that perhaps they'd stumbled on 
something they shouldn't have.
 
As a result of the Henry-Ives ruling and similar ones, Malak came 
in for widespread criticism.
 
Even the distant Los Angeles Times picked up on his blundering, 
and in 1992 reported on the Henry-Ives case and one involving an 
Arkansas man whose body was found with five bullet wounds--but 
who Malak nevertheless ruled a suicide.
 
Just weeks before Clinton announced for the presidency, Malak was 
moved into another state job. But the controversy surrounding his 
rulings continues to swirl.
 
John Brown, a former Salina County detective who investigated the 
Henry-Ives case--he says he was forced to resign recently 
"because of official obstruction"--has a sobering view of the 
case. He suggested that the boys' deaths, along with six other 
murders that followed, were linked to what is known as the Dixie 
Mafia.
 
Gangs USA, a reference book on organized crime, describes the 
Dixie Mafia as an "informal association of white gangsters" that 
constitutes "one of the largest, most deadly and least-known gang 
systems in the United States," blanketing 16 southern states.
 
The organization originally specialized in "robbing banks, 
interstate theft, the corruption of public officials and contract 
murder," according to the book, but more recently has turned to 
drugs, money laundering and firearms."
 
[PART 2 SUICIDE DISPUTES next post]  Bev                    
[Ruddy/Suicide disputes...PART 2] 11/4/94
 
A former Little Rock-based FBI official said that the Dixie 
Mafia, while not as organized and tightly knit as the 
conventional Mafia, "can be more brutal" than the latter and less 
restrained and predictable.
 
Meaning that it would be not nearly so inhibited as its more 
famous northern counterpart about murdering, say, two innocent 
boys.
 
Gene Wirges, former editor of a rural Arkansas newspaper, is 
another of those who tend to raise an eyebrow at official 
declarations of suicides in high-profile cases there.
 
Wirges is author of the 1992 book Conflict of Interests, which 
chronicled his experiences in trying to expose the prevasive 
political corruption in Arkansas.
 
"In 1985," wrote Wirges in his book, "a North Arkansas man was 
fatally shot, and (Dr. Fahmy) Malak ruled suicide; there was four 
gunshot wounds to the chest.
 
"In a 1986 case, Malak ruled accidental drowning; the family of 
the victim called attention to a bullet in the victim's skull 
that was overlooked.
 
"There were (numerous other) 'suicide' rulings (in at least six 
different counties from 1982 to 1990) and vehement complaints in 
each instance.
 
"In 1989, Malak ruled accidental death, saying a child had fallen 
from a porch--13 inches to the ground. Parents insist the child 
had been beaten to death."
 
Dubious suicide rulings are not, of course, limited to Arkansas; 
David Zucchino, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Philadelphia Inquirer 
reporter, for example, recently uncovered 40 such cases in the 
military.
 
But, however, deserved or undeserved, Arkansas is rapidly 
acquiring a reputation for eliciting cynical quips and cynical 
looks whenever such finding is announced.
 
Prominent homicide expert Vernon Geberth says that staged deaths 
such as murders made to look like suicides are happening more 
frequently.
 
"In some parts of the country it's a license to kill," because, 
Geberth says, inexperienced local authorities can't tell the 
difference between a real suicide and a murder made to look like 
one.
 
END OF STORY #2                                             
 
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9 

 Brian Francis Redman    bigxc@prairienet.org    "The Big C"
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"Justice" = "Just us" = "History is written by the assassins."
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