Killing of Don Henry and Kevin Ives

Last updated
Don Henry
Born
Donald George Henry

(1970-09-30)September 30, 1970
DiedAugust 23, 1987(1987-08-23) (aged 16)
Alexander, Arkansas, US
Kevin Ives
Born
Larry Kevin Ives

(1970-04-28)April 28, 1970
DiedAugust 23, 1987(1987-08-23) (aged 17)
Alexander, Arkansas, US

Around 4:00am on August 23, 1987, the bodies of 16-year-old Don Henry and 17-year-old Kevin Ives were hit by a freight train in the town of Alexander, Arkansas, United States, as they were lying on the tracks. The locomotive engineer engaged the brakes while blowing the horn, but the train could not stop in time and rolled over the bodies. A second autopsy revealed that Don Henry had been stabbed in the back and Kevin Ives' skull may have been crushed prior to being run over.

Contents

The deaths were initially ruled an accident, the result of the boys in a deep sleep on the tracks while incapacitated due to high amounts of THC allegedly present in their blood. The parents of the boys insisted on a second autopsy, and after exhumation it was ruled that homicide was likely. Later, another pathologist ruled that Don Henry's shirt showed evidence of a stab wound.

Background

About 4:00 a.m. on August 23, 1987, the crew on board a 75-car, 6,000-ton Union Pacific freight train, more than a mile long and traveling at a rate more than 50 miles per hour, en route to Little Rock, Arkansas, spotted two boys lying motionless across the tracks, about 300 feet ahead. [1] Members of the locomotive crew also stated that the bodies were partly covered by a green tarpaulin, [2] though police disputed the existence of any such tarp and none was ever recovered from the scene. Nearby were a .22 caliber rifle and a flashlight. The boys did not move, despite the sound and vibration of the approaching train, its emergency brakes, and its air horn. More than 1,000 feet of the decelerating train crossed the point where the bodies lay before it came to a stop. The train's crew reported the incident to railroad and law enforcement authorities. By 4:40 a.m., police arrived on the scene. [3] The boys had reportedly left home about midnight to go hunting. The gun and flashlight near the bodies suggested they were using a hunting technique known as spotlighting, which involves using a bright light to scan for animals whose eyes brightly reflect the light after dark.

Autopsies

The state medical examiner, Fahmy Malak, ruled the deaths an accident as a result of marijuana intoxication, saying the boys had smoked the equivalent of 20 marijuana cigarettes and fell asleep on the tracks. [4] The parents did not accept this finding and conducted their own investigation. In March 1988, James Garriot of San Antonio offered a second opinion and was skeptical of the findings about marijuana. A second autopsy by Georgia medical examiner Joseph Burton found the equivalent of one or two marijuana cigarettes, not 20. A grand jury ruled the deaths a "probable homicide". [5] When it was found that Don Henry's shirt contained evidence of a stab wound to the back, and Kevin Ives' skull may have been crushed by his own rifle, the ruling was changed to "definite homicide". [6] Don Henry's father also noted that he did not believe his son would have risked his gun getting scratched by laying it on gravel.

Investigation

Despite pressure from the victims' parents, Saline County Sheriff James H. Steed Jr. refused to investigate the case. In February 1988, Dan Harmon, the parents' attorney and Saline County Prosecutor, finally reached an agreement with Steed that he would begin an investigation if the parents stopped criticizing him. However, the subsequent investigation was apparently sabotaged and several witnesses who were to testify before a grand jury were found dead. Sheriff Steed is also said to have lied about where he sent the dead boys' clothes for examination. He sent them to the Arkansas State Crime Lab and not, as intended, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Harmon also soon lost the trust of the parents, as he is also said to have prevented the case from being solved. [3]

The FBI took over the case in 1994, but came to no conclusion and the investigation was dropped in 1995, allegedly due to political pressure. [7] The Arkansas State Police investigation also came to no results. [8]

The mother of Kevin Ives, Linda Ives, who worked to solve and investigate the case privately until the end of her life, died in Arkansas in June 2021. [9]

Dead witnesses

At least five witnesses died or disappeared between 1988 and 1990: [3]

The deaths were classified as murder cases, but no arrests were made.

Suspects and theories

The usual theory given about the boys' deaths involves drug trafficking. The theory is that the boys were murdered after witnessing a drug drop from an airplane. [10] This drug trafficking was linked to the operations of Barry Seal and the Mena Airport in nearby Polk County. The 1994 conspiracy-theory movie The Clinton Chronicles blamed the cover-up of the murders on Bill Clinton, who was governor of Arkansas at the time and was accused to have known about the drug trafficking in his state. [11] The case was profiled on the television program Unsolved Mysteries . [12] [13] Investigative journalist Mara Leveritt published the book The Boys on the Tracks: Death, Denial, and a Mother's Crusade to Bring Her Son's Killers to Justice in 1999, which deals with the case and the alleged involvement of the authorities in the murders. [11]

In 1996, Linda Ives and film producer Patrick Matrisciana released the documentary Obstruction of Justice:The Mena Connection, in which they made allegations against the authorities. According to the film, the two boys had witnessed a drug deal and were murdered by two local police officers. County Prosecutor Dan Harmon is also said to have been involved and later helped the perpetrators with the support of the authorities. [14] Harmon, who had represented the parents of Ives and Henry, was arrested in 1997 on charges of racketeering, conspiracy, extortion, and drug possession with intent to distribute and sentenced to 11 years in prison. [3] The two accused police officers denied any involvement in the case and sued Matrisciana and his film company for defamation, whereupon a judge awarded them 600,000 US dollars. However, Matrisciana successfully appealed the verdict, which was overturned in 2001. [15] [16]

See also

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Memphis Three</span> Three men convicted of the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, United States

The West Memphis Three are three men convicted as teenagers in 1994 of the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, United States. Damien Echols was sentenced to death, Jessie Misskelley Jr. to life imprisonment plus two 20-year sentences, and Jason Baldwin to life imprisonment. During the trial, the prosecution asserted that the juveniles killed the children as part of a Satanic ritual.

A cold case is a crime, or a suspected crime, that has not yet been fully resolved and is not the subject of a current criminal investigation, but for which new information could emerge from new witness testimony, re-examined archives, new or retained material evidence, or fresh activities of a suspect. New technological methods developed after the crime was committed can be used on the surviving evidence for analysis often with conclusive results.

The Wanda Beach Murders, also known simply as "Wanda", were the unsolved murders of Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock at Wanda Beach near Cronulla in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, on 11 January 1965. The victims, both aged 15, were best friends and neighbours from the suburb of West Ryde, and their partially buried bodies were discovered the next day. The brutal nature of the slayings and the fact that they occurred on a deserted, windswept beach brought massive publicity to the case. By April 1966, police had interviewed some 7,000 people, making it the largest investigation in Australian history. It remains one of the most infamous unsolved Australian murder cases of the 1960s, and New South Wales' oldest unsolved homicide case.

Jeremiah Films is a media production and distribution company. The organization was founded by Patrick Matrisciana in 1978. As of 2012, they are based in Jacksonville Beach, Florida.

The Clinton Chronicles: An Investigation into the Alleged Criminal Activities of Bill Clinton is a 1994 documentary that accused Bill Clinton of a range of crimes. The claims in the video are controversial; some have been discredited, while others continue to be debated. The philandering and sexual harassment claims in the film have since been reported, and in some cases confirmed, by mainstream media. Years after the film was released, Clinton paid an out-of-court settlement to resolve the accusations made by Paula Jones in the movie.

The Baltimore Police Department plays an integral part in The Wire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clinton body count conspiracy theory</span> Conspiracy theory

The Clinton body count is a conspiracy theory centered around the belief that former U.S. President Bill Clinton and his wife, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have secretly had their political opponents murdered, often made to look like suicides, totaling as many as 50 or more listed victims. The Congressional Record (1994) stated that the compiler of the original list, Linda Thompson, admitted she had 'no direct evidence' of Clinton killing anyone. Indeed, she says the deaths were probably caused by 'people trying to control the president' but refuses to say who they were."

<i>Devils Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three</i> 2002 true crime book by Mara Leveritt

Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three is a 2002 true crime book by Mara Leveritt, about the 1993 murders of three eight-year-old children and the subsequent trials of three teenagers charged with and convicted of the crimes. The names of the three teens convicted - Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley - would come to be known as the West Memphis Three. Leveritt's book revolves around the central idea that the three teenagers' convictions stemmed from "Satanic panic" rather than actual evidence. The book also focuses on one of the victim's stepfathers and his possible connection with the murders. All three teenagers convicted were released on August 19, 2011. A film based on the book, Devil's Knot, was released in 2013.

Sidney Charles Cooke is an English convicted child molester, murderer and suspected serial killer serving two life sentences. He was the leader of a paedophile ring suspected of up to twenty child murders of young boys in the 1970s and 1980s. Cooke and other members of the ring were convicted of three killings in total, although he was only convicted of one himself.

A triple homicide was committed in Waltham, Massachusetts, in the United States, on or very near to the evening of September 11, 2011. Brendan Mess, Erik Weissman, and Raphael Teken were murdered in Mess's apartment. All had their throats slit with such great force that they were nearly decapitated. Thousands of dollars' worth of marijuana and money were left covering their mutilated bodies; in all, $5,000 was left in the apartment. The local district attorney said that it appeared that the killer and the victims knew each other, and that the murders were not random.

Martin Allen is a British teenager who mysteriously disappeared on 5 November 1979. No trace of Allen has been found and his fate remains unknown.

The Jeff Davis 8, sometimes called the Jennings 8, refers to a series of unsolved murders in Jefferson Davis Parish, Louisiana. Between 2005 and 2009, the bodies of eight women were found in swamps and canals surrounding Jennings, Louisiana. Most of the bodies were found in such a state of decomposition as to make the actual cause of death difficult to determine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Death of Jeannette DePalma</span> American unsolved case

Jeannette DePalma was an American teenager who is believed to have been murdered sometime on or around August 7, 1972 in Springfield Township, Union County, New Jersey, United States. Her body was discovered the following month on a cliff located in Springfield's Houdaille Quarry. The events of her death were subject to sensationalist coverage in local media for rumored connections to alleged occult activity in the area.

David Wellington Reed was a 13-year-old boy in the seventh grade at Schuylkill Haven Area Middle School, who was murdered in 1985 by then 20-year-old Joseph "Joe" Geiger in Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania, United States over Geiger's stolen illegally grown cannabis plants. Geiger blamed Reed for the disappearance of the drug. Friends, family, and teachers remember Reed as an outgoing person who aspired to fly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Killing of Henryk Siwiak</span> The only official homicide recorded in New York City on September 11, 2001

Shortly before midnight on September 11, 2001, Henryk Siwiak (1955–2001), a Polish immigrant, was fatally shot on a street in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, where he had mistakenly gone in order to start a new job. He was able to make it to the door of a nearby house before he collapsed. The homicide remains unsolved; Siwiak has been described as "the last person killed in New York on 9/11", although he was not a victim of the terror attacks earlier that day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dardeen family homicides</span> Unsolved 1987 Illinois quadruple homicide

On the evening of November 18, 1987, police went to the mobile home of Russell Keith Dardeen, 29, and his family outside Ina, Illinois, United States, after he had failed to show up for work that day. There, they found the bodies of his wife and son, both brutally beaten. Ruby Elaine Dardeen, 30, who had been pregnant with the couple's daughter, had been beaten so badly she had gone into labor, and the killer or killers had also beaten the newborn to death.

The D-Block Boys, also known as DBG, was an African-American drug ring operating in Algiers, New Orleans, Louisiana. The gang has been involved in criminal activity including drug trafficking and murder. According to NOPD, The "D-Block Gang" has a history of violations, along with involvement in violent crimes. This gang is not to be confused with the Dumaine Street Gang operating out of the 6th Ward of New Orleans, which is also called D'Block.

Mara Leveritt is an American investigative reporter focused on Arkansas. In 1991, she broke the story that plasma drawn from Arkansas prisoners was being sold on the international market with inadequate screening for diseases. The program ended in 1994 and the prison director was forced to resign. By then, more than 1000 Canadians were infected with HIV from plasma traced to Arkansas prisons and another 20,000 were infected with hepatitis C.

The I-70 Strangler is the nickname of an unidentified serial killer who murdered at least twelve boys and men in the Midwestern United States between 1980 and 1991. All of the victims' bodies were discovered in areas along Interstate 70 (I-70). Though officially unsolved, it is believed that deceased businessman Herb Baumeister, a suspect in over a dozen homicides in Indiana, might have been the perpetrator.

References

  1. ↑ "Vigils held at Capitol, courthouse 25 years after Ives, Henry deaths - The Saline Courier". www.bentoncourier.com. Archived from the original on 2019-05-27. Retrieved 2019-05-21.
  2. ↑ "Arkansas mom's motion in bid to unseal files says DEA hiding crimes". Arkansas Online. 18 August 2018. Archived from the original on 21 June 2019. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Berry, Cody Lynn. "Kevin Ives and Don Henry (Murder of)." Archived 2019-06-21 at the Wayback Machine Encyclopedia of Arkansas, February 26, 2018.
  4. ↑ KATV (13 August 2018). "Judge orders agencies to review more information in 'Boys on the Tracks' FOIA lawsuit". KATV. Archived from the original on 16 July 2019. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
  5. ↑ Day, Chris. “Train Deaths Are Officially Homicides.” Arkansas Gazette, March 6, 1988, p. 3B.
  6. ↑ "The Mysterious Deaths of Don Henry & Kevin Ives". Archived from the original on 2019-03-04. Retrieved 2019-05-21.
  7. ↑ "FBI ARKANSAS BUREAU – ID Files" . Retrieved 2024-07-26.
  8. ↑ "ARKANSAS STATE POLICE – ID Files" . Retrieved 2024-07-26.
  9. ↑ "Mom of cold case victim dies; Linda Ives sought answers in the deaths of 2 teens for decades | Arkansas Democrat Gazette". www.arkansasonline.com. 2021-06-05. Retrieved 2024-07-26.
  10. ↑ "New Witness? Man Claims to Have Seen "Boys on the Tracks" Murders". KARK. 14 February 2018. Archived from the original on 26 April 2019. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
  11. 1 2 3 "The Boys on the Tracks." Archived 2021-01-29 at the Wayback Machine Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
  12. ↑ Cosgrove, John; Gomez, Dan; Scott, Michael M. (1988-10-12), Episode #1.2, Unsolved Mysteries, archived from the original on 2023-02-24, retrieved 2023-02-24
  13. ↑ "Unsolved Mysteries - Episode #2 - TheTVDB.com". thetvdb.com. Archived from the original on 2023-02-24. Retrieved 2023-02-24.
  14. ↑ Obstruction of Justice: The Mena Connection. 2022-06-30. Retrieved 2024-07-26– via YouTube.
  15. ↑ "Video producer wins appeal in libel case". The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Retrieved 2024-07-26.
  16. ↑ "No. 00-1411" (PDF). United States Court of Appeals for the Eight Circuit. Retrieved 2024-07-26.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.