"Are you Dixieland?"

Gordon Bennett of Kentucky said plenty. He'd asked a guy in Warner Robins, Georgia whether he was a member of the Dixieland mafia.

"The mafia runs the government," was also memorable quote.

Spend time these areas a person targeted by the mafias might also find cause to fear police.
The more time spent in Kentucky proved many of Gordon's words true. Later Bill Casy would say, "We are the law," meaning himself, his friends, and folks he said, who had been in trouble with cocaine. They had a network, and Casey boasted of his Irish Catholic roots and uncle over west coast customs, Mr. Dunlevie, all having originated in Rhode Island. Planted permanently in Kentucky, he had Cincinnati connections. He joked bad weather's good, being in the siding business, the more damage, the more work. Last leaving Kentucky, the word was Casey had himself a nice house with pool, Corvette, two new Harleys.

Musicians from Cincinnati would come down to Jack Goble's Lexington Boardwalk Bar on Sunday nights for an open jam session. In one article, Goble was credited for hooking the Montgomery brothers in with Nashville. Goble died suddenly in 2005, with many country music folks affectionately referring to him as "Daddy Jack."

Another connection to Cincinnati was Kenny Cain, who made regular runs from Nicholasville, Kentucky to get old Harley motorcycle parts. Cain boasted he was a member of the "Hillbilly mafia." He had a friend in Hyden, Rick Lewis, aka "Lurch," who was a grand bass player, but appeared to be strictly rock-and-roll. His mother owned a hardware store where he lived with his two aggressive dogs.

Hyden is a little town near Hazard, and home to football fame, Tim Couch and some others. A guy told a story about being lured to Hyden where Lurch appeared to have police under his control. When police were beckoned for help, they commented that against Lurch they would need backup, and called for state police assistance. There stood Lurch and the police, then recommended a motel for the night to this same guy, where he was subsequently robbed. It's the kind of place to pinch oneself and realize this isn't a movie, it's the real thing. That Hyden was so near Hazard, Kentucky would cause a person to wonder if this wasn't the set for the old show, "Dukes of Hazard."

Back in Nicholasville Lurch had several friends, one who went to Alaska and South America, and lived on the Kentucky River. Joking one Kentuckian said, "That river has things in it big enough to eat ya'." Casey was heeled in the area with a house boat on Lake Herrington, a lake with a shady reputation.


Kentucky was a wild place where outlaws ran the state whether wearing cowboy, biker garb, robes or businessmen's suits. In Lebanon, don't mention marijuana or the judge will be upset, and that same judge just had his territory expanded by the governor. Kentucky is in the top three states in marijuana production, the state's number one cash crop. That, the horse industry, and coal has created an area where the rich are few and the poor are among the poorest in the country. Fear is alive in communities and the country with one elderly woman saying, "Honey, aren't you afraid to go outside your house at night?"

Gordon had said I should read the Bluegrass Conspiracy to better understand the state. In research and in personal experience the Bluegrass mafia is comprised of two basic groups. The Hillbilly group extends over to Nashville and into Tennessee; and the Lebanon based Cornbread mob extends up into Indiana. Both "do local favors" for mafias in other areas, like Chicago, New York, New England, who reciprocate favors for the Bluegrass in their home turf areas, according to one Bluegrass member –– now deceased.

Kentucky has some of the finest people in the world. But like any other state, there is an underlying subdued group connected in even at the highest levels of politics and government––and some just might be kinfolk.

The darkest days in America are those where good, honest citizens are forced to live in fear because of backyard gangs, illegal enterprise and organized crime.

Surely Kentucky isn't the only state where a person can be destroyed by operating, homegrown criminal organizations while law enforcement and authorities refuse to investigate. It surely happens everywhere. While the mafias may have murdered my son, and colluded with Georgia individuals and organized criminals to destroy my life and happiness, they didn't have to involve the innocent animals.