It's a small world in the Bluegrass State

"You need to read the book, 'The Bluegrass Conspiracy. I brought down the sheriff of Fayette County about ten years ago."
- Gordon Bennett, 1999

It's interesting to follow the connections throughout recent history of intertwining events in Kentucky. It was around 2002 someone candidly said, "Ralph Ross brought you up here." Ross was the man who endured and investigated ongoing crime and corruption, had his life destroyed in Kentucky and finally died there. Sally Denton, a former Lexington reporter, wrote a book about it which was not well received in the state.

Gordon Bennett, who painted a picture of Kentucky as the Promised Land, had mentioned the book, The Bluegrass Conspiracy more than once, saying I should read it. Ralph Ross died in 2002, and is buried at the cemetery near the Harrodsburg police department. We had Ross's in our ancestral family and since ours were Virginia hillbillies, I'd wondered whether Ralph had at least, been a distant cousin. We thought alike.

It was odd that I'd found myself harassed by Anderson County, Kentucky police more than once. It was where Ralph Ross was spending his last days dying of cancer in a nursing home. How ironic that I'd wind up later with the same attorney firm Ralph Ross had so many years before, to lose my case as they had lost his.

Could it have been a coincidence?

Anderson County is where former governor Julian Carroll is now a state senator. Carroll's nephew was a character mentioned in the Bluegrass Conspiracy. Carroll's senate campaign was backed financially by RJ Corman. Railroads and coal fit heavily into my story because of my divorce after 23 years married to a Norfolk Southern executive. My ex-husband's boss, Phil Ogden is on Corman's board of directors. His closest fraternity brothers from Tau Delta, Virginia Tech built their fortunes around coal, construction equipment, and railroads.

Federal judge, Karl Forester had ruled delusional and incredible with a dismissal in a federal case I'd filed in Kentucky over so many false arrests and police harassments in Georgia and Kentucky. I've found since, Forester had ruled in both the COMAIR plane crash and in the recent Lawson trial. Forester even cautioned the media to insure Leonard Lawson was treated fairly in court, and one account wrote Forester verbally discredited the government's witness, Jim Rummage, at the onset of the trial.

A jury acquitted a former Kentucky cabinet secretary and a road contractor.....

Leonard Lawson is a native of Pineville, Kentucky like Denver Mills, the man who sold me the farm with a land contract written by Senator Dan Kelly, now a judge.

It was unbelievable, but after looking through the campaign contribution databases, it's more understandable why justice comes in different flavors, and why lawyers range in price. I'd already been warned by a lawyer vacating the state to be very careful, that there were attorneys in Kentucky who would get a person killed.

I was getting a cram course about how America really works, in about three years after living a sheltered life as a trailing spouse, married to a corporation. And it was nothing like I'd learned in school or on TV. It was frighteningly corrupt, and had a dark well-connected even affluent underground that few people knew even existed.

John Bizzack, whose family was historically in business with Leonard Lawson's, was one of the main characters in the Bluegrass Conspiracy. Bizzack's father was involved with road contractors. John lost his wife in the COMAIR5191 crash at the Bluegrass Airport in 2006.

John Bizzack is both, a song writer, and director of Kentucky's Criminal Justice Training program.

I'd actually visited the Criminal Justice Training center in Richmond, 2001 asking for help, after being stalked and suffering terror at my Kentucky farm. The terror had continued, while my head continued to spin filled with information––too much of it for one person to put together. Later I phoned, and the detective I'd visited with, Detective Jude, had retired. Detective Jude had said, "I'm going to take this information you've given me and if I don't need it I'm going to throw it in the garbage can." I'm sure that's exactly what he did.

Ms. Denton writes,
"The day after the state police plane conducted its surveillance, Ralph received a phone call from Lexington Police Sergeant John Bizzack. Bizzack told Ralph he was conveying a message from the owners of the property––Drew Thornton, Bill Canan, and Danny Murphy: If the state police flew over Triad again, the plane would be shot down.

Ralph blinked in disbelief. The Lexington police had no jurisdiction over the Jessamine County property.

Following the surveillance of Triad and the reports from U.S. Customs of the trip to Aruba, all indications suggested to Ralph that Bradley and Drew were trafficking as heavily in arms as in dope. The paramilitary interests of the group, the soldier of fortune aura they emulated, and their military and police training in weapons, led Ralph to believe they were committed to munitions as the currency of both the present and the future. Drugs might be no more than a sidelight to their real business––that of funneling guns to foreign governments and right-wing rebels."
p. 117, The Bluegrass Conspiracy

When I read mention of Aruba, I couldn't help but think of Alabama, my son who died there and Natalee Holloway, whom, after disappearing in Aruba, authorities never found, at all.

After living in Kentucky for a while, I'd realized the state was a safe haven for some of the wealthier members of society to live a lifestyle that might send less fortunate people to prison. Historically, nearly every past governor in recent years have had connections to crime and/or organized crime.

When my son disappeared in Georgia, and was reportedly suicided in Alabama, I was being harassed by Georgia police, and falsely arrested, coerced to sign divorce papers. I was unable to attend his funeral or services. It was a horror story that could only be found, I thought at the time, in a Communist or Third World country. And I fell into the well-planned Bluegrass trap when I fled the state of Georgia and came to what was promised as not corrupt, a place folks didn't have to fear criminals or police, the state of Kentucky where I'd learn, like some other states, mafia is rumored to rule the roost.

"The mafia runs the government," said Gordon Bennett. And with all the love he had for his wonderful state, he was obviously a part of its mafia. But he also knew what happened with my boy in Alabama when Gordon boasted he was "part Chickasaw." He was connected to the people behind it, and I knew it from all he'd said, and planned to find out the details one way o another.

Years later I'd find the Mobile, Alabama forensics examiner who handled the body identified as my son's was from the same general Cornbread Mafia area of central Kentucky I'd purchased a farm. Kentucky had the same false arrests and police harassment tacticsƒ as Georgia, but worse. Some of the stalking gangs are powerful, operative with the skill of Stasis and appear to be linked to other gangs, interstate.

Locally there is a quiet understanding among the good people who know when to speak, and when not to phone police.

For a trial following a Kentucky arrest, my attorney, Guarnieri had called from the courthouse saying, "Why aren't you here?"

"Because you didn't tell me I had a court date," was my response.

I fired Guarnieri, after talking with my local sheriff. Guarnieri had said it would be better if I would leave the state of Kentucky. He said basically when a Kentucky town targets a person, his or her life will be an ongoing tragedy. The local sheriff, Tommy Bartley, said it wasn't so, and that I should fire the guy.

Later, I was told by a local person that Guarnieri "belonged to the same firm that 'screwed Ralph Ross.'" It was called the "Big Bill Johnson" law firm, the same firm that got walking papers for Shane Ragland after he pleaded guilty to murder and later, to manslaughter.

It all began to make sense and the pieces kept fitting together rather nicely. But at that point I was glued to a situation where another move would leave me destitute. I could move away from Kentucky, but I'd lose everything, which I believe had been the plan, all along.

And how did I wind up with this particular attorney? Prepaid Legal Services, and the O'Koon Hintermeister law firm, PPL's agent for the state of Kentucky. Someone else mentioned that one of Kentucky's governors, Julian Carroll, was involved with the formation of PPL, but I haven't been able to verify it, as yet.

"Maybe you were brought up here by one of those gangs that steal everything you have," said Attorney General Stumbo's detective, Steve O'Daniel.

If they knew the gangs existed, then why hadn't they broken them up, I wondered. Maybe the gangs have a purpose, like other criminal organizations–– as tools for higher powers.


My present problems all go back to my son, a talented musician who allegedly killed himself in Baldwin County, Alabama while his mother was being harassed, jailed, terrorized and threatened in Georgia in the midst of a nasty divorce with coercion tactics to sign divorce papers.

The signals and communications engineering department of Norfolk Southern Railroad was a part of the situation because my husband was Assistant Vice President there.

The death of Amy Frink in North Carolina was another part of it. My son had had information to help solve Amy's murder from six years before. I'd given that information to Brunswick, NC authorities shortly before my own son disappeared with many similar circumstances as Amy. And I'd been a political cartoonist there, where I surely made some powerful enemies.

In all areas here-and-there, through the course of the Georgia stories from the past, and throughout the exile, in seeking refuge in Kentucky, were scattered traces of white powder, namely cocaine, and other drugs––along with cover-up, lies, deceit, betrayal and criminal conspiracy.

The musician was my son, and I found no sympathy in Kentucky but witnessed horrors I hadn't in Georgia. By that I figured some real, powerful folks here must have been a part of his death and coverup and know what happened. They're just not telling, and hoping I'll finally just give up, die, or go away.

I'd been lead to central Kentucky, the stage of the Bluegrass Conspiracy––a place where Mothers apparently plead for the truth regarding their children and never find it.

Ms. Denton writes,

"Finally, a Frankfort attorney named Bill Johnson agreed to take the case. Ralph was initially skeptical of Johnson's close friendship with Commissioner Campbell, and uneasy about the fact that Johnson had defended many of the white-collar criminals whom Ralph had arrested in the past. But Ralph's options were limited. Besides, Johnson's country-lawyer courtroom finesse had earned him a statewide reputation." The Bluegrass Conspiracy, p. 275

INDEX: The Bluegrass Conspiracy
Bizzack, John
covers up Melanie Flynn case, 7, 9
covers up Rebecca Moore case, 185
covers up Sheppard and Baker cases, 150
protects Bonnie Kelly, 256
threatens Ralph Ross, 117-118

A local person said recently,

"The same ones running the Bluegrass conspiracy back then, are still running it, today. "

Are Southerners still enduring ongoing interstate corruption from the late 1970's and early 1980's? Are we at the mercy of wealthy, powerful, underground organized criminals who escaped conviction long ago? Are the Iran-Contra era cocaine organizations the drug lords of our present American underground?

Amy Frink was from the "Colcor" area of North Carolina where we vacationed from 1986 - 1993. It's where my son had met her during summer vacations.

"Many people in local media were either not living in this area or are not old enough to remember the Federal Government undercover investigation into COLCOR (Columbus County Corruption) or the huge drug arrests made during the same time by another Federal and State Government investigation called Operation Gateway. SBI Director Haywood Starling said at a press conference in Raleigh back in 1983 that the operation involved seizures of 68 tons of marijuana and methaqualone worth an estimated 37 million dollars."
http://crime.blogs.com/tre/2007/06/colcor-redux.html

Former N.C. Governor Mike Easley was working the district attorney's office during that period. He went on to become Attorney General for the state of North Carolina and then Governor, participating in North Carolina politics for nearly thirty years.

After moving to Kentucky and after some of the terror with bloody dogs and sabotaged property, I had three offers to buy this farm––for $25,000 less cash than I'd paid. It was a tactic to scare me away so I'd lose more money. One was friends of the original seller, one was what the DEA agents described as a member of a drug dealing family posing as a DEA agent; and the third, curiously was a couple from Gastonia, North Carolina.

"My father was on the county commission in Gastonia," one of them said.

I curiously asked my neighbor who had introduced them, "Where did you find these NC people?"

"Oh, at a car lot."

--Although the Alabama forensics reports do not match his body, my son allegedly killed himself in Baldwin County, Alabama. It's the same area another police officer, the late Patrick Swiney, discovered a corrupt police department and found himself destroyed. Not as lucky as Ralph Ross, Swiney went to prison on what many argue was clearly a frame arrangement to keep him silent about the local drug trade. Swiney died in prison, just last year and fought for justice until the very end of his life.

jul 13, 2006
Joe B wrote:
I do not know Patrick Swiney, and I'm not familiar with his conviction. He states that he was employed by the Gulf Shores Police Department from 1973 until 1977 and was instrumental in exposing a drug smuggling operation that resulted in the conviction of a District Attorney and Chief Investigator with the Sheriff's Department. It was years after Swinney left Gulf Shores that these arrests and convictions came. To set the record straight it involved a former District Attorney. I was employed in law enforcement in Baldwin County, AL from 1979 until 1986 and was there when these drug arrest and convictions occurred. I don't remember Swiney and can't locate anyone that does. He certainly wasn't there when these drug cases were made. I say he's just another lying convict who's full of bullshit and wants out of prison.

Patrick's wife responded,
We are in the process of gathering information on the drug arrests and convictions in Gulf Shores. We would appreciate any and all information you may have. Yes, he was there. The fact that the setup for his own wrongful arrest took place years afterwards does not belie the fact of his actual innocence in this case. We encourage you to visit the facts and see that for yourself.
Sherry Swiney
www.patrickswiney.com
http://www.topix.com/forum/state/al/THPEL56KFPGEMAR8P/p7

Back to Kentucky, the same year Ralph Ross died in Kentucky, 2002, George P. Moore of Virginia was hit and killed by a locomotive. In 1982, corruption was preoccupying several American counties involved in this current-day story, and in 1982 I was listening to Virginia neighbor, George Moore's tales of the condominium he owned in Colombia, South America and how easy it was to pay off Colombian police when pulled over. George had bred thoroughbred horses, sending some to the track, had car lots, and airplanes and being little more than a kid, I had no idea to suspect George was anything other than a powerful millionaire who'd known my late Dad. The interest he had in our young family was curious, as looking back, was my husband's rise to high positions with the railroad.

I never thought I'd encounter the land of race horses again inasmuch as I do love horses, but then I was lead to Kentucky horse country which brought back memories of the tragedies of deaths of my Dad and uncles I'd suffered as a child, and a couple race horse affiliated people involved so many years before. It seems death surrounded me, and the more I read of the criminal connections with the mighty and powerful, the more the pieces fit together.

And just last year from Baldwin County, Alabama where my son allegedly killed himself, like Virginia's George Moore, sheriff's deputy Mike Malone was hit and killed by a locomotive. The locomotive engineer explained Malone sat in a chair in the middle of the railroad track, and never even looked up for the train's warning whistle. Was he dead even before the train arrived, and will his parents ever know the truth?

Known for the Kentucky Derby and the millionaires and affluence surrounding it, Kentucky's hills and mountains will paint a picture of poverty and desperation one might never imagine could exist in America. Like some other southern states, it's a state where the distance between the haves and have-nots is well-defined, and where the blue bloods have held power for generations. It's a place for word-of-mouth, and close families, tight lips, and sometimes, underground organizations.

It's been said the people of Kentucky can be described with few shades of gray. They're either rich or poor, good or evil. There's little in between. "We've got the best and the worst," one local said. "We've got the meanest people in the world here, and we've got the nicest."

I never saw the extremes, but an good, and generous people with incredible loyalty to a well-loved state built with many old Virginia families. I've considered myself lucky to meet some of the finer folks of Kentucky, surely among the best in the world.

There are, however, people in this entire country who seem to have the power and the means to do whatever they want to whomever they want, and get away with it. They destroy lives, make arrangements and manage to keep their activities covered.

My lawyer in Atlanta said it best, "You know enough money can do anything in this country, and if 'money' doesn't want you to find out what happened to your son, you're never going to find out." He continued, "And think of it this way, 'they' may have told your son if he tries to contact you, they'll kill you all."

Additional information & The Bluegrass Conspiracy, September 2010

Bonnie Kelly was convicted of murdering Eugene Berry of Florida, the prosecutor in her husband, Mike Kelly's drug trafficking case. Bonnie Kelly remains incarcerated in a Florida state prison.

As soon as the jet was airborne, Ralph [Ross] opened his leather briefcase and retrieved a file labeled "Mike Kelly......."

.......His wife, Bonnie Lynn Gee, was the oldest of twelve children who had been raised in an eastern Kentucky "holler" near Tick Ridge. The peroxide blonde began her life with Mike Kelly in 1974, at the impressionable age of twenty-two, after he rescued her from a motorcycle gang that was holding her against her will.
p. 146, The Bluegrass Conspiracy

In the car, "Brenda" changed into a navy blue jogging suit, pulled on a wig, placed a pair of large sunglasses on the bridge of her nose, and picked up the 38 special that had been given to her by longtime friend Henry Vance. The thirty-nine-year-old straight-laced, top aide to the Kentucky Speaker of the House and respected adviser to former Kentucky Governor Julian Carroll had initially agreed to carry out the assassination, and had even accepted ten thousand dollars as a down payment for the job. Vance had sent two men to Florida to scope out the situation, but two days earlier, they had backed out for some reason. Vance returned Brenda's money, providing her instead with a weapon and instructions.....

....First she prayed. Then she knocked on the front door. Within seconds, Eugene Berry opened it.

"Are you Gene Berry?" she asked.

"Hi, how are you?" Berry politely greeted the woman, recognizing her as Bonnie Kelly––the wife of Mike Kelly, whom he had recently prosecuted on drug-smuggling charges.

"You remember me?" she asked, pulling the gun out from behind her.

She lifted it up toward his face, but couldn't make herself look him in the eye. Suddenly, panicking, she lowered the gun. Berry tried running back into the house and Bonnie opened fire. She shot him twice as he backed away, and one more time in his heart after he fell to the floor.
pp. 225, 226, The Bluegrass Conspiracy

When a midnight phone call awakened him ––an increasingly common occurrence these days––Ralph was asked to locate all Kentucky members of the Company. "They've shot Gene Berry," Ralph was told by Florida cops with whom he had become familiar during the Mike Kelly drug investigation. "You've got to help us round everyone up."
p. 230, The Bluegrass Conspiracy

.....After three years of law school at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee, he [Eugene Berry] accepted a job offer as a criminal prosecutor in coastal Florida. In a state mired in drugs, it was inevitable that Berry would find himself immersed in drug-smuggling investigations. p. 234, The Bluegrass Conspiracy

"A person has to feel useful in this world," a friend quoted Berry, in his eulogy, "To hit a lick against what's wrong, say a word for what's right––even though you get walloped for saying that word. There's right and there's wrong in this world. You've got to do one or the other."

With that, Eugene Berry––a man who had committed his life to the belief that good surpasses evil in the end––was laid to rest.
p. 234, The Bluegrass Conspiracy

My personal experiences with corruption in Kentucky spanned several counties including Madison, Jessamine, Jackson, Bath, Mercer, Anderson, Washington and Fayette. Most of the harassment, stalking and sabotage have been intimidation tactics, and for personal and financial destruction. Another person who left a nasty Georgia divorce has had an AK-47 bullet enter the kitchen window and graze the top of her hair. Locally another mother was lured to the state, then offered the chance to give her children up for adoption by merely signing a piece of paper. She declined but rumors are she died in a local jail after the children were taken by the state. The Bluegrass Conspiracy is here to stay.

It isn't surprising Georgia was mentioned as more than one connection in Denton's book. The two states share many of the same characteristics.