My report began:
Four years after being convicted of the brutal rape and murder of Rhoda Kassellaw, and being sentenced to life in the state penitentiary at Parchman, Danny Padgitt was moved to the state’s new satellite camp at Broomfield. After three years there, he enjoys all the perks of a well-connected inmate — an office job with the state highway department, his own personal guard, and long lunches (cheeseburgers and milk shakes) in local cafés where the other patrons have never heard of him or his crimes.
The story was as venomous and slanted as I could possibly make it. I bullied the waitress at the City Grill into telling me that he had just eaten a cheeseburger with french fries, that he ate there three times a week, and that he always picked up the check. I made a dozen phone calls to the highway department until I found a supervisor who knew something about Padgitt. The supervisor refused to answer questions, and I made him sound like a criminal himself. Penetrating Broomfield camp was just as frustrating. I detailed my efforts and tilted the story so it sounded as though all the bureaucrats were covering up for Padgitt. No one at Parchman knew a damned thing, or if they did they were unwilling to talk about it. I called the highway commissioner (an elected official), the warden at Parchman (thankfully an appointed position), the Attorney General, the Lieutenant Governor, and finally the Governor himself. They were all too busy, of course, so I chatted with their bootlickers and made them sound like morons.
Senator Theo Morton appeared to be shocked. He promised to get right to the bottom of it and call me back. At press time, I was still waiting.
The reaction in Clanton was mixed. Many of those who called or stopped me on the street were angry and wanted something done. They truly believed that when Padgitt had been sentenced to life and led away in handcuffs, that he would spend the rest of his days in hell at Parchman. A few seemed indifferent and wanted to forget Padgitt altogether. He was old news.
And among some there was the frustrating, almost cynical lack of surprise. They figured the Padgitts had worked their magic once more, found the right pockets, pulled the right strings. Harry Rex was in this camp. “What’s the big fuss, boy? They’ve bought Governors before.”
The photo of Danny walking down the street, free as a bird, frightened Miss Callie considerably. “She didn’t sleep last night,” Esau mumbled to me when I arrived for lunch that Thursday. “I wish you hadn’t found him.”
Fortunately, the Memphis and Jackson newspapers picked up the story, and it took on a life of its own. They turned up the heat to a point where the politicians had to get involved. The Governor and the Attorney General, along with Senator Morton, were soon jockeying to lead the parade to get the boy sent back to Parchman.
Two weeks after I broke the story, Danny Padgitt was “reassigned” to the state penitentiary.
The next day, I received two phone calls, one at the office, one at home while I was asleep. Different voices, but with the same message. I was a dead man.
I notified the FBI in Oxford, and two agents visited me in Clanton. I leaked this to a reporter in Memphis, and soon the town knew that I had been threatened, and that the FBI was investigating. For a month, Sheriff McNatt kept a patrol car in front of my office around the clock. Another one sat in my driveway during the night.
After a seven-year hiatus, I was carrying a gun again.
Chapter 32
There was no immediate bloodshed. The threats were not forgotten, but as time passed they became less ominous. I never stopped carrying a gun — it was always within reach — but I lost interest in it. I found it hard to believe that the Padgitts would risk the severe backlash that would come if they knocked off the editor of the local paper. Even if the town was not entirely enamored of me, as opposed to someone as beloved as Mr. Caudle, the uproar would create more pressure than the Padgitts were willing to risk.
They kept to themselves like never before. After the defeat of Mackey Don Coley in 1971, they once again proved quite adept at changing tactics. Danny had given them enough unwanted attention; they were determined to avoid anymore. They retrenched even deeper into Padgitt Island. They increased security in the wasted belief that the next sheriff, T. R. Meredith, or his successor, Tryce McNatt, might come after them. They grew their crops and smuggled them off the island in planes, boats, pickups, and flatbed trucks ostensibly loaded with timber.
With typical Padgitt shrewdness, and sensing that the marijuana business might become too risky, they began pumping money into legitimate enterprises. They bought a highway contracting company and quickly turned it into a reliable bidder for government projects. They bought an asphalt plant, a Redi-Mix concrete plant, and gravel pits around the northern part of the state. Highway construction was a notably corrupt business in Mississippi, and the Padgitts knew how to play the game.
I watched these activities as closely as possible. This was before the Freedom of Information Act and open-meetings laws. I knew the names of some of the companies the Padgitts had bought, but it was virtually impossible to keep up with them. There was nothing I could print, no story, because on the surface it was all legitimate.
I waited, but for what I wasn’t certain. Danny Padgitt would return one day, and when he did he might simply disappear into the island and never be seen again. Or he might do otherwise.
Few people in Clanton did not attend church. Those who did seemed to know exactly which ones did not, and there was a common invitation to “come worship with us.” The farewell, “See you on Sunday,” was almost as common as “Y’all come see us.”
I got hammered with these invitations during my first years in town. Once it was known that the owner and editor of the Times did not go to church, I became the most famous derelict in town. I decided to do something about it.
Each week Margaret put together our Religion page, which included a rather extensive menu of churches arranged by denominations. There were also a few ads by the more affluent congregations. And notices for revivals, reunions, potluck suppers, and countless other activities.
Working from this page, and from the phonebook, I made a list of all the churches in Ford County. The total was eighty-eight, but it was a moving target since congregations were always splitting, folding here and popping up over there. My goal was to visit each one of them, something I was sure had never been done, and a feat that would put me in a class by myself among churchgoers.
The denominations were varied and baffling — how could Protestants, all of whom claimed to follow the same basic tenets, get themselves so divided? They agreed basically that (1) Jesus was the only son of God; (2) he was born of a virgin; (3) lived a perfect life; (4) was persecuted by the Jews, arrested and crucified by the Romans; (5) that he arose on the third day and later ascended into heaven; (6) and some believed — though there were many variations — that one must follow Jesus in baptism and faith to make it to heaven.
The doctrine was fairly straightforward, but the devil was in the details.
There were no Catholics, Episcopalians, or Mormons. The county was heavily Baptist, but they were a fractured bunch. The Pentecostals were in second place, and evidently they had fought with themselves as much as the Baptists.
In 1974, I’d begun my epic adventure to visit every church in Ford County. The first had been the Calvary Full Gospel, a rowdy Pentecostal assemblage on a gravel road two miles out of town. As advertised, the service began at ten-thirty, and I found a spot on the back pew, as far away from the action as I could get. I was greeted warmly and word spread that a bona-fide visitor was present. I did not recognize anyone there. Preacher Bob wore a white suit, navy shirt, white tie, and his thick black hair was wound around and plastered tightly at the base of his skull. People started hollering when he was giving the announcements. They waved their hands and shouted during a solo. When the sermon finally began an hour later, I was ready to leave. It lasted for fifty-five minutes, and left me confused and exhausted. At times the building shook with folks stomping the floor. Windows rattled as they were overcome with the spirit and yelled upward. Preacher Bob “laid hands” on three sick folks suffering vague diseases, and they claimed to be healed. At one point a deacon stood and in an astounding display began uttering something in a tongue I had never heard. He clenched his fists, closed his eyes tightly, and let loose with a steady, fluent flow of words. It was not an act; he wasn’t faking. After a few minutes, a young girl in the choir stood and began translating into English. It was a vision God was sending through the deacon. There were those present with unforgiven sins.