He (Henry Marshall) had been an employee of the s State Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation office, assigned to investigate the vast jungle of Billie Sol's suspect cotton allotments. His connection with the case was not openly known, and his report was buried in Washington.

On June 3, 1961, Henry Marshall was found dead " on a remote section of his farm near Franklin, Texas. Five days later justice of the Peace Lee Farmer pronounced a verdict of suicide without ordering an autopsy, despite the protestations of Marshall's widow, according to the newspapers, that "he was not the type to commit suicide."

Marshall was buried and his work as an investigator was unknown to most, and all but forgotten by a few, while

the wheeler-dealer from the Pecos flew on, his twin-motored plane virtually at the beck and call of important public figures, from Senator Yarborough and Lyndon's staff in Washington down to John White, Commissioner of Agriculture, in Austin. After all, "nothing succeeds like success."

Meanwhile the doggedly-determined Pecos doctor, John Dunn, in addition to the pursuit of his successful practice, drove ahead with his own investigations. At last with the sweeping documentary evidence of Billie Sol's fraudulent borrowings on non-existent fertilizer tanks firmly in hand, he decided he was ready to nail the sanctimonious Pecos civic leader to the cross of justice. When Dunn's repeated calls to all political sources had gone unanswered, he and an associate bought the Pecos Independent and Enterprise, determined at least to give the salt flat folks the acid truth.

He briefed his editor Oscar Griffin, turned over to him his files, and in the February 12, 1962 issue of their modest bi-weekly paper, began the devastating exposure that blew the Billie Sol Estes business sky-high. Farmers, bankers, corporations, finance and fertilizer companies involved, all saw the handwriting on the wall when Dunn's investigations revealed the wild transactions -15,000 alleged tanks for his county alone, and total chattel mortgages of more than $34,000,000 in several Texas counties involved, most of which was fictitious financing. As the full import of the news began to be felt, a closed and frantic meeting of Billie Sol and his creditors was called in Dallas. But the false house built on frenzied and crooked finance, superimposed on a highly productive farming area, and from the first inherent in the immoral Federal farm policy, was already in ruins...

Just three little articles in a country newspaper that cared to tell the truth. This is perhaps the most profound significance of the Billie Sol Estes case, his career and his story.

But those articles represented many months of the most intelligent, skillful persistent and courageous investigation in the history of that exacting and adventurous science. Nor were they done for a fee by a seasoned investigator. Instead the first evidence was stumbled upon by a young, skilled and busy surgeon, with intuitive curiosity and sufficient dedication to truth to follow through as if in search of some fatal human malignancy, which in a measure it was - with the courage to probe to the source of the trouble.

With his files and diagnosis in the hands of his editor, Oscar Griffin, that truth, in quite ordinary literary style, brought the writer distinction and the Pulitzer prize, precipitated an avalanche of frenzied inquiry and shook America from end to end. What was the reward for the man who was really responsible? What measure of public gratitude, esteem and renown was bestowed upon him? That in itself is an equally significant story.

There is nothing more vicious than mass depravity with a cultivated veneer when its own image is exposed to public contempt, scorn and justice. In the smug and "successful" circles of his home town, it was John Dunn who had committed the unpardonable crime. He had exposed the leading churchman, the financial genius and the "most promising" citizen of the city of Pecos. Therefore John Dunn became the culprit because he had stripped the garments of simulated decency from the popular idol - the reflected image and ambition of the gross and corrupt who admired him, as well as the immoral nature of the government policies which had made him.

John Dunn, the man who had dared to seek and speak the truth, was destroyed. He was threatened, hounded and condemned. His business holdings were sacrificed. The City Council barred him from practice in the municipal hospital on vicious, trumped-up charges of malpractice. He fought the issue against a stacked tribunal in public hearing where, in diabolical perversion of the finest and highest virtue of the medical practice - the warm sympathy of the real physician for his patient-he was pictured in the public mind as guilty of lust for a negro woman whose life he had saved. By corrupt and ruthless; power in his home town, he was destroyed, professionally and financially and in virtual penury was forced to move away to seek another start in anonymity.

Dr. John Dunn was guilty of but one thing and that was mistaken judgment. He had dared to believe that truth and virtue would prevail where public apathy condones illicit power, and he had paid the price exacted by faith while denied in reason. This is the second profound historic principle-and tragic truth, that his marvelous investigation proved.

The Dallas News has learned that President Kennedy has taken a personal interest in the mysterious death of Henry Marshall, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official.

As a result, the President's brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, has ordered the FBI to step up its investigation of the case.

Marshall is the USDA agent who was killed last June by five .22-caliber bullets from a rifle which was found beside him. At the time of his death, he was reportedly investigating the transfers of cotton allotments by Billie Sol Estes, the Pecos wonder boy whose financial manipulations have erupted into a major national scandal with vast political overtones.

Marshall's death was ruled a suicide, but a Robertson County grand jury ordered the body exhumed and began an investigation of the case which is still continuing. A Houston pathologist, Sr. Joseph Jachimcryk, conducted an autopsy and reported he thought Marshall had been murdered but wasn't sure.

Billy Sol Estes was a "good old Texas boy." He and Lyndon Baines Johnson were long time friends. The centerpiece in Estes' home was an autographed portrait of LBJ which perhaps signified their mutually profitable relationship. Estes helped finance Johnson's campaigns and allowed Johnson to use his private plane for campaigning. On a reciprocal basis Billy Sol Estes was then "federally privileged" to make millions of dollars on fees for storing federal government grain and on federal cotton allotments. The economic relationship between Johnson and Estes was so open that at Kennedy's first Presidential anniversary celebration, Estes was not only invited to the premier event but was seated at the table immediately next to Johnson.

Estes began his first federal fraud scandal in 1959 by building grain warehouses and buying up federal cotton allotments to grow cotton on submerged lands. He then, somehow, was "blessed" with contracts from the United States government to store surplus grain in his warehouses. He also was permitted to trade his rights to grow cotton on his submerged lands (which were useless), for the right to grow cotton on fertile fields, an extremely profitable exchange for Estes because it immediately raised the value of his otherwise worthless cotton land into a productive exchange commodity.

By 1961 government officials suspected that Estes was doing something illegal, but Vice President Johnson intervened and on January 31, 1961 he wrote a letter to the Secretary of Agriculture supporting Estes' practices with respect to his cotton land. The letter eventually became the impetus for an Agriculture Department investigation involving both Billy Sol Estes and Vice President Johnson. Typical when Johnson was involved, the major investigatory problem with the Estes' case was that the records of land holdings and transfers were so jumbled that it was difficult for the government to assess it. As a result, Agricultural Agent Henry Marshall was assigned to investigate and issue a full report of his findings. Marshall conducted a thorough investigation, completed his assignment in the Spring of 1961, and issued a written report to Washington.

The Washington commendation that agent Henry Marshall received for his excellent work was five bullet holes to the head. On June 3, 1961 Marshall was found dead in a ditch in Franklin, Texas. A bolt action rifle was beside him. This five bullet killing and its cover up was more than a warning to other investigators. It also served as an example of Texas power and political corruption. On June 8, 1961, the local Justice of the Peace investigated the killing and miraculously declared that Marshall committed suicide. The absurdity of this determination was obvious, because it was impossible for Marshall to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head five separate times with a bolt action rifle. In essence, what the Texas Justice of the Peace found was that Henry Marshall loaded a rifle with a bullet, shot himself in the head, discharged the shell from the rifle, and repeated the process over and over again five separate times until he was dead.

Marshall's widow violently protested, the public complained, but the "suicide" of Henry Marshall completely stalled the government investigation. For a time it looked as if the whole matter was going to be dropped until a House Subcommittee decided to begin its own investigation. However, the Subcommittee's investigation was deliberately "dead ended" from the powers above and again it looked as if the matter was going to be dropped until several members of the Subcommittee, upset with the cover-up, leaked a report on the Estes affair to the press. The press then took over and went after Estes faster than boll weevils in a cotton patch. It was America's free press that finally broke the cover-up and pointed public attention in the right direction.

As a result, the past investigations of the cotton land transfers were renewed, and new investigations were instituted looking into Estes' grain storage profits from his federal contracts. This lead to further sensational discoveries about Billy Sol Estes including concern that he may have sold the government grain that he was being paid to store.

By March of 1962 Estes was arrested and charged with a host of crimes, and by May of 1962, the Estes affair had reached such a boiling point that Vice President Johnson flew to Dallas aboard a military jet to privately meet with Estes and his lawyers on a plane parked away from the terminal. What was discussed has been kept secret but it has long been suspected that during this meeting LBJ told Estes to keep his mouth shut and leave Johnson out of the scandal." After Billy Sol's arrest the FBI had begun to acquire evidence linking Johnson to the matter. However, the FBI investigation reached an impasse when:

• LBJ's personal legal counsel showed up as Estes' principal attorney;

• Billy Sol Estes refused to talk; and

• Billy Sol Estes' accountant (who was the only other man besides the dead Henry Marshall who could unravel the fraud) was found dead in his car.

Throughout the remainder of 1962 and into 1963 the Estes' investigation was inactive. Governmental investigators could go no further because Estes refused to talk and all other avenues of uncovering the fraud were either dead or blocked. After Johnson became President, he issued an order stopping all federal investigations into the Estes matter. This prevented all links to Johnson from being discovered and stopped Estes from being charged with a federal crime. From a criminal standpoint, the only charge left pending against Estes was a state criminal charge of defrauding farmers. Estes was ultimately tried for the state crime, and convicted by a Texas jury. Estes then appealed to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and lost the appeal. In 1965, during Johnson's Presidency, Estes took another chance by appealing his conviction to the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court was not required to accept Estes' appeal, nor did it accept such cases except in rare situations. Yet, to the surprise of many (but not all) it agreed to review Estes' case as a "discretionary" matter (called certiorari). The Court's decision to accept the case may have been influenced by President Johnson's request that it at least look at his friend's case.

Franklin, Texas: Convicted swindler Billie Sol Estes told a grand jury that illegal cotton allotments and other business deals he arranged with Lyndon B. Johnson's help in the early 1960's generated $21 million a year, with part of the money going to a slush fund controlled by LBJ, sources close to the grand jury said Friday.

Estes, protected from prosecution by a grant of immunity, testified for 4 1/2 hours Tuesday before the Robertson County grand jury. The sources said Estes testified that in January 1961 - the same month LBJ became vice president - Estes and two other men met with Johnson at LBJ's Washington home to discuss Henry Harvey Marshall of Bryan, an Agriculture Department official who was questioning the legality of Estes' cotton allotments Estes quoted LBJ as saying, "Get rid of him," referring to Marshall, the sources said Estes, the sources said, told grand jurors that four men were involved in planning the murder of Marshall - Estes, Johnson troubleshooter and close aide Clifton C. Carter, triggerman Malcolm Everett (Mac) Wallace and Johnson himself. Estes is the only one of the four still alive....

The sources said Estes testified that he and Carter met at Estes' home in Pecos after Marshall's death and that Carter commented that Wallace "sure did botch it up."

The sources said Estes testified that Wallace planned to kill Marshall and make it look as if the death were suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.

According to the sources, Estes testified that Wallace hit Marshall on the head and then placed a plastic bag over Marshall's head and the exhaust pipe of Marshall's pickup truck.

About that time, the sources quoted Estes as saying, Wallace heard a noise that sounded like an approaching car. Fearing that he was about to be discovered, Wallace shot Marshall in the abdomen five times with the .22-caliber rifle and left the scene, the sources quoted Estes as testifying. In the next two years, three other men with ties to Estes - George Krutilek, a Clint, Texas accountant; Amarillo businessman Harold Eugene Orr, and Chicago fertilizer supplier Howard Pratt - were found with indications that they had died of carbon monoxide poisoning, according to press reports at the time.

The sources close to the Robertson County grand jury said that Estes refused to answer questions about four deaths in West Texas, telling Dist. Atty. John Paschall that he wouldn't testify about anything "that would put me in the penitentiary." Paschall would not discuss the deaths Estes was asked about.

Sources close to the grand jurors said they considered part of Estes' testimony to be truthful but believed he was shading his story to put himself in a better light.

Over the years Clint Peoples has become an expert in homicide investigation. He has worked hard at understanding the processes by which one undertakes to scientifically gather and sift evidence leading to solving a murder case. There is some intuition involved in each case, but mostly it is just hard work. And it is with the hard work in mind that Peoples states that he has missed on "very, very few" murder cases in his half century in law enforcement. But according to his wife, the most perplexed he ever was on an investigation of any sort was the

Henry H. Marshall case. "I'll go to my grave knowing Henry Marshall was murdered," Peoples says in acknowledging this, his most puzzling investigation, one of the "very, very few" he has not been able to solve.

Henry Marshall, age fifty-one, lived in Bryan with his wife and ten-year-old son Donald. He was employed by the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Committee of the United States Department of Agriculture, working out of College Station. His boss described him as a "highly respected and dedicated public servant" who had been offered higher positions in Washington which he had refused, preferring to live in Bryan. Marshall carried a heavy work load which had caused him to have a "health problem" and threatened to reduce his working capacity to half-time. Some persons close to him were aware that Marshall had a bed in or near his office where he rested every day, and he told his brother-in-law, L. M. Owens, that he had a knot in his back which might be cancer. Others believed he had a heart condition, but whatever health problem he had it was not of recent origin. Marshall had lived with it a long time.

Saturday, June 3, 1961 was a day off, which offered Marshall the opportunity to go out to his ranch in Robertson County to look around and do some work. This "place"; as ranch or farm properties are sometimes called, was Marshall's hobby, his special interest, and he spent a lot of time at it. L. M. Owens worked for him on the place sometimes mending fences, seeing to crops and feeding the cattle. Owens noticed that Marshall recently had taken to driving in a back pasture where he looked over the feeder and talked quite a bit about it. It seemed a little unusual but Owens did not dwell on it. On June 3, Marshall stopped by the Owens house early before going thirteen miles northwest of Franklin to talk with Joe Pruitt and Wylie Grace, who with Lewis Taylor, were loading some hay on a truck. They were about ready to drive out of the Pruitt field when Marshall drove up in his Chevrolet pickup.

Marshall gave Pruitt a $36 check for baling hay and he tried to pay Grace for cutting the hay, but Grace declined. They visited for about twenty minutes and then, by 8:00 am, Marshall was gone. He went to his ranch and was involved in his normal activities and last seen at 10:30 a.m. by Jim and Martha Wood, a black couple who lived nearby. When he did not report home late in the afternoon, Mrs. Marshall called to get Owens to find him. Owens and Irving Bennett found him dead near the feeder at 6:30 pm.

When Robertson County Sheriff Howard Stegall, Deputy E. P. (Sonny) Elliott, and Ranger O. L. Luther arrived later, they looked around and decided it was suicide. Marshall had been shot five times with his .22 caliber rifle, which was found near the body. Marshall's glasses, watch, and pencils had been removed from their places and were on the seat of the pickup along with a single edge razor blade. At a quick glance it looked like suicide, and that is what they called it. No one paid attention to the fact that the rifle had a bolt action, one which had to be worked every time the rifle was fired. The following morning, Sunday, with the greenery of Central Texas at its best in late Spring (really early Summer in this locale) and the birds flitting and twittering overhead. Deputy Elliott took justice of the Peace Lee Farmer out to the scene. It looked like suicide to Farmer, so he recorded it as such in his official report. While there, Elliott picked up a spent .22 caliber cartridge casing.

Meanwhile the family gathered. From Denison about dawn on June 4 came Mrs. Marshall's sister and her two sons, nineteen year-old Jackie Leroy Anderson and fifteen year-old Jerry Wayne Anderson. They were naturally curious as they looked at Uncle Henry's pickup which had blood smeared on it in several places, on the right side near the door handle, on the hood and right rear fender and on the left door just below the door handle. They also saw a dent, six to eight inches in diameter, centered in the lower half of the right door. Owens and the Anderson boys drove out to Marshall's farm that morning and just out of curiosity, placed the pickup at the same place Owens had found it. They then looked around and found a raisin box and some cigarette butts which had been smoked down to the filter so they could not tell what kind they were. They picked up the filters and put them in the raisin box which got lost later. Owens convinced them that it was suicide, saying, "Remember, I know more about Henry Marshall than you think I do. I worked for him and was with him a lot." When they got back to Franklin, Owens asked the young men to wash the truck, and they did.

Henry Marshall was buried as the family returned to normalcy. Mrs. Marshall soon went to Lee Farmer to ask that the cause of death be changed from suicide, but Farmer thought he was right, so he stuck to it. That ended things. Ended them that is, until May, 1962, when Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman stated that Henry Marshall had been a "key figure" in the investigation of the affairs of Billie Sol Estes. The connection was cotton allotments. Estes found cotton farming to be profitable so he set out in 1960 to grow all he could. He discovered that the only obstacle to growing more cotton and making more money was that the federal government imposed strict acreage controls in exchange for its price supports on cotton. The acreage allotment remains with the land and it cannot otherwise be sold or exchanged. Once acreage allotment for cotton is set, it stays with the land and is sold with it. The only exception to the rule is on land taken away by the right of eminent domain. When this happened, then the allotment could be transferred to other land bought by the same person within three years. These transfers had to be approved by the Department of Agriculture, and in Texas they were screened at College Station by Henry Marshall. Estes saw the loophole in cotton allotments and went right to it. He persuaded farmers in Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia and Alabama who had lost cotton land by eminent domain to purchase land from him. The plan was for a farmer to buy the land, place the cotton allotment on it, and then lease it to Estes for $50 per acre. The farmer was to pay Estes for the land purchase in four installments, but it was understood in advance that the farmer would fail to make the first payment, after which Estes would foreclose. The final result was that Estes still had the land, only now it was an acreage upon which cotton could be grown. By June, 1961, Estes was already in trouble over his cotton allotments because agriculture officials were onto his scheme, and it is a coincidence that he started getting in trouble at the same time as Henry Marshall's death. Homer Garrison had the "coincidence" called to his attention, after which he decided that a closer look should be had. Garrison assigned Peoples to investigate. Taking Ranger Johnny Krumnow with him, Peoples began on May 10, 1962, and he made his report to Garrison on July 13. In between, Rangers Krumnow, Hendrichs, Luther, Horton, Wilson, Riddles, J. S. Nance and Glenn Elliott had questioned everybody connected or possibly connected with the death. Mrs. Marshall, L. M. Owens, Irving Bennett, and Bob Marshall, Henry Marshall's brother, had all taken polygraph tests which showed that they knew nothing of how Marshall had met his death.

By May 21 Peoples had enough evidence to convince District Judge John M. Barron and County Attorney Bryan Russ to call a grand jury "for the purpose of obtaining evidence regarding Marshall's death." Peoples was the first to present for all the proceedings so he could hear witnesses' testimony. Fifty-five witnesses testified in the five weeks of hearings. The grand jury was concerning itself with whether it was suicide or homicide, but Peoples was already convinced it was the latter and he was trying to decide who had done it. That afternoon, judge Barron ordered that the body be disinterred for autopsy. Peoples was there when they brought the casket out of the ground to be taken to the Callaway-Jones Funeral Home in Bryan.

Dr. Joseph A. Jachimczyk, the chief medical examiner for Harris County, was called to Bryan to do the autopsy. Jachimczyk was a veteran in his trade, a man who had worked with some 15,000 corpses, one who performed autopsies daily. He was assisted by Dr. Ray Cruse of Hearne and James L. Turner, an investigator from his own staff. In addition to Peoples, those present were Judge Barron, Sheriff Stegall, Fred R. Rymer, DPS ballistics expert Charles H. Beardsley, Cal Killingsworth, and Dr. James I. Lindsay. The vault was opened at 7:30 a.m., the body identified by Manley Jones, the embalmer of almost a year ago, and the examination of the body began at 8:30. Jachimczyk was thorough in his work. He went through the body systematically looking at everything, describing the "thin layer of black mold, which scraped off fairly easily" and the "scalp which slipped readily off the calvarium upon touching." But such thing were incidental to the doctor's research. He wanted to know the cause of death. To this end he took ninety-seven specimens for examination.

His twelve-page report concluded that Marshall came to his death as a result of five gunshot wounds in the chest and abdomen. Three of the wounds were "rapidly incapacitating," while two would require a little more time. Marshall, he felt, could not have lived more that thirty minutes after he sustained the wounds. He found two further complicating factors. Marshall had a bruise on the left side of the head and he had a 15 per cent carbon monoxide saturation in the blood from the left chest cavity, which he said could have been as high as 30 per cent at the time of death. For the grand jury, the punch-line of the report was Jachimczyk's final conclusion: "Being familiar with bizarre gunshot injuries, one cannot say, however, on a purely scientific basis that a verdict of suicide is absolutely impossible in this case; most improbable, but not impossible." He pronounced it as a "possible suicide, probable homicide."

Dr. Jachimczyk telephoned his findings to Judge Barron on May 24 as the investigation proceeded. Peoples was in Austin the following day giving Garrison a briefing after which "The Boss" said to keep going. On May 29 and May 30 Peoples conferred with judge Barron, County Attorney Russ and the grand jury, and he did it again on June 4. June 3, the first anniversary of Marshall's death, found him in the maelstrom of a mystery. After the grand jury had considered the evidence presented, they concluded on June 25 that there was no reason to change the verdict from suicide. Jury Foreman Goree Matthews did state that they agreed to come back into session at any time to hear additional evidence. County Attorney Bryan Russ agreed, stating that he had "no evidence to indicate that it was other than suicide." Sheriff Stegall was asked if he thought Marshall could have worked the bolt on the rifle to reload after each shot, and he replied that he thought it possible. "I do know this," he continued, "a man can stand up under a lot of lead. A .22 does not have much shocking power... I saw a man hit four times once and walk off." Since that time the legal question of Marshall' death - suicide or murder - has not been opened.

For Peoples the case never stopped. He continued to have his Rangers follow every lead, doing the coordinating and analyzing himself. On July 13, 1962 he made an extensive report to Colonel Garrison, a part of which reads: Our investigation reveals that for Mr. Henry Marshall to have committed suicide the following acts would have had to occur:

[1] The first act of Mr. Marshall would have been to take carbon monoxide. (Pathologist's report reveals that 15% carbon monoxide was present at time of autopsy one year later and 15% would have been lost from embalming processes, a lethal dose consisting of 40%)

[2] Mr. Marshall would have had to dispose of the facilities with which the carbon monoxide was administered

[3] Mr. Marshall received a serious brain injury on the left side of his head from a fall and a cut over his left eye, causing the eye to protrude.

[4] Severe bruises with skin breakage on the back of his hands.

[5] Blood left on the right side of the pickup truck, also on rear and left side of pickup.

[6] Mr. Marshall would have had to cut off the motor on the pickup.

[7] Absence of blood inside of pickup after motor was cut off.

[8] Absence of blood on front of Mr. Marshall's shirt.

[9] Shirt of deceased was open with no bullet holes in front.

[10] Nitrites present only on tail of Mr. Marshall's shirt (back side).

[11] A deep dent present on right side of pickup caused by some type of instrument other than a human hand or head which was placed there on this date.

[12] Due to lack of blood on front of shirt but considerable blood present around pickup creates another mystery.

[13] Investigation revealed that it was difficult for Mr. Marshall to straighten out his right arm, which was due to a prior injury, and it would have been necessary for him to pull the trigger with his left hand.

After all of the above acts Mr. Henry Marshall would have had to have sufficient control of his equilibrium to have fired five bullets into the front of his left abdomen with a .22 bolt-action rifle, taking it down each time and ejecting the shell. The five bullets passing through Mr. Marshall's body traveled at a substantially straight angle which would indicate that he had to have extreme control of his equilibrium, after receiving all injuries from falls preceding the shooting of himself. From the direction of travel of bullets Mr. Marshall would have had entrance wounds which would have been more difficult. This fact was determined by the pattern of spent shells which were found by this Division and other parties after the death of Henry Marshall. Markers were placed by parties who found the spent shells at the time. Tests were made of the gun to establish a pattern of shell ejections which revealed that they were of a pattern identical to those found at the scene. Sand in the entire area was sifted; no bullets present. Mine detector was used; no other spent shells found.

A conclusion reached from this investigation is that had Mr. Henry Marshall shot himself before all of the acts above pointed out he would have had to return to where the empty shells were found and then collapse, which under the circumstances above mentioned would have been impossible for the following reasons: (1) Investigation reveals that there was no blood present on the ground other than where the body was found, (2) the only blood present on Henry Marshall's shirt was at the exit holes in the back and was a very small amount, (3) autopsy reveals that three of the shots were incapacitating, one severing the aorta and two paralyzing, and (4) autopsy report also reveals that the man died quickly from internal hemorrhaging.

It is a conclusion of this writer that Mr. Marshall did not live long after shots were fired into his body for the reason that so long as there is life in the body, the heart is pumping and so long as the heart is pumping, blood will flow from the exit of a gunshot wound. Reasonable deductions are that Mr. Marshall did not move from the location where the shots were fired into his body. It would have been impossible for him to have first fired the shots with such accuracy under the influence of carbon monoxide, secondly committed the acts above mentioned and return to the spot where the shells were found and died. It is reasonable to conclude that this would not have been possible for him to have returned and scuffed up the ground with his foot as indicated in a dying condition. Witnesses reveal that the ground was scuffed up with his foot where he was found lying.

An extensive investigation was conducted, as result of the suicidal ruling, to determine the reason for suicide motivation; no reason can be established. All reports reveal that Mr. Henry Marshall was a dedicated, honest and loyal government employee. Records also reveal that due to the vast operation of the cotton and grain program of Texas and Mr. Marshall's reluctance to approve many shady aspects he, without a doubt, created animosity among people who were attempting to accomplish their goals. From the findings of this investigation it is my personal opinion that it would have been beneficial to a vast number of shady operators for Mr. Henry Marshall to have been disposed of. It is my conclusion from the extensive investigation made by this department with the assistance of the scientific approach, evidence obtained, witnesses' testimonies, physical checks and tests made at the scene, it would have been utterly impossible for Mr. Marshall to have taken his own life.

After 25 years with the department, Henry Marshall knew a scam when he saw one. So when an official at the Reeves County ASC office sent Marshall what he called a "suspicious" contract, Marshall immediately called the deals to the attention of his superiors in Washington. "The regulations should be strengthened to support our disapproval of every case [of allotment transfers] that is questioned," Marshall wrote on August 31, 1960.

It took several months, but by January of 1961 department officials were ready to act. At a meeting in Dallas between Washington officials and regional officials it was agreed that displaced farmers would have to appear in person before the county committee to satisfy the committee that they really were buying land, rather than selling allotments.

Not surprisingly, Billie Sol didn't take kindly to the department's tightened regulations, scheduled to take effect February 17. He knew if farmers were forced to appear in person, they would have to confess they had no intention of actually buying land from him. He decided to act on two fronts. First, he would immediately dispatch his trusty lawyer, John P. Dennison, a former district attorney from Pecos, to meet with Henry Marshall in College Station. Second, he would be in Washington in the next few days for President Kennedy's inauguration and would try to meet with the new vice president. Lyndon B. Johnson, to discuss the matter.

The January 17 meeting with Marshall did not go well for Dennison. Marshall listened politely to the lawyer's argument that the standard Estes contract contained no illegal side agreements but minced no words when he told Dennison that his plan clearly was a "scheme or device to buy allotments, and will not be approved, and prosecution will follow if this operation is ever used," according to a sworn statement by the head of the ASC Southwest office, J. Taylor Allen, who attended the meeting.

Marshall would make the point over and over during the course of the next few months - in meetings with farmers and local ASC committees throughout the state, in memoranda and phone calls to his bosses in Washington, and in conversation with his co-workers in the state office. During these months he was, in fact, offered several times a promotion to Washington but, said his last boss, W. Lewis David, "refused these offers because he liked to live in Bryan and liked his work at College Station."

One week after Marshall met with Dennison, A.B. Foster, Jr., manager of Billie Sol Enterprises, wrote a letter to Cliff Carter in the vice president's office, saying the new regulations were "unreasonable" and inconvenient to farmers. "We would sincerely appreciate your investigating this and seeing if anything can be done...." wrote Foster.

Billie Sol had good reason to direct his request to Cliff Carter. The two had been corresponding for several years. Just a month earlier, Billie Sol had written Carter recommending a Pecos friend for an Agriculture Department job. On December 27, 1960, Carter replied: "Billie Sol: Just a quick note to acknowledge your fine letter about Bill Mattox. I'll see that it gets in the proper hands." It was signed "Cliff" with a postscript: "Am moving my family to Washington this week so call on me in the vice president's office as we can serve you." Carter, who is now dead, later told reporters it was a routine note.

The day after A.B. Foster wrote Carter, Marshall traveled to Pecos County and other points in West Texas for two more days of meetings, with eleven county committees, to explain again the transfer regulations. Once more, he went over the sample contract, instructing the office managers to look out for this, that it was illegal. At the end of February, Marshall believed he had the situation under control, that Washington understood it, that the county committees had all been made aware, and that his office would be able to stop any illegal transfers. He finally could get on with the other demands of his job.

Mr. Estes was a member of a four-member group, headed by Lyndon Johnson, which committed criminal acts in Texas in the 1960's. The other two, besides Mr. Estes and LBJ, were Cliff Carter and Mac Wallace. Mr. Estes is willing to disclose his knowledge concerning the following criminal offenses:

I. Murders

1. The killing of Henry Marshall

2. The killing of George Krutilek

3. The killing of Ike Rogers and his secretary

4. The killing of Harold Orr

5. The killing of Coleman Wade

6. The killing of Josefa Johnson

7. The killing of John Kinser

8. The killing of President J. F. Kennedy.

Mr. Estes is willing to testify that LBJ ordered these killings, and that he transmitted his orders through Cliff Carter to Mac Wallace, who executed the murders. In the cases of murders nos. 1-7, Mr. Estes' knowledge of the precise details concerning the way the murders were executed stems from conversations he had shortly after each event with Cliff Carter and Mac Wallace.

In addition, a short time after Mr. Estes was released from prison in 1971, he met with Cliff Carter and they reminisced about what had occurred in the past, including the murders. During their conversation, Carter orally compiled a list of 17 murders which had been committed, some of which Mr. Estes was unfamiliar. A living witness was present at that meeting and should be willing to testify about it. He is Kyle Brown, recently of Houston and now living in Brady, Texas.

Mr. Estes, states that Mac Wallace, whom he describes as a "stone killer" with a communist background, recruited Jack Ruby, who in turn recruited Lee Harvey Oswald. Mr. Estes says that Cliff Carter told him that Mac Wallace fired a shot from the grassy knoll in Dallas, which hit JFK from the front during the assassination.

Mr. Estes declares that Cliff Carter told him the day Kennedy was killed, Fidel Castro also was supposed to be assassinated and that Robert Kennedy, awaiting word of Castro's death, instead received news of his brother's killing.

Mr. Estes says that the Mafia did not participate in the Kennedy assassination but that its participation was discussed prior to the event, but rejected by LBJ, who believed if the Mafia were involved, he would never be out from under its blackmail....

II. The Illegal Cotton Allotments

Mr. Estes desires to discuss the infamous illegal cotton allotment schemes in great detail. He has recordings made at the time of LBJ, Cliff Carter and himself discussing the scheme. These recordings were made with Cliff Carter's knowledge as a means of Carter and Estes protecting them selves should LBJ order their deaths.

Mr. Estes believes these tape recordings and the rumors of other recordings allegedly in his possession are the reason he has not been murdered.

III. Illegal Payoffs

Mr. Estes is willing to disclose illegal payoff schemes, in which he collected and passed on to Cliff Carter and LBJ millions of dollars. Mr. Estes collected payoff money on more than one occasion from George and Herman Brown of Brown and Root, which was delivered to LBJ.

John Simkin: I believe in the past you represented Billie Sol Estes. On 9th August, 1984, you wrote to Stephen S. Trott at the U.S. Department of Justice. In the letter you claimed that Billie Sol Estes, Lyndon B. Johnson, Mac Wallace and Cliff Carter had been involved in the murders of Henry Marshall, George Krutilek, Harold Orr, Ike Rogers, Coleman Wade, Josefa Johnson, John Kinser and John F. Kennedy. You added: "Mr. Estes is willing to testify that LBJ ordered these killings, and that he transmitted his orders through Cliff Carter to Mac Wallace, who executed the murders." Did Billie Sol Estes provide you with any evidence that suggested his story was true?

Douglass Caddy: My relationship with Billie Sol Estes began in 1983 when Shearn Moody, a trustee of the Moody Foundation of Galveston, Texas, asked me to visit Billie Sol who was incarcerated in the federal prison at Big Spring, Texas. Billie Sol had telephoned Mr. Moody at the suggestion of a fellow inmate who knew Moody from past days when that inmate had been a lobbyist in the state capital. Billie Sol told Moody that he wanted to tell the story publicly about his long and close relationship with Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) as LBJ's bagman and requested Moody's assistance in getting this done. Moody was happy to oblige.

I met with Billie Sol in prison, who related his desire to tell all. I suggested that he do so in book form and that I would be helpful in any way that I could since I already had two books published.

Moody and I heard nothing more from Billie Sol until soon after his release from prison in early January 1984. At that time he called Moody and Moody again asked me to visit Billie Sol at the latter's home in Abilene, Texas.

There Billie Sol presented me with a copy of the recently released book that his daughter, Pam Estes, had written based on my suggestion to him when he was in prison. Its title was "Billie Sol: King of the Wheeler-Dealers" and it had caused a minor sensation. Based on its limited success, Billie Sol said that he wanted to have his own story published. His daughter's book only told her personal story of the tribulations of the Estes' family in the preceding 20 years.

However, Billie Sol said that before he could tell his full story in book form that he had to get immunity from prosecution by the Texas law authorities and by the U.S. Department of Justice as there is no statute of limitations for murder. A friend of mine, Edward Miller, a former Assistant Director of the FBI, arranged for Miller and myself to meet with Stephen Trott, Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, to discuss the question of granting immunity to Billie Sol.

Miller and I met with Trott several times. The Forum has already in its discussions among its members remarked upon the letters exchanged between Trott and myself. In the end the immunity effort came to an abrupt halt when Billie Sol got cold feet at the last moment and backed out of a meeting with three FBI agents sent by Trott to meet with him and myself in Abilene in September 1984.

The contents of the letters between Trott and myself speak for themselves. Billie Sol did not provide me with any evidence that his story, as detailed in the letters, was true. I never heard nor saw the clandestine tape recordings that he claimed that he had in his possession that had been made years earlier, which allegedly supported his contentions.

However, there is quite a bit of supporting evidence from other sources. This is as follows:

(1) In 1964, J. Evetts Haley, a distinguished Texas historian, wrote "A Texan Looks at Lyndon." Millions of copies of this paperback were widely distributed. Haley's book provided concrete evidence concerning most of the murders outlined in my correspondence with Trott.

(2) In attempting to get Billie Sol immunity in 1984, I worked closely with Clint Peoples, U.S. Marshal for the Northern District of Texas. Peoples had followed the Estes' story for many years, having been assigned to the Estes' pending criminal case in the 1960's when he was a Texas Ranger. Peoples had several large file drawers containing materials about Estes and the murders that he showed me when I visited him in the U.S. Courthouse in Dallas. He was on good terms with Estes and constantly encouraged me to do my best to get Estes' story out. When he retired he became head of the Texas Rangers Museum in Waco, Texas, and in 1992 was killed in an automobile accident. Where Peoples' extensive files on Estes and the murders are today is unknown.

(3) I arranged for Lucianne Goldberg, then a literary agent and now sponsor of http://www.lucianne.com/, to visit Billie Sol in Abilene in 1984 in an effort to get his story published. Lucianne there disclosed to us that she had once met Malcolm (Mac) Wallace, who was the stone-cold killer retained by LBJ, when she had worked in the White House in LBJ's administration.

(4) The Texas Observer, a highly respected journal of opinion, published a thoroughly researched article by Bill Adler in its November 7, 1986 issue titled, "The Killing of Henry Marshall." The article is required reading for anyone interested in the murders.

(5) In 1998, a video titled "LBJ: A Closer Look" was released, having been produced by two Californians, Lyle and Theresa Sardie. The video contains interviews with key persons who knew of the murders and of the LBJ-Billie Sol connection.

(6) In 2003, the book "Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ murdered JFK" was published. Its author is Barr McClellan, father of Bush's current press secretary in the White House, Scott McClellan. Barr McClellan was a lawyer with the law firm in Austin that handled LBJ's secret financial empire before and after he became President.

(7) Also in 2003, the History Channel showed "The Men Who Killed Kennedy: The Final Chapter." Much of this show drew on McClellan's book and my letters to Trott. After it was telecast several times, immense pressure was brought upon the History Channel to withdraw the video from being offered for sale to the public. For the first time in its own history the History Channel succumbed to this outside pressure that was orchestrated by Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Pictures Association of America and former LBJ aide, and reluctantly withdrew the video from public circulation.

(8) Both Barr McClellan and I, among others, have in our possession documents and papers, too numerous and lengthy to detail here, that help to round out the full LBJ-Billie Sol story, including letters from LBJ to Billie Sol.

John Simkin: Could you explain in more detail what you mean by the phrase that the conservative movement in "had been hijacked by sociopaths and opportunists"?

Douglas Caddy: I became active politically while still in high school in New Orleans in the early 1950's. Later, as a student at Georgetown University, I helped organize the National Student Committee for the Loyalty Oath in 1959. This led to the creation of Youth for Goldwater for Vice President in early 1960 and later that year to Young Americans for Freedom. This was the genesis of the modern conservative movement in the United States.

In 1961 the first mass conservative rally, sponsored by YAF, was held in Manhattan Center in New York City. The next year an even larger rally was held in Madison Square Garden.

If I were to pinpoint when the conservative movement was first hijacked by sociopaths, I would say it took place in 1974, just after President Nixon was forced to resign. His resignation opened the way for the sociopaths to take over.

In late 1974, the board of directors of the Schuchman Foundation met. Robert Schuchman was the first national chairman of YAF. In attendance at the meeting, in addition to the foundation's directors, were Edwin Feulner, Paul Weyrich and Joseph Coors. Coors, president of Coors Beer Company, told the foundation directors that unless they did exactly what he and Feulner and Weyrich directed them to do, he would destroy them and their organization.

The Schuchman Foundation directors brushed aside Coors' threat. Shortly thereafter, Coors, Feulner and Weyrich organized the Heritage Foundation and the Committee for a Free Congress. The latter two organizations, extremely well funded in the last 30 years, have crafted the national legislation and federal regulations that have enriched the wealthy and crucified the poor and disabled in America.

Since 1974 the conservative movement and the Republican Party, dominated by sociopaths with no social conscience whatsoever, have successfully engaged in what I call "The Politics of Death."

In addition to the sociopaths, a large group of opportunists moved into the conservative movement and the GOP and gained power. The emerging Abramoff lobbying scandal, which leads directly to members of Congress and to the White House, is an example of this opportunism.

Before this scandal has run its course, other opportunists such as the hypocritical Christian leader Ralph Reed and his cohorts will be exposed for sacrificing the public good for their personal gain.