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Coroner Confirms "Fed" Written On Sparkman's Chest
Zachary Roth | September 25, 2009, 9:28AM
Bill Sparkman
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The local coroner has confirmed that the word "Fed" had been written on Bill Sparkman's chest when he was found dead earlier this month.
Jim Trosper, the Clay County coroner, confirmed the information to TPMmuckraker moments ago, adding that the word appeared to have been written in felt tip marker. He declined to give additional details.
An anonymous source had told the AP earlier this week that the word had been written on Sparkman's chest, setting off speculation that the Census worker had been killed in an act of anti-government sentiment. But the FBI and state police had tried to put a damper on that notion yesterday, telling reporters that the AP story contained errors, and that Sparkman was touching the ground, not hanging, when found.
Authorities have said Sparkman died of asphyxiation, but have still not officially ruled his death a homicide.
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Official A
September 25, 2009 9:50 AM
It's Kentucky, after all. It could mean he was given a last meal. /snark
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ricky
September 25, 2009 10:00 AM in reply to Official A
So inappropriate given the tragic situation. And so incredibly funny.
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Dorn76
September 25, 2009 9:56 AM
The lack of details, the involvement of the FBI, and now the confirmation of this awful fact points directly to a homicide.
Apparently this time of year they're harvesting alot of marijuana in that area, and he could have easily run in to some problems.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-09-30-kentucky_N.htm
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docrocktex
September 25, 2009 10:03 AM in reply to Dorn76
but why draw attention to your MJ operation by murdering someone in this fashion?
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ricky
September 25, 2009 10:07 AM in reply to docrocktex
Given the fact that you expressed that opinion, what better way to divert attention from your MJ operation than by making the death appear as a right wing hate crime. (I offer neither as an explanation yet)
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henk
September 25, 2009 10:28 AM in reply to ricky
I hate to contribute to the speculation on this, I really think that everyone needs to take a deep breath and wait and see what happens, but this is something I know about so...I doubt that growers would write FED on a victims chest to make it look like a right wing hate crime. Its a lot more likely if they went to the trouble of killing someone it was because they thought the were an informant. It would be a statement: "This guy was a working with the Feds and this is what happens to people who do."
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ricky
September 25, 2009 10:42 AM in reply to henk
Well, I agree specualtion about this is rampant and ill informed. That is why a comment from someone who knows what marijuana growers scrawl on the chest of their murder victims is so helpful.
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SqueakyRat
September 25, 2009 1:20 PM in reply to ricky
Wait a minute, Ricky. The perps of the right-wing hate crime, knowing about all the MJ growers in the area, might have written FED on the victim's chest so that people like you would think it was the MJ growers trying to make people think it was a right-wing hate crime! What about that, huh?! Huh?!!
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kyniska
September 25, 2009 1:59 PM in reply to SqueakyRat
"Wait a minute, Ricky. The perps of the right-wing hate crime, knowing about all the MJ growers in the area, might have written FED on the victim's chest so that people like you would think it was the MJ growers trying to make people think it was a right-wing hate crime! What about that, huh?! Huh?!!"
Thank you for 1) making me laugh loudly and 2) encapsulating what is so perfectly aggravating about this entire discussion.
I feel sorry for Mr. Sparkman, mostly because of the violent and deadly act committed against him, but partially because of the absurdity of the ensuing conversations about what happened.
I've just never read so many posts by people who claim to know specifically what would occur in the event a meth grower ran into a census worker in Daniel Boone National Forest.
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kgb999
September 25, 2009 5:55 PM in reply to ricky
That's absurd. The whole point of growing on federal land is if the crop is detected the grower can just abandon the patch and have no provable connection to the operation. It would not make sense to create a sensationalistic murder scene and ensure 100X the law enforcement response. The victim's truck is nearby, how in the heck would having a body distract from the operation?
I might buy a meth-head who was trying to cook in his van after an 8 day bender freaking out and killing someone, but a MJ growing operation is the most far-fetched of all theories yet IMO.
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docrocktex
September 25, 2009 10:15 AM
i doubt these people are smart enough to use wingnuttia as a patsy. either way, scrawling "fed" on his chest points to some form of anti-govt sentiment, whether it's from wingnuts or meth/mj growers really doesn't matter.
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TheRealFish
September 25, 2009 11:37 AM in reply to docrocktex
Uh...yeah. Seems to me that criminals will do just about everything in their power to NOT draw attention. If it were druggers, Sparkman would have simply disappeared or been found miles and miles (and miles) away from areas known for manufacture or dealing.
The one thing that's totally, empirically clear, now that this tidbit has been confirmed, is somebody is sending a loud (though unfocused) message.
And, unless Sparkman was filled with some vast remorse over being a government worker, and "fed" was his suicide note, this also points more clearly to a hate crime style homicide.
The evidence being leaked is truly meager at this point, but the few things revealed appear to point, for me, in that direction.
As for his feet touching the ground? If this was a hate crime "message," that little FBI correction of flawed reporting also hints at torture* — amplifying the message just that much louder.
* The key to whether this was homicide and, further, torture, depends quite a bit on if his hands were bound. If your hands are tied and you are neck-leashed to a tree in the middle of the woods, at some point you will either A) be discovered and rescued, B) lose your footing (hanged) or C) pass out from sheer fatigue (hanged). About the time you begin to grow tired in that situation with your body crying out merely to "sit down!" is when the torture truly begins. And that could have gone on for hours and hours and hours. Quite a "message."
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pseudonymous in nc
September 25, 2009 2:26 PM in reply to TheRealFish
If it were druggers, Sparkman would have simply disappeared or been found miles and miles (and miles) away from areas known for manufacture or dealing.
"Areas known for manufacture [or growing] or dealing" = the DBNF. The entire National Forest has patches carved out of it for MJ cultivation, and federal law enforcement has been working to stop it, both overtly and covertly, for years.
The idea that growers, manufacturers and dealers wouldn't want to draw the attention of the federal government is undermined by the fact that the federal government is already there, creating resentment that its money is visibly spent on the Drug War but not on the populace.
Harper's wrote about it last year (sub req.): http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/07/0082096
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AnswerFrog
September 25, 2009 11:38 AM in reply to docrocktex
yeah, could easily be a ruse. drug dealers trying to mislead investigators.
I'm still skeptical of jumping to any conclusions yet, since this is so bizarre and too many unknowns.
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SqueakyRat
September 25, 2009 1:22 PM in reply to AnswerFrog
Sure, a ruse. So much better than burying him out in the woods somewhere.
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Metzengerstein
September 25, 2009 11:28 AM
Wouldn't it be ironic if anti-government hate scared Census workers enough that they didn't go into certain red-state areas and they got undercounted, enough to make some red states lose a few congressional seats and/or not gain new ones and the blue states to benefit. I know, statistically very improbable, but still ...
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psyopswatcher
September 27, 2009 10:18 AM in reply to Metzengerstein
Yea, then the joke's on Bachmann.
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JimmyBobby
September 25, 2009 11:31 AM
He was a drug informer. He was hung up there by meth dealers.
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TheRealFish
September 25, 2009 11:45 AM in reply to JimmyBobby
Yes, it's just like those darned meth dealers to take a great big neon-bright arrow and point directly at where they do their dealing and/or meth-labbing to shout "bring it on DEA!!! Get your SWAT teams and armored personnel carriers down here! We want us some socialized prison health care and free food we can chew with all nine of our teephs!"
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Nebton
September 25, 2009 1:18 PM in reply to TheRealFish
I'll grant you that it'd be a stupid thing to do. That said, we can't rule it out as people do stupid things all the time. (I'm with you on being skeptical of such an explanation, however.)
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NobleCommentDecider
September 25, 2009 11:56 AM
These are remote mountainous regions with little or no history of government control, the areas are rife with armed religious fundamentalists, and have an economy based on drug production.
The areas are tribal in that outsiders are easily identified and are resented, particularly if they have a connection to the central government.
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xargaw
September 25, 2009 12:04 PM
This is just such a tragedy. This poor man had dealt with a lot and triumphed. Drug dealers typically do everything in their power to avoid calling attention to themselves. It does seem likely that anyone involved in illegal drugs would create this kind of spectacle that would obviously bring in outside law enforcement. On the surface, it looks more like a political statement. Let's hope that the Feds are able to catch those responsible and make an example of them. There is so much hate being fueled right now in this country by uncaring selfish people only looking to further their personal ambitions. The climate being created by the haters, if not stopped, is likely to incite more tragedy.
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Winston Smith
September 25, 2009 1:15 PM
More adventures in "real" America.
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SqueakyRat
September 25, 2009 1:26 PM
Is there any reason to think that the marijuana growers, meth producers, and anti-government crazies are all more or less the same people in those parts?
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SqueakyRat
September 25, 2009 1:29 PM in reply to SqueakyRat
Shit. I meant: Is there any reason to think all those aren't all more or less the same people?
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NobleCommentDecider
September 25, 2009 6:55 PM in reply to SqueakyRat
...reckon guess and calculate you are right squeakyrat.
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The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
September 25, 2009 2:45 PM
Speaking as someone who was born raised one county away from Clay County, if you're inclined to speculate, I wouldn't suggest starting from the assumption that the perp or perps were the kind of people who do the Sunday NYT crossword in ink.
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diachronic
September 25, 2009 4:20 PM in reply to The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
And speaking as someone who watched a documentary on meth addicts, they are precisely the kind of people who will stay up for days at a time doing the NYT Sunday crossword puzzle.
And the documentary did suggest that many meth addicts were also manufacturers/distributors of said substance.
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TheOtherWA
September 25, 2009 3:12 PM
There's one more possible angle to this case, good ol' political corruption. Vote Fraud in Clay Co.
People who like their elections "customized" don't like interference, and the right wing currently hates the census precisely because Democrats control congress and the White House. They're preemptively discrediting any redistricting that hurts them.
For the record, I don't think this is any more or less likely than any other theory.
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siskin
September 25, 2009 3:25 PM
I couldn't help thinking that if we had a left wing talk machine correlating to the Limbaugh/Beck/O'Reilly machine, this episode would have taken off. Our nutjobs would have stated as fact that this was done by rightwing nutjobs and it was all the fault of Michelle Bachman and Beck/Limbaugh, et al for all their hate speech directed against census takers. Bachman, et al would have been all over tv on the defensive to say it wasn't their fault.
Then the MSM would have gotten into the act reporting that no one knows: was the census worker killed by rightwingers? That would have quickly become the meme and the rightwing would have to defend itself from what would now be conventional wisdom. Instead, the left wing sits back and says lets not jump to conclusions and the right wing has nothing to defend itself against. Understand, I'm not saying we should accuse them without proof; just that that's what they do when situations are reversed.
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kyniska
September 25, 2009 5:02 PM in reply to siskin
At this point, I think you're right.
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lousgirl84
September 25, 2009 5:07 PM
What happened to blue pearl?
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lousgirl84
September 25, 2009 5:08 PM
Off message but has anyone seen this?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/24/rush-limbaugh-jay-leno-sh_n_299190.html
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patmcgrowen
September 26, 2009 8:02 PM
As someone who is from Kentucky, sometimes unfortunately shamefully, this incident does not surprise me. There is a large number of Fox followers around here. I am from an area that has had a high number of drug related murders and usually those type of murders are when people are found months later in a well somewhere or in a ditch. The point of those murders are for people to "disappear". There seems to be a strong message behind this murder that the murderer wanted to be known. It seems the murderer wanted this message to be widely reported. I don't think someone wanting to keep attention away from their meth lab would go about a "hush" murder this way.
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