Simple - they want to make sure he is not DEA - Census Worker

[FreakinDJ]

I see many members here on DU looking for answers as to the method of the killing of the census worker. Its obvious many here are from a big city and have never lived an worked in the backwoods where Pot Gardens and Meth Labs dot the landscape.

Back woods are full of clandestine Meth Labs and Pot Gardens and during this time of year (harvest Time) its an extremely dangerous mixture of the 2.

I used to live above the "Snow Line" in the Sierra Mountains, as well as in the infamous "Emerald Triangle" of Northern California. Pot gardens were every where as soon as you stepped off the main roads and ventured out into the National Forest. During this time of year Meth Dealers join up with Pot Growers and front them, (loan them) large quantities of Speed to help out with the work of 24/7 guarding the pot garden and the actual labor of harvest. In return the Meth Dealer will receive a portion of the harvest.

The result was a bunch of extremely paranoid / heavily armed dope growers pointing their guns every time a deer stepped on a twig.

Additionally there is the occasional "Garden Raider" looking to steal a few buds or a lot of buds for personal consumption. Hanging victims from trees has been traditional and law enforcement ruling it suicide equally the norm. Most law enforcement agencies simply view it as "Low-lifes killing Low-lifes" and not worth devoting energy and limited resources to.

Example #1: I had a friend who fell several house payments behind. Armed with a .30 cal carbine and a .38 revolver he ventured out into the woods looking to clip enough buds to get caught up on his house payments. They found him dead 3 days later shot through armpit and exited through his aorta artery. Police ruled it a suicide.

Example #2: Man found hanging from a tree with his face peeled off. Police ruled it Suicide

This stuff has been going on for a LONG TIME. America is just now finding out about it

[bitchkitty]

1. Killer pot growers?

I call bullshit.

[Celebration]

4. Nope, it is huge money

Really big money, and very corrupt.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

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[bitchkitty]

34. Actually, I have...

I have one growing in my closet as we speak! LOL

Seriously, I live in Oregon and I personally know many fellow pot growers. My niece lives in Humboldt and knows many outdoor growers. Of course we are legal, so maybe that makes a difference in who we associate with.

[FreakinDJ]

47. Well ya think - being legal makes ALL the difference

doesn't mean that my rendition is not that far off as I am sure you can attest to being you live in close proximity to Humboldt County.

BTW: were you around in 1986 when the 3 teenagers were killed over 1 oz of pot on the Hoopa Reservation.

[bitchkitty]

54. No, I moved to Oregon in 2000. n/t

[FreakinDJ]

64. Well your 40 years behind me time wise

Heck I still remember Hippys fleeing the Hate and arriving in the River Area of Sonoma County when the SFPD began bashing heads to force them to move on.

This 1 guy telling me the soil had "Natural Amphetamines" in it
LOL

[peace frog]

79. You remember hippies fleeing "the Hate"?

Are you referring to "the Haight" as in the Haight-Ashbury region of San Franscisco?

[FreakinDJ]

80. yep - but when SFPD arrived it became the HATE

"Line up and Bash Heads" - straight from a SFPD officer's mouth

Morning Star was up in Sonoma county too

[peace frog]

82. Bashed head

Is that what happened to you?

[Name removed]

83. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Beer on a stick]

49. I have lived most of my life in pot-heavy N. Cal, and find this dubious as well

Such murders are extraordinarily rare and are almost always sensationalized by the pro-WOD morons. IOW, these would have been all over the news.

Go ahead and link to the stories of their deaths.

[subcomhd]

56. There is a huge difference between legal/quasi-legal N. Cali pot farming

and that which takes place in other states. Throw in a meth lab and you got yourself some dangerous, paranoid people with money on the line.

[Beer on a stick]

57. Sure, but that doesn't address my point.

[Mariana]

71. The claim is that local officials routinely cover up these murders

by calling them suicides or accidents. Such a covered-up murder can't be sensationalized since officially, there was no murder at all.

[Beer on a stick]

76. The claim has not been supported. In the least.

That's the whole point.

[stray cat]

10. then you don't know much about people and greed

[DBoon]

19. These aren't your father's hippies anymore

this is big organized crime

Just like prohibition made Al Capone, the "war on drugs" has created these criminals

[OregonBlue]

22. I call B.S. on this. No big time dealer or grower is going to call attention to their operation.

They would quietly kill the guy and dump his body in the woods somewhere. They would not bind his hands and feet, scrawl FED on his chest, tape is Census Worker I.D. to his body and hang him in a place where he would be found. These are all attempts to obfuscate. "Hey, look over here". I'm not buying the meth lab B.S. I live in a rural area where people do grow pot and there are meth labs and the last thing they ever want to do is bring the State Police or the Feds down on themselves!!!

[Mrs. Overall]

23. Bingo.

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[OregonBlue]

45. You made my point perfectly. It's not your part of but, you're part of. So who is the dummy here?

Just because I am not buying this meth lab B.S. you insinuate that I'm GOP? You scenario is ridiculous. What grower would intentionally call attention to their operation? Booby trapped gardens are a far cry from killing, stripping and hanging a guy in a public place. That would only invite scrutiny. Your logic does not compute.

[Name removed]

62. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Beer on a stick]

59. None of which particularly proves the point you were originally trying to make

[OregonBlue]

69. Exactly. No one denies there are nasty people involved in these grow operations. No one denies that

they sometimes kill people. On the other hand, not one of the articles provided has them kidnapping a guy, stripping him, torturing him, tying him to a tree, scrawling FED on his chest, taping his I.D. to his neck and then leaving his body in a public place.

[bertman]

41. You're thinking like a rational human being who isn't jacked up on meth or some other

stimulant to keep him awake and who is already paranoid as hell about his crop in addition to the paranoia being brought on by the drugs. Then suddenly, out of nowhere comes a city dude with a census badge, snooping around in your patch. TILT. TILT. TILT. OVERLOAD!!

Back in my hippie days I saw some very weird ideas and actions take root in drug-addled brains when the paranoia reached critical mass.

Sometimes under those circumstances events take on a surreal and totally illogical aspect.

Just sayin'.

[kentuck]

50. Also...

We should not assume that the Feds that are working there do not fear for their own lives. They have families also.

[OregonBlue]

53. Possibly but I still find it hard to believe. I also can't believe the State Police are still saying

they don't know if this was a suicide or not. I can only imagine that they are under extreme pressure for this not to be politically motivated. By their logic, he would have had to strip himself, scrawl FED on his chest, tape his badge to his neck, tie himself to a tree, tape his hands and feet and then kill himself. I don't believe that is possible, therefore, I can only assume that there is obfuscation going on here. Thus, I am very skeptical.

[kentuck]

58. Buying politicians is a way of life...

in this part of the country. Buying votes is considered a necessity to winning elections. However, they have cracked down on it in recent years. Some politicians are now doing time.

[OregonBlue]

66. So are they also buying the State Police and FBI. They still don't know if this is a suicide?

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[kentuck]

68. It's not impossible.

County Sheriffs have been bought.

[OregonBlue]

72. Sigh. Too true. If this hadn't have gotten out to some of the Liberal sites it would have been swept

under the rug altogether. Maybe it is not what it appears, I guess it's possible that it was drug crazed pot growers but, the police stating that they are not yet certain whether it was a suicide makes it highly unlikely that they are playing it straight. There is no way in hell this was a suicide. I suspect they are working like hell to come up with some other explanation that will not point to right wing haters like Beck and Bachmann.

[Romulox]

2. I think it may have been the saucer people. And I have the same amount of evidence as you!

The power of my imagination!

:eyes:

[Beer on a stick]

60. Exactly. The DEA does NOT send in people disguised as Census workers

That's just not how they work.

[Celebration]

3. Agreed

In the hills of Tennessee, you have to be really careful. We have a friend with a farm, who called the police when he found pot growing on his farm. A couple of days later he got a phone call--LEAVE US ALONE. Guess what? He made no more calls to the cops.

[CanonRay]

5. Sorry, tis true! Possibly at least.

I'm former fed law enforcement, and I still have friends in BLM law enforcement. We're not talking a guy with 5 plants and a grow-lite in his garage. We're talking big business. Deadly business. This killing could be political, but it sure could be drugs.

[OregonBlue]

25. If you actually were a fed then you know that growers and producers DO NOT call attention to

themselves. This is B.S. The last thing they want is State Police and FEDS crawling all over their operations. Your logic is flawed.

[CanonRay]

29. The body is no where near the crop

IF in fact this is drug-related. I'm just saying they do get violent, and it IS possible it is drugs, not political.

[OregonBlue]

42. Doesn't matter where the body was. No real operator would ever want to bring the FEDS into their

area. Not even into their state. If you were in fact in law enforcement, you would know that. It's B.S.

[Mimosa]

85. Some just don't get it, CanonRay

Some people have never really known meth lab or pot growers out in the sticks. I had a half-sister who shacked up with one of those types. His father was found murdered in a bizarre way by somebody to whom he owed money or something. The death was gruesome. (Those types also kill folks they think might squeal.) The county and state authorities in S.C. did not pursue the case. The 'fed' part may have brought the real feds in and maybe we'll eventually learn more. I just doubt the man was murdered merely for being a census taker, given the general location. As others have pointed out, it is harvest time.

[crikkett]

28. Isn't this another argument for legalization?

Seriously. I've never read about someone getting lynched for raiding a tobacco farm.

[CanonRay]

32. I'm for legalization

even though I'm and ex-fed. I think the war on drugs is a total waste of time, money, and lives.

[shadowrider]

6. You've hit the nail on the head

Many people here, some of whom have never, ever been to that part of the country, have no idea what goes on and immediately blame conservatives, religious nuts, the right-wing etc. with no idea of the facts involved. Meth, pot AND illegal stills abound and this guy could easily have run across any of them.

I prefer to wait until facts are in before I make up my mind, but at first appearance, I would say he ran across someone who simply didn't want to be bothered by anyone, especially a representative of the fed, regardless what agency.

I have a friend who goes camping in the North Georgia mountains and I mean he goes WAY back into them. He has a winch attached to the front of his Jeep so if he gets stuck, he unwinds the cable, wraps it around a tree and winches himself out. He NEVER goes out without at least 2 pistols, a shotgun or two and a hatchet. He says it's fun to absolutely live out there for 3/4 days, dependent upon only what you catch for food, but he also says he's had close calls with "mountain folk" who objected to his presence. He never knows what he's going to run across.

[OregonBlue]

26. B.S. These guys do not want attention. They do not string the guy up naked and

tape badges to them and scrawl FED or their chests. They kill the guy and quietly dispose of his body. If this was drug related, it would not have been done this way. In fact the very opposite would have been done.

[peace frog]

81. Exactamundo

You have described a much more likely scenario, but why spoil everyone's crazed cock-eyed fun with cold logic and reason? You buzzkill, you. ;)

[timeforpeace]

7. Usual pattern here. Day 1-News breaks. Day 2-5:paranoid hysteria. Day 6-on: rational explanation.

"A lie can travel around the world before the truth gets it's shoes on"

[shadowrider]

40. All I'm saying

is closing your mind to other possibilities hampers, not helps, the investigation. You may be correct, you may not, but you have to consider everything when trying to solve something like this.

[Barack_America]

8. How long do you think it takes to acquire rope, duct tape.....

...load a man up in the bed of his pickup, drive a distance, strip him naked, drag him out, bind his hands and feet, hang him from the trunk of a tree, gag his mouth and write "FED" on his chest?

Seems an awful lot of time away from the pot garden.

Wouldn't it make more sense just to kill him and stash the body away nearby? If it's harvest time, chances are the pot will be gone before he was found.

Also, are many pot gardens located in people's front yards? The Census is interested in interviewing people at their homes, after all.

[stray cat]

11. sending a message to other people snooping around your business

[Barack_America]

15. Inviting hundreds of Federal agents to snoop around your business.

And media.

And losing some of the goodwill and protection of your fellow citizens.

If this was drug related, I imagine that the Feds are in a race to capture the culprits before other pot growers in the area do.

[FreakinDJ]

18. Its not the first time this has happened

and yes the Feds and the Media pile in as before, but the garden has already been picked, or the lab shut down

[OregonBlue]

31. Yes, this alternate theory is pure bull. No big time grower EVER want to call attention to their

operation. This would have been done quietly, the body would not be found for a long time if ever. This was not a warning to DEA, it was a warning to us. Right wing nut jobs trying to scare the left.

[Barack_America]

33. One could argue that it was an impulse killing.

And it might have been, but the scene where his body was found argues otherwise. That much was deliberately staged.

[OregonBlue]

39. Impluse killing? They had to kill him, strip him naked, tie him to a tree, scrawl FED on his body,

tape his hands and feet, tape is I.D. badge to his neck? Not exactly an "impulse" killing in my book. They would not have made this public. It would be quiet, secretive and he would have been found months later if at all.

[Barack_America]

43. Um, did you read my entire post?

:shrug:

[OregonBlue]

46. Yes, sorry, I meant to agree with you. Not likely that it was am impulse. Didn't make it clear

that I was agreeing with you. My bad.

[Barack_America]

48. It's all good.

[TxRider]

13. Nope

What does a pot grower want? During harvest time?

A huge missing persons search? A search with people spread out across the area looking for the man's truck, looking for him, poking around everywhere. They did have a search and found him, after he was missing a couple of days.

Or cops finding a body quickly, and calling off a search of the area?

[Barack_America]

16. He was found by people not involved in a search for him.

There was, in fact, no organized search for Bill Sparkman in Clay County. No one knew he was there until he was found. The Census dept. still cannot confirm that he was working. It is not as if he were scheduled to be in the area.

[FreakinDJ]

14. A LOT of Bodies are stashed nearby

As they used to say in the Emerald Triangle - "The forest is so thick, 50 feet off the road and they'll never find the body"

Its just occasionally the more paranoid cranked-out meth types choose to make an example of some one to ward off further attempts

[Barack_America]

24. It could be drugs, but I think your theory is a bit off...

Due to the lack of one detail.

There was a huge round up of drug traffickers in Clay County that week. Something like 40 arrests. The area where William Sparkman was found was not a drug hotspot. BUT he could have been deliberately targeted, killed and the scene staged in such a manner to scare law enforcement officials and/or divert their attentions while operations were cleaned up in other areas.

For this to be plausible, the area where he was left should be somewhat highly trafficked, relatively speaking of course. They would need him to be found. Given my unfamiliarity with the area, I cannot speak to that.

[peace frog]

17. Tsk tsk, there you go again

asking pertinent, logical questions that will be met with stony silence, snide put-downs and/or vehement defense. But nice try.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

44. Yup. Folks are going for the low-hanging fruit............

Jumping to conclusions without evidence, citing anecdotal evidence without a whisper of a link or documentation and generally stereotyping folks in this geographic area.

[OregonBlue]

74. Yes, we are kinda freaking out but for me it's the "Police are uncertain about whether this was a

murder or a suicide". They were still saying this yesterday and then we find out that he was killed, stripped, hands and feet taped, FED scrawled on his chest, I.D. taped to his neck, tied to a tree. So I for one cannot believe that they question whether it's a suicide since that's obviously not possible. If they are lying about that, what else are they lying about? And why use such a stupid lie? Once the public found out the circumstances, who would believe them? It all smells bad.

[bertman]

77. To answer Barack_America's questions about how long? I'd say less than an hour,

maybe as little as twenty minutes depending on how far he was taken from where he was kidnapped. Most "handy" types have rope and duct tape readily available, so that would be a quick get. Also, many of these groups of growers have numbers of people guarding sites, so having one or two people do the deed and quickly return would not be jeopardizing the crop/lab.

If it was a meth lab site I would guess it's a lot easier to walk away from than a big crop of weed. So they wouldn't necessarily be worrying about the lab being discovered so much as saying to locals: this could be you if you're stupid enough to cross us.

[stray cat]

12. First thing I thought of having been around pot growing regions

you have to be careful where you wander by accident if you want to live. They assume if you are that far out into their country you are DEA or a competitor.

[OregonBlue]

35. True that they may take someone out but they sure as hell don't make it public.

They don't want FEDS crawling all over their area. Not good for business!!

[Yo_Mama]

20. It was my immediate assumption

It is not a good idea to be wandering around rural areas that have a high prevalence of dope production, and that area does. I immediately heard the strains of "Copperhead Road" in my mind.

The next thing I thought of was that it was a family killing made to look like a dope killing. It could be either.

He seems to have been a very nice man, and this is a tragic event. He may have gotten lost on some country road and just wound up in the wrong spot. In a pickup truck. Not good.

FWIW, I was once shot at on my own property - I live in rural GA. Needless to say I did not call the cops about it. Half the cops are in on it. My neighbor across the road was selling pot at their house (a very nice one) for years.

[bluestateguy]

21. I do hope that it was not drug related

because that will only give the drug warriors more reason to step up the "war on drugs" with ever more repressive measures.

[Cass]

27. How would a census worker stumble on a pot garden in the depths of a national forest?

That's what confuses me about the drug angle. Are there private homes on national forest land that he would be required to visit for his census duties?

Now, if he knocked on the door of a meth house on private property elsewhere that's a different story I guess. But would a meth head go to the trouble of creating an elaborate death scene in the middle of a forest?

[shadowrider]

36. To protect a million dollar operation?

You betcha.

[CanonRay]

37. The "garden" was probable no where near where the body was found.

Some posters are correct in assuming they wouldn't want to call attention to themselves. But they can also be violent, and would assume that any "fed" who stumbled upon their crop (probably miles away) would report it. Hence, a death sentence. Again, I'm saying this is a possibility. Could it be right wing nuts? Absolutely. 50-50 in my eyes.

[shadowrider]

52. I daresay

you don't even need to stumble across the actual crop, only a paranoid person who assumes, because you knock on the door, you're aware of everything they're doing and who wants to protect, by any means necessary, their operation.

There is evil in this world and things do happen for the weirdest reasons. Example, a friend of mine used to be a Houston cop (he's retired now) and he told me about one evening when he was called to a murder scene at a bar/restaurant in a rather sordid part of town. When he got there, the victim was on the floor (he had been stabbed repeatedly) and the guy who did it was in handcuffs (Other police had responded). When the perp was asked why he killed the guy, the response was, "Man, the dude wanted some of my spaghetti."

[Cass]

70. Good point....maybe simply being a federal employee knocking on the wrong door asking

questions of a paranoid drug dealer was enough to get him killed. Of course, it could have just as easily been a paranoid anti-government winger, too. They are coming out of the woodwork lately. I'd think the anti-government winger would be more likely to create the elaborate scene in the forest with his census ID badge prominently displayed but anything is possible.

[shadowrider]

73. Agreed

Any and all possibilities should be on the table right now. It simply amazes me the amount of people who say it was x, or y, or z to the exclusion of all other possibilities.

[Cass]

61. Yes, maybe the garden was on private land somewhere remote where he would have reason to go

for his census job. I just keep wondering why a census worker would have reason to be in an area remote enough to have a drug garden, though. Wouldn't they be fairly well hidden and not near a house that would bring mail carriers and other assorted visitors? But I guess it is a possibility. I do agree with your 50-50 odds that it could also be wing nuts.

I had a hard time sleeping last night thinking of what happened to this man. A single parent who managed to beat cancer who believed in the good of people according to his friend. I hope whoever was behind this gets caught real soon.

[crikkett]

51. I've read stories of meth heads doing some outrageous things. n/t

[Mariana]

75. The census is supposed to try to count everyone

not just people living in private homes. It's not unheard of for people to pitch a tent or even to build a structure on public land and live there. They're supposed to be counted, too.

[tjwash]

30. I dunno..ever read the average "I HATE COPS" thread here?

You could be talking about half the mother fuckers on this message board, in regards to paranoid hallucinations and violent ranting.

[dhpgetsit]

55. You get both.

Some growers are mellow hippie types and others are well financed drug gangs.

We need to be talking about legalization.

[madmom]

63. One thing not being brought up and I think it should be is, Mr Sparkman was

from this area, he lived here. Several on here are saying "I live/lived in this area and people just don't go there" or "you know not to make waves" So Mr Sparkman lived here also and you would think he would have learned the same thing. Don't bother the drug dealers! I mean come on this guy was in his 50s not some young green kid. He would know how things are played in this area, right?

[shadowrider]

65. While I agree somewhat

I've lived in my house for a long, long time and I don't know everyone else who lives around me.

It's entirely possible he just ran across the wrong person and for whatever reason, paid the price. Until the facts are in, it's impossible to know.

In the words of Jethro LeRoy Gibbs, "Until I solve this murder, everyone is a suspect."

[kentuck]

67. It is reportedly in the Corbin Tribune that the Mexican Cartel...

are operating in Knox County, a neighboring county to Clay County.

It was reported a few weeks ago that the fires in California may have been started by Mexican marijuana farmers.

Of course, we should not stereotype Mexicans anymore than the mountain people, but there may be a lot more to this story than we know now or will ever know?

[ThoughtCriminal]

78. Out west

The Black-Helicopter republicans, tea-baggers and meth-lab operators overlap quite a bit. And you can't explain the difference between the DEA and Census Bureau to people who don't know the difference between socialism and fascism or Kenya and Hawaii.

[ohheckyeah]

84. You forgot about the moonshiners.

If that area of Kentucky is anything like the rural areas of Virginia then moonshiners are still pretty prevalent.

[Mimosa]

86. Asking too many questions is dangerous work. n/t