Evil Hours by Raymond Benson

Author:Raymond Benson [Benson, Raymond]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crossroad Press

The next month contained a flurry of activity in the Limite Sheriff's Office. FBI agents, investigators from the Texas Attorney General's office, and even the Texas Rangers got involved in the investigation into Gary Harrison's allegations that he was burned by a cigarette in LucasCounty jail. D. A. Franklin ordered the Lucas County Grand Jury to conduct a separate investigation on their own. Deputies and jailers were interviewed at length and Buck Barton gave no less than thirty statements to thirty different officials. D.A. investigator Bobby Gibson was especially under scrutiny, as it became known during the investigation that he had been "run out" of New Orleans when he had been an assistant D.A. there in the late sixties. Apparently he had been charged with unethical conduct and was removed from office.

The days turned into weeks. Approximately a month later on December 1, 1974, the Lucas County Grand Jury and the Texas Attorney General's Office returned their reports on the investigations. All of the relevant parties gathered in Judge Kennilworth's courtroom in Austin once again to hear the outcome.

A representative from the Attorney General's office read a summary statement that accompanied the sixty-eight page report.

"We find that the allegations made by Gary Harrison regarding coercion and mistreatment by Lucas County law enforcement officers and personnel during his stay in the Limite jail between January and June, 1974, to be unfounded. We hereby exonerate the Lucas County Sheriff's Office and the Limite District Attorney's Office of any wrongdoing. Furthermore, we find that Gary Harrison invented the story of burning charges and that the wounds on his arms were self-inflicted. A fellow inmate in Travis County Jail assisted Harrison in burning his arms on or around July 1. We believe the wounds were such that they would have required cooperation from the subject to receive them, due to the pain involved."

Buck Barton and Rusty Franklin breathed a sigh of relief. Harrison's trial for the murders of Grace Daniel and Mary Parker could go forward, if the LucasCountyD.A. felt they could win without the inadmissible confessions. Franklin thought it was pretty hopeless. On January 5, Rusty Franklin asked that the murder charges against Gary Harrison in the Daniel and Parker cases be dismissed in District Court. There simply wasn't enough evidence to convict Harrison without those confessions.

That left Harrison's appeal on the life sentence for the Kelly White murder, which was scheduled to take place in early 1975.

"It's a goddamn shame," Franklin told Barton, as they ate lunch at the Tamale Shop. "We gotta hope that he doesn't win on appeal, or he's gonna be a free man."

"Oh, he's never gonna be a free man, even if he gets out," Barton said.

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind."

The music on the restaurant's loud speakers switched from Ronnie Milsap's Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends to Eric Clapton's I Shot the Sheriff.

"I fuckin’ hate that song," Barton said. He finished his meal, then stood and walked away from the D.A. He got into his car and drove toward his office.

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