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Speaker 7: The Gwinnett County, Georgia Police Department was formed by tough,
Speaker 7: honorable men who were brought in to clean up the
Speaker 7: county after the sheriff made moonshining his personal business. With
Speaker 7: a low budget, officers had to buy their own uniforms, guns,
Speaker 7: even bullets. The police had to take anyone with a
Speaker 7: pulse who could stand upright, even with the odds against them.
Speaker 7: The police department grew into a force feared by the
Speaker 7: criminals and respected by county citizens. Late one night in
Speaker 7: spring of nineteen sixty four, the police in Gwynett County
Speaker 7: and everywhere learned just how far that respect would go
Speaker 7: in saving their lives. In a tight spot. Officers Jesse Gravitt,
Speaker 7: Ralph Davis, and Jerry Everett responded to a report of
Speaker 7: suspicious activity on a desolate County road named ARC. What
Speaker 7: they found was a kind of criminal. They were completely
Speaker 7: unprepared for a psychopath that would do anything to avoid
Speaker 7: the consequences of his actions, including the cold blooded killing
Speaker 7: of three county police officers. This began one of the
Speaker 7: most intense murder investigations that Georgia had ever seen. ARC
Speaker 7: Road is the story of those officers. That investigation and
Speaker 7: the followed from those horrific murders that charged changed the
Speaker 7: way law enforcement officers are trained. ARC Road the horrific
Speaker 7: murders of three police officers in Gwinnett County, Georgia that
Speaker 7: changed law enforcement forever. With my special guest, journalist and
Speaker 7: author Tony Tiffin. Welcome to the program, and thank you
Speaker 7: very much for this interview Tony Tiffin.
Speaker 6: Dan, it's my pleasure. Greetings from the Deep South, though
Speaker 6: it's a bit cold here today.
Speaker 7: Ah, Yes, from Georgia.
Speaker 6: From Georgia, I mean the land of Georgia. Dan, let
Speaker 6: me inform you and your readers there, it's okay to chuckle.
Speaker 6: The reason is this story and all of this horror
Speaker 6: is laughable in certain areas now still. But not to worry,
Speaker 6: we're all cried out down here. That story, fifty five
Speaker 6: years later, is still causing a sadness that has broken
Speaker 6: Gwinnett County's heart and will always be a dark chapter.
Speaker 6: In fact, they call the weekend of the murders and
Speaker 6: their funerals as the dark Days of Gwenette County. It
Speaker 6: still holds over as probably always will.
Speaker 7: Tell us about Gwinnett County and your connection to this
Speaker 7: area of the Old South in Georgia. Tell us about
Speaker 7: about the early sixties before preceding nineteen sixty four in
Speaker 7: April when this occurred. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 7: Gwinnett County, Georgia and the surrounding little towns around it.
Speaker 7: Tell us what it was like and where it's proximity two.
Speaker 6: Gwinnette County is just north and in the five metro
Speaker 6: county metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia. Were just northeast of Atlanta.
Speaker 6: In the early sixties, Gwinette County was fourth in population
Speaker 6: in the metro area, and it was number one in
Speaker 6: land mass. Thereabouts four hundred and seventy square miles of
Speaker 6: chicken farms, dirt roads, and cotton fields. It was agriculture.
Speaker 6: It was some ranching going on, but mostly chickens. And
Speaker 6: it was still a very quiet deep South traditional county
Speaker 6: where not much had grabbed hole. But like all of Atlanta,
Speaker 6: that was soon to change, but Gwinette County was farmers
Speaker 6: desolate in many ways. But the dirt roads were like
Speaker 6: spiderwebs went throughout the county and as a result, folks
Speaker 6: kind of lived on their own. In the case of
Speaker 6: Arc Road in the early sixties, Arc Road was two
Speaker 6: mile long stretch of road, but only two residents were
Speaker 6: along the entire two mile stretch. So we were desolate
Speaker 6: and we were kind of quiet. Yet we could get
Speaker 6: to Atlanta, downtown Atlanta within generally an hour's drive. Until
Speaker 6: the road started improving, then we can get down there
Speaker 6: in twenty minutes. But until then we were a county
Speaker 6: all to ourselves, formed really as little Indian reservations which
Speaker 6: had sprung up along the Chattahoochee River, and from there
Speaker 6: we grew into a little small towns and have had
Speaker 6: at that time and have always had an Indian kind
Speaker 6: of a tradition about us. We still celebrate Indian holidays
Speaker 6: and things of that nature. But it was a mixture.
Speaker 6: It was the Deep South, it was the Old South,
Speaker 6: and not a whole lot went on outside of your
Speaker 6: little neighborhood. So we were self sufficient people that usually
Speaker 6: had our own little gardens and our own little plots
Speaker 6: and so on and so forth. We're all saying back then,
Speaker 6: if you wanted to eat, you either had to grow
Speaker 6: it or slaughter at one to get food on your table.
Speaker 6: And that's pretty much the way we live. Food was
Speaker 6: a priority, Shelter was a priority. Family and God were
Speaker 6: right up there at the top of the list, in
Speaker 6: no specific order, each having equal measure.
Speaker 7: You talk about the history also of the liquor stills,
Speaker 7: and also that it became a political issue and leading
Speaker 7: to their a desire to form a proper police department.
Speaker 7: So tell us about this a little bit about this
Speaker 7: liquor history and the politics behind the move for a
Speaker 7: new police department.
Speaker 6: Well, sure, it's I mean, your listeners know it's moonshine
Speaker 6: because it traveled in tanks hidden under old Ford coops
Speaker 6: by the light of the moon back in that day.
Speaker 6: So we were that was just the culture of the
Speaker 6: Deep South. Dan, that's what we did in our own
Speaker 6: kind of way. You have to try and put yourself
Speaker 6: back in the early sixties and just prior, but throughout
Speaker 6: the mid sixties as well, when you wanted something from
Speaker 6: your general store, and that's what it was. A general
Speaker 6: store generally a two mile hike to get to it.
Speaker 6: Trading was okay with folks. We would take a chicken
Speaker 6: down there, and usually a live chicken would get you
Speaker 6: a bag of candy, a Coca Cola and a pack
Speaker 6: of cigarettes. We just did buy our own resources and
Speaker 6: Moonshining was just an old traditional thing that the boys
Speaker 6: up in the hills, better known as hillbillies. That's what
Speaker 6: they did. But we didn't see any harm in it. Though.
Speaker 6: It was one of those major platforms or major stumps
Speaker 6: that the politicians would come through here and throw at us,
Speaker 6: as if we were appreciating what they were saying. Well,
Speaker 6: we didn't appreciate it at all. That's why in nineteen
Speaker 6: sixty we hired the biggest still owner and elected him
Speaker 6: as our new high sheriff. So we did. We were
Speaker 6: tired of empty promises and things of that nature. The
Speaker 6: old saying was you could drive a car at the
Speaker 6: speed limit down a dirt road, throw a rock out
Speaker 6: of the driver's window, and chances are it would clank
Speaker 6: when it would hit the ground because it would hit us. Still,
Speaker 6: it wasn't that prevalent, but it was a loose kind
Speaker 6: of society where gambling parlors. Keeping in mind, though the
Speaker 6: irony of it all was Gwinnett was a dry county
Speaker 6: at the time. If you wanted to buy a liquor
Speaker 6: by a drink, you'd have to go into the city
Speaker 6: of Atlanta. So we just did what we wanted to
Speaker 6: do and got around. And it was people used Gwinnett
Speaker 6: County to satisfy desires one way or another, and so
Speaker 6: we had the gambling parlors, the shothouses of the moonshine.
Speaker 6: But a lot of the moonshine that was made around
Speaker 6: here was either for self consumption or they'd pack it
Speaker 6: into the back of that old ford and send it
Speaker 6: down to Atlanta and points actually further, because here in
Speaker 6: the North Georgia area where Arc Road took place is
Speaker 6: hills and woods and streams, perfect ingredient for hauling a
Speaker 6: couple of old drums up into the woods and start
Speaker 6: of fire, and are all saying was back then, good
Speaker 6: liquor comes starts with a blue flame. So we just
Speaker 6: had a good time doing that and using our own
Speaker 6: resources to make moonshine. But it was not like everybody
Speaker 6: was falling over drunk on illegal liquor. That didn't happen
Speaker 6: at all.
Speaker 7: Let's get to the police commissioner and who he heads
Speaker 7: up in his new department. Tell us about this personnel
Speaker 7: that he assembles to be able to clean up this area.
Speaker 6: Well, the police department the sheriff's department were totally different departments.
Speaker 6: The police department came on because the commissioners decided, we
Speaker 6: got ourselves into a mess here, We've gotten a history
Speaker 6: and now one of the biggest culprits of all time
Speaker 6: elected as our sheriff, so we need The commissioners came
Speaker 6: about saying we need to not elect but rather of
Speaker 6: points a chief of police and start a new police
Speaker 6: department independent of that bunch over there in the sheriff's department.
Speaker 6: The sheriff had come in, as I said, the biggest
Speaker 6: still owner in the county, so it didn't take Also
Speaker 6: keep in mind, Dan, before I get too far ahead
Speaker 6: of myself, that the police department started with only two
Speaker 6: patrol officers. The sheriff's department never had much more than
Speaker 6: about six or eight deputies. But they were of our
Speaker 6: new high Sheriff's making. They did what he said to do,
Speaker 6: and when they couldn't get paid or anything for that
Speaker 6: he explained, well, you make your money out there on
Speaker 6: those roads. The police commissioner came in to attempt at
Speaker 6: bringing about law and order into the county with the
Speaker 6: new police department and the integrity of those he first
Speaker 6: brought into, such as Chief Police Jobell MJ. Pucket. Those
Speaker 6: assistant chief of police were honorable men. They were upstanding characters.
Speaker 6: They believed in one thing, and that was the peace
Speaker 6: and quality and the growth of Gwinnett County in their
Speaker 6: own way, and they went on to hire up a
Speaker 6: few more boys. But the police department was not a
Speaker 6: glamorous job by any means. They would go for it
Speaker 6: to be glamorous, but they only paid the patrol officers
Speaker 6: two hundred dollars a month. They didn't give them any
Speaker 6: of their own equipment. They didn't provide them anything that
Speaker 6: they needed. So the police officer, if he joined the force,
Speaker 6: and not a whole lot, came busting down the old
Speaker 6: jail house door to get onto the force. They had
Speaker 6: to buy their own uniforms, their own guns, their own boots,
Speaker 6: their own bullets, and it was a very tough beginning.
Speaker 6: In fact, it was not the first time that the
Speaker 6: police had the County had tried a police department. It
Speaker 6: was rather the second time. The first time had failed.
Speaker 6: They just couldn't get any officers to do the trip.
Speaker 7: You talk about that, you introduce characters that they hire
Speaker 7: in this small force. Leonard Bowen, they call him the Bull.
Speaker 7: They also get a guy named another tough guy named
Speaker 7: Jerry Everett. A little bit later, they're looking around, I mean,
Speaker 7: like you say, nobody's really dying to be a police
Speaker 7: officer there. But they find a guy that actually had
Speaker 7: a self defense manslaughter charge and the prison term. This
Speaker 7: Ralph Davis, and then Carl Gravitt and his brother Jesse applied.
Speaker 7: So this is where we are introduced to Ralph Davis,
Speaker 7: Jesse Gravitt, and Jerry Everett in this new police force.
Speaker 6: Let me get ahead of you a little bit. The
Speaker 6: whole point of arc road is never forgetting those names.
Speaker 6: So I appreciate very much you bringing their names up.
Speaker 6: The new police force was well, you mentioned it earlier,
Speaker 6: mister Bowen. The tough guys you called you addressed a
Speaker 6: mister mister Bowen, As I say, best not mess with
Speaker 6: the old Georgia boy goes with the nickname Bull. He
Speaker 6: got the job done whenever he needed to. Jerry Everett
Speaker 6: was a smart came from a family of police officers,
Speaker 6: was a smart officer, started at a young age, and
Speaker 6: by the time he was twenty eight years of age
Speaker 6: in nineteen sixty four, he had already gone through just
Speaker 6: about anything a Gwinnett cop could go through that day
Speaker 6: in time. There were no radios that the almost line
Speaker 6: of sight, if you will, There was no backup police officer.
Speaker 6: Whatever he got into he had to get himself out
Speaker 6: of and it was up to him. Gwinnette, when they
Speaker 6: fir first started the police department, they did partner up
Speaker 6: so they had two patrol car with a total of
Speaker 6: eight patrol officers and in four cars. But if you
Speaker 6: got yourself into trouble, and believe me, in North Georgia,
Speaker 6: especially Gwinett County, could easily get yourself in trouble. There
Speaker 6: were those out there that just did not have any
Speaker 6: respect for lawman. A police officer was not a friendly guy.
Speaker 6: So you had a mixture of characters in the county.
Speaker 6: Those that never interacted with the police, those that from
Speaker 6: time to time would get a ticket, and those that
Speaker 6: were out to do anything against the police that they
Speaker 6: possibly could, but back in those days, they had no training,
Speaker 6: they had nothing to go along with, So it was
Speaker 6: a personal reward that the police officers got. But you
Speaker 6: mentioned their names. They're very real those people. The names
Speaker 6: are not changed in this book. Those are real characters
Speaker 6: from Gwinett County back in the sixties.
Speaker 7: Now you set the stage here that it's a little humble,
Speaker 7: little force that's been together for a few years, that's
Speaker 7: been assembled. They're tough guys in a tough area and
Speaker 7: people interacting and I sort of people look the other
Speaker 7: way for many what some people would say victimless crimes,
Speaker 7: but at least crimes are looked the other way. So
Speaker 7: the police have their hands full and they're in an
Speaker 7: unthankful position. Tell us about what ARC Road is, and
Speaker 7: tell us about the call that comes in and why
Speaker 7: and and and how Davis and Everett's car is sent
Speaker 7: on this call.
Speaker 6: ARC Road is the culmination of what law enforcement was
Speaker 6: in the country at that time. Certainly throughout George, Atlanta
Speaker 6: and Fulton County they had a much larger force, but
Speaker 6: Gwennette County being again that it was so rural that
Speaker 6: it was just experimenting with this new force. I think
Speaker 6: day to day. They were probably hoping that it would
Speaker 6: that they would wake up and still have jobs tomorrow morning.
Speaker 6: Arc Road came about as an area. It was just
Speaker 6: a thorough road from Beaver Ruin to Pleasant Hill. It
Speaker 6: was a two mile long stretch of a dirt road
Speaker 6: and it wasn't very well maintained, so it was a
Speaker 6: tough road to get across. In fact, I've had many
Speaker 6: people tell me back in the Ark Road day they
Speaker 6: could not drive their passioner car the full length of
Speaker 6: Arc Road. It was just too ruddy and too narrow
Speaker 6: and just unimproved to say the least. But it is
Speaker 6: the story about in that day, Dan, you have to
Speaker 6: understand also, and these are tough things to do because
Speaker 6: we're talking over half a century ago. But the police
Speaker 6: officers in that day, with no training, they really weren't emphasized.
Speaker 6: It wasn't emphasized upon the citizens that we had a
Speaker 6: police force to answer to the call to the bad guys,
Speaker 6: because there weren't that many bad guys there. Today, it's
Speaker 6: a different world. If you open up the newspapers, you're
Speaker 6: going to murders, and you're going to see robbery and
Speaker 6: id theft and you know, well, there wasn't any of
Speaker 6: that in Gwenett County hardly back in there, so our
Speaker 6: police officers didn't have to go around investigating crimes of murder.
Speaker 6: In fact, it was because of this inexperience that brought
Speaker 6: in outside forces when this happened. But even in today's
Speaker 6: time we hear about police officers being murdered all the time.
Speaker 6: But even today it would be a shocker. I dare
Speaker 6: say someone was to wake up and read the headline
Speaker 6: that three county police officers were marched into the woods,
Speaker 6: handcuffed the three of them together and shot the guns
Speaker 6: there three guns used to kill them, with sixteen rounds
Speaker 6: finding their mark in the officers' heads. That would be
Speaker 6: an alarm even today's time. So imagine the ripple. First
Speaker 6: of all, the lightning bolt that penetrated everybody in this
Speaker 6: county because we knew those three police officers. But then
Speaker 6: the ripple effect it had not just in Georgia, but
Speaker 6: there were people in Stockholm reading the headlines the next
Speaker 6: day in their newspaper. Locally here or I should say,
Speaker 6: in the States, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, all heard
Speaker 6: about it that night, All three that at that time.
Speaker 6: There were three networks on TV, the Walter Cronkites, the Brinkleys,
Speaker 6: so on and so forth that reported it that evening
Speaker 6: April seventeenth, nineteen sixty four, and it led their televised news.
Speaker 6: Of course, here in Atlanta, it was just unbelievable. We
Speaker 6: just couldn't believe I came about in this story. My
Speaker 6: dad was a military police officer who died while active duty,
Speaker 6: and that was in Massachusetts. We followed the casket down
Speaker 6: here to Atlanta. And next thing I know is I'm
Speaker 6: living as a ten year old kid here in Atlanta
Speaker 6: for so years when this incident took place, and it
Speaker 6: reminded me. It reeled me back to my dad saying,
Speaker 6: if you're ever in trouble or you need help, seek
Speaker 6: out the nearest police officer. So when I read those headlines,
Speaker 6: and of course on the Atlanta news it was everywhere,
Speaker 6: I could not believe that someone would not just hurt
Speaker 6: a police officer, but murder a police officer, and not
Speaker 6: just one, but three together. So on April the seventeenth,
Speaker 6: early in the morning, they were found off of Arc Road,
Speaker 6: to the side in a stretch of woods that they
Speaker 6: could not see from the little road itself until they
Speaker 6: started walking around the woods, and then they finally saw
Speaker 6: the three corpses lying on the ground in the woods,
Speaker 6: handcuffed together and virtually a pool of blood. Floating in
Speaker 6: a pool of blood.
Speaker 7: You mentioned that a man named A. C. Mills. Virtually
Speaker 7: there's no houses on this growth, but somebody again very timely,
Speaker 7: had the dog barking, and so the Sacy Mills, an
Speaker 7: old man, calls the police and says, there's some boys
Speaker 7: up here. They shouldn't be up here. It's one thirty
Speaker 7: in the morning and there shouldn't be anybody here and
Speaker 7: maybe come up and investigate. So they send a dispatcher
Speaker 7: named Pruitt, sends Davis an Everett's car. So, and what
Speaker 7: do police know? After they find this horror scene, they
Speaker 7: also find a smoldering sixty three oldsmobile. Tell us about that?
Speaker 7: What do police know? And how do they proceed from there?
Speaker 7: Of course, they're outraged. They want they want to capture
Speaker 7: these criminals. What do they do?
Speaker 6: The night before or late at night on April the sixteenth,
Speaker 6: before it turned the midnight onto Friday, the stars were
Speaker 6: all aligned for the heavens to fall apart. The radio
Speaker 6: operator Prewit was only thereby happenstance. He normally had left
Speaker 6: the jailhouse and his radio position much earlier than that.
Speaker 6: Jesse Gravitt was on the side of the expressway with
Speaker 6: Bull Bowen. They were investigating a car fire, and he
Speaker 6: had asked or requested that Car twenty nine, Jerry Everett
Speaker 6: and Ralph Davis come pick him up and take him
Speaker 6: to his home. They had not yet gotten in this
Speaker 6: radio call from Prewitt, nor had Ac Mills called Pruit
Speaker 6: to complain. There's two people out on my road, two cars.
Speaker 6: They look like they're smoking cigarettes, they look like they're talking.
Speaker 6: They're right up the street from me, and there's not
Speaker 6: supposed to be anybody out here that time of night.
Speaker 6: He was correct. Ark Road was not passable at night.
Speaker 6: There were no lights, street lights, there was nothing there.
Speaker 6: It was contingent on the mount of light put out
Speaker 6: by the moon and stars, as always was in this case.
Speaker 6: They didn't know where Arc Road was. There was no
Speaker 6: GPS on the car. So as they were taking mister
Speaker 6: Gravit home that night, Jerry Everett, driving Car twenty nine,
Speaker 6: happened to see an old wooden sign that had inscribed
Speaker 6: on it Arc and so he turned down that from
Speaker 6: the other side from which the bad guys and mister
Speaker 6: Mills came came in. Mister Mills lived on what we
Speaker 6: call the south end of the road. It is divided
Speaker 6: by a creek, and then there's the north end of
Speaker 6: the road, and at the time that creek had a
Speaker 6: small rickety bridge crossing it. Patrol Car twenty nine came
Speaker 6: from the north entrance and as they came up over
Speaker 6: the hill on Arc Road, almost to the completion of
Speaker 6: Arc Road, there they saw them. If it was ten
Speaker 6: minutes either way, perhaps they wouldn't have the Truett, Williams
Speaker 6: and Evans, the bad guys would have been gone in
Speaker 6: ten minutes and none of this would have happened. But
Speaker 6: it just continued. All the things that would occur. Also,
Speaker 6: just more irony happened. Jerry Everett had just bought what
Speaker 6: is now described as a bug a backup gun, and
Speaker 6: he had it in his pocket. But just moments before
Speaker 6: they got the call to go pick up mister Gravit,
Speaker 6: Jerry had unloaded his derringer and handed it to Walt
Speaker 6: Tungue who mister tong had a diner, and they were
Speaker 6: having their midnight meal there. When he unloaded that derringer,
Speaker 6: Ralph Davis came running into the diner said, we've got
Speaker 6: to pick up mister Gravitt. Jerry grabbed the gun from Walt,
Speaker 6: but he did not reload the single bullet he had
Speaker 6: in his pocket. Things would have been totally different had
Speaker 6: that call not come in because Pruitt wasn't on the phone,
Speaker 6: had mister Mills's dog count not barked all night to
Speaker 6: keep them awake, Had these guys not chosen road to
Speaker 6: take the license and registration off of the stolen car
Speaker 6: and then moving on for things they were going to
Speaker 6: do with it later. All of these things, just if one,
Speaker 6: could not have happened without the other. But because they
Speaker 6: all happened together, we ended up with three of our
Speaker 6: better county police officers in the woods and not found
Speaker 6: until twelve hours of thereabouts later. So it was all
Speaker 6: just a matter of the planets and the stars were
Speaker 6: just out of phase that night for these three guys.
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Speaker 7: Real confluence of misadventure and horror. Right away. The police are,
Speaker 7: like I say, they're determined to find the perpetrators, and
Speaker 7: they're gonna take the necessary resources. And the people are
Speaker 7: definitely have the passion to be able to do this.
Speaker 7: As you write in the book, you have a couple
Speaker 7: of officers Cheek and Crunkleton that are involved in this investigation,
Speaker 7: and right away they spot somebody that they know from
Speaker 7: this small community. And what does this mc perry character
Speaker 7: have to say.
Speaker 6: We go back to the day when everybody either knew
Speaker 6: everybody in the county or knew somebody that did know
Speaker 6: everybody in the county. When the bodies, when the Gwinnette
Speaker 6: County Police officers and Police Chief Jobell was standing over
Speaker 6: the three officers in the woods, he knew right away,
Speaker 6: as did everybody in Gwinnette County. We had no means
Speaker 6: of investigating the crimes such as that. We didn't have
Speaker 6: a detective squad, we didn't have investigators. We just had
Speaker 6: a handful of patrol officers with no experience even in
Speaker 6: that phase of law enforcement, let alone in investigating a
Speaker 6: triple homicide where no clues were left whatsoever at the scene.
Speaker 6: The GBI Georgia Bureau of Investigation and their strong arm,
Speaker 6: the Georgia State Patrol, they did patrol in that area,
Speaker 6: the Highway I eighty five in that area. They had
Speaker 6: two officers that came down to the scene when Chief
Speaker 6: Bell led out a cry for help. Something's not right.
Speaker 6: But before they had discovered the bodies. So by the
Speaker 6: time they had discovered the bodies, the State Patrol already
Speaker 6: had officers here. Other little small towns already had police
Speaker 6: officers here. But it was the State Patrol officers that said,
Speaker 6: they're not going to be able to solve this unless
Speaker 6: we put our finest investigators in the state has to
Speaker 6: offer in on this case, and that's what they did.
Speaker 6: From that point on, the Georgia State Patrol became the
Speaker 6: law enforcement party of all all of Gurnett. So they
Speaker 6: came in and Gwinnett, the Gwennette Police, the Gwinnett officers,
Speaker 6: Gwenet sheriff, all every citizen in Gwinete took a deep
Speaker 6: breath of relief the moment we knew that somebody else
Speaker 6: was investigating this crime. We couldn't do it, and there wasn't.
Speaker 6: It wasn't going to happen that way. So they came
Speaker 6: in and threw them detectives Cheek and Crumpleton. Crunkleton came
Speaker 6: from the cab County. Mister Cheek came from the Sheriff's apartment.
Speaker 6: Mister Crunkleton came from the police department. He was in
Speaker 6: charge of the cab county's vice squad and Homerly Cheek
Speaker 6: was involved with the Sheriff's apartment as an investigator for
Speaker 6: the sheriff, So these guys started to know what was
Speaker 6: going on. But when we ran into mc perry just
Speaker 6: a few days after they had everybody got together, uh
Speaker 6: and God was getting over the funerals are trying to
Speaker 6: They started perusing through Gwinnett County to the approval, to
Speaker 6: the request and approval of Jobell, our police chief at
Speaker 6: the time, and it is that time way up in
Speaker 6: the north end of the county up in Beauford, Georgia.
Speaker 6: They found mc carrie Perry at Red's service station, and
Speaker 6: Detective Cheek already knew Perry and his long arrest record,
Speaker 6: so they just started asking me questions. Perry was involved
Speaker 6: in stealing cars, he had been he'd been a punk
Speaker 6: all his life, and he told Detective Cheek indirectly things
Speaker 6: that they were able to piece together and put together,
Speaker 6: and that's where the investigation went. But I'll go back
Speaker 6: to the part Dan about the county being small, wasn't
Speaker 6: very much populated. When it came to alex Evans, the
Speaker 6: former Gwinnett County sheriff deputy who was dismissed from the
Speaker 6: sheriff department and would later go on to do jail
Speaker 6: time with both our ex high sheriff for his me
Speaker 6: got caught. Finally, they put that bunch away because he
Speaker 6: was running law enforcement into the ground.
Speaker 7: Here.
Speaker 6: After all of that was said and done, Alex Evans
Speaker 6: was his sheriff deputy. Everybody in the county knew alex Evans,
Speaker 6: and as a result, a lot of people from day one,
Speaker 6: all through the county, the murmurs started instantly. There's only
Speaker 6: one guy in this county capable enough to have done
Speaker 6: what he did. And again, the sadness and the entire
Speaker 6: sadness of the story is Alex Evans had patrolled with
Speaker 6: Patrolman Jerry Everett and Ralph Davis knew him well, had
Speaker 6: dinner at his house on several occasions. They were at
Speaker 6: one time good friends. He's the guy that everybody felt
Speaker 6: could have been the killer in this case. And we
Speaker 6: know how that turned out as well. But then with
Speaker 6: that lead and a couple of other good breaks in
Speaker 6: the case as far as evidence was concerned, the outside
Speaker 6: forces and eventually did Georgia Bureau of Investigation came in
Speaker 6: and solve that crime. But they although they had solved,
Speaker 6: they knew who there was three people involved. They knew
Speaker 6: who those three people were. There was no evidence of
Speaker 6: any kind that would allow them to go to the
Speaker 6: grand jury and get indictments for these guys except for
Speaker 6: one of the bad guys turned state witness, and when
Speaker 6: he did, he ratted the other two guys out, and eventually,
Speaker 6: eighteen months after the crime, those two were found guilty.
Speaker 6: But it was also the planets and the stars got
Speaker 6: back in line to go through the investigation and solve
Speaker 6: this crime. And that's what Georgia finally took a breath
Speaker 6: of relief about. But that's when really the sadness came
Speaker 6: back into play. But mc perry, they were all integral.
Speaker 6: They all played the important roles and not just the
Speaker 6: investigation but their testimony because it was the twelve man
Speaker 6: jury that they had to convince, along with Wade True's
Speaker 6: testimony against his two partners. It was that twelve man
Speaker 6: jury they had to confest convict. I'm sorry to impress
Speaker 6: enough to get a conviction out of the deals what
Speaker 6: I'm trying to say, But at any rate, they all
Speaker 6: were played an integral part. But they had to piece
Speaker 6: together little pieces of this from this guy, this much
Speaker 6: from this witness, and on so forth, and accumulated quite
Speaker 6: a number of witnesses that they eventually brought in. The
Speaker 6: trial itself ran for four days. Each trial there were
Speaker 6: co trials, one for Alex Evans, the other for Vincent
Speaker 6: Eugene Williams, and those two trials co trials were in
Speaker 6: October the night teen sixty five. Each trial lasted four days.
Speaker 6: Each trial ended with a three hour jury conviction. Shall
Speaker 6: we say it didn't take long at all to convict him,
Speaker 6: but it was proof positive. In fact, we'll talk about
Speaker 6: the research and all. But I had the great pleasure
Speaker 6: of knowing Robert high Toower for some time, and mister
Speaker 6: high Tower told me that there were certain things they
Speaker 6: could not have accomplished without way through its testimony. But
Speaker 6: in this case they got they got it right. And
Speaker 6: he said, Tony, back days of sixties law enforcement, we
Speaker 6: didn't always get it right, but this one we got right.
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Speaker 7: dot com slash murder. Now, Tony, we have to go
Speaker 7: back because we have for the audience, skipped over some
Speaker 7: of these incredible hurdles and challenges that it seems like
Speaker 7: this open and shutcase where everyone, as you mentioned, knows
Speaker 7: that this Evans is cape of something like this. A
Speaker 7: dirty cop had no business even being a cop in
Speaker 7: the first place. As you write, there were sort of
Speaker 7: foisted on the department and he was a crooked cop
Speaker 7: for a six year tenure as a police officer. But
Speaker 7: this venison events in Williams and then this weighed through it. Now,
Speaker 7: when you talk about you had the privilege of talking
Speaker 7: to Robert Hightower, you talk about the investigation stalling at
Speaker 7: some point despite everybody knowing what went on. There was
Speaker 7: no prince left. There was just the horror of these
Speaker 7: these three officers being shot in the face, in the
Speaker 7: head with their own revolvers and then handcuffed together in
Speaker 7: this horror spectacle for other officers to find. So tell
Speaker 7: us about Robert high Tower and his strategy, because this
Speaker 7: book is chock full of the fascinating dialogue and exchanges
Speaker 7: between police and these suspects trying to bring these people
Speaker 7: to justice.
Speaker 6: Well, you mentioned earlier Dan about the you know, the dialogue,
Speaker 6: and at times it can be rather harsh. It was
Speaker 6: the folks who this story belongs to that I would
Speaker 6: pass that along and I'd say, hey, look some of
Speaker 6: this language is a little bit colorful, and they would say,
Speaker 6: but it's what was in the story. You gotta tell.
Speaker 6: So it was the family members that really told me
Speaker 6: how to the parameters I had to go within. And
Speaker 6: so I've had that comment. This is harsh. It is
Speaker 6: harsh because this is not a story of cupcakes and
Speaker 6: ice cream. So it is a dialogue that a lot
Speaker 6: of the players, of course are long gone, but their
Speaker 6: family members told me, oh, this is what he would
Speaker 6: have said, or this is what would have have happened,
Speaker 6: and so on and so forth. Mister high Tower. Robert
Speaker 6: high Tower was a very very colorful yet very strict
Speaker 6: law enforcement officer. He came with an FBI background Washington,
Speaker 6: DC Metro Police. He was into the major Crimes unit,
Speaker 6: and he came back home to Georgia so he could
Speaker 6: be a professor at the War College in Milledgeville, and
Speaker 6: he also was involved with law enforcement. Of course, the
Speaker 6: investigation had just gone stale though. They had the names
Speaker 6: of two people right from the get go, and that
Speaker 6: was Vincent Eugene Williams and Alex Evans. Truett's name never
Speaker 6: appeared until they started unfolding these little clues that amounted
Speaker 6: to who could have done it? So they would everybody
Speaker 6: was a suspect, as alex Evans once said, but when
Speaker 6: it stalled, it stalled for good. You had a very
Speaker 6: very good GBI agent in the name of Arthur Hutchins.
Speaker 6: He was a terrific man, but he could only go
Speaker 6: so far with what he had, and they had reached
Speaker 6: a roadblock. High Tower. They invited him into the GBI
Speaker 6: headquarters in downtown Atlanta, just to think he was meeting
Speaker 6: the boys. I can recall Bob telling me Tony, they
Speaker 6: showed me this little room, and inside of it had
Speaker 6: six months worth of investigation written and documented in there,
Speaker 6: some as little as on a book of matches, a name,
Speaker 6: a phone number, something. So I decided I was going
Speaker 6: to go all the way back from the very beginning
Speaker 6: and start anew because High Tower was very impressed with
Speaker 6: the fact that this crime had stalled, but they would
Speaker 6: consider him the man to come in and save it.
Speaker 6: A lot of people's hides were on the line here
Speaker 6: because the public was still so upset about this crime
Speaker 6: and why it wasn't getting solved. So when mister high
Speaker 6: Tower came in, he just emptied all the files in
Speaker 6: this little office that had given him and started straightening
Speaker 6: the mess out, which led him to a couple of
Speaker 6: people that had not been interviewed but he felt were crucial,
Speaker 6: and he gave it a fresh angle to see this
Speaker 6: whole thing through. And then he went out and started
Speaker 6: his own investigation. When he came across the name of
Speaker 6: Wade through it. He got that name through other people,
Speaker 6: but there was a connection between Truett and Williams, and
Speaker 6: then High Tower would go down to the Florida State
Speaker 6: Prison where Wade and Vincent and Alex were all doing
Speaker 6: time for a previous crime involving the hijacking of a
Speaker 6: bonded liquor truck that came through the Atlanta area back
Speaker 6: in that day. So they were doing their Senate says
Speaker 6: from that conviction, and High Tower went in to interview True.
Speaker 6: After he got trough it, he said, I don't need
Speaker 6: Vincent Williams or Alex Evans anymore because Truett had made
Speaker 6: a confession and he got it. High Tower got it
Speaker 6: out of True in High Tower's way of doing things,
Speaker 6: and it was quite interesting the story he said. But
Speaker 6: he was able at that time after truest confession and
Speaker 6: asking him very important questions that other investigators just had
Speaker 6: answer had open answers to. There were questions that they
Speaker 6: didn't know and that would have really put the piece
Speaker 6: of the puzzle together, such as evidence at the old
Speaker 6: crime scene that True explained where High Tower would find
Speaker 6: it out in the pasture, an old license plate, and
Speaker 6: High Tower found it and he told me, Tony, that
Speaker 6: proved to me that he was here at that crime
Speaker 6: scene and that he's the guy that took that license
Speaker 6: plate off of that stolen car. And everything from that
Speaker 6: point on started to fall in play with everything he said,
Speaker 6: and High Tower played along being the nice guy with
Speaker 6: Truett for some time. But Truett never fouled up. He
Speaker 6: never tripped over his own words. He remained solid to
Speaker 6: his conviction that he had given High Tower, and all
Speaker 6: through about an eight month period he stayed right on
Speaker 6: course with that conviction. Oh, I'm sorry with that confession.
Speaker 6: These guys, Truett and Williams were just punks. They were
Speaker 6: car thieves, penny any crooks saw and so forth. They
Speaker 6: were not capable of murder. To get to know them,
Speaker 6: you start to understand that they were not the two
Speaker 6: kind of guys you would want his neighbors, not even close.
Speaker 6: But they were not capable of murder. So it was
Speaker 6: only then that you have to draw a line. And
Speaker 6: let me just move ahead and tell you this is
Speaker 6: how High Tower solved the crime. No one saw the
Speaker 6: actual murder or the mechanics of the murders of those
Speaker 6: three police officers, Nor did the State of Georgia have
Speaker 6: to prove the mechanics of these murders. They just had
Speaker 6: to prove that they did, in fact happen. And these
Speaker 6: are the three guys that perpetrated that murder. But when
Speaker 6: Truett gave up his confession for many reasons why I
Speaker 6: think your listeners would understand it was driving him crazy
Speaker 6: at the thought of what had happened and the eventual
Speaker 6: notion that he was going to get caught, and if
Speaker 6: he got caught on his own, the chair waited for him.
Speaker 6: And so that was the whole point of mister high
Speaker 6: Tower's brilliance was really he could come in there and
Speaker 6: open up the cold case and get it back on
Speaker 6: track and get enough evidence to where mister Merrit, the
Speaker 6: county solicitor at the time, was able to convince a
Speaker 6: grand jury. Let's get on with these trials. These are
Speaker 6: the guys who did it.
Speaker 7: With that confession came all kinds of evidence that had
Speaker 7: to be corroborated, and high Tower was pleased to believe
Speaker 7: that it would be corroborated. And it was so the
Speaker 7: things he said, like where the license pate was thrown,
Speaker 7: but more importantly he talks about his non participation in
Speaker 7: the murder of these police officers and why that is
Speaker 7: why he is not at the same location as they are,
Speaker 7: and what actually he does witness.
Speaker 6: So true, it was yeah, go ahead, and now Dan
Speaker 6: Truett was Truett was just a puppet. He was manipulated
Speaker 6: by Evans, as was Williams. But Alex, having a previous
Speaker 6: law enforcement experience, he held the guy when they took
Speaker 6: the three officers guns from them and eventually would use
Speaker 6: those to kill those three officers. It was Alex Evans
Speaker 6: in control. You back up true as statements and you'll
Speaker 6: put those pieces together. That's what High Tower did. He
Speaker 6: put them together. But you had twenty five thirty actual
Speaker 6: witnesses come in and say a little something in each trial.
Speaker 6: They used essentially the same witnesses in the co trials,
Speaker 6: but they used the witnesses to put together little pieces
Speaker 6: here and there that established a timeline who saw, who where,
Speaker 6: who was doing what and why and when and things
Speaker 6: of that nature. And because of that they were then
Speaker 6: able to after putting a High Tower primarily was the
Speaker 6: one who did it. After putting everything into a specific timeline,
Speaker 6: then High Tower was able to say, Okay, I know
Speaker 6: what happened. I'm going to present that evidence face to
Speaker 6: face to our boy through it down on the floor
Speaker 6: of men's state prison down there federal prison, and see
Speaker 6: what his expressions are. As High Tower said, I could
Speaker 6: look a man in the eye, and I could tell
Speaker 6: you if he's being truthful much better than I can
Speaker 6: read it out of a second third hand report that
Speaker 6: came out of a file cabinet. So when he put
Speaker 6: all his files together, he put together a timeline of
Speaker 6: things of that nature, all involving this crime. Then he realized,
Speaker 6: I've got him. This is them's. They had all the
Speaker 6: proof and they were able to convincingly bring that to
Speaker 6: the county solicitor and put together a case that the
Speaker 6: grand jury said go. And it was pretty rock solid
Speaker 6: case at that time. But without Robert high Tower, this
Speaker 6: crime would have never been solved. If the crime had
Speaker 6: never been solved, then we wouldn't be on this phone
Speaker 6: right now because I did have the opportunity. I don't
Speaker 6: know if I would consider the privilege or how I
Speaker 6: would describe it of going to interview alex Evans in prison,
Speaker 6: and as I spoke to him and talked to him
Speaker 6: about this case, he continuously George's longest tenured life serving
Speaker 6: prisoner denied to me. Alex Evans told me, Tony, I
Speaker 6: don't ever want to be paroled. Parole means that I
Speaker 6: did it, and they want to get rid of me.
Speaker 6: I want to be fully pardoned, or you can take
Speaker 6: your parole and stick it. And he lived up to that.
Speaker 6: He never was paroled. He was never going to be pardoned,
Speaker 6: and that was how it went. But in talking with Alex,
Speaker 6: there were several things that he shared with me that
Speaker 6: he really didn't mean to share with me. They reached
Speaker 6: the point on a couple of three occasions where I
Speaker 6: had to say, Alex, I'm not here to interrogate you.
Speaker 6: I'm just here to talk with you. I'm going to
Speaker 6: write this book. One way or another, it's going to
Speaker 6: kill me. And that was at the very outset of
Speaker 6: this journey of mine, this ten year journey to do it.
Speaker 6: But I had the distinct pleasure of talking to interviewing
Speaker 6: family members and really we became such solid friends, police
Speaker 6: officers of the day, the community at large. Hey, buddy,
Speaker 6: do you remember fifty five years ago? Was my lead
Speaker 6: in approach this county. And one of the reasons I
Speaker 6: was compelled to do it, couldn't live without doing it,
Speaker 6: is because I was doing a series of public information
Speaker 6: articles about county personnel and one of the fire and
Speaker 6: emergency captains told me, if you don't write we we
Speaker 6: got to talking about if you don't write that book,
Speaker 6: it's going to slip away. This is slipping away. The
Speaker 6: vast majority of residents in Gwinnette County today know nothing
Speaker 6: of this story. So it was about and by the way,
Speaker 6: today I gladly and finally claimed that the Gwinnette County
Speaker 6: Police Department, whose roots began in those early sixties, is
Speaker 6: now one of the finest police departments in the world.
Speaker 6: You can argue with it, but you're not going to
Speaker 6: win that with me. But at any rate, it was
Speaker 6: one of those sad, sad events, but I had and
Speaker 6: as I mentioned earlier, we are all cried out here, Dan.
Speaker 6: We just this story. It still stings if you get
Speaker 6: as close to it as I got, as close to
Speaker 6: it as those directly conducted to it would allow me
Speaker 6: to get. And they brought me into their homes and
Speaker 6: shared their hearts with me because they wanted this story
Speaker 6: told as well. But this story was slipping away at
Speaker 6: It had slipped away right as I got into it
Speaker 6: because the autopsy reports and the investigative reports that were
Speaker 6: held in the vault of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation
Speaker 6: managed after they made me copies of everything they had.
Speaker 6: The room where those archives were kept was gutted out,
Speaker 6: and those none of those documents are any longer available.
Speaker 6: So the timing for me was just the opposes it
Speaker 6: was for Officers Everett, grab It and Davis. On that night,
Speaker 6: I got very, very lucky and it because of that,
Speaker 6: because the story was just on the verge of being
Speaker 6: a puff of smoke in history, I felt I had
Speaker 6: to do something about it. And it was again Robert
Speaker 6: Hightower passed away about halfway through this book as I
Speaker 6: was writing it. And though it was that ten year misery,
Speaker 6: sleepless nights, many of many a sunrise where I never
Speaker 6: intended on watching the sun rise from the night pass
Speaker 6: where I started to write, it was one of those
Speaker 6: deals where arduous no, I would say, almost death defying
Speaker 6: these last ten years. And I wouldn't trade it for
Speaker 6: anything because I met these people. I had a chance
Speaker 6: to talk with these people, these people, the North Georgia
Speaker 6: folks that were involved with this story, and it was
Speaker 6: the most magnificent journey I've ever taken. But it broke
Speaker 6: my heart. It still does, and it's very difficult. In fact,
Speaker 6: the book is out now. Of course it's been out
Speaker 6: for four months, was released four months ago, and I
Speaker 6: will talk with the family members they'll call me. I
Speaker 6: gave them all copies of the book, and they said, Tony,
Speaker 6: I cannot read it without crying. And once I start crying,
Speaker 6: I know I'm not going to be able to stop
Speaker 6: if I keep reading. So I've had to put the
Speaker 6: book down. And there are several of the remaining family
Speaker 6: members of the officers that tell me that. And though
Speaker 6: it breaks my heart, my intent was not to bring
Speaker 6: back these memories, I feel a bit of gratitude because,
Speaker 6: after all, I did what they told me to do.
Speaker 6: Write the story, all the bullet wounds in all, don't
Speaker 6: leave anything out, including the language, because that's the way
Speaker 6: this story unfolded, and it was. It was just incredible
Speaker 6: what these folks allowed me to do and how they
Speaker 6: accepted me, and the sad part lingers on. Because in
Speaker 6: this journey of ten years that I started forty five
Speaker 6: years after the crime, I've had to attend several of
Speaker 6: these folks funerals, and when they have a funeral, somebody
Speaker 6: will mention, if not several of the old folk here
Speaker 6: in North Georgia will mention that incident involving those threa
Speaker 6: and that these folks were ken or relatives still wives,
Speaker 6: still daughters and laws, still moms, and it would just
Speaker 6: tear everybody up in attendance, and those kind of hurt.
Speaker 6: You just can't wipe those out of your heart. But
Speaker 6: what is amazing?
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Speaker 3: Non' we're just necessary dao where everybody lost the terms
Speaker 3: conditions eating plus to me and what.
Speaker 6: Is helping my healing process? Number one the folks I
Speaker 6: met and the memories we've got. Number two is folks
Speaker 6: like Dan.
Speaker 7: You know it to be.
Speaker 6: If you want to give me a shout out because
Speaker 6: you enjoyed the book, that is something that I really
Speaker 6: really take great deal of pleasure in. These officers, Dan
Speaker 6: are not going to be forgotten. Two years ago, before
Speaker 6: the book was published, they were on the verge of
Speaker 6: being forgotten. Now their memory is actually training law enforcement
Speaker 6: agencies through the book. Arc Road, my publisher, Genius Book Publishing,
Speaker 6: and I are donating ten percent of all pro seeds
Speaker 6: from All Things Mattered to Arc Road to the American
Speaker 6: Police Hall of Fame. Memorial and Museum down in Titusville, Florida.
Speaker 6: With that donation, the National Association of Chiefs of Police,
Speaker 6: who run the museum down there, are able to take
Speaker 6: ARC Road and travel the country teaching new recruits and
Speaker 6: recurring training for seasoned officers how to get out of handcuffs, well,
Speaker 6: how to get a guy back under your control who's
Speaker 6: already taken your weapon, things of that nature. So the
Speaker 6: memories of these officers, in fact, the images of these
Speaker 6: officers are going on now full throttle as they teach tactics,
Speaker 6: tactics they were never taught, and as now that the
Speaker 6: tactics are being taught as a result of Art Road,
Speaker 6: I cannot express to you or your audience the pride
Speaker 6: I feel that they where These three officers' memories are
Speaker 6: going on and they will continue to go on. These
Speaker 6: families need that, they deserve that, and these three officers
Speaker 6: are wonderful people. They live amongst the still into that
Speaker 6: end the museum in Memorial in Titusville, Florida. They're in
Speaker 6: the middle of the museum is a rotunda. The rotunda
Speaker 6: has marble walls. Throughout those walls are inscribed. Into those
Speaker 6: walls are the names of over nine thousand police officers
Speaker 6: who died in the line of duty, and those names
Speaker 6: are still added, and they're still added. And what those
Speaker 6: officers on those walls do is they can, literally, if
Speaker 6: you'll listen, they can talk to today's modern police officer
Speaker 6: and they can tell them about their experiences, and they
Speaker 6: ask them questions such as, if given the same set
Speaker 6: of circumstances that was presented to me on that particular
Speaker 6: night described as my end of watch, with all your tools,
Speaker 6: with all your training, with all your skills, would the
Speaker 6: outcome be any different for you than it was for us?
Speaker 6: And those names on those walls still talk a lot
Speaker 6: of lessons to be learned. I encourage. I've gotten off
Speaker 6: and I'm not plugging the well. I am plugging the museum.
Speaker 6: It's a wonderful place in Titusville, Florida, and every family
Speaker 6: needs to go down there. It's a great learning experience
Speaker 6: and a real eye opener as well.
Speaker 7: You talked about the kinds of things that the police
Speaker 7: recruits now have learned from the arc Road case, and
Speaker 7: it's helping officers now to avoid a similar fate in
Speaker 7: the future. As you write in the end of the book,
Speaker 7: from the two trials and from the information it was
Speaker 7: provided by Wade tru It with incredible pressure from and
Speaker 7: visual help and aid from Robert High Tower to scare
Speaker 7: the hell out of Wade through it. But that being said,
Speaker 7: way through it he believed in his innocence as as
Speaker 7: opposed to Evans and Williams, but especially Evans.
Speaker 6: Robert the book.
Speaker 7: Sorry, as you write in the book, what are the
Speaker 7: kinds of things? What are the things that happened that
Speaker 7: faithful night when these three this trio was stealing a car,
Speaker 7: switching plates. Tell us what happened and what mistakes, faithful
Speaker 7: mistakes we talked about. You mentioned the darringer that Jerry
Speaker 7: Everett had but wasn't loaded. Tell us what happened. Incredibly,
Speaker 7: through the Robert high Tower and this investigation, they got
Speaker 7: to the every single graphic, deep detail of what happened
Speaker 7: to these police officers. Tell us what happened.
Speaker 6: That is a great question, because that was the unknown.
Speaker 6: We had to take the autopsy reports and start following
Speaker 6: bullet trajectories through these three officers to understand how it
Speaker 6: could have happened. When I first saw the crime scene photographs,
Speaker 6: mister Gravitt and Jerry Everett were lying face down, yet
Speaker 6: both had been shot in the front of the face.
Speaker 6: The speculation was that they had just marched them into
Speaker 6: the woods and executed them from behind. But that's as
Speaker 6: far as from the truth as can be. They did
Speaker 6: put up a struggle. What happened that night was a
Speaker 6: lesson for every patrol officer out there to learn, and
Speaker 6: not just learn, but practice. They let their guard down
Speaker 6: in several several ways. And again the family said, that's
Speaker 6: the what happened. You tell it that way. They let
Speaker 6: their guard down. Yes, Jerry didn't reload his darringer. Had
Speaker 6: Jerry reloaded his drringer before they got back into the car,
Speaker 6: he would have placed it into the side of Alec
Speaker 6: Evans's ear, pull the trigger, and you and I would
Speaker 6: not be on the phone right now. That was altogether
Speaker 6: a different story about just that. But now it starts
Speaker 6: to add up and those stars in those planets starting
Speaker 6: to get into the improper lignement. Jerry then, at that scene,
Speaker 6: did all the things that an untrained officer would do,
Speaker 6: but today's trained officer would never do. One of the
Speaker 6: things he did was he left himself alone in the
Speaker 6: dirt road when true. It got in his Chevy, which
Speaker 6: was called the getaway car, and tried to get off
Speaker 6: of Arc Road going backwards. I spoke about the condition
Speaker 6: of the road was terrible, so you can see it
Speaker 6: and picture it and hear it and smell it. Here
Speaker 6: he is in his sixty two Chevy and Pala convertible
Speaker 6: trying to evade the police, elude the police by going backwards.
Speaker 6: They had come in from the other end of Arc Road,
Speaker 6: so they were facing him, and they simply followed him
Speaker 6: into ac Mills driveway. It was the only driveway they
Speaker 6: could have followed him. But now here's where again everything
Speaker 6: starts going wrong, mister Gravitt. Officer Davis did not handcuff
Speaker 6: through it. When they boxed him in to the front
Speaker 6: of the Mill's house. They saw he was wearing, as
Speaker 6: were all the culprits that night, a pair of white
Speaker 6: cotton gloves. Police cars at that time didn't have cages
Speaker 6: in the back. Police officers didn't have security straps on
Speaker 6: their holsters. Police officers just had what they felt was
Speaker 6: a degree of respect from the community that really didn't exist.
Speaker 6: So again, their car didn't have their patrol car didn't
Speaker 6: have a protective cage between the front and the back seat.
Speaker 6: They didn't handcuff the culprits back then or the suspects.
Speaker 6: They just played the game very nonchalantly. And because of that,
Speaker 6: they returned back up ARC's Hill to where the stolen
Speaker 6: nosemobile Vincent and Alec Evans were in, and Jerry Everett
Speaker 6: was there all alone after the other two officers left
Speaker 6: the scene in pursuit of the one of the bad guys,
Speaker 6: and he did something that no police officer can afford
Speaker 6: to do, especially in this day in time. He turned
Speaker 6: his back to Alex Evans, who was a desperate criminal himself.
Speaker 6: He already knew he was going to prison for two years,
Speaker 6: and now he's been caught by of all things, his
Speaker 6: old friend, officer Jerry Everett, stealing a car red handed.
Speaker 6: He did not want to go to prison any long
Speaker 6: back in those days of stolen card gets you two
Speaker 6: years in the pen, not a big deal, probably get
Speaker 6: out in twelve months anyway. So Alex was selfish that night.
Speaker 6: He was always self He did not want to go
Speaker 6: back to prison, so he carried a thirty eight snubby
Speaker 6: in his waist, and when Jerry Everett turned his back
Speaker 6: on Alex. Alex stuck that snubby in his back and
Speaker 6: took his gun, and that was the most horrendous mistake
Speaker 6: of all. Jerry Everett was the most seasoned cop of
Speaker 6: the three that night, and Jerry Everett was no pushover.
Speaker 6: As I explained, he was a blue cat. You mess
Speaker 6: you best not want to mess with. Jerry Everett was
Speaker 6: a good, good cop and he knew how to get
Speaker 6: himself out of the trouble that he would sell often
Speaker 6: get himself into. But he turned his back. So now
Speaker 6: we've got two three major issues. Number one is he
Speaker 6: didn't load the darringer. Number two, he didn't follow what
Speaker 6: would have been considered procedure. Now, he let the other
Speaker 6: two officers go. It was pitch black at night on
Speaker 6: this hill, and he didn't do anything to protect himself
Speaker 6: correct that night. But when he turned his back, Alex
Speaker 6: Evans stole his gun, picked his gun out, placed it
Speaker 6: in his back, and told him, don't do anything stupid.
Speaker 6: The next thing you know is Jerry naturally is going
Speaker 6: to do an elbow to flying elbow to the back
Speaker 6: of Evans knocked him down. But in that process, Alex
Speaker 6: discharged his thirty eight and shot him in the leg
Speaker 6: and that began the carnage. From that point on. The
Speaker 6: other officers came back withdrew it after having caught him
Speaker 6: down the road. They came back, Jerry and Evans were
Speaker 6: in the car. Jerry now was having his very own
Speaker 6: gun pointed at the side of his head by Alex Evans,
Speaker 6: and also knew that Evans was crazy enough to do
Speaker 6: something even more felonious than what he'd gotten himself into
Speaker 6: up until that point. So it was a series of accidents.
Speaker 6: But the biggest problem that you've got that night is
Speaker 6: when Alex held that gun to Jerry Everett's head, he
Speaker 6: told the other two officers, Ralph Davis and Jesse Grabbittt
Speaker 6: to hold up to hand over their guns, and they did.
Speaker 6: I actually had Jerry Everetts's oldest brother, George Everett, who
Speaker 6: was in law enforcement, and several of his brothers were
Speaker 6: and he looked at me and he said, Tony, why
Speaker 6: on earth would you have given your gun up that
Speaker 6: night on that dirt road. That's all you had. And
Speaker 6: that was the moment that turned everything around against the
Speaker 6: police and against the county. That night, they handed over
Speaker 6: their guns and as George Everett told me, if the
Speaker 6: shooting starts, you gotta have a gun to keep it going.
Speaker 6: And they had given up their guns, those officers. They
Speaker 6: were frightened that Jerry Everett, the tuffy on that police force,
Speaker 6: was without his gun and he's in possession of and
Speaker 6: yet of the bad guy who they knew was holding
Speaker 6: it against his head. So they did as he said.
Speaker 6: And Jerry, I'm sure at that point in time was
Speaker 6: we're in it now, We're up to our knees in
Speaker 6: this trouble, and it's only going to get worse, which
Speaker 6: of course it did. So they made us series of
Speaker 6: acts of moves that at the time didn't seem like
Speaker 6: it would be that bad. But you add them all
Speaker 6: up and you get three County police officers lying face
Speaker 6: down in the woods.
Speaker 7: As you write in the book, what is the ultimate
Speaker 7: motive for the murders? And as horrific as they are,
Speaker 7: five shots, six shots in the face close and these
Speaker 7: are friends apparently have his So what what pushes him
Speaker 7: over the edge. He's a psychopath, as we mentioned in
Speaker 7: the introduction, especially his behavior after the after the murders,
Speaker 7: But what is it that pushes him over the edge?
Speaker 7: That surprises everyone.
Speaker 6: What is it that pushes any murderer over the edge?
Speaker 6: I wished I knew in this case, though, so the
Speaker 6: question is too deep for me to answer accurately. I'm
Speaker 6: just not But Alex Evans was a different kind of
Speaker 6: a person. I have asked that question myself to many people.
Speaker 6: The first question that I asked when I started the
Speaker 6: journey was you knew Alex Evans and whoever I would
Speaker 6: be discussing with, Yes, I did. My first question after
Speaker 6: that would be was he capable? And dan? Before I
Speaker 6: could get it out of my mouth, everybody, virtually everybody
Speaker 6: I talked to, We're talking fifth, sixty seventy people I
Speaker 6: lost track, would say absolutely he was capable. What would
Speaker 6: motivate him to do that? Well, in a way, selfishness, greed,
Speaker 6: whatever all those emotions can amount to, he had those
Speaker 6: that night. He just didn't want anything to come about.
Speaker 6: Alex thought highly of only one guy, and that was
Speaker 6: the guy he saw in the mirror every morning he
Speaker 6: woke up. He did not want to come up with anything.
Speaker 6: I think as I look into it, he didn't want
Speaker 6: his friends, his circle of people to know that he
Speaker 6: had been arrested for stealing a car. I think he
Speaker 6: wanted to keep that out of the public domain, the
Speaker 6: notion that he would because he was arrogant and he
Speaker 6: had an ego as if he was really something in
Speaker 6: the county that people looked up to him and admired him,
Speaker 6: and he didn't want to taint or destroy that image
Speaker 6: of himself. Perhaps little did he know, because people like
Speaker 6: that won't allow it in. But little did he know.
Speaker 6: His reputation had already soured years ago, and those folks
Speaker 6: in the county that knew him, and there were a
Speaker 6: bunch knew that he was capable of doing bad things.
Speaker 6: They just didn't know he was capable of doing something
Speaker 6: like this. But if you ask Alan that very same question,
Speaker 6: he's not going to answer it. He's going to deny it,
Speaker 6: anything of it, to have anything of it. So you
Speaker 6: carry that on for the rest of his life. After
Speaker 6: fifty three years, he finally passed away in a Georgia
Speaker 6: State prison, mostly out of his mind, eating up with
Speaker 6: every disease in the book, Nothing ever good came about Alex.
Speaker 6: He was a wasted fella all his life. He wasted
Speaker 6: other people's lives too. But there's no answer to what
Speaker 6: caused it. It could have been anger, It could have
Speaker 6: been jealousy, it could have been any number of things
Speaker 6: on that dirt road that night. I don't think that
Speaker 6: Alex understood or realized he was capable of doing that
Speaker 6: even after he did it. I think that Alex was
Speaker 6: unaware that he was a murderer until he actually blew
Speaker 6: Jerry's brains out in the back of that stolen osmobile.
Speaker 6: I don't think that he gave it any thought. I
Speaker 6: know for a fact, he didn't give it a whole
Speaker 6: lot of thought for half a century afterwards, that he
Speaker 6: was capable of doing something like that. Yet we had
Speaker 6: an eyewitness to the crime, and we had other people
Speaker 6: whose opinions all shared do come up to a certain
Speaker 6: sum that goes against Alec, that's for sure. But I
Speaker 6: don't think he could answer that question. I can't answer
Speaker 6: that question. I hope to God I never will be
Speaker 6: able to answer a question like that, or have need to.
Speaker 7: What I really meant was is that the language that
Speaker 7: you provide is that Jerry Everett was incredulous. That's why
Speaker 7: he let his guard down. He knew Evans. He didn't
Speaker 7: believe as you described, He didn't believe he was in danger.
Speaker 7: They were unprepared for something like this, is unprecedented in
Speaker 7: their career, even though they're a tough guy.
Speaker 6: So you're right.
Speaker 7: Meant by that is that the police were defiant, that
Speaker 7: bleeding officer Everett was he was defiant. He wasn't because
Speaker 7: Evans was proposing that they just cover this up, say
Speaker 7: it was an accident. When the other cops came back.
Speaker 7: So Jerry, it's not a good reason.
Speaker 6: But yeah, no, there is no good reason to take
Speaker 6: the lives of three friends, let alone three county police officers.
Speaker 6: There is no good reason. But you're right, Jerry Everett
Speaker 6: stayed defying. Jerry Everett was the take control kind of guy.
Speaker 6: And Jerry Everett calls to fuss in that oldsmobile, and
Speaker 6: I think the shooting started because it was a result
Speaker 6: of his action and because he had been telling Evans
Speaker 6: all along. Evans had him under control, and they handcuffed
Speaker 6: these three officers right there at the scene where they
Speaker 6: gave their guns up. They put him in the stolen
Speaker 6: osemobile and drove over the hill. Alex was still, I
Speaker 6: think stinging from the fact that Jerry kept mentioning to him,
Speaker 6: you were going to go to jail for a long time. Brother,
Speaker 6: And you're doing something like this, you're shackling, or I
Speaker 6: should say, you're bounding three people together, you're kidnapping them,
Speaker 6: you're moving them off site. You've already shot me in
Speaker 6: my leg. You're going to prison for a long long time.
Speaker 6: And I think Alex just at the thought of that,
Speaker 6: kept fuming and kept getting madder and madder and madder,
Speaker 6: and then finally he just broke. But yes, Jerry Everett
Speaker 6: stayed most defiant throughout all of that, and he would
Speaker 6: have been Jerry Everett was a lawman, and when the
Speaker 6: law was being broken in front of him and to him,
Speaker 6: I think you probably would have gotten his ire up
Speaker 6: more than just about anything you could have done to him.
Speaker 7: Absolutely. The other thing too, the evidence of the psychopathic
Speaker 7: nature of this killer and his arrogant, arrogance and his
Speaker 7: narcissism are that after in these cops that want somebody
Speaker 7: to pay, he is approaching them saying, listen, I've undertaken
Speaker 7: an investigation. The some of the families want me to
Speaker 7: investigate as I was, you know, just and you know,
Speaker 7: adding beyond insult to injury. But this is the kind
Speaker 7: of psychopathic mind that this guy had, that he think
Speaker 7: he could dupe, fool and fool these police veterans, but
Speaker 7: meanwhile taunting them basically over the murder of their three comrades.
Speaker 6: Imagine these three officers back in the day out here
Speaker 6: in the country, funerals were held in their homes. These
Speaker 6: three police officers were brought back to their homes so
Speaker 6: folks could come in and pay their respect, their last respect.
Speaker 6: Their three caskets were open caskets, the carnage done to
Speaker 6: their faces. I heard family members as I sat in
Speaker 6: the very spot where Jerry Everett, for instance, lay in
Speaker 6: his casket, Right in the very spot I had the
Speaker 6: Everett people tell me Tony, we would look at him
Speaker 6: and we would all ask, are you sure God in
Speaker 6: Heaven has made a mistake That couldn't possibly be Jerry
Speaker 6: because his face was completely black and blue and full
Speaker 6: of patches of skin gone. He was shot four times
Speaker 6: in his head, two other places on his body, but
Speaker 6: four times in the back of his head. After he died,
Speaker 6: as were the others. Ralph Davis was shot. He laid
Speaker 6: on his back in the woods, and he was shot
Speaker 6: five times in his mouth. The gun was put in
Speaker 6: his mouth, blew his teeth all over the woods. Jesse Gravitt,
Speaker 6: in defiance, was shot in his right eye. The barrel
Speaker 6: of the gun was placed in his right eye and
Speaker 6: the trigger was pulled. There these three officers wakes lasted
Speaker 6: for a day and a half at their homes. Not
Speaker 6: any one of those three their facial identification or how
Speaker 6: people would recognize them was recognizable. You couldn't tell what
Speaker 6: was in that casket. People questioned that all throughout the
Speaker 6: idea of alex Evans coming to their homes and sitting
Speaker 6: in the very kitchen tables that I sat in those
Speaker 6: many years ago, he would come in and say, I'm
Speaker 6: going to help find who did that to your son.
Speaker 6: But the irony there was alex Evans, though he was available,
Speaker 6: never came to one single funeral at any time. There
Speaker 6: were lowmn looking for him because their suspicious suspicions were up,
Speaker 6: small county, small people, but he never showed up to
Speaker 6: any of their funerals. Yet two weeks later he started
Speaker 6: making the rounds to their homes, explaining that he was
Speaker 6: going to solve this crime because there was no one
Speaker 6: Englinet that could and if they had any leads to
Speaker 6: give him, he would sure appreciate it. So it was unbelievable.
Speaker 6: And I heard family members for the better part of
Speaker 6: the ten years that I would visit with them, they
Speaker 6: would point at the very seat he sat in and
Speaker 6: say he sat right there and looked right in to
Speaker 6: my damn face and said he was going to investigate
Speaker 6: and find out who did this to Jerry or Jesse
Speaker 6: or Ralph. And that was unbelievable that you would have
Speaker 6: that kind of goal goes back to your other question,
Speaker 6: what would motivate what would cause somebody to erupt enough
Speaker 6: to fire nineteen total shots, sixteen of which found their mark,
Speaker 6: and then come back two weeks later after the funerals
Speaker 6: and explain to the families that he was going to investigate.
Speaker 6: That crime is beyond belief. It is something that you know,
Speaker 6: some people can get through life just bumping down the road,
Speaker 6: and some people go through their lives thinking that everybody
Speaker 6: else is stupid. And that's what Alec Evans thought. He
Speaker 6: could schmooz these people over, but every one of them,
Speaker 6: to a person, told me the day he came in,
Speaker 6: we knew he was gonna lie. Then he left, we
Speaker 6: knew he had lied. We were kept asking the police
Speaker 6: lock him up, he's the guy that did it, but
Speaker 6: they couldn't. They had no they had nothing against Alec
Speaker 6: at the time in order to do that. And in fact, again,
Speaker 6: if it wasn't for true it, Alec would have walked free.
Speaker 7: It's interesting you talk about that. The police found out
Speaker 7: that that respect didn't carry as completely as far as
Speaker 7: they thought. But in the investigation all along the way,
Speaker 7: people with criminal records and not wanting to be a snitch,
Speaker 7: felt it necessary to give the police information. The police
Speaker 7: might have said, listen, you're going to give me boy
Speaker 7: some information, but they still seemed, out of conscience, were
Speaker 7: more than willing to put information about Evans and Williams
Speaker 7: to put this whole case together. So there was it
Speaker 7: seemed to me huge support even from the criminal class,
Speaker 7: that this was beyond the pale. This was not to
Speaker 7: be tolerated at all in this county.
Speaker 6: You have just summed it up beautifully and that was
Speaker 6: the case. Folks were scared after this happened. We just
Speaker 6: little law binding Glenetians here in North Georgia were frightened
Speaker 6: to death. We didn't have any idea who could have
Speaker 6: done this is it a marauding gang, then initially said
Speaker 6: it's because there was a connection with the stolen car
Speaker 6: and a report of such that they thought, but who
Speaker 6: on earth could have done it? The people that felt
Speaker 6: it was Evans knew, but the other two they had
Speaker 6: no idea, and so as a result, folks were frightened.
Speaker 6: They would give out their own mother if they thought
Speaker 6: she was capable of doing this kind of thing. It
Speaker 6: was horrendous, and it's what people woke up to in
Speaker 6: their hearts in the morning, and it's what they went
Speaker 6: to bed at night in their fears. They just couldn't
Speaker 6: get rid of this story, and it was so brutal
Speaker 6: that actually they tried to sweep it up under the
Speaker 6: carpet even after it was said and done. But by
Speaker 6: that time the damage had been done and the county
Speaker 6: had been forever affected by these murders.
Speaker 7: But it.
Speaker 6: Was something then that it was just so horribly sad
Speaker 6: for people that they would gladly do whatever necessary to
Speaker 6: catch these people that did it. And at the two
Speaker 6: co trials eighteen months after the crime, people rejoiced beyond
Speaker 6: what you could imagine now when the convictions were brought.
Speaker 6: They it was a time of holiday, because in their
Speaker 6: hearts and in their minds, they felt they had finally
Speaker 6: taken care of all of that ugly notoriety by getting
Speaker 6: something good out of this thing. And that's a conviction
Speaker 6: for two felons. And at the time they were given
Speaker 6: without any hesitation by the judge or jury. They were
Speaker 6: given death sentences. They were scheduled to be in the
Speaker 6: electric chair. But the Federal Supreme Court had different thoughts
Speaker 6: about capital punishment at the time, so that both their
Speaker 6: sentences were commuted not just to life, but to life
Speaker 6: with the possibility of parole. And in fact, Vincent Williams
Speaker 6: was paroled twenty five years later, and he came out
Speaker 6: of the deal with the families in mind. I'm sure.
Speaker 6: But the gate reporters at the gate asked him, Vincent,
Speaker 6: tell us about that horrible night twenty five years ago.
Speaker 6: And he looked at the reporters and he addressed him,
Speaker 6: and he said, I shall never talk about that night
Speaker 6: twenty five years ago, but rather thank the Good Lord
Speaker 6: for any days he sees fit in giving me in
Speaker 6: the future.
Speaker 7: What I thought most interesting. And before I let you go,
Speaker 7: I wanted to mention this in the book. It's very
Speaker 7: interesting when the da I believe it's read merit is
Speaker 7: cross examining. I believe William's wife. And despite all of
Speaker 7: this evidence from Wade Truet, she still maintained that her
Speaker 7: husband never left that house that night. It's not true.
Speaker 6: It was mister Merritt that was on his direct He
Speaker 6: had asked Alec Evans' wife to take the stand pardon,
Speaker 6: but in her case, she answered truthfully. And her final
Speaker 6: answer to the question was Alex's home all night that night?
Speaker 6: She said, I couldn't say for certain, so and they
Speaker 6: also questioned his son and said, was your dad at
Speaker 6: home that night all night? And his son said, to
Speaker 6: be honest with you, I don't know. And that's you know,
Speaker 6: Alex was a cat of the night, and so I'm
Speaker 6: sure he frequently left the house. But Juel Evans was
Speaker 6: a wonderful, wonderful lady. She was very well admired by
Speaker 6: several of the folks in the county. Many of the
Speaker 6: folks in the county. She was a churchgoer as folks were.
Speaker 6: But after this crime, she was not the same, and
Speaker 6: her life had been destroyed. And if you look at
Speaker 6: all of what it is, the jury in that day
Speaker 6: in Time said we're not here to prosecute her, and
Speaker 6: the prosecutor said, no, we're not. We're going to We're
Speaker 6: not going to throw hardball questions. All we wanted to
Speaker 6: hear was she didn't know truthfully if he was home
Speaker 6: all night that night. She supposed he was, and in
Speaker 6: fact she claimed they slept in the same bed, but
Speaker 6: when the final question was asked, she said, I don't
Speaker 6: know Juel Evans Alec Evans's wife, as well as Vincent
Speaker 6: Williams's wife and family. And the way true its devise
Speaker 6: was very dramatic himself not long after this, these people's
Speaker 6: lives were ruined too. So there were so many people
Speaker 6: that not just with broken hearts and for the county
Speaker 6: broken spirits, but for those who were incriminated one way
Speaker 6: or another. The county was just the foundation, the bedrock
Speaker 6: of our county was tainted in ways differently to a
Speaker 6: lot of people, but tainted nonetheless.
Speaker 7: Absolutely. You write in the book that the very first
Speaker 7: day for police recruits, if I'm not correct, is that
Speaker 7: they go where and experience what it was.
Speaker 6: John Cuncleton for his successful investigation of this crime, and
Speaker 6: Detective Crunkleton was with the Cab County and he was
Speaker 6: heading up their vice department. He was appointed by the
Speaker 6: new band of commissioners that came in Gwinnett shortly after
Speaker 6: this crime as Gwinnette County Police chief. He held that
Speaker 6: position as the longest serving police chief in the county's
Speaker 6: history still to this day. But mister Conkleton had some
Speaker 6: pretty hardball things because he remembered this crime. You only
Speaker 6: need see the headlines, You only need think about the
Speaker 6: carnage done that day, just indirectly to understand how hard
Speaker 6: and fast it's going to stick in your mind. This
Speaker 6: kind of brutality is kind of horror. But mister Conkleton
Speaker 6: would after he became chief of Gwinnette County Police Department,
Speaker 6: all new recruits and they certainly train about this incident
Speaker 6: and they study this incident. Though many of them, of
Speaker 6: the today police officers with Gwinnette County have told me
Speaker 6: it's always dangled out there, but we never knew what
Speaker 6: happened until Arc Road the book came along. But mister
Speaker 6: Crouncleton would see to it that their first night on
Speaker 6: duty after being certified a police officer and after having
Speaker 6: extensive training, because he brought in the combative training element
Speaker 6: aspect of the new recruits in Gwinnett County. He would
Speaker 6: have them their partners drive them to Arc Road, open
Speaker 6: the door and say each year, as I'll meet you
Speaker 6: on the other side. He would do that after midnight
Speaker 6: on their first shift, and they were to walk that
Speaker 6: road again, dark as can be. A flashlight isn't going
Speaker 6: to be that helpful back in the day, whether the
Speaker 6: poor condition or the poor quality of flashlights, and the
Speaker 6: darkness of that road, and he would make them walk
Speaker 6: that road, and where the three officers' bodies were found
Speaker 6: lying in the woods, he would have them engraves or
Speaker 6: inscribed their initials on a big oak tree that was
Speaker 6: right there at the beginning of the little wagon trail
Speaker 6: leading to where the bodies were found. And then they
Speaker 6: would do that, and then they would walk the other
Speaker 6: side of Arc Road for over a mile and a half,
Speaker 6: still in the dark. And I had heard several of
Speaker 6: them say they don't know if they'd ever been more
Speaker 6: scared in all their lives than that night they had
Speaker 6: to walk down Arc Road.
Speaker 7: Yes, I want to thank you Tony Tiffin for coming
Speaker 7: on and talking about Arc Road. The horrific murders of
Speaker 7: three police officers in Gwynett County, Georgia that changed law
Speaker 7: enforcement forever. It's been absolutely fascinating, Tony. I know this
Speaker 7: is a genius publishing book under their publishing company. Is
Speaker 7: there any other way that people might find out about
Speaker 7: this book? Do you have a Facebook page, your website
Speaker 7: or is it just Amazon? And check it out?
Speaker 6: I would suggest. Thanks for asking, Dan, I would suggest,
Speaker 6: and I'm proud of this work. It tells the truth.
Speaker 6: It's a story that folks need to hear. So I
Speaker 6: don't mind recommending this book. You're gonna love it. You're
Speaker 6: gonna enjoy the read. You're gonna find that this is
Speaker 6: a horrendous story, but out of it came a rock
Speaker 6: solid sense of love by this county, given to us
Speaker 6: as a gift by the families of these three officers
Speaker 6: in appreciation for the outpouring of grief we showed for
Speaker 6: those three officers families and still do to this day.
Speaker 6: Arcroad is a love story, but you are going to
Speaker 6: enjoy the read, and you can get it on Amazon
Speaker 6: dot Com. Of course locally here we can get through
Speaker 6: Barnes and Noble and certain sites like that. That's your
Speaker 6: best bet. You can just go to Amazon and grab
Speaker 6: it and there she'll be.
Speaker 7: Thank you very much, Tony, you have a great evening.
Speaker 7: It's been absolutely fascinating. Thank you for Arcroad.
Speaker 6: I'm my pleasure. Thank you Dan.
Speaker 7: Good night,