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    A Long Road to Nowhere
    A Long Road to Nowhere
    A Long Road to Nowhere
    Ebook82 pages1 hour

    A Long Road to Nowhere

    By Timothy Kessler

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    About this ebook

    Ashley Jean Devareaux didn't deserve to die like she did, with her head crushed on a lonely Arkansas highway. But was it a simple accident or cold-blooded, premeditated murder? It sets off a chain of events that roils the community of Goatneck and the surrounding Finley County. Ashley's story becomes intertwined with that of the Blue Light Rapist, corruption in the court system, the murder of a little girl and grand jury indictments. Will justice be done, or will it all become "A Long Road To Nowhere."

    This novel is based on true events.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBHC Press/Open Window
    Release dateJun 2, 2017
    ISBN9781386281498
    A Long Road to Nowhere

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      Book preview

      A Long Road to Nowhere - Timothy Kessler

      COVER.jpgTP_Flat_fmtTP_Flat_fmt1

      A long road to nowhere

      Copyright © 2017 Timothy Kessler

      All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

      This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      Published by Open Window

      an imprint of BHC Press

      Library of Congress Control Number:

      2017933759

      Print edition ISBN numbers:

      ISBN-13: 978-1-946006-64-6

      ISBN-10: 1-946006-64-5

      Visit the author at:

      www.bhcpress.com

      Also available in Trade Softcover

      Book design by

      Blue Harvest Creative

      www.blueharvestcreative.com

      1320

      For several years, I had considered writing a book about my decades of courtroom reporting for newspapers. I had reported on true-life murder cases, the serial rapist known as the Blue Light Rapist and several other sensational cases. While on the way to a Paul McCartney concert in New Orleans in October 2014, my best friend, John Michael Worthen, suggested that instead of writing a non-fiction opus with separate cases in separate places, I should fictionalize the accounts, change the names and put it in one location, thus giving me more editorial license towards the actual events. So, I took his advice, and although the names and places in this book are fictional, they are based on true events, with 90 percent of the events actually having happened. Therefore, I offer my thanks to him, and hereby dedicate this book to John Michael Worthen.

      I also would like to acknowledge the support of my wife, Melinda Kessler, and my lifelong friend and surrogate Pappy, Dennis Maxwell.

      No sir, I didn’t do it.

      Robert Todd Burmingham,

      1997 interview with Timothy Kessler

      at Cross County Jail, Wynne, Arkansas,

      shortly before his conviction as the real

      Blue Light Rapist

      69186968

      Ashley Jean Devareaux’s head was split open like an orange, into eight separate wedges. Her husband, Bubba Devareaux, stood over her, briefly considering leaving her as bait for the alligators in the roadside bayous. But he could see the taillights of a dark red pickup that had stopped in the highway.

      A tall, thin black boy, probably not much over 18, came running up. Christ, did I do that? It was raining so hard, I couldn’t see anything.

      Bubba yelled out to him, Don’t worry about it, son. Just go on and I’ll take care of it.

      He dumped the lifeless body in the bed of his pickup and sped down the road to Arklamiss General Hospital. My Mom was an RN working in the ER that night and she tipped me off to the story. I met Sheriff Bart Bartles at the ambulance bay and he said, Scoop, go on home. It was just a simple accident.

      But little did I know then that one event would set off a chain of events that would consume the small town of Goatneck and the surrounding Finley County, Arkansas, for the next decade. And, ultimately, with grand juries and jury trials that dragged on for years and yielded absolutely no results, it was a long road to nowhere….

      Goatneck wasn’t named for an animal, but rather, the way the town was laid out. It started with a pair of cotton plantations built on land acquired through land grants for service in the War of 1812. By the time of the Civil War, it had quite a few antebellum homes. With a town of 10,000 at the time, all of the men enlisted in the cause of the South, but only one in four soldiers returned alive.

      Most of the businesses were arranged along a wide main street that curved like a goat’s neck. There were a few saloons mixed among a half-dozen churches, plus a large general store, hardware and mercantile dealers, and a couple of grocers.

      The town exploded in the 1920s when oil was discovered in the county and the population grew to 25,000. But just as quickly, the prosperity went bust with the crash of 1929 and the end of the oil boom. The original courthouse burned to the ground, but in a way, that was a blessing in itself. Sifting through the ashes, a time capsule was found under the cornerstone.

      Among the articles found in the 100-year-old tin box was a stock certificate in one of the original oil companies.

      Fortunately, that company was still in existence and the stock was now worth $1 million. Not only did it pay for the rebuilding of the courthouse, but it provided a vast fund that was used to restore the historic downtown, so the original buildings lasted up to the present. The speakeasies and saloons went out with Prohibition, and the town of Goatneck voted afterwards to maintain a dry county, which is why the clubs in the adjoining counties became so popular.

      The town settled into a population of about 5,000, with a Finley County population of about 15,000. It was a relatively quiet area, with respectable citizens and few crimes, therefore, a safe area in which to grow up and raise families.

      Of course, there were a few street gangs that dealt in drugs and caused some trouble, plus many redneck types, but the Goatneck Police Department and Finley County Sheriff’s Office pretty much kept

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