Episode 187: David "Stringbean" Akeman (Part 1 of 2)

0:01 The old Kentucky wonder strang Bean. Hold that you get back on give him I'll do it every time I do the song. Here, I have a fit and I feel want of coming on right now. Hang on, children, you walk up to your due. Can you slip and it go in? You can bet your bottom dollar when that rick start, you spend your hairt fit, lading up sound and that he'll be any feet. I should spend on around, beep around or get around you and romping down. I'll be Robby Castle, storing, riding, slip bel around, He'll man.

1:02 Hello and welcome to the Catch My Killer Podcast. Thank you for listening. My name is Mark. For nearly eight years, I've written a weekly newspaper column about true crimes and missing people for the Claremont Sun newspaper in Ohio. With a column and podcast, it has always been my objective to bring attention to those cases that have not received much media attention, if any at all. This week's story involves the homicide of David string Bean Akman and his wife is still. Stringbean was a country music star from Kentucky who was a grand old opery legend from the time he was a child. He had a love for the banjo and would become known for his old fashioned banjo picking style of playing. He was one of the earliest cast members of a family program called Keehaw. Unfortunately, string Bean's rising star would be dimmed forever when two men viciously murdered him and his wife Estelle By November tenth, nineteen seventy three.

2:07 For string Being's story, I interviewed author Taylor Heygood, who wrote a true crime book about string Being titled string Being The Life and Murder of a Country music Legend. David Aikman, affectually known as string Being, was born on June seventeenth, nineteen fifteen, to a farm family in Annville, Kentucky. Based on twenty twenty census data, Annville is a small town in Jackson County, Kentucky, with a population of just over one thousand people. String Bean's love for music began at an early age. Before he was even eight years old, he built his first instrument of a shoe box and some thread that he got from his mother. He most likely developed his early love for music from his father, who was a successful banjo player who often played throughout the community. So string Being grew up around musicians his entire life, so it was probably no surprise to anyone who knew him that he would also grow up to become a popular musician. By the time he was twelve, he had enough money to buy his own banjo. He then began playing at local dances and built a reputation as an excellent banjo player. While working construction type jobs building roads and planning trees, he continued playing his banjo with the goal of

3:38 making it big in a music business. String Bean's career officially took off after he entered a contest being judged by musician Asa Martin. After impressing Martin, he soon joined Martin's band. During a performance, Martin had forgotten David Aikman's name, so he just simply introduced Aikman as string Beans. The nickname was given to him based on his tall, lanky frame. Apparently, the name stuck, and David Aikman would soon become known as string Bean. I would also like to add something about this nickname. It's also been said that Aikman was introduced as string Beans plural, so it's actually debatable whether Martin called him string Bean singular or string Beans plural and not only did string Being become known for his musical abilities, he also became known for being a pretty funny guy.

4:36 String Bean became known as a comedian musician. He also broadcast out of w Lap out of Lexington, Kentucky, and played with different groups during the nineteen thirties. Oddly enough, old country music back in the thirties really didn't include much banjo playing. However, string Bean was able to keep banjo playing relevant in country music when he played. In addition to being a musician, string Being truly was a man of different talents. A lot of people may not realize it, but he was also a decent semi pro baseball player. His baseball playing skills became known to musician Bill Monroe, who had his own semi pro club. Monroe was so impressed was string Bean that he added him to his band. String Being would play in Monroe's band from nineteen forty three until nineteen forty five. After string Bean left Monroe in nineteen forty five, he was replaced by another popular banjo player named Earl Scruggs, who played a different style of banjo than string Bean. String Bean also would go on to marry his sweetheart, A still standfill in nineteen forty five. The following year, he would then begin working with another banjo player named Lewis Marshall Jones, affectionately known as Grandpa Jones. The two men would get to Yeah, They're doing comedy in the television program Heehaw. Grandpa Jones was a World War Two veteran and would become string Bean's closest friend, and the two men would also

6:11 become neighbors in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. During the late nineteen forties, string Being also formed a team with lou Children and became a regular performer at the Grand Old Opry. During string Bean's Grand Old Opry days, he began wearing his night shirt and pants that made him look like a tall man with tiny legs. He pretty much looked like a human string Being playing a banjo. It's been said that string beans attire was inspired by a comedian named Slim Miller. After World War Two, Uncle Dave Macon, another Grand Old Opry legend, took string Being under his wing. He helped string Being develop his ability to play songs and tell funny jokes. Before Macon died, he gave string Being one of his prize banjos. During the nineteen fifties, string Being became one of the Grand Old Opery's biggest stars. Although he had made a name for himself, he didn't sign with a record label until the nineteen sixties, when he signed with the Star Day label. He had hits with songs Chewing Gum and I Wonder Where Wanda Went. He recorded seven albums between nineteen sixty one.

7:24 In nineteen seventy two, his first album was titled Old Time Picking and Grinning was string Being, which was released in nineteen sixty one. His music was considered folk stories with the taste of comedy at the time. String Being and his buddy Grandpa Jones became the two biggest old time banjo players of their era. In nineteen sixty nine, a country style comedy would come to television. The program would be called Heehaw and was on television from nineteen sixty nine to nineteen ninety three. The program lasted for twenty six seasons and recorded six hundred and fifty five episodes, and any popular country musician who was anybody appeared on the show. String Being and Grandpa Jones would become a part of the original cast. String Being became an instant hit with the fans. His tall, lanky body, goofy facial expressions, and lovable personality made him a fan favorite. Coupled with Grandpa Jones, he Hall was an immediate success. Even if you didn't like country music back in the day, you could still enjoy watching Heahaw. I'm not a country music fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I absolutely loved watching Heehaw with my parents and grandparents when I was a child. Unfortunately, string Being and his wife Estelle would be tragically murdered on November tenth, nineteen seventy three. After the couple had returned home from a performance at the Grand Old Opry, they walked in on a robbery by

8:58 two men. String Being was shot to death in front of his fireplace and his wife, a Stell, was shot to death outside their home while trying to flee the burglars. It would be Grandpa Jones who would find the bodies of his beloved friends the next day. Grandpa Jones had plans the pick string Being up the next day for a plan hunting trip. As Grandpa Jones headed over to pick up string Bean, he became concerned because he knew that string Being must start off every morning with a cup of coffee next to a lit fireplace. When Grandpa didn't see any smoke coming from string Bean's chimney, he knew something was wrong. Grandpa Jones would learn the sad truth when he pulled up to his friend's cabin at twenty three zero eight Baker Road near Ridgetop, Tennessee. According to author Taylor Haygood, string Bean in a Stell did not believe in using banks. Keep in mind, if they were both around during the Great Depression, when many people who had money in their banks lost at all, they just didn't trust the banks. String Being was known to have kept thousands of dollars in cash laying around his house, Grandpa Jones warning many times to not keep that much money in the house. He had told string Being several times that one day, keeping that much cash around the house would get him killed. When Grandpa found the bodies of his murdered friends, he knew that day he had worried about had finally come. The murders shocked Nashville

10:31 residence. Who would kill string Being in a Stell? The public and String Being's fellow country stars were enraged. They demanded law enforcement capture and punish whoever killed string Being in a stell. Law enforcement would eventually arrest and convict cousins John A. Brown and Marvin Douglas Brown, both twenty three years old. For his book about string Being, author Taylor Heygood interviewed one of the lead investigators in the case. He also interviewed surviving members of string Bean's family and fellow musicians who knew string Being personally. He then compiled his findings into the book titled string Being The Life and Murder of a Country Music Legend. This is the first half of a two part story. Please be sure to listen to the conclusion next week. And now on with this tragic story of David Aikman, effectually known as string Bean and his wife Estelle Aikman, is told by author Taylor hey Good. Taylor, first of all, I would like to thank you so much for sharing your research about David string Being Akman with me. Also, thank you for sending me a copy of your book.

11:48 I did read it and I enjoyed it. So with that, let me start out with asking you how to pronounce your last name. I don't want to butcher it is it haygood or good. It's y good, Taylor very good, Okay, and thank you for the clarification. So tell me about yourself and why you decided to write a book about country music legend string being. My name is Taylor very Good, and I am a professor. I wear a lot of hats, but to my main thing is that I'm a professor at Florida Atlantic University, which is in bulk of a town. But long before I was a professor, I was very interested in old time country music. I always loved the music of Jimmy Rogers and Hank Williams and people like that. And I was also in the playing music, playing the guitar and the banjo and the piano and that kind of thing, and particularly the banjo was just always interesting to me. And when I was a kid, I testored my mom and dad and buying me a banjo from my birthday.

12:50 It was a little harmony banjo from Sears catalog and I was just captivated by this instrument. And I had also managed to pester them into taking me to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Originally from North Mississippi, Ripley on the Tennessee state line, Mississippi Tennessee state line. My dad's folksed in Tennessee and did a lot of places, but the home and the hometown. But anyway, we went to the Country Music Hall of Fame, and there I saw a string beans banjo and I saw this picture of him, and he had a very strange to dad in me. Had a very long torso and very short pants, a very short leg. But it was a costume that he had, and I thought, man, that's a strange looking guy. And I thought, okay. But anyway, I heard my mom and dad at the time talking about remembering his being murdered about two years before I was born.

13:41 But they were talking about that, and so just filed the way in the back of my mind. And then I grew up and became a professor and sing on the southern literatures of the southern part of the United States and the culture and the music and so forth. And anyway, I've been reading a lot of biogeason. I was interested in biography and interested in true crime. I've been reading true crime. I've been reading not just the cortessential true crime book, the sort of the original You in Cold Blood, but others. And I was interested in history generally. So anyway, one day I was just looking on the phone in a video of string being popped up, and I thought, how about to read a book about them? And so that I went to try to find one, and really wasn't one. The book written in nineteen seventy five, two years after the murder, and it was about the investigation, but it really didn't give you much about string Bean's life, which is so crucial to the story in a way, the investigation, the murder, and all in the trial that those are all separate from string Bean's life in some ways and seemed that way, but in fact they take on their greatest power and meaning in light of his life stories. So anyway, I just started doing the work on that and said, well, I guess I'm going to be the guy who writes this book. And that's how it happened. Now, when you wrote your book, were you able to actually find any surviving family members a string being and get to speak to any of them to get their insights about him? Well? I did so,

15:15 well, absolutely So some of the people I got to speak with who knew it, you know, were people who had worked with him. So Loretta Lynn, the country music saying very helpful with the book. Paul Jones had passed away, but his son was very helpful. Also, there's a country sing named Whipper and Bill Anderson, pretty big, legendary kind of guy. And so there were a number of those people who helped out, and there were some family now string Being, didn't you know, by the time I got to do in this book, none of his siblings and obviously his parents were no longer alive, but his nephew as a very nice gentleman, lives in Kentucky, and in fact, they do a string Being annual festals just this past weekend. His name is Philip Bateman, and he was incredibly gen was credibly generous. And there was some other nieces and nephews and so forth. But you know what, at this point, I'm sorry to say, there aren't many people really to actually new stream being. It's just a handful. And I was writing this book, of course during the pandemic, and it turns out that people were you know, i'd say it, you know, there were people who passed away even before I could get to.

16:25 One of the people I was going to try to talk to was Roy Clark, and the banjo player who toured was stream being early on, and I wasn't able a best way for me did so those things happened, but I got some great stories, and probably one of my favorite ones was Lulu Roman, who was one of the founding past members of Heat Hall and stream Bean was on that with her, and she didn't actually know what anything about country music when she got on the show. She knew like one She knew buck Owens basically, and she got on the show and she didn't know who anybody was. And I asked her, I said, what did you think when you saw this guy string Bean? Oh, that long his costume with the long shirt and short pants, And she said, Honey, I was on so much at LSD at that time that I thought one of those creatures I've been seeing it become real. Well, well, that was quite as smart as I can remember watching he Hall with my parents and grandparents when I was a kid. I was about four years old when string Bean died, so by the time when he passed away, I wasn't really watching it then.

17:32 I'm gonna say that I probably started watching it back in the nineteen seventy five or nineteen seventy six so string Bean was already gone by then, but I do remember Roy Clark and Buck Owens m And for me to like Keyhaw, that's really saying a lot because I'm definitely not a country music fan. I really don't care for the modern music, but I did like the older music with Loretta Land and Johnny Ash. You're right right, well, yeah, Now regarding stream Being, I did enjoy his music. As a matter of fact, I will still go on YouTube and watch old videos of him from when he was on Heehaw, And I think that he was really a very talented musician, and I thought that he was especially funny too, especially for his time doing the music, and comedy was really great, you know.

18:27 And then him and Grandpa Jones together on heehall was really great. He was really a comic. Yeah, And of course the clips of him and Grandpa Jones together are classic. I know they were best friends in life, but they also had that chemistry together. It was really great on Heehaw. Yeah, they really did, and had a very drass into humor. I think a really interesting thing about stream Being and a really interesting thing to me about him, And you mentioned the Cash. Of course, Johnny Cash never goes out of style. He was. He did some folks he did. He was a rock and roll guys country, so he was a little bit of everything. Stream Being was not that guy, but in his own way.

19:10 Stream Being he's sort of cool in a very uncool way, you know what I mean, Like he's not you know. But he was a guy who kind of really blasted over these decades and remained relevant. And everybody who worked with him loved him. He was somebody who was a great colleague, you know, And that was part of the thing. When he was murdered, it really hit people. He was a real punch in the stomach. I had always thought the string Being seemed like a really interesting guy. As a matter of fact, I had read a lot about him, and I had decided that I wanted to write a column about him. I write this true crime column for this paper in Ohio, and I've been doing it for a while. But I just wanted to write something about him. I guess I just wanted people to who had never heard of him to maybe be curious enough to look him up and learn about him, or look up some of his videos and listen to his music on YouTube. Oh okay, and through that column. I believe that's how I ended up getting in touch with your press person, or actually they contacted me because they must have read the article and thought that maybe that I might be interested in speaking to you about your book, and they were right. When I was contacted about it, I was definitely interested. So yeah, I definitely wanted to talk to you when you're a publicity person contacted me. So yeah. But from what I've read about

20:41 him, I've read that string Being was a pretty humble, normal guy and he didn't have any kind of an ego. It was almost as if he didn't even know he was famous. Yeah, no, that's been true. And his wife lived in a little bit of house little Nashville, and he was a tall guy, tall guy, and I'm not I'm on like five eight and a half, you know, but like going to that house. I visited the house, but the owners, the current owners of credibly nice people. And going to that house, the eve of the house, it's just a tiny assist a few rooms, and the eaves of the house when you go up on the porch, it almost hits me in the head to walk on to the porch. So he would have had to been pretty far over just to get on there. And I only mentioned that because it's a tiny little house and that's where he lived in a lot of land, but that's where these people lived here and his wife, and they lived a very quiet life and they minded their own business, and they were very humble.

21:41 Yeah, and they were very frugal. I don't know about you. My grandmother used to after the Christmas shouldn't be ironing the wrapping paper. You know. She was very frugal. She had become of age in the Great Great Depression, just a stream Being had and they were very frugal people, and they didn't spend money. They would buy, Yeah, they would trade him for a new catalac every year at the beginning of the year, and that was their one splur. They had a boat. They're a basketboat. Really. They weren't like George Jones or somebody with a lot of stuff that. They weren't that person at all. Nothing against George Jones, but they were a very different type of people. Yeah, both string Being and his wife Estelle, both sounded like very humble people and very good people too. Yeah, very string Being like the hunt he liked to fish. He was just a normal guy. It wasn't like the guy was taking yachts all over the place or living in a mansion, or just seemed like a pretty normal, everyday guy just living his life. That's right, it really was. It really was. While doing research for string Being story, I had learned that he was truly a very humble man. He didn't take his fame too seriously, and he just seemed to be happy as long as he can entertain his fans with the sweet sounds of his banjo playing, his goofy facial expressions, his lanky physical appearance, and his corny jokes. We will take a short break in return with details about string Bean's early days as a young and upcoming

23:12 musician from Kentucky. So tell me about what it was like for string Being coming up. Because a lot of people that will be listening to this will have never heard of string Being, so they won't know anything about him, and I would like them to be curious enough to look him up and do some research on him, or to even purchase your book. So tell me more about how did he end up becoming a musician? Tell me about his humble beginnings absolutely, and let me tell you just to make a point I guess on routes to that. I appreciate very much your research and writing, and you know, I want to say that in my mind, I tried to get his I put everything into the book that I could find, But I suspect there are probably stories out there that I can't find at this point, and there may be more things come to light, and so it's my hope that people will continue to do the research and learn about him, because I think there's probably more out there, you know. But anyway, who was again, his name was David. Her name was David Eightman A K E M A N. The family spend a little different ways, but that's how he ended up spelling it the way. He was from Jackson County, Kentucky, which is kind of south maybe a little bit southeast Lexington, kind

24:49 of close to London, Kentucky, And anyway, grew up there, grew up on a farm, and he but that was a banjo player and stream being Dave Lateman learned to play Levan Joe's as a kid, and then when he was, you know, get to be young man, there was a banjo contest held near him. He sent by radio station in Lexington and he competed in it. He did not actually win that contest, but he made enough of an impression on the gentleman the name Asa Martin, who was running the contest and was a radio personality, and Asa Martin invited him to play on the radio. He went to Lexington, did David Akman, And when he got there, Asa Martin was famous for the kind of famously would forget people's names, and he couldn't remember this guy's name that he had invited, and he said, well, he looked at him and said, well, he's tall. He said, come on over here, a stream bean and play us as all. He couldn't think of his name. So now some people say Asa Martin said stream Bean, And in fact, a lot of times, especially earlier in his career, stream being or Dave Aateman was billed as in the plural for him stream Beans, but I suspect it was probably the singular because he looked quiet, as you say. But anyway, that's how he got his name, and he started playing his playing with two three different groups at least. And it's another thing I'm kind of curious about it.

26:12 If there's anybody out there listening who knows and you know, there may be other groups he was playing with. I was able to identify I think to three during those early years, but a lot of stuff is not documented from that time. But anyway, he was doing that. Then he got connected with Charlie Monroe. Of course, Charlie and Bill Monroe were big gleb brothers and they had split up, and then Bill Monroe really became the father of bluegrass music. And the fact stream Being ended up not only playing with Charlie, but ultimately he became the first and people listening to anybody who knows about bluegrass music may be surprised to hear that it was actually David string Being Eateman who was the first banjo player with Bill Monroe, because a lot of people think about it being Earl Scrull and Earl Scruggs replaced stream Being, so that was David Eateman and left Streaming left Building Rhodes. The team up with another singer named Luke Children and after that this Eurol Scruggs came into the group.

27:15 So really stream Being was an important person in the history of bluegrass music because he was the first one to really bring that banjo sound into it. He played a different style he played he called a rapping style and most people call it climber style. And he played two finger picking style, but both of those are different from what Earl Scrugs did, which is a free finger picking style. Anyway, that was what he did, and he became part of the Grand Old Opry ultimately as a solo act, and over the years he played there. By the night Hank Williams debuted on the Grand Old Opry stream being was standing in the wings and he played, I don't know one or two slots after him, he was right there, so he was really there, and he really bridged those early days, the really early days the country music and radio and all of that all the way into the television era.

28:04 And ultimately, when he was murdered in the nineteen seventy three, it was right on the cusp of that the you know that outlaw country music, and in fact, Willie Nelson it wasn't his, one of the quintessential outlaw country singers. Lived very close to string being in Enridged tut Tennessee's house burned down and he headed all back home to Texas and that's where he started growing his hair out and became the Willie Nelson. We know, and that's who I guess, sort of a short version of string Being's musical career. Okay, now let's talk about heahaw. How does string Being end up being on Heahaw? Tell me about that? So he how So it's kind of interesting.

28:47 He wasn't necessarily in the original lineup as they envisioned it. Of course. He all was developed by a couple of producers who are actually from Canada. They had been watching the show laugh in and they said, we think we could do it a ton of a rural version of this had rural TV had come in. So you think about the sixties, you know, you had the fifties and sixties, you had the Andy Griffiths showed, you had Green Acres and I she got some rural programming. Oh those were great shows, Andy Griffiths, Green Acres. I watched them all. Okay, you don't tell about Oh definitely. So there was this rural all this rural programming have been doing pretty well, and so these guys, well, can we do sort of a rural la version of laughing basically, so it was a popular show at the time, comedy show. If he mayn't have been doing comedy from from early on. He had didn't do it at almost from the beginning, and he had a real drive it. And anyway, so they set up this show and they they're real contact person was Buck Owens, who was a West Coast guy. He was he was based in California and he so I think that kind of gave a certain proximity for them. And anyway, they got him and they want to do this thing, and they relied on him a lot to bring people in. So they had certain people like Archie Campbell and many Pearl and Grandpaul Jones were right there at the beginning.

30:12 And then they kind of brought stream Being. They said, listen, you gotta get because guy string Being in on the deal, and that's how he came in there. They didn't really know what to do with them. They can quite figure out what stream Being's role should be. But then they hit on the idea of making him the scarecrow in the cornfield. So the cornfield, as as I know, you remember, that's that place where they would go and they would be telling these jokes at half the time they would get them wrong and they'd cracked themselves up. But stream Bean was the scarecrow in the cornfield, and that's how it wasn't it? And he had such success that he actually ended up writing a song called Me and My Old Crow and he pat some money on it, so that's how I got in it.

30:55 And and then down the line he introduced one of his acts from various it's at least the nineteen fifties, he had been doing a thing where he would write these fake letters from home because that were funny, and he would start reading. He started reading those and they said, couldn't do this, and they said, yeah, it doesn't have to be a big hit, and he was really going strong. I think one of the tragic things is the final album he recorded was called Me Mo Crowe, and it's a really interesting album. I mean, some of the approach to music that he was doing really well. He was at his best. Really. It would have been really interesting to see what kind of music he might have produced it had lived, because they did old time music. But he did like comic songs like Me and Mo Crow. But you know he did in that final album he did a really interesting interpretation actually that wantall Sally if they've got a little Richard doing that song extreme beings approach to it is really original, it's really interesting.

31:52 So if he lived, it would have been interesting. Oh, I definitely agree with you. I think that had being lived longer, he would have gone on to become a huge country star. I know he was already a big star in his own right, but he came in with the introduction of television, so he would have been on television more. And then with him being on Heehaw, he probably would have stayed on Heehaw a lot longer. So through Heehaw, I think that because it ran for such a long time, that program would have probably increased his exposure and he would have had more fans from that show. He probably would have just become a household name.

32:43 But that's just my opinion. But I think he was definitely a good enough musician that he would have probably had a bigger impact on country music had he not been murdered. Absolutely totally and he aged will. I hope he and Grandpa Jones. You know, Grandpa Jones had an ultimate This guy had the ultimate marketing plan. He was twenty something years old when he started telling himself, Grandpaul Jones, you're never going to outlive that billing so you're always going to be more Grandpaul and really stream Being was a similar kind of guy because he was sort of a guy just you know, he's never going to outlive that buildings. I agree. I happen to agree it with that very much. And I think that's a very astute, astute observation that you make that I think people don't often think about it, but I happen to agree with you entirely. I think had he lived, I think he would have been, as you say, a household name right there with Grandpa Jones and some of those people. Because a lot of people wh don't know anything about country music per se, they know who Grandpa Jones is. Today, when I think back on heehaw in watching it as a kid, I think about Grandpa Jones because that's how I remember him in Minnie Pearl and Roy Clark Buck going Sloretta Lynn. I remember seeing them all on key Hall when I was growing up, and then when they did the skits where they were in the cornfield telling the jokes. I remember watching this back in like seventy five, seventy six, seventy seven, watching it with my grandparents and my parents,

34:17 and even as a kid. I used to just crack up with the jokes. I really don't think I knew what was going on, but watching my parents and grandparents, and then of course watching the actors on the show laughing at each other's jokes, I thought it was funny too. So it was definitely a pretty hilarious show back in the day, even though I didn't know what was going on half the time. Yeah, I didn't either. Well when it came to he Hall, the producers must have been doing something right because it ran for over twenty years. I mean it was on for a long time. Oh yeah, but you know it's funny. I didn't know what's going on either when I was a kid, but I thought I thought they weren't. The fact that they would just crack up, as you say in that field you do, it must be something funny and I don't know, it just always crack me up. But I know exactly what you're talking about. Growing up in the late seventies as I did. One of the fondest memories I have of my childhood was watching Heaw with my parents and grandparents.

35:22 Grandpa Jones would eventually become my favorite character. We will take a final break and when we return, Taylor will discuss the longtime friendship between Grandpa Jones and string Bean. So I've always been fascinated with the friendship that Grandpa Jones had with string Bean. Did you get to hear that many stories about their friendship or did you even get to hear that many stories about Grandpa Jones, because of course he was another great character on there on heaw, I mean, he was a World War two ve train. So do you have any stories about his time in World War two or anything about that He was a good fight in World War Two, Yes, sir, and now certain being was he was in the army for a short time. But Grandpa actually he did. Stream Being was discharged, but Grandpa Jones actually was in Europe and he was there, and anyway, yeah, it's kind of interesting. They were both from Kentucky, and they were from two different parts of Kentucky, but they were the same state, and they were in Nashville. Grandpa came a little bit after a stream Being, but stream Being had been there with Bill Monrope. But Grandmal came kind of when stream Being was making that transition

36:52 to being a solo performer, and the stream Being was also marrying his second wife, the one that everybody knows about steal And they were very close. And it was also a time when Grandpa Jones was marrying a Ramona the lady married I think it was his second wife also, so you know, both of them really were starting over. They had similar skills. They both played claw hammer ban Joe, They both knew the same songs. They both had a kind of not exactly this thing being had a dryer sense of humor, but they both had this sense of humor and were comics, and so they had a lot and both loved to hunt and fish. Loved to hunt, both of them, and they used to like to go down to the Hart River and and just fish. And they were really two peas in the pot if I could be permitted to use that freeze. They were very similar, very close, and that's really how it happened. You know, they didn't perform very often together. They did. They can go on YouTube and find them playing a song or two, but they didn't actually perform that much together relatively speaking. But they were extremely close and they did performed, but not as much as you might think, I guess what I'm saying. But they were very close friends. And in fact, at one point David and Stell Pateman the stream being and his wife were living in Nashville and a kind of an apartment and that they were living on Partland Street and anybody stream mister miss Jones, Grandpa's a religor buis Marshall Jones and Romana Jones. They basically said,

38:25 look, we're going to pull our money and buy a farm north of Nashville and Ridge Tuck. And when I say they were neighbors, they were neighbors. Like as I told you, I was at their house and it was it's probably the house that Grandpa and Romana lind is still fanding, but it's not in the vest shape. But honestly, I would say it's probably about maybe maybe ten steps of a normal person, of an adult person to walk from one house to the other. I mean, they're like right beside each other. And then they were they were That's how close they were. Tremendously close. From one liners stand. They were always doing stuff together.

39:08 They were neighbors and best friends always, always always. That was a pretty amazing friendship. No exactly right, and it lasted. I don't think most people have friendships like that. Ones that are that loyal. No, no, mister miss Jones. They ended up They did end up coming back and they bought another place, or I may have built it, but anyway, it was very close. Not as close as that house, and then they had their home chunk of land, but it was very close. But to be that close and to remain friends, that's a real pestimony, I think, to how close you know, how similar they were, and the wives were very close friends also, So it's remarkable, really it is. Now take me up until the time when Grandpa Jones found string being and his wife both dead. The thing that gets me is that I know, as close of friends as they were, I can't imagine how he must have felt.

40:12 Imagine that you have plans to go hunting with your best buddy, a guy that's like a brother to you. You're excited to be going on in this hunting trip with this friend of yours, and then you go to his house and find him and his wife both dead and not by accident. Someone killed them. And from what I understand, it was hard on Grandpa Jones for the rest of his life that he probably never really got over it. So tell me about that. Did you get to learn anything about how it affected him for the rest of his life. Well, yeah, so I really appreciate the way you think that question, because I think that's a good way to frame the question. We're obviously inching towards the murder, but there is not just say it this way for the moment, in the way of thinking about Grandpa Jones's position, as you say, it's a complete, complete shock.

41:10 They had a plan. This was November the tenth, and nineteen seventy three was a Saturday, and they had a plan. Grandpa Jones and Stream Bean and they call each other Grandpa and Stream and they had a plan to go hunting and Virginia. Grandpa had worked up there for a while and they were going to get up in the next morning, Sunday morning. They were at the grandall offering making their final plans. On the night of November the tenth, nineteen seventy three, they had a plan to go to Virginia and they were going to get up and drive the next morning. When I say they, it was going to be Grandpaul because the stream being never drove. But anyway, they were going to go up in the morning, and Grandpa wanted to leave earlier. Stream Being didn't like to get up early, so they split the difference, and I think it was six thirty. Maybe they were planning to go. Well. Next morning, Grandpa gets up, blows up as the vehicle and he comes driving, and he comes up over the hill over the thing, and he looks down and he sees the house of stream Being, but he sees that there's no smoke coming out of the chimney.

42:10 And that was the thing that really He would talk about this at the trial. He said, that was the thing that really started to make me nervous because stream Being loved to get up in the morning and kick the fire and the action get the fire going. He loved it every day of his life if he could, if he was at home. And so there was no smoke coming out of the chimney. And in fact, I wanted at one point to call the book titled the book No Smoke from the Chimney, because that was such a striking thing. Anyway says no smoke come from the chimney. Anyway pulled in, you got to pull over a little bridge, A little small bridge goes over a little ditch, and then you go up through a field and there's a cattle there's a nat a gate there at the ditch, but there was another cattle gate closer to the house. Anyway, you see you you see. He thinks it's a clue in the field, but he realizes access still gets out a car, runs over to her.

43:01 He says this, you know, she'd been shot in the back of the head, shot in the arm. He knew what it looked like. He had seen a woman shot in Europe. And then it dawns on him, and he's already horrifying and dawns on him, you know, and already string being it was known around town or carrying cash with him, large amounts of cash. And and so Grandpa and Grandpa Joves, his son told me, he said, my dad was always saying, somebody's going to kill you someday with you carrying that lot of money around. And he realizes today is to day. And so he rushed over his calling out the name, and he rushed over. When inside the door, he could see through the screen the storm door and stream being was lying kind of like if he goes straight into the house from the front door, there's a fireplace. It looks the same day that they'd been. He's got pan paneling around it. Stream Being was in in front of the fireplace. His head was facing like his head was to the left, and there was a doorway at that time there. But anyway, he found they found the bodies, and that's that's how it was.

44:02 It was. It was a life changing, terrible moments. Now, tell me about the investigation, because I'm sure that with the popularity of string being back in the time, I'm sure the cops were held bent on trying to find out who did this, right, So the investigation was let me just say this about the whole thing, the murder, of the investigation, out of the trial that followed, in the different stages of the trial were probably some of the most sensational to hit Nashville ever really, to say the truth, certainly, in the lifetimes of the people of that moment, it represented them a complete change of the city. So did the city seemed menacing and big and dangerous in a way that it never had seen to them before.

44:53 And the country music industry was changed that way and but fifting because there would be another situation, another trial, investigation and trial that would follow stream Being shortly after this, all have hashed out and that one it was become the Marshal Trembrill case, and it was also a basically kidnapping, and that one had kind of featured the same cast of characters in terms of the police and so forth. Anyway, I just mentioned that because this is not something that just happened. This was a big deal. The whole city was written. It was just written, and the city was that ranged really because this wasn't wasn't a ravel rouser, you know, and the city was really devastated.

45:38 So I just that's something worth nothing. But as far as the investigation, you had the finishing kind of people, the police, the investigators felt a tremendous pressure. It probably worked. Noting I guess that the Metro the way it worked was there was this Metro Davidson County like Metro, basically, it wasn't a new form of government, and it cook it basically include an entire county, and so there was a lot of ground to cover. The equipment had not really caught up with the moment that they were funding problems. So there are a lot of headwinds, a lot of challenges. A lot of the investigators were I don't mean any disrespect to them in any way.

46:19 And I certainly I'm not an investigator by trade, so I don't want to second guess them, but I'll just say this, they were in a position where they had to assemble their own investigation kit and put them in diplog bags. They didn't They didn't even have the equipment to go handle a very high profile situation, very high profile murder. And the murder scene and I have to talk to people who were at the murder scene was a complete circus. I mean people were stepping on evidence. And one of the investigators, I mean Jacobs, mentions it is look people were there was who knows what kind of evidence was was obliterated and would come up at the trial. The defense attorney for one of the men who was charged and put on trial, he poked all kind of holes into the waiting year investigation was done as far as the gathering of evidence and sore and really but the first day or two they had no clue. They had no idea who have done this? Had certain had a few ideas. They had some cigarettes and they had an idea about who. Okay, well if we could find people are smoking these different kinds of cigarettes, But there were some strange things that the aintments had two cars.

47:30 One was a Cadillac and the other one was a station wagon. The station wagon had been driven to a rock quarry. The police weren't quite sure why that was. So there was kind of a very confusing things. And probably the worst thing of all, the hardest things all from an investigation standpoint, is they couldn't find any enemies. That they had no enemies, And what they began to hear about was these people carried money, and they kept a lot of cash on their persons and in the house. Now there were a lot of report Multiple people have reported that still eight mon kept cash in cans like old coop cans and put him in the freezer. There's never been any mention of any of that money being recovered, but the police decided that this was money motivated. Never say anything about if there's any money in refrigerator.

48:16 Who knows if it's true or not. I have no idea, but I can tell you this. There was determined that the mode was money. But there was a wat of three thousand dollars on stream being person in his overhauls in two thousand and the person of this Steff that's the three thousand bills and didn't want all hundreds. That's a substantial water of money. It seems to me, well, if you think about it, five thousand dollars in nineteen seventy three, that was a lot of money, right exactly, you know, it's a lot of money. It's amiss that the whole purpose is to go kill somebody for the money and you leave that kind of wat of money on there. I mean, come home, you know, so way, but whatever, that was what they determined and and so that was what set it up. And you know, basically in terms of evidence, they found twenty two case sings and there were different calibers basically of metal around and so they said, okay, well there had to be certain kind of guns, and so I start piecing that together as you would at any investigation.

49:21 But really where the tide turned, and it was very curious for the tide really turned, was that there was a gentleman being held in custody who told the DA at the time, who was named Thomas Schreiver. It was like this old time southern Middle Tennessee kind of lawyer, but they weren't very old at the time. But his dad had been a lawyer, and he was sort of an establishment guys Vanderbilt Tide. He was up for reelection, by the way at that time. But anyway, this gentleman in custody said, I heard there were these fellows who were planning this murder, and their names were John and Doug Brown, and there also was and that Doug's brother Roy and his brother Charlie. Charlie Brown were all kind of implicated, and that from that point forward, these gentlemen were brought in. Job was actually not in town at the time, but they were brought in and they were questioned.

50:16 And one of the really interesting things had happened at that moment was that Charlie Brown, who owned a welding business, hired Joe Binkley, who was the most expensive defense attorney in the city of Nashville. And it's a very strange question. How in the world could you pay for this guy if you just have a welding business. And so the sort a big question in my mind. Did they come away with money? Had they already come away with money? And was this thing where they were surprised? There was there more to it? And there were questions there. I think I never quite came to a satisfactory answer, maybe for myself one and maybe there might be more come to light some day. But anyway, that was how well, it was kind of a long model that may have been more detailed than you were ontant. And that concludes the first half. A string Beans story is told by author Taylor Heygood. If you enjoy reading true crime books, then I highly recommend that you purchase a copy of Taylor's book and adding it to your collection. The book takes you from string Being's humble beginnings as a child making his own instruments to becoming a country music legend. You can get your own copy of string Being The Life and Murder of a Country Music Legend, written by Taylor Heygood on Amazon dot com or wherever else you purchase your favorite books.

51:43 And if you would like to contact Taylor about his book, please visit Taylor Heygood dot com. I will be sure to include this information in the case story notes. And if you are a parent, law enforcement official, friend, or relative seeking justice for an unsolved comic side case, please visit my website and complete the contact form. You can also contact me through Facebook. Thank you for listening.