Episode 188: David "Stringbean" Akeman (Part 2 of 2)

0:47 Hello, and welcome to the Cash 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 Clairemont Sun newspaper in Ohio. With the 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 Stringbean Akeman 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.

1:34 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 is Stell on November tenth, nineteen seventy three. 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 affectionally 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 a 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.

2:55 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 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 Being 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.

4:24 String Being became known as a comedian musician. He also broadcast out of Wlap 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 Being 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 se my 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 Bean 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. Stringbean also would go on to marry his sweetheart, a Stelle Standfill in nineteen forty five. The following year, he would then begin working with another banjo player named Lewis Marshall Jones, affectionally known as Grandpa Jones. The two men would get together doing comedy in the television program Heehaw. Grandpa Jones was a World War Two veteran and would become string

5:59 beans closest friend, and the two men would also become neighbors in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. During the late nineteen forties, string Being also formed a team with lu Chouldrey 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 at banjo. It'smond 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.

6:44 He helped string Being develop his ability to play songs and tell funny jokes. Before Macon died, he gave string Being one of his prized banjo's. During the nineteen fifties, string Bean became one of the Grand Old Operys 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. 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 a taste of comedy. It's 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.

8:00 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 Heehaw. I'm not a country music fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I absolutely loved watching Hehaw with my parents and grandparents when I was a child. Unfortunately, String Being and his wife A Stell, 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 two men. String Being was shot the death in front of his fireplace and his wife Astell, 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

9:31 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 Ridge Top, Tennessee. According to author Taylor Heygood, 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 it 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 residents 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 Haygood interviewed one of the lead investigator in the case. He also interviewed surviving

11:03 members of string Bean's family and fellow musicians who knew string Bean personally. He then compiled his findings into the book titled string Bean, The Life and Murder of a Country Music Legend. This is the conclusion of a two part story. If you haven't already listened to the first half, please go back and listen. And now on with the tragic story of David Aikman, affectionately known as string Bean and his wife is cell 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 Achman with me. Also, thank you for sending me a copy of your book. 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 want to butcher it is it hay Good or hey Good? It's hey Good, It's hey good, Tylor hey 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 hey Good, and I am a professor.

12:24 I wear a lot of hats, but to my main thing is that I'm a professor at Florida Atlantic University, which is in Boca Ratwn. 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 custored my mom in bed in the buying me a banjo from my birthday. 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 posted 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. But they were talking about that, and so it just bied the way in the back of my mind. And then I grew up and became a professor and

13:56 focusing on the Southern littus of the southern of the United States, and the culture and the music and so forth. And I've been reading a lot of biographies, and I was interested in biography and interested in true crime. I've been reading true crime, been reading not just the court essential 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 him? And so that I went to try to find one, and really wasn't one. There had 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 being'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. 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.

15:22 Well, absolutely so. Some of the people I got to speak with who knew were people who had worked with him. So Loretta Leon the country music saying very helpful of 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 then there were some family. Now 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 who lives in Kentucky. And in fact, they do a string being annual school just this past weekend. His name is phill A. Tateman, and he was incredibly generous, incredibly 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 knew 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 before I could get to it. 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 before I 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

16:53 actually know anything about country music. When she got on the show. She knew like one She knew buck Owens basically, and she got on the showers she didn't know who anybody was. And I asked her, I said, what did you think when you saw this guy? String being oh that long his costume with the long shirt and the short pants, And she said, Honey, I was on so much to LSD at that time that I thought one of those creatures I've been seeing it become real. Well, that was quite as smarted. Can you tell me more about the men that were arrested for killing string being in a stell? If I recall they were John and Doug Brown, and I believe they were first cousins. Can you confirm that and tell me a little bit more about their relationship? Yeah, John Brown and Doug Brown were first dozens, Yes, okay, and I know that they are the two people who are officially labeled as being the killers of string being in a stell. Can you tell me how did law enforcement catch these two guys? How did they find out it was these two men? I mean, we're talking about a time when there was no DNA or advanced law enforcement techniques. It was basically just down to what they call gumshoe detective work.

18:15 So tell me more about what led to their arrest. Well, that is a really interesting question. Actually, I really appreciate the way you're putting these questions because they just very well put because it was really one of the most fascinating things to me and doing this work. And I was able to talk to Tommy Jacobs, one of the lead investigators. I was able to get in touch with him. I never succeeded in talking to me. I don't even know if some of the other ones are still alive. I know Sherman Nickins is still alive. I never succeeded to get in touch with it, getting in touch with him, but anyway, I taught to him and I think one of the interesting things was that, And I think this is something that in the realm of investigation, are those things that they had to do maybe on some level with intuition or interaction. They may have to do with other things too. Doug's older brother, Charlie Brown, the one who paid all the money for this lawyer. He had a talent agency and he knew stream Being and they lived right up the room from Stream Being had a contributed talent agency, and he was known to have had lunch with stream Being in his wife. And not only that, there is heard not too long ago a gentleman who was used to be in the country music industry, and he was saying that Charlie Brown actually did book string being in some of his those dates performances, so you know, that's a lot of connection, you know what I mean. But he was also somebody who was on some level involved in the country music industry. People knew who he was and had some

19:49 kind of pool. I don't know how much you know, but anyway, he as the investigation went along, there's a lot of bad blood between Charlie Brown and Tommy Jacobs and some other investigators, and they all saw him as being bring leader of this thing. He was involved in a number of other criminal activities at the time, but he was very aggressive fighting back and he was handful. Well. Anyway, what happened, what kind of implicating It was very interesting because it was very clear that Charlie and his brother and cousin were all strategizing. They were strategizing how can we get out of this?

20:29 And who knows what they were staying. Oh I did get touched with some of them, and Dog Brown passed away in prison, so there's no way you can talk to him. But it's hard to get a sense of what they were trying to do. But they were strategizing and in the middle of all this, there was a man named Bill Downey who showed up. The investigators were stayed in stream Beings house, which, by the way, again these were big guys staying in a tiny house, so I don't know how that worked out for him. But anyway, they were hav to step around the chalk outlines of the stream Beings on the floor. Well, anyway, this guy, Bill down he comes to them and he starts telling this whole story. And the way he tells the story is that Doug and John were the one who were there, and John is the one who pulls the trigger and kills street being while string Bean and Doug or fighting kind of scuffling, and he claims the Streaming came in shooting, which may have been true.

21:22 The police believed it was true. They say the story was that Estelle ran out and those things that she was running away and shot. John shot her, got her to the ground and then shot her point banking the head and came in laughing and saying this was by being in Vietnam. Well, that was the story that was told. It was a story, but it was a story that made John the bad guy. Doug was there, but John was the bad guy. So John had a very different story. John claimed that Charlie had given some pills and he had passed out that night and then he woke up and they told him he was the one who had done the murder. If he talked to him now, he'll tell you the same thing. You'll say, I don't have any remember, And there were other cases where he didn't have that memory. Basically, so what happened then is based on this Bill Downees informing if he was an informant, based on that by the way he built down he was a criminal. He walked into the trial was stolen boot. But for whatever reason, the investigators they liked Bill Downy.

22:18 They thought it was funny, and they thought he was a character, and they trusted him, and which you can understand. There was incredible pressure on them to find the murderers, and here was somebody coming in and telling them a story that fit with what they were thinking to happen, or that they believe happened. I think on some level, so in their minds it was all working out, and that may be exactly how it played out. But what happens is by the time he got to the trial, you had this situation where the trial is almost is largely based on Frankly, I kind of hearsay, and that was a point of contention in a number of ways. But that's that's how it happened. So it was finally over with when the arrests were made the investigators, who were the police, they arrested not only Doug and Time, but Doug's brother Roy, and they arrested Charlie Brown.

23:11 Now, interestingly, the DA didn't want to do that. MS Driver said, I don't want to risk that him, and Tommy Jacobs said he's the guy who had planned it. He's the releader of this thing, although that was contended. There was also others saying he didn't plan it, but that was this thing. And here's the DA said no, no, no, we won't. We's not gonna bring him in. So anyway, long story short, all four of these gentlemen were brought in no sooner, I mean like a day later maybe Charlie had a lawyer come into the investigators to say he wants to give you information for immunity to cut a deal, and they kept that deal right then and there because they claimed they wanted to find the murder weapon, and there was talk of a will that the players stream being had left money to needy children and my own and knew that was entirely made up. I talked to the family lawyer of the atman's and nobody would say anything about a will, So I didn't mean it couldn't have added, but they did anyway, because of wanting to get this will. They cut that deal. And so Charlie went from being a suspect and an informant of being a witness in trial, basically speaking on behalf of his brother against his cousin. That's how it happened, and so and so they went to turn no honor among thieves. I guess exactly right. So they went to the trial and ultimately John and Doug were convicted, although when it was all sudden done, the jury members came out in the number of them said we don't actually have any idea what really happened, but we know for sure that these

24:44 two guys were there and they did something. They were involved in the murder some way, and that was how it played out. But now I want to say they were real stinkers. Now, the Browns were some bad folk. It was a story that in the media was the lines are very clearly gone. Here are David and Estella, and that by any stretch of the imagination, as far as anybody can know, they're like completely innocent. They're just like lambs to the slaughter, while the Browns were, You're just quintessential bad guys. Just everything about them at that point, if everything about them was just ugly and evil, they represented I think the evil element in Nashville, and so they're in the public mind. I think there was a sense that this was a kind of retribution. There have been a sacrificial killing, almost and now there needed to be payment for that, and so that was the pressure. In what kind of a sentence did these guys get? They got the two I think there were noney nine years if they were called, or maybe there were a lifetime. But anyway, they were done, if I remember quickly, I think the deal was that the judge said at the end, I think they were done simultaneously, not consecutively, the way it was high really the way it was they basically like now they were not there at that point. It turns out that would be a year. A year or so before that the death penalty had been abolished, so real Roy Acuff was going around saying that punishment should never have been abolished. These fellows need

26:18 to die, they need to try in the chair. He was going around saying, no, So I know that you said Doug died in prison, but if I recall, didn't John Brown eventually get parolled and he's out now exactly, So Doug kind of faded away. He died in the same prison, by the way that the fictional Hannibal Lequor was being taken to when he escaped. So it was an interesting place there in Tennessee. But anyway, he died in prison. But John and he was very quiet once the trial was over. He never said much, but John was kind of loud.

27:06 One time, there was some country music singers performing in the prison. He happened to be there and he jumped on the stage and he started introducing all of them and it really made them all very upset. And his wife, Libor, she started really campaigning in the media, trying pretty rely on trying to get you know, after everything died down. You know, by the time he got into nineteen eighties and ninetiesies, she's really started campaigning pretty pretty hard to get John, you know, tind to change his image, and this lady his wife was an accountant working for the Cornerstone Church, and nashally has the main minister of it was a gentlemanhood committed murder as a kid, and he came out of it and he had a change of life and he became a minister, and he was very compassionate about convicted people who were convicts, and he started hiring them on And anyway, there just became a mounting campaign to say that John had changed his life and he was following the teachings of Jesus, and that he was somebody who was become a Christian and had had a chain complete change of life and was a good guy. What had was a model inmate and though on. And so you'd have these parole hearings where you would have on one side people making that argument, and then you would have on the other side people like Porter Wagoner and Jean Shephard and Whispering Bill Anderson and Mac Wiseman and all these very famous countries bluegrass figures walking in and saying you cannot parole this guy. This is a horrible crime. David

28:38 and I Filtman had done nothing wrong and they were killed in cold blood. And so this went on, and it continued until finally, in twenty fourteen, the tide turned and the parole board voted to let John out. And he got out and he got a job as a maintenance man at the Cornerstone Church fared north of Nashville. And I tried to talk to him. Basically, I was told he wanted to move on from all of this, and which I understand. But people are very divided. I tell you this. People are very divided still in Nashville about this thing. There are people who still say this is somebody who did not deserve any mercy, certainly doesn't deserve a role, and then there are people who say otherwise. And it's not always di Lulu Roman I mentioned earlier she's become a gospel singer, and she said, I've heard great things about mister Brown and he's tremendous thing that he's changed his life. So people are still in different places about it, but it's still a thing. In Nashville. People are very aware of it.

29:41 If you talk to people in the business of the country, US of business, you'll hear him say I was tall one of the killer and I saw John Brown the other day couldn't gas in his car or they have an opinion. You know, if there's something that happened so long ago, you'd be shocked how fresh it is. And there are people are very conscious of stream being and music. I have a friend the Pam McDonald is excellent piano player, played with Hank Williams and Blake Shelton and Pam Tillers and people like that. You're doing the whole album just an honor of stream being in Stlaightman. So there's a lot of that out there in Nashville. It's still really a thing. I don't want to say it feels fresh, but I think it's immediate enough that people feel a connection to stream being into the murder and all of that. I think there's a kind of connection there, especially people in the country music industry. So regarding these two cousins, I don't know if I want to use the word ironic, but John Brown is listed as the shooter, but yet Doug is the one that actually died in prison and John is the one that is actually out of prison and he killed two people.

30:52 It seems backwards like it should have been the other way around. Maybe the shooter should have died in prison, and the one who wasn't the actual shooter should have lived long enough to get paroled. Doesn't that seem like a strange twist of fate to you? Yeah? Exactly, that is a tremendous irony. The one man who survives at all and triggered Mager. Yes. Well, And although Brown killed two people and this public believes that he should still be in prison, apparently that's not the case because the Pearl Board decided to go ahead and let him out. In anyway, as people outside the story who are looking in, we have to look at it as if he spent his time in prison, he paid his price, his debt to society, and as long as he stays out of trouble, then there's no reason to really think too much more about him. Exactly, he served his time, he did. I was looking for information about him after he was paroled, and I didn't find anything about him. So that tells me he's probably stayed out of trouble. So who knows, perhaps he was actually rehabilitated and actually feels bad about the crimes that he committed. Well, when doing the book, I was the book signing and a gentleman came up to me and he said, well, he said, listen, I was working in the Tennessee prison system and John Brown, and he said, he's a good guy.

32:23 He really has changed, and yes, indeed has been has been quiet ever since. And in fact, I would love again, as I say, as I mentioned earlier, I hated that I could not succeed and get the talk to him. I understand he's wanting to move on, but I've mentioned this to other people. I would love to have gotten his comments on it. What does the world look like to him now? But I also understand, Hey, you want to move on from this. I understand that. But what's not as settled as it seemed? I guess I should mention that Doug Brown had called the Nashville Tennessee and newspaper only a few days a day or two of the murder, and he was saying he didn't reveal his name at the time, but he said, what, my partner kills stream Being with stream Being's own gun. You know. One of the interesting things about is that stream Being was killed with Doug's gun allegedly now allegedly, because again it gets pretty murky the ballistics and so forth. It wasn't. Really, it's not totally clear that this particular gun was used. And by the way, to me for the weren't murder weapons have ever been recovered to this day, they've never been recovered, so who knows what the claim is Doug claim when he called the seeing that his partner killed stream Being with his own gun, Well, he ended up giving a lazy confession, or at least that's what he claimed it was with a different national paper later on after he had been arrested and he was waiting for trial to start, and he in that when he changed the story, he was still saying that John did the killing,

33:57 but now he was saying that John had his gun, Doug's gun, and did shooting while John had Doug had John's gun, and nobody could ever figure out why they why did they trade gun? And meanwhile there were reports that either the yellow truck pulling out of the parking lot the driveway a stream Beans Holson and John Brown had a yellow truck. And I think a lot of people know the story is being fairly clear, clean cut, but it's really not. And you, of all people know that murder is just always missy, you know, and you do the best you can, but you know, all these years later to play the devil's out of the kit, I would almost say, based on whatever evidence that they had at the time, I would almost dare I say, it lean towards the possibility that maybe John Brown really did not do this. I believe that he was probably there, but it could have been the cousin who did the shooting, or maybe someone else. Because, as you said, this whole case, the trial, I feel like it was just really murky, and based on everything that I've read about this case, I don't know, it just feels like something's missing from this story, like there was other things that happened that we don't really know about, things that maybe law enforcement is never released. But I think because of the fact that this was string being and this was a high

35:28 profile case, I almost feel like maybe they just rushed to judgment to arrest someone because I'm sure these police officers were under a lot of pressure to get someone. I mean, someone had to go down for this, and maybe the Browns were just the perfect people to go after. They weren't exactly wealthy guys. They didn't have money, and they probably weren't the smartest guys. On the block. Maybe they seem like good suspects or someone else. Yeah, that's never could So there had a lot of different kind of cigarettes there that left behind, And that was one of the things I was talking about. It is like, how do you know that there were not more than two people there? And there was never a really good answer given to that.

36:09 But meanwhile, even if there had been, yeah, here it is a doug you know. And John Brown was known to have these blackouts and commit violence and not have any memory of it at all. This was established in his pet. He had a bad pass on Brown. He was definitely a violent person, so it could have been that too, you know. But even with that, you know, you say, well, what happened here? You know what I mean? And it's it's murky. It's pretty murky really, So yeah, who knows in the end, and most likely we'll probably never truly know what happened on that day back in November of nineteen seventy three. I think a lot of it's just conjecture and that you probably did the best you could to get what information you could get, but we'll probably never really know what happened. We'll probably never know, But that's why.

37:00 I appreciate you asking the question that way, because sometimes people will say, well, what happened that night? You know. That's how I wanted to write the book, was say, Okay, I was going to start out with the night of the murder, what happened? And the more I dealed into the more I felt that in good conscience I couldn't narrate the murder because I truthfully don't really believe I'm sure that I know what happened, right. And you know, when I was going to write my column about this, I read a whole bunch of different articles, and I looked at little video clips or anything that I could really find about string being. And you know what, after I wrote my column for the newspaper, I was thinking to myself, did these guys? Did these guys really do? This?

37:47 Was law enforcement just looking for someone to arrest these guys? Seemed really convenient. But back in those days, you didn't have DNA or you know, fingerprints had to be analyzed by hand. You didn't have any type of computers or technology to help you. It was all a matter of as I've said before, that gumshoe detective work where you had to knock on doors and walk around and look for stuff. And I'm sure the crime scene people had probably trampled on it because back in those days they didn't necessarily have the wherewithal to understand that you have to protect crime scene. But I don't know if that necessarily happened. So, you know, if you want to go by genetic evidence, can you really honestly say without a shadow of a doubt that John Brown was actually the killer? I'm not so sure. I mean, based on everything that you had said and everything that I've read on my own, there was no smoking gun. A gun wasn't recovered. And let's just say that these guys were convicted basically on hearsay. Somebody said that these two guys did it, so you don't have anybody else. But that's off putting if that's all you have is the testimony of a guy that's a criminal. No, I never found a gun. It's all basically to hear Yes, it

39:21 was, yes, And as you mentioned earlier, there was other things going on behind the scenes. You said that there was a three or four people total that were supposedly involved in putting this together, but yet only two were charged. So you had two that were willing to make deals and serve as witnesses instead of being charged. So did those other two people actually know anything or have anything to do with this? Who knows? And by the time it came down to it, it looked like John and Doug Brown would eventually be the ones to take fall for this. And in my opinion, these guys don't really sound smart enough to have planned this type of robbery. You almost have to wonder if there was someone who was smarter than them, who was a mastermind, who helped plan it, someone who knew more intimate details about String being having the money in this house. How would a couple of guys like John and Doug Brown really know that String being kept all kinds of money around. These guys didn't have any connections or anything, so you almost have to wonder if someone helped them set it up, if someone told them and encouraged them. But you know what, we'll never know. But whenever you look at cases and you have people that are witnesses, how much credibility do you want to give them when you find out that they got a deal.

40:54 They have a reason for saying what they're saying. They're not doing it out of the pinness in their heart. Well, right, And in this particular case, I think there would be motivation for people to lie about what they knew that actually happened because of it being such a high profile case. That's how it looks to me, you know. I mean, yeah, And as you probably know, being a fan of true crime, you know that these snitches aren't exactly choir boys. I mean almost all of them, if not all of them, have some kind of criminal record. So you have a case where you have one criminal writting out another criminal. If you think about it, isn't it kind of like just switching the deck chairs on the Titanic? Well? No, right, I hear you, dog, I hear you. I mean that's what it is, you know. And I think that was whine. I just kind of felt like, you know, and I don't, you know, I don't mean anything against the lawyers.

42:09 They had to get somebody, as you say, I mean, somebody was going to have to pay for this. Somebody's going to pay for it. And this was string being a very famous man at the time. There was no way this murder was going to go on soft. Someone was going to get arrested for it. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah, No, that was exactly the case. He had. Sherman Nickins was one of the investigators, and he talked about that particularly. He said the pressure was just so intense. And when you think about it and you think, okay, they got to do this in a timely way. The investigations started number eleventh, finished up in front of January, and that's kind of a long time.

42:52 But it's also yeah, when you look at those pressures and you think, okay, results, You've got to get results, and so what do you have to do to get those results? And clearly there's one thing that is very clear is yes that John and Doug Brown were there. There's no doubt about it. They have been talking about some things. There is plenty there. And were they there yet, I mean, but quite exactly their roles were? And was there anybody else there? Those are kind of the spect the question of anybody else there just they were questions, But I think it could not be pursued at the time because I think it just made more sense to get it hashed out this way. They were too bad guys, They were easy, they were not too bright in a way maybe at the time, and I think it was like, these are you guys now?

43:37 If you were to look at today's law enforcement, you'd have to wonder what they even arrest these two guys today. If this happened, I doubt if this would even go to trial. I mean not with what the evidence that they had back then. Yeah, well that's an interesting point. Yeah, And if this trial happened today, based on the evidence that they had back then, I don't think a jury would even convict these guys, much less would a prosecutory and want to bring it to trial. I know it was so many years ago and things have changed, but if you look at this case compared to how everything unfolded back then, compared to how it would today, it'd be a totally different case. There would be so many variances in the way that this case was investigated. Well, I think that's an interesting question or interesting point, you know, the question of whether or not the jury would convictim. When you read that trial, do you think, to man, this defense attorney has spoken a lot of holes in this thing, and there are a lot of moments where you think, I don't know, someboding called upon who listen to this story? And one of the other factors, and the thing is the defense attorney for John Brown, Joe Bakley, continued to represent Doug. It's kind of interesting sort of split that the trial was held the same time, but it was split as two different trial numbers, but there were two different lawyers for the two different guys, and so he had this kind of sort of strangely tangulated trial where you had to kind

45:12 of the prosecutor who's sort of working it a little bit but away you kind of working Dug against John, but still trying to get both of them convicted. And he got the attorney for Doug working against John basically, and he had John's attorney working against everybody, and meanwhile the pressure was getting to him. He had a lot of issues of substance abuse. His name was Arnold Peoples, and he and one of the big things. Now he was on cocaine and the second day of the trial was delayed because he had to go to the hospital for high blood pressure. After the trial was over, it turned himself in. He ended up with his license, but he was no longer part of the bar, and a number of cases were reviewed and when he finally got his argument, the time for the defense to make its case.

46:00 It was a complete disaster. He was incoherent and they probably was the worst tenses in the history and Nashville. And so I think the jury, you know, I thought about it. What would I where would I about if I were on the jury, knowing what I know now, as far as having been retrospected, been able to have access to information that the jury would not have had necessarily, you know, they would not have necessarily been able to go through and follow all the different kinds of information or be pretty good things that how they unfolded. I think I would have been like, Okay, you know, I don't know what to do because but I would have definitely thought, man, this defense is a complete disaster. And I think that's what happened. I think they said, well, I don't know that the case really or by the state was that strong, but the defense was so weak. And this is held in Nashville, by the way, that's a little detail that nobody ever really talks about. But you know, where you're really getting a fair jury. Everybody that really knows what's happened, you know, right and back then, everyone know who string being was, and especially if you lived in Nashville and you were being tried in that area.

47:15 Everyone knew who he was, so you have to wonder was the trial even going to be fair. Everybody knows who stream Being is. It wasn't done outside of Nashville. And the judge, you know, Cornelius, he was allowing the media in on it, and you know he was allowing it to be a circus. And those guys John and dun Brown never had a chance. It was a sort of a foregone conclusion in my opinion, for a social viewpoint, it was a foregone conclusion had they not been convicted. I hate to think what would happen, you know, I hate to sick and gifts people. Historically, again, we were in a position to see things. Maybe they couldn't see them, but I don't know what the motivations are, and if everybody from Nashville's listening. I don't mean to be smurge to the attorneys or anything, but attorneys have careers and they have things to build, and who knows what their motivations are for things. So it's a very fascinating story. Really, I think stream Being had been a little more high profile than if it's been an Elvis or somebody. There'd be probably one hundred and eighty books written about this already. But I feel this writing the book was extremely difficult because you cannot you can't really separated, as I mentioned earlier, the true crime aspect of it in the biography aspect of it.

48:36 In some ways, they're like two different books that you've got to put together, but both of them take their full power and meaning from each other. But it was very hard to write it, and I kind of wondered for a while why nobody had written this other than that one book that had been written by a Nashville Banner reporter working with Tommy Jacobs back in nineteen seventy five. I know why, because it's hard to put those two stories together. Is extremely difficult to do, so I think that's why nobody has written the story before now. But I think a stream being have been a little bigger, just a little bit bigger. I think this would have been even more written about any people may go in there and kind of dig in. There may be people who would have qualifications or types of access that I don't have or did now, that could dredge out information I couldn't find, you know, so, right, okay, And the last question that I would want to ask you is based on your experience of writing this book, in all the research that you conducted, and speaking to everyone that you have already spoken to, what is the number one thing that you want people listening to this to know about string being We're talking about a man that died many years ago.

49:57 A lot of people probably have never heard of string We should got all people like me who did watch he law, who do know who he was, So tell me what was so unique about him? What is string beings legacy? Well, I think his legacy again, I appreciate these questions very much the way you put him, I think for me, and the thing that I think drove me through the process of writing this book, which had a number of challenges. I think for me, probably the thing that I felt the most to be the most important being in terms of string Beings legacy, is that he was somebody who lived through the Great Depression, and lived through World War Two. He lived through the Atomic era, he lived through the nineteen sixties of Vietnam, and all the fascinations and all the unrealist and all the trouble and all the moments when it kind of like with our late pandemic, all those moments when you think is there even going to be a future or what is it going to look like? And I think everybody on some level had that feeling in one way or another, whatever your view of whatever was going on, I think there was enough going on, you know, or you just think there are these moments when you in life when you think what is life even going to be? And how was it going to go? And all this strife and division, all that street b was a guy who threw all of that, was steadfast and brought entertainment, and he

51:30 brought levity and joy. You know. He was making people laugh and in a way that was kind of above the free. So for me, that's his legacy. He was somebody in an era that in which people have a hard time getting on the same page what is politically or socially or whatever. He was somebody who was able to pull that off. That's who he really was. He was somebody who was able to a human level. You might not one may not agree with something about the way he does the world or looks at the world or whatever, but he was somebody who was kind of above that and he brought humility, and that humility had a certain openness.

52:15 And I think he's somebody that you can look to who's above the phrase and who said, no matter how bad things are, no matter how scary they are, no matter how gain much division or whatever, you can carry on. You can just carry on. You can sing us home, you can tell a joke and you'll get through it. And that's submitting it was real, the real power of who he was. I guess why all kinds of people. So I think that that's what it was about, you know, based on listening to your research, looking at your book and everything that I looked up to write my column about string Being. My thoughts on him were that he was just a humble, kind hearted man. He was a good husband, a good friend, a good musician. Everyone loved him. I didn't find anything where anyone had anything bad to say about the man. He was definitely a witty character, yeah, sir, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah.

53:21 Even though string Being wasn't on this planet for very long and he died at a fairly young age, I think that he did make a great impact on country music and upon a lot of his fans. He's been gone for fifty years, or so, and here you and I are talking about him. Fifty years later after his death, he wrote a book about him. I wrote a column about him, and you and I both like his music and we still listen to so even in death, he's had an impact on both of our lives. That's what I would say, exactly. Okay, And for anyone out there that's listening to this podcast episode and they're interested and purchasing a copy of the book, String Being The Life and Murder of a Country music Legend, tell me where can they get this book? Obviously Amazon?

54:09 But where else? Got anything? I just about everything? Get on Amazon? You got there's an Amazon paperback it's a nineteen ninety five, or you can get it on the kindles, a kindle version, so we can get it on Barns and Noble online. It's in certain bookstores, so it was put kind of regionally. So if you're in the Kentucky area or Tennessee, some of those areas vinyas instan places, some of the Barns and Nobles will have them locally, you know, some of the independent bookstores will have them. I think Pale's Books up in Oregon or mother get where it is, Washington, Oregon has some copies you know there, I think I heard, and so you know, there are some independent bookstores that have them, but definitely online if you go to Amazon or Barns of Noble, or you can also order directly from the University of Illinois Press. So it's it's pretty easy to get the order from Amazon. It comes into whatever. And there is a talk of an audio version of it, but that's not out yet, so I don't know when that'll be or if that's going to work out.

55:09 But anyway, so there's available kind a few places actually online, different kind of bookstores I've noticed, so yeah, it's pretty much available out there. And if anyone wants to contact you with questions about your book, what's the name of the website that they can go to? Well, absolutely if I would be delighted to hear from anybody, and my website is just my name is Taylor hey Good dot com. That's t Y l O R H A g O D dot com and you can contact me through there, and I would be absolutely delighted. I'll tell you I have gotten a number of emails. I'm shocked that tell you. The emails that come in from people I've never heard of saying read book or stream being fans or in some cases they had and didn't know about stream. They like country music and they ran across this, and how much should they were fascinated with the story, so I would be sometimes they have questions and I absolutely would be happy to hear from any boy time. And that concludes the story of string Being as told by author Taylor hey Good. Again, if you haven't listened to the first half of this interview, please go back and listen. If you enjoy reading true crime books, then I highly recommend that you purchase a copy of Taylor's book. 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

56:42 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. And if you would like to contact Taylor about his book, please visit Taylor hey Good 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 relatives, you can justice for an unsolved common side case. Please visit my website and complete the contact form. You can also contact me through Facebook. Thank you for listening.