The FBI Killer

193 Pages·2014·3.34 MB·English

by  Aphrodite Jones

FINAL REMAINS
June 4, 1990: FBI Agents Smith and Adams, accompanied by Kentucky State
Police Sergeant Fred Davidson and his search dog, arrived at the remote area of
Harmon’s Branch, nine miles outside of Pikeville, Kentucky. They had specific
instructions about where to search for the body of twenty-seven-year-old Susan
Daniels Smith, but the ravine on the side of the road was so heavily overgrown,
they were useless. As their grisly work began, the men who had gone down the
steep embankment all but disappeared in the thick brambles and trees.
Then, just before nightfall, one of the searchers spotted what appeared to be a
human skull. Upon further scrutiny, the team uncovered the remains of the dead
girl — a skeleton, the rib cage intact, partially concealed by leaves. The arm and
leg bones had been shifted around, most likely by wild animals. Her jawbone lay
near the skull, missing two molars.
A tiny gold chain and cross was found next to the skeleton. This was the
jewelry Susan had borrowed from her sister the day she had left to meet her
lover, FBI Special Agent Mark Steven Putnam, nearly one year before.
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THE FBI KILLER
APHRODITE JONES
Pinnacle Books
Kensington Publishing Corp.
http://www.pinnaclebooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents FINAL REMAINS
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Title Page
Dedication
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Copyright Page
For
Susan Daniels Smith
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
All the material in this book, except for my own observations, is derived from
official court records, police reports, and interviews with the persons directly
concerned with the case. Because these “collaborators” are identified within the
text, I will not name them here; however, I want to express my gratitude for their
patient cooperation. Two friends, Edith Walker and Bonnie Butler, I do name
because they personally assisted me and made my task possible. Also, I would
like to single out a few people whose contributions to my work were very
specific: Dr. David Wolfe, Forensic Anthropologist, Kentucky Justice Cabinet;
Supervisory Special Agent James Huggins, Federal Bureau of Investigation;
Major Jerry Lovitt, Commander—East Branch, Kentucky State Police, and his
men; Larry Webster, whose assistance in legal matters was invaluable; Harry M.
Caudill, author of Night Comes to the Cumberlands; Mike Sager, free-lance
journalist; Lee Mueller, Eastern Kentucky Bureau Chief of the Lexington Herald
Leader; Richard Foley, my colleague at Cumberland College; and finally, the
hardworking journalists from the Appalachian News Express and the Williamson
Daily News, whose reporting helped me especially in the writing of the final
chapters.
Aphrodite Jones
Williamsburg, Kentucky
September, 1992
Chapter One
Freeburn sits smack in the middle of the Hatfield-McCoy historic district, and
legends of murderous raids and feud-related sites are still very much alive in the
memories of its inhabitants. Founded in 1911, the town was first called Liss in
honor of Liss Hatfield. In 1932 it was renamed Freeburn because of the free-
burning coal mined in the area. The area is hilly and rural, and the four hundred
people who live there drive to Pikeville thirty miles away, or to Matewan, a few
miles across the state line in West Virginia, to conduct their business. Located
on the western slope of the Appalachian Range, the land is marked by the
numerous small creeks and branches which drain from elevations of land
averaging about fifteen hundred feet, with an average creek bottom being about
seven hundred feet above sea level.
Susan Daniels was the descendant of “Devil Anse” Hatfield, the leader of the
Hatfield clan, whose grave, marked by a towering Italian marble sculpture of the
bearded patriarch, is located in Logan County, West Virginia. Buried with him
are the reasons behind the feud, shrouded in folklore passed down for more than
one hundred years. Some say the feud started over a pig that belonged to the
McCoys but wound up in the Hatfields’ pen. Others say the dispute stemmed
from the Civil War, in which the Hatfields fought for the Confederacy and the
McCoys the Union.
Whatever the reason, violence between the families began in 1882 when Devil
Anse’s brother, Ellison Hatfield, was stabbed two dozen times and shot in an
Election Day brawl in Pike County. Devil Anse Hatfield and his clan seized the
McCoys responsible for his brother’s death, tying them to pawpaw trees and
executing them near McCarr, a stone’s throw away from Freeburn. Today, all
these generations later, people growing up in the area resent having to live down
the infamous reputation brought on by the bloody and abhorrent feud years.
Indeed, to the modern generations fueled by an era of television and cinematic
violence, the mayhem and murder committed by the feudists almost seem to be
more fiction than truth.
Be that as it may, the inhabitants of Tug Valley cannot ignore their turbulent
history. For decades, the Pike County Circuit Court clerk’s office recorded the
deaths of scores of men who were shot down annually for little or no
provocation. Year in and year out the dockets were jammed with murder and
manslaughter cases. Unfortunately, this violence resulted in limiting the social
contacts of the region’s inhabitants. It also was responsible for the exodus of the