Death in Clay County: The Green Room Goes Gonzo, or Fear and Loathing in Lower Glennbeckistan

When the going gets weird -- and let's face it, things have been getting pretty damned strange lately -- the weird get going to Clay County, Kentucky:

Crossing the stream and reaching the gate down by Arnetts Fork Road, I paused to look around for just a minute. This was the scene of the crime, and having come all this way to see it, I wanted to have a clear image in my mind. I put my camera and notebook back in the car, fired up a Parliament Light and thought about the situation as I stood by the gate and listened to the stream trickling past under the bridge.
If Bill Sparkman hadn’t just driven up here to Hoskins Cemetery to enjoy the scenery, but rather had been lured up here or brought here by his killer, then whoever killed him was almost certainly a local resident, someone familiar with the area. No way somebody from out of town, a stranger to the area, would have driven past many other possible places to dump a body in order to reach this isolated location.
Rodney Miller at the Enterprise had pointed out the significance of the location in our conversation Monday afternoon, just after I arrived in Clay County. This cemetery was far away from town, and even farther from Sparkman’s home in Laurel County. Sparkman’s truck had been parked up here when his body was found. How did the truck get here? Did Sparkman drive up here, or had he been kidnapped by someone? . . .

That's 228 words of a Hot Air Green Room special report that's nearly 4,000 words long.

And that's just Part One. I've got piles of notes, photos, videos and copies of local Kentucky newspapers that don't have Web sites, so I'll be posting Part Two in a couple of days. Plus, I've got all kinds of phone numbers for sources as this story goes forward.

Track-a-Crat recalls that moment a week ago, while en route to the American Spectator Pig Roast, when he received a phone call from a notorious madman "in an attempt to convince [him] to hire a convertible and join him on a trip to Kentucky."

Well, you blew that chance, didn't you, old buddy? We could have been cruising around east Kentucky in a rented Chrysler convertible, but you punked out, you gin-soaked Limey twit.

Never mind all that. I'm reasonably sure I'll be going back to Kentucky soon and Tuesday will be my 50th birthday, so if everybody will hit the tip jar, we'll start planning our next shoe leather trip. We might even take a detour on the way back, but I'll leave that part to your twisted imagination . . .