A Murder in Music City Read online

  A few days after Clarke was served a murder warrant, the local grand jury called twenty witnesses to hear testimony in the Paula Herring case. Three of the witnesses testified together—Jo Herring and the two men who brought Jo Herring home from dinner on the night of the murder and were with her when Paula's lifeless body was discovered in the Timberhill den, Billy Vanderpool and A. J. Meadows Jr. Little Alan Herring was not subpoenaed for testimony, but sixteen police officers and a couple of investigators from the district attorney's office appeared before the panel.

  On March 13, the Davidson County grand jury charged John Randolph Clarke with premeditated murder and murder while attempting to commit the felony of rape. Attorney General Harry Nichol promised to fight any effort by Clarke to obtain bond. In addition, Nichol planned to push for the death penalty or, at a minimum, a prison sentence of at least fifty years. A local judge also ruled on a request by Charles Galbreath to move the criminal proceedings out of Nashville due to concern that negative publicity would impact Clarke's ability to receive a fair trial. The judge agreed, and the trial was moved to Jackson, Tennessee, and slated for September 1964.

  Both the Nashville Banner and the Nashville Tennessean were also screaming with headlines that Metro's sheriff, Leslie Jett, some of his top men, and a few high-ranking Metro police officers were being indicted by a federal grand jury for accepting payoffs from Printers Alley business owners.12 Printers Alley, a literal cobblestone alleyway running between 3rd and 4th Avenues and Church and Commerce Streets in downtown Nashville, had been home to publishers and printers in the early 1900s. But decades later, it had evolved into one of America's premier illegal entertainment havens, with a winning trifecta of booze, gambling, and pleasures of the flesh. Numerous gambling casinos and strip clubs in the alley posed as dinner clubs and music venues, with names such as the VooDoo Lounge, the Rainbow Room, the Black Poodle Lounge, and the Uptown Dinner Club. By the early 1970s, world-famous exotic dancer Miss Heaven Lee began to draw sold-out crowds to Printers Alley to watch her performances at the Black Poodle and the Rainbow Room.13

  During most of the 1950s and 1960s, liquor by the drink was illegal in Nashville, but patrons could bring their own bottle with them, and the mixing bar business became a profitable enterprise in Music City. It was especially so when a patron could depend on being served liquor whether they had brought their own bottle or not. And local law enforcement was leery of arresting anyone, especially in Printers Alley, for fear of arresting a local politician, someone from the legislature, or perhaps a popular country music star. When it was all said and done, the sheriff's payoff system ensured uninterrupted business for club owners, not only in the alley but also in the suburbs.14

  Another reason to forego an arrest was the risky element of unknowingly arresting a mobster, such as Little Mickey Cohen of Los Angeles, who visited Printers Alley on several occasions. To no one's surprise, in the mid-1960s, a Nashville police sergeant, as well as one of the Printers Alley club owners, ended up in Los Angeles to testify in front of a federal grand jury regarding their ownership of guns used in a mob slaying involving one of Mickey Cohen's rivals.15 The guns were all .38-caliber revolvers, and one happened to have been owned by a Nashville police sergeant who was one of the men indicted for accepting payoffs in Printers Alley.”

  Eventually, the corruption angle was the undoing of Sheriff Jett and other high-ranking police officials. Their willingness to accept monthly payoffs from the Printers Alley club owners led to their downfall. The indictments were aided by new federal antiracketeering laws, which were written to cover interstate transactions. With chips for the gambling enterprise being shipped from out-of-state manufacturers to Printers Alley clubs, the Feds moved in with their indictments. Ultimately, a tax evasion charge crumpled Leslie Jett's career plans: a key piece of evidence in the indictment revealed that a large boat the sheriff had purchased from country music star Faron Young was worth far more than Jett had reported on his income tax return.

  If these indictments didn't provide enough confirmation of corruption in Metro, the fiery labor leader with the prophetic middle name, James Riddle Hoffa, was also on trial at this same time for jury tampering in an earlier Nashville criminal trial. Bobby Kennedy, the US Attorney General, had been pursuing Hoffa in court for years, and after the trial was moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, he finally got a conviction in March 1964, via Jim Neal, the prosecutor assigned to the case. Hoffa was sentenced to eight years in prison.16

  From a public relations perspective, America's biggest small town had become one of the most corrupt cities in America.

  The trial of John Randolph Clarke included three sensational elements guaranteed to create a following wherever it was held: murder, sex, and mystery. But in a bit of pretrial maneuvering, Charles Galbreath had removed one aspect of the sexual element; he was able to get his client's charge of rape removed from the Nashville grand jury indictments because the medical examiner confirmed that no physical evidence existed to support such a charge.

  Against this background, the week of September 21, 1964, marked not only the first day of the criminal trial in Jackson, Tennessee, but also the official arrival of fall—which was hardly noticed by the locals as temperatures in western Tennessee hovered near ninety degrees both before and after the autumnal equinox. The other arrival was a carnival of attorneys, television and newspaper reporters, photographers, and witnesses for both the prosecution and the defense.1

  Jackson, a two-hour drive west of Nashville, had been settled in the 1820s as a cotton port town on the Forked Deer River. It was named for Andrew Jackson, famous military general and US president. In 1964, the area economy depended largely on agriculture, manufacturing of cotton products, and paper. The little town had an impressive history: Davy Crockett had represented the district in Congress in the early nineteenth century and General Ulysses Grant had headquartered on East Main Street during the Civil War. John “Casey” Jones had also made Jackson his home, prior to becoming the only victim of his infamous train wreck.

  The site of the trial would be the Madison County Courthouse, built in 1937 and also located on East Main Street. From the start, the trial of State of Tennessee v. John Randolph Clarke had a strange aura to it. Instead of Nashville's district attorney general Harry Nichol leading the prosecution, it was led by two of his assistants, John Hollins and Howard Butler. Stranger still, the plan to seek the death penalty had been abandoned. In an unusual proclamation, the judge hearing the case let it be known that the trial would last exactly five days and that the jury would be sequestered for the duration. Oddly, neither the defense team nor the prosecution objected to such an abbreviated timeline. And as if spoken by a true prophet, at 5:15 p.m. on Friday afternoon, five days after court was gaveled into session, the jury would return with a verdict.

  In the meantime, twelve of Jackson's citizens, plus one alternate, became the jury that would decide the fate of John Randolph Clarke. The jury included two women, both housewives. The husband of one was a vice president of the local electric company, and the husband of the other was a revenue officer with the IRS. The ten men included six salesmen, an account manager for the Federal Land Bank Association, a manager of Pittsburgh Plate Glass, and a Health and Sanitation Department employee. The lone alternate, a man, was an accountant.

  Nearly everyone who came from Nashville to Jackson for the trial lodged at the New Southern Hotel. One visitor would recall years later that the hotel may have been southern, but there wasn't anything new about it. New Southern had been the major downtown hotel in Jackson, Tennessee, since its opening in the 1920s and was less than two blocks from the courthouse. It was also air conditioned, and the lobby contained a barber shop, cigar stand, and shoeshine station, along with a coffee shop and a popular tap room where the beer was kept cold.

  After the jurors were seated in the jury box, Judge Andrew “Tip” Taylor gaveled court into session as he always did in his own unique style, with the palm of his hand rather t
han with a wooden gavel, and on Monday morning at 9:30 a.m., September 21st, the criminal trial of John Randolph Clarke began. Taylor was well known to Tennesseans and had graduated from Union University in Jackson, and then Cumberland Law School in Lebanon, Tennessee. In 1958, he had made an unsuccessful run for governor.2

  Leading the prosecution from Nashville were Assistant DA John Hollins and Executive Assistant Attorney General Howard Butler. They were joined by Whit LaFon and David Murray, both from the Jackson District Attorney's Office. Defense attorneys representing Clarke were Charles Galbreath of Nashville, James P. Diamond and Carmack Murchison of Jackson, and John Goodlin, a friend of Clarke's father, from Johnson City, Tennessee. After a plea of not guilty was entered into the record, Judge Taylor quizzed the attorneys: “Is the rule called for in this case?” Assured that it was, Taylor described the rule by instructing both sides that any potential witness could not be present in the courtroom for any testimony prior to their own testimony. Taylor also told the sheriff that the jury, although sequestered for the evenings, could have the local newspaper as long as the articles about the trial were removed, and they could have radio and television privileges except during newscasts. With ground rules out of the way, Taylor instructed the state to call their first witness.

  Wasting no time at all, Assistant DA John Hollins called his first witness to the stand: forty-year-old Jo Herring, the mother of Paula Herring. Hollins led his witness through biographical questions to explain that she was a widow and had become a registered nurse in 1944 after training at the University of Texas. She had one living child, a six-year-old boy, and she held in her hands a picture of her slain attractive, blond, eighteen-year-old daughter.

  Under examination, it took Hollins less than fifteen minutes to get to the biggest surprise of the day: Jo Herring admitted that she'd had a one-night stand with John Randolph Clarke less than two weeks before her daughter had been brutally murdered. Her admission was nothing less than explosive, completely unexpected by the reporters covering the trial for television and newspaper outlets.3

  Jo's explanation was that she'd been at Ruth's Diner in Nashville about seven months earlier.4 Ruth's, a popular stop for many, was located within walking distance of Vanderbilt Hospital. On Monday night, February 10, Jo Herring was having dinner at Ruth's, sitting in a back booth with her six-year-old son and a man named Alan Prewitt. At the same time, Red Clarke had been sitting on a stool at the bar. When Prewitt and Jo's little boy went to play an arcade game, Jo said Clarke made the first approach and asked for her phone number. As she told him the number, he wrote it on the back of his hand.

  Later that night, Clarke telephoned her at home and said, “This is the old redhead you saw down at Ruth's Diner.” He got directions to her house and told her he would stop on Franklin Road and get a six-pack of beer. Jo suggested he bring Budweiser. Clarke arrived at the Timberhill Drive home at approximately 10:00 p.m. that same night. Jo testified that her young son was already in bed when Clarke arrived.

  When John Clarke had a chance to testify, he noted that Alan Herring was actually still awake at 10:00 p.m. on February 10, and that he himself had given Alan a “horsey back” ride to bed, after placing the six-pack of beer in the refrigerator.5 Clarke told Jo that he was a salesman for Westinghouse (a lie) and that he was married (the truth). Not long afterward, the two began to get intimate while sitting on the couch in the den.

  When it came time for Clarke's attorney, Charles Galbreath, to cross-examine Mrs. Herring, he focused on the lover's tryst.6

  Galbreath: How many times did you have intercourse with Mr. Clarke that night?

  Mrs. Herring: Once.

  Galbreath: Just one time, was it normal intercourse?

  Mrs. Herring: I guess you could say “fair.”

  Galbreath: Fair!

  For a trial focused on a heinous crime, it was a moment of levity that Galbreath could not resist, as he and others in the courtroom began laughing. After more questioning, Jo Herring said Clarke saw a picture of Paula, her high school graduation photograph, and she told him that her daughter was away at college. Jo claimed that there was no way John Clarke could have known her daughter. Charles Galbreath asked her why she had given her phone number to the redhead, and she responded with two words: “Just stupid.”

  With the prosecution wanting to move along, Jo Herring was prompted to tell about Paula's final day in Nashville. Regarding the day of the murder, Jo said she had worked at the hospital that Saturday and arrived home in the early afternoon. Given that Paula had gotten home the evening before, on Friday, it had been the first real opportunity for mother and daughter to sit and talk about school. Jo said Paula was as happy as she'd ever seen her.

  According to Jo Herring, after their conversation, Paula showered, changed from her jeans into the gray skirt and sweater combination, and left to go shopping, have the car serviced and washed, and get her sunglasses repaired. When Paula returned two hours later, Jo informed her daughter that she had been invited to have dinner with two gentlemen she'd met the night before, and Paula insisted that her mother go on the dinner date and that she would stay home and babysit her little brother. “Besides,” she quoted Paula as saying, “I've got a date with All the King's Men and a report to finish by Monday for school.” According to Jo Herring, Paula had waved the paperback book at her mother as she made the declaration.

  Jo Herring's dinner companions were to be the two men she'd met the previous evening at Wedgewood Diner, with one of her nursing friends from the hospital. The men, Billy Vanderpool and A. J. Meadows, picked her up around 6:00 p.m. Saturday evening, and the trio made a repeat trip to Wedgewood Diner where they stayed until returning to Timberhill Drive around 11:00 p.m. that night. During Charles Galbreath's cross-examination of Jo, he tried to portray Paula's mother as a cold woman who had profited from her husband's death:

  Galbreath: Now then, again not wanting to unduly bring back unpleasantries, your husband, he died a tragic death, did he not?

  Mrs. Herring: Yes, that's right.

  Hollins: May it please the court, her husband's death has got nothing to do with this case.

  Judge Taylor: No, something that occurred four years ago, I don't believe that would be material to this matter.

  Galbreath: If the court please, I want to connect it up, to try to show a relationship between the two deaths.

  Judge Taylor (to the bailiff): Take the jury to the jury room.

  Galbreath: We'd like to inquire about the insurance of her husband, how it was left, and who stood to profit by this girl's death.

  Judge Taylor: Who stood to profit by her daughter's death?

  Galbreath: Yes, we want to establish a motive or a lack of motive.

  Mrs. Herring: My husband's insurance was left solely to me. Paula was fifteen years old at that time, and my little boy was two and a half. He left no will; everything was mine.7

  With the jury back in place moments later, Charles Galbreath homed in on the character of Jo Herring and inquired about her leaving Vanderbilt Hospital between the time of the murder in February 1964 and the trial in September 1964:

  Galbreath: Do you know who killed your little daughter?

  Mrs. Herring: Yes, there is no doubt in my mind.

  Galbreath: Is this of your own knowledge?

  Mrs. Herring: It's from the evidence.

  Galbreath: Do you know where the gun is?

  Mrs. Herring: No.

  Galbreath: Was your daughter robbed?

  Mrs. Herring: No.

  Galbreath: Was she sexually assaulted?

  Mrs. Herring: No.

  Galbreath: Mrs. Herring, you at one time were employed by Vanderbilt Hospital, were you not?

  Mrs. Herring: That's right.

  Galbreath: Were you asked to leave your employment there?

  Mrs. Herring: No, I wasn't.

  Galbreath: Did you have any difficulty over the use of drugs?

  Mrs. Herring: No.

  Galbreath: Are
you addicted to any type of narcotic drug?

  Mrs. Herring: No, sir. I had major surgery, and Paula left to go to college, and I could no longer work weekends, and I had to find a job where I could be home with my little boy on weekends.8

  Around 3:30 p.m. on the first day of the trial, one of the youngest witnesses in a criminal court proceeding in Tennessee took the witness stand: blond, six-year-old Alan Herring. Over the next few minutes, Hollins led the little boy through a series of forty-five questions, beginning with Alan's full name, age, school attended, grade in school, and church attendance, before moving on to the more serious matter at hand:

  Hollins: Son, do you know what it means to tell the truth?

  Do you know that you're supposed to tell the truth?

  Alan: Yes, sir.

  Hollins: What happens to you if you don't tell the truth?

  Alan: You get punished.9

  Alan described how his sister had given him the nickname “Sputnik” and told of watching television that evening. He told of the two phone calls that he remembered the night of his sister's murder. The first came while he was watching television and Paula was reading a book. The call was answered by Paula with “Hello?” and after a short interval, “Goodbye.” As to Paula's tone on the call, Alan said, “It sounded like she was a little bit friendly.”

  The second call came later, with no way to tell exactly how much later. Alan had gone to bed. He got up to answer the ringing phone in the den, and a man's voice asked if Jo was there. Alan answered no, and the man disconnected. Alan said to Paula, “Wake up sister, wake up.” He then returned to his bedroom and stayed there until he heard his mother and the two men enter the house at 11:00 p.m.

  James Diamond then took the turn for Clarke's defense team and asked the little boy forty-four questions, which, oddly enough, were basically the same questions that John Hollins had already asked regarding nickname, age, school topics, and phone calls. No questions regarding whether Paula had seemed happy or angry that fateful evening. No questions about any activities that Paula had engaged in on Saturday. No questions about any activities that Paula and Alan had engaged in together. No questions as to whether any of Paula's friends had stopped by to visit. No questions about hearing other voices inside the house after he went to bed. No questions about hearing gunshots in the house. No questions about Alan's memory of the earlier visit by John Randolph Clarke. Not a single question posed that could have pointed toward someone other than John Randolph Clarke as the guilty party in his sister's slaying.