The Boys from Biloxi: A Legal Thriller (40 page)

He called Nevin Noll, who walked forward with Millard Cantrell, a long-haired, radical, capital defense veteran from
Jackson who Burch had worked with before. After their first three phone conversations, Keith despised the guy and knew they would not get along. Nothing about Noll’s prosecution would be easy. Noll answered the same questions, said he was not guilty, and that he had hired Mr. Cantrell for the defense. Cantrell, being a lawyer in front of a crowd, of course had to pipe up with a request for a bail hearing. His Honor was not pleased and in plain English made it clear that they were not there to discuss bail and that the issue might come later, after a proper motion by the defendant. He sent them back to their seats.

When Hugh’s name was called, he walked forward and stood between Joshua Burch and the district attorney. The courtroom artists sketched frantically as they tried to capture the scene. There were no other sounds but for the charcoal pencils scratching the onionskin pads.

The two had once been the same size. In their glory days as twelve-year-old stars they were roughly the same height and weight, though no one bothered to measure back then. As they grew, their genes took charge and Hugh stopped at five feet ten inches. His feet became slower and he grew thicker through the chest, a good build for a boxer. Keith grew four more inches and was still lean, but he didn’t tower over his old pal. Hugh moved with the assurance of a man who could take care of himself, even in a courtroom.

Judge Oliphant went through the same formalities. Hugh pled not guilty. Burch said almost nothing. Once back in their seats, Burch stood and requested a hearing on his motion to house the inmates in Harrison County jail. Burch had filed a proper written motion and Judge Oliphant had agreed to hear the matter.

As always, Burch loved a crowd and strutted around as if onstage. He whined that it was patently unfair to “hide” his client in a jail hours away, and even to move his client around so that no one, not even he, the lawyer, knew where his client was. It would
be impossible to prepare for trial. He had never encountered such an outrage.

“Where do you suggest?” Judge Oliphant asked.

“Right here in Biloxi! Defendants are always housed in their home counties, Your Honor. I’ve never had a client taken away and hidden somewhere else.”

“Mr. Rudy.”

Keith knew it was coming and was ready for a smart-ass retort. He stood smiling and said, “Your Honor, if these defendants are released to the custody of the sheriff of Harrison County, they’ll be free on ten dollars’ bail within an hour and back at the Red Velvet drinking whiskey and dancing with the strippers.”

The tense courtroom exploded with laughter and it took a while for it to subside. Finally, a smiling Judge Oliphant tapped his gavel and said, “Let’s have some order please.”

He nodded at Keith who said, “Judge, I don’t care where they’re locked up, just make sure they can’t get out.”

The following week, a grand jury in Nashville indicted Henry Taylor and Nevin Noll for the crime of conspiring to commit a contract killing. Keith had convinced the district attorney there to get the indictments, even though there would be no effort to prosecute the two. They had enough problems in Mississippi.

Keith wanted to use the extra indictment as leverage against Taylor.

The legal wrangling began in earnest. Three weeks later, in a bail hearing that lasted an entire day, Judge Oliphant denied releasing the three defendants pending trial, regardless of how many promises they made. Hugh was sent to jail next door in Jackson County, where the sheriff had no use for Fats and his gang and promised to keep his prisoner practically in shackles. It would be a thirty-minute drive for Joshua Burch, who still bitched at the unfairness. Nevin Noll was sent to the Forrest County jail in Hattiesburg to be closer to Millard Cantrell, from Jackson. Henry Taylor became the client of Sam Grinder, a tough street lawyer from Pass Christian. Taylor was sent to the Hancock County jail.

Throughout the initial hearings, Keith insisted that all three defendants be kept away from each other, and Judge Oliphant agreed. Indeed, it seemed as though His Honor would agree to almost anything the State requested, and Joshua Burch was keeping notes. Privately, he had been complaining for years that Oliphant was too close to Jesse. Now that his favorite lawyer had been murdered, he seemed determined to help the State put away the killers. Burch planned to do what everyone expected—file a motion asking the judge to recuse himself.

It never happened. In early May, Judge Oliphant was rushed to the hospital after falling in his office. His blood pressure was off the charts. Scans revealed a series of mini-strokes, none of which would be fatal but the damage was done. After three weeks in the hospital, he was released for home rest and returned to a mountain
of paperwork. Per doctors’ orders, he would not preside over jury trials in the foreseeable future, if ever. He was urged by his wife to retire because he was, after all, pushing eighty, and he promised to consider it.

In late July, he notified Keith and the defense lawyers that he was voluntarily recusing himself from the three cases. He would ask the state supreme court to appoint a special judge to handle them. The Court agreed to do so but months would pass before a new judge arrived.

Keith was not pushing for a speedy trial. Henry Taylor was in solitary confinement in the Hancock County jail and not doing well. The longer he was confined to a cramped, humid, windowless cell with no air-conditioning, the more he might realize that Parchman would only be worse.

Judge or no judge, Joshua Burch continued piling on the paperwork with a dizzying assortment of motions. He finally asked the court to recuse the district attorney, for obvious conflict of interest. Keith responded quickly and opposed the motion.

For a few wonderful days in early August, he managed to forget about prosecuting criminals. Ainsley gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Eliza, and the Rudy clan gathered at home to welcome the child. Keith was delighted to have a daughter. A son would have complicated matters because of the pressure to name him Jesse.

In August, almost one year after the murder, Sgt. Eddie Morton was court-martialed and sentenced to fifteen years in prison for selling explosives from the munitions facility at Keesler. Part of his plea deal required him to cooperate with the DA in Biloxi.

In their first meeting, inside Keesler, and with the FBI and state police present and recording, Morton revealed that on August 3, 1976, he gave five pounds of the plastic explosive Semtex to Nevin Noll, a man he had known for a couple years. Morton admitted to
a gambling problem and also a fondness for the nightlife over on the Strip. In exchange for the explosives, Mr. Malco promised to forgive his gambling debts.

Five months later, Noll called again and was fishing around for some more explosives.

Morton admitted to selling smaller quantities of Semtex, Harrisite, C4, HMX, PETN, and other military explosives, over the past five years. All in, his little black-market business had netted him about $100,000. Now he was ruined, divorced, disgraced, and headed to prison.

Keith and the investigators were impressed with Morton and thought he would make an excellent witness. The one they wanted, though, was Henry Taylor.

In September, and while still waiting for a judge, Keith decided to finally approach Sam Grinder with a deal. In Keith’s office, he presented the State’s case against Henry Taylor. The fingerprint trail alone was enough to overwhelm any jury. The State could easily put Taylor in the courthouse at the time of the blast. And why else would he, a noted bomb-maker, be in Biloxi?

On the one hand, Keith was sickened by the idea of cutting a deal with the man who had actually killed his father. But, on the other hand, his target was Hugh Malco, and to get him he had to build a case.

As always, the plea deal was fraught with uncertainty and suspicion. In return for cooperation, the State would not promise leniency. However, leniency was on the table. First, the indictment in Tennessee would be quashed and forgotten. Taylor would testify against Nevin Noll, the only contact he had dealt with, tell all, then plead guilty and get himself sentenced. The State would recommend a ten-year prison term. The state police would find a soft spot for him in a county jail far away from Biloxi, and Taylor
would avoid Parchman. If he behaved himself he would be eligible for early parole and able to find a permanent hiding place.

Otherwise, he was headed for death row and a date with the gas chamber. Keith planned to put Taylor on trial first, before the other two, and get a conviction, one he would use against Noll and Malco.

Grinder was a savvy lawyer who could spot a good deal. He spent hours with Taylor and finally convinced him to take it.

The truth was that the supreme court was having trouble finding a judge who would volunteer to preside over such a high-profile case against a bunch of thugs who had just bombed the very courthouse where the trial was to take place. It could be dangerous down there!

They finally cajoled a colorful old judge named Abraham Roach to dust off his black robe, come out of retirement, and enter the battle. Roach was from the Mississippi Delta, not far from Parchman, and had grown up in a culture where guns were a part of life. As a child he hunted deer, ducks, quail, and virtually every other wild animal that moved. Back in his prime, and he had served as a circuit judge for over thirty years, he was known to carry a .357 Magnum in his briefcase and keep it close by on the bench. He had no fear of guns or the men who carried them. Plus, he was eighty-four years old, had lived a good life, and was bored.

He arrived in February of 1978 with a bang when he filled two consecutive days with oral arguments covering a range of issues. Because of his age, he took nothing under advisement and ruled on the spot. Yes, the trial would be moved away from Harrison County. No, he would not force Keith Rudy to recuse himself, at least not in the near future. There would be three separate trials and the DA, not the defense, would decide the order.

The murder was now eighteen months in the past. The
defendants had been in custody for almost a year. It was time for a trial, and Judge Roach ordered one for Henry Taylor on March 14, 1978, in the Lincoln County Courthouse in Brookhaven, Mississippi, 160 miles northwest of Biloxi.

As the lawyers absorbed the ruling, Keith stood calmly and said, “Your Honor, the State has an announcement. It will not be necessary to put Mr. Taylor on trial. We have signed an agreement with him in which he will plead guilty at a later date and cooperate with the State.”

Joshua Burch grunted loudly as if kicked in the gut. Millard Cantrell turned and pointed an angry finger at Sam Grinder. Their underlings absorbed the blow, whispered loudly, scrambled for files. The unified defense was suddenly in disarray, and Mr. Malco and Mr. Noll had just been pushed much closer to the gas chamber.

Burch managed to get to his feet and began whining about the unfairness of the timing and so on, but there was nothing he could do. The district attorney had enormous power to cut deals, pressure witnesses, and crank up the pressure on any defendant he chose to target.

Judge Roach asked, “Mr. Rudy, when was this deal completed?”

“Yesterday, Your Honor. It’s been in the works for some time, but Mr. Taylor signed it yesterday.”

“I wish you had told me first thing this morning.”

“Sorry, Your Honor.”

Keith was anything but sorry. He had learned the art of the ambush from his father. It was important to keep the defense guessing.

Henry Taylor left the Hancock County jail in an unmarked car and was driven by the state police to the town of Hernando, six hours due north, almost to Memphis. He was checked into the
DeSoto County jail under an alias and given a single cell, the only one with air-conditioning. Dinner was a slab of pork ribs a friendly jailer barbecued on the grill out back. The deputies had no idea who he was, but it was obvious the new prisoner was someone important.

Though he was still incarcerated and would remain so for years, Henry was relieved to be far away from the Coast and the constant threat of getting his throat cut.

He had served one year; only nine to go. He could survive, and one day he would walk out and never look back. His fascination with bombs was already a thing of the past. Lucky he didn’t blow himself up, though he came close.