The Cornbread Mafia: A Homegrown Syndicate's Code of Silence and the Biggest Marijuana Bust in American History (67 page)

Unofficial wedding photo of Charlie Bickett (center, with revolver). The others in the front row are all Bickett brothers: Jimmy (far left); Louis Earl (left center); and Joe Keith (to the right of Charlie). Those in the back row-Steve Leake, wearing the hat on the right, and Keith Riney, in the center-do not appear as characters in this story, but Cooch Allen (back row left, holding the whisky bottle) was a contemporary of Charlie Stiles and father of Tank Allen, who was arrested with Joe Keith in February 1989. Johnny Boone and Elmer George were supposed to be in the photo, according to Charlie Bickett, but they were running late. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF CHARLIE BICKETT

One of Charlie Bickett's creations, which he sold at Squire's Tavern in Raywick. It was the second year for the hat, as the CourierJournal reported in October 1981 that one could buy hats at Squire's Tavern that read: MARION COUNTY HOMEGROWN-THE BEST-1981. This 1982 edition of the hat was from the collection of Mike Bandy, former Kentucky state trooper, who participated in the arrests of Charlie's brothers, Jimmy and Joe Keith, in February 1989. PHOTOGRAPH © JAMES HIGDON

J. E. "Squire" Bickett, patriarch of the Bickett family, seen here speculating for oil. Bickett ran Squire's Tavern in Raywick, where he played practical jokes on patrons by stabbing himself in his artificial leg, which he lost in a motorcycle accident. PHOTOGRAPH BY STEVE LOWERY, AUTHOR'S COLLECTION

Beginning in 1980, the Kentucky State Police began cracking down on the large-scale pot growers of Marion County with the regular use of helicopters. In this shot, the helicopter pilot ascended and descended into a cornfield laced with marijuana plants to ensure the photographer for the Lebanon Enterprise got a good shot, according to Steve Lowery. PHOTOGRAPH BY STEVE LOWERY, AUTHOR'S COLLECTION

Two police officers walk the cornfield, identifying where the pot plants are hiding amid the rows of corn. PHOTOGRAPH BY STEVE LOWERY, AUTHOR'S COLLECTION

Merrill Mattingly, of the Marion County Sheriff Department, packs an arm-load of cut pot plants out of the cornfield behind him. PHOTOGRAPH BY STEVE LOWERY, AUTHOR'S COLLECTION

In the early busts conducted between 1980 and 1983, police were finding pot patches grown by the acre. In one weekend in 1980, police found fortyfive acres in Marion County alone. PHOTOGRAPH BY STEVE LOWERY, AUTHOR'S COLLECTION

The police employed state highway mowing crews to bush-hog entire cornfields where marijuana was found. PHOTOGRAPH BY STEVE LOWERY, AUTHOR'S COLLECTION

When police found pot patches hidden in the woods, officers had to chop the plants down by hand and carry them out to a burn site or load them onto a truck. PHOTOGRAPH BY STEVE LOWERY, AUTHOR'S COLLECTION

Once a pot field was discovered in Marion County, police would either burn it on-site or haul it off in trucks to a burn site for the television cameras. One grower compared watching the marijuana burn on TV to another unstoppable tragedy: It was like watching someone fall out a window." PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEVE LOWERY, AUTHOR'S COLLECTION

Harold Brown was the head DEA agent in Louisville from 1971 until he resigned in 1981 during an investigation into allegations that he participated in the sorts of large-scale drug trafficking operations that he should have been preventing. After police determined he sold poison to a teenager in Florida, Brown turned up dead from a gunshot wound to the head, an incident that was ruled a suicide. PUBLIC DOMAIN