Chasing Shadows in Kentucky

On humid evenings here, a thin layer of mist often creeps out at knee level through the pine forests, the oak groves, the clandestine marijuana fields. From the front door of the Shopville-Stab Volunteer Fire Department, it’s not difficult to imagine the sniper hiding in the shrouded tree line that damp night.

It’s not hard to picture Pulaski County Sheriff Sam Catron, a homemade cake in each hand, his 86-year-old mother and 350 other people mingling just yards behind him at the department’s annual fish fry.

He was smiling as he ambled to his cruiser, placed one cake on its roof and dug for his keys.

What’s difficult is understanding just why the gunman, who was hunkered down 100 yards away, pulled the trigger that sent a .25-06 slug through the sheriff’s face.

Folks here still have a hard time comprehending that Danny Shelley, a former prom king and “a good boy from a good family,” as one acquaintance put it, could be arrested in the April 13 assassination.

They were equally stunned when they learned who his alleged co-conspirators were.

One was running against Catron to become sheriff.

Jeff Morris was right there in the crowd when his rival fell backward with his cake.

The other was Morris’ campaign manager. Kenneth White was supposed to have been there too, authorities contend, but got cold feet and stayed home instead.

Shelley and Morris initially confessed, according to testimony by an investigator at a preliminary hearing. White said he knew nothing of the plot.

In court, all three suspects in the killing of Sam Catron pleaded not guilty and are being held without bond in the Pulaski County Jail. No trial dates have been set, but prosecutors have filed papers saying they intend to seek the death penalty for the three.

Soon after their arrests, investigators came to believe each man had a clear and simple motive. But the case is far more complex than it first appeared. The three allegedly were driven by disparate and complicated forces in hatching the plan.

The killing of Catron seems to be one of the most wasteful crimes anyone in southern Kentucky can remember.

The sheriff was 48 when he died instantly at 7:15 p.m. Shelley was arrested about 20 minutes later. Less than 36 hours after that, Morris, a former deputy sheriff under Catron, and White, who has a history of legal troubles, were taken into custody.

“All that for what?” said volunteer firefighter Karen Riley, 55, who rushed that night to the sheriff and instinctively tried to stop bleeding that couldn’t be stopped. With darkness coming on fast one recent evening, Riley spoke from the spot where Catron fell, a patch on the roadside now stained white by bleach. “We won’t be having any more fish fries here.”

If you believe the confessions police say Morris and Shelley gave--and the lead investigator believes much of what they said--the plot to kill Catron was hatched one day before it was carried out.

White was at the wheel as the suspects drove around in his silver Jeep Cherokee, putting up lawn signs. Well known to local drug-enforcement folks, the 54-year-old had no job and received about $400 a month in disability payments because of heart problems and a crippled hand that earned him the nickname “Fingers.” Yet he had come to serve not only as campaign manager but also as Morris’ primary financial backer.

Those in law enforcement who follow the local drug trade believe they know how White earned at least some of the money he funneled into the campaign: as a drug dealer. His attorney, David Hoskins, denies that allegation, saying White earned the money selling various things at the flea market in nearby Somerset.

In the passenger seat was 34-year-old Morris. He was a deputy sheriff for five years until last summer, when he resigned and began working at his father-in-law’s plumbing business.

In the back was Shelley, 30, a standout high school athlete until he injured his knee. He joined the Marines shortly after graduation but was discharged early from boot camp because of the knee and more recently had held a series of odd jobs.

“They were just riding around, campaigning, and the subject just came up,” said Kentucky State Police Det. Todd Dalton, who is heading the investigation. “They know that Sam’s the front-runner. And in their minds, they think they’re No. 2. They figure they could shoot him and walk in” to office.

This was perhaps the first in a series of bizarre miscalculations the three allegedly made in the hours leading up to the shooting, and one that almost anyone around here could have cleared up for them.

In a five-man race, Morris was probably running fifth.

Even though he had served as a Pulaski County sheriff’s deputy, is married to a woman from here--with whom he has two children--and has lived in the area for more than a decade, he’s not from these parts. His family is from a nearby county.

In southern Kentucky, where families hold Civil War grudges and name their boys Daniel after both the Old Testament prophet and Daniel Boone, that means Morris is an outsider.

Even more important, he faced almost unbeatable competitors in the Republican primary. One candidate was a man who had tied Catron in the last election, losing only in a coin toss, which is how such things are settled here. Another, Todd Wood, who with the support of Catron’s family would go on to win the Republican nomination in May, was a well-known policeman from Somerset. The other contender was also better known here than Morris.

Jeff Morris and his alleged co-conspirators would have had to eliminate not just Catron but at least two of the other three candidates, most folks agree, for him to have been elected.

Regardless, by the afternoon of Friday, April 12, authorities say, the plan had taken root. They would kill Catron, a lifelong bachelor and arguably the most recognized figure in the county.

They would assassinate him in Stab, a community of a couple hundred people whose post office is long gone but who retain the old name, even though their mail is stamped “Shopville,” another tiny community a few miles up the road. They would do it, as Riley put it, “in front of God and everybody.”

Shelley, according to the alleged plan, would be the shooter. He was an avid hunter and fine shot. He owned several rifles.

Morris would lend him a 1985 Yamaha Virago motorcycle for his getaway. Morris and White would perform simpler jobs, prosecutors allege. They were to show up at the fish fry like good citizens, listen to the bluegrass band and not appear nervous.

Prosecutors say the plan was devised and acted upon in a day, but the forces that allegedly drove the trio began long before.

Morris, who neighbors say liked to play with his young children in the frontyard, didn’t resign from the sheriff’s department because he wanted to become a plumber, law enforcement officials said. He resigned because he was in trouble.

In July 2001, Morris “took some time off that he shouldn’t have taken off,” said acting Sheriff Jim McWhorter. When confronted by Catron and McWhorter, who was then a ranking deputy, Morris was told he faced a written reprimand and two or three days without pay, McWhorter said. Brash and somewhat temperamental, people who know him say, Morris quit instead.

Late last year, he filed his papers with the county clerk to run for sheriff. Shelley was his witness. It’s not clear how or when the two met.

White signed on to the campaign, authorities allege, because he needed the kind of protection only the highest-ranking lawman in the county could provide.

“He was going to have the sheriff in his pocket,” said Commonwealth Atty. Eddy Montgomery, the head prosecutor. “And he needed him there.”

White’s run-ins with the law stretch back to the 1970s, when he was convicted of armed robbery. In the late 1990s, he was convicted and imprisoned after police discovered a large marijuana patch that began 3 feet from his back door, according to court records. That conviction was overturned when he argued on appeal that prosecutors had not proved the marijuana was his.

But White continued to be active in the drug trade, according to court records and authorities. Last year he was in serious trouble again.

“We had developed a [drug and stolen property] case against him and actually charged him,” McWhorter said. “He turned into a confidential informant. His information resulted in the arrest of two other subjects. That’s how he got his charges dismissed.”

White, who is married and has an adult daughter, had another, simpler reason for helping Morris, at least with his campaign, authorities said. He credited Morris with saving his brother’s life. Several years ago, White’s brother had a heart attack. Morris, who lived nearby, discovered him, called 911 and treated him until paramedics arrived.

Then there’s Shelley.

“I’ve never had a client get the number of cards and letters that Danny has gotten,” said Katie Wood, one of his attorneys. “Usually the people we represent are not even people others would claim to know. But people think the world of Danny.”

A stocky, handsome former farm boy, Shelley’s reward for shooting the sheriff, prosecutors contend, was to be a job with status. He would be made a deputy sheriff by Morris.

Shelley, though, had other problems beyond the lack of a solid job, problems very few knew about. He was under investigation, Wood acknowledged, by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration for allegedly trafficking in the prescription painkiller OxyContin. No charges have been filed.

On the morning of April 13, a Saturday, White and Shelley met for breakfast at the Bob Evans restaurant on U.S. 27 in Somerset, police said. After they ate, Shelley left his parents’ 1993 Ford pickup in the parking lot and joined White in his Cherokee.

They drove to the Somerset Flea Market, where they campaigned along with Morris.

Early in the afternoon, Morris went home, police say, and Shelley and White went back to get Shelley’s truck.

Morris, prosecutors allege, had gone home to get the motorcycle. But there was a problem. Its battery was dead.

He was able to jump-start the bike and, police say, called White and Shelley on a cell phone and told them to meet him up the highway at Wal-Mart.

The three gathered at the store, according to authorities, where they bought a motorcycle battery and installed it. Shelley left his pickup there and rode off.

A few hours later, prosecutors allege, Shelley parked the motorcycle by the side of Kentucky 80 and hiked down a steep hill into an oak grove. He set up in the shadows.

A hundred yards south, on the far side of a still-green hayfield, the party was in full swing at the fire department. Then the band took a break.

Over the years, the annual fish fry had become an informal political gathering, where whoever might be running for office could give a five-minute speech if they were inclined. No one took anywhere near five minutes that night. Most just introduced themselves.

That’s what Morris did. That’s what Catron did. With a somewhat shy smile and a bit of a belly--thanks in part to his fondness for the ribs at the Ponderosa Steakhouse--the four-term sheriff delivered his standard, humble address: “Hi, folks. I’m Sam Catron. I’m running for sheriff and I’d sure appreciate your vote.”

Then they started auctioning off the cakes and pies. The firefighters invited the sheriff onstage to hold up the goods so the crowd could see.

Almost everyone knew Catron, and many had known his father. Harold Catron was the police chief in Somerset in 1958 when a bootlegger shot him in the back as he stood on his porch. Sam Catron was 4. His father died seven years later of injuries from the shotgun blast.

Up on the bandstand, the sheriff grinned. He bought one cake, then gave it back so it could be sold again. Then he bought two more.

As the band began taking the stage again, Morris was standing near the firehouse door, witnesses say. Catron began strolling toward his brown cruiser, parked 20 feet away on the side of the road. He put one cake on the roof and held the other, a white or yellow one, in his hand.

The “crack” of the shot was muffled somewhat by the heavy air, but everyone heard it. They looked in the direction of the report and saw the sheriff collapse, a stream of blood coming from his head “like you were pouring water from a pitcher,” Riley, the firefighter, recalled.

Less than a minute later, a motorcycle appeared on Kentucky 80, roaring as it accelerated. Everybody thought immediately that it was the shooter.

Had the motorcyclist sped west, no one would have seen him; the view of the highway is blocked by the same massive oak grove he allegedly fled. But he went east, and Riley, other firefighters, deputies and citizens ran to their cars to give chase.

Shelley turned off Kentucky 80 and onto Route 1675, the same road the sheriff’s car was on, heading away from the scene. He was speeding. The pavement was just slightly damp. He took one corner too fast and the bike slid out from under him.

He was only scratched. A Remington bolt-action rifle was beside him. His pursuers were on him in seconds.

Shelley started talking before he’d even gotten to the police station, according to police reports. He commented on the difficulty of his long-range shot. He talked about the plot. He named names.

Within hours, authorities learned the motorcycle belonged to Morris. On Sunday they pieced together the movements of the three on the previous day. On Monday, they arrested the remaining two.

Morris also soon confessed, according to court testimony. White said he was involved in the campaign but knew nothing of a plan to kill the sheriff.

Karen Riley knew Catron for more than 20 years. She saw him at church, at the steakhouse, piloting the sheriff’s department’s helicopter on marijuana raids. Like countless others here, she never once saw him wearing anything other than his uniform. “I saw a picture of him once out of uniform. He was wearing a tuxedo, at a wedding.”

For her, the questions are innumerable.

How could the culprits have believed this would help them win the election, as prosecutors contend? Why would they shoot him in front of 350 people instead of alone at his house?

Why, on election day, did 123 of 11,897 voters still cast their ballots for jailed murder suspect Morris?

After Catron died, Riley and other firefighters staked a Sam Catron campaign sign a few feet from where he fell.

Mourners hung flowers from it and piled bouquets in the grass beneath.

But people--mostly the grieving but also the curious--came by day and night and couldn’t see the memorial after dark. So the firefighters planted a lantern at each end

“It’s better now,” Riley said this recent night from beneath the yellow glow of the lanterns. “It looks nice even after the sun goes down.”