A Father’s Death Not What It Seemed

As a child, Herb Vest wondered why his family didn’t talk much about his father’s 1946 death. After rummaging through an old trunk in the attic, he got an answer: Buddy Vest, 25, had been found hanging from a thin leather noose at the back of his North Texas wood shop. The coroner called it a suicide, but the family had a hard time believing it.

Last fall, Vest -- now a Dallas businessman -- hired a private investigator to look into the case. Within weeks, Vest was convinced that the question wasn’t why did a contented family man kill himself, but why was he killed?

“I am very interested in finding the truth,” Vest, 59, said in a phone interview. “I’d like to prove it up for my mother’s benefit and to do it for Buddy. But the primary thing is for myself. It’s been a big part of my life, under the surface. I’d just like to resolve it in my own mind.”

Armed with evidence collected by the private detective, Vest persuaded officials in Cooke County, northwest of Dallas, to exhume the body recently. The coffin, rusted but intact, was lifted from the red clay at Hope Cemetery and taken to nearby Denton. There, forensic pathologists at the University of North Texas will perform an autopsy in the next three weeks, looking for clues such as tissue damage, broken bones or stray threads, Vest said.

Cooke County Justice of the Peace Dorothy Lewis, who ordered the exhumation, has a gut feeling about the case. “It’s hard to go back and say who did what or why, but something isn’t right about it,” she said.

Vest long had suspicions, but didn’t act on them until recently out of respect for his stepfather, who died several years ago.

The pace picked up quickly when private investigator Danny K. Williams of nearby Addison began poking around the Cooke County courthouse. Immediately, he stumbled onto a problem: Vest’s name was not listed in the index of old coroner’s reports. After a tedious search, a clerk located Vest’s report, which was randomly placed with other documents. The report contained several errors, including the name of the deceased, who was identified as Richard Eugene Vest, rather than by his actual name, Harold Eugene Vest, and the address of the crime scene was wrong. What’s more, the bottom half of a page that would have contained the signature of the then-justice of the peace, L.V. Henry, was torn out.

Vest’s death certificate was another surprise. It was handwritten, unlike every other typed death certificate issued by the same funeral home. The certificate was signed by Henry, but was an obvious forgery, Williams said.

Someone had tampered with Vest’s court records and his son wanted to know why. In late September, Herb Vest placed a newspaper ad in Gainesville, Texas -- where his father had his cabinet-making shop -- and offered a $10,000 reward for information in the case. The following month brought a three-page, typed, single-spaced letter from a woman calling herself M. Smith.

Smith wrote that as a young woman she was infatuated with Buddy Vest. On the night of his death, she walked into Vest’s wood shop and began flirting, she said.

A few minutes after her arrival, her boyfriend -- a married police officer -- and two of his friends burst into the shop, she said. Her furious boyfriend pushed Vest and Smith into a bathroom in the back, where he forced them to strip. Vest was made to put on Smith’s girdle and underpants, according to the letter. The writer said she was beaten with a length of rubber and taken home by her boyfriend.

The next day she said she learned that Vest was dead. She wrote that one of the men later told her what had happened: Vest’s legs were bound together with rope. One end of a noose -- made from a strip of leather taken off a shop machine -- was placed around his neck. The other end hung from three large nails hammered to a door. Her boyfriend told his accomplices that if they ever revealed what happened that night, they would all be executed.

Forensic psychiatrists who studied the letter said it appeared to be genuine, Williams said.

In January, Herb Vest sent a letter to M. Smith at a general delivery address in Gainesville that she provided. She has not responded to his offer of $25,000 for more information.

“She states in the letter that she knows she’s the cause of his death, but if it means coming forward and identifying herself, she will not do that,” Williams said. “She said that at least she has cleared her conscience and helped Mr. Vest’s family.”

Though the Cooke County district attorney has reclassified the case from suicide to homicide, it is unlikely there would ever be a trial. Two of the men involved are dead and the third is ailing, according to the Smith letter.

Vest doesn’t want the man arrested. “I’m not interested in revenge,” he said. “I would like to talk to him. I would just like to know exactly what happened.”

It’s been a relief to his family, Vest said, particularly to his 80-year-old mother, to find out that her husband did not take his own life. But there are many unanswered questions.

“I’m kind of bullheaded,” Vest said. “This will be solved or I will die first. If it takes another 30 years, I’ll find out what happened.”