Keith Coney, who was believed to be with Kevin and Don the night they were killed, told friends and family members that law enforcement officials were responsible for the murders. On June 3, 2021, Linda passed away at the age of seventy-one. So many times I would drive up to see him out there almost stroking it for lack of a better word:)) I also loved to see him put the tops back on after arriving home and he would lean over and look into the side mirror and comb his hair which had been blown from the T tops being down.\"Link to the full Q and A - https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/6fx50w/murder_on_the_tracks_kevin_ives_don_henry_linda/?sort=new***UPDATE/CORRECTION*** on the information in the movie, about Linda Ives not knowing about the existence of Sharline Wilson's confession letter until 2015. He believes that others were involved or have knowledge of who was involved. By the time Allen got up from his seat, the man was gone. Jeff Rhodes told his family that he feared for his life because he knew too much about Kevin, Don and McKaskles murders. I respect the mother's quest for justice and her investigation. It wasn't until 1990 that we learned the drugs were being dropped by plane. Five minutes later, Celine County officers showed up. Unlike many works that have dug for the dirt of the Clinton gubernatorial era, this is an authentically shocking, deeply unsettling portrait of contemporary American power backstopped by arrogance and callous greedand of the drug war as a weapon of social control from which insiders enjoy impunity. They passed under us. After facing all of these drug charges, it may not be so far-fetched that he was at the tracks when Ives and Henry were murdered. Obstruction Of Justice: The Mena Connection ( Part 1 Of 2) The boys had reportedly left home about midnight to go hunting. Lying parallel to both of them was Dons .22 rifle. Gary Parks, who appeared in a segment of the film discussing the suspicious circumstances of the death of his father while investigating Clinton's womanizing, admitted he embellished some details in the film, but still believes his father was killed for political reasons. So much of the nonsense I see in the media everyday is meaningless. Don Henry and Kevin Ives: The Boys on the Tracks | Bizarrepedia According to ID Files, Harmon was convicted in July 1997 of racketeering, extortion and drug conspiracy, and sentenced to eight years in prison. The Real Cases That Inspired True Detective Season 3 | Time Misen Knives http://bit.ly/3sNux6V | Quip https://bit.ly/3pkPc0i | Upstart https://bit.ly/35qcF8j | Hello Fresh http://bit.ly/39mRSmP M. One hopes for sufficient outrage garnered to substitute for justice denied; also, for an inevitable movie adaptation that wont dilute the storys uglier civic dimensions. The deaths were initially ruled an accident as a result of the boys sleeping on the tracks due to marijuana intoxication. The investigation was rushed, and the infamous state medical examiner at the time, Fahmy Malak, was quick to rule the deaths as accidental due to a marijuana-induced coma. 1988 Unsolved Mysteries (TV Series documentary) Self - Kevin's Father (segment "Unexplained Death: Don Henry and Kevin Ives) - Episode #1.2 (1988) . List of Unsolved Mysteries episodes - Wikipedia It seemed difficult to believe that they would lay on the tracks without moving a muscle, while a huge freight train was hurtling towards them blaring its horn. Kevin Ives and Don Henry; Seal purchased his own plane, and as a part of the deal with the DEA, he rigged it with a hidden camera. Although Burton gathered that the boys were murdered, that did not explain why Malak would falsify his ruling. I read it again recently after Billy Jack Haynes came forward with new information about the case. It also helps the At first, I was turned off by the omniscient musings of Linda Ives in a non-fiction book. The parents, rejecting the official explanations, pushed for a murder investigation. At first, police believed that the boys had died after smoking . The two teens were hit by a . There are many conspiracy theories about this case that say many differnet people are involved or responsible for their deaths. True Crime. I wish I'd written this fine book. , Jack Olsen, author of Hastened to the Grave, has worked for twenty years as an Arkansas journalist. Don was a natural comedian and Kevin was his best audience. [8] The theory is that the boys came upon a drug drop from an airplane similar to Barry Seal's operations near Mena and were murdered. Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations. He was certain that the tarp was there. There was a problem loading your book clubs. Leveritts prose is less than taut, and she too often indulges in repetitive emotional rhetoric regarding the Iveses loss. As Dan Harmons investigation pushed forward, many potential witnesses started to turn up dead. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 8, 2015. The Los Angeles Times reported that Larry Nichols, who appears throughout the film and is the primary source for a number of the murder and mysterious death claims, was fired from his Arkansas state government job and once admitted to an Associated Press reporter to being motivated by spite. Several witnesses who testified before the grand jury were charged with drug trafficking and other offenses. Harmon had been rumored to be on the tracks the night the boys were murdered, but Ives chose to ignore the rumors because she wanted to trust Harmon. is a horrifying story from first page to last, and its most frightening aspect is that all of the story is true. All information was gathered from The Obstruction of Justice documentary. However, on the night of Saturday, August 22, 1987, Kevin and Don met a group of friends on the outskirts of Little Rock at a favorite gathering place for the local teenagers. I mean WOW!, what qualifications! The biggest cocaine smuggler in the history of the U.S., operating right in your own backyard, and you dont even know it, so then you get picked to be the head of the Drug Enforcement Agency??? Question: Now that the criminal complicity of these presidents has been exposed and is not disputable, what is the justification for continuing to protect the killers? Reprinted by permission. It is not only extremely well written, it points out how our law enforcement - from the local police on up - fail to take an investigation seriously !. The 1987 case was originally ruled a double suicide, then an accidentAthe boys supposedly smoked too much marijuana and passed out. He determined that tears in Don's t-shirt fabric indicated that he had been stabbed in the back with a large knife and that Kevin had apparently been struck in the head with a rifle butt, possibly Don's (the wound to his cheek matched the shape of the rifle butt). Check out HelloFresh here! The case of the boys on the tracks The upcoming Tom Cruise movie, American Made, was originally scheduled to be called Mena, but for some reason hmmm they changed the name. In 1987, two teenage boys, Kevin Ives and Don Henry, were found dead on train tracks in Alexander, Ark. Visiting the murder location of Don Henry and Kevin Ives.More videos on My Second Channel - https://www.youtube.com/mobileinstinct2My T-Shirts & Sweatshirts . Thanks for sharing the real word, this cant rest until solved. He believes that Kevin and Don stumbled on either drug traffickers or a drug lab that manufactured methamphetamine and that they were killed as a result. They denied any involvement in the case and sued Matrisciana and his film company for defamation, and the judge awarded them $USD598,750. Almost immediately, however, Duffeys undercover officers discovered that there were a number of public officials involved in drug trafficking. Much was not reported in the media at the time. The case remains unsolved, and Leveritt draws no conclusions. She weaves profiles and events into a smooth and chilling whole, one that leads the readers to confront, along with Linda Ives, the events' profoundly disturbing implications. Leveritt does an excellent job in capturing Mara Leveritt tells an awesome tale about the two young boys murdered in Arkansas after they stumbled onto the airfield where cocaine drops from Central America were flown in and arms to Central America were flown out. Prospective Online | The Murder of Kevin Ives and Don Henry A second autopsy revealed that Don Henry had been stabbed in the back and Kevin Ives' skull had been crushed prior to being run over. Duffey wrote in ID files, Lynda Hollenbeck wrote for the Benton Courier and Doug Thompson wrote for Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. An ex-girlfriend of his reportedly told an investigator that Harmon and two other men were responsible for the murders. Unsolved Mysteries is an American mystery documentary television show that began with a series of television . Not satisfied with that finding, Ives launched a series of investigations that eventually touched on the malfeasance of a prominent medical examiner, the misconduct of a local prosecutor, drug trafficking, and governmental corruption. The apparent murder in Saline County in 1987 of seventeen-year-old Kevin Ives and sixteen-year-old Don Henry has spurred ongoing controversy, including conspiracy theories tying their deaths to a drug-smuggling scandal. In October 1988, shortly after the broadcast, the results were released. The secrets revolve around the murder of two Bryant seniors, Kevin Ives and Don Henry, and drug smuggling in the eighties. Both Clinton and Elders had the authority to remove Malak from office after his false ruling, but they continued to support him and even gave him a $32,000 pay raise. Unfortunately no justice was done for the boys as there was corruption in high places. The appeal focused primarily on free speech and the ability to criticize public figures. She writes a column in the weekly. He hasnt been found. These cases are either quickly closed or still under investigation. By Jean Duffey. Guess who was the US Attorney for Western Arkansas for the entire time Barry Seal was operating out of Mena Arkansas, which is in Western Arkansas??? Four men were possibly killed because of what they knew. In 1994 the University of Arkansas named her Arkansas Journalist of the Year. Heres a documentary that is LOADED with footage, documents, info etc, about what happened to Kevin Ives and Don Henry, and the following cover-up of their murders, right up to the latest news about their story in August 2016. The new movie about Barry Seal will most likely be Hollywood nonsense. Circuit Judge John Cole appointed Dan Harmon special prosecutor of the Kevin Ives and Don Henry case in 1988, which gave him direct access to and control of information as the case developed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow0yPO8g9YA. All rights reserved. Matrisciana created the Obstruction of Justice documentary to show the connection between the cover-up of Kevin Ives and Don Henrys murder, Mena drug trafficking and Bill Clinton. UNSOLVED: The Murder of Don Henry and Kevin Ives - YouTube Even though the judges overturned the ruling of defamation, they were critical of the film in their ruling, saying it blurred the lines between fact and fiction. All rights reserved. In March 1990, Kevin and Don's manner of death were officially changed from "accidental" to "homicide." The Boys On The Tracks. My primary frustration with the book is that there is no resolution, no one is identified as the culprit. They talked for about fifteen minutes before he left. It is an intensely personal story and a story of national importance. is the story of a parent's worst nightmare, a quiet woman's confrontation with a world of murder, drugs, and corruption, where legitimate authority is mocked and the public trust is trampled. In 1996, Linda and film producer Patrick Matrisciana released the documentary, Obstruction of Justice: The Mena Connection, which detailed the botched investigation into the murders. ID Files - The train deaths She merely fleshes out the context and explores all the leads in all their various directions. Date: August 23, 1987. Teenagers Don Henry, 16, and Kevin Ives, 17, popular students who were gearing up for their senior year at Bryant High School, had decided to hang out with a group of friends at a local commuter parking lot, a popular gathering place for teens. A must read if you care about justice for the innocent. Item may contain remainder marks on outside edges. The cause of death was changed to "definite homicide" after a second autopsy.