Write to Life blog

The Boaz Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.

Matt was so gracious in allowing me to work part time for the remainder of October and the entire month of November 1998.  He knew how hard Bill and Nellie’s deaths hit me. But time off from the law practice was insufficient alone to redirect my thinking.  Probably, the only thing that kept me from bed-ridden depression was the construction of our home at Hickory Hollow.  Karla and I had purchased this 100-acre tract off Cox Gap Road in North Etowah County earlier this year.  We had planned this house for months and had only hired Boggs Construction Company in August with plans to break ground the last week of October.  The first week was devoted to digging a partial basement, with the second and third weeks focused on pouring a footer and the basement floor.  The fourth week was consumed with block laying.

There was something therapeutic about watching the workmen, whether they were operating a track hoe or a bulldozer, or pulling a tape measure and using stakes and string to layout the outer walls of the sprawling ranch style house.  I mostly sat in a lawn chair and watched.  I occasionally would talk with Stewart Boggs, but that was rare since he was like a machine focused on production.  He knew what he was doing.  We had spent countless hours since late August hashing through the many decisions before having the plans drawn.

No matter how hard I tried to focus on the construction, my mind kept wandering to the Murrays final night.  I didn’t know for sure but I had from the first news of their deaths, concluded the Flaming Five were responsible.  No doubt, I didn’t give mere coincidence much of a chance to be the reason.  How on earth could their deaths be a coincidence?   If only Bill or Nellie had died in their sleep that Sunday night I might could side with coincidence.  But, two deaths were a totally different matter.  And both deaths just hours before the world was to begin to hear the mountain of evidence Matt and I had assembled that would convince the most skeptical jurors imaginable that Wade, James, Randall, Fred, and John, and each of their fathers, were responsible for the deaths of Wendi and Cindi Murray.

The only consolation I could allow to seed in my mind was that somehow, this time, the ones responsible for the Murray’s deaths would face criminal punishment.  They would serve hard time in prison.  While sitting under hundred-year-old Hickory trees, my mind sought out the truth of what happened that night.  At first, I believed it nothing more than my imagination, but near the end of November I felt I had constructed a foolproof case of reliable and admissible evidence against David Adams and Walter Tillman.  I don’t know why I believed these two were the only two who had come to the Murray’s that Sunday night and killed them.  How did they kill them?  There were no signs of any struggle.  Their house had not been broken into.  No doubt my mind was using past reality to construct a present reality.  David had smothered the final life out of Wendi over 25 years ago while Walter watched.  And, just four months earlier, Walter had settled his part of the wrongful death case.  He had convinced himself that settling his case had freed him to commit two additional murders.  Was his participation forced by the other members of Club Eden?  Hadn’t Walter sold-out the Club?  Now, he felt he had to make up with the Club to save his skin.  Thus, he helped David, the ruthless, evil David, to once again snuff the live out of two more Murrays.

I was merely speculating.  My real imaginings sitting in a grove of Hickory trees at Hickory Hollow was simply an exercise in survival.  The sun, the wind, the occasional summer shower, flooded my mind with a natural hope but it was my legal training and my inherent bent towards logic and reason that enabled me to sit up and avoid a bed-ridden depression.

While watching workmen at Hickory Hollow, if I had any doubts whether the Flaming Five and Fathers were responsible for the Murray’s deaths, these disappeared when the results of their long-delayed autopsies were released.

The Boaz Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.

The deaths of Bill and Nellie Murray brought about the death of their wrongful death lawsuit against the Flaming Five.  For over twenty-five years Alabama was one of only a hand full of states that allowed the decedent’s personal representative to bring a lawsuit on behalf of a decedent.  All other states gave this authority solely to a member of the decedent’s family.  Bill and Nellie Murray, as personal representatives, had filed their lawsuit in early 1997.

In late summer 1997 the Alabama Legislature decided it was time to conform Statute 6-5-410, the wrongful death statute, to what most of other states provided.  The amended statute removed the authority from a personal representative and instead gave it to a family member.  But, the Legislature made a grave error when it used this statement: “No one may prosecute a wrongful death action other than a living parent, spouse, or sibling.” 

In early 1997, Bill and Nellie Murray, and Bill’s mother, Brenda, were the only surviving family members of Wendi and Cindi Murray, other than cousin Clinton.  The daughters obviously had no spouse, nor did they have a sibling.  The Legislature’s failure to include a grandparent as an authorized family member to prosecute a wrongful death action killed Bill and Nellie’s lawsuit.

The attorneys for the Flaming Five were experts in wrongful death claims.  On Wednesday, only two days after the Murray’s failed to show up for court, Ralph Summerford, on behalf of all Defendants, filed a motion to dismiss Bill and Nellie’s case.  Although we knew our case was on shaky grounds, Matt and I filed a motion in opposition asserting the suspiciousness of Bill and Nellie’s deaths as sufficient grounds for the Court to postpone its ruling until autopsies could be conducted. 

The Court set the motions for hearing a week later.  Ralph Summerford had the law on his side.  He argued that no matter the reason or cause of the Murray’s deaths, Alabama law requires a dismissal of their wrongful death case.  I will never forget his statement to Judge Freeman, “Your Honor, with the unfortunate passing of the Murray’s, the Plaintiff’s case is now void.  This Court must follow the wisdom of our legislators in recognizing that wrongful death cases are very private and personal matters and that when an entire family ceases to exist, so too should any claims they might otherwise have.”  I also will never forget the smirk on the faces of the Flaming Five.

The Court granted the Defendants motion.

Once again, justice had eluded Wendi and Cindi Murray.

The Boaz Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.

On Monday morning, Matt and I arrived at the Marshall County Courthouse in Guntersville a few minutes after 8:00 a.m.  We hauled in a trunk load of briefcases and file boxes.  Matt hung around the courtroom thinking the Defendants’ attorneys would make a reasonable offer to settle.  I walked outside to wait for the Murray’s.  I had told them Friday to park along Gunter Avenue and that I would meet them out front at 8:30.

At 8:55 a.m. they still had not arrived.  At 9:00 I walked back to Courtroom 203 and told Matt.  Judge Freeman, prompt as always, called our case.  Matt informed the Court our clients had not arrived and he feared they had been in an accident or had some other emergency.  Judge ordered a 30-minute delay.

I walked to the Clerk’s office to borrow the phone.  I dialed the Murray’s home number knowing all along that no one would answer.  I then looked up the number for Pete and Nancy Strother, the Murray’s good friends and neighbors.  Nancy answered on the first ring and told me that she had not seen Bill or Nellie this morning but that their car was still in their driveway.  I asked her to walk over.  I told her where Nellie kept a key but she already knew that.  I waited on the line for nearly ten minutes.  When Nancy returned she could barely speak.  She said that Bill and Nellie were both dead.  They were still in bed and it was like they had gone to sleep and never woke up.  I told her to call the Douglas Police Department and that I would be there as soon as I could.

I walked back to the Courtroom and told Matt.  He motioned for us to go to a small conference room off to the side of the Courtroom to prevent the Defendants and their counsel from hearing us.  The first thing Matt said was, “they’ve done it again.  You know this isn’t natural.  The Murray’s have been murdered.  There can be no other explanation.”  We then walked down the hall to Judge Freeman’s chambers.  After we relayed what we had just learned, we asked him for a continuance which he granted without bringing in the Defendant’s counsel. 

Matt and I went back into the Courtroom, packed up, and walked out.