1st Census Casualty

copdsux

Veteran Expediter
Charter Member
A census worker was found in KY, the victim of a hanging. The letters FED scrawled on his chest. So, I guess all of the retoric(sp) regarding the upcoming census has claimed it's first victim.
 

dieseldiva

Veteran Expediter
Rhetoric doesn't kill.

rhet·o·ric (r
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r-
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k)n.1. a. The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively.
b. A treatise or book discussing this art.

2. Skill in using language effectively and persuasively.
3. a. A style of speaking or writing, especially the language of a particular subject: fiery political rhetoric.
b. Language that is elaborate, pretentious, insincere, or intellectually vacuous: His offers of compromise were mere rhetoric.

4. Verbal communication; discourse.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
There is almost nothing known about this hanging other than he was a part time substitute teacher, a part time census worker, and he was hanged with FED written across his chest. At this point, you can't even make the connection with his death to that of being a federal worker. The FED written on his chest may be a distraction to lead investigators away from something else. It also may have something to do with the fact that Clay County's #1 cash crop is marijuana and as a census worker he may have been feeding the DEA information about where the weeds were. There's a lot strange things that happen within the Daniel Boone National Forest. A hanging isn't necessarily one of them.

(Rhetoric doesn't kill, but if often inspires those who do.)
 

aristotle

Veteran Expediter
A census worker was found in KY, the victim of a hanging. The letters FED scrawled on his chest. So, I guess all of the retoric(sp) regarding the upcoming census has claimed it's first victim.

My unexplained absence and this unfortunate incident are in no way related.

It is somewhat intriguing to speculate what might have led to this man's demise. I suspect the victim was a relative newcomer and was not schooled in proper protocol per the Code of the Mountains. If he was a local, he should have known how to approach others in rural Appalachia. Could have been a dozen other possibilities that got this poor man killed. A grudge perhaps... or a drug deal gone bad... miscommunication... or just random violence.
 

letzrockexpress

Veteran Expediter
My unexplained absence and this unfortunate incident are in no way related.

It is somewhat intriguing to speculate what might have led to this man's demise. I suspect the victim was a relative newcomer and was not schooled in proper protocol per the Code of the Mountains. If he was a local, he should have known how to approach others in rural Appalachia. Could have been a dozen other possibilities that got this poor man killed. A grudge perhaps... or a drug deal gone bad... miscommunication... or just random violence.

Maybe he didn't have a pretty mouth on him....
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
Or maybe he did. hehe

I think the "fed" scrawled across his chest means squat. It's either something to do with the pot harvest season being here, or moonshine, or, it's got something to do with him moving up here from Florida to be a Boy Scout Leader, read into that whatever you want, or perhaps he pulled a David Carradine and someone happened upon him and scrawled who he was on his chest after the fact.

Why police are keeping quiet on Census worker Sparkman death | csmonitor.com

As the story points out, outsiders are rarely killed in those mountains (he's an outsider, he don't know no better). They don't kill 'em, but they will run them off and outta there right quick if there's a problem. They'll burn you out, threaten you, make you think they'll kill you, but they don't. They just make you leave. The few outsiders that do end up getting killed usually just disappear with never a trace of them to be found. They sure don't make a public spectacle of it, much less hang you until you are dead and then lower you to where your feet are on the ground.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
I think it's interesting that everything you read about him, he's referred to as "census worker Bill Sparkman", or "part-time census worker Bill Sparkman." They never refer to him as "substitute teacher Bill Sparkman", or "local Boy Scout leader Bill Sparkman".

If you put a bunch of things together, complete with knowledge of the area combined with utter speculation, you can come up with the most plausible thing that happened, several of them, albeit it a pure load of speculative crap.

In the early 1990's, a single father of a young son just entering elementary school, he started volunteering as a paraeducator to help his son and others in the class room with their work assignments. After a while he realized that he was doing the same things that teachers do, so he decided to go to school to get a teaching certificate, which he did in the fall of 2007 via online courses from Western Governors University in Salt Lake City, UT. But, he was suddenly battling non-Hodgkin's lymphoma from a cyst that appeared on the side of his neck. The school invited him to speak at his own Commencement, but he couldn't fly due to the lymphoma, so he drove from London to Salt Lake City for his graduation in 2008. While waiting for a math teaching job to open up in the London area, he left his job as a professional Scout and he took on the job of part-census taker.

It all sounds so far so good, but the other stuff is a little weird. No mention anywhere of the mother, but that's because he never married and his son was his adopted son, who is now in his 20's. When Sparkman was the equipment manager at Vanderbilt University he earned the nickname "Fe-Fe", ostensibly because of his poodle-like curls in his hair. You would think that would be "Fifi", but it was "FE-FE" that he had on his vanity license plate. Weird.

They found him hanged from a tree, but his feet were touching the ground. He was also bound and gagged and wearing only his socks. His hands were bound in front of him, not behind him, his wrists together and the knot securing it at his fingertips. There was no evidence of something that he may have been standing on and it got kicked away, as if he could have hanged himself merely by attempting to kneel, or NOT hanged himself merely by standing up. One local London officer, off the record, encouraged reporters to look closely into the death of David Carradine, but would not elaborate.

Gagged and bound and naked does not have anti-Feds written all over it, despite the fact that he had it written on him. Anti-federal sentiments run long and deep in those hills, going back to the late 1700's when the government really screwed the entire Appalachian area, to the widespread search and destroy of moonshine stills, to the more recent encroachments upon pot fields and meth labs. But gagged and bound and naked has sexual undertones, and overtones, written all over it. The cause of death is asphyxiation, but the police have not determined if it was murder, suicide or simply an accidental auto-erotic asphyxiation. Was it "Fed" that was scribbled on his chest, or was it the beginning of "Fe Fe" and the second "F" was scribbled to be mistaken for a "D"? Hhhhmmm...

He was hanged in a tree in a rural cemetery. If he was killed by locals, they'd have just dug a hole and buried him there. But they didn't. If it was an anti-Fed thing, and for some reason they wanted to make a public spectacle out of it, a way way off-the-beat and path cemetery is not the way to do it. Clay County is so rural that I'm not sure there really is anyway to make a public splash. The nearest "towns" are places like Botto, Goose Rock, Elk Gap, I'm talking way rural. (It was found in the Hoskins family cemetery on Hoskins Cemetery Road, off Arnetts Fork Road, just west of Marcum, about a mile south of the Peabody Ranger Station (a place I have been) about 12 or 13 miles east of Manchester, south down 66 out of Big Creek, for those who are familiar with the area.) Everything about this case is weird, and it gets weirder and weirder.

The State Police and the FBI have been nearly dead silent. They said the death was caused by asphyxiation, but refused to say whether it was caused by the rope around his neck. They did say, however, that it was not a "hanging death", which means he could have asphyxiated due to the gag places in his mouth and then duct taped shut. His body was hanging from a rope, but the rope appeared to be one that merely held him up (as if on display) as his feet were on the ground.

Still, after all the speculating that means nothing, I think it's just like a couple of locals and one of my relatives, said, "He knocked on the wrong door." Which means don't go to remote and rural homes in the Daniel Boone National Forest in the middle of the pot harvest and knock on a door and announce that you're from the Federal Government.
 

letzrockexpress

Veteran Expediter
I think it's interesting that everything you read about him, he's referred to as "census worker Bill Sparkman", or "part-time census worker Bill Sparkman." They never refer to him as "substitute teacher Bill Sparkman", or "local Boy Scout leader Bill Sparkman".
Or Pickle Park frequenter Bill Sparkman...

If you put a bunch of things together, complete with knowledge of the area, combined with utter speculation
Ya mean like the fact you know an awful lot of details about this incident?
 
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Poorboy

Expert Expediter
Well Poorboy I don't believe turtle will be banned. He is allowed to make those <chuckle> personal attacks against other members.

That's Just it, (He Doesn't Make Personal Attacks) Sure, He and I Go Back and forth sometimes But it's Never a Personal Attack!! The only One's I see doing Personal Attacks are You and That Other Fool who I Hope gets Banned Right along with you!
 

Poorboy

Expert Expediter
You just made personal attacks you don't see me calling ppl "fool" do you? turtles crack about being dropped as a baby is also a personal attack. I have made no personal attacks. Several have been directed at me, but you want me banned. At least I have Letsrock and Juju in my corner.

No I didn't Call you a Fool! I Called the Other One a Fool! (Because he is) And I'm Not so sure that JuJu is in your corner either, But i Could Be wrong! And I Believe that Turtle was Just asking You a Question! :D
 

OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
You just made personal attacks you don't see me calling ppl "fool" do you? turtles crack about being dropped as a baby is also a personal attack. I have made no personal attacks. Several have been directed at me, but you want me banned. At least I have Letsrock and Juju in my corner.

JuJu...MY wife was referring to YOU...

Turtle simply ASKED...were you dropped as a baby?

He did not say he was dropped or must have been dropped...

Where is the personal attack there?
 

OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
No I didn't Call you a Fool! I Called the Other One a Fool! (Because he is) And I'm Not so sure that JuJu is in your corner either, But i Could Be wrong! And I Believe that Turtle was Just asking You a Question! :D


poorboy...she was pointing at the ah ah....sirbill
 
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