US Census Worker Found Hanged in Tennessee Cemetary with "FED" written on his chest

[Selene]

AP source: Census worker hanged with 'fed' on body By DEVLIN BARRETT and JEFFREY McMURRAY (AP) – 7 hours ago

WASHINGTON — The FBI is investigating the hanging death of a U.S. Census worker near a Kentucky cemetery, and a law enforcement official told The Associated Press the word 'fed" was scrawled on the dead man's chest.

The body of Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old part-time Census field worker and occasional teacher, was found Sept. 12 in a remote patch of the Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky. The Census has suspended door-to-door interviews in rural Clay County, where the body was found, pending the outcome of the investigation.

Investigators are still trying to determine whether the death was a killing or a suicide, and if a killing, whether the motive was related to his government job or to anti-government sentiment.

Investigators have said little about the case. The law enforcement official, who was not authorized to discuss the case and requested anonymity, said Wednesday the man was found hanging from a tree and the word "fed" was written on the dead man's chest. The official did not say what type of instrument was used to write the word.

FBI spokesman David Beyer said the bureau is helping state police with the case.

"Our job is to determine if there was foul play involved — and that's part of the investigation — and if there was foul play involved, whether that is related to his employment as a census worker," said Beyer.

Beyer declined to confirm or discuss any details about the crime scene.

Lucindia Scurry-Johnson, assistant director of the Census Bureau's southern office in Charlotte, N.C., said law enforcement officers have told the agency the matter is "an apparent homicide" but nothing else.

Census employees were told Sparkman's truck was found nearby, and a computer he was using for work was found inside it, she said. He worked part-time for the Census, usually conducting interviews once or twice a month.

Sparkman has worked for the Census since 2003, spanning five counties in the surrounding area. Much of his recent work had been in Clay County, officials said.

Door-to-door operations have been suspended in Clay County pending a resolution of the investigation, Scurry-Johnson said.

The U.S. Census Bureau is overseen by the Commerce Department.

"We are deeply saddened by the loss of our co-worker," Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers are with William Sparkman's son, other family and friends."

Locke called him "a shining example of the hardworking men and women employed by the Census Bureau."

McMurray reported from Lexington, Ky.

[Chris Grieb]

I wonder if this is "moonshine" area. People back in the hills get very nervous about government outsiders.

Edited September 24, 2009 by Chris Grieb

[Selene]

I wonder if this is "moonshine" area. People back in the hills get very nervous about government outsiders.

Yep.

I had a West Virginia grandma remind me to avoid strong drink because it could cause you to shot at a revenuer and miss!

Adam

[Philip Coates]

> The FBI is investigating the hanging death of a U.S. Census worker near a Kentucky cemetery, and a law enforcement official told The Associated Press the word 'fed" was scrawled on the dead man's chest...Investigators are still trying to determine whether the death was a killing or a suicide.

(!) Now that's funny. You can't make up this kind of journalism.

Let's see, he writes (or carves?) something incriminating on -his own chest- then he....

Reminds you of the story of the man found with two bullet holes in his head and it's ruled a suicide.

Edited September 24, 2009 by Philip Coates

[Selene]

> The FBI is investigating the hanging death of a U.S. Census worker near a Kentucky cemetery, and a law enforcement official told The Associated Press the word 'fed" was scrawled on the dead man's chest...Investigators are still trying to determine whether the death was a killing or a suicide.

(!) Now that's funny. You can't make up this kind of journalism.

Let's see, he carves something on -his own chest- then he....

Reminds you of the story of the man found with two bullet holes in his head and it's ruled a suicide.

Is it because in both cases they were Polish?

[jeffrey smith]

Phil--

You have to add more detective novels to that pillar of books in your house.

1) Hanging (as opposed to strangulation and leaving the body on the ground) is one of the less usual methods of homicide--but it's much more common as a method of suicide. For one thing, it takes a little preparation, and the ability to render the victim sufficiently helpless so that he can't escape or otherwise interfere with the proceedings--and the effort involved in keeping the victim helpless is more than the effort involved in killing him outright. If you hit the victim over the head to render him senseless, why not simply hit him over the head to render him dead instantly?

2) As a matter of covering all the bases, the investigation has to rule out some otherwise unlikely possibilities--for instance, that he committed suicide, and that the first person to come across the body knew him a census worker, wrote "Fed" on his chest, and then rather coldbloodedly went their way to let someone else find the body. Or that (remaining the realm of unlikely possibilities) that he was roughed up by someone with anti-government feeling who ended the beating by scrawling "Fed" on his chest, and that this rendered him sufficiently irrational to decide to kill himself. Hence the official use of the term "apparent homicide".

3) He apparently drove himself to the scene of the crime: although someone else may have driven the truck there and left the site by other means. Thus, the investigation will have to decide why he went to this relatively remote area if the killer didn't take him there in the truck. On its face, this suggests he went to meet someone he knew.

4)The word on his chest may be a red herring--something left to distract the investigation by a killer who was acting because of a personal grudge or other motive that had nothing to do with his work. He also may have been killed by some other method and then the scene arranged to look like a hanging to further distract the investigation. If so, he may not have been killed at that place.

[Warning: don't read this following paragraph immediately before or after a meal]

5) Professional hangmen--those that presided over legal executions where hanging was the prescribed method--tried to arrange matters so the condemned man's neck broke from the stress of the noose and the fall combined with his own body weight. The alternative was to let him slowly strangle while dangling from the gallows. (That is why, in accounts of 18th century English executions, you will find references to friends of the decease grabbing his legs and adding their weight to his body; this helped break his neck or at least speeded up the strangulation process.) If the condemned man fell too heavily when the trapdoor was released, by the way, his head might be completely ripped from his body by the force of the fall.

If the man in this case did in fact die by hanging, whether he died from a broken neck or from asphyxiation may provide a clue to the killer.

There are also other things not referred to in the news article, such as the number of footprints, bruises on the body or the presence of some drug that would incapacitate him, etc.

Jeffrey S.

[Selene]

Folks:

We use the "Preppy defense"...

It happened because of rough sex.

Adam

[Chris Grieb]

I would love to hear a report that the US Census had a shortage of employees in Kentucky. People resigning or taking long leaves of absence.

Edited September 24, 2009 by Chris Grieb

[BaalChatzaf]

Whoever did this was not too bright. Better if done to a tax-collector than a census taker.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[DavidMcK]

You could also suppose that this man wanted to commit suicide but wanted his family to collect the insurance: He could have scrawled (not 'carved' as someone else stated) the word 'Fed' to his chest to divert suspicion away from an apparent suicide.

[kiaer.ts]

Wanna take bets this will be ruled a suicide, a rather extreme example of the standard liberal-victim-hoax? "I'll show those nasty Republicans!" (What was the reduplicative name of that nasty 1980's comedy where the guy gets hanged by his dog?) The mother is saying she has her suspicions but is keeping quiet. There is no report of trauma to the body or any theft from a unlocked trailer with a computer in it.

[jeffrey smith]

A bit of local color.

Apparently, if it a protest aimed at the government, the primary motivation was the DEA and not Obamacare or other Tea Party concerns.

Or it might be simply a case of the victim stumbling over something he wasn't meant to see.

http://boarsheadtavern.com/2009/09/24/10267/

The murdered census worker was a 51 year old father, doing substitute teaching and working census as some part time income while he worked on his masters.

UNITE is the Federal drug task force that has virtually occupied our area for the past three years. No one knows how many people are being squeezed. We are aware of a family that has gotten caught up in this because of the father’s excessive prescriptions of meth related drugs. Our impression is that he is, like a lot of locals, being squeezed for info to get bigger fish. Many local counties have seen officials arrested, including county execs, judges and law enforcement. The local drug “families” so to speak have been hit hard.

I’m not surprised some unstable person hit back., Eastern Ky has a difficult relationship with government anyway. Much local government is corrupt. The only plot to assassinate a sitting governor was hatched here. The old courthouse was full of bullet holes from an assault in the 1930s. Our school was founded to try and bring an end to the Baker-Howard-White war, which brought government troops in at one point. Whether it’s revenuers or government support of coal companies or the welfare state’s corruption of everything it touches, this is an area where it wouldn’t be too hard to find fifty people living off the Federal government and fifty people across the creek ready to shoot any DEA agent that stops to use the phone,.

What it’s NOT is about Glenn Beck, etc. I assure you that few people of the sort who would kill a census worker are concerned with Mr. Beck. They are probably more concerned with why their cousin is in prison or why they aren’t getting paid for running dope any more.

Posted by: TommyMertonHead @ 11:10 am | Trackback | Permalink

[kiaer.ts]

Yeah, guess I was wrong, they are now reporting that he was bound and gagged.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Reminds you of the story of the man found with two bullet holes in his head and it's ruled a suicide.

Phil,

I cannot reference the following, but it was told to me by people in Brazil I greatly respect. Apparently there is on file somewhere in the archives of the Brazilian police (I don't remember if it was the civil police or the military police) reporting that a prisoner had committed suicide and he had six shots in his head. This happened during the military dictatorship phase of Brazil's existence.

Michael

[anonrobt]

Reminds you of the story of the man found with two bullet holes in his head and it's ruled a suicide.

Phil,

I cannot reference the following, but it was told to me by people in Brazil I greatly respect. Apparently there is on file somewhere in the archives of the Brazilian police (I don't remember if it was the civil police or the military police) reporting that a prisoner had committed suicide and he had six shots in his head. This happened during the military dictatorship phase of Brazil's existence.

Michael

Perhaps he tripped, and the gun went automatic... ;-)

[Chris Grieb]

Reminds you of the story of the man found with two bullet holes in his head and it's ruled a suicide.

Phil,

I cannot reference the following, but it was told to me by people in Brazil I greatly respect. Apparently there is on file somewhere in the archives of the Brazilian police (I don't remember if it was the civil police or the military police) reporting that a prisoner had committed suicide and he had six shots in his head. This happened during the military dictatorship phase of Brazil's existence.

Michael

Perhaps he tripped, and the gun went automatic... ;-)

[/q During the Billy Sol Estes scandal which happened during the Kennedy administration some USDA civil servant death was ruled a sucide even through he had shot himself mutiple times.