August 23, 2023 • 58 mins
(Part 2 of 2) David Akeman affectionately known as “Stringbean” was born on June 17, 1915 to a farm family in Annville, Kentucky. Anneville is a small town in Jackson County, Kentucky. Stringbean’s love for music began at an early age. Before he was 8 years old, he built his first instrument out of a shoebox and thread. He most likely developed his early love for music from his father who was a successful banjo player who often played throughout the community. By the time Stringbean was 12, he bought his own banjo and then began playing at local dances and built a reputation as an excellent musician.
While working construction type work building roads and planting trees, he continued playing his banjo with a goal of making it big in the music business. His career began when he entered a contest being judged by singer-guitarist-musical saw player Asa Martin. After impressing Martin, he soon joined Martin’s band.
During a performance, Martin had forgotten David Akeman’s name. So he just introduced Akeman as “String Beans” The nickname was given to him based on his tall lanky frame. Apparently, the name stuck and David Akeman would become known simply as String Bean.
Not only did Stringbean become known for his musical abilities, he also became known for being a funny guy. Stringbean became known as a comedian musician. He also broadcast on WLAP out of Lexington, Kentucky, and played with different groups during the late 1930s. Strange enough, old country music back in the 30s didn’t include much banjo playing. However, Stringbean was able to keep banjo playing relevant in country music.
Interesting enough, Stringbean was also a decent semi pro baseball player. His baseball playing skills became known to Bill Monroe, who had his own semi pro club. Monroe was so impressed with Stringbean that he added Stringbean to his band. He played in Monroe’s band from 1943 until 1945.
After Stringbean left Monroe in 1945, he was replaced by another popular banjo player named Earl Scruggs, who had a different sound than Stringbean. Stringbean would also go on marry his sweetheart Estelle Stanfill in 1945. The following year he would begin working with another banjo player named Louis Marshall Jones, affectionately known as Grandpa Jones. The two men would both be together doing comedy in the television program Hee Haw. Grandpa Jones was a WWII veteran and would become Stringbean’s closest friend. The men also became neighbors in Goodlettsville, Tennessee.
Akeman was one of the Opry's top stars throughout the 1950s. Oddly enough, he didn't begin recording on his own until the early '60s, when he signed to the Starday label. He had hits with "Chewing Gum" and "I Wonder Where Wanda Went," and recorded seven albums between 1961 and 1972.
His first album was titled Old Time Pickin' and Grinnin' with Stringbean which was released in 1961. His music was considered folk stories with a taste of comedy. At the time, Stringbean and his buddy Grandpa Jones became the two biggest old time banjo players of their era.
In 1969, a country style comedy would come to television. The program would be called Hee Haw and was on television from 1969 to 1993. The program lasted for 26 seasons and recorded 655 episodes. Any popular country musician who was anybody appeared on the show.
Unfortunately, Stringbean and his wife Estelle would be tragically murdered on November 10, 1973. After the couple returned home from a performance at the Grand Ole Opry, they walked in on a robbery by two men. Stringbean was shot to death in front of his fireplace and his wife Estelle was shot to death outside their home while trying to flee the robbers.
It would be Grandpa Jones who would find the bodies of his beloved friends the next day. Grandpa Jones had plans to pick Stringbean up the next day for a a planned hunting trip. Grandpa Jones would learn the sad truth when he pulled up to his friend’s cabin at 2308 Baker Road near Ridgetop, Tennessee. According to author Taylor Hagood, Stringbean and Estelle didn’t believe in using banks. Both were alive during the Great Depression when many people who had money in their banks lost it all.
Stringbean was known to keep thousands of dollars in cash laying around his house. Grandpa warned him many times to not keep his money in the house. He told Stringbean that one day, keeping that cash around the house would get him killed. When Grandpa found the bodies of his murdered friends, he knew the day he worried about had finally come. The murders shocked Nashville residents. Author Taylor Hagood would write a book about Strinbean's life and death.
For his book about Stringbean, Hagood interviewed one of the lead investigators in the case, surviving members of Stringbean’s family and fellow musicians who knew Stringbean per
While working construction type work building roads and planting trees, he continued playing his banjo with a goal of making it big in the music business. His career began when he entered a contest being judged by singer-guitarist-musical saw player Asa Martin. After impressing Martin, he soon joined Martin’s band.
During a performance, Martin had forgotten David Akeman’s name. So he just introduced Akeman as “String Beans” The nickname was given to him based on his tall lanky frame. Apparently, the name stuck and David Akeman would become known simply as String Bean.
Not only did Stringbean become known for his musical abilities, he also became known for being a funny guy. Stringbean became known as a comedian musician. He also broadcast on WLAP out of Lexington, Kentucky, and played with different groups during the late 1930s. Strange enough, old country music back in the 30s didn’t include much banjo playing. However, Stringbean was able to keep banjo playing relevant in country music.
Interesting enough, Stringbean was also a decent semi pro baseball player. His baseball playing skills became known to Bill Monroe, who had his own semi pro club. Monroe was so impressed with Stringbean that he added Stringbean to his band. He played in Monroe’s band from 1943 until 1945.
After Stringbean left Monroe in 1945, he was replaced by another popular banjo player named Earl Scruggs, who had a different sound than Stringbean. Stringbean would also go on marry his sweetheart Estelle Stanfill in 1945. The following year he would begin working with another banjo player named Louis Marshall Jones, affectionately known as Grandpa Jones. The two men would both be together doing comedy in the television program Hee Haw. Grandpa Jones was a WWII veteran and would become Stringbean’s closest friend. The men also became neighbors in Goodlettsville, Tennessee.
Akeman was one of the Opry's top stars throughout the 1950s. Oddly enough, he didn't begin recording on his own until the early '60s, when he signed to the Starday label. He had hits with "Chewing Gum" and "I Wonder Where Wanda Went," and recorded seven albums between 1961 and 1972.
His first album was titled Old Time Pickin' and Grinnin' with Stringbean which was released in 1961. His music was considered folk stories with a taste of comedy. At the time, Stringbean and his buddy Grandpa Jones became the two biggest old time banjo players of their era.
In 1969, a country style comedy would come to television. The program would be called Hee Haw and was on television from 1969 to 1993. The program lasted for 26 seasons and recorded 655 episodes. Any popular country musician who was anybody appeared on the show.
Unfortunately, Stringbean and his wife Estelle would be tragically murdered on November 10, 1973. After the couple returned home from a performance at the Grand Ole Opry, they walked in on a robbery by two men. Stringbean was shot to death in front of his fireplace and his wife Estelle was shot to death outside their home while trying to flee the robbers.
It would be Grandpa Jones who would find the bodies of his beloved friends the next day. Grandpa Jones had plans to pick Stringbean up the next day for a a planned hunting trip. Grandpa Jones would learn the sad truth when he pulled up to his friend’s cabin at 2308 Baker Road near Ridgetop, Tennessee. According to author Taylor Hagood, Stringbean and Estelle didn’t believe in using banks. Both were alive during the Great Depression when many people who had money in their banks lost it all.
Stringbean was known to keep thousands of dollars in cash laying around his house. Grandpa warned him many times to not keep his money in the house. He told Stringbean that one day, keeping that cash around the house would get him killed. When Grandpa found the bodies of his murdered friends, he knew the day he worried about had finally come. The murders shocked Nashville residents. Author Taylor Hagood would write a book about Strinbean's life and death.
For his book about Stringbean, Hagood interviewed one of the lead investigators in the case, surviving members of Stringbean’s family and fellow musicians who knew Stringbean per
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:47):
Hello, and welcome to the CashMy Killer Podcast. Thank you for listening.
My name is Mark. For nearlyeight years, I've written a weekly
newspaper column about true crimes and missingpeople for the Clairemont Sun newspaper in Ohio.
With the column and podcast, ithas always been my objective to bring
attention to those cases that have notreceived much media attention, if any at
(01:11):
all. This week's story involves thehomicide of David Stringbean Akeman and his wife
is Still Stringbean was a country musicstar from Kentucky who was a grand old
opery legend from the time he wasa child. He had a love for
the banjo and would become known forhis old fashioned banjo picking style of playing.
(01:34):
He was one of the earliest castmembers of a family program called Keehaw.
Unfortunately, string Bean's rising star wouldbe dimmed forever when two men viciously
murdered him and his wife is Stellon November tenth, nineteen seventy three.
For string Being's story, I interviewedauthor Taylor Heygood, who wrote a true
(01:57):
crime book about string Being titled stringBeing The Life and Murder of a Country
music Legend. David Aikman affectionally knownas string Being, was born on June
(02:20):
seventeenth, nineteen fifteen, to afarm family in Annville, Kentucky. Based
on twenty twenty census data, Annvilleis a small town in Jackson County,
Kentucky, with a population of justover a thousand people. String Bean's love
for music began at an early age. Before he was even eight years old,
(02:42):
he built his first instrument of ashoe box and some thread that he
got from his mother. He mostlikely developed his early love for music from
his father, who was a successfulbanjo player who often played throughout the community.
So string Being grew up around musicianshis entire life, so it was
probably no surprise to anyone who knewhim that he would also grow up to
(03:04):
become a popular musician. By thetime he was twelve, he had enough
money to buy his own banjo.He then began playing at local dances and
built a reputation as an excellent banjoplayer. While working construction type jobs building
roads and planning trees, he continuedplaying his banjo with the goal of making
(03:27):
it big in a music business.String Bean's career officially took off after he
entered a contest being judged by musicianAsa Martin. After impressing Martin, he
soon joined Martin's band. During aperformance, Martin had forgotten David Aikman's name,
so he just simply introduced Aikman asstring Beans. The nickname was given
(03:51):
to him based on his tall,lanky frame. Apparently, the name stuck
and David Aikman would soon become knownas string Bean. I would also like
to add something about this nickname.It's also been said that Aikman was introduced
as string Beans plural, so it'sactually debatable whether Martin called him string Being
(04:13):
singular or string Beans plural. Andnot only did string Being become known for
his musical abilities, he also becameknown for being a pretty funny guy.
String Being became known as a comedianmusician. He also broadcast out of Wlap
out of Lexington, Kentucky, andplayed with different groups during the nineteen thirties.
(04:36):
Oddly enough, old country music backin the thirties really didn't include much
banjo playing. However, string Beingwas able to keep banjo playing relevant in
country music when he played. Inaddition to being a musician, string Being
truly was a man of different talents. A lot of people may not realize
(04:57):
it, but he was also adecent se my pro baseball player. His
baseball playing skills became known to musicianBill Monroe, who had his own semi
pro club. Monroe was so impressedwas string Bean that he added him to
his band. String Bean would playin Monroe's band from nineteen forty three until
nineteen forty five. After string Beanleft Monroe in nineteen forty five, he
(05:24):
was replaced by another popular banjo playernamed Earl Scruggs, who played a different
style of banjo than string Bean.Stringbean also would go on to marry his
sweetheart, a Stelle Standfill in nineteenforty five. The following year, he
would then begin working with another banjoplayer named Lewis Marshall Jones, affectionally known
(05:46):
as Grandpa Jones. The two menwould get together doing comedy in the television
program Heehaw. Grandpa Jones was aWorld War Two veteran and would become string
beans closest friend, and the twomen would also become neighbors in Goodlettsville,
Tennessee. During the late nineteen forties, string Being also formed a team with
(06:11):
lu Chouldrey and became a regular performerat the Grand Old Opry. During string
Bean's Grand Old Opry days, hebegan wearing his night shirt and pants that
made him look like a tall manwith tiny legs. He pretty much looked
like a human string Being playing atbanjo. It'smond said that string beans attire
(06:32):
was inspired by a comedian named SlimMiller. After World War Two, Uncle
Dave Macon, another Grand Old Oprylegend, took string Being under his wing.
He helped string Being develop his abilityto play songs and tell funny jokes.
Before Macon died, he gave stringBeing one of his prized banjo's.
(06:55):
During the nineteen fifties, string Beanbecame one of the Grand Old Operys biggest
stars. Although he had made aname for himself, he didn't sign with
a record label until the nineteen sixties, when he signed with the Star Day
label. He had hits with songsChewing Gum and I Wonder Where Wanda Went.
He recorded seven albums between nineteen sixtyone. In nineteen seventy two,
(07:20):
his first album was titled Old TimePicking and Grinning was string Being, which
was released in nineteen sixty one.His music was considered folk stories with a
taste of comedy. It's the timeString Being and his buddy Grandpa Jones became
the two biggest old time banjo playersof their era. In nineteen sixty nine,
(07:43):
a country style comedy would come totelevision. The program would be called
Heehaw and was on television from nineteensixty nine to nineteen ninety three. The
program lasted for twenty six seasons andrecorded six hundred and fifty five episodes.
Popular country musician who was Anybody appearedon the show. String Being and Grandpa
(08:05):
Jones would become a part of theoriginal cast. String Being became an instant
hit with the fans. His tall, lanky body, goofy facial expressions,
and lovable personality made him a fanfavorite. Coupled with Grandpa Jones, He
Hall was an immediate success. Evenif you didn't like country music back in
(08:26):
the day, you could still enjoywatching Heehaw. I'm not a country music
fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I absolutely loved watching Hehaw with
my parents and grandparents when I wasa child. Unfortunately, String Being and
his wife A Stell, would betragically murdered on November tenth, nineteen seventy
three, after the couple had returnedhome from a performance at the Grand Old
(08:50):
Opry, they walked in on arobbery by two men. String Being was
shot the death in front of hisfireplace and his wife Astell, shot to
death outside their home while trying toflee the burglars. It would be Grandpa
Jones who would find the bodies ofhis beloved friends the next day. Grandpa
(09:11):
Jones had plans the pick string Beingup the next day for a plan hunting
trip. As Grandpa Jones headed overto pick up string Bean, he became
concerned because he knew that string Beingmust start off every morning with a cup
of coffee next to a lit fireplace. When Grandpa didn't see any smoke coming
(09:31):
from string Bean's chimney, he knewsomething was wrong. Grandpa Jones would learn
the sad truth when he pulled upto his friend's cabin at twenty three zero
eight Baker Road near Ridge Top,Tennessee. According to author Taylor Heygood,
string Bean in a Stell did notbelieve in using banks. Keep in mind,
(09:52):
if they were both around during theGreat Depression, when many people who
had money in their banks lost itall. They just didn't trust the banks.
String Being was known to have keptthousands of dollars in cash laying around
his house, Grandpa Jones warning manytimes to not keep that much money in
the house. He had told stringBeing several times that one day, keeping
(10:16):
that much cash around the house wouldget him killed. When Grandpa found the
bodies of his murdered friends, heknew that day he had worried about had
finally come. The murders shocked Nashvilleresidents who would kill string Being in a
stell. The public and string Being'sfellow country stars were enraged. They demanded
(10:37):
law enforcement capture and punish whoever killedstring Being in a stell. Law enforcement
would eventually arrest and convict cousins JohnA. Brown and Marvin Douglas Brown,
both twenty three years old. Forhis book about string Being, author Taylor
Haygood interviewed one of the lead investigatorin the case. He also interviewed surviving
(11:03):
members of string Bean's family and fellowmusicians who knew string Bean personally. He
then compiled his findings into the booktitled string Bean, The Life and Murder
of a Country Music Legend. Thisis the conclusion of a two part story.
If you haven't already listened to thefirst half, please go back and
(11:26):
listen. And now on with thetragic story of David Aikman, affectionately known
as string Bean and his wife iscell Aikman, is told by author Taylor
hey Good. Taylor, first ofall, I would like to thank you
so much for sharing your research aboutDavid string Being Achman with me. Also,
(11:48):
thank you for sending me a copyof your book. I did read
it and I enjoyed it. Sowith that, let me start out with
asking you how to pronounce your lastname. I want to butcher it is
it hay Good or hey Good?It's hey Good, It's hey good,
Tylor hey Good. Okay, andthank you for the clarification. So tell
(12:13):
me about yourself and why you decidedto write a book about country music legend
string Being. My name is Taylorhey Good, and I am a professor.
I wear a lot of hats,but to my main thing is that
I'm a professor at Florida Atlantic University, which is in Boca Ratwn. But
long before I was a professor,I was very interested in old time country
(12:37):
music. I always loved the musicof Jimmy Rogers and Hank Williams and people
like that. And I was alsoin the playing music, playing the guitar
and the banjo and the piano andthat kind of thing, and particularly the
banjo was just always interesting to me. And when I was a kid,
I custored my mom in bed inthe buying me a banjo from my birthday.
It was a little harmony banjo fromSears catalog and I was just captivated
(13:03):
by this instrument. And I hadalso managed to pester them into taking me
to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Originally from North Mississippi, Ripley on
the Tennessee state line Mississippi Tennessee stateline. My dad's posted in Tennessee and
did a lot of places but thehome and the hometown. But anyway,
we went to the Country Music Hallof Fame, and there I saw a
(13:26):
string beans banjo and I saw thispicture of him, and he had a
very strange to dad in me.Had a very long torso and very short
pants, a very short leg.But it was a costume that he had
and I thought, man, that'sa strange looking guy. And I thought,
okay, But anyway, I heardmy mom and dad at the time
talking about remembering his being murdered abouttwo years before I was born. But
(13:48):
they were talking about that, andso it just bied the way in the
back of my mind. And thenI grew up and became a professor and
focusing on the Southern littus of thesouthern of the United States, and the
culture and the music and so forth. And I've been reading a lot of
biographies, and I was interested inbiography and interested in true crime. I've
(14:09):
been reading true crime, been readingnot just the court essential true crime book,
the sort of the original You inCold Blood, but others. And
I was interested in history generally.So anyway, one day I was just
looking on the phone in a videoof string being popped up, and I
thought, how about to read abook about him? And so that I
(14:30):
went to try to find one,and really wasn't one. There had the
book written in nineteen seventy five,two years after the murder, and it
was about the investigation, but itreally didn't give you much about String being's
life, which is so crucial tothe story in a way, the investigation,
the murder, and all in thetrial that those are all separate from
(14:50):
String Bean's life in some ways andseemed that way, but in fact they
take on their greatest power and meaningin light of his life stories. Anyway,
I just started doing the work onthat and said, well, I
guess I'm going to be the guywho writes this book. And that's how
it happened. Now, when youwrote your book, were you able to
(15:11):
actually find any surviving family members astring being and get to speak to any
of them to get their insights abouthim? Well? I did so.
Well, absolutely so. Some ofthe people I got to speak with who
knew were people who had worked withhim. So Loretta Leon the country music
saying very helpful of the book.Paul Jones had passed away, but his
(15:33):
son was very helpful. Also,there's a country sing named Whipper and Bill
Anderson pretty big, legendary kind ofguy. And so there were a number
of those people who helped out.And then there were some family. Now
by the time I got to doin this book, none of his siblings
and obviously his parents were no longeralive, but his nephew as a very
(15:54):
nice gentleman who lives in Kentucky.And in fact, they do a string
being annual school just this past weekend. His name is phill A. Tateman,
and he was incredibly generous, incrediblygenerous, and there was some other
nieces and nephews and so forth.But you know what, at this point,
I'm sorry to say, there aren'tmany people really to actually knew stream
(16:17):
Being. It's just a handful.And I was writing this book, of
course during the pandemic, and itturns out that people were you know,
i'd say it, you know,there were people who passed away before I
could get to it. One ofthe people I was going to try to
talk to was Roy Clark, andthe banjo player who toured was stream Being
early on, and I wasn't ablea best way before I did, so
(16:40):
those things happened, but I gotsome great stories, and probably one of
my favorite ones was Lulu Roman,who was one of the founding past members
of Heat Hall and stream Bean wason that with her, and she didn't
actually know anything about country music.When she got on the show. She
knew like one She knew buck Owensbasically, and she got on the showers
(17:02):
she didn't know who anybody was.And I asked her, I said,
what did you think when you sawthis guy? String being oh that long
his costume with the long shirt andthe short pants, And she said,
Honey, I was on so muchto LSD at that time that I thought
one of those creatures I've been seeingit become real. Well, that was
quite as smarted. Can you tellme more about the men that were arrested
(17:26):
for killing string being in a stell? If I recall they were John and
Doug Brown, and I believe theywere first cousins. Can you confirm that
and tell me a little bit moreabout their relationship? Yeah, John Brown
and Doug Brown were first dozens,Yes, okay, and I know that
they are the two people who areofficially labeled as being the killers of string
(17:52):
being in a stell. Can youtell me how did law enforcement catch these
two guys? How did they findout it was these two men? I
mean, we're talking about a timewhen there was no DNA or advanced law
enforcement techniques. It was basically justdown to what they call gumshoe detective work.
(18:15):
So tell me more about what ledto their arrest. Well, that
is a really interesting question. Actually, I really appreciate the way you're putting
these questions because they just very wellput because it was really one of the
most fascinating things to me and doingthis work. And I was able to
talk to Tommy Jacobs, one ofthe lead investigators. I was able to
(18:38):
get in touch with him. Inever succeeded in talking to me. I
don't even know if some of theother ones are still alive. I know
Sherman Nickins is still alive. Inever succeeded to get in touch with it,
getting in touch with him, butanyway, I taught to him and
I think one of the interesting thingswas that, And I think this is
something that in the realm of investigation, are those things that they had to
(19:03):
do maybe on some level with intuitionor interaction. They may have to do
with other things too. Doug's olderbrother, Charlie Brown, the one who
paid all the money for this lawyer. He had a talent agency and he
knew stream Being and they lived rightup the room from Stream Being had a
contributed talent agency, and he wasknown to have had lunch with stream Being
(19:25):
in his wife. And not onlythat, there is heard not too long
ago a gentleman who was used tobe in the country music industry, and
he was saying that Charlie Brown actuallydid book string being in some of his
those dates performances, so you know, that's a lot of connection, you
know what I mean. But hewas also somebody who was on some level
(19:45):
involved in the country music industry.People knew who he was and had some
kind of pool. I don't knowhow much you know, but anyway,
he as the investigation went along,there's a lot of bad blood between Charlie
Brown and Tommy Jacobs and some otherinvestigators, and they all saw him as
being bring leader of this thing.He was involved in a number of other
(20:06):
criminal activities at the time, buthe was very aggressive fighting back and he
was handful. Well. Anyway,what happened, what kind of implicating It
was very interesting because it was veryclear that Charlie and his brother and cousin
were all strategizing. They were strategizinghow can we get out of this?
(20:29):
And who knows what they were staying. Oh I did get touched with some
of them, and Dog Brown passedaway in prison, so there's no way
you can talk to him. Butit's hard to get a sense of what
they were trying to do. Butthey were strategizing and in the middle of
all this, there was a mannamed Bill Downey who showed up. The
investigators were stayed in stream Beings house, which, by the way, again
(20:52):
these were big guys staying in atiny house, so I don't know how
that worked out for him. Butanyway, they were hav to step around
the chalk outlines of the stream Beingson the floor. Well, anyway,
this guy, Bill down he comesto them and he starts telling this whole
story. And the way he tellsthe story is that Doug and John were
the one who were there, andJohn is the one who pulls the trigger
(21:15):
and kills street being while string Beanand Doug or fighting kind of scuffling,
and he claims the Streaming came inshooting, which may have been true.
The police believed it was true.They say the story was that Estelle ran
out and those things that she wasrunning away and shot. John shot her,
got her to the ground and thenshot her point banking the head and
came in laughing and saying this wasby being in Vietnam. Well, that
(21:37):
was the story that was told.It was a story, but it was
a story that made John the badguy. Doug was there, but John
was the bad guy. So Johnhad a very different story. John claimed
that Charlie had given some pills andhe had passed out that night and then
he woke up and they told himhe was the one who had done the
murder. If he talked to himnow, he'll tell you the same thing.
You'll say, I don't have anyremember, And there were other cases
(22:00):
where he didn't have that memory.Basically, so what happened then is based
on this Bill Downees informing if hewas an informant, based on that by
the way he built down he wasa criminal. He walked into the trial
was stolen boot. But for whateverreason, the investigators they liked Bill Downy.
They thought it was funny, andthey thought he was a character,
(22:22):
and they trusted him, and whichyou can understand. There was incredible pressure
on them to find the murderers,and here was somebody coming in and telling
them a story that fit with whatthey were thinking to happen, or that
they believe happened. I think onsome level, so in their minds it
was all working out, and thatmay be exactly how it played out.
(22:44):
But what happens is by the timehe got to the trial, you had
this situation where the trial is almostis largely based on Frankly, I kind
of hearsay, and that was apoint of contention in a number of ways.
But that's that's how it happened.So it was finally over with when
the arrests were made the investigators,who were the police, they arrested not
(23:07):
only Doug and Time, but Doug'sbrother Roy, and they arrested Charlie Brown.
Now, interestingly, the DA didn'twant to do that. MS Driver
said, I don't want to riskthat him, and Tommy Jacobs said he's
the guy who had planned it.He's the releader of this thing, although
that was contended. There was alsoothers saying he didn't plan it, but
that was this thing. And here'sthe DA said no, no, no,
(23:30):
we won't. We's not gonna bringhim in. So anyway, long
story short, all four of thesegentlemen were brought in no sooner, I
mean like a day later maybe Charliehad a lawyer come into the investigators to
say he wants to give you informationfor immunity to cut a deal, and
they kept that deal right then andthere because they claimed they wanted to find
(23:52):
the murder weapon, and there wastalk of a will that the players stream
being had left money to needy childrenand my own and knew that was entirely
made up. I talked to thefamily lawyer of the atman's and nobody would
say anything about a will, SoI didn't mean it couldn't have added,
but they did anyway, because ofwanting to get this will. They cut
that deal. And so Charlie wentfrom being a suspect and an informant of
(24:15):
being a witness in trial, basicallyspeaking on behalf of his brother against his
cousin. That's how it happened,and so and so they went to turn
no honor among thieves. I guessexactly right. So they went to the
trial and ultimately John and Doug wereconvicted, although when it was all sudden
(24:36):
done, the jury members came outin the number of them said we don't
actually have any idea what really happened, but we know for sure that these
two guys were there and they didsomething. They were involved in the murder
some way, and that was howit played out. But now I want
to say they were real stinkers.Now, the Browns were some bad folk.
(24:56):
It was a story that in themedia was the lines are very clearly
gone. Here are David and Estella, and that by any stretch of the
imagination, as far as anybody canknow, they're like completely innocent. They're
just like lambs to the slaughter,while the Browns were, You're just quintessential
(25:17):
bad guys. Just everything about themat that point, if everything about them
was just ugly and evil, theyrepresented I think the evil element in Nashville,
and so they're in the public mind. I think there was a sense
that this was a kind of retribution. There have been a sacrificial killing,
almost and now there needed to bepayment for that, and so that was
(25:41):
the pressure. In what kind ofa sentence did these guys get? They
got the two I think there werenoney nine years if they were called,
or maybe there were a lifetime.But anyway, they were done, if
I remember quickly, I think thedeal was that the judge said at the
end, I think they were donesimultaneously, not consecutively, the way it
was high really the way it wasthey basically like now they were not there
(26:03):
at that point. It turns outthat would be a year. A year
or so before that the death penaltyhad been abolished, so real Roy Acuff
was going around saying that punishment shouldnever have been abolished. These fellows need
to die, they need to tryin the chair. He was going around
saying, no, So I knowthat you said Doug died in prison,
(26:37):
but if I recall, didn't JohnBrown eventually get parolled and he's out now
exactly, So Doug kind of fadedaway. He died in the same prison,
by the way that the fictional HannibalLequor was being taken to when he
escaped. So it was an interestingplace there in Tennessee. But anyway,
(26:57):
he died in prison. But Johnand he was very quiet once the trial
was over. He never said much, but John was kind of loud.
One time, there was some countrymusic singers performing in the prison. He
happened to be there and he jumpedon the stage and he started introducing all
of them and it really made themall very upset. And his wife,
Libor, she started really campaigning inthe media, trying pretty rely on trying
(27:22):
to get you know, after everythingdied down. You know, by the
time he got into nineteen eighties andninetiesies, she's really started campaigning pretty pretty
hard to get John, you know, tind to change his image, and
this lady his wife was an accountantworking for the Cornerstone Church, and nashally
has the main minister of it wasa gentlemanhood committed murder as a kid,
(27:42):
and he came out of it andhe had a change of life and he
became a minister, and he wasvery compassionate about convicted people who were convicts,
and he started hiring them on Andanyway, there just became a mounting
campaign to say that John had changedhis life and he was following the teachings
(28:04):
of Jesus, and that he wassomebody who was become a Christian and had
had a chain complete change of lifeand was a good guy. What had
was a model inmate and though on. And so you'd have these parole hearings
where you would have on one sidepeople making that argument, and then you
would have on the other side peoplelike Porter Wagoner and Jean Shephard and Whispering
(28:29):
Bill Anderson and Mac Wiseman and allthese very famous countries bluegrass figures walking in
and saying you cannot parole this guy. This is a horrible crime. David
and I Filtman had done nothing wrongand they were killed in cold blood.
And so this went on, andit continued until finally, in twenty fourteen,
the tide turned and the parole boardvoted to let John out. And
(28:56):
he got out and he got ajob as a maintenance man at the Cornerstone
Church fared north of Nashville. AndI tried to talk to him. Basically,
I was told he wanted to moveon from all of this, and
which I understand. But people arevery divided. I tell you this.
People are very divided still in Nashvilleabout this thing. There are people who
(29:17):
still say this is somebody who didnot deserve any mercy, certainly doesn't deserve
a role, and then there arepeople who say otherwise. And it's not
always di Lulu Roman I mentioned earliershe's become a gospel singer, and she
said, I've heard great things aboutmister Brown and he's tremendous thing that he's
changed his life. So people arestill in different places about it, but
(29:37):
it's still a thing. In Nashville. People are very aware of it.
If you talk to people in thebusiness of the country, US of business,
you'll hear him say I was tallone of the killer and I saw
John Brown the other day couldn't gasin his car or they have an opinion.
You know, if there's something thathappened so long ago, you'd be
shocked how fresh it is. Andthere are people are very conscious of stream
(29:57):
being and music. I have afriend the Pam McDonald is excellent piano player,
played with Hank Williams and Blake Sheltonand Pam Tillers and people like that.
You're doing the whole album just anhonor of stream being in Stlaightman.
So there's a lot of that outthere in Nashville. It's still really a
thing. I don't want to sayit feels fresh, but I think it's
(30:19):
immediate enough that people feel a connectionto stream being into the murder and all
of that. I think there's akind of connection there, especially people in
the country music industry. So regardingthese two cousins, I don't know if
I want to use the word ironic, but John Brown is listed as the
(30:40):
shooter, but yet Doug is theone that actually died in prison and John
is the one that is actually outof prison and he killed two people.
It seems backwards like it should havebeen the other way around. Maybe the
shooter should have died in prison,and the one who wasn't the actual shooter
should have lived long enough to getparoled. Doesn't that seem like a strange
(31:04):
twist of fate to you? Yeah? Exactly, that is a tremendous irony.
The one man who survives at alland triggered Mager. Yes. Well,
And although Brown killed two people andthis public believes that he should still
be in prison, apparently that's notthe case because the Pearl Board decided to
(31:29):
go ahead and let him out.In anyway, as people outside the story
who are looking in, we haveto look at it as if he spent
his time in prison, he paidhis price, his debt to society,
and as long as he stays outof trouble, then there's no reason to
really think too much more about him. Exactly, he served his time,
(31:49):
he did. I was looking forinformation about him after he was paroled,
and I didn't find anything about him. So that tells me he's probably stayed
out of trouble. So who knows, perhaps he was actually rehabilitated and actually
feels bad about the crimes that hecommitted. Well, when doing the book,
(32:13):
I was the book signing and agentleman came up to me and he
said, well, he said,listen, I was working in the Tennessee
prison system and John Brown, andhe said, he's a good guy.
He really has changed, and yes, indeed has been has been quiet ever
since. And in fact, Iwould love again, as I say,
as I mentioned earlier, I hatedthat I could not succeed and get the
(32:35):
talk to him. I understand he'swanting to move on, but I've mentioned
this to other people. I wouldlove to have gotten his comments on it.
What does the world look like tohim now? But I also understand,
Hey, you want to move onfrom this. I understand that.
But what's not as settled as itseemed? I guess I should mention that
Doug Brown had called the Nashville Tennesseeand newspaper only a few days a day
(32:59):
or two of the murder, andhe was saying he didn't reveal his name
at the time, but he said, what, my partner kills stream Being
with stream Being's own gun. Youknow. One of the interesting things about
is that stream Being was killed withDoug's gun allegedly now allegedly, because again
it gets pretty murky the ballistics andso forth. It wasn't. Really,
(33:21):
it's not totally clear that this particulargun was used. And by the way,
to me for the weren't murder weaponshave ever been recovered to this day,
they've never been recovered, so whoknows what the claim is Doug claim
when he called the seeing that hispartner killed stream Being with his own gun,
Well, he ended up giving alazy confession, or at least that's
(33:45):
what he claimed it was with adifferent national paper later on after he had
been arrested and he was waiting fortrial to start, and he in that
when he changed the story, hewas still saying that John did the killing,
but now he was saying that Johnhad his gun, Doug's gun,
and did shooting while John had Doughad John's gun, and nobody could ever
figure out why they why did theytrade gun? And meanwhile there were reports
(34:09):
that either the yellow truck pulling outof the parking lot the driveway a stream
Beans Holson and John Brown had ayellow truck. And I think a lot
of people know the story is beingfairly clear, clean cut, but it's
really not. And you, ofall people know that murder is just always
missy, you know, and youdo the best you can, but you
(34:31):
know, all these years later toplay the devil's out of the kit,
I would almost say, based onwhatever evidence that they had at the time,
I would almost dare I say,it lean towards the possibility that maybe
John Brown really did not do this. I believe that he was probably there,
(34:52):
but it could have been the cousinwho did the shooting, or maybe
someone else. Because, as yousaid, this whole case, the trial,
I feel like it was just reallymurky, and based on everything that
I've read about this case, Idon't know, it just feels like something's
missing from this story, like therewas other things that happened that we don't
(35:16):
really know about, things that maybelaw enforcement is never released. But I
think because of the fact that thiswas string being and this was a high
profile case, I almost feel likemaybe they just rushed to judgment to arrest
someone because I'm sure these police officerswere under a lot of pressure to get
(35:40):
someone. I mean, someone hadto go down for this, and maybe
the Browns were just the perfect peopleto go after. They weren't exactly wealthy
guys. They didn't have money,and they probably weren't the smartest guys.
On the block. Maybe they seemlike good suspects or someone else. Yeah,
that's never could So there had alot of different kind of cigarettes there
(36:01):
that left behind, And that wasone of the things I was talking about.
It is like, how do youknow that there were not more than
two people there? And there wasnever a really good answer given to that.
But meanwhile, even if there hadbeen, yeah, here it is
a doug you know. And JohnBrown was known to have these blackouts and
commit violence and not have any memoryof it at all. This was established
(36:22):
in his pet. He had abad pass on Brown. He was definitely
a violent person, so it couldhave been that too, you know.
But even with that, you know, you say, well, what happened
here? You know what I mean? And it's it's murky. It's pretty
murky really, So yeah, whoknows in the end, and most likely
we'll probably never truly know what happenedon that day back in November of nineteen
(36:46):
seventy three. I think a lotof it's just conjecture and that you probably
did the best you could to getwhat information you could get, but we'll
probably never really know what happened.We'll probably never know, But that's why.
I appreciate you asking the question thatway, because sometimes people will say,
well, what happened that night?You know. That's how I wanted
(37:07):
to write the book, was say, Okay, I was going to start
out with the night of the murder, what happened? And the more I
dealed into the more I felt thatin good conscience I couldn't narrate the murder
because I truthfully don't really believe I'msure that I know what happened, right.
And you know, when I wasgoing to write my column about this,
(37:29):
I read a whole bunch of differentarticles, and I looked at little
video clips or anything that I couldreally find about string being. And you
know what, after I wrote mycolumn for the newspaper, I was thinking
to myself, did these guys?Did these guys really do? This?
Was law enforcement just looking for someoneto arrest these guys? Seemed really convenient.
(37:54):
But back in those days, youdidn't have DNA or you know,
fingerprints had to be analyzed by hand. You didn't have any type of computers
or technology to help you. Itwas all a matter of as I've said
before, that gumshoe detective work whereyou had to knock on doors and walk
around and look for stuff. AndI'm sure the crime scene people had probably
(38:16):
trampled on it because back in thosedays they didn't necessarily have the wherewithal to
understand that you have to protect crimescene. But I don't know if that
necessarily happened. So, you know, if you want to go by genetic
evidence, can you really honestly saywithout a shadow of a doubt that John
(38:40):
Brown was actually the killer? I'mnot so sure. I mean, based
on everything that you had said andeverything that I've read on my own,
there was no smoking gun. Agun wasn't recovered. And let's just say
that these guys were convicted basically onhearsay. Somebody said that these two guys
(39:06):
did it, so you don't haveanybody else. But that's off putting if
that's all you have is the testimonyof a guy that's a criminal. No,
I never found a gun. It'sall basically to hear Yes, it
was, yes, And as youmentioned earlier, there was other things going
on behind the scenes. You saidthat there was a three or four people
(39:29):
total that were supposedly involved in puttingthis together, but yet only two were
charged. So you had two thatwere willing to make deals and serve as
witnesses instead of being charged. Sodid those other two people actually know anything
or have anything to do with this? Who knows? And by the time
(39:53):
it came down to it, itlooked like John and Doug Brown would eventually
be the ones to take fall forthis. And in my opinion, these
guys don't really sound smart enough tohave planned this type of robbery. You
almost have to wonder if there wassomeone who was smarter than them, who
was a mastermind, who helped planit, someone who knew more intimate details
(40:17):
about String being having the money inthis house. How would a couple of
guys like John and Doug Brown reallyknow that String being kept all kinds of
money around. These guys didn't haveany connections or anything, so you almost
have to wonder if someone helped themset it up, if someone told them
and encouraged them. But you knowwhat, we'll never know. But whenever
(40:43):
you look at cases and you havepeople that are witnesses, how much credibility
do you want to give them whenyou find out that they got a deal.
They have a reason for saying whatthey're saying. They're not doing it
out of the pinness in their heart. Well, right, And in this
(41:15):
particular case, I think there wouldbe motivation for people to lie about what
they knew that actually happened because ofit being such a high profile case.
That's how it looks to me,you know. I mean, yeah,
And as you probably know, beinga fan of true crime, you know
(41:37):
that these snitches aren't exactly choir boys. I mean almost all of them,
if not all of them, havesome kind of criminal record. So you
have a case where you have onecriminal writting out another criminal. If you
think about it, isn't it kindof like just switching the deck chairs on
the Titanic? Well? No,right, I hear you, dog,
(42:00):
I hear you. I mean that'swhat it is, you know. And
I think that was whine. Ijust kind of felt like, you know,
and I don't, you know,I don't mean anything against the lawyers.
They had to get somebody, asyou say, I mean, somebody
was going to have to pay forthis. Somebody's going to pay for it.
And this was string being a veryfamous man at the time. There
(42:22):
was no way this murder was goingto go on soft. Someone was going
to get arrested for it. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah, No,
that was exactly the case. Hehad. Sherman Nickins was one of the
investigators, and he talked about thatparticularly. He said the pressure was just
so intense. And when you thinkabout it and you think, okay,
(42:43):
they got to do this in atimely way. The investigations started number eleventh,
finished up in front of January,and that's kind of a long time.
But it's also yeah, when youlook at those pressures and you think,
okay, results, You've got toget results, and so what do
you have to do to get thoseresults? And clearly there's one thing that
(43:04):
is very clear is yes that Johnand Doug Brown were there. There's no
doubt about it. They have beentalking about some things. There is plenty
there. And were they there yet, I mean, but quite exactly their
roles were? And was there anybodyelse there? Those are kind of the
spect the question of anybody else therejust they were questions, But I think
it could not be pursued at thetime because I think it just made more
(43:27):
sense to get it hashed out thisway. They were too bad guys,
They were easy, they were nottoo bright in a way maybe at the
time, and I think it waslike, these are you guys now?
If you were to look at today'slaw enforcement, you'd have to wonder what
they even arrest these two guys today. If this happened, I doubt if
this would even go to trial.I mean not with what the evidence that
(43:50):
they had back then. Yeah,well that's an interesting point. Yeah,
And if this trial happened today,based on the evidence that they had back
then, I don't think a jurywould even convict these guys, much less
would a prosecutory and want to bringit to trial. I know it was
so many years ago and things havechanged, but if you look at this
(44:14):
case compared to how everything unfolded backthen, compared to how it would today,
it'd be a totally different case.There would be so many variances in
the way that this case was investigated. Well, I think that's an interesting
question or interesting point, you know, the question of whether or not the
(44:37):
jury would convictim. When you readthat trial, do you think, to
man, this defense attorney has spokena lot of holes in this thing,
and there are a lot of momentswhere you think, I don't know,
someboding called upon who listen to thisstory? And one of the other factors,
and the thing is the defense attorneyfor John Brown, Joe Bakley,
continued to represent Doug. It's kindof interesting sort of split that the trial
(45:00):
was held the same time, butit was split as two different trial numbers,
but there were two different lawyers forthe two different guys, and so
he had this kind of sort ofstrangely tangulated trial where you had to kind
of the prosecutor who's sort of workingit a little bit but away you kind
of working Dug against John, butstill trying to get both of them convicted.
(45:22):
And he got the attorney for Dougworking against John basically, and he
had John's attorney working against everybody,and meanwhile the pressure was getting to him.
He had a lot of issues ofsubstance abuse. His name was Arnold
Peoples, and he and one ofthe big things. Now he was on
cocaine and the second day of thetrial was delayed because he had to go
(45:44):
to the hospital for high blood pressure. After the trial was over, it
turned himself in. He ended upwith his license, but he was no
longer part of the bar, anda number of cases were reviewed and when
he finally got his argument, thetime for the defense to make its case.
It was a complete disaster. Hewas incoherent and they probably was the
(46:06):
worst tenses in the history and Nashville. And so I think the jury,
you know, I thought about it. What would I where would I about
if I were on the jury,knowing what I know now, as far
as having been retrospected, been ableto have access to information that the jury
would not have had necessarily, youknow, they would not have necessarily been
able to go through and follow allthe different kinds of information or be pretty
(46:28):
good things that how they unfolded.I think I would have been like,
Okay, you know, I don'tknow what to do because but I would
have definitely thought, man, thisdefense is a complete disaster. And I
think that's what happened. I thinkthey said, well, I don't know
that the case really or by thestate was that strong, but the defense
(46:51):
was so weak. And this isheld in Nashville, by the way,
that's a little detail that nobody everreally talks about. But you know,
where you're really getting a fair jury. Everybody that really knows what's happened,
you know, right and back then, everyone know who string being was,
and especially if you lived in Nashvilleand you were being tried in that area.
(47:15):
Everyone knew who he was, soyou have to wonder was the trial
even going to be fair. Everybodyknows who stream Being is. It wasn't
done outside of Nashville. And thejudge, you know, Cornelius, he
was allowing the media in on it, and you know he was allowing it
to be a circus. And thoseguys John and dun Brown never had a
(47:36):
chance. It was a sort ofa foregone conclusion in my opinion, for
a social viewpoint, it was aforegone conclusion had they not been convicted.
I hate to think what would happen, you know, I hate to sick
and gifts people. Historically, again, we were in a position to see
things. Maybe they couldn't see them, but I don't know what the motivations
(47:57):
are, and if everybody from Nashville'slistening. I don't mean to be smurge
to the attorneys or anything, butattorneys have careers and they have things to
build, and who knows what theirmotivations are for things. So it's a
very fascinating story. Really, Ithink stream Being had been a little more
high profile than if it's been anElvis or somebody. There'd be probably one
(48:19):
hundred and eighty books written about thisalready. But I feel this writing the
book was extremely difficult because you cannotyou can't really separated, as I mentioned
earlier, the true crime aspect ofit in the biography aspect of it.
In some ways, they're like twodifferent books that you've got to put together,
but both of them take their fullpower and meaning from each other.
(48:43):
But it was very hard to writeit, and I kind of wondered for
a while why nobody had written thisother than that one book that had been
written by a Nashville Banner reporter workingwith Tommy Jacobs back in nineteen seventy five.
I know why, because it's hardto put those two stories together.
Is extremely difficult to do, soI think that's why nobody has written the
(49:05):
story before now. But I thinka stream being have been a little bigger,
just a little bit bigger. Ithink this would have been even more
written about any people may go inthere and kind of dig in. There
may be people who would have qualificationsor types of access that I don't have
or did now, that could dredgeout information I couldn't find, you know,
so, right, okay, Andthe last question that I would want
(49:30):
to ask you is based on yourexperience of writing this book, in all
the research that you conducted, andspeaking to everyone that you have already spoken
to, what is the number onething that you want people listening to this
(49:51):
to know about string being We're talkingabout a man that died many years ago.
A lot of people probably have neverheard of string We should got all
people like me who did watch helaw, who do know who he was,
So tell me what was so uniqueabout him? What is string beings
(50:12):
legacy? Well, I think hislegacy again, I appreciate these questions very
much the way you put him,I think for me, and the thing
that I think drove me through theprocess of writing this book, which had
a number of challenges. I thinkfor me, probably the thing that I
felt the most to be the mostimportant being in terms of string Beings legacy,
(50:37):
is that he was somebody who livedthrough the Great Depression, and lived
through World War Two. He livedthrough the Atomic era, he lived through
the nineteen sixties of Vietnam, andall the fascinations and all the unrealist and
all the trouble and all the momentswhen it kind of like with our late
(50:57):
pandemic, all those moments when youthink is there even going to be a
future or what is it going tolook like? And I think everybody on
some level had that feeling in oneway or another, whatever your view of
whatever was going on, I thinkthere was enough going on, you know,
or you just think there are thesemoments when you in life when you
think what is life even going tobe? And how was it going to
go? And all this strife anddivision, all that street b was a
(51:22):
guy who threw all of that,was steadfast and brought entertainment, and he
brought levity and joy. You know. He was making people laugh and in
a way that was kind of abovethe free. So for me, that's
his legacy. He was somebody inan era that in which people have a
(51:46):
hard time getting on the same pagewhat is politically or socially or whatever.
He was somebody who was able topull that off. That's who he really
was. He was somebody who wasable to a human level. You might
not one may not agree with somethingabout the way he does the world or
looks at the world or whatever,but he was somebody who was kind of
(52:07):
above that and he brought humility,and that humility had a certain openness.
And I think he's somebody that youcan look to who's above the phrase and
who said, no matter how badthings are, no matter how scary they
are, no matter how gain muchdivision or whatever, you can carry on.
(52:29):
You can just carry on. Youcan sing us home, you can
tell a joke and you'll get throughit. And that's submitting it was real,
the real power of who he was. I guess why all kinds of
people. So I think that that'swhat it was about, you know,
based on listening to your research,looking at your book and everything that I
(52:52):
looked up to write my column aboutstring Being. My thoughts on him were
that he was just a humble,kind hearted man. He was a good
husband, a good friend, agood musician. Everyone loved him. I
didn't find anything where anyone had anythingbad to say about the man. He
(53:14):
was definitely a witty character, yeah, sir, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah.
Even though string Being wasn't on thisplanet for very long and he died
at a fairly young age, Ithink that he did make a great impact
on country music and upon a lotof his fans. He's been gone for
fifty years, or so, andhere you and I are talking about him.
(53:36):
Fifty years later after his death,he wrote a book about him.
I wrote a column about him,and you and I both like his music
and we still listen to so evenin death, he's had an impact on
both of our lives. That's whatI would say, exactly. Okay,
And for anyone out there that's listeningto this podcast episode and they're interested and
(53:59):
purchasing a copy of the book,String Being The Life and Murder of a
Country music Legend, tell me wherecan they get this book? Obviously Amazon?
But where else? Got anything?I just about everything? Get on
Amazon? You got there's an Amazonpaperback it's a nineteen ninety five, or
you can get it on the kindles, a kindle version, so we can
(54:21):
get it on Barns and Noble online. It's in certain bookstores, so it
was put kind of regionally. Soif you're in the Kentucky area or Tennessee,
some of those areas vinyas instan places, some of the Barns and Nobles
will have them locally, you know, some of the independent bookstores will have
them. I think Pale's Books upin Oregon or mother get where it is,
Washington, Oregon has some copies youknow there, I think I heard,
(54:44):
and so you know, there aresome independent bookstores that have them,
but definitely online if you go toAmazon or Barns of Noble, or you
can also order directly from the Universityof Illinois Press. So it's it's pretty
easy to get the order from Amazon. It comes into whatever. And there
is a talk of an audio versionof it, but that's not out yet,
(55:07):
so I don't know when that'll beor if that's going to work out.
But anyway, so there's available kinda few places actually online, different
kind of bookstores I've noticed, soyeah, it's pretty much available out there.
And if anyone wants to contact youwith questions about your book, what's
the name of the website that theycan go to? Well, absolutely if
(55:29):
I would be delighted to hear fromanybody, and my website is just my
name is Taylor hey Good dot com. That's t Y l O R H
A g O D dot com andyou can contact me through there, and
I would be absolutely delighted. I'lltell you I have gotten a number of
emails. I'm shocked that tell you. The emails that come in from people
(55:52):
I've never heard of saying read bookor stream being fans or in some cases
they had and didn't know about stream. They like country music and they ran
across this, and how much shouldthey were fascinated with the story, so
I would be sometimes they have questionsand I absolutely would be happy to hear
from any boy time. And thatconcludes the story of string Being as told
(56:16):
by author Taylor hey Good. Again, if you haven't listened to the first
half of this interview, please goback and listen. If you enjoy reading
true crime books, then I highlyrecommend that you purchase a copy of Taylor's
book. The book takes you fromstring Being's humble beginnings as a child making
(56:37):
his own instruments to becoming a countrymusic legend. You can get your own
copy of string Being The Life andMurder of a Country Music Legend, written
by Taylor Heygood on Amazon dot comor wherever else you purchase your favorite books.
And if you would like to contactTaylor about his book, please visit
(56:59):
Taylor hey Good dot com. Iwill be sure to include this information in
the case story notes. And ifyou are a parent, law enforcement official,
friend, or relatives, you canjustice for an unsolved common side case.
Please visit my website and complete thecontact form. You can also contact
me through Facebook. Thank you forlistening.
Hello, and welcome to the CashMy Killer Podcast. Thank you for listening.
My name is Mark. For nearlyeight years, I've written a weekly
newspaper column about true crimes and missingpeople for the Clairemont Sun newspaper in Ohio.
With the column and podcast, ithas always been my objective to bring
attention to those cases that have notreceived much media attention, if any at
(01:11):
all. This week's story involves thehomicide of David Stringbean Akeman and his wife
is Still Stringbean was a country musicstar from Kentucky who was a grand old
opery legend from the time he wasa child. He had a love for
the banjo and would become known forhis old fashioned banjo picking style of playing.
(01:34):
He was one of the earliest castmembers of a family program called Keehaw.
Unfortunately, string Bean's rising star wouldbe dimmed forever when two men viciously
murdered him and his wife is Stellon November tenth, nineteen seventy three.
For string Being's story, I interviewedauthor Taylor Heygood, who wrote a true
(01:57):
crime book about string Being titled stringBeing The Life and Murder of a Country
music Legend. David Aikman affectionally knownas string Being, was born on June
(02:20):
seventeenth, nineteen fifteen, to afarm family in Annville, Kentucky. Based
on twenty twenty census data, Annvilleis a small town in Jackson County,
Kentucky, with a population of justover a thousand people. String Bean's love
for music began at an early age. Before he was even eight years old,
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he built his first instrument of ashoe box and some thread that he
got from his mother. He mostlikely developed his early love for music from
his father, who was a successfulbanjo player who often played throughout the community.
So string Being grew up around musicianshis entire life, so it was
probably no surprise to anyone who knewhim that he would also grow up to
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become a popular musician. By thetime he was twelve, he had enough
money to buy his own banjo.He then began playing at local dances and
built a reputation as an excellent banjoplayer. While working construction type jobs building
roads and planning trees, he continuedplaying his banjo with the goal of making
(03:27):
it big in a music business.String Bean's career officially took off after he
entered a contest being judged by musicianAsa Martin. After impressing Martin, he
soon joined Martin's band. During aperformance, Martin had forgotten David Aikman's name,
so he just simply introduced Aikman asstring Beans. The nickname was given
(03:51):
to him based on his tall,lanky frame. Apparently, the name stuck
and David Aikman would soon become knownas string Bean. I would also like
to add something about this nickname.It's also been said that Aikman was introduced
as string Beans plural, so it'sactually debatable whether Martin called him string Being
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singular or string Beans plural. Andnot only did string Being become known for
his musical abilities, he also becameknown for being a pretty funny guy.
String Being became known as a comedianmusician. He also broadcast out of Wlap
out of Lexington, Kentucky, andplayed with different groups during the nineteen thirties.
(04:36):
Oddly enough, old country music backin the thirties really didn't include much
banjo playing. However, string Beingwas able to keep banjo playing relevant in
country music when he played. Inaddition to being a musician, string Being
truly was a man of different talents. A lot of people may not realize
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it, but he was also adecent se my pro baseball player. His
baseball playing skills became known to musicianBill Monroe, who had his own semi
pro club. Monroe was so impressedwas string Bean that he added him to
his band. String Bean would playin Monroe's band from nineteen forty three until
nineteen forty five. After string Beanleft Monroe in nineteen forty five, he
(05:24):
was replaced by another popular banjo playernamed Earl Scruggs, who played a different
style of banjo than string Bean.Stringbean also would go on to marry his
sweetheart, a Stelle Standfill in nineteenforty five. The following year, he
would then begin working with another banjoplayer named Lewis Marshall Jones, affectionally known
(05:46):
as Grandpa Jones. The two menwould get together doing comedy in the television
program Heehaw. Grandpa Jones was aWorld War Two veteran and would become string
beans closest friend, and the twomen would also become neighbors in Goodlettsville,
Tennessee. During the late nineteen forties, string Being also formed a team with
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lu Chouldrey and became a regular performerat the Grand Old Opry. During string
Bean's Grand Old Opry days, hebegan wearing his night shirt and pants that
made him look like a tall manwith tiny legs. He pretty much looked
like a human string Being playing atbanjo. It'smond said that string beans attire
(06:32):
was inspired by a comedian named SlimMiller. After World War Two, Uncle
Dave Macon, another Grand Old Oprylegend, took string Being under his wing.
He helped string Being develop his abilityto play songs and tell funny jokes.
Before Macon died, he gave stringBeing one of his prized banjo's.
(06:55):
During the nineteen fifties, string Beanbecame one of the Grand Old Operys biggest
stars. Although he had made aname for himself, he didn't sign with
a record label until the nineteen sixties, when he signed with the Star Day
label. He had hits with songsChewing Gum and I Wonder Where Wanda Went.
He recorded seven albums between nineteen sixtyone. In nineteen seventy two,
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his first album was titled Old TimePicking and Grinning was string Being, which
was released in nineteen sixty one.His music was considered folk stories with a
taste of comedy. It's the timeString Being and his buddy Grandpa Jones became
the two biggest old time banjo playersof their era. In nineteen sixty nine,
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a country style comedy would come totelevision. The program would be called
Heehaw and was on television from nineteensixty nine to nineteen ninety three. The
program lasted for twenty six seasons andrecorded six hundred and fifty five episodes.
Popular country musician who was Anybody appearedon the show. String Being and Grandpa
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Jones would become a part of theoriginal cast. String Being became an instant
hit with the fans. His tall, lanky body, goofy facial expressions,
and lovable personality made him a fanfavorite. Coupled with Grandpa Jones, He
Hall was an immediate success. Evenif you didn't like country music back in
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the day, you could still enjoywatching Heehaw. I'm not a country music
fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I absolutely loved watching Hehaw with
my parents and grandparents when I wasa child. Unfortunately, String Being and
his wife A Stell, would betragically murdered on November tenth, nineteen seventy
three, after the couple had returnedhome from a performance at the Grand Old
(08:50):
Opry, they walked in on arobbery by two men. String Being was
shot the death in front of hisfireplace and his wife Astell, shot to
death outside their home while trying toflee the burglars. It would be Grandpa
Jones who would find the bodies ofhis beloved friends the next day. Grandpa
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Jones had plans the pick string Beingup the next day for a plan hunting
trip. As Grandpa Jones headed overto pick up string Bean, he became
concerned because he knew that string Beingmust start off every morning with a cup
of coffee next to a lit fireplace. When Grandpa didn't see any smoke coming
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from string Bean's chimney, he knewsomething was wrong. Grandpa Jones would learn
the sad truth when he pulled upto his friend's cabin at twenty three zero
eight Baker Road near Ridge Top,Tennessee. According to author Taylor Heygood,
string Bean in a Stell did notbelieve in using banks. Keep in mind,
(09:52):
if they were both around during theGreat Depression, when many people who
had money in their banks lost itall. They just didn't trust the banks.
String Being was known to have keptthousands of dollars in cash laying around
his house, Grandpa Jones warning manytimes to not keep that much money in
the house. He had told stringBeing several times that one day, keeping
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that much cash around the house wouldget him killed. When Grandpa found the
bodies of his murdered friends, heknew that day he had worried about had
finally come. The murders shocked Nashvilleresidents who would kill string Being in a
stell. The public and string Being'sfellow country stars were enraged. They demanded
(10:37):
law enforcement capture and punish whoever killedstring Being in a stell. Law enforcement
would eventually arrest and convict cousins JohnA. Brown and Marvin Douglas Brown,
both twenty three years old. Forhis book about string Being, author Taylor
Haygood interviewed one of the lead investigatorin the case. He also interviewed surviving
(11:03):
members of string Bean's family and fellowmusicians who knew string Bean personally. He
then compiled his findings into the booktitled string Bean, The Life and Murder
of a Country Music Legend. Thisis the conclusion of a two part story.
If you haven't already listened to thefirst half, please go back and
(11:26):
listen. And now on with thetragic story of David Aikman, affectionately known
as string Bean and his wife iscell Aikman, is told by author Taylor
hey Good. Taylor, first ofall, I would like to thank you
so much for sharing your research aboutDavid string Being Achman with me. Also,
(11:48):
thank you for sending me a copyof your book. I did read
it and I enjoyed it. Sowith that, let me start out with
asking you how to pronounce your lastname. I want to butcher it is
it hay Good or hey Good?It's hey Good, It's hey good,
Tylor hey Good. Okay, andthank you for the clarification. So tell
(12:13):
me about yourself and why you decidedto write a book about country music legend
string Being. My name is Taylorhey Good, and I am a professor.
I wear a lot of hats,but to my main thing is that
I'm a professor at Florida Atlantic University, which is in Boca Ratwn. But
long before I was a professor,I was very interested in old time country
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music. I always loved the musicof Jimmy Rogers and Hank Williams and people
like that. And I was alsoin the playing music, playing the guitar
and the banjo and the piano andthat kind of thing, and particularly the
banjo was just always interesting to me. And when I was a kid,
I custored my mom in bed inthe buying me a banjo from my birthday.
It was a little harmony banjo fromSears catalog and I was just captivated
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by this instrument. And I hadalso managed to pester them into taking me
to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Originally from North Mississippi, Ripley on
the Tennessee state line Mississippi Tennessee stateline. My dad's posted in Tennessee and
did a lot of places but thehome and the hometown. But anyway,
we went to the Country Music Hallof Fame, and there I saw a
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string beans banjo and I saw thispicture of him, and he had a
very strange to dad in me.Had a very long torso and very short
pants, a very short leg.But it was a costume that he had
and I thought, man, that'sa strange looking guy. And I thought,
okay, But anyway, I heardmy mom and dad at the time
talking about remembering his being murdered abouttwo years before I was born. But
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they were talking about that, andso it just bied the way in the
back of my mind. And thenI grew up and became a professor and
focusing on the Southern littus of thesouthern of the United States, and the
culture and the music and so forth. And I've been reading a lot of
biographies, and I was interested inbiography and interested in true crime. I've
(14:09):
been reading true crime, been readingnot just the court essential true crime book,
the sort of the original You inCold Blood, but others. And
I was interested in history generally.So anyway, one day I was just
looking on the phone in a videoof string being popped up, and I
thought, how about to read abook about him? And so that I
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went to try to find one,and really wasn't one. There had the
book written in nineteen seventy five,two years after the murder, and it
was about the investigation, but itreally didn't give you much about String being's
life, which is so crucial tothe story in a way, the investigation,
the murder, and all in thetrial that those are all separate from
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String Bean's life in some ways andseemed that way, but in fact they
take on their greatest power and meaningin light of his life stories. Anyway,
I just started doing the work onthat and said, well, I
guess I'm going to be the guywho writes this book. And that's how
it happened. Now, when youwrote your book, were you able to
(15:11):
actually find any surviving family members astring being and get to speak to any
of them to get their insights abouthim? Well? I did so.
Well, absolutely so. Some ofthe people I got to speak with who
knew were people who had worked withhim. So Loretta Leon the country music
saying very helpful of the book.Paul Jones had passed away, but his
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son was very helpful. Also,there's a country sing named Whipper and Bill
Anderson pretty big, legendary kind ofguy. And so there were a number
of those people who helped out.And then there were some family. Now
by the time I got to doin this book, none of his siblings
and obviously his parents were no longeralive, but his nephew as a very
(15:54):
nice gentleman who lives in Kentucky.And in fact, they do a string
being annual school just this past weekend. His name is phill A. Tateman,
and he was incredibly generous, incrediblygenerous, and there was some other
nieces and nephews and so forth.But you know what, at this point,
I'm sorry to say, there aren'tmany people really to actually knew stream
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Being. It's just a handful.And I was writing this book, of
course during the pandemic, and itturns out that people were you know,
i'd say it, you know,there were people who passed away before I
could get to it. One ofthe people I was going to try to
talk to was Roy Clark, andthe banjo player who toured was stream Being
early on, and I wasn't ablea best way before I did, so
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those things happened, but I gotsome great stories, and probably one of
my favorite ones was Lulu Roman,who was one of the founding past members
of Heat Hall and stream Bean wason that with her, and she didn't
actually know anything about country music.When she got on the show. She
knew like one She knew buck Owensbasically, and she got on the showers
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she didn't know who anybody was.And I asked her, I said,
what did you think when you sawthis guy? String being oh that long
his costume with the long shirt andthe short pants, And she said,
Honey, I was on so muchto LSD at that time that I thought
one of those creatures I've been seeingit become real. Well, that was
quite as smarted. Can you tellme more about the men that were arrested
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for killing string being in a stell? If I recall they were John and
Doug Brown, and I believe theywere first cousins. Can you confirm that
and tell me a little bit moreabout their relationship? Yeah, John Brown
and Doug Brown were first dozens,Yes, okay, and I know that
they are the two people who areofficially labeled as being the killers of string
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being in a stell. Can youtell me how did law enforcement catch these
two guys? How did they findout it was these two men? I
mean, we're talking about a timewhen there was no DNA or advanced law
enforcement techniques. It was basically justdown to what they call gumshoe detective work.
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So tell me more about what ledto their arrest. Well, that
is a really interesting question. Actually, I really appreciate the way you're putting
these questions because they just very wellput because it was really one of the
most fascinating things to me and doingthis work. And I was able to
talk to Tommy Jacobs, one ofthe lead investigators. I was able to
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get in touch with him. Inever succeeded in talking to me. I
don't even know if some of theother ones are still alive. I know
Sherman Nickins is still alive. Inever succeeded to get in touch with it,
getting in touch with him, butanyway, I taught to him and
I think one of the interesting thingswas that, And I think this is
something that in the realm of investigation, are those things that they had to
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do maybe on some level with intuitionor interaction. They may have to do
with other things too. Doug's olderbrother, Charlie Brown, the one who
paid all the money for this lawyer. He had a talent agency and he
knew stream Being and they lived rightup the room from Stream Being had a
contributed talent agency, and he wasknown to have had lunch with stream Being
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in his wife. And not onlythat, there is heard not too long
ago a gentleman who was used tobe in the country music industry, and
he was saying that Charlie Brown actuallydid book string being in some of his
those dates performances, so you know, that's a lot of connection, you
know what I mean. But hewas also somebody who was on some level
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involved in the country music industry.People knew who he was and had some
kind of pool. I don't knowhow much you know, but anyway,
he as the investigation went along,there's a lot of bad blood between Charlie
Brown and Tommy Jacobs and some otherinvestigators, and they all saw him as
being bring leader of this thing.He was involved in a number of other
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criminal activities at the time, buthe was very aggressive fighting back and he
was handful. Well. Anyway,what happened, what kind of implicating It
was very interesting because it was veryclear that Charlie and his brother and cousin
were all strategizing. They were strategizinghow can we get out of this?
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And who knows what they were staying. Oh I did get touched with some
of them, and Dog Brown passedaway in prison, so there's no way
you can talk to him. Butit's hard to get a sense of what
they were trying to do. Butthey were strategizing and in the middle of
all this, there was a mannamed Bill Downey who showed up. The
investigators were stayed in stream Beings house, which, by the way, again
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these were big guys staying in atiny house, so I don't know how
that worked out for him. Butanyway, they were hav to step around
the chalk outlines of the stream Beingson the floor. Well, anyway,
this guy, Bill down he comesto them and he starts telling this whole
story. And the way he tellsthe story is that Doug and John were
the one who were there, andJohn is the one who pulls the trigger
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and kills street being while string Beanand Doug or fighting kind of scuffling,
and he claims the Streaming came inshooting, which may have been true.
The police believed it was true.They say the story was that Estelle ran
out and those things that she wasrunning away and shot. John shot her,
got her to the ground and thenshot her point banking the head and
came in laughing and saying this wasby being in Vietnam. Well, that
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was the story that was told.It was a story, but it was
a story that made John the badguy. Doug was there, but John
was the bad guy. So Johnhad a very different story. John claimed
that Charlie had given some pills andhe had passed out that night and then
he woke up and they told himhe was the one who had done the
murder. If he talked to himnow, he'll tell you the same thing.
You'll say, I don't have anyremember, And there were other cases
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where he didn't have that memory.Basically, so what happened then is based
on this Bill Downees informing if hewas an informant, based on that by
the way he built down he wasa criminal. He walked into the trial
was stolen boot. But for whateverreason, the investigators they liked Bill Downy.
They thought it was funny, andthey thought he was a character,
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and they trusted him, and whichyou can understand. There was incredible pressure
on them to find the murderers,and here was somebody coming in and telling
them a story that fit with whatthey were thinking to happen, or that
they believe happened. I think onsome level, so in their minds it
was all working out, and thatmay be exactly how it played out.
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But what happens is by the timehe got to the trial, you had
this situation where the trial is almostis largely based on Frankly, I kind
of hearsay, and that was apoint of contention in a number of ways.
But that's that's how it happened.So it was finally over with when
the arrests were made the investigators,who were the police, they arrested not
(23:07):
only Doug and Time, but Doug'sbrother Roy, and they arrested Charlie Brown.
Now, interestingly, the DA didn'twant to do that. MS Driver
said, I don't want to riskthat him, and Tommy Jacobs said he's
the guy who had planned it.He's the releader of this thing, although
that was contended. There was alsoothers saying he didn't plan it, but
that was this thing. And here'sthe DA said no, no, no,
(23:30):
we won't. We's not gonna bringhim in. So anyway, long
story short, all four of thesegentlemen were brought in no sooner, I
mean like a day later maybe Charliehad a lawyer come into the investigators to
say he wants to give you informationfor immunity to cut a deal, and
they kept that deal right then andthere because they claimed they wanted to find
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the murder weapon, and there wastalk of a will that the players stream
being had left money to needy childrenand my own and knew that was entirely
made up. I talked to thefamily lawyer of the atman's and nobody would
say anything about a will, SoI didn't mean it couldn't have added,
but they did anyway, because ofwanting to get this will. They cut
that deal. And so Charlie wentfrom being a suspect and an informant of
(24:15):
being a witness in trial, basicallyspeaking on behalf of his brother against his
cousin. That's how it happened,and so and so they went to turn
no honor among thieves. I guessexactly right. So they went to the
trial and ultimately John and Doug wereconvicted, although when it was all sudden
(24:36):
done, the jury members came outin the number of them said we don't
actually have any idea what really happened, but we know for sure that these
two guys were there and they didsomething. They were involved in the murder
some way, and that was howit played out. But now I want
to say they were real stinkers.Now, the Browns were some bad folk.
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It was a story that in themedia was the lines are very clearly
gone. Here are David and Estella, and that by any stretch of the
imagination, as far as anybody canknow, they're like completely innocent. They're
just like lambs to the slaughter,while the Browns were, You're just quintessential
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bad guys. Just everything about themat that point, if everything about them
was just ugly and evil, theyrepresented I think the evil element in Nashville,
and so they're in the public mind. I think there was a sense
that this was a kind of retribution. There have been a sacrificial killing,
almost and now there needed to bepayment for that, and so that was
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the pressure. In what kind ofa sentence did these guys get? They
got the two I think there werenoney nine years if they were called,
or maybe there were a lifetime.But anyway, they were done, if
I remember quickly, I think thedeal was that the judge said at the
end, I think they were donesimultaneously, not consecutively, the way it
was high really the way it wasthey basically like now they were not there
(26:03):
at that point. It turns outthat would be a year. A year
or so before that the death penaltyhad been abolished, so real Roy Acuff
was going around saying that punishment shouldnever have been abolished. These fellows need
to die, they need to tryin the chair. He was going around
saying, no, So I knowthat you said Doug died in prison,
(26:37):
but if I recall, didn't JohnBrown eventually get parolled and he's out now
exactly, So Doug kind of fadedaway. He died in the same prison,
by the way that the fictional HannibalLequor was being taken to when he
escaped. So it was an interestingplace there in Tennessee. But anyway,
(26:57):
he died in prison. But Johnand he was very quiet once the trial
was over. He never said much, but John was kind of loud.
One time, there was some countrymusic singers performing in the prison. He
happened to be there and he jumpedon the stage and he started introducing all
of them and it really made themall very upset. And his wife,
Libor, she started really campaigning inthe media, trying pretty rely on trying
(27:22):
to get you know, after everythingdied down. You know, by the
time he got into nineteen eighties andninetiesies, she's really started campaigning pretty pretty
hard to get John, you know, tind to change his image, and
this lady his wife was an accountantworking for the Cornerstone Church, and nashally
has the main minister of it wasa gentlemanhood committed murder as a kid,
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and he came out of it andhe had a change of life and he
became a minister, and he wasvery compassionate about convicted people who were convicts,
and he started hiring them on Andanyway, there just became a mounting
campaign to say that John had changedhis life and he was following the teachings
(28:04):
of Jesus, and that he wassomebody who was become a Christian and had
had a chain complete change of lifeand was a good guy. What had
was a model inmate and though on. And so you'd have these parole hearings
where you would have on one sidepeople making that argument, and then you
would have on the other side peoplelike Porter Wagoner and Jean Shephard and Whispering
(28:29):
Bill Anderson and Mac Wiseman and allthese very famous countries bluegrass figures walking in
and saying you cannot parole this guy. This is a horrible crime. David
and I Filtman had done nothing wrongand they were killed in cold blood.
And so this went on, andit continued until finally, in twenty fourteen,
the tide turned and the parole boardvoted to let John out. And
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he got out and he got ajob as a maintenance man at the Cornerstone
Church fared north of Nashville. AndI tried to talk to him. Basically,
I was told he wanted to moveon from all of this, and
which I understand. But people arevery divided. I tell you this.
People are very divided still in Nashvilleabout this thing. There are people who
(29:17):
still say this is somebody who didnot deserve any mercy, certainly doesn't deserve
a role, and then there arepeople who say otherwise. And it's not
always di Lulu Roman I mentioned earliershe's become a gospel singer, and she
said, I've heard great things aboutmister Brown and he's tremendous thing that he's
changed his life. So people arestill in different places about it, but
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it's still a thing. In Nashville. People are very aware of it.
If you talk to people in thebusiness of the country, US of business,
you'll hear him say I was tallone of the killer and I saw
John Brown the other day couldn't gasin his car or they have an opinion.
You know, if there's something thathappened so long ago, you'd be
shocked how fresh it is. Andthere are people are very conscious of stream
(29:57):
being and music. I have afriend the Pam McDonald is excellent piano player,
played with Hank Williams and Blake Sheltonand Pam Tillers and people like that.
You're doing the whole album just anhonor of stream being in Stlaightman.
So there's a lot of that outthere in Nashville. It's still really a
thing. I don't want to sayit feels fresh, but I think it's
(30:19):
immediate enough that people feel a connectionto stream being into the murder and all
of that. I think there's akind of connection there, especially people in
the country music industry. So regardingthese two cousins, I don't know if
I want to use the word ironic, but John Brown is listed as the
(30:40):
shooter, but yet Doug is theone that actually died in prison and John
is the one that is actually outof prison and he killed two people.
It seems backwards like it should havebeen the other way around. Maybe the
shooter should have died in prison,and the one who wasn't the actual shooter
should have lived long enough to getparoled. Doesn't that seem like a strange
(31:04):
twist of fate to you? Yeah? Exactly, that is a tremendous irony.
The one man who survives at alland triggered Mager. Yes. Well,
And although Brown killed two people andthis public believes that he should still
be in prison, apparently that's notthe case because the Pearl Board decided to
(31:29):
go ahead and let him out.In anyway, as people outside the story
who are looking in, we haveto look at it as if he spent
his time in prison, he paidhis price, his debt to society,
and as long as he stays outof trouble, then there's no reason to
really think too much more about him. Exactly, he served his time,
(31:49):
he did. I was looking forinformation about him after he was paroled,
and I didn't find anything about him. So that tells me he's probably stayed
out of trouble. So who knows, perhaps he was actually rehabilitated and actually
feels bad about the crimes that hecommitted. Well, when doing the book,
(32:13):
I was the book signing and agentleman came up to me and he
said, well, he said,listen, I was working in the Tennessee
prison system and John Brown, andhe said, he's a good guy.
He really has changed, and yes, indeed has been has been quiet ever
since. And in fact, Iwould love again, as I say,
as I mentioned earlier, I hatedthat I could not succeed and get the
(32:35):
talk to him. I understand he'swanting to move on, but I've mentioned
this to other people. I wouldlove to have gotten his comments on it.
What does the world look like tohim now? But I also understand,
Hey, you want to move onfrom this. I understand that.
But what's not as settled as itseemed? I guess I should mention that
Doug Brown had called the Nashville Tennesseeand newspaper only a few days a day
(32:59):
or two of the murder, andhe was saying he didn't reveal his name
at the time, but he said, what, my partner kills stream Being
with stream Being's own gun. Youknow. One of the interesting things about
is that stream Being was killed withDoug's gun allegedly now allegedly, because again
it gets pretty murky the ballistics andso forth. It wasn't. Really,
(33:21):
it's not totally clear that this particulargun was used. And by the way,
to me for the weren't murder weaponshave ever been recovered to this day,
they've never been recovered, so whoknows what the claim is Doug claim
when he called the seeing that hispartner killed stream Being with his own gun,
Well, he ended up giving alazy confession, or at least that's
(33:45):
what he claimed it was with adifferent national paper later on after he had
been arrested and he was waiting fortrial to start, and he in that
when he changed the story, hewas still saying that John did the killing,
but now he was saying that Johnhad his gun, Doug's gun,
and did shooting while John had Doughad John's gun, and nobody could ever
figure out why they why did theytrade gun? And meanwhile there were reports
(34:09):
that either the yellow truck pulling outof the parking lot the driveway a stream
Beans Holson and John Brown had ayellow truck. And I think a lot
of people know the story is beingfairly clear, clean cut, but it's
really not. And you, ofall people know that murder is just always
missy, you know, and youdo the best you can, but you
(34:31):
know, all these years later toplay the devil's out of the kit,
I would almost say, based onwhatever evidence that they had at the time,
I would almost dare I say,it lean towards the possibility that maybe
John Brown really did not do this. I believe that he was probably there,
(34:52):
but it could have been the cousinwho did the shooting, or maybe
someone else. Because, as yousaid, this whole case, the trial,
I feel like it was just reallymurky, and based on everything that
I've read about this case, Idon't know, it just feels like something's
missing from this story, like therewas other things that happened that we don't
(35:16):
really know about, things that maybelaw enforcement is never released. But I
think because of the fact that thiswas string being and this was a high
profile case, I almost feel likemaybe they just rushed to judgment to arrest
someone because I'm sure these police officerswere under a lot of pressure to get
(35:40):
someone. I mean, someone hadto go down for this, and maybe
the Browns were just the perfect peopleto go after. They weren't exactly wealthy
guys. They didn't have money,and they probably weren't the smartest guys.
On the block. Maybe they seemlike good suspects or someone else. Yeah,
that's never could So there had alot of different kind of cigarettes there
(36:01):
that left behind, And that wasone of the things I was talking about.
It is like, how do youknow that there were not more than
two people there? And there wasnever a really good answer given to that.
But meanwhile, even if there hadbeen, yeah, here it is
a doug you know. And JohnBrown was known to have these blackouts and
commit violence and not have any memoryof it at all. This was established
(36:22):
in his pet. He had abad pass on Brown. He was definitely
a violent person, so it couldhave been that too, you know.
But even with that, you know, you say, well, what happened
here? You know what I mean? And it's it's murky. It's pretty
murky really, So yeah, whoknows in the end, and most likely
we'll probably never truly know what happenedon that day back in November of nineteen
(36:46):
seventy three. I think a lotof it's just conjecture and that you probably
did the best you could to getwhat information you could get, but we'll
probably never really know what happened.We'll probably never know, But that's why.
I appreciate you asking the question thatway, because sometimes people will say,
well, what happened that night?You know. That's how I wanted
(37:07):
to write the book, was say, Okay, I was going to start
out with the night of the murder, what happened? And the more I
dealed into the more I felt thatin good conscience I couldn't narrate the murder
because I truthfully don't really believe I'msure that I know what happened, right.
And you know, when I wasgoing to write my column about this,
(37:29):
I read a whole bunch of differentarticles, and I looked at little
video clips or anything that I couldreally find about string being. And you
know what, after I wrote mycolumn for the newspaper, I was thinking
to myself, did these guys?Did these guys really do? This?
Was law enforcement just looking for someoneto arrest these guys? Seemed really convenient.
(37:54):
But back in those days, youdidn't have DNA or you know,
fingerprints had to be analyzed by hand. You didn't have any type of computers
or technology to help you. Itwas all a matter of as I've said
before, that gumshoe detective work whereyou had to knock on doors and walk
around and look for stuff. AndI'm sure the crime scene people had probably
(38:16):
trampled on it because back in thosedays they didn't necessarily have the wherewithal to
understand that you have to protect crimescene. But I don't know if that
necessarily happened. So, you know, if you want to go by genetic
evidence, can you really honestly saywithout a shadow of a doubt that John
(38:40):
Brown was actually the killer? I'mnot so sure. I mean, based
on everything that you had said andeverything that I've read on my own,
there was no smoking gun. Agun wasn't recovered. And let's just say
that these guys were convicted basically onhearsay. Somebody said that these two guys
(39:06):
did it, so you don't haveanybody else. But that's off putting if
that's all you have is the testimonyof a guy that's a criminal. No,
I never found a gun. It'sall basically to hear Yes, it
was, yes, And as youmentioned earlier, there was other things going
on behind the scenes. You saidthat there was a three or four people
(39:29):
total that were supposedly involved in puttingthis together, but yet only two were
charged. So you had two thatwere willing to make deals and serve as
witnesses instead of being charged. Sodid those other two people actually know anything
or have anything to do with this? Who knows? And by the time
(39:53):
it came down to it, itlooked like John and Doug Brown would eventually
be the ones to take fall forthis. And in my opinion, these
guys don't really sound smart enough tohave planned this type of robbery. You
almost have to wonder if there wassomeone who was smarter than them, who
was a mastermind, who helped planit, someone who knew more intimate details
(40:17):
about String being having the money inthis house. How would a couple of
guys like John and Doug Brown reallyknow that String being kept all kinds of
money around. These guys didn't haveany connections or anything, so you almost
have to wonder if someone helped themset it up, if someone told them
and encouraged them. But you knowwhat, we'll never know. But whenever
(40:43):
you look at cases and you havepeople that are witnesses, how much credibility
do you want to give them whenyou find out that they got a deal.
They have a reason for saying whatthey're saying. They're not doing it
out of the pinness in their heart. Well, right, And in this
(41:15):
particular case, I think there wouldbe motivation for people to lie about what
they knew that actually happened because ofit being such a high profile case.
That's how it looks to me,you know. I mean, yeah,
And as you probably know, beinga fan of true crime, you know
(41:37):
that these snitches aren't exactly choir boys. I mean almost all of them,
if not all of them, havesome kind of criminal record. So you
have a case where you have onecriminal writting out another criminal. If you
think about it, isn't it kindof like just switching the deck chairs on
the Titanic? Well? No,right, I hear you, dog,
(42:00):
I hear you. I mean that'swhat it is, you know. And
I think that was whine. Ijust kind of felt like, you know,
and I don't, you know,I don't mean anything against the lawyers.
They had to get somebody, asyou say, I mean, somebody
was going to have to pay forthis. Somebody's going to pay for it.
And this was string being a veryfamous man at the time. There
(42:22):
was no way this murder was goingto go on soft. Someone was going
to get arrested for it. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah, No,
that was exactly the case. Hehad. Sherman Nickins was one of the
investigators, and he talked about thatparticularly. He said the pressure was just
so intense. And when you thinkabout it and you think, okay,
(42:43):
they got to do this in atimely way. The investigations started number eleventh,
finished up in front of January,and that's kind of a long time.
But it's also yeah, when youlook at those pressures and you think,
okay, results, You've got toget results, and so what do
you have to do to get thoseresults? And clearly there's one thing that
(43:04):
is very clear is yes that Johnand Doug Brown were there. There's no
doubt about it. They have beentalking about some things. There is plenty
there. And were they there yet, I mean, but quite exactly their
roles were? And was there anybodyelse there? Those are kind of the
spect the question of anybody else therejust they were questions, But I think
it could not be pursued at thetime because I think it just made more
(43:27):
sense to get it hashed out thisway. They were too bad guys,
They were easy, they were nottoo bright in a way maybe at the
time, and I think it waslike, these are you guys now?
If you were to look at today'slaw enforcement, you'd have to wonder what
they even arrest these two guys today. If this happened, I doubt if
this would even go to trial.I mean not with what the evidence that
(43:50):
they had back then. Yeah,well that's an interesting point. Yeah,
And if this trial happened today,based on the evidence that they had back
then, I don't think a jurywould even convict these guys, much less
would a prosecutory and want to bringit to trial. I know it was
so many years ago and things havechanged, but if you look at this
(44:14):
case compared to how everything unfolded backthen, compared to how it would today,
it'd be a totally different case.There would be so many variances in
the way that this case was investigated. Well, I think that's an interesting
question or interesting point, you know, the question of whether or not the
(44:37):
jury would convictim. When you readthat trial, do you think, to
man, this defense attorney has spokena lot of holes in this thing,
and there are a lot of momentswhere you think, I don't know,
someboding called upon who listen to thisstory? And one of the other factors,
and the thing is the defense attorneyfor John Brown, Joe Bakley,
continued to represent Doug. It's kindof interesting sort of split that the trial
(45:00):
was held the same time, butit was split as two different trial numbers,
but there were two different lawyers forthe two different guys, and so
he had this kind of sort ofstrangely tangulated trial where you had to kind
of the prosecutor who's sort of workingit a little bit but away you kind
of working Dug against John, butstill trying to get both of them convicted.
(45:22):
And he got the attorney for Dougworking against John basically, and he
had John's attorney working against everybody,and meanwhile the pressure was getting to him.
He had a lot of issues ofsubstance abuse. His name was Arnold
Peoples, and he and one ofthe big things. Now he was on
cocaine and the second day of thetrial was delayed because he had to go
(45:44):
to the hospital for high blood pressure. After the trial was over, it
turned himself in. He ended upwith his license, but he was no
longer part of the bar, anda number of cases were reviewed and when
he finally got his argument, thetime for the defense to make its case.
It was a complete disaster. Hewas incoherent and they probably was the
(46:06):
worst tenses in the history and Nashville. And so I think the jury,
you know, I thought about it. What would I where would I about
if I were on the jury,knowing what I know now, as far
as having been retrospected, been ableto have access to information that the jury
would not have had necessarily, youknow, they would not have necessarily been
able to go through and follow allthe different kinds of information or be pretty
(46:28):
good things that how they unfolded.I think I would have been like,
Okay, you know, I don'tknow what to do because but I would
have definitely thought, man, thisdefense is a complete disaster. And I
think that's what happened. I thinkthey said, well, I don't know
that the case really or by thestate was that strong, but the defense
(46:51):
was so weak. And this isheld in Nashville, by the way,
that's a little detail that nobody everreally talks about. But you know,
where you're really getting a fair jury. Everybody that really knows what's happened,
you know, right and back then, everyone know who string being was,
and especially if you lived in Nashvilleand you were being tried in that area.
(47:15):
Everyone knew who he was, soyou have to wonder was the trial
even going to be fair. Everybodyknows who stream Being is. It wasn't
done outside of Nashville. And thejudge, you know, Cornelius, he
was allowing the media in on it, and you know he was allowing it
to be a circus. And thoseguys John and dun Brown never had a
(47:36):
chance. It was a sort ofa foregone conclusion in my opinion, for
a social viewpoint, it was aforegone conclusion had they not been convicted.
I hate to think what would happen, you know, I hate to sick
and gifts people. Historically, again, we were in a position to see
things. Maybe they couldn't see them, but I don't know what the motivations
(47:57):
are, and if everybody from Nashville'slistening. I don't mean to be smurge
to the attorneys or anything, butattorneys have careers and they have things to
build, and who knows what theirmotivations are for things. So it's a
very fascinating story. Really, Ithink stream Being had been a little more
high profile than if it's been anElvis or somebody. There'd be probably one
(48:19):
hundred and eighty books written about thisalready. But I feel this writing the
book was extremely difficult because you cannotyou can't really separated, as I mentioned
earlier, the true crime aspect ofit in the biography aspect of it.
In some ways, they're like twodifferent books that you've got to put together,
but both of them take their fullpower and meaning from each other.
(48:43):
But it was very hard to writeit, and I kind of wondered for
a while why nobody had written thisother than that one book that had been
written by a Nashville Banner reporter workingwith Tommy Jacobs back in nineteen seventy five.
I know why, because it's hardto put those two stories together.
Is extremely difficult to do, soI think that's why nobody has written the
(49:05):
story before now. But I thinka stream being have been a little bigger,
just a little bit bigger. Ithink this would have been even more
written about any people may go inthere and kind of dig in. There
may be people who would have qualificationsor types of access that I don't have
or did now, that could dredgeout information I couldn't find, you know,
so, right, okay, Andthe last question that I would want
(49:30):
to ask you is based on yourexperience of writing this book, in all
the research that you conducted, andspeaking to everyone that you have already spoken
to, what is the number onething that you want people listening to this
(49:51):
to know about string being We're talkingabout a man that died many years ago.
A lot of people probably have neverheard of string We should got all
people like me who did watch helaw, who do know who he was,
So tell me what was so uniqueabout him? What is string beings
(50:12):
legacy? Well, I think hislegacy again, I appreciate these questions very
much the way you put him,I think for me, and the thing
that I think drove me through theprocess of writing this book, which had
a number of challenges. I thinkfor me, probably the thing that I
felt the most to be the mostimportant being in terms of string Beings legacy,
(50:37):
is that he was somebody who livedthrough the Great Depression, and lived
through World War Two. He livedthrough the Atomic era, he lived through
the nineteen sixties of Vietnam, andall the fascinations and all the unrealist and
all the trouble and all the momentswhen it kind of like with our late
(50:57):
pandemic, all those moments when youthink is there even going to be a
future or what is it going tolook like? And I think everybody on
some level had that feeling in oneway or another, whatever your view of
whatever was going on, I thinkthere was enough going on, you know,
or you just think there are thesemoments when you in life when you
think what is life even going tobe? And how was it going to
go? And all this strife anddivision, all that street b was a
(51:22):
guy who threw all of that,was steadfast and brought entertainment, and he
brought levity and joy. You know. He was making people laugh and in
a way that was kind of abovethe free. So for me, that's
his legacy. He was somebody inan era that in which people have a
(51:46):
hard time getting on the same pagewhat is politically or socially or whatever.
He was somebody who was able topull that off. That's who he really
was. He was somebody who wasable to a human level. You might
not one may not agree with somethingabout the way he does the world or
looks at the world or whatever,but he was somebody who was kind of
(52:07):
above that and he brought humility,and that humility had a certain openness.
And I think he's somebody that youcan look to who's above the phrase and
who said, no matter how badthings are, no matter how scary they
are, no matter how gain muchdivision or whatever, you can carry on.
(52:29):
You can just carry on. Youcan sing us home, you can
tell a joke and you'll get throughit. And that's submitting it was real,
the real power of who he was. I guess why all kinds of
people. So I think that that'swhat it was about, you know,
based on listening to your research,looking at your book and everything that I
(52:52):
looked up to write my column aboutstring Being. My thoughts on him were
that he was just a humble,kind hearted man. He was a good
husband, a good friend, agood musician. Everyone loved him. I
didn't find anything where anyone had anythingbad to say about the man. He
(53:14):
was definitely a witty character, yeah, sir, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah.
Even though string Being wasn't on thisplanet for very long and he died
at a fairly young age, Ithink that he did make a great impact
on country music and upon a lotof his fans. He's been gone for
fifty years, or so, andhere you and I are talking about him.
(53:36):
Fifty years later after his death,he wrote a book about him.
I wrote a column about him,and you and I both like his music
and we still listen to so evenin death, he's had an impact on
both of our lives. That's whatI would say, exactly. Okay,
And for anyone out there that's listeningto this podcast episode and they're interested and
(53:59):
purchasing a copy of the book,String Being The Life and Murder of a
Country music Legend, tell me wherecan they get this book? Obviously Amazon?
But where else? Got anything?I just about everything? Get on
Amazon? You got there's an Amazonpaperback it's a nineteen ninety five, or
you can get it on the kindles, a kindle version, so we can
(54:21):
get it on Barns and Noble online. It's in certain bookstores, so it
was put kind of regionally. Soif you're in the Kentucky area or Tennessee,
some of those areas vinyas instan places, some of the Barns and Nobles
will have them locally, you know, some of the independent bookstores will have
them. I think Pale's Books upin Oregon or mother get where it is,
Washington, Oregon has some copies youknow there, I think I heard,
(54:44):
and so you know, there aresome independent bookstores that have them,
but definitely online if you go toAmazon or Barns of Noble, or you
can also order directly from the Universityof Illinois Press. So it's it's pretty
easy to get the order from Amazon. It comes into whatever. And there
is a talk of an audio versionof it, but that's not out yet,
(55:07):
so I don't know when that'll beor if that's going to work out.
But anyway, so there's available kinda few places actually online, different
kind of bookstores I've noticed, soyeah, it's pretty much available out there.
And if anyone wants to contact youwith questions about your book, what's
the name of the website that theycan go to? Well, absolutely if
(55:29):
I would be delighted to hear fromanybody, and my website is just my
name is Taylor hey Good dot com. That's t Y l O R H
A g O D dot com andyou can contact me through there, and
I would be absolutely delighted. I'lltell you I have gotten a number of
emails. I'm shocked that tell you. The emails that come in from people
(55:52):
I've never heard of saying read bookor stream being fans or in some cases
they had and didn't know about stream. They like country music and they ran
across this, and how much shouldthey were fascinated with the story, so
I would be sometimes they have questionsand I absolutely would be happy to hear
from any boy time. And thatconcludes the story of string Being as told
(56:16):
by author Taylor hey Good. Again, if you haven't listened to the first
half of this interview, please goback and listen. If you enjoy reading
true crime books, then I highlyrecommend that you purchase a copy of Taylor's
book. The book takes you fromstring Being's humble beginnings as a child making
(56:37):
his own instruments to becoming a countrymusic legend. You can get your own
copy of string Being The Life andMurder of a Country Music Legend, written
by Taylor Heygood on Amazon dot comor wherever else you purchase your favorite books.
And if you would like to contactTaylor about his book, please visit
(56:59):
Taylor hey Good dot com. Iwill be sure to include this information in
the case story notes. And ifyou are a parent, law enforcement official,
friend, or relatives, you canjustice for an unsolved common side case.
Please visit my website and complete thecontact form. You can also contact
me through Facebook. Thank you forlistening.
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