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1 Chapter 1 The Stranger A light rain was falling on the small town square, at the end of the day on a Friday, when the man in the flowery green shirt appeared. He was holding a cigar in his hand. He entered the door off the sidewalk on East Main Street, next to the Davis Dress Shop, and climbed the stairs to the law office on the second floor. He opened the office door, and the stale smell of the cigar moved with him into the small suite. Inside he found attorney Jack Lowery alone, standing at the desk of his secretary Gail Crook, talking on the telephone. She had departed for the weekend just minutes before. Seeing the unscheduled visitor, Lowery put the phone down and greeted him. The stranger introduced himself as “Bob Roundtree,” but this was a lie. And the brief conversation that followed is how the world began to unravel for Governor Ray Blanton and his circle. Jack Lowery was a well-known figure in Lebanon, Tennessee, twenty miles east of downtown Nashville. He was also known at the state capitol. To pay his way through Cumberland School of Law, he had once worked as a police officer in the town. He was elected to a term in the state legislature in 1966. Ten years later, on the day “Bob Roundtree” came briefly into his life, Lowery was a solo practitioner, with mainly a criminal defense practice . He was also Lebanon’s part-time mayor. The windows on the west side of Lowery’s corner office overlooked the Lebanon town square. From his office he could see, in the middle of the square, the monumental statue of the Confederate general Robert H. Hatton, called the “Reluctant Rebel,” killed in the Battle of Fair Oaks, Virginia, in 1862. Like Lowery, Hatton had been a graduate of the Cumberland School of Law, a successful lawyer in Lebanon, and a legislator in Nashville. His statue on the square faces south. At this time—May 1976—Lowery had a client named Will Midgett, from 2 COUP nearby Watertown. Midgett had been convicted of second-degree murder in the death of a motorist. He was now serving his sentence in the state prison at Nashville. “His family had prevailed on me to see if I could get executive clemency for him,” Lowery told me. “I of course spoke to Eddie Sisk [Blanton’s legal counsel] about it, because the governor would have to approve an executive clemency. I went and got the medical proof, the judge didn’t object, and I filed all this information. Mr. Midgett said that if he got out, he would move to Florida. I delivered the information to Marie Ragghianti (then the staff extradition officer) because she was Eddie Sisk’s right-hand girl. “A few days later, a gentleman showed up in my office, late in the afternoon after my secretary left. He was wearing a green Hawaiian shirt, and smoking a cigar. Said his name was Roundtree.” Lowery recalled the following conversation. Roundtree: I need to speak to you. I believe I can help you. Lowery: What do you mean? Roundtree: I can tell you the terms of his release, when he’ll be released , and he won’t have to go to Florida. [At this point, “Mr. Roundtree” also stated that his fee would be $20,000.] Lowery: I’ll call you. Roundtree: No. I’ll call you. The stranger departed. Lowery moved to his west window overlooking the parking area, and he observed the man leave the building and get into the rear seat of a black sedan. Lowery said the stranger’s mention of Florida “surprised” him “because nobody had that information, so I knew this man who had nothing to do with the state somehow had access to the file.” “I watched him get into a black Chrysler Cordova,” Lowery told me. “I couldn’t see the whole license plate, but I saw the number started with a ‘4’ so I knew that meant the car was from Chattanooga. I was mayor at the time. I called the police chief, Royal Jones, and said we have to stop this car.” The vehicle from Chattanooga was stopped in Murfreesboro, south of Lebanon. “In the car with this guy were two individuals who had robbed and kidnapped a banker in Georgia, and Georgia had been trying to extradite these two guys for over a year. Tennessee had not extradited these guys...

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