Horror Among The White Oaks: The Strange Case of Roy Rickey Part 1

Written by Bert Brun and John McGill, Jr.

Published in the August 1938 edition of “True Detective Mysteries”

It was a beautiful Saturday morning in the Kentucky hills.  August sunshine glinted through the leaves of the trees, making little golden patches on the ground.  It gilded a group of twisted, stunted white oaks, surrounding a clayey mound from which jagged rocks protruded.

But the beauty of the morning had not brought this motley mob of two hundred to the abandoned mine shaft. It was evident by their dress, and occasionally by the lack of it,  that these people had hurried to the spot on receiving startling news; news which had caused them to drop their daily tasks at once and hasten to view the horror for themselves.

The crowd surged forward, partly from curiosity and partly because it was impelled in that direction by those arriving tardily to the scene.  A gradually increasing murmur like the sound of approaching locusts hovered over it.  Men, women and children milled around a particular tree among the dwarfed group.  Over the sea of heads loomed a dismal figure that swung suspended from one of its branches.  It was the body of a boy hanging by a short cord, one end of which was twisted around his neck, and the other fastened to the limb.

Exclamations of horror mingled with words of pity rose above the awe-hushed whispers.  Amidst the whimpering of children and their bewildered questioning, one voice stood out, because of its high-pitched intensity.

“Mom, what’s Roy doing hanging there?”

The words came from a seven-year-old youngster, tugging at the skirt of a woman who, with mouth agape, seemed fascinated by the body swinging slightly in the morning breeze.  She appeared unable to take her attention from the spectacle to quiet her questioning child.

“Mom…Mom…what’s Roy doing hanging there?”

“Hush,” said another woman who stood near. “Here,” she added, lifting him up almost automatically to let him see for himself and end his annoying prattle.

“Mom…”

The question died on his lips as with curiosity-widened eyes, he concentrated on the dangling corpse.

The youngster was heavy and the woman did not hold him long.  Putting him down, she said to a neighbor:

“Poor Mrs. Rickey. Has she been told?”

“I don’t know, answered a third.  “It’s going to be an awful shock to her.  Anyone seen the boys father?”

“Not that I know of.  Wonder what made the youngster kill himself?”

“Don’t know. He was a queer little kid”

“I’ve heard said his father often beat him badly.”

“That so?”

One of the most significant things about the tragedy is its ability to transfigure everyday incidents into outstanding emotional events.  To the onlookers, everything about this normally accepted scene had suddenly become imbued with feeling.   The abandoned mine, the dwarfed oaks, with their background of leafy trees and hazy blue vistas, had been viewed by everyone a hundred times or more with unobserving eyes. Each had often passed that peaceful spot wrapped in his own thoughts, with only a casual glance at its quiet beauty.   Now the picture had become filled with absorbing impressions.  The placement of the oaks among the taller trees with their background of varied landscape, and the conformation of the impromptu gallows with its leafy branches, became an unforgettable painting, in which each insignificant detail was starkly outlined.

Even the children were not immune to this all-powerful sweep of tragedy.  They had played in that sylvan spot on many a sunny morning, laughing, and shrieking among those trees.  Now there was no thought of play.  The hush of death was over them.  Something from their silent, swinging playmate had entered their innocent hearts, and natural gaiety was submerged in feelings never known before.

Suddenly, as if swept away by the wind, the murmurs of the excited crowd ceased.  Word had gone around that Coroner Clarence Henderson accompanied by Deputy Sheriff Tony Stephens and a man recognized as a newspaper publisher, had arrived from Olive Hill.  They were seen approaching from the roadway a scant sixty feet away.

The Coroner had been notified by telephone that his presence was required for an inquest at Soldier, Kentucky.  This village being in the western part of Carter County where mining accidents are not infrequent, he had taken it as a matter of course that another tragedy of this nature had occurred.  Driving through Olive Hill, he had picked up Deputy Sheriff Stephens and the newspaperman.  Within twenty minutes they had arrived at Soldier.

They needed no directions to discover the scene of the tragedy, for stragglers were still hastening toward it.

The crowd about the tree made way for the Coroner as, with his two companions, he walked toward the object of horror, shocked into grim silence himself by the gruesome picture.

Coroner Clarence Henderson

 The dead boy was small, apparently undersized and underfed. He was clad only in a faded blue shirt and blue denim overalls.  Blond, tousled hair straggled down over his eyes.  He hung from the tree by a twisted cord that had been looped around this neck.  The cord was not more than thirty inches in length, and the youngster’s small, bare feet almost touched the ground.  Owing to the shortness of the rope, with only about six inches of play, his head had been forced sidewise until it rested slightly on the tree limb.

The Coroner examined the body carefully before cutting it down.  He felt sure it must have been hanging there for some time as decomposition had set in.  The youngster’s right eye had been gouged out, and there was a large bruise on the right side of his wan, drawn face.  Henderson noted with interest that there were no welts on the boy’s neck, around which thee cord was tightly wound.  Running his eye up to where the rope was attached to the branch, he observed that the bark on the limb had not been disturbed, as he thought it most certainly would have been if the child had struggled during the hanging.

“Very curious. Very curious, indeed,” he said more to himself than to his companions.

“Guess there is nothing more we can do here, Tony,” he remarked to the Deputy.  “ Have the body taken down.”

“What do you think of it, Mr. Henderson?” asked Tony, a police officer of forty years experience.

“Frankly, I don’t know,” answered the Coroner.  “There are some very strange things about this case and I don’t like to say anything definite until I have more facts.  But the whole business certainly strikes me as being most peculiar.”

“I’ll say it is,” assented the Deputy.

“There’s more behind this than appears.”

“Don’t allow anybody to touch the body, Tony,” said Henderson.   I’ll get in touch with the County Attorney.”

Within ten minutes the Coroner was back at the scene, and began questioning those nearest him.

“Who was the youngster?” he asked.

“Little Roy Rickey,” said several.

“That’s his father over there,” volunteered a bystander, indicating a man who stood well back from the crowd smoking a corncob pipe.

             Clyde Rickey, Father of Roy Rickey.

Henderson noted that Rickey was over six feet tall.  Heavy, bushy eyebrows gave an almost Mephistophelian appearance to his face. Thick unkempt hair showed under a wide-brimmed straw hat, and his long arms and horny hands hung listlessly from his shoulders.

Well accustomed to the nonchalance of mountain people, the Coroner approached the fifty-year-old parent of the youthful victim.

“Are you the boy’s father?” he asked sympathetically.

“Yes.” The word came from the side of the man’s mouth, as he took another draw from the brown-stained cob pipe.

“How do you explain the death of your boy, Mr. Rickey?”

“I dunno,” was the answer.  “Can’t explain it.”

“When did you last see him alive?”

“Last Wednesday evening.”

“What time Wednesday?”  Coroner Henderson pressed.

“Dunno. Roy took the cow to the field and he didn’t come back. That’s the last we saw of him.”

“Did you look for him?” asked the official

“Yes. His ma and Jim Andy looked all over but couldn’t find hide nor hair of him.”

“Who’s Jim Andy?”

“He’s a boarder up to our house.”

The officer thought he caught a slight tone of resentment in the words, but he could not be sure.  Further questioning revealed nothing of value.