Briery Knob -- Chapter 8 -- The Trial
Many residents in Hillsboro believed the gathering would be filled with drug-indulging hippies, sex-crazed teenagers and "those liberals" intent on destroying America.
The mountain dwellers tended to be good people who possessed the sophistication of a horny teenager about to lose his virginity to Mary-Jane-Rottencrotch in the backseat of his father's Buick.
Every home displayed a picture of Robert E. Lee, Elvis, and Jack Kennedy. Ripped from old copies of Life Magazine, the three images provided about the only hint of decoration other than a 1960s calendar from the Feed and Seed.
"The South Will Rise Again," was a familiar refrain and usually said by someone who didn't grasp the fact the South never rose the first time.
Most families re-purposed their indoor furniture to their porch and more than a few parked a fleet of non-working cars, on blocks, in the front yard.
It was an area of which J.D. Vance would say years later, the residents possessed absolutely nothing, and they would fight to the death to keep it. But if they found someone in need, the locals would gladly give it all away to help out.
Kevin Williamson, writing in The Week, summed the people up as the last hold outs of the Scots-Irish working class picked up where slave labor left off. Cropping and cutting raw materials for an otherwise modern American economy would soon forget the profitable uses for a class of people who five-centuries ago would be called peasants.
Thinking about the future and its bleak prospects is no fun. Instead, the hill people clung to pills and dope, morning beer, endless scratch-off lottery and healing meetings up on the hill while the federally funded ritual involving the trade of food-stamp Dr. Pepper for packs of Native American cigarettes and hard currency continued.
The few gas stations come with heaping piles of stale nachos, the blast of meth, Alcoholics Anonymous, petty crime, and death.
If the folks living in Appalachia weren't 99% white, it would be called a reservation.
But, back to the story.
The investigation stalled because of complications created by the tight-lipped attitudes of the hill people. It was a region where everyone knew everyone -- and many often related.
But we've already discussed that.
In July 1982, Jacob Beard fell under the glare of suspicion because of some phone calls he made to Durian's parents. After the first call, detectives tapped the Durian's phone and identified Beard as the caller when he phoned again.
"The cops aren't doing their job. I am not the killer," Beard whispered into the handset during both calls.
The investigation grew legs, and detectives found other witnesses. Steve Good reported he noticed Fowler's van at Brown's home around six on the evening of the killings. Good told the cops the van was backed in under the carport and was being hosed out.
William "Bill" Scott told state troopers he witnessed Beard moving along at high speed as he left Droop Mountain Park between 3:30 and 3:45 the afternoon of the killings. Another eyewitness presented himself to claim he recognized Beard's vehicle -- but not Beard -- at the park's entrance around 5:30 or six the night the two girls died.
Beard, McCoy, Fowler, Brown, Winters Walton, Arnold Cutlip, and Johnnie Lews were all ultimately charged with murder, but at a pretrial hearing, Walton claimed the cops threatened him, Lewis recanted his identification of Beard, and the authorities dismissed the charges against the two.
Two-weeks into the New Year, 1993, Pocahontas County's legal system indicted Beard, McCoy, Fowler, Brown, and Cutlip. Walton and Lewis were not charged. Instead, they received immunity for their testimony pointing the finger at the others.
Law enforcement caught up with Beard four-months later in Crescent City, Florida. Beard got out of Pocahontas County when prosecutors dropped the charges and moved to Crescent City, Florida where he found work as a service manager at a car dealership when Florida's law enforcement pulled into the lot.
Beard went on trial alone. The trial was held in neighboring Greenbrier County since the judge moved the case there due to extensive pre-trial publicity.
Pamela Wilson testified that she had seen the two women, Durian and Santomero, walking along Seneca Trail, Route 219, and watched as Fowler, Walton, and McCoy stopped to give the women a ride.
Walton testified the three picked the girls up because they looked like hippies and probably would have sex with the men. After stopping to get beer and pot, they drove over to Droop Mountain and parked where other people were drinking and hanging out. Amongst themselves, the men started plotting how to get the women alone, and one suggested going on up to Briery Knob.
With the road turning to dirt, the area became more remote, and the women started arguing with the men over the destination.
While everyone was shouting at everyone else, Walton testified, Beard, Brown, Lewis, and Cutlip joined the group and decided to head to Cutlip's single-wide trailer which was near.
The women got more upset, and McCoy pulled out a pistol, according to Walton, Durian was shot first. When Santomero tried to run she was shot in the back.
"We loaded the bodies in the van," Walton testified. "...and we dumped them further up the hill, took their identification and destroyed it."
Lewis testified he witnessed Beard kill Santomero and Durian.
Cohenour was next on the stand, and he stuck by statements he made over ten-years earlier. Cohenour's testimony implicated Beard, Fowler, Brown, and McCoy.
Christine Cook, who years ago denied being at Droop Mountain Park, now said she had seen McCoy, Fowler, Cutlip, Lewis, and Brown at the park around five o'clock.
"Was Beard with them?" asked the prosecutor.
"Could have been. Could have been," Cook replied.
Jack Frost, the chief medical examiner, changed his estimated time of the murder and now said the the girls could have been killed as early as four in the afternoon.
Beard, bringing his time card from work, testified in his own defense. Beard had penciled in the time he left work, a common practice in the hills, but he did concede that he failed to write in the time he left work until a week later.
Beard was convicted of both murders and sentenced to life in prison without parole. The prosecution dismissed the charges against the remaining defendants, and they walked free on June 4, 1993.