Going West: True Crime - The Boys on the Track // 332

Episode Date: August 19, 2023

In August of 1987, two teenage boys were hit by a freight train in the woods of Arkansas. What was originally believed to be a tragic accident quickly evolved into a controversial case believed now to be a homicide cover up. These are the murders of Don Henry and Kevin Ives, otherwise as The Boys On The Track. BONUS EPISODES Apple Subscriptions: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/going-west-true-crime/id1448151398 Patreon: patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES 1. Kevin's Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/24200232/larry-kevin-ives 2. Don's FInd A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/150438891/don-george-henry 3. Arkansas Democrat: https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/jun/05/mom-of-cold-case-victim-dies/ 4. Unsolved Mysteries Forum: https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Don_Henry_and_Kevin_Ives 5. ID Files: https://idfiles.com/ 6. Baxter Bulletin: https://www.newspapers.com/image/412571375/?terms=kevin%20ives&match=1 7. Unsolved Mysteries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxDQDNlx1tI 8. Baxter Bulletin: https://www.newspapers.com/image/412451017/?terms=don%20henry%20kevin%20ives%20obituary&match=1 9. The Crime Reel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvSeiCNorEk 10. The Daily World: https://www.newspapers.com/image/950323857/?terms=%22kevin%20ives%22%20sister&match=1 11. Baxter Bulletin: https://www.newspapers.com/image/412416815/?terms=%22curtis%20henry%22&match=1 12. The Daily World: https://www.newspapers.com/image/950299839/?terms=linda%20ives&match=1 13. Arkansas Gravestones: https://arkansasgravestones.org/view.php?id=1133087 14. Arkansas Online: https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2011/nov/13/two-suspects-08-death-head-court-20111113/ 15. Biographics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqWJcf3-JMM 16. KATV: https://katv.com/news/local/fbi-memo-reveals-drug-smuggling-at-mena-airport-in-1980 17. Caselaw: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-8th-circuit/1161365.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on to crime fans? I'm your host Teez. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello everybody, big thanks to Makayla for recommending today's case. I remember hearing this on True Crime Garage like way before we even started going West and it is just a totally baffling case so it was really interesting to dive back into it after not having heard the story for like six years. Yeah and it's

you know it's one of those cases that probably a lot of you guys know but yeah it's a bit more well known. For sure. Props to a true crime garage. They're actually the podcast that got Daphne and I into podcasting in the first place. Yes, they are. We used to listen to them in the car all the time. And here we are. So thank you to them.

Yes, and also, again, thank you to Mikaela. Absolutely. Yeah, this case is just wild. There's so many different pieces of it that we're just going to dive into because so much of it doesn't make sense. So let's go. All right, guys. This is episode 332 of Going West.

So let's get into it. In August of 1987, two teenage boys were hit by a freight train in the woods of Arkansas. What was originally believed to be a tragic accident quickly evolved into a controversial pace believed now to be a homicide cover-up. These are the murders of Don Henry and Kevin Ives, also known by Kevin, was born on April 28, 1970 in Arkansas, where he joined an older sister named Alicia, along with parents Linda and Larry Ives. Kevin is remembered for his quote, irresistible grin and effervescent personality. And he loves spending time outdoors, but equally loves staying in and playing video games.

Don George Henry, who was Kevin's best friend, was born on September 30th, 1970 to Marvell and Curtis Henry. And together, the boys attended Bryant High School in Bryant, Arkansas, which is about 20 minutes southwest from the capital of Little Rock. Don is remembered as being naturally funny and just the type of person who could talk to anyone about anything. The boys were regarded as inseparable and shared many of the same interests and past times like they loved to hunt together and both had a passion for cars, often helping each other work on each other's cars.

In the summer of 1987, the boys were about to head into their senior year of high school and they were just soaking up the last moments of summer vacation. On the evening of Saturday, August 22, 1987, the boys headed out for the night to meet up with some friends, and they would often double date on weekend nights, but that night, they were going to hang out with friends in a large parking lot outside of Little Rock that was known to kind of host groups of teens. Friends would meet up there to listen to music, drink, and smoke a bit of weed, especially during the summer months. But as the festivities kind of waned, Kevin

and Don headed out around midnight. Not ready for the night to wind down quite yet, they decided to stop by Don's house to pick up his rifle before doing some late-night hunting. Kevin weeded outside the house while Don went in to talk to his dad. The two of them chatted for about 15 minutes before the boys took off with Don's 22 caliber rifle in hand, and by then it was almost 1 a.m. So the pair set off to go spotlighting, which has been kind of the course of some criticism since their deaths, because this is an illegal practice in Arkansas And for those who don't know because I didn't know what it did you do you know what that is he?

I absolutely do yeah, okay, I didn't grow up hunting or doing any of that stuff Vegetarian here, but basically Spotlighting involves like shining a bright light into the eyes of an animal in the dark Which causes it to freeze in its tracks, and makes it easier to hunt. So sadly, they were doing this on that night, or at least they were trying to. Now, for the next three hours, no one saw or heard from Kevin and Don.

Then around 4 a.m. in the early morning hours of Sunday, August 23, 1987. A train conductor for Union Pacific Railroad spotted the boys on the tracks. Now this train, which stretched over a mile long or 1.6 kilometers long, was bound for Little Rock, carrying cargo and excess of 6,000 pounds, and it contained 75 cars. It was also steaming through the small, outlying communities of Little Rock at a speed of over 52 miles or 83 kilometers per hour. When the four cargo train employees spotted bodies on the track, they employed the emergency

break within 3 to five seconds, but still, the train took close to half a mile to stop, and by then, it was too late. Police were called to the area, which was just outside Alexander, Arkansas, so only a mile from where Don's family lived. The incident was written off as a tragic accident, though, but the bodies of 17-year-old

Don Henry and 16-year-old Kevin Ives were found on the tracks having been run over by this train. After authorities arrived at the scene, they were taken in for autopsy's but mostly just as a formality because in their minds they're just thinking this was a tragic accident and nothing but. But strangely, this train crew who were absolutely rattled by the evening's events claim that the boys hadn't even flinched at the sound of the horn or the deafening roar of the impending crash. The train crew also noted that the boys were laid out perpendicular to the tracks, partially

covered in a green tarp as as if they had tucked themselves in. So this wasn't the type of situation where they were playing around on the tracks, and standing on them and then the train quickly approached, they were laying down. And alongside them was Dawn's 22 caliber rifle. Although all four of the eyewitnesses on the train that night had reported seeing a green tarp partially shrouding the boys' bodies, no evidence of that tarp was ever found, and they were not known to have such an item in their possession. The boys were positioned, almost as if they had been posed at an open casket funeral.

And one eyewitness account was as follows, quote, I sought two boys lying side by side like soldiers at attention. They looked like they had laid down there and pulled this cover up over them like a blanket. Part of it was off. I noticed they never moved. Here we were, bearing down on them, and there was no movement of their heads. They made no attempt to rise. State-appointed medical examiner, Dr. Fommy Malik, not Rommi Malik, performed in...

I mean, that was a really delayed reaction on my bar. I didn't even come to my mind. Yeah, I just popped into my brain as I was reading that name. I was like, Fommy Malik, Rommi Malik. So Fommy Malik performed this autopsy and then came to the boys' families with a tidy conclusion, and it was basically that the two boys had been smoking marijuana

on the evening of their deaths, and had likely fallen asleep on the tracks. Dr. Malik wrote that Kevin and Don were found to have an incredibly high concentration of marijuana in their system, basically the equivalent of about 20 joints, and that they were likely a mobile on the track due to the sheer volume they had ingested. Now he claimed that that accounted for their lack of response to the horn or the impending impact of this train. Thus their deaths were ruled accidental. And two days after the tragedy, the Saline County Sheriff's Office announced that there was no reason to suspect foul play.

So let's talk about this for a second. Like there's a lot more details to come, but the idea of two teenage boys both smoking, what would be equivalent to 20 joints, is insane, but there's a lot to this. So firstly, I smoke weed most nights and a full joint would be too much for even me. And then I talk to my friend who is the biggest donor I know

and she has the craziest tolerance ever like her tolerance is so high and even she couldn't smoke a few joints in one night. Now not to say that my tolerance and her tolerance is the only tolerance, but that said, weed today is way more powerful than it used to be, which I'm sure a lot of people listening who smoked weed in the 70s and 80s will know this,

but according to a bunch of different articles I read, on average, there was 4% of THC in marijuana back in the 1980s, and now it's around 20%, but can be up to around 40%. So if they smoke 20 joints, it would be maybe equivalent to like five or so joints today, but still it's really hard to compare the two because smoking 20 whole joints is still a lot of smoke and that takes a lot of time. Now that said, checking the body for cannabis is not the same as checking it for alcohol.

Like, they can tell how much alcohol was presently in someone's system at the time of death, but weed stays in your system for weeks up to months, depending on how often you smoke. Which is why when people know they're getting drug tested, they won't smoke weed for like weeks or even a month or so. Like, that's kind of something we all are many of us know. Unless you use that age-old concoction of niacin and cranberry juice, which I've done before. Yeah, that's totally a thing, right? So that's like one of those tricks that a lot of us are familiar with who know, oh, I'm gonna get drug tested at work and I don't want them to know that I smoke weed.

Whereas with alcohol, like it's not the same situation at all because alcohol leaves your system way faster. So this, because of this, this doesn't mean that even if there was 20 joints worth of weed in their systems, this doesn't mean that they smoked 20 joints that day. It could have been across weeks of time, but even to this day, it's impossible to tell it's super nuanced. And older weed also was a lot harsher, so although it's technically possible that they could have smoked 20 joints that day, the chances of them being able to access this much weed each and smoking that much is just very unlikely. But at the time of this autopsy,

this unfortunately was not discussed, and they just assumed that the test results meant that they had actively smoked that much weed when they died or right before they died. And we're gonna get into a little bit more of the inconsistencies involving this soon as well, but I just wanted to address that because I think that's shocking for anybody to hear,

but it's just not that simple. Yeah, when I first heard that detail, I was like, damn, I mean, any normal person would probably fall asleep after smoking their fourth joint. And then to think about, you know, smoking 20 joints here, like, yeah, probably even less. I mean, you would literally probably just pass out. Yeah, before you even get to that number,

even with the lower potent weed, that was available in 1987. So it still is like, what? Like, even back then, that's still like, what? This is a 16 and 17 year old that we're talking about. I remember hearing that detail and just thinking like there's absolutely no way. Yeah, but again, we're gonna get into it

a little bit more because it doesn't even seem that that is true anyway, that that much weed was in their systems anyway, but we'll get to that. So obviously with that belief that they had each smoke 20 joints right before they died with that belief that they had each smoked 20 joints right before they died or the day that they died, it goes without saying that their parents were just

absolutely shocked by this. And even according to friends, Kevin and Don were not frequent drinkers or drug users or weed smoker. So even if they had smoked a bit that night, it wouldn't have been enough to incapacitate them to this degree that this foamy malloc is claiming.

Now Dawn's dad Curtis had been the last of the parents to see the boys because like I said, or did you say that? No, you said that. They had just spoken to Dawn's dad. Right. When they went to go get the right food. Yes, so he was the last person to see them and having just spoken to Don when he sat by, he would have noticed if the boys were so high that night

that they were at the risk of falling unconscious. And then there was the question of their positioning. Now, all four of the boys' parents, both moms and both dads, were very skeptical about this. Just wondering how they would have laid themselves out like this if they were as high as this medical examiner said they were. Like how and why would they have neatly arranged themselves on the train tracks as they were seen before the impact and then also put a tarp on themselves and where did this tarp come from? Dawn's dad Curtis also pointed out another unlikely hood

and that was the gun. Now, he claimed that Don would have never laid his gun on the gravel and rocks of the train tracks or even let it touch the ground because he kept meticulous care of it. It was always gined until the wood like gleamed. He really cared about this gun. So rejecting what they felt was a brush off

by both local police and the medical examiner, the parents pooled their resources and hired a private investigator. While they were thankful for the extra help, local law enforcement and Dr. Malik were reportedly completely unhelpful in the investigator search for more information. The private investigator was able to track down multiple accounts of suspicious activity

that the police had apparently not followed up on from the evening that the boys were killed. And one paramedic who responded to the scene in the aftermath of the collision remarked that the blood appeared to be dark red in color, as if it had been dried blood or blood that had already been exposed to oxygen for some time. So this raised the question, how long had they been dead when they were met with the impact of the train?

This paramedic, whose name was Shirley, said that she had also spotted some suspicious activity in the vicinity of the crash about an hour before it happened. Shirley observed a pickup truck with multiple men inside driving around the area before the crash, but couldn't be sure who was inside the truck or what they had been doing. And when asked why she hadn't shared this information in the original investigation, Shirley claimed that she had never been questioned. Now another shocking account from someone in the area that night came out when a man claimed that he had seen two young men using a payphone nearby in the early morning hours of August

23, 1987. He apparently watched as they were wrenched from the payphone booth by police officers, or people who were dressed like police officers. The young men were then apparently beaten and thrown into the back of an unmarked police car which then sped off. This lead was also apparently not pursued by police. In one week before the boys' deaths, a man in a full military uniform

was spotted near the train tracks in the area where the boys were killed. Now he was reported to the police for suspicious activity, but when the officer showed up, the man opened fire on him and also on this police vehicle. Now a week later, on the night that the boys were killed, this man was again spotted in his fatigues, walking in the vicinity where the boys were found, but police were never able to locate this man. Five months after the deaths of their sons, Linda and Larry Ives and Marvell and Curtis Henry held

a press conference urging the police to reopen the case. Luckily, the mounting public pressure and growing questions worked, and the date after this press conference, the case was finally reopened, and the bodies were exhumed for a second medical examiner to give their opinion. This time, it was handled by Dr. Joe Burton, who was a medical examiner from Atlanta. Dr. Burton disputed the amount of marijuana found in their systems and said that between the two of them, they had actually only smoked about three joints, which would have been a totally normal amount considering how weak weed was back then. Right.

If they had smoked three joints between them that night, they probably would have, you know, of course, been high from it. But this also doesn't mean that that's how much was in their system. Like, it means it was in their system when they died, but it doesn't mean that they smoke that much that day. That could have been across a week, two weeks, sorry, I said my water bottle, a week, two weeks or more, depending. Right. It could have been from that day, but we still don't know. So even then, that doesn't tell us

if they were higher, not when they died. Right, yeah. And Dr. Burton was claiming that the amount of marijuana in their systems was nowhere near the levels that they would have, if they had smoked like 20 joints each. Right. Which is what Dr. Malik's claiming. Yeah, and there was also no trace of alcohol found in their systems either, which I think you touched on earlier. And Dr. Burton also felt strongly that the boys had at least been unconscious

when they had been discarded on these tracks, but he also entertained the possibility that one, if not both of them, had already been dead by the time the train made contact with their bodies. So with that, the cause of the boy's deaths were officially changed from accidental to probable homicide. Well, another shocking development came when Dr. Burton announced what he had found after analyzing Kevin's T-shirt. Other shocking development came when Dr. Burton announced what he had found after analyzing Kevin's t-shirt.

According to Dr. Burton, the shirt contained, quote, lots of tears and defects in the, quote, left lower back area in the area of the injury. Now this section of Kevin's t-shirt was analyzed under a microscope for precision. And Dr. Burton explained, quote, with this microscope, you can tell whether it's been torn or cut with something like scissors or a knife. There is no question that this particular defect was not a tear, that it was made by something cutting through the fabric. Also around the margins of this defect, there are a number of red blood cells, so there

appears to also be blood around this defect. I think this is important first of all, because the shirt was not on the body when it was found. And secondly, the defect is not a tear that you might expect from snagging on a cross-tie or snagging on a railroad spiketie or snagging on a railroad spike, but is consistent with something actually cutting the fabric. It's also important because the defect is in the area of the injury. He then continued on to describe that Kevin had sustained what he called a, quote,

pattern facial wound, and that his skull had been injured enough to support the possibility of being struck with the butt of Don's gun. Don had sustained back injuries and was found without a shirt on, but his shirt was recovered later at the scene. And after this discovery, the cause of death was changed

from probable homicide to a definite homicide. Dr. Burton concluded that his findings, quote, strongly suggest that the boys were injured, rendered unconscious, or even killed prior to their bodies being run over by the train. On September 10, 1988, a grand jury ruled that homicide was definite in the deaths of Kevin Ives and Don Henry. And this came after over a year of their parents fighting for more answers in a full investigation, as well as a gag order that was initially placed on Dr. Burton. Though it's unclear why, a local circuit county judge issued a gag order against Dr. Burton, which initially barred him from talking to both state police and the FBI about his findings. Which is so bizarre.

Yeah, it seems very suspicious as well. Thankfully, this was lifted, but the families had had enough of the red tape, and began speaking out against law enforcement and Dr. Malik, who was the person who performed that original autopsy. That quack. That quack, Dr. Malik. So Dr. Malik was the chief of state medical examiner from 1979 to 1992 before being removed from office five years after these murders.

And he was not only accused of taking bribes, but also kickbacks. Super sus. But even before he was removed from office, the parents of the boys had reason to distrust him, obviously. When met with criticism about his handling of the case, Dr. Malik released the following statement through his lawyer, saying, quote, Dr. Malik has said he doesn't believe anybody laid a finger on those boys. Despite Dr. Burton's contradictory findings, Dr. Malik remained in office and maintained

his position that there was no foul play involved. So Linda Ives, whose Kevin's mom, set out to get Dr. Malik fired from his position. And she even joined forces with family members of other victims, whose loved ones were, you know, met with more questions than answers. And the group actually nicknamed themselves Vomit, or victims of Malik's infuriating testimony. I love that. Yeah, so crazy. So in his final years as a state-appointed medical examiner, public opinion soured on

Dr. Malik. A cartoon criticizing him was even printed in the Arkansas Democrat, which depicted him standing in front of a body whose feet were encased in cement. The text read, quote, clearly a case of this guy carrying more cement than he could swim with. I'll have to rule accidental death. So it's kind of funny that they're basically poking fun at him for being so dumb. Yeah.

This guy's an idiot. Yeah. And a quack. But sadly, is the years just kind of slid away with no answers? Even his removal wouldn't help the boys his family find the answers that they were so desperate for. But Dr. Malik wasn't the only villain emerging in their story. Selene County prosecutor Dan Harmon is another person now implicated in the deaths of Kevin and Dawn. So Dan Harmon was tasked with assisting the parents while a grand jury deliberated about

whether the deaths should be ruled, you know, homicides, or kept as accidental. However, in the years following his involvement, he was disbarred and charged with conspiracy to extort property, racketeering, and conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute drugs. And his wife was also caught stealing cocaine out of an evidence locker. That's such a weird detail in this case. Classy stuff. So one investigator covering Dan's fall from Grace wrote, quote, it is the role of Dan Harmon in this story that is most convincing that there was and

is a multi-level bipartisan conspiracy. In January of 1994, the FBI opened their own investigation into the boy's deaths, and a local came to Linda claiming that they had witnessed Dan Harmon himself at the scene of the boy's deaths that evening, his pants apparently splattered with their blood. And this particular witness was considered so credible that they were put into protective custody and even passed a polygraph test. They also apparently corroborated information that only the authorities had access to. However, by November of 1995, the FBI had shut down the investigation, and Linda was apparently told to consider the possibility that there was, quote, no crime committed against their

son. Now, throughout the years, the most pervasive theory has been that the boys bore witness to illegal drug smuggling activity, and were simply unfortunate ponds in the cover-up. In the 1980s, the South was a magnet for drug smuggling activity between the States and South America. And we touched on this in episode 253 about Norman Ladner, who's believed to have been caught in the crossfire during a drug drop in Mississippi in 1989, almost exactly two years after the murders of Kevin and Dawn, but his case also remains

unsolved. Arkansas in particular was a hotbed of drug activity, and one story became notorious in the drug discourse of the 1980s. Barry Seale was an American pilot, born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who basically fell in favor with the infamous Pablo Escobar and the Median cartel out of Columbia. So after being fired by TWA or Transworld Airlines in 1972 for smuggling plastic explosives into Mexico, Barry moved on to marijuana and then later cocaine. And while serving time in jail in Honduras, Barry made connections to smugglers from the

Medellin cartel, who brought him on to work for them starting in 1981. Barry claimed that he could earn as much as $500,000 per flight getting cocaine from Columbia to the US. So he started by air-dropping large shipments of cocaine to remote parts of Louisiana, such as where Norman Ladner was killed. But when the FBI caught wind of this, he actually moved his operations to the Mina Intermountain Regional Airport in Mina, Arkansas, which is just over two hours west of Alexander, where Kevin and Don were killed.

Now by 1985 Barry Seal was caught and he was also arrested and forced to see operations. However, the drug smuggling continued without him. In exchange for a lighter sentence and probation, Barry agreed to work as an informant to take down the operation that he once thrived under. So absolutely furious at this, the Median cartel ordered his assassination, and Barry was shot and killed in his hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana on February 19, 1986. And if anybody is interested, the 2017 movie American maid starring Tom Cruise depicts his life of crime and eventual murder. Now while Barry was killed over a year before the murders of Kevin Ives and Don Henry, the

drug operation legacy that he left behind in that region of Arkansas is believed to have been alive and well. So this has come to be, you know, one of the most widely accepted theories about the boys' deaths. And even their parents have claimed that they also believe this to be the reason that the boys were killed. EARLY, multiple people who claimed to be aiding the investigation or to have information pertinent to the deaths of the boys were murdered in the following years. A friend of Kevin and Don's who had actually spent part of their last night with them died

less than a year after the boys were killed. Nineteen-year-old Keith Coney reportedly told his family that he knew that two police officers had killed Kevin and Don. Keith's mom even claimed that he had been in the vicinity when the boys had been struck by the train and that he had seen two men with them. In May of 1988, he lost control of his motorcycle and crashed, and according to the responding officers, in addition to his injuries from the crash, he reportedly had his throat slashed. But the details of the police report were inconclusive and an autopsy was not even performed.

Then there's another Keith, but this is 44-year-old Keith McCaskill, and he owned a nightclub in the area and was apparently tasked with, quote, keeping his ears open for any information about the mysterious deaths of the boys. In the days before his death, his friends and family recall him being paranoid about quote, the railroad track thing, and that he had quote, talk to the wrong people. He allegedly even helped make his own funeral arrangements. And then, on November 10, 1988, Keith was stabbed 113 times by a local teenager named Ronald Shane Smith. Some believe that Ronald was bribed and paid off to commit the murder as an inmate came

forward after Keith's death, saying that they were offered $4,000 to murder him. But please downplay the potential link between the three murders announcing, quote, at this point, we don't think there's any connection between the deaths. That's the assumption we are going on at this time. They also added that Keith McCaskell had not been able to offer them much information about the murders

of Kevin and Don. The deputy prosecutor for the county stated, quote, I have visited with him, but the information he gave me was not earth shattering. And he also said that Keith Quote was not a big informant or anything of that nature. But it is pretty weird that he was telling people before he died, before he was murdered,

that he was paranoid about that train track thing. Yeah, and also the fact that they used the words was not a big informant. So you're saying he wasn't informant, he just wasn't a big one. Right. And if that means that they still couldn't have killed him for being an informant of any kind. Sure. You know, but the coincidence is continued.

So in January of 1989, local man Greg Collins was killed by a gunshot to the face shortly before he was to appear in front of Dan Harmon with information regarding the murders. But apparently his death was thought to be a suicide. Then, on April 19, 1989, local 21-year-old Jeffrey Rhodes was found dead after having been missing for over two weeks. According to his family, he mentioned that he quote, "'New too much about the murders of Kevin, Don, and Keith McCaskill,' and that he had also been in an informant about the drug drops happening at the Meena Airport.

His body was recovered from a landfill, shot twice in the head, and then set ablaze. Yeah, this is all just way too suspicious. Yeah, it really is. It's very convenient that there's all these murders happening in the same area. And all these people are saying, I knew something about this. Right, and not to be disrespectful

if Greg Collins' death was a suicide, but was it? It's just all a bit fishy. It definitely is. So a local man and woman were implicated in the murder of Jeffrey, and claimed that they were paid in cocaine to murder Jeffrey. And though this couldn't be unequivocally proven, it has been speculated that some of these men had their autopsies performed by none other than

Dr. Malik. Of course, and as Unsolved Murder cases often do, this case took on a mind of its own. Now some feel that the rash of deaths of people who claim they had intimate knowledge of the boy's murders is just purely coincidental, and that people in the small community of Alexander just kinda wanted to feel included in the most gripping unsolved murder of the region. Some feel that it goes deeper, however, even connecting it to the Arkansas governor at the time, who happened to be future President Bill Clinton. And there are like whole communities online built around proving that Bill Clinton was like

orchestrating the drug drops for their own financial gain and then silencing those who came up against it, such as Kevin Ives and Don Henry. And you can find their names in a bunch of online forums about different popular conspiracy theories about the Clintons. But either way, the reality is that 36 years later, we still don't have answers for their families. Through her tireless efforts to bring answers for the families, Kevin's mom Linda Ives became the central figure in the investigation. When investigative journalist Mara Leverep penned a book about the case entitled Boys

on the Tracks, Death, Denial, and a mother's crusade to bring her son's killers to justice, Maura specifically thanked Linda, saying, quote, who gave me her time, her records, and her trust, and who keeps this story alive. In a YouTube video she posted in 2019, Linda said candidly, quote, I would just like to thank everyone out there who has been supportive. I hope and pray you will help spread the word out there and get the information out there. There has been so much going on recently, I almost feel like Kevin and Dawn have been left behind because it has been so many years. Sadly, Linda passed

away in 2021 never able to find answers for her son and his best friend. One of the private investigators who assisted her in the case said of Linda after her passing quote, as far as I'm concerned, Linda Ives is an angel, figuratively and literally now. Linda's neighbor remembers, quote, their memories, all they have to embrace are good, and that is why their quest for justice is untiring. One of life's most precious possessions their son was taken from them. Because of their efforts and determination, we all will one day know who and why. If you have any information about the murders of Kevin Ives and Don Henry,

please call the Selene County Sheriff's Office at 501-303-5648. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and on Tuesday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. This story is just so crazy, it's all over the place, the fact that there were two very different autopsies makes everything that much more confusing, and all the crazy conspiracies attached to it like it is a mind blowing story. It absolutely is, and if you guys want to see photos from this case and all the other

cases that we've covered thus far, head on over to our socials, we're on Instagram at GoingWestPodcast, Twitter or X at GoingWestPod and we're also on Facebook. Alright guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5%

1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% Thank you. you