Death was ruled a suicide but letter suggests murder

ASSOCIATED PRESS

6:02 a.m. April 23, 2004

DENTON , Texas – A mysterious letter suggesting that a 1946 death listed as a suicide was actually a murder has led authorities to agree to exhume the man's body.

Herb Vest, who received the letter after running an ad in a newspaper seeking information, may finally discover what really happened to his father, Harold "Buddy" Vest, who was found hanged in his cabinet-making shop in Gainesville .

On Friday, authorities will exhume Harold Vest's body from Hope Cemetery in Henrietta.

"I never bought the suicide story," said Vest, of Dallas , told the Denton Record-Chronicle. "He had a baby, a wife; he was happy. He wasn't drinking or gambling. There was nothing in the family history to suggest he would do this."

Justice of the Peace Dorothy Lewis determined there was sufficient probable cause to reopen the case.

"There was quite a bit of evidence that it was not a suicide," Lewis said. "At this point, I don't have any answers. It's just not quite right."

Herb Vest said he became obsessed about finding the truth about his father's death a couple of years ago. He hired a private investigator and later placed a newspaper ad offering a $10,000 reward for information.

Someone sent them a three-page, single-spaced letter, signed "M. Smith," saying that she had flirted with Harold Vest and her boyfriend went into a jealous rage.

"Smith" said the boyfriend took her home and she learned of Vest's death the next day. She said two of her boyfriend's friends had a role, and the boyfriend said they would all go to the electric chair if she spoke of the matter.

Private investigator Danny Williams said Smith knew some intimate details about the case. He wrote Smith at the general delivery address she suggested, but she hasn't contacted him again.

After the letter and other evidence was given to Lewis, she and Cooke County District Attorney Janelle Haverkamp agreed to seek exhumation of the body.

"What comes next depends on what is found," Haverkamp said. "There is the possibility that a criminal investigation could be reopened. There's no statute of limitations here."

Vest's widow, Ruth, who had found her husband's body in 1946, a thin leather belt looped around his neck, said she didn't understand why her husband would have committed suicide.