Today, Weekend Edition

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National

April 24, 2004

Interview: Herb Vest speaks about exhuming father's body after 58 years to see if he was murdered

LESTER HOLT, co-host: Herb Vest is Harold Buddy Vest's son. Herb, good morning to you. Thanks for joining us.

Mr. HERB VEST (Father's Body Exhumed After His Mysterious Death 58 Years Ago): Good morning.

HOLT: I know the body of your father now having been exhumed will undergo an autopsy in the next few weeks. What do forensic experts expect to find? What exactly are they looking for?

Mr. VEST: Well, it depends largely on the condition of the body. We don't know exactly what we're going to find. We believe that there may be marks on the body. If there's enough remains available we can tell whether or not he's been beaten, whether there's broken bones, whether there might be fragments, strings and so forth, from a handkerchief that was used as a gag.

HOLT: I would like you to talk a little bit about what the cause of death may be based on that letter you received. I understand this comes from a woman who says that she had walked into the shop there, was flirting with your dad, and then her jealous boyfriend and his friends enter. Explain what she says happened at that point.

Mr. VEST: Well, what happened, she said, was that her boyfriend was a police officer and entered with a gun and two of his friends. They proceeded to torture the--Miss Smith--the anonymous letter, and also my father. She said that she was made to strip, that my father was made to strip of their clothing. My father was then made to put on panties and a girdle. A--they made a joke at that point. And then they bound my father's feet and tethered it to the bathroom wall. Bound his hand to his side. Took a belt from a machine in the shop and put it around his neck and suspended it from three nails in the door frame in the bathroom.

HOLT: Why--why do you think this is all credible? It's, obviously, quite detailed. Single spaced, three pages. What makes you and the justice of the peace think that there's something here credible?

Mr. VEST: Well, there's many, many things in the letter that were in the justice of the peace report. No one has seen that justice of the peace report other than my private investigator and maybe his staff. So it--the facts in the letter are corroborated by the justice of the peace report and other information that we have available.

HOLT: And we should point out you were two years old when your father died. And I understand later in life, you were rummaging through the attic and found the death certificate, the cause of death being suicide. When you began to actually search and started getting official records, were those records consistent or were there clues even on how it was written up originally?

Mr. VEST: Well, when I engaged Danny about--about six months ago, I guess it was, to investigate, it did not take him long when he read the justice of the peace report. He called me back immediately and said that--he said, `Herb, your father did not commit suicide. He was murdered.' It was pretty evident from anybody who was to read the justice of the peace report that this is certainly not a suicide.

HOLT: Well, well, Herb Vest, it's a fascinating mystery, and we hope you'll stay in touch with us. We'd like to find out how this all turns out. Thank you very much for being our guest today.

Mr. VEST: Thank you very much.

HOLT: All right. And we'll be right back.

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