Sat, Apr. 24, 2004

Letter prompts officials to exhume man's body

The Associated Press

HENRIETTA - After receiving a mysterious letter indicating that a man's 1946 death was murder rather than suicide, authorities on Friday exhumed the body for forensic testing.

Harold "Buddy" Vest was 25, with a wife and baby son, when he was found dead in his Gainesville cabinet shop nearly 58 years ago. Around his neck was a thin leather belt, suspended from a woodworking machine and nailed to the door, according to the justice of the peace report.

A rope was tied around his waist, pinning one arm to his side, and another rope was wrapped around his legs and fastened to the wall, according to the report. The justice of the peace ruled it a suicide.

"It just never made sense that he committed suicide," his son Herb Vest said Friday. "I am happy that we're able to finally get to the truth here."

He said that the body was exhumed Friday from Hope Cemetery in Henrietta, about 110 miles north of Fort Worth .