The name of at least one Illinois county official has been changed to protect the guilty during events between me and the Greenville, Illinois sheriff's department once Kelly McGinnis had been placed in the Bond County jail for shooting his ex wife's attorney Thomas Meyer.

A few years ago, Kelly McGinnis was a popular hero for millions of Americans.  He had just shot and killed his ex wife's attorney when Kelly became convinced justice did not prevail in the divorce  or child custody proceedings.  He was an educated man, an engineer by profession who after going on the run was given just a few days before he was expected to be caught by the law because news columnists felt his educated mind did not encompass the survival instinct and skills of the typical lawbreaker.  When unexpectedly he remained at large, Kelly soon landed on  he U.S.'s ten most wanted list.  Americans started painting "Kelly McGinnis for President" on the concrete overheads along the country's interstates.  They had their fill of Lawyers running the country and applauded Kelly's taking the law into his own hands. 

Kelly had fired his own attorney, strongly feeling there had been collusion between his ex wife's attorney, the judge presiding over his case, and his attorney.  From that moment on he represented himself, bringing a shotgun as his first witness.   After nearly 100 days the law caught up with Kelly while he was breaking into his own ex lawyer's office and shooting up the furniture inside with his shotgun. 

The question is why did Kelly break and enter the attorney's office and start shooting up the furniture?  The  only  logical answer is---Kelly wanted to get caught  deciding that by sacrificing himself  he could dramatize just how unjust the United States had become.  It is almost impossible to imagine a more colorful  demonstration by a single man acting alone of how evil  the American judicial system had become.   Against all odds he had made too much of a mockery of his pursuers for far too long to just stick his head in the noose so easily. 

Oddly enough, my protagonist in Death on the Wild Side, Frank Harring, bears a strong resemblance to Kelly Mcginnis.  Like Kelly, Frank murdered lawyers in order to hammer into  the American public's consciousness just how devoid of morality the American judicial system had become.  And like Kelly, Frank set out to expose how badly American males were getting treated in the divorce courts.  Death on the Wild Side was published in 1995, just a few months before Kelly murdered his ex wife's attorney. 

I sent a copy of Death on the Wild Side to Kelly McGinnis after the sheriff of the county had promised me he'd  give the novel to the prisoner who was languishing in the county jail.  Hearing nothing back, after believing that Kelly would ask me to visit him, I sent a second copy of the novel to the county jail.  This time I did hear back, but not from Kelly. 

The sheriff called and asked me to come down to see him at his office.  Meanwhile I had just talked to the county board chairman the night before.  After exchanging a few pleasantries during which the county board chairman admitted that Kelly had been treated unfairly by the judicial system, I told the chairman  that Kelly had been deprived of his civil rights when county officials failed to deliver to him a copy of Death on the Wild Side.   The book had been sent to Kelly direct from the Publisher, Nirvana Publishing which was me.  I had been in touch both by e-mail and phone with Bert Hoff who was the moderator for the Microsoft Network's Men's news group who had explained to me he had been a lawyer and that there was no doubt in his mind that inmates had a constitutional right to receiving publications such as Death on the Wild Side direct from the publisher.  I ended up explaining to the county board chairman that a million dollar civil rights lawsuit could be initiated against his county if county officials persisted in depriving Kelly of Death on the Wild Side.  

Just minutes after the sheriff had asked me to meet with him in his office (I did not reside in his county), the county board chairman called me and commented:  "There was wacky weed in that novel you sent Kelly." 

I almost laughed aloud when I walked into the little office in the county jail to  meet Sergeant Ketchup when the sergeant produced a clear plastic envelope containing a marijuana leaf along with a few seeds of pot.   Although like most Americans I had smoked a little pot in my youth, I had not touched the stuff for years, didn't like smoking it, hadn't bought any, didn't have any at my farm, and  felt that smoking the stuff was pretty ditzy. 

"How crude, how utterly laughable this is?" I thought to himself.  "These assholes have really created their own evidence which they are now going to try and hang me with.  I'm completely in the right and these cretins are the very incarnation of evil.  Fuck em.  I can see why Kelly murdered that attorney now."

Thus began the interrogation of Jack Corbett. 

Sergeant Ketchup:  "We happen to believe that you sent that marijuana to Kelly in the pages of your novel, Mr. Corbett. That's a second degree felony."

Jack Corbett:  "There is something wrong with your logic, Sergeant Ketchup.  There are three possibilities at play here.  1.  I could have sent it, which I can assure you I haven't, 2.  You and your fellow county officials could have planted it as evidence against me to keep my novel away from Kelly and 3.  Somebody else hid his pot in the pages of my novel, I never checked the box containing 33 novels thoroughly, so I could have  sent it to Kelly completely unaware there was pot in its pages."

Sergeant Ketchup:  "That is ridiculous."

Jack Corbett:  "No.  You are the one who is ridiculous.  Look, I own a farm.  It does quite well.  I have an MBA, a Masters Degree in Business Administration.  And I don't even smoke the stuff.  No why would I, an educated man, do something so stupid as to send marijuana to a felon?  I have too much to lose."

Sergeant Ketchup:  "That is very true.  But I believe you are the kind of person who loves taking risks, who tries to push the envelope, and who gets off on pulling pranks like this."

Jack Corbett: "You are dead wrong, Sergeant Ketchup, and I choose to believe that your county might just be fully capable of trying to set me up.  You know I'm right and that you are wrong.  That's just the way it is."

Sergeant Ketchup:  "We are going to require you to take a lie detector test so we will be wanting you to come back down to this county to take it in a couple weeks."

Jack Corbett:  "Why should I do that?  I am a very busy man and I know I have the right to refuse to take your tests.  Your accusations against me are stupid and ridiculous."

Sergeant Ketchup:  "You will be hearing back from us shortly."

I soon got another phone call from the county sheriff.  Once again I announced my refusal to take a lie detector test.  The sheriff then told me to get an attorney, and that I would soon be ordered to appear in his county to face felony charges. 

I called a friend who was a criminal lawyer in Springfield.  By then I had learned that lie detector tests were typically administered at State Police Headquarters in Collinsville, Illinois which was in a different county from the officials I had just had to deal with.  Here they had the equipment and the personnel to administer the tests.  To go once again to the county in which Kelly McGinnis had been incarcerated  to take a lie detector tests was simply not normal procedure in the state of Illinois.  Clearly there was something rotten in Denmark.

After that everything died down.  I was never charged with sending marijuana to Kelly McGinnis.  I never heard again from county officials from the county Kelly had murdered his ex wife's attorney in.  Today, Kelly McGinnis is imprisoned in the state penitentiary, all but forgotten.  But what would have happened if Kelly had been allowed to read my book?  And what would have happened if he had asked his jailers to allow me to visit him?  It is very likely that Kelly would have so strongly identified himself with Death in the Wild Side's main character that he would have spilled his guts to me.  And that I would have become Kelly's voice to the outside world.

But that never happened.  All all because of a single leaf of marijuana.  Eight years ago I moved to Thailand.  I wrote Welcome to the Fun House, which is all about Thailand, then I compiled all my Dick Fitswell short stories into a single book which I published next.  Extreme Guns and Babes for an Adult World followed, after I republished Death on the Wild Side as a 2nd edition.  But the real story behind why Kelly McGinnis murdered his ex wife's attorney, how he succeeded in evading law enforcement on a 100 day manhunt during which he made the top 10 most wanted, and the corrupted rot of Illinois Bond Country officialdom will probably never be told thanks to a the planting of wacky weed in a successful attempt to suppress the truth. 

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