The destruction of the distillery was complete. The residence belonged to R. B. Bledsoe. We found him and he showed me a lease agreement signed in the name of Roy Reece, later identified as Wade White, a known employee of J. R. s. This was certainly helpful. About one o clock an agent called from the house on the same property as the still.
Somebody is up here loading furniture and stuff into a station wagon.
Attorney Rob Thomas was gathering up everything he could carry and hurriedly placing it in the back of the station wagon. I was disgusted, too, especially since Thomas had worked as an Assistant U. S. Attorney after his graduation form law school, prosecuting moonshiners. I was associated with U. S. Attorneys who were some of the finest men I have ever known, but Thomas was not one of them. He got his name by being fast on his feet, but he was a likeable kind of guy when we caught him. This was the first of many large scale J. R. operations that I investigated.