March 19, 2024 • 31 mins
A chance encounter leads to the discovery of a salacious scandal that’s been lost to history for 50 years. Host Lindsay Byron sifts through crumbling news clippings to unpack a story of illicit sex and corruption involving elite powerbrokers alongside the forgotten castoffs of rural Virginia.
Written and hosted by Lindsay Byron AKA Lux ATL - goodtimesbadgirls.com
Music and sound design by Guy Kelly - guykelly.com
CAST:
Newscaster - Lauren Vogelbaum
Judge - Max Williams
Prosecutor - Ben Bowlin
Janet Barker - Anney Reese
Buckeye - Tari
Defense Attorney Johnson - Noel Brown
Dr. Shield - Sean Rhodes
SOURCES:
All courtroom scenes are pulled from the transcripts of The United States VS Joseph Whitehead, Landon Wayne Holley, and Aubrey Henderson trial. These transcripts are located in the National Archives in Philadelphia.
Opening newscast describing the Hookergate crime ring comes from an August 26, 1977 Danville Register and Bee article by Nelson Benyunes.
The courtroom exchange preceding the Edgewood diner scene comes from US Prosecuting Attorney Stubbs’ direct examination of Janet Barker on December 9th, 1977.
The courtroom exchange in which Buckeye describes how she made a booking comes from Prosecuting Attorney Robert Stubbs’ direct examination of Buckeye (not her real name) on December 7th, 1977.
The newscast describing Whitehead’s role in the “anatomy of power” comes from an August 1977 Washington Star article.
The courtroom exchange describing Joe Whitehead’s drinking problem comes from a psychiatric evaluation conducted by Dr. James Shield on January 4 1978, and presented as evidence by Whitehead’s defense team before sentencing.
The above court transcripts are located in the National Archives in Philadelphia.
The first-hand accounts from Rodney Smith come from an interview I conducted with him on January 26th, 2022.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Captain's fucking Log, Day three, May twenty fourth. Can't imagine
any of this is going to be usable on the
fucking podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
A prostitution ring involving eleven businesses in three states, payoffs
and money and flesh to a public official for protection.
The operation of a dozen truck stops and health centers
as bodyhouses. All of these activities are part of a
picture painted by a federal grand jury in a sweeping
twenty count indictment returned yesterday in US District Court in Lynchburg.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
You could see the end coming from the beginning. It
was one of those wild situations, so dangerous and illicit.
It's got goodbye written all over. Hello. The moment these
wheels began turning, the end was already set and this
could not end well. That's the thing about illicit desire.
(01:22):
We know it can't end well, but we can't help
ourselves anyway. This story came to me from the locked
trunk of a dead woman. Hey, a lot of people
don't want to be involved with this podcast. In fact,
(01:45):
the person who provided me with my first glimpse into
this case a fellow native of my small southern hometown,
someone i've known my whole life. She's one of those people,
so we'll just my friend. When my friend's mother died
(02:06):
and she was tasked with a job of packing up
her belongings. Among her mother's many possessions, she discovered a
locked trunk. What she discovered inside hundreds of news clippings
chronicling a scandal of sex and power that rocked our
(02:27):
small hometown nearly fifty years ago. The local press called
this scandal Hooker Gate. Welcome to Danville, Virginia, the last
capital of the Confederacy, a dying mill town where cotton
once was king, but now oxy cottons take the throne.
(02:51):
Rearranged the letters in Danville, and it spells evil land
atop the black silhouette of the abandoned text plant. The
word home once burned into the night. That glowing sign
is gone. Now ain't nothing left here for most of us,
(03:13):
and most of us have left. When the Hooker Gates
scandal was exploding across the headlines, local court clerk Samuel
Swanson was asked his opinion on the matter. I admit
we were backward, Swanson said, we just didn't move with
(03:35):
the times. But that's because we've never had to progress.
Maybe it's the lack of progress, or more likely my
own personal baggage that keeps me away. But I rarely
returned to Danville, except in instances of death, the occasional holiday,
(03:58):
and bouts of filial guilt. Picture it the summer of
twenty twenty one. My Granny Audrey had just passed away.
Among those gathered for her funeral, my friend. After the service,
as we drank beers at the local bar, that friend
(04:21):
approached me a large, spiral bound notebook under her arm.
She plunked that book down on the table in front
of me and said, you're a writer, have at it.
She flung the book open, flipping through the pages. On
each sheet, a xeroxed news clipping half a century old,
(04:44):
shouted words like corruption and prostitution and federal crime. Over
the next few weeks, I would pour through this notebook.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
These operators inner state facilities to further the prostitution activities.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
I was told that it was just supposed to be
strictly a massage parlor.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
The investigation revealed that Holly and Whitehead never paid the
girls for sexual favors, and Whitehead bragged about being the
Commonwealth attorney.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
The big shot in Dan wolves Barker.
Speaker 6 (05:20):
He ran to Dan will operation.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
He beats me continuously.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
If you print anything that you hear in the grand jury,
you will be put in jail.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
My boyfriend threatened me and told me that if I
didn't get out and go to work, I'd never see
my daughter again.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
And he stated that at this particular time, the only
thing they had to offer was coffee and pussy.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
I never gave any massages. Now this is a story.
Why did your mom keep all of these clippings, I
asked my friend later. She smiled, half proud, half already
(06:10):
filled with regret for telling me any of this. Well,
we had people involved. Hell, our phones were tapped, So please,
if you published this shit, keep me out of it.
Truck shot brothels run by a web of x cons,
(06:32):
a commonwealth attorney wasted on whiskey and power protection exchanged
for cash flesh.
Speaker 7 (06:40):
A brash local reporter exposing it all. This is hookergate,
criminals and libertines in the South. And I am your host,
Doctor Lindsey Byron, author, historian and lifelong wayward woman. This
forgotten scandal happened in my hometown. Mean as I use
(07:01):
crumbling news Cliffings interviews and dramatic reenactments to bring to
life for the first time in nearly fifty years, this
wild ride of hedonistic.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Corruption, Episode one dangerous to himself prosecution. You may continue
your clothing statement.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Thank you, Judge. The association between the operators themselves began,
according to Janet Barker and mister Boyd back in nineteen
seventy two with the Edgewood Donna, where they used to
go in there and eat donuts and drink coffee in
the morning, and mister doubt It and mister Boyd and
mister Henderson, they used to sit and talk about operating
(07:49):
bawdy houses. And Barker used to come in there too.
He had begun dating Janet, who was working there at
the Donna. Then he began pimp and hut at the
Hillcrest in the fifty eight, and eventually he made the
big time by opening up his own places.
Speaker 6 (08:32):
I don't know if this is a good idea.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Herbert Boyd, a sheepish man in his fifties, shifted in
his seat as his cronies conspired around the booth at
the Edgewood Diner. Herbert offered a suggestion, how about we
just have the girls do massages across the table, Aubrey laughed, massages.
(09:05):
Aubrey looked around the table at the three other men.
Y'all don't listen to herb He told him. He's afraid
of his own shadow. You can't make decisions. Scared, Aubrey
straightened his spine the way he learned in the army
and continued, Now, look, here's what I think we ought
(09:25):
to do and what I know we can to. So
we lease out one of these RinkyDink truck stops up
here on Ennsday, and we do.
Speaker 8 (09:34):
It outside the Danville city lines.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
See, we don't want to fuck with no Bill Fuller
and none of these Danville all men. Anyways, we get
us a truck stop or two or three, you know,
put a few pretty girls in there, sell some coffee,
let the fellas come in, and well, you boys know
(09:56):
I'm going with this, don't you. From across the booth,
Harold Wayne grinned whatever happens between grown adults, say't none
of our business? Is it all Greek? Harold Wayne was
no stranger to sales selling cars. However, where was the
(10:17):
thrill in that? Hell? A lot of folks hold categorical
contempt for car salesman, slick dressed, flashy, always trying to
separate you from your money. And these things were all
true of Harold Wayne Dowdy, but in the best of ways.
This rapscallion HWD had been dealing cars for years, and
(10:39):
he'p dealing for years to come. But in the meantime
he was an enterprising man, a handsome man, a well
dressed man of the nineteen seventies with wide lapels and
a thick mustache. And HWD had dreams for himself that
involved nice cars of his own and a pool in
(10:59):
the backyard filled with beautiful women. And therefore, in response
to aubreeze proposition, h w D looked up from his
coffee and said, boys, I'm in. And then Harold Wayne
looked to Tommy, the final man at the table, and asked,
(11:24):
what are your thoughts? Tommy was a tall man, a
broad shouldered man, physically an imposing fella. Tommy liked to
take risks, and Tommy liked women. These were his weaknesses
and these were his strengths. He didn't come from much,
(11:48):
but he found ways to make something out of nothing.
Very few of those ways legal on any other day,
at the suggestion of such a more dubious enterprise, Tommy
would be enthralled, talkative, scheming, and indeed, soon he would
(12:09):
become all of those things. But for now, Tommy's mind
was elsewhere, trained on that chest, not maimed waitress, wishing
her tail around the diner, filling up coffee at this
table and that, and hopefully soon filling up his coffee,
(12:34):
hopefully soon filling up his Saturday nights, his bed, his life.
Who's that, Tommy asked his compadres. Hell if I know, Harold,
Wayne answered, but the name on the tag says Janet.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
Okay, so Bucca they call you right, that's correct. What
caused you to fly in Bucka.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
I had an appointment to work there at the twenty ninth.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
First, now, how did you get that appointment?
Speaker 3 (13:15):
I had a girlfriend that worked down there and called
them from Cincinnati and asked them for a booking.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
And you've got a booking?
Speaker 8 (13:23):
Yes, call him, she said.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Two girls, both eighteen, huddled over a rotary phone in
a childhood bedroom.
Speaker 8 (13:48):
Seriously, I mean.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
It, the fresh faced blonde urged her friend. Equally fresh face,
but harder, dark of hair.
Speaker 8 (14:00):
An eye.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
I am ambivalent about making this connection, Very very ambivalent,
The dark eyed girl replied to her friend's insistent urging.
She seen some shit in her short ears with those
dark eyes. But then again, so had a lot of
(14:25):
the girls they knew. Those that gather behind the dumpster
during math class to smoke joints, those that have boyfriends
a decade their seniors, those that live fast and maybe
also die young. Ambivalent, what does that even mean? It
(14:47):
means I am of two minds. Oh, come on, you
did it? Why can't I? The dark haired girl saw.
There's things you don't know.
Speaker 5 (15:05):
She said, just.
Speaker 8 (15:10):
Call the man. Okay, I'll call the man.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
The dark haired girl relented. But anything that happens from
here on out is on you. And first I want
you to listen. I know you think you know it all,
but let me tell you a few things that you
might not know. There's outfits. Yes, there's money. Yes, there's
(15:39):
this sense that you are so attractive that.
Speaker 8 (15:42):
People pay for access to you.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
And well there's fun in that to a certain intoxication.
Speaker 8 (15:50):
Sometimes I think that's more fun than the money.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
But there's other things too, Other things, what other things, Yes,
other things like customers that aren't so nice, like boss
men that run you ragged, like boyfriends that take advantage,
(16:15):
take your money, break your heart. And there's worser than that.
So I can make this call, but you can't blame
me for what happens next.
Speaker 8 (16:31):
Call him and.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
So Somewhere in Cincinnati, a dark eyed girl with an
ambivalent heart picked up a phone, dialed the rotary numbers
one by one, ten numbers, a long distance call expensive
in the nineteen seventies. What do you want me to
tell him? Your name is, she asks, as somewhere in
(16:59):
Pennsylvania County, telephone rang.
Speaker 8 (17:04):
Tell him.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
The blonde haired girl mused eyes turned to the sky
as if in prayer. Tell him, tell him Buckeye.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
To understand Whitehead's role, one must understand the anatomy of
power in this rural county. At the zenith of his power,
local officials said, Whitehead nearly ran the county because, in
addition to his duties as prosecutor, he gave legal advice
to the Board of Supervisors and all other agencies of
the county government.
Speaker 9 (17:46):
Can you read your psychiatric report of mister Whitehead's condition
during the period of his involvement with this case? Certainly
it says here. Since nineteen seventy two, mister Whitehead has
consumed three or four mixed drinks per day on a
regular basis, with excessive consumption of a pint or more
(18:06):
per day several times a week. He describes himself as
a habitually excessive drinker. Drinking would be initiated in the
late afternoon and continue into the evening. His explanation of
his current status was the acceptance of too many responsibilities,
which became an increasing burden for him until he reached
(18:27):
a point where he could not function under the pressure.
Speaker 8 (18:40):
Fuck this shit.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Joe had worn the carpet nearly bear with pacing, Fuck
this shit.
Speaker 6 (18:55):
Always having to be on top, everybody looking at you,
everybody with their handout to even the people you love,
a fucking handout.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Sometimes Joe would look at his darling wife, and despite
everything she had done for him and all that she
had endured, it felt as if even she had a
handout too. Not only was he responsible for his wife
(19:30):
and the baby, but also for the legacy of his
name Whitehead. In the Whitehead family, great men do great things.
Joe's father, his uncle's lawyers, judges, big men playing big roles,
generation steep. The Whitehead's roots in Pennsylvania County grew from
(19:59):
pre revolution Shenary years, blue blood old American royalty. People
respected the name Whitehead. People expected glory from the fruits
of this family tree. And Joe had delivered, and delivered
(20:19):
and delivered, and was slated to take it even further
today the Commonwealth Attorney of Pittsylvania County Tomorrow, Hell, maybe
even Washington. Why not Washington? Many of his colleagues and
supporters had suggested as much. Joe had been striving since
(20:44):
his teens at the Hargrave Military Academy, next law school
at UVA Hell. He'd even served in the Army.
Speaker 10 (20:54):
He'd checked all the boxes of a respectable up and
co I mean, gentlemen, Yet new boxes kept appearing.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Joe woke each morning already out of breath. He paced
now contemplating these psychic weights, his bourbon sloshing onto the
floor in fact drops. Fuck this shit. Soon he'd attend
(21:30):
another Black Tide, and or another mixer, another fundraiser, and
he would smile and say all the right things and
grant all the right favors while the world forgets. He's
a man, a person, not a marble statue in a courtyard. No,
(21:56):
he was a man, a person, somebody who'd like to
have a little fun sometimes, And Joe was frankly not
having that much fun. He gazed scornfully upon his desk
(22:19):
strown with papers. It would be nice to call up
his buddy Wayne, tell him let's get us a couple
of drinks across the county line, where less people know me,
and I know myself a little better. Why not call
Wayne and say, hey, Powell, let's get a few drinks, hell,
(22:43):
maybe a few girls. Joe dropped into his desk chair
and picked up the phone, exhausted by the deliberation, liberated
at last by his own permission. When on the eighth green,
(23:04):
Wayne answered at last, without missing a beat, Joe whispered
into the line, Let's do it, Let's get some girls.
I asked Rodney Smith, a local reporter responsible for chronicly
much of this case, what he thought of Joseph Whitehead.
Speaker 5 (23:27):
Charismatic, articulate, very smart, and dangerous to himself.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Authoring the majority of the Hookergate news articles and certainly
the most engaging spirited pieces, was a man named Rodney Smith.
And so I hit the internet in search of this
man Google produced mostly dead ends. So, like many people
in today's day and age, I headed to Facebook, where
(24:00):
I posed a question does anyone here know a reporter
named Rodney Smith. A few weeks later, I received an
email doctor Byron. It read, I'm the Rodney Smith who
I think you're looking for. If you'll email me a
phone number, I'll give you a call.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
My name is Rodney Smith, age seventy four. I graduated
from Bassett High School in Henry County in nineteen sixty six.
Went to Texas A and M University in Conversation, Texas
for the first year and a half of my college education,
and my first job out of college was working for
(25:00):
a number of Congress from Georgia on Capitol Hill as
press secretariat, largely doing the Watergate era and attracting much
munch attention, of course if you're a number of Congress
about the president and your views on that. So that
was you know. First year was good, Second year was
(25:21):
a good. Third year I was like, Okay, I've done this.
I want to go do something.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Else leaving DC. Watergate had been exhilarating, but hard on
the hearts, hard on the mind. Hell, he was only
twenty six years old, but sometimes Rodney felt elderly. That's old,
(25:48):
his forty even. It was time for Rodney to get
back down South, where his family was, his roots, everything
he had known his whole life, until he decided early
on that he was going to be a big writer
and go write big or writer to things. Indeed, Rodney
(26:10):
had known since high school that he would follow this Pith.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
Tenth grade, tenth grade english teacher. I mean, we had
an essay for her. So we all turned in these
essays and she asked me to wait to leave the
class or everybody leaves. I get up in stea her, thinking,
oh no, I'm going to get at NAF on this.
And she said, you've got a real talent for writing.
Have you thought about what you like to do with
(26:35):
your life? And I said, I have not thought about it.
She said, well you ought to think about that, because
you can definitely write. So that's what started it. Ever
since she talked to me, I thought about it. So
I went off to college and studied journalism. Never regretted it.
I have never regretted.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
It's a joy to do it, Hoping to maintained the
joy he had had for writing, before the high stakes
world of Washington sucked it dry. Rodney searched the Virginia Bulletin,
a publication where all the journalism jobs were listed, and
there he found an opening in a little town called Gretna, Virginia,
population one thousand, two hundred, smack dab in the heart
(27:19):
of Pittsylvania County, just a few miles up the road
from where Rodney was raised. Down there, people talked in
ways that were familiar. Down there, life moved slower down there.
You had to look for news.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
Well. I was initially, of course, you're worried about anytime
you switch jobs, you get worried about what you're going
to be like in this case, At some point in
all of this, in spite of my young age, it
was like, Okay, you can make this experience anything you want.
And the first challenge I had was you gotta find news.
(28:04):
You can't have a newspaper and no news.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Then it.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
As he cleared off his desk in Washington, DC, Rodney
was unsure of what lay ahead. He stacked his notebooks
into cardboard boxes labeled with a sharpie pen. Most people
have a job, and it's a job. Rodney had a job,
and it was a calling. Sometimes it was as if
(28:31):
the stories found him, and one day, soon though he
couldn't see it yet, after he had settled into that
Gretna office with a great, big picture window and a
clear view of the cow field, another story would find Rodney,
(28:54):
maybe the biggest story of his life. Thanks for listening.
My name is Lindsay Byron, but most people know me
as lux Atl. Learn more about my work tips out,
globe trotting and mansions worldwide at Good Times, Badgirls dot Com.
(29:20):
Follow me on the Gram and TikTok at lux Underscore Atl,
on YouTube at Luxatl, and on substock, where I blog
weekly at Tumultuous True Stories by Lindsay Byron. If you'd
like to hear more about my own experience slang in
companionship across the South, read my memoir Too Pretty to
(29:44):
Be Good by Lindsay Byron. Find it on Amazon, Barnesandnoble
dot com, and anywhere books are sold online. Hey, if
you'd like to continue to listen to me tell stories,
check out my first podcast, Stripcast True Stories from a
with the PhD. Listen on Spotify and iTunes. Follow this
(30:05):
podcast on the Gram at Cookergate underscore podcast. Theme music
and sound design by my long term partner in artistic crime,
Guy Kelly. You the illist GK. Check out his work
at Guy Kelly dot com. While this podcast is based
(30:27):
upon real events, certain elements have been fictionalized for dramatic effect.
I cannot know for certain what exactly was said behind
closed doors, so I combine my research and imagination to
dramatize scenes described most often under oath in court and
occasionally secondhand via journalistic or personal accounts. Find citations in
(30:50):
this show notes. The pitch for this podcast won the
twenty twenty one Next Great Podcast competition hosted by Tongle
and iHeart Radio, which is why I'm here now producing
this joint my gratitude for the opportunity. Hooker Gate is
a production of iHeartMedia. After the service These fucking dogs
(31:13):
out here, y'all shut up, don't you motherfucking do a
dog
Captain's fucking Log, Day three, May twenty fourth. Can't imagine
any of this is going to be usable on the
fucking podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
A prostitution ring involving eleven businesses in three states, payoffs
and money and flesh to a public official for protection.
The operation of a dozen truck stops and health centers
as bodyhouses. All of these activities are part of a
picture painted by a federal grand jury in a sweeping
twenty count indictment returned yesterday in US District Court in Lynchburg.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
You could see the end coming from the beginning. It
was one of those wild situations, so dangerous and illicit.
It's got goodbye written all over. Hello. The moment these
wheels began turning, the end was already set and this
could not end well. That's the thing about illicit desire.
(01:22):
We know it can't end well, but we can't help
ourselves anyway. This story came to me from the locked
trunk of a dead woman. Hey, a lot of people
don't want to be involved with this podcast. In fact,
(01:45):
the person who provided me with my first glimpse into
this case a fellow native of my small southern hometown,
someone i've known my whole life. She's one of those people,
so we'll just my friend. When my friend's mother died
(02:06):
and she was tasked with a job of packing up
her belongings. Among her mother's many possessions, she discovered a
locked trunk. What she discovered inside hundreds of news clippings
chronicling a scandal of sex and power that rocked our
(02:27):
small hometown nearly fifty years ago. The local press called
this scandal Hooker Gate. Welcome to Danville, Virginia, the last
capital of the Confederacy, a dying mill town where cotton
once was king, but now oxy cottons take the throne.
(02:51):
Rearranged the letters in Danville, and it spells evil land
atop the black silhouette of the abandoned text plant. The
word home once burned into the night. That glowing sign
is gone. Now ain't nothing left here for most of us,
(03:13):
and most of us have left. When the Hooker Gates
scandal was exploding across the headlines, local court clerk Samuel
Swanson was asked his opinion on the matter. I admit
we were backward, Swanson said, we just didn't move with
(03:35):
the times. But that's because we've never had to progress.
Maybe it's the lack of progress, or more likely my
own personal baggage that keeps me away. But I rarely
returned to Danville, except in instances of death, the occasional holiday,
(03:58):
and bouts of filial guilt. Picture it the summer of
twenty twenty one. My Granny Audrey had just passed away.
Among those gathered for her funeral, my friend. After the service,
as we drank beers at the local bar, that friend
(04:21):
approached me a large, spiral bound notebook under her arm.
She plunked that book down on the table in front
of me and said, you're a writer, have at it.
She flung the book open, flipping through the pages. On
each sheet, a xeroxed news clipping half a century old,
(04:44):
shouted words like corruption and prostitution and federal crime. Over
the next few weeks, I would pour through this notebook.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
These operators inner state facilities to further the prostitution activities.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
I was told that it was just supposed to be
strictly a massage parlor.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
The investigation revealed that Holly and Whitehead never paid the
girls for sexual favors, and Whitehead bragged about being the
Commonwealth attorney.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
The big shot in Dan wolves Barker.
Speaker 6 (05:20):
He ran to Dan will operation.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
He beats me continuously.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
If you print anything that you hear in the grand jury,
you will be put in jail.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
My boyfriend threatened me and told me that if I
didn't get out and go to work, I'd never see
my daughter again.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
And he stated that at this particular time, the only
thing they had to offer was coffee and pussy.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
I never gave any massages. Now this is a story.
Why did your mom keep all of these clippings, I
asked my friend later. She smiled, half proud, half already
(06:10):
filled with regret for telling me any of this. Well,
we had people involved. Hell, our phones were tapped, So please,
if you published this shit, keep me out of it.
Truck shot brothels run by a web of x cons,
(06:32):
a commonwealth attorney wasted on whiskey and power protection exchanged
for cash flesh.
Speaker 7 (06:40):
A brash local reporter exposing it all. This is hookergate,
criminals and libertines in the South. And I am your host,
Doctor Lindsey Byron, author, historian and lifelong wayward woman. This
forgotten scandal happened in my hometown. Mean as I use
(07:01):
crumbling news Cliffings interviews and dramatic reenactments to bring to
life for the first time in nearly fifty years, this
wild ride of hedonistic.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Corruption, Episode one dangerous to himself prosecution. You may continue
your clothing statement.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Thank you, Judge. The association between the operators themselves began,
according to Janet Barker and mister Boyd back in nineteen
seventy two with the Edgewood Donna, where they used to
go in there and eat donuts and drink coffee in
the morning, and mister doubt It and mister Boyd and
mister Henderson, they used to sit and talk about operating
(07:49):
bawdy houses. And Barker used to come in there too.
He had begun dating Janet, who was working there at
the Donna. Then he began pimp and hut at the
Hillcrest in the fifty eight, and eventually he made the
big time by opening up his own places.
Speaker 6 (08:32):
I don't know if this is a good idea.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Herbert Boyd, a sheepish man in his fifties, shifted in
his seat as his cronies conspired around the booth at
the Edgewood Diner. Herbert offered a suggestion, how about we
just have the girls do massages across the table, Aubrey laughed, massages.
(09:05):
Aubrey looked around the table at the three other men.
Y'all don't listen to herb He told him. He's afraid
of his own shadow. You can't make decisions. Scared, Aubrey
straightened his spine the way he learned in the army
and continued, Now, look, here's what I think we ought
(09:25):
to do and what I know we can to. So
we lease out one of these RinkyDink truck stops up
here on Ennsday, and we do.
Speaker 8 (09:34):
It outside the Danville city lines.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
See, we don't want to fuck with no Bill Fuller
and none of these Danville all men. Anyways, we get
us a truck stop or two or three, you know,
put a few pretty girls in there, sell some coffee,
let the fellas come in, and well, you boys know
(09:56):
I'm going with this, don't you. From across the booth,
Harold Wayne grinned whatever happens between grown adults, say't none
of our business? Is it all Greek? Harold Wayne was
no stranger to sales selling cars. However, where was the
(10:17):
thrill in that? Hell? A lot of folks hold categorical
contempt for car salesman, slick dressed, flashy, always trying to
separate you from your money. And these things were all
true of Harold Wayne Dowdy, but in the best of ways.
This rapscallion HWD had been dealing cars for years, and
(10:39):
he'p dealing for years to come. But in the meantime
he was an enterprising man, a handsome man, a well
dressed man of the nineteen seventies with wide lapels and
a thick mustache. And HWD had dreams for himself that
involved nice cars of his own and a pool in
(10:59):
the backyard filled with beautiful women. And therefore, in response
to aubreeze proposition, h w D looked up from his
coffee and said, boys, I'm in. And then Harold Wayne
looked to Tommy, the final man at the table, and asked,
(11:24):
what are your thoughts? Tommy was a tall man, a
broad shouldered man, physically an imposing fella. Tommy liked to
take risks, and Tommy liked women. These were his weaknesses
and these were his strengths. He didn't come from much,
(11:48):
but he found ways to make something out of nothing.
Very few of those ways legal on any other day,
at the suggestion of such a more dubious enterprise, Tommy
would be enthralled, talkative, scheming, and indeed, soon he would
(12:09):
become all of those things. But for now, Tommy's mind
was elsewhere, trained on that chest, not maimed waitress, wishing
her tail around the diner, filling up coffee at this
table and that, and hopefully soon filling up his coffee,
(12:34):
hopefully soon filling up his Saturday nights, his bed, his life.
Who's that, Tommy asked his compadres. Hell if I know, Harold,
Wayne answered, but the name on the tag says Janet.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
Okay, so Bucca they call you right, that's correct. What
caused you to fly in Bucka.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
I had an appointment to work there at the twenty ninth.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
First, now, how did you get that appointment?
Speaker 3 (13:15):
I had a girlfriend that worked down there and called
them from Cincinnati and asked them for a booking.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
And you've got a booking?
Speaker 8 (13:23):
Yes, call him, she said.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Two girls, both eighteen, huddled over a rotary phone in
a childhood bedroom.
Speaker 8 (13:48):
Seriously, I mean.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
It, the fresh faced blonde urged her friend. Equally fresh face,
but harder, dark of hair.
Speaker 8 (14:00):
An eye.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
I am ambivalent about making this connection, Very very ambivalent,
The dark eyed girl replied to her friend's insistent urging.
She seen some shit in her short ears with those
dark eyes. But then again, so had a lot of
(14:25):
the girls they knew. Those that gather behind the dumpster
during math class to smoke joints, those that have boyfriends
a decade their seniors, those that live fast and maybe
also die young. Ambivalent, what does that even mean? It
(14:47):
means I am of two minds. Oh, come on, you
did it? Why can't I? The dark haired girl saw.
There's things you don't know.
Speaker 5 (15:05):
She said, just.
Speaker 8 (15:10):
Call the man. Okay, I'll call the man.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
The dark haired girl relented. But anything that happens from
here on out is on you. And first I want
you to listen. I know you think you know it all,
but let me tell you a few things that you
might not know. There's outfits. Yes, there's money. Yes, there's
(15:39):
this sense that you are so attractive that.
Speaker 8 (15:42):
People pay for access to you.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
And well there's fun in that to a certain intoxication.
Speaker 8 (15:50):
Sometimes I think that's more fun than the money.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
But there's other things too, Other things, what other things, Yes,
other things like customers that aren't so nice, like boss
men that run you ragged, like boyfriends that take advantage,
(16:15):
take your money, break your heart. And there's worser than that.
So I can make this call, but you can't blame
me for what happens next.
Speaker 8 (16:31):
Call him and.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
So Somewhere in Cincinnati, a dark eyed girl with an
ambivalent heart picked up a phone, dialed the rotary numbers
one by one, ten numbers, a long distance call expensive
in the nineteen seventies. What do you want me to
tell him? Your name is, she asks, as somewhere in
(16:59):
Pennsylvania County, telephone rang.
Speaker 8 (17:04):
Tell him.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
The blonde haired girl mused eyes turned to the sky
as if in prayer. Tell him, tell him Buckeye.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
To understand Whitehead's role, one must understand the anatomy of
power in this rural county. At the zenith of his power,
local officials said, Whitehead nearly ran the county because, in
addition to his duties as prosecutor, he gave legal advice
to the Board of Supervisors and all other agencies of
the county government.
Speaker 9 (17:46):
Can you read your psychiatric report of mister Whitehead's condition
during the period of his involvement with this case? Certainly
it says here. Since nineteen seventy two, mister Whitehead has
consumed three or four mixed drinks per day on a
regular basis, with excessive consumption of a pint or more
(18:06):
per day several times a week. He describes himself as
a habitually excessive drinker. Drinking would be initiated in the
late afternoon and continue into the evening. His explanation of
his current status was the acceptance of too many responsibilities,
which became an increasing burden for him until he reached
(18:27):
a point where he could not function under the pressure.
Speaker 8 (18:40):
Fuck this shit.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Joe had worn the carpet nearly bear with pacing, Fuck
this shit.
Speaker 6 (18:55):
Always having to be on top, everybody looking at you,
everybody with their handout to even the people you love,
a fucking handout.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Sometimes Joe would look at his darling wife, and despite
everything she had done for him and all that she
had endured, it felt as if even she had a
handout too. Not only was he responsible for his wife
(19:30):
and the baby, but also for the legacy of his
name Whitehead. In the Whitehead family, great men do great things.
Joe's father, his uncle's lawyers, judges, big men playing big roles,
generation steep. The Whitehead's roots in Pennsylvania County grew from
(19:59):
pre revolution Shenary years, blue blood old American royalty. People
respected the name Whitehead. People expected glory from the fruits
of this family tree. And Joe had delivered, and delivered
(20:19):
and delivered, and was slated to take it even further
today the Commonwealth Attorney of Pittsylvania County Tomorrow, Hell, maybe
even Washington. Why not Washington? Many of his colleagues and
supporters had suggested as much. Joe had been striving since
(20:44):
his teens at the Hargrave Military Academy, next law school
at UVA Hell. He'd even served in the Army.
Speaker 10 (20:54):
He'd checked all the boxes of a respectable up and
co I mean, gentlemen, Yet new boxes kept appearing.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Joe woke each morning already out of breath. He paced
now contemplating these psychic weights, his bourbon sloshing onto the
floor in fact drops. Fuck this shit. Soon he'd attend
(21:30):
another Black Tide, and or another mixer, another fundraiser, and
he would smile and say all the right things and
grant all the right favors while the world forgets. He's
a man, a person, not a marble statue in a courtyard. No,
(21:56):
he was a man, a person, somebody who'd like to
have a little fun sometimes, And Joe was frankly not
having that much fun. He gazed scornfully upon his desk
(22:19):
strown with papers. It would be nice to call up
his buddy Wayne, tell him let's get us a couple
of drinks across the county line, where less people know me,
and I know myself a little better. Why not call
Wayne and say, hey, Powell, let's get a few drinks, hell,
(22:43):
maybe a few girls. Joe dropped into his desk chair
and picked up the phone, exhausted by the deliberation, liberated
at last by his own permission. When on the eighth green,
(23:04):
Wayne answered at last, without missing a beat, Joe whispered
into the line, Let's do it, Let's get some girls.
I asked Rodney Smith, a local reporter responsible for chronicly
much of this case, what he thought of Joseph Whitehead.
Speaker 5 (23:27):
Charismatic, articulate, very smart, and dangerous to himself.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Authoring the majority of the Hookergate news articles and certainly
the most engaging spirited pieces, was a man named Rodney Smith.
And so I hit the internet in search of this
man Google produced mostly dead ends. So, like many people
in today's day and age, I headed to Facebook, where
(24:00):
I posed a question does anyone here know a reporter
named Rodney Smith. A few weeks later, I received an
email doctor Byron. It read, I'm the Rodney Smith who
I think you're looking for. If you'll email me a
phone number, I'll give you a call.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
My name is Rodney Smith, age seventy four. I graduated
from Bassett High School in Henry County in nineteen sixty six.
Went to Texas A and M University in Conversation, Texas
for the first year and a half of my college education,
and my first job out of college was working for
(25:00):
a number of Congress from Georgia on Capitol Hill as
press secretariat, largely doing the Watergate era and attracting much
munch attention, of course if you're a number of Congress
about the president and your views on that. So that
was you know. First year was good, Second year was
(25:21):
a good. Third year I was like, Okay, I've done this.
I want to go do something.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Else leaving DC. Watergate had been exhilarating, but hard on
the hearts, hard on the mind. Hell, he was only
twenty six years old, but sometimes Rodney felt elderly. That's old,
(25:48):
his forty even. It was time for Rodney to get
back down South, where his family was, his roots, everything
he had known his whole life, until he decided early
on that he was going to be a big writer
and go write big or writer to things. Indeed, Rodney
(26:10):
had known since high school that he would follow this Pith.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
Tenth grade, tenth grade english teacher. I mean, we had
an essay for her. So we all turned in these
essays and she asked me to wait to leave the
class or everybody leaves. I get up in stea her, thinking,
oh no, I'm going to get at NAF on this.
And she said, you've got a real talent for writing.
Have you thought about what you like to do with
(26:35):
your life? And I said, I have not thought about it.
She said, well you ought to think about that, because
you can definitely write. So that's what started it. Ever
since she talked to me, I thought about it. So
I went off to college and studied journalism. Never regretted it.
I have never regretted.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
It's a joy to do it, Hoping to maintained the
joy he had had for writing, before the high stakes
world of Washington sucked it dry. Rodney searched the Virginia Bulletin,
a publication where all the journalism jobs were listed, and
there he found an opening in a little town called Gretna, Virginia,
population one thousand, two hundred, smack dab in the heart
(27:19):
of Pittsylvania County, just a few miles up the road
from where Rodney was raised. Down there, people talked in
ways that were familiar. Down there, life moved slower down there.
You had to look for news.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
Well. I was initially, of course, you're worried about anytime
you switch jobs, you get worried about what you're going
to be like in this case, At some point in
all of this, in spite of my young age, it
was like, Okay, you can make this experience anything you want.
And the first challenge I had was you gotta find news.
(28:04):
You can't have a newspaper and no news.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Then it.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
As he cleared off his desk in Washington, DC, Rodney
was unsure of what lay ahead. He stacked his notebooks
into cardboard boxes labeled with a sharpie pen. Most people
have a job, and it's a job. Rodney had a job,
and it was a calling. Sometimes it was as if
(28:31):
the stories found him, and one day, soon though he
couldn't see it yet, after he had settled into that
Gretna office with a great, big picture window and a
clear view of the cow field, another story would find Rodney,
(28:54):
maybe the biggest story of his life. Thanks for listening.
My name is Lindsay Byron, but most people know me
as lux Atl. Learn more about my work tips out,
globe trotting and mansions worldwide at Good Times, Badgirls dot Com.
(29:20):
Follow me on the Gram and TikTok at lux Underscore Atl,
on YouTube at Luxatl, and on substock, where I blog
weekly at Tumultuous True Stories by Lindsay Byron. If you'd
like to hear more about my own experience slang in
companionship across the South, read my memoir Too Pretty to
(29:44):
Be Good by Lindsay Byron. Find it on Amazon, Barnesandnoble
dot com, and anywhere books are sold online. Hey, if
you'd like to continue to listen to me tell stories,
check out my first podcast, Stripcast True Stories from a
with the PhD. Listen on Spotify and iTunes. Follow this
(30:05):
podcast on the Gram at Cookergate underscore podcast. Theme music
and sound design by my long term partner in artistic crime,
Guy Kelly. You the illist GK. Check out his work
at Guy Kelly dot com. While this podcast is based
(30:27):
upon real events, certain elements have been fictionalized for dramatic effect.
I cannot know for certain what exactly was said behind
closed doors, so I combine my research and imagination to
dramatize scenes described most often under oath in court and
occasionally secondhand via journalistic or personal accounts. Find citations in
(30:50):
this show notes. The pitch for this podcast won the
twenty twenty one Next Great Podcast competition hosted by Tongle
and iHeart Radio, which is why I'm here now producing
this joint my gratitude for the opportunity. Hooker Gate is
a production of iHeartMedia. After the service These fucking dogs
(31:13):
out here, y'all shut up, don't you motherfucking do a
dog
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