By ROGER ALFORD, The Associated Press
SOMERSET, Ky. (AP) -- The alleged mastermind of a plot to murder Sheriff Sam Catron was a cocaine dealer who wanted to get one of the front-line leaders in the war on drugs out of the way, the prosecutor in the case said Thursday.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Eddie Montgomery said in his opening statement that Kenneth White, 56, went so far as to show the triggerman where to hide to get the best shot. White is charged with complicity to murder in the April 13, 2002, killing of the Kentucky sheriff.
Montgomery said White recruited Danny Shelley, a drug-addicted ex-Marine, to shoot Catron with a 25.06-caliber Remington rifle.
“Kenneth White is a murderer just the same as if he had pulled that trigger,” Montgomery said.
Catron, 48, a soft-spoken man who lived with his elderly mother, was a well-known enemy of drug traffickers. He earned his pilot’s license so he could fly a helicopter to search for marijuana fields in the rolling farmlands and wooded hills of Pulaski County. He and his men once rounded up more than 70 drug suspects in a single raid.
Catron was shot minutes after delivering a campaign speech at a volunteer fire department in Shopville. A single bullet fired from about 80 yards away killed the four-term sheriff, said Kentucky State Police Detective Todd Dalton.
Prosecutors contend the killing was the culmination of a plot masterminded by White to get the heavily favored Catron out of the race.
Two others, including Shelley, have already entered guilty pleas in the case and are expected to testify against White in the trial that began Thursday morning.
Jeff Morris, a former deputy of Catron’s who was also a candidate for sheriff, and Shelley, who was helping in Morris’ campaign, have both been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years. They have said that White came up with the plan to kill Catron and that they went along with it because they were afraid of him.
Defense attorney David Hoskins said White’s involvement with Morris and Shelley was to help in the campaign, which he became involved in because Morris had once responded to a family emergency when he was working as a deputy.
“This is something that Jeff Morris and Danny Shelley cooked up,” Hoskins said.
However, Montgomery said it was White who planned the shooting, going so far as to show Shelley where he should hide to wait for an opportunity to shoot Catron.
“Ken White tells Danny Shelley, ‘Right there is where I want you,’ Montgomery said. “He lays there, and he waits, he waits for hours.”
Detective Todd Dalton said he identified the spot where a camouflage-clad Shelley waited by the depression in the leaves besiden a woven-wire fence at the edge of a wooded area.
Shelley, who, according to Montgomery, ate drugs like candy, was arrested when he lost control of a motorcycle that witnesses saw speeding away from the shooting scene. The motorcycle belonged to Morris.
Montgomery said that White was bankrolling Morris’ campaign from money he made dealing drugs. Montgomery said White contributed from $15,000 to $30,000 to the race campaign in blatant disregard to campaign finance laws.
Hoskins, in his opening statement, said Shelley was a drug dealer and drug runner who often bragged about his marksmanship abilities while Morris was a disgraced former deputy sheriff who resigned from his job rather than be fired.
Hoskins said evidence will show that White has not lived a perfect life, but his life pales in comparison to that of Shelley, who often made trips to Florida and California to bring drugs into Kentucky.
“If anybody had a desire to be the drug king pin and have his friend in the sheriff’s office, it was Danny Shelley,” Hoskins said.
Dalton, the first witness called Thursday morning, used graphic photographs to describe the murder scene. One showed Catron’s body covered with a sheet.
Catron’s mother, 87-year-old Jennie Rachel Catron, wiped tears as other family members tried to shield her eyes from the photographs.