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Friday, March 21, 1997

Trooper's DWI case casts shadow over East Texas town

By MIKE COCHRAN

Associated Press Writer

RUSK, Texas (AP) - It was just after midnight when Linda Lanier, visibly shaken, burst into the Cherokee County sheriff's office and blurted out her story.

She said someone in a pickup truck followed her car down an East Texas highway, fired at her and chased her into Rusk at speeds up to 90 mph.

"I couldn't see if it was a man or woman, black or white," Ms. Lanier would recall. "I was terrified."

Minutes later, police stopped the truck and with guns drawn ordered a man out of the cab. He insisted he was an off-duty state trooper. They did not believe him.

Suspecting he was drunk, the two officers forced him to his knees, handcuffed him and took him into custody.

So began the Feb. 9 saga that has bewildered and embarrassed the citizens of this town of 4,500 in the woods, hills and heart of East Texas.

Adding to the intrigue was a missing blood-alcohol sample that, when finally found, was damaged and useless.

The suspect, Joe Don Abernathy, 46, was in fact a 25-year veteran of the Texas Department of Public Safety with a distinguished record of meritorious service. He lives north of Rusk and is assigned to the Tyler district office.

He is charged with DWI and on paid leave pending an internal DPS investigation.

Sheriff James Campbell said evidence in a separate investigation of the purported shooting incident has been turned over to the district attorney's office.

Campbell said a grand jury will probably determine in April if Abernathy is to be charged with deadly conduct, a felony.

Mrs. Lanier, a 50-year-old mother of three who works with the mentally retarded in Rusk, says she can't explain the events of Feb. 9.

"I've never seen this man before," she told The Associated Press this week. "It's all very strange."

This is Mrs. Lanier's account:

She, her husband and a grown son were returning that night from the horse races at Bossier City, La., when she passed the pickup in the westbound lane of two-lane U.S. 84.

At the time, shortly after midnight, she was about 20 miles from Rusk and her husband and son were dozing.

She noticed the pickup on her tail, and about seven miles from Rusk she pulled over to let him pass.

"When I slowed down, he zoomed up real close. I saw the lights up close ... and then I heard the shot. I do not know if he was shooting at me, but I thought he was. ... That's when I floor-boarded it.

"I don't know how long it took me to get from that point to the sheriff's office, but it seemed forever."

Officer John Raffield said it was 12:37 a.m. when he and officer Johnathan Rhodes encountered Mrs. Lanier at the sheriff's office, where they were processing an inmate.

She told them she'd been chased and shot at and that the pickup was parked on a road down the hill.

As the officers approached, the pickup drove off. However, Abernathy offered no resistance when they stopped him.

Raffield said he detected an odor of alcohol, and, as he walked Abernathy to the patrol car, "I noticed numerous beer cans in the bed of the truck." He also spotted a loaded automatic rifle, a loaded shotgun and a spent shotgun shell in the truck's cab.

Despite the evidence, some simply can't believe that Abernathy, whose mother lives in Rusk, could have acted so bizarrely. Emotions are such that Mrs. Lanier felt compelled this week to contact an attorney.

"He's the good guy; I'm the bad guy," she said over coffee at the Pitt Grill. "The reason for what happened, I don't know. ... He had no earthly idea who we were. ... I don't know what the penalties are for something like this.

"But he should be punished in some way."

Authorities said they intended to pursue the DWI case, but concede that prosecution could be more difficult without the blood-alcohol sample.

Rusk Police Chief Larry Robertson said officers mailed the sample Feb. 10 to the DPS lab in suburban Dallas.

Two weeks later it had not arrived.

Adam Thomas, a postal inspector in Fort Worth, said an intensive search failed to turn up the sample and suggested that it probably was on someone's desk at the police station.

"The postal service is a scapegoat for everyone's mistake," he told the Tyler Morning Telegraph.

The media and others raised the specter of a law enforcement cover-up.

However, the vial of blood arrived at the lab in late February. A postmark showed it had been mailed Feb. 10, vindicating the Rusk police department. But the vial had been damaged and the sample rendered unusable.

The blame now lay with the postal service, triggering more angry words.

"I think our police department got a bad rap," says Mayor Emmett Whitehead, publisher of the weekly Cherokeean/Herald. "We took a hell of a beating in the Jacksonville and Tyler newspapers."

Although Abernathy was not talking with reporters, his attorney, Buck Files of Tyler, put a different spin on the blood controversy.

"We are devastated that the evidence package was damaged by someone in the postal service. ...," he asserted. "I'm absolutely convinced that an analysis of the blood would have shown that Joe Don was not intoxicated."Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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