How To Solve A Burglary

When Bill Kelley finally set it down and retired as Sheriff of Fayette County a great law enforcement career came to a close. Bill held the office of “Sheriff” longer than anyone else in the history of Tennessee. The Sheriff loved serving the fine people of Fayette County and he loved police work.

One of the other things Bill truly enjoyed was messing with me. And he was very good at it.

In 1978 I was assigned to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation as a Special Agent and Hardeman and Fayette were my counties of primary responsibility. I was brand new and to say I was “green” would be a very kind way of describing my ignorance.

A month or so after we started working together, Fayette County suffered from a rash of burglaries and we were putting in a lot of time trying to solve them.

We had worked late the night before, but I showed up early the next morning ready to go to work! I was real young, remember..

As I was headed into the jail, Bill met me coming out. He was headed to his car. “Come on Bo, I’m gonna show you how to solve a burglary.” I don’t know how I got the nickname “Bo” but the Sheriff called me that for over 40 years. As we loaded up in the Sheriff’s car I remember thinking, “What in the world are we about to do?”

We got in the car and started pulling out of the parking lot. Bill came to a stop at Highway 64, looked at me, and said, “We are going to drive down the Somerville/LaGrange Road and we’re going to grab the first person we see walking down the road and make him tell us what is going on with all these burglaries.” This sounded ridiculous. I said to myself, “This guy is serious. Good grief, how in the world did he ever get to be a sheriff?”

Shortly, we turned left off Highway 76 onto the Somerville/LaGrange Road and headed south toward LaGrange. I was wondering how long this deal would take before we could actually go to work on the burglaries.

In a couple of miles we came upon a young man walking down the road. The Sheriff begins to slow down and pull over to the side of the road. “This is going to be embarrassing”, I said to myself.

When we stopped the man walked over to the driver’s side of the car. Bill pointed toward the back seat and told the guy to get in. The young man got in the car.

I knew my career was over. This was way past being embarrassing. In my mind I was sure we were going to get sued, if not worse. Would the U.S. Attorney in Memphis consider what we were doing kidnapping? Maybe false imprisonment?

As we pulled back on to the road, Sheriff Kelley said, “Where is all that stuff that came out of all these house burglaries?” At this point I’m just staring out the window wishing I was somewhere else and wondering where I could go to work after I got fired.

The fellow in the back seat never missed a beat. “Go to the second road and take a left Sheriff”. I whipped around and looked at Bill but he never took his eyes off the road. He was acting as though this was nothing out of the ordinary. Happened every day, right. There must have been something I missed in school.

We ended up at an old barn in a field in the middle of nowhere . The stuff in that barn could have stocked a small Walmart with appliances, furniture, and all kinds of stuff. I forget how many burglaries we (Bill) ended up solving after recovering all this property, but it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 20.

I was convinced Sheriff Bill Kelley was some sort of mystic who was just short of being a miracle worker. He never said another word about the amazing investigation until 10 years later. Not until he had a crowd…

We were at a Sheriff’s Association meeting in Nashville and a group of us were together discussing matters of great national and international importance. In other words we were in the hospitality room telling war stories.

There was a lull in the conversation and Bobby Smith said, “Sheriff did you ever tell Jim how you solved those house burglaries that time?” Bobby was one of Bill’s investigators. Bill looked at me with a smile and said, “No I don’t think I did”.

By now you have probably guessed what really happened.

It turns out just before I got to the jail that morning, Bill got a phone call. The caller needed a little help working out from under a charge. He told the Sheriff he would show him where the property taken in the burglaries was being stored if Bill could get him some leniency with the sentencing on his charge. Bill agreed to make the young man’s cooperation known to the DA.

The informant said he would start walking down the Somerville/LaGrange Road, and the Sheriff could pick him up and he would show Bill where the stuff was hidden.

I was Director of CID for the Highway Patrol at that time and I worked all the time with the Sheriffs from all over the state. We all knew one another and were buddies. I heard about that story for years to come from all those other Sheriffs.

It was a “Bill Kelley Classic”.

I learned a lot from Bill. He was definitely was of the best investigators I have ever known.

Our close friendship was something I cherished for over 40 years.

When “Mr. Bill” went on to a better place, his family asked me to speak at his memorial. It was a great honor.

Rest in Peace Sheriff.

The author, Jim Leach, not only served as Director of THP/CID, but also as Special Agent in Charge with the TBI.