Barry Beach: Justice & Truth--Never the Twain Shall Meet

We have all heard this story before: I DIDN´T DO IT.

As a child, the lying may start when questioned about the whereabouts of the missing cookies. Crumbs on the tee shirt and chocolate chip smears about the lips do not stop the quick-talking denial of the obvious. After thorough interrogation, typically from a poker-faced parent, a child realizes he or she is busted and sheepishly confesses to the culinary robbery. A crime spree thwarted, extra broccoli for dinner is administered as punishment and all is right again with the world.

But what happens when someone confesses and there are no crumbs on the shirt, no chocolate smears on the lips? In fact, he was not even near the cookie jar. What if the trail of crumbs lead to a completely different direction like they did 29 years ago in Poplar, Montana?

Poplar, Montana. The name alone conjures up visions of small town beauty, tenderly framed by the still wild Montana landscape. A place that welcomes visitors with down-home grace and long established businesses run by several generations. One can imagine a bustling diner on the main drag where all the locals congregate to share the news of the day over steaming mugs of hot coffee. Poplar has all that, and more. Much more.

Imagination is one thing; reality is another. Poplar, Montana is a toxic dump of murders, secrets and suppositions, oozing out slowly through 24 years of overheard admissions and guilt-racked souls. For whatever reasons--and there seem to be many--the truth failed to surface initially, and a man´s life hangs in suspension for a crime he may not have committed.

Barry Beach, now 45 years old, was convicted in 1984 of the 1979 murder of Kim Nees, a popular 17 year old high school graduate, and fellow student. Though Beach was questioned by police, he was assured by the authorities he was not a suspect. Beach states he did all he could to cooperate, even agreeing to a second polygraph test while he was back visiting in Poplar a year later, after visiting his father in Louisiana. The second polygraph test never happened before he returned to Louisiana. A year had passed since the murder and the police were no closer to identifying the killer.

Or were they?

In a small town of 800 people, one must wonder why law enforcement was having such a difficult time. For one thing, there was confusion from the start. This investigation was earmarked for disaster with the conglomerate of different law enforcement descending on the quaint town. Because Kim´s murder was on the Native American soil of Fort Peck, not only did the local sheriff´s office investigate, but so did tribal law enforcement and the FBI. Already a cluster was starting to form.

Add to this Keystone Cop mix a local police officer breaking into the evidence room with the lame excuse of having to pee like a racehorse, knowing full well he would break the chain of custody by his actions. Why did he do that, you ask? Was there not another place to relieve himself? Of course there was, but he was Officer Stephen Grayhawk, father of Maude Grayhawk, who may have had something to do with Kim Nees´ death. Interesting he should emergently choose the evidence room, which had been cordoned off, to relieve himself. Perhaps he mistook the police tape for toilet paper.

By this time the sheriff´s office must have been looking bad. The Nees family was well known and active in the community. So, in a small town where everybody knows everybody, and nobody is talking--or at least nobody is saying anything the police wanted to hear-- the next best thing to do is, well, grab the next best thing. Enter Barry Beach, a basically wild kid who got into some bad stuff. He liked fast cars and partying. He looked like he could be guilty, so the local authorities sought to make it stick.

Barry Beach left town soon after the murder. Certainly because of guilt, local authorities reasoned. It didn´t matter this trip had been planned for some time before that fateful night. It looked suspicious enough. And then, let´s see, Barry was in and out of trouble with the law in Louisiana for a few things like DUI and driving on a suspended license Yep, he looks like a killer.

But wait, there was no forensic evidence at the crime scene linking Barry Beach to Kim Nees. No matter, he´s still our killer. As a matter of fact, there were two people who gave him reasonable alibis for his whereabouts that night. Oh, let´s just suppress that; anyway, they are relatives. Who´d believe them?

Oh, and he confessed. Confessed? Yes, he did. He confessed bigger ´n life to the Louisiana cops who played him until he was a dog tired rag doll, unable to continue coherently and scared out of his pants. Two Louisiana cops who destroyed Barry´s confession tapes and were later found to be derelict in other cases. Barry describes the interrogation tactics swinging from praying with him to threatening him with the electric chair, and everything in between. So he confessed not just to Kim Nees´ murder, but to several others in Louisiana as well. Did they have evidence? Of course not. In fact, he was not even in Louisiana when the other women were killed. They didn´t need no stinking evidence. They just scared him and broke him down. Another notch in their corrupt belts.

So now he sits, patiently impatient, in prison in Deer Lodge, Montana watching his stolen life slip by under the confines of the state. He maintains his innocence, as he has done from day one, aware that he may well spend the rest of his life serving his strange sentence without any chance for parole. His one shot was in March 2007 where he, and a plethora of supporters, faced the Montana State Board of Parole and Pardons. The Board listened politely, offered hope by their mere presence, then shot down any chance of fairness for a man who may well be innocent.

Why is he innocent?

Kim Nees was lured by a small herd of contemporaries--girls possibly jealous of her--down to a popular riverside park where things got out of hand. Rumors abound that eight or nine people were there that night. At least three sets of footprints are reported to be found at the site of the murder. None match Barry Beach. A bloody handprint on the Nees´ truck does not match Barry Beach; yet, others who would be suspects were never investigated further.

Three girls in particular stand out in this story: Sissy Atkinson, Joanne Jackson and Maude Grayhawk, whose father contaminated the evidence. These girls were known to have harassed Kim Nees as she allegedly dated the father of Sissy Atkinson´s baby. All allegedly confessed at one time or another to someone close to them; but when confronted by authorities, all deny any involvement, even to this day. These girls are rumored to have committed most of the beating that ultimately stole Kim´s life. And there were witnesses who saw the girls all in the truck together and could discount an alibi or two or three.

People are hesitant to come forward, even after all these years. There have been accusations of threats, intimidation, and even murder since Maude Grayhawk´s estranged husband (to whom she allegedly confessed) turned up dead two days prior to a custody hearing where he had threatened to tell her dirty little secret. Her then boyfriend was charged and convicted in his murder. Maude, party now to two murders, still walks free.

Nasty young girls tend to grow up to be nasty old women, and that is what these rumored killers now appear to be. Wretched and used up by life, two appeared on Dateline, defensive and worn down by time. Maude Grayhawk has stayed out of the limelight by conveniently ignoring subpoenas and checking herself into a mental ward in Colorado. Perhaps they have made their own prisons in trying to keep their terrible secret; that may be some justice in Kim Nees´ death.

But what of Barry Beach? Is he innocent? It sure looks like it. Then why is he still in prison? Good question. Initially, the Keystone Cops mucked the whole thing up, no doubt helped by an over zealous police officer, trying to protect his daughter--with no regard for the law he swore to uphold--and by an overly ambitious prosecuting attorney more interested in his personal future than the truth. As Spock said, "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one", so Barry remains in jail when there are many who should be there in his place.

Montana would like this to go away; however, the truth must be found and justice meted out or the town of Poplar, Montana will never heal. Sissy Atkinson, Joanne Jackson and Maude Grayhawk should be indicted for murder, and former Governor Marc Racicot should be indicted for prosecutorial misconduct for starters. The case will be murky after 24 years of covering up the facts; but the outcome may be a man´s life. What is more precious than the truth? At the very least, Barry Beach deserves a new trial. And even though 29 years have passed since Kim Nees´ untimely death, late justice is better than no justice.

Let the crumbs fall where they may.