Ashley Elliott - The Demon in Disguise: Murder, Kidnapping, and the Banty Rooster

The Demon in Disguise: Murder, Kidnapping, and the Banty Rooster

by Ashley Elliott with Michael J. Coffino

Copyright 2021 Ashley Elliott

ISBN 978-1-64663-431-6

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the author.

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TO MY DADDY

You once told me, the truth will set me free, and it has indeed.

I DID NOT GIVE UP, LET UP, OR SHUT UP. I GAVE IT MY ALL

DESPITE THE HIGH PRICE I PAID ALONG THE WAY.

TO MY CHILDREN

This is a testimony to my God, His timing, His promises,
and His justice. Never forget that this is a small glimpse of my life
and by no means defines our family. Despite our shortcomings,
we are without a shadow of a doubt an incredible family.

I love you both.

THE DEMON

IN DISGUISE

MURDER, KIDNAPPING, AND THE BANTY ROOSTER

A TRUE CRIME STORY

ASHLEY ELLIOTT

WITH MICHAEL J. COFFINO

COMMENTS ON

SOURCE MATERIAL

T HIS BOOK IS BASED ON actual events and presented to the best of my knowledge.

We used many sources to create content, including third-party interviews, investigative and court files, media publications and programs, online research, and a smattering of written materials I had created or collected before undertaking this project.

This book also relies in part on my memory and personal interpretation of certain events. In a few cases, as the context will show, I share imagination, assumptions, and opinions.

Conversations and commentary are set forth as accurately as I can recall them. In some cases, conversations were reconstructed and reflect the substance of what was said as best I recall.

The specific descriptions of what occurred in courtrooms are based on available court records and interviews, and to a much lesser extent, my memory. Trial testimony and colloquy are pulled from trial transcripts and are verbatim representations, except where we cleaned up language and summarized proceedings for ease of reading and narrative flow.

Even though most of the events described in this book are in the public domain, I changed many names and identifying details to maintain anonymity.

This book is about what happened to my world when my father was murdered and mother kidnapped. It is told from the singular perspective of my pain and trauma. I am mindful others might have experienced the described events through a different lens. The story that follows is my personal rendition of what it was like to be a crime victim. It is my story and my story alone.

PREFACE

T HERE WILL BE PEOPLE WHO wont be happy I have written
this book.

Some will say whats done is done. The criminal justice system ran its course, straight to the hallowed courtroom of the Arkansas Supreme Court. Move on, girl.

Others wont want the dirty laundry of yesteryear aired. Let bygones be bygones.

Some family members may roll their eyes and lamentthere I go again, stirring up shit, reminiscent of my wilder days. Time to grow up.

Ive heard it all before. When I pressed prosecutors to do their job, people told me, you need to let this go. I was warned I risked unleashing a hornets nest best left undisturbed and less harmful.

I paid them little or no heed. I wanted the justice system to do what it was set up to do.

Unlike others, I didnt have the luxury of bolting the doors of the past and locking away what happened. I couldnt proceed merrily ahead, despite the passage of what many, I am sure, think was ample time to move on.

The past remains my present.

Forgetting isnt something I can do or, frankly, want to do, at least not yet. Telling my story and reliving the details are as important to me as my next breath.

I wrote this book not so much to provide an expos of the criminal justice system, although that will follow naturally enough, but to come to better terms with what happened one grisly late Saturday night in a small Arkansas town many years ago. I had to know more and sift through the details of events that shattered my world. I had to know more because those ghastly crimes ripped apart what was left of my family and cast a dark shadow over my life. I had to know because, who wouldnt want to know what brought about such horrors? Isnt that the natural thing to do?

I didnt know what to expect when I set out to write this book. I assumed it might bring some closure. I also knew it was a gamble. It could send me into darker places, make life more difficult, and complicate things for my husband and children.

As it turned out, it has allowed me to come to grips with who I was before what happened, who I became after, and who I can be despite it all. For that much, I am grateful.

I know I cant make the scars disappear, no matter how much work I put in. The wounds are too deep. Nor am I inclined to forgive and become magically purified of pain. Forgiveness can wait its turn in the long line of healing.

I also dont see myself as a victim. That is important for me to say. I am, for lack of a better term, a survivor. I didnt dodge the awfulness of it. I faced the ugliness head on. I didnt feel sorry for myself then and I dont feel sorry now.

Playing the victim would put me in the sad place of excuse-making to explain my failings, shortcomings, and errant behavior. I dont want any of that, never did. I am not interested in pity. I dont want people uncomfortable in my presence because of what happened. I dont want people staring at me in the distance, having whisper-filled sidebars about that poor thing. I want a wide berth of passage, without emotional crutches, to live my life the way I am destined to live it, free of sympathy. I think that is fair.

I have learned a simple fact: life goes on with or without you. Time has neither a pause nor off button. It ticks away mindlessly and unapologetically, and you either get on the bus or you dont, no matter how rocky the ride or tortuous the path. I am okay with that. Thats how it is for all of us, it seems. No special treatment, please.

This book inevitably filled in many blanks in what happened one immeasurably sad weekend in 2002, an excavation of truth that had confounded some in law enforcement for a substantial period. As much as I learned back then, the past year has opened me to much more about what led to the events that are chronicled in this book.

Still, I know I dont have the entire truth, and likely never will. Among the lies, refusals to fess up, people taking last breaths armed with undisclosed information, and prosecutorial complacency, various parts of the story have gaps that cannot be filled, at least not by me. That is how it must be.

I drilled down as far as I reasonably could. I received some help along the way, as recounted in the acknowledgments, and for that I am most grateful. But I also hit dead ends with some people who now, many years afterward, dont want to get involved. I wish they had been more charitable, but I understand their reluctance. This is not their battle. It is mine alone. I also got treated, with some refreshing exceptions, to bureaucratic jerk-arounds by certain government agencies who responded to public records requests with lengthy excuse-filled form letters, but without that free information the legislation commands be doled out.