On August 23, 1987, in Bryant, Ark., three train conductors noticed two bodies lying across the tracks with a tarp covering them. They honked their horn and tried to stop the train, but they were unsuccessful.

The authorities arrived soon after, and some claim this is when they began a massive cover-up.

Seniors at Bryant High School, Kevin Ives and Don Henry allegedly witnessed a drug drop from Mena before they were murdered. It is likely that this is a direct result of Barry Seal running drugs out of Mena in the early eighties.  

The boys’ bodies were found in a drop location for drugs that were being flown out of Mena known to the pilots as A1. Two out of three pilots interviewed in the “Obstruction of Justice” documentary confirmed the site and it’s name.

When recalling the accident to local authorities, all the members of the train crew observed a tarp covering the bodies before they were run over. The police discounted the statement and blamed the tarp on an “optical illusion.” One of the railroad employees stated as he pointed toward the tracks, “I know it was some kind of tarp, and to my recollection they set it right over there.”

The investigation was rushed, and the infamous state medical examiner at the time, Fahmy Malak, was quick to rule the deaths as accidental due to a marijuana-induced coma.  Malak was known for asking police officers what they thought happened to a body, and then he would rule the death the way the officers told him to.

After months of constant persuasion and pestering by the parents of the boys, the bodies were exhumed, and a second opinion was brought in, Atlanta medical examiner Dr. Joseph Burton.

Burton concluded that Kevin’s skull had been crushed and Don had been stabbed in the back hours before they were run over by the train. His autopsy also showed that Malak had mutilated Ives’s skull by sawing it in many different directions, which made it virtually impossible to determine where the initial skull fractures were. This was presented to a Grand Jury, which ultimately decided the case should be treated as a homicide rather than an accidental death.

Although Burton gathered that the boys were murdered, that did not explain why Malak would falsify his ruling. Malak, in fact, had direct ties to Jocelyn Elders, who was the head of the state health department, and Bill Clinton, who was governor at the time.

Both Clinton and Elders had the authority to remove Malak from office after his false ruling, but they continued to support him and even gave him a $32,000 pay raise.

These relationships began to tie the murders to something larger than just a homicide.
All information was gathered from “The Obstruction of Justice” documentary.

Linda Ives, mother of the victim Kevin Ives, has devoted her life to finding out the truth behind her son’s murder.

In a recent interview, she told me about defense attorney Dan Harmon.

Harmon approached the Ives’ family with his friend deputy prosecutor Richard Garrett and convinced them that he and Garrett would stop at nothing to find those responsible for her son’s murder.

Ives said that she and Harmon became good friends while he was working the case.

¨People warned of us Harmon,¨ she said. ¨They told us that he was bad news and that he was involved in drugs.”

Ives said that there was a possibility that Harmon was dealing drugs, but she was sure he had intentions of helping her find out what happened to her son.

“Over the years, Dan, my husband, Larry and I grew very close,” Ives said. “We never made a move without him knowing, and he never made a move without us knowing, or so we thought. We even gave him thousands of dollars from Kevin’s insurance, because he had a hard time supporting his family.”

Harmon had been rumored to be on the tracks the night the boys were murdered, but Ives chose to ignore the rumors because she wanted to trust Harmon.

“I told myself that nobody would befriend parents of a murder victim and then screw them over, but I was wrong,” Ives said.

After meeting with deputy prosecutor Jean Duffey, who was put in charge of a drug task force for Saline County, Ives was made aware of incriminating information tying Harmon to the murders of Kevin Ives and Don Henry.

Ives and Duffey helped Pat Matrisciana make the documentary, “The Obstruction of Justice.”

Matrisciana was a video journalist who also filmed “The Clinton Chronicles” in the early 90s. His documentary accused many men holding high rank, such as Dan Harmon, of being corrupt and involved in drugs.

According to WorldNetDaily, Matrisciana created the “Obstruction of Justice” documentary to show the connection between the cover-up of Kevin Ives and Don Henry’s murder, Mena drug trafficking and Bill Clinton.

The documentary drew a line in the sand between Ives and Harmon.

According to ID Files, Harmon was convicted in July 1997 of racketeering, extortion and drug conspiracy, and sentenced to eight years in prison.

In October 1997, prosecutors brought more drug charges against Harmon, and he was sentenced to three years in prison, for a total of more than 11 years.

He was released in 2006 after helping prosecutors in a murder conspiracy case.

After facing all of these drug charges, it may not be so far-fetched that he was at the tracks when Ives and Henry were murdered.

As Dan Harmon’s “investigation” pushed forward, many potential witnesses started to turn up dead.

Circuit Judge John Cole appointed Dan Harmon special prosecutor of the Kevin Ives and Don Henry case in 1988, which gave him direct access to and control of information as the case developed. This is when witnesses began turning up dead, but no one connected that to Harmon at the time.

Keith Coney, who was believed to be with Kevin and Don the night they were killed, told friends and family members that law enforcement officials were responsible for the murders. He died on May 17, 1988, when he struck the back of a tractor trailer after apparently being in a high speed chase.

Keith McKaskle, who was allegedly at the tracks by Sharlene Wilson on Aug. 23, 1987, turned in information he had to Deputy prosecutor Richard Garrett, who was Dan Harmon’s partner. Wilson was known as the “Lady with the Snow” in Little Rock. She has confessed to selling cocaine to both Bill and Roger Clinton.

McKaskle then realized that he had told the wrong person, and made his own funeral arrangement. After telling his family goodbye, he was stabbed 113 times only days later. His murder remains unsolved.

Greg Collins was supposed to testify in front of a grand jury for Ives and Henry, but was shot in the head before he had the chance. His murder remains unsolved.

Boonie Bearden, who was friends with Collins and Coney, went missing in 1989. His shirt was found in Bryant, but his body was never discovered.

Jeff Rhodes told his family that he feared for his life because he knew too much about Kevin, Don and McKaskles’ murders. In April, 1989 his body was found in the Little Rock city dump after he had been shot in the head twice and set on fire.

Four men were possibly killed because of what they knew. These witnesses testimonies’ could have solved the murders of Kevin and Don, however they were all killed before they had the chance.
All evidence gathered from “The Obstruction of Justice” video documentary.

In March 1990,  Saline County deputy prosecutor, Jean Duffey, was assigned to lead a drug task force to investigate drug smuggling in Saline County.

According to ID files, the day Duffey was hired, her boss, Gary Arnold, instructed her not to investigate any public officials. Almost immediately, however, Duffey’s undercover officers discovered that there were a number of public officials involved in drug trafficking.

Afraid to go against Arnold’s orders because he might’ve been one of the public officials involved in drugs, Duffey brought the information to Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Govar, who was in charge of a federal investigation of corruption in Saline County.

The task force obtained information that tied public officials, including Richard Garrett and Dan Harmon, to drugs and the murders of Kevin Ives and Don Henry. This is when Linda Ives realized that Harmon and Garrett had been lying to her and using her for nearly four years.

Fearing for his reputation, Harmon used the local newspapers to destroy Jean Duffey’s character.

Duffey wrote in ID files, “Lynda Hollenbeck wrote for the Benton Courier and Doug Thompson wrote for Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Hollenbeck and Thompson were willing participants in Harmon’s smear campaign against me and my task force, and neither reporter bothered to verify anything Harmon said; they just printed it — lie after lie, article after article — even when they knew Harmon was lying.”

Duffey’s boss, U.S. Attorney Chuck Banks, concluded that the media whirlwind created by Harmon had made her ineffective, and decided to fire her.

Although she was no longer head of the task force, Duffey and another officer of the task force dug deeper into the “train deaths” case and eventually brought information to U.S. Attorney Chuck Banks, who promised that they would be able to testify with the information.

However, this never happened, and the federal investigation regarding corruption in Saline County was unexpectedly terminated. All public officials who had indictments against them were cleared of all wrongdoings.
“I finally understood,” Duffey wrote in a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal in 1997, “To solve the train deaths case would be to expose the crimes of Mena, and no government agent who has come close to doing either has survived professionally.”