Cover Story

The regret lives in the survivors, the pain is on the pages.

“We were only three years apart,” Dot George said of her sister as she leafed through a spiral notebook, its yellow cover now dog-eared and aged. “We were real close.”

Almost three decades after the murder, George’s remorse flickers across her face as she reads her sister Elizabeth’s chronicle of agony and abuse that ended in blood and conflagration.

Family

Elizabeth Smith and her sister Dorothy were Mobile natives. Their childhood was typical, scattered with memories of family and church and young love.

Elizabeth met and married 19-year-old John McBroom when she was only 18 herself. Before long, the pretty young bride gave him a daughter, Kathleen, who inherited her mother’s looks.

Sister Dot followed suit, running off to Mississippi to marry Dewey George when she was only 16. Dewey was 17 and already working for the government.

“Back then, you had to go to Mississippi to get married like that,” Dewey said. “They didn’t have the blood test and stuff like they do now. The day we got married, there were three of us couples from Mobile who rode back into town together.”

Dewey and Dot’s marriage thrived better than Elizabeth and John’s. After four years, the McBrooms split.

Like so many regional denizens, Elizabeth took advantage of the opportunity provided by Brookley Air Base and ended up with a good office job with the provost marshal. It was steady income with benefits, one being that she saw so many handsome men in uniform, men with good potential looking for girlfriends and wives.

Lt. Paul Leverett was one of those young men.

An only child who hailed from Dallas, Leverett landed in the Port City in the mid-1950s with high ambitions. The handsome and sometimes charismatic Air Force officer caught Elizabeth’s eye when he first arrived. He was ambitious and had women across the base watching him.

Before long, the pair were involved.

“I didn’t like him,” Dot George said. “He was just kind of…like he thought he was better than you.”

“Now if he thought you were somebody,” Dewey George added, “that he would need you in some way, he could be just as charming as anything. He’d do whatever for you.”

Paul slowly made connections in Mobile circles of influence. He infiltrated the groups he found necessary.

Liz and Paul married in 1958 and Paul left the service, delving into sales and other jobs. Finally, in the early ‘60s, he took a chance.

Mobilian Richard Moore wanted to spawn a new fast food chain and needed a partner. Paul Leverett was game and dove into the venture tagged Colonel Dixie with their claim to fame, the Dixie Dog.

“In those days, all you had was McDonald’s and Colonel Dixie,” former Mobile County District Attorney Chris Galanos recalled. “They had the market cornered.”

And Leverett’s capital for his share?

“Liz had saved a good bit of money from when she worked in the provost marshal’s office,” Dot George said. “Paul took that and used it for the business.”

The family rose in esteem and material comfort. Paul adopted Kathy and Liz bore him three children, Paul III, Mark and another daughter, Lee. The oldest boy was called Little Paul by family.

In February of 1974, Paul gave Liz a 3.35-carat diamond ring. SJ. Ripps, Jr. a wholesale jeweler, said he appraised the stone at $8,000 at the time then sold it to Leverett for $5,485.

Wilbur Williams, a former police investigator now police chief in Andalausia, said the diamond was one of the first to undergo a new security measure when it was X-rayed at Friedman’s jewelers. Liz had it appraised on March 20, 1980 at $16,750.

But there was turbulence beneath the placid exterior.

“One night Paul got a gun and held the family hostage, back when they lived in a big house on Dog River,” Dot George said. “After a while, one of the boys got out and called the police.” Once authorities arrived, Paul was detained then released.

“There were times Liz would leave him and come stay with us,” Dot George said. “Paul would harass us on the phone, calling us all night long.”

The family moved into town, into a luxurious house in the tony development of Airmont near Cottage Hill and Azalea roads. They had nice cars, the children were enrolled in private schools.

But the life described in Liz’s journal was unenjoyable.

Secret confessions

Sometimes the entries begin “Dear God,” sometimes “Dear Children” or “Dear Book” and bleakest of all “Dear Anyone.”

The first page opens with the notation “Asked for divorce on Nov. 3, 1974. Left or was put out of house Dec. 1, 1974. Came back home first time Jan. 15, 1975. (Started his affair July 1974)”

An entry dated Feb. 5, 1975: “He badgers me for two hours.

March 1, 1975: “My arms are bruised and acking(sic) from him pushing and pulling on me. He wants me to stay in that bedroom and talk or rather listen to him badger me….He calls me names and talks so ugly about Kathy. He calls her an albatross around his neck. He wants to know what it will take to get rid of her….He started to beat up L. Paul he was screaming like a maniac.

March 15, 1975: “Another big scene. He is mad. My shoulder and face are so swollen and bruised. He is obsessed with keeping me in that room and being cruel. Telling me, ‘I don’t love you anymore,’ ‘I hate everything about you,’ ‘Will you be my girlfriend when I leave,’ ‘Will you come to me when I call you?’...He said he was going to kill me if I don’t let him have his mother’s things…He threatens to kill my lawyer.”

She describes Paul as “drunk most every night.”

Liz writes of an incident in which she locked herself in a room with the children and Paul threatened to “chop down” the door to get to them. Liz held him at bay with a pistol and retreated with the children to Dot’s house.

In one entry, the children find their drunk father standing over Liz as she sleeps on the couch at 2 a.m. Liz writes, “He is always trying to tear off my clothes. He said you can’t do anything to a man for raping his wife and then laughs.”

April 8, 1975: “He set up a bar in the bathroom….He beat me, shoved and kicked me. My legs were bruised, my face and arms bruised and swollen.”

Dot tells of photos she took of Liz’s wounds, shots she turned over to police. Former Mobile Police Investigator Wilbur Williams confirmed the snapshots and what they revealed.

Liz wrote of Paul’s repeated statements of revulsion and hate toward her.

Feb. 8, 1975: ” He is drinking and I wish he wouldn’t. He is still not sure if he wants to stay with me. He says he does not love me anymore. All he thinks about is sex and then tells me how much he dislikes me…He tells me things to humiliate me and laugh at me…I am tired phisically (sic) and mentally. He seems to be a nightmare now instead of a dream.”

June 14, 1975: “I am now in Houston, Texas. Here he went to meet her, she came back from Nebraska to Montgomery…Why? Why? Everything, my life was destroyed on Nov. 4 or before when Paul started having an affair with that woman. Did it start in 1973 or 1974 (June) or has it always been since we got married.? Oh God, no wonder he has always treated me so bad. He loved her all along. Dear God, how did it start? How will it all end? I am no one, I am nothing.”

A later note at the bottom of the page reads, “July she moved to Mobile.” The woman Liz named was the wife of an Air Force colonel, a former lover of Paul’s who moved back to be with Leverett.

April 10, 1975: “Oh the despair. It is awful.”

Liz described Paul’s various affairs with women bearing prominent Mobile names, liaisons that were scantly hidden. Later entries contained revelations Paul was involved with other women, even in the early days of their relationship.

Liz sought help in a familiar Southern avenue of solace: the church. The writing is littered with references to God and Jesus and counseling services.

Jan. 3, 1975: “Today I saw the minister of the Cottage Hill Baptist Church. He was kind and very frank. We as a family were out of fellowship with God, this is why this thing, this tragedy has happened.”

After a separation, Liz filed papers for separate maintenance in 1975. The move toward independence never made it far despite her attorney’s encouragements. Paul could still control her.

The diary is replete with instances of Liz’s tragic self-image, her references to her perceived worthlessness.

May 10, 1975: “If I thought I could find someone else, I would leave him. It just isn’t worth all this. But I need someone to take care of me. I don’t like to be on my own.”

“That diary was just terrible to read,” Wilbur Williams said. “It was tragic the way she talked about things. She knew he didn’t care for her and blamed herself, talking about her weight. It was a typical abused woman.”

The journal discusses Liz’s later visits to a psychiatrist and the insight it gave her to her situation and her children’s perceptions and problems.

In the mid-’70s, Kathy escaped by marrying an older man and moving to Houston.

The journal entries continued to grow in despair and turmoil over a four-year period. Liz wonders about getting a job. She pondered earning a real estate license. She concentrated on painting as respite.

“Liz loved to paint,” Dot said, showing off her sister’s work. “That’s what she really wanted to do, save up enough money to open up a shop or studio.”

With Liz’s evidence of Paul’s philandering, suing for divorce would have proved disastrous for him. His fast food empire of close to a dozen stores would be ruptured.

June 15, 1975: “It seems I have two choices, divorce Paul get $60,000 a year plus $300,000 and any other extras and live without a mate and with the children forever. Or stay with him and miserable for the rest of my life just to have a husband.”

The back portion of the journal contains preliminary work for the financial terms of a divorce, monthly allotments for Liz and the kids to live in a manner to which they were accustomed, including new cars every two to four years and country club dues. Liquidation of various realty holdings were listed. Divorce looked to grow expensive for Paul Leverett.

It wouldn’t be long before Paul took out an insurance policy on that diamond ring.

The last diary entry dated in mid-1979 stated, “He keeps saying how wrong it is to kill someone. But yet in private he threatens to kill me if I go get a divorce.”

The hunt

Paul Leverett knew how to circulate. He knew about fishing and hunting camps and how traditional Southern cabals of influence worked.

“Paul liked to bird hunt,” Dewey George said. “He’d always have cookouts over at the house with the birds he got.”

“Leverett hung out with that circle that would be around Ward’s and McCoy’s (sporting stores),” Wilbur Williams said. That circle included prominent Mobilians.

Liz’s journal often mentioned Paul’s hunting excursions.

William McEvoy was part of that world. He testified he initially met Leverett in 1969 when he had a date with oldest daughter Kathy. Later they would occasionally cross paths when dove hunting in Mobile County.

McEvoy was part owner and a manager of Leo Brown’s, an out-of-the-way bar on South Broad Street across from Fort Whiting. The bar next to Brookley still stands but now operates under the name Papa Buddha’s.

In October of 1979, the 32-year-old McEvoy ran into the 45-year-old fast food king again in what he said Leverett described as a matter of “graveyard importance.”

“He wanted to know if I would find someone to kill his wife,” McEvoy testified. “Leverett said he had lived in hell for the last couple years and just couldn’t take it anymore.”

A hunter himself, McEvoy saw Leverett as prey. He agreed to find a hit man for Leverett but had no intention of doing anything other than “ripping Paul off.”

McEvoy told Leverett the job would cost $20,000, with one half being delivered before the task. He enticed hunting and drinking buddy Billy McLeod to fake a Cajun accent in a phone conversation with Leverett and help arrange a money drop. By McEvoy’s design, neither McLeod nor Leverett knew the other’s name.

The payment of $10,000 in a brown paper bag was to be dropped by a specific sign on Highway 90 in Baldwin County. Leverett left $2,000 and a photo of Liz.

McEvoy removed the picture because he didn’t want McLeod “to know who was involved.” The bar owner gave $500 to his accomplice and kept the remainder. He then phoned Leverett and told him, “our friend wants to know where the rest of the money is.”

Leverett said he was having trouble acquiring it and would have it within days. Around this time, Leverett received a loan of $20,000 from banker friend Gaylord Lyon.

Another ruse was arranged and McEvoy pocketed $8,000 this time, $4,500 of which bought him a Corvette convertible.

At the end of October, McEvoy said Leverett claimed Liz would be in New Orleans at the Jung Hotel for a ceramic painting convention and “that would be a good time to have the job done.”

As time passed, Leverett grew impatient and asked McEvoy why the job was incomplete. He stalled by telling Leverett the accomplice had disappeared then in February 1980, he told Leverett the hired killer had fled to South America.

Leverett gave McEvoy funds to chase the man down. McEvoy went fishing instead and told Leverett he couldn’t find the hit man.

In Mid-March, Leverett gave McEvoy $6,500 for a new hit man. McEvoy bought a $4,500 outboard motor and other boat equipment.

McEvoy said in testimony Leverett grew more “upset” and began to pressure for the task to be completed by early June. He knew who to contact.

Rickey Allen Prewitt was an Ackerman, Miss. native who fancied himself “a tough guy” according to former Mobile County District Attorney Investigator Bob Eddy.

“He came down here and went to a two-week mercenary training school,” Eddy said. “He did palooka work, some stuff as a bouncer at clubs.” Prewitt had previously described his occupation as a self-employed bodyguard.

McEvoy approached Prewitt about the hit and received a price tag of $10,000. McEvoy then arranged a meeting between Leverett and Prewitt in an Airport Boulevard grocery store parking lot and a later phone call between the two men in April.

Leverett’s instructions were for Prewitt to take Liz’s diamond ring “to make it look like a robbery.” Prewitt received a photo of Liz.

McEvoy claimed he told Prewitt to “take the money and run” but that Prewitt retorted “he didn’t operate that way.”

McEvoy said from that point on, he tried to “get as far away from it” as possible.

Prewitt testified that on May 28, 1980, he met Paul Leverett at a Bel Air Mall bar wherein Leverett gave him the second $2,500 installment on the $5,000 down payment. He also slipped Prewitt the keys to the house and Liz’s black 1978 Oldsmobile Regency.

Leverett suggested she be killed in the house if possible. He described how Prewitt might steal into the empty house and hide in the bedroom closet to surprise Liz when she returned from her appointment.

That afternoon, Prewitt arrived at Confederate Ordnance Gun Shop and, according to owner Charles G. Kennedy, bought a rifle and a black-handled Gerber knife.

In the next few days, Prewitt returned to Ackerman, Miss., then slipped back into Mobile.

On May 30, 1980, Mark Leverett was scheduled to graduate from St. Paul’s Episcopal School. It was to be a special day for the family.

Liz took her favorite outfit to the dry cleaner across the street from the house and made an appointment at the Las Damas House of Beauty down the hill. The 45-year-old had recently changed her hair from brunette to blonde but still wanted to look especially nice for her middle child’s proud night.

Mark’s girlfriend was in town from New Orleans and Paul promised the young man a new car as a present for the occasion. He also wanted Lee to come along as he planned to take her shopping for jeans. She was scheduled to go with her mother to the salon but Paul insisted otherwise.

The Georges described it as “strange” Paul would seek to spend any time with the children.

“He did return to the house at 12 noon to put a bottle of wine in the refrigerator,” Dot George wrote. “He made sure that the maid knew he was there. He always carries a box of ice in his station wagon. There was no need for him to return to the house with wine.”

Paul squired the kids to Trail Pontiac for Mark to pick up a Firebird. Afterward, he drove them to Ward’s for jeans. He took them by one of his stores ostensibly to show it to Mark’s girlfriend, then by another store, then another facility. Paul told Mark’s girlfriend about the polar bear he killed and had stuffed in his office. They looked at that, too.

They left the office and went to another store to pick up food, then back by Trail Pontiac to grab the new car. After dropping the couple at the dealership, Paul took Lee with him to the bank.

Dot George said Lee later told her she begged her father to take her home so she could start preparing for the evening. Paul refused though at times they passed near the house.

Liz left home in the early afternoon. A neighbor saw her with a towel wrapped around her head, bound for her 1:30 p.m. appointment. Las Damas owner Linda Proctor told a Press-Register reporter Liz was in a “very, very good mood” having just returned from a visit with Kathy in Houston.

Rickey Prewitt pulled into the parking lot of the shopping center just behind the Leverett home. He parked his car and walked the three-tenths of a mile to the Leverett’s Montcliff Drive address.

The erstwhile assassin opened the back door, padded down the hallway and hid in the closet. He nervously flexed his grip on a .38 Smith & Wesson.

Liz left Las Damas around 3 p.m., telling Proctor she had errands to run. Up the hill toward home, Liz stopped at the dry cleaner to retrieve her clothes.

Back home, she went straight to her bedroom.

Prewitt sprang.

“She immediately threw up her hands and said, ‘Oh my God, don’t kill me,’” Prewitt testified. “I told her-to try to calm her down-that I was just a robber.”

Liz pulled off her ring and dropped it on the floor. But then she knew.

“She told me she wanted to make her peace with God,” Prewitt said. “I gave her a minute to do it.”

Prewitt picked up a sofa cushion and held against her head, shooting her twice. He pulled out the knife and made a strong slice across her throat, then quickly pierced her chest over and over.

He ran for the back door and a knock came from the front. It was the roofers who had come by to correct a job. “I panicked a bit,” Prewitt said.

The killer almost forgot something integral and had to run back to the room to retrieve the diamond ring.

Prewitt jumped into Liz’s Oldsmobile and darted to the parking lot where she picked up her cleaning, where his car awaited.

As Prewitt slammed the car door behind him, Liz’s favorite outfit rustled in the clear bag on the hook over a back window, unworn, unfulfilled.

Near 5:30 p.m., Paul finally headed for the house with the kids. Thirteen-year-old Lee was antsy.

“Paul told her to make sure she went straight in and threw her new jeans on the bed in his bedroom,” Dot George said. “She was supposed to be the one to find the body.”

But as she entered the house, the phone rang. Lee tossed the pants onto the couch and ran to answer in her bedroom.

Paul came in behind her and strode to the bedroom himself. He later claimed to have “blubbered like a stuck hog” when he discovered Liz’s corpse. Lee would testify he didn’t cry at all.

Paul notified authorities.

“You should hear the voice on that 911 call,” former district attorney Chris Galanos said. “It’s just as icy as anything you can imagine.”

“When the police got there, Paul’s attorney was already there,” Dot George said. “He said he was just driving by and saw all the commotion.”

Birds of a feather

Meanwhile, Prewitt left and went straight to Hilton Robinson. Robinson owned the House of Bargains, a place he described as “a cross between a flea market and an antique store.” Admittedly, the 57-year-old owned a fencing spot where young “junkies” came and exchanged stolen goods for money and drugs.

Robinson and Prewitt met in November of 1979 at a Halls Mill Road bar where Prewitt was working as a bouncer. Prewitt passed him a card that said he did “collections” and Robinson later took him up on the offer.

The fence testified Prewitt was in bad shape that afternoon. While riding around, the young man showed Robinson a bloody knife, a blue steel revolver and another gun and said he had just finished “a job.” It was obvious to Robinson it had been his first murder.

For now, the assassin had something he wanted to “hock.” He revealed the diamond ring and asked $1,000 for the jewel.

Robinson claimed the men stopped on the roadside and removed the stone.

“They threw the ring into Halls Mill Creek,” Dewey George said.

“We felt from the beginning that Paul Leverett was behind it,” Chris Galanos said. “The trick was going to be proving it. What kind of impediments could you encounter in investigation?”

“Someone with his connections can make it harder to come across things,” Williams said. “We knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”

Paul Leverett’s statement to police is speckled with possible excuses and alibis. He offered that there had been plenty of company the last night and that any door could have been left open.

The Georges maintain he lied about arguing with his wife that day, that Lee claimed he and Liz fought over the daughter’s behavior both that day and the day before.

He goes into great detail about his whereabouts for the day. His tangential forays into subjects like where his housekeeper lived seemed a product of nervousness.

The family left the house while the investigation took course. Within days, they were allowed to return.

“The first thing he did when they got back,” Dot George said, “was to tell the girls, Lee and Kathy and Cindy (George, Dot’s daughter) to go into the bedroom and clean all the blood up. And there was blood everywhere. Then he told them, ‘You get every picture of her, all her clothes, every thing of hers and get rid of it. Go throw it in the dumpster behind Colonel Dixie, just get it out of here.’”

“At the funeral, he wouldn’t let the kids cry,” Dot continued. “He didn’t want anybody there. He didn’t want there to be flowers either. He tried to send them back and we stopped him.”

“After the funeral, we went out to the gravesite and the flowers on the grave were all ripped up, just torn up all over the place,” Dot said as shook her head. “It was the weirdest thing.”

William McEvoy returned to Mobile from a fishing trip and his wife told him of the murder. “I was scared to death,” he said.

He saw Leverett that evening. “I was real shook up,” McEvoy testified. “Leverett said not to worry about anything, that everything was alright.”

Prewitt called Leo Brown’s and asked about his remaining cash.

McEvoy said Leverett would later help him, ensuring a $3,500 loan and co-signing a $12,500 note.

Phyllis DeGraaf was a married mother from Grand Bay. An attractive blonde, she first met Paul Leverett in 1977 and claimed to have sought his counsel in March of 1980 while seeking a detective agency to trail her husband, Jack DeGraaf.

It was rumored Paul and Phyllis were intimately involved. Cynthia Jones, a Col. Dixie employee testified she saw Paul and Phyllis together four or five times in April, May and June of 1980.

The Georges claim Paul told Kathy he and Phyllis slept together the night after Liz’s murder.

The children claimed Phyllis all but moved in two weeks after the murder.

“She came by the house one night and Mark stayed up to see if she left,” Dot said. “Her car was still there in the morning.”

Prewitt arrived at Hilton Robinson’s store around June 20, 1980. Prewitt enticed him to sell his truck if he found someone to offer $4,500 for it.

Prewitt slid a “for sale” sign onto the dashboard and 20 minutes later, a man arrived but left when others pulled up. Within minutes he was back and examined the truck, including starting the engine.

He exited the cab, gave Robinson the keys and said he would have to see others before making a decision.

When Prewitt returned 20 minutes later, he went to the truck, reached inside and pulled out an envelope. Robinson said it contained a stack of $100 bills.

“Did you recognize that guy that was here last?” Prewitt asked.

Robinson described the man in court as short, in his late 40s or 50s with a receding hairline.

“That was Paul Leverett,” Prewitt said. “He’s the husband to the wife I done the job on, that you better realize the magnitude of it and keep your mouth shut.”

The bag contained $6,000. McEvoy described the extra $1,000 as a bonus for “a job well done.”

In June of 1980, Phyllis and Jack DeGraaf separated and Sept. 8, they were divorced. On Nov. 15, Phyllis and Paul Leverett married. It was the first available opportunity to marry following the state’s 60-day ban following divorce and a mere six months after Liz was slain.

“Paul made the children stand up with him at the wedding,” Dot George said. “They weren’t allowed to cry at the funeral but they sure cried that day.”

In June of ‘82, Phyllis DeGraaf Leverett was charged with perjury before the grand jury. She testified in December of 1981 that she had no association with Paul Leverett during April, May and June of 1980.

It was confirmed in court that Paul Leverett not only met Phyllis’ mother during that period, but also hired a detective agency to follow Phyllis’ then-husband, Jack.

Phyllis claimed she turned to Leverett because she met him in years previous and found him to be “an outstanding personality” and a “knowledgeable businessman.” She claimed their romantic relationship began in July of 1980.

Judge Braxton Kittrell threw the case out for lack of evidence.

Flushing quarry

The investigation was “hard going.”

Dot and Dewey George knew what they felt and spurred things forward. Dot instructed Lee to spirit away Liz’s diary and deliver it to her aunt. Dot knew in its pages could lie the impetus for investigators.

“It lit a fire under my butt, reading that thing,” Wilbur Williams said.

“Dot George was the reason so much of this stayed alive,” Bob Eddy said. “She really kept things moving forward.” According to Williams and Eddy, police investigators at that time were severely taxed and concentration was precious.

Yet, life continued as normal. A Baldwin County home was burglarized. “Some family named Radcliff,” Bob Eddy said. ‘They took the silver but left the weapons.”

Distraught over things, the Radcliffs soon decided on a get-away to New Orleans to relax. While in the Crescent City, they wandered through shops on Magazine Street looking for replacement silver when they stumbled upon their former set. The items were traced back to Hilton Robinson in Mobile.

The transfer of stolen goods over state lines constituted a federal crime and Hilton was welcomed into the penal system.

In the fall of 1982, Chris Galanos received a call.

“They were telling me to get down to Tallahassee,” the former D.A. said. “They said that an inmate had information on the Leverett murder. So we went down there and listened and Hilton Robinson told us all about Rickey Prewitt.”

“Now there were gaps in his story,” Galanos continued, “but there always are. They never tell you everything the first time, so I go back down there with (investigators) Vince Richardson and Wilbur Williams and we decide we want everything.”

Then a young attorney not long from law school, Galanos credited veteran defense attorney Bob Clark with enticing the rest of the story from Robinson in order to solicit a deal.

“I’ll never forget, we were sitting at this makeshift table against the wall,” Galanos said, “and I’m in the middle and Bob’s on one side of me and Robinson’s on the other. And I’m in this revolving chair and Hilton just says, ‘Turn around boy,’ and I wheel around and he reaches over and grabs my tie.”

Galanos was unsure. “He leaned in and said, ‘You think you’re smart but I’m smarter. Go to my house and get my wife to let you in and look in my closet. And in my ties, if you look at this number tie from this side,’ and he tells me what it looks like and said, “If you look right in here in the tie,’ and shows me, ‘you’ll find the diamond you’re looking for.’”

Law enforcement retrieved the stone, then the jeweler and X-rays confirmed its identity.

Ricky Prewitt was next on the list. Bob Eddy arrived at the Baldwin County home of Angie Smith, a former Prewitt roommate from September of 1980 until February of 1981.

“So I’m talking to her,” Eddy said. “And I notice all these (ammunition) cartridges there and I can’t help but wonder what they are, so I ask her. She said she collected them and started naming off who gave them to her.”

When she said the name Rickey Prewitt, Eddy asked how she knew. “Because it’s got his initials on it right here,” Eddy recalled. She pointed to the serial number and the “RP” that stood for “Remington Pistols.”

Eddy asked and she turned the cartridge over to him.

A chemical analysis at FBI laboratories identified the cartridge as belonging to the same batch of rounds found in Elizabeth Leverett.

“I remember on a Saturday night, Tom Farmer called me at home,” Galanos said, “and said, ‘Your boy is in the Ramada Inn on Government Street.’ I jumped up and was headed down to meet him.”

The police picked Prewitt up on an outstanding traffic ticket charge and impounded his silver Lincoln Continental.

“I was down with the police,” Galanos said, “and Billy Mingus looks at me and says, ‘Well, what you want me to do with him, Tiger?’ They wanted him brought up on the old charge and I finally told him, ‘I want you to lock him up on murder.’”

The trial arrived in January of ‘83. The FBI analyst and Angie Smith appeared. Hilton Robinson testified.

Prewitt’s lawyer, Neal Hanley, claimed Robinson was merely trying to deflect guilt from himself.

Ackerman Supply Company operator Tony Busbee was called to testify for the prosecution to the fact Prewitt bought a box of the matching ammunition from him. While under oath, Busbee said Prewitt couldn’t have been in Mobile at the time of the murder because he was in Ackerman, 210 miles away.

Busbee claimed to have a dated receipt for Prewitt’s purchase of a weed eater on the afternoon of the crime.

Galanos objected to the inclusion of the receipt as evidence. The judge called a recess.

Wilbur Williams was present.

“I started thinking about that receipt,” Williams said. “So while we were in recess I wandered over to the table and started looking at all the receipts that were there with it. Suddenly, I’m looking and I notice it’s out of sequence. Ticket number 14 was dated on Saturday, ticket 15 was on Friday and ticket 16 was on Saturday. It wasn’t right.”

“Wilbur told me about it,” Galanos said. “He said, ‘Well, I’m not an attorney but if I were you I’d withdraw that objection and move to have all the receipts entered as evidence.’”

“I was so nervous waiting on that judge to come back,” Galanos said. “I was just hoping (Prewitt attorney) Neal Hanley didn’t catch it.”

The judge returned, accepted all new evidence and Hanley never objected.

Galanos saved his revelation of the forgery for the prosecutor’s rebuttal during closing statements, when Hanley would have no chance to respond. “I remember he told the jury he was going to drop an atomic bomb on the defense when he revealed it,” Williams said.

The jury returned a guilty verdict after two hours of deliberation. Leverett’s relatives were relieved while Angie Smith and another witness were so distraught the judge had them removed.

Prewitt received a sentence of life without parole.

Four weeks after arriving at prison in Montgomery, Prewitt changed.

“We got a call from the warden at Kilby,” Galanos said. “I took a plane up there.”

Bob Eddy hopped into a car and raced northward.

“Every time I saw Rickey Prewitt before that, he had this intense animus in his eyes,” Galanos said. “This time, his features had softened. He was different.”

Galanos said lawyer Neal Hanley pleaded with Prewitt to remain silent.

Prewitt spilled the story of Leverett and McEvoy. “I remember he even told us how he took the gun apart,” Williams said. “He took it apart and switched it around and got rid of the different parts in different places.”

The indictment of Paul Leverett was quick.

“Bob Eddy called us to let us know he was going to pick up Paul,” Dot George said. “I wanted to watch but he wouldn’t tell us any more. He didn’t want us there.”

“Eddy and Cookie Estes picked up Leverett at the Colonel Dixie out at Demetropolis and 90 within an hour of the indictment,” Galanos said.

It was Feb. 4, 1983, nine years to the day after Paul presented Liz with her diamond ring.

The Leverett trial was moved to Montgomery due to three years of previous publicity that had tainted the Mobile jury pool.

“There were people who were driving back and forth each day,” Galanos said. “Women that would come and bring a brown bag lunch so they wouldn’t have to give up their seats to go eat.”

McEvoy testified, as did Prewitt. Even Lee Leverett, then 16 years old, was sworn in to speak of her father’s threatening behavior.

When Prewitt was forced to explain his need to confess, he said he was tired of seeing Elizabeth Leverett’s face in his dreams.

When presented with the blood-soaked pillow through which Liz was shot, Prewitt cried. He fingered Paul Leverett as the man who contracted the job.

When her wounds were discussed-the 13 stabbings, the throat slashed so badly her windpipe was severed-family members had to leave the courtroom. Prewitt explained that other hit men told him “you had to kill them twice, to make sure they don’t testify against you.”

The trial lasted six days.

“When the jury went into deliberation, I went into this little Catholic church across the street from the court house,” Galanos said. “That was where I waited it out. I’ve been back since then and every time I’m there, I think of that day.”

The jury took three-and-a-half hours to return a guilty verdict. The only disappointment was their waiver of the capital-murder charge in favor of murder. Paul was sentenced to life and would be eligible for parole.

“This was one of those cases that reinforces everything you hear about tenacity,” Galanos said. “Everyone worked together and no one gave up.” He remarked on the extraordinary cooperation on the part of law enforcement at various levels.

“I think this is the case I was most proud of,” Galanos confessed.

Cleaning game

Paul Leverett was taken into state custody and, true to form, ingratiated himself with the right people. While at maximum-security St. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville, he taught illiterate inmates to read and write.

Word got around about his knack for hunting. In 1991, he was moved from St. Clair to a Black Belt facility mostly unknown except in the right circles.

Sitting 40 miles south of Tuscaloosa and 100 miles west of Montgomery, the 4,400-acre Charles A. Farquhar State Cattle Ranch in rural Hale County was founded to supply beef for the Alabama penal system. It ended up a private hunting and fishing preserve for state legislators and dignitaries.

Its namesake was appointed warden in 1956 by Gov. Jim “Big Jim” Folsom.

“I don’t think anyone in the state has known as many politicians as Charlie Farquhar,” prison system spokesman John Hale told a Press-Register reporter in the mid-’90s. “There’s not an official in any county in the state that hasn’t been hunting there.”

Farquhar planted pecan trees, began programs to raise quail and catfish and turned the facility into one of the state’s best pleasures for the constant stream of visitors. The 100-inmate population kept things humming along under the most minimal of security measures. There were no barbed wire fences or security towers but there were baseball fields, picnic pavilions and duck ponds in addition to the 700 head of cattle and 400 acres of catfish ponds.

Reassignment to the ranch was via a Montgomery review board but the warden had final word on which prisoners were allowed there.

Chris Galanos was unaware Leverett was considered for the ranch. “Had I known,” he said, “I would have opposed it.”

In spring of 1992, Farquhar took Leverett and another inmate to a bird dog field trial competition in Hamilton, Miss. The inmates dressed in civilian clothes and rode in the warden’s personal vehicle.

The trip was in violation of corrections policy.

Field trials among private hunting organizations and clubs were common at the ranch and before long Leverett was in charge of the Farquhar’s personal hunting dogs and living in private quarters near the kennels. The other 99 inmates slept in a dormitory elsewhere on the grounds.

On two occasions, Farquhar presented Leverett with weapons for birthday gifts, one a 12-gauge Beretta shotgun and the other a 20-gauge Remington shotgun. Both were kept hidden behind clothes in a cabinet in Leverett’s private quarters.

Official corrections policy expressly prohibits such.

“Man, there were wild stories about that place,” Wilbur Williams said. “The inmates would be waiting on guests, doing everything for them.”

Did Williams ever hear of inmates having access to weapons? “Yeah, I heard sometimes the guests would get so drunk they couldn’t shoot the game so inmates would bag the birds for them and clean them afterwards.”

Williams didn’t comment but chuckled at comparisons of the ranch to a modern day plantation complete with slave labor.

In October of 1994, 27-year-old Kelvin Washington, serving 20 years for killing a Tuscaloosa police officer, snapped. He bludgeoned the 74-year-old warden to death with a shotgun found in his house, then raped Farquhar’s 68-year-old wife and tied her to the furniture.

Leverett and another inmate ran to the house, but the rampaging prisoner shot them to death.

Washington then ignited the stove, threw a blanket over it to set the house ablaze and tried to blend in with the rest of the population. Blood spots on his white clothing gave him away.

Leverett’s journey was over.

“I hate the guy got killed,” Bob Eddy told a Press-Register reporter in 1994, “but I don’t have much sympathy for people who kill other people or have people killed.”

“He was supposed to be in prison,” Dot George said that same year, “but I wouldn’t call that a prison, being on a farm doing the things he loved to do most, hunt fish, have his dogs, his guns. That wasn’t punishment. It was what he loved. That was just like being paroled.”

“He got what he deserved,” she summarized.

Farquhar Cattle Ranch came under new management that cracked down on the lax security and measures. Inmates were all moved into the proper facilities and the state stopped hunting there after the murders. The governor’s office discussed a plan to turn it into a public hunting preserve under the direction of the Alabama Department of Conservation.

Charles Thompson, the new warden, said the ranch would likely leave the business of raising quail and would cease the training of hunting dogs.

Bob Eddy moved from the Mobile County District Attorney’s office to similar duties in Montgomery before retiring from an administrative position with the Department of Public Safety.

Wilbur Williams advanced to the rank of major in the Mobile Police Department then retired. He currently serves as the chief of police in Andalusia, Ala.

Chris Galanos became a circuit judge in 1994. After five years on the bench, he returned to private practice. He claimed to have struck up a friendship of sorts with Prewitt and that they keep in loose contact.

Phyllis Degraaf Leverett remarried twice after Paul went to prison.

Dot and Dewey George are retired and live in West Mobile.

“Little” Paul Leverett III worked in the oil business for years before succumbing to brain cancer in Indonesia last year.

Mark Leverett went on to Southern Methodist University and married. He still lives away from Mobile.

Lee Leverett, the youngest at the time of Liz’s death fell under her aunt and uncle’s care.

“She lived with us for a while,” Dot George said. “Now she’s out west.”

Dot feels Lee might have suffered the most. “She and Liz were so close, together all the time. Lee never did some of the things the other kids did, go to college or get married,” Dot said. “She still calls all the time and just says, “I miss Mom.’”

Dot’s face as she touches the weathered diary says the same.

Kevin Lee is Lagniappe associate editor. Contact him at klee@lagniappemobile.com.

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