1985 was a year of change for Lexington, Kentucky. It was the year that changed people’s perception of the city for the worse. In September of this year the questions surrounding the death of one of Lexington’s most renowned individuals launched an investigation deep into the city’s government, police force, and some of the communities most well-respected people. The investigation uncovered more questions than answers, but most importantly, it exposed a different side of the city; one of corruption, crime, and greed. When examining this scandal, it is clear that the unique community of Lexington was the perfect setting for such an unbelievable story to take place.
Ben Logan
The Bluegrass Conspiracy is a widely told story about crime and corruption in the Lexington police force in the 1980’s. The tale is widely known and told around the country and it never gets old! There are many biased stories, accounts, and rumors regarding the conspiracy, but personally, I am unsure if anybody knows the truth. A conspiracy is defined as an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons. That is exactly what the Bluegrass Conspiracy was… a plan to smuggle large amounts of drugs into Lexington Kentucky- Murders were covered up, cocaine was imported, and money was made. This operation played a major role in the city’s transformation into a community run by an exclusive group of individuals and their trusty followers that were living large. “The most interesting but yet frightening aspect of this story is that the entire truth of it has never been exposed, or even close to it. “It is a well known fact by the people of Lexington who lived through this time, that what remains of Lexington’s upper class still knows more than the general public ever will about this particular incident, purely because of the power they still hold with their deep family roots and money, which go a very long way in Lexington’s unique culture.” (Clay)
Andrew C. Thornton II was a head member of ‘The Company’, which was a drug smuggling ring in Kentucky. Thornton was born in rural Bourbon County and lived a privileged life in the Lexington area and attended the private Sayre School. Later on, he transferred to Sewanee Military Academy and joined the army as a paratrooper. Shortly after quitting the army, he became a Lexington police officer and the founder of the LPD narcotics division. The job of the narcotics division is to put an end to the drug scene in the City. “Thornton’s average lifestyle can potentially explain his drive for a new action packed and dramatic lifestyle. During his time in the police force, he began smuggling drugs into the state of Kentucky to quench his thirst for power.” (Denton) Because of Thornton’s knowledge about drug dealing, it was easy for him to get into the horrible business… and because he was in charge of bringing the dealers to justice, he would never have to worry about getting into trouble with the law. “By keeping his position as head of Lexington’s Narcotics Unit he could use his power to shut down opposing drug lords and dealers, eliminating his competition and making room for larger profits, while using their sources to create his own inflow of drugs to sell.” (Denton)
Starting out, Thornton would take the drugs from recent arrests and sell them in local bars the very next day. “On one particular incident almost two pounds of marijuana went missing from the evidence room at the police department. When another police officer found the drugs at Thornton’s residence still packaged and tagged by the Lexington Police Department, Thornton told the man to forget about what he saw and the incident remained a secret within the police department.” (Denton) As Thornton continued to become more involved in drug dealing, he began seeking larger quantities of drugs, better product, and new suppliers. Thornton manipulatively got other police officers involved in ‘The Company’ by offering them a cut of the profits they made. The officers were pulling in hundreds and thousands of dollars each month and they were extremely successful and went undetected. Around a year later, Thornton left the force to focus primarily on selling drugs.
Surprisingly, Andrew Thornton did have a criminal record while smuggling drugs. Thornton and the rest of ‘The Company’ strategically planned out everything they did, yielding around 10 million dollars each month in their pockets. Bradley Bryant, a friend of Thornton’s, had connections to big time drug dealers in Las Vegas. Bryant hopped on board and got involved with the operation because of his unique contribution. As ‘The Company’ grew larger and larger they were able to import drugs from Cuba and various areas of South America. On Thornton’s last smuggling run from Columbia he dropped several packages of cocaine over Georgia and later jumped from his autopilot plane over Knoxville, Tennessee. While in midair, he was caught in his parachute and ended up in a freefall to the ground. His body was found in a residential yard in Knoxville. At the time of his death, he was wearing night vision goggles, a bulletproof vest, Gucci loafers, and a green army bag that contained 40 kilos of cocaine valued at over $15 million, $4,500 in cash, and two pistols. The shocking death and plane crash brought to light, revelations and allegations about a scandal involving cops, politicians and high society in Central Kentucky, with drugs, weapons, and murder.
In 1989, Sally Denton wrote a book titled The Bluegrass Conspiracy after the scandal became known. Thornton died on September 11, 1985 and on that day Denton was at a bar in New Orleans and learned of the death while watching a news TV show. At that time Sally was working in a private investigations firm in Washington DC and shortly after Thornton’s death, the Washington Post asked her to write an article about him. In 1987, many literacy experts persuaded her to write a book. The book became extremely popular in Central Kentucky.
Denton’s book explains how this infamous scandal reached some of the utmost secret circles of the United States government. This multi-million dollar drug ring involving members of the Lexington community and the police force lead to the disappearance of Melanie Flynn. Flynn’s family believes that a man named Billy Canan killed Melanie and then dumped her body. Along with Thornton, Billy Canan was also a Lexington police officer in the narcotics division- both were leaders of ‘The Company.’ Around the time of Thornton’s death, Canan was arrested in his Lexington apartment complex. He was charged with drug trafficking and threatening to kill someone. He also became the chief suspect in the mysterious disappearance of Melanie. It was said that the two were having romantic relations around the time she went missing. Denton also stated, in her book, that Thornton heard Melanie Flynn talking openly about ‘The Company’ to some of her friends. This made Thornton and Canan extremely enraged. Many think that Flynn’s slip of the tong led to her disappearance and the downfall of the entire company. It is believed that Flynn’s body is buried somewhere on Thornton’s farm because her belongings were found there years after she went missing. “In a small way, Melanie Flynn is a hero because she shined a light on the wrong doings of ‘The Company’” (Denton)
While the scandals continued for years, only a few people knew about what was going on, and to this day they have done an excellent job keeping the details secret. Although the operation was exposed, very few people were actually charged with anything. It will never be understood how government officials and police officers were able to live this lifestyle and keep a major illegal operation hidden from the small city of Lexington. Andrew C. Thornton II was not only running this operation with members of the Lexington police force such as Bill Canan or government officials like Henry Vance. Thornton was also running “The Company” with some of Lexington’s most wealthy and well-known figures such as James Lambert, Phillip Galls, and Anita Madden. Many of them were Thornton’s backing investors who funded large portions of the operation. “James Lambert was the founder of many nightclubs that are still in existence, Phillip Galls is the owner of ‘Phillip Gall’s’ outdoor shops, and Anita Madden is the owner of the thoroughbred-producing Hamburg Farms that held the Madden Derby parties where celebrities were majority of attendees. The party had a national reputation of being extremely wild and very high class, all of which was fueled by mounds of cocaine from The Company. Off duty police officers that were members of The Company also provided security for the party every year, making sure no one outside of the high class circle knew the details of the party that were capable of exposing the Madden family or The Company.” (Clay)
When the stories were released to the public after the disappearance of Melanie Flynn and the death of Drew Thornton, residents of Lexington began to question the abuse of power and authority that was occurring throughout the governing body of the city and the police force. The importance of money became clear to many because the scandal clearly portrayed just how far it can go. The income gap in Kentucky is well above average… and because of that, this enormous operation could be funded by the upper class while still remaining distant from the lower class. (Danziger ET) Lexington itself has a large income gap mainly because of the horse industry, making it the perfect city for this drug ring to originate. The connections that the smugglers had with the wealthy people in the community enabled them to stay under the radar and get government officials and political leaders on their side. This was crucial for the success of the operation and their ability to stay under the radar.
In conclusion, this little known story of crime and corruption reveals a lot about the city of Lexington, Kentucky. This side of Lexington is kept secret from many Lexingtonians of this generation and the rest of the country. It is important to realize what this story portrays about the state of Kentucky and what a great impact a scandal like this can have on a small town. The fact that barley anything is known about the conspiracy really makes you wonder if the city of Lexington is just as corrupt as it was 30 years ago. The disappearance of Melanie Flynn is still under investigation by authorities to this day because many believe that there is still corruption in the force. When my partner, Alex Clay, and I interviewed a former police officer in Lexington, he left us with an eerie line that made both of our jaws drop. We had asked Mike Sweeney, a retired cop, if he knew anything about Melanie Flynn and her mysterious disappearance. He responded by saying, “I know men in the Lexington police force that currently know where the body of Melanie Flynn is hidden. They have openly told me where it’s at and how she was murdered.” (Sweeney)
Alex Clay
Lexington, Kentucky showed a new side of itself to the world in the fall of 1985 when Drew Thornton, a high ranking police officer in Lexington and one of the faces of Lexington’s high class, was found dead on a Knoxville man’s driveway with 4,500 dollars in cash and over 30 million dollars worth of cocaine. (Mead) He had jumped from a distressed airplane that was believed to have been smuggling drugs from South America to Lexington when the load he was carrying caused his parachute to malfunction. (Denton 8) The discovery kicked off a massive investigation into the Lexington Police Department, Kentucky Government, and the highest class of Lexingtonians. What they uncovered was shocking and unsettling news to the majority of Lexington and exposed several of Lexington’s most important figures of the time. (Brammer) The investigation uncovered a drug smuggling ring, dubbed “The Company” (Denton 12), which was composed of Drew Thornton, the head of the Lexington Police Department’s narcotics unit as well as many more policemen and several politicians and was primarily funded by Kentucky’s thoroughbred-breeding families with old-money roots. The Company had been smuggling millions of dollars of cocaine into Lexington and pumping it into the college drug scene and high society parties around the city for almost ten years without ever being seriously investigated or even known about by Lexington’s middle and lower class. (Denton 20) The operation was a part of the modest city’s transformation into a community run by a select group of corrupt individuals and their loyal followers who were living the lives of Hollywood celebrities. (Denton 17) The most interesting but yet frightening aspect of this story is that the entire truth of it has never been exposed, or even close to it. It is a well known fact by Lexington’s generation who lived through this time that what remains of Lexington’s high class still knows more then the general public ever will about this particular incident, almost purely because of the power they still hold with their deep family roots and money, which go a very long way in Lexington’s unique culture. (Clay) While the details of the incident will forever remain buried with the victims and criminals associated with this conspiracy, the question of how such a large operation involving the cities most trusted people was kept secret for so long is one worth looking into. The answer will require the examination of the gap between Lexington’s wealthiest families and their unsuspecting lower class and how they used power, money, and fear to create one of the most surprising and little known stories to ever come out of Lexington, Kentucky.
Andrew Thornton’s roots go back to his birthplace, rural Bourbon County, Kentucky, where most families made their success through old-fashioned hard work on their farms. (Mead 1) A half hour drive through narrow, country roads from Lexington, the people of Bourbon County were the polar opposite of high rollers living a fast life in Las Vegas casinos, and possibly for that reason, Thornton was fascinated with the thought of it. (Denton 12) From a young age he had dreamed of living an action-packed life full of danger and adrenaline, which is why he enrolled in the Army out of high school and began training to become a paratrooper. Shortly thereafter Thornton quit his training and became a member of the Lexington Police Department where he could quench his thirst for adrenaline and hold a position of power, something that was very important to him. It was here that after working his way through the ranks and making connections with Lexington’s most powerful and wealthiest names, that Thornton founded Lexington’s first narcotics unit, a division of police that specialized in investigating and destroying Lexington’s drug scene. However, after a few years of running the unit, Thornton grew tired of the thrill of busting pot-smoking college kids and the occasional drug dealer and began seeking a greater thrill. His answer came in the form of doing what he had set out to stop, smuggling and dealing drugs, only his operation would take it to the extreme. (Denton 25) It was easy for Thornton to start, considering, through investigating them for a living, he already knew how the drug dealers operated, such as how to effectively import and sell their goods in Lexington. It was only a matter of not being busted for Thornton and since he himself was in charge of busting the drug dealers of Lexington, he wouldn’t have to worry. Also by keeping his position as head of Lexington’s Narcotics Unit he could use his power to shut down opposing drug lords and dealers, eliminating his competition and making room for larger profits, while using their sources to create his own inflow of drugs to sell. (Denton 36)
He started out by flipping the drugs that he confiscated from arrests in Lexington and selling them to college kids at local bars (Denton 36). On one particular incident almost two pounds of marijuana went missing from the evidence room at the police department and when another police officer found the drugs at Thornton’s residence still packaged and tagged by the Lexington Police Department,
Thornton told the man to forget about what he saw and the incident remained a secret within the police department. (Denton 55) From small time dealing with drugs from the evidence room, Thornton quickly moved up to purchasing the drugs himself in larger quantities from connections he made with drug cartels through busting other dealers. At this point he was making thousands of dollars in profits a week and had recruited other police officers to help with his dirty work. It was almost a year after he first started dealing drugs that Thornton gave up his position at the police department to begin focusing his full attention on the drugs. At this point he had a small army of Lexington police officers working with him and, through his connections with Lexington’s wealthier class, found investors in his drug trafficking business and “The Company” was born. (Denton 18)
It is believed that by 1980 “The Company” had gone from small time dealing to a group of over a hundred members that purchased and sold the drugs and provided security to Thornton, who remained the leader along with Bradley Bryant, a friend of Thornton’s with connections to large cocaine dealers in Las Vegas at the time. Through these connections The Company began smuggling upwards of ten million dollars of cocaine into Lexington on a monthly basis and selling it. They did this by purchasing small used airplanes and flying them to Cuba, where they would pick up the cocaine and fly it back to the Lexington airport and abandon the plane on the tarmac. This large-scale operation was funded by Thornton’s investors such as James Lambert who owned a string of nightclubs in Lexington and currently the pawnshop “Castle Jewelry”, and, most significantly a woman named Anita Madden. (Denton 68)
Through Bryant, Thornton had become friends with Madden, the owner of Hamburg Farms, which was a multi-million dollar thoroughbred horse farm just outside of Lexington. (Dorf) At the time Madden was famous for hosting a derby party every year in the mansion on Hamburg Farm, dubbed “The Madden Derby Party” which was attended by the majority of A-list Hollywood celebrities every year along with the wealthy families of Lexington. (Clay) The party had a national reputation of being extremely wild and very high class, all of which was fueled by mounds of cocaine from The Company. Off duty police officers that were members of The Company also provided security for the party every year, making sure no one outside of the high class circle knew the details of the party that were capable of exposing the Madden family or The Company. The downfall of The Company began when Thornton met a young girl named Melanie Flynn at the Madden Derby Party. (Denton 45)
Flynn was known through Lexington as being a party girl from a wealthy family. She had a small job as a secretary and a reputation for hanging around the infamous Anita Madden. She was attracted to the Hollywood lifestyle, and most importantly the drugs, that Madden and Thornton provided her with and soon found herself in a romantic relationship with Thornton. (Denton 38)
After less than a year of being involved with Flynn, it is believed that Thornton heard news of Flynn talking openly about the company on several occasions, and the lower classes of Lexington began questioning the circle of high-class partiers whose faces were familiar at local nightclubs and expensive restaurants around town, and most importantly, they began questioning Thornton. (Denton 47)
On January 25, 1977 Melanie dialed her fathers number at work and told him she would be home for dinner within the next fifteen minutes. This was the last anyone heard from Melanie. Her car was found untouched in a parking garage on Limestone Avenue in Lexington several days later. News soon began spreading rapidly that Thornton had put a hit out on her, and Melanie’s father, Bobby Flynn was first to accuse him. (Denton 58) Bobby had been hearing about Thornton for months and knew of their romantic relationship, he told police, but had never met him. (Denton 58) He knew that Thornton introduced Melanie to a fast lifestyle full of partying, and had been urging her to separate herself from him. The real suspicion came when Thornton was questioned about the disappearance of Melanie by members of the Lexington Police Department, and he denied even knowing Melanie, stating that he “may have run into her once before” (Denton 71) The interest in Thornton as a suspect was never investigated any further by the police department and the disappearance was rarely talked about through members of The Company and people within the circle of Anita Madden. To this day, however, it is believed that Melanie was killed and buried on Thornton’s farm, which served as a home base for The Company, as her purse and articles of clothing she was wearing the day she disappeared was uncovered on the farm several years later. (Denton 72)
Thornton fell to his death in the fall of 1985 while making a routine cocaine delivery to the Lexington airport. The incident came as a shock to the people of Lexington who knew the name while it worried Thornton’s closest associates and investors. They knew the operation could no longer continue to fly under the radar, as their leader, a well-respected man in Lexington, had been exposed to the rest of the world and was now being investigated by the FBI and DEA, powers that even Lexington’s most wealthy families could not pull strings with. After the death of Thornton The Company collapsed under the DEA’s investigation and the operation was exposed to the general public, something that had not even been a possibility under the tight control of The Company and Anita Madden.
After talking to a Lexington Police officer who was on the force during the time the scandal was exposed, Mike Sweeney, I was aware that very few people involved were actually charged with anything and Anita Madden was not one of them. The members of the Lexington Police Department were reviewed and several of them kicked out, however, Anita Madden was never charged with anything relating to the operation and remains quiet about the incident. (Sweeney) The generation of people who lived through this incident in Lexington are still convinced that Thornton was primarily responsible for the death of Melanie Flynn, and considering the facts, are most likely correct. John Clay, a writer for Lexington’s Newspaper at the time and someone who clearly remembers the story unfolding commented on the death of Melanie by saying; “After Drew (Thornton) died the way he did everyone knew he had killed Melanie as well…people were even suspicious when he was before just because of the accusations but when it got out about what he was doing, there was no question about it.” (Clay) Clay’s opinion accurately reflects how the majority of people at the time felt when this operation was exposed; they were shocked at the secrets the city was hiding for so many years.
What this story shows about Lexington, Kentucky is primarily the gap between the upper and lower class, as it enabled the operation to prosper and remain a secret for such a substantial amount of time. In Kentucky, this gap has proven to be abnormally large, as shown in an analysis of the economic and social gap in Lexington, which states;
“Comparison of state and national income ratios also reveals that Kentucky’s income gap, as defined by the 75/25 ratio, remains greater than the nation’s for much of this period. Not since 1977 has Kentucky’s income gap fallen be- low that of the nation’s and only rarely have the two been equal.” (Danziger et al. 5)
This source shows that the gap is abnormally large and later states the income of the upper class in Kentucky is currently about 3.5 times higher then the lower class. (Danziger et al. 5) Upon further analysis of this statistic, we can conclude that Lexington, specifically, contributes to this gap mostly because of it’s roots in the horse industry. This can be shown by examining the presence of the horse industry in Lexington, and it’s association with wealth.
Lexington advertises itself as the horse capital of the world, a statement that has a lot of substance behind it. A publication by Lori Garkovich et al. proves this by assessing the horse industries presence in Lexington, in which it states
“The equine cluster in Kentucky, in particular the central Kentucky Thoroughbred segment of the cluster, has already passed a market test and done so successfully for more than a century. This explains why there is an existing concentration of horse-related businesses and manufacturers and trade associations in Kentucky.” (Garcovich et al. 110)
This statement shows that Central Kentucky is an economic cluster for the horse industry, and in particular, you could say that Lexington is the epicenter of this, considering places such as Keeneland, one of the top three sales venues in the world for thoroughbreds (Garcovich et al. 98) and the Kentucky Horse Park, holder of the 2010 World Equestrian Games, are located here.
The importance of Lexington’s roots in the horse industry is the primary reason for the large gap between classes. This is because of the wealth that is brought to the city because of the horse industries presence there, considering it brings not only money from tourists into the city but also families associated with the horse racing industry, which has long been known as an extremely expensive sport and is considered to be only for the wealthy. (Garcovich et al. 102) Overall, it can be seen that Lexington has an upper class that is abnormally wealthy when compared to other regions, and this is mostly because of the city’s presence of the thoroughbred industry economic cluster.
What was later realized and accepted by the general public about how such a large an uncommon thing could be happening right under their noses and no one knew, was that the people who had the most power over what Lexington saw and didn’t see, such as the police force, the politicians, and the wealthiest class, were all involved in the operation, enabling them to keep it secret and to cover up things that should have been looked into, such as the disappearance of Melanie Flynn, for so long. The separation between this elite group of Lexington natives and the rest of the community and their power, in the form of money and connections with the police, enabled them to act as they wanted to without any consequences. This ultimately shows that Lexington has a different side; it is a city of rich and poor, with a large gap in between the two classes that enables the upper class to keep things such as “the bluegrass conspiracy” distant from the rest of the city.
Works Cited
1985. Photograph. Herald-Leader, Lexington, KY. LexGo. Herald Leader. Web. <http://www.kentucky.com/2010/09/11/1429813/25-years-ago-former-narcotics.html>.
Brammer, Jack. “LexGo.com | ‘Bluegrass Conspiracy’ Tale Never Gets Old.” Lexington, KY Local News Provided by the Lexington Herald-Leader Newspaper | Kentucky.com. Web. 05 Dec. 2011. <http://www.kentucky.com/2010/09/11/1429813/25-years-ago-former-narcotics.html>.
Clay, John. Telephone Interview. 5 November 2011
Danziger, Sheldon, and Deborah Reed. “Winners and Losers: The Era of Inequality Continues.” Forseight 7.3 (2000). Print.
Denton, Sally. The Bluegrass Conspiracy. Lincoln, NE: IUniverse.com, 2001. Print.
Dorf, Michael C. “771 F.2d 83: United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. James Purdy Lambert (84-5660); Philip M. Block (84-5661),defendants- Appellants :: US Court of Appeals Cases :: Justia.” US Law, Case Law, Codes, Statutes & Regulations :: Justia Law. Web. 20 Nov. 2011. <http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/771/83/379951/>.
Mike, Sweeney. E-mail Interview. 27 November 2011
Eblen, Tom. E-mail Interview. 18 November 2011
Garkovich, Lori, Kimberly Brown, and Julie Zimmerman. ““We’re Not Horsing Around” Conceptualizing the Kentucky Horse Industry as an Economic Cluster.” Community Development 39.3 (2008): 93-113. Print.
Mead, Andy. “LEXINGTONIAN FALLS TO DEATH WITH $15 MILLION IN COCAINE EX-OFFICER’S PARACHUTE FAILS TO OPEN.” Lexington Herald-Leader [Lexington, KY] 12 Sept. 1985. Print.
“UK Art Museum -BICKETT LOUIS ZOELLAR.” The Art Museum at the University of Kentucky. University of Kentucky, 1996. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. <http://www.uky.edu/ArtMuseum/photography/i/arch_1999_10_006a.html>.
United States. Federal Circuits. United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William T. Canan, Defendant-Appellant., 48 F.3d 954 (6th Cir. 1995). VLex Federal-Circuits. Web. 20 Nov. 2011. <http://federal-circuits.vlex.com/vid/america-plaintiff-william-canan-defendant-36107251>.
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