The Dixie Mafia | FULL EPISODE | The FBI Files

alien Biloxi Mississippi quiet southern town with a fiery core of corruption in 1987 its secret burst violently to the surface leaving two prominent citizens dead and grabbing the lid on a vast conspiracy alien Mississippi Gulf Coast a judge and his politician wife are murdered In his house, the killer left few clues. It seemed like a professional coup and the investigation led nowhere, but the FBI refused to give up. I'm Jim Calstrom, former head of the FBI's New York office until we could prove federal laws had been broken. Our hands were tied. It would take years to break the conspiracy of silence and reveal the tangled story of corruption Biloxi Mississippi Monday, September 14, 1987.

It was a typical warm summer night in this quiet Gulf Coast town, the workday was over and the Most residents had retired to the quiet of their homes, like most of their neighbors, State Circuit Court Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife Margaret were relaxing after a long day Vincent Sherry was a prominent judge in Biloxi Margaret was making plans to run for mayor of social and community functions abroad. They were a happy couple who had raised three adult children. Tomorrow they plan to visit their daughter out of state. Their life together seemed ideal. They were settling in for the night when a unexpected visitor came to the door look and put an end to her perfect world cherries were supposed to be with her daughter so no one would realize something was wrong until two days later when the judge didn't show up in court on wednesday 16 of September.

Foreign calls to Sherry's home went unanswered. His court colleagues called the Petalatt Circuit Courts online. Vincent Sherry's friend. and former law partner, good morning Peter, but he had not seen or heard from the judge either. Well, he's supposed to be in court. Don't know. No, wait, let me call them at home and I'll find out where he is. It's after he left a concerned message on Sherry's answering machine. Hallat felt it would be best to check on his friend personally. I called the machine judge, judge, it's Pete, they're looking for you in court. Everything is alright?

As he left, he asked Junior about him. Comrade Charles Legere will travel with me. I need help, so let's go. I will call you. Okay, yeah, I thought we'd go together while they were driving. Legere tried to start conversations, perhaps worried about the judge. of Sherry's cars were sitting in the driveway, thanks, well the car is here, the cars here are supposed to be in court. Hallat asked Legere to go to the house while he asked the neighbor if he had seen the couple when Year rang the doorbell, but no one. responded that she saw that the last two morning newspapers had not been picked up, the neighbor told Hallet that she had not seen the Sherrys for a couple of days, which she found strange since their cars were in the driveway When last year they tried to Sherry's door discovered that it was open something was not right Pete called him worried about the open door, he cautiously entered a few steps and made the gruesome discovery.

Judge Sherry had been shot and killed in his own home, the police were called and authorities arrived to find him. Vincent Sherry's body in the front of the house in the back bedroom Margaret was discovered because the couple was so prominent that the murder investigation became the top priority detectives contacted the FBI field office in Biloxi, although the FBI would not yet be officially involved, they offered the use of their agents and the forensic lab within the police began scouring the crime scene for clues. They performed blood spatter analysis to determine the angles of the projectiles.

If they could discover where the killer had been when he shot, they could reconstruct Crime Inspector Robert. Burris, a criminal technician with the Biloxi Police Department, helped process the scene. He discovered a possible clue in the studio. There was blood coming from his feet, in fact it ran down between his legs a little further back from where he was lying. There were blood splatters on a double. sliding glass door that was just beyond his head and upon closer examination in this room I found some small pieces of foam. Burris didn't see where the foam could have come from.

A search of the house led him to one conclusion and this foam. it had to have been brought to the house We examined every piece of material in this house in every room of the house all the pillows mattresses everything else there is no broken foam in this house it was brought to the house it has gunshot residue and basically, at the throw it away, you might get a whole bullet to shoot through it for Burris, the meaning of the foam was obvious, the killer had used a homemade silencer, investigators dusted for fingerprints, but found nothing of value, They found nine spent .22 calibers.

The casings of a semi-automatic pistol, as well as the bullets used to murder the Sherrys, the position of the projectiles indicated that the shots had been fired in rapid succession, but the most surprising thing was how well the murderer had covered his tracks, nothing at the scene he pointed out According to the identity of the Killer, he did his job well and his mission was clear. The lack of evidence in this house, such as stolen items. A fight ensued. The absence of forced entry. There was no looting in the house. Regardless of what a person came there for one thing.

That was killing the two sheriffs, Special Agent Keith Bell of the FBI's Biloxi field office agreed that this was a professional job, the Sherrys had been murdered and the crime scene appeared to be very limited in terms of remaining evidence, which meant it was well planned. executed and done professionally a small caliber weapon had been used, the foam indicated that perhaps a silencer had also been used and sheris had been shot in the head, so it appeared to be a very professional job, a group of multi-agency work with Special Agent Keith Bell among its members, investigators spent days processing the crime scene, faced with a single question: Why had the cherries been killed?

That was one of the main questions: why were both the judge and Margaret Shearing murdered because it was quite obvious that Judge Sherry could have been murdered during his morning or afternoon runs around the neighborhood, so it was a real mystery why they had been murdered to Margaret. Researchers believed the answer could lie in the controversy over Biloxi's future. Some civic leaders hope to transform the southern town of Sleepy. the Mississippi Gulf Coast into a flashy resort where casinos would attract tourist dollars but with strip clubs already established in town. Margaret Cherry felt that the charms of the small town of Biloxi were threatened and the casinos would attract a criminal element.

The mayoral candidate she had made powerful political enemies trying to play along, Agent Bell wondered if Margaret was murdered to silence her protests. Margaret had been so politically outspoken in the community that she was known to be against gambling and, if she was elected mayor in 1989, she had planned to close the remaining strip clubs in Biloxi. so there was always the possibility that she had been the target rather than the judge. Sharing the task force would investigate Margaret's political enemies, but first they would interrogate Sherry's friends and neighbors. Someone in the neighborhood must have seen something, but even people who were known to the Sherrys for years were reluctant to speak out for fear of the specter of Biloxi's emerging criminal underworld.

The Sherry murders brought a dark cloud over the city of Biloxi. Many of Biloxi's citizens were afraid to openly express their opinions. They saw that Margaret Sherry, who had been quite vocal and quite outspoken in political circles had ended up dead and Sherry was put on trial by her prominent husband, so many citizens after these murders were hesitant to even be interviewed by FBI agents or by agents of the local police because they basically didn't want their names linked to anything. What to do with this case, if people didn't talk to the authorities maybe they would talk to Linds Posito about Sherry's daughter after being notified of the murders of her parents.

Lynn rushed to Biloxi from her home in North Carolina determined to find justice. She questioned everyone in the neighborhood, a family friend gave her crucial information: he described a suspicious car and driver in the neighborhood the night of the murders, she took the lead with the police, they identified a man who had seen a Suspected Ford Fairmont driving in front of Sherry's House on the night of Monday, September 14, 1987. Investigators attempted to determine the identity of the driver based on the witness' description. Their search came up empty, but a few days later, not far from Sherry's home, investigators found an abandoned Ford Fairmont car and a check on the vehicle's identification number showed that it had been reported stolen the day before the murders. .

Police also learned that the car's tags were not registered on the car and realized that this vehicle was likely the Killer's getaway car. Investigators took it to a police garage somewhere for further examination. in the car they hoped to find a key to the identity of the Killer, less than a week after the brutal murders of Biloxi couple Vince and Margaret Sherry, investigators received their first promising lead, they recovered an abandoned car that matched the one Witnesses described seeing the night of the murders. After contacting Constable Keith Bell about the discovery, investigators processed the car for clues;

Inspector Robert Burris found something peculiar. I was processing this vehicle and one of the things I noticed was that the dome light had been dismantled and the latch had been removed, in other words if you open the door you have no light, both sun visors were in the down position, already Whether you drive day or night, you won't be able to see people's faces very well, researchers believed more than ever. that this was the car used by Sherry's killer, everything found inside was labeled, packaged and sent to the FBI labs in Washington DC, thank you, but the FBI lab examiners found nothing of evidentiary value after As Agent Bell arrived, he examined the license tag more closely. discovered that he had his own story to tell, it was determined that the tag on the Ford Fairmont had been stolen from an abandoned vehicle in 1984, actually three years before these murders occurred, so what it meant was that someone had removed the tag. plate that probably had been preserved in 1984. the license plate and then when this big crime in the city of Biloxi was going to happen, it was pulled off the shelf, so to speak, without any other solid evidence.

Investigators hope that following the trail of the stolen tag may lead to the killer. to an apartment complex where the original car had been abandoned three years earlier, investigators contacted the apartment manager, who told them that before towing the vehicle he called a friend to come and take it apart for traces. foreign parts. The administrator's friend was a man the agents knew. By name and reputation, Biloxi locksmith Lenny Sweatman was the last person seen near the car. Swetland belonged to a loosely organized criminal group that the FBI was investigating in connection with another case the group was known as the Dixie Mafia.

FBI agent Keith Bell had connected the car used in the Sherry murders to Lenny Sweatman now Belle wondered if the Dixie Mafia was linked to the Sherry murders if Sweatman had a part in them. Bell believed that other members of the Dixie Mafia could not be far away and he began investigating the Swedish Associates. What that immediately meant for us, those of us familiar with criminal associations on the coast, was that if Lenny Sweatman was involved in getting the tag for the hit car, then most likely his close personal friend and longtime associate, Mike Gillich, the owner of the strip club in Biloxi.

He could also be involved in these murders. Sorry, sometimes you know it's okay. Gillich, owner of three strip clubs in Biloxi, was well known to local authorities. God, we are close. He was currently under investigation by the FBI in connection with a Dixie Mafia operation known as the Lonely Heart scam, but Special Agent Bell needed a thread connecting the two investigations. He began by familiarizing himself with a Lonely Heart scan. He was executed from the Angola prison in Louisiana by a man named Kirksey Nix, theimprisoned. Kingpin of the Dixie Mafia, you know, the first Knicks model would run ads in gay magazines asking for money to help fictional gay men get out of trouble with the law by scanning Nix hoping to make enough money to solve his own problems legal. serving a life sentence for murder from his cell in Angola, coordinated what we have been calling the homosexual scam that generated hundreds of thousands of dollars from people all over the country and also from some people in Canada with this money that he intended to buy his way out or trying to buy their way out of their prison sentence in Louisiana by believing they were helping gay men out of their problems. the outsider Mike gillich gillich would then send his bagman to recover the money, just gillich made sure that the scam money was distributed to members of the Dixie

mafia

and kept safely for Kirksey Nix.

In the following months, investigators developed more evidence in the Lone Heart scan, but there was still no direct link between these conspirators and Sherry's killers. A year into the investigation, the murder case threatened to go still as the year stretched to 16 months. Sherry's daughter, Lynn Sposito, became increasingly frustrated in January 1989. She hired a private investigator to speed things up. The investigation into the murder of her parents said he could make out the map and I will call him and be on this case this afternoon. The family had very much wanted to have a quick resolution to the case, but by early 1989 there had still been no arrest and of course at this point the FBI had not formally entered the case, the official involvement of the FBI hampered Bell's investigation, So when the private investigator paid him a visit, Bell thanked him for his help in the hope that they could share information.

The two were old acquaintances from the private investigation days in law enforcement since Agent Bell was unable to perform. officially, the private investigator would follow a lead that seemed promising, he would interview another inmate from Angola. The private investigator and Bell hoped the Angola inmate could finally link the Lonely Heart scam and the Sherry murders. He met all the right people and because of his knowledge of the Dixie Mafia and because of what he had learned from law enforcement authorities on the coast, he went to Angola and spoke to the right person there. The inmate's name was Bobby Joe Fabian.

He was another known member of the Dixie Mafia who was serving time for kidnapping and shooting a state trooper. Fabian claimed he had not been involved in the Sherry murders, but he had learned that fellow inmate Kirksey Nix had been Fabian told the private investigator that Nixon had Judge Sherry killed because Sherry had allegedly stolen money from Nix's Lonely Heart scam. That wasn't all Nix said he had been told about the robbery by none other than Pete Hallat, Sherry's former law partner. Much, the man who had delivered the eulogy at Sherry's funeral was now implicated in her murders.

Palat officially represented the Knicks in legal matters. but Fabian said Hallat's role in The Lonely Heart scam was criminal, not legal, he was one of the people who received money from NYX for safekeeping through Mike Gillich's Bag Man, don't forget, and the links between the outlaw and the lawyer were deep. Kirksey Nix's girlfriend. and her accomplice Larae Sharp worked in Hallat's office. Fabian said that both Larae Sharpe and Pete Hallat were keeping money from the scam in a safe deposit box for Kirksey Nix and said the amount had reached six figures thanks to Fabian, the link between the murders and Lonely.

The heart scam had been secured and Fabian had not only given investigators a possible motive for the murders, but was also able to provide the name of the alleged hitman and ex-convict named John Ransom, who was believed to be living in Georgia. but he was tracking Ransom. It would take time each time law enforcement people get together and start talking about the notorious members of the Dixie

mafia

. John Ransom appears quite early in the conversation. He was a long-time suspected hitman for the Dixie Mob in August 1989, two years after Agent Bell murdered Sherry. sufficient evidence to justify a

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FBI investigation into the murders, accompanied by Sherry's daughter, Lynn Sposito, approached the United States Attorney and the FBI with the demand to officially open the case so that, by linking the scam to murders, we knew there were some federal violations involved we have wire fraud we had mail fraud and maybe we had a hitman traveling from Georgia to Mississippi to kill the Sherrys it was decided to open an official FBI investigation and joined local authorities in the investigation for now, however suspicious it may be.

Pete Hallat, Judge Sherry's former law partner, had been elected mayor of Biloxi with a key suspect in such a high position. The researchers found new obstacles. It had become very difficult for the FBI to share all of its information with local authorities. We are not saying that the local police were corrupt. What we're saying is that Mayor Alat put his own people in as director of Public Safety and as chief of police, so we were somewhat circumspect in what we shared with local authorities during that period in August 1989 while investigators were trying to To unravel the truth about the Sherry murders, informant Bobby Joe Fabian made a surprise move and told his story about the Sherry murders to the television news.

Fabian hoped that by drawing attention to himself, Kirksey Nix would be less likely to kill him for cooperating with authorities. Along with the report, the station aired a mugshot of John Ransom, the alleged hitman in the Sherry case, when Charles Legere's partner, Peter Latz Jr, saw the photo, it shocked him. He recalled seeing Ransom outside Sherry Hallat's law offices a few weeks before the shared murders. briefing him with Task Force Maj. Randy Cook of the Harrison County Sheriff's Department took Legere's statement. Legere said the reason he remembered Ransom was because Ransom came around a bend and approached him and asked where Sherry's office had been in a legere.

Jimmy remembered that there was something unusual about the way Ransom got off the Curve. Ransom had a prosthetic leg. Investigators learned that Ransom was now in a Georgia prison serving time for another murder when he was questioned about the Sherry murders and refused to cooperate as a cook. Legere was further questioned about the day he and Halat had found the bodies. An important detail emerged. Legia remembered that Halat had entered Sherry's living room and judged Sherry's body and said that Vince and Margaret were dead. The cook relayed this to Agent Bell and the interesting thing was that Margaret's body was in the back bedroom of the residence and according to Chuck Legere, Pete Hallat had no time other than to briefly enter the front of the house and there would be no way to know that Margaret's body was also in the back bedroom.

October 1989, two years after the murders, Agent Bill knew that Hallat was involved, but he still lacked enough evidence for an arrest, yet he felt it was time to confront Mayor Hallat. It would be a silent warning from man to man and I let Mayor Hallat know. I thought his knowledge of the Sherry murders was much greater than he had shared with law enforcement up to that point, and I remember also telling him that the FBI would continue working on this case until it was completely solved. What I remember is that he smiled. and he didn't have much more to say as attorney Hollad knew that Bell would need more concrete evidence to secure a conviction, what he probably didn't realize was the depth of Bell's commitment to bringing him to justice.

Three years had passed since Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife Margaret were murdered in his home in Biloxi, Mississippi. FBI Special Agent Keith Bell had linked the murders to members of the Dixie Mafia and tried Sherry's friend and former law partner Pete to find that alleged shooter John Ransom refused to talk. In January 1990, Agent Bell and Major Randy Cook of Harrison County headed to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary to question another possible accomplice. This is special. A man named Bill Rhodes, a known associate of John Ransom, was willing to cooperate. He told them that in early 1987 Ransom had contacted him about driving the getaway car in a crime that would take place in southern Mississippi.

Ransom had said that a judge would be murdered and that the pay was ten thousand dollars. Certain promises were made on the roads that Ransom buys. I know certain people in Biloxi who If you help me with this, you will have a chance to Biloxi any time you want. In March 1987, Rhodes went to Biloxi and met with Ransom and a man named Pete, it was Pete who specifically asked Rhodes and Ransom to make the hit Road City he also met with Mike Gillis, the owner of the strip club in Biloxi, who would provide the money once the success was made, five months later, before they could do the work.

Rhodes was arrested on an unrelated bank robbery charge and Ransom chickened out for fear of the roads. Turn it on, the information helped move the case forward, but Agent Bell and Officer Cook still felt Ransom had the missing pieces. Another year would pass without much progress. In the late 1990s, investigators went to Bostic Correctional Institution in Georgia, where Ransom was ultimately serving time. Ransom agreed to talk again, admitting that he handed a .22 caliber pistol to Larae Sharp's girlfriend Kirksey Nix, but Ransom insisted he didn't do the job based on what Ransom said Ray's involvement was starting to look bigger.

Than simply hiding scam money in a safe deposit box through his contact with the crafty Nix learned that the investigation was heating up. He was worried that her girlfriend might talk about her, so he tried to avoid the problem by putting a contract on her life, but in the late 1990s, Agent Bell arrested her because of her. Involvement in the murders, inadvertently saving her from Nix's gunman during a polygraph test, denied her involvement in the Lonely Heart scam and the Sherry murders, but the machine called her Bluff when Belle and her team added her statements to their stacks. of existing evidence.

They were ready. to bring charges against several key players no no Mike gillich John Ransom the ray Sharp and Kirksey Nix were accused of conspirators in the Sherry murders, notably missing from the list was Pete hallat the case against talat would have to wait until they had evidence enough for a murder conviction for now the FBI would look to convict the others of conspiracy to commit murder we have a game plan worked out yes a lot of the questions arose why didn't they charge Pete Holette from the beginning when they charged everyone else well At that time we did not have the hard evidence that would be needed to arrest a mayor and the prosecution of the conspiracy trial produced several key witnesses who would help investigators piece together the complex scheme for the solitary heart scan that testified for the prosecution.

The testimony helped prosecutors link Sherry's murders to the scam. All four defendants were found guilty. Nix received 15 years on top of the life sentence he was already serving for the murder. Gillich also received a 15-year prison sentence. The ransom received 10 years and sharp lightning. We won with these conspirators behind bars and the Lonely Heart scam is no longer operational. Bell moved on to his next target. We decided not to finish the Sherry investigation after the initial 1991 convictions because at that time we had not proven who had actually shot the Sherrys and also. Pete Hallat had not been charged or convicted at the time and we were all convinced that Pete Hallat had played a major role in the scam and murder plot, so we were determined to continue the investigation to see if we could obtain enough evidence to accuse. and the convicted Mr.

Hallat and the real shooter in late July 1992, Agent Bell got the break he was looking for after the conspiracy trial. Mike Gillich was desperate to find a way out of prison. He contacted one of his associates in Biloxi and asked him to come over. Robbie Gant with an offer Gantt told Agent Bell and the associate had offered Robbie Gantt twenty thousand dollars if Gantt would recant his testimony against Gillich and sign a false affidavit claiming that I had threatened him into testifying against Gillich. Village Gantt agreed to wear a microphone and record Gillich's accomplice's offer. Gantt metwith him in Mississippi.

This time Gant's tape was rolling when Gillich's partner reiterated that the bribe cannot be accepted as Bellad instructed now that Bell had the evidence he needed. Pressure mounts on Gillich, the man who could tell the inside story In 1993, six years after the double murder of Vince and Margaret Sherry, FBI agent Keith Bell had put four members of the Dixie mob behind bars, but I didn't have any formal relationship yet. murder convictions against those involved and Mayor Peter Lat, the alleged mastermind of the case, was still free and running the city of Biloxi, in fact, the previous year, Mayor Hallat had begun construction of the city's first major casino , victory for our city and our people, the press.

He was still heavily harassed about his involvement in Sherry's murders, but he remained adamant about her innocence. You know, Bell continued working on his plan. He used the bribery that Robert Gantt had caught on tape to file another charge against Mike Gillich, who was already in prison. Nobel accused Gillits of witness bribery and witness tampering to try to buy Gantt and that worked, without a doubt the most important turning point was in October 1993, when Mike Gillich finally decided to cooperate and tell the story of this whole case from an expert's point of view and that is what really allowed us to achieve a final resolution for this investigation after years of hard work that Bell had invested in the case.

It was a satisfying moment. It finally seemed like her patience and his ingenuity were paying off. Gillich was in no rush to rack up more prison time. Relentless pressure had persuaded him to settle before the bribery trial even began. The Dixie Mafia member would tell what he knew about the murders. Maybe now Bell could get the convictions he knew were long overdue, if not for a career criminal like Mike Gillich adjusting to life. Being on the right side of the law was not easy at first, he tried to bluff, of course, it always takes a while, a few weeks, to develop a certain degree of trust and to be able to communicate with someone like this, who for the first time He decided to leave his role as a lifelong criminal and begin cooperating with the FBI when the deception didn't work.

Gillich had no choice. He had to tell the truth. Now, for the first time, Bell heard the story from an inside source. Gillits knew everything. the details Mike was the focus Mike knew Kirksey Nix Mike had known Pete Hallat for years and, in fact, when Kirksey Nix was looking for a lawyer in the coastal area to represent him in several matters, Mike Gillish introduced him to NYX to Pete Hallat and confirmed that Pete Hallat was in fact behind the plot to murder the Sherrys and that the plot arose directly from the Lonely Heart scam of Angola prison inmate Kirksey Nix Foreign a few months before the deaths by Sherry.

Hallat had locked the safe deposit box that he and Nix's girlfriend, Larae Sharp, had access to. To effectively cut off his access to the money, he then transferred the money to a box that only he and Judge Sherry could use; motivated by greed, he stole one hundred thousand dollars in cash from there, as Nix's trusted accomplice, Palat, I could blame Judge Sherry for the robbery. He went to see Mike Gillich with the news of the robbery. Mr. Gillich said that Pete Allad approached Mr. Gilllich himself in late 1986 told Mr. Gilllich that much of the money, supposedly about one hundred thousand dollars, was missing, and Mr.

Lat blamed Judge Sherry for taking the money. Mr. Lat knew that Kirksey Nix would be very furious with this man, there is no telling. who ordered Margaret's death, but as a fierce opponent of corruption, she posed a threat to underworld forces hoping to control Biloxi with Margaret dead. Palat could be free to rule the city. Gillett said he and Halat planned the murders. Ransom and Rhodes provided the murder weapon. but when they stopped doing the hit they found a replacement, a Texas-based petty criminal named Thomas Holcomb. Holcomb would receive twenty thousand dollars to murder the judge.

Sherry and his wife Gillich had also helped provide the car with the help of foreign locksmith Lenny Sweatman in In October 1996, agents arrested hitman Thomas Holcomb in Texas on murder charges. That same month also saw the arrest that Agent Bell had anticipated and worked nine years to bring about the innocent man and you're going to put the drinks on me, the arrest of Petalat for the murders. from the Sherrys you can anything you say can and will happen again Kirksey Nixon, the leader of the race, was indicted on 52 counts, including fraud, money laundering and murder. Colette was tried and convicted in the summer of 1997, a

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decade after the crimes were committed.

Kirksey Knicks and Thomas Holcomb were also tried and convicted, sentenced to 18 years in federal prison. The hitman, both were sentenced to life in prison. Ray Sharp Nix's girlfriend got five years. I think many Biloxi citizens now realize that there are many dedicated professionals. law enforcement people who will do everything they can to protect the community and work hard to solve major crimes. Perhaps the legacy that could be said of the case for the criminal element is that they realize, after seeing this case, that one day they may commit a crime. and they think they'll get away with it a year later, but I could come back uh 10 years later and catch them while Sherry's killers were finally brought before the judge.

Margaret Sherry's dream of a gambling-free Biloxi never came true. Instead, Biloxi has become a resort town full of casinos and neon lights. The quiet southern town disappeared forever along with the woman who lost her life trying to save it.