‘SWEPT UNDER THE RUG’

The men who assaulted Johnson were quickly arrested, but in 2005, a criminal jury recommended no prison time. A judge ordered 30 days of jail for three of the men and 60 days for the fourth on convictions ranging from misdemeanor assault to injury to a disabled person.

Many people viewed the sentences as a slap on the wrist.

“This case was totally swept under the rug,” said Lue Wilson, a Linden resident who says he is Johnson’s cousin. “It was totally did the way people wanted. The rest are going on with their life, but Billy Ray hasn’t made it home yet.”

Wilson became Johnson’s legal guardian after the beating and saw that Johnson was cared for in rehabilitation facilities and nursing homes in the area. He also hired a lawyer from Hope, Ark., to prepare a civil case against Johnson’s assailants. The attorney, Claudene Arrington, was to be awarded one-third of any judgment Johnson received, according to Dees.

But Arrington never filed a case. Instead, Dees and Longview lawyer Glenn Perry offered to try the case, and both waived all legal fees. Immediately after the jury’s $9 million verdict, they asked the judge to name a temporary guardian — a lawyer from Texarkana — to create a trust for Johnson’s money.

Nobody expected Johnson to see the full $9 million, they said. “I think the jury realized the verdict would never be collected, but they wanted to render a verdict that was the size of how they felt about it,” Perry said.

Before the trial, insurance companies for two of the men settled with Johnson for a total of $170,000. A third defendant, Colt Amox, filed for bankruptcy as the trial was set to begin. Afterward, he settled for $15,000. The fourth man, a former Cass County jailer named Cory Hicks, never paid a dime.

“He had nothing to give,” Perry said. “We got the judgment against him, but he’s basically judgment-proof up to this point. … But that judgment will follow him for the rest of his life.”

FIGHT FOR THE MONEY

Legal maneuvering has kept Johnson’s money out of the hands of his family members and attorney Arrington. In a flurry of court documents filed during and after the civil trial, Arrington argued that she is the only lawyer entitled to oversee Johnson’s funds. In a legal document, Billy Ray argues the same.

“I do not, and did not, want Mr. Morris Dees handling any matters for me without my lawyer or Lue Wilson saying it was okay. Mr. Dees never told me he was going to file papers to have someone put in charge of my money … If he had told me he was going to do this, I would have told him not to do it, and that my lawyer, Mrs. Arrington, would make sure my money was safe.”

The typed document is signed in uneven cursive by Billy Ray Johnson, and it is notarized by Paula Lanier.

“If I notarized it, I saw him sign it,” said Lanier, who is the owner of Holiday Cleaners in Linden. “Everything that I saw him sign looked like a legal document to me, and those that were with him there seemed to try to help him understand what he was signing. I never felt like there was anything deceptive going on.”

Dees, however, argues that Johnson is not competent to manage his own funds and says Arrington has manipulated her client. “She wasn’t able to get the money she thought she was going to get,” Dees said.

Arrington did not return phone messages for this story.

Despite her efforts, the legal wrangling over Johnson’s $185,000 ended this past January, and the money is being held for him in a special-needs trust in a bank in Texarkana. Because most of Johnson’s needs are covered by Social Security and Medicaid, the trust should pay all of his remaining expenses for the rest of his life, Dees said.

In April, the Texas State Bar filed disciplinary proceedings against Arrington. She twice tried to sue a pair of judges involved in the case, even though sitting judges are immune from legal action.

Lue Wilson says he does not want any of Johnson’s money, but Johnson wants access to it.

“Billy asked when he can use the money,” Wilson said. “I don’t know what to tell him. Ain’t nobody paid nothing … Basically, Morris Dees has taken everything. This is enough to make a dog cry. I have went through hell with this. Billy Ray has been through hell, and I have been drug through it, too.”

He said Johnson has recovered well since the beating.

“If I hadn’t known what happened to him, the only thing I can tell is he still can’t talk,” Wilson said. “He has problems with his words. But other than that, I can’t tell.”

Without Arrington’s permission, Wilson would not say where Johnson lives today. During the finalization of his trust this past winter, Johnson resided in a community home in Atlanta just north of Linden, according to court documents.

A supervisor for the home said this month that Johnson does not live there. Perry, the Longview lawyer, said he last heard Johnson was living in Tyler at a special home for people with brain damage. An employee at that home said Johnson no longer lives there, either.

Amid the conflicting reports, it was too difficult to ascertain Johnson’s well-being and mental fitness without meeting him in person. But he was proving to be a difficult person to find.

LOOKING UP IN LINDEN

People around town say they haven’t seen Johnson in a long time, and his beating and trial are no longer topics of conversation.

“Nobody speaks of it,” said Kelly Haley, a Linden native. “Nothing’s been said about that whole thing in years. You just don’t hear anybody talk about it.”

Haley went to school with the four defendants. Attempts to contact them for this story were unsuccessful, and none of them live in Linden, she said. “It affected them more than anything for the better. Them guys are awesome guys now. They’ve all turned their lives around. You wouldn’t even think they’d be involved in something like that,” said Haley, who is an administrative assistant at Music City Texas Theater, Linden’s main attraction.

“I’m not going to defend them. It was just something that happened. A lot of stuff happened around here, and we just try to get over it and move on.”

Besides a few angry phone messages at City Hall, Mayor Kenny Hamilton said the incident did not seem to fuel animosity toward the town. “It was horrible that it happened,” he said. “It wrecked a lot of lives, especially Mr. Johnson’s. It was a very unfortunate situation. … To say we’ve fully recovered, I couldn’t say that, but we have made some strides and opened eyes for a lot of people in the area, both black and white. From that standpoint, I’d say we’re on the road to being a better community.”

White and black residents alike have contributed to a new community center in Fairview, a black neighborhood just south of town, Hamilton noted. Thomas Northcutt, the center’s first president, said members of the Linden establishment work hard to include minorities in positions such as civic boards.

“You start talking to people, and you come to find out our problem was we just weren’t talking to each other,” he said. “Once you start talking, you find out things are not as you may have perceived them to be.

“Now, I know people are prejudiced, but I also know that when people start drinking, they do stupid things,” he said, “and that’s no different whether you’re black or white. Drinking, things that’s in you that you’ve tried to cover up will come out. I think those fellows made some real bad decisions, and I think the whole community felt like they got off a little light.”

Richard Bowden, president of Music City Texas, said the annual T-Bone Walker Blues Festival has gone a long way to heal the town’s racial relations. Founded in 2006, the festival honors a black pioneer of the blues who was born in Linden.

Though Bowden wasn’t sure whether the negative publicity hurt the theater, he said he believes his hometown had been unfairly maligned.

“I personally thought we had pretty good relations in town, and that was certainly not stereotypical of what goes on in Linden,” he said. “That’s the part that bothered me the most. The media, all the way up to the national media, was treating it like an average, typical-type thing that goes on in Linden, Texas, and that was so far from the truth it made it hard for people to take.”

THE SEARCH CONTINUES

Bowden, Hamilton, Northcutt and Haley did not know how to reach Johnson. Dees would not say how to find his former client, either.

“Billy Ray’s family does not want his whereabouts known,” Dees wrote in an email. “They value his privacy. In the past, he has become quite agitated when outsiders come to the facility where he is living.

“I hope that you will respect the wishes of his family.”

Dees was asked whether a family member would be willing to speak about Johnson’s health and mental condition.

“There is no relative of Billy Ray that I know who you can interview,” Dees replied. “His mother is mentally retarded as are two of his brothers. Another brother is mentally OK but is totally handicapped. He can hardly speak. I met him once a couple of years ago. I am not sure if he is still alive. He did live on a rural road near Linden but I have no phone number or address. He has another brother who is in and out of prison. His name is Curtis. I also do not know how to locate him.”

If that is so, Dees was asked, then which family member doesn’t want Johnson’s whereabouts to be known?

“It is my understanding that the main family member who does not want outsiders to visit Billy Ray is his brother Curtis Stephenson,” Dees replied. “He is the one with a criminal record for violence and may now be back in jail. I checked my old files and the last number we had of his was …”

‘I SHOULDN’T TALK TO YOU’

Johnson’s brother answered the phone.

“He’s in a home-help place,” Stephenson said. “He’s in a group home, so that’s how he’s surviving, but he still ain’t getting nothing. He’s got a trust, but he’s still not getting a dime. He don’t have nothing.”

“Where’d you get my number?” he asked.

From Morris Dees.

“He’s not my lawyer. I shouldn’t talk to you. I’ll holler at you.”

Click.

Six years have passed since Johnson’s beating, and two and a half years have gone by since the end of his civil trial. Much has happened since then. Around town, people are proud of ongoing renovations to the historical county courthouse, and they’re excited about plans to upgrade Linden’s streets and sidewalks.

Talk is that famous Linden native Don Henley will be restoring several storefronts around the downtown square, and improvements continue at the Fairview Community Center.

Amid all the bustle, one question is said to almost never come up: Whatever happened to Billy Ray Johnson?­­