Census worker hanged with 'fed' written on body

Thoughts and prayers for his family and friends, and I hope they catch the cretins that did this.

But I will admit that when Nancy Pelosi jumped in front of the cameras to tell us her "fear of violence" the alarm bells went off. Rats never do anything without an ulterior motive, and they always lie.

The rats NEED to shut down the right-wing talk machine, we're having them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They also need to grant voting rights to 10-20 million illegal aliens to keep in power, and they won't be able to do that if the conservatives are able to get their views into the public consciousness.

Update:

This incident happened September 12.

Pelosi made her comments on September 17.

Something is brewing.

I know someone who did that this year, and she was told to go to a lot of out of the way "at your own risk" places where I was worried for her.

Longer story, better "feel"

and somehow, all over the internet tonight, it is Beck's, Hannity, Rush and Bachman's fault.

Never mind that no one knows what exactly happened to make nay kind of determination as to who may have contributed.

No, it is the people who take their anti-government shtick to far... Ozzy wasn't responsible for any kid committing suicide back in the day, and the MSM isn't' responsible for all the ills in the world, either. : D

I wonder if the poor guy was allowed to carry a firearm, or even pepper spray, on the job? I'm thinkin -- no. Feds oughta have the same rights as the rest of us.

Other information on the victim - he was a cancer survivor, as well as a teacher. I hope they catch the perpetrators and give them the same treatment they gave Mr. Sparkman.

http://sentinel-echo.com/local/local_story_094220413.html

http://www.truecrimereport.com/2009/09/census_worker_bill_sparkman_fo.php

It is sad, and in fact, horrible, what happened to this man. But I have a couple of questions:

Why are we just now hearing about this?

You mean they didn't ask your permission first?

In other news...... The census dept is hiring! http://www.usajobs.gov/

I worked as a census enumerator during the slow economic period in 1989 - someone needs to go door to door - and I mean every door - and verify the mailing address for the person that lives there. I don't recall encountering any hostility from the people to whom I spoke (in the Lincolnville/Belfast area), but I sure did see some things I had never seen before.

Gerald,

You have to admit that now more than ever that people do not want the government in their faces and it does not matter what part of the government they are working for. Things have changed a lot over the last 20 years.

You have to remember there are people out there that would shoot first and ask questions later before letting you on their property...especially if they found out you were from some sort of agency of the government.

I forget where but I was reading an article on this where the reporter actually did some background work to provide a better understanding of the area. The reporter talked to someone who had written a pretty in depth book about Clay County. The authors take on the situation was the places that are economically depressed and poor as Clay County is people engage in numerous activities to make ends meet, both legal and illegal. It's harvest time in Clay County for pot and frequently pot is grown on federal land to avoid some property confiscation aspects of our drug laws. Also, Clay County is known for meth labs. It was suggested that perhaps the census worker was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and the situation degraded very quickly.

On another note, contrary to first impressions from the media, it wasn't a hanging. He was tied to a tree with a rope around his neck but his feet were on the ground. Picture someone standing with their back to a tree and then being tied to the tree with one of the ropes around the neck. Hence why there is some confusion over whether it was a homicide or manslaughter or something else.

The story is just bizarre on a number of levels and it will be interesting to see how it unfolds.

The FBI is investigating the hanging death of a U.S. Census worker near a Kentucky cemetery . . .

Shouldn't a homicide in the state of Kentucky be something that Kentucky authorities investigate?

VK...The Justice Dept. would have jurisdiction if the crime was committed on federal property or against an employee/agent of the federal government when said employee was engaged in his/her assigned role. Despite what Hollywood would have you believe the feds work very closely with local law enforcement and collaboration is the buzzword.....agree with others, these perps need to get caught quick. Prayers for the family.....

AP Article

was naked, gagged and had his hands and feet bound with duct tape, said an Ohio man who discovered the body two weeks ago.

"And they even had duct tape around his neck. And they had like his identification tag on his neck. They had it duct-taped to the side of his neck, on the right side, almost on his right shoulder."

Whether the folks who did this meant to kill him or not one thing is very clear, Mr. Sparkman's last moments on Earth were pretty horrifying.

Hope they don't sell much duct tape in Clay County.

Why on earth did it take so long for this to hit the media?

The locals reported it by the 15th. Really isn't national news when someone gets killed and a place like Clay County.

A better question to ask might be why did it make the national news after growing "stale" as a news item?

That's really my question, David.

If it were news, it should have been news when it happened. If it was not news when it happened, why did it suddenly become news when it did?

Over on DU they posit that Pelosi was aware of the killing before she gave that political violence bit; that she was trying to warn the country that things were getting out of hand.

I posit a slow news day, a reporter trolling contacts and the AP Newswire story fitting a larger emerging narrative.

At this point I think everyone is just guessing and in support of my guess this wasn't a "breaking news story" until it started getting attention on the blogs from the AP story.

Why did it take so long? Simple. The Angry Left is looking for any shards of "evidence" they can find that , talk-radio-fueled anti-government Fox News watchers hate the president because he's black and are dangerous, violent and must be stopped. Once this tragic little oddity came to light, it seemed a good fit for the template.

I suppose it's possible that some ignorant cracker DID off the guy as a result of anti-government animus. Let us not forget, however, that the area in which this incident occurred has, for a long time, carried a certain anti-government animus - and has done so regardless of who's in power. It's known for its 3M business (marijuana, moonshining, and meth labs) - enterprises that take a dim view of local, state and federal government attention.

That seems the more likely explanation, at least to me. If such is proven, that won't sway the Angry Left. This has become their latest conspiracy theory.

I reckon in those parts the census taker is the modern-day equivalent of a "revenuer", which has long been understood to be the most dangerous job in Clay County.
Here is an old Mountain Dew bottle, showing a local taking aim at a revenuer as he runs to hide in the outhouse...

Sad thing is census workers are prohibited from informing law enforcement of any criminal activity they see. There is some question floating about as to whether law enforcement can use Mr. Sparkman's computer to figure out where he filled out his last questionaire and where his next stop was supposed to be. Also some question as to which set of prohibitions about using information collected by a census worker applies since Mr. Sparkman wasn't working on actual census data collection.

Whole thing is a mess and, as with most messes, a lot can be learned after the fact about how to deal with the mess the next time it happens.

At the risk of being repetitious:

Michelle, I know that one day last winter when we were loading bait onto the boat we were approached by a man asking us how many houses were on the small Island across the cove. We asked him why he wanted to know (lots of summer placed get broken into), he explained that he was a census taker and he needed the GPS coordinates. He was a little arrogant and said he could just walk over there at low tide and count, when we explained that it might not be such a good idea to walk across someones land without permission he replied "I can go anywhere I want because I work for the govt". Needless to say both my son and I laughed when he said this and wished him luck and hoped he did not get shot. I do not plan on giving the census taker any more information than how many people live at my residence, that is all the info they need. So this process has been going on since last winter.

It is in the Constitution, right? Done every 10 years? How long is something like that SUPPOSED to take? I guess if we are invoking GPS technology it should be quicker next decade. : D

Getting names and ages of people living at an address is in the Constitution--demanding to know what people make, or any other information, is not in the Constitution, nor is threatening them with fines if they don't answer any more than what is required by the Constitution.

Amazing:

A U.S. census worker found dead in Kentucky tried to fake a homicide while actually taking his own life, investigators said Tuesday.

Bill Sparkman, 51, had life insurance policies with suicide clauses and apparently hoped to secure the money for his family,

Police: Ky. census worker killed himself

was naked, gagged and had his hands and feet bound with duct tape, said an Ohio man who discovered the body two weeks ago.

"And they even had duct tape around his neck. And they had like his identification tag on his neck. They had it duct-taped to the side of his neck, on the right side, almost on his right shoulder."

"Worst case of suicide I even seen."

The "bound and gagged" part is still somewhat intriguing...

How do you gag yourself and bind your own hands with duct tape?

Must have been the same investigators that looked into the Vince Foster case.

Or the Danny Casolaro suicide case.