Exile Island

In the middle of March, 1999 Robert Blanton slowly walked from the courtroom to the outside.  He had just lost his entire 400 acre farm to a thief.  All of his power equipment, his tractors, his home, the crops now ripening in his fields, 45 head of milk cows and his expensive bull.  Everything he owned and had worked for his entire life now belonged to a thief!

It had started innocently enough.  He had outgrown the old house where he was raised.  His hard work had paid off and he was finally able to build Marty, his wife of 22 years, the house he had promised her when they were married.  He had selected the spot for his new house on the opposite side of the farm beside a grove of cherry trees his dad had planted 35 years ago.  The trees were now bearing well and he picked enough cherries each spring to pay for his daughter’s college tuition and books.

After they moved into the new house, Marti used the old house to store some of the antiques she liked to dabble with.  She would go to flea markets, auctions and yard sales and pick up old items and collectibles for resale.  Occasionally she would buy an antique chair or table and store it in the house.  Lately he had been storing some of his power tools in the house until the new garage and workshop were completed. 

Tracy, Robert’s 21 year-old daughter and a student at the university also started storing some of her articles over in the old house, items she had been accumulating for her trousseau when she married Steve McCoy.  Steve was also a student at the University.  He and Tracy had dated since high school and planned to be married as soon as they graduated.  They had dated for six years but had never engaged in anything other than harmless necking; their morals and the morals of their church and community frowned deeply on premarital sex.

About a year ago Marti had mentioned that several items she had stored in the old house had disappeared, a couple of them valuable antiques.  A month later Tracy told him some cooking utensils she had purchased were missing.  He checked and saw a new power saw he had just purchased was also gone.  He reported the losses to the sheriff, bought and installed some new locks on the doors and thought no more about it until a week later when he noticed a broken window and Tracy’s new set of dishes was missing.  Again he reported the burglary to the sheriff.

He took an old shotgun his father had given him before he passed away and rigged it up pointing toward the window which had been replaced.  He didn’t load the gun but painted signs on the front door and sides of the house saying the house was booby trapped.  A week later he checked on the house, saw the same window was again broken and the shotgun was missing along with some tools.

Bob Blanton was well known and well liked in the county.  He had graduated from the local high school and Iowa State University with a degree in Agriculture.  He could take apart any machinery on the farm and reassemble it.  During the winter he would often work at the local John Deere dealership repairing tractors and other equipment for extra income and often was called by neighbors to fix a piece of machinery.

But now Bob was mad.  He had reported the burglaries yet the house was still being broken into and to add insult to injury the shotgun was now missing.  He took another shotgun, loaded it and rigged it so when a beam of light was broken the gun would fire.  The next night he heard the gun fire.

Calling the sheriff and telling him to meet him at the old house he drove his pickup around the farm to the old house and waited for the law.  In 20 minutes the sheriff arrived and together they entered the old house, the sheriff with his gun drawn.  Lying in the middle of the room in a pool of blood was Jimmy Wakely, shot in his back.