Pubdate: Sun, 09 Feb 2003
Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (AR)
Copyright: 2003 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.ardemgaz.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/25
Author: Mike Masterson
Note: Mike Masterson is an award-winning Arkansas journalist.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption - United States)

DEMYSTIFYING A LEGEND

David McElyea met Madison County Sheriff Ralph Baker while staring into the 
barrel of the since deceased lawman's revolver.

He claims the encounter quickly evolved into a long-running and lucrative 
partnership in the marijuana business.

It's all in a forthcoming book that details a relationship of renegades 
bound by greed, fear and respect. Writing under the name David Macthat's 
how he's best known-McElyea, who served time for marijuana-related 
convictions dating back to 1981, had help on the 490-page tome from a 
respected former daily newspaper reporter in Northwest Arkansas who used 
the pseudonym J. Burton. "When Money Grew on Trees: The True Tale of a 
Marijuana Moonshiner and the Outlaw Sheriff of Madison County" is scheduled 
to be published later this month by 1 st Books. In the book, McElyea claims 
that for years he and Baker produced enormous amounts of marijuana together 
after McElyea moved from Michigan to the Madison County farm he purchased 
in 1980. "Ralph was likable most of the time" the steely-eyed McElyea, 46, 
said in an exclusive interview last week. "But he did have a temper and I 
saw it from time to time. In the book, I characterize him as an outlaw who 
was elected sheriff rather than a sheriff who became an outlaw.

We shared a bond in that we were both outlaws from the time we met." 
McElyea claims that after Baker arrested him and a friend for raising 
marijuana on their farm near Huntsville in 1981, he had both men released 
on their own recognizance. Their relationship sprouted from the incident. 
"Ralph would have us over to his house for meals, and we soon began raising 
marijuana crops together.

Back then, I felt as protected as a man could feel with the county sheriff 
for a partner."

Then in his mid-20s, McElyea was considerably younger than Baker, who he 
said often treated him more like a son than a partner.

For four years, McElyea said, he and Baker flew hundreds of thousands of 
dollars' worth of Madison County marijuana to McElyea's contacts in 
Michigan. "There were even times in that period when Ralph would secretly 
steal a harvest from me, his own partner," he said. "At least he never knew 
that I knew. But I always knew there had to be others involved with him 
besides me. And it was just the price I paid for his protection. Sheriff 
Ralph wasn't anyone you wanted to mess with."

McElyea said he spent three years preparing the book, hoping to earn some 
money and to demystify the legend Baker created during 25 years in office. 
"Frankly, I doubt I'll earn much from writing this, and I know some people 
might not especially like the idea of this book because of my past," he 
said. "But I do think people will find it interesting and informative to 
finally hear firsthand."

Baker drowned in the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 5, 1998, after his car went off 
a low-water bridge and into a rain-swollen White River near his home. At 
the time, he was the subject of a federal investigation that had caught the 
eye of the Democrat-Gazette. His death was ruled accidental. McElyea says 
he believes he put the idea of a drowning death into Baker's thoughts weeks 
before it happened. "I had contemplated suicide myself during some downer 
periods and determined the best way to make it look like an accident was by 
drowning," he said. "I met with Ralph in his Jeep in Elkins shortly before 
his death and told him about those thoughts.

He was very worried by the newspaper's investigation that day and he felt 
he was about to be indicted. He saw no way out of these traps closing in on 
him. He seemed sad and he listened closely to what I was saying about 
drowning." McElyea said all the dates, times and events described in his 
book are verifiable by the public record. "Plenty of people know what was 
happening all those years because it involved many," he said. The book 
should be available in bookstores and through the Internet by early March. 
It is bound to attract considerable attention, especially across Northwest 
Arkansas. My opinion after both reading portions of it and listening to 
this outlaw author?

He sure went to a whale of a lot of effort to produce an exhausting account 
of a "hillbilly Mafia" if it didn't go down pretty much as he described.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager