“He said they were the only two enemies he knew of.”
The Shouns were close to Hale and the Burkharts, having been
their families’ physicians, and not long after the conversation at
the hospital one of the Shoun brothers informed the nurse that
Bryan Burkhart was ill. She was asked to visit Bryan at his house,
and she agreed to do so. While she was there, Hale showed up. He
conferred privately with Bryan, then approached the nurse. After
some small talk, he asked her if Bill Smith had named his killers
before he died. The nurse told him, “If he did I would not be
telling it.” Hale seemed to be trying to ascertain whether she knew
anything and, perhaps, to be warning her not to divulge a word if
she did.
As White and agents dug deeper into the hospital statement,
they began to suspect that the doctors had orchestrated the private
meeting with Bill Smith not for his testimony but, rather, for
another, ulterior motive. During the meeting, James Shoun was
named the administrator of the estate of Bill Smith’s murdered
wife, Rita, which allowed him to execute her will. Such a position
was coveted by whites, for it paid unconscionably high fees and
provided ample opportunities for graft.
After White’s team uncovered this scheme, one of the
prosecutors questioned David Shoun about it. “You understand in
your study of medicine the requisite of a dying declaration,” he
said. “You weren’t undertaking to get anything like that?”
“No,” Shoun replied meekly.
It was now clear why the doctors had summoned not the sheriff
or a prosecutor but Bill Smith’s personal attorney. They had asked
him to bring the paperwork for Bill to sign before he died.
Another prosecutor asked David Shoun if Bill was even lucid