Murder and Mountain Justice in the Moonshine Capital of the World: An interview with author Phillip Gibbs Pt. 2

CC-Phil 2

Speakers: Benjamin Morris & Phillip Gibbs

Benjamin Morris (00:00):

Phil, welcome back to the show.

Phillip Gibbs (00:02):

Thank you.

Benjamin Morris (00:04):

Your book opens with a very violent year, which is 1978.There are so many murders that take place in just this one year alone. I mean, you would be forgiven for thinking that a serial killer was on the loose in Western Franklin County. How old were you at the time?

Phillip Gibbs (00:35):

I was 21 at the time. Actually, I was in college at East Tennessee State. And I had just heard about the murder of my childhood friend, Terry Flora. And again, was very familiar with the man who killed him, as was everyone in the county, and that whole area.

Phillip Gibbs (01:06):

And I thought to myself, someone needs to write a book about not just this murder, but all the other murders, and the feuding, vigilantism, all of that. And so, that's when I first had an idea for a book. Now, that was 1978, and I was aware of some of those murders, but not all of them because I did move back to the county in the fall.

Phillip Gibbs (01:42):

And I put that aside, I came to graduate school, went on to get a PhD at Mississippi State, by the way, and became a professor and did that for 30 years. All the writing I did really was academic, and did a lot of traveling and taught abroad.

Phillip Gibbs (02:12):

But I got the idea for the book, or rather, I should say, I returned to the book after a little visit I had with another close friend of mine in Roanoke, Virginia, a very dear friend. And we had worked on the farm together.

Phillip Gibbs (02:33):

And I told him that we need to think about writing this book. He said, "Well, shut up or put up." And he got a piece of paper, and he put it down the paper in front of me. He said, “Okay, I want an outline in three months.” And I said, okay. And I decided to take up the challenge.

Phillip Gibbs (02:57):

And on the drive back to Georgia, the eight-hour drive back to Georgia, I laid out the book in my head, how I wanted to begin it. And I wanted to begin with that year, 1978 because I wanted that to be the hook for the book. You had said something earlier, I think in the first episode of our discussion about how the book is different in its structure from other books — and could you help me explain?

Benjamin Morris (03:34):

Absolutely. What struck me about it was the way that you start at this one point in time; it's a focal point to say that this year was kind of unlike what the region had seen previously. In order to understand the violence of that particular year, you do have to actually travel backwards in time and show the politics and the drama, and the struggle that is leading up to it.

Benjamin Morris (04:00):

And that includes things like the family dynamics, the extreme poverty of the region, the tensions with law enforcement, with turncoats, that sort of thing. But then what happens in 1978, once we get back to it, because it really struck me, Phil, as I was kind of traveling through your story, is that you begin to braid your narratives. You have multiple overlapping narratives.

Benjamin Morris (04:27):

Which kind of serve to lead us through the last half of the book until at the very end, you braid them all back together again. I mean, you're tracing each of these murders. And some of them were incredibly grizzly.

Benjamin Morris (04:47):

I think for our listeners who are interested, I absolutely encourage them to go and pick up a copy of this book so that they can read about what happened in the region from a very factual basis. They can understand what was happening.

Benjamin Morris (05:01):

But be warned, it's dark. And you're shining a light on it, but there's some dark places that your flashlight is going into. Nevertheless, by the time we get to the end of the narrative, you have helped us to see why 1978 served as this sort of pivot point or focal point in a way that ... you don't offer tidy conclusions.

Benjamin Morris (05:30):

Some of these murders had nothing to do with one another. And yet, by the logic of how violence and struggle operate in Franklin County, they have everything to do with one another. And that's what struck me, is that kind of you go discordant from the melody, and then the melody resolves to use a musical metaphor.

Phillip Gibbs (06:00):

Well, that was the method to my madness, was to begin with that year. That is a year for murder, and do exactly what you said. To go back in time and try to document and explain the best I could the violence. And I remember, it's not a book just about moonshining. There are lots of books about moonshining. I did not want to write a moonshining book.

Phillip Gibbs (06:34):

I mean, there are plenty of them out there, but it was about something larger, deeper than that. And yeah, I based on what you told me, that is your reading of the book, I feel like I accomplished what I set out to accomplish. I was happy with beginning the book with 1978 and those murders, and then coming back to it, but as you said, weaving the story. But yeah, it is dark

Benjamin Morris (07:27):

That darkness takes different forms. And I think one of the things that's interesting about your account is that when you start writing about Jaybird Philpott, who is one of the primary antagonists, one of the most troubling individuals that we encounter, you write that he as violent and paranoid and sadistic in some ways as he was, it's interesting because he was born into it.

Benjamin Morris (07:59):

I mean, it was almost like, I couldn't help but think of the medieval guilds, it was like he was born into a family of moonshiners. His daddy, Homer, and then all of the siblings and everything where he entered into that life and he had no control over where he entered into. And help us to understand kind of with Jaybird, was he a bad apple from the very beginning, or did he turn rotten to the core later on?

Phillip Gibbs (08:34):

Well, that's a question I've pondered. You said he was born into this culture of defying authority, of seeking your own justice. You could almost say that his life was kind of already mapped out for him, but I'm not sure if Homer actually pushed Jaybird into moonshining.

Phillip Gibbs (09:01):

I think Jaybird wanted to make money, and he found that was the way to do it. I think he got a lot of excitement from it. At a young age, he had to go to jail. He was running moonshine to North Carolina and actually ran a roadblock. And that's kind of a famous episode in his life.

Phillip Gibbs (09:34):

And he even kind of bragged about that later on to people, how he had ... talk about defining the authorities. He took his car and just ran right through the roadblock and hid out in North Carolina. Of course, later he was captured and served time. But it's hard to say.

Phillip Gibbs (09:51):

I mean, if you look at the definition of a psychopath, he seems to have those traits, those qualities. I mean, he didn't care. At times, he didn't seem like he had empathy for anybody.

Phillip Gibbs (10:33):

But then there are other people who will tell you, "Well, Jaybird was a hard worker" and there's no doubt about that. He worked day in, day out. I mean, e was not a lazy man. And it wasn't that he was just let on moonshine for his livelihood. He had a farm. He had a lot of land, he had equipment, earth-moving equipment.

Phillip Gibbs (11:00):

And he worked. And there's some who believe and tell you because I encountered someone during this signing that I did in Virginia, that Jaybird had always been nice to him. And he would give you a shirt off his back, but if you crossed him, watch out.

Benjamin Morris (11:24):

It's so fascinating. Yeah, go ahead.

Phillip Gibbs (11:27):

You're asking a very difficult question. I don't know at what point in time Jaybird becomes this person, this brute some people would call him. This man who seemed to be antisocial, this man that is so violent. I don't know what point that happens. That's a $64,000 question, isn't it?

Phillip Gibbs (11:51):

I don't know. Other than, as a young man, yeah, he certainly was known to get into fights. And he wasn't a big man, by the way. He was rather slight of stature. But when he got into fights, I mean, he gave as good as he got. I mean, he could be vicious, and to not only members of the community, but to his family.

Phillip Gibbs (12:29):

But some of that he perhaps got from Homer. Some argued that Homer was a very, very tough man, that he had a temper, and that you didn't cross him. So, you might say that he had the example of Homer, and that may have played a role in all this. I mean, certainly, has played some role in the shaping of who Jaybird came to be.

Phillip Gibbs (13:02):

I hope that answers your question, but maybe it doesn't. Because I don't really have a nice, slick answer for that.

Benjamin Morris (13:12):

Well, there aren't nice slick answers in many cases. And I think that that's one of these stark realities that we really have to confront when we look directly into the heart of evil, is that it's difficult for us to comprehend it or kind of sum it up in some way.

Benjamin Morris (13:31):

And I'm willing to say that we are looking into the heart of evil here because this man killed your friend. I mean, he murdered your friend in cold blood. He did not have to do it. And he completely overreacted. He was on a hair trigger. He took no time to establish why your friend might just be driving with his girlfriend at the time.

Benjamin Morris (13:49):

I mean, it's sort of like there's this kneejerk reaction of perceived threat, respond with violence, and there's no middle ground in between.

Benjamin Morris (14:03):

I guess the question that I have for you, Phil, and this comes up several times in the different chapters in your book; is that there's this old saying, and I'm sure you've heard it before — that villains rarely think of themselves as villains.

Benjamin Morris (14:20):

Like the bad guys don't see themselves as bad guys because they have different rationalizations for their actions. They might see themselves as being providers. They might see themselves as making a name, establishing a legacy. There can be all sorts of rationalizations that enter into someone's behavior like that.

Benjamin Morris (14:51):

You say psychopath, but do you think that Jaybird had any capacity for self-reflection on his actions? Or do you think he was devoid of that capacity?

Phillip Gibbs (15:01):

I think that he could at times, and I got a sense of this in terms of his family members to be remorseful for some of the things he did. However, so many of the cases of Jaybird resorting to violence, he always felt wholly justified that someone had trespassed on his land.

Phillip Gibbs (15:30):

Someone had somehow defamed him in some way, or that someone had tried to take advantage of him maybe in a business deal or what have you. But I don't think he was completely devoid of empathy or rather self-reflection.

Phillip Gibbs (15:53):

I think he recognized at times that yeah, what he did was extreme, but I think at bottom, he felt it was necessary. And that to not resort at times to violence or cruelty, would lead to people maybe disrespecting him. And that he had to maintain a kind of reputation.

Phillip Gibbs (16:22):

I think Jaybird liked the fact that people feared him. That was very useful to him, and that's what you often have with folks who … well, I mean, we often have criminals or members of the community, they need that. They need street credibility, so to speak. And I think that was all part of it.

Phillip Gibbs (16:52):

And it has a lot to do, too, with the fact that in those mountains, people felt that there are folks out there that perhaps are apt to try to take advantage of me, or they may try to compromise my family in some way, and I have to be prepared to use violence.

Phillip Gibbs (17:23):

But of course, he was totally at times, as you just said, yourself, irrational. It was just why would you ... the case of Terry. But there are other cases like that, that I document. And even the authorities said that you got to be careful around Jaybird.

Phillip Gibbs (17:45):

Because as you know, in the book, the very first chapter in that section about Terry Flora, I mean, as soon as Quentin Overton, the sheriff discovered that it was Jaybird, he put Denise, Terry's girlfriend into protective custody. He understood very well that Jaybird might try to harm her in some way, or have someone harm her.

Phillip Gibbs (18:14):

Jaybird was already suspected, as you know, of being responsible for his first wife's murder. No one was ever brought to justice in that case, but I don't want to reveal too much here. But already, he was suspected of that and so many other incidents.

Phillip Gibbs (18:37):

So, yeah, there was a good chance he might try to harm her. And again, I think he tended to feel justified in most of his actions. I mean, I think most of the time he felt justified, and then there might be times when he would reflect and say, "Well, maybe I shouldn't have done that."

Phillip Gibbs (19:05):

I think you see that sometimes with his second wife, but I wouldn't say that he was someone who had this great capacity of self-reflection. Because again, he did, he believed what he had to do.

Benjamin Morris (19:26):

Yep. Well, violent means usually result in violent ends. And Jaybird's story is no exception to that particular rule. Now, we're not going to spoil it, we're not going to reveal what happened to him at the end. Listeners who would like to know can go and pick up a copy of the book to find out. But it is in some ways appropriate. And it is in some ways fitting what happened to him.

Benjamin Morris (19:59):

Now, before we begin to wrap things up, we need a little bit of levity here. We need a little bit of comic relief just to kind of take the pressure off here. And honestly, Phil, throughout your entire account, I found there was this one person who we mentioned him very briefly last week, but I had to ask you about him today.

Benjamin Morris (20:25):

Who serves as this kind of, I thought him as the Greek chorus. We all remember the Greek chorus from our high school drama classes, the kind of the neutral perspective that kind of tells you what's going on. And maybe opinionates a little bit, but for the most part, they're not affecting the action, they're just kind of describing the action and so forth.

Benjamin Morris (20:45):

And that is this amazing news photographer named Morris Stevenson, who has these incredible photos from the history of moonshine-making in that part of the state and the county. And he captures it all. I mean, he's got the stills, he's got the raids, he's got scraggly old mountain men. He's got lawmen, law enforcement blowing things up. He captures explosions on his camera.

Benjamin Morris (21:23):

And I mean, it is just such a treat to follow this guy around because he just brings that kind of ... you can tell, I mean, he's not out of danger himself going into these particular environments, but you can really tell he's having a good time, can't you, Phil? I mean, you can.

Phillip Gibbs (21:42):

Almost definitely. I knew Morris Stevenson. I was a football player in high school, and he would take into high school pictures — that is the pictures of the team and all that. And of course, I read his articles, but he wrote a book, it's a self-published book called A Night of Making Liquor.

Phillip Gibbs (22:05):

And he actually spent one night when he was with revenue officers doing just that, making some liquor, and were all just kind of having some fun. But Morris, he was tireless and trying to capture the history of moonshining in Franklin County, and take some priceless photos, and of course, you've mentioned many of them.

Phillip Gibbs (22:32):

But yeah, of course, I remember that section of the book where he actually took pictures of Jaybird's still. Jaybird had actually, had taken his ... his grading equipment and bulldozer had dug a hole in the side of a hill and put his still in there. Eventually, it was found out. But Morris captures that. And of course, the blowing up of that, steel. Because as you know, revenue officers were using dynamite.

Phillip Gibbs (23:06):

Because what would happen if they didn't blow them up, they would come back, moonshiners, because if you took an axe to the still, you can still come back and patch it up. So, they started blowing them up, used some dynamite. And of course, it became very dangerous.

Phillip Gibbs (23:26):

Morris almost got decapitated from a flying piece of metal. He's trying to capture the blowing up a still. In fact, it was Jaybird's steel.

Phillip Gibbs (23:43):

He was threatened, Jaybird threatened Morris. Actually, Morris had taken pictures, had covered Jaybird, and taken pictures of Jaybird being brought into custody. The one that really made, I think Jaybird mad — Jaybird was arrested, he and his second wife for bigamy. She apparently had not got her divorce finalized.

Phillip Gibbs (24:07):

And there's a picture of JB being brought in on charges of bigamy. And here you have Morris, a picture of Jaybird and also, he frequently told Morris that "You're going to get what's coming to you, you're going to get yours, Morris." That's why Quinten Overton said, "Okay, you need to carry a pistol."

Phillip Gibbs (24:29):

This is a sheriff telling Morris, "You need to carry a pistol. Because you don't know what Jaybird might do." But remember in the book, Morris, he carries a pistol in his back pocket. And then they started worrying "What's going to happen if I end up shooting myself in the ass? I think I'd rather just take my chances with Jaybird rather than go through the embarrassment."

Benjamin Morris (24:57):

You kind of can't blame him actually.

Phillip Gibbs (25:00):

Yeah. Morris, he was quite a character. He lived to his eighties. Everyone knew Morris, but he was so important in capturing the photographic history of moonshining in Franklin County.

Benjamin Morris (25:20):

Well, his record is such a joy as you go through. And I think I didn't fully appreciate the scale of the operation really, until I saw his photograph of all those submarine stills lined up one after another. Just it's like a dozen of them right there.

Benjamin Morris (25:36):

And you realize that if you took all of that liquid and all of that mountain dew, as the old Irish used to call it, and you were to put that in one place, you could fill a swimming pool, I mean, easy.

Phillip Gibbs (25:52):

Yeah, definitely.

Benjamin Morris (25:54):

And you just thinking, wow, these guys really didn't know what they were doing. But we exhort our listeners to go and check it out for themselves and see these photographs, and read your account, because it is such a really valuable contribution, I think, to the study of the area and the time. I mean, that.

Benjamin Morris (26:16):

As we said last week, it's very realist, but the realism and the lack of sugarcoating and the lack of whitewashing, I think is one of its signature strengths. And it ain't all fun and games. It just ain't.

Phillip Gibbs (26:30):

Well, that's also why I know there's some who probably would not enjoy the book. And of course, when I wrote the book, I knew there was a chance that I was going to upset maybe some folks in the county, maybe some members of the Philpott family because that's why I was very careful to document everything.

Phillip Gibbs (26:56):

And I did even encounter someone who basically told me I was the scum of the earth for telling the story. That the story should not be told, or rather the story not be told. Because they worry about the impact this might have on their grandchildren — that they may learn that their great-grandfather was at times, maybe most times, a vicious man.

Phillip Gibbs (27:32):

And they don't want it brought up. They just don't want it brought up. But history is ugly at times and messy.

Benjamin Morris (27:42):

And you had this personal encounter with somebody that you wrote about in the book, or who was mentioned in the book somehow, you're saying they kind of came up to you and gave you some grief about it?

Phillip Gibbs (27:51):

Oh, yeah, and basically, threatened me and called down the wrath of God on me and even mentioned that, “Well, you saw what happened to Morris Stevenson.” In fact, even said that. Morris had told stories that found untruthful or not to her liking. And that she had basically called down once again, the wrath of God on him. And she was saying that that's what happened to him. He died. Well, of course, he died, he was 80-something-years-old.

Benjamin Morris (28:41):

What'd you think was gonna happen to him?

Phillip Gibbs (28:43):

What do you think is going to happen? Oh, he could have lived until 101, but no, put this curse on him, and that's what's going to happen to me. And so, I expected that. I mean, I was prepared for it because I know some of these people just do not want it told.

Phillip Gibbs (29:04):

And of course, once again, that kind of proves the whole point of the book, doesn't it? I mean, in any respect, that someone feels they're slighted, they're going to come after you, or you slighted their family in some respects. And some folks will not let it go.

Phillip Gibbs (29:21):

And of course, one thing that I used to say about the Scots and the Scots-Irish is they like nothing more than a good grievance.

Benjamin Morris (29:29):

Yeah, that's true.

Phillip Gibbs (29:31):

And I think people can't hang on to those things.

Benjamin Morris (29:36):

Well, there's some irony there, of course, that everybody's always in search of their own particular flavor of mountain justice, and it looks like somebody was trying to deliver some of theirs to you for writing this particular book. But that shouldn't have been a surprise, should it?

Phillip Gibbs (29:52):

No, it wasn't a surprise. And I certainly did not get upset or anything like that. I just said, "Okay, you said your peace and that's fine. I'm sorry you didn't like the book." And so, that's all you can do. But I was prepared. I had so many glowing reviews of the book, and people tell me how much they loved it, and now, I'm starting to worry, "Gee, I hope I pissed out somebody."

Benjamin Morris (30:23):

I suppose it's important to make the right enemies in life, Phil, that's all I can say about that. Well, let me ask you; what's the best way for folks to get ahold of your work and of this particular volume? Is there a recommended channel that you would encourage folks to do that on?

Phillip Gibbs (30:42):

Well, I would like people, if they could, to purchase from the indie bookstores. I would love for them to do that. Book No Further in Roanoke has it, and so do bookstores in Stanton, Virginia, and Danville, Virginia; Galax, Virginia; Blacksburg, Virginia — all those areas, in Lynchburg.

Phillip Gibbs (31:11):

And of course, you can buy from the big chains. I mean, you can certainly get it on Amazon.com. You can get it from Barnes & Noble, you can get it certainly directly from Arcadia. So, you can get it just about anywhere online.

Phillip Gibbs (31:32):

But like I said, if at all possible, I would love for people to buy it from these indie bookstores that are ... they're struggling and hey add so much to the community.

Benjamin Morris (31:44):

Well, we'll make sure they know we appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining us and for sharing this account with us. This has been just such a true pleasure to have you on. And it sounds like this last minute, maybe your puppy dog has joined us there in the background. Glad to have him on too.

Phillip Gibbs (32:04):

Okay. Thank you.

Benjamin Morris (32:05):

Appreciate it, Phil, see you next time.

Phillip Gibbs (32:08):

Thank you so much.