Evidence In "Fed" Killing Of Census Worker Bill Sparkman In Kentucky Points To "Tin Foil Hatters With Drug Connections.

Witness says census worker bound, naked
Coroner confirms ‘Fed' written on victim found in graveyard
From Staff and Wire Dispatches

A part-time U.S. Census worker discovered with a rope around his neck and tied to a tree in a Daniel Boone National Forest cemetery two weeks ago was naked, with his hands and feet bound with duct tape, an Ohio man who found him said Friday.

Jerry Weaver of Fairfield, Ohio, told The Associated Press that he was with a group of relatives looking at family gravesites when they discovered the body of Bill Sparkman, 51, on Sept. 12.

“The only thing he had on was a pair of socks,” Weaver said. “And they had duct taped his hands, his wrists. He had duct tape over his eyes, and they gagged him with a red rag or something.”

The Clay County coroner, Jim Trosper, confirmed Friday that the word “Fed” was written on Sparkman's chest with what appeared to have been a felt-tipped pen.

Why the word was written, or by whom, Trosper and other officials aren't saying. Spokesmen for the Kentucky State Police and the FBI said Friday only that they were still trying to determine if Sparkman died of foul play and if so, whether it was connected to his job as a federal employee.

Weaver, who works for a family topsoil business in Fairfield, said he was in town for a family reunion and was visiting gravesites at a cemetery in the forest when he and relatives came across Sparkman's body.

Weaver said “they even had duct tape around his neck.”

“And they had like his identification tag on his neck,” he said. “They had it duct-taped to the side of his neck, on the right side, almost on his right shoulder.”

Weaver said he couldn't tell if the tag was a Census Bureau I.D. He said he didn't get close enough to read it.

State police have said the state medical examiner determined that Sparkman, of London, died of asphyxiation, but clarified Friday that was a preliminary determination pending a full medical examination of the body. Police haven't determined if Sparkman's death was an accident, a homicide or a suicide. The rope around Sparkman's neck was tied to a tree, but he was in contact with the ground in a remote area of the forest near a cemetery, police said.

The scene left Weaver without a doubt how Sparkman died.

“He was murdered,” he said. “There's no doubt.”

Weaver said the body was about 50 yards from a 2003 Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck. He said Sparkman's clothes were in the bed of the truck.

“His tailgate was down,” Weaver said. “I thought he could have been killed somewhere else and brought there and hanged up for display, or they actually could have killed him right there. It was a bad, bad scene.”

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