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Harmon, who since has been imprisoned on federal drug and racketeering charges, was a private lawyer in 1987, and he became something of a media celebrity when he took a keen interest in the mystery.

He eventually was appointed as a special prosecutor to investigate the case and was in charge of presenting evidence to a grand jury.

Sheriff's deputies Campbell and Lane, meanwhile, were narcotics officers looking into the allegations about Harmon.

They contend that when Harmon learned about their investigation of him, he named them as suspects in the train deaths solely to taint their credibility and hinder their probe.

During the libel trial, Linda Ives acknowledged that Harmon called her the day before Campbell and Lane were to appear before the grand jury investigating the boys' deaths and told her that "the killers" would be appearing before the grand jury the next day.

Ives says she trusted Harmon at the time, but has since come to suspect he is among those who may have been involved in the boys' deaths and the ensuing cover-up.

Harmon denies any wrongdoing in the case.

However, an investigator named John Brown testified in the libel trial that he took a handwritten statement in May 1993 from Sharline Wilson, who had once dated Harmon, naming Harmon and two other men as having beaten and stabbed the boys to death, before laying their bodies across the railroad tracks. One of the men Wilson named later was himself killed, and she has since retracted her statement.

Wilson too was convicted of a drug offense (when Harmon was county prosecutor, no less), and she is now serving a 30-year prison sentence. Investigator Brown says Wilson initially confessed to having been present when the boys were killed, and that she "lightly" stabbed one of them while the others involved in the drug deal cheered her on.

Despite all of this, the libel proceedings did not seem to dampen Matrisciana's enthusiasm to make money from his discredited documentary. During the trial, the producer appeared on local radio talk shows to push sales of the videotape.

Linda Ives' Web site about the train deaths links to the video sales, and informs readers that "sales from the video is the only means Linda and Jean [Duffy] have of raising money for the Civil Justice Fund and for financing this web site."

Neither Matrisciana, Ives nor Duffy returned calls to Salon News for this report.
salon.com | August 18, 1999

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