Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 68F. Winds light and variable..

Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 68F. Winds light and variable.

Part One was originally printed in YES! Weekly on November 19, 2014.

Ed LeBrun was the heart and soul of Greensboro’s surging supersonic rave scene before three young men, all of whom knew LeBrun and attended his events, murdered him in the early morning hours of August 16, 1999.

When Babylon opened downtown in 1994, LeBrun’s frenzied First Friday parties brought down the House, booking world renowned DJs — Diesel Boy, Andy Hughes, Bad Boy Bill, Frankie Bones, Ani (On-E), Bobble, Derrick Carter, Keoki, Sven Väth — who held thousands of hyperactive, jumped-up, sweaty club kids from as far away as Florida and New York in a thrall. 

Besides promoting First Friday parties, LeBrun owned Spins Records & Tapes, the Triad’s dance music roundhouse. LeBrun was an essential conduit for ravers around the world, thanked on dozens of seminal dance music releases. William Shea was a manager there, and after Lebrun’s death he posted this on a message board: “No, Ed did not start the scene in NC. What he did do was take it to the next level. Folks from all over the east coast, New York, Florida, Washington, Georgia, you name it. Literally thousands of people at those events, some driving hundreds of miles to pack into a dirty ass warehouse to see a few local DJ’s. It was absolute madness, the coolest thing I had ever experienced. From there to Babylon and First Friday, one of the longest running monthlies on the east coast. Longer than Buzz, Fever, NASA. DJ’s would cancel gigs to come to Babylon because they loved playing there. They could count on good sound, good lights, a good crowd.”

Chris Kennedy worked at Spins and remembers, “It was the go-to spot for upcoming rave flyers, mix tapes, rare vinyl and many other things that reflected our culture. Mix CDs that were legal and released under a label were rare, simply because many of the records used samples that were unlicensed. This made the culture feel different and unique because having tunes to listen to outside of the party was next to impossible unless you went to Spins. He sold the legit Technics 1200s (record turntables) and did a great deal of special ordering for a lot of the DJs: Music that was next to impossible to come by any other way than knowing someone who had access to the many different independent record companies, most of them overseas.”

“Suddenly, parties evolved from the first Friday of a month to a complex lifestyle you’d affix your relationships, career and clothes around. And when any of these elements began to chafe, well, then you simply removed them,” said James Counts, a flyer designer for the monthly parties.

At 2:30 a.m. doors would open for underage ravers. Parents would drop their teens off at the club, presumably unaware of the goings on inside. Ed’s friend Shaun O’Connor pinpoints when things turned sour. “This younger crowd came in like’97, ’98. You had a bad bunch of people going around that would come in from out of town, make themselves look real cool and sell a bunch of fake drugs. They’d be there for like an hour, sell all their drugs and leave. You’d never see them again. Greensboro tightened up after that and became more cliquish.”

Soft spoken with a shy smile, LeBrun began promoting electronic music nights in the late 1980s at Kilroys before expanding into larger, more exotic locales that only a select few were privy to. “We had to meet someone in the UNCG parking lot on Aycock in order to get a flyer with the directions.” That’s how Kennedy rolled, “You only really saw most of these people at parties because we all came from different walks of life and from different areas in and around the state. It was like leading a second, secret life that you really cared a lot more about than work or school. Ed managed to rent the [train] Depot in downtown Greensboro on a few occasions. For one of the last great Depot parties, Ed brought in some talent, Fred Gianelli of the Psychic TV crew, to completely blow our minds. Before they clamped down on security it was a miniature techno utopia for us.”

LeBrun’s First Friday jams elevated Babylon, the only nightclub downtown in the mid-1990s, to mythic status. 

“We never had any fights, no guns, people weren’t getting stabbed — it was all about peace and love, unity and respect. And yeah, we did drugs. We did a lot of drugs. But Ed was a pioneer, not in facilitating drug use, but a pioneer in bringing music that most of the modern world didn’t know about and sharing it with everyone. It changed people’s lives,” said Mike Marion, a bartender at Babylon.

DJ Mr. Bill spun Progressive House at Babylon and remembers, “We had the biggest scene on the east coast, bigger than D.C., we were bigger than Atlanta. Between Baltimore and Orlando. Greensboro was the spot.”

Ground zero for ecstasy, Babylon was a hotbed of substance abuse. Young people huddled along the hallways and cuddled up in the more mellow upstairs lounge. A male student who frequented First Fridays revealed to the Duke Chronicle why he was the archetypal Babylonian, “The music is a mirror of your roll. Even if you aren’t rolling, it’s a mirror of what you feel like. When the music’s pumping, you feel like you’re gonna fly. You stop, and breathe and then it builds. If it kept going without a pause, you wouldn’t be able to handle it. I go and have guys massage me and girls kiss me at the same time. You completely leave the rest of the world. On the dance floor you focus on people’s eyes. I feel like I can see through them. I don’t know what people’s lives are like outside of the rave. But inside, everyone’s always happy.”

It was a good four years after Babylon opened that police learned to identify ecstasy. One fan and friend of Lebrun’s remembered the club scene: “We had a good time for a long time getting away with doing a lot of things we should never have been getting away with doing, and we did it right under the nose of the police department.” 

DJ Mr. Bill remembers, “I was out of town, but my girlfriend told me about this the next day — the staff and the owners one night decided to have fun and locked the front doors. They took turns DJing, the staff was on the floor, some got naked, some didn’t. It was like a party of five, more or less. My girlfriend was dancing butt naked on the little platform under the disco ball. She was like, ‘I’ve got the whole place to myself!’ I’m kicking myself ‘cause I missed it. I asked her, ‘What’s that all about?’  ‘Oh, they do that all the time.’”

“So all of a sudden 16-year-old Jeremy, who was hanging out with gutter punks and going to Ska shows, meets two people from the Dixie, and Shaun O’Connor, and starts raving his ass off,” said Jeremy Elliot, a patron of the club scene in the ’90s.  (The Dixie was a very well-known 100-year old downtown apartment complex that was just bulldozed a couple of months ago.) “They referred to me as a rave baby. Because we were under 18 we had to wait until 2:30 to get into Babylon. But they would go until 5 or 7 a.m. sometimes, unleashing all these kids with big pants and huge pupils on Elm Street as the straights were trying to go to work.”

But there was an added element of danger for Babylon-owner Ed LeBrun: His proclivity for inviting straight, high school-aged boys to his home for a lesson in drinks and drugs, which would often lead to sex. 

LeBrun’s friend Shaun O’Connor recalls a Spins employee warning, “‘One day one of these guys is going to kill you.’ And Ed, shrugging it off as Ed normally did with things, ‘Eh, yeah, that’s not gonna happen.’”

In 1999, Shaun O’Connor would join LeBrun for early dinners at Fuddruckers on Wendover where Babylon bartender Mike Marion was a manager. After one of those meals, Mike joked with busboy and recent Ragsdale High grad Zachary Grimes about being one of “Ed’s boys.” Grimes assumed, wrongly, that his boss found out about the sexual encounter he’d had with LeBrun two years earlier. Mike Marion recalls that exchange, “Yes. It happened. I said it. It was rumored that Ed had encounters with young men. So in that conversation where we were talking about Ed and his parties. I told Zac that I had recently been in his home. Zac nodded his head and stated that he had been there before and ‘hung out’ with Ed in the past. I gave him that wink and a smile saying, ‘Oooohhhh, you’re one of Ed’s boys.’ I didn’t dwell on it or even think about it after that. I didn’t realize that it bothered him at all. He didn’t let it show. He just smiled and said, ‘Naw man, nothin’ like that.’ And that was the end of it.

“(Zachary) was cool, but there was something about him that struck me as wrong. We got into this conversation ... he liked to break into cars and steal stereos. It didn’t matter what a fun guy he was to be around, he had a darker side.”

One evening in May of 1999, Grimes spotted LeBrun topping burgers with a friend at Fuddruckers. Upon seeing this, he ducked into the kitchen to share an intimate detail with a new hire at Fuddruckers. He told his co-worker about how, six months shy of his 17th birthday, he found himself in Ed’s bed after inhaling whippets and taking ecstasy for the first time, and that he’d been molested. He’d expressed a desire to assault and rob LeBrun with others at Fuddruckers, but this was Robert Reid he was speaking to. This randy, disarmingly handsome 18-year-old live wire possessed a steely gaze that barely masked an intense rage bubbling below the surface, no doubt a result of the frightening sexual abuse he endured as a young child. (Reid was adopted after being taken from his home at the age of seven following serious sexual abuse. This according to his adopted father’s statement to the judge to avoid the death penalty.)

For next three months Grimes and Reid schemed with Zac’s roommate, Fuddruckers alumni Jonathon Coffey, to discuss how they would enrich themselves at the expense of the music promoter. A Babylon habitué with deep set dark eyes that reflected a Buster Keaton-like cluelessness, 19-year old Coffey was aware of Ed’s predilections. Shaun O’Connor recalls the effect Jonathan Coffey had on both sexes at the club, “Oh yeah, he was the heartthrob.”

The three Fuddruckerteers bonded over those late night talk sessions where Reid revealed himself to be a Ninja warrior, the embodiment of Joe Musashi from the arcade game ‘Shinobi.’ He boasted about being in a Chicago gang and leaving more than ten corpses on the ground. He even claimed to have clubbed his father to death when he was 11 years old because the old man reared back to punch him.

On the night of August 15, 1999, Grimes turned to Jonathan Coffey and asked, “Hey, you want to put this plan in motion?” Coffey did. Back at the apartment with Reid in tow, they filled a bag with a taser, hammers, screwdrivers and a crowbar. Grimes produced a syringe he’d filled with glass cleaner. Before heading out, everyone laughed at designated boy-bait Reid as he pranced and preened in his tight green shirt and baggy jeans meant to entice their intended. They took two cars and parked close to LeBrun’s newly built brick manse on Mayflower Drive in Sunset Hills. 

Reid stepped up to the small, enclosed porch and rang the doorbell. When he explained his car had broken down and asked to come in to use the phone, LeBrun, speaking through the closed door, recommended a nearby curb market instead. Reid returned to his waiting accomplices to suggest they try again later.

The group then pulled behind a mini-mart on Tate Street to smoke menthols and wash down some “Mark McGwire pills” (presumed to be performance enhancing steroids) Zac had in the vehicle. 

Reid worried his co-conspirators were getting squishy. 

“Are we going to do this or not?” Coffey agreed to approach to the door, but only if the others were directly behind him. They outfitted themselves with rubber gloves and trash bags stolen from work, Reid also had a boot sheathed blade, a 6-foot long black shoestring and a dagger. 

They rolled alongside the curb quietly, lights off, parking just beyond the driveway. Grimes slipped panty hose over his face. Reid didn’t have a mask. Coffey couldn’t wear a disguise. His face was his in. 

Answering the bell, LeBrun likely peered from the narrow windows adjacent to the entrance to see a young man he knew from the club with a brooding boy band look and plump lips. With the chain latched, he cracked open the door. Coffey threw his shoulder against it, tearing off the latch. They struggled, but the teenager was much stronger than his small-framed opponent. Within seconds, Grimes and Reid stormed through the entrance. Recognizing Robert Reid from their earlier encounter, Ed cried out, “Oh no!” 

When LeBrun didn’t show up for work on August 16, 1999 his employees knew right away something was amiss. Spins employee Chris Kennedy explained, “No matter what happened over the weekend, Ed religiously came in to Spins on Mondays to do all his orders for records, mainly the vinyl for the DJ’s. When he didn’t show up to do it, that is what prompted William Shea to go by his house to check on him.”

“I, along with my boyfriend, found Ed the day he died. I found him face down on the floor in his bedroom, blood soaked into the carpet all around him. I can still vividly recall staring at his brilliant white socks while I straddled his dead body to call the police,” wrote Andy Guthrie, Shea’s girlfriend at that time, in an online forum. 

Part Two was originally printed in YES! Weekly on November 26, 2014.

Zach Grimes punched Ed LeBrun as Robert Reid placed his knees against the back of Ed’s neck to tie his hands behind his back, telling the others, “Sweep the house.” In a phony English accent, Reid passed the incursion off as a simple robbery, one that would be over in a few minutes.

Inside a Chameleon Twist Nintendo 64 box, Jonathan Coffey discovered prescription pills, eight small bags of crystal meth and six tabs of ecstasy. Grimes uncovered a box of coins. When LeBrun told him they had sentimental value, that his grandfather had gifted them to him, the burglar put them back. According to Coffey’s testimony, Ed implored them to, “Get it over with and get out of my house. Take what you need and get out.” 

Grimes also later testified, “Me and Jonathon Coffey started going through the rooms, not finding anything in two rooms, then eventually went to the back room. It was like a disco with glow lamps, pictures, and it also had an egg seat I wanted, a wax lamp, and Jonathon wanted the turntables. We carried that stuff downstairs and I went back upstairs to get a picture.” 

While the other two stacked their haul by the front door, Reid guided LeBrun upstairs to the bedroom where he terrorized his victim with a double-edged dagger, offering him two possible scenarios—take a tranquilizer so he can’t see them leave, or be put to death. Yanking the wallet from Ed’s back pocket, Reid asked for a pin number and got it. In his preposterous ‘Clockwork Orange’ affectation, Reid posed the Hobson’s choice again: Sedative, or die. LeBrun, who remained passive throughout the ordeal, understood his helpless situation. “I really don’t have a choice,” LeBrun said, again, according to Coffey’s testimony. He swallowed the pill. That’s when Robert brought out the syringe. 

After injecting Windex into an artery, Ed was shot up with air, then rubbing alcohol from the bathroom. Reid told LeBrun he needed another dose, then handed the instrument over to Coffey, instructing him to find something appropriate. Focusing his attention on the cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink, Coffey found just the right chemical for the task at hand, concentrated Simple Green. He filled the syringe with the Kryptonite-colored fluid then bolted back upstairs where Reid plunged the needle deep into LeBrun’s neck. Grimes and Coffey looked at each other, both thinking the same thing - events they should have known could spiral out of control were now playing out in the worst possible way. 

Grimes told prosecutors, “We realized Ed LeBrun was probably gonna end up dead at that point. Ed was on the floor groggy and you could tell some pretty ill shit had just happened to him. As we were walking down the hallway I could hear Robert saying his ninja saying, ‘The paths are my shadows and no one will see my face.’ He had told me previous murders that he had been implicated in, that was [what] his group would say to someone before they killed him.” 

They pleaded with Reid not to go through with it, to no avail. Grimes testified, “I walked downstairs, turned around, saw Jonathon at the top by Ed LeBrun’s room. Jonathon turned his head to the left like he couldn’t believe what he just saw, then walked downstairs.” What he witnessed was Reid straddling the 39-year old, plunging the dagger a dozen times into his chest and neck. As they fled the scene, Grimes straightened out a small welcome mat that was displaced during their forced entry. 

With Grimes behind the wheel, Reid was exhilarated at “what a rush” it was taking a man’s life. Turning on to Page Street, they remembered the satchel and LeBrun’s First Union Bank card had been left behind. They turned around and went back to the house before rendezvousing with Coffey back at their Stonesthrow Homes lair. Once there, they snorted some crystal meth, then set out to ditch the evidence. 

Keying in the number 0664 they extracted $200.00 from an ATM at Super K-Mart, then hit two more machines for the daily limit of $500. Combined with the cash taken from Ed’s home, the total came to a little less than $1,600. 

With the other two tweaking in the living room, Grimes slid into bed with his girlfriend, Kara O’Connor, who is of no relation to Shaun O’Connor, around 4:15 a.m. and told her what had happened. The alarm was set for 6:30 a.m. He was scheduled to open at Fuddruckers. 

Reid didn’t need to punch in until 3 p.m. later that afternoon. After he got off work, he met up with Grimes and they drained LeBrun’s account of another $500.00 before burning the debit card and receipts.

Now, with pockets full of cash, the three perps got inked at Forever Yours, bought some LSD, then further feathered their nest by burglarizing a gun collector. Armed with a cache of weapons, they boosted a Family Dollar store on September 26th, netting $1,200 in cash and merchandise. 

On October 13, 1999, Coffey, Grimes, and Reid were cruising up and down High Point Road looking for a business to hit when they observed the Olive Garden’s backdoor ajar. Grimes waited with the motor running while the other two stumbled through the door, making so much noise Coffey wanted to call it off, but Reid urged him on. According to plea deals that were contingent on the confessions, it was made evident that the trio made off with $2,500, a good portion of which Reid tried to swindle his compatriots out of while they were counting the loot.

While they may have been wanted for dozens of felonies and misdemeanors, what Reid, Coffey, and Grimes weren’t suspected of was the murder of Ed LeBrun. During their two-month crime spree, Greensboro detectives were confident they had the killer locked safely behind bars. In fact, GPD bagged their prey within the first 48 hours, even rounding up an accomplice, and did it without a shred of physical evidence linking them to the crime.   

“I was unable to sleep the night I received your letter. A lot escapes the mind after so much time, whether it be repressed or just forgotten. It reminded me what a piece of shit I was. Regardless of what I intended or did at the behest of others doesn’t change the fact crimes were committed, a man died, and my person was involved.” Zachary Grimes has a lot to be remorseful about and plenty of time to think on it: He’s serving a 30-year sentence for his part in the torture and murder of Ed LeBrun, the east coast’s leading rave promoter.

Ed’s First Friday events were legendary at Babylon, the only nightclub in Downtown Greensboro in 1994, an after dark beacon amidst a desolate no-man’s land summoning amped-up ravers attracted by the biggest names in EDM: Sasha, Icey, Doc Martin, Huda Huda, Christopher Lawrence, Sneak, Supa DJ Dmitry, Micro, Mr. Bubble, Bjørn Svin, and Donald Glaude. Upwards of a thousand blissed-out whirling dervishes flowing in and out of 221 S. Elm Street, glow sticks twirling in each hand, furiously sucking on pacifiers, Vicks inhalers tucked into their back pockets, music blasting 130 beats per minute, humidity approaching monsoon levels. 

“I was working at Elizabeth’s and everyone said, ‘Turn on the news.’  We had TVs in the restaurant so I could see that it was for real. I’m like, ‘You gotta be kidding me, I saw him last night.’ Elizabeth’s was like six doors down from Spins. The doors were locked but there were already flowers and cards, a memorial. So I did the same thing, I left flowers and cards.” DJ Mr. Bill will never forget that afternoon.

Sunset Hills was on edge when news spread of the heinous attack that occurred just one block from the UNCG campus. Families slept easier when, two days later, a suspect was hauled in for questioning based on a tip and a blurry surveillance photo that matched the culprit, at least to the satisfaction of lead detective David Spagnola. Spagnola managed to wrench a confession from 19-year old Tim Laney, not for murder, but for using the decedent’s ATM card. That admission of guilt put Laney at the center of the crime. Now the detective needed a name: Who gave him the card? Laney implicated his friend Josh Gordon who was quickly jailed. 

It was front-page news when the arrests were made - sweet music to the ears of Zachary Grimes, Jonathon Coffey, and the guy who actually stabbed LeBrun to death, Robert Reid. They were in the clear. Perhaps Reid was the shadowy Shinobi Warrior he claimed to be. 

“Had Reid said, ‘Let’s go kill this man’ neither Jon Coffey or I would have gone.” Zachary Grimes detailed how his life descended into madness in the weeks following the morning of August 16, 1999. “After the murder of Ed LeBrun, we were to meet the real Robert Reid. He had the charisma of a gifted politician. Reid became ever demanding, he wanted us to do more crimes with him. He knew that we knew he was capable of murder. Jon and I complied several times, but we were in too deep. We started resisting doing things, our choices were limited and my girlfriend was scared to death.

“I was sidelined while Jon and Robert continued on [committing crimes]. Reid’s threats and spell were wearing off. I was trying to salvage what I believed was left of my life. I was trying to put the pieces back together, but every one I picked up would crumble into more. A line had been crossed that could not be uncrossed. As for Jon, he was deeply affected by being involved in a murder. I believe he knew time was running out and he just gave in to the downward spiral. Robert began to feel the tension and rising reluctance to his every little whim or crime he wanted to commit. He went off about us not being loyal to him and not wanting to really ‘build something.’ He pulled a gun and started making threats about if we were to tell he would kill us or go to our family’s homes and kill them. We knew he had no problem killing so the days leading up to the arrest were stressful. Robert shot a hole in the wall, narrowly missing Jon.

“Jon and Robert’s spree would come to an end the night he stole my car, and in the days after [when he] would break into our apartment with two 16-year olds... his new crew and next to be enthralled in his charismatic clutches.” 

Reid had a habit of boasting about his escapades to any random person, then threatening their lives if they ever ratted him out. Busted with his mini-mob in the midst of a burglary in Jamestown, he folded. Omitting any suggestion of his central role, he gave up Coffey and Grimes as LeBrun’s assailants. The two were swept up and charged with first-degree murder.

“I’m not sure who interrogated me. It was late at night when I was brought in and I had smoked weed and dosed a couple of hits,” Grimes said. Things looked grim for Grimes. Reid fingered him as the sadist who stabbed the record storeowner 12 times in the neck and chest in a premeditated rage and revenge attack.  

“The District Attorney’s office truly believed I was the man who had killed Edward LeBrun. I would go before a Rule 24 hearing for the death penalty. I just knew Robert had won. His web of lies with a twist of truth was going to lead to my death,” Grimes wrote in a letter. 

To their credit, detectives noticed almost immediately the version of events they were being fed were riddled with holes. Before he could be cut loose, Reid was charged with being an accessory to murder. It was only the ringleader’s insatiable need to grandstand that allowed the truth to finally come out. Reid bragged to his cellmate about his treacherous run of burglary, butchery, and bloodshed. His cell soldier ratted him out. Tossing Reid’s belongings, the screws found a memoir containing key details about the homicide. Combined with letters sent to one of his high school English teachers, detectives now had a clearer view of what really transpired.

Tim Laney, the original suspect in the LeBrun murder who ‘celebrated’ his 20th birthday during the two-and-a-half months he languished in lockup awaiting a trial date for capital murder, was roused from his cell on Friday, October 30th, and abruptly and without explanation was spat out on to the sidewalk. Another innocent man, Josh Gordon, had been sprung six weeks earlier, but only after his lawyer demanded a hearing to ascertain exactly what investigators had against his client. 

There wasn’t a shred of physical or credible circumstantial evidence against either man.

The story Laney told the press days after his release was harrowing. A coerced confession after a 10 hour long grilling during which the suspect reportedly asked for a lawyer but was told, “This isn’t TV.” He had an alibi, but detectives threatened the witness with life in prison if he didn’t change his story. Laney was lied to about his family identifying him in the ATM photo, threatened with the death penalty—all perfectly legal, of course. (Well, except for the part about being denied a lawyer.) Greensboro Police Capt. Jim Scifres was quoted as saying, “I admit it is not the norm for us to charge people [with first-degree murder charges] and then release them but when we get additional evidence sometimes that occurs,” Scifres is quoted as saying in the News & Record. By “additional” the Captain apparently meant actual evidence.

Coffey and Grimes pled to second-degree murder, agreeing to testify against Reid. Shaun O’Connor sat beside Ed LeBrun’s father, Sid, in the courthouse. 

“Every day of the trial I was there, Robert Reid just sat there spinning his pen with a smug look on his face. I remember, vividly, Benny from Spins and I having to contain ourselves because all we could think of was taking that pen and sticking it into his neck and chest,” said Shaun O’Connor.

Assistant District Attorney Richard Panosh prosecuted the case for the state, “Ed LeBrun had dreams. He took those dreams and turned them into goals. He worked hard and turned them into a business.

“The defendant had fantasies. His fantasy... to become a Ninja Warrior. The defendant dreamed he would form his own little army. One of the things he wanted to become was an assassin, and unfortunately Mr. LeBrun became the object of his fantasy.” Panosh hammered the point home by pounding the jury box 12 times, once for each slice of the dagger, to highlight not just the brutality and length of the assault, but the dozen opportunities Reid had to stop. 

When the verdict was read, LeBrun’s family and friends were jubilant; tough guy Robert Reid openly wept into his tie. He barely escaped the death penalty, but will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Nine months after one of the most depraved murders Greensboro was ever witnessed, police got hip to the haps on Elm Street and raided Babylon in May of 2000. Pills, tabs, baggies and origamis filled with white powder carpeted the floor after club goers dropped their drugs to avoid a possession charge. Cops swept up more than enough evidence to shutter the nightclub for good.  

When I moved back to Greensboro in 1994 after 16 years flailing around in the Los Angeles Punk then Underground clubs imagine my surprise to discover a scene much more engaging than what was going on in LA. Within a couple of months I was dating then living with the artist who designed flyers for Ed’s events, I met a dozen of my best friends through Babylon. But it occurred to me that, after 15 years had passed, no one had told this story. I entered into this project with no preconceived notions, following the story where it led. Some of the people I wish I could quote here won’t go on the record, they have offspring who read and surf the net. How do you explain this to the kids while telling them drugs are bad?

When I began my investigation more than six months ago I waded into a tragic tale with no winners, only losers. Because there were so many unanswered questions and conflicting memories I began corresponding with Zachary Grimes, although I warned him if his story differed from someone else’s account I would go with the other person. (He had a big problem with how his former boss Mike Marion characterized his demeanor, I went with Marion.) While I have zero sympathy for Robert Reid both Grimes and Coffey’s lives were effectively destroyed, they’re facing another 15-20 years behind bars, respectively. I do believe they had no intention of seeing Ed killed, details in their testimony bear this out, but that doesn’t mean much in the end, does it? Grimes’ letters to me are circumspect and filled with regret. “Every day of this sentence I’ve been drug free, as the drugs started to be leeched from my body over time my mind started to heal. The pollution that helped magnify my ignorance and studied stupidity was now gone. 

“I will never lose sight of the pain I’ve caused the people who loved [Ed LeBrun]. They never got to say goodbye and their last memory of him is tainted. It’s so clear now, I just can’t believe I was so stupid. I believe Robert Reid is a truly evil person, sadly our names will be used together as long as the internet exists. I can only pray he lives forever in this place that crushes every last thing you love.” 

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