Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 13, 1992 TAG: 9201130111
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CROSSROADS LENGTH: Medium
A LIFE OF SECRECY, LOYALTY, FEAR
Moonshine no longer has the hold on Franklin County that it once had during Prohibition, when - the saying went - the moon rolled over the mountains in quart jars.Few moonshiners - perhaps fewer than a dozen - still make enough of the clear, pungent liquor for shipment to big cities along the Eastern Seaboard.
They operate behind a veil of secrecy, abetted by the silence of neighbors and the loyalty of unskilled still workers who know how to keep their mouths shut.
The public got a rare taste of this hidden world in the case of Bobby Joe Whitlock, the moonshiner who got caught trying to bribe a special agent with the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
Audio tapes containing four hours of secretly recorded conversations between Whitlock and ABC agent J.E. Beheler - who pretended to go along with the bribery scheme - were released last week.
In a mumbled mountain dialect, Whitlock described a world where the sound of a low-flying airplane is reason for panic, where an anonymous letter can ruin a competitor and where families with no apparent means of support send their children to college.
Whitlock, 53, said he had made whiskey his entire life. He bragged that he owned the largest moonshine still ever discovered in Franklin County - a 24-pot operation that is pictured on T-shirts sold at local convenience stores.
Whitlock claimed that the now-famous still earned him $1,000 a day before ABC agents cut it up in 1972.
Whiskey provided his wife and three children with a comfortable, brick house in the Crossroads community and sent his son to Virginia Tech, where he earned a computer science degree.
Whitlock said he also has blown a lot of money on fast living and fast women.
"Those damn women will cost you more and cause you more . . . trouble than anything else in the world," he told Beheler.
\ `Dog-eat-dog world'
\ Whitlock complained that it has gotten harder and harder to make money making liquor. Stills cost more to construct; the price of sugar and other ingredients has risen; and workers demand higher wages.
Still, Whitlock estimated that he could clear $2,000 a month working a modest four-pot still hidden on land behind his house.
That's after the $500 a month he paid Beheler for protection.
From the start, Whitlock made it clear that moonshining is a cut-throat business - "It's a dog-eat-dog world," he said.
Moonshiners feuded and formed alliances. If a moonshiner crossed someone, the ABC officers might get an anonymous tip about the location of his still.
"I just thought all of you fellas were in this together," a surprised Beheler said after Whitlock described an ongoing feud between Ralph Dwan Hale and T.C. Philpott.
\ Planes stir fear
\ In the taped conversations, Whitlock displayed the paranoia of a man accustomed to making a living on the other side of the law.
Whitlock said his phone would start ringing whenever an unfamiliar car would pass through the isolated Crossroads community. A revenuer could lurk behind every wheel.
Low-flying airplanes - which might spot a hidden still - were a cause of panic.
One Monday, Whitlock called Beheler to ask if ABC agents had been flying around western Franklin County over the weekend.
"It scared everybody to death up there," he said.
Whitlock added that the only time he had flown was when he returned from an Alabama prison, where he pulled 17 months for a marijuana distribution conviction in the 1970s.
He said fellow inmates included former White House counsel Chuck Colson and "those Watergate boys."
For someone bribing a law enforcement officer, Whitlock had a strange respect for the judicial system.
One telephone conversation turned to William Gray "Dee" Stanley, a Rocky Mount man twice acquitted of moonshine charges even though he was caught once with a truckload of liquor and a second time with a still in his garage.
Whitlock said it had "looked bad" for someone who appeared to have been twice caught red-handed to be found not guilty each time.
\ News travels fast
\ It appeared that Whitlock knew when an area still had been raided the minute it happened. The news spreads around the county along a grapevine equipped with police scanners and secret sources.
In one phone conversation, Whitlock chuckled at the misfortunes of rookie ABC officer Bev Whitmer Jr., who got caught while working surveillance on moonshiner Amos Law's house in the Doe Run section of the county.
Apparently, when Law took his little dog for a walk, the critter barked and made a beeline for Whitmer, who was lying in the yard.
"I was downtown today," Whitlock said, barely able to contain himself, "and that's all I heard about."