<v Speaker 1>Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Grand Ole Opry.

<v Speaker 2>Our next act is traveling all over the country these days,

<v Speaker 2>so he is not working for the same price he

<v Speaker 2>used to.

<v Speaker 1>Saturday night, November 10, 1973. The Grand Ole Opry, live

<v Speaker 1>from the Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville. A tall, sad-faced

<v Speaker 1>man walks out in a costume that's a joke all

<v Speaker 1>of its own. It's a long nightshirt tucked into a

<v Speaker 1>little pair of blue jeans belted down around the knees.

<v Speaker 1>So a six-foot man looks like he's got an enormous

<v Speaker 1>torso and little stumpy legs. Then he picks up a banjo,

<v Speaker 1>and the crowd goes wild. They love him. His wife, Estelle,

<v Speaker 1>is right there in the audience, just like always. His

<v Speaker 1>legal name is David Aikman. But on stage... How.

<v Speaker 2>About a round of applause for my buddy Stringbean.

<v Speaker 1>Now here's what nobody in that room knows. 20 miles

<v Speaker 1>north of the Ryman in a three-room cabin at the

<v Speaker 1>end of a dark country road, two men are sitting

<v Speaker 1>in Stringbean's house. And they are listening to this exact broadcast.

<v Speaker 1>Not for the music. They could care less about the Opry.

<v Speaker 1>They're listening to String Beans Banjo the way you'd watch Clock.

<v Speaker 1>Because as long as they can hear him picking live

<v Speaker 1>on the radio, they know he's not going to walk

<v Speaker 1>through that door. From Hey Dad Productions, this is Nash Villains.

<v Speaker 1>I'm Jerry Broadway. And we're going to revisit the double

<v Speaker 1>murders of David and Estelle Aikman. Murders that stripped the

<v Speaker 1>country music industry of its innocence and taught Music City

<v Speaker 1>to lock its doors.

<v Speaker 2>Music City.

<v Speaker 1>Now, to understand why David Stringbean Aikman and his wife

<v Speaker 1>Estelle died, you have to understand who they were. David

<v Speaker 1>was born in 1915 in Anvil, Kentucky, a little speck

<v Speaker 1>of a town in the hills of Jackson County, into

<v Speaker 1>the kind of poverty that the word poor doesn't really

<v Speaker 1>do justice. His dad played the banjo, and David wanted

<v Speaker 1>one so badly that Mr. Aikman made one for him

<v Speaker 1>out of a shoebox and some of his mother's sewing threads.

<v Speaker 1>He finally got a real one at the age of

<v Speaker 1>12 when he traded a pair of prized Bantam chickens

<v Speaker 1>for it. David was tall, 6'5, and thin as a rail.

<v Speaker 1>And when the Depression hit, he did what a lot

<v Speaker 1>of young men did. He joined the Civilian Conservation Corps

<v Speaker 1>and built roads. But what he really wanted to do

<v Speaker 1>was play that banjo. Because, man, could he ever play

<v Speaker 1>that banjo. coming talent contest, he wasted no time in

<v Speaker 1>signing up and he won. I mean, it wouldn't be

<v Speaker 1>much of a story about an aspiring young musician if

<v Speaker 1>he didn't, right? And the contest of that day usually

<v Speaker 1>offered prizes like a few dollars or maybe some food

<v Speaker 1>or perhaps even a farm animal. But the first place

<v Speaker 1>prize in this contest was an absolute life changer for

<v Speaker 1>David Eggman. Because this prize was something that money really

<v Speaker 1>couldn't buy. The winner of this contest was guaranteed a

<v Speaker 1>spot in Asa Martin's band. Now, Asa Martin was a

<v Speaker 1>well-established member of the country music world in Kentucky. He

<v Speaker 1>was an old-time singer and guitarist who made a string

<v Speaker 1>of recordings through the 1920s and 30s. And he was

<v Speaker 1>best known for his work alongside fiddler Doc Roberts. Starting

<v Speaker 1>around 1930, he was performing on radio stations all across

<v Speaker 1>Kentucky and over in Cincinnati. In other words, Asa Martin

<v Speaker 1>wasn't just some local yokel picker running a country fair contest.

<v Speaker 1>He was a legitimate recording artist and a radio act.

<v Speaker 1>So when that poor self-taught kid from Anvil won a

<v Speaker 1>talent contest that Asa Martin was judging, it wasn't a

<v Speaker 1>small thing. Remember, this was the Depression, and David Aikman

<v Speaker 1>had been barely scraping by with his job in the

<v Speaker 1>Civilian Conservation Corps. And playing music at local dances certainly

<v Speaker 1>didn't pay enough to live on. The gig with Asa

<v Speaker 1>Martin meant steady work, a real stage, and access to radio,

<v Speaker 1>the biggest platform going. It was David's break from farmtown

<v Speaker 1>obscurity into the world of professional music. And it came

<v Speaker 1>with a bonus that outlasted the job itself. One night

<v Speaker 1>at a show in some long-forgotten town, Asa was introducing

<v Speaker 1>David and completely forgot his name. And in a historical

<v Speaker 1>moment of improvisation, looked at David, 6'5, body like a

<v Speaker 1>fence post, turned back to the mic and said, Come

<v Speaker 1>on out here, string bean, and play us a tune.

<v Speaker 1>And that was the last time David Aikman's name was

<v Speaker 1>ever spoken on a stage. A name like string bean

<v Speaker 1>sticks with a man, and it stuck with David for

<v Speaker 1>the rest of his life. He wasn't just a musician, though.

<v Speaker 1>Stringbean was also an athlete, semi-pro baseball. And that, of

<v Speaker 1>all places, is where he met a young bluegrass player

<v Speaker 1>named Bill Monroe. Monroe saw him pitch, was asking some

<v Speaker 1>friends about him, and found out that that tall, lanky

<v Speaker 1>fellow with the great fastball could also pick a banjo.

<v Speaker 1>And from 1943 to 1945, Stringbean was the banjo player

<v Speaker 1>in Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys. And when it came time

<v Speaker 1>for him to move on, the man who replaced him

<v Speaker 1>was Earl Scruggs. That's the kind of company Stringbean kept.

<v Speaker 1>But the man that truly shaped Stringbean was Uncle Dave Macon,

<v Speaker 1>the first great star of the Grand Ole Opry. The

<v Speaker 1>two of them had a deep love for the same

<v Speaker 1>type of music. the old claw hammer method of playing

<v Speaker 1>the banjo, where you shape your picking hand into a

<v Speaker 1>loose claw and strike the strings with the back of

<v Speaker 1>your fingernails. Macon took Stringbean under his wing and brought

<v Speaker 1>him onto the Opry stage. And when Uncle Dave died

<v Speaker 1>in 1952, there was really only one person left to

<v Speaker 1>carry on that torch, and Stringbean carried it proudly for

<v Speaker 1>the next 20 years. He built an entire character around himself.

<v Speaker 1>That costume was the joke. The long striped shirt tucked

<v Speaker 1>into a little pair of jeans belted at the knees.

<v Speaker 1>And he always wore a funny hat that he'd flip

<v Speaker 1>up just before he struck the strings. Audiences couldn't get

<v Speaker 1>enough of him. And in 1969, a brand new television

<v Speaker 1>show called Hee Haw premiered and put Stringbean in front

<v Speaker 1>of the whole country. He was the scarecrow in the cornfield,

<v Speaker 1>the sweet-natured country soul. He was, by any measure, a

<v Speaker 1>national star. And at home, there was Estelle. He married

<v Speaker 1>Estelle in 1945, and the two of them were as

<v Speaker 1>close to inseparable as two people get. Stringbean didn't like

<v Speaker 1>to drive. In fact, he never even got a driver's license.

<v Speaker 1>So Estelle drove. Everywhere. Always. Estelle behind the wheel. Stringbean

<v Speaker 1>riding shotgun. And they lived deliberately simply. They owned a

<v Speaker 1>small cabin on a hill up in Ridgetop, north of Nashville,

<v Speaker 1>where their nearest neighbor and dearest friend was another Hee

<v Speaker 1>Haw star, Grandpa Jones. Stringbean and Grandpa hunted and fished together,

<v Speaker 1>and they worked their land together. As far as Stringbean

<v Speaker 1>could tell, his life was absolutely perfect. But there was

<v Speaker 1>one thing about Stringbean's life that wasn't so perfect. Stringbean

<v Speaker 1>had a secret, and he had done a really poor

<v Speaker 1>job of keeping it. And that secret would ultimately be

<v Speaker 1>the reason that Stringbean and Estelle were murdered. The End

<v Speaker 1>Now remember, Stringbean lived through the Depression, and he watched

<v Speaker 1>banks fail and take people's life savings right down with them.

<v Speaker 1>So he decided as a young man that for the

<v Speaker 1>rest of his life, he would never trust a bank again.

<v Speaker 1>He kept his money in cash on his body and

<v Speaker 1>hidden in his house. He and Estelle lived like the

<v Speaker 1>money didn't even exist. They only had two real indulgences

<v Speaker 1>in their life. A colored television was one, and every year,

<v Speaker 1>without fail, String Bean would head into Nashville and buy

<v Speaker 1>Estelle a brand new Cadillac, which of course he paid

<v Speaker 1>for in cash. Estelle kept money tucked in her bra.

<v Speaker 1>String Bean carried a big wad in a special pocket

<v Speaker 1>sewn inside his overalls. But on the surface, they looked

<v Speaker 1>like the poorest famous people in Tennessee. But you can't

<v Speaker 1>keep a secret like that in a small town. Around Nashville,

<v Speaker 1>the gossip grew into a legend. Stringbean doesn't use banks.

<v Speaker 1>Stringbean's got a fortune hidden out of that cabin. He

<v Speaker 1>wasn't truly rich, not by major star money, but the

<v Speaker 1>story got bigger every time it was told. Stories like

<v Speaker 1>that tend to travel to the wrong ears, like those

<v Speaker 1>of two cousins who lived in the area. John A.

<v Speaker 1>Brown and his cousin Marvin Douglas Brown, known around town

<v Speaker 1>as Doug, were both 23 years old, and they had

<v Speaker 1>heard the legend of Stringbean's fortune most of their lives.

<v Speaker 1>There was a mountain of cash somewhere in that cabin,

<v Speaker 1>and the temptation to take it was just too much

<v Speaker 1>for either of them. Now, the plan was simple, and

<v Speaker 1>it was patient. Rob the cabin while Stringbean was safely

<v Speaker 1>downtown at the Ryman Auditorium performing at the Opry. They

<v Speaker 1>figured since the cabin was so small, how long could

<v Speaker 1>it possibly take to get inside, ransack the place, find

<v Speaker 1>the money, load it up, and be gone before anybody

<v Speaker 1>even knew something happened. And knowing that Stringbean and Estelle

<v Speaker 1>were going to be at the Opry for the evening,

<v Speaker 1>they felt there was a window there. A window of

<v Speaker 1>opportunity to get rich from the spoils of another man's work.

<v Speaker 1>And on Saturday, November 10th, 1973... they drove out to

<v Speaker 1>the cabin and forced their way in. Where the hell

<v Speaker 1>is it? Much to their disappointment, the legendary pile of

<v Speaker 1>cash was nowhere to be found. We gotta find this

<v Speaker 1>money and get out of here, man. Shut up and

<v Speaker 1>keep looking. They tore through that cabin from tip to

<v Speaker 1>stern and found basically nothing. How could it not be here?

<v Speaker 1>No cash at all. No, man. I said look behind

<v Speaker 1>the bookshelf. Idiot. Oh yeah, I'm the idiot. This was

<v Speaker 1>a great idea, cuz. Just a few items, like a

<v Speaker 1>couple of pistols that maybe they could sell at a

<v Speaker 1>pawn shop or in some back alley somewhere. It has

<v Speaker 1>to be here! Where else would he put it? But

<v Speaker 1>the money? Well, it was almost like it didn't even exist.

<v Speaker 1>It's not here, John. But the brown boys had heard

<v Speaker 1>that rumor that turned into a legend for so long,

<v Speaker 1>they just knew in their hearts that money was somewhere

<v Speaker 1>in that cabin. But they needed a better way to

<v Speaker 1>find it. Plan A wasn't getting the job done. And

<v Speaker 1>so they came up with Plan B. What better way

<v Speaker 1>to find this treasure than to have the very man

<v Speaker 1>who hid it lead you to it at gunpoint? Meanwhile,

<v Speaker 1>back at the Ryman, Stringbean finished his set. He packed

<v Speaker 1>his banjo in his case, folded his costume into its trunk,

<v Speaker 1>said his goodnights to the other Opry stars, and walked

<v Speaker 1>out to the car where Estelle was waiting. She pointed

<v Speaker 1>the Cadillac north, and they headed toward home. It was

<v Speaker 1>late when they pulled up the drive and Stringbean knew

<v Speaker 1>immediately that something was wrong. It could have been a

<v Speaker 1>light on that shouldn't have been, or maybe he saw

<v Speaker 1>that the front door had been forced open. We'll never

<v Speaker 1>know for sure, but whatever he noticed was enough for

<v Speaker 1>him to take out the pistol that he always carried

<v Speaker 1>and tell Estelle to wait in the car. Stringbean went

<v Speaker 1>in first, the way a man does when he means

<v Speaker 1>to stand between trouble and the woman he loves. What

<v Speaker 1>happened next only took a few seconds. The cabin was

<v Speaker 1>pitch black inside, but Stringbean could make out the silhouettes

<v Speaker 1>of the cousins, and he raised his pistol and he

<v Speaker 1>opened fire on Doug Brown. Unfortunately, because he was literally

<v Speaker 1>shooting in the dark, he missed, and John Brown, well,

<v Speaker 1>he had a much better firing position because Stringbean was

<v Speaker 1>standing in the doorway of the cabin silhouetted by the

<v Speaker 1>lights of the Cadillac outside. And John's hand was a

<v Speaker 1>pistol that he had just stolen from Stringbean's dresser earlier

<v Speaker 1>in the evening. And he used that pistol to shoot Stringbean,

<v Speaker 1>killing him instantly. Outside the cabin, Estelle had quietly gotten

<v Speaker 1>out of the car and was walking toward the cabin

<v Speaker 1>at what she thought was a safe distance behind Stringbean

<v Speaker 1>when the gunfire erupted. She screamed and she turned to run.

<v Speaker 1>down the driveway into the dark, down toward the road,

<v Speaker 1>calling for help that was miles away in every direction.

<v Speaker 1>But John Brown had no intention of leaving a witness alive.

<v Speaker 1>He runs her down and shoots her in the back

<v Speaker 1>of the head. The silence of that midnight had been

<v Speaker 1>shattered by two minutes of pure terror. And when that

<v Speaker 1>silence returned... two of the gentlest people in country music

<v Speaker 1>were gone. When John and Doug realized that their perfect

<v Speaker 1>plan for a simple robbery had just become a double homicide,

<v Speaker 1>they fled into the night. And this is what they

<v Speaker 1>carried out of that cabin. In exchange for two human lives,

<v Speaker 1>A couple of guns, a chainsaw, Estelle's car, and $ 250

<v Speaker 1>in cash they found in one of the pockets of

<v Speaker 1>Stringbean's overalls. $ 250. That's it. They never found the wad

<v Speaker 1>sewn into the special pocket of those overalls. They never

<v Speaker 1>found the bills in Estelle's bra. And the legendary hidden fortune?

<v Speaker 1>The whole reason they came? Never found it at all.

<v Speaker 1>It stayed exactly where Stringbean had hidden it. and it

<v Speaker 1>wouldn't be discovered for more than 20 years. The bodies

<v Speaker 1>of David and Estelle lay there through that long, cold

<v Speaker 1>Tennessee night, and the next morning, a car came up

<v Speaker 1>the road. Behind the wheel was Stringbean's neighbor, his closest friend,

<v Speaker 1>his fellow Opry star and Hee Haw legend, Louis Marshall Jones,

<v Speaker 1>Grandpa Jones. He had come to take Stringbean on a

<v Speaker 1>hunting trip, but instead of seeing his tall, awkward friend

<v Speaker 1>leaving the cabin with his gun... He saw Estelle's body

<v Speaker 1>by the end of the driveway, and then he found

<v Speaker 1>his friend dead on the floor of the cabin. Now,

<v Speaker 1>the Nashville that we all know and love today is

<v Speaker 1>not the same as the Nashville of 1973. That died

<v Speaker 1>right alongside String Bean and Estelle out on Baker Road

<v Speaker 1>that night. This was a town built on a myth

<v Speaker 1>about itself. The small town, good neighbor, don't lock your

<v Speaker 1>doors south. The country stars didn't just sing about those values.

<v Speaker 1>They lived them out in the open, trusting everybody. And

<v Speaker 1>now two of the most beloved figures in that whole

<v Speaker 1>world had been executed in their own yard for a

<v Speaker 1>rumor about hidden cash. The fear that swept through Music

<v Speaker 1>City after this is hard to overstate. Old timers compared

<v Speaker 1>it to Hollywood after the Manson murders. That same feeling

<v Speaker 1>that if it can happen to them, it can happen

<v Speaker 1>to any of us. Stars who'd never given it a

<v Speaker 1>thought went out and bought guns, guard dogs, alarms, and

<v Speaker 1>locks put on doors on houses that had never been

<v Speaker 1>locked before. Nashville's innocence was gone, and it never came back.

<v Speaker 1>Investigators put up a reward of $ 25, 000, which was real

<v Speaker 1>money in 1973, for information leading to the capture of

<v Speaker 1>the killers. And in the end, the break didn't come

<v Speaker 1>from a fingerprint or a footprint or any of the

<v Speaker 1>evidence that was at the scene. It came because somebody talked.

<v Speaker 1>And that somebody was Ronnie Van Dyke. Now, Van Dyke

<v Speaker 1>was already in prison at the time of the murders,

<v Speaker 1>but he and his girlfriend happened to be friends of

<v Speaker 1>the Brown boys. And John Brown apparently had an inflated

<v Speaker 1>sense of how deep that friendship actually ran. He decided

<v Speaker 1>that the best course of action for both himself and

<v Speaker 1>his cousin Doug would be if they had an ironclad alibi.

<v Speaker 1>So he wrote a letter to Van Dyke's girlfriend, telling

<v Speaker 1>her the whole story, and asked her to vouch for

<v Speaker 1>him and Doug if anyone ever asked. She immediately took

<v Speaker 1>that letter straight to the prison and handed it to

<v Speaker 1>Ronnie Van Dyke. who, after reading it, asked for the

<v Speaker 1>warden and got put in touch with the Metro Nashville

<v Speaker 1>Police Department. And in the time-honored tradition of Music City,

<v Speaker 1>Ronnie Van Dyke sang like a canary. The information he

<v Speaker 1>provided directly connected the Brown cousins to the murders and

<v Speaker 1>allowed detectives to locate string beans stolen property, including the

<v Speaker 1>guns and the chainsaws. And in exchange for that information,

<v Speaker 1>Van Dyke successfully negotiated a reduced prison sentence. and collected

<v Speaker 1>a portion of the $ 25, 000 bounty that had been raised

<v Speaker 1>by the Nashville community and the Grand Ole Opry.

<v Speaker 2>Nashville police are reporting today that two arrests have been

<v Speaker 2>made in the double murders of David and Estelle Aikman.

<v Speaker 2>The couple were shot in their home November 10th in

<v Speaker 2>what appears to be a robbery gone bad after David Aikman,

<v Speaker 2>known professionally as Stringbean, performed at the Grand Ole Opry.

<v Speaker 2>John Brown and his cousin Doug Brown were both taken

<v Speaker 2>into custody earlier today.

<v Speaker 1>John and Doug Brown, 23 years old, young enough to

<v Speaker 1>have literally grown up listening to the man they gunned

<v Speaker 1>down in his own home for a fortune they never

<v Speaker 1>saw a penny of. John and Doug Brown were convicted,

<v Speaker 1>both of them, and sent away for what was meant

<v Speaker 1>to be the rest of their lives. John Brown alone

<v Speaker 1>drew a sentence of 198 years. Doug Brown died behind

<v Speaker 1>bars in 2003. But there is one last turn to

<v Speaker 1>this story. Because remember, the Browns came to the cabin

<v Speaker 1>for a hidden fortune, but they left without it. For

<v Speaker 1>23 years, that money sat right where Stringbean had put it.

<v Speaker 1>And then, in 1996, long after both the killers had

<v Speaker 1>been locked away, the money was finally found inside the cabin,

<v Speaker 1>tucked in the walls. And it was ruined. Rotted. shooed

<v Speaker 1>up by mice into worthless scraps. Let that marinate for

<v Speaker 1>a minute. Two people were murdered over that money. The

<v Speaker 1>men who did the killing never touched a dollar of it.

<v Speaker 1>And it's been an entire generation just rotting away inside

<v Speaker 1>the walls of the very house where the murders took

<v Speaker 1>place because the location of the money died with string

<v Speaker 1>bean and the cabin wasn't talking. Now as for John Brown,

<v Speaker 1>the surviving cousin, he stayed in prison for four decades.

<v Speaker 1>And in October of 2014, at the age of 64,

<v Speaker 1>after the parole board had denied it six times, he

<v Speaker 1>was finally granted parole. String beans friends from the Opry

<v Speaker 1>fought it tooth and nail. Singer Jan Howard spoke at

<v Speaker 1>his final parole hearing. She said, I don't want to

<v Speaker 1>see him have another breath of free air. She argued

<v Speaker 1>that the cold-blooded ambush was entirely premeditated, not just a

<v Speaker 1>burglary gone bad. Bill Anderson himself launched a massive email

<v Speaker 1>and letter-writing campaign to mobilize country music fans and the

<v Speaker 1>Nashville community to flood the parole board with objections. Bluegrass

<v Speaker 1>legend Mike Wiseman spoke for the entire community when he

<v Speaker 1>said the Lord might forgive Brown, but the parole board

<v Speaker 1>didn't have the spiritual authority to forgive a double murderer

<v Speaker 1>on behalf of society. But the parole board would not

<v Speaker 1>be moved, and they allowed John to go free. And

<v Speaker 1>before they let him go, John Brown spoke to that

<v Speaker 1>parole board, and these were the words that he said. Listen,

<v Speaker 1>I can't undo anything, and I can't change my past,

<v Speaker 1>but I have committed the last 40 years to changing

<v Speaker 1>my life. There's a small, strange footnote to this story.

<v Speaker 1>After Stringbean was murdered, hee-haw, still had all of his

<v Speaker 1>segments in the can, already taped, already funny, ready for air.

<v Speaker 1>So for months after he was already gone, David Eggman

<v Speaker 1>kept showing up in living rooms all across America, picking

<v Speaker 1>his banjo, telling his corny jokes, right through the spring

<v Speaker 1>of 1974, a dead man still making the whole country laugh.

<v Speaker 1>He probably would have liked that because it's the only

<v Speaker 1>part of this story that's not cruel. David Stringbean Aikman

<v Speaker 1>survived the depression by trusting nothing but the cash in

<v Speaker 1>his pocket and the boards of his own house. Hide it,

<v Speaker 1>keep it close, trust no bank, trust no stranger. That

<v Speaker 1>instinct worked for him for his whole life until it

<v Speaker 1>was the very thing that got him and Estelle killed.

<v Speaker 1>Music City liked to believe that it was a big

<v Speaker 1>little town where everybody could be trusted. But it stopped

<v Speaker 1>believing that on a cold Sunday morning out on Baker Road.

<v Speaker 1>And it never fully believed it again. Nashville is a

<v Speaker 1>city built on dreams. But sometimes those dreams cast shadows.

<v Speaker 1>I'm Jerry Broadway. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next

<v Speaker 1>time on Nashvilleans.