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TV is Murder
"Murder in Small Town X" starts Tuesday nights at 9 on Fox-TV. You can visit one of the stars, Allen Frye, over at the Vol Market #3 on Western Avenue, where he works.
Frye, a blond, spiky-haired 30-year-old who is one of 10 "investigators" sent into the fictional town of Sunrise to solve a multiple murder, isn't allowed to say a lot about the show, which is just two episodes old and is set in a small town in Maine. He can talk about how being from Knoxville helped him get into the thing, however.
"I was in Florida last September with Johnny Knoxville, and we went to a club called The Poor House, where Henry Naumann, who graduated from Powell High here, is a bartender. We met a girl —Carmen Cuba—who was working on a Brad Renfro movie."
Cuba called him after he got home, and asked if he'd be interested in appearing on a reality-based TV show. He put some tapes together, sent them off to Fox, and was summoned to L.A., where he went to the Humphrey Bogart suite in the Roosevelt Hotel and was interviewed by Fox execs. Next thing he knew, he got a call that he'd be leaving in April, for an unknown destination. He didn't know until he got to the airport that he was heading to the exotic environs of Portland, Maine.
Murder is Murder
"We're in the business of catching bad guys," said Chief Deputy Dwight Van de Vate when questioned about renewed reports of ill-will between sheriff's deputies and the Knoxville Police Department.
The latest point of friction is KCSD's apparent solving of the bloody murder of long-time Ramsey's Cafeteria employee Bill Christian—which occurred smack dab in the middle of the city. Mark Ray Collins has been charged with first degree murder. His wife, Amanda Lee Collins was held in protective custody prior to her husband's arrest. A KCSD dive team retrieved a cache of evidence in the case from the Tennessee River along Neyland Drive while Deputy Paul Story carried out his orders to secure the perimeter of the crime scene. He exchanged words with KPD detective Larry Vineyard, who became frustrated and allegedly offered a commentary on Story's mother when Story wouldn't let him near the dive team operation. Collins had a court date Tuesday. His hearing was postponed, but tensions were high between city and county officers present.
Politics is Murder
Sheriffian tensions continued last weekend at the Karns Fair, a traditional setting for hardball county politics. Detective Vineyard was there with his young daughter, whom Van de Vate presented with a Sheriff Tim Hutchison frisbee as the announced sheriff's candidate, J.J. Jones, yelled, "This crime scene's off limits to you."
Jones, who quit the sheriff's department in a huff, lambasting the sheriff, is now an investigator in the city police major crimes unit. He had the booth next to Cathy Quist, the court clerk's. He was giving out blow-pops and had his turn in the barrel when a Hutchison supporter posted a sign saying, "Candy promotes tooth decay."
August 2, 2001 * Vol. 11, No. 31
© 2001 Metro Pulse
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