One more witness to Hank's last ride
by Jack Neely
The 50th anniversary of Hank Williams' death got even more attention than I expected. It even got a sizable feature in the January Smithsonian, which referenced Knoxville and the mysteries of his death, as well as a story on NPR.
And it got written up in several newspaper stories, some of which quoted a witness that had eluded me. It was my luck that Charles Carr, the 17-year-old chauffeur of Hank's last tour, who was said to be shy about talking about the experience—and who didn't return my request for an interview in early December—began talking to several papers and at least one TV station shortly after our story ran. For the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he even struck a jaunty pose behind the wheel of the fateful Cadillac, which is on display in the Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery. In the interviews I read, Carr seems to have just repeated the terse and imprecise statements he had made to biographers without adding much more.
Carr's story is that Hank was conscious when he was wheeled out to his car in a wheelchair as they left the Andrew Johnson Hotel. Over the years, I've heard several second-hand statements from several people, old and young, who claimed to know one or another of the porters. All these old rumors jibe with the police report that Hank Williams was unconscious when he left the hotel. I can't refute Carr's memory, because I've never located any of those witnesses for an interview.
One reader recalls seeing a published interview with one of the porters, who believed that the man they were carrying out was dead. Asked why he didn't report the strange circumstance to the authorities, the old bellhop replied, "that white man told me to put that other white man in the car." Blacks who made unusual allegations about whites in the 1950s weren't likely to find it a satisfying experience. The reader didn't save the article, but said it ran in a Charleston, W. Va., newspaper about 20 years ago.
The dead-in-Knoxville theory was also prevalent among local doctors who had heard details about the case. The dose of morphine Hank received would likely have sedated him for hours, making the notion that he might have been strolling around in Bristol questionable, even if he weren't about to die. And his body, which upon its discovery in Oak Hill, was in a state of rigor mortis, suggests to medical professionals that he had been dead for six hours or more, perhaps even before midnight, when he was in the Knoxville area.
By the way, I have come to understand from some of his colleagues that the late Dr. Paul Cardwell, who administered the intravenous morphine, was not necessarily Knoxville's Dr. Kildare. He was fond of advising fellow doctors to tend to patients at the Andrew Johnson—because, he boasted, "they pay cash." Cardwell also used to tell his colleagues that Carr seemed afraid of Hank, and seemed anxious to get this strange trip over with as quickly as possible.
Most of what I've heard about Hank in Knoxville is secondhand. I did hear from one new first-person witness, though, and he was a very interesting one: That New Year's Eve, Ken Jarnigan worked at Troutman's 24-Hour Esso station on Magnolia Avenue at Winona. He said he was used to seeing celebrities in his station, especially pro wrestlers on their way to Chilhowee Park. He says even singer Ferlin Husky stopped in once.
He says that sometime before 11 p.m. that night, a Cadillac pulled in. As Jarnigan pumped the gas, the man in the back seat concerned him. "He was dressed up in dress clothes, white shirt, no tie. He was foaming at the mouth. I told that young man, 'he looks like he's dead.'"
"The guy said, 'Don't worry about him. He's drunk and passed out." About an hour later, Carr would have a very similar conversation with a state trooper near Blaine.
Jarnigan now lives in Halls. He said he's never studied the details of Hank Williams' death, but some details of his story check out: Carr would have driven down Magnolia just before 11 p.m., to get to highway 11-W; Troutman's was a late-night place on the right, and maybe the most likely place to stop.
Jarnigan says the young driver said he was in a big hurry and wanted to get to Wytheville, Va., before he stopped. The western Virginia town is probably where Carr would have left Highway 11-W to turn north toward the scheduled show in Canton. In his recent interviews, Carr mentions stopping in either Bristol or Bluefield, but not Wytheville, which is between the two.
That stop, wherever it was, is where Carr says Hank was up and walking around. Doctors and biographers have considered that unlikely; I don't know whether any of them can say it's impossible.
Has the dead-in-Knoxville story survived for a half century, in an investigator's report, in the last major biography, and in dozens of spectral rumors and secondhand accounts, just because it makes a better story? Or is Carr's story that Hank was walking and talking in Bristol or Bluefield a willful belief of a scared teenager who didn't want to believe that he drove 250 miles with a dead man in the back seat?
One thing in favor of Carr's version was that Hank Williams, who was tubercularly thin, in poor health, and sedated on morphine, could probably pass for dead more easily than most of us.
January 9, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 2
© 2003 Metro Pulse
| 
