The Mysterious Death Of Henry Marshall And Its Possible Connection To LBJ

     In 1960 in Texas the Agricultural Adjustment Administration assigned longtime employee Henry Marshall the task of investigating businessman Billie Sol Estes.  Marshall quickly discovered that in a two year time period Estes had purchased 3200 acres of cotton allotments from 116 different farmers.  In a January 1961 meeting with Estes' attorney, John Dennison, Marshall made it clear he thought Estes was running a scheme with the cotton allotments and he intended to prove it.  A week after this meeting, Estes' business associate, A.B. Foster, contacted Cliford Carter, aide to Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, making Carter aware of the problems Marshall was causing for Estes and asked if there was anything that could be done about it.  Marshall was then reportedly offered a promotion that would have taken him away from the Estes case.  Marshall considered the promotion to be a bribe and he declined to take it and instead continued investigating Billie Sol Estes.

     Then, on June 3, 1961, Henry Marshall was found shot to death next to his pickup truck on his ranch in Robertson County Texas.  Marshall had been shot five times with his own rifle, he had a cut on his forehead, and carbon monoxide in his system.  Marshall's death was ruled a suicide.  The Marshall family never agreed with this ruling, asking how in the world anyone could shoot themselves five times with a bolt action rifle.

     Texas Ranger, Clint Peoples, also found Marshall's death suspicious and thought Marshall had been murdered.  Peoples interviewed a local gas station attendant who told him a stranger had stopped and asked directions to Marshall's ranch on the day of the shooting.  Peoples had the attendant work with a sketch artist who produced a sketch closely resembling Mac Wallace, the convicted murderer or a man named John Kinser who had dated Lyndon Johnson's sister.  Despite Peoples investigation the Henry Marshall case didn't go anywhere.

     In the spring of 1962 Billie Sol Estes was arrested by the FBI.  On April 4, 1962 Estes' accountant, George Krutilek, was found dead under suspicious circumstances.  Despite there being bruises on his head his death was also ruled a suicide.  Two other Estes' associates died under mysterious circumstances as well.  Estes went on to serve several years in prison.  He agreed to speak to Peoples from prison and told him he would tell the truth about Henry Marshall's death after he was released from prison.

     Billie Sol Estes was released from prison in December 1983 and three months later he appeared before a grand jury where he gave explosive testimony about the death of Henry Marshall in 1961.  Estes claimed that Lyndon Johnson had ordered the death of Henry Marshall to keep Marshall from discovering Johnson's role in the cotton allotment scheme.  Estes claimed that Mac Wallace was the hitman who killed Marshall for Johnson and that Clifton Carter complained that Wallace had "botched it up".  

     The grand jury did not believe Estes' testimony.  However, the judge in the case did order Henry Marshall's death ruling be changed from suicide to death by gunshot.  What do you think?  Was Henry Marshall murdered and did Lyndon Johnson have any involvement in the crime?  Was Mac Wallace LBJ's personal hitman?  Perhaps that deserves more investigation.