On a frigid January night with freshly fallen snow, the enterprising community of Elizabethtown was rocked with news that one of their own, Peggy Rhodes, had been killed by a bomb blast as she pulled open a barn door at her 800+ acre farm at the edge of town.
An hour south lies Bowling Green on I-65, described in Southern Living Magazine as a town “where the real South begins.”
As wonderful as the city was, it was only one generation removed from earning the nickname “Little Chicago,” a regional hotbed for car thefts, bootleggers, gambling, prostitution, and worse – bombings and horrific murders.
“Murder on Youngers Creek Road,” by Bowling Green author Gary P. West, is a true story of a murder-for-hire gone wrong that involved a well-known automobile dealer in Elizabethtown, two hit men hired to kill him by the son of a prominent Bowling Green family, and a pair of high-profile business partners.
West spent two-and-a-half years researching and writing the book, as well as digging out nearly one thousand pages of trial testimony in a pair of murder trials.
“I interviewed 127 people for this book that included a visit to the Kentucky State Reformatory in LaGrange to talk with one of the bomb makers that killed Peggy Rhodes,” West said.
There have been several newspaper articles over the years talking about the days of illicit activities in Bowling Green, but this is the first book that details how the town received its “Little Chicago” moniker.
“I went to college here in the early ‘60s and moved back to Bowling Green in 1971,” West said. “I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. As much corruption was going on back in the day, it was not something a college student was concerned about.”
It was years later that he made the connection of the horrible murder-for-hire in Elizabethtown where he grew up, and Bowling Green where he first published an advertising shopper before becoming the first full-time Hilltopper Athletic Foundation director and then the Executive Director of the Bowling Green Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“It was one of the most talked-about murders in Kentucky at the time,” said West. “Today people still talk about it in E’town. The newspaper coverage in Bowling Green, Elizabethtown, Russellville and Louisville was all everyone talked about.”
“Murder on Youngers Creek Road” breaks down the complexity of one of the murders of the decade and how it brought together two Kentucky towns in an unflattering way. It is a “tale of two cities” mired in the muck of greed, violence and murder, and of local efforts to bring the guilty parties to justice. In the end, both the innocent and guilty would lose their lives.
“This was an emotional book to write because of the association I had with the family of the victim,” the author said. “Many talked freely, some reluctantly, while others not at all.”
For West, this is his fifteenth published book, all by Acclaim Press in Morley, Missouri.
“Murder on Youngers Creek Road” can be purchased from Gary P. West by emailing him at west1488@twc.com or calling 270-846-0859 for a personalized, autographed copy. Arrangements will be made for delivery.
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