Bridgett Allen, Sherry Wilson and “Anne”:1990, Kentucky

    

“Anne”

   He had forgotten to tie her up this time. “Anne” had been repeatedly raped since he and the other man had abducted her. He would tie her tightly to the tree after.  But that morning, after raping her, he fallen asleep. His gun was right there. She could run away but what if he woke up and caught up to her? What if the other man came back and the two of them tracked her down? They had already killed two of her friends. She knew that. No. She couldn’t risk running with them around. She quietly and slowly got up and reached for the sawed off shotgun. 

  This sounds like a work of fiction but it was the reality of one fifteen year old girl in Kentucky in April of 1990. She did manage to reach the gun and eliminate one of the men, Phillip E. Clopton, who had abducted and repeatedly assaulted her for three weeks in a remote wooded area. 

  She then hiked out of the woods and reached a road around 12:30 p.m. She did not know where she was or which direction to go. She guessed. She followed the road and reached a small town with some shops. She walked into a store there, Howardstown Liquors, and asked the stunned store clerk to please call the police. 

   The date was Thursday April 26th, 1990. The brave young girl is not named in newspaper reports to protect her as she recovered from such a traumatic incident. 

   Police responded quickly. The teen girl, who we will call “Anne”, was transported and received medical care at Hardin Memorial Hospital at Elizabethtown, Kentucky. She later described the location of the campsite. Police were able to find the campsite and Phillip E. Clopton’s body.  A guard dog was also lurking around the campsite which was a half mile in the woods off a gravel road on land once owned by Clopton’s grandparents. The guard dog threatened the police and EMT’s who had come along to render aid in case Clopton had somehow survived the gunshot wound. Police killed the dog in order to access Clopton in the tent. 

    Anne was reunited with her family who were grateful and relieved that she was alive. She told investigators all she knew and had experienced. A diary, kept by Clopton at the campsite and recovered by police, described the two men’s activities in the weeks and months prior. 

  In late January 1990 two fourteen year old girls, Bridgett Allen and Sherry Wilson, had come to Clopton’s apartment needing a place to stay according to the diary. They thought of Clopton like an uncle after meeting him in a grocery store in Louisville in 1987. Clopton wrote that the two teens had run away from home. He and James Ray Cable then raped, sodomized, killed and dismembered the two girls. Clopton and Cable stored their body parts in foot lockers and then drove around scattering their remains over three rural counties. 

   On March 2nd, 1990, a man hauling gravel out of Pottinger’s Creek found a decaying human arm near the towns of New Haven and Gethsemane in Nelson County, Kentucky. A K9 team consisting of Trooper Davidson and Bingo searched that area for additional remains. They were unable to locate any.

   After Anne emerged from the woods in late April; Kentucky State Troopers searched for additional remains.  K9 Bingo and his handler, Trooper Davidson again searched extensively but very little was found. January through May would be lean times for local carnivorous wildlife. Coyotes, foxes, weasels, and other wildlife probably carried away anything and everything. With bones being then scattered across a wide area, the searches were unsuccessful. 

   Later the arm would be matched through fingerprints taken from each of the girl’s bedrooms in order to determine whether the arm belonged to Bridgett Allen or to Sherry Wilson. What a terrible thing. Two families have both lost daughters. Their grief must have been so raw as they waited to find out that the limb was actually Bridgett’s. 

   The surviving rapist, James Ray Cable, claimed that he had nothing to do with this and that he was being framed. 

   Both Phillip E. Clopton and James Ray Cable had extensive criminal backgrounds. 

   Phillip Eans Clopton was 39 when he was killed by the young woman he had abducted and repeatedly assaulted. He was born in 1951 to Alberta Eans Clopton and Creed Clopton. He spent time in the military after high school and served in Vietnam. He was discharged at the Army’s lowest rank. He was convicted in 1979 of abducting, raping and sodomizing two women in two different incidents. One of the women had been abducted and kept for three days in a remote cabin. Two accomplices were also there and both also assaulted the woman. After three days, they dropped her off at a bus station in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. She went straight to the police.

   In those same months Clopton continued to commit more heinous acts. Phillip Eans Clopton was still in the military in 1979 and stationed at Fort Campbell. He was a staff sergeant at the time and abducted a 19 year old private at gunpoint. He took her to his trailer and raped her as well. He was arrested and convicted of both abductions and assaults. He lost his staff sergeant rank due to his criminal convictions. 

   You would think that two violent abductions and rapes would have meant a long sentence in prison. However, he was sentenced to 15 and 12 years for each of the offenses. He was paroled, however, in 1983. 

   James Ray Cable, 41, also had an extensive criminal history. He was born in 1949 in LaGrange County, Indiana. That’s north of Fort Wayne in Indiana’s Northeast corner. He was convicted in 1971 of raping a a seven year old girl in Owensboro, Kentucky. He pled guilty in that trial. He spoke to court appointed psychiatrists and admitted to raping six women from 1969 through 1971. He was sentenced to life in prison. While in prison at Eddyville, Kentucky he used a horseshoe stake to strike and kill a fellow inmate. He was given an additional 10 years for that murder which was prosecuted as a manslaughter charge. Life plus 10 years…so he should have never gotten out. Did he escape? No. Kentucky officials thought he was doing fine and paroled him in 1981. He committed another violent rape and was back in prison in 1983. Three strikes and you’re out? No. He was again paroled in 1986. So he was free then to rape and kill alongside Phillip E. Clopton in 1990. 

  James Ray Cable and his girlfriend claimed he was innocent. He worked as a pizza delivery driver in Louisville’s historic district. His girlfriend said he had been with her around the clock and couldn’t possibly have done any of these recent rapes and murders with Clopton.

   “Anne’s” testimony disputed that claim. James Ray Cable was convicted and sentenced to life plus 300 years without the possibility of parole for the abductions, rapes and murders that he committed with Phillip Eans Clopton. 

   The two murdered fourteen year old girls, Bridgett Allen and Sherry Wilson, and “Anne” saw some Justice done, at least. It’s a tragedy that the earlier rapes and abductions were not seen as serious crimes. Both men received fairly long sentences earlier but were paroled even though most people with common sense could see the danger. That left the public in grave danger. But, remember, only men made those laws. Most of them had no idea what a rape is like. It wasn’t something they were worried about being a victim of. It might have entered their minds that they might be accused of rape one day. Did they set sentencing guidelines with their own potential freedom in mind? Maybe. 

   Bridgett Allen was born in 1976. She and her mother had always been very close. Lately though, Bridgett had been spending more time away with her friends. She was a pretty typical teen. She experimented with drugs and alcohol. She skipped school. But, she never did anything too outrageous. Her mother could not imagine why she would run away.  I’m not sure she did. We only have Clopton’s word for that. 

   Sherry Wilson was also born in 1976. Her father was a drill sergeant at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The family had a strict but loving conservative atmosphere. Sherry’s father was surprised that Sherry and Bridgett supposedly ran away. He said that he and Sherry had their issues but he didn’t think the girls would run away. 

   It appears that they might not have run away but they did know Clopton. They were at his apartment on January 20th, 1990 according to Bridgett Allen’s diary. It seems they were befriended, lured and groomed by Clopton for years. They had visited him before and he had provided them with drugs and alcohol in the past. Police believe the two girls were killed probably the next day on January 21st.

   James Ray Cable died in prison in 2013. At the time of his death, he was awaiting trial for the 1986 murder of Sandra Kellums in Owensboro. James Ray Cable was also being investigated for another 1989 Owensboro murder. Had police been on to him in Owensboro in 1989? Was that why he moved to Louisville? I wonder what else he did? How many other victims are out there? 

  People were outraged at the lenient sentences and paroles that let these two dangerous men out over and over. Things began to change in Kentucky after this. People began debating the sentences and the parole guidelines for sex offenders. This was years before the sex offender registry came about. Cases like this one and the public outrage that these later abductions, assaults and murders were entirely preventable brought about that change. Rape began to be viewed as a violent crime that deserved serious sentencing. 

   I want to take a moment to send out a wish for peace, healing and success for Anne. She was fifteen when she was abducted. She suffered severe trauma. Her only way out was to kill her kidnapper. She bravely did that. I hope she’s doing well today. She likely saved not just her own life but the lives of many other girls. Kentucky should have given her a medal. 

   I also want to take a moment to send a wish for peace and healing to all the victims. And I want to honor the memories of Bridgett and Sherry. They should still be here. 

   Rest in peace Bridgett Allen and Sherry Wilson