During every spare moment, he pored over material the nuns supplied him. At last, to the skepticism of those who knew him best, he requested formal instruction in Catholicism.
No man could have been better suited to the priestly task he was about to undertake than Father George Donnelly. Tall, eloquent, with an air of no-nonsense authority, Father Donnelly was nonetheless a patient and understanding tutor. From the outset, Tom Penney recognized that he could place full trust in the fair-complexioned curate with the silky white hair. In January 1942 the priest and the convict began to spend long hours together in Penney’s cell. Some prominent members of the Church hierarchy frowned on Father Donnelly’s dedication of so much time to the convicted killer and told him so. Unintimidated, the priest persevered. Over the course of the next twelve months, first in Lexington and continuing in Eddyville, he methodically guided Tom Penney to what Catholic historians would later chronicle as one of the most dramatic acts of repentance and reversals of character in modern Church history.
And it was in the bloom of his new-found faith that Penney dropped the bombshell that turned the Miley case topsy-turvy. Two weeks before the scheduled executions, Penney requested a private meeting with Warden Buchanan. That afternoon in the warden’s office, Penney said, “I lied about Bob. He wasn’t in on the murders. I stole his car like he said. He messed me up over a liquor deal and I wanted to get even. I’m sorry and want to make amends.”
His testimony at the trial had otherwise been true, Penney claimed, except for the name of his accomplice.
“Who was the accomplice?” Buchanan asked.
“Buford Stewart,” Penney replied. “We were pals. We pulled off a couple of hijackings together before the Miley caper.”
A small-time Louisville bartender, Buford Stewart had a police record for a series of minor offenses.
The warden dismissed Penney and had Raymond Baxter brought to his office. “Willie,” the warden said, “Tom says he lied about Bob Anderson. He says he wasn’t your accomplice in the murders.”
“Who’d he say was?” Baxter asked.
“You tell me,” Buchanan countered.
The little man gave a wry grin. “Did he say . . . Buford Stewart?”
Warden Buchanan called Anderson’s attorneys at once. Next morning at the prison, in the attorneys’ presence, Penney and Baxter repeated their new version of the crime. That afternoon, Penney penned a deposition by hand that matched his court testimony in nearly every detail except one—Buford Stewart’s name replaced Bob Anderson’s.
Once again the Miley case became the hottest crime story in Kentucky and beyond. Editorial sentiments ranged from “I told you so” to disdain of the new story, and with reason. Buford Stewart could not defend himself. On February 2, 1942, four months after the Miley murders, the thirty-four-year-old bartender had been killed in a street brawl in Louisville.
Anderson petitioned for a stay of execution. The state’s attorney advised caution. Naming a dead man as an alibi was a timeworn trick.
But the alibi had not come from Bob Anderson, the beneficiary. It had been volunteered by Tom Penney, who had nothing to gain other than, as he claimed, “a clear conscience.” Impressed with Penney’s sincerity, the Court of Appeals granted Anderson a stay, with the stipulation that he file at once for a new trial.
The ruling put the state in a quandary. If Penney and Baxter were executed as scheduled, the state would lose its only witnesses—albeit recanting witnesses now—against Anderson. With no alternative, the state petitioned for and won a stay of execution for Penney and Baxter.
It was a brand new ball game.
Then, as abruptly as he had rekindled the issue, the increasingly mercurial Penney dropped another bombshell. Two weeks after exonerating Anderson, Penney requested a news conference. To reporters assembled before his death-house cell he said, “I have made my peace with God. My conscience is clear.”
Then, in a ringing declaration, he announced: “From this moment on I will say no more about the Miley case, ever.”
Anderson and his attorneys were stunned. Surely Penney’s new stance didn’t mean that he would refuse to testify at Anderson’s upcoming hearing for a new trial?
Indeed, it did, Penny proclaimed.
Nonetheless, Anderson’s petition had been granted and the hearing had been scheduled.
On January 24, 1943, Warden Buchanan, accompanied by prison officials and state police, delivered Anderson, Penney, and Baxter to Lexington, where the convicted trio appeared before the Fayette County Court considering Anderson’s petition for a new trial. True to his word, Penney stood mute throughout the hearing, refusing to discuss the case or explain his silence. Defense attorneys were perplexed. Anderson was enraged.
In light of Penney’s lack of corroboration, the court refused to accept his handwritten deposition exonerating Anderson. With no new evidence to consider, Anderson’s appeal for a new trial was denied. The execution date for all three men was rescheduled for early Friday morning, February 26.
“Tonight,” Tom Waller uttered to himself as he closed the MILEY CASE file and placed it back in his HOLD basket.
The veteran attorney sat back in his seat, reflecting once again on the material he had just re-read. Which of Penney’s conflicting stories about Anderson was true? It was no secret in the legal profession that many lawyers, including some in his own firm, doubted Penney’s original testimony indicting the Louisville tavern owner. It was simply too pat, too seemingly contrived for vengeance, coming as it did so soon on the heels of Penney’s ringing declaration to “get even” with the Louisville nightclub owner. The doubters were relieved when Penney refuted his original accusation against Anderson, then dumbfounded when he turned mute.
And Baxter? Waller mused. That insignificant, puppet-like little man. Who could rely on anything he said? Was he even mentally competent? Though an admitted accomplice in the robbery, he had forgotten his one simple chore—to leave a door unlocked. Had he truly committed a capital offense?
What a quandary. Surely the case hinged on something yet unknown, something most probably locked away forever in Tom Penney’s brain.
Forever?
Perhaps not. There was an important figure in what remained of the Marion Miley murder case—Warden Jesse Buchanan. Waller thought back to the day Buchanan came to see him in torment over the prospect of executing an innocent man. Doggedly persistent, as always, the warden was searching for the truth that day, and he would undoubtedly search for the truth until the last moment.
After all was said and done, Waller reflected, if anyone could solve the riddle of Tom Penney, Jess Buchanan was the man to do it.
William Jesse Buchanan was born in an era and locality where children were expected to contribute to their family’s welfare and were often beget with that purpose in mind. The fifth of seven siblings—four boys, three girls—he was assigned chores on the family’s hard-scrabble Union County farm before he was old enough to attend school. By age six, he was responsible to help hoe the garden, gather coal and kindling for the cooking range, clean the chicken house, and gather eggs. By age ten, he could hook up the family mule and “plow a straight furrow” from sunup to sundown,
