By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
A former FBI agent is writing his first true-crime book about corruption, extortion and staged burglaries in the unlikely Texas town of Tenaha.
Former Agent Stewart Fillmore began investigating the case in 2009 and has turned it into a book entitled, “Tenaha: Corruption and Cover-Up in Small Town Texas.”
“You know dirty public officials. I think that’s an intriguing topic to a lot of people,” Fillmore told KTRE.
The case involved a federal civil lawsuit that accused elected officials in the small town of stopping black motorists and seeing their money and property under the threat of arrest.
“There was nothing that we found to be illegal that would rise to the level of putting someone in jail,” Fillmore said.
Fillmore got a break int he case after receiving a letter by then-Constable Fred Walker.
“It was an extortion letter and it was from someone calling themselves Jack Frost,” Fillmore said. “Jack Frost claimed that Fred Walker and another individual named Rod McClure were stealing narcotics out of the Tenaha City Marshal’s evidence room and that Jack Frost, in this extortion letter, wanted $70,000 from both of them for his silence.”
