Thursday, September
30, 2004
Oxford Town Weekly
In a strange blend of fiction and reality, filmmaker Corwin Fitz,
28, was found murdered on August 15, 2004. Police were called to a hunting lodge
in western Yoknapatawpha County and found Fitz's mangled body in a
second-floor bathtub, surrounded a gruesome mixture of blood and water.
He had been slashed with a machete, found at the scene, and shot several
times.
The Yoknapatawpha County Sheriff's Department immediately held the seven people
at the scene for questioning. The group claimed Fitz had held them at the lodge against their will for nearly three
months. The seven said they were actors in a film, Bacchanals' Destruction, that Fitz wrote and directed.
At the scene the night of Fitz's murder, Brett Flamé, one of the
actors and an eccentric personality in his own right, admitted to killing
Fitz. Detectives were skeptical of the confession, but detained Flam� for further interrogation.
Investigators took statements from the remaining six actors and allowed them
to go home. But police remained at the crime scene for several days, analyzing
how the murder had happened and gathering evidence.
Interviews with the actors and the film's producer, local doctor Chuckie King, further muddled the investigation as each seemed to point fingers
of blame at the others and none seemed terribly upset over Fitz's death.
Slowly, investigators assembled the pieces of Fitz's strange and
tormented past. Fitz began recruiting actors in Oxford about six months
before filming of his bizarre movie began. Among the recruits was Macy Lamar,
whose kidnapping and surrounding scandal had fascinated Fitz from the
moment he learned of it. Lamar had entered
the project as Fitz's girlfriend, a position she would not hold for
long.
Katrina Brook, an actress Fitz recruited from the Ole Miss drama department,
replaced Lamar in Fitz's affections soon after filming began. Stories
differed on how Lamar reacted to her change in position. Even more conflicting
opinions were offered to characterize Brook and Fitz's relationship.
Brook professed it was a true love match, while others claimed Fitz
often raped and abused her.
Among the other actors was David Woolworth, mathematics professor
and reported leader of the controversial Ego Shovel cult. Woolworth disputed stories
that Fitz raped Brook, but claimed Flam� had been blackmailed to stay
on the set because Fitz had caught him having sex with another male
actor. Woolworth offered no proof to support his allegation.
All the actors spoke of the strange visit by a woman claiming to be Helen
Troy, who wanted to audition for the film. An enraged Fitz ordered
her to leave, chased her off the compound, and never spoke of her again. Detectives Armstrong and Murphy launched a search for Troy,
but it was several weeks before they got their first lead to her whereabouts.
After finding a letter among Fitz's effects from Robert Price -- return
address: Parchman State Penitentiary -- the detectives interviewed Price at Parchman,
where he was serving time for vehicular manslaughter and several other offenses. Because he had been
in jail for several months, Price was not a suspect in Fitz's murder.
However, the detectives questioned him to get more information about Fitz's
past and about Troy. Through Price's interview and evidence found in the
lodge's editing room, they began to piece together Fitz's history.
Fitz had long been a troubled young man, traveling the country wreaking
havoc and distress wherever he could using a technique he called "guerrilla
theater." Price and Troy had been his partners in these adventures.
Price's cryptic comments about Helen Troy led the detectives to believe he knew
more than he was saying about Troy's current location. Follow up interviews with
Katrina Brook and Macy Lamar gave Murphy and Armstrong a location to look for
Helen Troy -- the Heartsong Collective, a goat farm in a remote part of
Yoknapatawpha County that also serves as a refuge for abused women. When they
visited the shelter, they found Helen Troy there and were able to identify her
from the footage they'd seen of her in some of Fitz's previous films, recovered
from the crime scene.
After running Troy's fingerprints through state and national databases, the
detectives discovered Troy's real name was Dorian Butler, a known con woman who
frequented Mississippi casinos. Armed with that information plus preliminary
forensic evidence that implicated her, they interviewed Troy/Butler about the
murder of Corwin Fitz. While Troy would not admit to killing Fitz, Armstrong and
Murphy were convinced they had found the perpetrator and arrested Troy the same
day.
In a final twist of this perplexing investigation, police determined the
victim in this crime, known as Corwin Fitz, was actually Darrell Beck of Austin,
Texas. Beck had, in fact, traveled the country performing "guerrilla theater"
with Dorian Butler and Robert Price, who had shared the alias Corwin Fitz with
Beck until his incarceration left Beck free to use that identity full time.
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