Kentucky Hanging Act of Domestic Terror?

Grisly hanging of Census worker: an antigovernment act?

(Christian Science Monitor) – The discovery of Sparkman’s body Sept. 12 in the deep woods of eastern Kentucky – hanging from a tree with the word “fed” scrawled on his chest – not only is a grim reminder of the everyday risks that door-to-door workers face on the job. It also has the government again worried that disaffection and anger with Washington may be morphing into extremism, even domestic terrorism, and may be directed at government representatives. Sparkman’s death has been called “an apparent homicide.”

The FBI and Washington promise to investigate aggressively. William E. Sparkman, Jr., 51, of London,  a middle-age Scout leader, was found near a cemetery in the Daniel Boone National Forest.

It is a federal crime to attack a federal worker during or because of his federal job.

“It’s a tragedy. Our hearts and our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of this worker,” Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry said. He has spoken frequently about the denigration of federal employees.

“If this is an attack on a federal employee, I can assure you that no resources will be spared to find the perpetrators,” John Berry said according to the Washington Post. “We cannot tolerate essentially domestic terrorism, if that is what it is.”

Government officials and law enforcement personnel are already on alert after a series of incidents this spring and summer that fell into the domestic terrorism category, including the shooting of a guard at the Holocaust Memorial in Washington.

As the Census Bureau gets ready to employ some 1.2 million people to canvas the US for the 2010 census next year, news of Sparkman’s death is raising concerns for workers’ safety. The Census Bureau has already suspended operations in rural Clay County, where Sparkman died.

TIME: Government Distrust and a Dead Census Taker

Witness: Census worker’s hanging body naked, bound

BIG CREEK, Ky. (AP) – A part-time census worker found hanging in a rural Kentucky cemetery [Hoskins] was naked, gagged and had his hands and feet bound with duct tape, said an Ohio man who discovered the body two weeks ago.

The word “fed” was written in felt-tip pen on 51-year-old Bill Sparkman’s chest, but authorities have released very few other details in the case, such as whether they think it was an accident, suicide or homicide.

Jerry Weaver of Fairfield, Ohio, told The Associated Press on Friday that he was certain from the gruesome scene that someone killed Sparkman.

“He was murdered,” Weaver said. “There’s no doubt.”

Weaver said he was in the rural Kentucky county for a family reunion and was visiting some family graves at the cemetery on Sept. 12 along with his wife and daughter when they saw the body.

“The only thing he had on was a pair of socks,” Weaver said. “And they had duct-taped his hands, his wrists. He had duct tape over his eyes, and they gagged him with a red rag or something.”