Interview: Canvass of Hartigan Family Friends and Associates

The Yoknapatawpha County Sheriff's Department interviewed friends and associates of the Hartigan family to learn more about the family's interaction with each other and with the community. The interviews summarized are some of the most typical or relevant to the investigation and are representative of all interviews conducted.

• Delia Boone, 34 -- 790 Whitespell Avenue, Natchez, Mississippi

Boone said Alicia Hartigan was co-hosting a baby shower at Boone's residence on the afternoon of December 22, 2004 from 2:00-4:00 p.m. After helping tidy up, Boone said, Hartigan left at approximately 5:00 p.m. and said she would be driving back to Oxford. She said there was nothing out of the ordinary about Hartigan's behavior. "I've always known Alicia to be in charge of her own world," Boone said. "People just flutter around her because she is so assured in her charms and cleverness."

Boone said that Hartigan has a reputation as an upright society lady. She never smokes or drinks, unless it's a single glass of champagne for an important toast. She said Hartigan is very careful to keep her outward appearances immaculate, and if anyone tried to criticize her, "she'd cut them down with a glare, and if that didn't work, she'd give them the tongue lashing of their life. Of course, she always took them aside and did it quietly. But viciously nonetheless."

• Ross Gillespie, 52 -- 829 Adams Street, Oxford, Mississippi

Gillespie and Adam Hartigan were law students together at Ole Miss. They both stayed in Oxford and opened law practices. Gillespie said he and Hartigan had been good friends for many years after college. Their wives became friends and the couples went out together on occasion, though their social activities decreased when they began having children. Gillespie admitted that Hartigan's firm outpaced his own during the 1980s, but it never bothered him. Then out of the blue, Hartigan called him and verbally abused him about a deadbeat client whom Gillespie had recommended to Hartigan. Gillespie explained that the man had needed defense in a criminal suit brought against him by his wife, who accused the man of sexually abusing their daughter. Gillespie's firm handled mainly civil suits, so he recommended Hartigan. Soon thereafter, Hartigan telephoned Gillespie in a fit of rage. "He yelled at me for a half hour, every kind of filth you could imagine. Essentially he was telling me that his firm didn't need my reject clients and that he'd better never hear about me uttering his name in my office again," Gillespie said.

After that incident, Hartigan showed "occasional politeness, most often with a sheen of pomposity and disgust." Still, Hartigan's practice was a booming success, and he demanded respect from the town's business community. "It was like you had to have the password to even talk with him, and evidently I didn't have it," said Gillespie. "Some days I would pass him on the Square and say hello, and he would walk right by like I was some lowlife not worthy of his attention. I've never understood why some people act that way. If I could just walk in their shoes for a day and understand it."

• Bethany Griffin, 25 -- 421 Warren Street, Oxford, Mississippi

Griffin was a close friend of Denise and Rita Hartigan during their junior high and early high school years. Her memories of those days were fond. The only unusual thing she recalled about the family was the times when she and other friends felt the Hartigan sisters had an overprotective father. "Sometimes I wouldn't talk on the phone to them or go over to visit for a week," Griffin recalled. "I know that doesn't sound like much now, but back then, it was a big deal. It was a great absence. And that always happened because Mr. Hartigan wouldn't let them use the phone or have visitors. It was like he had grounded them for no apparent reason, and they would never talk about it." Griffin recalled that Rita's best friend up until she left Oxford was a girl named Jewel Hale, with whom Griffin had attended Mississippi State University.

• Trent Lemmons, M.D., 73 -- 197 South Lamar Boulevard, Oxford, Mississippi

Dr. Lemmons is the Hartigans' family doctor. He had only positive things to say about the Hartigans, pointing to their surviving such tragedies as the loss of a daughter and cancer. He called Adam Hartigan a "remarkable creature. People are scared of him because he's such a trouper." Dr. Lemmons referred to Mrs. Hartigan as "an exquisite example of Southern gentility. She's the kind of woman any self-respecting man would love to have keeping his things in order." He attested to the family's stellar health records until Adam was diagnosed with cancer in 1997.

• William and Leigh Sexton, 51 and 48 respectively -- 212 South 18th Street, Oxford, Mississippi

The parents of Grant Sexton said they haven't kept in touch with the Hartigans since their family troubles began in 1997. When Grant and Denise were dating, the two families often went on picnics and spent holidays together. Both Mr. and Mrs. Sexton agreed that Adam Hartigan was cocy and harmless, while Alicia Hartigan was melodramatic and proud. They were vague in discussing odd behavior in the Hartigan family. "They were no more strange or dysfunctional than any other family," said Mr. Sexton. "The times our families were together were pleasant and unremarkable. Our kids loved each other."

• Julian Spears, 38 -- 110 North Lamar Boulevard, Oxford, Mississippi

Spears is Director of the Mississippi Arts Commission, which Alicia Hartigan participates in. He said Hartigan has been instrumental in community while enduring family hardships. "She is incomparable," Spears said. "Beautiful, intelligent and will stand up to anyone if she feels like her work is being compromised. She really jerked us up by our bootstraps." Spears regretted that he and Hartigan have had very little social interaction recently, as the recurrence of her husband's cancer and daughter's murder have driven her away from the public eye. "She has to have the public to keep her going," Spears said.

• Janice and Gilbert Terrell, 44 and 47 respectively -- 8B North Samuel, Pontotoc, Mississippi

This couple said their daughter, Lisa, was a friend of Denise's during junior high school, and said that, once during the town Christmas parade, the girls were in the procession as part of their gymnastics class. According to Mrs. Terrell, Lisa came home upset because Mr. Hartigan had called attention to her form-fitting leotards and caressed her behind several times. Mrs. Terrell shared this with her husband, who became enraged. He confronted Hartigan at his office the next day, but Hartigan dismissed the incident as harmless. According to Mr. Terrell: "He kept saying, 'It was an innocent pat, Gil. I did it once. Maybe if your girl wasn't so deprived of affection, she wouldn't go crying every time somebody gave her a hug and a love pat.'"

According to the Terrells, following this confrontation, Adam Hartigan used his influence to sink Bruce's golf shop by alerting a team of IRS agents to possible tax fraud in Terrell's business. During an intense audit, agents found numerous errors in the bookkeeping, which cost Terrell so much cash that he went into debt and had to sell the business. Terrell insists his books were doctored to frame him.