ONE DRUG DEFENDANT GAVE CANDIDATE CASH ON TAPE

Dealers Quizzed About Harlan Killing

Federal investigators who busted a ring of McCreary County drug dealers
last year have questioned some of them about the March 2002 murder of a
Harlan County sheriff's candidate.

Prosecutors declined to comment, but there are surprising links between the
drug cases and the killing of Paul Browning, who was shot in the head and
left burned beyond recognition in his pickup on a lonely Bell County road.

One of the 13 drug defendants, Dewayne Harris, showed up with Browning on a
videotape that surfaced in the week's following Browning's death.

The videotape, which apparently was made in February 2002, showed Harris
and Browning sitting in Harris' Harlan County home. The tape shows Harris
giving Browning a stack of cash.

Harris is the brother-in-law of David Perkins, another dealer rounded up
with the McCreary County group. That group's rise and fall was chronicled
yesterday in a Herald-Leader special report, "Home-grown Drug Lords."

Perkins said that when he was questioned in November 2002 by the federal
Drug Enforcement Administration, one of the first things he was asked about
was the Browning murder.

"They got me in the car and asked if I knew anything about a murder over
the mountain," he said.

About a month later, an informant told the DEA that Perkins had told her
"Harris had something to do with a sheriff getting killed," according to a
DEA affidavit for a March 2003 search of Harris' house.

Perkins confirmed that he later told federal prosecutors and the DEA that
Harris had information about Browning's murder.

Harris, speaking at the Laurel County Detention Center, said he didn't have
anything to do with Browning's death. He said he couldn't say more because
he's trying to work out a deal with the U.S. attorney's office.

According to a plea agreement Harris signed in August, in which he pleaded
to weapons charges and conspiring to sell cocaine and OxyContin, he faces
10 years to life in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 18.

His wife, Edna, said she has audiotapes implicating those responsible for
Browning's death and revealing public corruption in Harlan County.

Edna Harris, who also pleaded guilty to OxyContin and cocaine charges, said
she is trying to broker a deal in which prosecutors would recommend lesser
sentences for her and her husband in return for the tapes. (So far, she
said, she's given two tapes to a federal prosecutor.)

Dewayne Harris, who says he worked as a police informant in the past,
acknowledged that there are some 12 tapes in all.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger West would not say whether he had recently
met with Edna Harris. He said only that the investigation is ongoing.

Asked what the investigation was about, he said, "That's all I can say."

After Harris' plea hearing in August, West said in an interview that the
McCreary case was about drugs, and would not speculate whether it could
lead to more information about Browning's death.

Browning's life was almost as strange as his death.

While serving as Harlan sheriff in the early 1980s, he was convicted of
conspiring to kill two local public officials. When he came back to Harlan
years later, he moved in next door to Circuit Court Judge Ron Johnson, who
had prosecuted him in the conspiracy case.

At the time of his death, Browning was running ads in the local newspaper
accusing the current sheriff of being soft on crime.

In the February 2002 videotape, Browning promised Harris that if elected he
would protect some drug dealers and crack down on others. Browning assured
Harris that the cash he gave was "the best money you ever spent in your life."

A third man who appears in the video, Johnny Epperson, pleaded guilty in
August to charges of dealing cocaine and OxyContin.

Although Epperson declined to comment, his attorney, Thomas Hunter Payne of
London, said West has mentioned the Browning murder while discussing his
client's case.

"I told him like I'll tell you, there've been no charges filed," Payne
said.Browning.