SHOOTING OF SHERIFF UNRAVELS PLOT ROOTED IN DRUGS, POLITICS

SOMERSET -- Sam Catron was 4 years old when three thugs armed with a
shotgun pulled up in front of his family's home and shot his father, the
city's police chief.

His father survived for seven years until one of the shotgun pellets that
had lodged near his heart shifted, killing him. The experience drove the
young Catron into law enforcement himself and shaped his cautious approach
to life, which included wearing a bulletproof vest wherever he went.

"I asked him once why he never got married," says friend Charlotte Davis.
"He would never get married as long as he was in law enforcement. He said
he never wanted a woman to go through what his mother had gone through."

Not even Catron's closest friends ever thought someone would actually try
to shoot him. After all, Davis says, lightning doesn't strike twice. But
minutes after delivering a re-election speech at a political rally and fish
fry last weekend, a single bullet fired from a nearby hillside killed the
four-term Pulaski County sheriff who was known for his crackdown on drugs
in the hollows of southeastern Kentucky.

Investigators say the killing was the culmination of a plot orchestrated by
a political challenger and a former drug suspect in hopes of getting the
heavily favored Catron out of the race.

"We believe it's all politically motivated," says state police Detective
Todd Dalton. "Each one of those persons had their own motivation for the
murder."

Sheriff's candidate Jeff Morris, 34, and Kenneth White, 54, were arrested
on charges of complicity to murder a police officer. Danny Shelley, 30, was
charged as the triggerman in the April 13 slaying.

Detectives say White, who previously faced cocaine possession charges,
wanted Morris to win the race so he could count on a sheriff who would look
the other way.

Shelley, who was unemployed and had a record of arrests ranging from public
drunkenness to assault, had a different motivation, according to
detectives: a job as deputy if Morris was elected.

Shelley was arrested when he lost control of a motorcycle that witnesses
saw speeding away from the shooting scene. The motorcycle belonged to
Morris. And it was well known that White, who became a police informant
after his cocaine charge was dropped, was bankrolling Morris' campaign.

Morris had been a deputy under Catron from 1996 until last summer, when he
resigned as a result of what officials describe only as an internal matter.
He was working as a plumber at the time of his arrest.

"They all should be indicted for stupidity," says Kenneth Stringer, a
retired chief of detectives for the Somerset police who also is running for
sheriff. "This whole situation has been just tragic."

Pulaski County Commonwealth's Attorney Eddy Montgomery says he may seek the
death penalty for all three defendants.

Catron, 48, a soft-spoken man who lived with his 86-year-old mother, wasn't
married, except to police work.

"He loved police work," says Michael Muse, a retired Somerset police
lieutenant who remembered Catron as a 12-year-old who hung around the
station. "If Sam ever expected to die, he expected to die in uniform."

A well-known enemy of drug traffickers, Catron earned his pilot's license
so he could fly a helicopter to search for marijuana fields in the rolling
farmland and wooded hills of Kentucky's third-largest county. In one raid
two years ago, Catron and his deputies rounded up more than 70 suspects.

At the rally, Catron came straight to the point in his speech, with no
rehearsed jokes or grand oration: "I'm Sam Catron, and I'm running for
re-election. I'd appreciate your support."

Catron's name remains on the primary election ballot. Officials say it's
too late to take it off.

"He was considered the front-runner, and it's a very real possibility that
he could get the most votes," says Pulaski County Clerk Willard Hansford.
"We will post notices on each voting machine that the candidate is deceased
and that his votes will not be tabulated."

Still, many in this county of nearly 60,000 will probably vote for Catron
anyway, Hansford said.

More than 2,000 people, nearly half of them police officers from across the
state and nation, crowded into Catron's funeral on Thursday.

"These people had great respect for Sam," says Pikeville Police Chief James
Justice. "He was a good man."

Justice pauses for a moment, then adds: "Thugs and drug dealers are not
mourning too much right now."