Honey murder
The setting was serene and tranquil. The crime heated and deadly. So what really caused the bloodshed among the bees?
Aged 94, Stanford Brown had a lot to be proud of. A master beekeeper, he’d worked hard to build up a business in North Yarmouth, Maine.
Having worked with bees for over 80 years, he was well known across national beekeeping communities. He devoted some of his 10-acre farm to the bees and owned a landmark bee-supply shop.
Such a peaceful job, so close to nature. But around 3.15pm on Sunday 6 October 2013, that peace was shattered. By gunshots.
Stanford, who was at home, walked the 60m towards his shop. As he did, he saw his business partner Karen Thurlow-kimball and her husband Merrill ‘Mike’ Kimball, 70.
Then Stanford spotted his son-in-law, Leon Kelley, 63, on the ground, wounded.
Tragically, Leon died on the way to hospital.
Police interviewed Merrill, trying to establish exactly what happened.
Meanwhile, an autopsy showed Leon Kelley died of multiple gunshot wounds to the torso.
Friends and family spoke of the ‘salt-of-theearth, gentle giant’ who’d served in the Vietnam war before becoming a lobster fisherman 20 years ago.
A family man, Leon was married to Stanford’s daughter Kathleen, and they had a son, daughter, four stepchildren and many grandchildren.
Fellow lobstermen described Leon as a good man who kept himself to himself.
On 8 November, Merrill Kimball was charged with Leon’s murder.
He pleaded not guilty, saying he acted in self-defence – and was released on bail.
So what really led to the bloodbath at Bee Farm? Speculation was rife. There was talk of tensions between the two families following Stanford’s decision to leave some of the business and land to Karen ThurlowKimball in his will.
In April 2015, Kimball’s trial began. Everyone agreed his shots caused Leon’s death. What remained to be decided were the circumstances that led to the shooting. The court heard Karen Thurlow-kimball met Stanford in 2009, and they began a business relationship around bees. As Stanford had developed dementia, she’d taken over more of the beekeeping. Karen testified that, by 2013, Stanford had only a few hives, while she had more than 50. She said that they had a business arrangement where she kept the profits from the honey-making and he kept the supply portion of the business.
But Karen said that, on the day of the shooting, Kathleen Kelley’s son Craig Rawnsley, called her saying things on the farm were going to change.
Indeed, Craig testified he planned to change the locks to the shop to keep Karen out.
The honey inside was worth about $5,000 (around £4,000)...
The prosecution argued that when Merrill Kimball arrived at the farm, his driving suggested he was ‘angry’.
That when Kimball got out of the car, Leon Kelley politely introduced himself, reached out his hand. To which Merrill
Leon died of multiple gunshot wounds
Kimball overreacted and shot him.
‘…being in no danger of death or serious physical injury, the defendant pulled out a handgun and he shot Leon Kelley… three times in rapid succession with no pauses,’ the prosecutor said.
The defence, on the other hand, painted quite a different picture…
That of the relationship between Karen and Stanford’s family souring by 2013, when they suspected she was no longer looking after the elderly man’s interests.
The defence lawyer claimed Merrill Kimball’s first words after he shot Leon were, ‘What was I supposed to do? He came at me. I’m 70 years old.’
The defence said Kimball was shorter and slighter than Leon, and knee surgery meant he was unable to run when Leon approached him telling him to get off the property.
He said witnesses would testify Leon ‘kept coming toward [Kimball]’. And ‘with evil intentions’. The court heard the emergency call made by Leon’s wife Kathleen. During the frantic conversation, she said Karen Thurlow-kimball, Merrill Kimball and her son ‘wanted to take stuff that didn’t belong to them’. Suddenly, Kathleen cried, ‘Oh, they just shot my husband. Oh, my God, they’re killing my husband.’ The defence insisted that, before the shooting, Kimball, his wife, and her son were being ‘assaulted almost simultaneously, and they didn’t lift a hand’.
He said the death was ‘haunting’ Kimball and ‘he is so sorry, but he had no choice’.
However, the police officer who was first to arrive at the shooting said he could ‘smell the odour of liquor’ on Kimball.
‘I was really feeling threatened because [Kimball’s] hand was near his gun, and I was worried about the safety of those in the area,’ the officer said.
On the fourth day of the trial, the court heard interviews and transcripts from Kimball.
Video footage showed him telling an officer, ‘All of a sudden, this guy was in my face. He started to push me back, back, back.
‘The last push, I went as quick as I could backwards this way. I don’t know if I said “stop” or not. He didn’t. I shot – I shot two more times.’
He went on to say, ‘He was in my face – his great big hands. When he was pushing me, I saw the hands. I was afraid for my life...that’s why I defended myself.’
But the surgeon who’d performed the partial kneereplacement on Kimball said he believed Kimball could have ‘walked away briskly’ from Leon rather than shooting him.
A medical examiner also stated that, by the time Leon was shot for the second and third times, he was probably already falling down – raising the possibility that the first shot was self-defence, but not the others.
So did Kimball shoot out of anger and not fear? Was he guilty of cold-blooded murder... or of acting in self-defence?