Louis & Sheila continued...
(continued from previous page)
In the early stages of the trial the vindictive federal marshals saw to it that the defendants got only one meal a day. Louis became their spokesman in this matter, too. He told the chief marshal that they were getting one meal and it was
inedible slop.
"Well, that's what you get here," responded the marshal.
"We want regular food," insisted Louis. "If these boys don't get enough to eat I'm afraid they're going to get weak. We'll probably just fall down from hunger and you'll have to carry us in to the court room everyday. Judge Arnold probably wouldn't
want to see something like that..."
The marshal hesitated. "What sort of food do you want? Hamburgers?"
"Hamburgers might do for some," said Louis, "but not for everybody. I think you ought to give us salad and hamburgers." They got their food.
They also got acquitted. The jury found all defendants not guilty of all charges. The marshals told Louis they were going to take him back to jail to be released from there. "Was I found not guilty or not? If I'm a free man then I am walking
out of this courthouse!" Whereupon he walked out with Sheila on his arm. They walked across the street to the Confederate memorial and Louis gave a rousing victory speech against the federal government. Sheila fainted from the pain she was in and from
the incredibleness of their stunning victory. There is a wonderful picture of Louis carrying an unconscious Sheila in his arms as he walks away from the Confederate memorial.
* * *
Norm Stevenson, the FBI special agent in charge of catching Louis, wanted to talk to him. He approached through a third party. For some demented reason he still thought he could get information out of Louis, whom he'd told during the trial, "My
marriage broke up over this case."
"Well," said Louis, "I guess I did your wife a favor." His only message back to Stevenson was, "Anytime you want me to tell you how you blew this case, let me know."
David McGuire, one of the defendants, noticed during the trial that an attractive blonde juror was more than a little interested in him. They were married soon after the acquittal and are today living happily in Ft. Smith.
Richard Butler has a copy of the original indictment which each of the defendants signed, the way people sign a yearbook. Judge Arnold signed it, too.
Today Luís Calderón, Sheila's chief federale torturer, is in a Mexican federal prison for drug trafficking.
