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Census Worker Found Hanging From Tree With the Word “Fed” Scrawled on Chest
Accident, Suicide, or Murder revisits the tragedy that rocked a rural Appalachian community and sparked rumors of a bigger plot.
If you or someone you know is thinking about self-harm or experiencing suicidal thoughts, call or text 988 to contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
The mysterious death of a part-time Census taker in the Appalachian foothills led to a media circus and a widespread halt to the U.S. Census Bureau’s field operations. Every so often, a case comes along that is so ominous it captures the public’s attention, and this was one of those times.
In September 2009, William Sparkman’s lifeless body was found hanging from a tree in a rural cemetery with the word “FED” scrawled across his chest. He was bound with duct tape, and his Census Bureau work badge had been affixed to his face.
The outrageous scene sparked wild rumors in the tight-knit community of Clay County, Kentucky, which quickly spread like wildfire across the country. Were federal workers being targeted for murder? Accident, Suicide, or Murder — airing Saturdays at 8/7c on Oxgyen — revisited the case, interviewing law enforcement, friends, and Sparkman’s grown son, Josh, who is still shellshocked by the events that transpired.
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What happened to Bill Sparkman?
His death “evokes all sorts of questions,” recalled Tom Bell, a retired cybercrimes supervisor for the Kentucky Attorney General’s office. Sparkman was a single dad and beloved teaching assistant who lived a quiet life with no enemies to think of.
He was found with a rope around his neck that snaked around a tree branch, was flung over to another tree, and then secured to a third tree. A red rag had been duct taped inside of his mouth, and there was tape “going from ear to ear, holding his glasses in place,” noted Bell. He was completely nude except for his socks.
“William had his Census badge duct-taped to his face. That coupled with the [word] Fed, everybody was wondering if somebody was trying to send a message to law enforcement and sent it through him,” Bell explained. Before his death, Sparkman had been assigned a new territory to canvas that was riddled with crime and drugs. “There was a real concern that he may have stumbled across illegal activity.. and they’re not gonna discern between a Census worker and a federal agent.”
Police think it could be a robbery
While Sparkman’s body was being autopsied, police gathered evidence from the cemetery and sent it off to forensics. They recovered pieces of red rag from the ground that matched the gag in his mouth. Sparkman’s red pickup truck nearby appeared to have been ransacked: His gun, cell phone, and laptop were all gone, raising suspicions of a robbery. “I didn’t know why somebody would do my father like that. He didn’t have no problem with anybody,” his son Josh opined, noting that soon after being assigned to cover a more dangerous area, Sparkman purchased his first gun.
The autopsy held very few clues. There were no defensive wounds or bruising on his body, and toxicology showed he was not under the influence. The fractures in his neck were consistent with a hanging. But there was one perplexing injury: Sparkman had a “healing” fracture in his neck. The police didn’t know what to make of it at the time.
Who was Bill Sparkman?
Fellow educator and friend Beverly Johnson described Sparkman as a “gentle person” and a “math whiz.” Hailing from Florida, he loved the outdoors and devoted his early life to the Boy Scouts. Later, as an adult, he even found a career with the Scouts. Johnson revealed that Sparkman always dreamed of becoming a father, and so he adopted two-year-old Josh in 1991. The pair moved to London, Kentucky, where he found work as a teaching assistant at the school his son attended.
“Being a single father, you really have to hustle,” said Beverly, so he took on extra work with the Census Bureau going door-to-door. However, his ultimate goal was to become a middle-school math teacher.
Unfortunately, a health disaster struck. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. “He seemed very strong, and he was going to be ok, but we were devasted. He wanted to live for Josh,” stated Beverly.
While undergoing grueling chemo treatments, Sparkman returned to school and graduated as a valedictorian. Miraculously, his cancer went into remission a year later. “He was just ecstatic about it. He was one step closer toward living that dream to be a full-time teacher,” recalled his son Josh.
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Josh and his childhood best friend become suspects
Josh showed up to a police interview holding a letter his uncle had given him that he described as “a ‘just in case’ letter... kind of like a will” that Sparkman had written when he was in the throes of cancer. Investigators were shocked to learn that Josh stood to gain $350,000 in an insurance payout upon Sparkman’s death.
“They pretty much came out and asked, did you kill your father? I was insulted by it,” said Josh, bristling at the memory. “The adoption company required him to have a life insurance policy with me as the beneficiary,” he explained. Josh had a strong alibi and was ruled out as a suspect. But police weren’t done digging into Sparkman’s finances.
There was a second life insurance policy for $300,000 in the name of Lowell Adams, Josh’s best friend and former fellow Cub Scout. The young man recently began accompanying Sparkman on his Census visits in the more dangerous areas as a sort of bodyguard. The policy was taken out around that same time.
When police questioned Lowell, he let slip some secret information that only the police knew from the autopsy: Sparkman's body had been hanging undiscovered for a few days. His true date of death had not been publicly released, yet Lowell knew it was September 9. Lowell suddenly shot to the top of the suspect list.
Lowell reveals Sparkman’s secret plan
When he returned to the station for a polygraph test, Lowell came clean and admitted he lied to the police. He said Sparkman claimed the cancer had returned, and because of that, he planned to commit suicide and wanted Lowell’s help. Lowell didn’t want anything to do with it and turned him down on September 9 — the day the forensic pathologist believed Sparkman really died.
“He had been practicing putting bags over his head, and he was able to make himself pass out,” said Bell. The healing fracture in his neckbone supported the theory.
But something was not sitting right with authorities, including the FBI — who had been called in over concerns this could be a larger plot against Federal employees.
“If this were true, it would invalidate the life insurance policy, and Lowell would have just cut himself out of $300,000. Why would someone do that?” asked Bell.
Josh also struggled to believe the story. He reflected, “He fought cancer; he fought for his life. Days of just being sick, laying and hurting and aching. If you wanted to take your own life, why would you fight that cancer? Why wouldn’t you just let it take you out?”
To further complicate matters, his autopsy showed that he was cancer-free.
What was Sparkman’s motivation for suicide?
When investigators took a closer look at the death scene in the cemetery, the idea of suicide wasn’t as preposterous as it first seemed.
From the car to the rope, no “foreign” DNA was found anywhere, only Sparkman’s. An expert determined the word “FED” was written from the bottom up, lending credence to the idea that he wrote it on his own body. “The bindings on the hands were actually about shoulder-width apart, which would still give him an incredible range of motion,” added Bell. And Josh said his dad excelled in knotwork as a Scout leader.
“You start crossing these things one at a time… and it leaves you with just William,” said former State Trooper Stacy Walker, adding, “All the evidence led to the conclusion that he had acted alone and killed himself.”
The last piece of the puzzle — his motivation — came into focus when investigators learned he was in debt and had recently been denied a job as a full-time math teacher. His life insurance policies would not pay out if he committed suicide or died of cancer, so he used his status as a federal employee to stage a murder.
“It felt just as dark as if someone had killed him because of the level of meticulous detail [required] to prepare that scene,” said local journalist Tara Kaprowy. "It was a loss in every direction. The insurance policies never paid out. The house was foreclosed upon. Josh hasn’t had an easy time since. It’s just been difficult for everyone.”
“He was everything to me. He made me who I am,” said Josh. “When my father died, I lost a mentor, I lost a friend, I lost my guiding light.”
See new episodes of Accident, Suicide, or Murder, airing Saturdays at 8/7c on Oxygen.
