Byron Looper

Byron "Low Tax" Looper (born 1964), a former politician, is an inmate in the Tennessee state penal system. He was convicted of the October 1998 shooting murder of state senator Tommy Burks. Burks and Looper were opponents in the upcoming election for Burks' state senate seat.

Looper was born Byron Anthony Looper in Putnam County, Tennessee. He attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for three years, but was given an honorable discharge following a serious knee injury. After his discharge he moved to Georgia.

In 1987 he lost a race for the Georgia state house of representatives as a Democrat. Following this loss he took a job as a legislative aide for an uncle and fellow Democrat, Max Looper. The Georgia Democratic Party unofficially admitted that Max Looper was an active member of the Ku Klux Klan.

In 1992 Looper returned to Tennessee and became a Republican. He lost a race for the state house in 1994, but in 1996 he was backed by the state GOP in a race for technically nonpartisan Putnam County Tax Assessor, which he won. As tax assessor, Looper used his office's equipment to flood state media with a number of bizarre and self-congratulatory press releases, though he failed repeatedly to file property tax valuations with the state government on time. Some charges were made that Looper offered reduced tax assessments to local businesses in exchange for large political contributions, although few if any businesses actually responded to the offer. Later, an ex-girlfriend sued him for child support and fraud, charging he had used his official position to steal her house.

In March of 1998, Looper was indicted on 14 counts of official misconduct, theft of services and official oppression. Looper claimed the charges were politically motivated, although at the time the state government was largely in the hands of the Republican Party.

In 1998, Looper sought the Republican nominations for United States House of Representatives and Tennessee State Senate in the same primary. He lost the Congressional nomination to a candidate who was not under indictment, in fact finishing last in a field of four. He won the state senate nomination by default, however, as he was the only Republican candidate on the ballot. This set up his campaign against conservative incumbent Democratic state senator Tommy Burks.

Burks was a popular five-term state Senator, an old-style Southern Democrat and a farmer who well fitted the politics and constituency of his district. The 1998 election looked to be as quiet as his previous five. Until October, in fact, the only news to come out of the campaign that made it beyond the borders of the district was Byron Looper's legal change of his middle name from Anthony to "Low Tax." This was initially considered an amusing but bizarre gimmick by a gadfly candidate in race he was destined to lose, and the race quickly receded into the background.

That was until the murder. On the morning of October 19, first Putnam County and then Cumberland County (Burks' farm straddled the two counties, and though Burks' home was in Putnam, Burks' body was found across the line in Cumberland) authorities were called to investigate a likely murder at the Burks farm.

Tommy Burks was found with his head resting on the steering wheel of his pickup truck. He had been speaking moments earlier with a farmhand, Wesley Rex, about work to be done on the farm that day. Both men had seen a black car, driven by a man in sunglasses and black gloves, driving by the farm on multiple occasions that morning. The car had later sped by Rex' truck, allowing Rex to get a view of the driver.

The Cumberland County authorities immediately began a standard homicide investigation. Unfortunately for Looper, investigators could find absolutely no one with any plausible reason to murder Burks. Then Wes Rex called up Burks' wife after seeing a picture of Looper on television, and told her that Looper was the man he'd seen speeding away in the black car the morning of the murder. Looper, for his part, disappeared.

He made it to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he met with a friend of his, a Marine recruiter named Joe Bond. Bond and Looper had been friends as children, and Looper had rekindled the friendship in the summer of 1998, largely on basis of wanting Bond's expertise in small arms. Bond would eventually become a key witness for the prosecution. Looper, for his part, holed up with Bond for a brief while, talking a great deal about how he had murdered his Senate opponent and how he needed to, among other things, change the tires on the car he had used in the murder, and stash the car, which he had just purchased, someplace.

Bond later claimed that Looper had mentioned to him during the summer that he planned to win his race by murdering his opponent. Later, in the run-up to Looper's trial, prosecutors found other people who said Looper had mentioned that the surest way to win a race was to be the only candidate left on election day.

Looper had done some homework. A Tennessee state law (later changed by legislation put forth by Tommy Burks' widow, Charlotte) required that, if a candidate died within 30 days of the election, his name shall be removed from the ballot and not replaced with another. This law was poorly known; even the Putnam County Election Commission did not know it existed before the Burks murder. Theoretically, Looper's would be the only name on the election ballot, and as the only candidate, Looper was guaranteed to win.

Several people tried to have Looper's name stricken from the ballot for other reasons, among them moral turpitude. To counter Looper's potential election on a technicality, Charlotte Burks ran a write-in campaign for the seat. Dozens of volunteers helped her get the message out, including several Republicans. The state Republican Party distanced itself from Looper, claiming it had not solicited Looper as a candidate and had not and would not support his campaign. On election day, Charlotte Burks, as a write-in candidate, won 30,252 votes to Looper's 1,531, and also received several write-in votes for governor and the House of Representatives.

Looper was arraigned at a hearing that featured Bond as a surprise witness for the state. During the pre-trial phase, Looper attempted to have his former friend disgraced, and shuffled through at least six lawyers, one of whom filed a sealed court document explaining why, for ethical reasons, he could no longer be Looper's attorney.

The trial finally occurred in 2000. By this time, inmate road crews had found the weapon apparently used by Looper to commit the murder. Wes Rex and Joe Bond were both prominent witnesses for the prosecution, as were two political consultants who reported having been contacted at various times by Looper, who told both of them that he wanted to run a political race and felt the surest way to win would be to murder the opponent. Though there was and remains some controversy about a number of defense witnesses who were not permitted to take the stand, Looper was convicted and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole. He remains in a Tennessee state correctional facility.

Charlotte Burks remains a popular member of the Tennessee state senate. Looper made a court appearance on October 12, 2004 in which he requested a new trial, but observers see little reason to expect that this request will be granted.

Quotation

"He was the first Republican elected in Putnam County, at least in recent memory, and he made quite a name for himself, but not a good name. He had a bombastic campaign style, a way of offending anyone that was status quo, and he did it repeatedly."—Looper's defense attorney, Ken Poston, in his opening statement to the jury

Trivia

Internet Personality Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka adopted his nickname as a reference to Byron Looper. When Looper was the Putnam County Tax Assessor, Kyanka had almost taken a summer job with him.

External links

• Court TV report on the Looper case and trial (http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/classics/byron_looper/)