UPDATED: Is Richard Linville a Cyborg

UPDATED:

With the running Wednesday of a breaking update from Yes! Weekly regarding a formal investigation into our revelations about County Commissioner Richard Linville, we thought it would be helpful to re-post our original story in its entirety as first posted n October 31st, 2012.  You can read Yes! Weekly‘s story HERE or at news stands now.

 

Richard Linville Is a Cyborg
By Samuel Brickhouse

Coffee sits cold and stale in a Krankie’s takeout cup on the dashboard of my car. Professional journalism is rarely sexy or glamorous, but staking out a dead drop between Forsyth County Commissioner and his Chinese “handler” has to be somewhere on the ladder of professional journalism between walking Audrey Fannin’s pet wolverine while she’s on air doing All Things Considered and going on tour with George Clinton. The Chinaman (not sure that is the preferred nomenclature) showed up down the greenway right on time.

The Chi-Com walked out on one of the small piers that reach into Salem Lake. He then got down on one knee and taped something up under the pier. I tried to snap a picture with the telephoto, but he looked directly at me at the very worst moment forcing me to take in a massive lung-full of Camel cigarette smoke. This induced a violent coughing fit. My arm jerked into a half-eaten box of Krispy-Kreme doughnuts knocking them into the floorboard next to my BB&T check card- which I had been trying to find for 3 days. When I popped back up the Chi-Com was gone. Only a heavy mist hung above the gray waters of Salem Lake and somewhere in the distance an owl hooted mournfully.
CCD first came across this sordid tale of espionage and bio-mechanical implants while sitting outside of King’s Crab Shack eating a full bucket of raw oysters and staking out local proto-communist revolutionary and the host of The Less Desirables podcast, Tim Beeman. A little birdy had met me in the alley behind Jeffery Adams on 4th then showed me a cell-phone photo of Beeman meeting with a known Chi-Com operative and local Klansman Vernon Logan. I picked up Beeman as he crossed the concrete walkway that leads from Trade Street, across the park, and into the Sheriff’s office. Beeman looked left and right, then disappeared under the walk way. When I got to the bottom of the steps Beeman jumped onto the running board of a 4×4 pick-up riding high on an after-market lift kit. As they sped away the smell of boiled chitlins lingered in the air.

That smell… that boiled chitlin smell could only lead one place in Forsyth County- Commissioner Bill Whiteheart. My buddy TC owed me a ride in his chopper so I let him take me up and check out the Whiteheart property from the air. Air-to-air visibility was low when we flew off of the pad at Smith-Reynolds, buzzed the tower once [not as much fun these days] then headed west. Commissioner Whiteheart has his own air-strip out on the ranch and we have long been interested in what or who, exactly, fly in and out of there.

After a couple of passes at a careful distance TC noticed on the IRC that there was a small prop plane coming in low and slow from the Northwest. TC tilted the rotors, tilted the elevators and kept us in a smooth hover as I used the scope to watch the plane land. When the door opened and the steps came down I received the biggest surprise of my journalistic career. First out of the fuselage was the Chi-com I had already identified. Following the Chinaman, with glowing orange hair and a brand new tattoo on his neck that read “AGENDA 21”, Dennis Rodman stepped onto the Whiteheart air-strip stretching his legs out from what must have been a long flight. Following Sir Dennis was an even greater shock. He was wearing a pair a mirrored, Oakley Gargoyles and black, leather biker jacket- Richard Linville, Forsyth County Commissioner and going forward the target of all my surveillance attention.

All of this weirdness brings us back to that lonely, cracked parking lot beside of Salem Lake. It was three cigarettes between the time that the Chi-com left and the next person arrived. He was wearing a deep blue jogging suit and carrying a small flashlight. By this point nothing surprised this reporter anymore, including the fact that County Commissioner Everette Witherspoon was now standing before me shining a small Maglite back and forth checking to see if the coast was clear. Once more I found myself diving for the floorboard and hoping I hadn’t been spotted.

The beam from Witherspoon’s flash light shined across the headrest above me. I gave him a couple of seconds to pass a few more vehicles then sat slowly back up. Apparently convinced that there were no threats, Witherspoon signaled to someone who remained in the shadows.

My heart pounded like an alligator in my chest while a dark figure emerged from the shadows and fog making a b-line for the pier. The form walked out onto the pier then bent down exactly as his “handler” had done. What followed is the moment that forever changed my life. The figure turned slowly toward me. I locked eyes with county Commissioner Richard Linville… and his eyes glowed red in the darkness like a Jim Cameron nightmare.

I have left Winston-Salem now. I will never go back. Trying to get a visa to a South American country I will not name. The Civitas Institute has given me enough money to disappear on and there is no way I will ever go back. Forsyth County is too hot for this career journalist. I prefer the dark, the heat, and the humidity of the jungle to the weird streets and twisted secrets of Forsyth County. The horror… the horror.

With apologies to Darrin McGavin…