David “Stringbean” Akeman (right) was one of country music’s biggest stars, a banjo-playing comic who was a natural hit on the ever-expanding medium that was television. His immense popularity allowed him to live a life that he loved: He played his banjo and told his jokes, and when he wasn’t on stage, he worked on his farm near Ridgetop, Tennessee. “They told us how safe and serene it was,” family friend Steve Gibson recalled (via The Tennessean). Akeman’s wife, Estelle, reportedly told Gibson’s mother, “We’re so happy here, we want to live in this little cabin ’til the day we die.'”
That day was November 10, 1973. That’s when the couple returned from a Grand Ole Opry performance to find several masked men waiting for them. The planned robbery ended in bloodshed, when David was shot and killed by a panicked (and drunk) would-be robber inside his home, and Estelle was murdered on the front lawn as she tried to run.
Their bodies were found the following morning by friend, costar, and “Hee Haw” mainstay Grandpa Jones, and it devastated the industry. Two men were arrested, charged, and convicted of murder (with two others charged as accessories). One died in 2003 while still serving his sentence, and the other was paroled and released in 2014. It was a decision that singer Mac Wiseman called (via USA Today) a “great miscarriage of justice,” adding, “It makes me question the legal system.”
