The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 36

Page 2E Sunday, June 12, 2005 Des Moines Sunday Register ST IOWA UFE IOWA TOP 4 MUSIC: Dan Zanes and Friends, 2 p.m. today, Perry Elementary School, Dan Zanes and Friends is a stage performance for children by the former Del Fuegos frontman. Zanes plays mandolin, banjo, harmonica, autoharp and electric guitar as he sings. He welcomes audience participation and encourages everyone to bring a guitar, drum or rhythm stick to play along. (515) 465-2518; www.hometownperryiowa.org Cool tilings to do this week Compiled by Tim Brown (515) 284-8539, tbrowndmreg.com ft -t or, I '4 i I I The festival, named for Deni- 5 PERFORMING ARTS: The Donna son-s homet0wn star, brings pro-Reed Performing Arts Festival ducerS) directors, actors, play-and Workshop, Monday through wrights, singers and other Saturday, Denison performing professionals from 1 RENAISSANCE FAIRE: The Renaissance Faire of the Midlands, today, Westfair Fairgrounds, Council Bluffs The Renaissance Faire of the Midlands continues today at the Westfair Fairgrounds near Council Bluffs.

The faire's six stages feature Celtic music, comedy routines, puppet shows, animal acts, dancing and feats of strength. Master falconer Kitty Carroll will exhibit her hawks and falcons with free-flight and hunting demonstrations, and the New Riders of the Golden Age will compete in full-contact jousting. At the artisans market, more than 65 merchants will sell jewelry sculpture, clothing, oil paintings, pottery, candles and more. (402) 345-5401; wwwiaire.org. 2 FOOD: Ice Cream Days, Thursday through next Sunday, Le Mars The annual festival features tours, athletic contests, a family fun fest, parade, outdoor concerts, a toy show, outdoor movie, arts and crafts in the park, a children's learning fair, fishing derby, kite flying, an air show on Sunday afternoon and lots of ice cream.

(712) 546-8821; www.lemarsiowa.com 3 MOTORCYCLES: Sturgis Mississippi River Motorcycle Rally, Thursday through Saturday, Davenport The Sturgis Mississippi Motorcycle Rally is the largest gathering of motorcycles in the Midwest, with more than 40 bands, vendors, food and more. (309) 799-7469, (309) 799-3800; www.sturgisonthe river.com there is a silent auction and door prizes. Admission is $5 with dren younger than 9 free with one paid admission. Free gift bags for first 200 paid admissions. (515) 221-3319; ww.iowacomic bookclub.org.

8 HISTORY: All Fired Up: Wagon Wheel Tiring and Farmsteading in the Midwest, Friday through next Sunday, Living History Farms, Urbandale The blacksmith fires up the forge to put new iron rims on the wooden wheels of the horse-drawn carriage on Friday. Hands-on activities for the whole family help teach about the challenges of buying, supplying and operating farms of the past throughout the weekend. Hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. (515) 278-5286; www.lhf.org.

9 ARTS FESTIVAL: MacNider Arts Festival, continuing today, MacNider Art Museum, Mason City The MacNider Arts Festival features musicians, magicians, balloon artists and family art activities today at the MacNider Museum and the public library. (641) 421-3666. 4fl CELEBRATION: Fourth Annual IU Juneteenth Celebration, Saturday, African American Museum of Iowa This family festival celebrates the end of slavery in America with the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation. Musicians and dancers perform gospel, jazz and hip-hop. There are children's arts and crafts, sing-alongs and storytellers, food and displays.

(319) 862-2101; www.blackiowa.org Hollywood to Broadway to share their performing arts insights and experiences with students of all ages and abilities. The festival parade starts at 5:30 p.m. Monday, followed by the community picnic on the courthouse block. Workshops and classes continue throughout the week, with entertainment in the evenings. (712) 263-3334; www.donnareed.org 6 FESTIVAL: The State Center Rose Festival, Friday through next Sunday, State Center State Center celebrates those thorny, aromatic blooms with a Rose queen coronation, chili cookoff a parade, bands, barbecue competition, carnival, fireworks and family entertainment throughout the weekend.

(641) 483-3002. 7 COMIC BOOKS: l-Con 2005, Saturday, Tourism Building at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, Des Moines I-Con 2005 is Saturday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. The event includes more than 20 comic book dealers selling and buying comic-books, toys, and related memorabilia. I 1 7 of the Midlands attracts an fun-seekers. With killer's death, terror finally 5 MURDER, from Page 1 living with his mother in Denver, Colo.

He was sent to Iowa to live with his father and stepmother, McBeth said, but he couldn't get along there either. Drove them to a dance Gayno Smith seemed to be a normal young man who showed respect to his uncles and family. But on May 26, 1962, it all fell apart. That night, the 24-year-old Smith gave Andy McBeth's four children 19-year-old twins Amos and Anna, 15-year-old Patsy and 17-year-old Donna McBeth Kellogg a ride to Brighton for a dance. Kellogg was the mother of baby Perry, but she was estranged from the boy's father.

Perry stayed at home with his grandparents when his mother went out. Smith remained at the dance a short time, then disappeared until midnight, according to court records. He came back to pick up the group after the dance ended. Thunder, lightning and heavy rain began as the five went to a truck stop for food. When they returned to their farmhouse, the lights were out.

They all looked for flashlights. According to the records, Patsy heard Amos and Donna screaming J3r.flwflfti The Midwest's Located 25 minutes Sun. Thur. September a SPECIAL TO THE REGISTER Survivor: Perry Gene McBeth survived the murder rampage, but spent years dealing with the emotional scars of it. No.

1: The Renaissance Faire eclectic band of in the distance a few minutes later. Their parents had been dragged to the garage where they lay dead from gunshot wounds. Their phone lines were cut. Suddenly, Smith appeared before them with a flashlight and a gun. He shot Amos in the face, then Donna.

He shot Patsy in the shoulder. Though badly wounded, Amos pleaded for his life but was shot again. Patsy escaped to another room where she found her older sister, Anna, already dead. Smith chased her to a ditch in the countryside. She played cat and mouse through the ditches, crawling and crouching to escape his roving flashlight through the early morning hours.

She finally reached nearby farmhouse, where she called her uncle, Firman McBeth. The last thing she heard before she ran was a baby crying. Firman McBeth was familiar with violence but nothing like this. As the town marshal for 20 years, he'd seen plenty of suicides and violent behavior. He said there wasn't a man in the county who could whip him in those days.

Sometimes, he'd take off his badge and battle the bad apples with his fists. What he saw in the next hour would change him. "When I pulled up, it was raining and lightning, and all the lights Largest Casino south of Minneapolis! through 1, 2005 HOTEL -JSC No. 4: Dan Zanes asks for audience participation. Guests include D.C.

and Marvel Comics artists Darick Robertson, Norm Breyfogle, Phil Hester and Ron Wagner. Guest artist panels, art seminar, costume contest, trivia contest and comics grading panel are featured attractions, and ends she is still trying to blot the murders from her mind. Perry McBeth, 43, said he hasn't been able to do that. "I went through 43 years of hell because of Gayno," he said. "All the kids growing up congratulated me because I was famous.

"Famous for having my parent and grandparents murdered? What's so great about that? Other children teased and frightened him. They often said, Smith is going to "come back and get you." "All the way through school I was a bully because I wanted people to hurt as bad as I did. I hated everything and everybody," he said. "I'm sorry about that now. When I see those people today, I try to tell them that, but they just don't understand." Perry said he became an alcoholic at age 10 and gained sobriety only in the last decade.

"I dont know why the son-of-a-bitch never shot me. Why did I live?" Perry asked himself. "I didn't think I belonged here. Everybody else was dead I should be dead." After Firman McBeth began to have bad dreams, people told him he needed therapy. "I didn't think I'd make it for a while without losing my mind," he said.

"But I made up my mind I'd handle this myself." His wife was put in a tough spot, too. Smith was her sister's son. They put their energies into raising Perry. "I treated him like one of my own," McBeth said. "He was dealt a lot, so I tried to give as much to him as I could without losing the other kids.

I tried to be good to him. After all, he lost his mother." But the two still nursed wounds from the shared tragedy. As he grew older, Perry McBeth began to wonder what happened to his mother and grandparents. When he was 8, Firman McBeth sat him down and laid out that rainy night's events. Perry suffered from the knowledge, but he managed to graduate from high school and lived down the road from the McBeths in Hedrick.

He has a tough time when talk of the murders surfaces. "I have dreams about the damn thing every night," he said. Firman McBeth now sells old lawn equipment as a part-time job and remarried after a divorce from Erma in the late 1970s. She died last year. Then Smith's death stirred up the past.

"People have told me that at least now I didn't have to worry about him," said McBeth. "But he had a lot better life than I would have given 8 Day New Orleans, St. Louis, Lula $499 Depart DM, Chariton, Knonille i Corydon Sept 10, 2005 Tow Depart 7 Nights Lodging 6 Meals $Tours 10 Plena Call (all KEOKUK CO. MAHASKA CO. 149 Hedrick i WAPELLO CO.

Otlumwa AREA SHOWN Luke Wunih DAVIS CO. Timeline May 26-27, 1962 Gayno Smith shoots and kills Andy and Dora McBeth and their children Anna, Amos and Donna at their farmhouse near Martinsburg. May 31 1 962 After a four-day manhunt, 12 law officers find Smith in a barn near the entrance of Lake Wapello State Park. June 12, 1962 The body of Smith's stepmother, Juanita Smith, was found in a shallow grave outside her home in Hedrick. She had vanished the previous October.

September 1962 Smith pleads guilty to the murders of the McBeth family and Smith and is sentenced to six terms of life imprisonment. Fall 1962 Perry McBeth, son of Donna McBeth Kellogg, is adopted by Firman and Erma McBeth, his uncle and aunt. May 17, 2005 Gayno Smith, after 42 years in prison, dies of a heart ailment. him. They should have put him to death.

"It's nice that it'll be all over with now. There's no more reason to bring it up. I have wished a thousand times I would have written it down, all the things I went through after that night." At the Mount Zion Cemetery north of Martinsburg, a newly dug, foot-square grave of the cremated remains of Gayno Smith is fronted by a small plastic marker. It simply shows his name and the year of birth and death. He was 67.

His sister in California paid for him to be buried beside their mother, honoring his wishes, said Perry McBeth, although horrified by the thought. The simple marker is just one grave away from Perry's adoptive mother, Erma, in the family plot. "I'm glad he's dead," Perry said. "It was the best day of my life. I hope he burns in hell forever." 11 Day New England FallGet-A-Way only $999 Niagara Falls, BarUeboro, VI Cape Cod, Martha'i Vineyard and Newport R.I.

Omaha, Co. Bluffs and Dec Moines September 25, 2005. Nights Lodging 16 Meals 5 miles THE REGISTER 84 were out," he said in an interview last month from his front porch in Martinsburg. "It scared you to death. I went into the garage and found my brother and his wife.

As I got ready to go into the house, the sheriff arrived." Sheriff Bud Wallerich found the other bodies. Donna was by her bed, lying dead at the feet of her sleeping baby. "The sheriff picked up the baby and handed it to me," he said. "I went through the house and grabbed a blanket off the chair and wrapped him in it. It was off the chair where Gayno shot Andy, but I didn't even think about it.

"On the way home, I smelled blood. The blanket was soaked with it. I was driving so fast, I flew over the bump at the intersection. I didn't even realize it." In shock, he handed the baby to his wife, Erma, and told his four sons to "get armed." "I'd have shot him if I would have got him in my sights," he said. He didn't get the chance.

Gayno Smith was found by authorities hiding in a barn near Lake Wapello four days later. In September 1962, he pleaded guilty of the five murders. His stepmother, Juanita Smith, 46, was later found buried in a (FREE travel shows 1 1 unt MPS nut 7 PM I enm Flour Drive I JUV aGUALLTOWH June 15 Jreceivea Best Western I 3303 S. Center 5t. SH0WS i nil iui ii per room Friday rates start at 04 shallow grave outside her home in nearby Hedrick.

She had disappeared in October and Smith later admitted killing her. McBeth speculates that his brother Andy had discovered clues to that murder, which led to the killing. He resisted the urge to ask Smith about that while he was living out his life in prison. This tough man, still big in stature for his age and wearing work boots, cries when he talks about it. Alcoholic by age 10 McBeth said he told the judge he wanted to keep the baby.

After all, he already had nine children of his own and they were good kids, not troublemakers. "Because of what happened, I was the best to take care of him," he said. "I could understand." The boy fit neatly at the tail end of a long line in a big family, thanks to the loving care of his new mother. Perry says now he had it tougher with his adoptive father, who was a taskmaster with the boys. While Patsy stayed with other relatives for a while, she soon disappeared from Martinsburg.

McBeth said she now wants no one to try to find her. He suspects October 21-29 with KEITH KIRKPATRICK Amtrak's City ot New Orleans 4 nights aboard the American Queen steamboat New OrleansFrench Quarter 17 meals "samtbak Convenient Local Departures mi For reservations call 1-800-813-7349. You must reference package code DR6 to receive this offer. CASINO i M.us3rfi it 3 4WV Omaha 40M42-45SS frit it: M00-4M-2114 E3.