Vernon grew up around Brookland, Arkansas. He never knew a stranger at all, and I would venture to say that he had no real enemies. He told wonderful stories about his time growing up. He used to tell me that Saturday mornings were the best. He said his mom loved her garden, but he was the youngest sooooo, he rarely had to help. He would laugh about how he would dip out of it and his sisters would end up helping. He said he would love to watch "wrastlin", Wrestling that is, on Saturday mornings. If you knew Vernon, you would know that he was most likely the class clown, everywhere he went. He loved life and made sure everyone around him had a good time if possible. One vacation, we had taken off to Florida with the kids. We went to a mall there close to Destin and some people came up to him and talked to him because they knew him from Arkansas. I swear, we could not go anywhere that Vernon did not meet someone he already knew.
When we first met, Vernon was still going out on dates with other people. The last date he had before we became a couple, he asked me if I could stop by. He was trying to pick out something nice to wear on his date. He picked a shirt that was wrinkled, so I ironed it for him. We had developed a wonderful friendship for quite a while before I agreed to date him. I was filled with a lot of hurt and anger at the time so I trusted almost no one. That night, he ended up finding me on what we called the strip in Paragould about 9 pm, cruising up and down the strip with loud music as always. His date ended early, and he wanted to hang out. We started dating after that. Our first official date, I had homework for my photography class in college and needed to complete a photography assignment after dark so that I used the lens as the "flash" by leaving the lens open and kept my hand steady. We went to the graveyard at the intersection of Kingshighway and Hwy 49, across from the now McDonald's. He picked me up with his long arms and gently lifted me in the back of his red Nissan truck. I got some amazing photographs that night and when I was finished, he again, picked me and lifted me off the back of the truck. It is the moment I started thinking, ummmm, could he be the one? I had turned away my long-time high school boyfriend and then regretted it a few years earlier. My college boyfriend had suddenly just vanished for a while (what we call ghosting these days) and stopped calling me and stopped taking my calls after dating for over a year. I was not trusting myself or others anymore. I agreed to the first date with Vernon reluctantly, but he was handsome back then, tan and ripped, so why not. We had 3 dates before we kissed. Our courtship last nearly 2 years before we married. We had some fights, and I gave back the engagement ring once. He kept chasing me and I finally agreed to marry him. Over the years, things changed and of course, knowing we ended up divorced tells you a lot. We had 4 pregnancies together as a married couple. Our second child hid out in my fallopian tube and surprisingly, I had very little pain and hence the reason, the doctors thought my pregnancy had naturally self-aborted. I carried him nearly 6 months before the doctors found him. I wanted to save him but in 1994, medicine for preemies was not what it is today. The doctors made the decision to save my life. I was devastated after we lost him. I named him Cody Ryan after we divorced. Vernon was so upset about losing him in 1994, he did not want to name him. I guess it was his coping mechanism. He got angry when I would try to talk about it. I remember one trip coming back from Farmington in early 1995 after seeing his dad and Mary Sue. I was sobbing right after we came through Corning. The white geese were in the flooded fields by the 100's and I just had a moment of sobbing for Cody. I leaned my head on him as he was driving me and the sleeping Alysha home. He wrapped that one arm around me and he said, "Kim, God needed another angel from a happy family to hang out with someone else. You will see him again some day." I was also sobbing because despite trying for quite some time, I could not get pregnant again. I told him that God was punishing me and he should probably leave me. He told me to shut my mouth that this was not punishment, and I carried him for so long and lived to tell the story about Cody. He said, God just has other plans for you right now. A few months later, I was pregnant with Tucker. We actually filled out Tucker's birth certificate in the hospital with Cody's name but the next morning, we both agreed that we could not take away Cody's name from him and Tucker just seemed like he should be Tucker. The office person came back, and she said she always waited to submit to Vital Records for 5 days because parents often changed their minds about names. The three living children that you see in the home page were our happiest, most treasured accomplishments and memories as a couple. Vernon loved to take them and their friends "snipe" hunting, have bonfires even in the dead of winter, did the "Ice Challenge" with the kids by dumping the ice buckets on them gleefully as it was all videotaped, he played a lot of jokes on the kids and me often and laughed a lot. He played loads of video games with the kids and won, played dominoes with us all, Monopoly, etc. He loved to have fun when he was home. Probably his biggest downfall was that he sucked at money management, and he did not like me being in charge of the finances. He sucked at money management for more than just not being able to manage but also because he wanted to help everyone and anyone that needed help. He would forget that we had a bill due and spend that money sometimes by giving it away. That trait is a mixed thing. The people he helped would say he was generous to a fault, but I would often say, family should come first and then help others. I still feel like you should take care of your own family first but that is how I am. So you are probably wondering why I would share such good stories about him. Well, every life matters, every person matters. Vernon left behind a lot of friends that love him, a big family that loves him and grandkids that would have loved to get to know him. Now, they only know him in stories and pictures. I hope they find this website some day and love reading about him. Everyone should have a way to learn about their heritage. If you have a story you would like to submit, I will be happy to add it to the blog with your name and information you want shared. Until next time....
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cCitizens Matter
The Treacherous World of the Laws, Deaths and Probate By Kimberly Shelby, a citizen and Pro Se litigant I have decided to take on the task of writing about the crucial matters that surround the investigation of a death of a loved as it impacts you legally and really the whole community. Our law enforcement officers are tasked with the day-to-day chores of deciding what to pursue and what to let go. It is called Discretionary law which is what we have in Arkansas and it can be generally very fair and sometimes very slanted. In Arkansas, when someone dies, especially a younger person, Arkansas Code Annotated 12-12-315 comes into effect. This code/law lays out exactly every detail that must be followed to confirm the cause of death and if any foul play is suspected. When that Arkansas Code is not applied to a death, it leaves us feeling uneasy, confused and having a liturgy of asking question after question. In one case in Northeast Arkansas, Vernon Alva McKay, passed away very suddenly at the age of 48 years young. He had been walking a lot, his blood work was impeccable and a 30 day holter monitoring revealed a healthy heart, yet he fell over dead suddenly at work. He arrived on a cool day in December, December 29, 2016 to be exact, in the Emergency Room in Northeast Arkansas on that Thursday afternoon receiving CPR, unconscious and unresponsive. The attending physician finally called his time of death as nothing would restart his heart. Now here is where it gets ticky with everyone. In general, non-medical people hear that his heart stopped and say, well he was a big man or he never had a heart cath to prove he had no blockages. The doctors must have missed something. Those would be wrong assumptions. First of all, his cholesterol was completely, COMPLETELY normal so how would blockages form with normal levels of cholesterol, healthy levels if you will. The Emergency Room doctor had the staff make sure that the Arkansas State Crime lab was contacted by the Coroner’s Office. The Coroner’s office stated that they did indeed contact the Arkansas State Crime lab and yet, that was later discovered to be a lie. In the meantime, Vernon’s body was held in the NEA Baptist Hospital morgue overnight, pending transportation to the Arkansas State Crime lab which also never happened. In the medical world, ICD 10 coding is used to communicate and medical jargon which is not commonly known by non-medical persons. In this case, the ICD 10 code was I46.9 which is Sudden Cardiac Arrest of Unknown etiology. Vernon’s insurance was billed one last time with that diagnosis and the medical staff at Northeast Arkansas Hospital concluded that once the body was retrieved from the hospital by representatives of Emerson Funeral home, Vernon was on his way to Little Rock for the Arkansas State Crime Lab physician to look him over and make a medical certification of the death as requested by the local physician because nothing that they could reason internally would have caused his heart to stop and not restart. He should still be alive at this point and yet he is not. The medical team wanted answers. That did not happen. Rather, the medical staff locally was determined by an Elected Official to be wrong, throwing physicians in Northeast Arkansas a blow by basically stating that an Elected Lay person would know more about medicine than trained, licensed, experienced physicians. The local police department in Jonesboro supported this by not contacting the Prosecutor’s office as directed in Arkansas Code Annotated 12-12-315 for a ruling on whether an investigation should occur. Because of this single decision, two court cases have developed surrounding the death of Vernon Alva McKay and thus far, no autopsy like the physician requested. Now, a Judge in the second case has ruled that a private autopsy cannot occur because Arkansas Code Annotated 12-12-321 has not occurred properly which has listed the above code 12-12-315 as a part of that. It concludes that a body buried without proper certification under Arkansas Code 12-12-315, needs to be discussed by the Chief of Police with the Prosecutor and the Prosecutor then needs to seek an order for exhumation and autopsy for the circuit court. The failure of the Elected Coroner’s office whose Elected Coroner is not only a Jonesboro Police Reserve Officer and instructor for the Jonesboro Police Department but also a Reserve Craighead County Sheriff’s deputy both positions violate the Coroner’s laws and manual. The failure of both the Jonesboro Police Department and the Elected Coroner’s office have led the liturgy of questions like do we trust our local physicians, should we trust the local law enforcement, will anyone force the law enforcement officers to contact the Prosecutor’s office or will this suspicious death just be ignored, etc? I mean, he was not taking any prescription medications, NEA Cardiologists had released him from their care 10 days or so prior to his death saying his heart was in great shape but he was worth a lot as a deceased man. For the record, Vernon Alva McKay was not a rich man in life, barely scraping by to pay his own bills let alone anything extra. He loved his children, he argued with people about me, his ex-wife and he loved people in general. He would be appalled that so much has happened in the last nearly 8 years. How much is Vernon Alva McKay worth dead? It is hard to say but he is a partial owner of 3 different properties with a sum total value of well over one million dollars. More to come soon. |
AuthorI am the first wife of Vernon. Together as a couple, we spent nearly 28 years of our lives together meeting in 1987. ArchivesCategories |