A deadly clash of cultures
John Ames murder trial highlights changes in Caroline County culture
By BILL FREEHLING
Date published: 9/18/2005
Inside the 1835 Bowling Green courthouse, jurors watched a 15-second animated film of Perry Brooks' death.
The man on trial throughout this past week, John F. Ames, had met with Richmond animator Jeff Taylor to re-create Brooks' 2004 death on his farm.
The visual aid rolled on state-of-the-art equipment as jurors watched from a long row of chairs under a coronation portrait of Britain's Queen Caroline.
Spectators sat on wooden benches on the first floor and in the balcony--a two-story architectural feature that hearkens back to a segregated past.
On one side of the courthouse sat friends and family members of defendant John Ames. The men, many of them lawyers, were dressed to the nines in dark suits and ties.
On the other side were friends and family of Perry Brooks, dressed nicely but less formally than their counterparts.
Witnesses told of the long feud between Ames--a 60-year-old bankruptcy lawyer, cattle farmer and accountant who moved to Caroline County in 1985--and Brooks, a sometimes-cantankerous vegetable farmer. Their bitter clash ended with Ames fatally shooting a stick-wielding Brooks on Ames' farm last spring.
A jury Friday acquitted Ames of murder charges, agreeing that he acted in self-defense.
The testimony in Ames' murder trial painted the picture of two men with different ways of life and manners of handling conflict. To several people in attendance, the case served as a metaphor for the changing way of life in this small but growing community.
Ames' Holly Hill Farm off State Route 207 in Bowling Green was no run-of-the-mill operation, testified cattleman John Whiting. The ancestry of his Black Angus cattle could be traced back to Scotland. Whiting called the certified purebred herd "elite."
One of Ames' herd was especially prized. Defense attorney Craig S. Cooley called it "the Arnold Schwarzenegger of bulls," a breeding machine worth thousands.
In one barn, Ames testified, he kept cattle embryo and bull semen in tanks of liquid nitrogen. Ames sold them and used them for breeding.
Ames said his cattle received top-notch care, regularly getting minerals and vaccinations.
Brooks' cattle weren't as closely monitored. In a 2002 deposition read in court last week, Brooks said he never thought to give them much veterinary care.
One of Brooks' bulls was at the center of the controversy between the two men.
Date published: 9/18/2005
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