After Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by Marilyn J Bardsley Page A

spotlight on his sordid relationship with a male prostitute—does not make sense to me when I weigh what I know about him. If Jim wanted to rid himself of Danny, he had other alternatives that didn’t ensure a scandal: He could pay off Danny and change the locks on the doors; he could wait until Danny’s next suicidal overdose and not rush him to the hospital, as he did twice before; or, if Jim had a murderous intent, he could take the drug-addled kid out to the swamps and make him food for alligators. In fact, Jim did tell Danny to get out of his life at least twice, according to Joe Goodman, but each time, Jim relented and let Danny come back. It was possible that Danny was Jim’s embarrassing obsession.
     
    Clearly, Jim and Danny’s two-year relationship was approaching a crisis stage. Danny knew he was trapped in Jim’s luxurious cocoon. Jim was his sugar daddy and he was chafing under that burden, particularly because he had a girlfriend who had no interest in a permanent relationship with a male concubine. Danny’s demands on Jim increased, perhaps so he could justify continuing the relationship. When Jim refused the demands, Danny lashed out violently.
     
    Whatever the argument in the early hours of April 3 was actually about, Danny was seen shooting a gun into Monterey Square. He had already shot a hole in the upstairs bedroom floor. Jim called the police and wanted to press charges, but then once again relented and had Joe Goodman get Danny out of jail. The fact remains that Danny took one of Jim’s loaded guns and started shooting.
     
    Several days before Danny was shot, another important event in this evolving drama took place. Danny demanded a gold necklace as a gift. Jim agreed to buy him one, but only if he stopped seeing Debbie Blevins. Danny agreed, and Jim spent $400 on Danny’s gold necklace. Two days later, Danny brought Debbie to the house wearing the very same necklace. No matter how intoxicated Danny was, it was a deliberate act of betrayal. Jim told him to get out and never come back. Danny afterward told his best friend that he was really concerned that he had now lost “his meal ticket.”
     
    Danny came back on the night of May 1 and stayed through the early morning hours of May 2—perhaps to try to reclaim his kept status—but at some point, arguments broke out as Danny become progressively more intoxicated. Jim’s call to Joe to cancel the upcoming trip to Europe could easily have been under duress. Whether Danny was holding a pistol at Jim while Jim talked to Joe or whether Danny had threatened Jim with blackmail over the fraud that was going on in Jim’s shop will never be known. Jim’s call to Joe was around 2 AM, and Danny was dead 20 minutes later.
     
    From my perspective, Danny’s well-documented propensity for violence and the April 3 shooting incident made a reasonable case for self-defense or manslaughter. It could have been as simple as Danny holding a gun pointed at Jim and threatening to use it. At some point, Jim reached into a nearby cabinet and got one of his pistols. With two armed men—one violent and intoxicated and the other afraid for his life—any number of spontaneous trigger events could have caused the shooting. Afterward, Jim may have very possibly fixed up the scene to bolster his case for self-defense. He must have realized the damage this shooting would do to his reputation.
     

     
    Danny Lewis Hansford’s grave
     

Chapter 16: Aftermath
     
    When Jim regained his freedom in May of 1989, he was in good health and good spirits, even though he was more than $1 million poorer from cost of defending himself in four trials. That December, he held his Christmas parties, inviting only the people that had been on his side during his legal ordeals. In January, he started to suffer from bronchitis, but on the evening of January 13, he went to a party even though he felt run-down. The bronchitis had turned into pneumonia. The next morning, he suddenly