Re: Hargon Arraingment Postponed
C&P:<br /><br />March 2, 2004 <br /><br />Suspect's life turbulent, court records show<br /><br />By Peggy Matthews <br />pmatthews@clarionledger.com<br />and Jeremy Hudson <br />jehudson@jackson.gannett.com<br /><br />Earnest Lee Hargon had a turbulent relationship with the man who adopted him, and they never made up before the father died, according to court records and people who knew them.<br /><br />Paperwork filed in his parents' divorce say that as a child Earnest Lee Hargon was subjected to drunken rages by his father, Charles Hargon. When the elder Hargon died in January, the two were estranged.<br /><br />"I do know that Charles called Earnest Lee before Christmas and told him he had until Christmas to come up there and make peace. Charles knew he was dying, but (Earnest Lee) didn't come," said former Canton Police Chief Luke Gordon, now the Madison County emergency management director. Gordon knew both men.<br /><br />It wasn't long after that deadline that Charles Hargon, who had left his farm to Earnest Lee Hargon, wrote a second will, leaving his 50-acre farm to his great-nephew Michael Hargon.<br /><br />Now, Earnest Lee Hargon is charged with capital murder in the deaths of Michael Hargon, his wife, Rebecca, and the couple's 4-year-old son, James Patrick.<br /><br />The farm acreage is valued at $175,000 and the farmhouse at $45,000, but the property was mortgaged for nearly $177,000 to Farmers Home Administration, records show. On March 6, 1997, Charles Hargon signed over a deed of trust to FHA for three loans all made the same day. The loans were to be paid off by 2012.<br /><br />David Tadlock, owner of Tadlock Stockyards in Forest and Bay Springs, said Earnest Lee Hargon worked for him for about five years and left about two years ago to start his own hauling business. The business failed, and at a hearing on Monday, Earnest Lee Hargon told a judge he was unemployed.<br /><br />Tadlock said he often accompanied Earnest Lee Hargon to pick up cattle from Charles Hargon.<br /><br />"They were always fussing, carrying on with each other," Tadlock said. "Charles said to me, 'My gosh. Can you imagine what this place is going to become once Earnest Lee gets it?' ... Like it was going to go to nothing when Earnest Lee got it."<br /><br />Tadlock said Earnest Lee Hargon was a hard worker, but "he couldn't be still. He didn't like to do the same thing every day."<br /><br />He described Earnest Lee Hargon as well-mannered and well-liked.<br /><br />"I trusted Earnest Lee in my business and enough to send him into other people's houses," Tadlock said. "He got along well with everybody. It just don't add up to me. But if the evidence is there, I don't have any mercy on him."<br /><br />Tadlock said Earnest Lee Hargon who also has been charged with possession of methamphetamine never showed signs of drug use while working for him. He was a good employee with a good work ethic.<br /><br />"He was a cowboy," Tadlock said. "But he wasn't no rhinestone cowboy. He was the real thing."<br /><br />Earnest Lee Hargon was born in Baton Rouge on Sept. 16, 1960, but he spent many of his younger years in Canton.<br /><br />His mother, Eva Heflin, married Charles Hargon on Feb. 6, 1965. Earnest Lee Hargon was adopted at age 5 by her new husband that same year in August, according to records in Madison County Chancery Court. The couple had no other children.<br /><br />The family lived not far from Canton, on a 50-acre farm off Mississippi 16. By early 1971, Eva Heflin Hargon had filed for divorce.<br /><br />She and Earnest Lee Hargon both lived "in fear of physical bodily harm" because of Charles Hargon's drinking, she said in the petition for divorce. She described the household as violent and intolerable.<br /><br />Charles Hargon denied the allegations. The court awarded sole custody to the mother. In 1973, the court reversed its decision, giving custody to Charles Hargon because the boy was living much of the time with him.<br /><br />Earnest Lee Hargon graduated from Canton Academy in 1978.<br /><br />In February 1983, he applied for a marriage license but never married a Canton girl. Two years later, he married Jeaneva Lynn Mowdy. The couple had a son, James Philip Hargon.<br /><br />Madison County Circuit Court records show the couple had financial trouble by 1993, defaulting on a $1,281 loan from Tower Loan of Mississippi. <br /><br />After that marriage ended, he married veterinarian Lisa Ainsworth of Taylorsville.<br /><br />Sarah Albritton of Canton, who knew Earnest Lee Hargon, called the allegations against him "unbelievable. This is not the Earnest Lee I remember."<br /><br />Ashley Mathis, a former math teacher at Taylorsville, taught James Phillip Hargon, 16, when he was in the seventh grade. "All I have been able to think about is what J.P. must be going through," Mathis said.
