Modesto Bee, The (CA) - Thursday, June 21, 2012
Dec 2, 1945 -- June 14, 2012
Bobby Joe moved to Riverbank in 1948. Bobby died in Mississipp. Bobby was predeceased by his mother Lucille( Lucy) and father Adolph Leroy Faubion ( Dock)
Bobby is survived by a son Bobby Ray Faubion and three granchildren also brothers Donald Ray Faubion and Leroy Faubion. Viewing for the family 5:00-7:00 Sunday. We are having a graveside service at Burwood cemetery 10:00 AM Monday June- 25
May the good Lord Bless and keep him.

***
Bobby Joe Fabian Or Faubion, 67

Miss. judge murder informant dies

Advocate, The (Baton Rouge, LA) - Saturday, June 16, 2012
A former Louisiana State Penitentiary inmate credited with helping solve the 1987 murders of a Biloxi, Miss., judge and his wife died Thursday night at Mississippi State Penitentiary, a Mississippi corrections spokeswoman said.
Bobby Joe Fabian, 67, had hoped to gain his freedom in return for providing information to investigators that enabled them to make arrests in the contract slayings of Biloxi Circuit Court Judge Vincent Sherry and Margaret Sherry, a former Biloxi councilwoman.
Fabian died, however, in the Parchman prison's hospital, corrections spokeswoman Tara Booth said.
He suffered from congestive heart failure and liver disease.
Retired FBI agent Keith Bell said Fabian, then an inmate at Angola, gave information about the conspirators having a contract killer, John Elbert Ransome, of Georgia, travel to Biloxi to discuss killing the couple.
Because Ransome crossed state lines to meet with the people who wanted the Sherrys killed, the federal government was able to enter what had, until then, been a local investigation, Bell said.
Bell said Fabian also provided the names of "players" involved in the conspiracy, including Angola inmate Kirksey McCord Nix Jr.
Federal prosecutors, in two trials involving different elements of the crime, eventually convicted Nix, former Biloxi Mayor Pete Halat, Biloxi striptease club owner Mike Gillich, Ransome, the actual killer, Thomas Holcomb, and others.
Nix and Fabian, whose actual surname is Faubion, were involved in scams they operated from behind bars that amassed hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 1980s through the mail and by telephone.
The scammers persuaded men outside of prison that they were young gay men who would come live with them but needed money to get out of minor scrapes with the law. In some cases, the inmates would pretend to be women and target "lonely hearts."
Federal prosecutors alleged, and a Mississippi jury agreed, that Nix trusted Halat to keep his money in a safety deposit box, but Halat took some of the money and blamed Vincent Sherry, who had been Halat's law partner.
Gillich, who helped secure Holcomb's services, also wanted Margaret Sherry dead because she campaigned against his strip clubs.
Nix is serving a life sentence in federal prison, and Halat is scheduled to be released in April. Gillich, who later implicated Halat and Holcomb, died April 28 a free man.
Fabian was convicted of aggravated kidnapping and sentenced to life in Louisiana for shooting a state trooper and a town marshal in the legs in 1970, shortly after he escaped from federal custody in Oklahoma.
Mississippi juries also convicted him of armed robbery and the murder of a wealthy Memphis, Tenn., horse breeder and bond expert. Fabian confessed to the murder but later recanted, saying he took the rap as a favor to an organized crime family.
"I took the beef for that. I already had forever to do. When you're young and dumb ?," Fabian said in a 2009 interview at Hunt Correctional Center.
Former U.S. Attorney George Phillips, Bell and the Sherrys' daughters tried unsuccessfully in 2007 to win a sentence commutation for Fabian, but the Louisiana Pardon Board turned him down.
publication logo
Advocate, The (Baton Rouge, LA) - Saturday, June 16, 2012


Daily World (Opelousas, Louisiana)
19 Jan 2007, Fri
Page 9

Fabian Sherry slayings informer dies

Press-Register (Mobile, AL) - Saturday, June 16, 2012
Fabian
Sherry slayings informer dies
By Jack Elliott Jr.
Associated Press
JACKSON - An inmate who linked prison telephone scams in Louisiana to the murders of a Mississippi judge and his wife has died at a Mississippi prison.
Department of Corrections spokeswoman Tara Booth said Bobby Joe Fabian died Thursday night in the hospital at the State Penitentiary in Parchman. He was 67. He had been suffering from congestive heart failure and other problems.
His testimony connected scams run by inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola to the 1987 slayings of Biloxi Circuit Court Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife, Margaret, a former member of the Biloxi City Council.
The investigation by the Biloxi Police Department was stymied until Fabian told a private investigator, hired by the Sherrys' daughter, that the couple was killed over missing money.
Fabian was a second crucial witness in the Sherry case. Prosecutors said he provided a motive. Fabian said fellow inmate and Dixie Mafia kingpin Kirksey McCord Nix Jr. ordered the Sherry murders after Biloxi Mayor Pete Halat had convinced Nix that Vincent Sherry had stolen some of Nix's scam proceeds.
Mike Gillich, John Ransom, Nix Jr. - who was serving life in a Louisiana prison during the plotting - and Nix's girlfriend, Sheri LaRa Sharpe, were convicted in 1991 on a federal conspiracy charge. Gillich died in April.
Gillich was the chief prosecution witness when Halat, Sherry's former law partner and three others were convicted in 1997. Gillich died in April.
But Fabian's testimony never won him a reduced sentence or release from prison that both he and federal prosecutors sought. Fabian was serving a life sentence at Louisiana's Angola prison for kidnapping and shooting two Louisiana police officers. He was moved from Angola in 1990 by federal marshals and spent some time in a Florida federal prison before ending up at the Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel, La. He was transferred to Mississippi in 2009.
His transfer was worked out in months of negotiations among federal authorities and corrections officials in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Fabian's attorney, Cynthia Speetjens, said at the time that Mississippi agreed to take custody of Fabian "for humanitarian reasons because he solved the Sherry murders and he was in danger" in a Louisiana prison.
"I don't even want to get out. I'm just tired. I just want to lay low until I die, which I hope is sooner rather than later," Fabian told The Advocate of Baton Rouge on Sept. 30, 2009, before his transfer.
Mississippi juries convicted Fabian of killing wealthy Memphis, Tenn., horse breeder and bond expert George Lenox and robbing a couple in West Point, Miss. Fabian recanted a confession. He claimed he took the rap as a favor to an organized crime family.
In the 1980s, Fabian, Nix and other Angola inmates began running "lonely hearts" telephone scams that mainly targeted homosexuals who sent thousands of dollars, thinking they were helping young men get out of minor scrapes with the law and join them.
Fabian estimated the ring may have collected $5 million.
Prosecutors had described Fabian as one of the few surviving members of the "Dixie Mafia." The Dixie Mafia was the name lawmen gave a group of traveling criminals in the late 1960s.

Press-Register (Mobile, AL) - Saturday, June 16, 2012

Modesto Bee, The (CA) - Thursday, June 21, 2012
Dec 2, 1945 -- June 14, 2012
Bobby Joe moved to Riverbank in 1948. Bobby died in Mississipp. Bobby was predeceased by his mother Lucille( Lucy) and father Adolph Leroy Faubion ( Dock)
Bobby is survived by a son Bobby Ray Faubion and three granchildren also brothers Donald Ray Faubion and Leroy Faubion. Viewing for the family 5:00-7:00 Sunday. We are having a graveside service at Burwood cemetery 10:00 AM Monday June- 25
May the good Lord Bless and keep him.

***
Bobby Joe Fabian Or Faubion, 67

Miss. judge murder informant dies

Advocate, The (Baton Rouge, LA) - Saturday, June 16, 2012
A former Louisiana State Penitentiary inmate credited with helping solve the 1987 murders of a Biloxi, Miss., judge and his wife died Thursday night at Mississippi State Penitentiary, a Mississippi corrections spokeswoman said.
Bobby Joe Fabian, 67, had hoped to gain his freedom in return for providing information to investigators that enabled them to make arrests in the contract slayings of Biloxi Circuit Court Judge Vincent Sherry and Margaret Sherry, a former Biloxi councilwoman.
Fabian died, however, in the Parchman prison's hospital, corrections spokeswoman Tara Booth said.
He suffered from congestive heart failure and liver disease.
Retired FBI agent Keith Bell said Fabian, then an inmate at Angola, gave information about the conspirators having a contract killer, John Elbert Ransome, of Georgia, travel to Biloxi to discuss killing the couple.
Because Ransome crossed state lines to meet with the people who wanted the Sherrys killed, the federal government was able to enter what had, until then, been a local investigation, Bell said.
Bell said Fabian also provided the names of "players" involved in the conspiracy, including Angola inmate Kirksey McCord Nix Jr.
Federal prosecutors, in two trials involving different elements of the crime, eventually convicted Nix, former Biloxi Mayor Pete Halat, Biloxi striptease club owner Mike Gillich, Ransome, the actual killer, Thomas Holcomb, and others.
Nix and Fabian, whose actual surname is Faubion, were involved in scams they operated from behind bars that amassed hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 1980s through the mail and by telephone.
The scammers persuaded men outside of prison that they were young gay men who would come live with them but needed money to get out of minor scrapes with the law. In some cases, the inmates would pretend to be women and target "lonely hearts."
Federal prosecutors alleged, and a Mississippi jury agreed, that Nix trusted Halat to keep his money in a safety deposit box, but Halat took some of the money and blamed Vincent Sherry, who had been Halat's law partner.
Gillich, who helped secure Holcomb's services, also wanted Margaret Sherry dead because she campaigned against his strip clubs.
Nix is serving a life sentence in federal prison, and Halat is scheduled to be released in April. Gillich, who later implicated Halat and Holcomb, died April 28 a free man.
Fabian was convicted of aggravated kidnapping and sentenced to life in Louisiana for shooting a state trooper and a town marshal in the legs in 1970, shortly after he escaped from federal custody in Oklahoma.
Mississippi juries also convicted him of armed robbery and the murder of a wealthy Memphis, Tenn., horse breeder and bond expert. Fabian confessed to the murder but later recanted, saying he took the rap as a favor to an organized crime family.
"I took the beef for that. I already had forever to do. When you're young and dumb ?," Fabian said in a 2009 interview at Hunt Correctional Center.
Former U.S. Attorney George Phillips, Bell and the Sherrys' daughters tried unsuccessfully in 2007 to win a sentence commutation for Fabian, but the Louisiana Pardon Board turned him down.
publication logo
Advocate, The (Baton Rouge, LA) - Saturday, June 16, 2012


Daily World (Opelousas, Louisiana)
19 Jan 2007, Fri
Page 9

Fabian Sherry slayings informer dies

Press-Register (Mobile, AL) - Saturday, June 16, 2012
Fabian
Sherry slayings informer dies
By Jack Elliott Jr.
Associated Press
JACKSON - An inmate who linked prison telephone scams in Louisiana to the murders of a Mississippi judge and his wife has died at a Mississippi prison.
Department of Corrections spokeswoman Tara Booth said Bobby Joe Fabian died Thursday night in the hospital at the State Penitentiary in Parchman. He was 67. He had been suffering from congestive heart failure and other problems.
His testimony connected scams run by inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola to the 1987 slayings of Biloxi Circuit Court Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife, Margaret, a former member of the Biloxi City Council.
The investigation by the Biloxi Police Department was stymied until Fabian told a private investigator, hired by the Sherrys' daughter, that the couple was killed over missing money.
Fabian was a second crucial witness in the Sherry case. Prosecutors said he provided a motive. Fabian said fellow inmate and Dixie Mafia kingpin Kirksey McCord Nix Jr. ordered the Sherry murders after Biloxi Mayor Pete Halat had convinced Nix that Vincent Sherry had stolen some of Nix's scam proceeds.
Mike Gillich, John Ransom, Nix Jr. - who was serving life in a Louisiana prison during the plotting - and Nix's girlfriend, Sheri LaRa Sharpe, were convicted in 1991 on a federal conspiracy charge. Gillich died in April.
Gillich was the chief prosecution witness when Halat, Sherry's former law partner and three others were convicted in 1997. Gillich died in April.
But Fabian's testimony never won him a reduced sentence or release from prison that both he and federal prosecutors sought. Fabian was serving a life sentence at Louisiana's Angola prison for kidnapping and shooting two Louisiana police officers. He was moved from Angola in 1990 by federal marshals and spent some time in a Florida federal prison before ending up at the Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel, La. He was transferred to Mississippi in 2009.
His transfer was worked out in months of negotiations among federal authorities and corrections officials in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Fabian's attorney, Cynthia Speetjens, said at the time that Mississippi agreed to take custody of Fabian "for humanitarian reasons because he solved the Sherry murders and he was in danger" in a Louisiana prison.
"I don't even want to get out. I'm just tired. I just want to lay low until I die, which I hope is sooner rather than later," Fabian told The Advocate of Baton Rouge on Sept. 30, 2009, before his transfer.
Mississippi juries convicted Fabian of killing wealthy Memphis, Tenn., horse breeder and bond expert George Lenox and robbing a couple in West Point, Miss. Fabian recanted a confession. He claimed he took the rap as a favor to an organized crime family.
In the 1980s, Fabian, Nix and other Angola inmates began running "lonely hearts" telephone scams that mainly targeted homosexuals who sent thousands of dollars, thinking they were helping young men get out of minor scrapes with the law and join them.
Fabian estimated the ring may have collected $5 million.
Prosecutors had described Fabian as one of the few surviving members of the "Dixie Mafia." The Dixie Mafia was the name lawmen gave a group of traveling criminals in the late 1960s.

Press-Register (Mobile, AL) - Saturday, June 16, 2012