Claudius Vermilye

The Rev. Claudius I. (Bud) Vermilye Jr., known as Father Bud, was an ordained Episcopal priest and formerly the rector of the Episcopal church at Alto, Tennessee. In 1971 he founded Boys Farm, Inc. (Father Bud's Boys Farm), in the Roarks Cove community near Alto, as a rehabilitation center for wayward boys; the boys were sent there by the state correction department, juvenile authorities and welfare agencies, and the farm was partly financed with state and county funds.²³⁴ After an appearance on the Today show by the investigator Kenneth Wooden, author of Weeping in the Playtime of Others, Vermilye contacted him and asked for his help in obtaining a boy from the State of Tennessee.⁵

Vermilye was divorced and the father of five sons. His eldest son, aged 22, disappeared on July 5, 1974; his car was found several days later behind the student union building of the seminary at Sewanee and his empty wallet on Alto Road. Vermilye told the authorities he was "absolutely certain" his son had been killed and buried in the Roarks Cove area and ran newspaper advertisements offering a reward. After the charges against him, Tennessee investigators said they regarded the disappearance "with a different light," although they could establish no link; "To us he's still just a missing person," said Pete Bouldin of the district attorney general's office.³

The Raid and the Trial

Films found in the possession of the Michigan photographer Gerald Richards at his arrest in July 1976, and films seized in the New Orleans raid on Troop 137, led Tennessee authorities to raid the farm after they recognized some of the "actors." The police had also found Vermilye's name in the files of the New Orleans scoutmaster Richard Halvorsen. The raid produced pictures and films of sexual acts between boys at the farm and a list of more than 270 "active sponsors," among them Francis Shelden, the owner of North Fox Island. District Attorney General J. William Pope said the boys were shown obscene films and given liquor before orgies that were filmed with a hidden camera, and that films were sold to sponsors to raise money and some sponsors came to the farm to have sex with the boys. Half a dozen Illinois men had bought films from Vermilye, one of whom paid more than 4,000 dollars. Richards testified to the Senate that the farm "sold raw film to other men. They would bring it to me to process."³⁴⁶

Vermilye was indicted on 16 counts: three of crimes against nature, eight of aiding and abetting crimes against nature, four of contributing to the delinquency of minors and one of using minors in the production of pornography. On June 3, 1977, at Winchester, a jury of ten men and two women convicted him, then 48 and defrocked, on all charges: three counts of crimes against nature on boys in his care and nine counts of aiding and abetting, after four days of testimony involving boys as young as eleven and sponsors of the farm. Circuit Judge Thomas Greer deferred sentence.²³

The Distribution Network

The writer S. Dovey wrote that Vermilye's films went to Richards for development and distribution through networks including MAIL-O-MATIC in North Carolina and F&S Distributors in California as early as July 1976, and that the farm was raided on November 10, 1976, and described by the Detroit Free Press the next day as a national pornography hub. Dovey also wrote that the farm was incorporated under The Church of New Revelation and that Vermilye wrote to Halvorsen inviting him to visit.¹