Killing of Don Henry and Kevin Ives

Around 4:30 a.m. on August 23, 1987, 16-year-old Don Henry and 17-year-old Kevin Ives were struck and killed by a Union Pacific freight train while lying on railroad tracks in Alexander, Arkansas. The locomotive engineer applied the brakes and sounded the horn, but the train could not stop before rolling over the boys. Members of the train crew reported that the bodies were partly covered by a tarpaulin and were motionless before impact.

The state medical examiner, Fahmy Malak, initially ruled the deaths accidental, concluding that the boys had fallen asleep on the tracks due to marijuana intoxication. The victims' parents rejected this finding and pursued their own investigation. In March 1988, a second opinion from a San Antonio-based examiner expressed skepticism about the marijuana-related conclusion, and a subsequent autopsy conducted by a Georgia medical examiner found evidence consistent with the equivalent of one or two marijuana cigarettes — far less definitive than the original finding suggested. A grand jury subsequently ruled the deaths "probable homicide."

Saline County Sheriff James H. Steed Jr. initially declined to investigate despite pressure from the boys' parents. In February 1988, Dan Harmon — then serving as both the parents' attorney and the Saline County Prosecutor — reached an agreement with Steed to begin an investigation if the parents ceased public criticism. However, the investigation that followed was reportedly undermined, and several witnesses expected to testify before a grand jury died under various circumstances. Sheriff Steed was also reported to have misrepresented where the boys' clothing had been sent for forensic examination, sending it to the Arkansas State Crime Lab rather than the FBI as had been intended. Harmon subsequently lost the trust of the victims' parents amid allegations that he impeded resolution of the case.

Numerous theories have circulated in popular media suggesting the teenagers may have witnessed a drug drop from an aircraft, with some accounts linking the case to figures associated with drug trafficking operations at Mena Airport in nearby Polk County; no direct evidentiary link has been documented. The case received national attention, including a 1988 profile on the television program Unsolved Mysteries, and was the subject of a 1999 book by investigative journalist Mara Leveritt. Separate media productions alleging official involvement in a cover-up led to a defamation lawsuit by two accused police officers, resulting in a 2001 award that was later overturned on appeal.

Between 1988 and 1990, at least five individuals connected to the case as witnesses or informants died or disappeared, including one person killed in a motorcycle accident and another killed by gunshot, though no evidence establishes that these deaths were connected to the Henry-Ives case beyond the individuals' links to it. Linda Ives, Kevin Ives's mother, continued to investigate the case privately until her death in Arkansas in June 2021. No individual has been charged in connection with the deaths of Don Henry and Kevin Ives.