Spectacularly successful Texas fraudster who figured in conspiracy theories about the death of John F Kennedy
In Texan tall tales, the cowboy Pecos Bill could shoot all but one "lone star" out of the sky, and lasso the moon using a rattlesnake for his rope. Judge Roy Bean said "there is no law west of the Pecos", so it is fitting that the town of Pecos, in Texas, was where the spectacular fraudster Billie Sol Estes, who has died aged 88, chose to base himself.
A lay preacher in the Church of Christ who found dancing immoral, Estes took advantage of needy farmers, lax government regulation and lavishly bought political influence, to make a fortune and turn Pecos into his virtual fiefdom. When his empire began to crumble, the shock waves went all the way up to the then vice-president, Lyndon Johnson, and have been the basis of myriad conspiracy theories, including some putting Johnson behind the assassination of President John F Kennedy.
Born on a farm near Clyde, Texas, Estes was 13 when his parents gave him a lamb. He sold the wool, bought another lamb, and began raising sheep. Two years later, he wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt for advice, and was steered towards government surplus grain. He sold his sheep, talked a bank into lending him $3,500, and bought wheat. By the time he entered the US merchant marine during the second world war, he had $38,000.
After his discharge, he married Patsy Howe, and dealt in war surplus, including barracks converted to housing. In 1951, he moved to Pecos, set up his family in a converted prefabricated hut and began selling irrigation pumps and buying cotton-growing land. By manipulating federal subsidies, which were transferable when land was acquired through government compulsory purchase schemes, he could finance his own leasing of the land. Within two years, he had bought virtually every viable business in Pecos, and was named one of the 10 outstanding young men in America by the US Junior Chamber of Commerce.
Estes made millions leasing grain silos to the government, with the support of Johnson, then a powerful US senator. He branched out into anhydrous ammonia, used in fertiliser, cornering the Texas market, but more cleverly devising a scheme whereby he mortgaged storage tanks to farmers and leased them back – the trick being that the tanks did not actually exist.
In 1960, the first cracks appeared when Henry Marshall, head of the Texas office of the federal agency controlling farm subsidies, began to investigate Estes' cotton deals. Marshall persisted, despite lack of support and the offer of a promotion to Washington in return for stopping. In June 1961, Marshall was found dead at home, shot five times in the stomach. The death was immediately ruled a suicide. Estes was eventually fined a small amount, but shortly afterwards was appointed to the National Cotton Advisory Board.
In early 1962, Oscar Griffin Jr, editor of the semi-weekly Pecos Independent and Enterprise, began a series of articles detailing the ammonia tank scam, for which he won a Pulitzer prize in 1963. Estes, who owned Pecos's daily paper, tried to drive him out of business but, on 6 April 1962, Estes and three colleagues were indicted by a federal grand jury. The day before the indictments came down, Estes' accountant, George Krutilek, was found dead. Despite bruising on his head, his death, too, was ruled a suicide – as were the deaths of two others involved in the case. At the indictment, Estes' lawyer was John Cofer, who had represented Johnson in the vote-rigging scandals associated with his 1948 election to the Senate.
The Johnson connection and Estes' larger than life personality helped turn the scandal into a major national story. Johnson was already implicated in scandals featuring his former aide in the Senate, Bobby Baker. Though the Kennedys supported Johnson publicly, there was speculation that this might be the pretext to drop Johnson from their ticket in the 1964 elections.
In 1964, Estes was convicted and sentenced to 24 years in prison, though the following year the US Supreme Court, in the landmark Estes v Texas case, threw out some of his state convictions, based on unfair publicity related to television cameras being present in court. He was paroled in 1971, but in 1979 served four more years for tax fraud.
In 1984, Estes testified under immunity before a Texas grand jury. He claimed that Johnson had ordered Marshall's killing, which was done by an aide named Mac Wallace. Wallace matched the description of a man who had asked directions to Marshall's house that day. Estes claimed Wallace had killed Krutilek and others, and done Johnson's dirty work since 1950, when he shot John Kinser, who had been having an affair with Johnson's sister Josefa. Wallace had been convicted of murder then, but given a six-month suspended sentence.
Most shockingly, Estes alleged that Wallace had been a shooter in the Texas School Book Depository outside which Kennedy was assassinated. When Johnson succeeded as president, investigations into his ties with Estes and Baker were dropped, including a cover story Life magazine had scheduled for the week after the assassination. Wallace has since been linked to a fingerprint found in the "sniper's loft" at the depository, but the identification of the print has been called into question. Though many of his other allegations have been supported by evidence, the link to the JFK killing remains unproven.
In 1983, Estes' daughter Pam wrote a portrait of her father, Billie Sol: King of Texas Wheeler-Dealers. Estes reiterated his charges in a 2003 book, co-written with William Reymond and published in France under the title JFK: Le Dernier Temoin (JFK: The Last Witness), and in 2004 published a memoir, Billie Sol Estes: A Texas Legend. In his own mind, at least, he had ascended to Pecos Bill status.
Patsy predeceased him in 2000. He is survived by his second wife, Dorris, and a son and four daughters from his first marriage.
• Billie Sol Estes, fraudster, born 10 January 1925; died 14 May 2013