Plot to Frame Zindler Foiled

Chicken Ranch Revisited

The last installment in this series ended with Larry Conners’ undercover visit to The Chicken Ranch in the summer of 1973.

Conners, now a radio talk show host in St. Louis, worked at the time as a field reporter for Channel 13 KTRK, the ABC television affiliate in Houston. He and KTRK’s famous newsman Marvin Zindler partnered that summer on the expose series that led to The Chicken Ranch closure in August of that year.

Conners collected the evidence and conducted interviews. The flamboyant Zindler presented the bawdy story on TV to a captivated audience throughout Houston and beyond.

The undercover visit gave Conners the first-hand knowledge and photographic evidence he needed to confront Fayette County Sheriff T.J. “Jim” Flournoy about illegal activity at the brothel. After the visit, Conners interviewed Flournoy and Miss Edna Milton, the last madam at The Chicken Ranch.

On the afternoon of July 24, 1973, Conners confronted Miss Edna in the parking lot of The Chicken Ranch. All of it was captured on video for the series. Conners asked her what kind of business she was running.

Miss Edna: “I have a boarding house.”

Conners: “Is that all it is?” Miss Edna: “It’s enough.”

Conners: “You’re not operating a house of prostitution?”

Miss Edna: “Whether I am or not doesn’t come under the heading of your business.”

A few days later, Conners interviewed Flournoy. At the time, Conners said he was convinced Flournoy was benefiting in some way from The Chicken Ranch.

“I’m almost sure he was getting something, either from the girls or Miss Edna,” Conners said. “We never proved any mafia-type involvement. It was just kind of operating on its own out there. But I can’t believe (Flournoy) wasn’t getting something out of it.”

Conners described the interview with Flournoy.

“I didn’t know what to expect when we walked into Flournoy’s office, but I was determined to interview him,” Conners said. “He was an imposing figure, not only in stature, but he reminded me in a way of John Wayne, the way he walked and handled himself” Conners recalled. “‘I’m in charge and we’re going to do things my way’ – that kind of thing.”

In that interview from July 27, 1973, Conners grilled Flournoy about possible connections to organized crime.

Conners: “Sheriff, the (State’s) figures and information says the money goes out of here into bigger organized crime. Who’s right, you or the State?”

Flournoy: “Well the State is a — damn liar if that’s what they have to say.”

Conners: “You don’t think it’s linked to any organized crime anywhere?”

Flournoy: “I know damn well there’s no organized crime connected in any way whatever.”

Conners: “Has your office or you, your deputies or anyone ever accepted any money from her?”

Flournoy: “Not a penny. No payoff any way in the world to anybody.”

Conners said that Flournoy praised Miss Edna for contributing to the Little League and the local swimming pool, that she contributed $10,000 to Fayette Memorial Hospital, gave to local churches and that her girls shop at local businesses and contribute to the economy.

“He said nobody gets raped around here because The Chicken Ranch is here, and all these girls are clean and every Tuesday or Wednesday they get checked by the doctor,” Conners recalled. “That was the attitude. A lot of the women and wives certainly knew it was there. But I guess they thought their husbands weren’t really cheating on them, in their way of thinking.”

Later, Zindler came to La Grange to film a standup segment for the series. Flournoy saw Zindler on the street and attacked him in a rage, ripping the toupee off Zindler’s head and waving it in the air. Flournoy physically accosted Zindler. Conners was not with Zindler that day, but the film crew who was with him captured the attack on video. Two deputies arrived and confiscated the camera.

“We protested, and a couple of days later, two Sheriff’s deputies came to Houston to give it back,” Conners said. “I had to run the film through the processor. They’re sitting there smiling because they already knew they blanked the tape. They opened it up and exposed the film. They knew that. So I set up a projector and put it on, and it’s as white as a sheet on the screen. They’re jabbing each other and looking around. One of them might have been a prosecutor from the County as well, and he’s like, ‘There’s nothing to see on here.’” However, Conners said the officials from Fayette County did not realize that the film contained a magnetic strip that recorded the audio. Exposing the film to sunlight destroyed the video evidence, but the sound recording remained. And it captured the audio of Flournoy taunting and attacking Zindler.

“They tried to accuse Marvin of attacking the Sheriff, and they were going to file charges on Marvin,” Conners said. “Well the audio, of course, told it the other way. You could hear Marvin say, ‘Sheriff, no, don’t, don’t!’ and the Sheriff carrying on and cursing him out. That put an end to their case.”

Zindler later sued Flournoy over the attack. La Grange locals set up a legal defense fund for Flournoy, raising money through the sale of the famous “I’m a Friend of Sheriff Jim” bumper stickers. The two men settled the case out of court.

A former Fayette County official told the Record that Flournoy and Zindler were both members of the Arabian Shrine masonic society, and that Zindler supposedly drop the suit after Flournoy made a donation to the Shriners Hospital in Houston.

Zindler interviewed Governor Dolph Briscoe about The Chicken Ranch, who ordered a brief investigation that officially found no links to organized crime. Briscoe ordered The Chicken Ranch to be closed.

On August 1, 1973, the whorehouse officially closed when Flournoy called Miss Edna to inform her of the Governor’s order.

In the next installment, we’ll take a look at some of the social pressures in La Grange that allowed The Chicken Ranch to remain open for so long.

50 Years after it closed, The Record is running a series of articles this summer looking back at the key figures surrounding the Chicken Ranch and the complicated legacy it has left behind.