IN 2009 DR. CARL DRURY HIRED A HITMAN tO
KILL HIs WIFe. LITTLe DID HE KNOW, THAT
HITMAn WAS AN UNDeRCOVER AGeNT...
t was just another day on the job
for Mary Martyn, Mary Drury at
the time, working in nursing for the
Southeast Georgia Council on Aging.
Mary was midway through her shift
when a co-worker said some gentlemen in suits
had arrived needing to talk with her.
They identified themselves as law enforcement
and ushered Mary into a back room where they
could talk in private. “My daughter was in middle
school at the time, and your first thought when
someone in a suit comes in is, this is how they tell
people that a child has been killed. When I sat
down my stomach just kind of dropped.”
She begged the agents to tell her that her babies
were OK.
“They told me, ‘Your children are fine, but you
are not.’”
As Mary sat in stunned disbelief, ATF agents
told her the devastating truth: her husband
had hired a hit man to kill her. Fortunately for
Mary, the man Dr. Carl Drury had hired was
undercover ATF agent Lou Valoze.
Valoze had first been tipped off to the plot
thanks to a fellow agent, a firearms instructor
named Steven Whatley. “They were golf buddies,”
said Valoze. “Buddies talk, and Dr. Drury
mentioned on several occasions he was done with
his wife.”
When Drury bafflingly asked Whatley, who he
knew to be with law enforcement, to try and find
him a hit man, Whatley took his case right back to
ATF. Valoze was tapped to serve as the hit man,
and to begin gathering evidence. First through
phone calls, and then in person.
Sitting in Valoze’s undercover car in a Waffle
House parking lot, Drury laid it all out. “He
described her, where she worked and I informed
I
For safety and
protection,
Mary Martyn
ask that we not
use her photo.
him how I do things, saying my preferred method
is to make it look like an everyday robbery gone
bad. And I told him it’s a lot cleaner for me if he
could get me a clean gun.”
Valoze got that gun at their next meeting, a
Taurus, M-38, .38-caliber revolver that belonged
to Mary. When ATF agents showed it to Mary, she
was stunned. “It had been missing for a couple
of years. I’d even asked him several times if he’d
seen it.”
Throughout two meetings and a litany of phone
calls, Valoze gave the doctor every chance to walk
away. “A big part of murder for hire cases is to give
the suspect multiple outs. I’d constantly ask him if
he was sure about this,” said Valoze. “He hesitated
at one point in the second meeting, saying he had
drawn up divorce papers. He told me, ‘If she is
willing to sign, I might not go through with this.’”
The divorce papers never existed. But his
hesitance signaled the possibility that Drury was
shopping around for other hitmen. “At that point,
they decided to pull her in for her safety.”
The doctor’s hesitance didn’t last. With the
simple request by Dr. Drury to Valoze to “finish
up,” ATF sprung into action. Drury was arrested
CASE FILES
The (1) Dr. Drury case holds a
special spot in ATF history – one
of just four detailed in a large
shadowbox at their headquarters.
Others include the case of (2)
Reverend George Crossley,
a Florida minister and radio
host who conspired to have his
lover’s husband murdered and
was sentenced to 54 months
imprisonment; (3) James
Mickelson, who tried to have
two confidential informants
murdered while awaiting trial
and was sentenced to 132
months imprisonment; and (4)
Everett Eoff who attempted to
arrange the murder of a federal
prosecutor and was sentenced to
270 months imprisonment.
at the payphone where he’d made the call. Agents
found a Glock 9mm in his Mercedes.
The ensuing trial was a spectacle, thanks in
part to Dr. Drury’s elevated profile as a prominent
doctor and former state representative, and in
part to his lawyer Eddie Garland. The famed
attorney who defended Ray Lewis, Garland tried
to frame the whole situation as a setup – positing
that Whatley had been sleeping with Mary, that
Dr. Drury had been duped into thinking the
whole thing was a training exercise. The trial
even set precedence in case law — since the cell
phone Drury had used pinged off of a cell tower
in Jacksonville, it was considered an interstate
facility.
But beyond the drama and spectacle of the
court case was the tragedy of a wife betrayed, her
life shattered into pieces. In the months and years
that followed, Mary suffered PTSD and a nagging
sense of being followed. She barely left her house
except to go work. Then, gradually, she regained
herself.
“It didn’t happen immediately. I think the first
year I didn’t go a day without crying,” she said.
“It’s a loss of dreams. It’s a loss of what could have
been. For pretty much the next five years I was
just scared he was going to get out.”
But drawn forward to a brighter future by her
faith and the promise of helping others, she has
found hope.
“I know without a doubt I’m here to help other
victims,” she said. “There are people who feel
trapped or that they’re not worthy… If I came from
underneath the rubble, I know that with God they
can do it. It gives you a sense of calm.”
As for her former husband, “I don’t hate him. I
don’t. Honestly, I forgive him because it’s not my
place to judge him.” •
(1) (2)
(3) (4)
SOUTH
June | July 2019
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