Here’s a story about a guy who wrote a book about someone he knew from his childhood days, whom he never really liked. That book, called “Nether Land,” was released Aug. 11 by Tenebo Publishing Company.
Author Kem Hinton said it took nine years to write the story of his hometown neighbor, Ed Netherland. Netherland, a wealthy entrepreneur, was found murdered in a rental home on the east end of St. John in November 2014.
Twenty fourteen was an unusual year for St. John with two recorded homicides — one was James Malfetti, who was stabbed to death in Chocolate Hole in January.
That case drew persistent attention. Police investigators arrested and charged Mekel Blash for the crime. Blash pleaded guilty in March 2019.
The other homicide was Netherland’s whose death drew little attention and to this day remains unsolved.
When Netherland’s body was brought home to Tennessee, Hinton, by then a successful architect, went to the funeral to sign the condolence book but wound up staying for the service. It was then he heard a story that he said propelled him into finding out more about Netherland’s life and death.
“It’s about the two of us in high school and then in college, mainly in college. But then the rest of the book is really about him and what he did and then his murder and then, you know, some final thoughts. You know, it’s an unsolved crime and probably will never be solved …we were never friends,” Hinton said, adding that “he was incredibly smart and inventive in a lot of things, and ambitious beyond belief.”
Nether Land explores how aggressive pursuits led Netherland to accumulate a fortune by legitimate but not always welcome means. Among the more lucrative pursuits was an insurance business inherited from relatives, but details of another enterprise — a toxic waste incinerator project — was featured in a book written by Colin Crawford.
“I ordered the book, and Ed is featured in the book, but he’s not featured in a good way. He is basically sort of characterized as a very greedy developer who’s trying to bring toxic waste into counties that don’t want it,” the author said.
An environmental reporter at the time, Crawford is now dean of the William H. Bowen School of Law in Louisville. In Crawford’s book, the waste incinerator project was described as a source of hostility among those living in proposed development sites. It finally almost came to fruition in an impoverished town in Mississippi, but was quashed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Hinton said he also found out that in spite of the failed pursuit, his former classmate viewed the attempt with pride. Netherland bought copies of the book and handed them out as a marketing tool for those who wanted help pushing difficult and unpopular projects through successfully.
That, evidence of a lavish lifestyle, and what Hinton called the bizarre circumstances surrounding Netherland’s death, propelled the author of Nether Land to find out more and keep writing. With help from former St. John Tradewinds Newspaper Publisher Tom Oat and guidance from an author friend, Hinton turned what began as a short story into a tale of “high school temptation, insurance haze, stolen resolution and murder.”
