Gambling buddies' wagers not always friendly

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By KELLI SAMANTHA HEWETT
Staff Writer

Friends tell of high stakes, high emotions

SPRINGFIELD — They gambled in broad daylight, just a few blocks from the Springfield Police Department. Some say it was cards; others swear it was dice.

Car lot owners Jerry Lam and Paul Long were hosts for the games, people say. And sometimes the games got ugly.

''One time, a few years ago, they were playing and when Jerry won a truck from Paul, Paul pulled a gun on him — that's what Jerry told me,'' said Susie Marlow, a longtime friend who runs the Spur gas station across from Lam's Auto Sales. ''But then Paul apologized.''

The games resumed.

Long and Lam were buried yesterday after a shooting spree Friday in which they and two other local businessmen were killed: former pro golfer Steve Head and pipeliner and rental property owner Donnie Wilks.

Authorities suspect that gambling fueled the killings.

Marlow said Lam and Long were known to play for thousands of dollars. At one time or another, Marlow said, she saw all the victims visiting Lam's Auto Sales at 820 S. Main St. — but not together and not recently.

Friends fear the worst because Lam was the last victim found, in Wilks' truck, with a gun at his side. Police aren't releasing information.

Lam, Marlow said, ''would bet on anything,'' even in passing conversation. Marlow wonders if at least one of the victims may have given him money and ''sponsored'' him in a game.

''He was a good person, but business was business,'' said Marlow, who said Lam was upbeat when she saw him just after 8 a.m. Friday. ''It would have to be over money, or it would have to be something over his family for Jerry Lam to do anything.''

Other gambling stories weren't hard to find.

A while ago, Lam ''told me (a group of people) were playing cards,'' said Manny Bravo, who worked as a Spanish translator for Lam's auto business. ''They said they were playing big money. I think they said they were playing for buildings and property.''

Lam was convicted of aggravated gambling promotion in 1995.

Bravo said Head also told him about high-stakes card games.

''He told me he won a lot of money when he went to Las Vegas,'' Bravo said. ''He told me he lost $10,000 once.''

Head was ''a person of interest'' in a 2001 sports-betting investigation by Nashville police. He never was charged.

Long was an associate of Thomas ''Sonny Boy'' Sircy, a man rumored to have ties to organized crime. Long lost a truck to Sircy in a game of chance several days before Sircy and his wife were brutally killed in 1989, said Dent Morriss, assistant district attorney general. Long was ruled out as a suspect in that case.

Curtis Hester, an associate pastor at Eagle's Nest Pentecostal Church and a car lot owner, agreed that the men's habits were no secret. He had known Lam for years.

''Those guys liked to gamble; they liked to play cards,'' Hester said.

''If (Lam) was (the shooter), he just completely snapped.''

But some friends and relatives close to the victims insisted that they weren't involved in anything that serious.

''Donnie never played in no big games,'' said Wilks' cousin, Mike Ramsey.

Jimmi Stuart is a longtime friend who dated Wilks and spoke with him by phone Thursday night.

''Donnie Wilks never thought of himself as a gambler or a high roller,'' said Stuart, of Valrico, Fla. ''My assumption is that Mr. Lam probably owed him money. If somebody was in a bind, (Wilks) would help him.''

Stuart thinks Lam may have asked Wilks to lend him money and shot him when he didn't.

Ken Brown, who knew Lam for 15 years and who runs a body shop next door to Lam's Auto Sales, said Lam's gambling tastes weren't toward cards, as rumored.

''He was more of a dice shooter,'' Brown said.

Brown, who found Head's body, said he had not known Lam to play for big stakes.

''The biggest thing I have ever seen him play was $100,'' Brown said. ''Most times it was $20.''

Contact Kelli Samantha Hewett at 726-5938 or khewett@tennessean.com.
 

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