The Murders of Kevin Ives and Don Henry
The true story behind Arkansas’ “The Boys on the Tracks”
The Deaths
It started as a normal Saturday night on August 22, 1987 in Bryant, Arkansas. Teenagers Don Henry, 16, and Kevin Ives, 17, popular students who were gearing up for their senior year at Bryant High School, had decided to hang out with a group of friends at a local commuter parking lot, a popular gathering place for teens. Kevin and Don were typical young men who enjoyed working on their cars (a Firebird and a Camaro), hunting, and going out with their girlfriends. Around midnight, they left their friends to go to Don’s house, where the boys planned on spending the night. Kevin waited outside on the porch while Don went inside to chat with his dad. It was around 12:15 a.m., August 23, when Don grabbed his .22 rifle and one of his dad’s spotlights and he and Kevin departed for the woods and railroad tracks that ran behind Don’s house. They were going “spotlighting,” an illegal form of night hunting in which a bright light is shone in the eyes of the animal, transfixing it, and allowing it to be easily shot.
Around 4 a.m., a 6,000-ton cargo train a mile long was making its regular nightly run north from Texarkana to Little Rock at a speed of 52 miles per hour. Just passing the town of Bryant and approaching Alexander…