Kentucky Supper Club Survivors Call for New Investigation

Oct. 20, 2008
It?s been more than 30 years since the fire killed 165 people in Southgate.

SOUTHGATE, Ky. --

Survivors the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire tragedy are calling for a new investigation to pick up where the original investigators left off.

The survivors told News 5 that they believe the fire was caused by arson.

It's been more than 30 years since the fire killed 165 people in Southgate.

Since the incident, countless stories have swirled around the fatal blaze, with many people doubting the official story.

"I looked down the hallway, and the smoke and the fire was coming like a flood," fire survivor Darla McCollister said.

Many of the survivors talk of suspicious men in the club before the fire broke out -- possibly plotting arson.

"[They said] 'If you know what's good for you -- you'll mind your own business, and you'll get out of here, and you'll leave right now,' " former Beverly Hills waitress Shirley Baker said.

Over the past weekend, survivors and fire experts poured over the case files and they now say that the initial investigation was terribly flawed.

"There's no record of anyone considering arson or malicious intent as a possibility," John Jay College professor Glenn Corbett said.

The move to tear down the building days after the fire was one of the big mistakes made during the initial probe, experts said.

"The destruction of evidence is at the heart of why we're standing here today -- because we don't have any," Corbett said.

The survivors and experts have joined together to ask the governor to put a panel together and give that panel the power necessary to find the truth.

"There are 165 people who lost their lives on top of this hill. They cannot talk -- we're speaking for them and we're demanding, we're requesting, we're begging the governor of the state of Kentucky to look at this and empanel that formal Beverly Hills Supper Club commission," Corbett said.

Supporters know when they take their message to the governor, they face an uphill battle getting him to take action.

Former busboy and survivor David Brock said, "We'll leave it in his hands to do whatever he has to do with it."

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