The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Claudius Vermilye.md

aliases	category	tags	summary	relations	created	updated
Cladius Vermilye Father Bud Claudius I. Vermilye Jr.	Criminals & Offenders	AbuseNetworks Person ChildAbuse Tennessee	Former Episcopal rector of Alto, Tennessee, who founded Boys Farm, Inc., in 1971 for wayward boys sent by state agencies and was convicted in June 1977 of crimes against nature.	type with start end fn founded Father Bud's Boys Farm 1971 1976 1 type with reverse start end fn prosecuted J. William Pope true 1976 1977-06-03 2 type with role start end fn employed_by Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee deacon in charge of Christ Church, Alto 1958 1962 5 type with role fn head_of Franklin County Mental Health Association president 15 type with fn member_of Tennessee Corrections Association 15	2026-04-28	2026-10-09

The Rev. Claudius I. (Bud) Vermilye Jr., known as Father Bud, was an ordained Episcopal priest and formerly the rector of the Episcopal church at Alto, Tennessee. In 1971 he founded Boys Farm, Inc. (Father Bud's Boys Farm), in the Roarks Cove community near Alto, as a rehabilitation center for wayward boys; the boys were sent there by the state correction department, juvenile authorities and welfare agencies, and the farm was partly financed with state and county funds.¹²³ After an appearance on the Today show by the investigator Kenneth Wooden, author of Weeping in the Playtime of Others, Vermilye contacted him and asked for his help in obtaining a boy from the State of Tennessee.⁴ The Living Church of August 3, 1958, listed Claudius I. Vermilye, Jr. among the Tennessee deacons ordained on June 24, 1958, "in charge, Christ Church, Alto."⁵ The Washington Post gave his tenure as pastor of the Alto parish as 1958 to 1962.⁶ Wooden's testimony placed the farm at Monteagle, and a federal court order of January 10, 1978, in a civil-rights suit filed on February 25, 1977 against Vermilye, quoted the complaint's description of juveniles in the custody of the Tennessee department of corrections placed with Vermilye "at Boy's Farm, Inc., Monteagle, Tennessee, for rehabilitation," and recorded the defendants' interrogatory answers that four juveniles had been transferred to Boy's Farm, Inc. from the Tennessee department of corrections.⁴⁷

Vermilye was divorced and the father of five sons. His eldest son, aged 22, disappeared on July 5, 1974; his car was found several days later behind the student union building of the seminary at Sewanee and his empty wallet on Alto Road. Vermilye told the authorities he was "absolutely certain" his son had been killed and buried in the Roarks Cove area and ran newspaper advertisements offering a reward. After the charges against him, Tennessee investigators said they regarded the disappearance "with a different light," although they could establish no link; "To us he's still just a missing person," said Pete Bouldin of the district attorney general's office.²

The Raid and the Trial

Films found in the possession of the Michigan photographer Gerald Richards at his arrest in July 1976, and films seized in the New Orleans raid on Troop 137, led Tennessee authorities to raid the farm after they recognized some of the "actors." The police had also found Vermilye's name in the files of the New Orleans scoutmaster Richard Halvorsen. The raid produced pictures and films of sexual acts between boys at the farm and a list of more than 270 "active sponsors," among them Francis Shelden, the owner of North Fox Island. District Attorney General J. William Pope said the boys were shown obscene films and given liquor before orgies that were filmed with a hidden camera, and that films were sold to sponsors to raise money and some sponsors came to the farm to have sex with the boys. Half a dozen Illinois men had bought films from Vermilye, one of whom paid more than 4,000 dollars. Richards testified to the Senate that the farm "sold raw film to other men. They would bring it to me to process."²³⁸

The Chicago Tribune reported that Vermilye was indicted on 16 counts: three of crimes against nature, eight of aiding and abetting crimes against nature, four of contributing to the delinquency of minors and one of using minors in the production of pornographic materials.³ United Press International reported on the day of the verdict that he was "attempting to clear himself of nine felony counts" and could receive up to 135 years in prison.⁹

On June 3, 1977, at Winchester, a jury of ten men and two women returned its verdict after four days of testimony, and Circuit Judge Thomas Greer said he would pronounce sentence later. The United Press International report in The New York Times described Vermilye as a defrocked Episcopal priest, 48, and said he was found guilty of all charges against him, "three counts of crimes against nature upon boys in his care and nine counts of aiding and abetting instances of specific homosexual acts."¹ The Tribune and the Traverse City Record-Eagle gave his age as 47.²³ The Washington Post reported that Greer "consolidated the 12 sentences against Vermilye (totaling 105-165 years) into three groups, to run 25 to 40 years."⁶ The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals described the convictions as three charges of crime against nature and five charges of aiding and abetting crime against nature, with eight sentences (three of five to ten years and five of ten to fifteen years) divided into three groups to run consecutively, for "an effective total sentence of not less than 25 nor more than 40 years imprisonment," and noted that the trial judge had directed a verdict on the count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor before the case went to the jury.¹⁰¹¹

The court described the farm as "not church-sponsored or related," and as maintained largely from funds raised by Vermilye from the sale of photographs and slides of the children to some 200 or more "sponsors." The search warrant was executed by an investigator from the local district attorney's office, and the seized items included card catalogs with several hundred names of past and present financial contributors from across the country. Agents of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and local investigators conducted out-of-state interviews with a large number of sponsors, several of whom testified at trial in exchange for a grant of immunity from prosecution in Tennessee.¹⁰ In 1987 the court wrote that "The vast majority of the information used at the trial of this cause was furnished to law enforcement officials by the sponsors of the home."¹¹

Under cross-examination Pope asked Vermilye, "Wasn't this a house of lust rather than a house of love?" and Vermilye answered, "No," and "I'd call it a house of damaged children from broken homes."⁹ The appellate court recorded that Vermilye testified that the farm had been infiltrated by agents of a national "child porn" ring, offered the testimony of one former resident of the farm to corroborate his own, and presented two character witnesses.¹⁰

The Distribution Network

The writer S. Dovey wrote that Vermilye's films went to Richards for development and distribution through networks including MAIL-O-MATIC in North Carolina and F&S Distributors in California as early as July 1976, and that the farm was raided on November 10, 1976, and described by the Detroit Free Press the next day as a national pornography hub. Dovey also wrote that the farm was incorporated under The Church of New Revelation and that Vermilye wrote to Halvorsen inviting him to visit.¹²

In his Senate testimony Gerald Richards described Better Life as "a philosophical group," said that its leader's name, as he knew it, "may be an alias," and said he believed the same man ran the Mail-O-Matic operations in Rocky Mount. Asked about the organizations of another witness, Richards said the only one he knew of was "a movie film business," and that "It's now called F & F Distributors."¹³ The Record-Eagle listed "Boy's Farm Inc. of Alto, Tenn." among three "charitable" organizations that police had pinpointed as "fronts," alongside Boy Scout Troop 137 and Brother Paul's Children's Mission, and described the Church of the New Revelation, the Ocean Living Institute and the Educational Foundation for Youth as three other corporations set up as "tax dodges."¹⁴ A police search of Halvorsen's files turned up Vermilye's name.³

Appeal and Later Proceedings

Vermilye appealed. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed on February 26, 1979, rejecting his challenges to the search warrant, the denial of a continuance, the sufficiency of the proof and the consecutive sentences. The court described the consecutive sentences as resting on a "four or five year course of dealing" by a "persistent and repeated offender, who derived most (if not all) of his livelihood from the sexual exploitation of these children." The Tennessee Supreme Court denied certiorari on July 2, 1979.¹⁰

On August 8, 1984, Vermilye filed a petition for post-conviction relief, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel. The trial court dismissed it after an evidentiary hearing. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed on September 4, 1987, and the Tennessee Supreme Court denied permission to appeal on December 28, 1987.¹¹

His obituary in the Coastland Times stated that he was ordained in 1948, that he directed the Boy's Farm of Roarks Cove in Tennessee while serving the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee, that he was a member of the Tennessee Corrections Association and president of the Franklin County Mental Health Association, and that he taught at River Bend High School in Nashville until 1987. It stated that he died at his home on June 22, 2018, at the age of 89, having retired in 1997. A death notice in The Daily Advance of Elizabeth City, North Carolina, placed the death at Kill Devil Hills.¹⁵

Footnotes

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1. "Former Clergyman Is Convicted of Acts Against His Wards." United Press International, The New York Times, June 4, 1977, p. 33. https://www.nytimes.com/1977/06/04/archives/former-clergyman-is-convicted-of-acts-against-his-wards.html ↩︎

2. Wright, Marilyn. Traverse City Record-Eagle, 1976-1977, reprinted in U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime, Sexual Exploitation of Children, hearings, 95th Congress, 1st session, Serial No. 12, 1977, pp. 87-88. https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41153502_0041 ↩︎

3. "How Ruses Lure Victims to Child Pornographers," Chicago Tribune, May 17, 1977, Exhibit D-8, reprinted in Sexual Exploitation of Children, Serial No. 12, 1977, pp. 439-440, and in U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation, hearings, 95th Congress, 1st session, 1977. https://archive.org/details/protectionofchil00unit ↩︎

4. Testimony of Kenneth Wooden, Director, National Coalition for Children's Justice, in Sexual Exploitation of Children, Serial No. 12, 1977, pp. 202-203. https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41153502_0041 ↩︎

5. The Living Church, August 3, 1958, vol. 137, no. 5, ordinations (Tennessee, deacons). https://archive.org/details/living-church_1958-08-03_137_5 ↩︎

6. Kirk Loggins and James Branscome, "Boys Farm Scandal," Washington Post, June 5, 1977, Exhibit D-10, reprinted in Sexual Exploitation of Children, Serial No. 12, 1977, pp. 442-443. https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41153502_0041 ↩︎

7. [ex-ward] v. Vermilye, 78 F.R.D. 68 (E.D. Tenn. Jan. 10, 1978) (No. CIV-4-77-5). https://cite.case.law/frd/78/68/ ↩︎

8. Testimony of Gerald S. Richards, May 27, 1977, in Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation, 1977, p. 41. https://archive.org/details/protectionofchil00unit ↩︎

9. "Priest on trial denies sex charges," United Press International, Columbia Missourian, June 4, 1977. https://cdm16795.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/colmo7/id/77557 ↩︎

10. Vermilye v. State, 584 S.W.2d 226 (Tenn. Crim. App. Feb. 26, 1979), cert. denied, July 2, 1979. https://cite.case.law/sw2d/584/226/ ↩︎

11. Vermilye v. State, 754 S.W.2d 82 (Tenn. Crim. App. Sept. 4, 1987), permission to appeal denied, Dec. 28, 1987. https://cite.case.law/sw2d/754/82/ ↩︎

12. Dovey, S. Eye of the Chickenhawk. Thehotstar, 2023. ↩︎

13. Testimony of Gerald S. Richards, May 27, 1977, in U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation, hearings, 95th Congress, 1st session, 1977, pp. 37, 43, 44. https://archive.org/details/protectionofchil00unit ↩︎

14. Marilyn Wright, "Porno Ring Uses Church, Tax Laws," Traverse City Record-Eagle, reprinted in Sexual Exploitation of Children, Serial No. 12, 1977, p. 82. https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41153502_0041 ↩︎

15. "Claudius I. 'Bud' Vermilye," The Coastland Times, June 27, 2018, https://www.thecoastlandtimes.com/2018/06/27/claudius-i-bud-vermilye/; death notice, The Daily Advance (Elizabeth City, N.C.), June 2018, via Legacy.com. ↩︎