Trouble At Cadillac Ranch: Feud Splits Texas City -- Is Wealthy Artist Just An Eccentric - Or A Predator?

AMARILLO, Texas - By burying 10 big-finned Cadillacs nose down near old Route 66 at the precise angle of Egypt's Great Pyramid, iconoclastic oil-and-gas heir Stanley Marsh 3 put this drab Panhandle town on the map of Americana.

Cadillac Ranch - memorialized in a Bruce Springsteen song, saluted in Charles Kuralt's "On the Road" - has become, in two decades, one of the most recognizable pop-art images of the 20th century, a Stonehenge for the consumer age.

But Marsh's latest creative endeavor has brought more scandal than praise, exposing the uneasy relationship between his merry-prankster vision of art and the rock-ribbed Texas panhandle community that serves as his canvas.

In a civil lawsuit, which recently led to a criminal indictment,

Marsh is accused of deploying a series of mock road signs to bait adolescent boys into abusive and humiliating confrontations. The yellow, diamond-shaped markers bear enigmatic messages - "You Will Never Be The Same," "I Love The Touch Of Silken Flesh" and, notably, "Steal This Sign" - which have made them cult items among the city's teenage crowd.

The felony charges, which include kidnapping and assault, stem from a 1994 clash with Ben Whittenburg, then an 18-year-old Amarillo High senior whom Marsh allegedly locked in a chicken coop after catching him with a stolen sign. According to Amarillo police, a separate investigation has been launched into allegations that Marsh used his Dynamite Museum to entice several other youths into sexual encounters.

Lure of roadside art

"He uses his signs as an attractive nuisance to lure - and then compromise and threaten - teenage boys into doing his bidding," Whittenburg's lawsuit contends.

Marsh, who denies the charges, declined to be interviewed for this story. But supporters of the ruddy-faced, white-haired, 57-year-old millionaire insist that he is the innocent victim of a mean-spirited, financially motivated ploy.

"This is about getting Stanley's money," said Bill O'Brien, a prominent Amarillo rancher who is among Marsh's closest friends.

The Stanley Marsh he knows is, indeed, provocative and eccentric, even outrageous at times, but only for the purpose of tweaking Amarillo from its provincial slumber, O'Brien said.

"Stanley's forever tearing down the sacred, and people are forever saying: `What does it mean?' " O'Brien said. "He's not trying to hurt anybody; he's trying to keep the community from getting so isolated, from becoming all of one mind."

The artist's foremost accuser, George Whittenburg, 51, is a conservative lawyer who is representing his own son, as well as several other alleged victims. As scions of some of the oldest and most powerful Panhandle families, Whittenburg and Marsh are the two faces of Amarillo: One as strait-laced as as the other is irreverent.

Although Marsh's attorneys say that contrast is responsible for a long-running family squabble, Whittenburg adamantly rejects any notion of a feud - a term, he contends, that's being used to undermine the seriousness of the charges. Instead, Whittenburg says he's just a concerned citizen who happens to have the resources to take a stand against Amarillo's biggest celebrity.

"I don't think anyone has ever told him, `No, Stanley, you can't do this,' " said Whittenburg.

Enigmatic road signs

At issue is Marsh's Dynamite Museum, once described as the "World's Only Drive-by Art Gallery." It reflects his philosophy that the best art is not found in gilded frames but in frivolous, eye-opening twists on one's own environment.

"A system of unanticipated rewards," as Marsh has often put it.

To that end, he and his crew of self-described "art rebels" have spent the last couple of years plastering Amarillo with hundreds of ersatz road signs, many with black letters stenciled on yellow background, most indistinguishable from the genuine article. In some cases, he has received permission to install the markers, but he also claims "squatters' rights," posting them wherever it strikes his fancy.

"Who'd have thought of it but Stanley," said a bemused Tom Patterson, Amarillo's cigar-chewing Chamber of Commerce president.

He pointed from his downtown office window to a nearby vacant lot, where a sign bore the visage of Mona Lisa and the caption "Men Have Loved Her."

"Now what the hell does that mean?" Patterson asked, not really expecting an answer. "I suppose it adds a little spice around here."

A lot of spice, to be truthful. Soon, Marsh's signs were being pilfered almost as fast as he could put them up.

Teen-agers, such as Ben Whittenburg, insist that Marsh let it be known he viewed the thefts as a compliment. Marsh's friends argue that he tried to thwart thieves by anchoring the signs with rebar and concrete.

Either way, dozens got snatched.

"I think he expected his signs to get stolen, but that doesn't mean he wanted them stolen," said Phillip Periman, a local physician and amateur photographer who considers himself a friend of both the Marsh and Whittenburg clans.

Rather than call the police, however, Marsh apparently scouted out the culprits himself, even employing a private detective to lead him to their homes, according to several youths.

Crashed slumber party

In an incident last year, according to the Whittenburg lawsuit, Marsh stormed a weekend slumber party, spewing expletives and boasting of how he locked - and then photographed - Whittenburg's son inside a chicken coop.

"He uses this as an excuse to come out to people's property and terrorize their kids," said Bill Patke, a burly self-employed carpenter who acknowledged that his estranged 18-year-old son had been involved in theft of some signs. "I'm not proud of that fact, but it doesn't give this man a right to scare the hell out of my family."

In Patke's case, as well as two others outlined in the Whittenburg lawsuit, Marsh purportedly threatened prosecution unless the teenagers spent a day on his Dynamite Museum crew. It is during these work sessions that the teenagers say alleged sexual incidents took place, some at Marsh's 12th-floor office in Amarillo's tallest building, others at the sprawling, pine-shrouded ranch he calls Toad Hall.

Amarillo Police Sgt. Randy TenBrink acknowledged that Marsh is the target of a criminal investigation into "things of a sexual nature with minor kids," but declined to elaborate.

In separate interviews, two teenagers said the district attorney had already called them to testify before an Amarillo grand jury. One boy, who was 15 at the time, said he was ordered to go skinny-dipping with Marsh, who allegedly threatened to press felony theft charges unless he consented. The other youth claimed Marsh repeatedly fondled him last summer, sometimes while displaying X-rated materials.

Lawyers for Marsh, who is the father of five children and husband of a former Amarillo College regent, take umbrage at the accusations. They note that each story is linked by a common thread, one that can be traced back to Whittenburg's law firm. They also point out that the grand jury, which indicted Marsh on the episode with Whittenburg's son, has taken no action on any of the allegations involving sexual abuse.