Byron (Low Tax) Looper (born Byron Anthony Looper; September 15, 1964 – June 26, 2013) was a Democratic turned Republican politician in Tennessee and convicted murderer. To advance his political career, he legally changed his middle name from "Anthony" to "(Low Tax)", including the parentheses. After being convicted for the October 1998 assassination of his election opponent, incumbent Tennessee State Senator Tommy Burks, he was given a life sentence in prison. He died in prison in 2013.
Early life, education and early career
Byron Looper was born in Cookeville, Tennessee. He spent most of his childhood in Georgia, where his father, Aaron Looper, was a school superintendent.
Looper attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point from 1983 to 1985, but he was given an honorable discharge following what he said was a serious knee injury. After being discharged, he moved to Georgia, where he attended the University of Georgia and worked for the state legislature after graduation.
In 1988, Looper ran for the Georgia House of Representatives as a Democrat, losing to Wyc Orr in the Democratic primary. He enrolled as a graduate student in the Stetson School of Business and Economics at Mercer University in Atlanta. He continued his political involvement as an officer in the Georgia Young Democrats organization and as a campaign worker in Al Gore's 1988 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination and the 1992 Clinton–Gore presidential campaign.
In 1992, Looper returned to Tennessee and became a Republican. He lost a race for the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1994, when he ran against incumbent legislator Jere Hargrove.
In 1996, he legally changed his middle name from Anthony to "(Low Tax)" and ran successfully for the post of Putnam County tax assessor, defeating a 14-year incumbent named Bill Rippetoe after a campaign in which he did not make any public appearances nor participate in debates, instead relying heavily on negative campaign ads.
As tax assessor, Looper used his office's equipment to send numerous press releases to Tennessee news media, making positive claims about himself and alleging various shortcomings on the part of other local officials. He seldom went to work, and many instances of irregularities in property tax assessments were reported.
In March 1998, following an investigation by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Looper was indicted on 14 counts of official misconduct, theft of services and official oppression for theft, misuse of county property, and misuse of county employees. He claimed the charges were politically motivated due to Democratic control of Putnam County politics and the Tennessee General Assembly. The Cookeville Herald-Citizen newspaper regularly reported the Republican tax assessor's bizarre antics and public verbal assaults of Putnam County elected officials. The Tennessee Republican Party soon claimed no connection with Looper.
The ouster suit led to Looper's removal from office in January 1999.
Looper also faced legal problems from a former girlfriend, who sued him for $1.2 million, saying that she became pregnant and bore a child after he raped her and that he had used his official position to steal her house. Earlier, he had run campaign ads in which he falsely represented the same girlfriend as his wife.
After Looper's removal from office and conviction for murder, prosecutors decided not to pursue the criminal indictments filed in March 1998.
In the August 1998 primary, Looper sought the Republican nominations for both Tennessee's 6th congressional district and Tennessee's 15th Senate district. He failed to obtain the congressional nomination, finishing third in a field of four candidates, but he was unopposed for the state senate nomination. This set up his campaign against incumbent Democratic State Senator Tommy Burks.
Burks had represented Putnam County in the state legislature for 28 years, including four two-year terms in the Tennessee House of Representatives and five four-year terms in the Tennessee State Senate. A farmer and an old-style moderate Southern Democrat, he was popular in his district. He usually won re-election with ease, and the 1998 campaign was expected to be no different.
On the morning of October 19, 1998, authorities were called to investigate an apparent murder at the Burks farm. Tommy Burks' body was found with his head resting on the steering wheel of his pickup truck and a single bullet wound above his left eye. Burks had been speaking moments earlier with a farmhand, Wesley Rex, about work that needed to be done on the farm.
Both men had seen a black car drive by the farm on multiple occasions that morning, driven by a man in sunglasses and black gloves. The car had later sped by Rex's truck, allowing Rex to get a view of the driver.
Cumberland County authorities could not initially find anyone with a plausible motive for murdering Burks, but after seeing a picture of Looper on television, Rex told Burks's widow, Charlotte Burks, that Looper was the man he had seen speeding away in the black car on the morning of the murder.
Looper later turned up in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he met with a friend, United States Marine Corps recruiter Joe Bond. Bond and Looper had been friends as children, and Looper had rekindled the friendship in the summer of 1998, largely on the basis of wanting Bond's expertise in small arms. Bond would eventually become a key witness for the prosecution in Looper's murder trial. Looper had stayed with Bond for a while, talking a great deal about how he had murdered his senate opponent and how he needed, among other things, to change the tires on the car he had used in the murder, as well as hide the car.