ZANTZINGER EXPLOITED BLACKS ON PROPERTY November 17, 1991 from All Things Considered LYNN NEARY, host: In southern Maryland this week, in a town about 50 miles from Washington, William Zantzinger is scheduled to encounter infamy once again. It was almost 30 years ago that a young folk singer learned of Zantzinger's story and made it into a song. (EXCERPT FROM "THE LONESOME DEATH OF HATTIE CARROLL") NEARY: Bob Dylan wrote the song "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" for the woman who died after being struck by a young, drunken Bill Zantzinger. The lyrics recount his wealth and standing and her poverty and struggle and conclude with a bitter reflection on the justice of his sentence, six months in jail for manslaughter. Zantzinger's lawyer had argued that Hattie Carroll's high blood pressure might have killed her anyway, even if his client hadn't hit her with his fancy cane for being too slow in getting him another drink. That was in 1963. Bill Zantzinger has pretty much lived quietly since, until the events of this last spring and summer, which have led to a trial that begins tomorrow. NPR's Alex Chadwick reports. ALEX CHADWICK REPORTING: Bill Zantzinger got out of jail in 1964 and went back home to Charles County, Maryland, where his father had held a seat in the state Legislature, back to the big tobacco farm and the slow-time ways that seem especially familiar to Southern men with family money and a liking for dark whiskey and pretty girls. Some years later, he left the farm and started a real estate business. He'd buy dirt road properties and rent them out cheap: houses with plain cinder block walls or wood frame structures that sagged inward, places that often didn't have water or sewage. Perhaps that mattered less to the people who lived in them than simply finding shelter for little money. Even six months ago, the rent was $200 or $300 a month, and the country poor who paid it were used to going without indoor water. CANDICE QUINN (CHARLES COUNTY): This--this is a failed well--well, excuse me, it's a closed-up well now. It was not fit for human consumption, but they were drinking it and using it. CHADWICK: A Charles County woman named Candice Quinn had offered to show me some of what used to be Bill Zantzinger's land and the houses that were there. Ms. Quinn is a social activist with an interest in affordable housing for the poor. Unfortunately, as in many places, the actual conditions here that connect to a decent, clean word like 'affordable' are often desperate and even dangerous. QUINN: It was the only--all that they had. There is no indoor plumbing in this unit. They used a bucket, and the bucket was dumped in the back somewhere here. As you can see, there is no outhouse. CHADWICK: But it was not these wretched conditions which got Bill Zantzinger in trouble again, for being landlord to people who drew water from contaminated wells and used slop buckets instead of toilets. The truth is Bill Zantzinger was not really the landlord and had not been for a long time. These properties had been seized by the local government because Mr. Zantzinger didn't pay his taxes. The county was actually responsible for the land. But somehow the county lost track of things, never went to check on the property, never properly asserted its claim. And for five years, Bill Zantzinger sent a man around every month, or sometimes went himself, collecting the rent. If people fell behind paying, he would go to court and get them evicted, and when he raised the rent and the tenants couldn't pay then, he'd evict for that too, in court. The story broke in the spring. In the summer, Bill Zantzinger was indicted for fraud. The former tenants were moved out to better places the county found for them, and the Zantzinger houses in a little community called Patuxent Woods sat empty. Earlier in the fall, Candice Quinn and another housing activist, Amy Scroggins, were thinking that possibly some good might come from this. On a warm day in September, the two women stood in the shade of a tree in front of one of the houses and looked 200 yards away toward a couple of others. Amy Scroggins said there were places in the county worse than this. AMY SCROGGINS (HOUSING ACTIVIST): But when you looked at this drain here and everything, the--the part of it, you know, it could be a very, very pretty location for a home. But I mean--and he has the trees, and I mean, I just think it would be nice. But someone has to get on it and really work at it. CHADWICK: Indeed, Charles County officials were also thinking about fixing up Patuxent Woods. Later on that same day, some of them visited the neighborhood to see what was there. They had to hammer and pry away the sheets of plywood that had been nailed over openings when the properties were condemned. Inside, the small buildings were stale and dingy. With only a flashlight, it was difficult to tell what covered the floor, soft and spongy in places as though it would give way. In one room, a child's school drawing was still taped on a wall. A man and two women from the county looked around carefully. Well, what are you all doing here? UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: We're not interested in conducting an interview at this time. CHADWICK: This is a common reaction in Charles County to Bill Zantzinger's renewed notoriety. Much of Charles County, once so rural and remote, now lies within the widening suburban sphere of Washington. People are embarrassed by this personification of long-ago racist arrogance living among them and horrified to discover that, through ineptitude, the county may have aided his exploitation of his tenants--poor blacks--today. `It looks terrible,' a county commissioner said, `and it is terrible. No one was paying attention. We were too busy elsewhere. We simply didn't realize that we owned Patuxent Woods.' The annual September fair is more like old Charles County than new. There are livestock barns and produce put up in jars and prize ribbons on the largest vegetables. And right inside the entry gate, the first exhibit area you would come to is occupied by an organization called the Sons of Confederate Veterans with the old Stars and Bars battle flag flying. Bill Zantzinger has lived among these people all his life, working in a business that requires a great deal of personal contact. He's done well enough so that, for instance, he was the chairman of the political action committee for the Board of Realtors in southern Maryland until he resigned in June. And still it is not easy to find someone who would claim to be a close friend or to understand Bill Zantzinger's heart. Some of the fair organizers said they knew him, but not well enough to explain him. Some recalled instances of civic virtue on Bill Zantzinger's part. He used to offer all the time to work at charitable events. There were those who said they liked him, although even these could not explain why he'd taken the rent all those years after he'd lost the land. UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: And I don't know. I haven't talked to Bill. I haven't seen him or anything, but he may have thought that he was within his rights. He may have. I don't know. I never known him to be--he's not a crook, if that's what you mean. Not in my book he isn't. As far as I'm concerned, he's a perfect gentleman. That mishap and misfortune that he had when he--I think, maybe he'd been having too damn much to drink when he was up at this party with that colored barmaid or whatever it was that he was supposed to hit with a cane, or whatever. I think that's--he was a young buck then, too. But he enjoyed life and I guess he still does. He may be enjoying what he's going through now. I don't know. CHADWICK: Others said the offers to participate in charity functions were seldom answered because Bill Zantzinger was unwise about many things and especially with liquor, and that he was a pathetic drunk saved from ruin by a father who had some money put away. Bill Zantzinger is not talking. He hasn't spoken to reporters for 30 years and will not do so now. Public records show that he owes the federal government a lot of money for back taxes, more than $150,000. He is sometimes seen driving his white Mercedes on Charles County roads, but he does not go to public events very much or spend time in some of the places where he used to go. The trial that begins tomorrow may be painful for his neighbors. Charles County, with great red barns in empty fallow fields, is changing. But Bill Zantzinger will remind the new suburbanites of some ugly aspects of the past, and perhaps he will draw attention to the uncomfortable realities of the present, too. Housing for the poor is a grave social problem here, but no worse really than in many other places. Charles County has, at last, formed a housing commission to look for answers, something activists had pleaded for for a long time. But at the same time, the county may be fumbling away a large grant to improve sanitation in an old, established black neighborhood, and despite the embarrassment of the Zantzinger affair, the opportunity to make things better, to change from the old, may be lost. Meanwhile, for those in Charles County without enough money for decent housing, the situation has gotten worse. The housing activist, Candice Quinn, says landlords are scared, and rather than pay to improve bad properties, they simply aren't renting. QUINN: You know, then--the few landlords that have a house that is something for just in the meantime--temporary dwelling, they're--they're not going to rent them now because they're fearful that they'll be the next victim of bad publicity or whatever and it's--as I say, it's our worst fear being realized. If we don't keep bringing this to the attention of the people, nothing will be done. But in bringing it out, people are--innocent people are being hurt. And--and unfortunately, it's the folks that suffer the most either way. Doesn't seem that there's any benefit in store for them, any--any help. CHADWICK: And in Patuxent Woods, where Bill Zantzinger once had a half dozen crummy houses, the county bulldozers have already been at work. It was decided that none of these houses could be saved. They are gone; the land reseeded to grass. The county plans to work on new, low-cost housing to go in there sometime. Meanwhile, it is continuing to help maintain the families that once lived here, although officials acknowledge that others who had waited for help for a long time must now wait longer. This is Alex Chadwick. Copyright ©1990-2005 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission. For further information, please contact NPR's Rights and Reuse Associate at (202) 513-2030.