BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
INEZ — A judge last week tossed a case in Martin County where the local water district’s contract managers accused Clarence “Edd” Kazee of threatening to beat them with a hammer.
Martin District Judge Brett Butcher signed the order dismissing the case Feb. 3.
Kazee, the 58-year-old owner of Eddie’s Body Shop on Blacklog Road in Inez, was arrested for the first time in his life March 12, 2024, facing charges of terroristic threatening and menacing. The allegations? That he had lost his temper when two employees from Alliance Water Resources—Craig Miller and Jason “JD” Damron—showed up at his shop claiming he owed them a water-use contract.
Kazee says the men insisted there was an existing agreement with Martin County Water District regarding his property. They claimed there was a tap on the property.
“They’re not able to find an agreement,” he said. “They’re not finding anything.”
It was not just the claim that set him off—it was their tone. Kazee, who was recovering from COVID-19 and a heart attack, said he felt threatened by the two young men.
“These two big, grown, healthy men are standing out here talking to me like I’m pretty much a bucket of spit in my own yard,” he recalled. “One of them stuck his finger in my face and said, ‘You have nothing to say about anything.’”
Kazee admits he fired back. He told them they were trying to run a racket and warned that if they kept pushing, they would “get a fight” out of him and “would have to whip this old man.”
“Miller at some point said, ‘That won’t be a problem,’” Kazee said.
“I see the other big one named JD and he’s done closed up. So I’ve got one on my left side, I’ve got one straight in front of me. I squall at the one called JD and tell him to back up, get away from me, or something to that effect: ‘You better back the blank up or I’m going to pop you in the face.’”
Feeling cornered—one man in front of him, one on his left—Kazee ran into his garage to arm himself.
“I’m looking for a weapon,” he said. “The first thing I find is a hammer.”
By the time he emerged, Miller was already in his vehicle and Damron was at his truck door. But the tension lingered.
“JD is still running his mouth,” Kazee said. “Saying, ‘You want your a-– kicked, you’ll get your a-– kicked.’”
A few days later, Kazee ran into Miller at a local hardware store, where he thought they had agreed to settle the matter in court. Instead, soon after, law enforcement showed up at Kazee’s property with an ultimatum: let the water district install its equipment or go to jail.
“So I have no choice but to let these people do this,” he said.
The result was his water lines, regulator, fence and concrete floor torn up. Two days of work lost. A $1,000 bill. And still, no proof of the supposed tap.
“They’ve never found that tap; they’ve never looked at it,” Kazee said. “So they just stick a tap in and leave me the whole mess.”
Tensions boiled over again when Kazee ran into Miller one Saturday at Evans Hardware.
“I told him what I thought of him,” he said. “I told him if he still wanted to wear me out, to bring himself out there in the parking lot and just whip this old man good. To look through it and see how much chicken sh– he found in it and I bet he didn’t find a drop. I told him what a bully I thought he was.”
Three days later, a police officer arrived at his shop with a warrant.
The case against Kazee was dismissed with prejudice, meaning permanently. Attorney Eugene Sisco Jr. of Pikeville represented Kazee.