20 Years Ago: The Great Hank Williams Jr. Jewelry Heist


You’ve got to have some kind of courage to sneak into a man’s house and steal an entire 60-pound safe full of some estimated $500,000 in jewelry, especially when that man, his wife, and his kids are sleeping in the house at the time. You’ve got to be even more courageous when the owner of said house is Hank Williams Jr., known for writing and singing such songs as “A Country Boy Can Survive,” and owning more guns than some Canadian provinces.

It was 20 years ago today—January 19th, 2005—that a 22-year-old man by the name of Ryan Daniel Binkley decided to sneak into the 10,000-square-foot country retreat of Hank Jr’s near Paris, Tennessee. If you listen to the lyrics of “A Country Boy Can Survive,” that pretty much describes Hank Jr’s Paris property. It’s is the place where Hank Jr. keeps his Civil War cannon that he shoots off every 4th of July near Kentucky Lake.

In 2005, some new neighbors had moved in down the way, and that included Ryan Daniel Binkley. He might have been dealing with some drug issues at the time, and was looking for a payday. How Binkley knew exactly where the safe was, and how he was able to sneak into the house undetected is uncertain. He might have been invited into the home previously and scoped it out. What we do know is that according to police, there was an alarm system on the property, but it wasn’t armed at the time.

When Hank Jr. and family later determined that the safe was missing, they had no clue, and no leads of where to start looking. It was like it vanished into thin air. It was only a stroke of luck that it was found.

Ryan Binkley was picked up on unrelated drug charges, and thrown in jail. Binkley then told his mother to look in his room where he had lots of jewelry she could sell to pay for a defense lawyer and bail. When the mother started looking through the jewelry and saw a ring from the CMA with Hank Jr.’s name engraved on it, she put two and two together.

The mother didn’t call the police, but she blathered about the matter to a friend who eventually did. “She got throwed between a rock and a hard place,” Sgt. Ron Eaker of the Henry County Sheriff’s Department said about the mother, and why they decided not to charge her. “She was basically scared.”

Binkley was already in the clink, but now he was charged with aggravated burglary and theft of property as well, along with the pending drug charges. His potential at bail was also revoked.

When the press got a hold of Hank Jr.’s long time manager and fellow musician Merle Kilgore, he said it best. “The real miracle is that Hank Jr. didn’t shoot that kid. Hank is an excellent shot and is surrounded by guns.”

As for Hank Jr. himself, when the press put in requests for comment about the incident, they were told he couldn’t be reached. Hank Jr. was out hunting.

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