Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 73. Frank Abagnale Jr - Catch Him if You Can

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73. Frank Abagnale Jr - Catch Him if You Can · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You're listening to an airwave media podcast. Hi everybody, and
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: welcome to Hooded What Now the history podcast that's not
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: your history class with me your host Katie Charlwood, history
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: harlot and reader of books. Now, before we get into
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: anything else in this podcast, we have to start with
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the disclaimer. I have been known to use language which
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: some have called colorful, some have called abhorrent. But it
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: is what it is, and I have been known on
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: occasion to make a sailor blush. So if you don't
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: like the use of expletives at all, this is a
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: gentle nudge to the door. Don't let it slap your
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: butt on the way out. Okay, okay, good So Hi everybody,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: welcome back, or if you're a new year, welcome for
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: the first time.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Hey.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I want to thank everybody who has been giving just
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: ratings and reviews, get them, Apple podcasts, Spotify everywhere, fantastic.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I love you, I do it. Actually, I've not been
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: feeling great this past week. As it turns out, I
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: stressed myself so much that I triggered my menstrual cycle,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: even though I'm on contraceptives, hormonal contraceptives, and it has
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: exacerbated and amplified ADHD symptoms and I am struggling. So
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: it's been a bad, bad week for me. And again
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: you're gonna love this right So again the second time
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: this has happened. A dude who was mad at me
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: for providing factual information about Winston Churchill after I blocked
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: him on Instagram went over to our podcasts gives me
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: a one star review, complaining about my Instagram and saying
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: that I'm playing a character because apparently being a historian
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: and having colored hair and being correct just doesn't work
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: in his tiny little lizard rain. Yeah, so if you
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: haven't already rated and reviewed five stars, it would be
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: so sweet and lovely if you would do that. If
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: you've heard a cracking that was my rest. Oh. I
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: don't know why I did that, but yeah, I read
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the reviews and I get some really amazing ones. Honestly,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: I was in the top like thirty in the sport
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: of my charts this week, like what is that? Wow?
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: And I was in I was in the top fifty
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: four for Apple podcasts. This was really fun. I was
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: not in the right place where I could really enjoy it,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: but thank you. I hate being negative. Like first thing,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: when you come into the podcast, I'm like, grumble, grumble, grumble,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: But you know, it's tough dealing with all this stuff
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: and everything that could go wrong did go wrong. And yeah,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: it's been a bit of a time to be honest.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Before I get into anything else though, with the podcast,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about Trova trip because I keep
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: talking about it at the end of the show when
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I really should be talking about it at the beginning. Basically,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: it's a week long vacation in Scotland with me, and
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: it's I think three thousand, two hundred for the early
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: bird price or there and thereabouts, and that's for like
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: the first eight people who book it, and then for
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: the next however many it's three four So you save
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: two hundred dollars just by being early bird. So I
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: know there's a deposit that gets paid first and then
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: you pay it up or whenever, just before the trip.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: So we're gonna go look at some castles, right, So
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: we're gonna go to Edinburgh first of all. So there's
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: gonna be a city walking tour, go up through the castle,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: an actual castle tour, and I actually know a few
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: really interest in bits and pieces about the castle. So
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: it'll be interesting to know if like the guide will
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: also have that information. I mean, I hope you would,
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  Speaker 1: but I am that weirdo who knows like the weird stuff.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: So yeah, we're gonna go out of Edinburgh up to
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: the Highlands. We're gonna go to the Dunkkeled Estate Village,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: karen Gorm's National Park, which is just this is gorgeous.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: We're gonna go on a whiskey distillery tour and tasting.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I don't even drink whiskey, so you get to have mine.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Whoever gets involved in this, you can have my whiskey.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: I will gift it to you. I don't drink it
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: because it makes me angry. We're gonna go up to
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  Speaker 1: the Isle of I've never been to the Alasky Armadeal
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Castle and Kilcorn Castle, which you may you may know
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: some of these places. You may recognize them from Outlander,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: which I have opinions about, but it's historical fantasy. It's fine,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: But I have opinions, and I will share those opinions
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: with you. I'm trying to arrange like a like a
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: private show, not like not like a nothing weird, I
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: mean a little bit weird. But nothing dirty. May be
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: a little dirty, but like nothing bad, you know. So
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do like a week live show hopefully if
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: I can get one of the places to just let
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: me do it. Otherwise it's just going to be me
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: talking about stuff to you. That'll be fun too. Or
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I might just organize a pop quiz history pop quiz
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: and you can win prizes. I'll send you all merch
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: or do like merch prizes. It'd be fun, right. I
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: just I love away Castle and we're going to four
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: of them. I'm so excited, and we're going to do
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: like museums and foot parks, and if we're lucky, we
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: may see a wee highland coup who doesn't want to
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: have a weight Highland cou But also like there's was it?
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  Speaker 1: Six breakfasts and two dinners are including in the trip,
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  Speaker 1: but I know where to get the best food because
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: I understand the lingo of the Scottish people, so you
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: are safe with me. It's gonna basically be like a
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: wee Scottish tour for us, and as all these places,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: I haven't been to it, and I'm so excited. So
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: the link is in the description down below. So if
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: you're interested, just check it out. Oh oh, I know
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  Speaker 1: what you're thinking. You're thinking, quit your chipper jobber in
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: fact me, In fact you I will. But first we've
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: got to get our source on. Our sources are catch
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  Speaker 1: me if you can by Frank abig Neil Junior, The
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Greatest hoax on Earth, Catching truth, Well we can. Alan c.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Logan is great impostor, A great impostor by Fayette Tompkins.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: To Tell the Truth by Joe Garygola. The FBI is
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Centennial History nineteen o eight to two thousand and eight.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: And of course, scam me if you can by Frank
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Abignail Junior. Iosted incomfortably good. Then let's begin. Now. I
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: don't really talk about men on this podcast too much
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: because I feel like a lot of history but men
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: has already been said, it's already been out there, and
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: there's not really a lot else to say. But then
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: sometimes you'll find a very interesting man, whether it's for
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: a good reason or a bad reason. And Frank Abigneil
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  Speaker 1: Junior is simultaneously incredibly boring but also incredibly interesting. And
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: I have an unnatural sort of obsession with thieves and
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: heists and con men like I find the sort of
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: the concept of trickery just very interesting, and I think
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  Speaker 1: this might be the ultimate con and I kind of
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: begrudgingly respect a wee bit because of it, and like
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: the concept of the con itself. Not the man the
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: man is. The man is not worth your time, because
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I'm going to share the story of Frank Abignail Junior.
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  Speaker 1: Some of you mere remember a movie that came out
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven. It starred Leonardo DiCaprio as
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: a youthful fellow, roguish, charming, just a hucksta, a grifta
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: a schema. He was all of these things. And he
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: from the age of sixteen all the way up to
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: like his early twenties, he performs an array of feats
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: which would dazzle and amaze even, you know, even the
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: most veteran of criminals. The film itself is based on
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: an autobiography by Frank Abagnail and it opens with an
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: FBI agent played by Tom Hanks. He's in Marseilles, France,
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  Speaker 1: and he's there to pick up a prisoner called Frank
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  Speaker 1: Abagnail Junior who's sick because he's in a horrible, you know,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: prison in France. And then it pans back to six
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  Speaker 1: years earlier, in nineteen sixty three, and Frank he lives
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: with his parents in New Ruschelle, New York. And because
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: his dad's a bit of a schemer, he's not doing
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: well with his money. The irs are there and there
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  Speaker 1: forced to move out of their lovely home into a
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: tiny little apartment. Right then, Frank discovers that his mother
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: is having an affair well a family friend know less.
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  Speaker 1: Then obviously, the cats out of the bag and the
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: parents divorce, and being a sixteen year old and upset
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: at his parents' divorce, he runs away from home and
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: so he starts doing a bunch of cons just to
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  Speaker 1: make money. He starts off writing some bad checks, which
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: sort of snowballs him to eventually impersonating a PanAm pilot
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  Speaker 1: called Frank Taylor, and he ends up using this to
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: forge a bunch of checks, thus on PanAm out of millions,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: because not only he'sy forging checks, but he's dead heading.
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  Speaker 1: So he's like, you know, the crew member that comes
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: on board and just flies for free because he needs
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  Speaker 1: to get to his next destination that's dead heading, So
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  Speaker 1: off he goes. But it's these PanAm checks that get
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: you know, Tom Hanks involved, so as Leonardo DiCaprio is
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  Speaker 1: still full of youth and vigor, comes face to face
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  Speaker 1: with the grumpy Hanks and he ends up pretending to
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: be a secret Service agent who's also on the lookout
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  Speaker 1: for this this con man, this forger, and he pretends
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: to be a secret Service agent called Barry Allen, which
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: is you know, the flash because remember he's only meant
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: to be like sixteen seventeen at this point, so you know,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: comics at that point were in their infancy, and he
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: was very much into what would then become the Golden
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Age of comics, right, But by pretending to be the
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: secret Service agent, he gets the heck at a dodge
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: and he flees Tom Hanks. It's at this point that
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: he decides to impersonate a doctor, because that is a
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: perfectly acceptable and reasonable idea. So he goes and does that,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: and he falls in love with this nurse named Brenda,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: and she's meant to be sort of cute and adorable naive.
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  Speaker 1: Frank decides he's going to marry Brenda. He asks her
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: father for her hand in marriage, and then at their
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: engagement party, they are tracked down by Tom Hanks again,
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  Speaker 1: did it Ada? So he escapes their bathroom window, and
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Brenda is compromised because as he's waiting for her to
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: shop at the airport, she shows up with some plain
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: clothed agents and he's like, I ah, no of hegoes
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: flees to Spain, and then Franz after like pretending to
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  Speaker 1: be a pilot again impersonating a pilot, making it all
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the way back to his mum's hometown in Front, where
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: he gets tricked into being arrested, and then the time
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: skips forward a little bit and it's you know, Frank
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: being on the plane with Hank, Carl Carl, Hank, I
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: don't know anyway, So they're back on the plane. The
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: FBI agent informs him that his father has passed away,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: and he is so upset, like Leonardo DiCaprio, full of emotions,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: great actor, and he ends up just escaping the plane
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: and going to his mum, who is now with the
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: family friend that she was having an affair with and
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: they have a child, and so he is so grief
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: stricken and so upset by this that he just surrenders
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: himself to Carl. He's like, Carl, here we go. And
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: then he ends up working for the FBI, but he's
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: like super bordered it and stuff because admin Io and
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: so he decides he's going to pretend to be a
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: pilot again, but then he's caught by Carl Oh. Tom
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Hanks is like, don't do that, and he's like, I will,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: you know, let you do it one last time and
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: he's like eh, And they end up working together in
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: like a bunch of stuff. Like that's how it ends,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: and yeah, that's that's the movie. And it's basically based
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: on an autobiography called Catch Me if you Can by
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Frank Abagnail. And of course this is the Hollywood version,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: so it's gonna be a bit more colorful and fun
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: and just you know, a good time. So the real story,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: or the story that Frank was pushing was that between
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: like the mid sixties and up to the early seventies,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Frank was being a no good con man. He was
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: impersonating pilots. He was a doctor in Georgia. He was
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: a lawyer for the Attorney General's office in Baden Rouge, Louisiana.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: He was a professor at Brigham Young University, and he
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: also cashed more than two million dollars worth of bad
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: checks and across sixty that's a lie. I know, twenty six.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say sixty two, twenty six countries across
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: the world. And this was while he was a teenager
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: and being chased by the FBI. So this story of
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: this amazing con man, it's a fucking hawx. He made
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: it up. It's it's the greatest corn he ever pulled.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Was convincing people that he was, in fact, this amazing,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: amazing con man. Right, So let me tell you the
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: real story of Frank William Abigneil Junior, who was born
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: on the twenty seventh of April nineteen forty eight to
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Paula Abergneil, who will was French American and Frank Abgneil Senior,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: who was Italian American. I don't know if being French
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: American and Italian American is a good mix. I don't
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: think it was for them, because they got divorced when
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: he was twelve, or they separated when he was twelve,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: and they divorced like three years later. So when his
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: parents split, Frank moves in with his dad and his stepmom, right,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: and so Frank basically claims that you know, the very
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: first person he ever conned was his dad. Clearly he
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: wasn't happy about having a step mom, right, and so
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: he gives him a credit card and a truck and
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: he racks up like over three thousand dollars worth of
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: a bill on it, and yeah, yeah, doesn't really do
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: too well for him there. So because of this, he
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: gets sent to this reform school, or he says, he
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: get sent to reform school in Westchester, a Catholic reform school, so,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: you know, one of the dodgy ones. But like he
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: always said that he went to like these really prestigious
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: private schools, and the schools he says he went to,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: which is quite funny that he says he went to,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: they don't have any record of him being there or
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: anyone with a name even similar to his being there.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: So like he was not at any of these private schools.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: It was all zobollocks. And on top of that, like
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: not only is there no record of them, but like
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: people who went to these schools don't ever remember even
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: a whisper of the man, like nobody remembers him. So
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: clearly clearly either the best comment on earth or you know,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: didn't actually go to these places. But Anyway, once Frank
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: reaches sixteen, he enlists in the US Army and he's
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: there for like three months before he gets discharged, and
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: two weeks, not even too barely a fortnite after he's discharged,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: he gets arrested for petty larceny. Right, and that's what,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: like in February nineteen sixty five. A month later, he
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: enters the apartment of this person in Mount Vernon in
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: New York. Right, he is dressed as a cop, so
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: he's impersonating a cop, and he says that he's investigating
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: this guy's daughter. And he's like, you know, suspicious as fuck,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: because of course he is. There's an incredibly young looking
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: police officer asking about your teenage daughter. You know, your
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: hackles are going to be up just a wee bit.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: So he ends up calling the Mount Vernon Police, you know,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: just a double check to sy if you know, they
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: sent this office around, and they're like absolutely fucking not,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: not even a little bit. So the police come out
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: and as it turns out, he's in. He's somehow got
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: a uniform. I don't know how we got the uniform,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: but he has a toy gun and.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: A paper badge, Like yeah, a paper badge. I mean,
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: I know it's the sixties, but that's a bit much, right.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: So he gets arrested and he gets booked.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: In these charges, and he then instead of going to
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: like prison, and he gets sent for evaluation in the
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Grassland Psychiatric Institute in Westchester. Anyway, they clearly think he's
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: okay or at least not too bad, and he gets released.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: They're just like, hey, he's just being a silly billy, right,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: And so he gets he gets out, and in June
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, he gets arrested in Eureka, California, because
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: he stole a Ford Mustang from one of his dad's nighbors.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: And so there was like a picture of him in
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: like the paper being questioned by like an FBI agent.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Because in order to like pay this, he had, you know,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: forged a bunch of checks and done a bunch of
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: like bad checks. And so he'd driven from New York
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: all the way over to California. And these checks actually
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: he had actually stolen them from like a family, so
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: he wasn't even like forging them really, I mean, he
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: was forging them, but he wasn't doing anything like clever.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: He was just writing checks that belong to this family, like,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: and so he gets arrested. He's also charged with impersonating
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: a customs official, but that gets dropped because clearly they
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: didn't have enough like tangible evidence, but they could prove
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: that he stole the checks, wrote the checks, cash the checks,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: and stole the car. And yeah. Yeah, So although he's
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: like cott in California, like, the FBI is involved because
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: it crosses state lines, right, the crime crosses state lines.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: So yeah, he ends up getting transferred back to New
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: York and he gets released into his father's custody because
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: he's seventeen, and they're like, oh, come on, your dad's
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: gonna take care of you now, you know, give you
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: a good smack because you know, corporal punishment was the
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: way of things back then, and that little sort of
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: maut because boy, golly gosh, what a silly boy just
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: just you know, like every teenage boy does. Every boy
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: just knicks a car and goes in across country drive right, no, okay,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: so he yeah, he's in his dad's custody. Ah, and
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: he decides, I don't want to stay here, and this
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: is where he impersonates a pilot. So he goes to
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: like a uniform company. It's probably the same place that
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: he got the police officer's uniform. So he goes there
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: gets this pilot's uniform, which he pays for with money
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: cashed from forge checks. Right, So he's learned a wee
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: bit since clearly. And he goes around and promotes himself,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: like he actually goes to local media and local papers
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: and stuff, and he tells them he's a graduate of
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: the American Airlines Pilot School in Fort Worth, Texas. And
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: then he's out there selling this. But then he gets
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: arrested a couple of days later for bad checks right
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: or was it bad checks with theft for stealing first checks? Right?
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: He gets arrested again and he gets sentenced to three
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: years in prison. So he's supposed to go to the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Great Metal Prison and he's supposed to serve three years.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: He only serves two and he gets released into the
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: custody of his mom. Now this is what I wonder, right,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: was he released into his mom's custody because when he
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: was in his dad's custody he just buckered up? Or
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: was his dad just like absolutely fucking not, no chance.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: He's your problem now, Like, do you think it was
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: maybe like that. But yeah, he's, you know, in the
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: custody of his mom. He's on parole because he's what sixteen, seventeen,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: twenty two and no, nineteen, he's nineteen. Oh my goodness,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: I cannot math sometimes math is hard, cheez. Yeah, So
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: he violates his parole right by stealing a car in Boston.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: He's nineteen, he's nineteen, and he's already buggered up again, right,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: So yeah, he has to go back to prison, and
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: so there he is sent back to Great Metal Prison
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: for another year. So he does eventually serve as full sentence.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: I mean that's good, right, right, And after finally serving
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: all three years of his sentence, Frank is finally released
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: on Christmas Eve nineteen sixty eight. Now, habits are hard
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: to break, especially for Frank, and he decides that he
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: is going to impersonate being a pilot again, and so
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: he's on It's not PanAm this time or American Airlines,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: it's twa right, And so he's on a plane flying
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: from New York to Miami. And this is like nineteen
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: sixty nine where he meets a stewardess, a flight attendant,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Paula Parks, right, Paula is pretty, she's smart, she's you know,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: she's what he wants, right obviously, And he found out
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: what hotel she's staying in. He finds her room, and
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: he sends two dozen red roses and a five pound
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: box of chocolate. And she's like, okay, that's nice. I guess,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: you know, in his defense, right in this moment, right
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: it's the nineteen sixties. In the nineteen sixties, if a
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: handsome young gentleman were to send me two dozen roses
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: and a five pound box of chocolate, Listen, I use
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: the decimal system. I don't know pounds right that it sounds.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I assume that's a lot of chocolate. Okay, So in fairness,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: if somebody were to send me two dozen roses now
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: and a box of chocolates, I would also be very,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: very appreciative. But he sends her this, and when she
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: goes to fly to New Orleans the next day, he's
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: waiting for her at the airport. Because what he does
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: is he being a sneaky we bastard. He finds out
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: her work schedule and he stalks her. He actually stalks her.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Not so fucking romantic, now, is it? So? Paula she
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: does try and tell him that she's not interested. Like,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: my favorite thing I ever heard her say about him
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: was that he smelt really bad because he smelt like fear,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: which I think is probably one of the worst insults
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: you can get, Like he smelled awful because he smelt
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: like fear. But yes, stinky man here completely unable to
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: take a fucking hint. He ends up following her all
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: over the Eastern Seaboard, like what and yeah, this lasts
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: for bloody weeks. So he's doing this, and he even
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: shows up at her apartment in New Orleans, just shows up,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: and she's like, oh, hi, I have to go visit
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: my parents in Baton Rouge. Clearly this is like a
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: very gentle rejection. You know, I can't spend time with
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: you because I have to go to Baton Rouge and
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: visit my parents. And again, like talking to a brick wall,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: he thinks, sure, this does sound like a swell idea.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I'll tag along too, So he goes with her to
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: her parents in Baton Rouge. He goes there, he meets
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: her mom, her dad, her brother, and they all think
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: he's just super. The family are so taken by him
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: that like Paula's mom like invites him back and promises
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: to teach him how to fish, and they just they
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: just adore him because they just find him so charming.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: But as they're driving back, you know, to Louisiana, Paula
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: tells him, no, we're done. I don't want to see
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: you anymore, you know, showing up my apartment and then
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: traveling with me to see my family a bit much
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: and we're kind at we no, just no. Paula and Frank,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: they you know, they part ways. They they disperse, you know,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: and she thinks that's going to be the end of it.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Of course she does, because she thinks she's a sleek
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: away bastard. He is suspicious and just kind of slazy,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: and he doesn't pass the vibe check, not even a
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: little bit. But Paula is unaware of just how skeazy
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: this fella is. So after Paula goes back to work,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: you know, because she's a flight attendant, she's she's going
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: to go do her thing, she's going to be away
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: for a while. As she's away, you know, on the planes,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: rationally thinking this isn't going to be an issue anymore.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: This is done. He's he's aware now right, nothing more
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: is going to come of this, and that this weird
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: fella is going to be a distant memory. And she's hoping,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: dear lord, I'm not going to eat one another plane.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: But in a move that is absolutely batshit, Frank shows
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: up at her parents' house, like a couple days after
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: she's gone. He shows up and he's like, Hey, I'm
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: a pilot on furlough. I'm Paula's friend. Can I stay
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: with you? And the him in because you know, they're
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: kind and considerate humans. So they take him in for
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: a little bit and he's supposed to stay for a
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: couple of days and he ends up staying for weeks,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: like like four six weeks in total. He's staying in
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Paula's bedroom. And the family they think he's our friend.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: They think he's just you know, a kind cute little pilot,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Like he's adorable, he's fine. They trust him, like they
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: they feed him, and they like introduce him to people
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: who were all around and he would just like conn
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: this family. He would take them out to dinner, he
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: would buy them like flowers and shit, and he would
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: just do all these little wee confidence tricks. Some might say,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: but how he did this, like how he paid for
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: the meals and the gifts and the flowers, was by
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: stealing their fucking money. Like he rifled through their papers,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: he found their checks, and he stole from this family.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: He steals like was it twelve hundred dollars at the time,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: And he also like goes around Baton Rouge sort of
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: nicking like money from these businesses too. So he's hanging
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: out with the Parks, and mister Parks, as it turns out,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: as a lawyer, and so he's he's saying that, you know,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: maybe being a pilot isn't for me. I think law
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: might be the way to go. And Paul's dad straight
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: up offers to help him past the Louisiana bar exam,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: like he's like, I'll help you do this. You know,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: this could be something great for you, because he's a
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: fucking kind hearted person who doesn't realize he's being absolutely
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: fucked over by him. No, So Frank's in Baton Rouge,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: he's staying with the Parks, and he befriends like a
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: local minister who works in all of these areas to
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: do with children, and Frank convinces him that he has
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: a master's degree in social work from Ithaca College. Like,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: he's a pilot with a social work degree. Now I'm
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: not claiming that you can't have a social work degree
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: and have another job, but those are two very long
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: training programs. Like, and he is clearly a young man.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Like the times just don't add up. But you know,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: everyone is charmed by him. He is convincing. And so
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: when he says that he's looking for work with you know,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: vulnerable young people with disabilities, specifically intellectual and developmental disabilities,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: the reverend is like, yes, we need more kind, young,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: considerate people like you, especially those with you know, social
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: work degrees, because you know what you're talking about, Like,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: you can genuinely help these people. But as we know,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: can he fuck absolutely not. So the reverend introduces him
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: to like the faculty of Louisiana State University, and they
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: take one look at this boy and go, ha, what, No,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: this is bullshit. As one of my friends says, my
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: favorite saying is what absolute fucking bullshit is this nonsense?
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: What absolute fucking bullshit is this nonsense? Who is this child?
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Why is he here? So? And absolutely unsurprisingly, they inform
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: the reverend that this dude has no fucking clue what
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: he's talking about. He is just a fraud. He's a fraud.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: And so the Reverend is like, okay, taking this on
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: board because these guys, he knows, they know what they're
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: talking about. And Frank is you know, he's claiming to
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: be a fur loaed pilot for TWA and being you know,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: not a total idiot, and he calls the airline. He's like, hey,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: any chance this guy is a pilot for you, and
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: they clearly andconcisely tell him no, this man does not
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: work for us. And after getting this information, the first
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: thing the Reverend does is contact the Baton Rouge Police
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Department and then on Valentine's Day nineteen sixty nine, he's arrested.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: So initially they arrest him on vagrancy charges, but as
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: it turns out, the car that Frank was driving was
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: a rental car from Florida, so he has stolen a car,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: driven it across state lines, which he's you know, I'm
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: fairly certainly not supposed to be doing anyway, you know,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: like he's this is a general rule. So he had
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: you know, fake fake identification, fake id's. He had a
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: fake ID hey, mister, he's got a fake ID and
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: so he's got like a fake like airline personnel ID
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: and and you know that's two for two. So naturally
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: the police are like, we need to investigate a little
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: bit more. And that's when they realized that he was
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: stealing checks from the family and from Baton Rouge businesses,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: and so he's charged with theft and forgery. Naturally, he's
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: unable to make bail, and he gets convicted on the
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: second of June nineteen sixty nine. But instead of sending
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: the little shit to prison, what they do is they
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: sendence him to twelve years supervise probation. Now, of all
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: the choices they could have made, they thought this was
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: the right one. The slimy motherfucker right here. But he's like,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: fuck this for a game of soldiers and gets the
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: heck at dodge and he flees to Europe. So he
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: ends up going to Sweden and France. So when he's
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: in Sweden, he's in I think clipping. I'm not going
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: to try and pronounce that in a Swedish accent because
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: I sound like the Swedish chef who which is funny
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: because my brother lives in Sweden's that. So he ends
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: up defrauding two families in Sweden. He steals one of
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: their cars. I think it's an automobile. He steals a car,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: and then he ends up in Montpellier in France. So
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: when he gets there, it's like two weeks after the
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: warrant has gone out for his arrest for you know, disappearing,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: and this is the part where he's caught. He's caught
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: on Montpellier, and I don't know if it's like his
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: mum's hometown or his mum's family's hometown, because I'm fairly
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: certain his mum is just like a French American as
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: opposed to you know, French, because they want to make
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: it sound fancier for the movie. But yeah, So he
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: gets arrested in France and he gets sentenced to four
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: months in prison, so because he's stolen shit, and they're
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: like okay. So he goes to France and he serves
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: three months in Berbign prison and he only sends three
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: months there because he then gets extradited to Sweden because
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: he's convicted of gross fraud by forgery, and then he's
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: in Malmo. In Malmo, which I think is near where
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: my brother lives. He doesn't care. He doesn't listen to
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: this podcast High Dominic. He doesn't give a shit, like
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: he doesn't. He doesn't listen to anything I do. But yeah,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: he lives I think near Malmo. And if he doesn't,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: then I wasn't paying any attention to anything he said.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: And it's conveniently now Swedish accent. But I digress. So
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Frank says that the time he spent in these two
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: prisons were the worst in his life because he lost
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: like a third of his body weight in the French prison,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: and when he gets into the Swedish prison, it's like worse.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: It's dank, and he gets ill and he's just not
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: not feeling it. So when he's in prison, he promises
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: to you know, refund and reimburse and compensate you know,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: his Swedish victims, these families that he's frauded. He does not,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: and he gets deported back to the US in June
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy. So he serves two months in Marmo prison
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: and then he is banned from Sweden for eight years.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Sweden just kicks him out. You're not allowed in and
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: he appeals this, but no he gets he gets deported
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: back to the US, and you think they would do something,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: but no, No. June nineteen seventy he is back in
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: the US and he's twenty two years old and again
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: cannot help himself, gets himself a pilot's uniform and he
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: starts traveling around all these college campuses like more bad checks.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Course he is, but he's doing this sort of PanAm
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: recruitment or he claims he's doing a PanAm recruitment. And
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: do you know, sometimes and people lie, like they say,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: the best lies are closer to the truth, right, and
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: that's fine.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: But this guy, he says he's a pilot and a doctor,
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: and he goes around these colleges and like at the
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: University of Arizona, he states that he's, you know, part doctor,
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: part pilot.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: You know, like fucking batman mineaier by day, vigilante by night. What, No,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: You're not a pilot and a doctor, you absolute titwank. No. Oh,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: so he he is an absolute creepy piece of shit,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: right because what he does a trigger warning for sexual assault. Okay,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: skip like forty five seconds. So what he does, he's
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: doing this recruitment for pan and in order for women
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: to be recruited, they have to undergo a physical examination.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: So he physically examines these fucking teenagers, right, teenage girls,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: and he molests them because that's what this is assault.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: This is molestation, that's what it is. Like he just
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: and he got away with it. Absolute piece of shit.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: I want to punch him in his face, but he's
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: already dead. Spoiler warning. So anyway, the biography sort of
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: implies that he does actually, you know, recruit these new
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: women for like a flight this fictional flight attendant program, right,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: but he never actually sets this up. He just seems
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: to use this as an excuse to run around make
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: money and molested women. So he's doing this for like
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: a couple of weeks, maybe maybe a month, where he
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: cashes like ten PanAm checks and on it's like the
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: thirtieth of July nineteen seventy in Durham, North Carolina. He
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: you know, he catches the attention of the FBI at
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: this point because he has cashed ten PanAm payroll checks
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: in these different towns like and eventually gets caught I
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: think in November, three months, three months he cashes his
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: checks for and he gets arrested in November nineteen seventy
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: in Cobb County and Georgia. And this is the jail
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: that he escapes. So he did it. So he escapes
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Cobb County jail, Cobb County jail. But then he gets
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: arrested again, like forty's letter in New York. Like he
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: gets caught, and then in nineteen seventy one, he gets
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: sentenced to a decade in prison for forging a grand
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: total well forging checks that come up to a grand
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: total of one thousand, four hundred and forty eight dollars
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: and sixty cents. And then he also gets like two
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: more years added on to that, just tapped on to
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: the end because you know, he fucking escaped prison, you know,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: so Will he's in jail, he writes letters to the family,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: to the Parks family back in Paton Rouge, you know,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: telling them what they did. That he forged the checks
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: that he stole money from, you know, Paula's brother's like
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: savings account, and he was gonna like repay them. Now
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: this may come as a shock to some of you,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: but he did not do that. He did not pay
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: them back one bloody cent nothing. So after spending I
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: think only two out of the twelve years he was
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: supposed to serve in prison because I don't know, I
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: guess the Federal Correctoral Institute in Petersburg, Virginia just like
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: just wasn't feeling it anymore. So he gets released on
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: parole and he doesn't want to go back to his
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: family in New York. He just doesn't want to do it,
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: and so he requests the court to choose his parole
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: location and they send him to Houston, Texas, because of
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: course they do. So he's in Texas and he needs
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: to get a job. Now, abig Neil, he said, is Abergneil?
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Frank fucking Frank he he says that he's like doing
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: all these jobs, you know, but he gets fired from
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: those jobs because, you know, they realize that he is
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: a parolee, that he had you know, criminal shit. But
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: the maybe maybe but again, sorry for that been really
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: hard for anybody listening with headphones. On nineteen seventy four.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: What does he do. He gets a job at a
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: children's summer camp, Camp Manison, and it's the seventies, you
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: can get away with shit. So all he had to
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: do was keep his head down and do I don't
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: know his fucking job for once, and he would have
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: been okay, but instead he steals cameras from the other
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: people working there, right, and he only gets fined, which
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: is like so fucking shitty. But he manages to then
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: while still pretending to be a fucking pilot or with
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: a master's degree and who the fuck knows what social work,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: probably pretending he still has that, right, and he gets
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: hired by an orphanage, a fucking orphanage. Right, here's the thing, like,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: if you're a parole, like this is a violation of
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: his parole, Like this is not good. So he he's
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: in like the Houston area. He's working in this orphanage
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: and his job is finding foster homes for children who
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: are living in the orphanage. And you know, he couldn't
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: just pick something small, something easy, but no, he needs
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: something that has power, doesn't he? Like every job it
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: has or everything he pretends to be there's a level
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: of what's the word, Well, there's power, but there's also respect,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: there's reverence, you know, it's it's you're looking up to it.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: You're above your aspirational as my mother was like, you
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: need to be aspirational, darling, I'm like do I I'm
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: I'm cute and funny and I like history. But aspirational?
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Who the fox could want to aspire to be? Me?
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Senys Me is literally and the pink hoodie I've been
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: living in for a little while, just while recording in
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: my mother's bedroom because there was no other room in
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: this house that's free. I'm doing my best, okay, So yeah, aspirational.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: He goes for all of these jobs that have esteem okay,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: because you can't just be okay. But luckily, his parole
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: officer is not a fucking idiot and catches him in
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: the act, and so he removes him from the orphanage
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: and basically moves him into like this like little living
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: space above his garage. Like he moves him above his
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: garage because he knows he cannot trust this skeezy wee
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: bampop not one bit. After this, he gets a job
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: at ETNA, where he is fired and sewed for check Frod.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: Why are we even surprised now? After this, he does something.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: He does something good. I don't know what the good is,
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: but he does something because it was enough for his
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: parole officer to suggest that he start doing talks about
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: you know, how he is a reformed crime, how he
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: is doing well, you know, and not being an absolute
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: dodgy bastard. And it's from here where he starts doing
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: these public talks. And so he's going around saying that
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: between the ages of sixteen and twenty one, he was
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: adopted on a Georgia hospital for a year, an assistant
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: state attorney general for a year, that he served two
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: semesters as a sociology professor, and that he was a
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: pan AM pilot for two whole years. He also says
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: that he recruited university students as pan Am stewardesses and
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: that he traveled throughout Europe with them for three months.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: He talks about escaping the FBI on an airplane nolss.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: And my favorite part of this is that it's like
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: he managed to escape by going through a toilet on
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: the airplane while the plane was taxiing on the runway,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: Like that's his that's his story, Like yeah, okay, cool.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: So he starts doing these talks and then the talks
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: get really popular, and then he starts writing his books.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: But during this he manages to get married to his wife, Kelly.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: So they get married, they have three sons, and then
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five they move from Houston to Tulsa. So,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: like he says, he met his wife when he was
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: working as an undercover FBI agent and she was a
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: cashier in a grocery store. Like, either this woman is
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: so naive and genuinely believes this man's bullshit, or she's
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: in on it, like that's that's gonna be it, right,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be one of the other. But yeah, So
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: while he's out and about doing these speeches, he's also
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: setting up his own business. He found abad Neil and Associates.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: The purpose of this company is to like advise company
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: on secure documents basically, you know, to warn them against
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: like you know, check fraud and other kind of fraudulent
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: shit like document frauds and other such bullshit. So it's
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: all about scammers and how scammers operate, and that's his
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: whole business. And so while he's doing that, he's doing
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: all these talks. So he starts doing this and by
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven he ends up on to Tell the Truth,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: and he also ends up on The Tonight Show with
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: Was It Johnny Carlson. And so the story of this
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: con that he pulled that he says he pulled just
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: becomes a mega hit. So it's what year when he
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: reads writes his book. He writes his book in nineteen eighty,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: so three years after, you know, he basically goes the
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventies version of going viral, right, and he writes
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: a book in nineteen eighty, and then he writes like
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: a couple more books, like like Catch Me if you Can,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: as his autobiography, but then he does like other books
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: on like identity theft and scammers and all this kind
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: of stuff, and he does really well. But when he's
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: doing these talks around all the way from the seventies
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: all the way up to like before he died, these
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: journalists start catching on that he's he's talking absolute bollocks, right.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: So by what was it the early two thousands, you know,
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: the kids are grown up. He's with Kelly, and they
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: moved to this Daniel Island and was it one of
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: the Carolinas South Carolina, South Carolina. So they had filed
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: for bankruptcy and with nearly two million dollars in debt,
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: although now they don't seem to have that probably had
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: something to do with the movie. But yeah, So Frank's
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: whole thing is that he doesn't he doesn't like con
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: the little guy. He only conned the big guys, the
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: big guns and all that kind of thing. But yeah,
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: it's it's not it's not even remotely true. All he
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: did was steal from the little guy consistently, just over
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: and over again. It's like he he just kept fucking
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: people over little people just because he wanted a better life.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: So between security guards, small journalists, like they have big journalists,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: but these people all through like the seventies upwards, get
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: away nag and feeling about this fella, and they dig
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: deep and they're like, nope, this guy's a con man.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: The con is that he's a good con man, you know,
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: or like a big commn And it becomes this whole
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: thing where they start looking at the numbers and he's like, oh, well,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: you know what, they didn't really you know, want to
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: say anything because no company wants to admit that I
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: took this much money from them, and the FBI don't
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: want to admit that they couldn't catch me. Ha haha.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: Like I'm in there like like one hundred year reniverse
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: really coffee table book. I have looked through that book,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: my friends, and let me tell you, he's not fucking
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: in it. That was a hard read. It was very heavy.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: But anyway, he says that he stole so much money, right,
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: and like millions. He says, what isn't it two point
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: five million? He says, he cashes two point five million
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: dollars and that's like seventeen thousand fake checks between the
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: ages of sixteen and twenty four. Like, remember, this is
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: the time frame. He's given two point five million dollars
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: seventeen thousand forged checks between the ages of sixteen and
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: twenty one. Now, I don't know about you, I'm not
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: the most genius person here, but that math just ain't mathing.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: So if you add up all the time that he
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: wasn't in prison, that's like fourteen months, thirteen months, fourteen months,
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: fourteen months. I'm gonna stick with it. And in order
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: to cash that much money, in order to cash seventeen
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: thousand checks in fourteen months, he would have to cash
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: forty checks per day. So, yeah, he didn't escape a
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: federal prison. He did not escape you know, the FBI.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: He did not have a task force chasing him from
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties all the way through to the seventies.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: He spent most of his time in jail, and he
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: just looked out so many times like he was so
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: fucking lucky. He gets a shorter sentence, he gets probation,
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: he gets a slap on the wrist. Of course, hands
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: well spoken, white boy, right right, straight white boy. Yeah,
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: absolute fucking lotly. But yeah, everything he did was fucking county.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: And he didn't pay back a single cent to any
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: of the people he fucked over, even after he made
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands from you know, doing his Google talks
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: and doing his university tour and the money he made
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: from the catch me if you can movee millions. Actually
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: he would have made millions from that, and nobody, nobody
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: got recompense. None, none. Oh, an absolute piss bag. I am. Oh,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: he's awful. He's awful. And you know what I said,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: he was dead earlier. I was wrong. He's not dead.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: I just clearly just manifested that in my brain. But no,
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: he is not dead. Although if he dies, like within
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: the next couple of days, I didn't make it happen.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: I don't have that kind of power because if I did,
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: I would have that kind of power to make me
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: more money and not have all the things wrong with
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: my body right now. But yeah, he's alive. He's seventy
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: five years old at this point at time of recording.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that is the story of the hoax, the myth,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: the absolute bollocks of Frank Abignail Junr. So if you
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: liked my retelling of this story, feel free to writ
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: in review five stars on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts. You can follow me and support
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: me on Twitter which is hooded what nowpd, TikTok, Instagram,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: and probably other places with who did what Now? Pod.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: I am also one Patreon, which I am working on
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: at the minute. It's slow, but it's getting there. And
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: I also have PayPal if you want to donate and
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: for gummy bears and other such treats and books. I
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: spend a lot of money on books. Oh it's it's
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: worrying right now how much money I have on books.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: And I need somewhere to put them, so I might
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: have to invest in a shed library. I don't know.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: But yes, let's just skip to recommendations, shall we, Yes,
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: So for listening, I am going to recommend The bar
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: Is ankle High Podcast. If you have ADHD or you
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: know any with ADHD, or even if you don't have
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: ADHD and you just like people who do have it,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: go listen to that. The girls are absolutely fable. For reading,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: I am absolutely going to suggest Vanity Fair because it's
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: my favorite book because it is a book without heroes
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: and I adore that, right, So gonna recommend that. And
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: for watching, I'm gonna go where She's the Man. It's
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: been all over TikTok com this week, so go watch
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: She's the Man. Just go do it. It's a retelling
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: of Shakespeare, but it's fun. I mean, I love Shakespeare anyway,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: but go listen to it. Watch it. That's what I
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: was going to say. And with that, I am going
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: to bid you good night. Adios au revoir of What
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Is Them? My friends, Bye bye,