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The Octopus Murders · Conspiracy! The Show

0:10
Speaker 1: Welcome to Conspiracy The Show, the world's most trusted conspiracy
0:16
Speaker 1: theory podcast, with your hosts Adam Todd Brown and Olivia Hydar.
0:32
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome to Conspiracy Show. I'm your host, Adam
0:39
Speaker 2: Todd Brown joining me as co host. Olivia Heidar's here. Hey, Hello, Olivia.
0:44
Speaker 2: How's it going.
0:45
Speaker 3: It's going well. I just got over COVID, but I'm
0:48
Speaker 3: feeling much better than I had been for the last
0:51
Speaker 3: month basically.
0:52
Speaker 2: But it's been a while since you've been on an EPP.
0:55
Speaker 3: I know, I know, it's been shitty time at the
0:59
Speaker 3: hide our house.
1:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy that you're out with COVID because COVID's
1:03
Speaker 2: not real. Am I right? This is a conspiracy.
1:05
Speaker 3: Podcast, right exactly? Of course. Yeah, No, I actually just
1:08
Speaker 3: had I don't know what's a good fake one? Just
1:11
Speaker 3: the flu, I guess, bad cold? Yeah, definitely, it was
1:16
Speaker 3: a bad cold that made me not able to breathe
1:19
Speaker 3: for weeks.
1:20
Speaker 2: Well, I am happy to have you back.
1:22
Speaker 3: We are, I'm glad to be.
1:24
Speaker 2: We are talking about some shit this week. Yes, a
1:27
Speaker 2: story I've looked into covering a few different times, but
1:33
Speaker 2: there weren't a lot of great sources out there. Yeah,
1:37
Speaker 2: there's not a lot of great sources in general for
1:40
Speaker 2: this story because it's one of those stories where, like
1:44
Speaker 2: some of it we know is true, sure, and some
1:47
Speaker 2: of it could go either way. But we are covering
1:50
Speaker 2: it now on account of a Netflix documentary called The
1:54
Speaker 2: Octopus Murders. I believe the sub title is an American
2:00
Speaker 2: Conspiracy something like that.
2:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, I gotta say, right off the bat, I was
2:06
Speaker 3: very disappointed at the lack of octopus in this entire series.
2:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would have been great if the conclusion here
2:16
Speaker 2: was that OCTOPI were out there murdering journalists.
2:20
Speaker 3: That would have been amazing.
2:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, Unfortunately, it's not that. I believe we do see
2:25
Speaker 2: one octopus though there's Yeah, there's some b roll where
2:29
Speaker 2: we see an octopus. Either that or I just saw
2:31
Speaker 2: an octopus on TV this morning, right, have put two
2:36
Speaker 2: and two together. But I think we see one. Sure.
2:39
Speaker 2: But The Octopus Murders covers the story of a journalist
2:44
Speaker 2: named Danny Cassillaro who was probably murdered for over the
2:50
Speaker 2: story he was cut. That's a thing I talked about
2:53
Speaker 2: it on another episode recently, because murdered journalists are a
2:58
Speaker 2: thing that come up a lot when we're wagging our
3:01
Speaker 2: finger at other countries. Hey, they fucking killed journalists over there. Meanwhile,
3:07
Speaker 2: I don't know if anyone's ever looked up where the
3:10
Speaker 2: United States places on the freedom of the press scale.
3:14
Speaker 2: But we're like firmly in the middle, Like we're not
3:17
Speaker 2: the beacon of freedom of the press that people make
3:21
Speaker 2: it out to be. And I do think be it
3:24
Speaker 2: the government or just like rich interests, I think journalists
3:29
Speaker 2: do get murdered in this country. Sure stories they're covering,
3:33
Speaker 2: we know they do. It happened in Vegas recently. A
3:38
Speaker 2: guy who was like on the city council or something
3:41
Speaker 2: murdered a journalist for looking into corruption in his office. Yeah,
3:47
Speaker 2: there's the Michael Hastings case, like he died in a
3:50
Speaker 2: car accident, but there are a lot of whispers that
3:54
Speaker 2: it might have also been a murder.
3:57
Speaker 3: We just last year of I think it was covered
4:00
Speaker 3: Gary Webb also, right.
4:01
Speaker 2: Gary Webb. Weirdly is the one where I'm like, I
4:04
Speaker 2: don't think I've murdered him. They had every reason to,
4:08
Speaker 2: but I don't think they did. Sure, But Danny Castelaro,
4:13
Speaker 2: I think someone might have murdered this guy, But this
4:17
Speaker 2: documentary doesn't just cover him. It also covers another journalist
4:21
Speaker 2: named Christian Hanson, Yes, who caught wind of the Danny
4:26
Speaker 2: Castelaro story around twenty thirteen, and it seems in the
4:32
Speaker 2: beginning like he becomes very obsessed with this case in
4:36
Speaker 2: a detrimental way. Yeah, and spoiler we talked about it
4:41
Speaker 2: a little bit before we started recording. That doesn't really pan.
4:45
Speaker 3: Out, No, not really at all. Honestly, he seems like
4:49
Speaker 3: a very normal and well adjusted guy.
4:51
Speaker 2: Like you see one clip of him, and they keep
4:54
Speaker 2: showing it, and it's a clip where he's got really
4:56
Speaker 2: short hair. He looks like he's kind of gone compared
5:00
Speaker 2: to what he looks like now, and he does seem
5:03
Speaker 2: like he's a little wigged out, right, But that hit
5:07
Speaker 2: You see that one clip over and over. Yeah, And
5:10
Speaker 2: by the end of this he's just like, yeah, man,
5:13
Speaker 2: it's too much for me. I give up, which is
5:15
Speaker 2: like a healthy way to go, right, And I think
5:19
Speaker 2: that plays into why this documentary is too long. Definitely,
5:25
Speaker 2: Definitely I didn't need Christian's journey in this whatsoever.
5:31
Speaker 3: Which is funny. It's funny because that does seem to
5:34
Speaker 3: be the entire impetus for it being made. Yes, but
5:39
Speaker 3: it is the least essential element of the entire program.
5:43
Speaker 2: I would go so far as to say that including
5:47
Speaker 2: his journey in this and it is his journey. It's
5:50
Speaker 2: like his ups and downs and like his emotional conclusion
5:56
Speaker 2: to what he goes through. And I think it actually
6:00
Speaker 2: kind of hurts the Danny Castelaro story a little bit, because, Yeah,
6:05
Speaker 2: by the end of this, a lot of the interview
6:07
Speaker 2: subjects are treating this like Danny Castilaro fell down some
6:12
Speaker 2: kind of conspiracy theory hole. Sure, and I don't think
6:16
Speaker 2: that's accurate. It seems like he was just onto a story, right,
6:21
Speaker 2: and he got further into that story than anyone else
6:25
Speaker 2: had gotten. Right. I can see that maybe drove him
6:29
Speaker 2: a little crazy.
6:30
Speaker 3: But all of the most outlandish sort of cul de
6:34
Speaker 3: sacs that this documentary series takes, and there are a lot,
6:39
Speaker 3: and that makes it really hard to follow what is
6:42
Speaker 3: supposed to be important. But almost all of the little
6:45
Speaker 3: loops that you go down that don't actually add up
6:47
Speaker 3: to anything, are all connected to Christian's story, not Danny's
6:52
Speaker 3: at all. Like the lady with the we'll talk about it,
6:56
Speaker 3: but the fucking Zuppruterer lady drove me up the wall.
7:02
Speaker 3: I hated that so much.
7:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really was a detriment to this story, which
7:07
Speaker 2: is an interesting story.
7:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, they could have totally made a very engaging feature
7:15
Speaker 3: length documentary with the same talking heads, because most of
7:19
Speaker 3: the talking heads are people who spoke to Danny. Castiliro
7:22
Speaker 3: was like his family, right, yeah, exactly, So you could
7:25
Speaker 3: have you could keep most of these exact same things
7:28
Speaker 3: and just focus it only on this day, on Danny's story,
7:32
Speaker 3: and it would be I think a much more effective documentary.
7:35
Speaker 2: And one of the things that came up when I
7:38
Speaker 2: was toying with the idea of covering this story earlier
7:42
Speaker 2: on this podcast. There's a YouTube documentary out there that
7:47
Speaker 2: is like ninety minutes, and I was always like, yeah,
7:51
Speaker 2: it's a YouTube documentary. Though that that to me feels
7:54
Speaker 2: like basing a podcast off a podcast. I don't disagree,
7:59
Speaker 2: so I never really bothered with it. But I bet
8:02
Speaker 2: if I watch that, it's probably the better version of
8:07
Speaker 2: this story, to the point that I'll probably link to it,
8:10
Speaker 2: yeah in show notes, because if nothing else, I bet
8:13
Speaker 2: it's a lot more concise, right, and because it's on YouTube,
8:18
Speaker 2: probably just batshit insane with I hope.
8:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, the thing is that might be better,
8:24
Speaker 3: but this is the one that most people will probably
8:28
Speaker 3: watch and know.
8:30
Speaker 2: So and so one of the first people they talked
8:32
Speaker 2: to is Tony Castilaro. He gives us a bunch of
8:35
Speaker 2: background on any Castilaro. That's always my least favorite part, Like,
8:41
Speaker 2: I know, you want to humanize the subjects in a documentary.
8:44
Speaker 2: I'm always like, don't bori us get to the chorus.
8:47
Speaker 3: You know, I don't disagree.
8:50
Speaker 2: He talks about how Danny started this trade publication called
8:55
Speaker 2: Computer Age, and at one point he gets tipped off
9:00
Speaker 2: about this story involving a company called Inslaw Incorporated, and
9:05
Speaker 2: Inslaw Incorporated was hired to create software for the Department
9:10
Speaker 2: of Justice. That software was called Promise, and it is
9:15
Speaker 2: kind of the centerpiece of this story because it's described
9:20
Speaker 2: at first as a software that establishes connections between court
9:26
Speaker 2: cases that are already out there to look for Oh well,
9:30
Speaker 2: this is connected to this, maybe it's a bigger thing.
9:35
Speaker 2: And it seems like someone pretty early on within the
9:39
Speaker 2: government was like, oh, I bet that can establish connections
9:42
Speaker 2: between a lot of things court cases. Because this turns
9:48
Speaker 2: into like spy software basically is essentially what it becomes
9:54
Speaker 2: and they at one point the Department of Justice, Like,
9:59
Speaker 2: this part isn't conspiracy theory. I don't think they just
10:03
Speaker 2: stole this software from the people who made it. They
10:07
Speaker 2: withheld payments that were due to this company, knowing that
10:12
Speaker 2: this company could not survive not getting those payments on time,
10:17
Speaker 2: and then they just swooped in and took the company
10:21
Speaker 2: from them. Yeah, which that at first is the question here,
10:27
Speaker 2: like why why did they do that?
10:28
Speaker 3: Right?
10:29
Speaker 2: Do you feel like they answer that question?
10:31
Speaker 1: Uh?
10:32
Speaker 3: Not really, Other than that just sounds like business is
10:35
Speaker 3: usual for the government trying to get its hands on
10:38
Speaker 3: an asset that it once.
10:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, like they could have just bought it, you would think.
10:43
Speaker 3: Maybe, but then it would have cost more.
10:46
Speaker 2: That's true. They a judge. Eventually, this goes to court,
10:50
Speaker 2: and a judge did eventually order the Department of Justice
10:53
Speaker 2: to pay Inslaw six point eight million dollars on the
10:56
Speaker 2: grounds that they stole that software, and that judge was
11:00
Speaker 2: immediately fired from that role. The only federal bankruptcy judge
11:04
Speaker 2: fired that year, go figure, and he was replaced and
11:07
Speaker 2: the judge who replaced him overturned that decision. Yeah, Which
11:12
Speaker 2: that's a thing you see at a bunch of different
11:15
Speaker 2: points throughout this is someone will get really close to
11:20
Speaker 2: either being brought to justice or being brought to justice,
11:24
Speaker 2: and the government just steps in and is like, Nope,
11:27
Speaker 2: we're not going to do it. We're not going to
11:28
Speaker 2: arrest that person. So that's suspicious. Yeah, Like, whenever I
11:32
Speaker 2: see that, I always that gets the old cockles up.
11:37
Speaker 2: So Bill Hamilton, he's the person at inslaw who basically
11:43
Speaker 2: the software was stolen fromt and he is a key
11:47
Speaker 2: figure in this. In nineteen ninety, Danny Cassillaro takes on
11:51
Speaker 2: this story and reaches out to Bill Hamilton, who tells
11:55
Speaker 2: him that if this investigation mushrooms, it could take down
11:59
Speaker 2: a bunch of people in Congress. And I don't know,
12:03
Speaker 2: I guess this is the difference between me and a journalist.
12:07
Speaker 2: If I heard that, I'd maybe be like, all right,
12:10
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna go talk about sports. Probably then I
12:15
Speaker 2: don't want to die for podcast listens.
12:19
Speaker 3: Right, you don't want to die for Computer Age magazine?
12:23
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, we did on this podcast cover a story
12:26
Speaker 2: at one point. The episode was called the New MK
12:29
Speaker 2: Ultra and it was about the Finders, which was very
12:33
Speaker 2: much a CIA connected child sex trafficking ring. Oh those Yeah,
12:39
Speaker 2: and you see the same thing in that story, like
12:43
Speaker 2: investigations will be launched and then they get to a
12:46
Speaker 2: certain point and they just get shut down. And when
12:49
Speaker 2: we did that episode, pure coincidence, I'm sure, but someone
12:53
Speaker 2: like showed up and went through my trash.
12:55
Speaker 3: Oh I remember that, Yeah.
12:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was it was alarming. I never did the
13:00
Speaker 2: second part of that, uh story, I should we should
13:04
Speaker 2: do it.
13:04
Speaker 3: We should do it, yes, absolutely.
13:06
Speaker 2: Because there's more. There's more to it, there's two parts.
13:09
Speaker 2: It's but that's also not why I haven't done it.
13:12
Speaker 2: It's just I haven't gone back. The research is not
13:15
Speaker 2: the easiest, and it's kind of like this story where
13:19
Speaker 2: when you start researching it, there's so much, Like this
13:22
Speaker 2: podcast could just be about that. I think we were
13:25
Speaker 2: going to do a like multi part series about just
13:29
Speaker 2: one aspect of that story, and then it never came
13:32
Speaker 2: to fruition. I'll get back to it. Don't work. So
13:36
Speaker 2: Bill Hamilton realizes that the real reason for the Doga
13:41
Speaker 2: trying to steal the software was to enrich friends of
13:44
Speaker 2: the Reagan administration. And when I heard that, I was like, no,
13:51
Speaker 2: that's not true, of course, yeah, of course that's true.
13:56
Speaker 2: And there's a phone call that you hear in the
14:00
Speaker 2: first episode where it's Bill Hamilton talking to someone about
14:08
Speaker 2: how Danny got financial records showing wire transfers from England
14:13
Speaker 2: that were connected to a guy named Earl Brian and
14:17
Speaker 2: a bunch of employees in the Department of Justice. And
14:20
Speaker 2: the guy he's talking to goes, oh shit, And we
14:23
Speaker 2: never hear anything else about that. We hear more about
14:25
Speaker 2: Earl Bryan, but that phone call never gets revisited. It's
14:30
Speaker 2: just one of the things that they can pick up
14:32
Speaker 2: and drop. And so Danny starts getting weird phone calls
14:38
Speaker 2: and threats. He tells his brother if he dies in
14:41
Speaker 2: some kind of accident. He was actually murdered, sure enough.
14:45
Speaker 2: August tenth, nineteen ninety one. Martin's my birthday, West Virginia.
14:49
Speaker 2: Oh shit, happy birthday.
14:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was four years old.
14:52
Speaker 2: Nice were I whereabouts? Yeah? Where were you when this happened? Well?
14:58
Speaker 3: I did have a special birthday in Virginia, but you know,
15:02
Speaker 3: nothing related to this.
15:04
Speaker 2: Danny is found dead in a room at the Sheraton Hotel.
15:08
Speaker 2: There's a very short suicide note. He's dead in the
15:11
Speaker 2: bathtub from slit wrists, there's weird handprints and spray marks
15:16
Speaker 2: on the wall. Yeah, which there's a medic interviewed in this,
15:20
Speaker 2: Don Shirley, who to this day seems very suspicious about
15:25
Speaker 2: what happened. I like that. We see Don Shirley up
15:28
Speaker 2: top and he's like, the police called it a suicide.
15:30
Speaker 2: I don't agree. I think it was something else. And
15:33
Speaker 2: then he reappears near the end. I don't know if
15:38
Speaker 2: you caught that, but there's a scene where a spokesperson
15:43
Speaker 2: for the police in Martinsburg is like, yeah, we did
15:46
Speaker 2: an autopsy and looked into it, and we didn't find
15:49
Speaker 2: anything that contradicts the ruling of suicide. And for one,
15:54
Speaker 2: the chief of police and the lead detective walked out
15:56
Speaker 2: of that press conference, which the suggestion and is they
16:00
Speaker 2: did not agree with that determination. But you also see
16:03
Speaker 2: Don Shirley in that footage. He's sitting off to the
16:06
Speaker 2: side and he's obviously much younger, and he's wearing his
16:09
Speaker 2: medic uniform and he's just shaking his head no the
16:12
Speaker 2: whole time. So I thought that part was neat. And
16:15
Speaker 2: one of the things he mentions is that the cuts
16:18
Speaker 2: on the arms were too deep for him to have
16:22
Speaker 2: cut himself that many times.
16:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he says that they it cuts so deep
16:27
Speaker 3: that it cut the tendons, which obviously keep you from
16:31
Speaker 3: grasping after that point.
16:33
Speaker 2: And is that just a government thing because there's also
16:36
Speaker 2: a suicide that is linked to the Oklahoma City bombing.
16:42
Speaker 2: It was a cop who was like the first person
16:45
Speaker 2: on the scene and as soon as it happened, like
16:49
Speaker 2: his whole thing was. It is not what they're saying
16:52
Speaker 2: it is. It's very different than what the government is claiming.
16:55
Speaker 2: And that guy, his death was ruled a suicide. He
17:00
Speaker 2: was found to have cut himself up a bunch in
17:04
Speaker 2: his own car and then got out of his car,
17:07
Speaker 2: walked a mile through terrain that included a creek that
17:11
Speaker 2: he had to traverse and a fence he had to climb,
17:14
Speaker 2: did all of that just to get to an empty
17:17
Speaker 2: field where he shot himself with a gun that wasn't
17:21
Speaker 2: found until the FBI showed up a few hours later.
17:25
Speaker 2: It was found fifty feet away from him. Is that
17:28
Speaker 2: just the government being like, all right, how much can
17:31
Speaker 2: we make this look like a murder and still to
17:35
Speaker 2: believe it's a suicide.
17:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, probably, Well, you know, he shot himself and
17:40
Speaker 3: had enough time to throw the gun fifty feet away.
17:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't get that. That actually happened in Sioux Falls,
17:47
Speaker 2: South Dakota too. I don't remember the guy's name, but
17:50
Speaker 2: there was a professor who he was found shot in
17:54
Speaker 2: the head on campus and the gun was found in
17:57
Speaker 2: a dumpster fifty yards away and they ruled it suicide.
18:01
Speaker 2: It's like, what are you talking about? That is the
18:05
Speaker 2: laziest police work. Yeah, nothing ever came of it. So yeah. Also,
18:10
Speaker 2: all of Danny's notes about the inslaugh case were missing, which.
18:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, his like briefcase and stuff was gone.
18:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, which that's suspicious. I mean it could just be
18:20
Speaker 2: a run of the mill robbery. But do robberies usually
18:23
Speaker 2: go that way? Right, Like, Yeah, you don't make a
18:26
Speaker 2: person get naked and slit their wrists a bunch and
18:29
Speaker 2: write a suicide note for a fucking basic ass I
18:32
Speaker 2: need drug money.
18:33
Speaker 3: Robbery right right, it's a little much.
18:36
Speaker 2: Near the end of episode one, a name comes Michael
18:40
Speaker 2: Racana Shuto.
18:41
Speaker 3: Every time I heard that name, I just thought it
18:43
Speaker 3: sounded like DELI me.
18:44
Speaker 2: It does. Yeah, it definitely gives food vibes that name.
18:49
Speaker 2: And there's a recording a voicemail or a phone call
18:54
Speaker 2: recording where someone's like, I don't know how you heard
18:57
Speaker 2: that name, but you can get killed just for no
19:00
Speaker 2: that name. Yeah, And I don't know.
19:02
Speaker 3: I'm always skeptical, well, especially after watching this series, I'm
19:07
Speaker 3: skeptical about that statement. Yes, this guy, I mean, this
19:11
Speaker 3: guy might have done stuff, but he also says a
19:15
Speaker 3: lot of stuff.
19:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he did go to prison, and I
19:20
Speaker 2: do believe a lot of what he says. Sure, but
19:24
Speaker 2: it does seem like there's kind of like mirage men
19:28
Speaker 2: vibes around him where he seems like one of those
19:32
Speaker 2: government people whose sole job it is is to just
19:36
Speaker 2: go out and when someone's onto a story, you just
19:40
Speaker 2: feed them all the craziest information you can. Sure, so
19:45
Speaker 2: they end up chasing false leads that you can easily
19:48
Speaker 2: discredit and make them seem like a liar or a
19:51
Speaker 2: bad journalist. And it is suggested at one point in
19:56
Speaker 2: this that that could have been a little bit of
19:59
Speaker 2: what was happening with Danny, that he was sort of
20:01
Speaker 2: getting conned, yeah, by people who were sending him on
20:05
Speaker 2: leads that they knew were never really gonna materialize. That's
20:09
Speaker 2: kind of the alternate theory here, it's either he was
20:12
Speaker 2: murdered over what he knew about this promised software, or
20:17
Speaker 2: he chased this story for so long nothing came of
20:20
Speaker 2: it he got despondent over that and killed himself.
20:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, and kind of someone kind of drove him crazy,
20:28
Speaker 3: is the idea, which you know, after watching this, I
20:31
Speaker 3: kind of get I can see how that would happen.
20:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm kind of of the opinion why not both,
20:39
Speaker 2: like the top of both commercial.
20:41
Speaker 3: Sure, I don't think we're ever presented with enough evidence
20:44
Speaker 3: to go either way, honestly, but I do think, Yeah,
20:48
Speaker 3: I mean it's one or the other.
20:49
Speaker 2: Definitely, there's a witness near the end that makes me
20:53
Speaker 2: lean toward murder. But yeah, as it's presented, it does
20:58
Speaker 2: seem like it could go either way. The and yeah,
21:02
Speaker 2: this is where I have in the notes that I
21:03
Speaker 2: could do without the Christian Hanson.
21:05
Speaker 3: Yeah.
21:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, because Yeah, me and my wife tried watching this
21:09
Speaker 2: at first. We watched the first episode. Yeah, she was like,
21:13
Speaker 2: they are dragging this out. She gave up. I might
21:17
Speaker 2: have if I wasn't covering this for an episode.
21:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I definitely would have.
21:25
Speaker 2: But yeah, so there's a bunch of stuff about Michael
21:30
Speaker 2: Rakona Shudo. We're just gonna call him Mike from here
21:33
Speaker 2: on out. A lot of stuff about his background. He
21:35
Speaker 2: was arrested for making drugs in an underwater lab, which
21:38
Speaker 2: that's just cool. That's the coolest thing I've ever heard.
21:43
Speaker 3: I would watch that documentary.
21:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would just watch a documentary about how to
21:47
Speaker 2: make an underwater drug lab. Yeah, had me at that.
21:51
Speaker 3: It's very cool.
21:52
Speaker 2: And Christian Hansen starts explaining or starts exchanging correspondence with Michael,
21:58
Speaker 2: who is in prison at this point. It's twenty fourteen,
22:02
Speaker 2: and Michael tells him that the promised scandal starts with
22:05
Speaker 2: Reagan stealing the nineteen eighty election, and I was like,
22:08
Speaker 2: I'm listening.
22:10
Speaker 3: Yes, look, I'm always ready to blame Reagan.
22:14
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And what they're talking about as far as Reagan
22:18
Speaker 2: stealing the election is the October Surprise, right, which would
22:22
Speaker 2: be a good episode of this podcast at summer because
22:26
Speaker 2: for people who are unfamiliar, the October Surprise is basically
22:31
Speaker 2: an allegation that the Reagan administration, through the CIA, reached
22:37
Speaker 2: out to the government of Iran and was like, Hey,
22:41
Speaker 2: those hostages that you got, just keep them until the
22:44
Speaker 2: election's over.
22:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, technically not the administration, but the pre administration campaign,
22:50
Speaker 3: like the Reagan campaign, with the help of the CIA.
22:54
Speaker 2: And there is a claim that forty million dollars was
22:59
Speaker 2: exchange and reminder Reagan's running mate, former CIA director George
23:05
Speaker 2: hw Bush. Ye, And what they claim in this documentary
23:10
Speaker 2: is that Earl Brian is the person who made that
23:13
Speaker 2: deal happen, and that his payment for making that deal
23:17
Speaker 2: happen was the source code to the promise software. So
23:23
Speaker 2: that's how Danny Castillaro gets onto Oh, this is way
23:27
Speaker 2: way bigger than just the DOJ stealing or no, that's
23:31
Speaker 2: how fucking Curtis Hanson.
23:35
Speaker 3: Christian Hanson.
23:36
Speaker 2: Christian Hanson, my god, I really didn't need him in this. No, really,
23:43
Speaker 2: but I think the October surprise happened, I don't. I
23:47
Speaker 2: feel like that point in history, the CIA was willing
23:51
Speaker 2: to do anything to ultimately get George hw Bush into office.
23:58
Speaker 2: Because again, I've done a whole episode about it, I've
24:02
Speaker 2: mentioned it a bunch of times. My own little pet
24:05
Speaker 2: unprovable theory is that the CIA is the obvious lead
24:10
Speaker 2: suspect when it comes to who really was behind trying
24:14
Speaker 2: to kill Reagan. That was the most MK ultra fucking
24:20
Speaker 2: assassination attempt possible. And now that guy's out like playing
24:25
Speaker 2: acoustic guitar at coffee shops. Like when do they let
24:29
Speaker 2: a fucking assassin out of prison? Never, but he's out.
24:33
Speaker 2: So the government, it seems like, had pretty big plans
24:37
Speaker 2: for this software. But I feel like they don't ever
24:40
Speaker 2: really explain what Earl O'Brien would have wanted promise for.
24:44
Speaker 4: No.
24:45
Speaker 3: I never really understood that part.
24:48
Speaker 2: But the way they explain what the government wanted it
24:51
Speaker 2: for is fascinating. Yeah, because eventually it seems like the
24:55
Speaker 2: government realized, oh, well, we can use this for spying,
24:58
Speaker 2: I can use this to make connections between more than
25:02
Speaker 2: just criminal court cases. And what they did is not
25:05
Speaker 2: only did they use it for spying, but it seems
25:08
Speaker 2: like they put it out on the black market knowing
25:12
Speaker 2: that other countries would be like, oh shit, that's United
25:16
Speaker 2: States software. That's what they're using. Of course we will
25:19
Speaker 2: buy that from you and use it for our own
25:22
Speaker 2: nefarious means.
25:23
Speaker 3: Sure well. And also just it's a database tool at
25:27
Speaker 3: a time when databases were just emerging as a major
25:32
Speaker 3: force in information technology, just outside of espionage, just in
25:38
Speaker 3: you know, they talk about how disorganized these prosecutors' offices
25:42
Speaker 3: were before this program came around, and how this was
25:46
Speaker 3: like one of the first big useful pieces of software,
25:51
Speaker 3: so people wanted it anyway then, and you can see
25:55
Speaker 3: how the US government would be like, well, it would
25:58
Speaker 3: be nice for us to have access to what all
26:01
Speaker 3: of these other people are searching for and using this database.
26:06
Speaker 3: That does make sense.
26:07
Speaker 2: And that's what Michael Riconosciuto claims the government had him
26:11
Speaker 2: do was put a trapdoor into the promised software that
26:17
Speaker 2: would allow the US government to access anyone else using
26:22
Speaker 2: this software and see what they're using it for, so
26:26
Speaker 2: basically spy on what they're spying on. And there's an
26:32
Speaker 2: IDF guy who they interview briefly who says this was
26:37
Speaker 2: a revolution in intelligence gathering and if those motherfuckers are
26:42
Speaker 2: saying it's a revolution gathering, you know it was right seriously,
26:48
Speaker 2: and he says what attracted Israel to it was the
26:51
Speaker 2: idea that the US was going to sell it to
26:55
Speaker 2: Israel's neighbors and then give Israel that trap door access
27:00
Speaker 2: they could spy on their neighbors, which I have no
27:02
Speaker 2: doubt that that happened probably, but we also used it
27:07
Speaker 2: to spy on our allies. And here's the thing that's
27:10
Speaker 2: a scandal, But it's not a scandal I care about.
27:14
Speaker 2: I expect that we're spying on our allies. I get like,
27:18
Speaker 2: remember that came out when Obama was in office, that
27:21
Speaker 2: we were like spying on Germany for some reason, people
27:26
Speaker 2: were so arms about it. I remember just thinking, oh what, Yeah,
27:31
Speaker 2: it's a bad look, but yeah, I sat it happens
27:34
Speaker 2: a lot.
27:34
Speaker 3: Yeah it's bad, like it's not good, but also I
27:40
Speaker 3: don't know what else people would expect.
27:42
Speaker 2: Yeah. This is another point where in the notes I
27:46
Speaker 2: mentioned this being way too long because they start getting
27:49
Speaker 2: into all these comparisons between Christian and Danny, and it's like, look,
27:55
Speaker 2: one of them died with his arms cut up in
27:57
Speaker 2: a bathtub. Yeah, and the other just lends a phone
28:01
Speaker 2: call at the end of this, and it is like,
28:02
Speaker 2: I'm done. Yeah, there aren't a lot of similarities between
28:06
Speaker 2: these two.
28:07
Speaker 3: Well, I was gonna say, I mean, at least at
28:09
Speaker 3: this point, I didn't know where this all was going.
28:14
Speaker 3: So I thought that I kind of kept getting the
28:16
Speaker 3: vibe that this Christian guy was going to die.
28:21
Speaker 2: Sam.
28:22
Speaker 3: I honestly kept expecting that to happen.
28:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was at least waiting for a noticeable descent
28:29
Speaker 2: into madness.
28:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, the synth of the madness. But honestly, in order
28:34
Speaker 3: to make him an important part of the story, he
28:37
Speaker 3: had to die, And because he doesn't, that makes him inessential.
28:42
Speaker 2: And it once again kind of undermines the Danny Castelaro story. Yeah,
28:47
Speaker 2: because now people who are skeptical about whether Danny Castilaro
28:52
Speaker 2: was murdered are just going to be like, well, why
28:54
Speaker 2: wasn't Christian Hansen murdered?
28:55
Speaker 4: Sure?
28:56
Speaker 3: Absolutely, which is a good question.
28:58
Speaker 2: It's a valid question.
29:00
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, unfortunately, Yeah, I did find all of the stuff
29:05
Speaker 4: about the Cobbazone Indian Reservation fucking fascinating.
29:10
Speaker 2: Sure, and John Philip Nichols is a really interesting character. Yeah,
29:18
Speaker 2: I want to know a lot more about even separate
29:22
Speaker 2: from this.
29:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of interesting stuff in this part.
29:26
Speaker 3: But it's interesting in a way that makes me think, well,
29:29
Speaker 3: this should just be a different documentary about the story.
29:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, focusing it on whether Danny was murdered. They keep
29:38
Speaker 2: saying there's these various crimes that are just one tentacle
29:42
Speaker 2: of the optic murders. So is Danny sure he is
29:46
Speaker 2: an interesting part of this story, but not the most
29:49
Speaker 2: interesting part. No, I need to know more about what
29:54
Speaker 2: was happening at this Indian reservation. Yeah, because this John
29:58
Speaker 2: Philip Nichols guy, he gives me a lot of Jim
30:02
Speaker 2: Jones vibes, especially hearing his son talk about him, and
30:08
Speaker 2: his son's like, look, my dad was a hero, you know. Yeah,
30:12
Speaker 2: maybe he did some shady stuff, but he did it
30:14
Speaker 2: in the name of the government. Hear that a couple
30:16
Speaker 2: times from kids of obvious monsters in this and they
30:21
Speaker 2: talk about him going around and helping with all of
30:26
Speaker 2: these like labor movements and people who are out in
30:30
Speaker 2: the community organizing.
30:32
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
30:32
Speaker 2: And you can tell his son kind of believes that
30:35
Speaker 2: that's what his dad was doing. But also it's pretty
30:38
Speaker 2: clear his dad wasn't helping. He was infiltrating. Sure, he
30:42
Speaker 2: was going into these groups as a representative of the
30:46
Speaker 2: US government, clearly, and a lot of it had to
30:51
Speaker 2: do a lot of the groups he would interact with
30:55
Speaker 2: were groups that were dealing with like tribal sovereignty and
31:00
Speaker 2: like the plight of Native Americans in this country. And
31:03
Speaker 2: it seems like it was all because he was trying
31:07
Speaker 2: to scope out the right reservation that the government could
31:11
Speaker 2: turn into a weapons testing plant, right, Like, it seems
31:15
Speaker 2: like there was an idea within the CIA at some
31:17
Speaker 2: point where they were like, all right, so we can't
31:21
Speaker 2: test all this stuff in the United States technically, right,
31:25
Speaker 2: what if we do it on Indian reservations that are
31:28
Speaker 2: not under the jurisdiction of the federal government, Right then
31:34
Speaker 2: what then can we get away with it there? And
31:36
Speaker 2: it seems like at least at Cabazone they tried, yeah,
31:39
Speaker 2: because they for one, they bring the promised software to
31:43
Speaker 2: this reservation which is in California, but they also just
31:47
Speaker 2: start testing weapons there, chemical weapons. At one point they
31:53
Speaker 2: were even talking about testing there. And this is all
31:57
Speaker 2: the work of a guy who, again to hear his
32:00
Speaker 2: son describe it, was like a progressive who was working
32:04
Speaker 2: on all these like union issues and native land issues,
32:08
Speaker 2: and meanwhile he just wants a place that he can
32:11
Speaker 2: shoot experimental weapons. Congress saying anything about it, right, yeah,
32:16
Speaker 2: Which again that's Jim Jones vibes like, sure, a whole lot.
32:20
Speaker 2: They talked to a detective in this, John Powers, who
32:24
Speaker 2: was in the area of the Cobbazone reservation. There was
32:28
Speaker 2: a triple murder at one point, and he was like,
32:31
Speaker 2: I arrested someone for it, they were charged, and the
32:34
Speaker 2: government let him go nine months later. Yeah, which, again
32:38
Speaker 2: that's always weird. Does it feel like John Nichols is
32:41
Speaker 2: the reason there are cigarette stores and casinos on Indian reservations?
32:45
Speaker 3: Now that was what I understood from that whole aspect
32:48
Speaker 3: of the story.
32:50
Speaker 2: And man, that does feel like a CIA thing, Like yeah,
32:55
Speaker 2: like all right, Native people have all this land, We're
32:59
Speaker 2: sure it ruin their lives. Cigarettes and gambling.
33:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's gonna be hooked on vice.
33:05
Speaker 2: Because yeah, that this guy was clearly a CIA agent
33:10
Speaker 2: and is also the person who shows up and is like, hey,
33:13
Speaker 2: what if you open a casino? What if you start
33:16
Speaker 2: selling cigarettes? And he talks this tribe into this and
33:21
Speaker 2: then promises them all this money and then the money
33:24
Speaker 2: never shows up, and a guy who is the head
33:27
Speaker 2: of security and part of the tribal council, Fred Alvarez,
33:30
Speaker 2: he starts complaining about it, and he steals a bunch
33:34
Speaker 2: of files from Nichol's office. One of the things he
33:37
Speaker 2: finds out is that Nichols is working with Wackenhut, which
33:40
Speaker 2: is a security company that's essentially an offshoot of the CIA,
33:44
Speaker 2: and that they wanted to use this land to test
33:47
Speaker 2: tank rounds in chemical weapons. And he compiles all this
33:52
Speaker 2: evidence and schedules an appointment to show it to an attorney,
33:57
Speaker 2: and of course the people who are supposed to take
34:00
Speaker 2: him to that meeting show up at his home and
34:02
Speaker 2: find him dead in the backyard alongside two of his friends.
34:07
Speaker 2: So John Nichols obviously either killed that guy or had
34:11
Speaker 2: that guy killed.
34:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, likes the most obvious suspect.
34:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, all you Akham's Raiser fans out there, this is
34:20
Speaker 2: your moment to shine, because yeah, that is the most
34:23
Speaker 2: obvious answer, is that John Nichols either committed the murder
34:28
Speaker 2: himself or at the very least had this murder commision.
34:32
Speaker 3: Doesn't John Nichols's son even say something like, yeah, you
34:36
Speaker 3: might have killed some people.
34:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, when they ask if his dad killed someone, he's like,
34:41
Speaker 2: I hope not. I like not, Okay, if the answer
34:45
Speaker 2: was no, you would just say no, right, And I
34:50
Speaker 2: don't know. Fuck this kid kind of a kid. He's
34:53
Speaker 2: like older than me.
34:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's gonna say he's sixty years old.
34:58
Speaker 2: But still I get that he's your dad. But man,
35:01
Speaker 2: this is government malfeasance of the highest order. Quit being
35:05
Speaker 2: like my dad was a hero. No, your dad was
35:07
Speaker 2: a fucking villain. Your dad was a bad actor on
35:11
Speaker 2: the world stage. He was your peepaw in all, but
35:16
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. He's a bad fucking person. And I
35:19
Speaker 2: don't know. There's a lot of kids of military and
35:22
Speaker 2: cops both who need to fucking come to terms with that,
35:25
Speaker 2: including this guy.
35:26
Speaker 3: Absolutely so.
35:28
Speaker 2: With Fred Alvarez out of the way, John Nichols moves
35:31
Speaker 2: a bunch of creeps onto this reservation. And these people
35:35
Speaker 2: are referred to as the Angels of Life and Death.
35:38
Speaker 2: And they're just like a group of CIA types who
35:42
Speaker 2: show up and turn it into a weapons testing spot. Yea.
35:47
Speaker 2: And one of the connections they make is that the
35:49
Speaker 2: reason they had to do this on a reservation is
35:53
Speaker 2: because these weapons they were testing were part of the
35:55
Speaker 2: Iran contra scandal, and so they didn't need any lookie
36:00
Speaker 2: loose around asking questions about what these weapons were.
36:05
Speaker 3: Right.
36:06
Speaker 2: That is such an underrated scandal from history? Is it?
36:12
Speaker 3: Is it underrated? I think people know it.
36:14
Speaker 2: People know it, but no one it doesn't get mentioned
36:18
Speaker 2: the way like Watergate gets mentioned. And it was like
36:21
Speaker 2: one hundred times worse than Watergate.
36:24
Speaker 3: I think part of it is just this thing where
36:26
Speaker 3: even a lot of liberal Americans just like to treat
36:30
Speaker 3: Reagan with kid gloves. They like to pretend like he's
36:34
Speaker 3: just a goofy old guy who never did knowingly did
36:37
Speaker 3: anything wrong instead of one of the most evil motherfuckers
36:41
Speaker 3: who has ever served in a high office.
36:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, he really just kind of did the CIA's bidding. Yeah,
36:48
Speaker 2: when he was in a like everything that the CIA
36:52
Speaker 2: wanted to do got done under Reagan, including like fucking
36:57
Speaker 2: carrying out wars without letting media. See, that's what happened
37:02
Speaker 2: in Grenada, That's what happened in Panama. There's a reason
37:04
Speaker 2: there's no pictures from the invasion of Panama. It's because
37:07
Speaker 2: we didn't let people take pictures. Sure, and there are
37:10
Speaker 2: military people who were interviewed and you and were like,
37:13
Speaker 2: you know why that war went as fast as it did,
37:15
Speaker 2: it's because the media wasn't allowed. Like that is the
37:19
Speaker 2: most terrifying thing I've ever heard. Yeah, Like, what were
37:23
Speaker 2: you doing without the media there that within the span
37:26
Speaker 2: of a couple of days, an entire country was like Jesus,
37:30
Speaker 2: all right, Like what was going on?
37:35
Speaker 3: Yeah.
37:36
Speaker 2: So we do get to talk to Michael Reconnaschudo in
37:42
Speaker 2: this and it seems like they're going to go interview
37:44
Speaker 2: him in prison, but he's actually getting released from prison.
37:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, they like pick him up from prison. Yeah.
37:50
Speaker 2: First I was like, are they helping him escape? This
37:52
Speaker 2: is amazing. He's super paranoid. He's like, drive, get away
37:57
Speaker 2: from here, get away from this area. I don't want
37:59
Speaker 2: to be in this area. And he does seem legitimately scared.
38:03
Speaker 3: I mean, sure, he seems legitimately scared. Whether what he
38:08
Speaker 3: is scared of is you know, real, is a different matter.
38:14
Speaker 3: I think.
38:15
Speaker 2: Yeah. The thing that lends it a little credibility to
38:18
Speaker 2: me is he's got out. He's all he's got to
38:22
Speaker 2: do is go to this parole hearing, right, And he's like,
38:26
Speaker 2: I won't have any protection at that parole hearing. The
38:29
Speaker 2: people who are after me will be at that parole hearing.
38:32
Speaker 2: I would rather just go back to prison. And he
38:34
Speaker 2: just goes back to prison, which to me that speaks
38:37
Speaker 2: to someone being legitimately afraid sure of something. But even
38:44
Speaker 2: then the question is did he have a reason to
38:46
Speaker 2: be that afraid?
38:47
Speaker 3: Right? I mean, regardless of how much real information and
38:52
Speaker 3: involvement he has in this whole overarching story. He does
38:57
Speaker 3: seem to be and some capacity on. Well, that was
39:01
Speaker 3: just the vibe that I got from him, and then
39:03
Speaker 3: from later on hearing other people talk about him, it
39:06
Speaker 3: just seemed like this guy has a lot going on inside. Yeah,
39:11
Speaker 3: but that doesn't mean that he wasn't in legitimate danger.
39:14
Speaker 3: It just, you know, it's something to keep in mind.
39:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. And one of the things he brings up is
39:21
Speaker 2: that all these people who've been involved in this story
39:25
Speaker 2: have been murdered. Yeah, and that brings us to the
39:27
Speaker 2: murder of Paul Morasca, which it's a weird one. He
39:33
Speaker 2: was Michael's business partner. His murder was heinous. He was
39:39
Speaker 2: hog tied with a wire and basically, once he couldn't
39:44
Speaker 2: hold his legs up anymore, the wire strangled him, right.
39:49
Speaker 2: And the suspicion is that he was killed by an
39:52
Speaker 2: FBI infemant named Jason Smith aka Philip Thompson. Yeah, and
39:58
Speaker 2: it seems like he probably would us. Sure, he was
40:01
Speaker 2: definitely murdered by someone. And no, wait, hold on. In
40:06
Speaker 2: Danny Cassilaro's notes, he says that Paul Morasca is the link,
40:11
Speaker 2: but he doesn't say the link between what, and so
40:17
Speaker 2: that sends Christian Hansen off trying to find what that
40:21
Speaker 2: link is, and what he lands on is that Paul
40:25
Speaker 2: Morasca was the link between the federal government and or
40:31
Speaker 2: the CIA and like the criminal like organized crime and
40:37
Speaker 2: the idea that American intelligence was funding covert operations using
40:44
Speaker 2: money that they were earning through selling drugs in the
40:48
Speaker 2: United States. And yeah, I think, like we know that
40:53
Speaker 2: right now, Like that, I mean that that's kind of
40:55
Speaker 2: the Gary web story also, sure, and I don't like
41:00
Speaker 2: all they're really implying here is that it was bigger
41:03
Speaker 2: than what Gary Webb even realized, And of course it was.
41:08
Speaker 2: I don't think it obviously wasn't an isolated incident, because
41:12
Speaker 2: crack didn't just show up in Los Angeles, No, it
41:17
Speaker 2: showed up all over the place. There's a documentary called
41:19
Speaker 2: White Boy Rick about a teen who was selling crack
41:23
Speaker 2: in Detroit and the FBI was like giving him crack
41:27
Speaker 2: and just giving him the green light to sell it
41:30
Speaker 2: in the community right up until the point where they
41:32
Speaker 2: didn't anymore and they arrested him.
41:34
Speaker 3: Yeah.
41:35
Speaker 2: I don't doubt for a second that that part of
41:38
Speaker 2: this story is true. I absolutely believe the CIA, I'm
41:43
Speaker 2: sure still but definitely at the time was using drug
41:47
Speaker 2: money to fund shit we were doing in Latin America.
41:51
Speaker 2: When Paul died, he had all this money in an
41:54
Speaker 2: offshore account, and he had all these chemicals for making
41:57
Speaker 2: drugs that all disappeared. And what they suggest is that
42:02
Speaker 2: the way he was killed, what probably happened is they
42:05
Speaker 2: hog tied him. He's being strangled by this wire and
42:08
Speaker 2: they're like, tell us where the money is, tell us
42:10
Speaker 2: where the chemicals are, and we'll cut you loose. And
42:14
Speaker 2: so they basically tortured him in this information and then
42:19
Speaker 2: just let him die anyway. And I don't know, I
42:21
Speaker 2: buy it, Sure, I buy this part of the story.
42:25
Speaker 2: It does seem like that Philip guy was. It seems
42:29
Speaker 2: like he was just like a guy the government used
42:31
Speaker 2: to kill people.
42:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, potentially, definitely Philip Thompson. But I'm reading a book.
42:37
Speaker 3: Have you read any James L. Roy Huh huh. I'm
42:40
Speaker 3: reading his book American Tabloid, which is basically about guys
42:44
Speaker 3: like that in the fifties, like people who you know,
42:48
Speaker 3: would be like informants, who would you know, just kill
42:51
Speaker 3: people when needed to be killed.
42:53
Speaker 2: Interesting I mean, that's got to be you know. That's
42:56
Speaker 2: a thing. Yeah, that's a thing you hear about the
42:59
Speaker 2: CIA all the time is that there's two kinds of
43:02
Speaker 2: CIA agents. There's like the analyst types, the types, right,
43:09
Speaker 2: and when they can't fix shit, there's the murder types.
43:12
Speaker 2: And those two don't work together. They just work toward
43:18
Speaker 2: the same ends. What do you think of Robert Booth Nichols?
43:22
Speaker 2: That guy was neat He's the scariest person in this. Yeah,
43:26
Speaker 2: he is another he's not related to the other Nichols,
43:30
Speaker 2: but he's another figure in this, and he's the one
43:34
Speaker 2: that people are like, don't even talk to that guy,
43:37
Speaker 2: like it will not go well. And even as an
43:41
Speaker 2: old ass man in this deposition they show him giving
43:44
Speaker 2: he seems scary as fuck, Like he really does have
43:50
Speaker 2: the air of someone who's like, you have no idea,
43:53
Speaker 2: I will murder you in the parking lot when and
43:57
Speaker 2: get away with it.
43:58
Speaker 3: Like he's your classic what he's what I picture when
44:02
Speaker 3: I think of a government hit man, who's just like
44:05
Speaker 3: a guy in a suit, who's like very normal and
44:10
Speaker 3: but just dead behind the eyes. Yeah.
44:15
Speaker 2: At one point they ask him what he did for
44:17
Speaker 2: the government, and he says achieve objectives, all right, and
44:24
Speaker 2: also makes it very clear that he was told he
44:27
Speaker 2: would never be in the situation he was in in
44:31
Speaker 2: that moment, Right, I did what I was told, and
44:35
Speaker 2: I was told I would never be where I am
44:38
Speaker 2: right now. Yeah, And the guy doing the deposition is like,
44:42
Speaker 2: who told you that? And he goes the government and
44:45
Speaker 2: he shoots someone in the room a fucking look, and
44:49
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, this is the best, the best, And
44:53
Speaker 2: Danny Castelaro does end up reaching out to Bob Nichols,
44:57
Speaker 2: even though people tell him not to. Yeah. In his notes,
45:01
Speaker 2: he claims Bob Nichols at the end of telling Danny
45:04
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff about Promise and everything that was happening.
45:09
Speaker 2: At the end, he's like, it's too bad you're a
45:11
Speaker 2: writer because you know too much now and you'll have
45:14
Speaker 2: to die. And Danny's just like, all right, thanks for
45:18
Speaker 2: your time, take off. I guess what would you do
45:23
Speaker 2: with that? Like? I might, I don't know. I think
45:25
Speaker 2: you kind of have to kill Bob in that moment. Wow,
45:29
Speaker 2: that feels like a threat that you just like, all right, Bob,
45:32
Speaker 2: you're old, let's fucking do this.
45:34
Speaker 3: But what would what would that even do there would
45:37
Speaker 3: just be another guy then.
45:39
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, Bob's gonna have to tell someone that
45:41
Speaker 2: you talked.
45:42
Speaker 3: Right, But surely if this is so wide reaching, people
45:46
Speaker 3: already know that they're talking. You know, I don't know.
45:50
Speaker 3: I don't know that killing Bob fixes anything in that moment, especially.
45:55
Speaker 2: If there's a stuffed lion in the room.
45:58
Speaker 3: Right, Oh god, yeah, the stuff line.
46:00
Speaker 2: We found out that was Bob Nichols's way of recording
46:03
Speaker 2: conversations that happened at his home. Because that investigative reporter
46:08
Speaker 2: Sherry Seymour, the woman she ends up getting an interview
46:12
Speaker 2: with Bob Nichols, and beforehand someone's like, if there's a
46:15
Speaker 2: stuffed lion in the room, he's recording you. And she
46:18
Speaker 2: showed up for this interview, and sure enough, he sits
46:20
Speaker 2: her down on a couch next to a stuffed lion
46:24
Speaker 2: plastic he shared animal. She's like, I know, there's a
46:28
Speaker 2: stuffed giraffe, so I think it was fine.
46:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's fine.
46:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. So basically Danny's theory was that the octopus is
46:37
Speaker 2: kind of the Illuminati. Sure seems like that's what he's
46:41
Speaker 2: getting at, because he says the Octopus is an alliance
46:45
Speaker 2: of seven or eight or nine people. They'll show his
46:48
Speaker 2: notes and at various points he said seven, eight, and nine,
46:52
Speaker 2: they say eight throughout all this, but at one point
46:54
Speaker 2: they list them all and there's nine. So I don't know,
46:57
Speaker 2: but he says it's an alliance at started around the
47:01
Speaker 2: Cold War nineteen fifties with a bunch of intelligence types.
47:06
Speaker 2: Those intelligence types being doctor John Phillip Nichols, Richard Helms,
47:11
Speaker 2: Theodore Shackley, George Pender, Ray Kline, William Casey, Thomas Klein's E.
47:18
Speaker 2: Howard Hunt, and George hw. Bush Baby, of course, and
47:24
Speaker 2: those are the nine people who make up the Octopus.
47:29
Speaker 2: They are no longer government employees, they're not government, but
47:35
Speaker 2: they their reach extends into all facets of life, all
47:40
Speaker 2: government's global reach. And he still doesn't really say to
47:46
Speaker 2: what end, though.
47:47
Speaker 3: New this is the thing. This is where I start
47:51
Speaker 3: to get lost on the idea of the Octopus as
47:55
Speaker 3: a single conspiracy. Where As it gets the out, what
48:00
Speaker 3: it mostly just seems is this is standard intelligence operating procedure.
48:08
Speaker 3: Not that any of this is not nefarious or not
48:11
Speaker 3: connected or you know, not bad, but it doesn't strike
48:15
Speaker 3: me as much of a hidden conspiracy as much as
48:18
Speaker 3: it is, like it's hidden in the way that all
48:20
Speaker 3: of these intelligence operations are hidden. I don't know, Like
48:24
Speaker 3: it doesn't strike me as its own thing.
48:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it I don't know. I feel like Reagan
48:30
Speaker 2: doesn't come up enough in this. Yeah, And that to
48:35
Speaker 2: me speaks to the whole I know this was a
48:37
Speaker 2: question that was asked more around Watergate, but what did
48:40
Speaker 2: the president know and when did he know it?
48:43
Speaker 3: Sure?
48:44
Speaker 2: Was all of this just happening behind Reagan's back m hm?
48:49
Speaker 2: Or was he actively involved in planning all of this?
48:52
Speaker 2: That's never really mentioned.
48:54
Speaker 3: No, not at all.
48:55
Speaker 2: It's treated as more of a deep state kind of thing.
49:00
Speaker 3: Right, but which doesn't make sense because George Bush was
49:04
Speaker 3: in the Reagan administration. That doesn't really track.
49:07
Speaker 2: And one of the things I've at least read about
49:12
Speaker 2: the CIA is that there are going to be times
49:15
Speaker 2: where the president will have to be like, WHOA, what
49:18
Speaker 2: the CIA did there was very bad and I had
49:22
Speaker 2: no idea. But the president always knows, like the CIA
49:26
Speaker 2: does what the president needs done. Yeah, And they sometimes
49:32
Speaker 2: have to disagree publicly, but they are generally on the
49:35
Speaker 2: same page. And I don't know, I feel like Reagan
49:38
Speaker 2: would have to be part of this, like more than
49:41
Speaker 2: he's made out to be.
49:44
Speaker 3: Even if he's not giving orders or whatever, there's no
49:48
Speaker 3: way he wasn't in the loop with any of this.
49:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought the stuff about Michael Abel was interesting.
49:55
Speaker 2: He was the director of the Office of International Affairs
49:59
Speaker 2: in the Reagan administration and at one point we were
50:02
Speaker 2: considering extraditing the head of the Cali drug cartel to
50:07
Speaker 2: the United States to be prosecuted. And what they claim
50:11
Speaker 2: here is that Michael Lebel was paid off by Bob
50:16
Speaker 2: Nichols to not extradite cartel members. And the reason that
50:21
Speaker 2: payment was made is because the CIA was selling drugs
50:25
Speaker 2: in the United States and they needed those drugs to
50:28
Speaker 2: come into the United States so they could tell them right,
50:31
Speaker 2: which again I buy it, Yeah, I buy it. And
50:35
Speaker 2: think about Ronald Reagan's anti drug policy. It was the
50:38
Speaker 2: laziest shit. Just say no. That's all you got is
50:43
Speaker 2: just say no. He's like, yeah, yeah, just say no.
50:46
Speaker 3: Next question, Next question, What.
50:50
Speaker 2: Did you think about Joe Quaar?
50:51
Speaker 3: Joe Quaar, he was the military guy.
50:55
Speaker 2: He was the military intelligence guy. One night, Danny is
51:00
Speaker 2: out having drinks with a friend of his and just
51:04
Speaker 2: by sheer coincidence. Of course. Joe Quaar, a military intelligence guy,
51:09
Speaker 2: happens to be at the bar and Danny chats him up,
51:13
Speaker 2: and Joe Quahar is like, oh, yeah, I know all
51:16
Speaker 2: about what you're doing. Let me give you some more
51:19
Speaker 2: information and put you in touch with more people. And
51:23
Speaker 2: it seems like the woman Danny was with was like, okay,
51:27
Speaker 2: but your military intelligence this is not on the up
51:30
Speaker 2: and up, and Danny was like, no, he's my friend,
51:33
Speaker 2: Like he's helping me, he's giving me information. And man,
51:37
Speaker 2: if I was me in that moment and someone was like, Hi,
51:40
Speaker 2: I'm military intelligence, I'd be like check please y leaving.
51:46
Speaker 3: Oh heay, funny running into you here. Here's a bunch
51:49
Speaker 3: of information about this thing that you're working on that
51:52
Speaker 3: I happen to know about. We're meeting for the first
51:55
Speaker 3: time in this bar.
51:56
Speaker 2: Yeah. Just can you imagine such a coincidence. I cannot
52:01
Speaker 2: imagine such a coincidence.
52:03
Speaker 3: Maybe this is a failure of imagination, you know.
52:07
Speaker 2: That could be, I could be. And so Danny at
52:10
Speaker 2: this point is also getting constant death threats. People are
52:13
Speaker 2: calling him and being like, hey, back off this story,
52:16
Speaker 2: and he was just kind of taking that as oh, well,
52:19
Speaker 2: I'm obviously onto something here, and he just kept going
52:25
Speaker 2: and in his last days, at one point he tells
52:29
Speaker 2: someone I finally figured out who knows where the money went.
52:33
Speaker 2: I have one more meeting. I'm gonna meet with them,
52:35
Speaker 2: and then that's gonna wrap it up. I'm gonna have
52:37
Speaker 2: all the evidence and I can write this book. Did
52:40
Speaker 2: the FBI get this guy killed? Maybe, because one thing
52:44
Speaker 2: we haven't talked about is someone I believe. Danny contacts
52:48
Speaker 2: the FBI about Bob Nichols, and the FBI is like, oh, yeah,
52:53
Speaker 2: we've had our eye on that guy for a while too,
52:56
Speaker 2: And they interview an FBI agent who's like, yeah, we
52:59
Speaker 2: essentially alreated using Danny as a source for information about
53:03
Speaker 2: the people he was also looking into. And he asked
53:07
Speaker 2: them about this last meeting, and they're like, we didn't
53:10
Speaker 2: have any reason to not send him to this last meeting.
53:15
Speaker 2: And meanwhile, Michael Riconoschuto is irate that they sent him
53:20
Speaker 2: to this meeting, and they're like, you are gonna get
53:23
Speaker 2: Danny killed. He has enough information to cool it. You're
53:27
Speaker 2: gonna get him murdered. And sure enough, that FBI agent's like,
53:32
Speaker 2: I feel like maybe I got him killed this and
53:36
Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, you should feel guilty. You should actually
53:39
Speaker 2: feel guilty, because, yeah, you would hope at some point
53:42
Speaker 2: the FBI would step in and be like, all right,
53:44
Speaker 2: this is getting to be a bit much. We as
53:47
Speaker 2: law enforcement should probably take over. Sure that did not happen. No,
53:53
Speaker 2: and no one seems to know who that last meeting
53:57
Speaker 2: was with. There are people in the area who saw
54:00
Speaker 2: him waiting at a pizza hut, but the person he
54:02
Speaker 2: was waiting for never showed up right side. A lot
54:05
Speaker 2: worse ways to go out than spending your last night
54:09
Speaker 2: at a sit down pizza hut.
54:12
Speaker 3: Missed those in nineteen ninety one.
54:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, a sit down pizza hut. That was special. They
54:17
Speaker 2: would bring the sit of your table and oh pizza
54:21
Speaker 2: hut right out of the oven. Whole different game.
54:23
Speaker 3: So yeah, but their salad bar was out of order,
54:26
Speaker 3: and that's really what drove him over the edge.
54:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Joe Kwayar seems like the person who either
54:36
Speaker 2: knows what happened or maybe even did it. Sure, because
54:39
Speaker 2: he shows up out of the blue. He's like a
54:41
Speaker 2: military intelligence It seems like he maybe set up this meeting,
54:47
Speaker 2: this last meeting for Danny he's got two different alibis.
54:50
Speaker 2: One of them turns out to not be true, and
54:52
Speaker 2: then the alibi that is true only puts him like
54:55
Speaker 2: an hour and a half away from where this murder happened.
54:59
Speaker 2: And I think it's Christian Hansen who's like he could
55:02
Speaker 2: have driven an hour and a half and done this
55:05
Speaker 2: to Washington, DC. That's not an alibi at all. Right.
55:08
Speaker 2: Someone calls Joe Quaar and asks him about it, and
55:12
Speaker 2: he tells that woman it's just business and that she
55:15
Speaker 2: should stop asking questions. And then there's a witness at
55:20
Speaker 2: the end or near the end, who was in the
55:23
Speaker 2: hotel room next to Danny Castelaro, and she swears that
55:29
Speaker 2: she saw a man with black hair entering Danny's room
55:33
Speaker 2: using a key, and the description she gave kind of
55:36
Speaker 2: looks like Joe Quaar the hair most But if that
55:40
Speaker 2: woman's correct, Danny was murdered, right. I don't think there's
55:45
Speaker 2: any doubt about it, because then you're that other person.
55:47
Speaker 2: But that's the thing, we don't know. You don't know,
55:50
Speaker 2: we don't know, And for some reason, that detail never
55:53
Speaker 2: made it to the FBI's report on this. The only
55:57
Speaker 2: way to find that out is they filed a Freedom
56:01
Speaker 2: of Information Act request and it was in like twenty thirteen,
56:06
Speaker 2: and years and years and years later, someone from the Martinsburg,
56:09
Speaker 2: West Virginia Police calls them and is like, yeah, I
56:13
Speaker 2: think we can let you see it. And that's where
56:15
Speaker 2: they find this information about this witness seeing someone entering
56:20
Speaker 2: Danny's room. So the fact that didn't make it to
56:23
Speaker 2: the FBI report also to me speaks of more than
56:28
Speaker 2: just incompetence. That feels like a cover up. Sure, so
56:32
Speaker 2: I don't know, I think he was murdered. But if
56:35
Speaker 2: you're hoping to have a definitive answer from watching this documentary,
56:38
Speaker 2: you're not gonna get it.
56:40
Speaker 3: No, definitely not. And if you're wondering whether anything interesting
56:44
Speaker 3: happens to Christian Hanson, the answer.
56:46
Speaker 2: Is no, nothing happens to Christian Hanson. They talked to
56:49
Speaker 2: a woman named Norma Digiacinto, who I thought was interesting
56:54
Speaker 2: because she said, you know, I was able to get
56:56
Speaker 2: a bunch of information about the Promise software just by
56:59
Speaker 2: going to Owling Alley's in DC and like asking, yeah,
57:02
Speaker 2: that was what. Yeah. She's also like the only source
57:07
Speaker 2: for some of the bigger claims about this, and.
57:11
Speaker 3: Her source is I heard it from somebody at a
57:14
Speaker 3: bowling alley.
57:15
Speaker 2: Bowling alley. Yeah, so I don't know. Yeah, there's not
57:20
Speaker 2: a lot of answers in this. You don't ever get
57:24
Speaker 2: definitive proof of the existence of the octopus or the
57:29
Speaker 2: involvement of those people in it. Nothing really interesting happens
57:33
Speaker 2: with Christian and I mean at the end they kind
57:38
Speaker 2: of hint that Joe Quaar is probably your demon here
57:43
Speaker 2: if you commit the murder, he probably knows who did.
57:45
Speaker 2: But beyond that we don't find out much. It's kind
57:48
Speaker 2: of a bummer of an ending.
57:50
Speaker 3: It ends.
57:51
Speaker 2: It reminds me of the ending of Big Brother or
57:54
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four.
57:55
Speaker 3: Sorry, oh sure, yeah, well spoiler.
57:58
Speaker 2: At the end, I was just like, yeah, I guess
58:01
Speaker 2: I fucking love Big Brother after all, right.
58:04
Speaker 3: Well he doesn't it's gonna end. Oh. I mean, it's
58:09
Speaker 3: a great ending of that book, but it's a not
58:11
Speaker 3: a very good ending to this documentary.
58:14
Speaker 2: No, this documentary kind of ends the same way where
58:18
Speaker 2: everyone involved is just kind of like, yeah, fuck it,
58:20
Speaker 2: I guess it's just a conspiracy theory. Yeah.
58:23
Speaker 3: Well, it's also just like at the end, Christian is
58:26
Speaker 3: just like, you know, I'm just gonna not I'm gonna
58:29
Speaker 3: stop thinking about this anymore. I'm good bye.
58:33
Speaker 2: He gets a frantic phone call from Michael.
58:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's again where I'm just kind of like,
58:39
Speaker 3: this just sounds like a guy who is not doing
58:42
Speaker 3: well in life, because like he sounds at that point,
58:48
Speaker 3: he sounds quite incoherent in that phone call.
58:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yeah, I do still feel like Danny Castillaro
58:56
Speaker 2: was murdered, But I also like this documentary kind of
59:00
Speaker 2: sets any progress toward that being proven back a little baby.
59:06
Speaker 2: I feel like this documentary almost unintentionally puts a little
59:10
Speaker 2: doubt back into the story. Yeah, and a lot of
59:13
Speaker 2: it is because of the Christian Hansen stuff and like
59:17
Speaker 2: them sort of opining on it. And I don't know,
59:20
Speaker 2: this could have been this could have been a bitch
59:22
Speaker 2: in ninety minute documentary.
59:24
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely, And there is a solid ninety minutes of
59:28
Speaker 3: really interesting stuff in this four hour documentary.
59:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's just there's so much of the filmmakers
59:35
Speaker 2: interwoven with it. It also makes it a little hard
59:39
Speaker 2: to follow.
59:40
Speaker 3: Yes, makes it very hard to follow, I would say.
59:43
Speaker 2: And by the end, you're kind of like, well, what
59:46
Speaker 2: is the.
59:46
Speaker 3: Point, what is the point of this basically there's no.
59:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's just it's a very unsatisfying ending. Yeah, which
59:54
Speaker 2: I guess an unsolved crime always is.
59:57
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I have I'm not affecting a
1:00:00
Speaker 3: Netflix documentary to come out and be like we fucking
1:00:04
Speaker 3: solved it. But you've got to have a narrative that
1:00:09
Speaker 3: resolves like you're still making entertainment, you know.
1:00:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the stuff about Christian Hansen at the beginning
1:00:16
Speaker 2: where they make it seem like he's going to have
1:00:18
Speaker 2: this big breakdown.
1:00:19
Speaker 3: I thought that guy was gonna die.
1:00:21
Speaker 2: That was such bullshit. That was a false lead. Yes,
1:00:25
Speaker 2: Matt felt kind of like what Danny Cassillaro probably went
1:00:31
Speaker 2: through to some extent. It's like, oh, no, follow this lead.
1:00:35
Speaker 2: This is going to take you somewhere.
1:00:37
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, And it's like.
1:00:39
Speaker 2: I did all that for nothing at all. Have you
1:00:42
Speaker 2: seen mister Organ.
1:00:44
Speaker 3: No, that sounded that's an interest. That's from the guy
1:00:47
Speaker 3: who did the Tickle documentary.
1:00:48
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it's really interesting. It reminds me of this,
1:00:54
Speaker 2: except with mister Organ. I think it's intentional, Like you
1:00:57
Speaker 2: come out of that kind of feeling like how David
1:01:01
Speaker 2: Ferrier probably felt at the end of making that where
1:01:04
Speaker 2: it's like I just spent all this time on that, right,
1:01:08
Speaker 2: but you can't look away when you're watching it, and
1:01:10
Speaker 2: then you get to the end and you feel like
1:01:12
Speaker 2: you've been conned. I think that's what David Ferrier was
1:01:17
Speaker 2: going for, sure, mister Oregon, I don't think that's what
1:01:21
Speaker 2: they were going for here, No, but I did feel
1:01:23
Speaker 2: a little conned by the Christian Hansoen stuff.
1:01:26
Speaker 3: I Yeah, I definitely that whole storyline was, yeah, especially
1:01:31
Speaker 3: how it began. If you contrasts how it starts, the
1:01:36
Speaker 3: tone of how it starts versus the tone of how
1:01:39
Speaker 3: it ends. Where it starts off, and he is very
1:01:42
Speaker 3: much portrayed as like losing his mind, and the narrator
1:01:45
Speaker 3: who is the filmmaker, has a tone where he's like
1:01:50
Speaker 3: almost eulogizing his friend. Right, he really makes it sound
1:01:54
Speaker 3: like this guy died. And then you get and then
1:01:57
Speaker 3: you get to the other end, it's like, oh, it's
1:02:00
Speaker 3: all fine, I'm just going off to live my life,
1:02:02
Speaker 3: blah blah blah, Like okay, buddy whatever.
1:02:05
Speaker 2: It's that frantic phone call from Michael and is like no.
1:02:08
Speaker 3: Whoa buddy?
1:02:11
Speaker 2: Old me? All right? Yeah, interesting way to end things, right,
1:02:19
Speaker 2: That's how they ended it, and that's how we're going
1:02:22
Speaker 2: to end it. It is. Thank you so much for
1:02:25
Speaker 2: watching all four episodes of this Sure, what do we
1:02:29
Speaker 2: have to plug before we get out of here? You
1:02:32
Speaker 2: don't show dot link slash shop. You can buy shirts
1:02:35
Speaker 2: from this podcast and all the other podcasts, and please
1:02:39
Speaker 2: do that because we make money when you do. Adam
1:02:42
Speaker 2: Todd Brown dot substack dot com, and that's all. Well,
1:02:46
Speaker 2: don't you don't pod dot supercast dot com. If you
1:02:49
Speaker 2: want bonus episodes and things of the like, that's your
1:02:52
Speaker 2: best option. The Patreon is still open. There's only one level.
1:02:55
Speaker 2: It's eighteen dollars a month if you go to supercast,
1:02:58
Speaker 2: though you can subscrib to just this show where the
1:03:01
Speaker 2: other shows individually for less money than that, or we
1:03:05
Speaker 2: have lifetime memberships if you want to go in the
1:03:08
Speaker 2: extreme opposite direction and give me money right up front.
1:03:12
Speaker 2: Either way, I love you all the same. You don't
1:03:14
Speaker 2: pod dot supercast dot com. Olivia, what do you have
1:03:18
Speaker 2: to plug?
1:03:18
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm still on Twitter for some reason, hi Veridar.
1:03:22
Speaker 3: I'm also on blue Sky, but I have just literally
1:03:25
Speaker 3: never used that, so I mean you can it's the
1:03:28
Speaker 3: same name, so you know, but other than that, nothing
1:03:31
Speaker 3: all right.
1:03:32
Speaker 2: Let's get out of here. Olivia say goodbye, bye, goodbye everybody.
1:03:36
Speaker 2: We love you
1:03:42
Speaker 3: People,