Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / The Mystery of Tom Petty's Arson [Highlight From Episode 335]

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The Mystery of Tom Petty's Arson [Highlight From Episode 335] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Here's a highlight from a recent episode of book Don Rock.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Jillian Guard is the author of Tom Petty, the life
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: and music chapters on Petty's live Aid appearance Farmide Bonding
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: with Bob Dylan. They're in there too, of course. They're
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: tour with Bob Dylan, Tom and the Heartbreakers. And there's
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: an album that's sometimes forgotten that came out prior to
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Full Moon Fever nineteen eighty seven's let Me Up I've
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Had Enough featuring Jam and Me all mixed up think
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: about Me as the singles. Things are moving along quite
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: nicely here until May seventeenth, nineteen eighty seven, when Tom's
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: house burned down. This was not an accident.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Now, that was weird. I don't remember hearing about that
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: at the time, and it wasn't something I knew about
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: him until working on this book. But yeah, someone set
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: fire to his house.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: While they're in the house too. They're all having breakfast.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: I think he said, yeah, yeah, And it was his
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: wife's birthday. They were you know, that's right, he'll be celebrating,
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: and one of their daughters, thankfully, was sleeping over at
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: a friend's house. And I don't know, I guess if
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: they got up at a regular time. It wasn't unusually early,
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: like you know, four am or something, but yeah, they
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: were there having breakfast and he thought, oh, what's that
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: some wire gone back or something, but then no, no,
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: it's the house and it's on fire. And it sounds
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: like it burned pretty quickly because he talked about trying
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: to put some of the fire out with the hose,
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: and the hose melted in his hands and his housekeeper
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: got mildly burned. But thankfully that was all that happened
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: to them. They were able to get out, and much
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: of the house was destroyed. I mean, you think about that,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: losing your stuff, that would be hard, whoever you are.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: But it seems that a lot of the studio and
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: his instruments and his tapes were preserved, so that was
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: a lucky break for him. But still it wasn't a
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: place he could live. And then he had thought it
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: was an accident, that, yes, faulty wiring something like that,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: but then the investigator said, no, we've looked at it
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: and it's clearly arson and they found a hole had
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: been cut in the back fence and this kind of thing,
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: and he was just stunned. You know, who would want
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: to kill me and my family and the comments he
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: made on he said he just you know, he had
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: no idea who would want to He didn't even and
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: it never has been sald.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Never saw in case when cold that's it. Yeah, I
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: mean that's something that somebody should do some investigation into
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: and find out because that whoever did that should be
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: brought to justice if they're still around. But I mean,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: then that really that really shook him up. And now
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I think he rebuilt the house on the same location.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: But who was it? Somebody? Oh he was Andy Lennox.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: To the Lenox became the other Rhythmics tie.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: She did him the real solid and made sure he
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: got him and his family got a place to stay,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: got clothing and all that.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he was going out on tour soon,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: and he just went ahead with the tour. I mean,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: I suppose why not instead of just stay home brooding
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: about it.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: And then it.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Seemed like you know, he always had you kind of
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: had that laconic way of talking, and he'd be at
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: a concert saying, well, yeah, I had an interesting week,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: you know, like last my houseburn down. But they didn't
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: get this, and he holded his guitar. I was going
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: to call me saying, yeah, my huseburn down. I lost
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: most of my possessions.