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Transcript

SYSK’s Fall True Crime Playlist: The Harvey’s Casino Bombing of 1980 · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: The bombing of Harvey's Casino in Lake Tahoe, Nevada is
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: one of the great overlooked capers. It's kind of nuts
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: how anything like the Harvey's bombing could ever be forgotten
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: considering the outcome. This episode has it all. A great
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: plot in competent criminals, an amazingly well designed bomb, and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: a huge explosion. And it's made even cooler somehow because
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: it takes place in nineteen eighty plus no one dies,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: which makes it okay for me to call this episode
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: kind of charming. Enjoy.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Chuck and Jerry's here and this is Stuff you Should Know.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: The true crime edition where nobody gets hurt. Isn't that amazing?
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I think this falls into our sort of caper edith.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Yes, well put well put edition. Do we have any
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: other capers?
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like the Chow Chilli kidnapping And I think any
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: non murder crime podcast I think would fall under this. TB.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Cooper right exactly. And before I forget Chuck, that was
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: definitely a caper. Good call. This was a request which,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: like you said last time. We've been doing a lot
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: of these lately, but this one's requested by Nick Hales,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: and I say, good request Nick, Thanks for that, And
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I totally spaced on shouting out Neil Stevens from the
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: UK for Georgia Guideston's episode. He requested it and gave
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: me the idea to do it.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: All right, nice work. This one was so familiar to
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: me that I was sure that we had either touched
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: on it or that I saw. What I really thought
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: was that I saw a documentary about it, but I
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: hadn't because I don't think there's been one. I don't
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: know what it is. It was really familiar with some
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: other true life thing that I saw.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know, but the fact that
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: there's not a movie about this is insane.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if it's movie worthy.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Oh really? Yeah? Oh man, just like the pork Chop
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Sideburns alone, I think would warrant a movie. But because
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I said pork chop Sideburns, of course we're talking about
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty, right, Chuck, August twenty sixth, nineteen eighty.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: That's right. And on August twenty sixth, nineteen eighty very
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: early in the morning. A couple of delivery dudes would
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: be delivery dudes wield a big piece of equipment, had
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: a cover on it, said IBM into Harvey's Resort Hotel
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Shout out to our buddy, Aaron
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Hagar representing Lake in Tahoe. Oh yeah, he's got it
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: made out there in Tahoe. Nice except for the bears
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: and wildfires.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I'll bet he's heard of this story.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Then, I bet you he has. We'll hear from him
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: on this. But anyway, they wheeled in there, up to
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: the second floor offices and dropped it off and basically
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: skid autled. After that, they had a guy waiting in
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: a van outside and drove them the heck out of there.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's kind of weird five am to drop
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: off a piece of office equipment, not waiting around for
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: everybody to sign it. Kind of odd. And within an
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: hour the oddity behind it kind of became really apparent.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: A slot manager, I believe, or maybe the night manager
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: in general, he noticed this piece of office equipment that
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: was kind of randomly placed on the second floor offices,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: and he saw that there was a note by it,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: and he gathered some other employees and they were all
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: kind of hanging out reading the note. And one of
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: the details I love that I saw in a Adam
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: higginbottom article on the atavist was that one of the
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: people reading the note was leaning up against the machine
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: while they were reading the note.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: All right, the notes, sid, Should we read the note?
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because then it makes the whole thing about somebody
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: leaning up against it really hilarious.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: All right, stern warning to the management and bomb squad,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: in which case I would have been out of there.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: That's all I need to hear, right exactly. Do not
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: move or tilt this bomb because the mechanism controlling the
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: detonators in it will set it off at a movement
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: of less than point zero one of the open end
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Richter scale. So let's confuse people right out of the gate.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Is with this note, is what this guy's thinking. Sure,
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: don't try to flood or gas the bomb. There's a
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: float switch and an atmosphere pressure switch set at two
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: numbers twenty six point zero zero to thirty three. Both
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: are attached to detonators. Do not try to take it apart.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: The flathead screws are attached to triggers, and as much
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: of a quarter to three quarters of a turn will
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: cause the explosion. In other words, this bomb is so
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: sensitive that the slightest movement, either inside or outside, will
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: cause it to explode full stop.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And you can guess the person leaning against the
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: machine stood up and moved away from it, right.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: That's right. And basically they said, I love that part.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: No one can detonate or no one can can deactivate
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: this bomb, not even I, not even the creator can
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: diffuse this thing. So it is going to go off
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: at some point. Your best hope of not getting hurt
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: is to pay a three thousand dollars ransom, and you're
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: going to receive instructions on how to move it out
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: of here so it can explode somewhere else.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it would have been a bargain for three
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars. There was actually a three million dollar ransom
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: and to save three thousand you did, I think you
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: were being optimistic. Yeah, but it was a it was
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: a big fat ransom. And the bomb itself, I mean,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: if you just look at the at the ransom note
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: when it's talking about the bomb, that's a pretty amazing bomb.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: And It actually became pretty legendary with the FBI, so
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: much so that I saw that they still I don't
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: know if they still do today, but for many years
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: they used it as a teaching model for bomb technicians,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: and the FBI considered it very sophisticated, and they, I said,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: it was unlike anything any bomb technician had ever seen before.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: No one had ever made a bomb like this.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very good bomb, if there was such a thing.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: It was a couple of stacked boxes ligned with metal
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: and rubber that through conventional methods, you couldn't separate, of
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: course without it going boom. And so that FBI did
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: what they do in this case. They come in, they
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: start taking pictures, they X ray it, they sweep it
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: for fingerprints. Obviously, they don't move it. They find out
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: that it has about a thousand pounds of dynamite inside. Yeah,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: and they can't find a way to Like basically they're saying,
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: this note seems to be right on the money, Like
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: we can't find a way at least right off the
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: bat about how to diffuse this thing safely.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and very famously, the bomb technicians in the room
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: started running around in aimless circles saying, oh my god,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: oh my god, oh my god. And they did that
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: for a good three hours, I think before somebody stepped
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: in and stopped them. But that handsome note also showed
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of planning, not just the bomb. This bomb
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: was amazing, just full stop, amazing, one to really be
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: proud of if you were a bomb maker. But the
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: actual heist itself had like a real shot at extorting
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: this three million dollars successfully. And it started with they
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: knew what they were doing. Out of the gate. They said,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: we want three million dollars in used bills, one hundred
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: dollars bills already used, not marked, not bug don't even
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: try to chemically treat them. And we want you to
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: fly a helicopter to Lake Tahoe Airport, have the pilot
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: land by the payphone, and wait by the payphone for instructions.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Our instruction is going to come from the payphone. Who knows.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: They could also come by taxi. They could also come
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: by carrier pigeon. I'm making that last one up. But
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: they were just trying out of the gate to confuse
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: them so that they couldn't plan for everything. And it
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: was I think it was a really well planned heist.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean basically said, no one involved from this
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: point that you meet up with, like anyone that might
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: deliver a note, any someone that might drive a vehicle
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: that's involved, Like, no one's going to know anything, So
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: don't bother. And I think I believe that that's probably true.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: They said that the you know, I the creator of
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: the bomb, I'm not going to be a part of
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: this money drop. I'm not going to be around Nobody
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: that's a part of any of this exchange of money
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: is going to know anything about how to diffuse this bomb. Like,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: this thing is going to go off and there's nothing
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: you can do to stop it. Again, the only thing
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: that you can do is follow what will ultimately be
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: six sets of instructions to safely get this bomb out
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: of there after I get my loot.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, after he gets the loot or they so, the
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: first set of instructions was going to be given to
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: the helicopter pilot. The rest of the instructions would arrive
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: through the local post office, which is putting a lot
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: of a lot of faith in the USPS. But then
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: there was another demand too, that was probably the most
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: ridiculous demand of all. They said that all news media,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: local or national was to be kept ignorant of the
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: heist until the bomb was successfully removed, right, yeah, And
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: that was impossible, totally impossible because the first thing the
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: cops did when they realized like this is for real,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: which they figured out pretty quickly. I think the thing
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: was discovered before six am, and by seven or eight
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: at the very latest, they were rousing hotel guests at Harvey's,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: many of them from sleep, telling them like, nope, you
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: don't have time to grab your belongings. You got to go.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: And not only did they evacuate Harvey's. A thousand pounds
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: of dynamite can do some real damage, they actually evacuated
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: heras across the street from Harvey's too.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so they said you're all going to go to
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: this nearby high school. And of course the media it's
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: a big thing when that happens, when people are being
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: like massively bust out in their bathrobes and stuff. So
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: basically within a few hours, like all the media knows this,
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: they cordon off the area. There's people hanging out, there's gawkers,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: there's reporters, there's before you know it, of course, because
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: there's casinos around there. They're taking bets, of course, like
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: over under on whether this thing's going to detonate. And
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: not only did they not keep the media out of it,
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: but it became like I mean, call the sensation indicates
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: that it drug on. It was like a day and change,
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: but it was a crazy day and change for the
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: media for sure.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: And it was over the week before Labor Day weekend,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: so Tahoe was crawling with people. And this was nineteen
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: eighty right, just thirty six years before the first casino
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: was opened on the south shore of Lake Tahoe. And
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: it was opened by the same guy who's hotel now
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: how to bomb in it, Harvey Gross. His first thing
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: was Harvey's wagon Wheel Saloon and gambling Hall, which I
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: saw described as a cabin that had six slot machines
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: in it. And at the time in Tahoe Chuck there
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: was no phone, no water, no sewer, no power lines.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: The roads would close at like the first sign of snow,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: and it was like a real podunk area. But gambling
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: made it actually put it on the map.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: For a second there. I thought you were going to say,
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: not a single luxury.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Oh man, I really should have I wish I had
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: I'm not on my game today.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Like Robinson Caruso. There were what primitives can be.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Right, that's what they said. But it was the sixties.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: You wouldn't say that anymore.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: So things go great for Harvey and his little wagon
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: wheel cabin. You know, it's on the state line of California.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: So that's a pretty smart thing because you get those
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: out of staters, those richies from California throwing down some money.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was so on the state line. It
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: was in a town called state Line.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: That's very Nevada.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: It's very on the nose. I'm so nervous about us
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: saying it the right way because those people will email
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: you like Gangbusters.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Oh it's Nevada. But I always say Nevada.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, but they say it Nevada.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, everyone outside the state of Nevada says Nevada. And
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: that drives them.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Nuts, drives them crazy. It's really something.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: So Harvey, no, let's wait on break. So Harvey was
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: doing great with this little tiny casino in the forties
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: through the fifties makes a lot of dough and by
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: sixty three had expanded and upgraded to Harvey's Lake Tahoe,
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: which at the time was the tallest building at eleven stories,
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: which is you know, that's a pretty tall building for
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: that area of the country.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, less than twenty years. Who went from a cabin
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: to an eleven story casino resort? Yeah, and I believe
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: it was at that same eleven story casino resort that
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: this bomb was placed in nineteen eighty, seventeen years later.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: And Harvey himself was like, I mean, he was a
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: casino owner in Nevada. Like he had I don't want
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: to say a checkered past, but he had a pass
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: like he'd been hauled in front of the irs for
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: tax evasion. There was. He had been given an honorary
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: name by the Nevada Inner Tribal Did I say it
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: right Nevada?
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Nope?
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: By the Nevada Inner Tribal Council. He was called Chief
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: who Nai. And there was an article that was written
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: back in I think nineteen eighty that said that it
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: meant the man who runs the game and takes a
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: percentage of the bets.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: I don't know if that's a joke or not. I
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: can't tell.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I don't either, because that's definitely like that era kind
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: of joke. You know, you can see that on like
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: a tiki napkin.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: But the long and short of it is he was
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: He'd had his little run ends with the irs and
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: stuff and the gaming board, but it wasn't anything unusual.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: He wasn't like some bad guy like mafioso type. He was,
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: like you said, he owned a casino and there's you know,
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: he's gonna be brought up by the irs at some point.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: But all of this to say, he wasn't like some
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: some big mark because of all his dirty dealings in
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: his past.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Basically I saw him actually referred to as a good
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: guy by some people. It sounds like it like he
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: was well known to have put off expansion, like he
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: didn't want to expand to other towns. He's basically said,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: I'm making enough money. He had a quote that he
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: would refer to as I have a nice little business.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: How many steaks can I eat? Which is to say
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: like he had everything he needed and this was fine.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: He was happy with his business where it was.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: That's right. But it was the seventies and into the
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: early eighties, which was just sort of the golden age
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: of all this kind of stuff of kidnappings and ransoms
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: and hijackings, and it just seems like all this kind
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: of high jinks. There's still stuff like that happens ocasionally,
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: but not like it did back then.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: I think it's because, Chuck, the police state hadn't evolved
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: enough that they would catch you no matter what. Yeah,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: AMers everywhere now right, and leaded gas had been around
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: long enough to really have the effects on a whole
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: new generation of brains. So you put those two things together,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: you have everything converging on the seventies for people trying
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: all sorts of heists and kidnappings and stuff like that.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that happened back then around there even I
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: think as far back as the early seventies there were
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: kidnapping conspiracies against gross ransom things that had been uncovered
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: in the late seventies. There were smoke bombs with ransom
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: notes found at other casinos around Tahoe.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: So I don't know about that.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: It was what the smoke bombs?
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what is that? You might as well say, like
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: there's a box of sparklers in your lobby, give me
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: five hundred thousand simoleons, or else give.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Me thirty five cents, I know, to pay me back
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: for the smoke both. So it was a time where
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: if you owned a casino that brought in I think
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: he made about four million profit, but brought in like
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: seventy million dollars a year like his did, then that
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: simply just meant you were a mark by virtue of
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: that fact alone.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Right. The thing is, though, is the FBI found out
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: as they started investigating the case about a year after that,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: it actually was a personal vendetta against Tarve himself or
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Harvey's casino that led to that bomb being placed there
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: in August of nineteen eighty.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: That sounds like a great cliffhanger for a break.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Thanks man.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: All Right, we'll get back to it right after this,
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: all right, And so we're back in action here at
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: the bomb site. The FBI's bomb squad is working hard
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: trying to figure this thing out. They have another team
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: working on a fake ransom drop. Special Agent William Jonky
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: basically told Harvey, hey, listen, why don't we drag this
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: thing out as much as we can. We'll do a
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: fake payoff arrangement. Maybe we can just sort of put
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: off this bomb going off long enough for us to
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: figure it out either how to stop it or how
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: to catch these people, like, the bomb is going to
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: go off no matter what. And once Gross heard that,
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: he was like, well, I'm not paying anything. If this
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: thing's going off no matter what, you can use my
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: By God, you can use my own helicopter for the
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: drop even And that's what they did. They use his
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: own personal helicopter. But the pilot was a fed, and
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: there was another fed with a gun hiding behind the
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: pilot's seat with a suitcase full of mostly fake money.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think a few grand is what I saw.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: And just like the ransom note said, the agent flew
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: the helicopter Lake Tahoe Airport, landed next to the payphone
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: and got there just in time from what I saw,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: just for the phone to start ringing, although I suspect
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: they were being watched and the phone rang and rather
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: than giving them instructions over the phone, I think it's
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: hilarious that they said, look underneath the phone. There's instructions
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: taped beneath the phone, and then I guess hung up.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: We didn't want to tape it to the front of
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: the phone.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Booth, right, So he checks out the instructions and it says, okay,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: this is what you're gonna do. You're going to fly
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: west along the highway for fifteen minutes from the airport,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: and you're going to turn. There's some compassitting and they
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: told him to turn toward I never found which one.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: And then after a certain amount of time he should
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: start looking for a beacon, which is going to be
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: a strobe light in a field. He should land there
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: and that's where the money drop would happen. And so
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: the pilot took off and he did exactly as the
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: thing instructed, the ransom note instructed, and there was nothing.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: He flew around for forty five minutes, just waiting, hoping.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: I guess probably came close to running out of gas.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: And then he flew back to the Lake Tahoe airport
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: and went back to the payphone in case they called
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: to say, like, what the heck's going on? And they
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: never did call. Actually, so the money drop never happened.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: I wonder. The FED takes off and he's got the
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: other FED behind him hiding with a gun, and he's like, hey,
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: how do you think this guy knows how far we're
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: going to be in fifteen minutes? And the other fed
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: went beats me, and that's exactly what happened. And it's
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: at this point in the story where we will introduce
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: you to the guy behind the whole thing, and we'll
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: learn more about him later. But his name was John
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Waldo Burgess Sor and that was one of the key
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: mistakes he made. He kind of botched this money drop
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: because he should have said miles, like fly so many miles,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: or fly to this destination. He just said fly for
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: fifteen minutes. And I don't know if he put at
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: like at an average rate of speed for your helicopter. Right,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: But the long and short of it is they didn't
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: know after he had flown fifteen then it's exactly where
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: he was going to end up. And they were like, well,
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: that stinks. And this is after they had forgotten the
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: battery to the Strobe light.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Right, they left it in Fresno.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: They eventually got one. Yeah, they left it at their place.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: They eventually got one. They tried to break into an
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: autopartch store to get one and got chased off, and
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: then got one at a shell station. So they had
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: the Strobe. But by the time all this happens, they
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: don't even know where the helicopter is.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: No, and that shell station also has its own hilarious
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: story because the gas station attendant they were trying to
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: buy the battery from basically was like, why no, you
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: need this kind of battery for the Volvo that you
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: have parked outside that you're driving. They're like, it doesn't
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: matter what kind of battery it's for. He's like, well, yeah,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: it does, because Volvo won't take any battery. And they finally,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: I guess, convinced him to just sell them a battery
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: and he's like, fine, I guess you're gonna find out
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: yourself that it's not gonna work, and they finally drove off.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: That's how they got the battery. But they made it
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: to that drop point, which was twenty five miles away
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: from the airport, and they sat there and waited and
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: waited and waited and waited and waited. No helicopter. No
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: helicopter came. And the reason why is because they were separated,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: separated by so many miles. They couldn't even hear the
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: helicopter where it was. It was so far away from
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: where they were at the drop site.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: All right, so this is botched. Back at the bomb
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: site at the casino, this a full on party is
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: going on because it's a casino and people are just
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: out of their minds at those places. So the barricades
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: are set up, people are selling T shirts. I got
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: bombed at Lake Tahoe. I had a dynamite time at
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Lake Tahoe. Like that's how quickly this thing was moving.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: And the bomb squad team said, all right, here's what
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: I think we should do, like they call this and
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: they said, if we flip switch number five, then it'll
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: buy some more time because this thing isn't playing out
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: quite right. But I don't know if I trust that.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: No one volunteered to flick that switch like they felt basically,
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: we should go on our own, like with our own
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: gut feeling on how to do this, which is to
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: basically blow this box apart, but do it so quickly
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: that it severs the relay switch, like before the signal
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: can reach the dynamite.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just pretty fast. And it was possible. They
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: had They had some of the greatest minds in the
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: United States who knew about bombs working on this problem,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: and they designed to charge especially for this, and it
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: was built and brought to the site and put up
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: and they said, this still has at best a twenty
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: five to thirty percent chance. But we talked to the engineer,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: one of the engineers at Harvey's, and he said, it
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: probably won't bring the whole building down, so let's give
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: it a shot. And so, almost thirty five hours after
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the bomb had been discovered, around three pm the next day,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: a guy named Daniel was the person who volunteered to
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: go take the charge, put it on the bomb exactly
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: at the angle he was told to put it at,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: and then walked out and started the countdown for the
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: remote triggering. And remember there are hundreds, if not thousands
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: of people thronged together to watch this to see if
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: it worked. And when they finally did, apparently, they broadcast
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the radio the countdown on local radio Chuck. And when
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: they finally set it off, that charge did not work
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the way it was intended.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: No, it set off the bomb. The entire thing went off,
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: and it was, like we said, it was a thousand
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: pounds of dynamite. It created a forty to fifty foot
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: hole in the ground in the middle of this casino,
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: shooting shrapnel everywhere, obviously, shooting cash and chips everywhere, which
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: is obviously problematic. They said, there were TV sets swinging
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: on cords, toilets hanging by the pipes. It was a huge,
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: massive explosion in the middle of a casino. And because
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: it's a casino and because it's Tahoe, it was not
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: very long afterward that the surrounding casinos got right back
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: to business, and it didn't take too long. A couple
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: of days before Harvey's got back to business. With what
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: was left of the casino, they put glass around it
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: and was kind of like, hey, come see the bomb
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: hole and gamble some.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: And watch the FBI work on this crime scene that
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: just took place. So one of the other great details
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: of this story for me is that the bandits didn't
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: know that the bomb had been detonated, and so a
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: few minutes after the bomb went off, they called the
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: local sheriff's office and said, we'll be calling back in
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: one hour to arrange another payment drop.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: He said, whatever.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Can you imagine like the person who took the
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: call being like, oh, yeah, great, okay, we'll talk to
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: you in an hour.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, So that didn't matter. Harvey Gross was very sad.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: He just cried and he saw the damage eighteen million
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: dollars worth of damage, and you know, we'll tell you
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: what ultimately happened later. But they got back to business,
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: like I said, and I guess we should talk a
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: little bit more about who this mastermind was.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: I agree, Chuck, and I say, before we start talking
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: about the mastermind behind the plot, we take a.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Break, all right, let's do it.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: So we already revealed who it was. A guy named
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: John Burgess, and his son wrote a book later that
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: I saw. He called the publisher to find out how
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: many copies had been sold at the time, and they
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: told him zero. But in this book he depicts his
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: dad as not a very nice guy. He was an
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: abusive husband, physically abusive, a really terrible dad. He liked
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: to emotionally blackmail his family by threatening to take his
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: life by suicide. And he was an actual Nazi, like
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: a genuine Nazi. Just to put the cherry on top
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: of everything.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he flew for the Luftwaffa and spent eight years
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: in a Soviet prison camp before coming to America and
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: becoming a multimillionaire, So it kind of ended up okay
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: for him. He had a landscaping business in Fresno that
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: apparently did really, really well but he also liked to
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: gamble a lot and lost a ton of money over
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: the years. I think about seven hundred and fifty thousand
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: dollars they'd estimated that he lost. I think at Harvey's alone, right.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I think that was the whole shebang, But most of
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: that was at Harvey's. That was my take on.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: It, okay, And we do need to put a pin
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: in something else, is that years before he had a business,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: a restaurant that it was pretty clear that he burned
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: down for the insurance money, got up three hundred and
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: fifty five thousand dollars from that and gambled that away.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was that kind of guy, right. So the
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: heist itself, it was it was an attempt to make
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: back some of the money that the house had taken
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: from him over the years that he felt bitter about.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: But also the reason that he targeted Harvey's, they later
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: found out, was that on some New Year's Eve a
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: year or two before he had been given the high
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Rollers suite. That's how often he gambled at Harvey's, Like
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: he was well known there, but he had amassed such
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: a debt that they actually took him that evening out
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: of the high roller suite and put him in a
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: regular room. Was in much to his great humiliation. Yeah,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I mean that was pretty much why he, at very
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: at least why he targeted Harvey's. He considered that quite
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: a loss of pride because I I guess he was
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: with a date and the date was like I thought
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: you said you were a big time right, which didn't
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: make it any better. So that's why Harvey's got targeted
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: in particular.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: That's right. And they put Aaron Hagar in that suite instead.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: They did, and everything was right with the world.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: That's right. So actually Aaron's he's about mate. So he
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: would have been a kid back then, or maybe they did.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: He could have been high rolling.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Maybe he was like a nine or ten year old,
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: like running the show in that gambling room.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: I could totally see it.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: So we mentioned he was Burgess Senior. There was a
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Burgess Junior. He had a couple of sons, John Junior
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: and Jimmy, who were twenty and eighteen respectively, and then
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Jimmy or wait, was Ella Williams the senior's girlfriend. Yes, okay,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: so he had a girlfriend named Ela Williams who were
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: also in on it. And these two numbskulls who delivered
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: the bomb, named Bill Brown and Terry Hall.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: The FBI later said after they caught Bill Brown they
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: described him or no, it was from a report like
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: somebody who witnessed the bomb being delivered. They said one
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: of them was a hay seed, a real goober type.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: That's how they described Bill Brown. And it's sad for
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Bill Brown and Terry hallchuck, because they got a total
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: of twenty one hundred bucks. But it wasn't until after
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: they were driven away early that morning that they were
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: told what they'd just done. They did not know that
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: they were delivering a bomb until after they delivered the bomb.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Isn't that terrible?
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean they they were probably just sold here
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: some money, go deliver this thing.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: That was a lot of money, that's exactly right. Yeah,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: and John Burgess Junior just totally misled him, which is
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: another mark against that guy.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: All Right, So spinning back a little bit, when they
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: hatched this plan, the first thing they did was go
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: out and get all this dynamite which they stole from
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: a power plant in California and stash it in their
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: walk in freezer in their garage and started building this bomb,
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: and no one. That's kind of one of the mysteries
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: of this. It was such a sophisticated device, and no
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: one still really knows how this guy managed to build
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: this thing, if he had help, if he was just
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: this bomb genius that no one knew about, or was
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: just super smart and did his research, but no one
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: really knows how he managed to build such a sophisticated bomb.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's still not clear. I don't think anybody
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: will ever know he just did it. And what's crazy
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: is John Burgess might have gotten away with the whole thing.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: The FBI did not. They were not on him initially.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: They interviewed something like five hundred suspects in the whole case.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: And there were two things that seemed to have brought
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Burgess down. One was a hotel owner who was the
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: night manager of the hotel that Burgess, Brown, and Hall
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: stayed at before they planted the bomb. Her name was
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Nancy Domenico, and she found those three suspicious enough that
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: she wrote down their license plate on their van, model
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: color and the license plate number and just kept it
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: on file just in case. And it turned out that
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: would become really important later on. And then the other
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: factor was John Burgess Junior had a really loud mouth.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: It turns out, yeah, he had a girlfriend leading up
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: to the event, and he would just brag all about
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: this thing. They break up. You never think about the
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: breakup side of things when you're spilling your innermost thoughts. Yeah,
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: and she has a new boyfriend, tells him all about
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: this guy I dated before you that told me all
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: about this bomb plot. The new boyfriend calls in the
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: FBI tip. So now they have a couple of tips
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: pointing to these dudes. Yeah, they tracked down the van
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: that the Nancy Domenico had reported as shady, and it
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: was a van that was registered to the restaurant that
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Burgess Senior allegedly had burned down. So that's where that
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: comes back into play.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so they're like, okay, let's go interview John Burgess Senior,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: and on Burgess Senior says, oh, John Junior was driving
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: the van.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Completely gave his immediately.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean like that first interview said him, probably
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: said here's his address. Hopefully at least called his son
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: to give him a heads up. I don't know. But
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: they went over and they interviewed John Junior and he said, yes,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: I was around uh Tahoe at the time. Yes, I
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: was with my van, but I was looking for places
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: to plant marijuana. And you know that's true because I've
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: just admitted to a crime to the FBI, right right.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: And apparently the FBI didn't didn't really buy it. They said, like,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: this story is awful, but he stuck to it and
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: they didn't have anything else they could get him on
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: right then, but he was definitely on their radar from
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: that point forward.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: I thought it was a pretty good story to be
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: put on the spot. Personally, Well, well, it didn't work,
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: but like to admit to another crime, I was like, right,
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: all right, not bad, I'll give you that part.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: The part of the FBI. The FBI was like, you're
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: you're kidding, right, He's said the battery died, so I
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: abandoned the van. Somebody must have taken it and used
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: it in the crime and then brought it back while
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: I was away from the van.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Right well, which is a long way of saying, was
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: it wasn't me, right exactly. So they you know, they
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: do what they do in the movies. They don't have
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: enough hard evidence, so they spend a year getting that
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: evidence building a case.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: I'm a montage with a great like upbeat song where
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: they're putting this stuff together. Right.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Sure, I don't know why John Junior and John Senior
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: are still in the country. I would have been out
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: of there so fast.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Where would you go?
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: I'd leave the country?
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: I know where where'd you go?
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's a really good question. Everyone just always talks about,
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: like who would you have over for dinner? Living or dead?
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: Like where would you go if you were guilty of
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: a bombing blot?
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's got to be a non extradition treaty country, right,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: So you're looking at like Venezuela.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: I'd have to do my research then, but yeah, I
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: would go someplace with a beach and like a very
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: quiet life. Okay, yeah, and then they just you know,
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: they eventually show up at the beach in the movie
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: as well. So yeah, but I tie out of your hands,
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: and your Canada has beaches, sure, lovely beaches. Not quite
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: the beaches I was looking for, though, You're welcome, Chunk.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: So the FBI is getting this evidence. They have rewards.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: I think like a half a million bucks is about
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: as high as the reward went. And finally about a
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: year later, they arrest John Junior and Jimmy and they say,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: they dangle a little carrot in front of their faces,
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: how would you like to how'd you like to turn
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: on dad and maybe get a little leniency And they
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: went that jerk, I'm happy to And that's exactly what
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: they did.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Right, And they turn on their dad. They arrested their dad.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: They arrested Ella william Bill Brown, Terry Hall, and from
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: what we understand, every single person who had anything to
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: do with that was rounded up in one fell swoop basically,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: and the conviction started coming out. Ella Williams got seven
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: years for her involvement. And she hasn't factored in hugely
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: into this podcast, but she was definitely an accomplished She
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: typed the ransom notes up, she did a lot. I
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: think she dropped some people off at one of the
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: landing sites, like she was very much involved. So she
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: got seven years, but a judge later overturned her conviction,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: and I couldn't see why. But as far as I know,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: she did not do any time in prison. Maybe beyond
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: her trial.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the sons did get that leniency. As
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: for John Senior, he represented himself in court. Cross examined
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: his own sons. Eventually got twenty years in federal prison,
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: and then I believe life without parole in state prison.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The big key to his defense was his son's
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: had given him a father's day car that said you're
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: the best dad around ten years before. It didn't work
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: on the jury.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: That's sorry, how could I have done this? He served
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: sixteen years, died in prison of cancer. But then there's
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: one final little potential twist here.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, so John Burgess had talked to a reporter
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: while he was alive and he said, you know what,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: this wasn't my idea. I was a patsy, I was
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: a rube. I got and I got dragged into this
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: by a loan shark. I owed sixty large too. That's
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: what you say when you're a gambler. And he recruited
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: me to plant this bomb. And that really the loan
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: shark was working on behalf of Harvey's top executives and
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: the mafia who were conspiring to blow the place up
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: so that they could collect the insurance money.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: Look you there, you believe it not at all?
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: No?
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: Same, no, and the like the.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: The thing that just like completely proves it is yeah,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: they used insurance money to rebuild. It's like, No, that
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: doesn't prove anything. Of course you're going to use insurance
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: money to rebuild. It doesn't mean there was a conspiracy there.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Right, Is that place still there any idea?
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's still there. I think it's been updated even
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: more since then. But yeah, as far as I know,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: Harvey's is still there.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: Awesome. I don't know why over the past two weeks
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: I've ever thought to look that.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: Up me either. I'm almost positive we'll have to leave
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: it to Aaron Hagar to tell us whether it's there
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: or not.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: Sweet it is. I'm looking at a picture of it.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: It's definitely been updated.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Well, while you're online, why don't you look at eBay
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: and see if there's any like I got bombed at
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Harvey's T shirts still around?
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, Well, if there are, I'm not going to
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: tell you. I'm just going to get you one for Christmas.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Fair enough. I like that a lot. That's a good plan. Well,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: since Chuck said but he's gonna get me for Christmas,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: and I realized, Man, I've got to figure out what
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: to get Chuck for Christmas. It's time for listener mail.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: You just got me a great record, which one.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Oh, the Bill Evans one. Yeah, yeah, you like it?
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Have you listened to it yet?
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: I love it? I mean a it's Bill Evans, but
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: it's just uh yeah, it's good, very evocative of changing
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: the seasons, which I think was the whole.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Point for sure. I'm glad you liked it.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: All right, Hey, guys, After listening to the Introvert Extrovert episode,
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: I thought i'd reach out because Chuck at one point
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: talked about finding ways to discipline his child by removing
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: fun activities. I remember saying that, but I guess.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, you were so mad, You're like frothing at the mouth.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: I've never heard you more angry.
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: You don't even really do that, so I'm not sure
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: if I may have been kidding or not. Anyway, I'm
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: a third grade teacher because this is like a tip here,
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: so we got to read the tips. I'm a third
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: grade teacher on a reservation, and with sixteen kids in
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: my class, I have never had to use discipline. My
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: classroom functions like a well oiled machine. Due to a
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: type of behavior management, known in the educational world as
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: pbis positive behaviors and supports manage challenging child behavior solely,
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: solely through the use of using praise and rewards. Wow,
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: I can easily be applied in the context of raising
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: your own.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Child, especially if you want to raise a psychopath.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: This is a huge topic, and when there's near and
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: dear to my heart, I thought it might be incredibly
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: useful for all the parents out there who, like Chuck,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: struggle to find a way to manage their child's behavior.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: You convention your discipline.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Man, this guy's scoring all over you, Chuck.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: A little bit. This is Anthony. You guys rock. Thanks
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: for all the wonderful knowledge and Hilary's dialogue. I want
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: to be super clear, Anthony, we don't struggle to find
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: a way to manage her behavior. She's a good kid.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: And not to say that kids who have trouble behaving
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: are bad kids at all. Everyone has their challenges as
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: kids and parents. But it's not too bad. And I
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: don't know that this pbis would work necessarily in my household.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, we already do that kind of thing, but
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: I'll ramp it up and see if that helps.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, good run an experiment, Chuck and true sysk fashion.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: Sure. I'm curious though, because Anthony didn't say if Anthony
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: had kids, I will say that the way kids behave
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: for teachers is not at all related to how they
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: behave for parents.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: A lot of it I can imagine for sure.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm curious.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you guys listening out there, try this, let
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: us know if it works or what. And also, Anthony,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: thank you very much for writing in Anthony. It was great.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: So if you want to be like Anthony, you can
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: write into to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.