Latest / Legally Brunette / Killer Thriller: A Bomb Blew a Passenger Jet Out of the Sky. This FBI Agent Helped Crack the Case.

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Killer Thriller: A Bomb Blew a Passenger Jet Out of the Sky. This FBI Agent Helped Crack the Case. · Legally Brunette

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Killer Thriller with your host,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Elisa Donovan. Hey, everybody.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Elisa Donovan here, and this is Killer Thriller. Imagine boarding
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: a flight home for the holidays, unaware that a bomb
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: hidden in a suitcase is about to destroy the plane.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: On December 21st, 1988, the unimaginable happened. Pan Am Flight
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people. What followed
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: was a massive international terrorism investigation led on the American
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: side by FBI Special Agent Dick Marquis.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: He's portrayed by Patrick J.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Adams in Netflix's gripping series, The Bombing of Pan Am 103,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: which Dick helped bring to life. Today, he's taking us
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: inside the real investigation. How did they crack the case?
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: What did Hollywood get wrong? And nearly four decades later,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: why is this story still unfinished? Dick is so fascinating,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: and I just cannot wait to talk with him today.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Hello, Dick.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Killer Thriller. Thank you so much for talking
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: with me today.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: You're more than welcome. How are you?
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I'm doing great.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: I am fiercely fascinated by your job and this case
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: and you, so I really do mean it when I
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: say it's an honor to talk with you. And there's
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: a lot to cover, so we'll try to get to
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: as much of it as we can. So for anyone
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: unfamiliar with the case, take us back to December 21st, 1988.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: What happened to Pan Am Flight 103, and how did
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: the investigators establish that it was a bomb that had
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: brought down the plane?
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: That's going to be a mouthful. On December 21st, 1988,
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: Pan Am 103... was scheduled to leave London for New
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: York on a Boeing 747, a very large aircraft. The
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: flight was left literally on time. It departed at 625,
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: left the ground at 625, which is normal. And about
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: 38 minutes later, as it crossed into Scottish airspace, the
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: plane was at 31,000 feet, and it exploded over the
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: town of Lockerbie and spread debris over what would amount
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: to a crime scene of about 845 square miles, which
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: was massive, probably the largest crime scene in history. On
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: board the aircraft were passengers from about 21 countries. It
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: was an American carrier. And the plane landed on Lockerbie,
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: which is in Dumfries Shire, which is literally the smallest
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: police constabulary in the United Kingdom with 333 officers in 1988.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, there were several things even just about that.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: The fact that it exploded over land allowed for the,
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: although it was extensive, almost 850 square miles, it at
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: least gave you a place to actually find evidence as
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: opposed to it exploding over the ocean, right? Um, so
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: the bombing killed 270 people, including 259 passengers and crew
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: and 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie. And the
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: series does such a beautiful job of going back and
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: forth between the emotional life of the community in Lockerbie,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: who they were just preparing for Christmas and a plane
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: lands on their town.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, it would, it devastated this, this community.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Um, But also on board were 35 Syracuse University students
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: returning from study abroad. How did the loss of so
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: many young people heading home for the holidays affect all
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: of you that were working on the case?
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, clearly, police officers, even FBI agents, we
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: don't work a lot of murder cases. But when you
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: start thinking you have 270 murders, which includes 11 people
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: on the ground in Lockerbie, 270 murders is big for anyone.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: And the fact that it happened around Christmas time. There were,
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: I think, a total of about 60 students coming from
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: all over the world. Syracuse lost the bulk of them, 35.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: But there were students coming from around the globe, coming
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: back to the United States to spend Christmas. A number
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: of children under the age of 16. I mean, we
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: all had kids. Those of us that were investigating would
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: come to investigate the case. We had children. And it
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: was one of the things that kept us going on
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: those days when very little was accomplished because everybody wanted
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: answers right away. Who did this? And as you know,
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: on television, the answer is resolved in 30 or 60 minutes.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: And you know who did it and they go to
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: jail and it's all done. But this case took years.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: before we had what we considered to be positive answers
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: about what happened. Right.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: So when the wreckage is across 850 square miles, how
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: do you even begin investigating a crime scene that enormous?
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: What were the greatest challenges?
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: Well, the greatest challenge was probably communication between organizations. The
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: crime happened in Scotland. The police in Scotland were a
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: very capable law enforcement agency that had never seen anything
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: like this before. The FBI had never really seen anything
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: like this before. I mean, certainly it was pre 9-11,
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: pre the Oklahoma City bombing, pre the First World Trade
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: Center attack.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: This was massive to cover. The U.S. government had given
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: jurisdiction to itself, to the U.S. government, to investigate terrorist
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: attacks against Americans overseas and the ability to assist other
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: governments in investigating these cases. Well, the FBI, and I
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: spent 31 years there, loves to be in charge. And
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: in the United States, when the FBI shows up, many
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: local police departments accept the help. They're more than happy
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: to have a larger agency that has reach all over
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: the world to come in and assist. Well, the police
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: in Scotland, small department, they were capable. They wanted to
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: feel they could solve this case themselves. And it took
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: a while before we were able to collaborate in what
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: would be a very positive manner to get to the
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: bottom line. But it was the police in Scotland that
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: did all of the searching in the fields. The FBI
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: didn't do any of that. It was all done by
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: the police in Scotland. So They are the people who
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: found very small fragments of evidence that would later become
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: key and lead us to answers as to who did this.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: That is what is so fascinating.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: And this show covers this really well, too, how important
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: and kind of painstaking and the minutia of looking through
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: the just.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Little fragments of evidence.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: Evidence.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: And can you talk a little bit about that? Like,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: what was the first moment that you felt like they
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: were making real progress? Like, was there a particular discovery
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: that changed the direction of the investigation?
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: Well, just a few days after, sorry, a few days
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: after the bombing and a day or so before Christmas,
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: the Scottish police had found a fragment of a baggage
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: container made out of aluminum. And on that, that fragment
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: was torn and ripped, whereas some of them that fell
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: to the ground were bent and broken. This one was
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: actually torn apart. And on that fragment was discovered the
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: components when it went to the laboratory of RDX and PETN,
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: which are chemical components that make up plastic explosive called
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: Semtex that was then manufactured in Czechoslovakia. That told us
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: just four days in, This was a bombing. This airplane
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: didn't break up. It didn't have mechanical failure. And then
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: about two weeks later, as they were examining other debris,
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: they had the baggage container. Because the 747s don't just
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: throw suitcases in the belly. They actually have containers that
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: contain the bags. And then they're forklifted onto an aircraft.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: And they're one of the baggage containers that was totally
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: torn apart and shredded. was where we discovered that the
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: bomb was secreted in a suitcase. And when the investigators
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: were examining it and shaking it, the first small fragment
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: came out of that. It was so small, you've probably
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: seen the photograph of it sitting on a man's finger.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: And that fragment turned out to be from a circuit
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: board of a Toshiba radio. So literally in the first month,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: we thought, whoa, this is great. We're making great progress.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: But It would still take months and months and months
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: and months and months before we found other fragments, thanks
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: to the great work done by the police in Scotland.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: It's so fascinating to me.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: So according to the FBI, investigators conducted more than 10,000
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: interviews across 16 countries.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, that is hard to metabolize in and of itself.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: But how did you sort through that enormous volume of
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: information and then determine which leads are worth pursuing?
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: Well, I think that even going back 35, 40 years ago,
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: when I used to watch TV shows like Hawaii Five-0
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: and Jack Lord would go and they'd put these IBM
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: cards into a computer and And they would all go
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: through all these mechanisms. And then all of a sudden,
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: they would show up in the bottom tray. And here's
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: the answer. Let's go arrest the guy. Well, we didn't
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: have any of that. There were no real computers to
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: speak of to manage information. The Scottish police had a
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: system called Holmes, named after Sherlock. And it was home
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: office major large inquiry system. So Holmes is what we
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: use to track leads. And those leads were, I mean,
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: you just had so much information. But even in Washington,
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: we would take things and we would say, well, once
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: we put something into an FBI file, it might disappear
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: because we don't really have a good way to get
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: it out. If you have a file that's got 5,000
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: sheets of paper in it, when was that? Where was it?
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: Maybe find it. But we started to make extra copies
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: of things so we would be able to track it ourselves.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: But Holmes was very helpful to us to manage the information.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: But again, the biggest problem was the collaboration because not
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: that there was mistrust, but it was like, who's in
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: charge here? I mean, we had some of these discussions
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: early on and even later when we had to make
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: a decision about where a trial would take place. Nobody
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: really wanted to address it because it would be, well,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: if the trial takes place here, then that means you're
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: in charge. So there were 190 Americans on the plane.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: It was a U.S. carrier. We wanted to charge them,
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: but the Scots wanted to charge them, too. And those
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: laws that were passed did not say FBI slash U.S.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: government go in and take over. You have to do it.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: If they have the ability and the willingness to go
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: through and have a trial, that's the whole goal of
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: those laws, to make sure somebody pays for killing an
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: American during a terrorist attack overseas.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: And so ultimately, the case was tried in the Netherlands.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: So how did that, why was that decided? How did
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: that come about?
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: Well, the first indictments took place in 1991. both in
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: Scotland and in the United States. And if somebody had
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: asked me in 1989, do you think it's possible that
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: there would be joint indictments to announce who's charged in
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: this case? I would have said that would have been
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: tough to do, but it worked out because a lot
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: of us worked hard to develop the relationships that we
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: needed to make sure we didn't go off on some tangent,
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: did things behind somebody's back. It was a collaborative effort.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: But the indictments, even though they were returned in 1991,
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: Muammar Gaddafi, the leader of Libya, did not want to
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: turn his agents over. And as a result, there were sanctions.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: And we go all the way on to the late
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: 1990s when the Libyan government said, well, we're willing to
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: turn them over, but we want to go to a
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: neutral place. And they aren't going to the United States
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: because they faced a death penalty in the U.S. So
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: the agreement was that the trial would take place in
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: a neutral setting, but it was a Scottish court sitting
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: at Camp Van Zyst in the Netherlands. Some people think
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: it was at The Hague, but it was not. The
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: trial took place in a Scottish court under Scottish legal
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: rules and systems in a neutral site in the Netherlands.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: And that was the agreement that everybody said, this will
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: at least allow the truth to come out.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Right, right. Okay.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Let's go back to the, I skipped so far ahead
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: because I just wanted to cover that. So the investigators
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: traced clothing that was associated with the bomb suitcase to
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: a shop in Malta. How did that evidence lead them there?
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: And what did they learn from that, from following that
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: particular trail?
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: Okay. Okay. The first, whenever a crime happens, you can
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: begin to make hypotheses about who could possibly have done this.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: And we had a list of suspects. It was long,
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: but not tremendously long. The government of Iran was a suspect.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: The Syrian terrorist group called the Popular Front for Liberation
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: of Palestine General Command was a suspect because they were
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: building devices to be used aboard aviation in Germany in 1988.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: And a cell of that group had been arrested in October.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: And they also used Toshiba radios, which we knew that
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: this bomb was. They were sort of our original focus.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: Libya was not necessarily off the hook in terms of
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: on our long list of suspects, but they were not
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: an immediate suspect. So when the clothing began to be identified,
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: be located, brought in, examined at a laboratory in England,
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: the forensics people could tell us this clothing was not
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: anywhere near the bomb. It's pristine. You could take it
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: to the dry cleaners and wear it tomorrow. But then
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: there were other things that were either shredded, fragmented, where
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: the examiners could say this item of clothing was probably
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: contained in or near the bomb. And as a result
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: of that, some of the things that survived, it was
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: always kind of a joke that the If you want
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: to buy a shirt and you want it to survive forever,
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: buy one made out of the collar because the collar
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: seemed like they would survive a bomb blast. And on
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: the collar or next to the collar oftentimes was a
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: manufacturer's label. And one of them had Yorkie Clothing Company,
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: but that was actually on a piece of cloth. But
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: some of the shirts actually had the manufacturer's names still
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: on them. But it was a pair of trousers that
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: had a lot number and it had the name of
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: a clothing company in Malta. And the Scottish police went
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: there and they identified the company that had bought that
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: lot of clothing. They went and interviewed the shopkeeper in Malta.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: And I had to get a map out and find
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: out where Malta was because I had that geography class
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: since I was in fifth grade. And We figured, we, again,
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: initially it was the Scottish police that did some of this.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: We figured out that the person was possibly a Libyan
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: because the shopkeeper remembered the man had a Libyan accent.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: So that's sort of, we were thinking the Palestinians were
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: involved because that was our original suspect, or possibly Ammanians.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: But all of a sudden, and literally we're a year
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: into the investigation before this happens. where this shopkeeper says
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: the man had a Libyan accent. So that started the
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: path to Libya. Right.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: It's so, this is covered really well in the, you know,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: I'm always curious about what the changes they make in
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: when you're telling a narrative story like the Netflix series and,
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: you know, what pieces are accurate, what need to be
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: sort of reconfigurated for dramatizations and that is so clearly
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: methodically covered in the series. And I just, as a
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: little quick sidebar, a plug for this series, it's so compelling.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: And I think it's really difficult to achieve two things,
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: which is to be compelling in a kind of procedural way,
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: and then also in an emotional storytelling way.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: So it really succeeds.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: And I know that you had a lot to do
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: with this in the series, Patrick J. Adams plays you,
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: who he's wonderful in it. How did that feel watching
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: someone play you?
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Did you, yeah, we'll start there.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Well, I have done a lot of television interviews, radio interviews,
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: interviews for articles and books and things like that. But
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: this was the first time that anybody actually played me.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: And I got an email out of the blue from
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: Patrick J. Adams a couple of years ago. And he
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: said they told me that he had the honor of
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: playing me. And I had spent my retirement years were
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: very busy teaching police officers anti-terrorism and working on a
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: big project in Poland. I don't watch. I did not
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: watch a lot of television. I didn't know.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: I think that makes all of us feel better that
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: you're not like spending your time watching TV.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm making up for it. I had never seen Suits.
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: So I didn't know who he was. Looked him up
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: and I said, well, that's supposed to be a big show.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: You're like, oh, he's quite handsome.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: Well, I've had people tell me, he's handsome, you're not.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: I've had other people say, oh, you're better looking than
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: he is. I don't go there. He was about the
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: same age I was when the case was working. So
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: it worked out. But I've met Patrick. We've spent hours
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: and hours on Zoom. He wanted to hear me and
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: listen to what I had to say. He picked my
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: brain for probably 40 hours on Zoom. We spent four
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: or five days together in Lockerbie.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Oh, you did?
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: Yes. I took him on his first trip to Lockerbie
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: and showed him around. And it was a fascinating experience
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: to meet him. He is just a fine, fine human being.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: And I think an excellent actor. Yes. As a human,
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: as a person, I think the world of Patrick and
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: his family, I have met some of his kids on Zoom. Oh, wow.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: The two oldest girls gave me a couple of waves
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: when I was talking to him at his house in California.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: But Patrick did, in my mind, a great job. And
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: I think he's a great actor. Now I'll watch everything
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: that he's ever been in. So I'm becoming a big fan.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as am I. His work is really terrific in this.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: So the series depicts tensions between, we've talked a little
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: bit about the American and Scottish investigators over information sharing.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: So how accurately does that reflect what happened and what
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: were the biggest challenges of working together?
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, clearly, as I said earlier, the FBI
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: likes to be in charge. And in the United States,
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: we are almost always, if we have jurisdiction and we
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: go someplace, we are primarily responsible. responsible and in charge.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: We show up in Scotland and here's the big bad
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: FBI and everybody in the world knows who we are.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: And to the Scottish cops, we're just another police agency.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, they know a reputation. I used to get
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: phone calls from some of the families in the United
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: States who'd say, when is the FBI taking over? When
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: are you, you're the FBI. This is this small police force.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: But this small police force, they've got egos. They are
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: good cops. They did, and nobody could have done a
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: better job than they did in collecting evidence. They were
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: good interviewers. They were good cops. But what we discovered,
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: and they discovered, is that when you bring our expertise
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: and what they could bring to the table, the collaboration worked.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: But there was a lot of, especially in the early days, mistrust.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: Who's going to run out ahead? and solve the case.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: Because that was another problem we had working with the CIA.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: Because in the US, a lot of it is, it's
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: a quest for budget. And if the CIA says, hey,
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: they go to Congress and say, we solved Lockerbie. Look
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: what we did. We need more money to do blank.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: And the FBI, same thing. We want to be able
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: to say, we solved Lockerbie.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, this is so interesting, because this comes up so
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: much in TV shows also. But that tension between the
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: CIA and the FBI. And is that really often what
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: it is about?
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: It's resources?
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: It's resources. It's totally about money, who solved it first,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: who won. And I'll give you an example. It's kind
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: of a bad one, but it's factual. When the second
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: fragment that led us to the timer, so when the
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: second fragment was found, it looks like a little one
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: on it. Mm-hmm. When that fragment was found blasted into
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: a piece of clothing by a Scottish cop 30 miles
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: from Lockerbie. Think about that. This fragment was found 30
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: miles from where the airplane literally hit the ground. And
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: they brought it in and that led us to some
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: of the clothing, led us to a better identification of
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: the radio because it was a speaker. The instruction manual
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: was actually blasted into this as well as that timer
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: fragment that led us to the Swiss company that led
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: us to have more directly tied Libya to this. Well,
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: the Scottish cops wanted to, they showed it to us
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: a year after the bombing. We knew it existed. And
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: we said, okay, give us photographs. We will see what
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: we can do on our end to solve. Nope, nope.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: We want to do it ourselves. It was a little
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: bit of that ego. They wanted to do it. Well,
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: six months after they wanted to do it, They came
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: to Quantico for a meeting in Virginia and said, we
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: have no idea. We said, give us a shot at it.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: Six months. They went to 17, I'm sorry, 55 companies
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: in 17 countries, couldn't figure it out. So they gave
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: it to us and it took Com Thurman two days
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: to find out what happened. And he went to the CIA.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: Of course, the CIA didn't know about it either, but
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: They all of a sudden they've got it. And that
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: moved us rapidly, rapidly. And we finally we got we
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: got smart. My former boss at the FBI, a man
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: named Neil Gallagher, he came to me and he said,
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: I think we need to bring everybody to sit down. CIA, MI5,
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: Scottish police and the FBI and say, hey, look, guys,
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: we've got to do better than this. And I give
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Neil all the credit for that. And we had our
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: first meeting in Washington. And we realized at that point
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: that there were people that really wanted, we all did,
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: we wanted to solve this. And we put our egos
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: in the drawer. We put our thoughts about, I'm not
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: saying that back in the, you know what, it would
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: be cool if we could do this on our own,
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: you know?
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: I know, yeah.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: But we said, look, there's enough glory to go around.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: We had some real come to Jesus discussions. that were honest.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: And unfortunately, I think I'm one of the last people
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: still living in that group. Really? There were literally four
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: of us. And the guy from the CIA was actually
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: a Secret Service agent. Stuart Henderson, my counterpart in Scotland,
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: he has passed away. I went to his funeral six
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: or seven years ago now. But we came together and
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: we said, look, We got a job to do. Let's
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: solve this. And that is what really, in my mind,
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: pushed us over the top and got us to where
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: we got because we began a much better collaboration after that. Right.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: It kind of really helped to create kind of a
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: new template for how the FBI handles international investigations.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: Yes. It did. Absolutely. I mean, it was in 1988.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: These laws had only been in existence for, well, the
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: first one in 1984 and the second was 1986. The
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: first one just said if you committed a terrorist attack,
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: you kidnap an American during a terrorist attack, the U.S.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: government asserts jurisdiction and authority. The second one said if
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: you kill or injure an American. So these were new statutes.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: This was kind of a big, big, big deal. And
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: we were still sort of feeling a way around how
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: does this work. Wow. I like to think I was
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: a pioneer before there was such a thing as a pioneer.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Without a doubt, yes.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: So there is a scene in the film where you
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: meet with the CEO of Pan Am and have a
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: somewhat contentious conversation.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Did that really happen?
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: Yes and no. I did meet with Thomas Plaskett at
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: a suite at a hotel in Washington. And I believe...
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: He offered me breakfast, and I don't– it was not–
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: I think this one, the show showed a steak. Yeah.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: They made great steaks here. Right. And I turned it
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: down and gave him the bill. It was nothing like that.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: His daughter actually contacted me and asked me if that happened.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: He's since passed away. And his daughter contacted me and said,
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: was it really a contentious meeting? And it wasn't. It was–
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: He had brought to us a document done by their
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: investigators that they had hired that literally blamed the United
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: States government for blowing the plane up. Now, he was
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: a messenger. He may have been the CEO, but he's
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: bringing this. He said, I'm going to bring this to
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: your attention. It's the results of our investigation. And it
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: would never have been my personality to have done the
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: way Patrick did, but dramatic effect. I understand it. There
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: were a few other things that I understood the dramatic effect.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Many of the things that actually happened that they show
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: were real. They did happen. They got the evidentiary things
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: almost exactly right. I would have added something else, but
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: you would have needed about three or four more episodes
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: to make it factually 100% correct. They got the evidence right. Right.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: Wait, what would you have added that if you could have?
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Was there something specific you were just thinking of?
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: It had to do with identifying the fragment at the CIA.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: And then identifying that McGrahy, the one man that was
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: convicted back in 2001, was actually using a passport of
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: somebody else. That would have been a whole separate episode. Right.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: And how we got that from another intelligence agency because
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: we were now sharing and collaborating and working. But that
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: information about that other passport came from the NSA. Even
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: though they don't want to admit they exist, but they do.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: They have a website, so they do exist. I know
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: they do.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: So in talking about, okay, so McGrahy was convicted and
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: FEMA was not found guilty.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: That's correct, right?
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: So if you had to identify the single most compelling
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: piece of evidence that supported the case against McGrahy, what
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: would it be?
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: Well, probably the timer fragment. Because the timer fragment, here's
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: the first problem. We thought it was that cell in Germany.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: The biggest argument against that cell doing it, the device
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: that they built, if in fact it went on the
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: plane in Germany, because the flight itself actually had left
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: from Frankfurt, the first plane. They changed aircraft, but the
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: same flight number, 103, actually left Frankfurt. But if that
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: bomb had been put out in Frankfurt, which we first thought,
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: it would have exploded between Frankfurt and London. And we
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: couldn't explain that. And all of a sudden we get
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: a baggage record that shows there's a lone bag coming
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: from Air Malta, came to Frankfurt, goes on Pan Am
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: 103 in Frankfurt, Pan Am 103 in London. And we're going,
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: wait a minute. If it's the Palestinian timer, it should
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: have blown up between Malta and Frankfurt. And we couldn't
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: explain that. The fragment of timer that's blasted into the clothing,
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: which looks like a one on it, was a straight timer.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: Time and altitude meant nothing, which was the Palestinian fragment.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: a Palestinian timer, but this was a straight timer. You
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: set it for a specific time, it goes off 10
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: hours from now, 12 hours from now, whatever they set it.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: And of course, that led us to the company in
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: Switzerland that only manufactured 20 of these as prototypes. All
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: 20 were delivered to the Libyan Intelligence Service, and Mugrahi
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: was connected He actually had an office in that company
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: in Switzerland. These things, it brought together a bunch of
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: little fragments of things that we knew, but we couldn't
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: tie them together. But it was that timer fragment that
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: was key that led us to that.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: It's so fascinating.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: So in 2001, the Scottish court in the Netherlands convicted
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: McGrahy and acquitted FEMA. So what was your reaction to
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: the verdicts, and how did you interpret the different outcomes?
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: Well, I got a telephone call early in the morning,
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: and I was told, if you want to come to
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: the verdict, you have to get on a plane this morning.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: So I got on a plane. I flew to Amsterdam,
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: I got picked up, went to the court, and literally
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: by the time I got a shower and shaved and
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: put a suit on, it was five minutes, 10 minutes
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: to 11. Court came in at 11 o'clock. Stuart Henderson
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: was there, he was retired. One of my other counterparts,
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: Phil Reed, who had been responsible for much of the
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: Malta investigation, was there, he had come from Alaska. we
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: were literally holding hands because it was, we were tensed
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: up because we felt that, you know, all this work
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: we did full time for three or four years, full time,
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: nothing but this. And all of a sudden we're going
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: to be judged by this group, these three judges. And
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: they said very quickly, they said, how do you find
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: about McGraw? Now the film did it backwards again for
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: dramatic purposes. It shows the acquittal first. But when they
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: said McGraw, he was guilty, it was like, yeah, we
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: got it. I mean, we have been exonerated of the
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: criticisms of the investigation. These judges looked at the evidence,
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: they examined the witnesses, and they agree with our finding
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: that he did it. But then on the other hand,
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: they included FEMA. And we had a lot of discussions
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: about that over lunch. And we said, how can that be?
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: the problem was one of the things that was discovered
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: was FEMA's diary. In his diary, he had a notation,
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: get tags from air Malta. Okay. Get tags the week
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: before the bombing. So he had been the station manager
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: for Libyan Arab airlines. Libyans are not allowed to have
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: luggage tags. They wouldn't allow it, but he gets tags.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: He gets luggage tags. He gave an excuse that those
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: tags are all over the place. Anybody can get them. But,
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: But Pierre Salinger asked him that question. But he never
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: was asked, why did you have a notation to get
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: those tags? He later made up something in a book
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: about he was getting ready to go into the luggage
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: tag making business. Some answer against crap. But he was
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: acquitted because the diary entries could not be corroborated. Scott's law,
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: very different from U.S. law. The corroboration was very important.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: And because the diary could not be corroborated as being his,
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: they decided that he would be acquitted. And the evidence
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: against him was not strong. It was circumstantial. He was
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: present at the airport that morning. But that, again, that
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: was circumstantial. We think he was. But was he really?
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: We don't know. We know that McGraw, he was there
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: using the false passports. We're not 100% sure other than
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: FEMA got a telephone call from McGrahy at 7-Eleven in
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: the morning. We think what he said was, pick me up.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: I'm ready to go to the airport. But that's speculation.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: And he still, he maintained his innocence. And I mean,
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: but as evidence of what you just said, they just lie.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: So they just make things up.
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: He died about two months ago.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, he did.
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: FEMA just passed away. Yes. I don't do it much anymore,
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: but I think people still had eyes on him, whether
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: it's the media. I don't know who else. I've been
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: retired 24 years. But I think there's probably people who
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: still have eyes on him because there is still a
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: warrant outstanding for him in the United States. Wow. I'm
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: assuming it's probably been dismissed, but I don't know that either.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: So some relatives of the victims have questioned the official,
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: the official account of who was responsible. How, how do
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: you respond to families who have examined the case, but,
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: you know, reached different conclusions?
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I know a lot of the criticism
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: comes from the British families, uh, American families that I
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: know of for the most part agree with what we
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: consider to be the official version. Um, In order for what,
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: and not to criticize the British families, I will never
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: criticize anybody that lost a family member or a friend
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: on Panhandle 103. You don't like what we did. You
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: don't like the government. You don't like, I don't, that's
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: up to you. You have the right to feel that way.
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: But I've always felt that in the event that we
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: got it so totally wrong, that there would have to
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: have been a conspiracy. I go, okay. I guess I
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: would have had to have been part of that conspiracy
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: to help manufacture evidence to lie about different things. I
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: know the evidence probably as well as anybody. And I
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: know where it came from, how it got to us.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: It was not manufactured. It was not made up. There
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: was no conspiracy that there's rumors about President Bush and
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: Margaret Thatcher having a meeting about We need to get
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: Syria on our side so we can't look at that
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: Palestinian group anymore. All we did was follow the evidence. Now,
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: if they conspired about something, they forgot to tell us.
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: All we did was follow the evidence. And I believe,
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: as I have said many times, I can meet my
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: maker with a good, clean heart and say, I did
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: what I was supposed to do. We followed the evidence.
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: And I believe that. with every Scottish cop I worked with,
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: every FBI agent I worked with, and anybody in the
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: intelligence agencies, good people wanting to do the right thing.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Wanting to do good work, yeah.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: So then to that end, in 2003, 15 years after
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: the bombing, Libya formally accepted responsibility for the actions of
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: its officials in connection with the bombing. What did that
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: development mean to you? And did it provide any sense
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: of closure?
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: Closure is a word a lot of people use. Well,
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: when that happens, I'll get closure. But I can tell
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: you just from my dealing with families that that for them,
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: I won't use her name, but she's in the process
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: of reading something about Lockerbie. There's another book about to
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: be written about Lockerbie. And she told me she was
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: reading it. She said, I'm having a hard time getting
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: through this. It was her brother who died. And she said,
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: This brought me back to 1988, reading all this again.
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: So you can say, well, there's been convictions and the
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: TV shows and all this. There is no real closure.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: But I mean, I was always convinced. Gaddafi, he didn't
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: have to apologize. Now, I will tell you, this is
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: a humorous story. Gaddafi appeared at Georgetown via a Zoom,
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: pre-Zoom link years ago, in like 2007 or 8. And
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: I decided to go. And I was in a big auditorium,
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: and I got to see his face up on this screen.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: And we were asked to submit questions in advance. And
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: I submitted a question. And I didn't get to ask it,
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: but a student got up and asked a question. They
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: selected my question. And I asked very simply. I said,
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: you know, Colonel Gaddafi, I try to be respectful. One
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: of your agents has been found guilty of committing this atrocity.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: when are you going to fully admit responsibility for carrying
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: out this attack? And when are you going to apologize
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: to the families? And he sat there and of course
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: the interpreter is doing it. And I remember he fidgeted
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: with his glasses and he said, all he says to
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: this young man, my son, my son, Lockerbie has been adjudicated.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: It is a closed case. And some professor jumped up
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: and said, hold on. And because the kid, And I
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: wouldn't blame him. He was 19 years old or something,
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: asking the question. He's talking to a head of state. Sure.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: And some professor jumped up. I just sat there and watched.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: Some professor got up and really tried to hold his
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: feet to the fire. Gaddafi wouldn't have any part of it. Wow.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: Nobody should have died the way Gaddafi died. But nobody
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: should have died the way that those 270 many young
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: kids died, not having the ability to have a full life.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: That's right. biggest regret that I have for them. And
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: I wish we'd been able to get more people. And
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: as you are probably aware, and I don't want to
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: talk about it at all, but there's going to be
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: another trial in the United States in January.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, I am aware of that.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: Right. I am hopeful that after almost 40 years, that
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: a lot more truth comes out and it's much clearer
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: to families and everybody else exactly what happened.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: Can you tell us what, I mean, I know, but
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: can you tell us what that trial is in January?
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: It's January of next year of 2027, right?
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, January 19th, I believe, or 20th is supposed to start.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: And it is the trial of the suspected bomb maker,
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: the man that actually made the device. And he was
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: on our radar 35, 40 years ago. And the Libyan
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: government told us they had no idea at all who
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: he was. And I give a lot of credit to
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: Ken Dornstein, who lost his brother on Pan Am 103.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: He did the PBS show called My Brother's Bomber, which
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: if you've never watched it, absolutely incredible, spellbinding, tremendous. And
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: if you watch that, it will tell you everything you
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: need to know about the trial.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: Oh, amazing. My Brother's Bomber, it's called?
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: My Brother's Bomber was on PBS. It's three hours. It's
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: a documentary. But Ken Dornstein went to Libya and knocked
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: on doors. Wow. So think about Ken Dornstein. He had
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: young kids. I'm just glad, you know, I got to
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: know him because of that. But I'm glad he didn't
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: ask me to go with him because I think I
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: might have said no. Yeah. I give him credit for it.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: He did it before the overthrow of Gaddafi. So Gaddafi
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: was still alive. It was done, I think it aired
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: in 2015.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: That's pretty courageous. That's pretty bold.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: But what he did helped lead to this current trial. Wow.
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: I'm 150% positive of that.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Wow, I will watch that. Okay, I could talk to
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: you for like hours. One more question.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: It sounds like you're in touch with the families still.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: Some, yes.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: With some, yes?
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, like everything else, they've all gotten, I mean,
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: I was always a young guy. I'm going to be
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: 80 on my next birthday. And a lot of the
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: family members are in their 80s, many of whom have died,
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: passed away. And it's life. I mean, I go to
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: the memorial service every year in Arlington in December. And
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: I see fewer and fewer and fewer people. Now, the
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: next generation is coming up. And I'm glad for that.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: I'm glad because we can't forget this happened. No. The
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: fact that their memories are, they are commemorated every year.
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: I hope this happens again. After my great-great-grandchildren are dead.
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: I hope they're still commemorating when nobody even knows about it.
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: Because somebody said, if you remember them, they're not really gone.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: They're not gone.
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: And that's all I can say. I have great respect
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: for the families and some of the things that they did.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: And I never even mentioned Katherine Turman, who is another...
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: Unbelievable person.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: That's I know I wanted to, let's talk about her
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: really quick.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: Merritt Weaver plays her in the series, who is another
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: one Merritt Weaver. If you're listening, you should be in
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: every movie and TV show ever made for.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: The rest of time.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: She did a great job.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: She really did.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: But can you just talk a little bit about your
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: relationship with her, with the, with Catherine?
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: Yes. Well, the Merritt Weaver's portrayal of Catherine is, It
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: was unbelievably good. But Catherine Turman, I never met until 1997. Oh.
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: So what the show portrayed, they wanted to show what
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: she did. Now, Catherine did those things, but she had
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: met some of the families when she worked for Senator
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: Fines in Pennsylvania. But when she became the head of
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: the Victim Services Division at DOJ, Justice Department, I was
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: in charge of victim services for the FBI in my
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: position at that time. We got together. We both had
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: the same thing. And she explained to me the laws
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: that require you to do these things that the FBI
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: was not doing. All these things that we're supposed to
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: be doing for victims. And I told her about Lockerbie.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: She knew some of it. But I told her about
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: our State Department let him down. The FBI let him down.
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: We all, the only people that really were good to
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: them were the Scottish cops. And this guy, this townspeople,
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: which was well shown, that was all factual. All those
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: things about washing and ironing the clothes. That is absolutely true.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: And it's heartbreaking.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: But Catherine told me, she said, if there's going to
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: be a trial, I'm going to do everything I can
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: to help those victims. And she did. And Catherine, then
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: eventually Bob Mueller hired the FBI agent. She ran the
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: first victim services division at the FBI. And she did
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: that until she retired about five years ago. And Katherine
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: Turman is a saint. So if Katherine ever hears this,
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: she knows how I feel about her. She's a saint.
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: She's one of the most unbelievable human beings on our planet.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, I love hearing that. It really does.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: I love hearing that. She's very well portrayed in the series.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: I hope that she feels good about it if she
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: sees it.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: She did. She did. She and I have talked. Yeah,
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: we talked. I talk to her on a regular basis. Oh, nice.
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: She lives in Tennessee and we don't live close to
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: each other, but we have been friends for 30 years
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: and she's just a remarkable, although she wouldn't beat my
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: office door down like, She sent me a note after
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: she saw the show and she said, I think I
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: owe you an apology. We laughed. Catherine is a superb
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: human being, the best.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: Well, I can't, Dick, this has been so fascinating and
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: you're just a wealth of information and charming. And you
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: battle Patrick in the handsome department.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to go with that.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you for that.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: The Bombing of Pan Am 103 is streaming on Netflix.
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: The series is really compelling and so well done. And Dick,
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: I'm so grateful to you for your time and for
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: all of the incredibly important work you've done in your career.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you. It was wonderful to meet you.