Latest / The Knife: A True Crime Podcast / The Knife: Off Record – 108

Transcript

The Knife: Off Record – 108 · The Knife: A True Crime Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to The Knife Off Record. I'm Hannah Smith. I'm
0:23
Speaker 1: patient eton thanks so much for listening. So, Hannah, the
0:28
Speaker 1: show's been out a little while. Now it's out, it's
0:30
Speaker 1: out in the world. We're recording this ahead of time,
0:33
Speaker 1: so we logged some episodes and now we're at the
0:37
Speaker 1: point where it's out in the world people are listening
0:39
Speaker 1: to it. How does that feel? I think for me
0:43
Speaker 1: this being my first time not just behind the scenes
0:46
Speaker 1: like I was on our last show sometimes when it
0:48
Speaker 1: would be appropriate for a producer to weigh in on
0:50
Speaker 1: a decision, but like, this is my first time being
0:54
Speaker 1: like fully present on the show in a more like
0:58
Speaker 1: forward way. It's my name and yeah, your voice, my voice.
1:02
Speaker 1: Listening to the sound of your own voice is just
1:06
Speaker 1: it takes time. It takes so much time to get
1:09
Speaker 1: used to that. But no, I mean, I think I'm
1:12
Speaker 1: really proud of the episodes that we've already put out
1:16
Speaker 1: and what's to come. But I think we both, having
1:19
Speaker 1: talked about it, feel like we should talk a little
1:22
Speaker 1: bit more about what it really means to center victims' voices.
1:29
Speaker 2: There is just so many opinions out in the world
1:32
Speaker 2: about how crime victims are supposed to be and supposed
1:37
Speaker 2: to act and supposed to understand their own stories, and
1:43
Speaker 2: I just think, like, we're not doing that. If they're
1:46
Speaker 2: feeling like it's unfinished or they're feeling angry, like hey,
1:51
Speaker 2: I'm good with it. Like feel angry. You can feel angry.
1:54
Speaker 1: The people that we speak with face really extreme adverse
1:57
Speaker 1: circumstances and come out on the other end of it,
1:59
Speaker 1: but sometimes it still hurts and it's imperfect. It's also
2:04
Speaker 1: like in many cases that person is you know, has
2:07
Speaker 1: to stay vigilant because it's not over for them in
2:10
Speaker 1: different ways, Like in our very first episode with Duan Henry,
2:15
Speaker 1: she was assaulted on the run in a park broad
2:18
Speaker 1: daylight in the morning and later found out she lives
2:22
Speaker 1: extremely close to Paul Yusef, the man who assaulted her.
2:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, she actually reached out to me
2:29
Speaker 2: recently with an update and said that she was at
2:32
Speaker 2: her gym. She's been going to this gym for three
2:35
Speaker 2: years pretty much every day, and she looked up and
2:40
Speaker 2: said she locked eyes with Paul yusif he was at
2:42
Speaker 2: her gym.
2:43
Speaker 1: Morkinow that's like inconceivable. Yeah, how scary would that be.
2:48
Speaker 1: It's like the fear of seeing them and also just
2:52
Speaker 1: I can only speculate about what that must feel like
2:54
Speaker 1: to see him just walk freely living his life as
2:57
Speaker 1: if he didn't do that.
2:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, she said that she had a panic attack and
3:03
Speaker 2: informed the gym, and according to her, she said, the
3:06
Speaker 2: manager did nothing. They have not removed him from the
3:10
Speaker 2: gym or anything. So you know, she's had to figure
3:12
Speaker 2: that out. Does she go back to the gym or not.
3:14
Speaker 2: But it's something that she's still living with and it's
3:18
Speaker 2: really disturbing.
3:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, when we spoke with Durun, it was pretty evident
3:23
Speaker 1: to us that she had worked really hard to overcome
3:28
Speaker 1: the fear that that situation instilled in her. She lives
3:32
Speaker 1: within a walkable distance to this person, and what she's
3:36
Speaker 1: supposed to just like wave to him.
3:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just not her job. She doesn't have to
3:41
Speaker 2: get over it. She doesn't have to forget anyone, she
3:43
Speaker 2: doesn't have to rise from the ashes like a phoenix.
3:46
Speaker 2: She could just be whoever she wants to be. And
3:48
Speaker 2: I feel that way about all of the people that
3:50
Speaker 2: we interviewed, to be honest, Yeah, absolutely. So that's what
3:54
Speaker 2: we're doing. That's part of our mission statement and what
3:56
Speaker 2: we think is important and what we're bringing to the show.
3:59
Speaker 2: And we really appreciate you listening. Yeah, thank you so much. So, Patia,
4:08
Speaker 2: you have a case that you wanted to tell me
4:10
Speaker 2: about today.
4:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's actually a case that you and I
4:13
Speaker 1: spoke about a couple of years ago. Now, we were
4:16
Speaker 1: looking into a totally other case, and so I spoke
4:21
Speaker 1: with a person named Tom Gibbons about that story. Tom Gibbons,
4:25
Speaker 1: at the time that this happened, was the prosecuting attorney
4:29
Speaker 1: in Madison County. And as I was wrapping up this
4:31
Speaker 1: call with Tom Gibbons, he brought up this totally other
4:35
Speaker 1: story that I should look into. And as soon as
4:38
Speaker 1: he told me about it, I was like, Yeah, this
4:40
Speaker 1: is Hannah's going to love this.
4:42
Speaker 2: I love when that happens, when someone's like, oh, do
4:44
Speaker 2: you know this other story and you're like, oh, that's great.
4:48
Speaker 1: Like I wouldn't have known to search for that. It's
4:50
Speaker 1: so crazy. So basically, this story begins in Edwardsville, Illinois,
4:57
Speaker 1: which is also in Madison County, which is why Tom
5:00
Speaker 1: Ebbans was familiar with it. Now, Madison County is much
5:03
Speaker 1: closer to Saint Louis, Missouri than Chicago, Illinois. It's kind
5:07
Speaker 1: of idyllic. It's managed to maintain this quaint neighborhood feel.
5:11
Speaker 1: There's a cute little main street with little cafes. Residents
5:15
Speaker 1: say it has a bit of an artsy vibe. But
5:17
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine, something really strange happens. The
5:21
Speaker 1: amount of burglaries in this quaint town skyrockets, like happens
5:28
Speaker 1: for five years straight. No one's caught, no one knows
5:31
Speaker 1: who's doing it or why, and it's seemingly out of nowhere.
5:35
Speaker 1: So whoever's committing these burglaries, they don't know if it's
5:38
Speaker 1: one person, they don't know if it's multiple people. Is
5:42
Speaker 1: breaking into people's homes and people's businesses, and they're not
5:47
Speaker 1: targeting just one thing, like just money, just jewelry, just
5:52
Speaker 1: car parts. It's like seemingly random. Dozens of people are affected,
5:58
Speaker 1: dozens of businesses. They're trying to figure out is this
6:00
Speaker 1: organized crime? Like they can't make sense of it, and
6:03
Speaker 1: it's unsettling. The whole community is feeling it.
6:06
Speaker 2: Wait, what year is this?
6:07
Speaker 1: So this is all taking place in two thousand and nine,
6:11
Speaker 1: Like it begins in two thousand and nine and continues
6:14
Speaker 1: for the next five years.
6:15
Speaker 2: Because I'm just like, you would think that people would
6:17
Speaker 2: have security cameras or businesses would, but was this in
6:22
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, zon, Like that wasn't really a
6:24
Speaker 2: thing yet.
6:25
Speaker 1: This predates everyone having a dooraball camera. So some of
6:28
Speaker 1: these homes that were burglarized were burglarized more than once,
6:32
Speaker 1: and so then there was this added question of.
6:34
Speaker 2: Am I being targeted?
6:35
Speaker 1: Yeah? And like by who and why? Just this like
6:38
Speaker 1: total question mark. And another place was a business that
6:42
Speaker 1: had been targeted multiple times, and that was a local
6:45
Speaker 1: hair salon called Reality Salon and Spa, which was owned
6:49
Speaker 1: by a woman named Cynthia and Patten. The salon had
6:52
Speaker 1: an alarm system which somehow the person breaking in had
6:56
Speaker 1: not been triggering. It was so strange for the salon
7:00
Speaker 1: owner because at a certain point you have to question, like,
7:03
Speaker 1: is it someone on the inside. Is it an employee.
7:06
Speaker 2: Someone who might know the alarm code? Is what I
7:08
Speaker 2: would think, Yeah, how is this happening? How and they're
7:11
Speaker 2: taking money from the cash register? Okay, So she reaches
7:15
Speaker 2: out to local authorities, makes them aware that this is happening,
7:19
Speaker 2: and eventually she just installs her own security system with
7:23
Speaker 2: a camera pointed at the register and this ends up
7:26
Speaker 2: being the break in the case. And so a few
7:29
Speaker 2: days before Christmas in twenty fourteen, Cynthia gets a notification
7:34
Speaker 2: of activity on her security camera. It's not an employee,
7:38
Speaker 2: but it is someone that she's seen before. So I
7:47
Speaker 2: watched the footage and it's actually like kind of confusing
7:50
Speaker 2: to watch because in walks in the dark closed salon
7:54
Speaker 2: a police officer. Okay, he's in uniform, he's shining a flashlighter.
8:00
Speaker 2: Oh okay, So I'm thinking he's about to bust whoever
8:04
Speaker 2: is doing this. Yeah, like, oh, he must be right
8:06
Speaker 2: on their tail. No.
8:08
Speaker 1: He walks over to the cash register, he opens it up,
8:11
Speaker 1: and he takes the money and he leaves. He's the one,
8:15
Speaker 1: He's the one. And this all makes so much sense, right,
8:18
Speaker 1: It's just like this person just has no fear of
8:23
Speaker 1: getting caught.
8:24
Speaker 2: Did he know the alarm code?
8:26
Speaker 1: I don't know how he got in, and I don't
8:29
Speaker 1: know why the alarm wasn't triggered before, because it feels like,
8:33
Speaker 1: if you're an alarm system, you have one job.
8:36
Speaker 2: You have one job.
8:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, Of course Cynthia recognizes him because she has, like
8:41
Speaker 1: I said, called the authorities before to report burglaries, and
8:44
Speaker 1: who has shown up but Brian Barker, an officer with
8:47
Speaker 1: the Edwardsville Police Department. In this moment, she's like, Okay,
8:51
Speaker 1: I could call the Edwardsville Police, but he works there.
8:55
Speaker 1: That's him, that's him, So who do you even call?
8:57
Speaker 2: Who do you call?
8:58
Speaker 1: She must have really had a lot of trust because
9:01
Speaker 1: she does end up calling, and you know, she has
9:04
Speaker 1: to be the person to say, I think it's one
9:06
Speaker 1: of your own, but I do have it on camera,
9:09
Speaker 1: and so kudos to the Edwardsville Police. They quickly review
9:15
Speaker 1: the footage and they arrest Brian Barker. So that is
9:20
Speaker 1: like the smoking gun. They know who it is. They
9:22
Speaker 1: find out that Brian Barker is an eighteen year veteran
9:25
Speaker 1: of the police department, and Edwardsville realizes, Okay, there's a
9:29
Speaker 1: little bit of a conflict of interest here. We're going
9:31
Speaker 1: to turn the case over to the Madison County Sheriff's department.
9:36
Speaker 1: So why is a police officer stealing cash from a
9:39
Speaker 1: local salon in the middle of the night. It's like,
9:42
Speaker 1: are you really hard up for money, Like, what's going
9:45
Speaker 1: on because we know that other things have been burglarized
9:48
Speaker 1: that weren't money. It's just they were having trouble, Like,
9:51
Speaker 1: is this the guy that really could be doing everything? Yeah,
9:56
Speaker 1: what's the scope of this? What's the scope of this
9:58
Speaker 1: and why? So in court records from Madison County, Barker
10:02
Speaker 1: was charged on December twenty third, twenty fourteen. That was
10:05
Speaker 1: actually on the same day that Cynthia saw him on
10:09
Speaker 1: the security footage. Now there was a warrant issued for
10:13
Speaker 1: his arrest, and that warrant was also returned a few
10:16
Speaker 1: days later on December twenty sixth, So it ends up
10:20
Speaker 1: that he is the person behind all of these seemingly
10:23
Speaker 1: random burglaries. Some of the people whose homes he broke
10:27
Speaker 1: into were neighbors, so he probably knew. There's schedules, there's
10:30
Speaker 1: a search warrant, they go and they look at his house.
10:33
Speaker 1: So Tom Gibbons describes the basement of Brian Barker's home
10:37
Speaker 1: as something like a sort of supercenter. They found everything
10:41
Speaker 1: from stolen guns, mufflers, power tools, guitars, and of course cash.
10:47
Speaker 1: So he has like a full on store. He could
10:49
Speaker 1: have like any Bay shop for people who maybe are
10:51
Speaker 1: up to no good, but.
10:53
Speaker 2: He's just keeping all of it. He's just keeping it.
10:56
Speaker 1: I think he did end up making a few like
10:58
Speaker 1: sales on Crest, but it was weird because it wasn't
11:03
Speaker 1: the motivation. So what was the motivation? Like why are
11:06
Speaker 1: you just storing all of these random objects. It turns
11:10
Speaker 1: out that Barker ends up accepting a plea deal. He
11:14
Speaker 1: knows there's so much evidence against him. He accepts the
11:17
Speaker 1: plea deal and he's sentenced, and as part of this process,
11:21
Speaker 1: he has sessions with a psychologist to kind of understand
11:24
Speaker 1: is this person okay? So Brian Barker was born on
11:28
Speaker 1: May fifth, nineteen seventy three. He had an older sister, Diana,
11:33
Speaker 1: and this psychologist said that Barker told him Diana was
11:37
Speaker 1: abusive and also encouraged him to steal at a very
11:41
Speaker 1: young age, like five or six years old. Yeah, and
11:45
Speaker 1: so he developed this sort of like affinity for stealing.
11:49
Speaker 1: It gave him an adrenaline rush. It's a tragic story.
11:53
Speaker 1: You know. It's still his older sister, and so that's
11:56
Speaker 1: a complex situation. Deanna later married and came Deana Holland,
12:01
Speaker 1: and she was also deeply troubled. She suffered from addiction
12:05
Speaker 1: and actually went missing in the nineteen eighties, so, you know,
12:09
Speaker 1: many decades before, it's horrible these crimes took place. It's
12:12
Speaker 1: horrible she was in her twenties when she went missing.
12:14
Speaker 1: Decades go by no answer as to what happened, and
12:17
Speaker 1: then in two thousand and four, a torso is discovered
12:20
Speaker 1: at a rest stop in Warren County, Illinois. In twenty sixteen,
12:24
Speaker 1: those remains were identified as being Deanna's. The DNA evidence
12:29
Speaker 1: collected also led them to a man named Mike Clardy,
12:32
Speaker 1: who was charged with her murder. Clardy admitted to the
12:35
Speaker 1: murder when he was questioned about it. He had no
12:37
Speaker 1: prior criminal record. This was in twenty sixteen. Yeah, so
12:41
Speaker 1: Deanna had been missing since the eighties.
12:43
Speaker 2: Wow, And so this was after all of this stuff
12:46
Speaker 2: took place. With Brian Barker and the burglary.
12:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Barker has this really tragic story, you know,
12:53
Speaker 1: not to excuse his crimes, but he was abused at
12:57
Speaker 1: a young age, loses his sister to a violent crime,
13:01
Speaker 1: but for many years before that, actually doesn't have any
13:03
Speaker 1: idea what happened to her. And he's arrested in twenty fourteen,
13:08
Speaker 1: and so then two years after that arrest, as he's
13:11
Speaker 1: going through all of these criminal proceedings and figuring out,
13:15
Speaker 1: you know, plea deal and sentencing, his sister's remains are
13:19
Speaker 1: identified and this tragic story of what happened to her
13:22
Speaker 1: is unfolding. He's a police officer, and that puts you
13:26
Speaker 1: in a position of power. It was an abuse of power,
13:31
Speaker 1: no question, But it just made me think, you know,
13:34
Speaker 1: you read about like a police officer breaking into people's
13:37
Speaker 1: homes and sort of abusing their training and their uniform
13:40
Speaker 1: and underneath it all, it was quite sad, and it's
13:44
Speaker 1: sad for the victims, Cynthia and Patten. She closed her salon,
13:47
Speaker 1: moved to a location where she felt safer. It was
13:49
Speaker 1: a jarring situation for the whole community. But yeah, doing
13:53
Speaker 1: this deep dive into it, it just kept unfolding. It
13:55
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this is so complicated for this person.
13:57
Speaker 1: It's just terrible, so complicated. Yeah, it's interesting to think
14:01
Speaker 1: about what he told the psychologist and that he was
14:05
Speaker 1: sort of aware of this urge to steal things from
14:09
Speaker 1: a young age. So yeah, it just makes me wonder
14:13
Speaker 1: if that was on his mind when he became a
14:15
Speaker 1: police officer, or if he was trying to be better,
14:17
Speaker 1: but you know, at some point he clearly gave into
14:20
Speaker 1: that and yeah, it's a total abusive power. Yeah. The
14:23
Speaker 1: psychologist met with him dozens of times to try to
14:27
Speaker 1: sort some of this out and actually ended up diagnosing
14:30
Speaker 1: Brian Barker with persistent depression and obsessive compulsive disorder and kleptomania. So,
14:36
Speaker 1: I mean, he had a lot going on himself. And
14:40
Speaker 1: how long was he in prison? He's still there. So
14:43
Speaker 1: at his sentencing, Judge Richard Tagnarelli said, if you can't
14:47
Speaker 1: call the police, who can you call? And that is
14:50
Speaker 1: just such a valid point. I think if you can't
14:53
Speaker 1: call your local authorities when you feel unsafe because you
14:57
Speaker 1: know at least one of them is broken into your
14:59
Speaker 1: place of business or your home, that's terrifying. Brian Barker
15:03
Speaker 1: was sentenced to forty years. Oh wow, it's a huge sentence.
15:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah, I mean kind of astonishing.
15:10
Speaker 1: Like we've obviously explored many different crimes where there were
15:15
Speaker 1: lesser sentences for violent crimes, and you know, I should
15:20
Speaker 1: mention Brian Barker was also ended up being convicted of
15:23
Speaker 1: an arson that took place in November of twenty thirteen,
15:25
Speaker 1: So oh wow, Yeah, there was a lot happening.
15:29
Speaker 2: Was that someone's home or it was a.
15:31
Speaker 1: Business, and I don't know if anyone was there at
15:33
Speaker 1: the time. I don't think that they were. But very scary.
15:36
Speaker 1: That is very scary. Someone easily could have died in
15:38
Speaker 1: that fire. I feel like that takes it to a
15:40
Speaker 1: whole different level. Yeah, not that breaking into someone's business
15:44
Speaker 1: or home is not terrifying enough. It's so invasive, right,
15:48
Speaker 1: It's such an abusive power, And I wonder if that's
15:50
Speaker 1: why he got that bigger sentence for a quote unquote
15:53
Speaker 1: nonviolent crime, because like, yeah, you can't be betraying your
15:57
Speaker 1: community's trust, Like you have signed up for a job
16:01
Speaker 1: that you're going to uphold the law and then you're
16:03
Speaker 1: breaking it secretly. It's not good, right, And if you
16:06
Speaker 1: start a fire, you're not in control.
16:08
Speaker 2: No, what happened to all the stuff in the basement?
16:12
Speaker 1: I think I remember Tom Gibbons saying that they had
16:15
Speaker 1: to like rent storage units because their evidence room really
16:18
Speaker 1: could not even handle the volume of stuff. It went
16:22
Speaker 1: that deep. It sounds like his psychologist said a compulsion.
16:25
Speaker 2: Like he's keeping these treasures, yeah or something. Yeah, I
16:29
Speaker 2: wish I had photos.
16:30
Speaker 1: I'm curious if it was like super well organized just
16:33
Speaker 1: a wild story.
16:34
Speaker 2: I don't know.
16:34
Speaker 1: Anytime I hear like forty year sentence, it's a whole life.
16:38
Speaker 1: But he did have a very complicated story, and I
16:41
Speaker 1: think doesn't excuse what he did, but it definitely gives you,
16:45
Speaker 1: I think, more understanding of how someone's life goes a
16:48
Speaker 1: certain way.
16:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, well thanks for telling me that story.
16:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, it's been like a couple of years
16:54
Speaker 1: I think since we had talked about it. So in
16:57
Speaker 1: researching this Brian Barker story, I was able to refer
17:00
Speaker 1: back to my call with Tom Gibbons. I also read
17:03
Speaker 1: an article in the Belleville News Democrat, Fox two News, Now,
17:08
Speaker 1: Security Garage and neighborhood scout dot com, which can tell
17:11
Speaker 1: you local crime rates.
17:13
Speaker 2: You know, there's these stories that we hear about and
17:16
Speaker 2: are you know, want to figure out how to tell
17:18
Speaker 2: and then sometimes it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen, and
17:20
Speaker 2: then we find a way to tell it eventually. This
17:24
Speaker 2: is another one of those stories that I have for
17:25
Speaker 2: you today. It's one that I have like had a
17:30
Speaker 2: note about on my desktop for probably like two years now.
17:34
Speaker 2: It's not even in the spreadsheet. It's probably in multiple superadjects, yes, sir,
17:39
Speaker 2: because I've made calls about it and ultimately it just
17:42
Speaker 2: like was not something that people wanted to talk about.
17:44
Speaker 2: But it kind of broke a couple of years ago.
17:47
Speaker 2: And it's the Doc Gallagher story. William Neil Gallagher aka
17:53
Speaker 2: Dot Gallagher. He was a radio host, a financial advisor,
17:58
Speaker 2: a former pastor in tech and has been called the
18:02
Speaker 2: Bernie made Off of North Texas. You don't want that title.
18:05
Speaker 1: No.
18:06
Speaker 2: There's been some articles about it and even some podcasts,
18:09
Speaker 2: but I really I think that there's so many details
18:11
Speaker 2: in this story that I want to dive into. And
18:13
Speaker 2: this story feels incredibly relevant to so much right now.
18:17
Speaker 2: There's a great Bloomberg article about it. I also listen
18:21
Speaker 2: to AARP has a podcast I'm Familiar The Perfect Scams
18:25
Speaker 2: Scam Yeah, which is interestingly co hosted by Frank Abagnail.
18:29
Speaker 2: I didn't realize sometimes he pops on there to kind
18:32
Speaker 2: of weigh in on scams. And then there was also
18:35
Speaker 2: a very short interview with an investigator on a podcast
18:38
Speaker 2: that's coming from the Texas Apartment of Insurance that I
18:42
Speaker 2: listened to.
18:43
Speaker 1: You're Finding All the Deep podcasts.
18:46
Speaker 2: I was like, interesting that the Texas Department of Insurance
18:49
Speaker 2: has a podcast, But.
18:50
Speaker 1: It was I thought it was well done, Like someone
18:52
Speaker 1: went to their boss and they were like, we can
18:54
Speaker 1: do something with this. Yeah, like this file cabinet is
18:57
Speaker 1: ripe for storytelling.
18:59
Speaker 2: There's so many stories, so let's get him out there.
19:07
Speaker 2: So basically I'll just start kind of at the top
19:11
Speaker 2: with Doc Gallagher as what I'll call him again. His
19:14
Speaker 2: name is William Neil Gallagher. He's this like big personality
19:19
Speaker 2: Texan where's cowboy boots? Like was a former preacher, so
19:24
Speaker 2: it was always kind of quoting the Bible and really
19:27
Speaker 2: like agreeable person well liked charismatic, everything he would kind
19:32
Speaker 2: of expect from someone who turns out to be scamming people.
19:36
Speaker 2: But even though he seems so Texan, he's actually he
19:38
Speaker 2: was born in New York City. At some point in
19:40
Speaker 2: his childhood, his dad left the family, so it was him,
19:44
Speaker 2: his mom, and his brother. They moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts.
19:48
Speaker 2: He did have a stepdad who it seems like he
19:50
Speaker 2: didn't really get along with that well, and his family
19:53
Speaker 2: really struggled financially. They were on welfare for a period
19:56
Speaker 2: of time, which sort of feels like it may have
19:58
Speaker 2: affected him and his goals for the future as far
20:01
Speaker 2: as like making money. He went to college. He actually
20:05
Speaker 2: got a lot of education. He graduated in nineteen sixty
20:08
Speaker 2: three from Rhode Island College and then decided to join
20:11
Speaker 2: the Peace Corps. He taught English in northern Thailand in
20:15
Speaker 2: the sixties, okay. And it's in Changmi, northern Thailand that
20:19
Speaker 2: he meets this Christian missionary and they start talking about
20:23
Speaker 2: the Bible. It seems like very influential on him, and
20:25
Speaker 2: he gets really interested in Christianity and starts reading the Bible.
20:28
Speaker 2: When he comes back to the US, he goes to
20:32
Speaker 2: Brown Trail School of Preaching in Texas, and then he
20:35
Speaker 2: decides to get a master's degree in religion and philosophy.
20:39
Speaker 2: This is back when education was what like two dollars.
20:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I'll get you get a master's gree. I
20:46
Speaker 1: get a master's degree, everybody. He gets married to a
20:49
Speaker 1: dental hygienist named Gale, and he's a preacher in Bedford, Texas.
20:55
Speaker 1: Then he decides he wants to get more education. He
20:57
Speaker 1: actually gets a PhD in philosophy, so he is a
21:00
Speaker 1: doctor this whole time, though he's becoming more and more
21:03
Speaker 1: politically conservative. He grew up as a Democrat, but sort
21:07
Speaker 1: of like looks down on people who are supported financially
21:11
Speaker 1: by the government. Strange because because he is her family
21:15
Speaker 1: was Yeah.
21:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then like as deeply steeped in academia that
21:20
Speaker 2: he's been, he becomes very critical of academia as well.
21:24
Speaker 2: He thinks it's too liberal. He's not able to get
21:26
Speaker 2: a teaching position after getting this PhD, and so he's preaching.
21:31
Speaker 2: And then he's really inspired by the culture in Texas though,
21:35
Speaker 2: like he's like there's this entrepreneurial kind of pull yourself
21:40
Speaker 2: up by your bootstraps, Texan cowboy kind of thing. As
21:43
Speaker 2: soon as he moves to Texas is when he starts
21:45
Speaker 2: like wearing cowboy boots and looking the part and loves it.
21:49
Speaker 2: Loves Texas.
21:49
Speaker 1: Hey, listen, I had a period of my childhood where
21:52
Speaker 1: I only wore white, fringe cowboy boots.
21:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, what was the inspiration behind that?
21:56
Speaker 1: I was obsessed with horses. I will girl everyone else
22:02
Speaker 1: it's finally come out on the forage kid.
22:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I feel like for you, it was like
22:08
Speaker 2: more legitimate because you actually were riding horses. And this
22:11
Speaker 2: guy he's what, I'll hat no cattle, that's right. Yeah?
22:13
Speaker 2: Is that a saying, yes, I love it. I'll hat
22:18
Speaker 2: no cattle. That's Dot Gallagher. So he worked for a
22:22
Speaker 2: time for the American Family Association, which they're fundamentalists, Christian nonprofit.
22:28
Speaker 2: They've been pretty influential in promoting morality and media. Specifically,
22:33
Speaker 2: they lead like boycotts and protests of anything that they
22:36
Speaker 2: deem to be like not Christian family values. They've been
22:40
Speaker 2: very vocally against pornography, abortion, They're very anti LGBTQ. So
22:45
Speaker 2: it seems like this environment also continues to affect his philosophies,
22:50
Speaker 2: his outlook. He published a book called How to Stop
22:54
Speaker 2: the Porno Plague. A simple, straightforward action plan that can
22:57
Speaker 2: work in your community. Okay, it's just like a simple
23:03
Speaker 2: straightforward action plan. It just it seems ridiculous. I have
23:06
Speaker 2: to like tell you right now. It is so simple,
23:08
Speaker 2: it is so straightforward. It's like if I don't tell
23:11
Speaker 2: you in this title, how will you know? How will
23:13
Speaker 2: you know? Yeah? So I actually did not read that book.
23:16
Speaker 2: I just I got to come to any read Itoka,
23:18
Speaker 2: but he did publish that book. It's also interesting to
23:21
Speaker 2: note that the AFA, the American Family Association, was in
23:24
Speaker 2: the radio station business as well. They had a couple
23:27
Speaker 2: hundred and radio stations across thirty three states, and Dot
23:30
Speaker 2: Gallagher will end up going on the radio a lot.
23:32
Speaker 2: So I was curious when I read that if that
23:34
Speaker 2: was sort of like the beginning of his interest in
23:36
Speaker 2: radio shows. But I don't know for sure if that's true.
23:39
Speaker 2: I do know when he published his book, he did
23:42
Speaker 2: a lot of like radio interviews and talked on the
23:44
Speaker 2: radio promoting the book, and it seems like he was
23:46
Speaker 2: really good at it, like he really took to the
23:48
Speaker 2: radio's he just had that personality for it. He and
23:51
Speaker 2: his wife have multiple children, including one adopted son. They
23:54
Speaker 2: moved to Memphis and he becomes a securities broker and
23:58
Speaker 2: then eventually back to tech says the Fort Worth area.
24:01
Speaker 2: He gets a job with A G. Edwards, which eventually
24:04
Speaker 2: becomes part of Wells Fargo, and he's a securities broker
24:07
Speaker 2: and he starts to kind of just like build up
24:10
Speaker 2: his business and his notoriety in the area. He claims
24:14
Speaker 2: that he studied under Zig Ziggler, who is a famous salesman,
24:18
Speaker 2: author and motivational speaker who has like a ton of books.
24:21
Speaker 2: Zig Ziggler, zig Ziggler. So this is the nineties and
24:25
Speaker 2: William Neil Gallagher he founded Gallagher, a financial group, and
24:28
Speaker 2: he starts going on local Christian radio stations. There's four
24:32
Speaker 2: stations that he has shows on regularly. I'm pretty sure
24:35
Speaker 2: these are paid programs that he's paying for. And he
24:39
Speaker 2: comes up with a name for himself, Doc Gallagher. It's
24:42
Speaker 2: the money Doctor.
24:43
Speaker 1: We love a nickname that you gave yourself.
24:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know the confidence and I mean he is
24:49
Speaker 2: a doctor. Technically he has a doctor's a buck for sure,
24:53
Speaker 2: he's a dot. And so he starts promoting his business
24:56
Speaker 2: on the radio and some of his old radio show
25:00
Speaker 2: are unsoundcloud that you can go listen to if anyone
25:03
Speaker 2: is inclined. People have said that it was a lot
25:05
Speaker 2: of promotion, like he would give financial advice and he
25:08
Speaker 2: would talk to different financial people, but mostly it was
25:11
Speaker 2: just to promote himself and his business and to try
25:15
Speaker 2: to get more clients.
25:17
Speaker 1: But his education, his background is in you know, religion
25:21
Speaker 1: and philosophy. Yeah, copy just wanted to make sure I
25:24
Speaker 1: was tracking that religion and philosophy.
25:26
Speaker 2: That is correct. Yeah, that's important to note because it's
25:29
Speaker 2: not like he has an MBA. It's not like he
25:32
Speaker 2: has a degree in finance, let's be clear. But his
25:36
Speaker 2: whole approach is like Christian investing. So he sort of like,
25:41
Speaker 2: let Jesus determine your financial investments. I don't really understand
25:46
Speaker 2: how that tracks necessarily, but it was clear that he
25:49
Speaker 2: was going after a very specific demographic of people who
25:53
Speaker 2: were politically conservative, who are really religious, really Christian. You
25:57
Speaker 2: know it still is today, but it was becoming such
25:59
Speaker 2: a big deal in the US. There was like a
26:02
Speaker 2: moral panic, right, and so his whole thing was like
26:05
Speaker 2: invest with me, and it'll be like a moral investment,
26:09
Speaker 2: Like I'm going to invest your money in ways that
26:11
Speaker 2: God would approve of.
26:12
Speaker 1: And if you're a deeply religious person, like that would
26:15
Speaker 1: resonate with you. Yeah, I mean you would want someone
26:17
Speaker 1: with a shared value system, yes.
26:19
Speaker 2: And so this was a huge selling point actually, and
26:21
Speaker 2: it really seemed to work, like he really understood the
26:25
Speaker 2: people and the culture that he was living in and
26:27
Speaker 2: was really good at getting people to trust him and
26:30
Speaker 2: like him. But then he hit some trouble in nineteen
26:34
Speaker 2: ninety nine, he was reprimanded by the Texas State Securities
26:39
Speaker 2: Board for allegedly falsifying records and representing himself as an
26:44
Speaker 2: investment advisor. They opened an investigation into him, and essentially,
26:50
Speaker 2: like they charged him twenty five thousand dollars fine and
26:53
Speaker 2: he had to give up his broker's license in two
26:56
Speaker 2: thousand and one.
26:57
Speaker 1: You don't want that, no, how many people do you
26:59
Speaker 1: know how much money was invested into his company at
27:03
Speaker 1: this time.
27:03
Speaker 2: At this point, I'm not sure, but he ended up
27:06
Speaker 2: selling his brokerage firm Okay for an undisclosed amount of money,
27:09
Speaker 2: and he then switches focus to non securities investments, and
27:14
Speaker 2: he's still advertising on the radio at this point. One
27:17
Speaker 2: of his sons is working with him, and his son
27:20
Speaker 2: basically said this was a huge blow for him, mainly
27:26
Speaker 2: because it was important for him to have this really
27:29
Speaker 2: good reputation. He wanted to be very successful and seen
27:33
Speaker 2: as very successful, so this was embarrassing for him. And
27:38
Speaker 2: I should also say his son was never charged with
27:40
Speaker 2: any wrongdoing, but he was working with his father, but
27:43
Speaker 2: it kind of seems like he didn't really know what
27:45
Speaker 2: was going on. It seems like this is a pretty
27:47
Speaker 2: big turning point. So he starts a new fund, DGI Fund,
27:51
Speaker 2: and it's focused on annuities, which I didn't really know
27:55
Speaker 2: what that was. Can you please tell me? So had
27:58
Speaker 2: to look it up. An annuity is a co track
28:00
Speaker 2: that's issued and distributed by an insurance company and bought
28:03
Speaker 2: by individuals. So it's different than life insurance, which gets
28:07
Speaker 2: paid out after someone dies. This is the insurance company
28:11
Speaker 2: pays out a fixed or variable income stream to the
28:13
Speaker 2: purchaser beginning right away or sometime in the future. So essentially,
28:16
Speaker 2: what he was trying to do was get people his
28:19
Speaker 2: clients to roll over their four oh one k's into annuities,
28:23
Speaker 2: which is something that people do sometimes. Whether or not
28:26
Speaker 2: you think it's a smart idea debatable. I don't know.
28:29
Speaker 2: I'm no expert.
28:30
Speaker 1: Okay, I fairly understand it right now.
28:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. This is his kind of new approach
28:37
Speaker 2: and he's he's still doing well. You know. There was
28:41
Speaker 2: multiple people who were interviewed who were his clients, and
28:45
Speaker 2: they described him, as I've said, as being someone who
28:48
Speaker 2: is like really trustworthy Before someone would invest, he spent
28:52
Speaker 2: a lot of time with them personally. He would come
28:54
Speaker 2: to their home he would talk to them all about
28:57
Speaker 2: his plan for their future. He used words like guarantee.
29:02
Speaker 2: He promised like five percent interests growth with your money
29:06
Speaker 2: every year. And you know, it's a little bit of
29:08
Speaker 2: red flag to use where it's like guarantee and promise
29:10
Speaker 2: when it comes to that, because it's like you never
29:12
Speaker 2: know what's going to happen. And this is the part
29:15
Speaker 2: that's like really heartbreaking. But the majority of his clients
29:19
Speaker 2: that he was targeting are people who are retirement age
29:23
Speaker 2: sixty five plus who have built up these four oh
29:26
Speaker 2: one k's over their whole working careers and are interested
29:32
Speaker 2: in investing their money so that it continues to grow
29:36
Speaker 2: as they're retired for their future and also for the
29:39
Speaker 2: future of their children. So this is like a message
29:43
Speaker 2: that's really appealing to them. Yeah, I want my whole
29:45
Speaker 2: life savings that I've worked for to be safe and
29:48
Speaker 2: to continue to accrue money. You know, it's just so
29:52
Speaker 2: sick that these are the people that he's targeting.
29:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's a time when I think most
29:56
Speaker 1: people are slowing down, Like you're earning less, but you've
29:59
Speaker 1: worked so hard.
30:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, So one little tidbit that was mentioned that I
30:05
Speaker 2: just feel like he's so telling of his personality. As
30:09
Speaker 2: multiple people said, he would like enter a room very
30:14
Speaker 2: like loudly declaring like Bible versus like what this one
30:18
Speaker 2: person was like, he would just like walk in your
30:20
Speaker 2: house and say like this is the day the Lord
30:22
Speaker 2: has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it,
30:25
Speaker 2: which is a quote from the Bible that Christian people
30:28
Speaker 2: would know well. And it's like, regardless of how religious
30:31
Speaker 2: you are, just entering a room loudly, it just I mean,
30:37
Speaker 2: it's like, is this a nervous habit? What's happening here?
30:40
Speaker 2: Someone who enters a room talking is such a specific
30:45
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go ahead and say that's a huge red flag. Yeah.
30:47
Speaker 2: I mean, like there's already people in the room. They
30:50
Speaker 2: might be talking about something else, but someone entering in
30:52
Speaker 2: a room talking like clearly doesn't care about what's happening
30:56
Speaker 2: in that room. And they're like I'm here, I'm the
30:58
Speaker 2: center of attention. You got to pay attention to me.
31:01
Speaker 2: It's just like taking up so much space. Yeah, but
31:04
Speaker 2: I do think it's kind of like how if you're
31:07
Speaker 2: going to get surgery, I feel like, okay, like my
31:11
Speaker 2: mom had surgery a few years back, and I remember
31:13
Speaker 2: her surgeon was kind of like this same type of person,
31:17
Speaker 2: so confident, so sort of extremely self assured. He was
31:21
Speaker 2: sort of like, I'm the best in the state. Da
31:23
Speaker 2: da da, And I was like, great, I love to
31:26
Speaker 2: hear this. And I don't even care if he was
31:29
Speaker 2: being truthful at that time or not. It was like,
31:32
Speaker 2: there's a certain type of situation where someone being like
31:35
Speaker 2: so overly confident can feel really reassuring. And I think
31:40
Speaker 2: that in this situation, probably that's how people felt that
31:44
Speaker 2: They were like, look, this is my money. This is
31:46
Speaker 2: like something that I want someone who like really knows
31:49
Speaker 2: what they're doing to handle.
31:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great point. You definitely don't want a
31:54
Speaker 1: surgeon who's like I feel good about it. I feel
31:58
Speaker 1: good about it.
31:58
Speaker 2: I think we're good. Yeah. Yeah, No, you don't know.
32:01
Speaker 2: You don't want to hear that. You don't want to
32:02
Speaker 2: hear any hesitation.
32:03
Speaker 1: Actually, I didn't even like when the pilot comes out
32:06
Speaker 1: after the flight and says by to you, I'm like,
32:08
Speaker 1: I don't want to think about you at all, like
32:10
Speaker 1: they you know, they step out of their Yeah, oh
32:12
Speaker 1: I not fish are good. It was off cockpit where
32:15
Speaker 1: they fly the plane weird saying the word cockpit honestly
32:18
Speaker 1: like the stout they wave goodbye to you, and I'm
32:21
Speaker 1: just like, I just want to think of a robot.
32:24
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, I don't want to think of a human
32:26
Speaker 1: up there at all, Like what if you're just having,
32:28
Speaker 1: you know, in a hard day.
32:29
Speaker 2: No, thanks, I don't even I can't even say it. Yeah,
32:32
Speaker 2: I feel like opposite in a way where when they
32:35
Speaker 2: step out there, I'm looking at them like, oh, look
32:37
Speaker 2: they're a normal person and they were able to fly
32:39
Speaker 2: this plane, and that makes me feel a little safer
32:41
Speaker 2: think of normal people. No, No, we could go off
32:46
Speaker 2: and do a whole other podcast. Yeah flying, And I
32:49
Speaker 2: get you on a flight tomorrow, so, oh god, you're
32:51
Speaker 2: going to be great. I hear a robot is going
32:53
Speaker 2: to be flying it perfect. Okay, So he's doing great.
32:57
Speaker 2: He's getting a lot of clients. He goes on to
33:00
Speaker 2: publish later on two more books. He publishes a book
33:02
Speaker 2: called The Money Doctor's Guide to Taking care of Yourself
33:05
Speaker 2: when no One else will in two thousand and five,
33:07
Speaker 2: and then later on in twenty sixteen, he publishes Jesus
33:11
Speaker 2: Christ Money Master for Eternal Truths that deliver personal power
33:15
Speaker 2: and profit, and that's all about putting your financial future
33:19
Speaker 2: in Jesus's hands. Part of his messaging when he does
33:23
Speaker 2: these radio programs is that he's like railing against big
33:27
Speaker 2: financial institutions. So it's kind of tying into that mindset
33:31
Speaker 2: of like Wall Street is bad, big cities are bad,
33:35
Speaker 2: They're like these liberal elites. And he sort of spins
33:37
Speaker 2: his backstory because he's from New York City, he has
33:41
Speaker 2: a PhD. He's like, I've been to the dark side.
33:44
Speaker 2: I've seen what it's like, and I have you know,
33:47
Speaker 2: I've changed my mind. I've come around and I'm here
33:49
Speaker 2: for you. Now. These big financial institutions are not going
33:53
Speaker 2: to take care of your money, but I will. So
33:56
Speaker 2: you should divest from them and just like entrust me
34:00
Speaker 2: with your money.
34:01
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a romantic idea. It's like if you're
34:03
Speaker 1: in a small town, a small community, and you meet
34:07
Speaker 1: someone who goes to the same church as you or
34:10
Speaker 1: has the same belief system as you do, and you
34:14
Speaker 1: see their energy in a room and you're like, yeah,
34:16
Speaker 1: like I want to be able to call up the
34:19
Speaker 1: guy handling my money, yeah and know him.
34:22
Speaker 2: Oh one hundred percent, as opposed to some big corporation,
34:26
Speaker 2: and so I think there's something really appealing about that,
34:28
Speaker 2: and Dot Gallagher was portraying that he was that way.
34:32
Speaker 2: He also loved a good photo op.
34:33
Speaker 1: You know.
34:34
Speaker 2: He would often send his investors' emails that were sort
34:36
Speaker 2: of like updates about their investments, but they would also
34:40
Speaker 2: include like photos of him volunteering at a shelter or
34:43
Speaker 2: like a photo with Joel Austin. Former clients say that
34:46
Speaker 2: he didn't pressure them too hard to invest. It was
34:49
Speaker 2: kind of a long game, like he would start off
34:50
Speaker 2: by giving them good financial advice and then build their
34:53
Speaker 2: trust and then eventually convince them to invest like their
34:57
Speaker 2: whole savings with him. There was one couple that talked
35:00
Speaker 2: about rolling over their four oh one K, and then
35:03
Speaker 2: after a while, you know, he through talking to them,
35:06
Speaker 2: realized that they also had this separate amount of money
35:09
Speaker 2: that was an inheritance that they had gotten, and he
35:12
Speaker 2: then starts working on them to like give him that money.
35:16
Speaker 2: And they looked into it and they were like, well,
35:18
Speaker 2: actually gonna get a pretty big fee if we take
35:21
Speaker 2: this money out. It's going to cost us like thirteen
35:23
Speaker 2: thousand dollars. So I think we'll keep it in there
35:25
Speaker 2: and then he came in with the hard pitch and
35:27
Speaker 2: was like, you're gonna end up making so much money
35:30
Speaker 2: with me that that thirteen k will be like meaningless.
35:32
Speaker 2: So you're going to make so much more money. So
35:34
Speaker 2: they did, oh, turn it all over, So okay, we're
35:39
Speaker 2: going back to this Texas Department of Insurance podcast. They
35:42
Speaker 2: interviewed Steve Richardson, who was an investigator for the Texas
35:45
Speaker 2: Department of Insurance. In twenty fifteen, he got a call
35:49
Speaker 2: from someone at Alliance Insurance. Someone at Alliance had flagged
35:53
Speaker 2: something that was happening with one of their clients. One
35:55
Speaker 2: of their clients had an annuity fund with them, and
35:59
Speaker 2: Dot Gallager was her financial advisor. This client actually had
36:02
Speaker 2: Alzheimer's and so her son was her power of attorney.
36:07
Speaker 2: But they started seeing these requests come through to withdraw
36:11
Speaker 2: money from this annuity account, and this person working at
36:14
Speaker 2: Alliance was like, this is strange. So she called up
36:17
Speaker 2: this woman's son who was his power of attorney, and asked,
36:19
Speaker 2: did you make these withdrawals because each of them would
36:22
Speaker 2: come with like a pretty large fee. And he was like,
36:24
Speaker 2: I have no idea what you're talking about. No, don't
36:26
Speaker 2: do the withdrawal. Oh no, So then she was like
36:29
Speaker 2: denied the request. But then the request kept coming through
36:32
Speaker 2: and they were coming from Dot Gallagher. He was trying
36:35
Speaker 2: to pull money out of this woman's account. So instead
36:38
Speaker 2: of alerting Dot Gallagher, she called up the Texas Department
36:41
Speaker 2: of Insurance and spoke to their investigator, Steve Richardson. Steve
36:45
Speaker 2: started to investigate this. He subpoenaed Gallagher's bank accounts, and
36:50
Speaker 2: he starts just like taking a look to see what's
36:52
Speaker 2: going on, and he said that fairly quickly. He was like,
36:56
Speaker 2: this looks like a Ponzi scheme. I see money coming
36:58
Speaker 2: out of his client's account into his account. I don't
37:01
Speaker 2: see that money being invested. And then I see some
37:03
Speaker 2: money being paid back to these clients, just enough to
37:06
Speaker 2: be like, look for their money. Yeah, monthly dividend payments.
37:10
Speaker 2: And he was giving his clients those monthly dividend payments, right,
37:14
Speaker 2: they weren't actually dividend payments, right. And then he was
37:17
Speaker 2: sending his clients monthly reports about how their investments were
37:21
Speaker 2: doing that were like doctored. Doctor Gallagher was waiting for
37:26
Speaker 2: one of us to say that, yeah, okay, good. So
37:30
Speaker 2: Steve Richardsons talks about how he starts this investigation, and
37:33
Speaker 2: he said it was quite difficult to get any attraction
37:35
Speaker 2: because as he was interviewing Dot Gallagher's clients, none of
37:39
Speaker 2: them thought anything was wrong. So he was interviewing them,
37:42
Speaker 2: asking them, what's going on with your investments, and all
37:44
Speaker 2: of them were like, no, it's great, it's great. He's
37:46
Speaker 2: doing really good job. I'm getting my monthly dividends. Like,
37:49
Speaker 2: we don't have any problems. I think you're wrong. There's
37:51
Speaker 2: nothing going on here. So, like he's having a hard
37:54
Speaker 2: time getting any traction with this investigation because none of
37:58
Speaker 2: the quote unquote victims. I mean they are victims, but
38:01
Speaker 2: they're like no, like what are you talking about.
38:02
Speaker 1: They also have a personal relationship with this person, and
38:05
Speaker 1: so if you were to like say, actually, let's talk
38:09
Speaker 1: about it, you might think you're throwing someone under the bus,
38:12
Speaker 1: Like well, I can just call him and figure it out.
38:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And who's this guy, this random guy who's
38:17
Speaker 2: investigating Yeah. Cut to twenty seventeen, so that's two years later.
38:21
Speaker 2: This couple named James and Carol Herman. They had invested
38:24
Speaker 2: almost seven hundred thousand dollars with Dot Gallagher and who
38:27
Speaker 2: was DGI fund. But then in twenty seventeen, Carol, who
38:30
Speaker 2: was a nurse, she had an injury that made it
38:33
Speaker 2: hard for her to keep working. So they contacted Dot
38:36
Speaker 2: Gallagher and they asked him to double their monthly with
38:39
Speaker 2: draws because they needed that money. He just like flat
38:42
Speaker 2: out refused and then he started to kind of avoid them.
38:45
Speaker 2: She grew concerned, so she tried to withdraw one hundred
38:49
Speaker 2: thousand dollars and he would not let her. She said
38:52
Speaker 2: every time that she would call him and ask, he
38:54
Speaker 2: would sort of make an excuse and then he would
38:56
Speaker 2: send her flowers or candy or a fruit bat. So
39:01
Speaker 2: eventually James and Carroll go to him in person, basically
39:04
Speaker 2: corner him and strong arm him basically to giving them
39:06
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand dollars of their money back, and then
39:09
Speaker 2: they immediately go After they leave his office, they go
39:12
Speaker 2: to the Hearst Police and make a report. So it's
39:14
Speaker 2: the Hearst Police who eventually contacts Steve Richardson in twenty
39:18
Speaker 2: seventeen because he sees that he had already kind of
39:21
Speaker 2: started an investigation, and he confirms that I think we
39:25
Speaker 2: have more evidence that this is happening. So they coordinate
39:28
Speaker 2: with the Security and Exchange Commission in Texas and basically
39:32
Speaker 2: it all unravels and by twenty nineteen they had gathered
39:37
Speaker 2: overwhelming evidence of fraud. The sec filed a complaint that
39:42
Speaker 2: accused Gallagher of misappropriating almost twenty million dollars oh from
39:49
Speaker 2: a variety of investors. This number is sixty investors, and
39:52
Speaker 2: I don't know if that was the final number, but
39:55
Speaker 2: it all came crashing down. You know, he pled guilty.
39:58
Speaker 2: He had two different charges. He had a charge to
40:00
Speaker 2: Dallas that was for securities fraud and he received a
40:03
Speaker 2: twenty five year sentence in state prison for that. And
40:07
Speaker 2: then there was a second charge and he pled guilty
40:10
Speaker 2: to that while it was for fraud and theft, and
40:13
Speaker 2: that was in Terrent County, Texas. And that judge he
40:16
Speaker 2: kind of like put himself at the mercy of the
40:19
Speaker 2: judge to say whatever, you know, sentence he thought would
40:21
Speaker 2: be appropriate. That judge came down really hard on him
40:25
Speaker 2: and gave him three concurrent life sentences. Wow, And I
40:29
Speaker 2: think probably because these are people's life savings. Yeah, Like
40:32
Speaker 2: they cannot just like go have another half of their career.
40:35
Speaker 2: And a lot of the victims were able to speak
40:38
Speaker 2: and like talk about their stories, and it's just so
40:41
Speaker 2: sad because they talked about having to sell their homes,
40:44
Speaker 2: you know, in their seventies and having to like move
40:48
Speaker 2: in with their kids and be financially dependent on them.
40:50
Speaker 2: Like it's so sad, it's so horrible, especially when a
40:53
Speaker 2: lot of them had been very financially responsible their whole lives.
40:57
Speaker 2: I found another source that said the amount of money
40:59
Speaker 2: he took was about twenty four million dollars, and some
41:02
Speaker 2: of it was recovered, but like the majority of it
41:05
Speaker 2: was not. An investigator did a forensic accounting and was
41:09
Speaker 2: trying to locate the money. But he said that there
41:12
Speaker 2: was just a lot of really strange choices and dubious
41:16
Speaker 2: investments that he had put money into, like apparently a
41:20
Speaker 2: fraudulent gold mining business, as well as investing in a
41:24
Speaker 2: company called Hovering Biotechnologies, which was like supposedly a hovercraft business.
41:29
Speaker 1: So he was taking his client's money and then making
41:35
Speaker 1: bad investment decisions that he thought would benefit him.
41:39
Speaker 2: I don't know what he thought he was making, like
41:42
Speaker 2: ridiculous investment choices. And then the Bloomberg article talked about
41:48
Speaker 2: the appearance that some of the money went through a
41:50
Speaker 2: woman named Debbie Carter. So Gail Gallagher's wife did end
41:55
Speaker 2: up divorcing him because it came out that well, I mean,
41:57
Speaker 2: he was arrested for this, but also he had been
42:00
Speaker 2: having an affair with Debbie Carter. She was a former
42:04
Speaker 2: securities broker and she had worked with Dot Gallagher back
42:07
Speaker 2: at AG Edwards in the nineties and then later worked
42:11
Speaker 2: for him. Then she had been at day Star Television Network,
42:14
Speaker 2: which is a Christian channel that also is really big
42:17
Speaker 2: into the prosperity Gospels, the idea that if you are
42:20
Speaker 2: right with God, you will be making money, and so
42:23
Speaker 2: it seems like she was somehow involved as well. But
42:27
Speaker 2: still ultimately the search for all of the money was unsuccessful.
42:32
Speaker 2: So I actually spoke with this woman on the phone.
42:37
Speaker 2: I'll call her Martha. She was really kind. She was
42:41
Speaker 2: one of his victims. She lives in Texas. She's lived
42:44
Speaker 2: in her home for over fifty years. She's eighty one,
42:46
Speaker 2: and this was so devastating to her. She said her
42:50
Speaker 2: memory is not what it used to be, so she
42:51
Speaker 2: didn't want to do an interview, but she talked about
42:55
Speaker 2: how she's not over it at all, Like she said
42:58
Speaker 2: that she was a single mom because her husband left her.
43:01
Speaker 2: She's been divorced for thirty three years. She really struggled.
43:05
Speaker 2: She had to work multiple jobs to stay afloat and
43:07
Speaker 2: to keep her home. And then at some point she
43:10
Speaker 2: unexpectedly received some inheritance from an aunt and uncle that
43:14
Speaker 2: she had who didn't have children, and that was about
43:16
Speaker 2: three hundred thousand dollars to her. This was huge. This
43:19
Speaker 2: was like the biggest break that she'd had in her life,
43:21
Speaker 2: and she was really responsible with it. She had some
43:24
Speaker 2: of it in her bank, and then she had it
43:26
Speaker 2: invested in different locations. But at some point, you know,
43:29
Speaker 2: around her retirement, she became convinced that it was a
43:32
Speaker 2: good idea to have it all in one location, and
43:34
Speaker 2: so she asked around in her town and she had
43:38
Speaker 2: multiple people recommend her to Dot Gallagher. She had people
43:42
Speaker 2: at her church as well as at a retirement home
43:44
Speaker 2: that she was involved with. And these were again people
43:48
Speaker 2: from her community that she trusted.
43:49
Speaker 1: And that's all we have, right because like most of
43:52
Speaker 1: us are not experts in this kind of thing. I
43:55
Speaker 1: feel like I've tried to educate myself on how to
43:58
Speaker 1: like invest, and even with so much information on her fingertips.
44:02
Speaker 1: Now it's still confusing. And so she's in a little
44:05
Speaker 1: town and this is a windfall, and she's just going
44:07
Speaker 1: to people she trusts for advice. Yeah, and she wants
44:10
Speaker 1: this to set her up for the rest of her
44:12
Speaker 1: life as well as be something for her daughter. And
44:15
Speaker 1: she said that she got regular statements from him, and
44:18
Speaker 1: she got her regular monthly payments, and she had no
44:20
Speaker 1: idea that anything was wrong. She was just out about
44:23
Speaker 1: in town one day and someone was like, did you
44:25
Speaker 1: hear about Dot Gallagher? Oh, and she was just like,
44:29
Speaker 1: you know, her stomach dropped, and this is how she
44:31
Speaker 1: heard about it. And she said that she basically lost everything.
44:35
Speaker 1: She said that they had been able to get the
44:36
Speaker 1: victims like some small payouts, but because there were so
44:39
Speaker 1: many victims that the amount you got back was just
44:42
Speaker 1: very small. So she said she lost over five hundred
44:45
Speaker 1: thousand dollars like her entire savings, which just kind of
44:48
Speaker 1: makes you feel sick to your stomach. Yeah, I mean
44:50
Speaker 1: a single parent too. Just everything she had already been
44:54
Speaker 1: through and then you put your trust in someone just horrible,
44:58
Speaker 1: and like thinking about Doc Gallagher and how he paid
45:03
Speaker 1: Martha these monthly statements it's like he had a whole
45:07
Speaker 1: system going of deceiving people.
45:10
Speaker 2: To be able to keep.
45:11
Speaker 1: Track of that. That just shows so much thought into
45:15
Speaker 1: what you're doing. It's not like, oh, it just got
45:18
Speaker 1: away from me. It's like at every single month you're
45:21
Speaker 1: sitting out in your computer and typing up these lies
45:24
Speaker 1: and sending them out and deceiving people. It's like that's
45:27
Speaker 1: more than just you know, you got in over your head.
45:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard to understand how he justified that in
45:33
Speaker 2: his own mind, But so what can you really do?
45:36
Speaker 2: I think like you can look up people's licenses online now,
45:41
Speaker 2: so like the fact that he had his license revoked
45:44
Speaker 2: in two thousand and one would have been information that
45:46
Speaker 2: was available online. But I don't know that the demographic
45:49
Speaker 2: of people he was scamming maybe would know how to
45:51
Speaker 2: look that up. But that is something to think about
45:54
Speaker 2: now for people who have financial advisors and who are
45:59
Speaker 2: trusting people with their investments, is that you can look
46:02
Speaker 2: up their licensed status online. I do have a recommendation.
46:07
Speaker 2: I'm on episode two of the Telepathy tapes. Yeah, so
46:12
Speaker 2: this is a podcast that a lot of people are
46:14
Speaker 2: talking about for good reason. It's super like unique subject
46:19
Speaker 2: matter The podcast goes into how nonverbal people diagnosed with
46:24
Speaker 2: autism are communicating, possibly through telepathy, and it's I think
46:29
Speaker 2: a really unique exploration of like consciousness and I'm enjoying it.
46:35
Speaker 2: I have listened to almost all of the first season
46:37
Speaker 2: of the Telepathy. Yeah, okay, so you're ahead of me.
46:40
Speaker 2: But now I think it's such a good recommendation. I
46:41
Speaker 2: actually don't have a recommendation today, so I'll just second
46:45
Speaker 2: your recommendation. I've never actually heard a podcast like this
46:49
Speaker 2: before in my whole life. I'll say that. Yeah. Same,
46:52
Speaker 2: It's like pretty mind blowing. I was reading about it
46:56
Speaker 2: on Reddit actually because I was like, what are people
46:59
Speaker 2: saying about this? And it's very mixed, it's very controversial.
47:04
Speaker 2: There's definitely people who are like, this is not real.
47:06
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean I can imagine, Yeah, I need
47:09
Speaker 1: to like look into this reddit thread.
47:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I sort of feel like it is.
47:15
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot that I think is dismissed
47:19
Speaker 1: in a child when they are non speaking, that we
47:22
Speaker 1: shouldn't be doing that because we really don't know.
47:24
Speaker 2: That's such a good point. It's like, I don't want
47:26
Speaker 2: to say too much about it because you don't want
47:28
Speaker 2: to give it away, but it is really interesting. It's
47:29
Speaker 2: definitely worth a listen. I think that's a great recommendation.
47:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were recommended by a friend of ours and
47:34
Speaker 1: I don't think I would have ever clicked on it.
47:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'm glad to be listening. It's not true crime.
47:39
Speaker 2: If you've you know, had that's true crime for the day.
47:43
Speaker 2: Check out the telepathy tapes. Well, that's our episode for
47:46
Speaker 2: today and we will be back with you next week.
47:48
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. If you have a story for us,
47:53
Speaker 1: we would love to hear it. Our email is The
47:55
Speaker 1: Knife at exactly Rightmedia dot com, or you can follow
47:58
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at the Knife Podcast or a.
48:01
Speaker 2: Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast. This has been an
48:03
Speaker 2: Exactly Right production hosted and produced by me Hannah Smith
48:07
Speaker 2: and me Paytia Eaton.
48:08
Speaker 1: Our producers are Tom Bryfogel and Alexis Samarosi.
48:12
Speaker 2: This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel. Our associate producer
48:15
Speaker 2: is Christina Chamberlain. Our theme music is by Birds in
48:18
Speaker 2: the Airport, artwork by Vanessa Lilac. Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff,
48:22
Speaker 2: Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.