Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Short Stuff: The Death of Charles Morgan

Transcript

Short Stuff: The Death of Charles Morgan · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: He's older and fifty it turns out, and there's Jerry,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and this is short stuff and let's go.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: This is the case of a sort of a lesser known,
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: unsolved true crime murder. In fact, yeah, I hope that
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: didn't spoil anything. I don't think in this thing you
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: put together called it bizarre. I take issue with that.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's bizarre at all. But it is
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: unsolved and interesting.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, I think when you yes, you're right, No, it's
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: not bizarre, but it.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Had the episode of the Sopranos.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: To me, it is unsung in that it doesn't even
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: have a Wikipedia page, no mention whatsoever on all of Wikipedia,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: which is very surprising. But we're talking about the death
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: of a man named Charles C. Morgan who died in
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: May of nineteen seventy seven in the desert outside of Tucson, Arizona,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and his death was, like you said, almost certainly a murder,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: but it was pronounced suicide by the local sheriff, even
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: though the coroner was like, I don't know what this was.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Everyone else on the planet will tell you it's a murder,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: especially once you know the details, which we're going to
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: get into right now.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, let's just describe the crime scene. This guy
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: was found deceased at the scene wearing a bulletproof vest
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: from a gunshot wound from his own handgun to the
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: back of his head, and it did not have his
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: fingerprints on his own gun.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: And it was laid beside his body.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So the sheriff was like, well, it looks like
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: a suicide to me.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: You know, the guy put on surgical gloves and you know,
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: shot himself in the back of the head, as one does,
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: and then managed somehow to take those gloves off and hide.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Them exactly before me. He said, let's go get lunch.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: His wife said, no, there's no way that this was
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: a suicide.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: That's impossible.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: And now we're going to tell you a little bit
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: about Charles Morgan and things will become pretty clear as
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: we do.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So he was an Escro agent, and the Escro agent,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: as anyone who's ever bought a house knows, is the
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: person who holds the money. Yeah, they're this impartial third
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: party who follows a set of rules about keeping and
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: dispersing money. And basically once the sale of some high
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: value thing, almost always real estate, but sometimes things like
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: if you're buying a bunch of gold or you're buying
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: a private jet or something like that, there's going to
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: be an Escro agent involved because you don't just hand
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: over the money and hope for the best. And then
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: once everybody's signed and all the stuff is legal and set,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: then the money gets sent out, but they hold it
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: in escrow. And by being an Escro agent, not just
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Charles Morgan, but any escrow agent, I think even still
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: today is in a really good position to help organize crime,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: launder money.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like just putting money in escrow all of a sudden,
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: it's got a little bit more legitimacy to it. Yeah,
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: it's not the most regulated industry, so it's a little
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: easier to get away with something like that, probably as
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: an escrow agent, or at least certainly it was in
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: nineteen seventy seven. Yeah, and that's what he was doing.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: It seems like it, you know, from all accounts, it
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: didn't seem like he was a bad dude. It seems
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: like somebody maybe like in a Sopranos episode where he
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: got in a little over his head, maybe ended up
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: feeling like he had to do certain things once the
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: mafia got their you know, their finger in his pie.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: What good one, man, I love that. That's the best
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: one since sniff them off the case.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Oh man, that's wonderful.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: As it was coming out of my mouth, I knew
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: that it was not right.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Seventeen years in and you're still you're still doing it. Man.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that. But he was doing this for the mafia.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: And there's a a journalist for Unsolved Mysteries at the
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: time named Don Devereaux who basically was like, this guy
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: was helping the mafia launder money through Arizona as an
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: ESCRO agent, like by buying and selling platinum and gold
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: is how they were doing it.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because again, like you said, just taking tainted money
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: made from selling drugs, you put it in an escrow account.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: It gives it legitimacy if the Escro agent isn't asking
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: where it came from from that point forward. Once it's
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: in the Escro account, that's when the paper trail really
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: kind of starts. So if they use that money to
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: buy legitimately buy legal gold and platinum and then turn
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: around and sell that that illicit drug money just became
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: legitimate in the eyes of everybody, thanks again in part
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: with the help of Charles C. Morgan. And did you
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: say he oversaw a billion dollars with the transactions in
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: the few years he was doing this. I did not
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: a billion dollars. That's what Don Devereux estimated that journalists
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: for unsolved mysteries. And like you said, he was a
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: good guy. That's the sad part of all of this.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: He wasn't some scumbagg he wasn't a scale He seems
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: to have gotten in over his head. He was definitely
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: helping the mafia launder their money or organize crime. But
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: he was also a dedicated family man who cared very
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: much about the safety of his family. And I say
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: we take a break and come back and really kind
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: of get into the sad story of Charles Morgan's death.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Let's do it.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, So surely there's other people out there who know
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: much more about this and the chain of events that
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: led to this. But if you take it from the
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: the story of Ruth Morgan, Charles Morgan's wife, the whole
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: thing starts in March of nineteen seventy seven, when all
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, one day, Charles Morgan goes missing, and
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: he's missing for three days, and he finally turns back up.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: But when he turns back up, he's not carrying like
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: flowers and chocolate to apologize. He shows up missing a shoe,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: among other things.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's missing a shoe, his hands or zip tied together.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: There are another.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: Set of zip ties that I guess he got out
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: of but on one of his ankles. And she immediately
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: is like, oh my god, the mafia has their.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Fingers in your pie.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: I know what this means.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: He was refusing to speak and wrote down on a
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: piece of paper. And this is the part that I
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: just find interesting and I don't take issue with it,
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: but I'll tell you what I mean. He wrote down
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: that his throat had been painted with a hallucinogenic drug
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: that could either drive him insane or his word, or
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: destroy his nervous system and kill him. So don't call
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: the cops, and don't say anything out loud, and move
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: my car, go hide my car, because I don't want
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: them to know I'm back.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So I get the impression that he wasn't just
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: telling his wife that because they didn't feel like talking
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: to her. I think he was naive enough that somebody
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: told him that they did that. Yeah, he was really
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: worried it was true.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: All right, we're in agreement then, because I don't think
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: that's a thing.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Is it. No? I mean you would still absorb whatever
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: drug through the mucous membranes of your mouth.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: What I really tried to dig up, and again there's
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: just not a lot. Is like, did he experience any
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: you know, drug effects?
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but I did see that Ruth nursed
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: him back to health from different sources, so I don't
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: know what any deal was. He also was handcuffed, so
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: it could have been you know, trauma from that, who knows.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: But he didn't want her to call the cops because,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: like I said, he was dedicated to his family, and
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: he did not. He was so up against the wall
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: that he could not involve the cops. He had to
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: figure out how to do this himself. I mean, like
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: people write entire books about this few week segment of
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Charles C. Morgan's life. That was the kind of trouble
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: he found himself in.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, super scary stuff. Obviously, after about a week,
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: like you said, Ruth had nursed him back to health,
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: and things sort of returned to normal in his life,
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: except that he started wearing a bulletproof vest. He started
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: he grew a beard out to try and kind of
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: disguise himself. He started driving his daughters to and from
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: school every day when they used to walk, because he
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: was worried for their safety.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: And he wouldn't tell his wife what was going on.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: He was just like business as usual.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: And the excuse was like, Hey, I can't tell you
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: what's going on because I had to keep you safe.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: He might have hinted that he was a government agent,
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: but basically Ruth don't.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Ask yeah pretty much. So things kind of, like you said,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: get back to normal a little bit. But that was
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: March of nineteen seventy seven. In May, a few weeks later,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: he suddenly went missing again. And this time, I mean,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine the dread Ruth experience. Like the first time,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: I'm sure she was like where is that Charles, And
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: she had like a rolling pin in her hand or
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: something like that, waiting for him to come home. This time,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: after he showed up the way that he did, after
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: he started wearing a bulletproof vest as scared as he was,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: and then also not letting her in on anything. Him
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: disappearing as second time had to be torture for her.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: I think he was gone nine full days before she
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: got a phone call from an anonymous woman, and it
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: was a bizarre phone call. So let's say that if
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: the whole case wasn't bizarre, Chuck, there's bizarre elements, and
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: this is definitely one of them.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: No, no, for sure.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: I mean this stuff is a little weird. She got
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: the call from a woman who said he's okay, Charles,
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: or I think she called him chuckyman. Chuck is okay,
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: He's all right. She also mentioned Ecclesiastes from the Bible,
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: chapter twelve, verses one through eight. This would pop up
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: again in a second, but I'm sure you went and
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: read Ecclesiastes twelve one through eight as I did.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Weird.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: The only thing I can sum up is that it
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: sounded like some Sam Jackson kind of.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Stuff in pulp fiction.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, kind of like just sort of a scary, ominous
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: Biblical passage as how I interpreted that.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean yeah, but it was also really odd.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure if I had read much more
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: around it, it would have made a little more sense.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: But the end of it being just the way that
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: it did. I think somebody said, like lies, these are
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: all lies at the end, yeah, which is not you know,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: it was just really strange. So yes, I find that
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: bizarre that that was even mentioned. And it also comes
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: up again after that. Right, So, this Ecclesiastes twelve cooling
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: verses one through eighth is also mentioned on a two
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: dollars bill that was found on Charles's body. Chuck's body,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: not you, Chuck. I hate to even say that out loud,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: just the thought is happening to you. Yeah, I appreciate
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: it was on this two dollar bill. He had written
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Ecclesiastes twelve, and then he circled a one and an
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: eight that were in the serial number of this two
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: dollar bill to show reference that this was in verses
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: one through eight.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: That's right. Did you say that was in his underwear?
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: I didn't. I was leaving that for you.
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: It was clipped to the inside of his underwear. The
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: bill also had seven Hispanic last names written on it.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: There was a map showing a known drug smuggling route
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: between Mexico and Tucson. Yeah, and then the founders on
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: that bill, the founders are signing the Declaration of Independence.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: They numbered them one through seven, and then the biblical stuff.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: They also found one of his teeth wrapped up in
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: a handkerchief in the car, So there was a piece
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: of paper with directions of where he was buried in hand,
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: you know, handwritten handwriting, and someone else's sunglasses were in
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: the car.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I've never seen any explanation for what his tooth was
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: doing wrapped up in a handkerchief.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: Maybe they intended to send it as like you would
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: a lopped finger, as a warning, and they have never
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: got around to it.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: That'd be what I would say.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: But why did he have it?
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Well, that's what I'm saying.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, clear someone clearly was out there in the
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: desert with him in that car.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess, but I mean left. There's not really
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: any bigger message that you could send. Rather than leaving
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: his dead, murdered body right by the car, why would
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: you put his tooth and a handkerchief in the car.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: It's just strange to me, you know, I would even
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: go so far as you call it bizarre.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: Here's here's the scene, the two the two mafia guys
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: are driving away and they were like, hey, nobody's ever
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: gonna find this body right, not out here, they're not.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: And you got the tooth to mail to the broad right, Oh, Vinnie,
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: I left the tooth.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: You left the.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Tooth right, He said, I thought you said leave the
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: tooth grabbed the canoli.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: So that's what I think happened. But yeah, that that
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: doesn't make a lot of sense. A couple of days
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: after the body was discovered, a woman called the Sheriff's
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: department said, I am the person who called Ruth Morgan
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: a few days earlier. My name is green Eyes. And
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: they said how pretty and she said thank you, and
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: they said are your ice green? She said, they're actually
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: a shade of blue.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: She said maybe, she.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Said, but that's not important. She said.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: I met with Chuck at a local motel recently. He
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: had been hiding out there for about a week and
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: he was on the run. He had a briefcase, like
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: had a ton of money. He said that someone put
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: a hit out on him and he was getting in
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: touch with the hitman to buy back that contract.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: Obviously that did not happen.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: No, And it's that's really just such a sad twist too,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: because he seems to have spent the last week of
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: his life on the run under the idea that he
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: had some hope. He had hoped that maybe, just maybe
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: he could get out of this by buying that contract
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: back and maybe this would all go away. But it
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: does seem that he did have a contract out in
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: his life for real, that it was because he was
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: informing on the mafia to the FEDS, the Treasury Department specifically,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: so that does seem to have been true. And then
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: that journalist for Unsolved Mysteries, Don Devereaux, he posits, and
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: this makes a lot of sense that the hitman did
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: get in touch with Chuck Morgan and said, I'm afraid
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: to tell you this, but I'm coming to kill you.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: But you can get out of this if you buy
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: the contract. So you pay me what the mob's paying
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: me to kill you, you pay me to not kill you,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: and we'll just call it even. And not only was
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: that a way for this scumbag of a killer to
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: make double the amount on the contract by basically duping
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Charles Morgan into thinking he could buy his way out
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: of it, it also was a great excuse to get
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: him to an isolated spot to hand over the money,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: as it were, but really to murder him out there
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: in the desert. Like that's if you look at it
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: like that, this guy was so in over his head
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: and he was trying so hard to save himself. It's
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: so sad this this is just for some reason, this
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: one really gets me. I don't know if it's because
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: it was recent enough or what, but there's there's just
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: a lot to it that really makes me sad for
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: him and his family.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and also like I feel so bad that that
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: he had that hope that he thought, like, wait a minute,
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: so you'll you'll betray the mafia if I just buy
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: you out of this thing, and they go, right, yeah, totally,
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: that's no big deal, right, and then he actually believed that.
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, what a what a awful way to die
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: desperate and also hopeful at the same time.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: I agreed, there's some other weird stuff to this case.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: So I would suggest that anybody who is interested go
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: check it out. You can read a lot about it.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: And in the meantime, Rip Chuck Morgan and short Stuff
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: is that.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: You Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts, My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: Apple podcasts
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.