The Guy Who Knew a Guy

When Francesca sets out to understand her father’s past, she is faced with a world of crime, silence, and denial. But it’s not just his past she must reckon with; it’s her present, her inheritance of a story no one wanted to tell.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
We all go through childhood wondering who our parents are
when they're not mom or dad. That's why some of
us eavesdrop, sneak into closets and rummage through dresser.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Drawers in secret.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
As adults, we have to decide how much to dig
and how much to let lie.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
That's Francisca Fontana, Award winning reporter for The Wall Street Journal,
an author of the Family Snitch, a daughter's memoir of
truth and lies. Francesca's is a story of being lied
to and gas lip by someone she loves, her own father.
It's also a story about a young woman's resilience and

(00:46):
the ways that her upbringing shaped her. I'm Danny sh
and this is family Secrets, the secrets that are kept
from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the

(01:06):
secrets we keep from ourselves. Tell me about the landscape
of your childhood. Where did you grow up and what
are some of your early memories of just being a
little kid.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
My family's from Chicago, specifically the Southwest side of Chicago.
That's where I grew up until I was ten years old.
My mom was my primary parent, so my early childhood
is really.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
All warm because of her.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
You know, all of the memories of going to Oak
Park and seeing the Frank Lloyd Wright houses and you know,
going to the Field Museum, all of those memories are
very centered around my mother Mia. My first memory, which
I've interrogated a lot to make sure it really is
the earliest, you know, I remember, is my mom and

(01:59):
I leaving my dad. They were together until I was five.
They were never married. They had a complicated relationship. He
was unfaithful, as adults in my life put it. And
I wouldn't say they split up because really what happened
was they got into an argument on Christmas Day when

(02:23):
I was five.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Years old, and we left while he was at work.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
He ran a bodybuilding gym. He was a bodybuilder, He
built motorcycles. So after the argument, he you know, put
on his leather jacket, got on his bike and went
to work. My mom packed up everything she could and
we left. So that's my first memory, and it's prompted
the question in my work as a writer, you know,

(02:49):
who would I be with a different first memory, or
you know, why does my story you know, in my consciousness,
like the narrative of my life really starts there. My
really good core memories revolve around my mother. My dad
was less present. He was more of a special guest

(03:12):
if anything. You know, if this was a sitcom, he
would have, you know, a cameo every so often.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Do you think.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
That that happening on Christmas Day has anything to do
with it being such a core memory? I mean, a
five year old on Christmas is Christmas is a It's
a real thing.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, I mean I still very much believed in the
magic before when I you know, when I got a
little older, six or seven or eight, I started hunting
down proof that Santa's not real. But yeah, I think
that my mom really made everything magical, including holidays, and
so obviously the morning started off with that kind of

(03:54):
magical quality, and my father had started the fight, and
so looking back at it, I could see how this
was just another instance of his problems or sort of
the messes he created bleeding into the world she was
trying to create for me, because she was trying to
keep me very insulated from all of his for lack

(04:18):
of a better word, drama, How did your parents meet?
I didn't know that for a very long time. I
didn't know a lot about my mom's life before she
had me when she was twenty four, and she was
very happy to keep it private. But as I went hunting,

(04:40):
you know, as I went reporting out my life and
where I came from, I found that they had grown
up in the same neighborhood on the southwest side of Chicago.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
My dad was very rough.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
He has tattoos all over of you know, daggers and
thorns and things like that. I only ever saw him
pay for things with a lot of cash, you know,
tied together with a rubber band.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
And my mom was.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Very sweet, very self spoken, and clearly came from what
I thought.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
She must have come from a different world entirely.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
And so it was I never understood, like, why would
you even know him, let alone, you know, be with him.
And it turned out that my mom's family had been
terrorized by this this leader of a gang in their neighborhood,

(05:37):
McKinley Park Brighton Park area of southwest side Chicago. So
when she was, you know, thirteen or fourteen, her older
sister started dating this guy who was the leader of
this neighborhood street gang. And he was also the son
of a Chicago police officer. And he was extremely abusive

(06:01):
and you know, would threaten to kill my mother, to
kill her sister, to kill my grandparents, and would send
her to the hospital or shoot out the windows of
my grandparents' house. And so my mother really grew up
in fear of this man.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
And my dad.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Was good friends with the guy. They would work out
together at my dad's gym called Al's Jim, and she
met my dad. She was probably around, you know, eighteen,
and she really sought protection.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
And I had never really thought that my parents had a.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Love story because I never really even saw them together.
They were always kind of ships crossing in the night.
But certainly I understood that they were not together because
they'd had this like great romantic courtship or anything. But
it was only when I was in a old when
I discovered that really she had sought him out for
protection against this guy that reached tavoc on really her

(07:09):
entire adolescence. And that was something that I finally had
a bit of understanding of, you know, oh, that's how
you end up with someone like Al, because certainly they
had nothing in common aside from like where they grew up,
maybe like what high school they went to. You know,
but so that was certainly a revelation.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
It's so interesting the way that in time, you know,
these pieces of a puzzle can slip into place. I mean,
you're a reporter. Do you think that growing up this way,
like trying to answer for yourself these seemingly unanswerable questions
maybe had something to do with.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
Your growing up and becoming a reporter? Absolutely? I think that.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
If I hadn't become a reporter, I certainly would have
been one in the office hours. You know, I was
incredibly nosy as a kid, and I was always asking questions,
and I could feel when I would be wearing someone down,
like an adult, like my mom. And it didn't just
have to do with my dad, but I do think
that my father being this big question mark in my life,

(08:17):
this person who really I mean quite literally, he appeared
larger than life because he was this massive guy, but
also because there was so much I didn't know about
him that he almost became like this myth and I
really wanted to know who he was when he wasn't
very seldomly showing up to my soccer games or things

(08:38):
like that, and like I remember circling my mom in
our front yard begging to know what the F word was,
because I had gathered what some of the other curse
words were, and I was pleading my case very ardently
that I would not use the word. I just wanted
to know what it was so I wouldn't accidentally say it,

(08:59):
and giving her every reason why she should tell me.
And then I think after some hours she was still
very patient, but eventually I wore her down. And so
I've had that quality since I was a child. It
just so happens that in journalism it's a feature, not
a bug, to be curious, and also to not care
about wearing people down.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah, in a way, I think permission to be nosy,
permission to ask questions it's your.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
Job, yeah, and to question. It's funny.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
In journalism school, I always heard this adage, if your
mother says she loves you, check it out, sort of
meaning even the things that you think beyond a reasonable
doubt to be true, you still have to check.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
You still have to do the work.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
And it just so happened that, like my father, it
really the way that I say it now is like
if your father says he loves you, check it out,
because that's just sort of been my circumstance.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
So in two thousand and three, you're nine years old
and your mother tells you that your father is leaving
Chicago for work. How much was he in your life
between ages five and nine, you know, once they split up,
did you see him, you know, sort of semi regularly

(10:14):
or what was that like?

Speaker 3 (10:15):
Yeah, I saw him.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
The informal schedule was that I would see him pretty
much every other weekend, and on Wednesdays we would go
and get pizza in my neighborhood. My mom moved us
to a suburb of Chicago after we left him, and.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
It was really up to him.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
You know, I was always ready, you know, sitting at
the window waiting for him to come pick me up.
And it was really a coin toss as to whether
he would show up that day or whether he would
you know, call later and say that he got held
up at work or this or that. And so I
did spend time with him. I kind of felt like

(10:57):
I was on a field trip when I would be
with him. You know, we would go to the gym
and I would watch him manage all the machines and
the counter where people were buying you know, gatorade and
stuff and I would go with him to his family's house,
you know, for these big family.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
Dinners and parties and things.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
They have a very tight knit, you know, Mexican Italian
Catholic family, So any big party scene you think of
like the Godfather, it's kind of the vibe. And so
I would be in his world. But I never really
felt like I got to know him, and I knew
that he knew things about me too, Like I would

(11:38):
tell him if we were, you know, at toys r Us,
I would be chattering and chattering about, you know, what
action figure I was going to get. I never really
called him dad when I was a kid. It always
felt a little forced.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
To call him dad.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
But I wasn't about to go say, you know, hey,
Albert coming out of a you know, a seven year
old's mouth, that that's a little jarring.

Speaker 3 (11:59):
So I kind of would just.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Tap him on the shoulder or wait for his attention.
I knew he was my dad. I knew he loved
me because he said he did. But I really kind
of felt like when I was in his world, I
was just you know, it was like being at a
museum or something when.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
Your mom tells you that he's leaving Chicago when you're nine.
Do you remember that moment?

Speaker 3 (12:23):
Yes, yeah, it was cold out.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
I remember because my dad and I had spent the
afternoon together that day. It was one of the days,
probably on one of his weekends, you know that we
went to the Toy Story, we went to Portillo's and
got fries.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
We'd spent the day together.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
He'd bought me a PlayStation two and like a SIMS game,
And so I came home, had the best day with
my dad. And then a little later on in the evening,
I was in my room and my mom came in
and said that she had something to tell me, and
that my dad had called and he was leaving.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
Chicago soon for a work trip.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
And she didn't know anything beyond that, she didn't know
how long he'd be gone, or necessarily where he was going,
or when he'd be back. And I remember thinking three things.
I thought, that's too bad. I had a really nice
time with him today, and I don't always get to

(13:28):
see him as it is, so now you know, who
knows how long it'll be until I see him again.
And then I thought we were just together all day?
Did he just find out? Did something happen between him?
Dropping me off, and when he called my mom, like
he must have known earlier today, why didn't he tell
me himself? And then I thought a work trip him,

(13:54):
you know, like my like my dad. I had never
seen him where, you know, any other than like cut
off jeans and like a T shirt. And I had
seen on TV dads that went on work trips seemed
to wear suit jackets and Carrie a briefcase. I kind
of knew in my head this is a guy who

(14:15):
builds motorcycles and works out with friends, and I just
wasn't buying it.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
In my head, it made no sense.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
I believe it was probably as soon as the next
day my mom told me he's going to prison.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
Were you relentlessly asking her questions or did she sort
of reach a point of just realizing that she needed
to tell you what was actually happening.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
That's so funny that you asked that, because I think
this was one time in my childhood.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
Where I kind of let it lie.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
You know, I was having all of those thoughts, and
I could tell, you know, by my mom's face, that
this was serious and she wanted to make sure I
was okay, and so I told, oh, okay, thanks for
telling me, and then I kind of went back to
setting up my computer game, and I kind of was
turning it over in my head, and I think that,
you know, the next morning, when she told me, you know,

(15:07):
I have more to tell you. He's not going for work,
He's going to prison, I think.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
She beat me to the punch. Really, when you're.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
A kid, you generally trust what adults tell you, right,
And one enduring truth of my life at that time,
and you know it endures to this day, is that
I knew my mom would never deceive me. You know,
she would never try to pull a trick on me
or lie to me. And so that's where it gave

(15:36):
me serious pause to think, like, I don't believe her,
and I always believe her, and so I think that,
you know, by the next day, she had sort of
come to terms with the little information she was given
and figuring out the age appropriate way to tell me,
you know, what was going to happen.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
So at that time, did you ask your mom questions
about why he was going to prison? And also it
sort of really begs the question. He had just spent
the day with you, and he certainly knew that he
was about to be going to prison. Yes, And he

(16:13):
left it to your mom to tell you, not to
tell you himself.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
Right, And that was part of the course when it
came to my dad in difficult truths. I think, for instance,
when I was around six years old, I found out
that my dad, in one of those times that he'd
been unfaithful to my mom. As people put it, he'd
had a kid with another woman when I was two

(16:38):
years old, and I found out because we'd been invited
to the same Halloween party that was being thrown at
my grandparents house. And I knew I have a lot
of cousins, you know, my dad has had nine siblings
in all, but I knew all of them. And then
this other child shows up and I don't know him,

(17:00):
everyone else does, and I'm like, who's this kid?

Speaker 3 (17:02):
And then my dad took me into another room and
explained it.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Always felt like he would do everything in his power
to not, you know, be in the room when something
hard had to be discussed, and that was certainly the
case when he left it to my mom to break
the news to me. I remember asking, why why is
he going to prison? And she said she didn't know,

(17:26):
and that was true. She didn't he didn't tell her,
and she didn't know how long it would be. She
didn't know whether it would be here in Chicago or
what would be happening, because he'd given her a very
small amount of information. But I remember she said, you know,
this is personal about your dad. These are personal family matters,

(17:52):
and so that means that these are private, you know,
because this is your dad's life. So this isn't something
you know, we necessarily want to talk about it at
school to your friends or on the playground. And I
totally understood in that moment. I remember thinking like, oh,
it's a secret, got it, I can keep a secret.

(18:13):
Looking back, I understand that she was getting ahead of
it so that kids or other parents at the school
wouldn't hear this about my dad and assume something about me.
But I do remember thinking that day going into school, thinking, Okay,
I have a secret now, kind of like a grown
up secret.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
And Francesca like, what would you like as a kid
in those years, like at school, as a student with
your friends, I mean, how would you describe yourself during
those years?

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Well, this was before the like humiliation of adolescence had
made me shy, you know, I was very gregarious. I
was a tomboy, so you know, I was where ring
basketball shorts and like excel t shirts.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
And I had a lot of friends.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
I had friends from Girl Scouts, and I had friends
from soccer, and I had friends from the like Gifted
Reading group from band, and I got along well with
all of my friends. And it wasn't necessarily something that
came up a lot that being my dad. My dad
didn't really come up because no one really knew my dad.

(19:27):
If I had a birthday party and I invited all
of the kids from my class, it would be my
mom and my stepdad at the time who were at
the house. You know, no one ever really asked what
my dad did, because really he wasn't in the picture.
So it wasn't that hard of a secret to keep
necessarily from my friends. But I did struggle as time

(19:48):
went on, and I started to really understand how lonely
it would start to feel, because I would go to
my friend's houses, and a lot of them they had
both parents in the house, and they had this more
traditional household and family dynamic, and I wasn't envious, but
I was curious, I think, because I knew that I

(20:11):
had something different.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets.
Francesca's father serves a forty four month prison sentence in Yankton,
South Dakota. It's a long time for a young girl

(20:39):
not to see her father.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
One of the things that my dad did tell my
mom was that, you know, I would be able to
write him letters.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
He would write me letters.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
We did phone calls, but he said that the prison
didn't allow kids to visit. And I was okay with
that because I liked writing letters, and I had a
lot of stuff going on, you know, in my little
suburban Chicago life as a kid, So I never really

(21:12):
questioned that I wouldn't get to go visit him. I
think I knew even then I wouldn't want to see
him in that context, and I'm sure that he wouldn't
want me to see him in that context. But you know,
I can't remember how long it was into his sentence,
but I was still living in Chicago. The family, being
my dad's family, kind of picked up the slack and

(21:32):
filled the vacuum that was left when he went to prison.
So on those weekends when I would have gone with him,
one of my aunts would pick me up take me
to go see my grandparents and see my cousins, and.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
So I was still very much involved in that family life.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
And there was one weekend where, you know, I show
up at my grandparents' house. All my cousins are there,
and they're showing me pictures that were taken at the prison.
You know, my dad is in this sort of khaki
looking uniform against a portrait backdrop that reminded me of

(22:10):
school picture day, posing with you know, one of my
uncles and with some of my cousins, and they said
that they had just done a road trip, a bunch
of them, you know, some of my aunts and uncles
had gone to see him in South Dakota and visited
him at the prison. And I was confused because I

(22:32):
think I probably told them, but you know, kids aren't
allowed at the prison. That's what he told my mom.
That's why I didn't go visit him. And then they
just sort of looked like, oh, no, she doesn't know,
you know. So that was just another moment where I
kind of had in the back of my mind thinking,

(22:52):
I don't think I can trust what my dad tells me.
And I never really had that much trust in him
to begin with. But I think that while he was gone,
that's where some of the resentments started to grow. And
also we would write letters back and forth, and he
would tell me about, you know, that the prison looks
like a college campus, and that he does all the

(23:13):
same things he does at home. He works out and
eats and they get to play softball. And he would
always say by Christmas, I'll be home. I'll be home
this Christmas, and then this Christmas would come and go,
and then he would be saying this summer, when you're
out for school, then I'll be home, and then the

(23:34):
summer would come and go. And I can't speak to
why he chose to do that, but I can say that,
you know, my own as a child, I used my
own kind of logic, and I decided that he was
telling me these things even though you know, they would
end up not coming true, and I would feel disappointed

(23:56):
and I would feel a little stupid, like I'd been
takeing and for a ride.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
I decided that.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
He was telling me these things even though they didn't
end up being true, because he didn't know when he
was coming home, and that he wanted to give me
some comfort.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
So that was the story.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
I told myself, and it wasn't the truth, but it
gave me, you know, at nine ten years old, more
of a feeling of I guess control and sort of
making up my own understanding. And it would also sort
of act as a balm for the next time he
said I'll be here, you know, I'll be back home

(24:33):
at Thanksgiving, and then Thanksgiving would come and go. I
wouldn't feel as stupid.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
And what was your understanding at that time of why
he was in prison.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
I didn't know why he was in prison at that time.
I don't believe he told my mom, and he and
I never talked about it, but I would hear things
through my cousins who were a tiny bit older me.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
And so someone said.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
They thought it had something I do with stolen motorcycles,
and another said they heard something about him dressing up
as a cop, which I thought was silly and bizarre
and totally.

Speaker 3 (25:15):
Not what actually happened.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
Because I was a kid, I was like, well, why
would you pretend to be a cop? That doesn't make
any sense. And it wasn't until he came back, until
he was done with his time in prison, that he
did sort of hurriedly explain you know that he'd impersonated
a cop and gotten involved with the wrong people. But
at that time, as a kid, I did not know

(25:38):
even though what actually ended up being the truth, it
was floating around.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
And during those years did you keep this secret? Was
there anyone you ever shared it with? I mean, where
did the secret sort of live inside of you? And
how much pressure did it create?

Speaker 3 (25:56):
Well?

Speaker 2 (25:58):
I was allowed to talk about it, and I hesitate
to say aloud because I think my mom really felt
for me, and it wasn't like she was checking in
every so often saying like, Okay, you haven't told anyone, right,
But my cousins knew, and so I was able to
talk about it with them. I had a family friend
that my mom was really close to her mom, and

(26:20):
so that was sort.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
Of a safe space where I could talk about my dad.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
But I never told anyone at school because just as
I was a very persistent kid who always wanting to
know everything, I.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
Was also a big rule follower. I loved rules, I
loved order.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
But I remember once trying to get around what I
saw as the rules, which is that you can't say
what happened to your dad. There was one summer that
my friend and I were playing in her big inflatable
pool in their backyard and we were playing charades, and
I think I had said, like, Okay, I'm going to

(27:01):
act out like where my dad is, and she was
like okay, And I tried my best to like mime,
you know, being in prison, like I guess maybe I did,
like the bars of a jail cell, like I was
trying to act it out, and she couldn't get it,
and I could feel that the bit wasn't playing either,
and I wanted to keep having fun, and so I
just kind of said, okay, well, there's my chance. She

(27:23):
didn't guess it, and I just kept it going. And
I thought that that would technically if I didn't say
it and she guessed it, I'd still technically not be
GUILTI or I wouldn't have broken the rule.

Speaker 3 (27:35):
But that didn't end up happening.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
Well.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
Francesca's father is serving his sentence. When she's at the
end of the fourth grade, her mom tells her they're
moving to Oregon, where her stepfather has a new job.
She also has a new brother. Francesca's mom and stepfather
have just had a baby. She's excited to go, excited
to see the ocean and the mountains, but she's also

(28:00):
worried that when her dad finally comes home, he'll feel
bad that she's gone.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
By the time he got out, we were pretty firmly
established there, but my mom's family still lived in Chicago,
as did all of my dad's family. And then when
my dad got out of prison, he went back to Chicago.
So we would go and visit once or twice a year,
probably during the summer most years, and I would get

(28:27):
to see both sides of my family, and i'd get
to see my dad. And the enduring like emotion that
you know that keeps coming up with the memories is
I remember just feeling bad for him because I saw
it from his perspective, Like he left and I was
eight or nine, and then now I'm twelve and I'm
about to get braces, and I wondered if him seeing

(28:50):
me having grown while he was away, if that made
him sad. I remember, you know, being pretty aware of that.
But he looked pretty much this name as always, and
we kind of stuck to our old routine. When I
would visit Chicago, he'd take me out to eat, or
we'd go to a movie with my cousins, or we

(29:11):
would go see my grandparents, and that was pretty much it.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
So now you're a teenager, and so I mean, you've
picked up these bits and pieces of the story of
why your dad went to prison, but you certainly don't
have the whole story, and you try to talk to
him a couple of times about it. What's the feeling

(29:38):
at that time, Is it like this chapter's over and
we're going to put it behind us, or was there,
as I suspect, more of a feeling of like just
continuing to really want to dig and to want to know.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah, well, when he got out of prison, I was
surprised that everyone was.

Speaker 3 (29:59):
Acting like he never left.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
You know. It really almost felt like everyone's memories had
been wiped, and I was the only one who remembered
all the time that he wasn't there, because everyone just
picked right back up where they'd left off. And I
remember I started to feel resentment. I think that started
to grow more as I got a little older and

(30:22):
I understood that something big had happened, and most dads
I knew, dads of my friends didn't just disappear for years.
I felt angry when I saw how quickly the family
was ready to just pretend it never happened, because it had,

(30:43):
and I was struggling to realize how it affected me.
And I think I began to feel resentful because, you know,
I would see him once a year during these visits,
and unlike the time when he was in prison, he
would write me pretty often and we would talk on
the phone. I noticed that once he was out of

(31:04):
prison and back in his normal life, we didn't talk
very much and he didn't really write me letters. And
I started to feel hurt by that. And one of
the first times I went back to Chicago and saw him,
he brought it up first why he'd gone away, and

(31:24):
it was it was in the car he was dropping
me back off at my mom's parents' house after you know,
spending the day together, and I got the sense he
didn't really want to talk about it, but he was saying,
you know, that he was sorry he was gone so long,
and that he regrets it because you know, he missed
out on so many years of my life, and he

(31:46):
was just happy to be back, and that he had
been in prison because he'd impersonated a cop and got
wrapped up with the wrong people, and you know, he'd
never do anything like that again, and that he was
sorry and.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
That he was back now.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
And I never really quite knew how to respond. It
kind of felt not like a speech, but it was
certainly he was speaking in a way that he was
saying it to get it out of the way.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
He didn't really want.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
To have a conversation about it, and so he wasn't
really waiting for my response or my questions, and so
I just sort of listened and I told him, like,
it's okay. You know, you're still a good dad, you know,
because he would say things like I'm a horrible father,
blah blah blah, and so I took that information and
I'd replay it to myself and think, like, I still

(32:40):
don't get it.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
I still don't understand.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
He would always say like I went for a ride
with these guys, and I didn't know what that meant.
And so between the way he was dealing with this
weird half disclosure with me and the way that the
entire family himself included, was ready to just say it's over,
it's done, let's move on, I think I started to
feel bitter, resigned to the fact that I thought I

(33:06):
would never find out and that it would always just
be this weird.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
Thing haunting me.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
And I think it really tainted the way I saw
him because I was hoping that he would come back
and some change would have taken place, and he came
back and he's exactly the same.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yeah, the way you're describing it, it's almost like for
him and for his extended family, it just sort of
closed up around the whole episode, like with a zipper
and just it's not even like it never happened, just
more like there are no consequences for this having happened.

Speaker 3 (33:43):
Absolutely. Yeah, that's exactly right.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
And I think a big part of it, too, was
if it ever did come up, there was the feeling
that you were doing something impolite, borderline aggressive.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
And I think that the response.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
Would be, you know, he did his time, he went away,
made up for the mistake. What else is there to
be done? And I think that that's certainly informed by
the deep Catholic faith that kind of held the family together,
of like he's repented, he's atoned, and he's earned the
right to go back to his life.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
When Francesca leaves for college, she's not just packing boxes
and filling out financial aid forms. She's carrying a story,
or maybe half of one, a story threaded with resentment, silence,
and the kind of unanswered questions that hung quietly beneath everything.
She goes to the University of Oregon, close enough to

(34:40):
home but far enough to start imagining a life that
might be her own. She's the first in her family
to go to college. Her mother and stepfather are splitting up,
and she's working, paying her own way for school. In
the midst of all this flux, she picks up the
phone and calls her father. She tells him what she

(35:00):
really thinks, that he's been a disappointment, that he hasn't
been a good dad, and maybe worse, that he doesn't
even seem interested in becoming one.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
It had this phone conversation where I really kind of
unloaded onto him all of this resentment, and then we
really didn't talk very much for the first two years
of me being in college. So I was going into
college pretty overwhelmed just by trying to like pay my
own way and learn the ropes and feeling like I

(35:34):
didn't necessarily belong because no one in my family had
gone to college, and I felt like I was having
to play catch up. Over and over again. But in
the back of my mind it.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
Was always there.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
I was always writing, and I didn't always think I
would become a writer, but you know, I would try
to write plays or I would try to write short stories,
and this story would always come out in a lesser form.
And really a lot of the writing I did when
I was nineteen twenty it's not very good because it

(36:06):
was me just trying to like tell this story, but
like tell it using different characters in a different setting.
And it was like, whenever I tried to be creative
and write something, it always ended up coming out and
so I sort of stopped trying after a while.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
That makes so much sense. It's sort of it's reminded
me of the of the Game of Charades. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
Wow, yeah, I never thought about that. Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
I'm also curious when it all kind of came tumbling
out with, you know, with your father, because it strikes
me the way that you describe yourself as someone who
followed the rules and who picked up on his cues,
and he clearly didn't want to talk about it, or
he was not inviting questions, so you didn't ask them.
Was there anything that triggered just, you know, finally just

(36:53):
kind of an explosion of just telling him really what
you thought of him. Or was it just in the
course of growing up.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Certainly it had all started to accumulate over the years,
the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak.
It wasn't a big thing, but we'd made plans with
a cousin of mine to go see a movie while
I was in Chicago. And if memory serves, I think
it was also when I was touring campuses and I
was pretty stressed out trying to figure out, like, if

(37:22):
I'm paying for school myself.

Speaker 3 (37:23):
Can I afford to go to a school in Chicago.
When I was going on.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
These campus tours by myself and then trying to make
plans with my dad, and I was waiting to be
picked up, and he called my mom and said something
came up.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
The movie's not happening.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
And it was very familiar to me, you know, given
that that's how it went when I was a kid too,
and I was, you know, a teenager, and so I
did feel like it was immature for me to be
so angry, but I was also a teenager, so I
didn't really care if it made me immature. You know,
he hadn't told me this. He told my mom. He'd

(37:59):
called my mom and said movies off. And so I
called him back and said, what's wrong with you?

Speaker 1 (38:05):
Like?

Speaker 3 (38:06):
Do I matter so little to you?

Speaker 2 (38:08):
We spent a lot of money on airfare to come visit,
You've never come to Orion, You never call me. It
makes me feel like you don't care about me. So
I really unloaded. It was just a movie, but also
it wasn't just you know, a movie.

Speaker 3 (38:23):
It felt kind of good.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
I think when I started college to think like I
don't have to keep up with my dad because I
had finally said the quiet part out loud, you know
that I feel like my dad doesn't love me or
care about me. That had kind of given me a
little permission to just focus on myself and stop wondering like,
oh is he gonna Do you think he's gonna call
me on my birthday? Like do you think he'll send

(38:45):
me a card for my birthday? Probably not? And I
could just sort of focus on something else, but it
was still in my subconscious. It was just turning it
over and over and over again.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Will be back in a moment with more family secrets
While in college, Francesca starts researching she now has access
to journalistic tools, ones that might just be able to
unlock the mystery of her father's incarceration.

Speaker 3 (39:24):
I remember that day vividly.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
I was starting my junior year of college. I had
chosen journalism as my major, so I was well into
the reporting coursework, and a new professor had joined the
faculty at the journalism school, Brent Wolfe. This I believe
was one of the first classes he was teaching at

(39:46):
the school, and all of my friends at the college
newspaper had sang his praises, saying they had been his
intern he'd worked at the Oregonian, and then he'd worked
at willam At Week, an old weekly in Portland, and
they all just said he was the best and that
you had if you could like take his class, and
so I did. I remember that day in his class

(40:08):
he introduced the lesson, and it was on public records,
because we were going to be profiling an Oregon politician
and backgrounding them using public records, and so that day
we were going over specifically court records and federal court records,
and so he showed us how to use the database.

(40:30):
He pulled up PACER, which is the federal court records
database on the Big Projector, and we looked up around
that time. Actually it was the Jared Fogel, the subway guy,
his federal case, and we really went through the docket.
I immediately thought, I know someone who went to federal prison.
I wonder if I can somehow, you know, get access,

(40:52):
and so I went to Brent's office hours and I
was very awkward, and I was saying, like, could I
borrow your login for PACER? He was like, well, I'm
not going to give you my login, but I can
look up whatever case you want right now.

Speaker 3 (41:08):
Like, just what's the name?

Speaker 2 (41:10):
I said, you know, my dad's name, Albert Fontana, And
then I had to do some explaining, you know, because
obviously we have the same last name, and he probably
raised an eyebrow. And then I explained the whole story
to him, and it was the first time I'd really
told it from start to finish to anyone who wasn't
really I guess really to anyone now that I think
about it. And we typed in my dad's name and

(41:35):
the case from two thousand and three showed up, and
I was also surprised to see that another case showed up,
and I didn't know that my dad had been to
prison or had any kind of federal court case before
he'd gone to prison.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
In two thousand and three, and it was from nineteen
ninety two.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
And basically Brent said like, well, if you're working for
a project, and I had been thinking about all of
these questions that had been unanswered and making it into
sort of this like journalistic family history project, and then
Brent quickly became a mentor and advisor on that. And yeah,

(42:14):
so that was the first time I was able to
see that these questions didn't have to stay unanswered. It
didn't just have to be this big, unresolved story without
an ending, Like I could go back and I could
actually hunt the answers down that I assumed I would
I would never find out.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
So is that then what you began to do? And
that's where you learned more about the incident that landed
him in prison for forty four months?

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Yes, Brent sent me all of the criminal complaint affidavits,
you know, all these court records, and I printed them
all out the library and I brought them home and
I just spent probably the whole night reading them and
I was finally able to understand why did my dad
dress up as a cop, What did it mean to
go on a ride with some bad guys? And it

(43:11):
turned out that he'd had his friend group, people who
frequented his gym, people who bought motorcycles that he built.
There were these overlapping circles of corrupt cops and gang leaders,
and that he was always my dad was always the

(43:31):
guy who knew a guy. He was not a corrupt
cop and he was not in a gang, but he
had all these connections and this was sort of the
community that he was in. And one of his friends
had been a part of this crew that was headed

(43:52):
by two Chicago police sergeants who for the better part
of a decade would in person on due to police officers,
and they would go to drug dealers' houses. They would
pull over drug dealers and they would perform fake raids.
They would have a fake warrant, they would bust in

(44:14):
in tactical gear looking like, you know, they worked for
the DA or something, and they would, you know, do
a raid. They wouldn't arrest anybody, but they would take
the money, take the drugs, and who are the guys
gonna call the cops saying, hey, a bunch of you
guys just stole my drugs. And so two of the
members had been Chicago police officers, one of them was

(44:38):
a civilian employee. And then the fourth guy Larry, Larry Knitter,
he was a mechanic in the you know, for the
motor pool and he was a very good friend of
my dad. So what had happened was one of the
two police sergeants. In two thousand he retired from the force,

(44:58):
and then he also retired from this side hustle. So
he you know, moved out west and they promised to
send him, you know, a percentage of future proceeds, but
they decided they needed a fourth guy. And really the
marching orders for Larry was to go find someone who's
big and knows how to keep his mouth shut. And

(45:20):
Larry said, I know just the guy, and it was
my dad. And you know, my dad said no the
first time he was asked to go on a ride
with them, and the second time he said yes. And
so that was what he had done in order to
land himself in prison. And you know, in two thousand
and three, he had gone on one of these fake

(45:41):
drug raids he'd impersonated a cop, he'd warn you know,
a police belt, had a loaded gun on him. And
the one time he went on one of these rides,
it ended up being a sting. So he was really
in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
And so you were able to piece that story together
through your research. And so there you are, You're in college.
You have this miraculous mentor I mean, like, what a
great opportunity.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
You know, Yeah, he's incredible, Brent is a phenomenal reporter.
Could not have asked for a better mentor.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
So what then do you do with this? Do you
go back to your father with it? Where does it go?

Speaker 2 (46:28):
So, you know, I read through all the documents and
I put together a proposal to make this project part

(46:49):
of my thesis, in part because I wanted to justify
to myself all the time I knew I was going
to be spending on it, and because I thought to
me it was a very compelling overlap between journalism and memoir,
two things I was obviously very interested in at that time.
And I didn't realize until I started to try to

(47:10):
make this my thesis that I could get funding. So
I was able to get a couple grants that gave
me the funds to be able to fly back to Chicago,
which I would not have been able to afford otherwise.
So it was also with the institutional support as well
as Brent's mentorship, that I reconnected with my dad over
the phone. I told him I was working on this
school project, and he said he's an open book. He

(47:33):
told me anything I want to know, he'll tell me.
And so then I flew back to Chicago on a
thesis research trip, and I reconnected with my dad for
the first time really as an adult. And that's when
I started doing a lot of the reporting. Because the
records could only take me so far. I wanted to

(47:55):
not only interview and talk to my dad, I also
wanted to talk to family members. I wanted to talk
to some of the Chicago Tribune staff who'd covered the case.
I wanted to interview some of the attorneys involved in
the case. And there was also this big question mark
because one of the four original crew members of this

(48:17):
group of people doing these fake raids, one of the four,
one of the police officers, had become a fugitive.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
So, you know, my dad.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
And three other men went to prison, you know, as
part of this case, but the ring leader names Eddie Hicks.
He disappeared on the eve of his trial, and he
had been a fugitive. So when I started this project,
it was also you know, I needed to talk to
people because a lot of the for instance, the exhibits,

(48:47):
a lot of the case was still sealed because technically
it was still open because Hicks was a fugitive and
hopefully he would be brought to trial. But in the
meantime there were limits to how much I could get
just in public record.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
So then what happens in the intervening years. You write
this thesis, You graduate from college, where do you go
from there?

Speaker 2 (49:15):
So I defended my thesis the spring of my senior year.
I graduated, I think on a Tuesday, and then that Friday,
I flew to New York for an internship at the
Wall Street Journal, and I think my first day was
that next Monday. So it was really kind of a whirlwind,
and I was very excited to at least for the summer,

(49:42):
be gainfully employed and sinking my teeth into stories that
had nothing to do with me and reporting that wasn't
so you know, emotionally fraught, and then you know, as
the summer was wrapping up. My internship was actually extended,
so I was still wor working as an intern in
September and my dad texted me that Eddie Hicks had

(50:06):
been found and he sent a link to a Chicago
Tribune article. And this was, you know, mid afternoon. I
was wrapping up, you know, all of my projects before
my internship ended, and then I kind of had this
like cold sweat because all of a sudden, I was
right back in it, this big project, and it felt
very surreal because I had I assumed he was never

(50:28):
going to be found, and I had accepted that that
sort of question mark would remain, that I wouldn't get
all the answers, and so I couldn't believe it. But
they had found him in Detroit, which is funny because
you know, the FBI wanted posters said that he armed
and dangerous and was possibly in Brazil, and he was

(50:52):
just in Detroit, living under a fake name. And the
Tribune actually a few years before they had done an
investigation and found that he'd definitely been coming and going
from Chicago. He was you know, signing property into his
son's names. His wife was still getting his pension checks.
He couldn't have been that far. But so they found him,

(51:15):
and I couldn't believe it. And I don't think anyone
expected that he would be allowed to get a plea deal. Obviously,
if he was found, they were going to try him.
So in seeing this link come up on my phone
that he had been found, I knew that then there
was going to be a trial and I wanted to go.

(51:36):
And so that day, also in the journal, I kind
of found a quiet hallway and I called Brent. I
knew that I was about to ay be swept up
in all of this again, but also I would be
entering sort of uncharted territory. I think, really what it
was at that time, I only really understand it looking back,

(51:59):
But I think I was afraid to finish what I'd started, because,
you know, in all of these years, my father had
stayed the same. I tried to return to Chicago when
I was working on my thesis. I tried to return
not as a daughter, but as a reporter. And I thought,
you know, any kind of sentiment or you know, emotion
would cloud my view, and so I tried to really

(52:22):
be as impersonal.

Speaker 1 (52:24):
How did that work out?

Speaker 2 (52:25):
Yeah, it didn't partially because you know, my dad was
my dad, so he wasn't just a source. I mean
I would I would say to this day, my dad
is the most difficult source I've ever had, because inherently
our interactions are going to be colored by the fact

(52:46):
that he is my father and I am his daughter.
And for the first time in my life. In the past,
I'd seen how he manipulated other people in his life
to get what he wanted.

Speaker 3 (52:56):
But I had never really been the mark before.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
But when I was in Chicago trying to interview him,
he would say, yeah, we can sit in your hotel
room and do an interview. I'd set up the tape recorder,
I'd set up my notes, and then he would tell
me to come down, presumably he was trying to find parking.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
He'd get me in his truck.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
And then he would take me to go eat, and
he would never come up to do the interview, or
he went behind my back and told his former attorney
not to talk to me about the two thousand and
three case. But you told me that he had waived
attorney client privilege and that I could talk to his
attorney about anything I wanted.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
And then it wasn't.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
Until I got there and was doing the interview that
I found out that he'd gone behind my back and
tried to stop it from happening.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
All the while telling you that he was an open book, yes.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
And that he would tell me anything I wanted to know.
And so that's why when I knew the trial was
going to be happening, I was relieved because had been
such a difficult source. But also I was nervous because
in all of this I didn't want to admit to myself.

(54:08):
I hoped that what would come out of the project
would not just be truth and knowledge and understanding. I
had hoped that once I stripped al of all of
his masks.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
And I kind of got down.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
To who he really was, that there would be a
man who I could respect and who could be my father.
And that hadn't happened yet, and so I was still
hoping that, you know, at the end of this process,
I would see the real Hymn, and the real Hymn
would be someone.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
That could be in my life.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
And so I was nervous for the trial because I
knew that we're getting close to the end of the road,
and so far I'm not seeing it. The two things
that my father clung to in all of our conversations
about the case and about his involvement. The charge that
you know, he put guilty to was a gun charge,
and so he insisted to me that despite what all

(55:07):
of the court records showed and what he pleaded guilty to,
he never had a gun when he was you know,
when he was dressed up as a tactical police officer,
he wasn't carrying a gun. And he insisted to me
that he only pleaded guilty to that because he just
wanted the process to be over. He wanted to go
to prison so he could come back before I got

(55:29):
too old, I think was the way he put it.
But so he insisted that despite all of the evidence
that was accruing, he never had a gun.

Speaker 3 (55:39):
Maybe the other guys did, he didn't. And the other.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
One was that the other thing he insisted was that,
you know, on this particular night, these four guys pull
up to what should be a drug dealer's stash house,
and they go in and they search.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
My dad insists that while they.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
Were searching for the money and the drugs that he
saw in the television set in the living room, a
glowing a blinking red light that was one of the
hidden cameras, and he insisted that through the TV screen
he saw this light and he knew it was a setup.
He knew there was a camera.

Speaker 3 (56:21):
He knew before anyone.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
Was arrested, before the raid was even done, that it
was over. He knew it was the FBI long before
anyone else did. And that's what he told me. And
I didn't believe him. And I also couldn't understand why
he would lie about two things that, on their face
they seemed so inconsequential, because you know, he still went

(56:44):
to prison, he still pleaded guilty, He still went on
the ride. Why does it matter whether or not you
had a gun? Why does it matter that you think
you outsmarted the FBI? And I understand now that this
story that he was telling me, and that he was
telling himself, allowed him to still kind of come out
the good guy. You know, I knew that going into

(57:05):
the trial, it would probably just show me that those
things were false, as I already assumed. But because I
didn't have the proof beyond a shadow of a doubt,
you know, the door was left open a crack for
my dad to be telling me the truth I was
very nervous about when I went back to Chicago and

(57:25):
was going to cover the trial for the Wall Street Journal,
I was waiting for those two things to come up.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
So then what happens at the trial.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Well, it was incredibly bizarre to sit there and see
Eddie Hicks because I'd been looking at his picture, you know,
his mug shot or whatever was on the FBI wanted
poster to see him. You know, he wasn't just like
a character in a story in my head. He was
a real man sitting in an oversized suit.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
You know.

Speaker 3 (57:57):
That was bizarre.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
Did anyone at the trial and know your sort of
double role being there of Wall Street Journal reporter and
daughter of one of the perpetrators.

Speaker 2 (58:10):
Yes, When I introduced myself before the opening statements, everyone
sort of milling about outside the courtroom, and I introduced
myself to the prosecutor, Sonny Pesqual, you know, and I
told him who I was, And anyone I talked to
they always said, oh, I remember your dad, big guy, right, yeah,
like you worked out and so I was like, yeah,

(58:30):
that's my dad. And so I always introduced myself with
both of those titles, you know, as a journal reporter
and my dad was involved in the case, and my
Dad didn't have to testify, but his friend, Larry Knitter,
the one who had recruited him into this crew, he
was going to be testifying, and his testimony lasted several days,

(58:52):
and I didn't know if Larry would recognize me, if
I resembled my dad enough that I would be recognizable.
I knew I wanted to try to talk to him,
and he wasn't allowed to really talk to me much
at all, but I did catch him going to the
elevator after the first day, and when I started to

(59:13):
introduce myself, he cut me off. He's like, I know
who you are. Yeah, no, I know, I texted with
your dad this morning. You know, I can't talk, and
then he just sort of said that he was sorry
that my dad got mixed up in all of this.
So then you know, Eventually, in Larry Knitter's testimony, he
reaches the night of the raid that ended up being

(59:33):
a sting, and so the prosecutor is referring to various exhibits.
One of the exhibits that they show is a photo
of the gun that Larry Knitter gave my dad to
carry in his gun belt, so Bruger nine millimeter it's

(59:53):
the one that you know, my dad said never existed.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
And you write that you were shocked but not surprised.
I know what you mean by that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
To see it, it reminded me of Schrodinger's cat until
you open the box. The cat is both alive and dead,
and you have to open the box in order to
see for certain which it is. And so I think
it was sort of that feeling of opening the box.
I assumed that my dad was lying because he was

(01:00:23):
my dad and I had known him my whole life.
But you know, like so many things that parents lie about,
usually there isn't an exhibit that could be shown in
court to definitively prove their lying. And so that was
one of the first times I think that I was
able to witness a concrete piece of, you know, unimpeachable

(01:00:47):
evidence that al had lied to me, and to see
it in such a setting, you know, in a courtroom,
was really it sort of took me out of my body.
But at the same time, I wasn't surprised. I saw
the dead cat, you know, I saw what I expected,

(01:01:07):
But to have that sort of certainty and finality shook
me in a way I didn't anticipate.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
And then at the trial, mister Pascual, the prosecutor, plays
the video and your father had said to you, you know,
if you see that video, you'll see me noticing the
red light. You'll see the moment where I know that
it's a sting.

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
Yeah, and I didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
They play the video, and I'm sort of holding my breath,
and I write about this and the piece, and it's
still true whenever I think about it. You know, seeing
his young face come in the door in the videotape
really sent me back. It really felt like I was
nine again, even though you know, I'm sitting there in

(01:01:56):
my like outlet store suit, trying to appear to be
a grown up up reporter for the Wall Street Journal.
Immediately I'm nine again, looking at my dad. And they
don't play the entire video. But later I get my
hands on the entire video and we watch a pretty
long clip in the courtroom, and I watch my dad

(01:02:16):
go around and I watch them all searching everywhere for
the drugs that aren't there.

Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
And he gets close to the TV.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
He's obviously searching under the TV stand, maybe in like
some drawers, or something, and so I see every expression
on his face, and I knew that he wasn't going
to suddenly in that video look at the camera kind
of like look at me, you know, and I would
see him like see me being like the red light.

(01:02:47):
But I imagined it over and over again as I'm
watching the video, I'm like, what if he just like
we kind of like make eye contact and then oh
my gosh, he was telling the truth, And what does
that say about me that in my head I've branded
him a lot? But that moment never came, because of
course it didn't, and he searches, and then you know,
eventually they realize that the drugs aren't there, their luck

(01:03:09):
had turned, and then they file out of the house.
There was still more testimony that day, but when we
broke for lunch, I walked out to the street. I
just kept walking. I never came back that day because
I just it really was a shock to have seen
the certain end.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
During those weeks in Chicago, Francesca is in touch with
her dad every day, either they have a phone call
or dinner. By then, he's living with his girlfriend and
has another child, a six year old daughter. He also
has a new motorcycle shop. It seems to Francesca that
he's back to his old ways, living the same life,
just new players and a new spot.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
We debriefed about that day and the days of testimony,
and then you know, eventually a.

Speaker 3 (01:04:02):
Verdict that followed.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
He really held court, and I kind of was so
exhausted by the entire thing that I just let him talk.

Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
And I didn't tell him.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
During that week, like during the while the trial was
going on, I didn't tell.

Speaker 3 (01:04:17):
Him what I'd seen.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
I knew that I was going to have to not
just as a person or as a daughter, but as
a journalist. You know, if I was going to write
this story, we go back to everyone for comment.

Speaker 3 (01:04:31):
You know, we give everyone.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
You know, we have no surprises policy at the Journal,
and so no one should ever be surprised to see
their name in one of our stories or to be
unaware of what we're going to.

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
Be saying about them.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
And so I knew that that policy, of course would
apply here. So I knew that when I was putting
together the piece back in New York and calling attorneys
who declined to com or you know, circling back to
Larry Knitter and all of those things. I knew that
I would have to go back and do not only

(01:05:07):
a thorough fact checking sort of like a fact checking
interview with my dad, but also I was going to
have to tell him, here's what I saw, here's what
you told me. I don't believe you.

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
I think that you have lied, and this is why.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
And I ended up going back to Chicago in October
of twenty nineteen, so it was a few weeks before
the story would run because we had to be photographed together,
which is funny to think back, because I can't really
remember any time my dad and I ever posed together
for a photograph. So we had a shoot with a
photographer for art for the story, and then while I

(01:05:47):
was in town, I took my dad to a sports
bar and I told him I'm going to go through
the story from start to finish. I don't read it
to him, but I gave him, beat by beat, this
is what I say you told me, this is what
you say you saw, this is everything that came out
in the trial, And this is the conclusion I come to.

(01:06:09):
And I was a little shaken by how easily he
just talked right over me whenever I brought up what
he had said, he immediately launched right back into that narrative,
you know, telling the story. Even though he understood what
this conversation was supposed to be. It was, you know,

(01:06:30):
definitely like I talk and then you talk. But any
time I would I would bring up another point, if
it was something he had told me, he would just
launch right back into that story and try to talk
over me and just tell it again with just this
greater emphasis.

Speaker 3 (01:06:45):
And then anytime I.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
Brought up something that conflicted with his account, he would
either kind of just act like he didn't hear it,
or he would just go right back into his story.
The first time I really tried to say I saw
the gun, it's almost like I was even there. He
just went right back into like, yeah, I never had
a gun. I don't know if they had a gun,
but you know I didn't have no gun. And eventually
I had to like stop him because he was just

(01:07:08):
on this roll, and I stopped him to tell him,
I need you to respond to what I'm telling you,
which is that I don't believe you.

Speaker 3 (01:07:16):
What do you make of this?

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
And he just said, you believe one thing, I believe
something else. And that was the closest he could ever
come to. I mean, he didn't even really face the truth,
but that was just the closest he could get to it,
and he just couldn't go any further than that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
Of course, Francesca had to look into Schrodinger's box. She
had to see the videotape. After years of being told
she might be wrong and thinking, well, maybe I am wrong,
she needed proof, something undeniable. Francesca was twenty five when
her Wall Street Journal piece came out, The stories that
blew everything open. Now she's thirty one, with a book

(01:08:00):
the same subject about to be released. She's turned what
could have been a lifetime of question marks into something
of her own making. And as she stands on the
edge of this new chapter, the question remains, where does
it all sit now? The story, her father, the truth
she fought to claim.

Speaker 2 (01:08:20):
It's confusing to me how many years have passed so quickly.
When the story came out. I had to deal with
the aftermath from al and he had a bit of
a meltdown, saying I never said those things, And he
said and I'm quoting him like, I hope my dad

(01:08:42):
doesn't read this, because he's gonna think I'm an asshole.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
Pardon my language.

Speaker 2 (01:08:46):
The cracks really started to deepen in our already fragile,
renewed relationship. So, you know, after the story ran, he
began to call me frequently for over the course of
roughly a year, in various states of distress, you know,

(01:09:06):
threatening suicide, asking me to take care of his young
daughter if anything happened to him. He had told me that,
you know, he was proud of me for writing this story,
and he was so glad that I was working on
it when I was working on it, but when it
came out and he had to sort of face the truth,

(01:09:28):
he just couldn't bear it, really, it seemed. So you know,
after a year of just having these escalating breakdowns and
not just about the story, but about money, about other things,
it got to a point where I had to set
a boundary and say, I'm not in Chicago. If you
call me and it seems like there's a life or
death emergency, I feel helpless. I can't come help you,

(01:09:51):
like I can't be the only one you're telling these
things too. And once I set that boundary, he stopped
reaching out, so he would only really reach out in crisis.
And then in the aftermath of the story, my life
was progressing independent of him. I was trying to learn
who I was now that I wasn't a daughter searching,

(01:10:15):
and I found that every time I got pulled back
into his cycles, I was getting pulled out of this
life I was trying to build for myself. And so
eventually it got to.

Speaker 3 (01:10:28):
A point where I.

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):
I guess it was a bit of an Irish goodbye,
and we've been a stranger for several years. Really what
was startling, I was talking about this to someone the
other day, is that, you know, really all that needed.

Speaker 3 (01:10:41):
To happen was I just stopped responding.

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
And it sort of goes back to when I was
a teenager and I was sort of telling him what
I made of him, and that it felt like I
come after you, you never come after me. It feels
like I'm the one driving this relationship, but I'm your kid,
you know. After the story and all and everything that
came after, I found that, you know, for my own reasons,

(01:11:07):
I had to estrange myself from him, and I was
startled at how easy he was kind of like practically,
I think it came down to Al as a sort
of a static person. He goes through his cycles, you know,
building up his gym again, building bikes, trying to like
reclaim that past glory, but never was able to really

(01:11:32):
reckon with what he's done in a meaningful way. And
I found that I had my own reckoning to do,
not only with what's in the story for the journal,
dealing with the trial and the truth of you know,
who my father was and what he's done, but also
with myself. I had to reckon with my own motivations

(01:11:55):
and really keep the score in terms of the potential
and actual collateral damage of my choosing to report and
write about my family and about the lives of relatively
private people, and to tell my story and the story
of my father, I had to accept and bear the

(01:12:18):
burden of what happens when you tell the truth.

Speaker 3 (01:12:25):
When my relationship with Al.

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):
Had deteriorated to the point where I knew it had
to end for good, there was a lot of grief.
I've spoken to other people who have dealt with parental estrangement,
and I think that in that process, I realized how
much grieving I had done in advance, and that really
I'd been preparing for this moment, for this loss for

(01:12:50):
a very long time. I always was just trying to
rip all of the masks off of him to see
who he really was, and eventually I had to come
to terms with the fact that he's not wearing a mask.

Speaker 3 (01:13:03):
He has shown me clearly.

Speaker 2 (01:13:06):
Who he is and what he is willing to live with.
And that was emotionally difficult because I didn't find the
father that I had hoped I could love and who
would love me, and I didn't find the man that

(01:13:27):
i'd hoped I could respect and introduce to my future children,
and that our story was going to have to end there.
When it came time for me to make that decision,
I saw clearly that it was not to sound dramatic,
but it was like it was him or me. I
can immerse myself in his life, or I can have

(01:13:49):
my own independence and my own future. But I couldn't
have both, and so I chose to what our story
end there.

Speaker 1 (01:14:11):
Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. Molly Zacour is
the story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer.
If you have a family secret you'd like to share,
please leave us a voicemail and your story could appear
on an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight
eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also

(01:14:31):
find me on Instagram at Danny Ryder, and if you'd
like to know more about the story that inspired this podcast,
check out my memoir Inheritance. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

(01:14:53):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.