November 1, 2022 • 40 mins
In August of 1980 a bomb containing 1,000 pounds of dynamite was quietly delivered to Harvey’s, a casino and resort at Lake Tahoe. This kicked off a whirlwind caper that lasted 30 hours and ended up nearly demolishing the 11-story resort.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck and Jerry's here and this is stuff
you should know. The True Crime EDITIONE where nobody gets hurt.
Isn't that amazing? Yeah? I think this falls into our
(00:23):
sort of caper a dish, yes, well put, well put?
Do we have any other capers? Yeah, like the child
Chilla kidnapping. And I think any non murder crime podcast
I think would fall under this, like dB dB Cooper exactly.
And um, before I forget Chuck, that was definitely a caper.
(00:44):
Good call. Um. This was a request which, like you
said last time, we've been doing a lot of these lately,
but this one's requested by Nick Hales, and I say,
good request, Nick, Thanks for that. And I totally spaced
on shouting out Neil Stephen from the UK for Georgia
Guidestones episode. He requested it and gave me the idea
(01:05):
to do it all right, nice work. This one was
so familiar to me that I was sure that we
had either touched on it or that I saw. What
I really thought was that I saw a documentary about it,
but I hadn't because I don't think there's been one.
I don't know what it is. It was really familiar
with some other I think true life thing that I saw.
(01:27):
I don't know, I don't know. But the fact that
there's not a movie about this is insane. Yeah. I
don't know if it's a movie worthy. Oh really yeah?
Oh man, just like the pork Chop side Burns alone,
I think would would warn a movie. But um that
because I said pork chop sideburns. Of course, we're talking
about nineteen eighty, right, Chuck, August eight, that's right. Uh.
(01:50):
And on August eighty, very early in the morning, a
couple of delivery dudes would be delivery dudes wield a
big piece of equipment had a cover on it, said
IBM into Harvey's Resort hotel in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Shout
out to our buddy, Aaron Hagar representing Lake Tahoe. He's
(02:14):
got it made out there in Tahoe. Nice except for
the bears and wildfires. I'll bet he's heard of this story, then,
I bet you he has. We'll hear from on this.
But anyway, they wheeled it in there up to the
second floor offices and dropped it off and basically skidaddled.
After that, they had a guy waiting in a van
outside and drove them the heck out of there. Yeah,
(02:35):
so it's kind of weird five am to drop off
a piece of office equipment, not waiting around for anybody
sign it. Kind of odd, And within an hour the
oddity behind it kind of became a really apparent. A
slot manager, I believe, or maybe the night manager in general. Um,
he noticed this piece of office equipment that was kind
of randomly placed on the second floor offices, and he
(02:56):
saw that there was a note by it, and he
gathered some other employees and they were all kind of
hanging out reading the note. And one of the details
I love, um that I saw in a um Adam
higginbottom Uh article on on the atavist um was that
one of the people reading the note was leaning up
against the machine while they were reading the note. All right,
(03:18):
the notes that should we read the note? Yeah, because
then it makes the whole thing about somebody leaning up
against it really hilarious. Al Right, stern warning to the
management and bomb squad, in which case I would have
been out of there. That's all I need to hear
a right exactly. Uh, do not move until this bomb
because the mechanism controlling the detonators in it will set
it off at a movement of less than point o
(03:40):
one of the open end Richter scale. So let's confuse
people right out of the gate, is what this note
is what this guy's thinking. Uh, don't try to flood
or gas the bomb. There's a float switch and an
atmosphere pressure switch set at two numbers twenty six point
zero was zero to thirty three. Both are attached to detonators.
(04:03):
Do not try to take it apart. The flathead screws
are attached to triggers, and as much of a quarter
to three quarters of a turn will cause the explosion. Uh.
In other words, this bomb is so sensitive that the
slightest movement, either inside or outside will cause it to
explode full stop. Yeah, and you can guess the person
leaning against the machine stood up and moved away from it, right,
that's right. Uh. And basically they said that part No
(04:26):
one can detonate or no one can can deactivate this bomb,
not even I, not even the creator can diffuse this thing.
So it is going to go off at some point.
Your best hope of not getting hurt is to pay
a three thousand dollar ransom and you're gonna receive instructions
on how to move it out of here so it
(04:46):
can explode somewhere else. Yeah, and it would have been
a bargain for three thousand dollars. There was actually a
three million dollar rans to save you did. I think
you're being optimistic three But it was a it was
a big fat ran and um the bomb itself. I mean,
if you just look at the at the ransom note
(05:07):
and when it's talking about the bomb, that's a pretty
amazing bomb. And it actually became pretty legendary with the FBI,
so much so that I saw that they still I
don't know if they still do today, but for many
years they used it as a teaching model for UM
bomb technicians, and the FBI considered it very sophisticated, and
they said it was unlike anything any bomb technician had
(05:30):
ever seen before. No one had ever made a bomb
like this. Yeah, very good bomb, if there is such
a thing. Uh. It was a couple of stacked boxes
lined with metal and rubber that through conventional methods you
couldn't separate, of course, without it going boom. And so
the FBI did what they do in this case. They
(05:50):
come in, they start taking pictures, the X ray it,
they sweep it for fingerprints. Obviously they don't move it. Uh.
They find out that it has about a thousand pounds
of dynamite inside, and they can't find a way to
Like basically they're saying, this note seems to be right
on the money, Like we can't find a way at
least right off the bat about how to diffuse these
(06:11):
things safely. Yeah, and very famously, the bomb technicians in
the room started running around in aimless circles saying, oh
my god, oh my god, oh my god. And they
did that for a good three hours I think before
somebody stepped in and stopped them. But that ransom note, also, UM,
showed a lot of planning, not just the bomb, Like
this bomb was amazing, just full stop amazing. I wanted
(06:34):
to really be proud of if you're a bomb maker, UM.
But the actual heist itself had like a real shot
at extorting this three million dollars successfully UM. And it
started with UM. They they knew what they were doing.
Out of the gate, they said, we want three million
dollars in used bills, hundred dollar bills already used, not marked,
(06:54):
not bugg don't even try to chemically treat them. Um.
And we want you to fly helicopter to Lake Tahoe Airport,
have the pilot land by the pay phone, and wait
by the payphone for instructions. Are instruction is going to
come from the payphone? Who knows? They could also come
by taxi. Uh, they could also come by carrier pigeon.
(07:15):
I'm making that last one up. But they were just
trying out of the gate to to confuse them so
that they couldn't plan for everything. Um. And it was
I think it was a really well planned heist. Yeah.
I mean they basically said, no one involved from this
point that you meet up with, like anyone that might
deliver a note, any someone that might drive a vehicle
(07:37):
that's involved, Like, no one's gonna know anything, so don't bother.
And I think I believe that that's probably true. Um.
They said that the you know, I the creator of
the bomb, I'm not gonna be a part of this
money drop. I'm not gonna be around. Uh. Nobody that's
a part of any of this exchange of money is
going to know anything about how to diffuse this bomb, Like,
(07:58):
this thing is gonna go off and there's nothing you
can do to stop it. Again, the only thing that
you can do is follow what will ultimately be six
sets of instructions to safely get this bomb out of
there after I get my loot. Yeah, after he gets
the loot or they um, So the first set of
instructions was going to be given to the helicopter pilot.
(08:20):
The rest of the instructions would arrive through the local
post office, which is putting a lot of a lot
of faith in the USPS. But then there was another
demand too, that was probably the most ridiculous demand of all.
They said that all news media, local or national was
to be kept ignorant of the heist until the bomb
was successfully removed. Right, And that was impossible, totally impossible
(08:43):
because the first thing the cops did when they realized
like this is for real, which they figured out pretty quickly.
I think the thing was discovered before six am, and
by seven or eight at the very latest, they were
rousing um hotel guests at Harvey's Um, many of them
from sleep, telling them like, Nope, you don't have time
to grab your belongings. You gotta go. Uh. And not
(09:04):
only did they evacuate Harvey's. A thousand pounds of dynamite
can do some real damage, they actually evacuated hairs across
the street from Harvey's too. Yeah, so they said, you're
all going to go to this nearby high school. And
of course the media, it's a it's a big thing
when that happens, when people are being like massively bust
out in their bathrobes and stuff. So basically within a
(09:28):
few hours, like all the media knows this, they cordon
off the area. There's people hanging out, there's there's gawkers,
there's reporters, there's before you know it, of course, because
there's casinos around there. They're taking bets, of course, like
over under on whether this thing's gonna detonate. And not
only did they not keep the media out of it,
but it became like, uh, I mean, call this sensation
(09:50):
indicates that it drug on. It was like a day
and change, but it was a crazy day and change
for the media for sure. And it was over the
week before Labor Day weekend, so Tahoe was crawling with people.
Um and this was right, um, just thirty six years
before the first casino was opened on the south shore
(10:13):
of Lake Tahoe, and it was opened by the same
guy whose hotel now how to bomb in it, Harvey
gross Um. His first thing was Harvey's Wagon Wheel Saloon
and gambling hall, which I saw described as a cabin
um that had six slot machines in it. Um And
at the time in Tahoe chucked. There was no phone,
no water, no sewer, no power lines. The roads would
(10:36):
close at like the first sign of snow, um and
it was like a real podunk area. But gambling made
it actually put it on the map for a second there.
I thought you were gonna say, not a single luxury.
Oh man, I really should have. I wish I had.
I'm not on my game today like Robinson Crusoe. They
(10:57):
were what primitives can be, right, that's what they said.
But it was the sixties. You wouldn't say that anymore. Uh.
So things go great for Harvey and his little wagon
wheel uh cabin You know, it's on the state line
of California. So that's a pretty smart thing because you
get those out of staters, those richies from California throwing
(11:18):
down some money. Yeah, and it was so on the
state line it was in a town called state Line.
That's very Nevada. It's very on the nose. I'm so
nervous about us saying it the right way because those
people will email you like Gangbusters. Oh it's Nevada, but
always say Nevada. Okay, but they say it Nevada. Everyone
(11:39):
outside the state of Nevada says Nevada, and that drives
them nuts, drives them crazy. It's really something so Harvey
no less way, don't break. So Harvey was doing great,
uh with this little tiny casino in the forties through
the fifties makes a lot of dough, and by sixty
three had expanded an upgrade to Harvey's Lake Tahoe, which
(12:02):
at the time was the tallest building UM at eleven stories,
which is you know, that's a pretty tall building for
that area of the country. Yeah, less than twenty years
he went from a cabin to an eleven story casino resort.
And I believe it was at that same eleven story
casino resort that this bomb um was placed in in
(12:24):
seventeen years later. Um and Harvey himself was like, I
mean he was a casino owner in Nevada, like he
had I don't want to say, a checkered past, but
he had a past like he'd been hauled in front
of the the I R S for tax evasion. There was
um he had been given an honorary name by the
Nevada Inner Tribal Did I say it right? Nevada? By
(12:47):
the Nevada Inner Tribal Council. He was called Chief hu
and I. And there was an article that was written
back in I think that said that it meant, uh,
the man who runs the game and takes a percentage
of the bats. I don't know if that's a joke
or not. I can't tell. I don't either, because it's
definitely like that era kind of joke. You know, you
(13:08):
can see that on like a tiky napkin. But the
long and short of it is he was he'd had
his little run ins with the I R S and
stuff and the gaming board, but it wasn't anything unusual.
He wasn't like some bad guy like mafios type. He
was like he said, he owned a casino and there's
you know, he's gonna be brought up by the I
R S at some point. Um. But all of this
(13:29):
to say, he wasn't like some uh, some big Mark
because of like all his dirty dealings in his past.
Basically I saw him actually referred to as a good
guy by some people. It sounds like it like he
he was well known to have put off expansion, like
he didn't want to expand to other towns. Uh. He's
(13:51):
basically said, I'm I'm making enough money. He had a
quote that he would refer to is, um, I have
a nice little business. How many stakes can I eat?
Which is to say like he had everything he needed
and this was fine. He was happy with this business
where it was. That's right. But it was uh, the
seventies and into the early eighties, which was um, just
(14:13):
sort of the golden age of all this kind of
stuff of kidnappings and ransoms and hijackings, and it just
seems like all this kind of hi jinks. There's still
stuff like that happens occasionally, but not like it did
back then. I think it's because took the police state
hadn't evolved enough that they would catch you no matter
(14:34):
what right, and leaded gas had been around long enough
to really have the effects on a whole new generation
of brains. So you put those two things together, you
have everything converging on the seventies for people trying all
sorts of heists and kidnappings and stuff like that. Yeah,
and that happened back then around there, even I think
(14:55):
as far back as the early seventies there were kidnapping
conspiracies against gross ransom things that had been uncovered in
the late seventies. There were smoke bombs with ransom notes
found at other casinos around Tahoe. So I don't know
about that. It was what the smoke bombs? Yeah, what
is that? You might as well say, like there's a
(15:16):
box of sparklers in your your lobby, give me five
hundred thousand smoleans orrel give me thirty five cents, I know,
to pay me back for the smoke both. Um. So
it was a time where if you owned a casino
that brought in I think he made about four million
profit but brought in like seventy million dollars a year
(15:38):
like his did, then that simply just meant you were
a mark by virtue of that fact alone, right. Um.
The thing is, though, is the FBI found out um
as they started investigating the case about a year after that,
it actually was a personal vendetta against Harvey himself. Or
Harvey's casino that led to that bomb being placed there
(15:58):
in August of m It sounds like a great cliffhanger
for a break. Thank you, thanks man. All Right, we'll
get back to it right after this. All right, So
(16:27):
we're back in action here at the bomb site. The
FBI's bomb squad is working hard trying to figure this
thing out. They have another team working on a fake
ransom drop. UH Special Agent William john Kie basically told Harvey, hey, listen,
why don't we drag this thing out as much as
we can. We'll do a fake payoff arrangement maybe weekend,
(16:48):
just sort of put off this bomb going off long
enough for us to figure it out, either how to
stop it or how to catch these people. Like the
bomb is going to go off no matter what. And
once uh Gross heard that, he was like, well, I'm
not paying anything if this thing's going off no matter what.
You can use my my god, you can use my
own helicopter for the drop even And that's what they did.
(17:10):
They used his own personal helicopter, but the pilot was
uh fed and there was another fed with a gun
hiding behind the pilot seat with a suitcase full of
mostly fake money. Yeah, I think a few grand is
what I saw. And just like the ransom note said,
the agent flew the helicopter Lake Tahoe Airport, landed next
to the pay phone UM and got there just in
(17:33):
time from what I saw too, for the phone to
start ringing, although I suspect they were being watched, and
the phone rang and rather than giving them instructions over
the phone, I think it's hilarious that they said, look
underneath the phone. There's instructions tape beneath the phone, and
then I guess hung up. We didn't want to tape
it to the front of the phone booth, right, So
(17:54):
he checks out the instructions and it says, Okay, this
is what you're gonna do. You're gonna fly west along
the I wait for fifteen minutes from the airport, and
you're gonna turn. There's some compass sitting they told him
to turn toward. I've never found which one, UM. And
then after a certain amount of time he should start
looking for a beacon, which is gonna be a strobe
(18:14):
light in a field. He should land there and that's
where the money drop would happen. And so the pilot
took off, and he did exactly as the thing instructed,
as a ransom note instructed, and there was nothing. He
flew around for forty five minutes, just waiting, hoping, I
guess probably came close to running out of gas. And
then he flew back to the Lake Tahoe Airport and
(18:34):
went back to the pay phone in case they called
to say, like, what the heck is going on? And
they never did call, actually, so the money drop never happened.
I wonder. The FED takes off and he's got the
other FED behind him hiding with a gun, and he's like, hey,
how do you think this guy knows how far we're
going to be in fifteen minutes? And the other FED
went beats me, and that's exactly what happened. Uh. And
(18:59):
it's at this point in the store where we will
introduce you to the guy behind the whole thing, uh,
And we'll learn more about him later. But his name
was John Waldo Burgess, Sr. And that was one of
the key mistakes he made. He kind of botched this
money drop because he, uh, he should have said miles,
(19:20):
like fly so many miles or fly to this destination.
He just said fly for fifteen minutes uh, and I
don't know if he put at like at an average
rate of speed for your helicopter. Right. But the long
insure of it is they didn't know after he had
flown fifteen and that's exactly where he was going to
end up. And they were like, well that stinks. And
this is after they had forgotten the battery to the
(19:42):
Strobe light. Right, they left it in Fresno. They eventually
got one. Yeah, they left it at their at their place.
They eventually got one. Uh. They tried to break into
an autopod store to get one and got chased off,
and then got one at a shell station. So they
had the Strobe. But by the time all this happens,
they don't even know where the helicopter is now. And
(20:02):
that shell station also has its own hilarious story because
the gas station attendant they were trying to buy the
battery from basically was like, why no, you need this
kind of battery for the Volvo that you have parked
outside that you're driving there, Like it doesn't matter what
kind of battery is for. He's like, well, yeah it does,
because Volvo won't take any battery. And they finally I
(20:23):
guess convinced him to just sell them a battery. And
he's like, fine, I guess that you're gonna find out
yourself that it's not gonna work. And they finally drove off.
That's how they got the battery. But they made it
to that drop point, which was twenty five miles away
from the airport, and um, they sat there and waited
and waited and waited and waited and waited. No helicopter.
(20:45):
No helicopter came. And the reason why is because they
were separated, separated by so many miles. They couldn't even
hear the helicopter where it was. It was so far
away from where they were at the drop site. All right,
so this is botched. Back at the the bomb side
the casino, this a full on party is going on
because it's a casino and people are just out of
(21:05):
their minds at those places. So the barricades are set up,
people are selling T shirts. I got bombed at Lake Tahoe.
I had a dynamite time at Lake Tahoe. Like that's
how quickly this thing was moving. And the bomb squad
team said, all right, here's what I think we should do.
Like they called this and they said, if we flip
(21:25):
switched number five. Then it'll buy some more time because
this thing isn't playing out quite right. But I don't
know if I trust that no one volunteered to flick
that switch like they felt basically, we should go on
our own, like with our own gut feeling on how
to do this, which is too basically blow this box apart,
but do it so quickly that it severs the relay switch,
(21:49):
like before the signal can reach the dynamite. Yeah, which
is pretty fast. And it was possible. They had They
had some of like the greatest minds in the United
States who knew about bombs working on this problem, and
they designed a charge especially for this, and it was
built and brought to the site and put up and
they said, this still has at best chance. But we
(22:13):
talked to the engineer, one of the engineers at Harvey's,
and he said, it probably won't bring the whole building down,
so let's give it a shot. And so, almost thirty
five hours after the bomb had been discovered, around three
pm the next day, a guy named Danny Daniel Um
was the person who volunteered to go take the charge
put it on the bomb exactly at the angle he
(22:34):
was told to put it at and then walked out
and started the countdown for the remote triggering. And remember
there are hundreds, if not thousands of people thronged together
to watch this to see if it worked. And when
they finally did, apparently they broadcast the radio the countdown
on like local radio, Chuck. And when they finally set
(22:56):
it off, that charge did not work the way it
was intended. No, it set off the bomb. Uh, the
entire thing went off, and it was, like we said,
it was a thousand pounds of dynamite. It created at
ft hole in the ground in the middle of this casino,
shooting shrapnel everywhere, obviously shooting cash and chips everywhere, which
(23:18):
is obviously problematic. They said there were TV sets swinging
on cords, toilets hanging by the pipes. It was a huge,
massive explosion in the middle of a casino. And because
it's a casino and because it's Tahoe, it was not
very long afterward that the surrounding casinos got right back
to business, and it didn't take too long, a couple
(23:41):
of days before Harvey's got back to business. UH. With
what was left of the casino, they put glass around
it and was kind of like, hey, come see the
bomb hole and and gamble some and what's the FBI
work on this crime scene? That's that just took place.
So one of the other great details of the story
for me is that the bandits didn't know that the
(24:04):
bomb had been detonated, and so a few minutes after
the bomb went off, they called the local sheriff's office
and said, we'll be calling back in one hour to
arrange another payment drop he said, whatever. Yeah, kids. You
imagine like the person who took the call being like, oh, yeah, great, okay,
we'll talk to you in an hour. Yeah. Yeah. So
that didn't matter. Harvey Gross Uh was very sad. He
(24:25):
just cried when he saw the damage. Um, eighteen million
dollars worth of damage. Uh. And you know, we'll tell
you what ultimately happened later. But um, they got back
to business, like I said, And I guess we should
talk a little bit more about who this mastermind was.
I agree, Chuck, and I say, before we start talking
(24:46):
about the mastermind behind the plot, we take a break,
all right, let's do it. So we already revealed who
(25:11):
it was, a guy named John Burgess sr Um and
his son wrote a book later that I saw. He
called the publisher to find out how many copies have
been sold at the time, and they told him zero.
But in this book, uh, he depicts his dad is
not a very nice guy. He was an abusive husband,
physically abusive, a really terrible dad. Um. He liked to
(25:33):
emotionally blackmail his family by threatening to take his life
by suicide. Um. And he was an actual Nazi, like
a genuine Nazi. Just to just to put the cherry
on top of everything. Yeah, he flew for the Luftwaffa
and uh spent eight years in a Soviet prison camp
before coming to America and becoming a multimillionaire. So it
(25:56):
kind of ended up okay for him. He had a
landscaping business in Fresno that apparently did really, really well.
But he also liked to gamble a lot and lost
a ton of money over the years. Uh. I think
about seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars they had estimated
that he lost. I think at Harvey's alone, right, I
(26:16):
think that was the whole shebang, But most of that
was at Harvey's. That was my take on it, Okay,
And and we do need to put a pin in
something else, is that years before, uh, he had a business,
a restaurant that it was pretty clear that he burned
down for the insurance money, got a three d and
(26:36):
fifty five thousand dollars from that and gambled that away. Yeah,
he was that kind of guy, right. So the heist itself,
it was, um, it was an attempt to make back
some of the money that the house had taken from
him over the years that he felt bitter about. But
also the reason that he targeted Harvey's, they later found out,
was that on some New Year's Eve a few year
(26:58):
or two before, he had been given the high Roller suite.
That's how often he gambled at Harvey's, Like he was
well known there, um, but he had amassed such a
debt that they actually took him that evening out of
the high Roller suite and put him in a regular room,
much to his great humiliation. Yeah, I mean that was
(27:18):
pretty much why he very at least why he targeted Harvey's.
They he he considered that quite a a loss of
pride because I guess he was with a date and
the date was like, I thought you said you were
a big time which didn't make it any better. So
that's why Harvey's got targeted in particular, that's right. And
they put Aaron Hagar in that swite instead, they did,
(27:40):
and everything was right with the world, that's right. Uh So,
actually Aaron's he's about mate. So he would have been
a kid back then, or maybe they did. He could
have been high rolling and he was like a nine
year old like running the show in that gambling room.
I could totally see it. So, uh we mentioned he
was Burgess Senior. There was a Burgess Jr. He had
a couple of sons, John Jr. And Jimmy who were
(28:02):
twenty and eighteen respectively, and then Jimmy or wait was
was Ella Williams the seniors girlfriend? Yes, okay, so you
had a girlfriend named Ella Williams who were also in
on it. In these two numb skulls who delivered the bomb,
named Bill Brown and Terry Hall. The FBI later said
after they caught Bill Brown, they described him or no,
(28:25):
it was from um a report like somebody who witnessed
the bomb being delivered. They said one of them was
a hay seed, a real goober type. That's how they
described Bill Brown. And it's sad for Bill Brown and
Terry Hall Chuck because they got a total of bucks.
But it wasn't until after they were driven away early
that morning that they were told what they'd just done.
(28:47):
They did not know that they were delivering a bomb
until after they delivered the bomb. Isn't that terrible? Yeah?
I mean they they were probably just soldier some money
go deliver this thing. There was a lot of money,
that's exactly right. Yeah, And I'm Burgess Jr. Just totally
misled him, which is another mark against that guy. All Right,
So spinning back a little bit, when they hatched this plan, Uh,
(29:09):
the first thing he did was go out and get
all this dynamite which they stole from a power plant
in California and stashed it in their walk in freezer
in their garage and started building this bomb. And no
one That's kind of one of the mysteries of this
case is it was such a sophisticated device and no
one still really knows how this guy managed to build
(29:34):
this thing. Uh, if he had help, if he was
just this bomb genius that no one knew about. It
was just super smart and did his research. But uh,
no one really knows how he managed to build such
a sophisticated bomb. I mean, it's still not clear. I
don't think anybody will ever know he just did it.
And what's crazy is, um, John Burgess might have gotten
(29:55):
away with the whole thing. Uh. The FBI did not.
They were not on him and Ashley. They interviewed something
like five suspects in the whole case. And Um, there
were two things that seemed to have brought Burgess down.
One was a hotel owner who was the night manager
of the hotel that Burgess, Brown and Hall stayed up
(30:16):
before they planted the bomb. Her name was Nancy Domenico,
and she found those three suspicious enough that she wrote
down their license plate on their van, make, model, color,
and the license plate number, UM, and just kept it
on file just in case. And it turned out that
that would become really important later on. And then the
other factor was John Burgess Jr. Had a really loud mouth.
(30:39):
It turns out, yeah, he had a girlfriend leading up
to the event, and he would just brag all about
this thing. They break up. You never think about the
breakup side of things when you're when you're spilling your
innermost thoughts. Uh. And she has a new boyfriend tells
him all about this guy I dated before you that
(31:00):
told me all about this bomb plot. Uh. The new
boyfriend calls in the FBI tip. So now they have
a couple of tips pointing to these dudes. Uh. They
tracked down the van that the um Nancy Domenico had
reported as shady, and it was a van that was
registered to the restaurant that Burgess Senior allegedly had burned down.
(31:21):
So that's where that comes back into play. Yeah, so
they're like, okay, let's go interview John Burgess Senior. And
John Burgess Senior says, oh, John Jr. Was driving the
van justly gave us the immediately. Yeah, I mean, like
that first interview, said him, probably said here's his address.
Hopefully at least called his son to give him a
heads up. I don't know. But they went over and
(31:42):
they interviewed John Jr. And he said, yes, I was
around Tahoe at the time. Yes, I was with my van,
but I was looking for places to plant marijuana. And
you know that's true because I've just admitted to a
crime to the FBI, right right, And apparently the FBI
didn't didn't really buy it. They said like, this story
(32:04):
is awful, but he's stuck to it and they didn't
have anything else they could get him on right then,
but he was definitely on their radar from that point forward.
I thought, it's a pretty good story to be put
on the spot. Personally, Well, well, it didn't work, but
like to admit to another crime, I was like, right,
all right, not bad, I'll give you that part, the
part of the FBI. The FBI was like, you're you're kidding, right,
(32:26):
he said, the battery died, so I abandoned the van.
Somebody must have taken it and used it in the
crime and then brought it back while I was away
from the van, right well, which is a long way
of saying was it wasn't me, right exactly. Uh So
they you know, they do what they do in the movies.
They don't have enough hard evidence, so they spend a
(32:46):
year getting that evidence, building a case on a montage
with a great like upbeat song where they're putting this
stuff together. Right. Sure, I don't know why John jr.
Uh and John SR. Are still in the country. I
would have been out of there so fast. Where would
you go? I'd leave the country. I know where where'd
(33:08):
you go? Oh, that's a really good question. Everyone just
always talks about like who would you have over for dinner?
Living or dead? Like where would you go if you
were guilty of a bombing blot? I mean it's got
to be a non extradition treaty country, right, So you're
looking at like Venezuela. I'd have to do my research then,
but yeah, I would go someplace with a beach and
(33:29):
uh and like a very quiet life, okay, yeah, and
then they just you know, they eventually show up at
the beach in the movie as well. So tie out
of your hands and your ex. Canada has beaches, sure,
lovely beaches. Not quite the beaches I was looking for, though,
You're welcome and chunk. Uh. So the FBI is getting
(33:52):
this evidence. Uh, they have rewards. I think like a
half a million bucks is about as high as the
reward went and fly. About a year later, they arrest
John Jr. And Jimmy and they say they dang a
little carrot in front of their faces, said how would
(34:12):
you like to how'd you like to turn on dad
and maybe get a little leniency And they went that jerk,
I'm happy to And that's exactly what they did, right,
and um, they turned other dad, they arrested their dad,
They arrested Ella Williams, Bill Brown, Terry Hall, and from
what we understand, every single person who had anything to
do with that was rounded up and one fell swoop basically,
(34:34):
and the convictions started coming out. Ella Williams got seven
years for her involvement. And she hasn't factored in hugely
into this podcast, but she was definitely an accomplished She
typed the ransom notes up. She Um, she did a lot.
I think she dropped some people off at the one
of the landing sites, like she was very much involved.
So she got seven years, but a judge later overturned
(34:56):
her conviction and I couldn't see why. But um, as
far as I know, she did not do any time
in prison, maybe beyond her trial. Yeah, I think the
sons did get that leniency. As for John SR. He
represented himself in court, cross examined his own sons. Eventually
got twenty years in federal prison and then I believe
(35:19):
life without parole in state prison. Yeah. His his um.
The big key to his defense was his sons had
given him a Father's Day car that said you're the
best dad around ten years before. It didn't work on
the jury, Sorry, how could I have done this? Um?
He served sixteen years, died in prison of cancer. But
(35:41):
then there's one final little potential twist here, right Yeah,
Um so John Burgess had talked to a reporter while
he was alive and he said, you know what, this
wasn't my idea. I was a patsy, I was a rube.
I got and I got dragged into this by a
loan shark. I owed sixty large two. That's that's what
you say when you're a gambler. And um, he recruited
(36:01):
me to plant this bomb, and that really the loan
shark was working on behalf of Harvey's top executives and
the mafia who were conspiring to blow the place up
so that they could collect the insurance money. Look at there,
you believe it? Not at all? No? Now, And like
the the the thing that just like completely proves it is, yeah,
(36:25):
they used insurance money to rebuild. It's like, no, that
doesn't prove anything. Of course you're going to use insurance
money to rebuild. It doesn't mean there is a conspiracy.
Is that place still there? Any idea? Yeah, it's still there. Um,
I think it's been updated even even more since then.
But yeah, as far as I know, Harvey's is still there. Awesome.
I don't know why for the best two weeks, I
(36:46):
never thought to look that up me either. I'm almost
positive we'll have to leave it to Aaron Hagar to
tell us whether it's there or not. Sweet it is.
I'm looking at a picture of it. It's definitely been updated. Well,
while you're online, Um, why don't you look at eBay
and see if there's any like I got bombed at
Harvey's T shirts still around? Oh wow, Well, if there are,
(37:06):
I'm not gonna tell you. I'm just gonna get you
one for Christmas. Fair enough. I like that a lot.
That's a good plan. Um. Well, since Chuck said what
he's gonna give me for Christmas and I realized, Man,
I've got to figure out what to get Chuck for Christmas,
it's time for listener mail. You just got me a
great record, which one? Oh the Bill Evans one? Yeah? Yeah,
(37:28):
do you like it? Have you listened to it yet?
I love it? I mean it's Bill Evans, but it's
just yeah, it's it's good, very evocative, of changing in
the seasons, which I think was the whole point for sure.
I'm glad um all right, Hey guys. After listening to
the Introvert Extrovert episode, I thought i'd reach out because
Chuck at one point talked about finding ways to discipline
(37:50):
his child by removing fun activities. I remember saying that,
and but I guess you were so mad. You're like
frothing at the mouth. I've been ever heard you more angry.
You don't even really do that, so I'm not sure
if I may have been kidding or not. Anyway, I'm
a third grade teacher because this is like a tip here,
so we gotta read the tips. I'm a third grade
teacher on a reservation, and with sixteen kids in my class,
(38:13):
I have never had to use discipline. My classroom functions
like a well oiled machine. Due to a type of
behavior management known in the educational world as pb I
s positive behaviors and supports. It's a way to manage
challenging child behavior solely solely through the use of using
praise and rewards. Can easily be applied in the context
(38:36):
of raising your own child, especially if you want to
raise a psychopath. This is a huge topic. And when
that's near and deeed in my heart, I thought it
might be incredibly useful for all the parents out there who,
like Chuck, struggle to find a way to manage their
child's behavior. You convention that discipline. Man, this guy's scoring
all over you, Chuck a little bit. And this is Anthony.
(38:57):
You guys rock. Thanks for all the wonderful knowledge and
hlarryst dialogue. Uh, I want to be super clear, Anthony,
we don't struggle to find a way to manage her behavior.
She's she's a good kid. And not to say the
kids who have trouble behaving are bad kids at all.
Everyone has their challenges as kids and parents. But um,
(39:18):
it's not too bad. And I don't know that this
pb I S would work necessarily in my household. But hey,
I mean we already do that kind of thing, but
I'll ramp it up and see if that helps run
an experiment, Chuck in true s YSK fashion. Sure, I'm
curious though, because Anthony didn't say if Anthony had kids.
(39:40):
Because I will say that the way kids behave for
teachers is not at all related to how they behave
for parents. A lot of imagine. So yeah, I'm curious. Yeah,
if you guys listening out there, um try this. Let
us know if it works or what. And also, Anthony,
thank you very much for writing in Anthony. It was great.
Um So if want to be like Anthony, you can
(40:01):
write into two Stuff podcast at i heart radio dot com.
Stuff you Should Know is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. H
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck and Jerry's here and this is stuff
you should know. The True Crime EDITIONE where nobody gets hurt.
Isn't that amazing? Yeah? I think this falls into our
(00:23):
sort of caper a dish, yes, well put, well put?
Do we have any other capers? Yeah, like the child
Chilla kidnapping. And I think any non murder crime podcast
I think would fall under this, like dB dB Cooper exactly.
And um, before I forget Chuck, that was definitely a caper.
(00:44):
Good call. Um. This was a request which, like you
said last time, we've been doing a lot of these lately,
but this one's requested by Nick Hales, and I say,
good request, Nick, Thanks for that. And I totally spaced
on shouting out Neil Stephen from the UK for Georgia
Guidestones episode. He requested it and gave me the idea
(01:05):
to do it all right, nice work. This one was
so familiar to me that I was sure that we
had either touched on it or that I saw. What
I really thought was that I saw a documentary about it,
but I hadn't because I don't think there's been one.
I don't know what it is. It was really familiar
with some other I think true life thing that I saw.
(01:27):
I don't know, I don't know. But the fact that
there's not a movie about this is insane. Yeah. I
don't know if it's a movie worthy. Oh really yeah?
Oh man, just like the pork Chop side Burns alone,
I think would would warn a movie. But um that
because I said pork chop sideburns. Of course, we're talking
about nineteen eighty, right, Chuck, August eight, that's right. Uh.
(01:50):
And on August eighty, very early in the morning, a
couple of delivery dudes would be delivery dudes wield a
big piece of equipment had a cover on it, said
IBM into Harvey's Resort hotel in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Shout
out to our buddy, Aaron Hagar representing Lake Tahoe. He's
(02:14):
got it made out there in Tahoe. Nice except for
the bears and wildfires. I'll bet he's heard of this story, then,
I bet you he has. We'll hear from on this.
But anyway, they wheeled it in there up to the
second floor offices and dropped it off and basically skidaddled.
After that, they had a guy waiting in a van
outside and drove them the heck out of there. Yeah,
(02:35):
so it's kind of weird five am to drop off
a piece of office equipment, not waiting around for anybody
sign it. Kind of odd, And within an hour the
oddity behind it kind of became a really apparent. A
slot manager, I believe, or maybe the night manager in general. Um,
he noticed this piece of office equipment that was kind
of randomly placed on the second floor offices, and he
(02:56):
saw that there was a note by it, and he
gathered some other employees and they were all kind of
hanging out reading the note. And one of the details
I love, um that I saw in a um Adam
higginbottom Uh article on on the atavist um was that
one of the people reading the note was leaning up
against the machine while they were reading the note. All right,
(03:18):
the notes that should we read the note? Yeah, because
then it makes the whole thing about somebody leaning up
against it really hilarious. Al Right, stern warning to the
management and bomb squad, in which case I would have
been out of there. That's all I need to hear
a right exactly. Uh, do not move until this bomb
because the mechanism controlling the detonators in it will set
it off at a movement of less than point o
(03:40):
one of the open end Richter scale. So let's confuse
people right out of the gate, is what this note
is what this guy's thinking. Uh, don't try to flood
or gas the bomb. There's a float switch and an
atmosphere pressure switch set at two numbers twenty six point
zero was zero to thirty three. Both are attached to detonators.
(04:03):
Do not try to take it apart. The flathead screws
are attached to triggers, and as much of a quarter
to three quarters of a turn will cause the explosion. Uh.
In other words, this bomb is so sensitive that the
slightest movement, either inside or outside will cause it to
explode full stop. Yeah, and you can guess the person
leaning against the machine stood up and moved away from it, right,
that's right. Uh. And basically they said that part No
(04:26):
one can detonate or no one can can deactivate this bomb,
not even I, not even the creator can diffuse this thing.
So it is going to go off at some point.
Your best hope of not getting hurt is to pay
a three thousand dollar ransom and you're gonna receive instructions
on how to move it out of here so it
(04:46):
can explode somewhere else. Yeah, and it would have been
a bargain for three thousand dollars. There was actually a
three million dollar rans to save you did. I think
you're being optimistic three But it was a it was
a big fat ran and um the bomb itself. I mean,
if you just look at the at the ransom note
(05:07):
and when it's talking about the bomb, that's a pretty
amazing bomb. And it actually became pretty legendary with the FBI,
so much so that I saw that they still I
don't know if they still do today, but for many
years they used it as a teaching model for UM
bomb technicians, and the FBI considered it very sophisticated, and
they said it was unlike anything any bomb technician had
(05:30):
ever seen before. No one had ever made a bomb
like this. Yeah, very good bomb, if there is such
a thing. Uh. It was a couple of stacked boxes
lined with metal and rubber that through conventional methods you
couldn't separate, of course, without it going boom. And so
the FBI did what they do in this case. They
(05:50):
come in, they start taking pictures, the X ray it,
they sweep it for fingerprints. Obviously they don't move it. Uh.
They find out that it has about a thousand pounds
of dynamite inside, and they can't find a way to
Like basically they're saying, this note seems to be right
on the money, Like we can't find a way at
least right off the bat about how to diffuse these
(06:11):
things safely. Yeah, and very famously, the bomb technicians in
the room started running around in aimless circles saying, oh
my god, oh my god, oh my god. And they
did that for a good three hours I think before
somebody stepped in and stopped them. But that ransom note, also, UM,
showed a lot of planning, not just the bomb, Like
this bomb was amazing, just full stop amazing. I wanted
(06:34):
to really be proud of if you're a bomb maker, UM.
But the actual heist itself had like a real shot
at extorting this three million dollars successfully UM. And it
started with UM. They they knew what they were doing.
Out of the gate, they said, we want three million
dollars in used bills, hundred dollar bills already used, not marked,
(06:54):
not bugg don't even try to chemically treat them. Um.
And we want you to fly helicopter to Lake Tahoe Airport,
have the pilot land by the pay phone, and wait
by the payphone for instructions. Are instruction is going to
come from the payphone? Who knows? They could also come
by taxi. Uh, they could also come by carrier pigeon.
(07:15):
I'm making that last one up. But they were just
trying out of the gate to to confuse them so
that they couldn't plan for everything. Um. And it was
I think it was a really well planned heist. Yeah.
I mean they basically said, no one involved from this
point that you meet up with, like anyone that might
deliver a note, any someone that might drive a vehicle
(07:37):
that's involved, Like, no one's gonna know anything, so don't bother.
And I think I believe that that's probably true. Um.
They said that the you know, I the creator of
the bomb, I'm not gonna be a part of this
money drop. I'm not gonna be around. Uh. Nobody that's
a part of any of this exchange of money is
going to know anything about how to diffuse this bomb, Like,
(07:58):
this thing is gonna go off and there's nothing you
can do to stop it. Again, the only thing that
you can do is follow what will ultimately be six
sets of instructions to safely get this bomb out of
there after I get my loot. Yeah, after he gets
the loot or they um, So the first set of
instructions was going to be given to the helicopter pilot.
(08:20):
The rest of the instructions would arrive through the local
post office, which is putting a lot of a lot
of faith in the USPS. But then there was another
demand too, that was probably the most ridiculous demand of all.
They said that all news media, local or national was
to be kept ignorant of the heist until the bomb
was successfully removed. Right, And that was impossible, totally impossible
(08:43):
because the first thing the cops did when they realized
like this is for real, which they figured out pretty quickly.
I think the thing was discovered before six am, and
by seven or eight at the very latest, they were
rousing um hotel guests at Harvey's Um, many of them
from sleep, telling them like, Nope, you don't have time
to grab your belongings. You gotta go. Uh. And not
(09:04):
only did they evacuate Harvey's. A thousand pounds of dynamite
can do some real damage, they actually evacuated hairs across
the street from Harvey's too. Yeah, so they said, you're
all going to go to this nearby high school. And
of course the media, it's a it's a big thing
when that happens, when people are being like massively bust
out in their bathrobes and stuff. So basically within a
(09:28):
few hours, like all the media knows this, they cordon
off the area. There's people hanging out, there's there's gawkers,
there's reporters, there's before you know it, of course, because
there's casinos around there. They're taking bets, of course, like
over under on whether this thing's gonna detonate. And not
only did they not keep the media out of it,
but it became like, uh, I mean, call this sensation
(09:50):
indicates that it drug on. It was like a day
and change, but it was a crazy day and change
for the media for sure. And it was over the
week before Labor Day weekend, so Tahoe was crawling with people.
Um and this was right, um, just thirty six years
before the first casino was opened on the south shore
(10:13):
of Lake Tahoe, and it was opened by the same
guy whose hotel now how to bomb in it, Harvey
gross Um. His first thing was Harvey's Wagon Wheel Saloon
and gambling hall, which I saw described as a cabin
um that had six slot machines in it. Um And
at the time in Tahoe chucked. There was no phone,
no water, no sewer, no power lines. The roads would
(10:36):
close at like the first sign of snow, um and
it was like a real podunk area. But gambling made
it actually put it on the map for a second there.
I thought you were gonna say, not a single luxury.
Oh man, I really should have. I wish I had.
I'm not on my game today like Robinson Crusoe. They
(10:57):
were what primitives can be, right, that's what they said.
But it was the sixties. You wouldn't say that anymore. Uh.
So things go great for Harvey and his little wagon
wheel uh cabin You know, it's on the state line
of California. So that's a pretty smart thing because you
get those out of staters, those richies from California throwing
(11:18):
down some money. Yeah, and it was so on the
state line it was in a town called state Line.
That's very Nevada. It's very on the nose. I'm so
nervous about us saying it the right way because those
people will email you like Gangbusters. Oh it's Nevada, but
always say Nevada. Okay, but they say it Nevada. Everyone
(11:39):
outside the state of Nevada says Nevada, and that drives
them nuts, drives them crazy. It's really something so Harvey
no less way, don't break. So Harvey was doing great,
uh with this little tiny casino in the forties through
the fifties makes a lot of dough, and by sixty
three had expanded an upgrade to Harvey's Lake Tahoe, which
(12:02):
at the time was the tallest building UM at eleven stories,
which is you know, that's a pretty tall building for
that area of the country. Yeah, less than twenty years
he went from a cabin to an eleven story casino resort.
And I believe it was at that same eleven story
casino resort that this bomb um was placed in in
(12:24):
seventeen years later. Um and Harvey himself was like, I
mean he was a casino owner in Nevada, like he
had I don't want to say, a checkered past, but
he had a past like he'd been hauled in front
of the the I R S for tax evasion. There was
um he had been given an honorary name by the
Nevada Inner Tribal Did I say it right? Nevada? By
(12:47):
the Nevada Inner Tribal Council. He was called Chief hu
and I. And there was an article that was written
back in I think that said that it meant, uh,
the man who runs the game and takes a percentage
of the bats. I don't know if that's a joke
or not. I can't tell. I don't either, because it's
definitely like that era kind of joke. You know, you
(13:08):
can see that on like a tiky napkin. But the
long and short of it is he was he'd had
his little run ins with the I R S and
stuff and the gaming board, but it wasn't anything unusual.
He wasn't like some bad guy like mafios type. He
was like he said, he owned a casino and there's
you know, he's gonna be brought up by the I
R S at some point. Um. But all of this
(13:29):
to say, he wasn't like some uh, some big Mark
because of like all his dirty dealings in his past.
Basically I saw him actually referred to as a good
guy by some people. It sounds like it like he
he was well known to have put off expansion, like
he didn't want to expand to other towns. Uh. He's
(13:51):
basically said, I'm I'm making enough money. He had a
quote that he would refer to is, um, I have
a nice little business. How many stakes can I eat?
Which is to say like he had everything he needed
and this was fine. He was happy with this business
where it was. That's right. But it was uh, the
seventies and into the early eighties, which was um, just
(14:13):
sort of the golden age of all this kind of
stuff of kidnappings and ransoms and hijackings, and it just
seems like all this kind of hi jinks. There's still
stuff like that happens occasionally, but not like it did
back then. I think it's because took the police state
hadn't evolved enough that they would catch you no matter
(14:34):
what right, and leaded gas had been around long enough
to really have the effects on a whole new generation
of brains. So you put those two things together, you
have everything converging on the seventies for people trying all
sorts of heists and kidnappings and stuff like that. Yeah,
and that happened back then around there, even I think
(14:55):
as far back as the early seventies there were kidnapping
conspiracies against gross ransom things that had been uncovered in
the late seventies. There were smoke bombs with ransom notes
found at other casinos around Tahoe. So I don't know
about that. It was what the smoke bombs? Yeah, what
is that? You might as well say, like there's a
(15:16):
box of sparklers in your your lobby, give me five
hundred thousand smoleans orrel give me thirty five cents, I know,
to pay me back for the smoke both. Um. So
it was a time where if you owned a casino
that brought in I think he made about four million
profit but brought in like seventy million dollars a year
(15:38):
like his did, then that simply just meant you were
a mark by virtue of that fact alone, right. Um.
The thing is, though, is the FBI found out um
as they started investigating the case about a year after that,
it actually was a personal vendetta against Harvey himself. Or
Harvey's casino that led to that bomb being placed there
(15:58):
in August of m It sounds like a great cliffhanger
for a break. Thank you, thanks man. All Right, we'll
get back to it right after this. All right, So
(16:27):
we're back in action here at the bomb site. The
FBI's bomb squad is working hard trying to figure this
thing out. They have another team working on a fake
ransom drop. UH Special Agent William john Kie basically told Harvey, hey, listen,
why don't we drag this thing out as much as
we can. We'll do a fake payoff arrangement maybe weekend,
(16:48):
just sort of put off this bomb going off long
enough for us to figure it out, either how to
stop it or how to catch these people. Like the
bomb is going to go off no matter what. And
once uh Gross heard that, he was like, well, I'm
not paying anything if this thing's going off no matter what.
You can use my my god, you can use my
own helicopter for the drop even And that's what they did.
(17:10):
They used his own personal helicopter, but the pilot was
uh fed and there was another fed with a gun
hiding behind the pilot seat with a suitcase full of
mostly fake money. Yeah, I think a few grand is
what I saw. And just like the ransom note said,
the agent flew the helicopter Lake Tahoe Airport, landed next
to the pay phone UM and got there just in
(17:33):
time from what I saw too, for the phone to
start ringing, although I suspect they were being watched, and
the phone rang and rather than giving them instructions over
the phone, I think it's hilarious that they said, look
underneath the phone. There's instructions tape beneath the phone, and
then I guess hung up. We didn't want to tape
it to the front of the phone booth, right, So
(17:54):
he checks out the instructions and it says, Okay, this
is what you're gonna do. You're gonna fly west along
the I wait for fifteen minutes from the airport, and
you're gonna turn. There's some compass sitting they told him
to turn toward. I've never found which one, UM. And
then after a certain amount of time he should start
looking for a beacon, which is gonna be a strobe
(18:14):
light in a field. He should land there and that's
where the money drop would happen. And so the pilot
took off, and he did exactly as the thing instructed,
as a ransom note instructed, and there was nothing. He
flew around for forty five minutes, just waiting, hoping, I
guess probably came close to running out of gas. And
then he flew back to the Lake Tahoe Airport and
(18:34):
went back to the pay phone in case they called
to say, like, what the heck is going on? And
they never did call, actually, so the money drop never happened.
I wonder. The FED takes off and he's got the
other FED behind him hiding with a gun, and he's like, hey,
how do you think this guy knows how far we're
going to be in fifteen minutes? And the other FED
went beats me, and that's exactly what happened. Uh. And
(18:59):
it's at this point in the store where we will
introduce you to the guy behind the whole thing, uh,
And we'll learn more about him later. But his name
was John Waldo Burgess, Sr. And that was one of
the key mistakes he made. He kind of botched this
money drop because he, uh, he should have said miles,
(19:20):
like fly so many miles or fly to this destination.
He just said fly for fifteen minutes uh, and I
don't know if he put at like at an average
rate of speed for your helicopter. Right. But the long
insure of it is they didn't know after he had
flown fifteen and that's exactly where he was going to
end up. And they were like, well that stinks. And
this is after they had forgotten the battery to the
(19:42):
Strobe light. Right, they left it in Fresno. They eventually
got one. Yeah, they left it at their at their place.
They eventually got one. Uh. They tried to break into
an autopod store to get one and got chased off,
and then got one at a shell station. So they
had the Strobe. But by the time all this happens,
they don't even know where the helicopter is now. And
(20:02):
that shell station also has its own hilarious story because
the gas station attendant they were trying to buy the
battery from basically was like, why no, you need this
kind of battery for the Volvo that you have parked
outside that you're driving there, Like it doesn't matter what
kind of battery is for. He's like, well, yeah it does,
because Volvo won't take any battery. And they finally I
(20:23):
guess convinced him to just sell them a battery. And
he's like, fine, I guess that you're gonna find out
yourself that it's not gonna work. And they finally drove off.
That's how they got the battery. But they made it
to that drop point, which was twenty five miles away
from the airport, and um, they sat there and waited
and waited and waited and waited and waited. No helicopter.
(20:45):
No helicopter came. And the reason why is because they
were separated, separated by so many miles. They couldn't even
hear the helicopter where it was. It was so far
away from where they were at the drop site. All right,
so this is botched. Back at the the bomb side
the casino, this a full on party is going on
because it's a casino and people are just out of
(21:05):
their minds at those places. So the barricades are set up,
people are selling T shirts. I got bombed at Lake Tahoe.
I had a dynamite time at Lake Tahoe. Like that's
how quickly this thing was moving. And the bomb squad
team said, all right, here's what I think we should do.
Like they called this and they said, if we flip
(21:25):
switched number five. Then it'll buy some more time because
this thing isn't playing out quite right. But I don't
know if I trust that no one volunteered to flick
that switch like they felt basically, we should go on
our own, like with our own gut feeling on how
to do this, which is too basically blow this box apart,
but do it so quickly that it severs the relay switch,
(21:49):
like before the signal can reach the dynamite. Yeah, which
is pretty fast. And it was possible. They had They
had some of like the greatest minds in the United
States who knew about bombs working on this problem, and
they designed a charge especially for this, and it was
built and brought to the site and put up and
they said, this still has at best chance. But we
(22:13):
talked to the engineer, one of the engineers at Harvey's,
and he said, it probably won't bring the whole building down,
so let's give it a shot. And so, almost thirty
five hours after the bomb had been discovered, around three
pm the next day, a guy named Danny Daniel Um
was the person who volunteered to go take the charge
put it on the bomb exactly at the angle he
(22:34):
was told to put it at and then walked out
and started the countdown for the remote triggering. And remember
there are hundreds, if not thousands of people thronged together
to watch this to see if it worked. And when
they finally did, apparently they broadcast the radio the countdown
on like local radio, Chuck. And when they finally set
(22:56):
it off, that charge did not work the way it
was intended. No, it set off the bomb. Uh, the
entire thing went off, and it was, like we said,
it was a thousand pounds of dynamite. It created at
ft hole in the ground in the middle of this casino,
shooting shrapnel everywhere, obviously shooting cash and chips everywhere, which
(23:18):
is obviously problematic. They said there were TV sets swinging
on cords, toilets hanging by the pipes. It was a huge,
massive explosion in the middle of a casino. And because
it's a casino and because it's Tahoe, it was not
very long afterward that the surrounding casinos got right back
to business, and it didn't take too long, a couple
(23:41):
of days before Harvey's got back to business. UH. With
what was left of the casino, they put glass around
it and was kind of like, hey, come see the
bomb hole and and gamble some and what's the FBI
work on this crime scene? That's that just took place.
So one of the other great details of the story
for me is that the bandits didn't know that the
(24:04):
bomb had been detonated, and so a few minutes after
the bomb went off, they called the local sheriff's office
and said, we'll be calling back in one hour to
arrange another payment drop he said, whatever. Yeah, kids. You
imagine like the person who took the call being like, oh, yeah, great, okay,
we'll talk to you in an hour. Yeah. Yeah. So
that didn't matter. Harvey Gross Uh was very sad. He
(24:25):
just cried when he saw the damage. Um, eighteen million
dollars worth of damage. Uh. And you know, we'll tell
you what ultimately happened later. But um, they got back
to business, like I said, And I guess we should
talk a little bit more about who this mastermind was.
I agree, Chuck, and I say, before we start talking
(24:46):
about the mastermind behind the plot, we take a break,
all right, let's do it. So we already revealed who
(25:11):
it was, a guy named John Burgess sr Um and
his son wrote a book later that I saw. He
called the publisher to find out how many copies have
been sold at the time, and they told him zero.
But in this book, uh, he depicts his dad is
not a very nice guy. He was an abusive husband,
physically abusive, a really terrible dad. Um. He liked to
(25:33):
emotionally blackmail his family by threatening to take his life
by suicide. Um. And he was an actual Nazi, like
a genuine Nazi. Just to just to put the cherry
on top of everything. Yeah, he flew for the Luftwaffa
and uh spent eight years in a Soviet prison camp
before coming to America and becoming a multimillionaire. So it
(25:56):
kind of ended up okay for him. He had a
landscaping business in Fresno that apparently did really, really well.
But he also liked to gamble a lot and lost
a ton of money over the years. Uh. I think
about seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars they had estimated
that he lost. I think at Harvey's alone, right, I
(26:16):
think that was the whole shebang, But most of that
was at Harvey's. That was my take on it, Okay,
And and we do need to put a pin in
something else, is that years before, uh, he had a business,
a restaurant that it was pretty clear that he burned
down for the insurance money, got a three d and
(26:36):
fifty five thousand dollars from that and gambled that away. Yeah,
he was that kind of guy, right. So the heist itself,
it was, um, it was an attempt to make back
some of the money that the house had taken from
him over the years that he felt bitter about. But
also the reason that he targeted Harvey's, they later found out,
was that on some New Year's Eve a few year
(26:58):
or two before, he had been given the high Roller suite.
That's how often he gambled at Harvey's, Like he was
well known there, um, but he had amassed such a
debt that they actually took him that evening out of
the high Roller suite and put him in a regular room,
much to his great humiliation. Yeah, I mean that was
(27:18):
pretty much why he very at least why he targeted Harvey's.
They he he considered that quite a a loss of
pride because I guess he was with a date and
the date was like, I thought you said you were
a big time which didn't make it any better. So
that's why Harvey's got targeted in particular, that's right. And
they put Aaron Hagar in that swite instead, they did,
(27:40):
and everything was right with the world, that's right. Uh So,
actually Aaron's he's about mate. So he would have been
a kid back then, or maybe they did. He could
have been high rolling and he was like a nine
year old like running the show in that gambling room.
I could totally see it. So, uh we mentioned he
was Burgess Senior. There was a Burgess Jr. He had
a couple of sons, John Jr. And Jimmy who were
(28:02):
twenty and eighteen respectively, and then Jimmy or wait was
was Ella Williams the seniors girlfriend? Yes, okay, so you
had a girlfriend named Ella Williams who were also in
on it. In these two numb skulls who delivered the bomb,
named Bill Brown and Terry Hall. The FBI later said
after they caught Bill Brown, they described him or no,
(28:25):
it was from um a report like somebody who witnessed
the bomb being delivered. They said one of them was
a hay seed, a real goober type. That's how they
described Bill Brown. And it's sad for Bill Brown and
Terry Hall Chuck because they got a total of bucks.
But it wasn't until after they were driven away early
that morning that they were told what they'd just done.
(28:47):
They did not know that they were delivering a bomb
until after they delivered the bomb. Isn't that terrible? Yeah?
I mean they they were probably just soldier some money
go deliver this thing. There was a lot of money,
that's exactly right. Yeah, And I'm Burgess Jr. Just totally
misled him, which is another mark against that guy. All Right,
So spinning back a little bit, when they hatched this plan, Uh,
(29:09):
the first thing he did was go out and get
all this dynamite which they stole from a power plant
in California and stashed it in their walk in freezer
in their garage and started building this bomb. And no
one That's kind of one of the mysteries of this
case is it was such a sophisticated device and no
one still really knows how this guy managed to build
(29:34):
this thing. Uh, if he had help, if he was
just this bomb genius that no one knew about. It
was just super smart and did his research. But uh,
no one really knows how he managed to build such
a sophisticated bomb. I mean, it's still not clear. I
don't think anybody will ever know he just did it.
And what's crazy is, um, John Burgess might have gotten
(29:55):
away with the whole thing. Uh. The FBI did not.
They were not on him and Ashley. They interviewed something
like five suspects in the whole case. And Um, there
were two things that seemed to have brought Burgess down.
One was a hotel owner who was the night manager
of the hotel that Burgess, Brown and Hall stayed up
(30:16):
before they planted the bomb. Her name was Nancy Domenico,
and she found those three suspicious enough that she wrote
down their license plate on their van, make, model, color,
and the license plate number, UM, and just kept it
on file just in case. And it turned out that
that would become really important later on. And then the
other factor was John Burgess Jr. Had a really loud mouth.
(30:39):
It turns out, yeah, he had a girlfriend leading up
to the event, and he would just brag all about
this thing. They break up. You never think about the
breakup side of things when you're when you're spilling your
innermost thoughts. Uh. And she has a new boyfriend tells
him all about this guy I dated before you that
(31:00):
told me all about this bomb plot. Uh. The new
boyfriend calls in the FBI tip. So now they have
a couple of tips pointing to these dudes. Uh. They
tracked down the van that the um Nancy Domenico had
reported as shady, and it was a van that was
registered to the restaurant that Burgess Senior allegedly had burned down.
(31:21):
So that's where that comes back into play. Yeah, so
they're like, okay, let's go interview John Burgess Senior. And
John Burgess Senior says, oh, John Jr. Was driving the
van justly gave us the immediately. Yeah, I mean, like
that first interview, said him, probably said here's his address.
Hopefully at least called his son to give him a
heads up. I don't know. But they went over and
(31:42):
they interviewed John Jr. And he said, yes, I was
around Tahoe at the time. Yes, I was with my van,
but I was looking for places to plant marijuana. And
you know that's true because I've just admitted to a
crime to the FBI, right right, And apparently the FBI
didn't didn't really buy it. They said like, this story
(32:04):
is awful, but he's stuck to it and they didn't
have anything else they could get him on right then,
but he was definitely on their radar from that point forward.
I thought, it's a pretty good story to be put
on the spot. Personally, Well, well, it didn't work, but
like to admit to another crime, I was like, right,
all right, not bad, I'll give you that part, the
part of the FBI. The FBI was like, you're you're kidding, right,
(32:26):
he said, the battery died, so I abandoned the van.
Somebody must have taken it and used it in the
crime and then brought it back while I was away
from the van, right well, which is a long way
of saying was it wasn't me, right exactly. Uh So
they you know, they do what they do in the movies.
They don't have enough hard evidence, so they spend a
(32:46):
year getting that evidence, building a case on a montage
with a great like upbeat song where they're putting this
stuff together. Right. Sure, I don't know why John jr.
Uh and John SR. Are still in the country. I
would have been out of there so fast. Where would
you go? I'd leave the country. I know where where'd
(33:08):
you go? Oh, that's a really good question. Everyone just
always talks about like who would you have over for dinner?
Living or dead? Like where would you go if you
were guilty of a bombing blot? I mean it's got
to be a non extradition treaty country, right, So you're
looking at like Venezuela. I'd have to do my research then,
but yeah, I would go someplace with a beach and
(33:29):
uh and like a very quiet life, okay, yeah, and
then they just you know, they eventually show up at
the beach in the movie as well. So tie out
of your hands and your ex. Canada has beaches, sure,
lovely beaches. Not quite the beaches I was looking for, though,
You're welcome and chunk. Uh. So the FBI is getting
(33:52):
this evidence. Uh, they have rewards. I think like a
half a million bucks is about as high as the
reward went and fly. About a year later, they arrest
John Jr. And Jimmy and they say they dang a
little carrot in front of their faces, said how would
(34:12):
you like to how'd you like to turn on dad
and maybe get a little leniency And they went that jerk,
I'm happy to And that's exactly what they did, right,
and um, they turned other dad, they arrested their dad,
They arrested Ella Williams, Bill Brown, Terry Hall, and from
what we understand, every single person who had anything to
do with that was rounded up and one fell swoop basically,
(34:34):
and the convictions started coming out. Ella Williams got seven
years for her involvement. And she hasn't factored in hugely
into this podcast, but she was definitely an accomplished She
typed the ransom notes up. She Um, she did a lot.
I think she dropped some people off at the one
of the landing sites, like she was very much involved.
So she got seven years, but a judge later overturned
(34:56):
her conviction and I couldn't see why. But um, as
far as I know, she did not do any time
in prison, maybe beyond her trial. Yeah, I think the
sons did get that leniency. As for John SR. He
represented himself in court, cross examined his own sons. Eventually
got twenty years in federal prison and then I believe
(35:19):
life without parole in state prison. Yeah. His his um.
The big key to his defense was his sons had
given him a Father's Day car that said you're the
best dad around ten years before. It didn't work on
the jury, Sorry, how could I have done this? Um?
He served sixteen years, died in prison of cancer. But
(35:41):
then there's one final little potential twist here, right Yeah,
Um so John Burgess had talked to a reporter while
he was alive and he said, you know what, this
wasn't my idea. I was a patsy, I was a rube.
I got and I got dragged into this by a
loan shark. I owed sixty large two. That's that's what
you say when you're a gambler. And um, he recruited
(36:01):
me to plant this bomb, and that really the loan
shark was working on behalf of Harvey's top executives and
the mafia who were conspiring to blow the place up
so that they could collect the insurance money. Look at there,
you believe it? Not at all? No? Now, And like
the the the thing that just like completely proves it is, yeah,
(36:25):
they used insurance money to rebuild. It's like, no, that
doesn't prove anything. Of course you're going to use insurance
money to rebuild. It doesn't mean there is a conspiracy.
Is that place still there? Any idea? Yeah, it's still there. Um,
I think it's been updated even even more since then.
But yeah, as far as I know, Harvey's is still there. Awesome.
I don't know why for the best two weeks, I
(36:46):
never thought to look that up me either. I'm almost
positive we'll have to leave it to Aaron Hagar to
tell us whether it's there or not. Sweet it is.
I'm looking at a picture of it. It's definitely been updated. Well,
while you're online, Um, why don't you look at eBay
and see if there's any like I got bombed at
Harvey's T shirts still around? Oh wow, Well, if there are,
(37:06):
I'm not gonna tell you. I'm just gonna get you
one for Christmas. Fair enough. I like that a lot.
That's a good plan. Um. Well, since Chuck said what
he's gonna give me for Christmas and I realized, Man,
I've got to figure out what to get Chuck for Christmas,
it's time for listener mail. You just got me a
great record, which one? Oh the Bill Evans one? Yeah? Yeah,
(37:28):
do you like it? Have you listened to it yet?
I love it? I mean it's Bill Evans, but it's
just yeah, it's it's good, very evocative, of changing in
the seasons, which I think was the whole point for sure.
I'm glad um all right, Hey guys. After listening to
the Introvert Extrovert episode, I thought i'd reach out because
Chuck at one point talked about finding ways to discipline
(37:50):
his child by removing fun activities. I remember saying that,
and but I guess you were so mad. You're like
frothing at the mouth. I've been ever heard you more angry.
You don't even really do that, so I'm not sure
if I may have been kidding or not. Anyway, I'm
a third grade teacher because this is like a tip here,
so we gotta read the tips. I'm a third grade
teacher on a reservation, and with sixteen kids in my class,
(38:13):
I have never had to use discipline. My classroom functions
like a well oiled machine. Due to a type of
behavior management known in the educational world as pb I
s positive behaviors and supports. It's a way to manage
challenging child behavior solely solely through the use of using
praise and rewards. Can easily be applied in the context
(38:36):
of raising your own child, especially if you want to
raise a psychopath. This is a huge topic. And when
that's near and deeed in my heart, I thought it
might be incredibly useful for all the parents out there who,
like Chuck, struggle to find a way to manage their
child's behavior. You convention that discipline. Man, this guy's scoring
all over you, Chuck a little bit. And this is Anthony.
(38:57):
You guys rock. Thanks for all the wonderful knowledge and
hlarryst dialogue. Uh, I want to be super clear, Anthony,
we don't struggle to find a way to manage her behavior.
She's she's a good kid. And not to say the
kids who have trouble behaving are bad kids at all.
Everyone has their challenges as kids and parents. But um,
(39:18):
it's not too bad. And I don't know that this
pb I S would work necessarily in my household. But hey,
I mean we already do that kind of thing, but
I'll ramp it up and see if that helps run
an experiment, Chuck in true s YSK fashion. Sure, I'm
curious though, because Anthony didn't say if Anthony had kids.
(39:40):
Because I will say that the way kids behave for
teachers is not at all related to how they behave
for parents. A lot of imagine. So yeah, I'm curious. Yeah,
if you guys listening out there, um try this. Let
us know if it works or what. And also, Anthony,
thank you very much for writing in Anthony. It was great.
Um So if want to be like Anthony, you can
(40:01):
write into two Stuff podcast at i heart radio dot com.
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