April 22, 2024 • 47 mins
Journalist Scott Weinberger embeds with Detective Danny Smith to investigate the 37-year-old cold case of the murder of firefighter Billy Halpern. Scott and Det. Smith speak to Billy’s family and friends and uncover a connection to a string of murders in South Florida.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
My name is Danny Smith.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm a detective with Miramar Police Department. I am conducting
an investigation going back almost forty years in the murder
of Billy Hopper.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Back in the nineteen eighties, I was starting a career
in law enforcement in Browie County, Florida, a native New
Yorker transplanted to the home of vacation meccas like Fort Lauderdale, Pompino,
and Hollywood Beach. What the South Florida I remember was
a place of stark contrasts. The beaches, palm trees, the
(00:38):
frozen drinks. They all seem to mask a darker side
of the Sunshine State, one of crime, greed, and a
creeping sense of desperation. There was just something about Florida
that could make good people get themselves into bad situations.
(01:00):
After years in law enforcement, I ended up swapping my
badging gun for a journalist's pen and pad and headed
back to New York to report on crimes, not solve them.
But in twenty twenty two, a unique opportunity brought me
back to the streets of South Florida to join cold
case detective Danny Smith as he began an incredible journey
(01:23):
to solve a forty year old murder, actually as many
as five of them together. We were looking for new evidence,
new suspects, and the truth behind the murder of a
twenty eight year old firefighter named Billy Halpern, all of
it documented in real time. I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist
(01:47):
and former deputy sheriff, and this is cold blooded the
Apollo Jim murders. Shortly after six point thirty on October
twenty first, nineteen eighty six, police in Miramar, Florida responded
to the sixty nine hundred block of fortieth Street, a
(02:09):
residential neighborhood of condos and town homes in the center
of Miramar and about a twenty minute drive to the beach.
That flood of emergency vehicles prompted by a nine to
one one call by twenty four year old Jones Socio
moments after walking in to a horrifying scene finding her boyfriend,
twenty eight year old Billy Halpern, half dressed, lying face
(02:31):
up in the bedroom in a pool of his own blood.
So is this his community right here?
Speaker 1 (02:39):
This is it?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
This is woodscape and it's essentially a big circle that
kind of Meander's back off the main circle. They're like
town homes, but they're really right on top of one another.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
In November of twenty twenty two, nearly forty years after
the murder, I returned to the same location with Miramar
Police homicide Detective Danny Smith.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
You look at the limited crime scene photos that I
was actually able to get from the file. They always
look you know, photos from the outside always make the
place look so much bigger, and then I'm always surprised
at how small some of these homes are when I
actually get there.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Aside from a few potted plants and a threadbare welcome
mat in front of the front door, it looked just
like it did from the photographs in the decades old
police file Danny had dug out of storage. Was this
her house or did he live here?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
This was his house and she had been living here,
I remember correctly, three years with him, And I remember
reading that she was screaming when she found his body
and the neighbors came over, and in my mind I
was thinking they must have just been like outside already
and they heard it. But now seeing how close these
homes are together, that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I lived in a complex like this in pember Pines.
It was very similar to this, and yeah, you hear
the neighbors, you hear it, you can hear through the walls.
I had seen the crime scene photos, so I could
imagine what the uniformed officers must have observed when they
(04:33):
stepped through the door. The blood pooling from around the
victim's head, a blood stained towel pressed to his neck,
and the black electrical tape still wrapped around each of
his wrists. Another thing they would have quickly noticed. The
man on the floor was big, six foot two with
the bodybuilders for zeke is enormous muscles on full display
(04:57):
even hours after his death. Another thought when I saw
the crime scene photos was that was a lot of blood.
My next thought, there is no way one person could
have overpowered this guy. He was huge. Now do you
think it's a little unusual when you hear about the
fact that he was covered by a blanket? I know
(05:17):
in cases that I've covered sometimes when the victim and
a homicide, especially their face is covered, there's a psychological
reason around that. Sometimes the killer it makes us as
the investigator think maybe there was some connection between the killer,
the suspect, and the victim and they don't want to
see the results of what their.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Actions, right, Yeah, that's common. I would say that if
his neck being covered by the actual suspect or suspects,
that tells me a lot in terms of psychology. But
I believe he was covered by his girlfriend.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Because of the tremendous amount of blood that comes.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Because of the blood and the injury itself was one
of the more gruesome throat injuries that I've ever seen.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
To first responders of the scene, the cause of Billy's
death appeared to be obvious the severe wound on Billy's
throat that was deep and jaggered and ran nearly from
ear to ear. It seemed that Billy died from a
sudden and dramatic loss of blood caused by an unknown
sharp object.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
There were multiple cuts, so it seemed like they were
maybe trying to cut his head off. They were trying
to decapitate him.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Detectives from the Briar County Sheriff's Office Crime scene Unit
were quickly dispatched to the address and began processing the scene,
and notes from the original incident report detailed what investigators
did and did not find at the crime scene. Most Importantly,
they recovered no murder weapon, no fingerprints, no signs of
forced entry, and, according to neighbors, no witnesses, all of
(06:57):
which posed serious challenges to figure out the motive behind
the attack. Was it a robbery, a dispute with a neighbor,
or something more sinister.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
There was mentioned in the lead detective Belrose's report about
home invasion crews that were hitting people. There's also mention
that he had a safe in the house.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
According to his girlfriend Joan, Billy made his living buying
and selling art and rare coins, which he kept in
a safe inside the town home. But that's safe was
now empty. So initially, robbery was suspected to be the
motive for the break in, a robbery that must have
quickly gone south and ended in murder. It was a
(07:42):
theory that seemed to be supported by a tip that
came into the Sheriff's office back in nineteen eighty six
from a local confidential informant.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
And that was the tip that I actually read was
someone he called in and said that whoever they mentioned
was bragging that they had the safe. They tried to
torch it open and they ended up ruining all the contents.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
But there was also evidence that this broad daylight break
in may not be the work of total strangers.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
The front door was unlocked. When Halpern's living girlfriend showed
up and actually discovered his body, she made note that
that front door was unlocked, and she said that never happens.
He was steadfast and always making sure that front door
was locked and secured. So the fact that the front
(08:36):
door was unlocked, no signs of a struggle. All of
those facts right there tell me more than one person.
Probably they knew him, guy let him in, and they
brought gloves, and they brought tape.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
So maybe Billy Halpern knew the men robbing him, and
maybe his killer's motive was to get their hands on
the car in tents of that safe. But the matter
in which Billy was killed, even to investigators back in
nineteen eighty six, seemed to deliberate, too professional for a
boxed home invasion. For one thing, there was very little
(09:15):
evidence of a big struggle, and just looking at Billy,
you just know he wouldn't have gone down without a fight.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Even more interesting that I found when I read through
the autopsy report was that actually the cause of death
was not the massive cut. It was strangulation or some
kind of suffocation or something something along those lines. And
they had actually were noted in their report that they
(09:46):
likened the marks on his neck to be something like
a thick nylon strap or a dog collar or something
in that regard. So the massive injury that is really
shocking to anyone that first sees it, especially his girlfriend
finding him, was all post mortem.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Billy's face had showed evidence of a brutal beating, yet
his hands and arms showed no defensive wounds. Taken together,
it didn't look like a typical botched home invasion. It
looked a lot more like torture. In fact, it looked
like an execution.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
They're trying to decapitate him, post wartim, postmartum.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Everything was postmatch, which is a whole different psychology, a.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Whole different thing. I don't know if that was a
trophy for someone, or somebody watched Scarface too many times
and said, bring me his head.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
These days. Billy's sister, Laurie, lives in Fort Lauderdale, but
in October of nineteen eighty six, she lived with her
parents in Pembroke Pines, just a couple of blocks away
from her big brother. She can still remember the moment
she got the news of Billy's murder.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
It's been such a long time again, I can still
hear that phone ring, you know, like my mom's screaming Billy,
Billy's dead, and I'm like.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
What do you mean. She jumped up and ran out
the door. Come out, we gotta go.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
I'm pulling up to that driveway and all the rescue
and everybody there. It was real for that one moment,
you say, no, can't be true, and then my whole
world crumbled.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
When Danny and I visited Laurie in twenty twenty two,
she showed us pictures of Billy. In a lot of them,
Billy is shirtless or in swim trunks at the beach.
Sometimes he's holding a surfboard or barbells. There's one of
him in his firefighter's uniform and another of him hoisting
a bodybuilder's trophy. In nearly every picture, he's got the
(11:56):
smile of a guy in on the joke, well aware
that he was uncommonly blessed with the body and good
looks of a Greek god. Laurie is petite with long
blonde hair, but I could still see the resemblance between
brother and sister, the kindness in their eyes, and maybe
(12:16):
just a bit of mischief.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
He was good looking, he was funny. Everyone liked him.
She's a shame, you know that they took him from mcphurmath.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Dave Aasano, who also grew up in Hollywood Beach, was
one of Billy's old bodybuilding buddies.
Speaker 6 (12:36):
He was one of the nicest people ever. I mean,
he'd give you the shirt off his back. And he
was handsome, and he had charisma. He was good looking,
he was built. He was just a nice, humble guy.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
According to Dave, Billy was idolized by the younger guys
at the gym.
Speaker 6 (12:56):
I want to know, how do you get big arms
like that? And he tell us what to eat and
how to work out. And he had beautiful green eyes
with dark hair. Just imagine tan green eyes, dark hair
and bill, you know, like a Greek guy.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Billy's popularity just added to the shock of his brutal murder.
I mean, who kills a god? But Laurie still has
an idea of who she thinks killed a brother. In fact,
a lot of people do.
Speaker 5 (13:27):
I don't think it was one person. Involved.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
Billy was too strong for one person to take him down.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
But thirty eight years after he was killed, no one
has ever been charged with his murder, and to this day,
no one really knows the whole truth behind why he
was killed.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
I think at the beginning with my parents' life, like
they can have the closure, but there's really no closure
no matter who did it. Now, I mean, Billy's been
dead for so long. How are they gonna be punished?
If they're out on the street, what are they gonna
I mean, they're they're old already orre this's gonna happen
to them. But I would like he's you know, I'd
(14:12):
like somebody to pay for what they did. Do they
really hurt him and he didn't They didn't be survey.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
My number one rule went opening up a cold case,
you need to get your own opinion.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Detective Danny Smith was only twelve years old when Billy
was killed. As for me, I was in the early
process of transitioning into law enforcement in the Sunshine State.
But in twenty twenty two, after twenty seven years with
the City of Miramar Police, Danny was assigned to the
newly formed cold Case Squad Billy's case was the first
(14:58):
one he pulled off the shelf. It's filled with nearly
forty years of tips, leads, witness statements, and dead ends,
which is why Danny is convinced that if he's going
to solve this case, it would have to go back
to the very beginning.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
You need to look at it through your own eyes
and not be swayed by previous investigators. I refuse to
read the notes from the previous cold case detective that
had this. I'm reading the stock basic original incident reports
from the detectives and the officers, and I think from
there I can move on to Okay, now, where would
(15:38):
I go from here if I had it.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
As you see here today on day one of your investigation?
What are some of your concerns about the complexity.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Of this One of the top level concerns that I
have are being unable to actually track down some of
these people they've moved, if they've passed on, or if
they just don't want to get involved and they don't
want to speak to us.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
On top of the challengers that force the case to
go cold in the first place, there's also the obstacles
that accumulate in any cold case, lost or degraded evidence,
faded memories, missing witnesses, and perhaps the most daunting legacy
of pre digital policing paperwork.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
A cold case, especially going back to eighty six. I
want to first off, see if there's anything to work with,
so going back and pulling the files and making sure
that there are still reports to look at. And when
I pulled this case in particular, it was immaculate. The
detectives did a phenomenal job in documenting and cataloging and
(16:51):
keeping everything, so that was a plus right there.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Also on Danny's side is science.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
My focus from the beginning was absolutely trying to locate
as much physical evidence that we had and see what
was done with it and see what could be done
with it. Now, just like any other cold case you have,
you have a homicide, and you have evidence that was
collected and then there over the years, sometimes evidence is lost,
(17:24):
sometimes it's destroyed, sometimes it's tested and consumed and you
no longer have access to it.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
So in this case, I.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Wanted to find all the evidence that was collected, get
it into my custody, and then figure out how I
can go about having that tested.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
With the advancements in DNA technology, Every unsolved case with
even a sentilla of biological forensic evidence can stake a
claim for a second look. But Danny also knows that
solving a cold case is rarely as easy as getting
a match on notice. Timelines, witness statements, motives, and alibis
(18:04):
all have to be checked and rechecked, and Billy Halpern's
case in particular seems to have a lot of loose ends.
Loose ends that suggest that maybe there was a reason
that his murder went unsolved for so long.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Someone persuaded Billy to open that door, whether it was
friendly hello, or somebody that knows Billy would not have
opened that door for someone that he doesn't like or
doesn't know.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Which begs the question, as it always does, why was
Billy Halpern mixed up with anyone capable of this kind
of violence. To answer that question, it was a time
for a trip back to South Florida to the mid eighties,
a seductive world of sun, sex, money, and wait for it, weightlifting.
(18:59):
Our mission to solve Billy Halpern's murder, to convince a
prosecutor to bring charges against his killer or killers, and
maybe to bring a bit of peace and closure to
his family and friends that have lived with the pain
of his murder for decades.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
I would love for everyone to know the truth why
Billy died. People have said horrible things, you know, like
why would they hurt him that way?
Speaker 5 (19:27):
He had it all.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
He had it all, He was twenty eight, his whole
life to live.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
But Danny and I didn't expect was that reopening this
cold case would shine a light on a string of
unsolved murders involving some of South Florida's most dangerous criminals.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
I was really young, but I knew what was going on.
Oh my god, the money was sick. And then the
Columbians got involved, and it got dark and dirty and evil.
People were getting murdered left and right.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Was Billy just a random victim of a cold blooded
crime spree? Or was his murder part of a larger
conspiracy involving the hustlers, dealers, crooked cops, and wise guys
that were running wild in South Florida during its most
dangerous decade.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
I really think there had to be a rat, a
dirty rat in a police department.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Lurid. Let me tell you a little bit about me
and how this all came about. I had never heard
of the case, but the case was brought over to me.
I took a look at it, and I just read
it and heard all these names, and I heard some
of the other homicides that happened sometime.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
In the area.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Went by Billie's old house, took a look around just
to kind of get a feel for it, and then
started my process of going through this as a cold case.
In a long time, but I felt, we felt that
it would be important to at least meet with you
as the investigation started going out.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
And I'm grateful.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
I hope you can find out there truth.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Laurie and her brother Billy, grew up in Hollywood, Florida,
a beach town that lies about halfway between Fort Lauderdale
to the north and Miami twenty miles to the south.
By the time Billy was born, the Halpurans had already
been in South Florida for two generations. These were not
snowbirds or two year tourists at Halpurns were Florida born
(21:37):
and bred. Laurie was just two years younger than Billy,
and together they enjoyed a sun soaked, carefree youth and
cruising the quiet streets of what was then a small
town with an off season population of just a few thousand.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
We all hung out at Garfield Beach in Allywood. Brother
kind of hung out with everybody.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
You know.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
He surfed all the time, and it was extream.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
You know, make.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Money, be surfer, lived my life. Good guy and he
really loved me. He's a really good brother. He's a
very protective, very annoying, a typical big brother.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
But he loved me and he only wanted the best
for me.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
And he was popular, the king of the beach, with
long dark hair, a Tom Sellick mustache, and a chiseled
physique sculpted by hours in the gym. But Billy's friends
painted a picture of a gentle giant with a thousand
watts smile, someone with charm and charisma who seemed destined
(22:53):
for big things.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
I mean, like they y'all knew that he could do anything.
He was good looking, he was funny. Everyone liked him.
Quick kills me. It could have been anything.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
In nineteen eighty, Billy took a job with the Hollandale
Fire Department as a paramedic. His friends were cops and
fellow firefighters, hard charging guys that shared Billy's interest in
the finer things like blondes, beer and pumping iron. As
Danny and I learned, when Billy wasn't on the job
(23:28):
or on the beach, he was in the gym along
with the deep Tans and Neon. South Florida was a
bodybuilding mecca back then, and Billy and his friends were
committed musclehoods.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
He was a workout fiend, so he belonged to three
or maybe even four gyms, and he would rotate throughout
those gyms, and I think he had a circle of
friends through each gym.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Nights were spent in a string of bars that line
the boardwalk along Hollywood Beach. There was lots of alcohol, marijuana,
and this being the early nineteen eighties, plenty of harder
drugs were available too. But the aphrodisiac of choice youth
is boundless optimism and the conviction that nothing could ever
(24:19):
hurt you.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
But believe me, we partied. I'm definitely no angel. He
didn't think of it. You know, every night yet Nickel Knight,
dime Knight, ladies night drink till you think night like
gave a drinking promotion down here. Everyone drank and then
you do a little bump to wake up and boom,
you're done. Then it got dirty.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
But despite the partying Billy's faund, me and friends never
suspected that Billy was into anything criminal or hanging around
with the kind of people that could put his life
in danger.
Speaker 6 (24:57):
I always thought Billy was selling art. He showed me
art at his house that he bought stuff, and I
honestly believe that's.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
What he was.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
But the truth might have been a little darker than
anyone ever knew. Time can be both a friend and
foe to a cold case. Detective memories of a decade's
old crime are usually spotty and unreliable at best, but
sometimes the passing years will encourage a potential witness to
(25:26):
come forward with information that, for whatever reason, they weren't
willing to share. In the original investigation, Billy's case file
had the names of dozens of people that we thought
might still possess crucial bits of information about his life,
his associations, and the murder itself. Now finding them forty
(25:50):
years later was another story.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Let's be back there.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
I do not see who's share the truth.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
No, I don't need, but we're going to knock anyway
because I think it was like a nineteen seventy nine truck.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
This one.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Hello, how you doing. Hi, I'm Danny Smith. I'm with
Milmore Police. To this is Scott Weinberger. So we are
reopening the case of the murder of Billy Halbern.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Is that ring a bell?
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Not everyone felt comfortable talking about Billy's murder to a
reporter or a mirror mar detective. Even fewer were willing
to go on the record.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
So the reason that I'm reaching out to actually a
bunch of people. I'll probably give you a bunch of
names that are gonna kind of come back to you.
Back in the eighties, they didn't really statements from everybody,
So I kind of happening to go back and read
you the way, So tell me what you remember.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Sometimes it was hard to know what we heard was true,
what was rumor, and what some of these people may
have learned from a handful of newspaper articles covering the
case over the years. But one thing kept coming up.
Billy was not unfamiliar with some of the less savory
elements of the Hollywood beach party scene, and the one
(27:28):
thing we heard repeatedly by several friends of the people
listed in the case file as friends or acquaintances of
Billy was that, along with art, Billy was also rumored
to be selling drugs.
Speaker 6 (27:44):
So there was always rumors around the jam.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
I believe that he was an art deally, and.
Speaker 6 (27:51):
I didn't know until after the fact that one of
Billy's biggest concerns was me finding out that he was
a coke dealer. He wanted to make sure that I
didn't know that, and he made sure from other people
that I didn't know anything about this, and it was true.
I didn't know anything about it. I thought he was
an art dealer.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
It's important to note here that when Billy Halpin was killed,
he had no criminal record. Police recovered no drugs or
cash from his town home where he was killed. In fact,
his girlfriend said it was more likely to be short
of cash than flush. I mean, the guy drove a
ten year old Mercury Montego, so a South Florida kingpin
(28:36):
it was not, but if Billy was sealing drugs, it
could have put him in contact with potentially dangerous people.
And of course, just being in possession of drugs or
cash used to buy it can make anyone a target
for violence. And for the record, When we asked Laurie
(28:57):
about whether Billy might have been dealing drugs, she admitted
it was possible.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
You wanted to make money, you know, he was firefighter
for a short time, but he didn't want to work.
And I didn't really know anything. I knew what Billy
was doing, but I'm not kidding that. He was a
very protective older brother, and he would if anything was
going to happen, he'd go go in your room, get
in your room.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
But I knew what was going on, you know, if
we were a partying back then, and I was just like,
I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
You know, there are drugs involver.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
We don't care.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
We're looking to solve the home side of your brother,
and that's the bottom line.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Now, I'll be the first to admit, as an investigator
and a true crime storyteller, a murder victim's background is
sometimes the beneficiary of some degree of dancing around the
truth is that a victim's history of questionable or even
criminal behavior is not always relevant to a homicide investigation,
(30:06):
but whether we're part of a jury or a listening audience,
it can sway our sympathies. So prosecutors and podcasters have
a tendency to leave out the unsavory bits, But in
reopening this case, it was clear to me and Danny
that the level of Billy's involvement in the local drug
(30:27):
trade was critical to understanding why he was killed, who
killed him, and most importantly, why no one was ever
arrested for his murder.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Right now, the theories that I'm reading all focus around
his potential drug dealing and the drug underworld, So everything
that I've read up to this point kind of works
towards that angle. I haven't gotten any name suspects yet
in any of these case files.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Obviously, piecing together all of the players and whatever plot
was in play in nineteen eighty six that got Billy killed,
it was going to take some time and some good
old gumshoe detective work. But there was even more immediate
promise in the physical evidence that was recovered from the
(31:23):
original crime scene, evidence that would not just help us
recreate the crime, but potentially help us identify Billy's killer.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
That was the second big check mark for us is
that we do have evidence, and it looks like that
it's been preserved since I think eighty seven we've got,
at least with Broward Sheriff's office. We've got electrical tape
from both wrists, hair that was in Halpern's left hand,
which presumably would be our killer, and then we've got
(32:01):
looks like a towel, which I believe that towel was
placed on him when he was found by his living
girlfriend at the time. That's all. That's all the evidence.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Electrical tape, a bloody towel, and several strands of human
hair recovered from the clutches of the victim's left hand.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
And let's not forget that which I find very interesting.
On one of the pieces of tape that were taken
from Helper's wrists, there was like a small piece of
latex glove that appeared to have been ripped off on
the tape, which tells me that the guy or guys
(32:43):
or people that were in there were wearing gloves. And
I have very very high hopes that there's going to
be some kind of a DNA profile that comes out
of that.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Detectives in nineteen eighty six were never able to match
any of it to a potential suspect, but by today's
forensic standards, it feels promising.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
I feel pretty good about the evidence that we still
have and the fact that to my knowledge, at least
according to the property receipts, nothing has been tested. The idea,
I think is maybe next week sit down with the
DNA supervisor over at bar Shriffs and run it by
and say this is what I want to do.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Here's your transmittal.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Let's get the ball rolling.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
If we could recover viable DNA from any of this
physical evidence, it would go a long way to identifying
the killer.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
The thing that's going to take the longest period of
time is going to be DNA testing and potential hair fibers,
whatever it is that we can pull out of property
and evidence. So that's going to be number one on
my list to do now. So as I'm doing additional
work interviews and trying to track down people, that testing
is already going to be in process.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Hopefully a DNA profile could be matched to one already
in CODIS, the National DNA Database of known offenders and
unidentified DNA from other crime scenes, or it could be
matched one to one to a known suspect whose DNA
we would have to obtain, either with permission or without.
(34:29):
But this was technology unavailable to detectives in the nineteen eighties,
which is one reason why six months after Billy's murder,
the original investigation had started to stall. None off Billy's
friends and family could offer police any leads into who
might have had a reason to hurt him. There were
(34:50):
no witnesses, no recent crimes with similar mo and no
shortage of alibis from just about anyone that had ever
been in cuffs in Brawrie County.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Someone persuaded Billy to open that door, whether it was
friendly hello, or somebody that he knows. Billy would not
have opened that door for someone that he doesn't like
or doesn't know. The scenario that I have in my
mind is that maybe a friend of Billy's was there
front of the door, knocked on the door, Billy allows
(35:21):
him in, and then at that point it's a bum
rush into the house where they're forced in.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Billy's murderer went from the front page to the back.
And that's until May sixth, nineteen eighty seven, homicide detectives
were again called to an apartment in the nearby town
of Tamarack, just a twenty minute try from where Billy
Halpburn was killed. It was the home of Billy's friend,
twenty six year old Mitch Hall, and Mitch's twenty three
(35:50):
year old girlfriend, char Linda Drout. A couple had been bound,
beaten and their throats slash in a crime scene eerily
similar to that of Billy Halpern's.
Speaker 5 (36:04):
Him and his girlfriend were found in the bedroom.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
I think so they were completely caught up guard.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Just like in Billy's murder. There were very few clues
and no immediate suspects, but the similarities were obviously too
great to be ignored. Investigators were immediately convinced that the
three murders were somehow connected. Laurie's first thought was that
Mitch Hall knew something about her brother's murder and that
(36:33):
information might have gotten him killed.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
When Mitch died, they thought that he was going to
rowur and sheriffs to talk to them, that he knew something,
and that's why they came and killed him.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
It's a sentiment that is shared by Mitch Hall's sister, Kim.
Speaker 7 (36:53):
My brother came to visit me, I would say eighty
six December of eighty six. He came to me and
he said, Billy Helpern died and I'm going to find
out who killed him, and I said, Mitch, don't can
involved with those type of people, and he went to
the police station.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
But if that was true, it had some shocking implications
because how would the killers know Mitch Hall was talking
to police?
Speaker 5 (37:24):
How would anybody know that?
Speaker 4 (37:26):
Like, you were going to tell what you knew about
Billy and none then you get killed.
Speaker 5 (37:30):
Who in the police department is a bad guy? I
really felt that it had to be a dirty cop.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Mitch Hall and Charlenda Drought had been sharing a home
together in Tamarack, which is just outside of Fort Lauderdale,
for a little less than a year. Bob Daughtry was
a friend of Mitch's working on a job site nearby.
On the morning of May sixth, nineteen eighty seven, he
stopped by Mitch's town home.
Speaker 8 (38:05):
I just remember pulling up, went up and knocked on
the door. He didn't come to the door, turned the
doorknob and the house was opened.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Walked in there.
Speaker 8 (38:14):
And Mitch was in his bedroom. Outside the bathroom, I
mean it was blood. All his throat had been slipped.
It was a gruesome sign.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
It really was. From their injuries and manner of death,
there was little doubt that it was somehow connected to
the execution style murder of Billy Hauburn just six months before.
Speaker 8 (38:41):
His hands were tied behind his back and something stuffed
out of his mouth. And I also saw some marks
on his upper body. I don't know if they were
just from what they were from a fight, the cuts
from something, I don't know, but I remember seeing some
wounds on the upper part of his body.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Not only were the crimes similar, but Mitch Hall and
Billy had been friends since high school. According to Mitch's sister,
it hung out in the same group of friends, on
the same beach and at the same gym.
Speaker 7 (39:13):
We knew all those people from back a long time
ago when we were growing up at Garfield Beach. We
used to hang out at the beach, and we've known
Billy Helpern forever. I know it's sister Lorie Helpern. I
mean I know their family. God, I knew Billy for years.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
But there was one important difference between the two crime scenes.
It appeared that nothing had been stolen from Mitch Hall's home.
Here again, Brad Doughtry, who discovered the bodies.
Speaker 8 (39:45):
Didn't look anymore to disarrayed than it never did. It
I mean I never would have thoughthen I wllt in
the front door because I got to the bedroom that
I was going to find him in there the way
I did.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
From the way the bodies were positioned, it appeared that
both Mitch and Charlotne had been forced to their knees,
bound with tape and then killed in cold blood.
Speaker 7 (40:08):
And there was no evidence of somebody breaking into his house.
So either his roommate gave the people the key, because
they pulled Charlnda and they cut her throat and they
set my brother's throat and it just bullshit.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Again, no signs of forced entry meant that Mitch and
Charlenda may have known their killers and invited them inside.
In May of nineteen eighty seven, the double murder and
its possible connection to Billy's murder six months before, had
caused a stir in the local media, and detectives at
the time hoped that the increased attention may stir up
(40:49):
some promising leads, but that wasn't the case. In fact,
investigators had a hard time convincing friends and co workers
of Billy and Mitch to talk at all. The word
on the street was that talking was exactly what might
have gotten Mitch killed in the first place.
Speaker 7 (41:09):
He was killed the next day after he went to
the police station to tell them who killed Billy, and
he was killed the next day. So I'm assuming there
was a leak in the police station and somebody said
Mitch Hall knows who killed Billy.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
It was a claim that maybe true, but one we
have so far have not seen any evidence of no
record that Mitch contacted any member of the department. And
even if Mitch Hall was telling people he was planning
on talking to police, that could be dangerous enough.
Speaker 7 (41:50):
Is there any evidence that my brother came to the
police station and talked to a detective and let them
know who killed Billy Helpborne. There's no evidence of that
him coming into the.
Speaker 4 (42:03):
Police station, not that I've seen, and I'm not saying
that it's not there.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
But we're talking years and years ago.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
But even in nineteen eighty seven, there was a strong
suspicion that not only were the murders connected, they were
likely committed by the same person. That suspicion would only
grow when just eight days later, two more bodies were
discovered in a house in Pembroke Pines, a twenty minute
drive inland from Hollywood Beach. The victims were identified as
(42:42):
thirty one year old Jimmy high Note and twenty eight
year old Harry Collier. Both men had been bound and
then shot at close range in the back of the head.
So it's a slightly different mo but with the same
deadly result.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
When the names high Note and Callier came up, high
Note rang a bell because we know that Jimmy high
Note and Billy went to school together, they knew each other,
they grew up with each other. The fact that they
were then killed, that's not a coincidence. We have to
look into that.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
That's right. Both men were known acquaintances of both Billy
Halburn and Mitch Hall.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
I mean, we all grew up together. We'd go to
Big Daddy together, hanging out together.
Speaker 7 (43:37):
Mitch he knew Jimmy h Notes. We used to go
to as Halloween parties. Billy was always there. We all
used to hang out together when we were teenagers. It's crazy.
I mean when all this happened, it was just crazy.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
So what was going on here? Was someone targeting one
particular group of lifelong friends or where they all involved
in a conspiracy that ultimately got them all killed.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
I don't like to speculate, but I mean a normal
prudent person would look at all the facts and say
that's got to be connected.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
No matter what.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Forget about them, forget about locations or the way that
the murders happen. You have to think he was connected,
and especially that he was in such close time proximity
to the Helper murder.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
So what was the connection. The further we dug, the
more we kept coming back to one place, the Apollo, Jim.
Speaker 9 (44:36):
It wasn't just a gym, It was a criminal enterprise.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
The Apollo was a no frills prison yard style facility
dedicated to pain and gain, owned by a hulking ex cop.
His name is Gil Fernandez and his partner a former
mister Florida named Bert CHRISTI.
Speaker 9 (45:00):
That guy is a fucking gangster. Those two were together.
They were like John Gottie and Sammy the Bull.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Four of the five murder victims, Billy Halpern, Mitch Hall,
Harry Collier, and Jimmy high Note were all members of
the Apollo Gym. That was the connection.
Speaker 4 (45:21):
I think there was a steroid thing going on in
Apollo Gym, and Billy came to my bedroom door like, Hey, Laura,
ba I love you. If I don't come home, just
want you to know that I love you, and then
boom to get the phone call.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
The more Danny and I learned about the place, the
more I was convinced that whatever conspiracy existed that led
to the murders, it was hatched right here. I just
never expected what we would find along the way.
Speaker 9 (45:59):
They were doing shake that, so it was well known,
you're gonna pay us or we're going to kill you.
Speaker 6 (46:05):
And I thought they were going to kill me there,
so I kept my mouth shut and I didn't say anything.
All these years, I didn't say anything, but I knew that.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
They killed Billy or how deep the corruption would go.
Speaker 9 (46:17):
People were afraid to go to the law because they
knew that he was a former cop and still had
lots of friends on the forest, a.
Speaker 6 (46:25):
Lot of unsolved murders that I think are all tied
to the same people.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
And it's almost incestuous that everyone knew each other, everyone
worked together, and then ultimately almost everyone was killed.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
Coming up in the next episode of Cold Blooded, the
Apollo Gym Murders, how Royd's Ripoffs and Revenge of the
Trail of Murder on the streets and swamps of South Florida,
and how one killer might still be walking free.
Speaker 9 (46:55):
Well, I was always taught, if you start poking your
nose around, you're gonna get yourself.
Speaker 3 (46:59):
Killed, cold blooded. The Apollo Jim Murders is a production
of iHeart Podcasts and Authentic Wave Media. Scott Weinberger, Kevin Bennett,
and Walker Lemon are executive producers. Sabrina Siree is our
(47:21):
line producer, scoring sound design and mixing by Mark lamorj
Z for iHeart Podcasts, Christina Everett is executive producer, and
David Wasserman is brand marketing manager. And with special thanks
to the Miramar Police Department, Chief Delrich Moss, Pio Tanya Ardaz,
(47:44):
and Detective Susie Smith,
My name is Danny Smith.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm a detective with Miramar Police Department. I am conducting
an investigation going back almost forty years in the murder
of Billy Hopper.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Back in the nineteen eighties, I was starting a career
in law enforcement in Browie County, Florida, a native New
Yorker transplanted to the home of vacation meccas like Fort Lauderdale, Pompino,
and Hollywood Beach. What the South Florida I remember was
a place of stark contrasts. The beaches, palm trees, the
(00:38):
frozen drinks. They all seem to mask a darker side
of the Sunshine State, one of crime, greed, and a
creeping sense of desperation. There was just something about Florida
that could make good people get themselves into bad situations.
(01:00):
After years in law enforcement, I ended up swapping my
badging gun for a journalist's pen and pad and headed
back to New York to report on crimes, not solve them.
But in twenty twenty two, a unique opportunity brought me
back to the streets of South Florida to join cold
case detective Danny Smith as he began an incredible journey
(01:23):
to solve a forty year old murder, actually as many
as five of them together. We were looking for new evidence,
new suspects, and the truth behind the murder of a
twenty eight year old firefighter named Billy Halpern, all of
it documented in real time. I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist
(01:47):
and former deputy sheriff, and this is cold blooded the
Apollo Jim murders. Shortly after six point thirty on October
twenty first, nineteen eighty six, police in Miramar, Florida responded
to the sixty nine hundred block of fortieth Street, a
(02:09):
residential neighborhood of condos and town homes in the center
of Miramar and about a twenty minute drive to the beach.
That flood of emergency vehicles prompted by a nine to
one one call by twenty four year old Jones Socio
moments after walking in to a horrifying scene finding her boyfriend,
twenty eight year old Billy Halpern, half dressed, lying face
(02:31):
up in the bedroom in a pool of his own blood.
So is this his community right here?
Speaker 1 (02:39):
This is it?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
This is woodscape and it's essentially a big circle that
kind of Meander's back off the main circle. They're like
town homes, but they're really right on top of one another.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
In November of twenty twenty two, nearly forty years after
the murder, I returned to the same location with Miramar
Police homicide Detective Danny Smith.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
You look at the limited crime scene photos that I
was actually able to get from the file. They always
look you know, photos from the outside always make the
place look so much bigger, and then I'm always surprised
at how small some of these homes are when I
actually get there.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Aside from a few potted plants and a threadbare welcome
mat in front of the front door, it looked just
like it did from the photographs in the decades old
police file Danny had dug out of storage. Was this
her house or did he live here?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
This was his house and she had been living here,
I remember correctly, three years with him, And I remember
reading that she was screaming when she found his body
and the neighbors came over, and in my mind I
was thinking they must have just been like outside already
and they heard it. But now seeing how close these
homes are together, that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I lived in a complex like this in pember Pines.
It was very similar to this, and yeah, you hear
the neighbors, you hear it, you can hear through the walls.
I had seen the crime scene photos, so I could
imagine what the uniformed officers must have observed when they
(04:33):
stepped through the door. The blood pooling from around the
victim's head, a blood stained towel pressed to his neck,
and the black electrical tape still wrapped around each of
his wrists. Another thing they would have quickly noticed. The
man on the floor was big, six foot two with
the bodybuilders for zeke is enormous muscles on full display
(04:57):
even hours after his death. Another thought when I saw
the crime scene photos was that was a lot of blood.
My next thought, there is no way one person could
have overpowered this guy. He was huge. Now do you
think it's a little unusual when you hear about the
fact that he was covered by a blanket? I know
(05:17):
in cases that I've covered sometimes when the victim and
a homicide, especially their face is covered, there's a psychological
reason around that. Sometimes the killer it makes us as
the investigator think maybe there was some connection between the killer,
the suspect, and the victim and they don't want to
see the results of what their.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Actions, right, Yeah, that's common. I would say that if
his neck being covered by the actual suspect or suspects,
that tells me a lot in terms of psychology. But
I believe he was covered by his girlfriend.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Because of the tremendous amount of blood that comes.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Because of the blood and the injury itself was one
of the more gruesome throat injuries that I've ever seen.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
To first responders of the scene, the cause of Billy's
death appeared to be obvious the severe wound on Billy's
throat that was deep and jaggered and ran nearly from
ear to ear. It seemed that Billy died from a
sudden and dramatic loss of blood caused by an unknown
sharp object.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
There were multiple cuts, so it seemed like they were
maybe trying to cut his head off. They were trying
to decapitate him.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Detectives from the Briar County Sheriff's Office Crime scene Unit
were quickly dispatched to the address and began processing the scene,
and notes from the original incident report detailed what investigators
did and did not find at the crime scene. Most Importantly,
they recovered no murder weapon, no fingerprints, no signs of
forced entry, and, according to neighbors, no witnesses, all of
(06:57):
which posed serious challenges to figure out the motive behind
the attack. Was it a robbery, a dispute with a neighbor,
or something more sinister.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
There was mentioned in the lead detective Belrose's report about
home invasion crews that were hitting people. There's also mention
that he had a safe in the house.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
According to his girlfriend Joan, Billy made his living buying
and selling art and rare coins, which he kept in
a safe inside the town home. But that's safe was
now empty. So initially, robbery was suspected to be the
motive for the break in, a robbery that must have
quickly gone south and ended in murder. It was a
(07:42):
theory that seemed to be supported by a tip that
came into the Sheriff's office back in nineteen eighty six
from a local confidential informant.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
And that was the tip that I actually read was
someone he called in and said that whoever they mentioned
was bragging that they had the safe. They tried to
torch it open and they ended up ruining all the contents.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
But there was also evidence that this broad daylight break
in may not be the work of total strangers.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
The front door was unlocked. When Halpern's living girlfriend showed
up and actually discovered his body, she made note that
that front door was unlocked, and she said that never happens.
He was steadfast and always making sure that front door
was locked and secured. So the fact that the front
(08:36):
door was unlocked, no signs of a struggle. All of
those facts right there tell me more than one person.
Probably they knew him, guy let him in, and they
brought gloves, and they brought tape.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
So maybe Billy Halpern knew the men robbing him, and
maybe his killer's motive was to get their hands on
the car in tents of that safe. But the matter
in which Billy was killed, even to investigators back in
nineteen eighty six, seemed to deliberate, too professional for a
boxed home invasion. For one thing, there was very little
(09:15):
evidence of a big struggle, and just looking at Billy,
you just know he wouldn't have gone down without a fight.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Even more interesting that I found when I read through
the autopsy report was that actually the cause of death
was not the massive cut. It was strangulation or some
kind of suffocation or something something along those lines. And
they had actually were noted in their report that they
(09:46):
likened the marks on his neck to be something like
a thick nylon strap or a dog collar or something
in that regard. So the massive injury that is really
shocking to anyone that first sees it, especially his girlfriend
finding him, was all post mortem.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Billy's face had showed evidence of a brutal beating, yet
his hands and arms showed no defensive wounds. Taken together,
it didn't look like a typical botched home invasion. It
looked a lot more like torture. In fact, it looked
like an execution.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
They're trying to decapitate him, post wartim, postmartum.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Everything was postmatch, which is a whole different psychology, a.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Whole different thing. I don't know if that was a
trophy for someone, or somebody watched Scarface too many times
and said, bring me his head.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
These days. Billy's sister, Laurie, lives in Fort Lauderdale, but
in October of nineteen eighty six, she lived with her
parents in Pembroke Pines, just a couple of blocks away
from her big brother. She can still remember the moment
she got the news of Billy's murder.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
It's been such a long time again, I can still
hear that phone ring, you know, like my mom's screaming Billy,
Billy's dead, and I'm like.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
What do you mean. She jumped up and ran out
the door. Come out, we gotta go.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
I'm pulling up to that driveway and all the rescue
and everybody there. It was real for that one moment,
you say, no, can't be true, and then my whole
world crumbled.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
When Danny and I visited Laurie in twenty twenty two,
she showed us pictures of Billy. In a lot of them,
Billy is shirtless or in swim trunks at the beach.
Sometimes he's holding a surfboard or barbells. There's one of
him in his firefighter's uniform and another of him hoisting
a bodybuilder's trophy. In nearly every picture, he's got the
(11:56):
smile of a guy in on the joke, well aware
that he was uncommonly blessed with the body and good
looks of a Greek god. Laurie is petite with long
blonde hair, but I could still see the resemblance between
brother and sister, the kindness in their eyes, and maybe
(12:16):
just a bit of mischief.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
He was good looking, he was funny. Everyone liked him.
She's a shame, you know that they took him from mcphurmath.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Dave Aasano, who also grew up in Hollywood Beach, was
one of Billy's old bodybuilding buddies.
Speaker 6 (12:36):
He was one of the nicest people ever. I mean,
he'd give you the shirt off his back. And he
was handsome, and he had charisma. He was good looking,
he was built. He was just a nice, humble guy.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
According to Dave, Billy was idolized by the younger guys
at the gym.
Speaker 6 (12:56):
I want to know, how do you get big arms
like that? And he tell us what to eat and
how to work out. And he had beautiful green eyes
with dark hair. Just imagine tan green eyes, dark hair
and bill, you know, like a Greek guy.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Billy's popularity just added to the shock of his brutal murder.
I mean, who kills a god? But Laurie still has
an idea of who she thinks killed a brother. In fact,
a lot of people do.
Speaker 5 (13:27):
I don't think it was one person. Involved.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
Billy was too strong for one person to take him down.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
But thirty eight years after he was killed, no one
has ever been charged with his murder, and to this day,
no one really knows the whole truth behind why he
was killed.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
I think at the beginning with my parents' life, like
they can have the closure, but there's really no closure
no matter who did it. Now, I mean, Billy's been
dead for so long. How are they gonna be punished?
If they're out on the street, what are they gonna
I mean, they're they're old already orre this's gonna happen
to them. But I would like he's you know, I'd
(14:12):
like somebody to pay for what they did. Do they
really hurt him and he didn't They didn't be survey.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
My number one rule went opening up a cold case,
you need to get your own opinion.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Detective Danny Smith was only twelve years old when Billy
was killed. As for me, I was in the early
process of transitioning into law enforcement in the Sunshine State.
But in twenty twenty two, after twenty seven years with
the City of Miramar Police, Danny was assigned to the
newly formed cold Case Squad Billy's case was the first
(14:58):
one he pulled off the shelf. It's filled with nearly
forty years of tips, leads, witness statements, and dead ends,
which is why Danny is convinced that if he's going
to solve this case, it would have to go back
to the very beginning.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
You need to look at it through your own eyes
and not be swayed by previous investigators. I refuse to
read the notes from the previous cold case detective that
had this. I'm reading the stock basic original incident reports
from the detectives and the officers, and I think from
there I can move on to Okay, now, where would
(15:38):
I go from here if I had it.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
As you see here today on day one of your investigation?
What are some of your concerns about the complexity.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Of this One of the top level concerns that I
have are being unable to actually track down some of
these people they've moved, if they've passed on, or if
they just don't want to get involved and they don't
want to speak to us.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
On top of the challengers that force the case to
go cold in the first place, there's also the obstacles
that accumulate in any cold case, lost or degraded evidence,
faded memories, missing witnesses, and perhaps the most daunting legacy
of pre digital policing paperwork.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
A cold case, especially going back to eighty six. I
want to first off, see if there's anything to work with,
so going back and pulling the files and making sure
that there are still reports to look at. And when
I pulled this case in particular, it was immaculate. The
detectives did a phenomenal job in documenting and cataloging and
(16:51):
keeping everything, so that was a plus right there.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Also on Danny's side is science.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
My focus from the beginning was absolutely trying to locate
as much physical evidence that we had and see what
was done with it and see what could be done
with it. Now, just like any other cold case you have,
you have a homicide, and you have evidence that was
collected and then there over the years, sometimes evidence is lost,
(17:24):
sometimes it's destroyed, sometimes it's tested and consumed and you
no longer have access to it.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
So in this case, I.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Wanted to find all the evidence that was collected, get
it into my custody, and then figure out how I
can go about having that tested.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
With the advancements in DNA technology, Every unsolved case with
even a sentilla of biological forensic evidence can stake a
claim for a second look. But Danny also knows that
solving a cold case is rarely as easy as getting
a match on notice. Timelines, witness statements, motives, and alibis
(18:04):
all have to be checked and rechecked, and Billy Halpern's
case in particular seems to have a lot of loose ends.
Loose ends that suggest that maybe there was a reason
that his murder went unsolved for so long.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Someone persuaded Billy to open that door, whether it was
friendly hello, or somebody that knows Billy would not have
opened that door for someone that he doesn't like or
doesn't know.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Which begs the question, as it always does, why was
Billy Halpern mixed up with anyone capable of this kind
of violence. To answer that question, it was a time
for a trip back to South Florida to the mid eighties,
a seductive world of sun, sex, money, and wait for it, weightlifting.
(18:59):
Our mission to solve Billy Halpern's murder, to convince a
prosecutor to bring charges against his killer or killers, and
maybe to bring a bit of peace and closure to
his family and friends that have lived with the pain
of his murder for decades.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
I would love for everyone to know the truth why
Billy died. People have said horrible things, you know, like
why would they hurt him that way?
Speaker 5 (19:27):
He had it all.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
He had it all, He was twenty eight, his whole
life to live.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
But Danny and I didn't expect was that reopening this
cold case would shine a light on a string of
unsolved murders involving some of South Florida's most dangerous criminals.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
I was really young, but I knew what was going on.
Oh my god, the money was sick. And then the
Columbians got involved, and it got dark and dirty and evil.
People were getting murdered left and right.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Was Billy just a random victim of a cold blooded
crime spree? Or was his murder part of a larger
conspiracy involving the hustlers, dealers, crooked cops, and wise guys
that were running wild in South Florida during its most
dangerous decade.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
I really think there had to be a rat, a
dirty rat in a police department.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Lurid. Let me tell you a little bit about me
and how this all came about. I had never heard
of the case, but the case was brought over to me.
I took a look at it, and I just read
it and heard all these names, and I heard some
of the other homicides that happened sometime.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
In the area.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Went by Billie's old house, took a look around just
to kind of get a feel for it, and then
started my process of going through this as a cold case.
In a long time, but I felt, we felt that
it would be important to at least meet with you
as the investigation started going out.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
And I'm grateful.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
I hope you can find out there truth.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Laurie and her brother Billy, grew up in Hollywood, Florida,
a beach town that lies about halfway between Fort Lauderdale
to the north and Miami twenty miles to the south.
By the time Billy was born, the Halpurans had already
been in South Florida for two generations. These were not
snowbirds or two year tourists at Halpurns were Florida born
(21:37):
and bred. Laurie was just two years younger than Billy,
and together they enjoyed a sun soaked, carefree youth and
cruising the quiet streets of what was then a small
town with an off season population of just a few thousand.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
We all hung out at Garfield Beach in Allywood. Brother
kind of hung out with everybody.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
You know.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
He surfed all the time, and it was extream.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
You know, make.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Money, be surfer, lived my life. Good guy and he
really loved me. He's a really good brother. He's a
very protective, very annoying, a typical big brother.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
But he loved me and he only wanted the best
for me.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
And he was popular, the king of the beach, with
long dark hair, a Tom Sellick mustache, and a chiseled
physique sculpted by hours in the gym. But Billy's friends
painted a picture of a gentle giant with a thousand
watts smile, someone with charm and charisma who seemed destined
(22:53):
for big things.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
I mean, like they y'all knew that he could do anything.
He was good looking, he was funny. Everyone liked him.
Quick kills me. It could have been anything.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
In nineteen eighty, Billy took a job with the Hollandale
Fire Department as a paramedic. His friends were cops and
fellow firefighters, hard charging guys that shared Billy's interest in
the finer things like blondes, beer and pumping iron. As
Danny and I learned, when Billy wasn't on the job
(23:28):
or on the beach, he was in the gym along
with the deep Tans and Neon. South Florida was a
bodybuilding mecca back then, and Billy and his friends were
committed musclehoods.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
He was a workout fiend, so he belonged to three
or maybe even four gyms, and he would rotate throughout
those gyms, and I think he had a circle of
friends through each gym.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Nights were spent in a string of bars that line
the boardwalk along Hollywood Beach. There was lots of alcohol, marijuana,
and this being the early nineteen eighties, plenty of harder
drugs were available too. But the aphrodisiac of choice youth
is boundless optimism and the conviction that nothing could ever
(24:19):
hurt you.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
But believe me, we partied. I'm definitely no angel. He
didn't think of it. You know, every night yet Nickel Knight,
dime Knight, ladies night drink till you think night like
gave a drinking promotion down here. Everyone drank and then
you do a little bump to wake up and boom,
you're done. Then it got dirty.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
But despite the partying Billy's faund, me and friends never
suspected that Billy was into anything criminal or hanging around
with the kind of people that could put his life
in danger.
Speaker 6 (24:57):
I always thought Billy was selling art. He showed me
art at his house that he bought stuff, and I
honestly believe that's.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
What he was.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
But the truth might have been a little darker than
anyone ever knew. Time can be both a friend and
foe to a cold case. Detective memories of a decade's
old crime are usually spotty and unreliable at best, but
sometimes the passing years will encourage a potential witness to
(25:26):
come forward with information that, for whatever reason, they weren't
willing to share. In the original investigation, Billy's case file
had the names of dozens of people that we thought
might still possess crucial bits of information about his life,
his associations, and the murder itself. Now finding them forty
(25:50):
years later was another story.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Let's be back there.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
I do not see who's share the truth.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
No, I don't need, but we're going to knock anyway
because I think it was like a nineteen seventy nine truck.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
This one.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Hello, how you doing. Hi, I'm Danny Smith. I'm with
Milmore Police. To this is Scott Weinberger. So we are
reopening the case of the murder of Billy Halbern.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Is that ring a bell?
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Not everyone felt comfortable talking about Billy's murder to a
reporter or a mirror mar detective. Even fewer were willing
to go on the record.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
So the reason that I'm reaching out to actually a
bunch of people. I'll probably give you a bunch of
names that are gonna kind of come back to you.
Back in the eighties, they didn't really statements from everybody,
So I kind of happening to go back and read
you the way, So tell me what you remember.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Sometimes it was hard to know what we heard was true,
what was rumor, and what some of these people may
have learned from a handful of newspaper articles covering the
case over the years. But one thing kept coming up.
Billy was not unfamiliar with some of the less savory
elements of the Hollywood beach party scene, and the one
(27:28):
thing we heard repeatedly by several friends of the people
listed in the case file as friends or acquaintances of
Billy was that, along with art, Billy was also rumored
to be selling drugs.
Speaker 6 (27:44):
So there was always rumors around the jam.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
I believe that he was an art deally, and.
Speaker 6 (27:51):
I didn't know until after the fact that one of
Billy's biggest concerns was me finding out that he was
a coke dealer. He wanted to make sure that I
didn't know that, and he made sure from other people
that I didn't know anything about this, and it was true.
I didn't know anything about it. I thought he was
an art dealer.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
It's important to note here that when Billy Halpin was killed,
he had no criminal record. Police recovered no drugs or
cash from his town home where he was killed. In fact,
his girlfriend said it was more likely to be short
of cash than flush. I mean, the guy drove a
ten year old Mercury Montego, so a South Florida kingpin
(28:36):
it was not, but if Billy was sealing drugs, it
could have put him in contact with potentially dangerous people.
And of course, just being in possession of drugs or
cash used to buy it can make anyone a target
for violence. And for the record, When we asked Laurie
(28:57):
about whether Billy might have been dealing drugs, she admitted
it was possible.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
You wanted to make money, you know, he was firefighter
for a short time, but he didn't want to work.
And I didn't really know anything. I knew what Billy
was doing, but I'm not kidding that. He was a
very protective older brother, and he would if anything was
going to happen, he'd go go in your room, get
in your room.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
But I knew what was going on, you know, if
we were a partying back then, and I was just like,
I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
You know, there are drugs involver.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
We don't care.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
We're looking to solve the home side of your brother,
and that's the bottom line.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Now, I'll be the first to admit, as an investigator
and a true crime storyteller, a murder victim's background is
sometimes the beneficiary of some degree of dancing around the
truth is that a victim's history of questionable or even
criminal behavior is not always relevant to a homicide investigation,
(30:06):
but whether we're part of a jury or a listening audience,
it can sway our sympathies. So prosecutors and podcasters have
a tendency to leave out the unsavory bits, But in
reopening this case, it was clear to me and Danny
that the level of Billy's involvement in the local drug
(30:27):
trade was critical to understanding why he was killed, who
killed him, and most importantly, why no one was ever
arrested for his murder.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Right now, the theories that I'm reading all focus around
his potential drug dealing and the drug underworld, So everything
that I've read up to this point kind of works
towards that angle. I haven't gotten any name suspects yet
in any of these case files.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Obviously, piecing together all of the players and whatever plot
was in play in nineteen eighty six that got Billy killed,
it was going to take some time and some good
old gumshoe detective work. But there was even more immediate
promise in the physical evidence that was recovered from the
(31:23):
original crime scene, evidence that would not just help us
recreate the crime, but potentially help us identify Billy's killer.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
That was the second big check mark for us is
that we do have evidence, and it looks like that
it's been preserved since I think eighty seven we've got,
at least with Broward Sheriff's office. We've got electrical tape
from both wrists, hair that was in Halpern's left hand,
which presumably would be our killer, and then we've got
(32:01):
looks like a towel, which I believe that towel was
placed on him when he was found by his living
girlfriend at the time. That's all. That's all the evidence.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Electrical tape, a bloody towel, and several strands of human
hair recovered from the clutches of the victim's left hand.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
And let's not forget that which I find very interesting.
On one of the pieces of tape that were taken
from Helper's wrists, there was like a small piece of
latex glove that appeared to have been ripped off on
the tape, which tells me that the guy or guys
(32:43):
or people that were in there were wearing gloves. And
I have very very high hopes that there's going to
be some kind of a DNA profile that comes out
of that.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Detectives in nineteen eighty six were never able to match
any of it to a potential suspect, but by today's
forensic standards, it feels promising.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
I feel pretty good about the evidence that we still
have and the fact that to my knowledge, at least
according to the property receipts, nothing has been tested. The idea,
I think is maybe next week sit down with the
DNA supervisor over at bar Shriffs and run it by
and say this is what I want to do.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Here's your transmittal.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Let's get the ball rolling.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
If we could recover viable DNA from any of this
physical evidence, it would go a long way to identifying
the killer.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
The thing that's going to take the longest period of
time is going to be DNA testing and potential hair fibers,
whatever it is that we can pull out of property
and evidence. So that's going to be number one on
my list to do now. So as I'm doing additional
work interviews and trying to track down people, that testing
is already going to be in process.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Hopefully a DNA profile could be matched to one already
in CODIS, the National DNA Database of known offenders and
unidentified DNA from other crime scenes, or it could be
matched one to one to a known suspect whose DNA
we would have to obtain, either with permission or without.
(34:29):
But this was technology unavailable to detectives in the nineteen eighties,
which is one reason why six months after Billy's murder,
the original investigation had started to stall. None off Billy's
friends and family could offer police any leads into who
might have had a reason to hurt him. There were
(34:50):
no witnesses, no recent crimes with similar mo and no
shortage of alibis from just about anyone that had ever
been in cuffs in Brawrie County.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Someone persuaded Billy to open that door, whether it was
friendly hello, or somebody that he knows. Billy would not
have opened that door for someone that he doesn't like
or doesn't know. The scenario that I have in my
mind is that maybe a friend of Billy's was there
front of the door, knocked on the door, Billy allows
(35:21):
him in, and then at that point it's a bum
rush into the house where they're forced in.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Billy's murderer went from the front page to the back.
And that's until May sixth, nineteen eighty seven, homicide detectives
were again called to an apartment in the nearby town
of Tamarack, just a twenty minute try from where Billy
Halpburn was killed. It was the home of Billy's friend,
twenty six year old Mitch Hall, and Mitch's twenty three
(35:50):
year old girlfriend, char Linda Drout. A couple had been bound,
beaten and their throats slash in a crime scene eerily
similar to that of Billy Halpern's.
Speaker 5 (36:04):
Him and his girlfriend were found in the bedroom.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
I think so they were completely caught up guard.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Just like in Billy's murder. There were very few clues
and no immediate suspects, but the similarities were obviously too
great to be ignored. Investigators were immediately convinced that the
three murders were somehow connected. Laurie's first thought was that
Mitch Hall knew something about her brother's murder and that
(36:33):
information might have gotten him killed.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
When Mitch died, they thought that he was going to
rowur and sheriffs to talk to them, that he knew something,
and that's why they came and killed him.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
It's a sentiment that is shared by Mitch Hall's sister, Kim.
Speaker 7 (36:53):
My brother came to visit me, I would say eighty
six December of eighty six. He came to me and
he said, Billy Helpern died and I'm going to find
out who killed him, and I said, Mitch, don't can
involved with those type of people, and he went to
the police station.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
But if that was true, it had some shocking implications
because how would the killers know Mitch Hall was talking
to police?
Speaker 5 (37:24):
How would anybody know that?
Speaker 4 (37:26):
Like, you were going to tell what you knew about
Billy and none then you get killed.
Speaker 5 (37:30):
Who in the police department is a bad guy? I
really felt that it had to be a dirty cop.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Mitch Hall and Charlenda Drought had been sharing a home
together in Tamarack, which is just outside of Fort Lauderdale,
for a little less than a year. Bob Daughtry was
a friend of Mitch's working on a job site nearby.
On the morning of May sixth, nineteen eighty seven, he
stopped by Mitch's town home.
Speaker 8 (38:05):
I just remember pulling up, went up and knocked on
the door. He didn't come to the door, turned the
doorknob and the house was opened.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Walked in there.
Speaker 8 (38:14):
And Mitch was in his bedroom. Outside the bathroom, I
mean it was blood. All his throat had been slipped.
It was a gruesome sign.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
It really was. From their injuries and manner of death,
there was little doubt that it was somehow connected to
the execution style murder of Billy Hauburn just six months before.
Speaker 8 (38:41):
His hands were tied behind his back and something stuffed
out of his mouth. And I also saw some marks
on his upper body. I don't know if they were
just from what they were from a fight, the cuts
from something, I don't know, but I remember seeing some
wounds on the upper part of his body.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Not only were the crimes similar, but Mitch Hall and
Billy had been friends since high school. According to Mitch's sister,
it hung out in the same group of friends, on
the same beach and at the same gym.
Speaker 7 (39:13):
We knew all those people from back a long time
ago when we were growing up at Garfield Beach. We
used to hang out at the beach, and we've known
Billy Helpern forever. I know it's sister Lorie Helpern. I
mean I know their family. God, I knew Billy for years.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
But there was one important difference between the two crime scenes.
It appeared that nothing had been stolen from Mitch Hall's home.
Here again, Brad Doughtry, who discovered the bodies.
Speaker 8 (39:45):
Didn't look anymore to disarrayed than it never did. It
I mean I never would have thoughthen I wllt in
the front door because I got to the bedroom that
I was going to find him in there the way
I did.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
From the way the bodies were positioned, it appeared that
both Mitch and Charlotne had been forced to their knees,
bound with tape and then killed in cold blood.
Speaker 7 (40:08):
And there was no evidence of somebody breaking into his house.
So either his roommate gave the people the key, because
they pulled Charlnda and they cut her throat and they
set my brother's throat and it just bullshit.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Again, no signs of forced entry meant that Mitch and
Charlenda may have known their killers and invited them inside.
In May of nineteen eighty seven, the double murder and
its possible connection to Billy's murder six months before, had
caused a stir in the local media, and detectives at
the time hoped that the increased attention may stir up
(40:49):
some promising leads, but that wasn't the case. In fact,
investigators had a hard time convincing friends and co workers
of Billy and Mitch to talk at all. The word
on the street was that talking was exactly what might
have gotten Mitch killed in the first place.
Speaker 7 (41:09):
He was killed the next day after he went to
the police station to tell them who killed Billy, and
he was killed the next day. So I'm assuming there
was a leak in the police station and somebody said
Mitch Hall knows who killed Billy.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
It was a claim that maybe true, but one we
have so far have not seen any evidence of no
record that Mitch contacted any member of the department. And
even if Mitch Hall was telling people he was planning
on talking to police, that could be dangerous enough.
Speaker 7 (41:50):
Is there any evidence that my brother came to the
police station and talked to a detective and let them
know who killed Billy Helpborne. There's no evidence of that
him coming into the.
Speaker 4 (42:03):
Police station, not that I've seen, and I'm not saying
that it's not there.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
But we're talking years and years ago.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
But even in nineteen eighty seven, there was a strong
suspicion that not only were the murders connected, they were
likely committed by the same person. That suspicion would only
grow when just eight days later, two more bodies were
discovered in a house in Pembroke Pines, a twenty minute
drive inland from Hollywood Beach. The victims were identified as
(42:42):
thirty one year old Jimmy high Note and twenty eight
year old Harry Collier. Both men had been bound and
then shot at close range in the back of the head.
So it's a slightly different mo but with the same
deadly result.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
When the names high Note and Callier came up, high
Note rang a bell because we know that Jimmy high
Note and Billy went to school together, they knew each other,
they grew up with each other. The fact that they
were then killed, that's not a coincidence. We have to
look into that.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
That's right. Both men were known acquaintances of both Billy
Halburn and Mitch Hall.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
I mean, we all grew up together. We'd go to
Big Daddy together, hanging out together.
Speaker 7 (43:37):
Mitch he knew Jimmy h Notes. We used to go
to as Halloween parties. Billy was always there. We all
used to hang out together when we were teenagers. It's crazy.
I mean when all this happened, it was just crazy.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
So what was going on here? Was someone targeting one
particular group of lifelong friends or where they all involved
in a conspiracy that ultimately got them all killed.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
I don't like to speculate, but I mean a normal
prudent person would look at all the facts and say
that's got to be connected.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
No matter what.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Forget about them, forget about locations or the way that
the murders happen. You have to think he was connected,
and especially that he was in such close time proximity
to the Helper murder.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
So what was the connection. The further we dug, the
more we kept coming back to one place, the Apollo, Jim.
Speaker 9 (44:36):
It wasn't just a gym, It was a criminal enterprise.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
The Apollo was a no frills prison yard style facility
dedicated to pain and gain, owned by a hulking ex cop.
His name is Gil Fernandez and his partner a former
mister Florida named Bert CHRISTI.
Speaker 9 (45:00):
That guy is a fucking gangster. Those two were together.
They were like John Gottie and Sammy the Bull.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Four of the five murder victims, Billy Halpern, Mitch Hall,
Harry Collier, and Jimmy high Note were all members of
the Apollo Gym. That was the connection.
Speaker 4 (45:21):
I think there was a steroid thing going on in
Apollo Gym, and Billy came to my bedroom door like, Hey, Laura,
ba I love you. If I don't come home, just
want you to know that I love you, and then
boom to get the phone call.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
The more Danny and I learned about the place, the
more I was convinced that whatever conspiracy existed that led
to the murders, it was hatched right here. I just
never expected what we would find along the way.
Speaker 9 (45:59):
They were doing shake that, so it was well known,
you're gonna pay us or we're going to kill you.
Speaker 6 (46:05):
And I thought they were going to kill me there,
so I kept my mouth shut and I didn't say anything.
All these years, I didn't say anything, but I knew that.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
They killed Billy or how deep the corruption would go.
Speaker 9 (46:17):
People were afraid to go to the law because they
knew that he was a former cop and still had
lots of friends on the forest, a.
Speaker 6 (46:25):
Lot of unsolved murders that I think are all tied
to the same people.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
And it's almost incestuous that everyone knew each other, everyone
worked together, and then ultimately almost everyone was killed.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
Coming up in the next episode of Cold Blooded, the
Apollo Gym Murders, how Royd's Ripoffs and Revenge of the
Trail of Murder on the streets and swamps of South Florida,
and how one killer might still be walking free.
Speaker 9 (46:55):
Well, I was always taught, if you start poking your
nose around, you're gonna get yourself.
Speaker 3 (46:59):
Killed, cold blooded. The Apollo Jim Murders is a production
of iHeart Podcasts and Authentic Wave Media. Scott Weinberger, Kevin Bennett,
and Walker Lemon are executive producers. Sabrina Siree is our
(47:21):
line producer, scoring sound design and mixing by Mark lamorj
Z for iHeart Podcasts, Christina Everett is executive producer, and
David Wasserman is brand marketing manager. And with special thanks
to the Miramar Police Department, Chief Delrich Moss, Pio Tanya Ardaz,
(47:44):
and Detective Susie Smith,
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