October 15, 2025 • 36 mins
The heist crew somehow makes off with 17 million dollars, but the plan to help David escape starts to unravel.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Gampsite Media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
See, hey, Rory, can you recap for us what happened
last episode?
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Yeah, you guys are in recap corner with Rory Scovell.
Basically what we got into the last episode. David Gampt
works for Loomis Fargo to but in the fact he
thinks it's Wells Fargo, and they transfer money and they
hold money, and.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
He decided that he wanted a new life.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
And came across a co worker, Kelly, who I don't
know that even wants a new life, maybe the biggest
pothead I've ever listened to the voice of. And he
decided that they're going to steal seventeen million dollars from
Loomis Fargo, and Kelly's friend Steve is going to mastermind
the entire ordeal. And we learned that David gamp had
teamed up with a bunch of morons, including himself, in
(01:01):
trying to pull off the biggest heist in American history.
Speaker 5 (01:05):
Okay, then to see how our heroes fare this episode,
I'm gonna hand it off to our friend Johnny Knoxville.
With episode two of Crimeless Hillbilly Heist.
Speaker 6 (01:27):
David Gant wakes up on October fourth, nineteen ninety seven,
feeling like he's got the whole world fooled. When he
climbs out of the bed he shares with his wife, Tammy,
he still hasn't even given her a hint about his plan.
Speaker 7 (01:40):
I should have been hired as an actor from that one.
I played it off like nothing's different, you know, even
visiting parents the weekend before.
Speaker 6 (01:49):
He packs his lunch just like he does every day
and jumps in his truck to go to work.
Speaker 7 (01:55):
I had this pretty little red Dodge Dakota and it
was a long drive King's Mountain to Charlotte, and I
used to drive like a demon.
Speaker 6 (02:07):
It's a long commute despite David's outlaw driving habits. And
just like he does every morning, David listens to the
radio show John Boy and Billy.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
I wanted to write to let y'all know that not
all prisoners are mean and dangerous.
Speaker 7 (02:21):
Some are merely stupid.
Speaker 6 (02:23):
This morning, John Boy and Billy are doing a musical
segment and what should come on but take the money
and run?
Speaker 7 (02:31):
Ca on, take the money and Run. I thought this
is an omen.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
The lyrics to this song are absolutely perfect. It's about
two young lovers who want to avoid a great, big
hassle while robbing a castle, and most importantly they yes
take the money and run. One of them slips away
(02:56):
with the f fourmentioned money, and then the lovers meet
up the very next day. Anyway, David didn't know exactly
when Kelly was coming down to Mexico. It probably wouldn't
be the very next day, but still.
Speaker 7 (03:08):
I just felt great about it, and I'm singing along
as one is wont to do off key loudly poorly.
It just really set the tone for the day.
Speaker 6 (03:22):
At this moment, David feels like he's already left the
past behind. The good, the bad. It's all in the
rear view of his Dodge Dakota in the heist the Money,
the trip down south of Mexico with Kelly. Fate has
already spelled it out for him. It was all gonna unfold,
just like the song on the radio. His last day
(03:44):
as David Gant is gonna go great. From SmartLess Media,
Campside Media and Big Money Players in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
I'm Johnny Knoxville and you're listening to Crime List Bill
Billy Heist. This is our second episode going South. You
(04:18):
already know about David Gant working his ass off to
steal two thousand pounds of cash from the vault all
by himself. But what we haven't gotten into just yet
is the Kelly Jane Campbell.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Of it all.
Speaker 6 (04:30):
David said he texted Kelly that morning to let her
know that they were on. He asked her to get
him a money belt so he could sneak some cash
in New Mexico, and also a pair of bolt cutters
so he could break into where the bigger bills were
kept in the vault. Kelly, of course, never got around
to getting either of those things.
Speaker 7 (04:48):
I could have probably easily doubled my money.
Speaker 6 (04:51):
Take say Lovey instead. Kelly's in position in her pickup truck,
waiting across from Loomis Fargo's chain link front gate. Kelly
described her critical role at this stage in the plan
to journalist Jeff Diamond.
Speaker 8 (05:05):
She had a very good memory about what happened during
the height, at least for what you remembered.
Speaker 7 (05:09):
Uh, and that was bad. I'm sorry.
Speaker 9 (05:11):
She was smoking marijuana the whole time. Can't you remember anything?
Speaker 10 (05:13):
Yeah, it's called crs. Can't remember shit. I guess it
was from the fact that I was smoking too much
weed and not thinking properly.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Have you been officially diagnosed with that?
Speaker 10 (05:26):
Yes? I have been officially diagnosed.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
David's escape from his money worries and his marriage was
a vivid fantasy that now seemed real running off the
Mexico with Kelly. Kelly could only pretend to share this fantasy.
Her escape was weed.
Speaker 10 (05:43):
It was just like whatever. I didn't really put much
thought into it. Once I'd smoked, you know, the reality
of it was just like, eh, it's not that bad.
Speaker 6 (05:53):
Clearly, her involvement in the heightst fit into the category
of things she didn't want to spend too much time
thinking about anyway. While David was breaking his back lugging
cash in the vault, Kelly's at the front gate, just
sitting in her truck, and Kelly's friend Steve, the self
appointed mafia don running the heist, is parked in the
(06:14):
Sedan next tour along with two other geniuses. Steve has
roped into the plan, his cousin Scott and his other
dumb little buddy Eric, while David sweating through his socks.
None of these three people are really doing much of anything.
Speaker 10 (06:27):
I don't think there was a lot of preparation I
had to do.
Speaker 7 (06:32):
Yeah, I'm struggling. I was a skinny, a little worry guy.
Speaker 6 (06:37):
The only thing any of these people did while David
was working to pull off the second biggest cash heist
in American history is call him and page him over
and over again.
Speaker 7 (06:49):
And then I look and there's this big bag jammed
up in the corner, and it's got a little over
half a minute.
Speaker 6 (06:57):
So I throw it on top, and then more beeps
from the pager and another call on the Looma's phone.
Speaker 7 (07:04):
This is when they try to convince me to come
out with half a million dollars. Right, I'm not throwing
my life away for half a million dollars.
Speaker 10 (07:15):
Never again decides to get greedy, I guess. So I
have to keep texting him and calling him, and he's
getting pissed off because he's working his balls off and
they're loading up money. He's like, I'm taking the ones,
I'm taking the files, I'm taking it all. So he's
taken forever to get out.
Speaker 6 (07:35):
Yes, David is being extremely thorough. He takes so long
that Steve starts to get paranoid. How long can it
take to grab some cash out of an unluck vault?
And drive away. Is David betraying them? How could he?
Speaker 10 (07:48):
Steve was just like, you gotta make sure he's still
up with it. He still wants to do this, he said,
just make sure that you know he's still thinking that
you're going to go with him.
Speaker 6 (07:58):
So at Steve's urging, Kelly kept blowing up David's pager
with one four to threes, the I love you emoji
of the nineties.
Speaker 10 (08:07):
I would keep texting him I love you on the pager,
which is not like I said, one four to three,
And I don't know how many times I put that
in there while he was loading the money.
Speaker 6 (08:18):
Why one four to three I has one letter, love
has four letters, U has three letters. There you go. So,
finally David has successfully loaded all the money into the
van while ignoring dozens of alerts on his pager.
Speaker 7 (08:33):
And the pile of money I ended up with was
around three and a half four foot tall, about approximately
nine feet long, and it weighed over a ton.
Speaker 6 (08:47):
He calls Kelly the letter know he's coming out, but
that's when the backgate won't open.
Speaker 7 (08:53):
So here's my options. I either moved the vans around
inside or I transferred the money to another van.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
So David moves several vans blocking his way between him
and the front gate, which isn't stuck.
Speaker 7 (09:06):
Thank god, I'm a decent driver. That was a pretty
good driver back then.
Speaker 6 (09:10):
This new gate that David's going to use, it's the
gate where Kelly, Steve, and the other Nimrods have been
waiting all this time. Finally, the nondescript white van David's
driving makes it to the gate, the headlights shining through
the chain link. Kelly watches as David hops out to
open the gate, the second gate he's tried tonight, so
(09:30):
close to freedom.
Speaker 10 (09:32):
And the gate's stuck. The gate won't open, So we're saying, like,
oh god, what do we do? What do we do?
And he's struggling trying to get.
Speaker 6 (09:39):
The gate outen I mean, someone could get out and
help David. He's on the other side of an unlocked
chain link gate with a van full of seventeen million dollars.
Speaker 10 (09:50):
But Steve didn't won't get to see him.
Speaker 6 (09:52):
So all right, if Steve gets out, it will ruin
the whole reservoir. Dogs thing about not being able to
identify each other. Steve's the kingpin, the head of the
entire operation. He can't get his hands dirty with this
kind of thing. He tries to get his cousin Scott
to do it, but he declines because he's busy doing nothing.
(10:15):
All this time, David is struggling trap behind the gate
and Kelly just watching it all. But finally Steve succeeds
in getting cousin Scott to do it.
Speaker 10 (10:24):
Steve's like, Scott, go help him get out and help him.
I guess he had his cousin with him so he
could make him get out if we was needed.
Speaker 8 (10:33):
Scott told me he really didn't want to do it,
but he did anyway, and he helped David get out.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
At a boy.
Speaker 6 (10:41):
Meanwhile, on the other side of the gate, David is exhausted.
He looks up from his struggles to see a man
he's never seen before approaching him. The man will not
look him in the eye, but he does help David
open the gate, and then finally David hops in the
van drives through the gate and into his new life.
(11:04):
The road he's on, believe it or not, is called
freedom Drive.
Speaker 7 (11:13):
What does going down Freedom drive to freedom? Is that
the hand of fate or is that just happenstance?
Speaker 6 (11:20):
So the plan is to form a three car caravan,
Kelly in her pick up, Steve and Isedan, and David
in the van With all the money. They'll drive to
a nearby parking lot, where David will leave the van
with Steve and his d list Henchman, and Kelly and
David will drive to the airport. David can tell the
armored van is loaded way beyond what it's meant to hold.
(11:42):
It's steering heavy, the shocks are nearly maxed out. David
wants to celebrate, and he could really use a cigarette,
but he's so anxious that he can't even manage to
light it. That's when he sees something.
Speaker 7 (11:54):
There's a Troy cop across from you. If he notices
it's an ATM van out at this late night, he's
gonna pull me over and ask questions.
Speaker 6 (12:04):
Every muscle in his body tenses up. David still has
his company handgun with him, but he'd really rather not
use it.
Speaker 7 (12:15):
If that guy had pulled me over, one of us
would have died that night. I'm like, it ain't gonna
be me.
Speaker 6 (12:24):
Luckily, the cop doesn't notice, and David continues driving, following
Kelly to the rendezvous point. They drive past rows of
industrial buildings and Kelly finally pulls into an open gate.
David hops out of the van and leaves it behind,
along with the two security tape showing his cash grab.
He takes a master keyring with about oh one hundred
(12:46):
and twenty five keys on it and hands it to
one of Steve's goons.
Speaker 11 (12:50):
Do not lose these keys. These are the keys to
this van. So he had this ring of keys. Instead
of taking only the keys he needed, he took the
whole ring of keys to all their vehicles.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
Mind you, David had just successfully stolen more money than
all these people could earn at their jobs in a
few centuries. But he can't do anything right. In Kelly's eyes.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
He took his sweet.
Speaker 6 (13:18):
Time in the vault, and now he just had to
grab all the keys to all the vehicles as a
little extra few to Loomis. And now it's Kelly's job
to drive David to the airport and continue stringing him along.
Oh right, maybe there was another job she was supposed
to do.
Speaker 10 (13:36):
In the meantime, I'm driving Kant to the airport, which
I didn't check to see if it was the international airport.
Speaker 6 (13:44):
I mean, why would you David Gant took the money
and ran. His old life was officially over. He couldn't
(14:04):
have it back even if he wanted to. Now he's
on the road with his beautiful accomplice and future Mexican
Combanta mate, headed for freedom courtesy of the airport in Columbia,
South Carolina. He's feeling great.
Speaker 7 (14:19):
I'm about as amped up as I can get.
Speaker 6 (14:23):
Of course, David took a bag of cash with him
to tide him over in Mexico. He doesn't know how much.
It's a tiny fraction of what he stole, but it's
enough to last him a while. And even this much money,
a relatively small amount he can hide on his person,
is more than he's ever had in his life. Kelly,
normally pretty sedate, not dimension sedated, is also euphoric.
Speaker 10 (14:45):
I remember saying I'm a rich bitch now and kind
of felt good.
Speaker 6 (14:52):
The airport in Columbia, South Carolina is only ninety minutes
away and a sneaky choice because surely the authorities would
be You've seen the airport in Charlotte, just a short
drive from Loomis. Still, the job isn't done. David is
the only current Loomis employee among the gang of thieves,
and the sooner he disappears, the better. So onto a
(15:13):
few things Kelly had been putting off until now.
Speaker 10 (15:16):
I was supposed to get him a money belt, and
I didn't get the money belt. So he's like, well,
how am I gonna hide it? So he's like, well,
I'm gonna stick so many stacks in my boots because
he had on cowboy boots. And I said, well, this is.
Speaker 7 (15:29):
Where Kelly Campbell has the greatest idea she's ever had
in her life. We're in bo dunk, South Carolina. Sorry,
South Carolina. It's true. She runs into a pigly wiggly
or somehow a little store is late. We're in the
middle of nowhere. The only place is that she runs
in and gets some tape and a pair of couple
(15:51):
of pairs of hose pantyhose. Of course, greatest idea ever come.
We stuffed money into the hose, stringing around me free
good times. Tape it money belt.
Speaker 6 (16:03):
The money belt problems are solved. But that's not the
only place David will stash the money.
Speaker 7 (16:08):
I'm stuffing money in my boots. I think I put
a good pair of eleven and a half w's will
fit some feet and about twelve grand, and I've got
six grand over here, six grand over here. I've got
my Walt jam Pack money.
Speaker 6 (16:28):
So David is all set to make a break for it,
and maybe it's something about driving farther and farther away
from the money. But the glease starts to wear off.
He starts to realize he left millions of dollars and
two security tapes showing him stealing those millions of dollars
from a variety of angles in a parking lot with
some total strangers.
Speaker 8 (16:49):
One of the central questions I had for David was
why did you steal this money and then give it
all to people, including someone you didn't know? And his
answer has stayed with me through time, which is he said,
I was in the military. I was taught that if
you give me a team of five people, I could
go anywhere and do anything. Five good guys, I could
go anywhere and do anything.
Speaker 6 (17:09):
Good guys being the operative word. Can he really trust
these people? David asked Kelly to call and remind the
guys to ditch the videotapes. Of course, they say, we
definitely will. Anyway, they're continuing on to the airport, and
then Kelly's phone rings again. It's Steve with a problem.
They can't get into the van, you know, the van
(17:30):
that has all the money in it.
Speaker 10 (17:32):
Apparently they dropped the key and they got mixed in
with all the rest of them. So they've got this
ring of keys like this, and they can't figure out
which key it is to open the door. So they're pannikin.
Speaker 6 (17:45):
But Kelly and David can't turn around. They're already too
far down the road and they need to get David
on a plane. Meanwhile, Steven cousin Scott in a third henchman,
Big Eric, another guy Steve recruited at the last and
our operating light clockwork. If that clock didn't work, Steve
(18:06):
had promised each of these clowns a cool one hundred
grand for their services. They clearly had no idea what
they were in for.
Speaker 9 (18:13):
At this point.
Speaker 8 (18:13):
The heights that already happened, and even if they didn't
get away with it, they were all going to be
in trouble. Scott didn't know which key to use, so
there were a lot of them, and they were like, okay,
which one of these fifths.
Speaker 6 (18:27):
It's a dark parking lot, and there are just so
many damn keys on this keychain it seems like it's
going to be impossible to find the right key. So
someone gets the bright idea to break into the van,
the armored van. They try smashing the windows with the rock,
but it's bulletproof, it doesn't even chip. They then tried
jimmy in the back door opened nothing, budgets. It's almost
(18:51):
like this armored van was built to keep out criminals.
After being utterly defeated by the armored van, Steve and
the crew finally realized they couldn't get this thing open
unless they had a few days of free time and
a welding kid. So sufficiently humbled, they start trying the
keys one by one in the dark, while waiting for
(19:16):
the cops to roll up at any moment, and finally,
thank god, they find the right key. They opened the van,
and for the first time they are treated to a
full view of what David had been busy with during
those hours in the vault. The van was full floor
(19:38):
to ceiling with shrink wrapped stacks of cold, hard cash.
David had literally kept going until he ran out of room.
He couldn't fit an extra five bucks for gas money
into the back of that van. Steve ordered cousin Scott
into the van to start unloading. The plan was simple enough,
they just had to move the money from one van
(19:58):
into another van. Was so much money, they started dumping
cash into some plastic blue barrels they grabbed from the
loading dog and then shuffled those barrels to the rental van.
They were finally working into a good rhythm when they
heard something.
Speaker 8 (20:13):
Scott told me that he's tharft to hear a siren,
and he says, he puts his hands up and he
walks towards the back of the truck which he'd been loading,
and he thinks it's all over for them, And amazingly,
it's an ambulance on Route eighty five, driving away from them.
Speaker 6 (20:30):
Scott shakes it off and then gets back to work. Meanwhile,
on I eighty five, David and Kelly continue to drive
through the night to the airport in Columbia, David's first
step towards freedom. Where exactly in Mexico David's flying to
that just hasn't come up. He figured his accomplices must
(20:53):
have boughtom a ticket to someplace nice, right, you know,
for all the trouble he went to. It's about nine
thirty pm. When they finally pull into the parking lot.
David looks towards the terminal.
Speaker 7 (21:06):
It's strangely dark. I'm like, oh, crap.
Speaker 8 (21:11):
They drove to the airport in Columbia, South Carolina, and
when they got there it was closed. They hadn't even
bought a ticket. They still seventeen million dollars and had
not bought a ticket to help him escape.
Speaker 9 (21:23):
That absolutely blew me away.
Speaker 10 (21:25):
So we get to the airport and the airport's closed.
So I'm like, crap, what do we do now. I'm
not driving him to another airport. I don't want him
flying out as Charlotte.
Speaker 6 (21:37):
So, setting aside for a second the fact that Kelly
never even checked whether or not the airport would be open,
she really won't drive the man who just threw his
life away for her to another airport. The closest one
that's opened is the big international airport in Atlanta. It'll
probably have dozens of flights to Mexico or anywhere else
(21:59):
in the world. It's two hundred and forty miles away,
a little more than three hours on quiet nighttime roads.
Speaker 10 (22:05):
I'm not driving to Atlanta. Are you crazy? I put
him on a bus and he can drive to Atlanta
and get him a plane. But I'm not driving to Atlanta.
Speaker 7 (22:14):
I'm disappointed, but I'm really too tired for it to
sink in, and the adrenaline is starting to wear off.
I'm getting, you know anyway. I know she needs to
get back David.
Speaker 6 (22:27):
Jesus.
Speaker 10 (22:29):
I decide, well, I'll take you to a bus station.
Speaker 7 (22:31):
She takes me to the Greyhound office.
Speaker 10 (22:33):
In my mind, you know David was going to be fine.
He had money with him, so I didn't have any
worries that he would not reach his destination.
Speaker 7 (22:42):
Now I go, okay, I need to get to Atlanta
Columbia Greyhound. I sleep all the way to.
Speaker 6 (22:49):
Atlanta, and when he finally gets to the airport in Atlanta.
Speaker 7 (22:53):
There's nothing. No direct flights from Atlanta to either side
of Mexico.
Speaker 6 (22:59):
Like crap.
Speaker 7 (23:00):
So I find one New Orleans that's closer. We're getting there.
I love New Orleans anyway.
Speaker 6 (23:07):
Meanwhile, Kelly is just fucking driving back home, and she
has one last job to do on the way, a
last favor to David. He had left his Loomis Fargo
work shirt and service Revolver in her car. Now it
was Kelly's job to hide the evidence.
Speaker 10 (23:23):
So I'm driving back across the bridge and Belmont. It's
a place they call the hot hole. And as I'm
driving across the bridge, I just take the shirt in
the gun and chunk it out the window hope it
lands in the water.
Speaker 6 (23:38):
While Kelly was meticulously hiding the last shreds of evidence,
the three Stooges, Steve, Cousin Scott and Big Eric were
wrapping up the finer details on their end. They finally
succeeded in transferring the money from the ATM van to
their rental Well not quiet. The rental van was full
and there were still huge stacks of cash left the
(24:00):
ATM van, which was a problem since they planned to
abandon it.
Speaker 8 (24:04):
David stole seventeen million dollars, but they actually only made
away with over fourteen million dollars because they had to
leave about three million dollars in the van because it
wouldn't fit into their other van in a way that
they felt was safe to take it.
Speaker 6 (24:16):
Steve made the call to just give up. He sent
Big Eric to drive off in the loaded rental van
and he and cousin Scott went to ditch the Loomis
vehicle and that's how an atm van three million dollars
in cash and two VHS tapes showing David Gant sweating
his balls off ended up in the woods, just a
(24:37):
few miles from the scene of the crime. You heard
that right. Steve and his hair brain highwayman never grabbed
those extremely incriminating tapes that David was worried about. They
had more important things to do, like count the money.
Steven cousin Scott met up with Big Eric and the
(24:58):
rental van at a gas station, walking right past an
Idland cop car when they retrieved Steve Sedan. Then they
drove back to Steve's trailer, the site of the notorious
Uno game that launched this whole operation. Steve's wife, Michelle
was waiting for them with a bunch of rubber bands
and a calculator. Michelle is a petite brunette and a
certified smoke show with a bubbly personality.
Speaker 10 (25:20):
The first time he introduced me to Michelle, he introduced
her as his associate's wife. That's an associate of mine's wife,
and he's out of town and I'm looking after while
he's out of town. Her husband at the time was
in the military, and apparently her and Steve had something
going on.
Speaker 6 (25:40):
But that's all in the past, and now Steve and
Michelle seemed to be in lockstep chasing this big money dream.
Kind of sweet to see a couple so in tune
with each other and working towards the same goal.
Speaker 8 (25:51):
There were four of them there. There were Steve, Michelle,
Eric and Scott. Scott passed the money to Eric, who
passed it to Steve, who announced how much there was.
Speaker 9 (25:59):
And told Michelle, who edited up on a calculator.
Speaker 8 (26:02):
From what I heard from people who were there, Michelle
and the rest of them were all really excited.
Speaker 6 (26:06):
Michelle just kept yelling, look at all this money, Look
at all this money, but is the total kept climbing
into the hundreds of thousands and then into the millions.
Something dawned on cousin Scott. They were all in deep shit.
Speaker 8 (26:22):
Scott and probably Eric too, were extremely nervous. Scott was like,
we are going to get caught. We're going to get caught,
and Steve, according to Eric and Scott, says We're not
gonna caught if everyone does what they're supposed to do.
Speaker 6 (26:36):
Yeah, exactly, everyone just follow protocol. The next step in
the master plan stuffing a mattress from Steve's kids bunk
bed full of cash, the one from the top bunk.
Of course, they stuff it completely full the stacks of
twenty dollars bills.
Speaker 9 (26:54):
That's where they were gonna hide it.
Speaker 8 (26:55):
And then Scott points out, guys, if you put that
on your bunk bed, it's gonna your kid underneath it,
you know. So I think they changed the planet at
that point.
Speaker 6 (27:04):
Kelly shows up to this chaotic scene after selflessly not
driving David to the airport. Cousin Scott in Big Eric
had already left. It was just Steve, Michelle and some
blue barrels full of cash with a bit of dog
food sprinkled over the top for cover. No one there
had given a single thought to the fact that a
third of that heavy, stinky, kibble flavored cash belonged to
(27:27):
David Gant. It's early in the morning on October fifth,
the day after the heist, and David Gant is in
(27:47):
a hotel room in New Orleans. He's exhausted and still
hasn't even had time to take a shower. After all
his work in the vault, but first he can't help
but flip on the TV, wondering if he might be
on the news. Luckily there's nothing yet. Hopefully the news
won't break ahead of his flight, which leaves in just
(28:07):
a few hours. He has just enough time for one
final mission.
Speaker 7 (28:12):
I sue, there's a little pharmacy down the street from me,
time store whatever. So I go out. I go down
and I go in, and I think I need to
change my appearance.
Speaker 6 (28:24):
He buys his hair dye, some non prescription eyeglasses, and
novelty contact lenses to change his eye color.
Speaker 7 (28:30):
I go back to the hotel room and I've never
died my hair before. I don't know what I'm doing.
I'm winging it for real. This is impulsive to level ten.
We're just going with it. So I dye my hair brown. Well,
I ignore my eyebrows, So I've got this chestnut chestnut hair
(28:50):
and blonde eyebrows. I'm thinking, well, just dye my hair,
and the movies that make it look so easy. No,
it's not. I die everywhere it was going to close.
There's a mess.
Speaker 6 (29:04):
The contact lenses didn't go much better.
Speaker 7 (29:06):
Look like idiot, But this is great. And I put
the contact lens in and it didn't change my eyes
in the way I thought that we went from. I
thought I was going from blue to green, and I
ended up with some it was almost a purple. I'm like,
oh God, that's ridiculous. So I took them out. I
threw them away because they were did just it didn't work.
Speaker 6 (29:31):
Despite this felt mission, David feels like he's starting to
get the hang of this whole outlaw thing.
Speaker 7 (29:36):
Your actions have to fitture cover story. A round trip
ticket draws no attention.
Speaker 6 (29:43):
David's cover story is that he's taking a two week
vacation in can Coon.
Speaker 7 (29:48):
It was the first flight and it was the closest
I would be in can Coon quickest.
Speaker 6 (29:56):
He makes it to the airport and is waiting for
his flight, counting the minutes until take off.
Speaker 9 (30:01):
A woman approaches him and says, I think I know you.
Speaker 6 (30:05):
His first thought is that his cover is blown. His
ugly mug must be on every TV in the airport.
The woman says, hey, are you Boris Becker an honest mistake.
Boris Becker the German tennis phenom, also a tall, skinny redhead.
Maybe David's already looking rich and successful, but he plays it.
Speaker 9 (30:25):
Cool and he's like, oh no, no, I'm Mike. I work
in printing or something.
Speaker 6 (30:30):
Genius g e n iOS. Mike is the name on
David's fake ID, the one piece of planning Stephen Kelly
successfully pull off for him. That ID is his ticket
to freedom. Maybe Steve's not so bad after all. All
David has to do now is just get on this
(30:50):
flight and everything should be just fine.
Speaker 7 (30:56):
She says, you know, hey, this has created a crap story. Okay.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
There were several local informants calling police, saying.
Speaker 9 (31:05):
I've known this guy his whole life. There's no way
he can afford this house.
Speaker 7 (31:08):
Something's up.
Speaker 10 (31:09):
When you do really bad things like murdering somebody, it's
either for money or to keep a secret.
Speaker 6 (31:17):
That's next time on Crime List. He'll Billy hust.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
Okay, I now imagine we're all deeply invested in the
extremely colorful life of David Gant.
Speaker 7 (31:33):
How are you feeling, Rory?
Speaker 3 (31:35):
I cannot stress enough how aggravating it is when everybody
on the team isn't operating at their highest level, and
I feel like David Gant is sweating blood for this team,
and I cannot handle Kelly.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
I just can't handle Kelly. I can't handle it.
Speaker 5 (31:56):
I know, I mean, just an incredible series of events
and moments in a true story. And maybe, yeah, the
rudest thing someone's ever done after a crime is just
decide not to drive their accomplice to the airport so
he can make a getaway.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
But not even just that literally didn't look into the airport,
didn't get the flight, didn't get the money belt, didn't
participate in any way.
Speaker 4 (32:22):
You almost want to.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Be like, are you just so high you don't even
know we have committed a federal crime?
Speaker 4 (32:29):
Are you aware of what is at stake here? It
speaks to how.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
In love delusionally David is with Kelly, that he thinks
that Kelly's going to step it up, like David's not a.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
Good read of character.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
The fact that David even got in bed in any
way with Steve Chambers and his crew, and Kelly speaks
volumes of David and his and his.
Speaker 4 (32:53):
His decision making when it comes to relationships.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
But it's like Kelly, everyone's doings, even Steve is doing
doing something. Kelly her tone when she was like, I'm
not going to drive him to Atlanta, I'm like, this
isn't your buddy going back to college.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
This is this poor man. You guys are screwed. You're screwed.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
Also like terrible for herself because it just increases the
chances that David gets caught, and if David gets caught,
she's screwed too.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Yes, exactly exactly, but she doesn't seem to even understand it.
She almost doesn't even understand what's at stake, almost as
though this is just a weekend kind of fun thing,
like yeah, I guess we'll go steal some money.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
I don't know they wanted to do it just so blase.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
I almost would be a better person in my life
if I could be that blase about everything. I get
a little too high strung about anything that has no consequence.
Speaker 4 (33:48):
Kelly doesn't even care.
Speaker 6 (33:50):
That this is like.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
That, this is gonna be decades behind bars. I also
feel like.
Speaker 5 (33:56):
There's some pretty useful information in this episode, like the
exact amount of money you can stuff into your pantyhose
and boots. Have you learned anything that will help you
in your future heights?
Speaker 3 (34:05):
I mean, one, it's gonna be get the money belt.
But I learned that if someone says I want to
be on the team, and I smoke a lot of.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Pot, You're already out. You're out. And I have nothing
against pot, but you're just not gonna be able to
make it for this gig.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
If they don't let people smoke pot to take orders
at McDonald's, you can't let someone smoke pot to help
you steal a massive amount of money.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
So you're saying that marijuana is not a performance enhancing drug.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
And I would say it's only ever really worked for
Michael Phelps. For the rest of us, it's we're not
gonna be able to pull it off. It's a it's
I would get a money belt. I would definitely have
already looked up the airport. I love that they thought Columbia,
South Carolina was an international airport.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
Slash would be open at three am.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
There's no airport open at three am.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
Maybe jfk Abe, maybe jfk Well. In this episode David's escape,
it continues, and I believe episode three, we will hear
a little bit more about David State. I give that
episode five bong hits out of five.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
I think same.
Speaker 5 (35:08):
We'll see you next week for episode three.
Speaker 6 (35:22):
Crimeless hill Billy Heist is a production of SmartLess Media,
Campside Media and Big Money Players in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
Bill Billy Heist is narrated by me Johnny Knoxville and
created by Liz Elkington and Stuart Bailey. Written by Michael
Kenyon Meyer with Liz Elkington and Stuart Bailey, Produced by
(35:43):
Lane Rose and Sierra Franco. Additional production help by Rajeev Gola.
The series was sound designed and mixed by Ewin Leitremwen,
fact checking by Gray Lanta and a special thanks for
our operations team Doug Slaywin, Ashley Warren and Sabina Mara
and Destiny Dingle. iHeart Podcasts and Big Money Players. Executive
(36:06):
producers are Jack O'Brien, Lindsay Hoffman, and Matt Appadaca. Campsite
Media's executive producers are Josh Deen, Vanessa Grigoriatis, Adam hoff
and Matt Cher. Executive producers are Liz Elkington and Stuart Bailey.
From SmartLess Media, the producers are Will Arnett, Jason Bateman,
Sean Hayes, and Richard Corson. Bernie Kaminski is the head
(36:29):
of production. The associate producer is Mattie McCann. If you've
enjoyed Crimeless Hillbilly Heies, please rate and review the show
wherever you get your podcasts.
Gampsite Media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
See, hey, Rory, can you recap for us what happened
last episode?
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Yeah, you guys are in recap corner with Rory Scovell.
Basically what we got into the last episode. David Gampt
works for Loomis Fargo to but in the fact he
thinks it's Wells Fargo, and they transfer money and they
hold money, and.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
He decided that he wanted a new life.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
And came across a co worker, Kelly, who I don't
know that even wants a new life, maybe the biggest
pothead I've ever listened to the voice of. And he
decided that they're going to steal seventeen million dollars from
Loomis Fargo, and Kelly's friend Steve is going to mastermind
the entire ordeal. And we learned that David gamp had
teamed up with a bunch of morons, including himself, in
(01:01):
trying to pull off the biggest heist in American history.
Speaker 5 (01:05):
Okay, then to see how our heroes fare this episode,
I'm gonna hand it off to our friend Johnny Knoxville.
With episode two of Crimeless Hillbilly Heist.
Speaker 6 (01:27):
David Gant wakes up on October fourth, nineteen ninety seven,
feeling like he's got the whole world fooled. When he
climbs out of the bed he shares with his wife, Tammy,
he still hasn't even given her a hint about his plan.
Speaker 7 (01:40):
I should have been hired as an actor from that one.
I played it off like nothing's different, you know, even
visiting parents the weekend before.
Speaker 6 (01:49):
He packs his lunch just like he does every day
and jumps in his truck to go to work.
Speaker 7 (01:55):
I had this pretty little red Dodge Dakota and it
was a long drive King's Mountain to Charlotte, and I
used to drive like a demon.
Speaker 6 (02:07):
It's a long commute despite David's outlaw driving habits. And
just like he does every morning, David listens to the
radio show John Boy and Billy.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
I wanted to write to let y'all know that not
all prisoners are mean and dangerous.
Speaker 7 (02:21):
Some are merely stupid.
Speaker 6 (02:23):
This morning, John Boy and Billy are doing a musical
segment and what should come on but take the money
and run?
Speaker 7 (02:31):
Ca on, take the money and Run. I thought this
is an omen.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
The lyrics to this song are absolutely perfect. It's about
two young lovers who want to avoid a great, big
hassle while robbing a castle, and most importantly they yes
take the money and run. One of them slips away
(02:56):
with the f fourmentioned money, and then the lovers meet
up the very next day. Anyway, David didn't know exactly
when Kelly was coming down to Mexico. It probably wouldn't
be the very next day, but still.
Speaker 7 (03:08):
I just felt great about it, and I'm singing along
as one is wont to do off key loudly poorly.
It just really set the tone for the day.
Speaker 6 (03:22):
At this moment, David feels like he's already left the
past behind. The good, the bad. It's all in the
rear view of his Dodge Dakota in the heist the Money,
the trip down south of Mexico with Kelly. Fate has
already spelled it out for him. It was all gonna unfold,
just like the song on the radio. His last day
(03:44):
as David Gant is gonna go great. From SmartLess Media,
Campside Media and Big Money Players in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
I'm Johnny Knoxville and you're listening to Crime List Bill
Billy Heist. This is our second episode going South. You
(04:18):
already know about David Gant working his ass off to
steal two thousand pounds of cash from the vault all
by himself. But what we haven't gotten into just yet
is the Kelly Jane Campbell.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Of it all.
Speaker 6 (04:30):
David said he texted Kelly that morning to let her
know that they were on. He asked her to get
him a money belt so he could sneak some cash
in New Mexico, and also a pair of bolt cutters
so he could break into where the bigger bills were
kept in the vault. Kelly, of course, never got around
to getting either of those things.
Speaker 7 (04:48):
I could have probably easily doubled my money.
Speaker 6 (04:51):
Take say Lovey instead. Kelly's in position in her pickup truck,
waiting across from Loomis Fargo's chain link front gate. Kelly
described her critical role at this stage in the plan
to journalist Jeff Diamond.
Speaker 8 (05:05):
She had a very good memory about what happened during
the height, at least for what you remembered.
Speaker 7 (05:09):
Uh, and that was bad. I'm sorry.
Speaker 9 (05:11):
She was smoking marijuana the whole time. Can't you remember anything?
Speaker 10 (05:13):
Yeah, it's called crs. Can't remember shit. I guess it
was from the fact that I was smoking too much
weed and not thinking properly.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Have you been officially diagnosed with that?
Speaker 10 (05:26):
Yes? I have been officially diagnosed.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
David's escape from his money worries and his marriage was
a vivid fantasy that now seemed real running off the
Mexico with Kelly. Kelly could only pretend to share this fantasy.
Her escape was weed.
Speaker 10 (05:43):
It was just like whatever. I didn't really put much
thought into it. Once I'd smoked, you know, the reality
of it was just like, eh, it's not that bad.
Speaker 6 (05:53):
Clearly, her involvement in the heightst fit into the category
of things she didn't want to spend too much time
thinking about anyway. While David was breaking his back lugging
cash in the vault, Kelly's at the front gate, just
sitting in her truck, and Kelly's friend Steve, the self
appointed mafia don running the heist, is parked in the
(06:14):
Sedan next tour along with two other geniuses. Steve has
roped into the plan, his cousin Scott and his other
dumb little buddy Eric, while David sweating through his socks.
None of these three people are really doing much of anything.
Speaker 10 (06:27):
I don't think there was a lot of preparation I
had to do.
Speaker 7 (06:32):
Yeah, I'm struggling. I was a skinny, a little worry guy.
Speaker 6 (06:37):
The only thing any of these people did while David
was working to pull off the second biggest cash heist
in American history is call him and page him over
and over again.
Speaker 7 (06:49):
And then I look and there's this big bag jammed
up in the corner, and it's got a little over
half a minute.
Speaker 6 (06:57):
So I throw it on top, and then more beeps
from the pager and another call on the Looma's phone.
Speaker 7 (07:04):
This is when they try to convince me to come
out with half a million dollars. Right, I'm not throwing
my life away for half a million dollars.
Speaker 10 (07:15):
Never again decides to get greedy, I guess. So I
have to keep texting him and calling him, and he's
getting pissed off because he's working his balls off and
they're loading up money. He's like, I'm taking the ones,
I'm taking the files, I'm taking it all. So he's
taken forever to get out.
Speaker 6 (07:35):
Yes, David is being extremely thorough. He takes so long
that Steve starts to get paranoid. How long can it
take to grab some cash out of an unluck vault?
And drive away. Is David betraying them? How could he?
Speaker 10 (07:48):
Steve was just like, you gotta make sure he's still
up with it. He still wants to do this, he said,
just make sure that you know he's still thinking that
you're going to go with him.
Speaker 6 (07:58):
So at Steve's urging, Kelly kept blowing up David's pager
with one four to threes, the I love you emoji
of the nineties.
Speaker 10 (08:07):
I would keep texting him I love you on the pager,
which is not like I said, one four to three,
And I don't know how many times I put that
in there while he was loading the money.
Speaker 6 (08:18):
Why one four to three I has one letter, love
has four letters, U has three letters. There you go. So,
finally David has successfully loaded all the money into the
van while ignoring dozens of alerts on his pager.
Speaker 7 (08:33):
And the pile of money I ended up with was
around three and a half four foot tall, about approximately
nine feet long, and it weighed over a ton.
Speaker 6 (08:47):
He calls Kelly the letter know he's coming out, but
that's when the backgate won't open.
Speaker 7 (08:53):
So here's my options. I either moved the vans around
inside or I transferred the money to another van.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
So David moves several vans blocking his way between him
and the front gate, which isn't stuck.
Speaker 7 (09:06):
Thank god, I'm a decent driver. That was a pretty
good driver back then.
Speaker 6 (09:10):
This new gate that David's going to use, it's the
gate where Kelly, Steve, and the other Nimrods have been
waiting all this time. Finally, the nondescript white van David's
driving makes it to the gate, the headlights shining through
the chain link. Kelly watches as David hops out to
open the gate, the second gate he's tried tonight, so
(09:30):
close to freedom.
Speaker 10 (09:32):
And the gate's stuck. The gate won't open, So we're saying, like,
oh god, what do we do? What do we do?
And he's struggling trying to get.
Speaker 6 (09:39):
The gate outen I mean, someone could get out and
help David. He's on the other side of an unlocked
chain link gate with a van full of seventeen million dollars.
Speaker 10 (09:50):
But Steve didn't won't get to see him.
Speaker 6 (09:52):
So all right, if Steve gets out, it will ruin
the whole reservoir. Dogs thing about not being able to
identify each other. Steve's the kingpin, the head of the
entire operation. He can't get his hands dirty with this
kind of thing. He tries to get his cousin Scott
to do it, but he declines because he's busy doing nothing.
(10:15):
All this time, David is struggling trap behind the gate
and Kelly just watching it all. But finally Steve succeeds
in getting cousin Scott to do it.
Speaker 10 (10:24):
Steve's like, Scott, go help him get out and help him.
I guess he had his cousin with him so he
could make him get out if we was needed.
Speaker 8 (10:33):
Scott told me he really didn't want to do it,
but he did anyway, and he helped David get out.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
At a boy.
Speaker 6 (10:41):
Meanwhile, on the other side of the gate, David is exhausted.
He looks up from his struggles to see a man
he's never seen before approaching him. The man will not
look him in the eye, but he does help David
open the gate, and then finally David hops in the
van drives through the gate and into his new life.
(11:04):
The road he's on, believe it or not, is called
freedom Drive.
Speaker 7 (11:13):
What does going down Freedom drive to freedom? Is that
the hand of fate or is that just happenstance?
Speaker 6 (11:20):
So the plan is to form a three car caravan,
Kelly in her pick up, Steve and Isedan, and David
in the van With all the money. They'll drive to
a nearby parking lot, where David will leave the van
with Steve and his d list Henchman, and Kelly and
David will drive to the airport. David can tell the
armored van is loaded way beyond what it's meant to hold.
(11:42):
It's steering heavy, the shocks are nearly maxed out. David
wants to celebrate, and he could really use a cigarette,
but he's so anxious that he can't even manage to
light it. That's when he sees something.
Speaker 7 (11:54):
There's a Troy cop across from you. If he notices
it's an ATM van out at this late night, he's
gonna pull me over and ask questions.
Speaker 6 (12:04):
Every muscle in his body tenses up. David still has
his company handgun with him, but he'd really rather not
use it.
Speaker 7 (12:15):
If that guy had pulled me over, one of us
would have died that night. I'm like, it ain't gonna
be me.
Speaker 6 (12:24):
Luckily, the cop doesn't notice, and David continues driving, following
Kelly to the rendezvous point. They drive past rows of
industrial buildings and Kelly finally pulls into an open gate.
David hops out of the van and leaves it behind,
along with the two security tape showing his cash grab.
He takes a master keyring with about oh one hundred
(12:46):
and twenty five keys on it and hands it to
one of Steve's goons.
Speaker 11 (12:50):
Do not lose these keys. These are the keys to
this van. So he had this ring of keys. Instead
of taking only the keys he needed, he took the
whole ring of keys to all their vehicles.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
Mind you, David had just successfully stolen more money than
all these people could earn at their jobs in a
few centuries. But he can't do anything right. In Kelly's eyes.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
He took his sweet.
Speaker 6 (13:18):
Time in the vault, and now he just had to
grab all the keys to all the vehicles as a
little extra few to Loomis. And now it's Kelly's job
to drive David to the airport and continue stringing him along.
Oh right, maybe there was another job she was supposed
to do.
Speaker 10 (13:36):
In the meantime, I'm driving Kant to the airport, which
I didn't check to see if it was the international airport.
Speaker 6 (13:44):
I mean, why would you David Gant took the money
and ran. His old life was officially over. He couldn't
(14:04):
have it back even if he wanted to. Now he's
on the road with his beautiful accomplice and future Mexican
Combanta mate, headed for freedom courtesy of the airport in Columbia,
South Carolina. He's feeling great.
Speaker 7 (14:19):
I'm about as amped up as I can get.
Speaker 6 (14:23):
Of course, David took a bag of cash with him
to tide him over in Mexico. He doesn't know how much.
It's a tiny fraction of what he stole, but it's
enough to last him a while. And even this much money,
a relatively small amount he can hide on his person,
is more than he's ever had in his life. Kelly,
normally pretty sedate, not dimension sedated, is also euphoric.
Speaker 10 (14:45):
I remember saying I'm a rich bitch now and kind
of felt good.
Speaker 6 (14:52):
The airport in Columbia, South Carolina is only ninety minutes
away and a sneaky choice because surely the authorities would
be You've seen the airport in Charlotte, just a short
drive from Loomis. Still, the job isn't done. David is
the only current Loomis employee among the gang of thieves,
and the sooner he disappears, the better. So onto a
(15:13):
few things Kelly had been putting off until now.
Speaker 10 (15:16):
I was supposed to get him a money belt, and
I didn't get the money belt. So he's like, well,
how am I gonna hide it? So he's like, well,
I'm gonna stick so many stacks in my boots because
he had on cowboy boots. And I said, well, this is.
Speaker 7 (15:29):
Where Kelly Campbell has the greatest idea she's ever had
in her life. We're in bo dunk, South Carolina. Sorry,
South Carolina. It's true. She runs into a pigly wiggly
or somehow a little store is late. We're in the
middle of nowhere. The only place is that she runs
in and gets some tape and a pair of couple
(15:51):
of pairs of hose pantyhose. Of course, greatest idea ever come.
We stuffed money into the hose, stringing around me free
good times. Tape it money belt.
Speaker 6 (16:03):
The money belt problems are solved. But that's not the
only place David will stash the money.
Speaker 7 (16:08):
I'm stuffing money in my boots. I think I put
a good pair of eleven and a half w's will
fit some feet and about twelve grand, and I've got
six grand over here, six grand over here. I've got
my Walt jam Pack money.
Speaker 6 (16:28):
So David is all set to make a break for it,
and maybe it's something about driving farther and farther away
from the money. But the glease starts to wear off.
He starts to realize he left millions of dollars and
two security tapes showing him stealing those millions of dollars
from a variety of angles in a parking lot with
some total strangers.
Speaker 8 (16:49):
One of the central questions I had for David was
why did you steal this money and then give it
all to people, including someone you didn't know? And his
answer has stayed with me through time, which is he said,
I was in the military. I was taught that if
you give me a team of five people, I could
go anywhere and do anything. Five good guys, I could
go anywhere and do anything.
Speaker 6 (17:09):
Good guys being the operative word. Can he really trust
these people? David asked Kelly to call and remind the
guys to ditch the videotapes. Of course, they say, we
definitely will. Anyway, they're continuing on to the airport, and
then Kelly's phone rings again. It's Steve with a problem.
They can't get into the van, you know, the van
(17:30):
that has all the money in it.
Speaker 10 (17:32):
Apparently they dropped the key and they got mixed in
with all the rest of them. So they've got this
ring of keys like this, and they can't figure out
which key it is to open the door. So they're pannikin.
Speaker 6 (17:45):
But Kelly and David can't turn around. They're already too
far down the road and they need to get David
on a plane. Meanwhile, Steven cousin Scott in a third henchman,
Big Eric, another guy Steve recruited at the last and
our operating light clockwork. If that clock didn't work, Steve
(18:06):
had promised each of these clowns a cool one hundred
grand for their services. They clearly had no idea what
they were in for.
Speaker 9 (18:13):
At this point.
Speaker 8 (18:13):
The heights that already happened, and even if they didn't
get away with it, they were all going to be
in trouble. Scott didn't know which key to use, so
there were a lot of them, and they were like, okay,
which one of these fifths.
Speaker 6 (18:27):
It's a dark parking lot, and there are just so
many damn keys on this keychain it seems like it's
going to be impossible to find the right key. So
someone gets the bright idea to break into the van,
the armored van. They try smashing the windows with the rock,
but it's bulletproof, it doesn't even chip. They then tried
jimmy in the back door opened nothing, budgets. It's almost
(18:51):
like this armored van was built to keep out criminals.
After being utterly defeated by the armored van, Steve and
the crew finally realized they couldn't get this thing open
unless they had a few days of free time and
a welding kid. So sufficiently humbled, they start trying the
keys one by one in the dark, while waiting for
(19:16):
the cops to roll up at any moment, and finally,
thank god, they find the right key. They opened the van,
and for the first time they are treated to a
full view of what David had been busy with during
those hours in the vault. The van was full floor
(19:38):
to ceiling with shrink wrapped stacks of cold, hard cash.
David had literally kept going until he ran out of room.
He couldn't fit an extra five bucks for gas money
into the back of that van. Steve ordered cousin Scott
into the van to start unloading. The plan was simple enough,
they just had to move the money from one van
(19:58):
into another van. Was so much money, they started dumping
cash into some plastic blue barrels they grabbed from the
loading dog and then shuffled those barrels to the rental van.
They were finally working into a good rhythm when they
heard something.
Speaker 8 (20:13):
Scott told me that he's tharft to hear a siren,
and he says, he puts his hands up and he
walks towards the back of the truck which he'd been loading,
and he thinks it's all over for them, And amazingly,
it's an ambulance on Route eighty five, driving away from them.
Speaker 6 (20:30):
Scott shakes it off and then gets back to work. Meanwhile,
on I eighty five, David and Kelly continue to drive
through the night to the airport in Columbia, David's first
step towards freedom. Where exactly in Mexico David's flying to
that just hasn't come up. He figured his accomplices must
(20:53):
have boughtom a ticket to someplace nice, right, you know,
for all the trouble he went to. It's about nine
thirty pm. When they finally pull into the parking lot.
David looks towards the terminal.
Speaker 7 (21:06):
It's strangely dark. I'm like, oh, crap.
Speaker 8 (21:11):
They drove to the airport in Columbia, South Carolina, and
when they got there it was closed. They hadn't even
bought a ticket. They still seventeen million dollars and had
not bought a ticket to help him escape.
Speaker 9 (21:23):
That absolutely blew me away.
Speaker 10 (21:25):
So we get to the airport and the airport's closed.
So I'm like, crap, what do we do now. I'm
not driving him to another airport. I don't want him
flying out as Charlotte.
Speaker 6 (21:37):
So, setting aside for a second the fact that Kelly
never even checked whether or not the airport would be open,
she really won't drive the man who just threw his
life away for her to another airport. The closest one
that's opened is the big international airport in Atlanta. It'll
probably have dozens of flights to Mexico or anywhere else
(21:59):
in the world. It's two hundred and forty miles away,
a little more than three hours on quiet nighttime roads.
Speaker 10 (22:05):
I'm not driving to Atlanta. Are you crazy? I put
him on a bus and he can drive to Atlanta
and get him a plane. But I'm not driving to Atlanta.
Speaker 7 (22:14):
I'm disappointed, but I'm really too tired for it to
sink in, and the adrenaline is starting to wear off.
I'm getting, you know anyway. I know she needs to
get back David.
Speaker 6 (22:27):
Jesus.
Speaker 10 (22:29):
I decide, well, I'll take you to a bus station.
Speaker 7 (22:31):
She takes me to the Greyhound office.
Speaker 10 (22:33):
In my mind, you know David was going to be fine.
He had money with him, so I didn't have any
worries that he would not reach his destination.
Speaker 7 (22:42):
Now I go, okay, I need to get to Atlanta
Columbia Greyhound. I sleep all the way to.
Speaker 6 (22:49):
Atlanta, and when he finally gets to the airport in Atlanta.
Speaker 7 (22:53):
There's nothing. No direct flights from Atlanta to either side
of Mexico.
Speaker 6 (22:59):
Like crap.
Speaker 7 (23:00):
So I find one New Orleans that's closer. We're getting there.
I love New Orleans anyway.
Speaker 6 (23:07):
Meanwhile, Kelly is just fucking driving back home, and she
has one last job to do on the way, a
last favor to David. He had left his Loomis Fargo
work shirt and service Revolver in her car. Now it
was Kelly's job to hide the evidence.
Speaker 10 (23:23):
So I'm driving back across the bridge and Belmont. It's
a place they call the hot hole. And as I'm
driving across the bridge, I just take the shirt in
the gun and chunk it out the window hope it
lands in the water.
Speaker 6 (23:38):
While Kelly was meticulously hiding the last shreds of evidence,
the three Stooges, Steve, Cousin Scott and Big Eric were
wrapping up the finer details on their end. They finally
succeeded in transferring the money from the ATM van to
their rental Well not quiet. The rental van was full
and there were still huge stacks of cash left the
(24:00):
ATM van, which was a problem since they planned to
abandon it.
Speaker 8 (24:04):
David stole seventeen million dollars, but they actually only made
away with over fourteen million dollars because they had to
leave about three million dollars in the van because it
wouldn't fit into their other van in a way that
they felt was safe to take it.
Speaker 6 (24:16):
Steve made the call to just give up. He sent
Big Eric to drive off in the loaded rental van
and he and cousin Scott went to ditch the Loomis
vehicle and that's how an atm van three million dollars
in cash and two VHS tapes showing David Gant sweating
his balls off ended up in the woods, just a
(24:37):
few miles from the scene of the crime. You heard
that right. Steve and his hair brain highwayman never grabbed
those extremely incriminating tapes that David was worried about. They
had more important things to do, like count the money.
Steven cousin Scott met up with Big Eric and the
(24:58):
rental van at a gas station, walking right past an
Idland cop car when they retrieved Steve Sedan. Then they
drove back to Steve's trailer, the site of the notorious
Uno game that launched this whole operation. Steve's wife, Michelle
was waiting for them with a bunch of rubber bands
and a calculator. Michelle is a petite brunette and a
certified smoke show with a bubbly personality.
Speaker 10 (25:20):
The first time he introduced me to Michelle, he introduced
her as his associate's wife. That's an associate of mine's wife,
and he's out of town and I'm looking after while
he's out of town. Her husband at the time was
in the military, and apparently her and Steve had something
going on.
Speaker 6 (25:40):
But that's all in the past, and now Steve and
Michelle seemed to be in lockstep chasing this big money dream.
Kind of sweet to see a couple so in tune
with each other and working towards the same goal.
Speaker 8 (25:51):
There were four of them there. There were Steve, Michelle,
Eric and Scott. Scott passed the money to Eric, who
passed it to Steve, who announced how much there was.
Speaker 9 (25:59):
And told Michelle, who edited up on a calculator.
Speaker 8 (26:02):
From what I heard from people who were there, Michelle
and the rest of them were all really excited.
Speaker 6 (26:06):
Michelle just kept yelling, look at all this money, Look
at all this money, but is the total kept climbing
into the hundreds of thousands and then into the millions.
Something dawned on cousin Scott. They were all in deep shit.
Speaker 8 (26:22):
Scott and probably Eric too, were extremely nervous. Scott was like,
we are going to get caught. We're going to get caught,
and Steve, according to Eric and Scott, says We're not
gonna caught if everyone does what they're supposed to do.
Speaker 6 (26:36):
Yeah, exactly, everyone just follow protocol. The next step in
the master plan stuffing a mattress from Steve's kids bunk
bed full of cash, the one from the top bunk.
Of course, they stuff it completely full the stacks of
twenty dollars bills.
Speaker 9 (26:54):
That's where they were gonna hide it.
Speaker 8 (26:55):
And then Scott points out, guys, if you put that
on your bunk bed, it's gonna your kid underneath it,
you know. So I think they changed the planet at
that point.
Speaker 6 (27:04):
Kelly shows up to this chaotic scene after selflessly not
driving David to the airport. Cousin Scott in Big Eric
had already left. It was just Steve, Michelle and some
blue barrels full of cash with a bit of dog
food sprinkled over the top for cover. No one there
had given a single thought to the fact that a
third of that heavy, stinky, kibble flavored cash belonged to
(27:27):
David Gant. It's early in the morning on October fifth,
the day after the heist, and David Gant is in
(27:47):
a hotel room in New Orleans. He's exhausted and still
hasn't even had time to take a shower. After all
his work in the vault, but first he can't help
but flip on the TV, wondering if he might be
on the news. Luckily there's nothing yet. Hopefully the news
won't break ahead of his flight, which leaves in just
(28:07):
a few hours. He has just enough time for one
final mission.
Speaker 7 (28:12):
I sue, there's a little pharmacy down the street from me,
time store whatever. So I go out. I go down
and I go in, and I think I need to
change my appearance.
Speaker 6 (28:24):
He buys his hair dye, some non prescription eyeglasses, and
novelty contact lenses to change his eye color.
Speaker 7 (28:30):
I go back to the hotel room and I've never
died my hair before. I don't know what I'm doing.
I'm winging it for real. This is impulsive to level ten.
We're just going with it. So I dye my hair brown. Well,
I ignore my eyebrows, So I've got this chestnut chestnut hair
(28:50):
and blonde eyebrows. I'm thinking, well, just dye my hair,
and the movies that make it look so easy. No,
it's not. I die everywhere it was going to close.
There's a mess.
Speaker 6 (29:04):
The contact lenses didn't go much better.
Speaker 7 (29:06):
Look like idiot, But this is great. And I put
the contact lens in and it didn't change my eyes
in the way I thought that we went from. I
thought I was going from blue to green, and I
ended up with some it was almost a purple. I'm like,
oh God, that's ridiculous. So I took them out. I
threw them away because they were did just it didn't work.
Speaker 6 (29:31):
Despite this felt mission, David feels like he's starting to
get the hang of this whole outlaw thing.
Speaker 7 (29:36):
Your actions have to fitture cover story. A round trip
ticket draws no attention.
Speaker 6 (29:43):
David's cover story is that he's taking a two week
vacation in can Coon.
Speaker 7 (29:48):
It was the first flight and it was the closest
I would be in can Coon quickest.
Speaker 6 (29:56):
He makes it to the airport and is waiting for
his flight, counting the minutes until take off.
Speaker 9 (30:01):
A woman approaches him and says, I think I know you.
Speaker 6 (30:05):
His first thought is that his cover is blown. His
ugly mug must be on every TV in the airport.
The woman says, hey, are you Boris Becker an honest mistake.
Boris Becker the German tennis phenom, also a tall, skinny redhead.
Maybe David's already looking rich and successful, but he plays it.
Speaker 9 (30:25):
Cool and he's like, oh no, no, I'm Mike. I work
in printing or something.
Speaker 6 (30:30):
Genius g e n iOS. Mike is the name on
David's fake ID, the one piece of planning Stephen Kelly
successfully pull off for him. That ID is his ticket
to freedom. Maybe Steve's not so bad after all. All
David has to do now is just get on this
(30:50):
flight and everything should be just fine.
Speaker 7 (30:56):
She says, you know, hey, this has created a crap story. Okay.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
There were several local informants calling police, saying.
Speaker 9 (31:05):
I've known this guy his whole life. There's no way
he can afford this house.
Speaker 7 (31:08):
Something's up.
Speaker 10 (31:09):
When you do really bad things like murdering somebody, it's
either for money or to keep a secret.
Speaker 6 (31:17):
That's next time on Crime List. He'll Billy hust.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
Okay, I now imagine we're all deeply invested in the
extremely colorful life of David Gant.
Speaker 7 (31:33):
How are you feeling, Rory?
Speaker 3 (31:35):
I cannot stress enough how aggravating it is when everybody
on the team isn't operating at their highest level, and
I feel like David Gant is sweating blood for this team,
and I cannot handle Kelly.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
I just can't handle Kelly. I can't handle it.
Speaker 5 (31:56):
I know, I mean, just an incredible series of events
and moments in a true story. And maybe, yeah, the
rudest thing someone's ever done after a crime is just
decide not to drive their accomplice to the airport so
he can make a getaway.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
But not even just that literally didn't look into the airport,
didn't get the flight, didn't get the money belt, didn't
participate in any way.
Speaker 4 (32:22):
You almost want to.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Be like, are you just so high you don't even
know we have committed a federal crime?
Speaker 4 (32:29):
Are you aware of what is at stake here? It
speaks to how.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
In love delusionally David is with Kelly, that he thinks
that Kelly's going to step it up, like David's not a.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
Good read of character.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
The fact that David even got in bed in any
way with Steve Chambers and his crew, and Kelly speaks
volumes of David and his and his.
Speaker 4 (32:53):
His decision making when it comes to relationships.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
But it's like Kelly, everyone's doings, even Steve is doing
doing something. Kelly her tone when she was like, I'm
not going to drive him to Atlanta, I'm like, this
isn't your buddy going back to college.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
This is this poor man. You guys are screwed. You're screwed.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
Also like terrible for herself because it just increases the
chances that David gets caught, and if David gets caught,
she's screwed too.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Yes, exactly exactly, but she doesn't seem to even understand it.
She almost doesn't even understand what's at stake, almost as
though this is just a weekend kind of fun thing,
like yeah, I guess we'll go steal some money.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
I don't know they wanted to do it just so blase.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
I almost would be a better person in my life
if I could be that blase about everything. I get
a little too high strung about anything that has no consequence.
Speaker 4 (33:48):
Kelly doesn't even care.
Speaker 6 (33:50):
That this is like.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
That, this is gonna be decades behind bars. I also
feel like.
Speaker 5 (33:56):
There's some pretty useful information in this episode, like the
exact amount of money you can stuff into your pantyhose
and boots. Have you learned anything that will help you
in your future heights?
Speaker 3 (34:05):
I mean, one, it's gonna be get the money belt.
But I learned that if someone says I want to
be on the team, and I smoke a lot of.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Pot, You're already out. You're out. And I have nothing
against pot, but you're just not gonna be able to
make it for this gig.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
If they don't let people smoke pot to take orders
at McDonald's, you can't let someone smoke pot to help
you steal a massive amount of money.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
So you're saying that marijuana is not a performance enhancing drug.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
And I would say it's only ever really worked for
Michael Phelps. For the rest of us, it's we're not
gonna be able to pull it off. It's a it's
I would get a money belt. I would definitely have
already looked up the airport. I love that they thought Columbia,
South Carolina was an international airport.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
Slash would be open at three am.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
There's no airport open at three am.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
Maybe jfk Abe, maybe jfk Well. In this episode David's escape,
it continues, and I believe episode three, we will hear
a little bit more about David State. I give that
episode five bong hits out of five.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
I think same.
Speaker 5 (35:08):
We'll see you next week for episode three.
Speaker 6 (35:22):
Crimeless hill Billy Heist is a production of SmartLess Media,
Campside Media and Big Money Players in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
Bill Billy Heist is narrated by me Johnny Knoxville and
created by Liz Elkington and Stuart Bailey. Written by Michael
Kenyon Meyer with Liz Elkington and Stuart Bailey, Produced by
(35:43):
Lane Rose and Sierra Franco. Additional production help by Rajeev Gola.
The series was sound designed and mixed by Ewin Leitremwen,
fact checking by Gray Lanta and a special thanks for
our operations team Doug Slaywin, Ashley Warren and Sabina Mara
and Destiny Dingle. iHeart Podcasts and Big Money Players. Executive
(36:06):
producers are Jack O'Brien, Lindsay Hoffman, and Matt Appadaca. Campsite
Media's executive producers are Josh Deen, Vanessa Grigoriatis, Adam hoff
and Matt Cher. Executive producers are Liz Elkington and Stuart Bailey.
From SmartLess Media, the producers are Will Arnett, Jason Bateman,
Sean Hayes, and Richard Corson. Bernie Kaminski is the head
(36:29):
of production. The associate producer is Mattie McCann. If you've
enjoyed Crimeless Hillbilly Heies, please rate and review the show
wherever you get your podcasts.
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