October 15, 2025 • 36 mins
Someone confesses, and the heist crew faces serious consequences.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Gampsite Media Large Lash.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Okay, Rory, we're on the home stretch now, episode seven.
Where did we leave off last week?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I mean the big takeaway is that now everyone's caught,
we're in the final we're in the red zone here,
we're in the phase of sentencing and whatever. How how
the hammer is going to drop on on everybody, and
we got to know how everyone did it. Whydra the
FBI agent who busted everybody, really really really did his job,
(00:45):
covered every base and checked every box, and uh yeah,
now we're gonna we're gonna find out what the sentencing
is gonna be of everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Okay, let's find out by getting into episode seven of
Crimeless Hillbilly Heist.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Take it away, Johnny.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
For Kelly Campbell. It's been a long day and it's
still not even eight in the morning. Kelly was arrested
by the FBI a couple of hours ago. The agent's
brought her to the women's holding cell at the County Courthouse.
She's been stuck there with Michelle Chambers ever since.
Speaker 6 (01:33):
She was pretty distraught. She's almost to the point of hyperventilating.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
The reason that Michelle's freaking out other than being arrested
by the FBI for her role in the second largest
cash heist in American history. Is because her husband is
putting a lot of pressure on her. From the other
side of the wall in the men's holding cell, Steve's
yelling an urgent message to Michelle. It's the same message
she's told everyone since the beginning, keep your big mouth shut.
Speaker 6 (02:00):
Steve kept trying to talk through the wall, asking Michelle stuff.
For saying stuff to Michelle. The only thing he was
worried about, what's she going to say? Don't say nothing,
and this and that.
Speaker 5 (02:11):
Kelly tells Steve to knock it off.
Speaker 6 (02:13):
Even though it wasn't me and her that had the
you know, close friend relationship. I just kind of felt
the need to protect her, and I'm like, just just
leave her alone.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Finally, agents step in to isolate Stephen Michelle. The criminal
masterminds to separate rooms for interrogation, and Kelly has left
to wonder if Michelle will crack under pressure. Michelle is
interviewed by John Wydra and another agent. Apparently she's been
able to compose herself. The strength of her husband has
given her new resolve.
Speaker 7 (02:46):
She wouldn't say anything. She didn't talk. She wouldn't admit anything.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
Whydra and the other agent work on her for hours,
with Widra playing bad cop. They show her evidence of
all her extravagant purchases. They show her video foot her
depositing the exact same, just under the federal limit bundle
of cash with bank tellers, over and over again. She
won't budge.
Speaker 7 (03:13):
Meanwhile, her husband was in another room down the hall,
just running his mouth, telling us everything.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
He's singing like Leotine Price. His criminal record may have
been a bit lackluster, but his track record as a
canary was much more solid, and he relied heavily on it.
Speaker 7 (03:34):
Now because he knew the game, like he was an
FBI informant. He knew it was done. He knows that
the FBI, when they come to arrest you, we already
have all the evidence.
Speaker 8 (03:44):
We're not guessing.
Speaker 9 (03:46):
What happened was right after the arrests, Steve immediately started
talking about everybody, after having told them for a long time,
you know, don't tell anybody anything. He was the first
person who kind of realized the strategic value of being
the first one to talk in a multi defending criminal case.
And that benefit is that the person with the most
(04:10):
information against other people winds up having a great advantage
in the process.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
Steve knows that he's facing a lot of time and
he can get a more lenient sentence if he is
the first to tell the FBI everything and screw over
everybody else, and so that's exactly what he does. He
tells him about Kelly, claiming the heist was her idea.
He tells him about his wife, He tells him about
his cousin Scott and Eric, plenty of new boobs pained.
(04:40):
He even rats out Michelle's parents for hiding money for him,
and his own parents for hiding money for him. His
own parents don't know about you, but I wouldn't care
if this fella's ass fell off. Meanwhile, Wydras still isn't
getting anywhere with Michelle.
Speaker 7 (04:57):
Yeah, Michelle didn't care at all.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
Widra confers with the other agents. They agree to have
Steve go in and talk to Michelle, now that he's
had first DIBs on telling them everything. He walks in
sobbing and tells her to confess, which she eventually does.
Between Steve and Michelle, the FBI already has everything they
need and Kelly is out of bargaining chips and weed
(05:33):
from SmartLess media, campsite Media, and big money players in
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. I'm Johnny Knoxville and you're listening
to crime List Hillbilly Heis. This is our seventh episode,
The Dreams Done Died. It's a real shit position to
(06:01):
have to pay the price for a dream that never
quite worked out. It's kind of like owing money on
a wreck vehicle or paying alimony to a wife that
cheated on you. The Loomis gang is currently dealing with
a searing headache of regret while intense public scrutiny wears
on their nerves. Kelly's still figuring this out when she's
led out of the courthouse in handcuffs after her interrogation.
Speaker 6 (06:23):
We knew that the camera people were going to be
out there, and it's like the vultures, you know, give
them something to lick at.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
Kelly stuck out her tongue and made a goofy face
while holding up her shackled hands towards the camera. The
picture was widely circulated. Kelly says she was trying to
say hi to her deaf sister.
Speaker 6 (06:43):
She happened to be walking down the sidewalk when we
were coming out the back of the building, and I
did this, which is I love you in sign language.
And then when they wrote the article they said she
was throwing gang signs. I'm like, that's not a gang sign.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
But it was too late. Kelly was about to have
her moment with the judge, American public, and also with
her court appointed defense attorney, James Gronquist.
Speaker 10 (07:07):
And when I saw that, of course I was saying, Okay,
here we go. This is going to be a little
bit of work to get this person back in line
and see that she doesn't get too hurt by this.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
James Gronquist has got the vibe of a patient, pragmatic
high school woodshop teacher. Hygiens will happen, Well, let's make
sure not that many students lose a finger.
Speaker 10 (07:30):
By the time I saw, she'd been in jail a
little while and she had settled down, so to speak.
But she sort of looked tired, worn out, confused, upset
about what was going on because she knew that her
whole life was going to change as a result.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
He quickly takes to defending Kelly, not just in the
legal system, but also in the court of public opinion.
Speaker 10 (07:57):
Quit laughing at these people, folks. They pulled up something
that you haven't done, you know, and probably couldn't do.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
James knows that Kelly's going to have a hard time
getting much sympathy, let alone leniency. Steve's confession is already
hanging over everyone in the case.
Speaker 10 (08:13):
The moment that he knew the jig was up, he said,
where's my microphonel, let me sing.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
James advice to Kelly was to play the same game
as Steve and confessed as quickly as possible.
Speaker 10 (08:26):
You're one of the principal players in this and so
you have a lot to lose, but you also have a.
Speaker 8 (08:32):
Lot to gain if he pulled down.
Speaker 10 (08:34):
The line began to fold after a while, when they
realized that they're taking the weight for what somebody else
wanted them to do.
Speaker 6 (08:46):
I was really lucky when I got James Cronquist from
my attorney. He did care about my situation and my
family that was going to be left behind, and I
remember him, you know, talking to my mom and doing
what he could to console her.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
The consequences for her family weighed most heavily on Kelly.
She remembers her mom and kids in the audience at
one of the pre trial hearings.
Speaker 6 (09:12):
I had to get up there and tell the truth
in front of my family and my kids and everybody watching.
Speaker 8 (09:21):
It was hard.
Speaker 5 (09:26):
And then she hears the crime she's charged with.
Speaker 6 (09:29):
There was five different charges, I think, but the main
ones were bank larceny and the one that really got
me was conspiracy to commit murder.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
For her, now, she's staring at many decades in prison
and languishing behind bars until her young children were well
into adulthood.
Speaker 6 (09:47):
I think during the time that I was going to court,
when we were, you know, all figuring out how many
years we could get and stuff, when it all hit me,
that was probably the only time in my life I
feel like killing myself. So yeah, it was pretty hard.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
During the heist cruise reunion in the holding cell, David
Gant is still in the process of being hauled back
for Mexico, but when he got off the plane in Charlotte,
he knew life in his hometown would never be the same.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
When we landed in Charlotte, I'm looking and there's all
these police cars, and there's the press gallery.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
All these people being in custody is still a relief
compared to being hunted by Bruno and Cancun. After all,
he really dodged a bullet or whatever hair brain scheme
Steve was cooking up a bleach injection, exploding street tacos,
or swallowing murder hornets. But he still has a lot
of adjustments to make.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
The next few months are a blur, you know, until
I get used to jail life and get used to
dealing with my lawyer and the FBI.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
And facing lawyers and judges and reporters is a lot
easier than facing his wife and family.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Reconnecting with my family was very difficult, painful for both
of us for all of us, and reconnecting with Tammy,
which was painful.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
David's FaceTime with the wife and family he abandoned was
pretty limited. He had more proximity to his co conspirators
the company he chose in place of his family, but
given that they had wanted to kill him, the government
tried to limit their interaction.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
I didn't see Kelly or Steve or Michelle except for
fleeting glimpses here and there in the courtroom or when
they were transporting us. Because of the situation, I wasn't
allowed to be transported with them. I wasn't allowed to
be putting the same cell with them. And one time
they were in the holesales straight across from me.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
And then there was the time David accidentally got a
little quality time with Steve.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
One of the marshals made a minor mistake put Steve
in there with me. I'm like, I'm thinking my head,
I may have to hurt this dude, or one of
us is going to get hurt, possibly, so I'm prepared
to defend myself. And then the marshall comes back tack
Steve out of there, because you know, they weren't supposed
(12:30):
to put us together.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
Yeah, when Steve got with an earshot of David, he
said that Kelly was the one that wanted him killed.
David's reunion with Kelly was not quite what he had
hoped for when he stole the money.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
David looked trained when I saw him after we'd all
been arrested. And I do remember saying to David when
either when I went by his cell or he went
by mine or something, and I remember telling him and
I was sorry, I just didn't say anything.
Speaker 7 (13:09):
Did you understand that I did.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
Like the rest of his co conspirators, David was facing
multiple decades in prison.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
The biggest charge against me was bank larceny. That's the
most serious, the one where it was obvious.
Speaker 5 (13:29):
Obvious meaning the Feds had video from the vault of
him committing the crime. It was technically bank larceny, not
bank robbery, since David didn't stick up Loumis Fargo at gunpoint.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
But the money laundering charges, if push come to shove,
they would have to show some sort of documentation where
I laundered money, which, even by the looses definition because
I read up on it later, I didn't commit.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
David's argument is that putting stolen money in a pair
of pantyhose isn't money laundering, So why is he getting
the same charges as the guy who used the money
to buy a mansion. The Feds didn't agree.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
They would stack charges on people and just crush you
with weight.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
Adding to David's legal complications, he was going to have
trouble making a sincere apology.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
If I'm gonna be remorseful about anything, it's not about
stealing money from the government or putting a hurting home Fargo.
My remorse comes from hurting my family. My remorse comes
from hurting Tammy. That's still that's something I'm gonna always
(14:41):
carry with me, you know, because it's always hurt me
to know that if my brain and my mental state
had been better, I would have never hurt Tammy, and
I would have never hurt my family. But stubbornness and pride,
(15:04):
you know, calls me and them a lot of pain.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
There weren't gonna be any trials. It would be great
to say that jury saw the video of David stealing
all the money and they just let him off anyway,
or that Michelle had a chance to give an impassioned
courtroom speech about buying her boobs before the heist, or
that Mike used a phone party as an alibi. But
the truth is, going to trial carries a high risk
(15:32):
of a guilty verdict and a maximum sentence, So everyone
worked to get the best deal they could, pled guilty
and hope the judge would go easy on them. The
one exception was Steve's lawyer, who was charged with money
laundering after storing some money for Steve in his office.
He fought the case in trial, lost and got a
longer sentence than many of the people who actually stole
(15:54):
the money for Mike McKenny party time was decidedly over.
Speaker 8 (16:02):
Oh yeah, we were in the orange jumpsuits with.
Speaker 11 (16:05):
The Billy chain shackle.
Speaker 8 (16:10):
Ankles were shackled. Oh it sucks.
Speaker 11 (16:15):
Because I basically have to take half steps in shackles.
Speaker 5 (16:20):
Mike prefers to disassociate from this whole chapter of his
life when he talks about it. He tends to say
you instead of eye, like maybe all of this happened
to someone other than him.
Speaker 11 (16:30):
Whenever they actually give you your sentence, that is when
it kind of feels like a sandbags laying on your chest.
I mean, my lawyer told me, you plead out, basically,
you get seventy seven months, you take this to trial
and lose, you can get one hundred and thirty five months.
(16:51):
I plaid out, and then whenever they sentenced me, it
was one hundred and thirty five months.
Speaker 8 (16:55):
Anyway, I kind of got pissy with him after that.
It's like, so basically, y'all just fucked me out of
a trial.
Speaker 11 (17:07):
I probably would have got at the same time or
more from a trial, but at least I would have
cost the Feds more money to do it.
Speaker 8 (17:14):
You gotta take your spite however you can.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
One hundred and thirty five months is eleven years and
three months. In the Slammer, Mike and Steve got the
exact same prison term. Mike is still pretty pissed about
that one. Steve was the kingpin, after all, he stole
the money and paid Mike for a murder that never happened, unless,
of course, you count the gallons of margaritas he killed
at Senior Frogs. And then he got a sentence reduced
(17:47):
for just blabbing about the whole thing.
Speaker 8 (17:49):
Yeah, there's not a whole lot of honor among thieves.
Speaker 11 (17:53):
Words were exchanged, but that that's as far as I'll
go now.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
Then he was off to complete his sentence. However, there's
an advantage to being Mike McKinnie in the prison yard.
Speaker 8 (18:07):
The prisons, it's full of predators.
Speaker 11 (18:11):
I'm larger than the average person, was a drawer head,
and I was in there for being a hitman, so
I was kind of the last person they wanted to press,
and I was in there doing my own thing.
Speaker 8 (18:23):
I wasn't gambling, doing.
Speaker 11 (18:25):
Drugs, messing with the punks, so I was basically left
alone anyway. But in there, if you are pressed, you
have to be ready to roll. You can't hesitate. They
come at you, You've got to go back hard. It doesn't
matter if you're actually very good at fighting. It just
(18:45):
depends on if you're willing to. Because there's easier prey
out there, and if you're willing to fight, it starts
going in their head. Well I might get hurt, so
they go onto easier prey.
Speaker 5 (18:58):
Well that's terrifying. One of his most eventful days in
prison actually came at the beginning of a sentence. He
had just been moved from the county jail in Charlotte
to another county jail. I stop over on the way
to federal prison.
Speaker 11 (19:14):
So I went shuffling in there, and the first person
I saw was David Gant coming down the stairs. He
saw me, his eyes got about this big ran straight
to the garden, said that was the guy that was
hard to kill me.
Speaker 8 (19:24):
You need to get him out of here.
Speaker 11 (19:27):
And so I was pulled over to the sun asked
the fare was going to be a problem. I said, no,
no money on Gant anymore, and so they shipped me
over to actually the Christian pod. Those were all the
dope fans that found the lord before trial to try
to reduce her sentence and all that, and I was
(19:49):
just the odd ball. I was a fed prisoner that
had already been sentenced, and that was the only place
they could stick me. I guess because I had done
anything to have to sit in the hole.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
I have used his time in the Christian pod to
preach the virtues of the Unholy Trinity or pay homage
to the Father, the Son, and the Holy hot tub.
Speaker 8 (20:08):
But he didn't. He just slept pretty good in the
Christian pod.
Speaker 11 (20:13):
Beds were pretty comfy, And actually that was the last
time I actually slept on a true mattress for what
the next nine years.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
As a reward for his impeccable squealing, Steve was sentenced
to the same eleven years and three months as Mike McKinney.
Steve's parents were convicted of money laundering and serve their
sentence on house arrest. Michelle gets seven years and eight
months her annex. On the day of her arrest, when
she hid the forty three thousand dollars diamond ring from
(20:44):
the FBI, did it exactly help her cause.
Speaker 7 (20:47):
Michelle accused me of stealing this diamond ring that was missing.
We were looking for it because I had a receipt
for forty three thousand dollars. Now, think about the logic
of that I have in the search warrant that I'm
looking for dollar ring, right, and she accused me of
stealing it. Meanwhile, she put it in the suitcase. Grandparents
(21:07):
were holding on to it. They weren't going to say anything,
and then we arrested them. We arrested the grandparents.
Speaker 5 (21:16):
The grandparents are Michelle's parents, her children's grandparents. They later
received probation. I wonder if that ever comes up at Thanksgiving.
Speaker 7 (21:25):
It added to his prison time too, took away any
cooperation that she had, so she didn't get any kind
of break.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
Kelly ends up getting five years and ten months. The
charge of conspiracy to commit murder for hire added extra
weight to her sentence.
Speaker 6 (21:40):
And that prevented me from doing things when I was
in prison. I couldn't participate in programs like where they
got to go out into town where there was a
firefighter program and they'd get to go out into town
and do different things. I couldn't participate in that because
it would consider a violent crime. I couldn't participate in
(22:03):
the drug rehab program and get time knocked off of
my sentence because it was considered a violent crime.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
In addition to her prison time, Kelly was also ordered
to pay restitution to Loomis Fargo and its insurance company.
Even though the Feds have recovered just about all the money,
and it's a big number, almost five million dollars. The
rest of the crew has to pay restitution as well,
but somehow, singing Steve Chambers figure is a million dollars
(22:34):
less than Kelly's.
Speaker 6 (22:35):
It's like you're gonna be penished for the rest of
your life because they know I'm never gonna pay back
five million dollars. Where am I gonna get five million dollars?
I mean, if you think about it, it's like you're
gonna make this person go out and commit another crime
to pay this crime off.
Speaker 5 (22:56):
Kelly is sent to one of the most notorious prisons
in the country.
Speaker 6 (23:00):
From West Virginia, but it was called Camp Copcake because
there was no towers, no barbar fences. I mean, if
somebody wanted to leave, they could leave. It's actually where
they sent Martha's steward. I actually left probably a couple
(23:24):
of months before she arrived, so I missed out there,
but I wouldn't have wanted to stay just to hang
out with Martha.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
Maybe that's why to this day, Kelly's dining table centerpieces
are not what they could be. When Kelly arrived, she
too was greeted by a familiar face.
Speaker 6 (23:42):
When I went into prison, they asked me if there
was going to be an issue if Michelle and I
worked at the same place or housed in the same area,
And I told them in the beginning that I would
prefer that they keep me and Michelle separate from each other.
The thing about it is if you did something bad,
(24:03):
if you got into a fight or something like that,
then you know Camp cl Cake was over for you.
You went somewhere else.
Speaker 5 (24:12):
Camp Cupcake is tamed by prison standards, but it's still
a prison. Like all the new inmates, Kelly is assigned
to a giant building everyone calls the Titanic.
Speaker 6 (24:22):
And the way that's set up is just they had
half walls for instead of the wall to your cubicle
going all the way to the ceiling, it was just
half walls, so anybody on the top bunk could see
everybody else on the top punk. So if you're on
the top bunk, you didn't have any privacy and of course,
without any walls, there wasn't no privacy anyway, because you
can hear everything that's going on.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
The system was set up so that, with a long
enough stretch of good behavior, Kelly could work her way
into more comfortable accommodations. After a while, she got moved
to a cottage with several roommates. This is Camp Cupcake
we're talking about. They literally call it a cottage. Then
she got to move to a cottage with fewer roommates,
(25:07):
and finally.
Speaker 6 (25:08):
I did manage to work my way into a private
room with the door, which was fantastic. It made things
a lot easier.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
Beats pooping in front of people.
Speaker 6 (25:19):
You have free rain on the prison yard. If you
was to leave your cottage, you'd have to write down
what time you were leaving and where you were going,
and then when you'd come back, you'd sign back in
so they would know where to find you if they
needed you. There's a reason they caught it Camp Cupcake.
Speaker 5 (25:37):
Kelly sent us photos of her time at Camp Cupcake,
and they're pretty incredible. She's wearing civilian clothes, sitting on
a rock, head turned to camera, smiling like the photo
shoot you do when you graduate from high school or
get incarcerated on a murder for higher scheme. The grounds
are surrounded by a lush, old growth forest like a
(25:57):
summer camp with Stooley's and shame and the finest pruno.
Kelly also got closer to the Lord while she was
in prison. Her faith helped her get through the time
away from her kids. Meanwhile, David is sentenced to seven
(26:18):
and a half years, and even though he only saw
maybe one hundred grand of the stolen money after the
first night, he owes his former bosses at Loomis Fargo
almost four million in restitution. After his close call with
Mike McKinnie in County jail, he was sent to a
medium security federal prison in North Carolina, a prison that
(26:39):
is not named after a dessert.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
A lot of those guys have like really long sentences,
or they've done violence or certain crimes, and they're probably
never going to some of them are never gonna leave.
And that's where I did all my time.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
The prison is an open dorm, which means that the
inmates aren't kept in individual cells. Instead, they all sleep
in bunks in the same giant room and.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Up at the front what they call the beach. There's
four beds under the lights, ten feet from the guard shack,
and that's where all the new fish go. And it's
a horrible place to live because the bathrooms are right there,
the TV rooms are right here, the guard shacks here,
(27:30):
mail calls here. People in and out all night, all night,
all day, no sleeping.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
But David didn't have to do any time on this beach.
Speaker 8 (27:40):
I got lucky.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
When I showed up, the beach was filled with people
who had pissed the guards off.
Speaker 5 (27:48):
Instead, David got put in the part of the prison
run by a violent biker gang.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
So they put them with the bikers, which is cool.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
Lucky. Mike McKinny got by in prison thanks to his
size and his reputation as an ex marine turned hitman.
David got by by being David. For example, one of
his acquaintances in prison was a member of the Pagan
motorcycle Gang.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
One of the coolest guys you ever meet. Play guitar.
Was generous with his food and stuff, but you know
that in real life when he had to be he was,
you know, not somebody to be trifled with. You spoke
to him wrong, you might end up beat the death.
Speaker 5 (28:40):
David Gant can charm anyone into not beating him to death.
He's just that kind of guy, and during his time
behind bars, his optimism never wavered.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
You think of all the movies and stuff you've seen
on TV, and you think it's gonna be a certain way,
and I hate to bust people's bubbles.
Speaker 8 (28:58):
But you get there.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
The grass is nicely cut. There's an education center and
library where you go eat, medical, the special housing unit,
visitor center, and if you didn't know any better, you
think it was just a really bizarre college campus.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
Still, David isn't exactly enamored with his new life. His
frustration comes to a head one day early on.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Being famous in prison is kind of terrible because they
had done a rerun of Was It twenty twenty some show?
And so here I am, I'm crashed out on my bunk, comfortable,
and here comes six people. Hey man, you're on TV.
(29:48):
You're gonna go watch it? And they wake me up?
And if you wake me up without coffee, I'm not
gonna be happy. And so I rolled, I said, what
do you idiots? Won't just as sarcastic as a possible
can marriage without being overly rude and like, oh you're
(30:11):
on TV. Don't you want to come see it? Like
m Efforts I.
Speaker 8 (30:15):
Lived, go away.
Speaker 5 (30:25):
David got himself here because he was hoping to get
himself unstuck from a dark period in his life. He
was in a deadened job that he hated, a marriage
he was unsure of, and just feeling like he could
never get ahead. Now he's literally stuck in the same
building for the next seven years, and he owes the
former employer who spent all those years underpaying him four
(30:48):
million dollars. When he gets out, he'll be in his
early thirties with a criminal record, and it'll be time
to figure out his next chapter.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
He's like Zach Galifnakis to meet you, would you mind
flying out here to Los Angeles?
Speaker 5 (31:11):
That's next time. On the final episode of Crimeless, Hillbilly.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Heist Steve Man, after all that, he's just singing like
a canary or a parrot, whatever songbird is the appropriate
bird to use in this metaphor.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Any bird that talks. He is imitating them.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
One thing gets.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Shocking Kelly being a little Kelly being a little surprised
that she was being charged with conspiracy to commit murder
for hire, even though she had openly on a tapped
phone call, talked about doing that.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Interesting that she was like, Oh, I didn't remember even
I'm doing that.
Speaker 7 (32:00):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
There's a lot of things I forget throughout the week.
For myself, I think I would always remember for the
rest of my life when I tried to have someone
professionally killed. I just feel like that would be a
core memory.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
I mean, this continues to be a psa about the
dangers of marijuana smoking.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yes, here's what I want to know your own personal feelings.
What do you think about Mike's lawyer telling him to
plead out and then he still got the same amount
had he fought it. That actually kind of upset me
a little bit about his lawyer.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
I totally agree. I feel like that. I don't know
if you can like punish a lawyer. Can you say, like,
I don't know that a person who has been convicted of, yeah,
of murder for hire has much recourse. But yes, he
told him to take a plea to get less time,
and then he got the same amount of time, Yeah,
than if he had fought it and maybe been clear.
Speaker 10 (32:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
I kind of thought, when you take a plea when
they say a plea bargain, it's been there's been a bargain,
there's a bargain. The literally the word bargain meant you
won't get the same thing because there's a bargain. And
so the fact that he pleaded guilty and yet still
got the same that I don't know enough about the
law how these things work. And I realized Mike McKinney
(33:11):
was hired to kill someone and obviously was doing something
illegal at its core, no matter how you cut it up.
But that does seem shady that he would be treated
like that when he's being represented by a lawyer, and
I can't wait to find out who his lawyer is
and write a letter.
Speaker 11 (33:28):
I got.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
David's affinity for his prison is just the that's the
clearest cut example of his optimism. That he's in prison
and he's like it seems like a nice college campus
and yet he's been paired up with like murderous biker gangs,
and yet he's like it's like college, Like, you know,
college is different for everybody.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
What's it gonna take for David to like be bummed out?
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Don't I don't know that it can happen. I think
the only thing that ever bummed him out, and he
even talks about it pretty optimistically now, is just Kelly
never reciprocating his love.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
Yeah, well you're right.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Everything else, he's kind of like, Eh, yeah, it's prison,
but it's not bad, not bad, It's not that bad
of a place.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
I got to say, I was kind of surprised with
all of it, the sentencing, the amounts. I did feel
strange that Mike got the same as Steve. That just
felt very bizarre. I don't know if Steve got less
because he rat it on everybody, and I think, as
they stated, he knew that he would get less if
he got in there, got on the microphone first. But yeah,
(34:33):
I will say it was interesting that Kelly got to
go to Camp Cupcake with Martha, with Martha or just mister,
but yeah, Martha, it's pretty incredible. I did like that
David got out early for good behavior. That made perfect
sense because he's so he probably they were like, this
isn't even a punishment. He doesn't even think he's in
(34:54):
a bad place.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
I just imagine David volunteering for like job in the prison.
He's like working in the kitchen, he's cleaning bathrooms. He's
just whistling.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Yes, I mean he was down in Mexico. He's probably
so lonely, and he's like, this isn't so bad. Hang
I got roommates. He probably thought there were roommates everybody
in prison.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
Oh man.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
He just continues to be the best character.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
Yeah, absolutely, all right.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Well, we have just one episode left in our season.
Next week we get a little meta because I think
Hollywood comes calling.
Speaker 5 (35:31):
That's right, Crimeless Hillbilly 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 Stewart Bailey. Written by Michael
Kenyon Meyer with Liz Elkington and Stuart Bailey, Produced by
(35:54):
Lane Rose and Sierra Franco. Additional production help by Rejeeve Gola.
The series with sound design and mixed by ewin Le Tremwen,
fact checking by Gray Lanta, and a special thanks for
our operations team Doug Slaywin, Ashley Warren, Sabina Mara and
Destiny Dingle, iHeart Podcasts and Big Money Players Executive producers
(36:17):
are Jack O'Brien, Lindsay Hoffman, and Matt Appadeca. 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
(36:40):
of production. The associate producer is Mattie McCann. If you've
enjoyed Crimeless Hillbilly heis, please rate and review the show
wherever you get your podcasts.
Gampsite Media Large Lash.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Okay, Rory, we're on the home stretch now, episode seven.
Where did we leave off last week?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I mean the big takeaway is that now everyone's caught,
we're in the final we're in the red zone here,
we're in the phase of sentencing and whatever. How how
the hammer is going to drop on on everybody, and
we got to know how everyone did it. Whydra the
FBI agent who busted everybody, really really really did his job,
(00:45):
covered every base and checked every box, and uh yeah,
now we're gonna we're gonna find out what the sentencing
is gonna be of everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Okay, let's find out by getting into episode seven of
Crimeless Hillbilly Heist.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Take it away, Johnny.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
For Kelly Campbell. It's been a long day and it's
still not even eight in the morning. Kelly was arrested
by the FBI a couple of hours ago. The agent's
brought her to the women's holding cell at the County Courthouse.
She's been stuck there with Michelle Chambers ever since.
Speaker 6 (01:33):
She was pretty distraught. She's almost to the point of hyperventilating.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
The reason that Michelle's freaking out other than being arrested
by the FBI for her role in the second largest
cash heist in American history. Is because her husband is
putting a lot of pressure on her. From the other
side of the wall in the men's holding cell, Steve's
yelling an urgent message to Michelle. It's the same message
she's told everyone since the beginning, keep your big mouth shut.
Speaker 6 (02:00):
Steve kept trying to talk through the wall, asking Michelle stuff.
For saying stuff to Michelle. The only thing he was
worried about, what's she going to say? Don't say nothing,
and this and that.
Speaker 5 (02:11):
Kelly tells Steve to knock it off.
Speaker 6 (02:13):
Even though it wasn't me and her that had the
you know, close friend relationship. I just kind of felt
the need to protect her, and I'm like, just just
leave her alone.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Finally, agents step in to isolate Stephen Michelle. The criminal
masterminds to separate rooms for interrogation, and Kelly has left
to wonder if Michelle will crack under pressure. Michelle is
interviewed by John Wydra and another agent. Apparently she's been
able to compose herself. The strength of her husband has
given her new resolve.
Speaker 7 (02:46):
She wouldn't say anything. She didn't talk. She wouldn't admit anything.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
Whydra and the other agent work on her for hours,
with Widra playing bad cop. They show her evidence of
all her extravagant purchases. They show her video foot her
depositing the exact same, just under the federal limit bundle
of cash with bank tellers, over and over again. She
won't budge.
Speaker 7 (03:13):
Meanwhile, her husband was in another room down the hall,
just running his mouth, telling us everything.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
He's singing like Leotine Price. His criminal record may have
been a bit lackluster, but his track record as a
canary was much more solid, and he relied heavily on it.
Speaker 7 (03:34):
Now because he knew the game, like he was an
FBI informant. He knew it was done. He knows that
the FBI, when they come to arrest you, we already
have all the evidence.
Speaker 8 (03:44):
We're not guessing.
Speaker 9 (03:46):
What happened was right after the arrests, Steve immediately started
talking about everybody, after having told them for a long time,
you know, don't tell anybody anything. He was the first
person who kind of realized the strategic value of being
the first one to talk in a multi defending criminal case.
And that benefit is that the person with the most
(04:10):
information against other people winds up having a great advantage
in the process.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
Steve knows that he's facing a lot of time and
he can get a more lenient sentence if he is
the first to tell the FBI everything and screw over
everybody else, and so that's exactly what he does. He
tells him about Kelly, claiming the heist was her idea.
He tells him about his wife, He tells him about
his cousin Scott and Eric, plenty of new boobs pained.
(04:40):
He even rats out Michelle's parents for hiding money for him,
and his own parents for hiding money for him. His
own parents don't know about you, but I wouldn't care
if this fella's ass fell off. Meanwhile, Wydras still isn't
getting anywhere with Michelle.
Speaker 7 (04:57):
Yeah, Michelle didn't care at all.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
Widra confers with the other agents. They agree to have
Steve go in and talk to Michelle, now that he's
had first DIBs on telling them everything. He walks in
sobbing and tells her to confess, which she eventually does.
Between Steve and Michelle, the FBI already has everything they
need and Kelly is out of bargaining chips and weed
(05:33):
from SmartLess media, campsite Media, and big money players in
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. I'm Johnny Knoxville and you're listening
to crime List Hillbilly Heis. This is our seventh episode,
The Dreams Done Died. It's a real shit position to
(06:01):
have to pay the price for a dream that never
quite worked out. It's kind of like owing money on
a wreck vehicle or paying alimony to a wife that
cheated on you. The Loomis gang is currently dealing with
a searing headache of regret while intense public scrutiny wears
on their nerves. Kelly's still figuring this out when she's
led out of the courthouse in handcuffs after her interrogation.
Speaker 6 (06:23):
We knew that the camera people were going to be
out there, and it's like the vultures, you know, give
them something to lick at.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
Kelly stuck out her tongue and made a goofy face
while holding up her shackled hands towards the camera. The
picture was widely circulated. Kelly says she was trying to
say hi to her deaf sister.
Speaker 6 (06:43):
She happened to be walking down the sidewalk when we
were coming out the back of the building, and I
did this, which is I love you in sign language.
And then when they wrote the article they said she
was throwing gang signs. I'm like, that's not a gang sign.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
But it was too late. Kelly was about to have
her moment with the judge, American public, and also with
her court appointed defense attorney, James Gronquist.
Speaker 10 (07:07):
And when I saw that, of course I was saying, Okay,
here we go. This is going to be a little
bit of work to get this person back in line
and see that she doesn't get too hurt by this.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
James Gronquist has got the vibe of a patient, pragmatic
high school woodshop teacher. Hygiens will happen, Well, let's make
sure not that many students lose a finger.
Speaker 10 (07:30):
By the time I saw, she'd been in jail a
little while and she had settled down, so to speak.
But she sort of looked tired, worn out, confused, upset
about what was going on because she knew that her
whole life was going to change as a result.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
He quickly takes to defending Kelly, not just in the
legal system, but also in the court of public opinion.
Speaker 10 (07:57):
Quit laughing at these people, folks. They pulled up something
that you haven't done, you know, and probably couldn't do.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
James knows that Kelly's going to have a hard time
getting much sympathy, let alone leniency. Steve's confession is already
hanging over everyone in the case.
Speaker 10 (08:13):
The moment that he knew the jig was up, he said,
where's my microphonel, let me sing.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
James advice to Kelly was to play the same game
as Steve and confessed as quickly as possible.
Speaker 10 (08:26):
You're one of the principal players in this and so
you have a lot to lose, but you also have a.
Speaker 8 (08:32):
Lot to gain if he pulled down.
Speaker 10 (08:34):
The line began to fold after a while, when they
realized that they're taking the weight for what somebody else
wanted them to do.
Speaker 6 (08:46):
I was really lucky when I got James Cronquist from
my attorney. He did care about my situation and my
family that was going to be left behind, and I
remember him, you know, talking to my mom and doing
what he could to console her.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
The consequences for her family weighed most heavily on Kelly.
She remembers her mom and kids in the audience at
one of the pre trial hearings.
Speaker 6 (09:12):
I had to get up there and tell the truth
in front of my family and my kids and everybody watching.
Speaker 8 (09:21):
It was hard.
Speaker 5 (09:26):
And then she hears the crime she's charged with.
Speaker 6 (09:29):
There was five different charges, I think, but the main
ones were bank larceny and the one that really got
me was conspiracy to commit murder.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
For her, now, she's staring at many decades in prison
and languishing behind bars until her young children were well
into adulthood.
Speaker 6 (09:47):
I think during the time that I was going to court,
when we were, you know, all figuring out how many
years we could get and stuff, when it all hit me,
that was probably the only time in my life I
feel like killing myself. So yeah, it was pretty hard.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
During the heist cruise reunion in the holding cell, David
Gant is still in the process of being hauled back
for Mexico, but when he got off the plane in Charlotte,
he knew life in his hometown would never be the same.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
When we landed in Charlotte, I'm looking and there's all
these police cars, and there's the press gallery.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
All these people being in custody is still a relief
compared to being hunted by Bruno and Cancun. After all,
he really dodged a bullet or whatever hair brain scheme
Steve was cooking up a bleach injection, exploding street tacos,
or swallowing murder hornets. But he still has a lot
of adjustments to make.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
The next few months are a blur, you know, until
I get used to jail life and get used to
dealing with my lawyer and the FBI.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
And facing lawyers and judges and reporters is a lot
easier than facing his wife and family.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Reconnecting with my family was very difficult, painful for both
of us for all of us, and reconnecting with Tammy,
which was painful.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
David's FaceTime with the wife and family he abandoned was
pretty limited. He had more proximity to his co conspirators
the company he chose in place of his family, but
given that they had wanted to kill him, the government
tried to limit their interaction.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
I didn't see Kelly or Steve or Michelle except for
fleeting glimpses here and there in the courtroom or when
they were transporting us. Because of the situation, I wasn't
allowed to be transported with them. I wasn't allowed to
be putting the same cell with them. And one time
they were in the holesales straight across from me.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
And then there was the time David accidentally got a
little quality time with Steve.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
One of the marshals made a minor mistake put Steve
in there with me. I'm like, I'm thinking my head,
I may have to hurt this dude, or one of
us is going to get hurt, possibly, so I'm prepared
to defend myself. And then the marshall comes back tack
Steve out of there, because you know, they weren't supposed
(12:30):
to put us together.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
Yeah, when Steve got with an earshot of David, he
said that Kelly was the one that wanted him killed.
David's reunion with Kelly was not quite what he had
hoped for when he stole the money.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
David looked trained when I saw him after we'd all
been arrested. And I do remember saying to David when
either when I went by his cell or he went
by mine or something, and I remember telling him and
I was sorry, I just didn't say anything.
Speaker 7 (13:09):
Did you understand that I did.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
Like the rest of his co conspirators, David was facing
multiple decades in prison.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
The biggest charge against me was bank larceny. That's the
most serious, the one where it was obvious.
Speaker 5 (13:29):
Obvious meaning the Feds had video from the vault of
him committing the crime. It was technically bank larceny, not
bank robbery, since David didn't stick up Loumis Fargo at gunpoint.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
But the money laundering charges, if push come to shove,
they would have to show some sort of documentation where
I laundered money, which, even by the looses definition because
I read up on it later, I didn't commit.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
David's argument is that putting stolen money in a pair
of pantyhose isn't money laundering, So why is he getting
the same charges as the guy who used the money
to buy a mansion. The Feds didn't agree.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
They would stack charges on people and just crush you
with weight.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
Adding to David's legal complications, he was going to have
trouble making a sincere apology.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
If I'm gonna be remorseful about anything, it's not about
stealing money from the government or putting a hurting home Fargo.
My remorse comes from hurting my family. My remorse comes
from hurting Tammy. That's still that's something I'm gonna always
(14:41):
carry with me, you know, because it's always hurt me
to know that if my brain and my mental state
had been better, I would have never hurt Tammy, and
I would have never hurt my family. But stubbornness and pride,
(15:04):
you know, calls me and them a lot of pain.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
There weren't gonna be any trials. It would be great
to say that jury saw the video of David stealing
all the money and they just let him off anyway,
or that Michelle had a chance to give an impassioned
courtroom speech about buying her boobs before the heist, or
that Mike used a phone party as an alibi. But
the truth is, going to trial carries a high risk
(15:32):
of a guilty verdict and a maximum sentence, So everyone
worked to get the best deal they could, pled guilty
and hope the judge would go easy on them. The
one exception was Steve's lawyer, who was charged with money
laundering after storing some money for Steve in his office.
He fought the case in trial, lost and got a
longer sentence than many of the people who actually stole
(15:54):
the money for Mike McKenny party time was decidedly over.
Speaker 8 (16:02):
Oh yeah, we were in the orange jumpsuits with.
Speaker 11 (16:05):
The Billy chain shackle.
Speaker 8 (16:10):
Ankles were shackled. Oh it sucks.
Speaker 11 (16:15):
Because I basically have to take half steps in shackles.
Speaker 5 (16:20):
Mike prefers to disassociate from this whole chapter of his
life when he talks about it. He tends to say
you instead of eye, like maybe all of this happened
to someone other than him.
Speaker 11 (16:30):
Whenever they actually give you your sentence, that is when
it kind of feels like a sandbags laying on your chest.
I mean, my lawyer told me, you plead out, basically,
you get seventy seven months, you take this to trial
and lose, you can get one hundred and thirty five months.
(16:51):
I plaid out, and then whenever they sentenced me, it
was one hundred and thirty five months.
Speaker 8 (16:55):
Anyway, I kind of got pissy with him after that.
It's like, so basically, y'all just fucked me out of
a trial.
Speaker 11 (17:07):
I probably would have got at the same time or
more from a trial, but at least I would have
cost the Feds more money to do it.
Speaker 8 (17:14):
You gotta take your spite however you can.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
One hundred and thirty five months is eleven years and
three months. In the Slammer, Mike and Steve got the
exact same prison term. Mike is still pretty pissed about
that one. Steve was the kingpin, after all, he stole
the money and paid Mike for a murder that never happened, unless,
of course, you count the gallons of margaritas he killed
at Senior Frogs. And then he got a sentence reduced
(17:47):
for just blabbing about the whole thing.
Speaker 8 (17:49):
Yeah, there's not a whole lot of honor among thieves.
Speaker 11 (17:53):
Words were exchanged, but that that's as far as I'll
go now.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
Then he was off to complete his sentence. However, there's
an advantage to being Mike McKinnie in the prison yard.
Speaker 8 (18:07):
The prisons, it's full of predators.
Speaker 11 (18:11):
I'm larger than the average person, was a drawer head,
and I was in there for being a hitman, so
I was kind of the last person they wanted to press,
and I was in there doing my own thing.
Speaker 8 (18:23):
I wasn't gambling, doing.
Speaker 11 (18:25):
Drugs, messing with the punks, so I was basically left
alone anyway. But in there, if you are pressed, you
have to be ready to roll. You can't hesitate. They
come at you, You've got to go back hard. It doesn't
matter if you're actually very good at fighting. It just
(18:45):
depends on if you're willing to. Because there's easier prey
out there, and if you're willing to fight, it starts
going in their head. Well I might get hurt, so
they go onto easier prey.
Speaker 5 (18:58):
Well that's terrifying. One of his most eventful days in
prison actually came at the beginning of a sentence. He
had just been moved from the county jail in Charlotte
to another county jail. I stop over on the way
to federal prison.
Speaker 11 (19:14):
So I went shuffling in there, and the first person
I saw was David Gant coming down the stairs. He
saw me, his eyes got about this big ran straight
to the garden, said that was the guy that was
hard to kill me.
Speaker 8 (19:24):
You need to get him out of here.
Speaker 11 (19:27):
And so I was pulled over to the sun asked
the fare was going to be a problem. I said, no,
no money on Gant anymore, and so they shipped me
over to actually the Christian pod. Those were all the
dope fans that found the lord before trial to try
to reduce her sentence and all that, and I was
(19:49):
just the odd ball. I was a fed prisoner that
had already been sentenced, and that was the only place
they could stick me. I guess because I had done
anything to have to sit in the hole.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
I have used his time in the Christian pod to
preach the virtues of the Unholy Trinity or pay homage
to the Father, the Son, and the Holy hot tub.
Speaker 8 (20:08):
But he didn't. He just slept pretty good in the
Christian pod.
Speaker 11 (20:13):
Beds were pretty comfy, And actually that was the last
time I actually slept on a true mattress for what
the next nine years.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
As a reward for his impeccable squealing, Steve was sentenced
to the same eleven years and three months as Mike McKinney.
Steve's parents were convicted of money laundering and serve their
sentence on house arrest. Michelle gets seven years and eight
months her annex. On the day of her arrest, when
she hid the forty three thousand dollars diamond ring from
(20:44):
the FBI, did it exactly help her cause.
Speaker 7 (20:47):
Michelle accused me of stealing this diamond ring that was missing.
We were looking for it because I had a receipt
for forty three thousand dollars. Now, think about the logic
of that I have in the search warrant that I'm
looking for dollar ring, right, and she accused me of
stealing it. Meanwhile, she put it in the suitcase. Grandparents
(21:07):
were holding on to it. They weren't going to say anything,
and then we arrested them. We arrested the grandparents.
Speaker 5 (21:16):
The grandparents are Michelle's parents, her children's grandparents. They later
received probation. I wonder if that ever comes up at Thanksgiving.
Speaker 7 (21:25):
It added to his prison time too, took away any
cooperation that she had, so she didn't get any kind
of break.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
Kelly ends up getting five years and ten months. The
charge of conspiracy to commit murder for hire added extra
weight to her sentence.
Speaker 6 (21:40):
And that prevented me from doing things when I was
in prison. I couldn't participate in programs like where they
got to go out into town where there was a
firefighter program and they'd get to go out into town
and do different things. I couldn't participate in that because
it would consider a violent crime. I couldn't participate in
(22:03):
the drug rehab program and get time knocked off of
my sentence because it was considered a violent crime.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
In addition to her prison time, Kelly was also ordered
to pay restitution to Loomis Fargo and its insurance company.
Even though the Feds have recovered just about all the money,
and it's a big number, almost five million dollars. The
rest of the crew has to pay restitution as well,
but somehow, singing Steve Chambers figure is a million dollars
(22:34):
less than Kelly's.
Speaker 6 (22:35):
It's like you're gonna be penished for the rest of
your life because they know I'm never gonna pay back
five million dollars. Where am I gonna get five million dollars?
I mean, if you think about it, it's like you're
gonna make this person go out and commit another crime
to pay this crime off.
Speaker 5 (22:56):
Kelly is sent to one of the most notorious prisons
in the country.
Speaker 6 (23:00):
From West Virginia, but it was called Camp Copcake because
there was no towers, no barbar fences. I mean, if
somebody wanted to leave, they could leave. It's actually where
they sent Martha's steward. I actually left probably a couple
(23:24):
of months before she arrived, so I missed out there,
but I wouldn't have wanted to stay just to hang
out with Martha.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
Maybe that's why to this day, Kelly's dining table centerpieces
are not what they could be. When Kelly arrived, she
too was greeted by a familiar face.
Speaker 6 (23:42):
When I went into prison, they asked me if there
was going to be an issue if Michelle and I
worked at the same place or housed in the same area,
And I told them in the beginning that I would
prefer that they keep me and Michelle separate from each other.
The thing about it is if you did something bad,
(24:03):
if you got into a fight or something like that,
then you know Camp cl Cake was over for you.
You went somewhere else.
Speaker 5 (24:12):
Camp Cupcake is tamed by prison standards, but it's still
a prison. Like all the new inmates, Kelly is assigned
to a giant building everyone calls the Titanic.
Speaker 6 (24:22):
And the way that's set up is just they had
half walls for instead of the wall to your cubicle
going all the way to the ceiling, it was just
half walls, so anybody on the top bunk could see
everybody else on the top punk. So if you're on
the top bunk, you didn't have any privacy and of course,
without any walls, there wasn't no privacy anyway, because you
can hear everything that's going on.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
The system was set up so that, with a long
enough stretch of good behavior, Kelly could work her way
into more comfortable accommodations. After a while, she got moved
to a cottage with several roommates. This is Camp Cupcake
we're talking about. They literally call it a cottage. Then
she got to move to a cottage with fewer roommates,
(25:07):
and finally.
Speaker 6 (25:08):
I did manage to work my way into a private
room with the door, which was fantastic. It made things
a lot easier.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
Beats pooping in front of people.
Speaker 6 (25:19):
You have free rain on the prison yard. If you
was to leave your cottage, you'd have to write down
what time you were leaving and where you were going,
and then when you'd come back, you'd sign back in
so they would know where to find you if they
needed you. There's a reason they caught it Camp Cupcake.
Speaker 5 (25:37):
Kelly sent us photos of her time at Camp Cupcake,
and they're pretty incredible. She's wearing civilian clothes, sitting on
a rock, head turned to camera, smiling like the photo
shoot you do when you graduate from high school or
get incarcerated on a murder for higher scheme. The grounds
are surrounded by a lush, old growth forest like a
(25:57):
summer camp with Stooley's and shame and the finest pruno.
Kelly also got closer to the Lord while she was
in prison. Her faith helped her get through the time
away from her kids. Meanwhile, David is sentenced to seven
(26:18):
and a half years, and even though he only saw
maybe one hundred grand of the stolen money after the
first night, he owes his former bosses at Loomis Fargo
almost four million in restitution. After his close call with
Mike McKinnie in County jail, he was sent to a
medium security federal prison in North Carolina, a prison that
(26:39):
is not named after a dessert.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
A lot of those guys have like really long sentences,
or they've done violence or certain crimes, and they're probably
never going to some of them are never gonna leave.
And that's where I did all my time.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
The prison is an open dorm, which means that the
inmates aren't kept in individual cells. Instead, they all sleep
in bunks in the same giant room and.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Up at the front what they call the beach. There's
four beds under the lights, ten feet from the guard shack,
and that's where all the new fish go. And it's
a horrible place to live because the bathrooms are right there,
the TV rooms are right here, the guard shacks here,
(27:30):
mail calls here. People in and out all night, all night,
all day, no sleeping.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
But David didn't have to do any time on this beach.
Speaker 8 (27:40):
I got lucky.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
When I showed up, the beach was filled with people
who had pissed the guards off.
Speaker 5 (27:48):
Instead, David got put in the part of the prison
run by a violent biker gang.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
So they put them with the bikers, which is cool.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
Lucky. Mike McKinny got by in prison thanks to his
size and his reputation as an ex marine turned hitman.
David got by by being David. For example, one of
his acquaintances in prison was a member of the Pagan
motorcycle Gang.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
One of the coolest guys you ever meet. Play guitar.
Was generous with his food and stuff, but you know
that in real life when he had to be he was,
you know, not somebody to be trifled with. You spoke
to him wrong, you might end up beat the death.
Speaker 5 (28:40):
David Gant can charm anyone into not beating him to death.
He's just that kind of guy, and during his time
behind bars, his optimism never wavered.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
You think of all the movies and stuff you've seen
on TV, and you think it's gonna be a certain way,
and I hate to bust people's bubbles.
Speaker 8 (28:58):
But you get there.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
The grass is nicely cut. There's an education center and
library where you go eat, medical, the special housing unit,
visitor center, and if you didn't know any better, you
think it was just a really bizarre college campus.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
Still, David isn't exactly enamored with his new life. His
frustration comes to a head one day early on.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Being famous in prison is kind of terrible because they
had done a rerun of Was It twenty twenty some show?
And so here I am, I'm crashed out on my bunk, comfortable,
and here comes six people. Hey man, you're on TV.
(29:48):
You're gonna go watch it? And they wake me up?
And if you wake me up without coffee, I'm not
gonna be happy. And so I rolled, I said, what
do you idiots? Won't just as sarcastic as a possible
can marriage without being overly rude and like, oh you're
(30:11):
on TV. Don't you want to come see it? Like
m Efforts I.
Speaker 8 (30:15):
Lived, go away.
Speaker 5 (30:25):
David got himself here because he was hoping to get
himself unstuck from a dark period in his life. He
was in a deadened job that he hated, a marriage
he was unsure of, and just feeling like he could
never get ahead. Now he's literally stuck in the same
building for the next seven years, and he owes the
former employer who spent all those years underpaying him four
(30:48):
million dollars. When he gets out, he'll be in his
early thirties with a criminal record, and it'll be time
to figure out his next chapter.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
He's like Zach Galifnakis to meet you, would you mind
flying out here to Los Angeles?
Speaker 5 (31:11):
That's next time. On the final episode of Crimeless, Hillbilly.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Heist Steve Man, after all that, he's just singing like
a canary or a parrot, whatever songbird is the appropriate
bird to use in this metaphor.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Any bird that talks. He is imitating them.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
One thing gets.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Shocking Kelly being a little Kelly being a little surprised
that she was being charged with conspiracy to commit murder
for hire, even though she had openly on a tapped
phone call, talked about doing that.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Interesting that she was like, Oh, I didn't remember even
I'm doing that.
Speaker 7 (32:00):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
There's a lot of things I forget throughout the week.
For myself, I think I would always remember for the
rest of my life when I tried to have someone
professionally killed. I just feel like that would be a
core memory.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
I mean, this continues to be a psa about the
dangers of marijuana smoking.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yes, here's what I want to know your own personal feelings.
What do you think about Mike's lawyer telling him to
plead out and then he still got the same amount
had he fought it. That actually kind of upset me
a little bit about his lawyer.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
I totally agree. I feel like that. I don't know
if you can like punish a lawyer. Can you say, like,
I don't know that a person who has been convicted of, yeah,
of murder for hire has much recourse. But yes, he
told him to take a plea to get less time,
and then he got the same amount of time, Yeah,
than if he had fought it and maybe been clear.
Speaker 10 (32:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
I kind of thought, when you take a plea when
they say a plea bargain, it's been there's been a bargain,
there's a bargain. The literally the word bargain meant you
won't get the same thing because there's a bargain. And
so the fact that he pleaded guilty and yet still
got the same that I don't know enough about the
law how these things work. And I realized Mike McKinney
(33:11):
was hired to kill someone and obviously was doing something
illegal at its core, no matter how you cut it up.
But that does seem shady that he would be treated
like that when he's being represented by a lawyer, and
I can't wait to find out who his lawyer is
and write a letter.
Speaker 11 (33:28):
I got.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
David's affinity for his prison is just the that's the
clearest cut example of his optimism. That he's in prison
and he's like it seems like a nice college campus
and yet he's been paired up with like murderous biker gangs,
and yet he's like it's like college, Like, you know,
college is different for everybody.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
What's it gonna take for David to like be bummed out?
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Don't I don't know that it can happen. I think
the only thing that ever bummed him out, and he
even talks about it pretty optimistically now, is just Kelly
never reciprocating his love.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
Yeah, well you're right.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Everything else, he's kind of like, Eh, yeah, it's prison,
but it's not bad, not bad, It's not that bad
of a place.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
I got to say, I was kind of surprised with
all of it, the sentencing, the amounts. I did feel
strange that Mike got the same as Steve. That just
felt very bizarre. I don't know if Steve got less
because he rat it on everybody, and I think, as
they stated, he knew that he would get less if
he got in there, got on the microphone first. But yeah,
(34:33):
I will say it was interesting that Kelly got to
go to Camp Cupcake with Martha, with Martha or just mister,
but yeah, Martha, it's pretty incredible. I did like that
David got out early for good behavior. That made perfect
sense because he's so he probably they were like, this
isn't even a punishment. He doesn't even think he's in
(34:54):
a bad place.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
I just imagine David volunteering for like job in the prison.
He's like working in the kitchen, he's cleaning bathrooms. He's
just whistling.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Yes, I mean he was down in Mexico. He's probably
so lonely, and he's like, this isn't so bad. Hang
I got roommates. He probably thought there were roommates everybody
in prison.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
Oh man.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
He just continues to be the best character.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
Yeah, absolutely, all right.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Well, we have just one episode left in our season.
Next week we get a little meta because I think
Hollywood comes calling.
Speaker 5 (35:31):
That's right, Crimeless Hillbilly 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 Stewart Bailey. Written by Michael
Kenyon Meyer with Liz Elkington and Stuart Bailey, Produced by
(35:54):
Lane Rose and Sierra Franco. Additional production help by Rejeeve Gola.
The series with sound design and mixed by ewin Le Tremwen,
fact checking by Gray Lanta, and a special thanks for
our operations team Doug Slaywin, Ashley Warren, Sabina Mara and
Destiny Dingle, iHeart Podcasts and Big Money Players Executive producers
(36:17):
are Jack O'Brien, Lindsay Hoffman, and Matt Appadeca. 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
(36:40):
of production. The associate producer is Mattie McCann. If you've
enjoyed Crimeless Hillbilly heis, please rate and review the show
wherever you get your podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com