December 28, 2020 • 31 mins
The mastermind of the heist pays the ultimate price. JD gets the promotion he has worked so hard to obtain, and the heat from the police finally catches up to Chicken Man.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Richard Wheeler, who we believe was the mastermind of the
robbery at Chicken Man's House, seemed to have gotten away
with the perfect heist, but then body started showing up
dead from Atlanta to New York, Houston. Hammonds was busted
on another charge, and fast Eddie Parker was nowhere to
be found, and who had all of the stolen cash
(00:23):
and jewelry? Had fast Eddie Parker connected with Wheeler and
split the rest of the take. One thing was certain
Frank Moten and the Council of Twelve would ultimately retaliate,
and about the boy's gonna kill him. I'm here, And
then they always did good. They were investigating, they were
(00:46):
watching him. You know, my dad was being investigating because
who's hot on the radar there? I don't app I
went to people, Now bring me the head of the man.
My dad said, no, I can't do it. I can't
do it. My dad didn't want to be involved in
the Pomasie size from my Heart and Radio and Doghouse Pictures.
(01:12):
This is fight Night. I'm Jeff Keaton. In the late
sixties and early seventies, there was a huge influx of
cocaine and heroin into black communities across the country. Drug
dealers had plenty of product and money in their possession.
(01:34):
This would have been a great opportunity for hustlers who
were stick up guys to rob them. One of those
stick up hustlers was Richard Wheeler. They called him Cadillac
Ritchie for his car of choice. We spoke with a
former girlfriend who wanted to remain anonymous and not be recorded.
After this story, you might understand why we'll call her
(01:59):
Easy Trigger. For the case of the story. Easy described
Wheeler as wildly handsome and that he moved with the
fluidity of a dancer. She said they met in the
mid sixties while he was in the Air Force stationed
in the Pacific Northwest. Wheeler and his friends would take
their weekend furloughs in Vancouver, Canada, where they met Easy Trigger.
(02:22):
They reconnected in Harlem a few years later, when Wheeler
was moving up the gangster ladder. He was into everything
from the numbers racket to drugs, but his crime of
choice was armed robbery. He was known simply as the
stick up man. He liked to hire Vietnam vets as
his gunners and bodyguards. He frequented high end clubs like
(02:45):
the Village Vanguard where John Coltrane used to play, as
well as the Plaza nine, which was in the Plaza Hotel.
Some of his early stick up jobs involved using a
young woman like Easy Trigger, posing as a prostitute so
they could gain access to the drug dealer's crib. When
the dealer would answer the door, Richard would rush in
(03:07):
the door with a pistol and robbed the place. Some
of the earlier jobs brought in about thirty thousand in cash,
but after they would split the take, and with the
way they would blow through the money, they would need
another job within a week or so. Cadillac Ritchie advanced
into larger crews and ran hold ups with this top enforcer,
(03:27):
fast Eddie Parker. Fast Eddie was a killer and kidnapper.
As we said an episode seven, we think fast Eddie
was the muscle at the front door of the robbery,
holding the three fifty seven with a silencer, and we
imagine he was in charge during the heist. Frank Morten
said there was nothing Robin Hoodie about these cats. They
(03:49):
were rough, they took care of people who gave them trouble,
and there was quite a long list. Easy told me
about one of the bigger hold up that he and
his crew staged. They rented a house on Long Island
and spread the word about a big gambling party. They
picked up hustlers in New York with cabs and limousines
(04:10):
and dropped them off at the party house miles away. Unsuspecting,
these hustlers walked into a hold up. It took under
an hour to collect all the jewelry and cash Wheeler, Parker,
and the crew drove away. The hustlers were left stranded
because no one knew the address. A summer robbery up
(04:35):
and they prospected. Easy said he would just laugh and
laugh whenever he was counting all the money and jewelry
they stole. When Easy asked if he was scared that
they would retaliate, Richard would just scoff and say, what
are they gonna do. Richard Wheeler arrived in Atlanta for
the Aliquary fight with Fireball on the same day as
(04:58):
Frank Molten. In one interview, chicken Man says that he
was surprised to see that Richard had one of those
fancy invitations to the party at his house. My instructions
from from the people who did or used the house,
not for me, not to jail nobody that I did
invite nobody. Chicken Man was picking up Frank Molten from
(05:20):
the airport and as a favor, gave Fireball and Richard
a ride to the Biltmore Hotel along the way. According
to chicken Man, they stopped at the Varsity for some
hot dogs. While they were there, Richard noted that the
Varsity would be an easy target for a robbery. So
when we get to the advisor, du boy was with
(05:41):
five balls and man helm place to rob seems like
he had that in his blood in saying this about
their hometown, Richard piste off chicken Man and Frank Molten.
They must have said something to Richard about it. Chicken
Man reported that Richard flew back to New York City
the day of the fight the fellow that the dimitte
(06:05):
the apple with Fiba. He came to the house one time,
he came in, and then the fight he left, and
he went back to New York and told the people
even that I know that me and him and had
some words. Richard Wheeler was still unknown to Frank Molten
(06:27):
and the Council of Twelve. We tried to piece together
what happened to him. The night of the robbery. We
know he was with his girlfriend, Jackie, who we spoke
about an episode six. She said, after they watched the
closed circuit showing of the Ali Quarry fight at Madison
Square Garden, they went to a fancy party at the
(06:48):
Americana Hotel near Times Square in New York City. Jackie
remembered plain closed cops and Feds attending the party because
they got a tip that several mob members be there.
One of the Feds came up with a flash camera
trying to get a picture of everyone, and she remembered
Wheeler ducking down to tie his shoes right before the
(07:11):
flash went off. Jackie always wondered what the police thought
when they developed those photos, and it was just her
big smiling face in the picture. One night, a few
weeks after the heist, she heard his booming laugh in
the bedroom. She went to check it out and saw
a newspaper article about the hold up. Lying on his bed,
(07:34):
he kept laughing louder and louder, and Wheeler implied what
he had done. Jackie said it made him laugh the
loudest when he imagined everybody lying down there on the
basement floor. A few months after the robbery, Chicken Man
had cleared his name with Frank Moten and other high
(07:56):
level gangsters, but the heat from the press the police
did not go away. As a hustler, being in the
spotlight is just not good for business, and unfortunately he
paid a price for even hosting the party. Here's Gordon
Williams Jr. Talking about the consequences of that event. After
(08:22):
the fight, after he got cleared, after he convince everybody
it wasn't him, he went back to his business and
went back to the business of selling a cocaine and stuff. Well,
they were investigating, they were watching him. You know, my
dad was being investigated because he was hot on the
radar them. And this is Chicken Man talking about his
experience at the beginning of nineteen one. So it's the
(08:43):
months aldo by the January came up. That robbery took
a toll because I was bussed for cocaine. But the
funny thing how that happened. I had had a date
with a girl and I had went in a hotel
puoting the dust. But of uh, I kept a little
(09:03):
I said all that with whisky stuff to the hotel room.
But I got a little what they called a half
of a smoke marijuana and left it in the hotel
room in the astray some kind of way. I came
down read the room about ten o'clock in the morning.
I'm going to play god. So I go out in
(09:24):
my car park under the character right from the house
of the End where is our head told him about
the State troop pull in. And when the State two
put in, he was putting me get that cook in
that car. He whooped her out. So he come out.
Now this time I do have my congestion from drugs.
But I took and throw it out the window, and
(09:45):
they were trying to pull him over, and he took
the cocaine hole keyload to the cocaine and open it
and start throwing it and just started trying to empty
it out the window. The cocaine flew back into the
window on the back seat of the car. So after
my dad emptied out the hokey load out, he pulled
(10:07):
over and he asked me, what what's the problem, afsir,
And they said, well, you know, we need to step
out of the car. He said, for what, I haven't
done anything, And they talked to look at your back
seat and the back seat was covered with white powder.
So the police and the record garden shot. I thought
somebody's cocaine at the wood to look like a five
smoke or something. So that was that hard for the
(10:30):
dB I to believe because they thought I had I
was doing that kind of business. Newspaper came out and
they spoke about the cocaine, but the thought about the
driving cocaine they associated the bust, the publicity and all
this they associated with the driving. Several law enforcement agencies
had been keeping a close tab on chicken Man and
(10:52):
trying to catch him doing any illegal activities. When they
finally busted him, it didn't take long for the gavel
of justice to come down hard I can call it jayware.
I was about three weeks I'll try and went to Deen.
I mean that's that fair, Okay. They wouldn't give me
(11:14):
a pier bar. Chicken Man was sentenced to seven years
in the state penitentiary. He served most of that time
at Stone Mountain Correctional Institute just east of downtown Atlanta.
Here's Gordon Williams Jr. Talking about how tough the confinement
was for his father and my mom. We're going to
visit almost every weekend because he's crying for some attention.
(11:37):
He don't like being incarcerated because my dad is so
used to go on a time, so he didn't like
the idea of being incarcerated the way he was. When
he was sentenced, Chicken Man had large red o C
letters on his prison uniform. They stood for organized crime.
This confounded him because he never put himself in that
category of criminals. Chicken Man always thought of himself as
(12:00):
a hustler. After a few months, he received a surprise visitor, J. D.
Hudson's partner in the robbery investigation, Detective Joe Amos. I
am was coming to back and uh, he as, yeah,
I agree. There were three of them. That's listen, man,
I don't want to talk to the police period. Okay.
(12:21):
Then they told him say, oh, did you hear about
the boys getting killed in Brooklyn? As I was board,
so they showed me to cliply that happened, but they
showed it to me so as I always had than
the one to pull the trigger. But since I'm here
and then Dad, they already did good in all the
Nie crack. But I spy to suppose I had no
lot about I didn't talk to him about none of that.
(12:44):
But after they told me about the boys, I got killed,
I said bood. Richard Wheeler was one of the empty
seats at the night, along with Barbara Smith, who never
got to leave the house. Frank Moten reported at George
(13:06):
Plimpton that Richard made himself a little too visible at
a few clubs in New York City that night, even
attending that closed circuit screening at Madison Square Garden. For Frank,
this gave him reason to suspect Richard's involvement in the robbery. Furthermore,
as Plimpton relates in the story, the Black Mafia had
(13:26):
figured out who was the mastermind and put a hit
on Richard Wheeler and fast Eddie Parker. That hit fell
apart when the guy they hired to carry it out
was killed in a shootout with police in New York City.
The Black Mafia then approached fast Eddie Parker to carry
(13:47):
out the hit on his boss, Richard Wheeler. At the time,
Richard was living with his girlfriend Jackie. Here's how Jackie
tells it to George Plimpton. Fast Eddie and another guy
showed up at Richard's house to help him with an
errand one morning they all got into a car driven
(14:07):
by Richards chauffeur, a guy named Stephen. She thinks fast
Eddie Parker sat behind Richard and shot him in the
head as soon as the car started down the road,
and that his accomplice shot Stephen in the head as well.
Dead Stephan plowed the car into a storefront just down
the street from Richard's house. Fast Eddie Parker and his
(14:30):
accomplice jumped into a car they had parked around the corner,
the very same one that Richard had given fast Eddie
a week before. In early two police arrested fast Eddie
Parker and charged him with the whole string of crimes
from Georgia to New York. Jackie and Frank Moten reported
that he had several hand grenades in his black bag
(14:53):
at the time of his arrest. Early on during his
prison term, chicken Man was able to leave the prison
for work. Details sentencing and prison guidelines obviously hadn't yet
been pressured by the law and order swing that happened
through the Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Clinton years. Here's chicken
(15:13):
Man and j D in two thousand and three talking
about seeing each other on a public golf course at
Atlanta's Piedmont Park while Chicken Man was still serving time.
We almost played together one day, almost one and I
was at that playing garden and you were in prison.
He was on the prison farm because that that chipping
(15:34):
golf balls around and we stopped and talked. He was
saving his prison time on the golf course, shipping and pladant.
See me this prison dad, Yeah, that's some kind of
story the world, Ways of the world. Billy McKinney was
(15:56):
elected to the Georgia State House of Representatives in nineteen
seven four. He was one of the first black police
officers in Atlanta in the late nineteen forties, along with J. D. Hudson.
Like j D, he knew Chicken Man from the streets.
He was always a law and order guy, a firebrand
public speaker. One day he saw Chicken Man driving a
(16:18):
truck around Stone Mountain, Georgia, and he called the prison
to get Chicken Man back inside the walls. Billy McKinney
saw my dad driving and called in and told him
that I just saw Chicken Man driving a truck in
Stone Mountain. He tried to get my dad to ship
to another prison way down south, because he don't think
(16:40):
that my dad should be out driving. He should be
doing some hard time. They changed my dad's job detail
so then let him drive out in They took the
privilege away from him, and then he locked him down,
and I think he started working in the kitchen or
something like that. That's where he met Doug Pierce and
they became good friends in prison and out. Even in prison,
Chicken Man still had to support his family. So while
(17:02):
he was in prison, my dad still wanted to make money.
He's still I still gotta make me some money. Always
a hustler, Chicken Man arranges for someone to bring him
a pound of marijuana week to prison. The guy dropped
it off in a trash can near the prison gates.
His new jail house friend, Doug Pierce, picked it up
while on garbage duty, and the two of them would
(17:24):
break it up, roll it into joints, and sell to
other prisoners for a dollar a joint inside prison. Just
as out, Chicken Man was always able to make it
as a hustler. In February nineteen seventy five, Frank Molten,
(17:46):
known as the Black Godfather, was arrested in New York
and charged with running a two million dollar gambling operation
in Atlanta. Such was the reach of the Black mafia.
In November ninety he was also convicted of conspiracy for
importing and selling a hundred and fifty pounds of cocaine
(18:06):
and twenty six pounds of heroin from nineteen sixty eight
to nineteen seventy five. In January nineteen seventy seven, Frank
Moten was sentenced to twenty five years in prison. At
the sentencing, according to The New York Times, judge Richard
Owen said Frank Moten had been and I quote the
(18:28):
leader of the Council of twelve and responsible for decision
making at the highest level for black organized crime end quote.
Frank Morten gave his interview to George Plimpton while in prison.
One of the last things they talked about was the
aftermath of the million dollar heist. Moten said people were
(18:49):
very upset, their egos were involved. They had been pushed around.
The guy had even tumbled down the stairs when they
got together. It wasn't surprising, it turned out. Then Plimpton
asked him, do you suppose there were meetings to decide
what was going to happen? And how to coordinate things.
(19:09):
I don't know, Frank said, didn't mean much to me.
I just lost some credit cards. I'm just a Coco distributor. Ultimately,
the Fight Night Team concludes that Frank Molten and his
higher ups had called a guy named Fireball to plan
(19:30):
a party to celebrate Tobe's birthday after the Muhammad Ali
Jerry Corey fight on October nine, seventy in Atlanta. They
wanted a Vegas style gambling party. Fireball got Chicken Man
to host it since he had all these properties all
over town and they were all tight. They ran in
(19:50):
the same circles and even financed each other. There was
definitely hierarchy though, and Frank Moten was as high up
as you can go. Richard Wheeler, we believe, separately planned
to rob the party when he saw the invitations, having
pulled off similar robberies like this in New York. There's
a chance that Cadillac Ritchie connected with Emerson Dorsey to
(20:14):
recruit the local Atlanta area gangsters who pulled off the
robbery under fast Eddie Parker's guidance. Those people were McKinley, Rogers,
James Henry Hall, Houston Hammonds, Lillian Dabney, Baby, Ray Humphrey,
and Charles Lee. Most of those folks were dead by
(20:36):
nineteen seventy two, except for Houston. Hammond's final retribution came
early in nineteen seventy two when Richard Wheeler was assassinated
by fast Eddie Parker, who was then in jail by
the end of the year. It's possible that Frank Molten
and the other members of the Council of Twelve called
(20:57):
in that hit. Remember this is how it all started
back in episode one. So when did the investigation end?
You want the truth? What about dead Dad? After the
(21:20):
robbery investigation concluded, j D returned to his duties as
lieutenant in the ap D. He worked his way up
the ladder and eventually became a captain. Then, in the
mid to late seventies, he was offered a new career path.
Here he is telling chicken Man about it. In two
thousand and three, I went from captain to the head
(21:43):
of Department of Corrections. I was a captain and I
was reluctant to take the job, Nichols. I wanted to
be assistant Chief of Definite Chiefs. You know, that was
what I wanted to be At that time, you know,
because hell, I didn't know what this job meant. The
tile of that job, I beli at that time, I
supered under the prison and uh when the mayor and
Madonnall and he be Weaves say hey man, you will
(22:08):
be the same two corressions. The chief of police is
two police as give me the job. So it was
I was appointed four years alter she was full year appointment.
He had more problems getting reappointed out of it because
I got reappointed with without a new problems. Ingrid Wells
(22:29):
was a cop in De capp County in Atlanta for
a number of years and then work for J. D.
Hudson for much of the time he was in corrections.
Here she is talking about j D and his relationships
with the inmates. One of the things that I admired
about him all throughout the time I knew him as
an employer was he would not let you hurt harm
(22:55):
one of those inmates. He'd tell you in a minute.
I've heard him tell so many people you are two
pages from being where he is, don't you ever say
anything over them? And so they all respected him. J. D.
Hudson remained the director of prisons in Atlanta for nineteen years,
and that's where he finished out his career. Chicken Man
(23:17):
made several deals while he was serving time, having someone
bring him in. Mayor wanted to the prison so he
could sell it. He saved up a nice little nest
egg before he was released. I guess by the time
he got out he had a buy six grand, so
he had him enough to get, you know, a start
and get on his feet. Chicken Man was sentenced to
seven years what Gordon Jr. Calls a five and two,
(23:39):
meaning a five year sentence for cocaine, concurrent with a
two year sentence for the half of the joint police
found in his hotel room. He ended up serving about
thirty six months as he was a model citizen in
prison with very little discipline. And what does a hustler
do when he gets out of prison. He goes back
to hustle. And when I got out, I was determined.
(24:05):
I don't know what I would do, but I started
back to us. I get out and I'll be the guy.
So he he beat the marijuana. You mean I started
working with the marijuana, and that mean the funk that
really liked me in mind, and I started getting trade
attle tough load five eight pound man one at the
(24:26):
same time. But he's real careful about what he does now,
so you know, like he never drives drugs, so he's
always employing somebody. And his big thing was, whenever you're
driving my drugs and a lot of people don't know
they're driving drugs. You don't drink and you don't smoke.
That's forbidden. You're gonna do the speed limit. He's paying
them good. I'm gonna give you five dollars to drive
(24:46):
his car from Florida. You drive that speed limit. You
don't smoke, you don't drink, you ain't got no key
to the trunk. You get the car to Atlanta and
you get your money. Chicken Man was right back into
hustling when he got out out and he used this
Miami connection as well. Doug Pierce, the guy met in prison,
had gotten out and apparently married a rich woman in Miami.
(25:10):
So Chicken Man kept that relationship going. And on one
particular trip that he made to Miami, he took his son,
Gordon Jr. With him. They had a car loaded with
marijuana ready to come back to Atlanta. They stayed in
Miami one extra night, leaving the parked car at Doug
Pierce's house. In the morning, Gordon Jr. Was ready to
(25:32):
get on the road because I was a driver. I said, Dad,
we're leaving. We went to doug house to pick to marijuana.
It was gone. It was gone. A thousand pounds of
marijuana was gone, vanished. So Doug said that somebody had
broke in stolen marijuana. The wife boy framed hit moved
for one place to another place to save keeper for
(25:54):
some reason. But it had told me. Chicken Man takes
a trip to Miami, as he's done a number of
times and gotten thousands of pound fronted to him. He
stored it overnight at Doug Pierce's house without telling Chicken Man.
Doug moved it to another location, then the next day
claimed it was stolen overnight. Now chicken men had to
(26:16):
go to the suppliers and tell them what happened. I
went to the people that one hand. Listen what I
don't want to hear the story, get the money, and
then tell me the story. I don't want you know
fucking story, But nobody do you know? This is what?
This is what the people we sold me to was.
So now we're on the chance to find the people
(26:36):
with there. My tail was five and thirty six thousand
about now I got to start paying a bit right.
I got a better two foot boat, sleep eight and
everything in Florida. So the mass I don't want to
hear the story. Then they give me the other lay
(27:00):
bring me the head of the man who did it
in the paper back and it did Claire. The people
that my dad got the marri Wanta from. They said,
you don't have to pay it back. Just give us
Doug's name, give us his address, and we're settled just
like that. And these people say all we need is
his name, and well, you don't have to pay a penny.
(27:22):
My dad said, no, I can't do it. I can't
do it. My dad didn't want to be involved in
no homicide. And the people want the money now. They
want to give me that fifty kilos of cocaine and
something to make the money prepare. But I was always
I didn't want to be bothered for cam period. So
(27:43):
but what I did. A man come to me, Uh,
people got my son mar her daughter, which is cute girl.
He come to me one day we can have He
told me to go get a big truck on a
big we now and a man comes to He gave
me eight thousand lagership. So I had a bigger break
(28:09):
of my life. As the audio was breaking up their
chicken Man was telling the story about taking the marijuana
he'd been given as a lifeline to pay the debt
he owed the Colombians who gave him the marijuana that
was stolen from or by Doug Pierce. Chicken Man sold
the marijuana in Atlanta, got about four hundred thousand dollars
(28:30):
for it, and he had to give it all to
the Colombians to pay back the debt, including his thirty
eight foot boat. We got on a plane to Miami,
me my dad, and he had in a briefcase in
a briefcase almost five hundred thousand dollars. I gave a
thing right, but anyway, I paid the debt. The man
(28:53):
come along, gave me the eight thousands. Saved my life.
Once Chicken Man paid off this final debt, he got
out of the life for good. Over the years, Chicken
Man would remind me that he never carried a gun
because the last thing he wanted was to be involved
in a murder. When Doug Pierce, who he thought was
(29:16):
his friend, stole more than a half a million dollars
worth of drugs. Chicken Man was forced to decide between
his own life or the man who betrayed him. Through
a stroke of good luck, Chicken Man was able to
honor the code he lived by and somehow survive another
close call. But this final deal forced him to make
(29:41):
a decision that would transform him completely and in his mind,
finally bury the legend of Chicken Man Forever. Fight Night
(30:02):
is a joint production from I Heart Radio, Will Packer
Media and Doghouse Pictures in association with Psychopia Pictures. Produced
and hosted by Jeff Keating. Executive producers are Will Packer,
James Lopez, Kenny Burns, Dan Bush, Lars Jacobsen, and Noel Brown.
Supervising producer is Taylor Hickoyne. Story editors are Noel Brown
(30:23):
and Dan Bush. Written by Jeff Keating and Jim Roberts.
Edited by Matt Owen. Mixing and sound designed by Jeremiah
Kolonnie Prescott. Music written and performed by the Diamond Street Players.
Additional music by Ben Lovett. Audio archives courtesy of WSB
News Film and Video Tape Collection, Brown Media Archives, University
(30:43):
of Georgia, libraries. Special thanks to Dr Maurice Hobson and
David Davis. Fight Night is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, check out the
i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Richard Wheeler, who we believe was the mastermind of the
robbery at Chicken Man's House, seemed to have gotten away
with the perfect heist, but then body started showing up
dead from Atlanta to New York, Houston. Hammonds was busted
on another charge, and fast Eddie Parker was nowhere to
be found, and who had all of the stolen cash
(00:23):
and jewelry? Had fast Eddie Parker connected with Wheeler and
split the rest of the take. One thing was certain
Frank Moten and the Council of Twelve would ultimately retaliate,
and about the boy's gonna kill him. I'm here, And
then they always did good. They were investigating, they were
(00:46):
watching him. You know, my dad was being investigating because
who's hot on the radar there? I don't app I
went to people, Now bring me the head of the man.
My dad said, no, I can't do it. I can't
do it. My dad didn't want to be involved in
the Pomasie size from my Heart and Radio and Doghouse Pictures.
(01:12):
This is fight Night. I'm Jeff Keaton. In the late
sixties and early seventies, there was a huge influx of
cocaine and heroin into black communities across the country. Drug
dealers had plenty of product and money in their possession.
(01:34):
This would have been a great opportunity for hustlers who
were stick up guys to rob them. One of those
stick up hustlers was Richard Wheeler. They called him Cadillac
Ritchie for his car of choice. We spoke with a
former girlfriend who wanted to remain anonymous and not be recorded.
After this story, you might understand why we'll call her
(01:59):
Easy Trigger. For the case of the story. Easy described
Wheeler as wildly handsome and that he moved with the
fluidity of a dancer. She said they met in the
mid sixties while he was in the Air Force stationed
in the Pacific Northwest. Wheeler and his friends would take
their weekend furloughs in Vancouver, Canada, where they met Easy Trigger.
(02:22):
They reconnected in Harlem a few years later, when Wheeler
was moving up the gangster ladder. He was into everything
from the numbers racket to drugs, but his crime of
choice was armed robbery. He was known simply as the
stick up man. He liked to hire Vietnam vets as
his gunners and bodyguards. He frequented high end clubs like
(02:45):
the Village Vanguard where John Coltrane used to play, as
well as the Plaza nine, which was in the Plaza Hotel.
Some of his early stick up jobs involved using a
young woman like Easy Trigger, posing as a prostitute so
they could gain access to the drug dealer's crib. When
the dealer would answer the door, Richard would rush in
(03:07):
the door with a pistol and robbed the place. Some
of the earlier jobs brought in about thirty thousand in cash,
but after they would split the take, and with the
way they would blow through the money, they would need
another job within a week or so. Cadillac Ritchie advanced
into larger crews and ran hold ups with this top enforcer,
(03:27):
fast Eddie Parker. Fast Eddie was a killer and kidnapper.
As we said an episode seven, we think fast Eddie
was the muscle at the front door of the robbery,
holding the three fifty seven with a silencer, and we
imagine he was in charge during the heist. Frank Morten
said there was nothing Robin Hoodie about these cats. They
(03:49):
were rough, they took care of people who gave them trouble,
and there was quite a long list. Easy told me
about one of the bigger hold up that he and
his crew staged. They rented a house on Long Island
and spread the word about a big gambling party. They
picked up hustlers in New York with cabs and limousines
(04:10):
and dropped them off at the party house miles away. Unsuspecting,
these hustlers walked into a hold up. It took under
an hour to collect all the jewelry and cash Wheeler, Parker,
and the crew drove away. The hustlers were left stranded
because no one knew the address. A summer robbery up
(04:35):
and they prospected. Easy said he would just laugh and
laugh whenever he was counting all the money and jewelry
they stole. When Easy asked if he was scared that
they would retaliate, Richard would just scoff and say, what
are they gonna do. Richard Wheeler arrived in Atlanta for
the Aliquary fight with Fireball on the same day as
(04:58):
Frank Molten. In one interview, chicken Man says that he
was surprised to see that Richard had one of those
fancy invitations to the party at his house. My instructions
from from the people who did or used the house,
not for me, not to jail nobody that I did
invite nobody. Chicken Man was picking up Frank Molten from
(05:20):
the airport and as a favor, gave Fireball and Richard
a ride to the Biltmore Hotel along the way. According
to chicken Man, they stopped at the Varsity for some
hot dogs. While they were there, Richard noted that the
Varsity would be an easy target for a robbery. So
when we get to the advisor, du boy was with
(05:41):
five balls and man helm place to rob seems like
he had that in his blood in saying this about
their hometown, Richard piste off chicken Man and Frank Molten.
They must have said something to Richard about it. Chicken
Man reported that Richard flew back to New York City
the day of the fight the fellow that the dimitte
(06:05):
the apple with Fiba. He came to the house one time,
he came in, and then the fight he left, and
he went back to New York and told the people
even that I know that me and him and had
some words. Richard Wheeler was still unknown to Frank Molten
(06:27):
and the Council of Twelve. We tried to piece together
what happened to him. The night of the robbery. We
know he was with his girlfriend, Jackie, who we spoke
about an episode six. She said, after they watched the
closed circuit showing of the Ali Quarry fight at Madison
Square Garden, they went to a fancy party at the
(06:48):
Americana Hotel near Times Square in New York City. Jackie
remembered plain closed cops and Feds attending the party because
they got a tip that several mob members be there.
One of the Feds came up with a flash camera
trying to get a picture of everyone, and she remembered
Wheeler ducking down to tie his shoes right before the
(07:11):
flash went off. Jackie always wondered what the police thought
when they developed those photos, and it was just her
big smiling face in the picture. One night, a few
weeks after the heist, she heard his booming laugh in
the bedroom. She went to check it out and saw
a newspaper article about the hold up. Lying on his bed,
(07:34):
he kept laughing louder and louder, and Wheeler implied what
he had done. Jackie said it made him laugh the
loudest when he imagined everybody lying down there on the
basement floor. A few months after the robbery, Chicken Man
had cleared his name with Frank Moten and other high
(07:56):
level gangsters, but the heat from the press the police
did not go away. As a hustler, being in the
spotlight is just not good for business, and unfortunately he
paid a price for even hosting the party. Here's Gordon
Williams Jr. Talking about the consequences of that event. After
(08:22):
the fight, after he got cleared, after he convince everybody
it wasn't him, he went back to his business and
went back to the business of selling a cocaine and stuff. Well,
they were investigating, they were watching him. You know, my
dad was being investigated because he was hot on the
radar them. And this is Chicken Man talking about his
experience at the beginning of nineteen one. So it's the
(08:43):
months aldo by the January came up. That robbery took
a toll because I was bussed for cocaine. But the
funny thing how that happened. I had had a date
with a girl and I had went in a hotel
puoting the dust. But of uh, I kept a little
(09:03):
I said all that with whisky stuff to the hotel room.
But I got a little what they called a half
of a smoke marijuana and left it in the hotel
room in the astray some kind of way. I came
down read the room about ten o'clock in the morning.
I'm going to play god. So I go out in
(09:24):
my car park under the character right from the house
of the End where is our head told him about
the State troop pull in. And when the State two
put in, he was putting me get that cook in
that car. He whooped her out. So he come out.
Now this time I do have my congestion from drugs.
But I took and throw it out the window, and
(09:45):
they were trying to pull him over, and he took
the cocaine hole keyload to the cocaine and open it
and start throwing it and just started trying to empty
it out the window. The cocaine flew back into the
window on the back seat of the car. So after
my dad emptied out the hokey load out, he pulled
(10:07):
over and he asked me, what what's the problem, afsir,
And they said, well, you know, we need to step
out of the car. He said, for what, I haven't
done anything, And they talked to look at your back
seat and the back seat was covered with white powder.
So the police and the record garden shot. I thought
somebody's cocaine at the wood to look like a five
smoke or something. So that was that hard for the
(10:30):
dB I to believe because they thought I had I
was doing that kind of business. Newspaper came out and
they spoke about the cocaine, but the thought about the
driving cocaine they associated the bust, the publicity and all
this they associated with the driving. Several law enforcement agencies
had been keeping a close tab on chicken Man and
(10:52):
trying to catch him doing any illegal activities. When they
finally busted him, it didn't take long for the gavel
of justice to come down hard I can call it jayware.
I was about three weeks I'll try and went to Deen.
I mean that's that fair, Okay. They wouldn't give me
(11:14):
a pier bar. Chicken Man was sentenced to seven years
in the state penitentiary. He served most of that time
at Stone Mountain Correctional Institute just east of downtown Atlanta.
Here's Gordon Williams Jr. Talking about how tough the confinement
was for his father and my mom. We're going to
visit almost every weekend because he's crying for some attention.
(11:37):
He don't like being incarcerated because my dad is so
used to go on a time, so he didn't like
the idea of being incarcerated the way he was. When
he was sentenced, Chicken Man had large red o C
letters on his prison uniform. They stood for organized crime.
This confounded him because he never put himself in that
category of criminals. Chicken Man always thought of himself as
(12:00):
a hustler. After a few months, he received a surprise visitor, J. D.
Hudson's partner in the robbery investigation, Detective Joe Amos. I
am was coming to back and uh, he as, yeah,
I agree. There were three of them. That's listen, man,
I don't want to talk to the police period. Okay.
(12:21):
Then they told him say, oh, did you hear about
the boys getting killed in Brooklyn? As I was board,
so they showed me to cliply that happened, but they
showed it to me so as I always had than
the one to pull the trigger. But since I'm here
and then Dad, they already did good in all the
Nie crack. But I spy to suppose I had no
lot about I didn't talk to him about none of that.
(12:44):
But after they told me about the boys, I got killed,
I said bood. Richard Wheeler was one of the empty
seats at the night, along with Barbara Smith, who never
got to leave the house. Frank Moten reported at George
(13:06):
Plimpton that Richard made himself a little too visible at
a few clubs in New York City that night, even
attending that closed circuit screening at Madison Square Garden. For Frank,
this gave him reason to suspect Richard's involvement in the robbery. Furthermore,
as Plimpton relates in the story, the Black Mafia had
(13:26):
figured out who was the mastermind and put a hit
on Richard Wheeler and fast Eddie Parker. That hit fell
apart when the guy they hired to carry it out
was killed in a shootout with police in New York City.
The Black Mafia then approached fast Eddie Parker to carry
(13:47):
out the hit on his boss, Richard Wheeler. At the time,
Richard was living with his girlfriend Jackie. Here's how Jackie
tells it to George Plimpton. Fast Eddie and another guy
showed up at Richard's house to help him with an
errand one morning they all got into a car driven
(14:07):
by Richards chauffeur, a guy named Stephen. She thinks fast
Eddie Parker sat behind Richard and shot him in the
head as soon as the car started down the road,
and that his accomplice shot Stephen in the head as well.
Dead Stephan plowed the car into a storefront just down
the street from Richard's house. Fast Eddie Parker and his
(14:30):
accomplice jumped into a car they had parked around the corner,
the very same one that Richard had given fast Eddie
a week before. In early two police arrested fast Eddie
Parker and charged him with the whole string of crimes
from Georgia to New York. Jackie and Frank Moten reported
that he had several hand grenades in his black bag
(14:53):
at the time of his arrest. Early on during his
prison term, chicken Man was able to leave the prison
for work. Details sentencing and prison guidelines obviously hadn't yet
been pressured by the law and order swing that happened
through the Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Clinton years. Here's chicken
(15:13):
Man and j D in two thousand and three talking
about seeing each other on a public golf course at
Atlanta's Piedmont Park while Chicken Man was still serving time.
We almost played together one day, almost one and I
was at that playing garden and you were in prison.
He was on the prison farm because that that chipping
(15:34):
golf balls around and we stopped and talked. He was
saving his prison time on the golf course, shipping and pladant.
See me this prison dad, Yeah, that's some kind of
story the world, Ways of the world. Billy McKinney was
(15:56):
elected to the Georgia State House of Representatives in nineteen
seven four. He was one of the first black police
officers in Atlanta in the late nineteen forties, along with J. D. Hudson.
Like j D, he knew Chicken Man from the streets.
He was always a law and order guy, a firebrand
public speaker. One day he saw Chicken Man driving a
(16:18):
truck around Stone Mountain, Georgia, and he called the prison
to get Chicken Man back inside the walls. Billy McKinney
saw my dad driving and called in and told him
that I just saw Chicken Man driving a truck in
Stone Mountain. He tried to get my dad to ship
to another prison way down south, because he don't think
(16:40):
that my dad should be out driving. He should be
doing some hard time. They changed my dad's job detail
so then let him drive out in They took the
privilege away from him, and then he locked him down,
and I think he started working in the kitchen or
something like that. That's where he met Doug Pierce and
they became good friends in prison and out. Even in prison,
Chicken Man still had to support his family. So while
(17:02):
he was in prison, my dad still wanted to make money.
He's still I still gotta make me some money. Always
a hustler, Chicken Man arranges for someone to bring him
a pound of marijuana week to prison. The guy dropped
it off in a trash can near the prison gates.
His new jail house friend, Doug Pierce, picked it up
while on garbage duty, and the two of them would
(17:24):
break it up, roll it into joints, and sell to
other prisoners for a dollar a joint inside prison. Just
as out, Chicken Man was always able to make it
as a hustler. In February nineteen seventy five, Frank Molten,
(17:46):
known as the Black Godfather, was arrested in New York
and charged with running a two million dollar gambling operation
in Atlanta. Such was the reach of the Black mafia.
In November ninety he was also convicted of conspiracy for
importing and selling a hundred and fifty pounds of cocaine
(18:06):
and twenty six pounds of heroin from nineteen sixty eight
to nineteen seventy five. In January nineteen seventy seven, Frank
Moten was sentenced to twenty five years in prison. At
the sentencing, according to The New York Times, judge Richard
Owen said Frank Moten had been and I quote the
(18:28):
leader of the Council of twelve and responsible for decision
making at the highest level for black organized crime end quote.
Frank Morten gave his interview to George Plimpton while in prison.
One of the last things they talked about was the
aftermath of the million dollar heist. Moten said people were
(18:49):
very upset, their egos were involved. They had been pushed around.
The guy had even tumbled down the stairs when they
got together. It wasn't surprising, it turned out. Then Plimpton
asked him, do you suppose there were meetings to decide
what was going to happen? And how to coordinate things.
(19:09):
I don't know, Frank said, didn't mean much to me.
I just lost some credit cards. I'm just a Coco distributor. Ultimately,
the Fight Night Team concludes that Frank Molten and his
higher ups had called a guy named Fireball to plan
(19:30):
a party to celebrate Tobe's birthday after the Muhammad Ali
Jerry Corey fight on October nine, seventy in Atlanta. They
wanted a Vegas style gambling party. Fireball got Chicken Man
to host it since he had all these properties all
over town and they were all tight. They ran in
(19:50):
the same circles and even financed each other. There was
definitely hierarchy though, and Frank Moten was as high up
as you can go. Richard Wheeler, we believe, separately planned
to rob the party when he saw the invitations, having
pulled off similar robberies like this in New York. There's
a chance that Cadillac Ritchie connected with Emerson Dorsey to
(20:14):
recruit the local Atlanta area gangsters who pulled off the
robbery under fast Eddie Parker's guidance. Those people were McKinley, Rogers,
James Henry Hall, Houston Hammonds, Lillian Dabney, Baby, Ray Humphrey,
and Charles Lee. Most of those folks were dead by
(20:36):
nineteen seventy two, except for Houston. Hammond's final retribution came
early in nineteen seventy two when Richard Wheeler was assassinated
by fast Eddie Parker, who was then in jail by
the end of the year. It's possible that Frank Molten
and the other members of the Council of Twelve called
(20:57):
in that hit. Remember this is how it all started
back in episode one. So when did the investigation end?
You want the truth? What about dead Dad? After the
(21:20):
robbery investigation concluded, j D returned to his duties as
lieutenant in the ap D. He worked his way up
the ladder and eventually became a captain. Then, in the
mid to late seventies, he was offered a new career path.
Here he is telling chicken Man about it. In two
thousand and three, I went from captain to the head
(21:43):
of Department of Corrections. I was a captain and I
was reluctant to take the job, Nichols. I wanted to
be assistant Chief of Definite Chiefs. You know, that was
what I wanted to be At that time, you know,
because hell, I didn't know what this job meant. The
tile of that job, I beli at that time, I
supered under the prison and uh when the mayor and
Madonnall and he be Weaves say hey man, you will
(22:08):
be the same two corressions. The chief of police is
two police as give me the job. So it was
I was appointed four years alter she was full year appointment.
He had more problems getting reappointed out of it because
I got reappointed with without a new problems. Ingrid Wells
(22:29):
was a cop in De capp County in Atlanta for
a number of years and then work for J. D.
Hudson for much of the time he was in corrections.
Here she is talking about j D and his relationships
with the inmates. One of the things that I admired
about him all throughout the time I knew him as
an employer was he would not let you hurt harm
(22:55):
one of those inmates. He'd tell you in a minute.
I've heard him tell so many people you are two
pages from being where he is, don't you ever say
anything over them? And so they all respected him. J. D.
Hudson remained the director of prisons in Atlanta for nineteen years,
and that's where he finished out his career. Chicken Man
(23:17):
made several deals while he was serving time, having someone
bring him in. Mayor wanted to the prison so he
could sell it. He saved up a nice little nest
egg before he was released. I guess by the time
he got out he had a buy six grand, so
he had him enough to get, you know, a start
and get on his feet. Chicken Man was sentenced to
seven years what Gordon Jr. Calls a five and two,
(23:39):
meaning a five year sentence for cocaine, concurrent with a
two year sentence for the half of the joint police
found in his hotel room. He ended up serving about
thirty six months as he was a model citizen in
prison with very little discipline. And what does a hustler
do when he gets out of prison. He goes back
to hustle. And when I got out, I was determined.
(24:05):
I don't know what I would do, but I started
back to us. I get out and I'll be the guy.
So he he beat the marijuana. You mean I started
working with the marijuana, and that mean the funk that
really liked me in mind, and I started getting trade
attle tough load five eight pound man one at the
(24:26):
same time. But he's real careful about what he does now,
so you know, like he never drives drugs, so he's
always employing somebody. And his big thing was, whenever you're
driving my drugs and a lot of people don't know
they're driving drugs. You don't drink and you don't smoke.
That's forbidden. You're gonna do the speed limit. He's paying
them good. I'm gonna give you five dollars to drive
(24:46):
his car from Florida. You drive that speed limit. You
don't smoke, you don't drink, you ain't got no key
to the trunk. You get the car to Atlanta and
you get your money. Chicken Man was right back into
hustling when he got out out and he used this
Miami connection as well. Doug Pierce, the guy met in prison,
had gotten out and apparently married a rich woman in Miami.
(25:10):
So Chicken Man kept that relationship going. And on one
particular trip that he made to Miami, he took his son,
Gordon Jr. With him. They had a car loaded with
marijuana ready to come back to Atlanta. They stayed in
Miami one extra night, leaving the parked car at Doug
Pierce's house. In the morning, Gordon Jr. Was ready to
(25:32):
get on the road because I was a driver. I said, Dad,
we're leaving. We went to doug house to pick to marijuana.
It was gone. It was gone. A thousand pounds of
marijuana was gone, vanished. So Doug said that somebody had
broke in stolen marijuana. The wife boy framed hit moved
for one place to another place to save keeper for
(25:54):
some reason. But it had told me. Chicken Man takes
a trip to Miami, as he's done a number of
times and gotten thousands of pound fronted to him. He
stored it overnight at Doug Pierce's house without telling Chicken Man.
Doug moved it to another location, then the next day
claimed it was stolen overnight. Now chicken men had to
(26:16):
go to the suppliers and tell them what happened. I
went to the people that one hand. Listen what I
don't want to hear the story, get the money, and
then tell me the story. I don't want you know
fucking story, But nobody do you know? This is what?
This is what the people we sold me to was.
So now we're on the chance to find the people
(26:36):
with there. My tail was five and thirty six thousand
about now I got to start paying a bit right.
I got a better two foot boat, sleep eight and
everything in Florida. So the mass I don't want to
hear the story. Then they give me the other lay
(27:00):
bring me the head of the man who did it
in the paper back and it did Claire. The people
that my dad got the marri Wanta from. They said,
you don't have to pay it back. Just give us
Doug's name, give us his address, and we're settled just
like that. And these people say all we need is
his name, and well, you don't have to pay a penny.
(27:22):
My dad said, no, I can't do it. I can't
do it. My dad didn't want to be involved in
no homicide. And the people want the money now. They
want to give me that fifty kilos of cocaine and
something to make the money prepare. But I was always
I didn't want to be bothered for cam period. So
(27:43):
but what I did. A man come to me, Uh,
people got my son mar her daughter, which is cute girl.
He come to me one day we can have He
told me to go get a big truck on a
big we now and a man comes to He gave
me eight thousand lagership. So I had a bigger break
(28:09):
of my life. As the audio was breaking up their
chicken Man was telling the story about taking the marijuana
he'd been given as a lifeline to pay the debt
he owed the Colombians who gave him the marijuana that
was stolen from or by Doug Pierce. Chicken Man sold
the marijuana in Atlanta, got about four hundred thousand dollars
(28:30):
for it, and he had to give it all to
the Colombians to pay back the debt, including his thirty
eight foot boat. We got on a plane to Miami,
me my dad, and he had in a briefcase in
a briefcase almost five hundred thousand dollars. I gave a
thing right, but anyway, I paid the debt. The man
(28:53):
come along, gave me the eight thousands. Saved my life.
Once Chicken Man paid off this final debt, he got
out of the life for good. Over the years, Chicken
Man would remind me that he never carried a gun
because the last thing he wanted was to be involved
in a murder. When Doug Pierce, who he thought was
(29:16):
his friend, stole more than a half a million dollars
worth of drugs. Chicken Man was forced to decide between
his own life or the man who betrayed him. Through
a stroke of good luck, Chicken Man was able to
honor the code he lived by and somehow survive another
close call. But this final deal forced him to make
(29:41):
a decision that would transform him completely and in his mind,
finally bury the legend of Chicken Man Forever. Fight Night
(30:02):
is a joint production from I Heart Radio, Will Packer
Media and Doghouse Pictures in association with Psychopia Pictures. Produced
and hosted by Jeff Keating. Executive producers are Will Packer,
James Lopez, Kenny Burns, Dan Bush, Lars Jacobsen, and Noel Brown.
Supervising producer is Taylor Hickoyne. Story editors are Noel Brown
(30:23):
and Dan Bush. Written by Jeff Keating and Jim Roberts.
Edited by Matt Owen. Mixing and sound designed by Jeremiah
Kolonnie Prescott. Music written and performed by the Diamond Street Players.
Additional music by Ben Lovett. Audio archives courtesy of WSB
News Film and Video Tape Collection, Brown Media Archives, University
(30:43):
of Georgia, libraries. Special thanks to Dr Maurice Hobson and
David Davis. Fight Night is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, check out the
i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Host
Jeff Keating
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