From Atlanta To The Grave

JD Hudson and his partner investigate the stash house. Chicken Man tries to make his family feel safe despite all the publicity to the contrary. The robbers face the wrath of Frank Moten and the other gangsters.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
There was rooms going around that they were gonna kill us,
and there was gonna be a bomb in our house,
and there's gonna blow it up, and all kind of
stories started coming out. Now I got to defend my
dad in school when everybody else is saying, you know
your dad did that. They're saying, man, your dad robbed
those people. Man, they're gonna kill y'all. Glass, They're gonna
kill y'all. They go to New Orland. The dead the

(00:25):
way to able to come fire. All the jurors that
they were taking. You might will be long for come up. Somebody,
someone gonna surface somewhere literally was found shutting the head
and the wolf was found to the knights in the side.
I got a call about three or four block in
the morning say yeah for your boys, just gonna kill

(00:48):
kill from my heart radio and doghouse pictures. This is
fight night. I'm Jeff Keaton. Chicken Man was in New
York getting assurances from Frank Molten and other high level
gangsters that he and his family were safe, but he

(01:10):
had to get back to Atlanta to reassure them because
the newspapers were telling a different story altogether. Around that
same time, Hudson and Amos had received a tip about
an apartment used by the robbers before and after the heist.
The detectives got a search warrant and investigated the premises.

(01:33):
Here's j D with me in two thousand and two
as he recalls the details. We look at the parting,
but they are assembled, and I think they looking around
who the parting was because we went to the part
then that night was day okay, and you see how

(01:57):
we are sitting out. Yeah, cigarette out of the sugar
and cigure. Yeah, your looks all of a sudden lack
of black. We would have disappeared. The very things it
is like we did disappeared when you guys got there,
it looked like that. Yeah, was there still a cigarette burning? No? No,

(02:19):
well folded diapers and I'm pullded diapers, babies, baby backers
okay on the bed all right. That was on the
kicken table that was confuted fried chicken in place, partially eaten. Okay, drinks,
possive men high. I tracked the pope or somebody eating

(02:41):
month fiece off. A matter of fact, when you're in
the holes, steel full of drivers acts ut on the table.
It just last which sharps me that when the hustle
came down Jackson Parkway and tried to get into proper,
they looked back to when they saw him and got
a macau and took off. Okay, okay, so you think

(03:02):
that all that stuff that you were just describing was
left from that night, the night of the robbery. Oh yeah,
how we heard Mr Hudson. That's like they just disappeared.
They saw it, and then I think it's their hell
get Those guys have known how to get into the
department to the right, but they went down to the

(03:23):
wrong street. Gut j D told me that the robbers
had a lookout on the walkway outside of the Stash apartment.
He would have seen any cars turning from High Tower
Road into the parking lot directly below them. Once the
lookout spotted the gangsters, the robbers quickly grabbed the loot

(03:44):
and ran down the back staircase to their getaway cars
and sped away on Jackson Parkway. Imagine the panic and
chaos of that scene. And they went on and read
the at least one because Rick and Ridable right for
the black tip, and they took off with the money,

(04:07):
and they would go up again when I write. At
the apartment, Hudson found James Henry Hall's driver's license and
bed sheets that matched pillow cases which were found at
the crime scene at Handy Drive. These pillow cases were
discovered in the duffel bag recovered by the police and

(04:28):
were used to collect and haul the cash and jewelry
stolen from the party goers. Here's more about the investigation
from j D. Let me get back to this thing.
You've talked to You've made him, and I'm sorry you've
You've talked to this guy for a guy has spilled
his guys, and it's thank you to keep him in prisident,

(04:48):
to keep him alive. The apartment has obviously been left,
everything just sitting there because ran I haven't good way
and I got panicked they were, and now you're on
the news trying to convince basically the nation and the
city the Chicken man wasn't responsible for this, to keep
him alive, even though the Atlanta Fleet and the FBI
are saying that he did and was responsible. See, I

(05:10):
would not ever talked to the FBI because I knew
they were gonna try to take credit anything we did.
And they started stuff about some guy that called it
bought some guys in Jackson Villa who was opposed of
committed to rob. And then there were some guys out
of apronment him fbick n. What they gave me, the

(05:30):
pictures and everything. These are the guys. We got good information.
They committed to right and I said bullshit. It seemed
like they were trying to commence us to They had
some information out at Baltimore that somebody at the baltimoreket it,
I said, bullshit. Anytime there's a high flow file case
in this country, FBI runs by in Hollis at you

(05:51):
sit around and listen to what you work and try
to get in on your interviews. He runs backers office,
right and right, a bit of port that he's done,
and when you lock up, somebody d writes his quote
back who he called. Okay, the paper shuffles, you know,
and most place don't I have thing to do with them,

(06:12):
because they surrounded. They's they they still just get cases.
So the high profile case attracted them, and they came
with all these theories, you know, their profiles and all
these lab explace, all these experts to have all of
the game. They played again, those fellow dollarsm But they
don't they you know, because they this what the pup

(06:33):
is to. J D did not have fond memories of
working with the FBI. In fact, he didn't seem to
respect them either, even though they were all over this case.
J D kept the details of the investigation close to
the vest. He and Joe Amos continue to pursue all leads,

(06:53):
waiting for breaking the case. Nothing happened for a while,
and amazon daughter got Keith. Remember Emerson Dorsey. He was
born in Atlanta and moved to New York City about
a decade before the robbery. He became a drug dealer
and a stick up man, and he was driven out

(07:15):
of New York by a combination of pressure from Shirley Chisholm,
the New York state representative, and the black mafia he
had somehow piste off. J D believed that Emerson put
together the crew who pulled off the heist as a
means for getting back in New York's black mafia. But
in the end they got to him. He was keeled

(07:40):
at his home and they would investigating, and so I
had his interests. I called out and talked to the
investigator basic over that this still sus says. She was
talking about alone and someone knocked on the door, and
he said, hold on a minute, baby, somebody's on the door.
They the phone down. I went to the door and yo.

(08:02):
The said come in man, I'm glad to see you, amte.
But while come on the end and uh, Baton told us,
and she's up random as here. I talked to you later.
Well later he was found shot in the head. You know.
One was found cut. She was cut across her rest,
across her stomach. Nice steps too, nice stuff those sides.

(08:28):
She was dead. What said means that faith talk at
Garth right and made him tell about the rock at once.
Pep told about the round to kill? Where did that
take place? In his home? Indicator georgan indicator Jorge. So

(08:50):
they found his body shot and her body light and
sat in the next they actually found the body to
get up okay in his own Here are some of

(09:11):
the specifics from an Atlantic Constitution article. On March five,
Dorsey had been shot in the back of the head
and above the right eye. He had also been slashed
across the face with a knife. His girlfriend was Rachel Worthy.
She was found with four butcher knives buried in her body,

(09:33):
one between the shoulder blades, one in the neck, and
two in her chest. When relatives called about the bodies
after stopping at the house, police noted that they'd been
dead for some time. Police also said that Dorsey's Cadillac
was missing. Here's what j D thought, so amazed that

(09:59):
you got a son was forced to pay us somebody
and when he told they killed and I think they
had to data babill Baby Humphred. Baby Ray Humphrey was
one of the robbers we told you about from the

(10:20):
last episode. We believe he was working under fast Eddie
Parker's command, but j D thinks it was Emerson Dorsey
who recruited him at Wesley Merritt's pool Hall, along with
another hustler named Charles Lee. This was his response when
I asked him where Baby Ray Humphrey and Charles Lee

(10:41):
were killed in Atlanta somewhere and had shot Okay and
had at about the ton of the sty and Sharley
nobody remember what over somewhere around the stadium. This is
from the Atlantic Constitution, March nineteen seventy one, about three

(11:02):
weeks after Emerson Dorsey was killed, Baby Ray Humphrey had
been shot in the left temple execution style and had
been dead for several days. When police entered his apartment.
Baby Ray had a six page arrest record, including recent
narcotics charges. In addition to the thirty five thousand j

(11:23):
D mentioned, about two hundred thousand dollars worth of heroin
was also found stashed in a motorcycle in his apartment.
We've been unable to find much information about Charles Lee's murder,
and when I spoke to j D again, I learned
why I know bad it was killing there. Nobody gave

(11:52):
a damn about black killings, a powerful statement that still
resonates in today's society. Baby Ray Humphrey had thirty five
dollars cash and two hundred thousand dollars in heroin, and
his killers didn't even look for it. Charles Lee was
killed and no one seemed to notice, least of all

(12:15):
the newspapers. We can't find anything about his murder. Bookie
Brown was dead. We think Lillian Dabney was killed with him.
So the robbers still on the run were James Henry Hall,
McKinley Rogers, and fast Eddie Parker. We assumed they were
on their way to New York to connect with Richard

(12:37):
Wheeler and split the take. Here's Chicken Man and j
D discussing the huge obstacle they would face to fence
the jewelry they had stolen, all the jury stuff that
were taken. It weren't gonna be long for a come
up somebody. Someone're gonna surface somewhere. Uh, that would indicate

(12:57):
somebody as I'm gonna do it because it took some
brains and watches and women. Julry was cost of out
of money. So now what pawn broker, so running the risk.
I've given somebody some money on some jewelry and the
guy who told him a jar to come to that punch, Yeah,
gonna pay him with you. You're gonna take his goddamn

(13:20):
j you know, send his boys that to take his
goddamn Jerry. Don't take his mine. If you didn't like it,
if you didn't like the stuff was too hot. Fin
about the day it was too hot, and that they
couldn't do anything with this step. Okay, that's what doesn't
That's one of the things to the next meet. J
D knew it was useless looking at pawn shops for
the stolen jewelry. No pawnbroker would touch loot that hot.

(13:45):
There as an article at which I would reported that.
I told him, then they better come and find me.
Give up. But I think's got a guy. J D
searched for the robbers, what the black moth, It did
the same. He wanted them alive and in jail. But
these gangsters like Frank Moten wanted them dead. It wasn't

(14:09):
about the money, it was about retribution. Here's j D
in two thousand and two sharing details about where they
went after they high tailed it out of Atlanta. Okay,
remember Tea, what happened? Mean Okay, I said they they
might go to Ester the dead. Okay, they go to
New Orleans, they dead. Miami, go to Mami they dead. Okay,

(14:32):
go to Birmingham, they dead. So we're saying if they
got way able to come to sign them and so
we had decided they were going to go to the
Jatil Islands and see if they said if I was
they might go to Jack and Math for a while.
Would you be that they didn't go to not to
but they went to Assigns. No, they humber to uh Brunswick.

(14:55):
George Brunswick, Brunswill is us right here there. A business
owner in Brunswick apparently became suspicious when McKinley Rogers and
other members in his crew spent wads of cash in
the shop, so he called the cops. Local police found
out that McKinley Rogers and James Henry Hall used to

(15:16):
be classmates in Brunswick, and when they heard about the
robbery in Atlanta, they called j d's departments. JO and
I had started to go to JACKI al Allden and
look for because he said that if they smiled, they
went to someone at jackil Allend to someplace go hide.
I put well, and the truth matter is they did.

(15:37):
They went to Brunswick, Georgia, because that's near west. Some
of the guys who robbers lived grew up. I mean,
and I'll sit in office one day and this guy
called a corporate from the Brunswick Police Department called and
said that he read about their robbery in the Atlanta
newspaper and that there were about ten people at the

(15:58):
Holiday End who stayed that for about a week along
and they wouldn't come out. We're not sure who else
joined McKinley Rogers James Henry Hall and fast Eddie Parker
when they left Atlanta. But we do know they were
conspicuous when they wouldn't allow the cleaning crew to enter

(16:20):
any of their rooms at the hotel in Brunswick made it.
I think it's that eight rooms for five it was
five eight rooms, okay, not a man. And they went
out on a bank breath. They brought on a verything
and Brunswick go everything okay, and that when they at
that food, the servants had to send a food at

(16:42):
the door and leave they were dead and get it. Okay,
it wouldn't come out. But when they came out, they
brought up all the bubec and they left town. After
McKinley Rogers and his crew aroused suspicion in Brunswick, Georgia,

(17:04):
they decided to move on to a different city. According
to the Brunswick newspaper, two cops pulled them over on
their way out of town and got their identification, but
for some reason they let them go. J D and
Joe Amos were about to head to Brunswick, but they
got a call from the local police who informed them

(17:27):
that the robbers were gone and it would be a
wasted trip they went not on seventeen and a couple
of cards, one of which was the red product of
the back time wait, one of which was the what
was the red product for the black croc? Who that?
I guess In the meantime, I understand that about his mother,

(17:47):
A car riders his mother house. In one of Robin
Goorde it was a rape in the restroom got him birth.
The red Pontiac with the black top is the same
one j D described leaving the stash house, and one
witness said they saw the same car at the robbery

(18:10):
scene on Handy Drive. After the robbers left Brunswick, it
was a few months before they were seen again. Here's
j D and uh. Nobody dreamed these foods we'll go
to New York. But they did. And that's when I
said they're dead. They go to New York. They're dead

(18:33):
because they rode to Black Markeia in the Black Marpie
con killer. I got a call about three or four
o'clock in the morning. Guys say, lieutenant, yeah for your
boys just got killed. J D talked me through the
details of how McKinley Rogers and James Henry Hall were killed.

(18:54):
He found out there was a third man in the
car named David Phillips. We have no information about him
except he was from Brunswick, Georgia as well. We don't
know if he was involved in the robbery or just
picked up at some point. We also don't know how,
when or where these guys split from fast Eddie Parker.

(19:17):
Here I am with j Dam food and drove in
front of oven Battles please quick as please? What look
still okay? And uh stop? So they go in front

(19:40):
of this liquor store in New York. Is it in
harm Boklyn? I got it down there? They drive in
baby Bam. They're all shot dead. They stopped. They going
to the buscle base. They did right, but the shot dead? Ye? Wrong?
Please right? And the shot that and so this is
why moving a heavy In retrospect, it looks like the

(20:07):
robbers were partying and spending loads of cash in the
establishments of the gangsters they robbed, and word got out
quickly who and where they were. Looking back in my notes,
the name j D just mentioned, Evan bin Um a
k a. Quickie, was the same name from an earlier

(20:28):
portion of my interview when j D asked me to
turn off the tape recorder. He only did that one time.
I vaguely remember him telling me that he went to
visit Quickie in a fancy hotel suite in Atlanta just
after the robbery, and that the suite was lined with
bodyguards carrying assault rifles. I remember thinking how crazy it

(20:52):
was that j D went there alone and didn't seem
to care that all these guys were brandishing weapons. He
was only interested in information about the robbery. In any case,
it seems like Quickie was one powerful gangster. J D
called the NYPD when he learned about who was murdered

(21:12):
in Brooklyn. So I called the pretty anything about it.
So he's an excited dad. He had to talk to
me high new about the MURDI pla they knew it
went out of that business, and I would talk to
a New York company anyway. He has a New York
Cops the others day the drugness in the streets. Okay,

(21:34):
it's a strange world. You don't know who you're talking
about when you talk to the cop. This is a
recurring character trait j D exhibits over the years of
talking to him. He's passionately sure of himself and very
suspicious of everyone else. He surmises that the NYPD wanted

(21:54):
to talk to him about the murders because one of
their own had been at the heist. Andrew West, remember,
was one of only five people out of a hundred
or more to file a report with the Atlanta Police
after the robbery that night. West was a bodyguard for
one of the hustlers from New York. Many of these

(22:15):
gangsters had bodyguards. J D filled me in on more
details about how the robbers were killed and corrected some
of the media's misinformation about this incredible story. It's like
at times that journalists just didn't even care about the details. Here.
I am in two thousand and two surprised at the

(22:36):
facts j D is laid out for me. The research
my dad is done. According to him, these guys but Kenley,
James Houston and maybe one of the person were incited
on six accounts of whatever it is by the full
County grand jury by this attorney Lewis Late. Never happened.

(22:59):
These guys never invited there, so how did they? How
did the much said so they wouldn't they were never brought,
They couldn't be any would see them and maybe and
they okay. So those guys okay, and is that why
you told me it was a beautiful four people of

(23:21):
Warren and Roberts because I brought the bodies back down
rights got four peven one of abjority. The newspaper said
that Rogers and Hall were indicted along with Houston Hammond's
in late November nineteen seventy. Rogerson Hall were killed along
with Phillips on May ninety one, exactly seven months after

(23:43):
the robbery. In that time, Hayman's was arrested, charged and
convicted on possession of weapons. Rogers and Hall were running
from this indictment without even knowing it. Here's J. D.
Hudson as we quickly recap, we're the last linings took
place the robbery. The head down to Brunswick, they head

(24:03):
up seven. We would sit activity, engaged and when they
were killed. Okay, So they stopped in front of this
only the name again of the liquor store. Gentleman's name
quick Quickie is what's his full name? Evan ma JD
assumed that the last killings occurred in front of Evan

(24:24):
Bynham's place in Brooklyn, which would add to the long
list of dead robbers. Bookie Brown, Lillian Dabney, Baby Ray Humphrey,
Charles Lee, McKinley, Rogers and James Henry Hall. And since
Emerson Dorsey and this down woman had been murdered in Atlanta,

(24:48):
in his mind, the case was over. But what about
fast Eddie Parker, Richard Wheeler's enforcer. If gangsters like Evan
Bynum and Frank Moten, we're really that ruthless and they were,
there's no way they would ever stop searching. They would
ever stop hunting until everyone that was involved or responsible

(25:12):
for the robbery was dead. Fight Night is a joint
production from My 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,

(25:35):
Dan Bush, Lars Jacobson, and Noel Brown. Supervising producer is
Taylor Hickoyne. Story editors are Noel Brown 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

(25:55):
Ben Lovett Audio Archives courtesy of WSB News, Film and
Video to a collection Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries,
Special thanks to Dr Maurice Hobson and David Davis. Fight
Night is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
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