August 28, 2025 • 49 mins
The 1984 assassination of Denver radio host Alan Berg launches a far-reaching investigation into a white supremacist group linked to armed robberies, counterfeiting, and murder, unraveling a conspiracy aimed at toppling the U.S. government.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to Law and Order Criminal Justice System, a
production of Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts. This episode contains
discussions of sensitive topics including violence, hate, crimes, and the
use of discriminatory language and slurs. Listener discretion as advised.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
In the Criminal Justice System. Landmark trials transcend the courtroom
to reshape the law. The brave many women who investigate
and prosecute these cases are part of a select group
that is defined American history. These are their stories. June eighteenth,
nineteen eighty four, nine forty five pm, Denver, Colorado.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
It was a warm Monday evening in a quiet Denver neighborhood.
The streets were still and porch lights glowed. A black
Volkswagen Beetle pulled into the driveway of a home to
beneath the trees. The driver stepped out, arms full of
groceries and a back of dog food. Radio host Alan
Berg had just wrapped another night on the air. It
(01:11):
was a regular end to a routine day. But then
as Alan got out of his car, he realized he
wasn't alone. Three men were waiting in the dark. One
emerged from the shadows, stepped forward and opened fire. Thirteen
rounds rang out before the weapon jammed. This had all
(01:32):
the markings of a targeted hit.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Then police have confirmed that longtime Caaway radio talk showst
allen Berg was shot and killed tonight in downtown Denver.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
The execution of fifty year old Alan Berg felt anything
but random. Detective linked the murder weapon to a white
supremacist group called the Aryan Nations that's based in Idaho.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Berg, who was Jewish, was an outspoken.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Critic of racism and anti Semitism, calling himself the man
you love to hate to receive numerous death threats on
his talk show. What seemed like a single act of
violence would soon be revealed as the opening move in
a larger plot to alter the course of the nation.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
I got a call, get out to LaGuardia Airport. There's
been a bombing.
Speaker 6 (02:27):
There was a thirty two foot crater in front of
what was left of the building.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I was trying to figure out, am I dead? Am
I alive?
Speaker 7 (02:32):
Where am I?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I'm Anethega Nicolazzi.
Speaker 8 (02:35):
That's why terrorism works.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
It doesn't care who you are.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts, this is lawn order
criminal justice system as a result of the fatal bombings
in the nineteen seventies, like the ones at Francis Tavern
and LaGuardia Airport, terrorism was rising in the public conscious.
(03:00):
It had shifted from political protests and property damage to
something deadly, and the threat was growing.
Speaker 9 (03:08):
Two new movements were really starting to emerge in the
United States. These were parallel movements that had a lot
of synergies. One was the modern white power movement, in
the others the modern paramilitary militia movement.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
This swing in the pendulum is exactly the kind of
thing terrorism researcher Michael Jensen tracts white.
Speaker 9 (03:29):
Power, white supremacist organizations, militia of patriot groups, also Christian nationalists.
These were much more violent organizations than their left wing predecessors.
They believed that they had to do whatever it would
take to achieve their goals, and that meant killing innocent
people if necessary.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
The roots of domestic extremism weren't planted overnight. They grew
slowly in the margins and were fertilized by anger. Often
at the center of these movements were men with the
shared past US combat veterans just back from Vietnam.
Speaker 9 (04:05):
These individuals coming home. They were deeply, deeply upset and
angered over the war in Vietnam itself. They believed that
the reason the US did not prevail in that war
was because politicians really prevented them from winning the war.
They wouldn't let them do what it was going to
take to win, and therefore they came home as losers,
(04:26):
as subjects of defeat in that battle. They also came
home to a public that wasn't very welcoming. There was
a lot of protests that were targeted specifically at the
veteran community. They really felt persecuted by their fellow citizens
upon their.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Arrival, and the world they came back to wasn't how
they had left it.
Speaker 9 (04:46):
They felt that while they were away fighting this war,
they were really losing the country that they were fighting
on behalf of from racial justice, the establishment of abortion
rights to beginning influxes of illegal immigration along the southern border,
there were a lot of things changing in the country
that they did not like.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Quietly, in compounds and training camps, those grievances began to
take shape.
Speaker 9 (05:13):
They began to organize inform groups that really aimed at
overthrowing the federal government completely, changing a system that had
arisen while they were gone off fighting in Vietnam. These
groups were very, very active in more rural locations throughout
the United States. Idaho in particular was a real hub.
(05:36):
Aryan Nations had their compound there.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
The Aryan Nations was a Neo Nazi group that was
gaining traction and was founded by a man named Richard Butler.
And in the summer of nineteen eighty three they caught
the attention of a particular FBI agent.
Speaker 7 (05:53):
My name is Wayne Mannus.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Wayne is the kind of guy who doesn't take much downtime.
Speaker 7 (06:00):
On January the thirty first, nineteen sixty six, I was
sworn into the FBI as a special agent. There was
less than a sixty day period between the time I
left the Marine Corps and entered the FBI.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
And he was always a man with a plan.
Speaker 7 (06:19):
I was in a sociology class and I remember the
professor said, tonight, decide five things you want in life,
and then tomorrow we'll talk about it. Well, my five
things I told him was I wanted to have a
good wife, children, I wanted to be the Marine Corps,
(06:41):
and I wanted to be an FBI agent. And I
wanted someday to own a big ranch.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Where are you on those five things today?
Speaker 7 (06:48):
I got them all?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Now that's pretty good, right.
Speaker 7 (06:52):
Yeah, it's pretty amazing, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
What Wayne was taught back in the Marines helped shape him.
Speaker 7 (07:00):
The Marine Corps teaches you the importance of others. Your
life depends on the guy next to you that forces you.
When you're going through life, you start looking for the
people that you feel are loyal and honest and worthwhile
for companionship. At the Marine Corps concept never surrender, never
(07:21):
give up, never quit.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Wayne lived the motto and also carried it into his investigations.
Speaker 7 (07:29):
There was no end to the day. I would leave
home and think I was coming back maybe late that night.
I didn't come back for two weeks. You couldn't afford
to have any personal life or take any time off.
You had to be married to it, and you had
to travel with it.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Those all consuming cases had a way of landing on
his desk, and they matched the way he worked.
Speaker 7 (07:53):
Most agents they have one hundred and ten minutes a
day over time. That's compulsory. I seldom stopped at that.
When you hit a case like the order, it was
pretty much necessary for me to put in twelve hour days.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Little did Wayne know he was about to embark on
one of the most demanding and dangerous cases of his career.
It was November nineteen eighty three and an opportunity arrived
smack dab in the middle of America's heartland.
Speaker 7 (08:26):
There was an opening in Cordelaine, Idaho that was a
one man office that was just ideal for me.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
It felt like a dream come true.
Speaker 7 (08:36):
I really wanted to end up in Montana or Idaho
because I was an outdoorsman. I was a cowboy from
the time I was a kid, and I thought, well,
when I want to relax a little bit, maybe that
would be a good place for me to go. Didn't
(08:58):
work that way, I'll tell you.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Despite the idyllic scenery of northern Idaho, relaxation would have
to wait. On the way to his new post, Wayne
was given an assignment.
Speaker 7 (09:10):
The Special Agent in George had been hearing rumors that
there might be criminal activity connected with this group called
the Area in Nations, which was near that particular office
of Court A Lane, Idaho, to see if I could
determine if that organization was really connected to any significant
(09:30):
criminal activity or of these were just rumors.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Wayne didn't sit back and wait for a lead to
land on his desk. He made the first move.
Speaker 7 (09:40):
I thought, maybe the best way to get started is
I'll just call the head of the organization, Richard Butler,
and I was asking if he would come down of
the office let's talk.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I just raised my eyebrows because I was just about
to ask you, like, how does an office of one
start to investigate the area nation? But I guess you
just answered it. You call up ahead of it and
ask him to come on down.
Speaker 7 (10:00):
Yeah. Yeah, I just called them up. I said, I'm
a new agent here. I've been hearing things about your organization.
Some of them don't sound too good. Would you come
down and let's talk. I'd like to learn all about
your organization? And he said yes.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
There were no subpoenas or threats, just a quiet conversation
across a desk. And what Butler shared was bold, to
say the.
Speaker 7 (10:25):
Least, they found nothing wrong with counterfeiting because the government
counterfeited money. He said, the money that's printed out of
the government has no real value. There's no gold or
silver backing it. It's just an arbitrary amount of money
(10:47):
that's printed.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
But it wasn't just economic theory and anti government sentiment.
Well Butler laid out was an entire worldview, deeply distorted,
one that blurred theology and hate into a justification for violence.
Speaker 7 (11:04):
He went into what's called the identity concept. This concept
was actually conceived of and printed in eighteen seventy one.
They say that when the lost tribes of Israel were
traveling over the Caucasus Mountains, they picked up the name Caucasian,
(11:24):
and that the true Israelites spoken of in the Bible,
these people are not really Jews, and that the Caucasian
races represent the tribes of Israel. And when they traveled
over the Caucasus Mountains and they settled into Europe, each
of the European countries was a tribe of Israel. So
(11:47):
they believe there can't be a second coming of Jesus
Christ until the Jews are eliminated from the face of
the earth.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
But it was more than fringe ideology. Central to their
cause was a belief that Jews and non whites were
to blame for every ill they claimed to suffer. Wayne
carefully listened to Butler, gathering intelligence and potentially evidence, and
in Butler's mind, Wayne wasn't a threat.
Speaker 7 (12:15):
He was convinced that I was a potential convert. As
he was leaving, he said, perhaps you'd like to join
us one day we could talk again. I told him myself,
I'm very much interested in talking to you again. I
don't know if he was playing me, or I was
playing him, or we were both playing each other, but
I learned a great deal in that conversation.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
The official assignment was merely to evaluate the Aryan nations
and determine if they were a group worth pursuing. And
after that first sit down with Butler, Wayne knew that
they were, to the point that he decided to make
them his sole focus.
Speaker 7 (12:55):
I just felt like there was more than I was hearing,
and my curio was peaked.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
What he didn't yet know was that he was actually
watching the early formation of a broader insurgency, and he
had no teammates to help.
Speaker 7 (13:11):
And I'm alone. My family's not with me. I have
no friends and no associates, and I'm living at the
Corterlane Resort Hotel. So what am I going to do? Work?
There's no reason to do anything else, And that's what
I did. I worked, worked every day every night.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Out of a twelve y fourteen office in rural Idaho,
Wayne started building what would become a case against one
of the deadliest domestic terrorist organizations in America, and even
he didn't know just how far it would go. Luckily
for Wayne, there was someone already watching the group, Larry Broadbent.
Speaker 7 (13:52):
He was the under sheriffs here. Larry was an intelligent,
polite quiet by a big guy, and he had to
taking it on himself before I ever got there to
look into the Area Nations. He had informants.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Larry had spent years trying to sound the alarm.
Speaker 7 (14:11):
So I went over and sit down with Larry, and
when I told him I was going to work this,
he says, I am so thankful that you're here and
that you have an interest that you're going to do something,
and he gave me a wealth of information on people
affiliated with the Area Nations.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
For the first time since arriving at Idaho, Wayne wasn't alone.
Speaker 7 (14:34):
Larry had become my one and only trusted source of
information at that particular time.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Wayne dug into the investigation with a few names in
a possible location, and without backup, he set off on
his own.
Speaker 7 (14:52):
I pinpointed where the area Nations was located, and it
was isolated in the mountains. After dark, I would drive.
I've emparked the car about a mile from the compound.
I had figured the compass asthmath that would take me
to the compound. So I'd walked the compass asthmath until
I hit the barbed wire, crawled through the wire, and
(15:15):
then through the bushes. I would work my way down
until I could get within visual sight of the compound,
and I'd sit through the night and watch the activity.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Night after night he gathered information.
Speaker 7 (15:31):
I would take license numbers when I could get them.
They had a platform out there, and they had a loudspeaker,
and they would have a like an outdoor service. I
would see people passing by with shoulder arms in uniforms,
and I'd be close enough I could actually hear their conversations.
Because I was in thick brush, I was hearing commentary
(15:53):
on Jews and a lot of hate talk. I was
here and talk about the future of the Aryan Nations.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
What Wayne was hearing was the core of Aryan Nations
belief system, a militant gospel of white supremacy cloaked in
religion They preached that Jews controlled the government what they
called the Zionist Occupation Government or ZOG, and that erace
war was coming, not only inevitable, but wholly. In their eyes,
(16:23):
violence was a divine duty.
Speaker 7 (16:26):
Being a marine, I was used to traveling through terrain cautiously,
and I came up on a tripwire. The trip wire
was very tut and I traced it down that I
saw where it would have set off in alarm. So
I had to be really careful after that.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
And tripwire wasn't the only problem for Wayne.
Speaker 7 (16:49):
Then they had a fellow that would patrol the perimeter
of the property with a German shepherd big I mean
this is like AE hundred pounds dollar maybe one hundred
and twenty pounds. And he would stop at a point
up above me and he would throw pine cones and
the dog was runn to get the pine cones and
bring them back, and they would play that way. And well,
(17:10):
one night he came through and the wind was blowing
just enough in the direction from me to him. The
dog picked up my scent and the dog growled and
ran barking toward me. And when the dog got to me,
I picked up a pine cone and I threw it
out of the bushes back towards where the guard was,
(17:32):
and he ran and he got the pine cone, brought
it back one time, and I threw another one, and
then he ran up and then the guy that was
walking with him called him to him. That was a
hard stopper.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
For the moment Wayne was still invisible. The surveillance gave
Wayne a first hand look at the group's rhetoric and rituals.
It was clear to him how dangerous they were, but
he didn't yet have any proof of actual crimes that
(18:07):
would allow law enforcement to act. So he went back
to the names Larry Broadbent had given him and started
knocking on doors.
Speaker 7 (18:16):
And I began to develop information that definitely indicated that
there was either people within the group that were committing
crimes or there were people in the group that felt
that they should be doing Then one of them said
that he'd actually seen counterfeit money that was printed at
(18:37):
the church. That was a good strong bite right there.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Then Larry gave him another name.
Speaker 7 (18:45):
His name was Gary Yarbro. He had served in the
Arizona State prison system for a crime of violence, and
while in prison, he belonged to the area in Brotherhood,
which is a prison group of white violent prisoners.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Gary Yarborough would prove to be important. He was a
bridge between the movement and something even darker that Wayne
suspected was operating beneath it. While Wayne was listening through
the trees and knocking on doors in Idaho, a different
kind of operation was unfolding hundreds of miles away in
Washington State. It didn't have a name yet, but it
(19:22):
had a plan and a leader, Bob Matthews.
Speaker 7 (19:27):
Bob is a very intelligent and in his own mind,
he was a very strong patriots. He loved this country
and he felt he do what had to be done
and he would take martyrs to bring it back to
where it was at the time the Constitution was first
formed and signed.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Matthews had a dark vision for an alternate America, a
country for whites only, and they need lots of money
to try and make it happen.
Speaker 7 (20:00):
Doing surveillances out at the church, Bob tells him, we
have got to raise big money and the only way
to do that is through criminal activity. To show his earnestness,
in December of nineteen eighty three, Bob walks into a
bank in Seattle and he robs the bank. He got
(20:22):
away with something over two thousand dollars. Certainly not much,
you know, but he believes that God was directing him,
and God was on his side.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Matthew's crew graduated from cash registers to couriers. What started
as a solo act was evolving into something more ambitious.
Speaker 7 (20:43):
Bob tells him it's up to us. So two of
the guys they rob a schooney's cash career. It's a
truck stop, and they robbed the courier when he comes
to pick up money. There's one gunshot in that, but
nobody's hurt and they get away with it free.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
The first heist was fast, clean and quiet, and most importantly,
it worked. It was January now, a new year, nineteen
eighty four, and for Matthew's crew, a new kind of resolution,
go bigger or go home.
Speaker 7 (21:18):
A couple of weeks later after getting away with that,
were the same two people rob a bank in Eastern Spoken.
They get away with four thousand something dollars plus what
they got from schoonies.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
The second robbery netted even more, and what began as
isolated stick ups was starting to look like the funding
of an infrastructure.
Speaker 7 (21:40):
This money's all going into a pot. These are robberies
being conducted for an organization. We're now starting to format
a group, which is kind of necessary. If you're looking
at Errico statues.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
The crimes weren't just stacking up. They were scaling up.
By spring. They were testing the limits of what they
could pull off.
Speaker 7 (22:03):
In March of nineteen eighty four, unbeknownst to me, four
of them get together. They go to Seattle. They hit
a cash career from a Continental armored truck as it's
coming out of the fred Meyer store, and on this
one they get about forty thousand dollars. They've just robbed
an armored truck. So now they're starting to lay out
(22:28):
a track with a plan, something that works.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
What Wayne didn't know, what no one knew, was that
this wasn't just a crime spree. It was a war
chest in the making. Until March of nineteen eighty four,
the robberies in Washington didn't feel connected to the group
in Idaho. But then Wayne saw the headlines an armored
truck hit in Seattle, and something clicked.
Speaker 7 (22:52):
What I see about it in the paper, I wonder
if that could be these guys it's pretty unusual for
an armored truck to be robbed.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Right then came the break, a photograph of a face
Wayne recognized.
Speaker 7 (23:08):
Larry pulled a photograph from the bank robberies in January.
I take that photograph and I identify. I can't say positively,
but I'll say I'm ninety percent convinced That'scury Yarbrough, who's
a member of the area in Nation.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
The same name given by the informant was now pictured
at the scene, a face linking the group to a crime.
That's when the group's leader popped up on Wayne's radar.
Speaker 7 (23:37):
I discussed that with Larry Broadbn and he said, you know,
there's a guy that's been very prolific. He doesn't live
around here, but his name is Bob Matthews. So I
pulled all the information I could find on Bob Matthews
and his photograph. I saw that he was a charismatic personality.
(23:58):
He really needed more attention.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Bob Matthews seemed to be more than just a member
of the group. It was like he was leading it
and growing it.
Speaker 7 (24:09):
It's April nineteen eighty four. I'm making some little progress,
but this group is going full tilt. Since they hit
forty thousand on that armored car robbery. They now have
pulled together a few more people in the group and
they're going to go back and do another armored car robbery.
(24:30):
Yarborough again, the guy with the criminal record. He comes
up with the idea. He says, you know, we need
to divert all the police to the other side of town.
I'll build a bomb and I'll put it in this
porn theater on the other side of town. So he does,
and on April twenty second, the bomb goes off inside
(24:50):
the corn theater. The cops come from everywhere.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Not even twenty four hours later, they were at it again.
Speaker 7 (24:58):
The next day, on April twenty third. They've been surveilling
this armored truck and they know just exactly when they
want to take it down. They put a phone call
into the police department and say, we got another bomb
in the theater. And there is no bomb in the theater.
It's just a diversionary tactic to get the cops all
over there. They hit the armored truck, and they hit
(25:20):
it big time. Weapons drawn. They even made up a
fake bazouka and it looked like a bazooka, and this
time they get close to a quarter million.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Once again, the heist had worked, but Matthews was out
for more than cash. He also wanted soldiers.
Speaker 7 (25:40):
He's elated, He's very proud of his people, but he
knows he's got to have a lot more to finance
the organization. He's got to have an army. So he
gets involved in recruiting.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Calling from old hate groups and prison gangs.
Speaker 7 (25:57):
He's off in the Philadelphia recruit He's down in the
South into Arkansas. He's in California. He's recruiting people from
the q clarks Klan, the National Alliance, and he provides
some counterfeit money to these people so they could pass
the counterfeit money there.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
He was drawing from a rolodex that have been building
since Vietnam One that fused armed separatism with hate. His
goal was revolution. He wanted to topple the government he called
the Zionist Occupation and create a white homeland by force.
But as the organization grew, Matthew struggled to maintain control
(26:39):
of his people. Eventually, the sloppiness of two put the
entire organization at risk.
Speaker 7 (26:47):
This money that was printed, they're passing this counterfeit money
in the mall. Bruce Carrol Pierce gets caught and now
has a court date. And one of the guys he
gave calfit money too, up and around Philadelphia was a
guy named Tom Martinez. And then Tom Martinez gets caught
with counterfeit money.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
It was a mistake that had consequences, and Bob Matthews
took it personally.
Speaker 7 (27:15):
He's now really angry that the guys have done something
that might have caused him to get arrested.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
But the misstep didn't stop him. Instead, he accelerated because
now he had more than money, he had manpower.
Speaker 7 (27:30):
Bob has got his army for him. That's in the
number of twenty one dedicated people, and there's three or
four to come yet. And with the money they bought
the bisophisticated weaponry and explosives.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Money wasn't the only goal anymore now it was also revenge.
Speaker 7 (27:54):
Bob tells him, we've got some scores to sell them
right now. Is an obnoxious show out in Denver, and
he's a very popular radio talk show guy. He's got
hundreds of thousands of followers. This guy's got to be
done away with.
Speaker 9 (28:23):
Fifty thousand wa Koaight News Talk eighty five is presenting
the ellen Burg program called eight six' one Talk.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Alan Berg on CAAWEIT News Talk eighty five. Don't forget
right after one thirty news. We have callers on the line.
We have one line open right now, so get out
on the line. It's gonna be a fun afternoon. But
I really get rolling right after the one thirty news.
That was some tapes.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
I mean, he never came in dull. Once and his.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Wife, Peter Boyle, sat across from Denver talk radio host
Alan Burke almost every day four years.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
Friend of mine at a talk station, and he called
me up and he said, do you ever think about
doing talk radio? I needed morning talk shows and I
wanted to get away from the insanity. Kaylee k was station.
We were as a country station, and so I quit.
At the time, Tuck was really relegated to little old
ladies calling up. I remember pulling away from the station
(29:15):
and they were all outside saying, we'll go talk to
the little old ladies, see you later. And I went
to KWBZ and it was the only Denver talk station
at the time. That's where I met.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Berg, Peter and Allen eventually moved stations and landed at
Denver's KOA little did he know what he was getting
into and just how far Alan was willing to take it.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
He walked in cold hit that seat. He did shows
like white people get tanned because they really want to
be black, stuff to make people nuts. He was radio's
professional wrestler. Well, why don't you tell us about some
of the shows that you've done that stand out in
your memory?
Speaker 3 (29:58):
I think the most continuing saga, if we could call
it that, it's been a show I came up with
the idea some eight years ago and have an idea
about sun tanning and the recent people didn't like themselves white,
or they really didn't like themselves white, maybe secretly wanting
to be black. That show has been a continued craziness
for the last eight years. I've shifted the way in
which I've done that show, but I do it every year.
If I'll be doing it probably in the next few weeks
(30:19):
as the sun, you know, comes out and burns the bodies.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Alan Berg was always pushing the limits of what live
radio could get away with, one of the original shock jocks,
but not everyone loved the act.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Killed me ye, so you're on CHOA.
Speaker 8 (30:35):
I guess I agree with the man that was on
the phone with the premier hood. But maybe you got
something you care to present instead of just encircling, so
I probably do I try.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Okay, I'm going to go.
Speaker 9 (30:44):
There was an elderly gentleman named Edward.
Speaker 8 (30:47):
Called the man I called an idiot, and he certainly
was an idiot. Go ahead, well, idiot, you know someone
that has no brain at all? And I feel that
well sometimes the way the people act and doing wrestling
with him, I'm not sure anybody does.
Speaker 7 (31:02):
Have a brain.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Talk radio was still raw in those days. There was
no call screening or delay buntons, just a live mic
and whatever came through the line. When Peter stepped into it,
he was joining a medium that felt more like the
wild West.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
We were all learning this business. Remember this is at
a time when talk radio is burgeoning. Rush Limbaugh hasn't
shown up yet. We're Cowboy and the John, and here
he is. Probably had no business being in the business,
but he changes the business. We were learning under fire.
It was like a war.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
And the more time the two men spent together, the
more Peter realized Alan was unique a disbarred attorney from Chicago,
Alan wound his way into radio. He was always one
provocation away from turning a calm conversation into a brawl.
Speaker 5 (32:00):
Together.
Speaker 10 (32:01):
Go ahead, and we listened to all day.
Speaker 9 (32:04):
We think they're just a big bag of win down here?
Speaker 8 (32:06):
Why is that?
Speaker 7 (32:07):
Oh? People? That? What is it?
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Would you care to challenge to point them of mind
and make a presentation on him? You just want to
sam a bag of win?
Speaker 8 (32:17):
Well, well give me an example. So you're going nowhere?
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Okay, okay, okay, Well I guess you got nowhere to go.
Well I did that one killed me lying, So you're
on KOA.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
Keep us him up inside. It wasn't the guy that
was on air. The guy that was on air, I
think I always thought he was in a courtroom of
some kind.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
I lost someoney will come in here and say he stinks. Okay,
so what do you mean he stinks? What is that
based upon? See? Now you're making them think, and most
people really don't want to think. They have no facts.
They're like sheep. They pick up an idea. The Republicans
are great, the Democrats are great. Never one saying well,
wait a minute, let me examine this. What are they
really doing? They have no information. They buy a president
the same way they back to his paste.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
He was flamboyant. He came on and I said in
his eulogy he was the greatest professional wrestler that I
ever worked with in radio. He knew the right buttons
to push.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
That was the Alan Berg people tuned in for. If
he didn't like what someone said or their views, he
definitely let them know it. And he was anything but PC.
And sometimes it was less of an interview than a takedown,
like the time Alan blew a gasket when he disagreed
with the perspective of one of his callers.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Well, Elan, do you want to answer the questions or not?
Speaker 8 (33:36):
I wanted to calm down and I'll explain it.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
It's very hard to calm down based on what you said.
But go ahead, Sarah.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
You're acting like a pig.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Oh there, you're a pathetic human being. You know what
you are? One of the most vile human beings to
walk up to a human being. And how much is
are you Jewish? Are you?
Speaker 8 (33:51):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Okay, I'm Jewish. I'm ashamed that you belong to my
people and I'm sure most Jewish in his country are.
You are the slime of the Yark County. So if
you will, baby, why don't you so many for defamation?
You dig it, I'm gonna you're a creepswaiting anyway. Eight
six one talk eight six one eight two five. I
I want your reaction, certainly, if you think I was
rude to her, you tell me that I was. We'll
(34:12):
come back after this.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Alan knew how to provoke and rubbed a lot of
people the wrong way. But despite his on air persona,
Peter saw a very different man when Alan stepped away
from the mic, quieter, self, reflective, and somewhat mysterious.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
I kid myself so endlessly. That's painful. It's a defense
mechanism for me. I kid myself because I really don't
want you to know how badly I feel about the
very things that I'm kidding myself by.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
I think it was just part of who he was,
and to this day, after all of these years, I
find myself still not really knowing who he really was.
But we were tight.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
The two became close friends and were nearly inseparable.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
We happen to have what I think, I think is
one of the really inventive, brilliant talk shows in the country.
I think the best I've ever heard of work is
my buddy Peter Boyles in the morning here in Kia.
He has the combination of being inventive and he has
a realism and he has an earthen as couple with
a great intellectuality. That is a very rare thing with
talk shows.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
We worked together beside each other every day, got together
once during the week for dinner or just to sit
and talk. We'd get a table for ten or whatever
it was, and we bring people that we knew and
we'd sit them there, but we didn't talk to them.
He and I sat together. I remember I was seeing
(35:36):
a woman and said, you see this guy every day,
you know, you talk to him all the time, and
then you had dinner with him. And that was the
way that it was.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Alan and Peter were also co conspirators in the rise
of a new kind of radio.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Now. Humor is the greatest level of communication I've ever known,
because when you and I laughed together here as a certain
we really are communicating. Because if you think it's funny
and I think it's saying something to each other, well
we're really silently agreeing.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
That's what it's about, but that philosophy wasn't shared by
all of Allan's listeners. He confronted people and hot button
topics like bigotry head on and don't forget those exchanges
were live. Some thought it made for great radio, but
it also made real enemies.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
Socrates, I think, said little boys kill frogs in sport,
the frogs die in earnest. We were just having fun
and getting ratings, and these people were taking it serious.
When we ran into Rick Elliott, that really sets this
whole thing off.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Rick Elliott was a fringe far right agitator and self
published conspiracy theorist who surfaced on Denver radio in the
early eighties. Elliott claimed in a book that Jews were
secretly plotting to take over the world. So Peter brought
him on air.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
My approached Rick Elliott was you're a damn fool. So
Berg came in behind me. He gives me the tap
on the shoulder and I killed Hi, mic what and
he said, I want this guy? He said cool. So
we get to about ten of the hour and I said,
my colleague Alan Berg's here. He would like to talk
to you next. And by this time I got this
(37:20):
guy up in the air and he said, I'll do it.
I said, all right, so berb takes him on. He
doesn't intellectualize the guy, he doesn't prove, He just rips them.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
But what they didn't realize was who else was listening.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Rick Elliott had a part time bodyguard by the name
of David Lane. David Lane is in the other room
listening on air. So what Alan did. David Lane was
a klansman, a supremacist, a golf hospeler, all wrong, dad guy.
And that was really the I think the predicator.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
To these guys. Alan wasn't just an irritant. He was
now the enemy.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
They actually gave him a name. Joseph Gerbels was the
gallighter of Nazi Germany, the propagandist and I can't think
of the word, but they invented a word Yiddish German.
Speaker 7 (38:14):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
They said, that's what Bird was, that he was doing
a gall lighter, if you would, for the zog the
Zionist occupation government, the Jews taking.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Over around that same time. The radio station gave Allen
a bigger spotlight, a shift that could open doors to
a wider fan base and potentially new adversaries.
Speaker 4 (38:38):
Alan. He was moved the Knights.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
At night, the station's signal could reach halfway across the country.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
Kowa becomes fifty thousand clear channel Watts. I mean, you
could get it in Canada, you could get it in your.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Teeth, including deep into the woods of Idaho.
Speaker 4 (38:57):
They're up in a place called Hayden leg That's where
rich Butler's compound is. Robert Matthews is the have It Butler,
of course, was a spiritual head. They were recruiting for
this nucleus of people that are willing to do the job.
He gets Bruce, Carl Pearce, they get David Lane, Richard's Katari.
They bring all these people together. Berg he's on the
(39:18):
night show. So he gets Richard Butler on and he
takes them home to understand how he operated. He didn't like,
well that's not true, or that's not true. He just
went into them like he could do so. Hiding away
listening in Idaho that night was that team. And I
believe I don't know this, but I believe that was
(39:40):
the night that they decide they're going to kill.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Him, and they easily found more help.
Speaker 7 (39:48):
Unbeknownst to the others, Bob had a Paramore. She was
out in Colorado now. Her mother was a committed follower
of Matthews. Was like she was in love with him herself.
She was just so dedicated to helping Bob. She says,
let me go to Denver. I'll live there and I'll
(40:09):
follow him every day from the moment he leaves his
house until he gets back at night. Bob says, okay,
she does an excellent job of it. She couldn't tell
them everything he does when he leaves the house. When
he comes back, She's got it all laid out.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Alan had no idea of the plot being mounted against him.
He kept on facing off against extremists, interviewing figures like
Richard Butler, Jack Moore, and David Duke.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
He did it in the way that it was performance art.
Everything that he did was about the show. The show
was everything Shakespeare, you know, plays the thing, and that's
who he was.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
For Alan, these guys were part of the act.
Speaker 4 (40:55):
They were foils. He wanted people to call up and
argue with him. He wanted people to haiti because he
knew that was ratings. We're killing we're making money.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
That's all but counted and through it all, Peter and
Alan kept to their daily rhythm. They talk every morning
before shows, plan dinner and trade notes. Then one Monday
in June of nineteen eighty four, the men talked on
the phone and made a plan to go out.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
We were going to have dinner. Judy Burg, his ex wife,
was in town and my son's playing low leg So
I said, my son's got a game, and he said, well,
Judy's in town. I got to take care of her.
And I said, well, love you man, We'll do it
tomorrow night. He said, I love you too. We never spoke
with him again.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
The same evening that Allan and Peter talked on the phone,
three men had traveled hundreds of miles heading to Colorado.
Speaker 7 (41:51):
Bob gets to Denver. He's got with him Richard's guitari,
his recruit out of the Covenants, sword and Arm of
the Lord. He has Bruce Carroll Pierce with him. Pierce
is going to be a charge of assassinations. I mean,
he's got David Lane with him, and they've got a
mac tin fully automatic weapon.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
They positioned themselves in the shadows just off the driveway
and waited in silence.
Speaker 7 (42:19):
They're set up and they're waiting in the dark for
Alan Berger. When he comes in. He just chopped and
picked up a few things and he comes up in
his folk flying parks in his spot, opens the door
and Bruce Carroll Pearce walks up and shoots him, and
he hits him thirteen times with his mac tin. The
gun jammed on the fourteenth throne. Alan Berg is on
(42:41):
the ground, multiple bullet rooms. He's dead.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Within minutes, Allan's body was discovered and across town, Peter
was awoken by the call you.
Speaker 4 (42:53):
He said, sit up, and I remember sending up in
bed and he said Alan's gone. I said what, and
he said, Alan's dead. He's been murdered. Turn on your TV.
And I turned on and was on Channel four and
they were live on Adams Street, back behind the police barricades.
And there's that now legendary picture of the Volkswagen, the
(43:15):
car door opened, groceries spread out, his body lying there,
pull the blood around his body, and he was dead.
Speaker 7 (43:24):
This is big, big news in Colorado. It's kind of
big news around the country. Bummy, it's huge in Denver.
Everybody's talking about it.
Speaker 11 (43:36):
Alan Berg called himself the man you love to hate,
a distinction which may have ultimately cost him his life.
The Denver radio talk show host was gunned down at
point blank range outside his home Monday night.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
The quest for answers was just beginning.
Speaker 4 (43:52):
People start pounding on my door and it was a
Channel nine film crew. They wanted to do interviews and
talk to me, and I remember just being like, this
isn't true, this isn't real.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Initially there were no suspects.
Speaker 4 (44:08):
When asked who killed him, one of the Denver murder
detectives took a Denver phone book and throw it on
the table and said, pick a name.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Alan's colleague Ken Hamblin broke the news to their listeners.
Speaker 10 (44:22):
Everybody's at the scene right now and as soon as
we can get an update on what has occurred, will
pass it along to you.
Speaker 5 (44:30):
Ten forty two on a.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Very very very.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Blue evening, the city of Denver was left reeling.
Speaker 5 (44:39):
Oh boy, you are on Kowa.
Speaker 8 (44:42):
HI could even to hammer.
Speaker 6 (44:45):
That news just sucked me.
Speaker 8 (44:47):
I could not believe what I heard.
Speaker 10 (44:50):
I can't believe how low people will go, the anger
and arranging me for that person that did that thing.
Speaker 11 (44:59):
To him to burn.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yeah, it's hard to explain it.
Speaker 4 (45:08):
I know how you feel.
Speaker 5 (45:10):
Thanks for calling okay.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
To Alan's friends, it was surreal.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
And it's a shock.
Speaker 10 (45:19):
I wish this were a misguided broadcast of Boston Wells
War of the World's because then it would be a
big hoax and we'd be all able to say April fool.
Speaker 4 (45:32):
But it's not even April.
Speaker 5 (45:37):
It's tonight. When I said that the man is intrinsically
evil and good is impressed upon him, I was told
that I was too cynical. I'm still cynical, and I've
got one less friend.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
In the same breath that he mourned his friend and colleague,
Ken Hamblin turned his rage towards the people responsible.
Speaker 4 (46:01):
Somebody out there.
Speaker 6 (46:02):
I know I can feel your presence listening to Koa
to feel the result of your handiwork. You're a loser man,
you're talk show host or a diamond dozen. If allen
Berg was anything before you blew him away, he was nothing,
and you made him immortal. You made him a part
(46:23):
of me, and you gave value to everything that ever
justified your sick act.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
Tonight, to Alan's assassins, his death was divine fulfillment.
Speaker 7 (46:35):
They acknowledged that this was under the power of God,
because he's honoring the original formation of thirteen States, thirteen
rounds in the weapons gym. They're pushing everything toward this
concept that God is looking after them.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
But in their eyes, even science from above came with instructions.
The gun had served its purpose and now it needed
to disappear.
Speaker 7 (47:04):
Bob tells Pierce to give this weapon to Yarborough and
have Yarborough destroy it. So Pierce does give the gun
to Yarbrough when they get back.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
That night, Alan Berg became a mortal to one group,
a symbol of freedom of speech, and to another a
catalyst for white nationalist revolution. Soon, law enforcement would discover
that Alan's death was a doorway to a wider conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Next time on Law and Order Criminal Justice System.
Speaker 7 (47:42):
The Order is a group that was formed by Bob Matthews.
They want to kill all the Jews and take over
the United States.
Speaker 9 (47:53):
What Beam did was really to promote this idea that
anyone and everyone could get involved. In the movie, don't
wait for someone to come to you, start your own militia.
Speaker 7 (48:03):
Bob Matthews will not surrender. We decided to bring helicopters in.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Matthews opened up on the helicopter with his ar fifteen
Law and Order Criminal Justice System is a production of
Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts. Our host is Anna Sega Nicolaze.
The show was written by Cooper Mall, Executive produced by
(48:30):
Dick Wolf, Elliot Wolf and Stephen Michael at Wolf Entertainment
on behalf of iHeart Podcasts. Executive producers Trevor Young and
Matt Frederick, with supervising producer Chandler Mays and producer Jesse Funk.
This season is executive produced by Anna Sega Nicolazi. Our
(48:51):
researchers are Luke Stantz and Carolyn Tolmage. Editing and sound
designed by Trevor Young and Jesse Funk. Original met music
by John O'Hara, original theme by Mike Post with additional
music by Steve Moore and additional voice over by me
Steve Zernkelton. Special thanks to Fox five in New York
(49:13):
for providing archival material for the show. For more podcasts
from My Heart in Wolf Entertainment, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. Thanks
for listening.
You're listening to Law and Order Criminal Justice System, a
production of Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts. This episode contains
discussions of sensitive topics including violence, hate, crimes, and the
use of discriminatory language and slurs. Listener discretion as advised.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
In the Criminal Justice System. Landmark trials transcend the courtroom
to reshape the law. The brave many women who investigate
and prosecute these cases are part of a select group
that is defined American history. These are their stories. June eighteenth,
nineteen eighty four, nine forty five pm, Denver, Colorado.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
It was a warm Monday evening in a quiet Denver neighborhood.
The streets were still and porch lights glowed. A black
Volkswagen Beetle pulled into the driveway of a home to
beneath the trees. The driver stepped out, arms full of
groceries and a back of dog food. Radio host Alan
Berg had just wrapped another night on the air. It
(01:11):
was a regular end to a routine day. But then
as Alan got out of his car, he realized he
wasn't alone. Three men were waiting in the dark. One
emerged from the shadows, stepped forward and opened fire. Thirteen
rounds rang out before the weapon jammed. This had all
(01:32):
the markings of a targeted hit.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Then police have confirmed that longtime Caaway radio talk showst
allen Berg was shot and killed tonight in downtown Denver.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
The execution of fifty year old Alan Berg felt anything
but random. Detective linked the murder weapon to a white
supremacist group called the Aryan Nations that's based in Idaho.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Berg, who was Jewish, was an outspoken.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Critic of racism and anti Semitism, calling himself the man
you love to hate to receive numerous death threats on
his talk show. What seemed like a single act of
violence would soon be revealed as the opening move in
a larger plot to alter the course of the nation.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
I got a call, get out to LaGuardia Airport. There's
been a bombing.
Speaker 6 (02:27):
There was a thirty two foot crater in front of
what was left of the building.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I was trying to figure out, am I dead? Am
I alive?
Speaker 7 (02:32):
Where am I?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I'm Anethega Nicolazzi.
Speaker 8 (02:35):
That's why terrorism works.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
It doesn't care who you are.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts, this is lawn order
criminal justice system as a result of the fatal bombings
in the nineteen seventies, like the ones at Francis Tavern
and LaGuardia Airport, terrorism was rising in the public conscious.
(03:00):
It had shifted from political protests and property damage to
something deadly, and the threat was growing.
Speaker 9 (03:08):
Two new movements were really starting to emerge in the
United States. These were parallel movements that had a lot
of synergies. One was the modern white power movement, in
the others the modern paramilitary militia movement.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
This swing in the pendulum is exactly the kind of
thing terrorism researcher Michael Jensen tracts white.
Speaker 9 (03:29):
Power, white supremacist organizations, militia of patriot groups, also Christian nationalists.
These were much more violent organizations than their left wing predecessors.
They believed that they had to do whatever it would
take to achieve their goals, and that meant killing innocent
people if necessary.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
The roots of domestic extremism weren't planted overnight. They grew
slowly in the margins and were fertilized by anger. Often
at the center of these movements were men with the
shared past US combat veterans just back from Vietnam.
Speaker 9 (04:05):
These individuals coming home. They were deeply, deeply upset and
angered over the war in Vietnam itself. They believed that
the reason the US did not prevail in that war
was because politicians really prevented them from winning the war.
They wouldn't let them do what it was going to
take to win, and therefore they came home as losers,
(04:26):
as subjects of defeat in that battle. They also came
home to a public that wasn't very welcoming. There was
a lot of protests that were targeted specifically at the
veteran community. They really felt persecuted by their fellow citizens
upon their.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Arrival, and the world they came back to wasn't how
they had left it.
Speaker 9 (04:46):
They felt that while they were away fighting this war,
they were really losing the country that they were fighting
on behalf of from racial justice, the establishment of abortion
rights to beginning influxes of illegal immigration along the southern border,
there were a lot of things changing in the country
that they did not like.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Quietly, in compounds and training camps, those grievances began to
take shape.
Speaker 9 (05:13):
They began to organize inform groups that really aimed at
overthrowing the federal government completely, changing a system that had
arisen while they were gone off fighting in Vietnam. These
groups were very, very active in more rural locations throughout
the United States. Idaho in particular was a real hub.
(05:36):
Aryan Nations had their compound there.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
The Aryan Nations was a Neo Nazi group that was
gaining traction and was founded by a man named Richard Butler.
And in the summer of nineteen eighty three they caught
the attention of a particular FBI agent.
Speaker 7 (05:53):
My name is Wayne Mannus.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Wayne is the kind of guy who doesn't take much downtime.
Speaker 7 (06:00):
On January the thirty first, nineteen sixty six, I was
sworn into the FBI as a special agent. There was
less than a sixty day period between the time I
left the Marine Corps and entered the FBI.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
And he was always a man with a plan.
Speaker 7 (06:19):
I was in a sociology class and I remember the
professor said, tonight, decide five things you want in life,
and then tomorrow we'll talk about it. Well, my five
things I told him was I wanted to have a
good wife, children, I wanted to be the Marine Corps,
(06:41):
and I wanted to be an FBI agent. And I
wanted someday to own a big ranch.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Where are you on those five things today?
Speaker 7 (06:48):
I got them all?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Now that's pretty good, right.
Speaker 7 (06:52):
Yeah, it's pretty amazing, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
What Wayne was taught back in the Marines helped shape him.
Speaker 7 (07:00):
The Marine Corps teaches you the importance of others. Your
life depends on the guy next to you that forces you.
When you're going through life, you start looking for the
people that you feel are loyal and honest and worthwhile
for companionship. At the Marine Corps concept never surrender, never
(07:21):
give up, never quit.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Wayne lived the motto and also carried it into his investigations.
Speaker 7 (07:29):
There was no end to the day. I would leave
home and think I was coming back maybe late that night.
I didn't come back for two weeks. You couldn't afford
to have any personal life or take any time off.
You had to be married to it, and you had
to travel with it.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Those all consuming cases had a way of landing on
his desk, and they matched the way he worked.
Speaker 7 (07:53):
Most agents they have one hundred and ten minutes a
day over time. That's compulsory. I seldom stopped at that.
When you hit a case like the order, it was
pretty much necessary for me to put in twelve hour days.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Little did Wayne know he was about to embark on
one of the most demanding and dangerous cases of his career.
It was November nineteen eighty three and an opportunity arrived
smack dab in the middle of America's heartland.
Speaker 7 (08:26):
There was an opening in Cordelaine, Idaho that was a
one man office that was just ideal for me.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
It felt like a dream come true.
Speaker 7 (08:36):
I really wanted to end up in Montana or Idaho
because I was an outdoorsman. I was a cowboy from
the time I was a kid, and I thought, well,
when I want to relax a little bit, maybe that
would be a good place for me to go. Didn't
(08:58):
work that way, I'll tell you.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Despite the idyllic scenery of northern Idaho, relaxation would have
to wait. On the way to his new post, Wayne
was given an assignment.
Speaker 7 (09:10):
The Special Agent in George had been hearing rumors that
there might be criminal activity connected with this group called
the Area in Nations, which was near that particular office
of Court A Lane, Idaho, to see if I could
determine if that organization was really connected to any significant
(09:30):
criminal activity or of these were just rumors.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Wayne didn't sit back and wait for a lead to
land on his desk. He made the first move.
Speaker 7 (09:40):
I thought, maybe the best way to get started is
I'll just call the head of the organization, Richard Butler,
and I was asking if he would come down of
the office let's talk.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I just raised my eyebrows because I was just about
to ask you, like, how does an office of one
start to investigate the area nation? But I guess you
just answered it. You call up ahead of it and
ask him to come on down.
Speaker 7 (10:00):
Yeah. Yeah, I just called them up. I said, I'm
a new agent here. I've been hearing things about your organization.
Some of them don't sound too good. Would you come
down and let's talk. I'd like to learn all about
your organization? And he said yes.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
There were no subpoenas or threats, just a quiet conversation
across a desk. And what Butler shared was bold, to
say the.
Speaker 7 (10:25):
Least, they found nothing wrong with counterfeiting because the government
counterfeited money. He said, the money that's printed out of
the government has no real value. There's no gold or
silver backing it. It's just an arbitrary amount of money
(10:47):
that's printed.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
But it wasn't just economic theory and anti government sentiment.
Well Butler laid out was an entire worldview, deeply distorted,
one that blurred theology and hate into a justification for violence.
Speaker 7 (11:04):
He went into what's called the identity concept. This concept
was actually conceived of and printed in eighteen seventy one.
They say that when the lost tribes of Israel were
traveling over the Caucasus Mountains, they picked up the name Caucasian,
(11:24):
and that the true Israelites spoken of in the Bible,
these people are not really Jews, and that the Caucasian
races represent the tribes of Israel. And when they traveled
over the Caucasus Mountains and they settled into Europe, each
of the European countries was a tribe of Israel. So
(11:47):
they believe there can't be a second coming of Jesus
Christ until the Jews are eliminated from the face of
the earth.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
But it was more than fringe ideology. Central to their
cause was a belief that Jews and non whites were
to blame for every ill they claimed to suffer. Wayne
carefully listened to Butler, gathering intelligence and potentially evidence, and
in Butler's mind, Wayne wasn't a threat.
Speaker 7 (12:15):
He was convinced that I was a potential convert. As
he was leaving, he said, perhaps you'd like to join
us one day we could talk again. I told him myself,
I'm very much interested in talking to you again. I
don't know if he was playing me, or I was
playing him, or we were both playing each other, but
I learned a great deal in that conversation.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
The official assignment was merely to evaluate the Aryan nations
and determine if they were a group worth pursuing. And
after that first sit down with Butler, Wayne knew that
they were, to the point that he decided to make
them his sole focus.
Speaker 7 (12:55):
I just felt like there was more than I was hearing,
and my curio was peaked.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
What he didn't yet know was that he was actually
watching the early formation of a broader insurgency, and he
had no teammates to help.
Speaker 7 (13:11):
And I'm alone. My family's not with me. I have
no friends and no associates, and I'm living at the
Corterlane Resort Hotel. So what am I going to do? Work?
There's no reason to do anything else, And that's what
I did. I worked, worked every day every night.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Out of a twelve y fourteen office in rural Idaho,
Wayne started building what would become a case against one
of the deadliest domestic terrorist organizations in America, and even
he didn't know just how far it would go. Luckily
for Wayne, there was someone already watching the group, Larry Broadbent.
Speaker 7 (13:52):
He was the under sheriffs here. Larry was an intelligent,
polite quiet by a big guy, and he had to
taking it on himself before I ever got there to
look into the Area Nations. He had informants.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Larry had spent years trying to sound the alarm.
Speaker 7 (14:11):
So I went over and sit down with Larry, and
when I told him I was going to work this,
he says, I am so thankful that you're here and
that you have an interest that you're going to do something,
and he gave me a wealth of information on people
affiliated with the Area Nations.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
For the first time since arriving at Idaho, Wayne wasn't alone.
Speaker 7 (14:34):
Larry had become my one and only trusted source of
information at that particular time.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Wayne dug into the investigation with a few names in
a possible location, and without backup, he set off on
his own.
Speaker 7 (14:52):
I pinpointed where the area Nations was located, and it
was isolated in the mountains. After dark, I would drive.
I've emparked the car about a mile from the compound.
I had figured the compass asthmath that would take me
to the compound. So I'd walked the compass asthmath until
I hit the barbed wire, crawled through the wire, and
(15:15):
then through the bushes. I would work my way down
until I could get within visual sight of the compound,
and I'd sit through the night and watch the activity.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Night after night he gathered information.
Speaker 7 (15:31):
I would take license numbers when I could get them.
They had a platform out there, and they had a loudspeaker,
and they would have a like an outdoor service. I
would see people passing by with shoulder arms in uniforms,
and I'd be close enough I could actually hear their conversations.
Because I was in thick brush, I was hearing commentary
(15:53):
on Jews and a lot of hate talk. I was
here and talk about the future of the Aryan Nations.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
What Wayne was hearing was the core of Aryan Nations
belief system, a militant gospel of white supremacy cloaked in
religion They preached that Jews controlled the government what they
called the Zionist Occupation Government or ZOG, and that erace
war was coming, not only inevitable, but wholly. In their eyes,
(16:23):
violence was a divine duty.
Speaker 7 (16:26):
Being a marine, I was used to traveling through terrain cautiously,
and I came up on a tripwire. The trip wire
was very tut and I traced it down that I
saw where it would have set off in alarm. So
I had to be really careful after that.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
And tripwire wasn't the only problem for Wayne.
Speaker 7 (16:49):
Then they had a fellow that would patrol the perimeter
of the property with a German shepherd big I mean
this is like AE hundred pounds dollar maybe one hundred
and twenty pounds. And he would stop at a point
up above me and he would throw pine cones and
the dog was runn to get the pine cones and
bring them back, and they would play that way. And well,
(17:10):
one night he came through and the wind was blowing
just enough in the direction from me to him. The
dog picked up my scent and the dog growled and
ran barking toward me. And when the dog got to me,
I picked up a pine cone and I threw it
out of the bushes back towards where the guard was,
(17:32):
and he ran and he got the pine cone, brought
it back one time, and I threw another one, and
then he ran up and then the guy that was
walking with him called him to him. That was a
hard stopper.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
For the moment Wayne was still invisible. The surveillance gave
Wayne a first hand look at the group's rhetoric and rituals.
It was clear to him how dangerous they were, but
he didn't yet have any proof of actual crimes that
(18:07):
would allow law enforcement to act. So he went back
to the names Larry Broadbent had given him and started
knocking on doors.
Speaker 7 (18:16):
And I began to develop information that definitely indicated that
there was either people within the group that were committing
crimes or there were people in the group that felt
that they should be doing Then one of them said
that he'd actually seen counterfeit money that was printed at
(18:37):
the church. That was a good strong bite right there.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Then Larry gave him another name.
Speaker 7 (18:45):
His name was Gary Yarbro. He had served in the
Arizona State prison system for a crime of violence, and
while in prison, he belonged to the area in Brotherhood,
which is a prison group of white violent prisoners.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Gary Yarborough would prove to be important. He was a
bridge between the movement and something even darker that Wayne
suspected was operating beneath it. While Wayne was listening through
the trees and knocking on doors in Idaho, a different
kind of operation was unfolding hundreds of miles away in
Washington State. It didn't have a name yet, but it
(19:22):
had a plan and a leader, Bob Matthews.
Speaker 7 (19:27):
Bob is a very intelligent and in his own mind,
he was a very strong patriots. He loved this country
and he felt he do what had to be done
and he would take martyrs to bring it back to
where it was at the time the Constitution was first
formed and signed.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Matthews had a dark vision for an alternate America, a
country for whites only, and they need lots of money
to try and make it happen.
Speaker 7 (20:00):
Doing surveillances out at the church, Bob tells him, we
have got to raise big money and the only way
to do that is through criminal activity. To show his earnestness,
in December of nineteen eighty three, Bob walks into a
bank in Seattle and he robs the bank. He got
(20:22):
away with something over two thousand dollars. Certainly not much,
you know, but he believes that God was directing him,
and God was on his side.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Matthew's crew graduated from cash registers to couriers. What started
as a solo act was evolving into something more ambitious.
Speaker 7 (20:43):
Bob tells him it's up to us. So two of
the guys they rob a schooney's cash career. It's a
truck stop, and they robbed the courier when he comes
to pick up money. There's one gunshot in that, but
nobody's hurt and they get away with it free.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
The first heist was fast, clean and quiet, and most importantly,
it worked. It was January now, a new year, nineteen
eighty four, and for Matthew's crew, a new kind of resolution,
go bigger or go home.
Speaker 7 (21:18):
A couple of weeks later after getting away with that,
were the same two people rob a bank in Eastern Spoken.
They get away with four thousand something dollars plus what
they got from schoonies.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
The second robbery netted even more, and what began as
isolated stick ups was starting to look like the funding
of an infrastructure.
Speaker 7 (21:40):
This money's all going into a pot. These are robberies
being conducted for an organization. We're now starting to format
a group, which is kind of necessary. If you're looking
at Errico statues.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
The crimes weren't just stacking up. They were scaling up.
By spring. They were testing the limits of what they
could pull off.
Speaker 7 (22:03):
In March of nineteen eighty four, unbeknownst to me, four
of them get together. They go to Seattle. They hit
a cash career from a Continental armored truck as it's
coming out of the fred Meyer store, and on this
one they get about forty thousand dollars. They've just robbed
an armored truck. So now they're starting to lay out
(22:28):
a track with a plan, something that works.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
What Wayne didn't know, what no one knew, was that
this wasn't just a crime spree. It was a war
chest in the making. Until March of nineteen eighty four,
the robberies in Washington didn't feel connected to the group
in Idaho. But then Wayne saw the headlines an armored
truck hit in Seattle, and something clicked.
Speaker 7 (22:52):
What I see about it in the paper, I wonder
if that could be these guys it's pretty unusual for
an armored truck to be robbed.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Right then came the break, a photograph of a face
Wayne recognized.
Speaker 7 (23:08):
Larry pulled a photograph from the bank robberies in January.
I take that photograph and I identify. I can't say positively,
but I'll say I'm ninety percent convinced That'scury Yarbrough, who's
a member of the area in Nation.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
The same name given by the informant was now pictured
at the scene, a face linking the group to a crime.
That's when the group's leader popped up on Wayne's radar.
Speaker 7 (23:37):
I discussed that with Larry Broadbn and he said, you know,
there's a guy that's been very prolific. He doesn't live
around here, but his name is Bob Matthews. So I
pulled all the information I could find on Bob Matthews
and his photograph. I saw that he was a charismatic personality.
(23:58):
He really needed more attention.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Bob Matthews seemed to be more than just a member
of the group. It was like he was leading it
and growing it.
Speaker 7 (24:09):
It's April nineteen eighty four. I'm making some little progress,
but this group is going full tilt. Since they hit
forty thousand on that armored car robbery. They now have
pulled together a few more people in the group and
they're going to go back and do another armored car robbery.
(24:30):
Yarborough again, the guy with the criminal record. He comes
up with the idea. He says, you know, we need
to divert all the police to the other side of town.
I'll build a bomb and I'll put it in this
porn theater on the other side of town. So he does,
and on April twenty second, the bomb goes off inside
(24:50):
the corn theater. The cops come from everywhere.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Not even twenty four hours later, they were at it again.
Speaker 7 (24:58):
The next day, on April twenty third. They've been surveilling
this armored truck and they know just exactly when they
want to take it down. They put a phone call
into the police department and say, we got another bomb
in the theater. And there is no bomb in the theater.
It's just a diversionary tactic to get the cops all
over there. They hit the armored truck, and they hit
(25:20):
it big time. Weapons drawn. They even made up a
fake bazouka and it looked like a bazooka, and this
time they get close to a quarter million.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Once again, the heist had worked, but Matthews was out
for more than cash. He also wanted soldiers.
Speaker 7 (25:40):
He's elated, He's very proud of his people, but he
knows he's got to have a lot more to finance
the organization. He's got to have an army. So he
gets involved in recruiting.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Calling from old hate groups and prison gangs.
Speaker 7 (25:57):
He's off in the Philadelphia recruit He's down in the
South into Arkansas. He's in California. He's recruiting people from
the q clarks Klan, the National Alliance, and he provides
some counterfeit money to these people so they could pass
the counterfeit money there.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
He was drawing from a rolodex that have been building
since Vietnam One that fused armed separatism with hate. His
goal was revolution. He wanted to topple the government he called
the Zionist Occupation and create a white homeland by force.
But as the organization grew, Matthew struggled to maintain control
(26:39):
of his people. Eventually, the sloppiness of two put the
entire organization at risk.
Speaker 7 (26:47):
This money that was printed, they're passing this counterfeit money
in the mall. Bruce Carrol Pierce gets caught and now
has a court date. And one of the guys he
gave calfit money too, up and around Philadelphia was a
guy named Tom Martinez. And then Tom Martinez gets caught
with counterfeit money.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
It was a mistake that had consequences, and Bob Matthews
took it personally.
Speaker 7 (27:15):
He's now really angry that the guys have done something
that might have caused him to get arrested.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
But the misstep didn't stop him. Instead, he accelerated because
now he had more than money, he had manpower.
Speaker 7 (27:30):
Bob has got his army for him. That's in the
number of twenty one dedicated people, and there's three or
four to come yet. And with the money they bought
the bisophisticated weaponry and explosives.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Money wasn't the only goal anymore now it was also revenge.
Speaker 7 (27:54):
Bob tells him, we've got some scores to sell them
right now. Is an obnoxious show out in Denver, and
he's a very popular radio talk show guy. He's got
hundreds of thousands of followers. This guy's got to be
done away with.
Speaker 9 (28:23):
Fifty thousand wa Koaight News Talk eighty five is presenting
the ellen Burg program called eight six' one Talk.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Alan Berg on CAAWEIT News Talk eighty five. Don't forget
right after one thirty news. We have callers on the line.
We have one line open right now, so get out
on the line. It's gonna be a fun afternoon. But
I really get rolling right after the one thirty news.
That was some tapes.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
I mean, he never came in dull. Once and his.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Wife, Peter Boyle, sat across from Denver talk radio host
Alan Burke almost every day four years.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
Friend of mine at a talk station, and he called
me up and he said, do you ever think about
doing talk radio? I needed morning talk shows and I
wanted to get away from the insanity. Kaylee k was station.
We were as a country station, and so I quit.
At the time, Tuck was really relegated to little old
ladies calling up. I remember pulling away from the station
(29:15):
and they were all outside saying, we'll go talk to
the little old ladies, see you later. And I went
to KWBZ and it was the only Denver talk station
at the time. That's where I met.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Berg, Peter and Allen eventually moved stations and landed at
Denver's KOA little did he know what he was getting
into and just how far Alan was willing to take it.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
He walked in cold hit that seat. He did shows
like white people get tanned because they really want to
be black, stuff to make people nuts. He was radio's
professional wrestler. Well, why don't you tell us about some
of the shows that you've done that stand out in
your memory?
Speaker 3 (29:58):
I think the most continuing saga, if we could call
it that, it's been a show I came up with
the idea some eight years ago and have an idea
about sun tanning and the recent people didn't like themselves white,
or they really didn't like themselves white, maybe secretly wanting
to be black. That show has been a continued craziness
for the last eight years. I've shifted the way in
which I've done that show, but I do it every year.
If I'll be doing it probably in the next few weeks
(30:19):
as the sun, you know, comes out and burns the bodies.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Alan Berg was always pushing the limits of what live
radio could get away with, one of the original shock jocks,
but not everyone loved the act.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Killed me ye, so you're on CHOA.
Speaker 8 (30:35):
I guess I agree with the man that was on
the phone with the premier hood. But maybe you got
something you care to present instead of just encircling, so
I probably do I try.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Okay, I'm going to go.
Speaker 9 (30:44):
There was an elderly gentleman named Edward.
Speaker 8 (30:47):
Called the man I called an idiot, and he certainly
was an idiot. Go ahead, well, idiot, you know someone
that has no brain at all? And I feel that
well sometimes the way the people act and doing wrestling
with him, I'm not sure anybody does.
Speaker 7 (31:02):
Have a brain.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Talk radio was still raw in those days. There was
no call screening or delay buntons, just a live mic
and whatever came through the line. When Peter stepped into it,
he was joining a medium that felt more like the
wild West.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
We were all learning this business. Remember this is at
a time when talk radio is burgeoning. Rush Limbaugh hasn't
shown up yet. We're Cowboy and the John, and here
he is. Probably had no business being in the business,
but he changes the business. We were learning under fire.
It was like a war.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
And the more time the two men spent together, the
more Peter realized Alan was unique a disbarred attorney from Chicago,
Alan wound his way into radio. He was always one
provocation away from turning a calm conversation into a brawl.
Speaker 5 (32:00):
Together.
Speaker 10 (32:01):
Go ahead, and we listened to all day.
Speaker 9 (32:04):
We think they're just a big bag of win down here?
Speaker 8 (32:06):
Why is that?
Speaker 7 (32:07):
Oh? People? That? What is it?
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Would you care to challenge to point them of mind
and make a presentation on him? You just want to
sam a bag of win?
Speaker 8 (32:17):
Well, well give me an example. So you're going nowhere?
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Okay, okay, okay, Well I guess you got nowhere to go.
Well I did that one killed me lying, So you're
on KOA.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
Keep us him up inside. It wasn't the guy that
was on air. The guy that was on air, I
think I always thought he was in a courtroom of
some kind.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
I lost someoney will come in here and say he stinks. Okay,
so what do you mean he stinks? What is that
based upon? See? Now you're making them think, and most
people really don't want to think. They have no facts.
They're like sheep. They pick up an idea. The Republicans
are great, the Democrats are great. Never one saying well,
wait a minute, let me examine this. What are they
really doing? They have no information. They buy a president
the same way they back to his paste.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
He was flamboyant. He came on and I said in
his eulogy he was the greatest professional wrestler that I
ever worked with in radio. He knew the right buttons
to push.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
That was the Alan Berg people tuned in for. If
he didn't like what someone said or their views, he
definitely let them know it. And he was anything but PC.
And sometimes it was less of an interview than a takedown,
like the time Alan blew a gasket when he disagreed
with the perspective of one of his callers.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Well, Elan, do you want to answer the questions or not?
Speaker 8 (33:36):
I wanted to calm down and I'll explain it.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
It's very hard to calm down based on what you said.
But go ahead, Sarah.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
You're acting like a pig.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Oh there, you're a pathetic human being. You know what
you are? One of the most vile human beings to
walk up to a human being. And how much is
are you Jewish? Are you?
Speaker 8 (33:51):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Okay, I'm Jewish. I'm ashamed that you belong to my
people and I'm sure most Jewish in his country are.
You are the slime of the Yark County. So if
you will, baby, why don't you so many for defamation?
You dig it, I'm gonna you're a creepswaiting anyway. Eight
six one talk eight six one eight two five. I
I want your reaction, certainly, if you think I was
rude to her, you tell me that I was. We'll
(34:12):
come back after this.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Alan knew how to provoke and rubbed a lot of
people the wrong way. But despite his on air persona,
Peter saw a very different man when Alan stepped away
from the mic, quieter, self, reflective, and somewhat mysterious.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
I kid myself so endlessly. That's painful. It's a defense
mechanism for me. I kid myself because I really don't
want you to know how badly I feel about the
very things that I'm kidding myself by.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
I think it was just part of who he was,
and to this day, after all of these years, I
find myself still not really knowing who he really was.
But we were tight.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
The two became close friends and were nearly inseparable.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
We happen to have what I think, I think is
one of the really inventive, brilliant talk shows in the country.
I think the best I've ever heard of work is
my buddy Peter Boyles in the morning here in Kia.
He has the combination of being inventive and he has
a realism and he has an earthen as couple with
a great intellectuality. That is a very rare thing with
talk shows.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
We worked together beside each other every day, got together
once during the week for dinner or just to sit
and talk. We'd get a table for ten or whatever
it was, and we bring people that we knew and
we'd sit them there, but we didn't talk to them.
He and I sat together. I remember I was seeing
(35:36):
a woman and said, you see this guy every day,
you know, you talk to him all the time, and
then you had dinner with him. And that was the
way that it was.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Alan and Peter were also co conspirators in the rise
of a new kind of radio.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Now. Humor is the greatest level of communication I've ever known,
because when you and I laughed together here as a certain
we really are communicating. Because if you think it's funny
and I think it's saying something to each other, well
we're really silently agreeing.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
That's what it's about, but that philosophy wasn't shared by
all of Allan's listeners. He confronted people and hot button
topics like bigotry head on and don't forget those exchanges
were live. Some thought it made for great radio, but
it also made real enemies.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
Socrates, I think, said little boys kill frogs in sport,
the frogs die in earnest. We were just having fun
and getting ratings, and these people were taking it serious.
When we ran into Rick Elliott, that really sets this
whole thing off.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Rick Elliott was a fringe far right agitator and self
published conspiracy theorist who surfaced on Denver radio in the
early eighties. Elliott claimed in a book that Jews were
secretly plotting to take over the world. So Peter brought
him on air.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
My approached Rick Elliott was you're a damn fool. So
Berg came in behind me. He gives me the tap
on the shoulder and I killed Hi, mic what and
he said, I want this guy? He said cool. So
we get to about ten of the hour and I said,
my colleague Alan Berg's here. He would like to talk
to you next. And by this time I got this
(37:20):
guy up in the air and he said, I'll do it.
I said, all right, so berb takes him on. He
doesn't intellectualize the guy, he doesn't prove, He just rips them.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
But what they didn't realize was who else was listening.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Rick Elliott had a part time bodyguard by the name
of David Lane. David Lane is in the other room
listening on air. So what Alan did. David Lane was
a klansman, a supremacist, a golf hospeler, all wrong, dad guy.
And that was really the I think the predicator.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
To these guys. Alan wasn't just an irritant. He was
now the enemy.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
They actually gave him a name. Joseph Gerbels was the
gallighter of Nazi Germany, the propagandist and I can't think
of the word, but they invented a word Yiddish German.
Speaker 7 (38:14):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
They said, that's what Bird was, that he was doing
a gall lighter, if you would, for the zog the
Zionist occupation government, the Jews taking.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Over around that same time. The radio station gave Allen
a bigger spotlight, a shift that could open doors to
a wider fan base and potentially new adversaries.
Speaker 4 (38:38):
Alan. He was moved the Knights.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
At night, the station's signal could reach halfway across the country.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
Kowa becomes fifty thousand clear channel Watts. I mean, you
could get it in Canada, you could get it in your.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Teeth, including deep into the woods of Idaho.
Speaker 4 (38:57):
They're up in a place called Hayden leg That's where
rich Butler's compound is. Robert Matthews is the have It Butler,
of course, was a spiritual head. They were recruiting for
this nucleus of people that are willing to do the job.
He gets Bruce, Carl Pearce, they get David Lane, Richard's Katari.
They bring all these people together. Berg he's on the
(39:18):
night show. So he gets Richard Butler on and he
takes them home to understand how he operated. He didn't like,
well that's not true, or that's not true. He just
went into them like he could do so. Hiding away
listening in Idaho that night was that team. And I
believe I don't know this, but I believe that was
(39:40):
the night that they decide they're going to kill.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Him, and they easily found more help.
Speaker 7 (39:48):
Unbeknownst to the others, Bob had a Paramore. She was
out in Colorado now. Her mother was a committed follower
of Matthews. Was like she was in love with him herself.
She was just so dedicated to helping Bob. She says,
let me go to Denver. I'll live there and I'll
(40:09):
follow him every day from the moment he leaves his
house until he gets back at night. Bob says, okay,
she does an excellent job of it. She couldn't tell
them everything he does when he leaves the house. When
he comes back, She's got it all laid out.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Alan had no idea of the plot being mounted against him.
He kept on facing off against extremists, interviewing figures like
Richard Butler, Jack Moore, and David Duke.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
He did it in the way that it was performance art.
Everything that he did was about the show. The show
was everything Shakespeare, you know, plays the thing, and that's
who he was.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
For Alan, these guys were part of the act.
Speaker 4 (40:55):
They were foils. He wanted people to call up and
argue with him. He wanted people to haiti because he
knew that was ratings. We're killing we're making money.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
That's all but counted and through it all, Peter and
Alan kept to their daily rhythm. They talk every morning
before shows, plan dinner and trade notes. Then one Monday
in June of nineteen eighty four, the men talked on
the phone and made a plan to go out.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
We were going to have dinner. Judy Burg, his ex wife,
was in town and my son's playing low leg So
I said, my son's got a game, and he said, well,
Judy's in town. I got to take care of her.
And I said, well, love you man, We'll do it
tomorrow night. He said, I love you too. We never spoke
with him again.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
The same evening that Allan and Peter talked on the phone,
three men had traveled hundreds of miles heading to Colorado.
Speaker 7 (41:51):
Bob gets to Denver. He's got with him Richard's guitari,
his recruit out of the Covenants, sword and Arm of
the Lord. He has Bruce Carroll Pierce with him. Pierce
is going to be a charge of assassinations. I mean,
he's got David Lane with him, and they've got a
mac tin fully automatic weapon.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
They positioned themselves in the shadows just off the driveway
and waited in silence.
Speaker 7 (42:19):
They're set up and they're waiting in the dark for
Alan Berger. When he comes in. He just chopped and
picked up a few things and he comes up in
his folk flying parks in his spot, opens the door
and Bruce Carroll Pearce walks up and shoots him, and
he hits him thirteen times with his mac tin. The
gun jammed on the fourteenth throne. Alan Berg is on
(42:41):
the ground, multiple bullet rooms. He's dead.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Within minutes, Allan's body was discovered and across town, Peter
was awoken by the call you.
Speaker 4 (42:53):
He said, sit up, and I remember sending up in
bed and he said Alan's gone. I said what, and
he said, Alan's dead. He's been murdered. Turn on your TV.
And I turned on and was on Channel four and
they were live on Adams Street, back behind the police barricades.
And there's that now legendary picture of the Volkswagen, the
(43:15):
car door opened, groceries spread out, his body lying there,
pull the blood around his body, and he was dead.
Speaker 7 (43:24):
This is big, big news in Colorado. It's kind of
big news around the country. Bummy, it's huge in Denver.
Everybody's talking about it.
Speaker 11 (43:36):
Alan Berg called himself the man you love to hate,
a distinction which may have ultimately cost him his life.
The Denver radio talk show host was gunned down at
point blank range outside his home Monday night.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
The quest for answers was just beginning.
Speaker 4 (43:52):
People start pounding on my door and it was a
Channel nine film crew. They wanted to do interviews and
talk to me, and I remember just being like, this
isn't true, this isn't real.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Initially there were no suspects.
Speaker 4 (44:08):
When asked who killed him, one of the Denver murder
detectives took a Denver phone book and throw it on
the table and said, pick a name.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Alan's colleague Ken Hamblin broke the news to their listeners.
Speaker 10 (44:22):
Everybody's at the scene right now and as soon as
we can get an update on what has occurred, will
pass it along to you.
Speaker 5 (44:30):
Ten forty two on a.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Very very very.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Blue evening, the city of Denver was left reeling.
Speaker 5 (44:39):
Oh boy, you are on Kowa.
Speaker 8 (44:42):
HI could even to hammer.
Speaker 6 (44:45):
That news just sucked me.
Speaker 8 (44:47):
I could not believe what I heard.
Speaker 10 (44:50):
I can't believe how low people will go, the anger
and arranging me for that person that did that thing.
Speaker 11 (44:59):
To him to burn.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yeah, it's hard to explain it.
Speaker 4 (45:08):
I know how you feel.
Speaker 5 (45:10):
Thanks for calling okay.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
To Alan's friends, it was surreal.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
And it's a shock.
Speaker 10 (45:19):
I wish this were a misguided broadcast of Boston Wells
War of the World's because then it would be a
big hoax and we'd be all able to say April fool.
Speaker 4 (45:32):
But it's not even April.
Speaker 5 (45:37):
It's tonight. When I said that the man is intrinsically
evil and good is impressed upon him, I was told
that I was too cynical. I'm still cynical, and I've
got one less friend.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
In the same breath that he mourned his friend and colleague,
Ken Hamblin turned his rage towards the people responsible.
Speaker 4 (46:01):
Somebody out there.
Speaker 6 (46:02):
I know I can feel your presence listening to Koa
to feel the result of your handiwork. You're a loser man,
you're talk show host or a diamond dozen. If allen
Berg was anything before you blew him away, he was nothing,
and you made him immortal. You made him a part
(46:23):
of me, and you gave value to everything that ever
justified your sick act.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
Tonight, to Alan's assassins, his death was divine fulfillment.
Speaker 7 (46:35):
They acknowledged that this was under the power of God,
because he's honoring the original formation of thirteen States, thirteen
rounds in the weapons gym. They're pushing everything toward this
concept that God is looking after them.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
But in their eyes, even science from above came with instructions.
The gun had served its purpose and now it needed
to disappear.
Speaker 7 (47:04):
Bob tells Pierce to give this weapon to Yarborough and
have Yarborough destroy it. So Pierce does give the gun
to Yarbrough when they get back.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
That night, Alan Berg became a mortal to one group,
a symbol of freedom of speech, and to another a
catalyst for white nationalist revolution. Soon, law enforcement would discover
that Alan's death was a doorway to a wider conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Next time on Law and Order Criminal Justice System.
Speaker 7 (47:42):
The Order is a group that was formed by Bob Matthews.
They want to kill all the Jews and take over
the United States.
Speaker 9 (47:53):
What Beam did was really to promote this idea that
anyone and everyone could get involved. In the movie, don't
wait for someone to come to you, start your own militia.
Speaker 7 (48:03):
Bob Matthews will not surrender. We decided to bring helicopters in.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Matthews opened up on the helicopter with his ar fifteen
Law and Order Criminal Justice System is a production of
Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts. Our host is Anna Sega Nicolaze.
The show was written by Cooper Mall, Executive produced by
(48:30):
Dick Wolf, Elliot Wolf and Stephen Michael at Wolf Entertainment
on behalf of iHeart Podcasts. Executive producers Trevor Young and
Matt Frederick, with supervising producer Chandler Mays and producer Jesse Funk.
This season is executive produced by Anna Sega Nicolazi. Our
(48:51):
researchers are Luke Stantz and Carolyn Tolmage. Editing and sound
designed by Trevor Young and Jesse Funk. Original met music
by John O'Hara, original theme by Mike Post with additional
music by Steve Moore and additional voice over by me
Steve Zernkelton. Special thanks to Fox five in New York
(49:13):
for providing archival material for the show. For more podcasts
from My Heart in Wolf Entertainment, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. Thanks
for listening.
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