7. Don't Knock Arizona

Jon and Paul crisscross the desert, chasing clues.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
From My Heart Media. This is Missing in Alaska, the
story of two congressmen who vanished in nineteen two, and
my quest to figure out what happened to them. I'm
your host, John Wallzac. On a hot September day last year,

(00:29):
I flew from New Orleans to Phoenix, where I met
up with our supervising producer, Paul Deckant. Paul, who flew
in from Atlanta, got there before me. When I landed.
He scooped me up in a rental car. We immediately
drove toward our first interview with Jerry Paisley's daughter. To
protect her privacy, let's call her Amy. My phone buzzed.

(00:52):
It was Amy. Her son had just injured himself. She
said she was at an urgent care. Could we reschedule you?
Of course I was disappointed, but the unexpected free time
was nice. Paul and I went to dinner at a
Mexican place and plotted out the coming days. The next morning,
we met up with Tom Davis, the Arizona Department of

(01:13):
Public Safety investigator who helped interview Jerry Paisley in nineteen
seventy four. While working undercover. Davis had also secretly observed
Paisley's wedding to Peggy Baggatte. One of the key questions
I had for Davis, for everyone really, was whether or
not Paisley told the truth truth. As a society, who

(01:35):
do we choose to believe? Who do we instantly right off?
Should we believe the politician discard the inmate? Why? What
about Jerry Paisley? Specifically? I asked Tom Davis, would you
be able to tell if he was lying? What were
you looking for in terms of markers of deception for

(01:58):
each and every story? Uh, consistency number one, and Davis
said Paisley's story remained consistent. More importantly, everything Paisley said
that could be verified, Davis in fact verified, including specific
details about unsolved murders. I said, tell me something I

(02:20):
can check out, and he says, well, you remember a
supposed suicide in the Sahara. The Sahara was a Tucson motel.
He says, well, during that period of time my life,
me and Louis Marconi were running dope. Marconi, Paisley's friend
was an ex cop. And I said, okay, I said

(02:43):
what kind of dope? And he says cocaine. He said,
we dabbled in, dabbled in marijuana, but moved over to
cocaine because there was more money involved. So he goes
and tells me that they're doing cocaine, and this end
of edile that they had entrusted the cocaine to or gone.

(03:07):
He had gone out and picked up the cocaine was
back at the Saharah tried to rip him off. So
the opening of the story was that was supposed to
be a suicide. But he says, if you check with
TPD in the coroner's office, he was shot twice and

(03:30):
I said, okay, I said, now here's the flip side
of that. Did you shoot him? Yes, I shot him
twice in them out and Louis and I fought with
him in the room. Um, we got him on the bed,
I straddled him and shot him twice. Them out. Because

(03:52):
of this confession, Paisley was convicted again in murder. In court,
he was cocking and sarcastick. He thanked the jury for
stopping by and called himself quote an honest liar. Obviously
Paisley is not the most trustworthy person. Obviously he lied often,
but he also told the truth at least part of

(04:14):
the time. In fact, telling the truth is what earned
him a second murder conviction. So if Paisley lied about
Peggy Baggette meeting with Joe Banano, if he lied about
Banano Lieutenant Joe I. Tarola giving him a locked briefcase
to carry to Alaska, if he lied about Danny z
Ivenach telling him the briefcase contained high tech explosives and

(04:35):
that the missing congressman had been assassinated. Why why would
he lie? What did he have to gain? The most
obvious answer typically would be that he wanted some kind
of leniency, time taken off his sentence, something like that.
But he was already serving a long sentence for murder.
He had no chance of getting out. And not only

(04:56):
did he not receive leniency, but because he spoke, he
was also convicted of a second murder, which earned him
an even longer sentence. What then about money? Paisley made
no money from this fame. Paisley made no concerted effort
to talk to the media. What then about Peggy Beggatt.
Did Paisley just hate her? Did he want to get

(05:18):
revenge again? There's no evidence of this. Paisley and Peggy
were long divorced, and in the interview, Paisley was ambiguous
about Peggy's role in the alleged plot. He questioned whether
or not she even understood what she had gotten herself into.
What about notoriety or some kind of legacy. It's true
that Paisley wanted to be remembered for his mob ties.

(05:40):
It was undoubtedly a better look than his prison affiliation
with the Aran Brotherhood. But what notoriety did he gain?
So Paisley got no time taken off his sentence, he
was convicted of a second murder, He made no money
from his claims, he got no media, he didn't seem
to have some boiling atrid to peggy baggage, And he

(06:01):
gained no notoriety and told this show, And for that,
I'm truly sorry. I don't cherish the idea of giving
Paisley what he wanted at all, but I don't really
care what he wanted. I care about the truth, And
to that end, all three of the investigators who interviewed
Paisley think there's at least a strong possibility that he

(06:24):
did tell the truth. Furthermore, Paisley later offered to take
a polygraph or lie detector test. It is, of course
possible that Paisley just lied. Maybe there's no reason why,
maybe he just did. Beyond scrutinizing his possible motivations, I
wanted to see which parts of his story I could
definitively prove. It was tough, but during my research I

(06:47):
found evidence to corroborate much of what Paisley said, the
parts that could be corroborated. But maybe he was just
a good liar, mixing in truths and falsehoods. That's certainly possible. However,
what I improve mob ties the marriage the business dealings
has left me with an uneasy feeling and a hunger
to find the truth. Late in the evening on the

(07:11):
day I interviewed Tom Davis, I sat down in my
hotel room in Phoenix and kept digging through databases trying
to track down sources. One of the key players I
was looking for was Gene Fowler. Fowler and his brother
Larry were two of the six people Paisley named as
having played a part in whereas having knowledge of the
alleged bomb plot. Three of the six were dead. Joe Banano,

(07:33):
Joeya Tarola, and Larry Fowler to refuse to talk with me.
Peggy Beggett and Danny z Ivanitch so that left one person,
Gene Fowler. I had looked for Jean for a long
time without success. I can't tell you how many dead
end numbers and emails I tried again and again. Maybe
this Gene Fowler is the right one, Maybe this number

(07:55):
will work. Be completed as did the number and dial again.
So that night I shot off some emails, then fell asleep.
Around two or three am September two, nineteen, I awoke

(08:34):
to a surprise email. I found Jean Fowler, but it
wasn't Jeane who emailed me back. It was his son, Steve.
Steve was cautious, but he agreed to meet with us
later that day at his house near Tucson. Excited, I
texted Paul, our producer, and we agreed to meet downstairs
for breakfast around eight am. We had a busy day planned.

(08:55):
We were supposed to interview Amy, Paisley's daughter, and damn it,
Amy canceled on us again. She apologized, saying her family
wasn't comfortable with her doing the interview. I was disappointed,
but I told her that I understood and that if
she changed her mind to call me. I walked to
the hotel breakfast area spotted Paul and said hello, thinking

(09:18):
of Gene Fowler and are just canceled interview with Amy.
I told him I had some important news. I got
an omelet set it down on our table. But before
I could sit down, my phone buzzed again and again
and again. Today is September two thousand nineteen. Uh, Paul,

(09:40):
one of our producers, and I are at a hotel
in Phoenix, and we just went in to have breakfast. Uh.
But wow, it's but a crazy A few hours Um,
it was literally texting with Jerry Paisley's daughter, who I
was supposed to interview on Sunday, and she backed out,

(10:03):
um because she said her son was hurt. And then
I was supposed to interview today at ten am. It's
almost eight in Arizona where we are, and I was
literally texting with her and setting food down on a
table um when I got a text from Bob Martinson.

(10:23):
Bob Martinson, remember that name. He's going to be very
important to this story later on. You also told me
something I hadn't heard, which is very kind of overwhelming
and upsetting to hear at this very moment, which is
that Cokie Roberts just died. Um. Also last night, U

(10:51):
I U finally figured out where uh Gene Fowler lives.
Fowler is the man who Jerry Paisley alleged. Um it
was at the airport in nine two when Paisley says
he carried a package for the bananas to Alaska. So

(11:16):
I have all this swirling. I just walked out on Paul.
He's sitting there eating and my my foods getting cold. Um.
Really a kind of upset to hear that about COKEI
Uh family seems to be very nice family, and you
know they they lost Tommy a few years ago and
Lindy too so and and to to hear that in

(11:37):
the middle of all this, I mean, while I'm texting
with very multiple people related to this story, is it's
just weird. So I just sitting in a chair outside
in a courtyard in a hotel and Phoenix. But um,
I haven't had time to look too much to see

(11:58):
what happened. But I believe Coke he died from breast cancer,
which I didn't know she had. And I mean, I
would like to express my adults start her family. Okay,
it was overwhelming all at once. Cokey Bob, Paisley's daughter

(12:21):
Geane Fowler. I sat outside for a while and just
stared at the sky. Cokey was the last surviving child
of Hale and Lindy Boggs. I had spoken briefly to
her brother, Tommy. He agreed to do an interview, but
several days later, before we could speak, he died of
a heart attack. Coke and Tommy's sister, Barbara, the former

(12:44):
mayor of Princeton, New Jersey, was also dead. She died
of cancer, and now cancer had taken Coketo. Coke's death
hit me hard. Only ten days earlier, the day before
my birthday, my mom had gotten confirmation that she too
had breast cancer, stage four inflammatory breast cancer, a rare

(13:04):
and aggressive cancer. On top of lupus, which he's battled
for thirty years. It seemed like a death sentence. Days
before I flew to Arizona, I had flown home to
North Carolina to see her. My mom's diagnosis weighed on
me heavily. As we produced this show. I mostly kept
it quiet, but there were times I wanted to share
it with certain people, like the Baggage kids, so they

(13:25):
could see that truly, at this moment, I could, in
some way at least empathize with their loss, that I
was human too, and not just some parasitic reporter. As
of this recording, my mom has undergone chemo surgery and
physical therapy up next radiation. Also, as of this recording,
we as a world are in the middle of a

(13:46):
devastating pandemic COVID nineteen or the novel coronavirus. I always
planned to discuss loss or looming loss, or the possibility
of looming loss, but I never imagined it would be
under these circumstances. What I want to say most is
that I've felt loss or the threat of it, nearly
the entire time we've produced this show. It's been difficult

(14:08):
to work, hard to focus, but given the circumstances, given
our current global situation, I want to say this, We're
all going through collective trauma right now. It hurts. Some
of us have lost loved ones, some of us are
terrified of losing loved ones. I just want you to
know that I feel what you feel that fear, but

(14:31):
we're in this together. And for anyone out there who's scared,
who's afraid, who's depressed, who's anxious, I get it. This
is horrible, but we will get through it. Be there
for each other, love each other. We'll get through this.

(14:56):
In Arizona, Paul and I still had a very long
list of people to find, doors the knock on and
places to visit. We were about to drive to Tucson,
but before we left Phoenix, we made one final stop.
I'm standing in the parking lot of the Clarendon Hotel.
It's a hotel in Phoenix, Arizona, And on this very

(15:17):
spot on June two, x Don Bowles, who was an
investigative reporter who looked into the mafia and uh corruption
around the state of Arizona, was killed by a car bomb.
He said a few things before he died, John Adamson,
emprize and mafia, And with those clues, investigators found a

(15:38):
man named John Harvey Adamson, who was convicted of putting
a remote control bomb under bowls car. It's abnormal for
a journalist to be killed in the United States. It's
extremely abnormal for a journalist to be killed by a
car bomb. Um but car bombings happened. They happened in Arizona,
they happened in Alaska in the and I mean I've

(16:02):
read about this killing for a long time. And as
weird to stand here because it's just an average parking
lot in Phoenix, and a man was blown up here
in the seventies. In old news footage of the Bulls bombing,
you can see the exact spot where I stood, The
exact spot in the parking lot of the Clarendon Hotel

(16:24):
where Bowls was blown up. The pavement is soaked in blood.
The assassination of Bowls in ninety six enraged his colleagues.
Journalists from around the nation descended on Arizona to continue
his work, to show that if you take out one
of us, good luck, we'll dig deeper. These journalists launched
the far reaching investigation into crime and corruption that became

(16:46):
known as the Arizona Project. Good Evening, a group of newspaper,
radio and television reporters charged today that the state of
Arizona is now the major card or for narcotics into
the United States, that the state has been invaded by
organized crime, and that some of Arizona's major political figures,
including Senator Barry Goldwater, have condoned organized crimes invasion of

(17:10):
the state. The reporters took on their Arizona investigation to
finish a job started by Don Bowles, a reporter for
the Arizona Republic who was murdered nine months ago. The
investigative work was painstaking. For six months, the team probe
through public records, doing the slow, tedious, methodical work of

(17:31):
the investigative journalist. What they found in records of land
transactions and corporation documents and court documents would not have
attracted the attention of most people. What they found were
records of loans and canceled checks and request to politicians
for help on certain projects. The reporters conducted hundreds of

(17:52):
interviews and recorded many of them. They exchanged information with
law enforcement agencies. They traced the geniale g. Of the
mob families and located some of them in Arizona. At
this point, as the reporter speaks, the camera pans over
several books, including Honor Thy Father, the best seller on
the Banano Family, the same book that tied Jerry Paisley

(18:15):
to the Bananas. As the Arizona Project reporters dug deeper,
they found pervasive rot They say in their reports that
Arizona is now the major corrator for narcotics, that the
state has been invaded by organized crime, that major political
figures of the state have made an easy and profitable

(18:36):
accommodation with the underworld. The major bank in Arizona, a
large restaurant chain, the nation's foremost land swindler, corrupt law
enforcement officials all find places in their stories. If you're
curious at this point as to why I'm discussing Don
Bowles and the Arizona Project at all, how they tied

(18:59):
directly into the story of the missing congressman, let me explain. First,
both Bowls and reporters for the Arizona Project dug into
the two mob families. Jerry Paisley worked for the Bananas
and the Lick of Olie's, who were not just in
Arizona for some son. Both families were active and wielded
powerful influence in the state. Second, Bowls was killed by

(19:21):
a remote control bomb in Arizona less than four years
after the missing congressman disappeared. Less than four years after,
Jerry Paisley said he transported a bomb from Arizona to
Alaska that was allegedly used to assassinate the missing congressman. Finally,
I want to emphasize that it was a different time.
Back then, bombings were much more commonplace in the six

(19:44):
seas and seventies, and they weren't just concentrated in big cities.
They were scattered around the nation. In fact, only four
months after Bowls was killed by a car bomb in Phoenix,
a woman named Muriel File was killed by a car
bomb in Anchorage. So here in night Seen in the
span of four months are two examples of bombings that
killed people, one in Arizona and one in Alaska. Neither

(20:09):
were directly tied to Paisley. But all this to say
the idea of a small plane being bombed in Alaska
four years earlier is not as outlandish as it seems.

(20:45):
After we left Phoenix, Paul and I drove to Tucson.
I was quiet for most of the ride, staring out
the window, eyeing the desert. I texted Steve Fowler a
few times. He sent me his address and a code
to get into his gated neighborhood. Remember, Steve is a
son of Gene Fowler, one of six people Jerry Paisley
named as having taken part in or having knowledge of

(21:06):
the alleged bombing of the missing congressman's plane. So Paul
and I didn't really know what to expect. We figured
Steve would be piste here. We were digging into his dad.
When we pulled up to Steve's house, we just sat
there for a minute. There was no car in the driveway,
no movement. Then slowly the front door swung open, but

(21:27):
we couldn't see anyone, just an open door leading into
a darkened house. I got out of the car, Paul
grabbed the recording equipment. We eyed each other like this
is creepy. And then there was Steve. He smiled and
welcomed us in. We sat at his kitchen table. He

(21:48):
offered us water. He was friendly, which surprised me and
made me suspicious. When name is Stephen Fowler. I am
a native to s who spent about how of his
life in Anchorage, Alaska, and from a very large family,
and most of them are now gone. My father came
from a family of three girls and eight sons, and

(22:11):
my father is the only one that remains alive. At
this point, I knew that Gene Fowler, Steve's dad, was alive,
but I didn't know where he was. Half of me
thought maybe that he was standing in a room down
the hall, pushed up against the door, listening to our conversation,
Steve said that when he was a kid, his family
split their time between Arizona and Alaska. Jean his dad

(22:34):
worked construction and mining jobs and found other ways to
cash in on the Alaska oil boom too. There was
a lot of opportunity to make a lot of money
in a lot of different ways, and members of my
family one of the things they did was they got
into after hours gambling. They would open a place with
a couple of black check tables at a poker table,

(22:55):
and they didn't sell alcohol or anything like that. But
when people had their paycheck, they cash it and now
they wanted to have fun with it. So it was
it was a big, a big period where nightlife was
was huge. It was tough time for law enforcement. There
was a lot going on. There was a lot of crime.
Cocaine was everywhere um and it all stems back to

(23:17):
the fact that there was a lot of money. The
free flow of money brought in the cremble element, the drugs,
the prostitution, the illegal gambling, and there was always somebody
there to take advantage of the guy that just cast
his paycheck. And probably from the time I was fifteen on,
I started learning very quickly that there are two sides

(23:39):
to Anchorage and the one side I never really saw,
but as a teenager I learned there was a very
seemi side to Anchorage. There were lots of bars that
had a lot of crime involved with with those bars.
There were shootings, there were there was prostitution, there were
people were being beat I remember stories about the bars

(24:02):
being firebombed, switching gears. I asked Steve what he knew
about this story, what he remembered of the planes disappearance,
which names he recognized, etcetera. So I'm gonna throw names
at you, and you tell me what you know of
these people. Jerry Paisley, Jerry Paisley, Jerry Paisley was a
bar operator that, as I understand it, had ties to

(24:26):
organized crime UM. Jerry Paisley, I believe he went to
prison in Florence, Arizona, UH for more than a life
term for killing someone in Tucson. I also believe I
heard many years ago that while he was in prison
he started confessing to taking six, seven or eight lives

(24:50):
up in Alaska, and I think some of them were
allegedly through bombings UM. Back when he was in Alaska,
when Steve said this, it blew me away. Before our interview,
I had, of course been honest with him about who
I was and in general terms, what I was investigating.
But with every source who might have important primary information,

(25:13):
I'm also extremely careful not to taint their memory, so
I hadn't gone into too much detail. I had not,
for example, discussed the specifics of Paisley's claims or even
told Steve Paisley's name ahead of our interview. So it
really surprised me that not only was Steve familiar with Paisley,
but he also knew to some degree what Paisley said

(25:33):
in I asked him where he heard it the details
of Paisley's claims. Steve said he probably picked it up
from the Anchorage Daily News, but he definitely didn't. The
Daily News never published Paisley's allegations, trust me. So. Jerry Paisley,
originally from Detroit, lives in Tucson, was also in Alaska.

(25:56):
Did your father and your uncle Larry, did they know
Paisley in Tucson or just an Anchorage. I believe they
knew him in Tucson. My uncle had a closer relationship
with him. And and and when I say that I
don't mean to say that they were close. They knew
each other better than my father and Paisley and in Alaska,
probably because my brother, my uncle was a bar fly.

(26:19):
Dad's brother. Uh he Larry probably knew Jerry a lot
better than my father. Larry Fowler, Steve's uncle, was again
the man Jerry Paisley said he Geane Fowler and Danny's
Ivanitch met up with on the day Paisley allegedly transported
a bomb to Alaska. Larry is the guy who was
shot to death in Anchorage only twenty seven days after

(26:42):
Paisley did a follow up interview with an investigator. Steve
was close to Larry. You know, Larry was was one
of the biggest hearted guys I've ever met. Uh. He
was a very nice man. He wasn't well educated, but
he read a lot when he got older, and so

(27:02):
he was a good guy. Um. I think he was
like that junkyard dog that didn't have any teeth. He
liked to be tough and gruff and tell people I
know Jerry Paisley, and I know this guy, and I
know that you know that guy. Um. And he acted
like he was tough. He he walked with a gruff demeanor.
So let me, uh kind of underscore one word that

(27:26):
I always associated with him. He acted tough, but he
was a coward. The circumstances surrounding Larry's death, do you
find them suspicious? At this point? I'm not a conspiracy theorist. Um,
I don't even know if I would say suspicious, But

(27:47):
there were a lot of unanswered questions. I asked Steve
to tell me more about his dad. He told me
that one of the defining moments of his dad's life
occurred in nineteen seventy. My father in nineteen seventy, in June,
was in a ditch in uh In, Alaska, very deep
ditch with clay walls and water in the bottom, and
the ditch caved in and broke twenty six bones and

(28:10):
and my father's back laura, ribs, pelvis, legs, feet, and uh.
He wasn't supposed to make it through the night. He
was in traction in the hospital, and thirty days later
he walked out and I asked him once. I said,
why did you have so much determination? He said, because
my family had forty dollars to our name. When I
went in the hospital. We were living in a rental,

(28:32):
and it's something that had happened to me, I would
have left nothing for my family. Jean Fowler was all
about family. Steve said, are you close her dad? Yes?
And you were closer Uncle Larry too. Uh. Cut from
totally different cloth than them. I have a different u uh,
different ethical standard. I have different kind of character than them.

(28:56):
I love them dearly. Um, they're good guys, but we're different.
And I had tried to interview your dad, Are you
comfortable sharing why that's not possible? Three years ago Dad
had a major stroke. He's had a number of minor
strokes since, and then about a year year and a
half ago, he had a major heart attack. He's very

(29:19):
hard to understand. In fact, just as you were pulling
up to meet with me today, Dad had been trying
to tell me something over and over and I didn't
understand it. So I had him write it down on
a piece of paper and have my mother called me
and read to me what he wrote. And even he
even has trouble with that. So, um, that's why he's

(29:40):
not part of this this podcast. Do they live nearby here? Uh?
They live seven miles away. So there we go. Of
the six people Jerry Paisley named three were dead, two
wouldn't speak with me, and the last one was alive
but unable to communicate. I circled back to Paisley's allegation,
about which Steve seemed to know a little, but not

(30:02):
a lot. But that little, the fact that Steve somehow
knew about them at all still intrigued me. You mentioned,
uh that Paisley was speaking with law enforcement and or
investigative reporters, or to my knowledge, that was never in
the papers. Do you remember who told you that? No?

(30:24):
I don't. Uh. You know, there were kind of a
network of scuttle butt that always somehow ended up getting
to my uncle and others. And I think before my
uncle passed away, he had told me that he had
heard that Jerry was talking to some officials or somebody

(30:45):
about um, some missing bodies in Alaska, some unsolved crimes,
and my uncle had been into soon just days before
his death. I don't know if that played a role
in and how he got that scuttle but but uh,
that's why I think I heard about her. Are you
aware that Jerry mentioned your uncle and your father to

(31:06):
law enforcement. I don't know that. So Jerry had a
very fascinating tale number one, and there were many unsolved killings,
and he copped to at least five, I think six killings.
One of the other things that Jerry said was that
in nine seventy two, in the summer of seventy two,

(31:29):
that he was asked by an associate of the Banano
family to transport a package a briefcase to Alaska, and
that he did, and that when he got to Alaska,
there was a man named Danny, and your father met
him at the airport. My father did, yes, Oh wow,

(31:50):
did you did you not know that? No? No, that's
just the only thing I know about anything to do
with with with with what I think you're talking about
is Jerry was telling people there's a real big deal
about to go down, and that was right about the
time that the that the Biggage plane went down. But

(32:11):
uh no, this you're blown me away with this. I
went on to read Steve documents detailing Paisley's allegations that
Gene Fowler and Danny's Evidence picked up Paisley at the
Anchorage Airport in nineteen seventy two, when Paisley allegedly transported
a bomb from Arizona to Alaska, and that the three
men later met up with Larry Fowler. Wow. Um, I

(32:36):
can respond to what you read by saying a couple
of things. I know my father and I can't say
he didn't take Jerry Paisley to uh An airport or
picked Jerry Paisley put An airport. My father would never
ever knowingly do anything would bring harm to anyone. That's
that's just my father. UM. Neither with my uncle. Um,

(33:00):
local was just a coward. If they if they had
had knowledge of it, do you think that they would
have said something to someone now that I'm not sure of. UM.
I know Dad was afraid of how bad people hurt
good people. And Dad has never never thought it was wise,

(33:23):
um to run to the police and tell police things,
because it could jeopardize your own safety. Um. The allegation
here is that your father and your uncle Larry, not
that they were directly involved in any kind of bombing.
The allegation is it was a different man, but that
your father just picked him up at the airport, and

(33:46):
that Paisley met with your father and your uncle on
that trip. Well, if if, um, if I were to
hear that again, of course my mind was racing as
you were reading is to me and in so many ways,
it's unfathomable that my my father could ever be involved

(34:06):
in anything. Steve said that, like me, he was frustrated.
Now he had a million questions for his dad, and
his dad couldn't answer them. Why I was so interested
to talk with your father is because there's so few
people who actually and I know that I can't, but
there are so few people related to this number one
who were still alive number two who could theoretically provide

(34:28):
any insight about the possibility of the plane being bombed.
It's would would anybody believe anything Jerry Paisley said if
it were not for the fact that he married the
widow of the missing congressman and then later made these claims.
Does not mean he was telling the truth, But it's

(34:50):
like it becomes it's much harder than if he was
just an average guy on the street who you wouldn't
listen to him for two seconds. Again, it does not
mean everything he said was true, and but this was
this was enough that Dateline seriously investigated it. This p
I was an army intelligence guy before he was a

(35:11):
p I. Uh, there were very seasoned investigators who were
significantly suspicious. Everybody that I've talked to who is reputable,
who most of them quote called bullshit for a living,
they have not and won't call bullshit. And it's not

(35:33):
because they have any affiliate affinity for Paisley. It's because,
like you said, if you hear this, this crazy tale
from Jerry Paisley, and you know, I can find business
records that show this or certain things can be corroborated. Well,
maybe he was telling the truth, maybe he was lying,

(35:53):
maybe he told partial truths. It's it's so hard to
get to the truth here, It's almost impossible at this point.
So that's why I was so excited to speak to
your dad, not because I think your dad had any
deep involvement in this, but because Paisley named your father
and your uncle as people who might have had knowledge

(36:17):
of this, and there's so few of those people left.
But hearing me say that Jerry Paisley claimed that your
father picked him up at the airport in Anchorage when
Paisley brought a package two Anchorage from Tucson on behalf
of the bananas. Do you think that's possible. I was

(36:39):
as possible dead picked him up at an airport. I
think it's is It's no different than if random cab
driver picked someone up at the airport that had just
cut his wife's head off. Um, in a different state.
That doesn't mean the guy knew anything about it or
had any association with it. And I think my father

(37:00):
is guilty by association in that in that narrative there,
But that doesn't mean for a moment that I think
that Dad had any knowledge of anything about anything like that,
because that's not my father. Um wow, I mean it
just blows me away. What convinces you that there's no
chance that he had any knowledge. That doesn't believe in

(37:23):
hurting people. He doesn't like it when people hurt each other. Um,
he's just he had horrors people getting hurt. Um, he
values life. He's um, He's just he's not. He's not
that person. M that that suggests that he is. And
that's all I does is suggest doesn't say he had

(37:44):
any knowledge of it. I mean I could believe all
of that stuff and that even Dad took him to
the to the airport unknowingly picking a guy up that
might have had a bomb but not knowing. But my
father would never knowingly pick somebody up that had a
momb I can tell you that it did. Jerry Paisley,
to your knowledge, have any problems or any beef with

(38:05):
your dad and Larry to the point that it would
prompt him to say something, not that I'm aware of,
but you know, as you were reading that a while ago,
the thought did cross my mind. I mean, why would
a man say something like that. What's interesting to me
about Paisley's claimed beyond the fact that certain parts of
it are provable, again, does not mean all of it's
approvable or true. Paisley very well could have been lying

(38:28):
about all of it or part of it, and that's
something that I want to be very clear about. I'm
not here to do some bullshit conspiracy thing. I want
to find the truth. It's really hard, but what Paisley
said is just I mean, you understand why putting your
father aside, just focusing on Jerry Paisley, you understand why

(38:52):
it just seems suspicious, even too politic or winning reporter
to a dateline producer, to law enforcement that this mob
guy low level, medium level whatever, but had proven affiliation
with the bananas and look of always would marry the
widow of a missing congressman less than seventeen months later.
You can't. It's crazy, um, But a lot of that happened.

(39:18):
We know a lot of that happened. The marriages happened,
that Blane went down. We just don't know a lot
of the wise and what really happened. Well, I think
I think it. You know, we go from what was
the most logical explanation. The most logical explanation is the
plane went down a bad weather, and I think, however,
people just took that for granted and maybe when there

(39:39):
should have been more follow up on other ends, there wasn't.
I think people were just kind of happy to close
the book on this. What I said to Steve is
what I believe. I'm not looking to force a story here.
I just want to find the truth. But other than
Christal the Dateline producer, but he really looked into Paisley's claims,

(40:02):
and that lack of follow up is what pisces me off.
Do you know if your father or uncle were ever
contacted by any members of law enforcement or the FBI
to discuss Jerry Paisley's claims? No? No, The only the
only knowledge that I have about Dad being contacted by
law enforcement was right after the first hijacking. What was

(40:25):
the guy's name, dB Cooper, Wait Wyatt. So dB Cooper
supposedly hijacked the plane. I think that flew out of
Portland or Seattle or somewhere. Dad had a friend in
Alaska that loved to jump out of airplanes. This guy
jumped out of airplanes all the time, and he would
do it drunk, he would do it sober. He said,
I don't care if I had the worst parachute. I'm comfortable.

(40:47):
In fact, if you take the parachute off, I think
I could hit the ground and still survive if I
planned it right. And Dad thought he was nuts. And
shortly after that hijacking, the the FBI came to Alaska
and they said, you know, we understand you have association
with one of these guys that are on our suspect list.

(41:08):
And that's the only time that um I know of
that Dad ever was involved in any kind of investigation
like that. It was just that he knew a guy
that jumped out of airplanes. And I'm assuming that guy
was not dB Cooper. Dad's to this day thinks it
was dB Cooper. Yeah, he never saw the guy again
or anything. He didn't think he was capable of something

(41:30):
like that. But the guy disappeared after after the hijacking,
and and nothing's ever come of it. What was this
guy's name? H boy? You know Dad told me his
first name when he would tell the stories when I
was young, but I don't remember. That was back in
the sixties. I know, I know. A wild turn. Just
when you thought the show had it all, here comes

(41:52):
dB Cooper. Anyway, back to Paisley. Okay, So I interviewed
the three men who the three investigators who talked to
Jerry Paisle. It was Mike Grimes, Tom Davis who was
in Arizona investigator, and Dave Tullis, who was an Alaska

(42:14):
state trooper. And I was amazed they all agreed to
speak on the record. It's it's not common. The thing
that these guys said was they were very disappointed in
the lack of a follow up by the FBI, that
if Paisley's claims were true, that was a very serious allegation.

(42:34):
They turned it over to the FBI. The FBI did
investigate them, but it seems that it was a lackluster
investigation to say the least. Um it just seems like,
the going thing here is Jerry Paisley is a criminal.
There's no reason to believe him, and I understand why

(42:57):
people would say that, but it also just seems like
a kind of convenient, lazy excuse to not follow up
on information. I have no sympathy for Jerry Paisley in
that sense. I mean, I don't know what he went
through to make him the way that he was, but

(43:20):
he killed people, He hurt people, he used people, and
you know, the idea that these claims could be part
of that legacy of hurting people is painful to the
people obviously. I mean it bothers me. His was a

(43:43):
life of crime, and in a life of crime, everything
you do involves deceit, and so I'm sure he was
a very accomplished lie. Was he lying about this? I
don't know. I've done a lot of embezzlement work and
chased down embezzlers, and you take everything in and you
chase it every thread to its logical conclusion. And so

(44:05):
when people get lazy and they close the books on
allegations made by a guy like Baisley, I think I
think that's a disservice to everybody involved. And when I say,
everybody involved. On the day that plane went down, however,
it went down into the side of a mountain, blew up,
went into the water. I step, who knows when that
plane went down, It was like throwing a stone in

(44:26):
the middle of a calm lake. Those ripples are still
going out and impacting people, and so it's it's it's
important to the integrity of the of the investigation and
to the lives that are impacted by those ripples that
have continued to expand over almost fifty years. Now, it's

(44:49):
only fair you follow every lead to its logical conclusion.
You don't close the book just because it's inconvenient or
you've got three more cases on your desk. But unfortunately
that's what happened. Does it bother you that I'm still
digging into this fifty years later, No, because, like I

(45:09):
said earlier in the interview, Uh, I don't believe there's
necessarily anything here worthy of a conspiracy theory, but there
are unanswered questions, and I think wherever they are unanswered questions, uh,
it makes sense to pursue it. So I actually commend
you for trying to get to the bottom of this,

(45:32):
and at the same time I recognize, and it's hard
for as as hard as you're trying to to mitigate
the pain it might bring to people. Um, people like
myself hearing about my father's name at the airport, or
if you sit down with Mark, Mark Baggage, Nack Baggage,
Tom Baggage, you sit down with them, it's going to
bring up pain to them. It's going to bring pain

(45:53):
to them at some level. UM. Put At the same time, UM,
no pain, no gain. And in order to get to
the answers, you've got to do what you're doing, because
law enforcement isn't doing it anymore. The fact that this
didn't go public with what Jerry claimed to have have said,

(46:13):
it doesn't sound like it triggered an FBI investigation or anything.
If it did trigger one, but it was brief. Yeah,
that tells me that you're doing in the right thing.
I recommend you, so I'm not angry at you at all.
I legitimately though, I hate confrontation. I don't like showing
up at people's houses. You know, why am I doing this?

(46:36):
I mean, it's a fascinating story. They're unanswered questions. There
are a lot of questions nobody ever asked and I'm
not really the type of person to just give up,
but this is it for me. So whatever I learned here,
it's somebody else can take up the mantle, or more
likely we're just never gonna know the full truth. They're

(46:58):
just again, you know a few odd things here or there,
but there are just so many things, and there are
a lot of powerful people in media and politics in
Alaska that are aware of some or all of this
that never said anything. So is your hope that this

(47:18):
effort on your part, whether you take it much further
or not, will genuinely will generate sufficient interest by one
or more people to pick up the batone the torch
and run with it. I would hope. So, yes, what
I would really like to see, and I think what
would have been fair to your dad is if people

(47:38):
are innocent, then do a proper damn investigation and clear them,
Because if what Jerry Paisley said is not true, then
there's a lost opportunity that a better investigation wasn't undertaken
in the mid nineties five years ago to clear people's
names or to prove people guilty. So this is how

(48:07):
September sev ended. At the end of this very long day,
forty seven years after the congressman's plane vanished, and twenty
five years after Jerry Paisley said it may have been bombed,
I've found myself only seven miles away from Jean Fowler,
one of the key players in Paisley's story, one of
two men Paisley said picked him up at the Anchorage

(48:29):
airport when he allegedly transported a bomb from Arizona to Alaska.
It's stung to be so close to possible answers, and
to know that if I had shown up three years earlier,
I could have interviewed Jean. Now that was impossible. Stricken
by strokes and a heart attack, Jean couldn't speak reporting

(48:49):
this story. During the past nine years, as people have fallen,
ill and died, I've watched evidence evaporate, knowledge disappear, but
not all is lost. There are still answers to be had.
Other people have important information. Many of these people are
in two old photos, one color, one black and white.

(49:10):
These are the photos of Paisley and Peggy Baggett's wedding,
the originals that investigator Tom Davis gave me straight out
of his Organized crime Bible. These are the red dot photos.
Next time on missing in Alaska. How long after you
arrived in prison did you meet Jerry Paisley. I met

(49:34):
him in late two thousand and four. I think this
week one task, using primary sources like newspaper archives, research
what mob boss Joe Banana was up to between July
nineteen two and November ninety two. I've already done this,

(49:57):
but it would be nice to have your help see
if I missed anything, see what you find, and if
anything jumps out, feel free to contact us. You can
reach us by phone at one eight three three m
I A tips. That's one eight three three six four
two eight four seven seven again one eight three three

(50:18):
six four two eight four seven seven, or you can
reach us via email at tips at i heeart media
dot com. That's tips T I P s at i
heeart media dot com. An important note, none of the
people Jerry Paisley claimed took part in or had knowledge
of the alleged bombing Joe Banano, Joeya Tarola, Danny Zevnach,

(50:41):
Jane Fowler, Larry Fowler, or Peggy Baggage were ever charged
with or convicted of crimes tied to any of Paisley's allegations.
Peggy Beggatte and Danny Zevinage declined multiple requests for an
on the record interview. Gene Fowler was unavailable for an interview.
Joe Banano, Joeya Tarola, and Larry Fowler are dead. Louis Marconi,

(51:01):
the X cop who was friends with Paisley, also was
never charged with or convicted of any crime tied to
any of Paisley's allegations. Marconi declined multiple request to do
a recorded interview. Ben Boland is our executive producer. Paul
Decan is our supervising producer. Chris Brown is our assistant producer.
Seth Nicholas Johnson is our producer. Sam T. Garden is

(51:23):
our research assistant. And I'm your host and executive producer,
John Wallzac. You can find me on Twitter at at
John Wallzac j O n W A l c z
a K. Footage for this episode was provided by NBC
Special Thanks to Steve Fowler. Among other things. Steve is
an author. He didn't ask me to plug his book,

(51:44):
but I will anyway. It's called Spy Games Inside the
Murky World of Corporate Espionage. You can find it on Amazon.
Missing in Alaska is a co production of i Heart
Media and Greenfork Media