March 9, 2023 • 47 mins
After being told by Chester that her life was in danger, Lesley flees Cleveland, Georgia only to find herself further ensnared in a federal investigation.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio, previously on
Murder in Miami. I think I actually found Leslie Bickerton.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
She's been hiding for forty years. That's it's no way
to live Phil.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
She's still afraid for her life.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
I've realized this over the years. What happened to me
forty one years ago has been with me my entire life.
I mean, it stole my life and I stole my voice.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
By the time Leslie Bickerton, who also dabbled in modeling
while living in Hawaii, crossed paths with Lamar Chester, she
was barely thirty years old.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Before I had even heard of Lamar Chester. I was
working in the Caymans because I have a CPA background
and an international tax background.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
In addition to accepting the challenge of living on the
island and the job with him, Leslie Bickerton would also
become romantically involved with Chester. All three of those things
come back to haunt her.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Just boom boom boom. And then about somebody that had
been killed off. Yeah, I was going to talk about him,
I guess. And there were contracts out on his life
and contracts that I was also in danger.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
So in the fall of nineteen eighty one, a frantic
Leslie Bickerton is trying to figure out how to undo
the damage done by crossing paths.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
With international drug smuggler Lamar Chester.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Though she only worked with him off and on over
the course of seven months, in many ways, she's still
trying to figure out the ripple effect of that time period.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Changed the course of my life, and still today it's
like it just happened yesterday. In one sense, forty one years.
It's not like I was allowed then to go back
to a normal life.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Those months forever, I'll your life, oh completely, It's set
a course that I didn't even know.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I wasn't setting the course. Somebody else was setting the
course and I didn't even know it.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Having been told by Chester that her life was in danger,
not knowing who was behind that threat, and isolated on
his farm in a time before cell phones or the internet,
Bickerton's fears are left to fester.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Just sort of left me there. So emotionally me just
a wreck, scared to death. But at the same time,
so when my brain works anyway kind of a little
bit analytically, it's like, Okay, what do I need to do? Right, okay, one, two, three, four,
immediately coming up with the names in my mind that
I had to take me into consideration. It wasn't just
(02:46):
about me. It was about those that could be at
risk and protecting everybody just in case, because I didn't
know what I was dealing with. I mean, I knew
I was dealing with something that was big, really big,
and way out of control. That's all that I knew.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
It must have felt like being unknowingly exposed to a
very contagious, very deadly disease.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Beyond that, horrific. That's the impact that it had on me.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
And how do you disprove that if someone tells you, well,
now you're in a lot of trouble and someone's out
to kill you.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Right, and you isolate them? M hmm, right, that's one
of the other parts of that. The more you isolate
a person, you keep them right separate from everybody, You
keep them separate from their families, friends, people who can
help them, and you war and more psychologically feel like
you're out there on your own.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
And that would have broken you down pretty quickly.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Oh very much, so, very much so.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
I'm Lauren brad Pacheco, and this is murdered in Miami.
Feeling trapped, Bickerton was also terrified of confiding to anyone
she knew, bearing it could place them in danger too.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
I think sometimes you draw deep withinside yourself, even though
you don't have the answers, you'll figure it out, you know,
a survival mechanism.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
And in that mode, Bickerton remembered a group of Army
rangers stationed nearby she'd befriended after coming to Georgia.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
I went up to this event in Helen, Georgia, these
hot air balloons and it saw place Touristco And that's
on the big grounds that they had there for the
hot air balloons. That's where I met them. Just stuck
up a conversation. I don't drink drink, but had a
beer with them and just kind of like clicked. And
(05:00):
they were really great. And they were just funny, great
sense to humor.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Wholesome and friendly.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah, they were also oddly suited to understand the situation
and danger. Bickerton suddenly found herself.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
In the Airborne Ranger. Guys that I met were staff sergeant.
I mean these were like the top top guys in
the training and I know one of them was like
one of the top snipers. They were telling me about
their adventures overseas, what they were doing, and that's who
I immediately thought to reach out to. That's the only
(05:35):
people I knew up there were those military guys.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Rangers are the Army's elite and premier infantry force, rigorously
trained to carry out intricate operations such as raids and
assault missions well within enemy territory. It's a position requiring
a daunting degree of mental, physical and moral fortitude.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
I have a contract all my life. So I did
reach out to the military guys and we kind of
figured out a game plan.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
A plan that plays like a movie plot.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
I would marry one because that would then they could
legitimately bring me over to the camp so that Lamar
couldn't get near me and nobody could get near me,
that I would be physically protected. They were concerned about me,
like being at war. You know, all right, strategy immediately
thinking outside the box. You got to think on your
(06:31):
feet what can be done right now? What can be
done next? What can be done next? And by marrying
in name only as that allowed.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So you thought the plan that you hashed out with
these guys. Was that you would make a public show
of marrying one of them, so Lamar would be intimidated
to no longer mess with you. Exactly, And apparently that's
exactly what did immediately planning a wedding, which seemed a
(07:03):
sensical option given her surreal situation.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I knew Lamark was not going to mess with these
guys period. Instinctively, people liked Lamar. They just know who
not to mess with. We actually had a ceremony as well.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
A ceremony Bickerton's family attended, fully believing to be real.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
From the outside, it all looked real or unreal, but legitimate.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Almost like for the same reasons people fake their own death.
You wanted your own family to believe it. You wanted
to really sell it so that you could then disappear. Yes,
was it a marriage and name only?
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Yeah? And it was a note within two months or
something like that.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
While it may sound like a far fetched plan, Bickerton
sent me photos of the small outdoor wedding. In them,
Leslie's wear ring a somber expression and a simple white
sleeveless gown while clutching a simple bouquet of wild flowers.
She's standing next to her groom, whose name she doesn't
want revealed, but is formally decked out in full Rangers
(08:13):
dress uniform. The couple is surrounded by other fully outfitted
Airborne Rangers, and the small group of gathered well wishers
include Leslie's family. Her mother is standing in front of
a goateed and grinning Lamar Chester, who's sporting a sport coat,
alongside his wife Artist, who's wearing white slax, a pink
top and dark sunglasses, while leaning to her left so
(08:36):
as to get a better view of the bride. The
photo also provides something else.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
My father loved photography. He took the photos, and my
father labels everything. It's meticulous. So that's how I could
get the date. It said September nineteen eighty one, because
I couldn't remember the month when I was married to
this military person.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
I want to quickly point out. Leslie says she hastily
arranged the wedding immediately after Chester told her about a
Clayton being murdered and fed to the alligators. Williams went
missing mid September, but his body wasn't found until October tewod,
which gives weight to the theory Chester knew of the
murder before the body was found, and to Bickerton's concern
(09:21):
for her safety at the time.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
I mean, I'm just grateful for the military guys in Georgia,
that group of guys, because I don't know if I
would have ever been able to even get out of Georgia,
but it bought me enough time. Without them, i'd be
I'd probably did. I'm almost sure of it. I owe
my life to them.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
After the nuptials, Bickerton says she hit out with the
rangers until she could put together a plan to flee
to another location. Interestingly, Dan Davis, the reporter slash River
Hills publicist who was on Chester's payroll, would later be
interviewed by CEB Hackworth in nineteen eighty three for an
article in the Citizen Chester series. In that article, Davis
(10:04):
would offer a pretty scathing interpretation of the wedding, characterizing
the groom as quote one of those gung home military
types who enters the service at sixteen unquote, and Bickerton,
who was thirty one at the time as quote Leslie
who was maybe thirty five or forty, and there's this
Rick twenty and she wanted to get married so they did. Unquote.
(10:29):
The same article quotes Chester reacting to Leslie being referenced
as his mistress and public record. Quote. He balks at
that description and refers to her instead as an occasional
girl I saw unquote. Now keep in mind that Chester
was married and that Davis was basically his hired mouthpiece.
(10:50):
Here's Leslie.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
This whole article basically was a smear campaign against me.
If it was nowadays and this was happen, I take
them to court like it's nobody's business and I would win.
And again, nobody has ever bothered to approach me back
then or any time to get my side of the
(11:13):
story or exactly what was happening during that time period.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
And you had never seen this article until I sent
it to you. Correct.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Correct, So it's interesting looking at it now and going
through all of this several comments. I'm going to make
this emphasis on age and this was somebody that I
had married that was young and naive, and that's not
true at all. None of it that they wrote down
is true.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
They somehow tried to discredit you by claiming there was
an age difference between you and your groom, when Chester's
the one who's twenty years older. Right, he had children your.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Age, Oh right, and I knew his children. Looking back
at it now, in the pattern that Lamar Chester presents
himself to the media, presenting themselves in such a way
that they can't be touched. And so how do you
present you discredit the other person, right, You create your
(12:19):
own storyline to raise your own image as a so
called family man, which he wasn't. I mean, Lamar had
relationships with other women. I know that for a fact.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
So interesting that he quote bulks at the description of
you as his quote mistress and public record, it almost
sounds like it's Chester's way of appeasing his bruised male ego.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
A lot of it is ego. And by dismissing who
I am, then it takes the judgment off of him, right,
which is sort of a classic and by ment. And
I thought about this. I wasn't as mistress, I mean,
now you know, I look at it, give the definition
of a mistress. I wasn't. I wasn't being kept right
(13:11):
as a kept woman. Kept have sort of here's my
dark humor coming again, right, you know, Yes, I was
kept as a hostage. In one sense, I would never
have gone to Georgia had not been for my dog.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
After the rushed and staged wedding, Bickerton would land in Houston,
which was also the location of the Lone Star investigation,
something of which Bickerton a test. She was unaware.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
It was inferred that I went to Houston and that
I just showed up at the Federal Building, turned myself
in to the Feds of the Federal Building and gave
them all this information. And that is not true. So
you're moving really fast, and it's like, where can I
go next? Try to figure what would be my next step,
(14:00):
and didn't want I jeopardized my own family, so I
would not have gone back up to New England. I
would not have gone back to the Cayman Islands because
I wouldn't have put anybody in jeopardy there that had
nothing to do with Lamar. So I had some friends
in Houston, so I made a call and stayed with
friends actually initially, but didn't want to put them in
(14:21):
jeopardy because I didn't know how extensive this was. I
knew it was serious, so I rented a small apartment
and just took a temporary job. Had no plans of
staying there. It was just temporary. And then that's when
I got that phone call saying that Houston people, Feds
in Houston were going to come after me. And so
(14:44):
that's when I met the people in Houston. I think
it was the grand jury first.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
The only reason you went to Houston was because you
had a friend there who could get you employment and
you could live under the radar there.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Yeah, temporary, it was where can I go immediately? I mean,
I'm just thinking on my feet, knowing that my life
was probably in jeopardy and knowing what Lamar was now
more involved with.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
You left Georgia and then the FED show up at
the military base looking for you. Yes, yes, and you
get the heads up that they're looking for you while
you're in Houston.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
So that then would have been getting a phone call
that Houston people were going to come looking for me.
That also meant the CIA, because don't forget, Lamar told
me about that he was involved with the CIA. So
I didn't know what was Houston. All I knew was
the FEDS, which could have been anybody, were looking for me,
(15:49):
and that would have been October is when they tried
to find me on the military base and the guys
were protecting me.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
And when they found her, the prosecution already seemed to
have honed in on Bickerton's fears in terms of safety
and her other vulnerabilities too.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Houston had promised me that they were going to get
my dog.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
And so they promised you that they would go to
the Derby Islands and get your dobermen.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Yep, no problem.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
And did they no? Oh no, But you had no
idea that there was an investigation into Lamar in Houston.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
No, no, And didn't know about Lance Eisenberg either, investigation
with Smythe.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Smythe was the name of the Cayman's account.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
I mean, that's what Euston was after, was Smythe with
Lance Eisenberg and his clients.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
It sounds like a line out of Casablanca. But of
all the the states in the country, you end up
in the one state, in the one city.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Yeah, you know, you're right, He knew right. So here's
my dark New England humor. You know the old cartoons Bullwinkle,
my God, watch me pull a rabbit out of my
hat and the lion comes out roaring and blow Winkle
goes wrong, hat wrong hat.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
No.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I had no idea. I didn't know anything about Houston
and their investigation. I didn't know that Houston was looking
for me.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Phil Stanford finds Leslie's explanation of her move to Houston
in keeping with many surreal aspects we've covered.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Coincidences have happened all through this story, my meeting Playway
in the bar, Happy, flying over the ocean, and meeting
Lamire at several thousand feet, So I don't have any
problem with it being a coincidence she ended up in Houston,
as she says that the FEDS went to her soldier
(18:16):
friends in Georgia said where is she? And they said
she's in Houston, and then they tracked her down. In
any case, they would have found her anyway.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
She's adamant that it was a coincidence, and either which
way it certainly wasn't beneficial for her.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
She does say that they got involved. She does say
that she took a job knowing that he was looking
for an accountant and a mistress. It's easy enough to
falter her judgment on that all sorts of people have
made mistakes along the way in this story and just
about any other story.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
I suppose what I think is interesting, though you have
this young woman. He's her employer. Then at that point
then I felt that she was pretty maligned in the
press as being of less moral character because she was
as mistress. When he's the one who's married, he's the
one with the wife and kid. He's the one who's
(19:12):
twenty years older. And I thought it interesting that not
a single reporter, not one, ever reached out to her.
But there was pretty widespread coverage of the nineteen eighty
three grand jury in Atlanta, sensationalized by the fact the
foundation of it was built upon the Houston leg of
Operation Lone Star, which would be mired in controversy and
(19:33):
allegations of corruption and misconduct. Here again is phil The.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Real corruption was in the US Attorney's office in Houston.
The investigators had been touring the Caribbean for some time
on the government tab. A new junior US attorney had
come in and tried to report them and gotten crosswise.
The whole office was in turmoil. In fact, one of
(20:00):
the US attorneys had actually contacted Jeff Bogart, one of
Lamar's lawyers, and offered to tell him about the illegal
tactics that they were using, including altering the documents for
the grand Jury offered to sell it for a couple
hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
That chaos spilled into the tone and content of Atlanta's proceedings.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
It was a mess, a hot mess. It sounds like
some hotshot crosscutors were trying to bring in some big
money or hundred indictments and fell down at rabbit hole
and found up an alice in wonder owner.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
That's reporter Tracy Thompson's take. She's now a prolific author
and journalist, but was then reporting for the Atlanta Constitution.
In addition to covering the Atlanta Grand Jury, she had
also extensively covered the charismatic council representing Lamar Chester in
the case. Bobby Lee Cook a man known for his
flamboyant personal style and equally fetching eloquence.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
He had a type of charisma that very few people have.
It was an interesting thing when he walked into the room.
Everybody who bodyly Cooked was there. He could easily have
walked out of the nineteenth century. He parted his hair
in the middle. He had gold spectacles that he bore
(21:24):
on the tip of his nose so he could look
at you over them. He had a gold pocket watch
and this very large chain that he kept on He
very easily could have walked out of eighteen seventy. He
cultivated that damage. He also had a Rolls Royce and
(21:45):
a chauffeur. And somebody asked him once if he was
afraid that that would be off putting to jurors, and
he said no. He said, I think they see me
with a Rolls Royce and they know I'm a smart guy.
Got my money because of smart and and trust me because.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Of that, and they could trust he would ruthlessly defend
his clients.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
People were scared of him, and I needed to be
scared of him because he was. He was vicious and
cross examinations. You didn't want to tell bobbyly Cook a
story with any holes in it, because he would find
it and ruth was late with them.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Here's Phil Stamford's take.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Yeah, Bobby Lee Cook is certainly one of the more
formidable people I've ever run across. Extremely smart lawyer. Never
seen anyone who could talk on his feet like that.
He lived in this tiny town in North Georgia that
was half boarded up. When I finally went down there
and talked to him. He had a chauffeur driven Rolls Royce,
(22:51):
and he looked so homespun that was part of his act.
He wore hush puppies, suspenders, had a beard, and he
could adapt to just about anything. I mean. He represented
the Rockefellers and the Carnegies in some dispute. He represented
a lot of the Southern mob who's a wonderful lawyer.
(23:12):
At one time he was thought to have been the
model for this TV character, Matt Locke, a serious about
a Southern lawyer who was also very homespun and very effective,
like Bobby Lee Cook.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Tracy Thompson has agreed to read excerpts from one of
her pieces at the time, which really paints a picture
of the courtroom dynamic. As one of the former prosecutors
from Lone Star's Houston leg John Johnson, was questioned by
Bobby Lee Cook.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
John Johnson, a baby former federal prosecutor from Houston that
gripping the size of the witness box like a man
driving a tractor. Before him stood Somerville's defense attorney Bobby
Lee Cook, who surveyed Johnson over the rims of his
glasses like a cat contemplating a cage canary. The subject
(24:00):
a four year old federal drug probe named Operation Lone Star,
and the secret government informant named Leslie Bickergon MS Vickerton,
Chester's former office bookkeeper, told Houston investigators that Chester eliminated
one potential snitch from his organization by having him murdered
and feeding his courts to alligators in Florida. Quickly became
(24:24):
the unofficial master of ceremonies, striding about the room waving
his arm glaring that witnesses like a pale, blue eyed,
rapid god preacher. The flamboyant Somerville lawyer dominated the proceedings.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
In a phone conversation we had C. B. Hackworth recalls
bumping into Cook that day, right before he headed into
the courtroom to question Johnson.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
We were outside the program after a lunch break. Bobby
Lee Cook was pacing back and forth in the hallway.
He was obviously getting his thoughts together to go in
and begin his cross examination of John Johnson, who had
said some potentially damaging things. And just as the bailiff
(25:12):
came out and said that the magistrate, Allan Chancey was
coming back in, I got a Bobby Lee turned to me,
looked right at me. Because I was sitting there, not
because I was special, and said let's go feed somebody
to the gators, and he was referring to John Johnson,
(25:34):
and in my estimation, he pretty much did exactly that.
He dismantled John Johnson in a way that I can't
remember ever seeing before or since, anyone just so completely humiliated.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
In the courtorate.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Bobby Lee Cook would also question Leslie Bickerton in court,
and perhaps his skill as an attorney is most apparent
in that Bickerton herself had a very different personal experience
than those observing the interaction.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
I had no idea what I was walking into that courtroom.
I didn't even know who Bobby the Cook was. Nobody
had ever mentioned his name to me. Leafeds never told
me about who this attorney was and what to expect
that day, and so again I'm just set out there.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
It's interesting that he was able to really ingratiate himself
to you because he completely understood your plight.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
The way that he started off the conversation, and I
distinctly remember, was about dogs and about his bloodhounds and
about my dog Covina that was stuck down on the
Darby Islands.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Stolen from you.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Really, yeah, I'm never given back. And that's what Bobby
Lee Cook started right off my dog Covino and put
me at ease. I don't remember even how long I
was on that witness stand. I just I don't, but
I do remember at some point whatever the questions were
(27:19):
that mister Cook was directing at me, I just I flose.
It was like being in a road in the semi's
coming straight at you. You know you have to move,
but you can't move. C. B.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Hackworth wrote about the exchange.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
A key prosecution witness wept yesterday as she admitted to
defense attorneys having lied at the behest of government agents
in an attempt to ensnare accused White County drugs muggler
Lamar Chester, saying that, quote, it wasn't right. From the beginning,
it wasn't right. None of it was right, said Leslie
(28:00):
Bickerton thirty three. She said she was physically afraid of
John Johnson, a former US attorney in Houston. Quote. I
felt like he didn't have any regard for anybody, Miss
Bickerton said, or for the truth, added Chester's lead defense attorney,
Bobby Lee Cook of Summervil. Yes, sir, he wanted you
(28:24):
to lie, charged Cook. Yes, Sir, said Miss Bickerton, dabbing
her eyes. Miss Bickerton testified that Johnson told her he
believed there was a link between Chester and the Baamian
Prime Minister Lyndon Pendling.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
It also became apparent that Bickerton felt she was being
played and manipulated by both sides.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
I remember Bogarth and others in that courtroom laughing at
me while mister Cook was asking questionsself for me, and
that was a joke. I'll never forget that. And I remembered,
I don't know what answers I was giving at that point.
I just froze. That stuck with me.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Back to Cebe's reading of his article.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
She said her knowledge of what the government agents and
prosecutors were willing to do made her fear them. Miss
Bickerton said she also came to the conclusion she was
being used by the government and decided to stop cooperating
immediately after her appearance before a federal grand jury in Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Phil Stanford recalls Cook's questioning also exposed something else Bickerton's
feelings for Chester.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Bobby Lee Cook was questioning Leslie about this and it
was remarkable. I mean, he's a remarkable talker. He was
creating this novel on his feet and drawing her into it.
And he says, and this is I think when she
had left Houston and go back to Atlanta to tell
(30:03):
Lamar and his lawyers about the changes she'd made to
the records, and he's sort of drawing her into this story,
into her story as he would see it, of how
she felt at this time. And he said, and there
was this big pirate of a guy that you know
she obviously couldn't resist, and he just swept you off
(30:25):
your feet. And the US attorney Gaffney stands up in
his double soled wingtips and says, I object, your honor,
and she says, no, no, let him continue. It was
for me the high point of the hearing. But it showed, yeah,
there was an emotional tie between the two of them.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
But how and why Bickerton got tied up in that
emotional relationship and the crosshairs of a federal investigation is
something she continues to grapple with, particularly since some of
it seemed orchestrated by Chester. You mentioned that he was
controlling and calculating for lack of a better word. Looking back, now,
(31:14):
do you see his advances on you as part of
that calculation?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Mm hmm, yep, mixed feelings because I liked Lamar. But
then you also know that you've just been betrayed and
that you've been set up that this is a person
who is a threat that can hurt me, really hurt me.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
And at the same time somebody who who is presenting
themselves as your protector and your predator at the same time.
Right after telling her her life was in jeopardy, Chester
offered to sneak Bickerton out of the country, which she
immediately took as another potential threat, further indicative of their
dysfunctional personal relationship, something she's still processing. So when he
(32:01):
crossed the line over the professional relationship into a personal
and romantic for lack of a better word, when did
that happen and what was the context of it?
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Looking back at it, I'd say it makes you feel comfortable.
And I'm not just saying this for myself, because I
know a lot of other people that have been connected
with him, and I've asked, is it just me a predator?
Time is on their side in most cases, and they're
just waiting for the right person, right mark, to come along. Psychologically,
(32:40):
what predators can do is to make you feel very comfortable,
and it's done on purpose, so that you're not even
asking questions that you should be asking and being a
little bit more careful given that he's you know, this
person's a stranger. So psychologically it's very subtle and it's deliberate,
(33:02):
and it's extremely manipulative and controlling, so subtle that you
don't see the signs. You just don't. So when I
first met him, he was cordial and maybe comfortable, you know,
because I was interested in going to Darby Island and
did so. The romantic side of it, if you want
(33:25):
to call it that, I don't know, maybe a month
or two months something like that, But there wasn't. It wasn't.
I didn't fall in love with them. And it's hard
to explain, Lauren, it really is.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
It was part of the manipulation, part of getting you
to trust him and then also being beholden to him,
right and then it's like you see the opposite side
of the coin.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
It's evil. It's pure evil, a darkness that is emotionally, mentally,
physically beyond human comprehension. It changes you forever. There's just
something that you're always always on your guard. So nineteen
(34:13):
eighty one what to nineteen eighty five. So four intense
years of hiding because I never knew who was going
to come at me and everything that was going on
at that time. So you have that period of time.
But then the ripple effects was ongoing.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
As for Chester, his growing desperation and belief that Phil
Stanford would somehow facilitate CIA efforts to sweep in and
make his legal issues disappear continued.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Lamar sends me to DC to talk to my people.
I go and just spend some time. And Lamar asked
me over the phone when I found out, and I
say nothing. You know, as usual, I'm not very talkative.
And at that point, from then on, Lamar really didn't
(35:16):
expect anything from me. In Miami, things was really falling apart.
I was doing some other investigative work that was leading
in sort of dark directions. I had to get out.
I loaded everything in my car and drove back, moved
back to DC and went back to all the usual
(35:37):
places on the hill, congressional offices, magazines, trying to get
a job and I remember going back to one of
the places where I used to work and I said, yeah,
you used to be someone, And it didn't mean that
much to me then, but I see what he meant now.
One of the people I did I do some work
(35:58):
for was Danny who had the Christic Institute, and at
that time they were in the course of their own
investigations into El Salvador and then the death squads. There
come across information about what the United States was doing
in Nicaragua and other places in Central America and the
drugs for guns trade they were trying to expose that.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
That's so interesting, particularly if you go back to Chester's
claim that he was running guns into Nicaragua, and then
also in court filings and in articles with CB Hackworth,
Chester claimed that he was involved with flying Samosa, you know,
(36:44):
Nicaragua's then president before he was overthrown and assassinated in
nineteen eighty by the Sandinistas. Chester claimed he flew Somosa's
son in and out of Florida at the request of
the US government. So it's it's just interesting that Shean's
looking into Nicaragua and Chester's claims back up what he
(37:07):
seems to be looking into.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah, and have to remember that this was at least
a year and a half, two years before any of
this really started surfacing in the press in the United States,
So it was still hard even for me. I wasn't
convinced that Chester was telling the truth about this. It
(37:31):
all seems so crazy and it could have been true,
it might have been false.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
I think it's also interesting that Bobby Lee Cook has
a Nicaragua Somemosa connection because Simosa hired Bobby Lee Cook
basically to clean up a report about Nicaragua in terms
of its reputation in terms of human rights because he
wanted to get more aid from the US State Department.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Yeah. I'm not sure what connection, if any, that has
to Lamar's activities, but it's more an indication to me anyway,
Bobby Lee Cook's connections to people in high places.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
And if Chester started to sound paranoid about perceived threats
to his life, it's hard to know where they'd be
coming from. As in addition to his claims of CIA connections,
multiple reports tied him to mob connections and Colombian cartels,
but his legal issues weren't exactly mild or insignificant either.
(38:35):
He was openly boasting about being a prolific drug smuggler
and having run hundreds of trips into the United States.
Contrasts that to the sentence we mentioned linked to the
Black Tuna Gang in episode one, and you can see
why Chester might have felt desperate.
Speaker 6 (38:52):
Drug smuggling was also the topic at federal court today
with the beginning of testimony in the government's Black Tuna case.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
As a recap, the Black Tuna Gang ran Miami's drug
trade in the nineteen seventies. All in all, the gang
was accused of importing around five hundred tons of marijuana
and to the United States over the course of sixteen months.
Speaker 6 (39:10):
Federal Judge James King listened as one time smuggler turned
government informant Luke McLeod told of the eight tons of
marijuana which he claims to have delivered to the key defendants,
Robert Meinster and Robert Plattshorn in nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Nineteen seventy five. They charged Platshorn under a Kingpin statute
that was meant for much heavier drug offenses. But I
really remembered about that is that he got sixty years
for smuggling marijuana in the United States.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Bobby Platshorn was actually sentenced to sixty four years and
served thirty until recently earning the dubious distinction of being
America's longest imprisoned nonviolent marijuana offender. Now in his mid seventies,
Platshorn says the magnitude of his crimes was a fraction
of what he was accused.
Speaker 7 (40:00):
Prison for importing marijuana, first offense, non violent. I caught
the first kingpin charge they ever gave for marijuana, and
I was prosecuted for eight forty eight continuing criminal enterprise,
also known as the kingpin statue. When I first saw that,
(40:21):
I had no idea what it meant, because I don't
think I was even a safety pit, let alone a kingpin,
but the government hung on me.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Today, plat Storm's a marijuana legalization activist and an entrepreneur
putting to use his knowledge of the law that was
weaponized against him.
Speaker 7 (40:40):
I put it to work when I got out of
prison by starting the Silver Tour to change minds about marijuana,
to cater to the senior demographic who have the all
important vote in just about every state in the Union.
And I'm known for thirty eight years in prison and
(41:01):
the last ten years, legalizing one state after another.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
In addition to now being a pioneering pot advocate for
the elderly, which is the fastest growing segment of the
medical marijuana market, Platshorn's made his mark in the legalized
weed world with his aptly named and super popular Black
Tuna marijuana strain. He's also written Black Tuna Diaries, a memoir,
and is featured in the documentary Square Grouper. And she
(41:27):
remains adamant that his noteworthy and notorious sentence was actually
more connected to corruption than cannabis.
Speaker 7 (41:36):
Corruption Here funny of corruption. Here an attorney who I
knew to be the bagman for federal judge said, the
judge wants three million bucks, which would gladly give him
If we had three million bucks. We had put the
money in our homes, in our businesses. Between Robbie and
(41:58):
I we were able to scrape up about a million
three a million and a half, and the judge send
us a message, you'll be.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Sorry, and we were.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Plat Shorn says he sat through his trial knowing the
whole thing was a farce.
Speaker 7 (42:16):
It was a show trial beginning to end. Half the
things that happened or were set at the trial just
were made up out of thin air.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
At sentencing, Judge James Lawrence King said, quote, the price
for participation in this traffic should be prohibitive. It should
be made too dangerous to be attractive. Unquote. Now this
is only mister Platshorn's version of the events, but it
does show the potential impact that law used to make
a statement an example, could have had on someone as
(42:48):
public and vocal about their illicit activities as lamar Chester.
I did reach out multiple times to the office of
Judge King for a statement, but received no response. It
is interesting to note that Judge King was also responsible
for the ruling in nineteen eighty nine which would put
an end to the Christian Institute the Public Interest law
(43:08):
firm which employed Phil Stamford for a time.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
I had first come across the Judge James King when
I was covering the Black Tuna trial down in Miami.
I was working at the newspaper. Then I went back
to the files and looked him up, and it turned
out he had been on the board of a mob
bank back in the sixties. The board of directors of
(43:35):
a Mayer Lansky bank that's connected to the Teamsters Central
Fund and Central States Fund.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Phil remembers talking to Danny Sheen about Judge King, who
was presiding over Shean's case.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
He'd made this a a court case of I think
it was a ReHO case in federal court, and he
was going to prove that the US government was complicit
in this drugs and arms trade in the wars in
Central America. So what do you think of the judge?
What do you think of Judge King? He said, Oh,
(44:09):
I think he's been pretty fair up to now. Well,
it turns out that King was just giving them enough
rope to hang themselves with. And after about a year
of Danny's trial in DC, he threw out Danny's case,
said he didn't have the evidence he needed to argue it,
and charged him in the Christic Institute with legal fees
(44:32):
for the other side, which came to a million dollars,
effectively bankrupted the Christic Institute.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Okay, back to our timeline and story. It's now June
of nineteen eighty five, and.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
So I'm back in DC for about a year and
I get a call from Bob Adams down in Miami
and he says, you're not going to believe it. Lamar
just died. He was in a plane crash at his
farm in Georgia. Remember how Lamar was fighting to get
his pilot's license back. Trial's coming up in a few weeks.
(45:11):
The Fed inside to give him his pilot's license back,
so to celebrate, he took his Piper cub up little
daughter Ajs, five years old with him for a joy
ride around his farm and they crashed.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
What happened to his daughter, she was in the hospital.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
She'd broken her back and no one knew what was
going to happen to her. And the official explanation of
the crash was that he ran out of fuel, but
no one believed that an experienced pilot like Lamar would
check the fuel levels before he took off. And the
first person on the scene was a GBI agent who
(45:48):
Lamar had had some run ins with.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Georgia Bureau of Investigations.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Yeah, he just happened to be there at the scene.
He even got to the crash before Lamar's father, who
was living on the property.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
So you found the story about the crash suspicious.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Not just suspicious, unbelievable. He was murdered.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
On the next murder in Miami, Ron Elliott shares his
version of being at Chester's farm on the night before
he died in the crash.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
I yelled at him, be careful that two cars out there.
The cars tore off towards the gate. Lamar yelled at
me to get in the pickup. He was coming with a.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
Shotgun and an expert on the coport activities of the
CIA weighs in on the plausibility of the Gray Maale
defense of international drug smuggler Lamar Chester.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Absolutely credible, that's credible.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
All that makes absolute sense.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Murder of Miami is a production of iHeartRadio. Executive producers
are Lauren Bright Pacheco, Taylor Chicogne, and Phil Stamford. Written
by Phil Stamford and Lauren brag Pacheco, Vidio editing and
sound design by Nicholas Harder, Evan Tyre and Taylor Chakoyne.
Featuring music by Evan Tyre, Phil Mayer, John Murchison, and
(47:09):
Taylor Chacoyne. Archival elements provided by Lennon Lewis Wolfson the
Second Florida Moving Image Archives. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
the stories that matter to you,
Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio, previously on
Murder in Miami. I think I actually found Leslie Bickerton.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
She's been hiding for forty years. That's it's no way
to live Phil.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
She's still afraid for her life.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
I've realized this over the years. What happened to me
forty one years ago has been with me my entire life.
I mean, it stole my life and I stole my voice.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
By the time Leslie Bickerton, who also dabbled in modeling
while living in Hawaii, crossed paths with Lamar Chester, she
was barely thirty years old.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Before I had even heard of Lamar Chester. I was
working in the Caymans because I have a CPA background
and an international tax background.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
In addition to accepting the challenge of living on the
island and the job with him, Leslie Bickerton would also
become romantically involved with Chester. All three of those things
come back to haunt her.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Just boom boom boom. And then about somebody that had
been killed off. Yeah, I was going to talk about him,
I guess. And there were contracts out on his life
and contracts that I was also in danger.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
So in the fall of nineteen eighty one, a frantic
Leslie Bickerton is trying to figure out how to undo
the damage done by crossing paths.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
With international drug smuggler Lamar Chester.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Though she only worked with him off and on over
the course of seven months, in many ways, she's still
trying to figure out the ripple effect of that time period.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Changed the course of my life, and still today it's
like it just happened yesterday. In one sense, forty one years.
It's not like I was allowed then to go back
to a normal life.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Those months forever, I'll your life, oh completely, It's set
a course that I didn't even know.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I wasn't setting the course. Somebody else was setting the
course and I didn't even know it.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Having been told by Chester that her life was in danger,
not knowing who was behind that threat, and isolated on
his farm in a time before cell phones or the internet,
Bickerton's fears are left to fester.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Just sort of left me there. So emotionally me just
a wreck, scared to death. But at the same time,
so when my brain works anyway kind of a little
bit analytically, it's like, Okay, what do I need to do? Right, okay, one, two, three, four,
immediately coming up with the names in my mind that
I had to take me into consideration. It wasn't just
(02:46):
about me. It was about those that could be at
risk and protecting everybody just in case, because I didn't
know what I was dealing with. I mean, I knew
I was dealing with something that was big, really big,
and way out of control. That's all that I knew.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
It must have felt like being unknowingly exposed to a
very contagious, very deadly disease.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Beyond that, horrific. That's the impact that it had on me.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
And how do you disprove that if someone tells you, well,
now you're in a lot of trouble and someone's out
to kill you.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Right, and you isolate them? M hmm, right, that's one
of the other parts of that. The more you isolate
a person, you keep them right separate from everybody, You
keep them separate from their families, friends, people who can
help them, and you war and more psychologically feel like
you're out there on your own.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
And that would have broken you down pretty quickly.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Oh very much, so, very much so.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
I'm Lauren brad Pacheco, and this is murdered in Miami.
Feeling trapped, Bickerton was also terrified of confiding to anyone
she knew, bearing it could place them in danger too.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
I think sometimes you draw deep withinside yourself, even though
you don't have the answers, you'll figure it out, you know,
a survival mechanism.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
And in that mode, Bickerton remembered a group of Army
rangers stationed nearby she'd befriended after coming to Georgia.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
I went up to this event in Helen, Georgia, these
hot air balloons and it saw place Touristco And that's
on the big grounds that they had there for the
hot air balloons. That's where I met them. Just stuck
up a conversation. I don't drink drink, but had a
beer with them and just kind of like clicked. And
(05:00):
they were really great. And they were just funny, great
sense to humor.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Wholesome and friendly.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah, they were also oddly suited to understand the situation
and danger. Bickerton suddenly found herself.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
In the Airborne Ranger. Guys that I met were staff sergeant.
I mean these were like the top top guys in
the training and I know one of them was like
one of the top snipers. They were telling me about
their adventures overseas, what they were doing, and that's who
I immediately thought to reach out to. That's the only
(05:35):
people I knew up there were those military guys.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Rangers are the Army's elite and premier infantry force, rigorously
trained to carry out intricate operations such as raids and
assault missions well within enemy territory. It's a position requiring
a daunting degree of mental, physical and moral fortitude.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
I have a contract all my life. So I did
reach out to the military guys and we kind of
figured out a game plan.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
A plan that plays like a movie plot.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
I would marry one because that would then they could
legitimately bring me over to the camp so that Lamar
couldn't get near me and nobody could get near me,
that I would be physically protected. They were concerned about me,
like being at war. You know, all right, strategy immediately
thinking outside the box. You got to think on your
(06:31):
feet what can be done right now? What can be
done next? What can be done next? And by marrying
in name only as that allowed.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So you thought the plan that you hashed out with
these guys. Was that you would make a public show
of marrying one of them, so Lamar would be intimidated
to no longer mess with you. Exactly, And apparently that's
exactly what did immediately planning a wedding, which seemed a
(07:03):
sensical option given her surreal situation.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I knew Lamark was not going to mess with these
guys period. Instinctively, people liked Lamar. They just know who
not to mess with. We actually had a ceremony as well.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
A ceremony Bickerton's family attended, fully believing to be real.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
From the outside, it all looked real or unreal, but legitimate.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Almost like for the same reasons people fake their own death.
You wanted your own family to believe it. You wanted
to really sell it so that you could then disappear. Yes,
was it a marriage and name only?
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Yeah? And it was a note within two months or
something like that.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
While it may sound like a far fetched plan, Bickerton
sent me photos of the small outdoor wedding. In them,
Leslie's wear ring a somber expression and a simple white
sleeveless gown while clutching a simple bouquet of wild flowers.
She's standing next to her groom, whose name she doesn't
want revealed, but is formally decked out in full Rangers
(08:13):
dress uniform. The couple is surrounded by other fully outfitted
Airborne Rangers, and the small group of gathered well wishers
include Leslie's family. Her mother is standing in front of
a goateed and grinning Lamar Chester, who's sporting a sport coat,
alongside his wife Artist, who's wearing white slax, a pink
top and dark sunglasses, while leaning to her left so
(08:36):
as to get a better view of the bride. The
photo also provides something else.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
My father loved photography. He took the photos, and my
father labels everything. It's meticulous. So that's how I could
get the date. It said September nineteen eighty one, because
I couldn't remember the month when I was married to
this military person.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
I want to quickly point out. Leslie says she hastily
arranged the wedding immediately after Chester told her about a
Clayton being murdered and fed to the alligators. Williams went
missing mid September, but his body wasn't found until October tewod,
which gives weight to the theory Chester knew of the
murder before the body was found, and to Bickerton's concern
(09:21):
for her safety at the time.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
I mean, I'm just grateful for the military guys in Georgia,
that group of guys, because I don't know if I
would have ever been able to even get out of Georgia,
but it bought me enough time. Without them, i'd be
I'd probably did. I'm almost sure of it. I owe
my life to them.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
After the nuptials, Bickerton says she hit out with the
rangers until she could put together a plan to flee
to another location. Interestingly, Dan Davis, the reporter slash River
Hills publicist who was on Chester's payroll, would later be
interviewed by CEB Hackworth in nineteen eighty three for an
article in the Citizen Chester series. In that article, Davis
(10:04):
would offer a pretty scathing interpretation of the wedding, characterizing
the groom as quote one of those gung home military
types who enters the service at sixteen unquote, and Bickerton,
who was thirty one at the time as quote Leslie
who was maybe thirty five or forty, and there's this
Rick twenty and she wanted to get married so they did. Unquote.
(10:29):
The same article quotes Chester reacting to Leslie being referenced
as his mistress and public record. Quote. He balks at
that description and refers to her instead as an occasional
girl I saw unquote. Now keep in mind that Chester
was married and that Davis was basically his hired mouthpiece.
(10:50):
Here's Leslie.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
This whole article basically was a smear campaign against me.
If it was nowadays and this was happen, I take
them to court like it's nobody's business and I would win.
And again, nobody has ever bothered to approach me back
then or any time to get my side of the
(11:13):
story or exactly what was happening during that time period.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
And you had never seen this article until I sent
it to you. Correct.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Correct, So it's interesting looking at it now and going
through all of this several comments. I'm going to make
this emphasis on age and this was somebody that I
had married that was young and naive, and that's not
true at all. None of it that they wrote down
is true.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
They somehow tried to discredit you by claiming there was
an age difference between you and your groom, when Chester's
the one who's twenty years older. Right, he had children your.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Age, Oh right, and I knew his children. Looking back
at it now, in the pattern that Lamar Chester presents
himself to the media, presenting themselves in such a way
that they can't be touched. And so how do you
present you discredit the other person, right, You create your
(12:19):
own storyline to raise your own image as a so
called family man, which he wasn't. I mean, Lamar had
relationships with other women. I know that for a fact.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
So interesting that he quote bulks at the description of
you as his quote mistress and public record, it almost
sounds like it's Chester's way of appeasing his bruised male ego.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
A lot of it is ego. And by dismissing who
I am, then it takes the judgment off of him, right,
which is sort of a classic and by ment. And
I thought about this. I wasn't as mistress, I mean,
now you know, I look at it, give the definition
of a mistress. I wasn't. I wasn't being kept right
(13:11):
as a kept woman. Kept have sort of here's my
dark humor coming again, right, you know, Yes, I was
kept as a hostage. In one sense, I would never
have gone to Georgia had not been for my dog.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
After the rushed and staged wedding, Bickerton would land in Houston,
which was also the location of the Lone Star investigation,
something of which Bickerton a test. She was unaware.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
It was inferred that I went to Houston and that
I just showed up at the Federal Building, turned myself
in to the Feds of the Federal Building and gave
them all this information. And that is not true. So
you're moving really fast, and it's like, where can I
go next? Try to figure what would be my next step,
(14:00):
and didn't want I jeopardized my own family, so I
would not have gone back up to New England. I
would not have gone back to the Cayman Islands because
I wouldn't have put anybody in jeopardy there that had
nothing to do with Lamar. So I had some friends
in Houston, so I made a call and stayed with
friends actually initially, but didn't want to put them in
(14:21):
jeopardy because I didn't know how extensive this was. I
knew it was serious, so I rented a small apartment
and just took a temporary job. Had no plans of
staying there. It was just temporary. And then that's when
I got that phone call saying that Houston people, Feds
in Houston were going to come after me. And so
(14:44):
that's when I met the people in Houston. I think
it was the grand jury first.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
The only reason you went to Houston was because you
had a friend there who could get you employment and
you could live under the radar there.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Yeah, temporary, it was where can I go immediately? I mean,
I'm just thinking on my feet, knowing that my life
was probably in jeopardy and knowing what Lamar was now
more involved with.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
You left Georgia and then the FED show up at
the military base looking for you. Yes, yes, and you
get the heads up that they're looking for you while
you're in Houston.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
So that then would have been getting a phone call
that Houston people were going to come looking for me.
That also meant the CIA, because don't forget, Lamar told
me about that he was involved with the CIA. So
I didn't know what was Houston. All I knew was
the FEDS, which could have been anybody, were looking for me,
(15:49):
and that would have been October is when they tried
to find me on the military base and the guys
were protecting me.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
And when they found her, the prosecution already seemed to
have honed in on Bickerton's fears in terms of safety
and her other vulnerabilities too.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Houston had promised me that they were going to get
my dog.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
And so they promised you that they would go to
the Derby Islands and get your dobermen.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Yep, no problem.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
And did they no? Oh no, But you had no
idea that there was an investigation into Lamar in Houston.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
No, no, And didn't know about Lance Eisenberg either, investigation
with Smythe.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Smythe was the name of the Cayman's account.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
I mean, that's what Euston was after, was Smythe with
Lance Eisenberg and his clients.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
It sounds like a line out of Casablanca. But of
all the the states in the country, you end up
in the one state, in the one city.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Yeah, you know, you're right, He knew right. So here's
my dark New England humor. You know the old cartoons Bullwinkle,
my God, watch me pull a rabbit out of my
hat and the lion comes out roaring and blow Winkle
goes wrong, hat wrong hat.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
No.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I had no idea. I didn't know anything about Houston
and their investigation. I didn't know that Houston was looking
for me.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Phil Stanford finds Leslie's explanation of her move to Houston
in keeping with many surreal aspects we've covered.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Coincidences have happened all through this story, my meeting Playway
in the bar, Happy, flying over the ocean, and meeting
Lamire at several thousand feet, So I don't have any
problem with it being a coincidence she ended up in Houston,
as she says that the FEDS went to her soldier
(18:16):
friends in Georgia said where is she? And they said
she's in Houston, and then they tracked her down. In
any case, they would have found her anyway.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
She's adamant that it was a coincidence, and either which
way it certainly wasn't beneficial for her.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
She does say that they got involved. She does say
that she took a job knowing that he was looking
for an accountant and a mistress. It's easy enough to
falter her judgment on that all sorts of people have
made mistakes along the way in this story and just
about any other story.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
I suppose what I think is interesting, though you have
this young woman. He's her employer. Then at that point
then I felt that she was pretty maligned in the
press as being of less moral character because she was
as mistress. When he's the one who's married, he's the
one with the wife and kid. He's the one who's
(19:12):
twenty years older. And I thought it interesting that not
a single reporter, not one, ever reached out to her.
But there was pretty widespread coverage of the nineteen eighty
three grand jury in Atlanta, sensationalized by the fact the
foundation of it was built upon the Houston leg of
Operation Lone Star, which would be mired in controversy and
(19:33):
allegations of corruption and misconduct. Here again is phil The.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Real corruption was in the US Attorney's office in Houston.
The investigators had been touring the Caribbean for some time
on the government tab. A new junior US attorney had
come in and tried to report them and gotten crosswise.
The whole office was in turmoil. In fact, one of
(20:00):
the US attorneys had actually contacted Jeff Bogart, one of
Lamar's lawyers, and offered to tell him about the illegal
tactics that they were using, including altering the documents for
the grand Jury offered to sell it for a couple
hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
That chaos spilled into the tone and content of Atlanta's proceedings.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
It was a mess, a hot mess. It sounds like
some hotshot crosscutors were trying to bring in some big
money or hundred indictments and fell down at rabbit hole
and found up an alice in wonder owner.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
That's reporter Tracy Thompson's take. She's now a prolific author
and journalist, but was then reporting for the Atlanta Constitution.
In addition to covering the Atlanta Grand Jury, she had
also extensively covered the charismatic council representing Lamar Chester in
the case. Bobby Lee Cook a man known for his
flamboyant personal style and equally fetching eloquence.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
He had a type of charisma that very few people have.
It was an interesting thing when he walked into the room.
Everybody who bodyly Cooked was there. He could easily have
walked out of the nineteenth century. He parted his hair
in the middle. He had gold spectacles that he bore
(21:24):
on the tip of his nose so he could look
at you over them. He had a gold pocket watch
and this very large chain that he kept on He
very easily could have walked out of eighteen seventy. He
cultivated that damage. He also had a Rolls Royce and
(21:45):
a chauffeur. And somebody asked him once if he was
afraid that that would be off putting to jurors, and
he said no. He said, I think they see me
with a Rolls Royce and they know I'm a smart guy.
Got my money because of smart and and trust me because.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Of that, and they could trust he would ruthlessly defend
his clients.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
People were scared of him, and I needed to be
scared of him because he was. He was vicious and
cross examinations. You didn't want to tell bobbyly Cook a
story with any holes in it, because he would find
it and ruth was late with them.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Here's Phil Stamford's take.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Yeah, Bobby Lee Cook is certainly one of the more
formidable people I've ever run across. Extremely smart lawyer. Never
seen anyone who could talk on his feet like that.
He lived in this tiny town in North Georgia that
was half boarded up. When I finally went down there
and talked to him. He had a chauffeur driven Rolls Royce,
(22:51):
and he looked so homespun that was part of his act.
He wore hush puppies, suspenders, had a beard, and he
could adapt to just about anything. I mean. He represented
the Rockefellers and the Carnegies in some dispute. He represented
a lot of the Southern mob who's a wonderful lawyer.
(23:12):
At one time he was thought to have been the
model for this TV character, Matt Locke, a serious about
a Southern lawyer who was also very homespun and very effective,
like Bobby Lee Cook.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Tracy Thompson has agreed to read excerpts from one of
her pieces at the time, which really paints a picture
of the courtroom dynamic. As one of the former prosecutors
from Lone Star's Houston leg John Johnson, was questioned by
Bobby Lee Cook.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
John Johnson, a baby former federal prosecutor from Houston that
gripping the size of the witness box like a man
driving a tractor. Before him stood Somerville's defense attorney Bobby
Lee Cook, who surveyed Johnson over the rims of his
glasses like a cat contemplating a cage canary. The subject
(24:00):
a four year old federal drug probe named Operation Lone Star,
and the secret government informant named Leslie Bickergon MS Vickerton,
Chester's former office bookkeeper, told Houston investigators that Chester eliminated
one potential snitch from his organization by having him murdered
and feeding his courts to alligators in Florida. Quickly became
(24:24):
the unofficial master of ceremonies, striding about the room waving
his arm glaring that witnesses like a pale, blue eyed,
rapid god preacher. The flamboyant Somerville lawyer dominated the proceedings.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
In a phone conversation we had C. B. Hackworth recalls
bumping into Cook that day, right before he headed into
the courtroom to question Johnson.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
We were outside the program after a lunch break. Bobby
Lee Cook was pacing back and forth in the hallway.
He was obviously getting his thoughts together to go in
and begin his cross examination of John Johnson, who had
said some potentially damaging things. And just as the bailiff
(25:12):
came out and said that the magistrate, Allan Chancey was
coming back in, I got a Bobby Lee turned to me,
looked right at me. Because I was sitting there, not
because I was special, and said let's go feed somebody
to the gators, and he was referring to John Johnson,
(25:34):
and in my estimation, he pretty much did exactly that.
He dismantled John Johnson in a way that I can't
remember ever seeing before or since, anyone just so completely humiliated.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
In the courtorate.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Bobby Lee Cook would also question Leslie Bickerton in court,
and perhaps his skill as an attorney is most apparent
in that Bickerton herself had a very different personal experience
than those observing the interaction.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
I had no idea what I was walking into that courtroom.
I didn't even know who Bobby the Cook was. Nobody
had ever mentioned his name to me. Leafeds never told
me about who this attorney was and what to expect
that day, and so again I'm just set out there.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
It's interesting that he was able to really ingratiate himself
to you because he completely understood your plight.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
The way that he started off the conversation, and I
distinctly remember, was about dogs and about his bloodhounds and
about my dog Covina that was stuck down on the
Darby Islands.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Stolen from you.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Really, yeah, I'm never given back. And that's what Bobby
Lee Cook started right off my dog Covino and put
me at ease. I don't remember even how long I
was on that witness stand. I just I don't, but
I do remember at some point whatever the questions were
(27:19):
that mister Cook was directing at me, I just I flose.
It was like being in a road in the semi's
coming straight at you. You know you have to move,
but you can't move. C. B.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Hackworth wrote about the exchange.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
A key prosecution witness wept yesterday as she admitted to
defense attorneys having lied at the behest of government agents
in an attempt to ensnare accused White County drugs muggler
Lamar Chester, saying that, quote, it wasn't right. From the beginning,
it wasn't right. None of it was right, said Leslie
(28:00):
Bickerton thirty three. She said she was physically afraid of
John Johnson, a former US attorney in Houston. Quote. I
felt like he didn't have any regard for anybody, Miss
Bickerton said, or for the truth, added Chester's lead defense attorney,
Bobby Lee Cook of Summervil. Yes, sir, he wanted you
(28:24):
to lie, charged Cook. Yes, Sir, said Miss Bickerton, dabbing
her eyes. Miss Bickerton testified that Johnson told her he
believed there was a link between Chester and the Baamian
Prime Minister Lyndon Pendling.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
It also became apparent that Bickerton felt she was being
played and manipulated by both sides.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
I remember Bogarth and others in that courtroom laughing at
me while mister Cook was asking questionsself for me, and
that was a joke. I'll never forget that. And I remembered,
I don't know what answers I was giving at that point.
I just froze. That stuck with me.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Back to Cebe's reading of his article.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
She said her knowledge of what the government agents and
prosecutors were willing to do made her fear them. Miss
Bickerton said she also came to the conclusion she was
being used by the government and decided to stop cooperating
immediately after her appearance before a federal grand jury in Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Phil Stanford recalls Cook's questioning also exposed something else Bickerton's
feelings for Chester.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Bobby Lee Cook was questioning Leslie about this and it
was remarkable. I mean, he's a remarkable talker. He was
creating this novel on his feet and drawing her into it.
And he says, and this is I think when she
had left Houston and go back to Atlanta to tell
(30:03):
Lamar and his lawyers about the changes she'd made to
the records, and he's sort of drawing her into this story,
into her story as he would see it, of how
she felt at this time. And he said, and there
was this big pirate of a guy that you know
she obviously couldn't resist, and he just swept you off
(30:25):
your feet. And the US attorney Gaffney stands up in
his double soled wingtips and says, I object, your honor,
and she says, no, no, let him continue. It was
for me the high point of the hearing. But it showed, yeah,
there was an emotional tie between the two of them.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
But how and why Bickerton got tied up in that
emotional relationship and the crosshairs of a federal investigation is
something she continues to grapple with, particularly since some of
it seemed orchestrated by Chester. You mentioned that he was
controlling and calculating for lack of a better word. Looking back, now,
(31:14):
do you see his advances on you as part of
that calculation?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Mm hmm, yep, mixed feelings because I liked Lamar. But
then you also know that you've just been betrayed and
that you've been set up that this is a person
who is a threat that can hurt me, really hurt me.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
And at the same time somebody who who is presenting
themselves as your protector and your predator at the same time.
Right after telling her her life was in jeopardy, Chester
offered to sneak Bickerton out of the country, which she
immediately took as another potential threat, further indicative of their
dysfunctional personal relationship, something she's still processing. So when he
(32:01):
crossed the line over the professional relationship into a personal
and romantic for lack of a better word, when did
that happen and what was the context of it?
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Looking back at it, I'd say it makes you feel comfortable.
And I'm not just saying this for myself, because I
know a lot of other people that have been connected
with him, and I've asked, is it just me a predator?
Time is on their side in most cases, and they're
just waiting for the right person, right mark, to come along. Psychologically,
(32:40):
what predators can do is to make you feel very comfortable,
and it's done on purpose, so that you're not even
asking questions that you should be asking and being a
little bit more careful given that he's you know, this
person's a stranger. So psychologically it's very subtle and it's deliberate,
(33:02):
and it's extremely manipulative and controlling, so subtle that you
don't see the signs. You just don't. So when I
first met him, he was cordial and maybe comfortable, you know,
because I was interested in going to Darby Island and
did so. The romantic side of it, if you want
(33:25):
to call it that, I don't know, maybe a month
or two months something like that, But there wasn't. It wasn't.
I didn't fall in love with them. And it's hard
to explain, Lauren, it really is.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
It was part of the manipulation, part of getting you
to trust him and then also being beholden to him,
right and then it's like you see the opposite side
of the coin.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
It's evil. It's pure evil, a darkness that is emotionally, mentally,
physically beyond human comprehension. It changes you forever. There's just
something that you're always always on your guard. So nineteen
(34:13):
eighty one what to nineteen eighty five. So four intense
years of hiding because I never knew who was going
to come at me and everything that was going on
at that time. So you have that period of time.
But then the ripple effects was ongoing.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
As for Chester, his growing desperation and belief that Phil
Stanford would somehow facilitate CIA efforts to sweep in and
make his legal issues disappear continued.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Lamar sends me to DC to talk to my people.
I go and just spend some time. And Lamar asked
me over the phone when I found out, and I
say nothing. You know, as usual, I'm not very talkative.
And at that point, from then on, Lamar really didn't
(35:16):
expect anything from me. In Miami, things was really falling apart.
I was doing some other investigative work that was leading
in sort of dark directions. I had to get out.
I loaded everything in my car and drove back, moved
back to DC and went back to all the usual
(35:37):
places on the hill, congressional offices, magazines, trying to get
a job and I remember going back to one of
the places where I used to work and I said, yeah,
you used to be someone, And it didn't mean that
much to me then, but I see what he meant now.
One of the people I did I do some work
(35:58):
for was Danny who had the Christic Institute, and at
that time they were in the course of their own
investigations into El Salvador and then the death squads. There
come across information about what the United States was doing
in Nicaragua and other places in Central America and the
drugs for guns trade they were trying to expose that.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
That's so interesting, particularly if you go back to Chester's
claim that he was running guns into Nicaragua, and then
also in court filings and in articles with CB Hackworth,
Chester claimed that he was involved with flying Samosa, you know,
(36:44):
Nicaragua's then president before he was overthrown and assassinated in
nineteen eighty by the Sandinistas. Chester claimed he flew Somosa's
son in and out of Florida at the request of
the US government. So it's it's just interesting that Shean's
looking into Nicaragua and Chester's claims back up what he
(37:07):
seems to be looking into.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah, and have to remember that this was at least
a year and a half, two years before any of
this really started surfacing in the press in the United States,
So it was still hard even for me. I wasn't
convinced that Chester was telling the truth about this. It
(37:31):
all seems so crazy and it could have been true,
it might have been false.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
I think it's also interesting that Bobby Lee Cook has
a Nicaragua Somemosa connection because Simosa hired Bobby Lee Cook
basically to clean up a report about Nicaragua in terms
of its reputation in terms of human rights because he
wanted to get more aid from the US State Department.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Yeah. I'm not sure what connection, if any, that has
to Lamar's activities, but it's more an indication to me anyway,
Bobby Lee Cook's connections to people in high places.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
And if Chester started to sound paranoid about perceived threats
to his life, it's hard to know where they'd be
coming from. As in addition to his claims of CIA connections,
multiple reports tied him to mob connections and Colombian cartels,
but his legal issues weren't exactly mild or insignificant either.
(38:35):
He was openly boasting about being a prolific drug smuggler
and having run hundreds of trips into the United States.
Contrasts that to the sentence we mentioned linked to the
Black Tuna Gang in episode one, and you can see
why Chester might have felt desperate.
Speaker 6 (38:52):
Drug smuggling was also the topic at federal court today
with the beginning of testimony in the government's Black Tuna case.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
As a recap, the Black Tuna Gang ran Miami's drug
trade in the nineteen seventies. All in all, the gang
was accused of importing around five hundred tons of marijuana
and to the United States over the course of sixteen months.
Speaker 6 (39:10):
Federal Judge James King listened as one time smuggler turned
government informant Luke McLeod told of the eight tons of
marijuana which he claims to have delivered to the key defendants,
Robert Meinster and Robert Plattshorn in nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Nineteen seventy five. They charged Platshorn under a Kingpin statute
that was meant for much heavier drug offenses. But I
really remembered about that is that he got sixty years
for smuggling marijuana in the United States.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Bobby Platshorn was actually sentenced to sixty four years and
served thirty until recently earning the dubious distinction of being
America's longest imprisoned nonviolent marijuana offender. Now in his mid seventies,
Platshorn says the magnitude of his crimes was a fraction
of what he was accused.
Speaker 7 (40:00):
Prison for importing marijuana, first offense, non violent. I caught
the first kingpin charge they ever gave for marijuana, and
I was prosecuted for eight forty eight continuing criminal enterprise,
also known as the kingpin statue. When I first saw that,
(40:21):
I had no idea what it meant, because I don't
think I was even a safety pit, let alone a kingpin,
but the government hung on me.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Today, plat Storm's a marijuana legalization activist and an entrepreneur
putting to use his knowledge of the law that was
weaponized against him.
Speaker 7 (40:40):
I put it to work when I got out of
prison by starting the Silver Tour to change minds about marijuana,
to cater to the senior demographic who have the all
important vote in just about every state in the Union.
And I'm known for thirty eight years in prison and
(41:01):
the last ten years, legalizing one state after another.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
In addition to now being a pioneering pot advocate for
the elderly, which is the fastest growing segment of the
medical marijuana market, Platshorn's made his mark in the legalized
weed world with his aptly named and super popular Black
Tuna marijuana strain. He's also written Black Tuna Diaries, a memoir,
and is featured in the documentary Square Grouper. And she
(41:27):
remains adamant that his noteworthy and notorious sentence was actually
more connected to corruption than cannabis.
Speaker 7 (41:36):
Corruption Here funny of corruption. Here an attorney who I
knew to be the bagman for federal judge said, the
judge wants three million bucks, which would gladly give him
If we had three million bucks. We had put the
money in our homes, in our businesses. Between Robbie and
(41:58):
I we were able to scrape up about a million
three a million and a half, and the judge send
us a message, you'll be.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Sorry, and we were.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Plat Shorn says he sat through his trial knowing the
whole thing was a farce.
Speaker 7 (42:16):
It was a show trial beginning to end. Half the
things that happened or were set at the trial just
were made up out of thin air.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
At sentencing, Judge James Lawrence King said, quote, the price
for participation in this traffic should be prohibitive. It should
be made too dangerous to be attractive. Unquote. Now this
is only mister Platshorn's version of the events, but it
does show the potential impact that law used to make
a statement an example, could have had on someone as
(42:48):
public and vocal about their illicit activities as lamar Chester.
I did reach out multiple times to the office of
Judge King for a statement, but received no response. It
is interesting to note that Judge King was also responsible
for the ruling in nineteen eighty nine which would put
an end to the Christian Institute the Public Interest law
(43:08):
firm which employed Phil Stamford for a time.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
I had first come across the Judge James King when
I was covering the Black Tuna trial down in Miami.
I was working at the newspaper. Then I went back
to the files and looked him up, and it turned
out he had been on the board of a mob
bank back in the sixties. The board of directors of
(43:35):
a Mayer Lansky bank that's connected to the Teamsters Central
Fund and Central States Fund.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Phil remembers talking to Danny Sheen about Judge King, who
was presiding over Shean's case.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
He'd made this a a court case of I think
it was a ReHO case in federal court, and he
was going to prove that the US government was complicit
in this drugs and arms trade in the wars in
Central America. So what do you think of the judge?
What do you think of Judge King? He said, Oh,
(44:09):
I think he's been pretty fair up to now. Well,
it turns out that King was just giving them enough
rope to hang themselves with. And after about a year
of Danny's trial in DC, he threw out Danny's case,
said he didn't have the evidence he needed to argue it,
and charged him in the Christic Institute with legal fees
(44:32):
for the other side, which came to a million dollars,
effectively bankrupted the Christic Institute.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Okay, back to our timeline and story. It's now June
of nineteen eighty five, and.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
So I'm back in DC for about a year and
I get a call from Bob Adams down in Miami
and he says, you're not going to believe it. Lamar
just died. He was in a plane crash at his
farm in Georgia. Remember how Lamar was fighting to get
his pilot's license back. Trial's coming up in a few weeks.
(45:11):
The Fed inside to give him his pilot's license back,
so to celebrate, he took his Piper cub up little
daughter Ajs, five years old with him for a joy
ride around his farm and they crashed.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
What happened to his daughter, she was in the hospital.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
She'd broken her back and no one knew what was
going to happen to her. And the official explanation of
the crash was that he ran out of fuel, but
no one believed that an experienced pilot like Lamar would
check the fuel levels before he took off. And the
first person on the scene was a GBI agent who
(45:48):
Lamar had had some run ins with.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Georgia Bureau of Investigations.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Yeah, he just happened to be there at the scene.
He even got to the crash before Lamar's father, who
was living on the property.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
So you found the story about the crash suspicious.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Not just suspicious, unbelievable. He was murdered.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
On the next murder in Miami, Ron Elliott shares his
version of being at Chester's farm on the night before
he died in the crash.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
I yelled at him, be careful that two cars out there.
The cars tore off towards the gate. Lamar yelled at
me to get in the pickup. He was coming with a.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
Shotgun and an expert on the coport activities of the
CIA weighs in on the plausibility of the Gray Maale
defense of international drug smuggler Lamar Chester.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Absolutely credible, that's credible.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
All that makes absolute sense.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Murder of Miami is a production of iHeartRadio. Executive producers
are Lauren Bright Pacheco, Taylor Chicogne, and Phil Stamford. Written
by Phil Stamford and Lauren brag Pacheco, Vidio editing and
sound design by Nicholas Harder, Evan Tyre and Taylor Chakoyne.
Featuring music by Evan Tyre, Phil Mayer, John Murchison, and
(47:09):
Taylor Chacoyne. Archival elements provided by Lennon Lewis Wolfson the
Second Florida Moving Image Archives. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
the stories that matter to you,
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.