489 - We Are Your Baby

This week, Georgia covers the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III and Karen tells the story of the Pappygate bourbon heist.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, it's Georgia and Karen and we're so excited
to announce our newest podcast on the Exactly Right Network.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
It's a show called trust Me. It explores cults, manipulation,
and extreme belief systems, and it's hosted by Low LeBlanc
and Megan Elizabeth.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
They're smart, funny, insightful women who also happen to be
cult survivors themselves. They'll be talking to other survivors, experts,
and former believers to unpack how cults work, how people
get pulled in, and how to get out.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
So stick around after this episode and listen to the
trailer for trust Me, our brand new cult podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
And after you listen, head over to trust Me's feed
and please hit follow so you can be there for
their exactly Right premiere on Wednesday, July thirtieth.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
And look for trust Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
You're gonna love this one. Trust Me Nice.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Goodbye, bye, Lave, Hello.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
And welcome to my favorite Murder.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
That's Sortia Heart Start.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
That's Karen Kilgariff and this.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Is the podcast you're looking for.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Here we are come and get us.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Uh, huh yep, new slogans more professionalism at the top
of this podcast, that the attitude you're looking for. Hey,
gurly pa, Hey.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Are you a girly that likes to slay while slay?
We must stand.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
On business right in front of us with your ears.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
We stand you.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
I have to have my hand to do my character.
It's a very like modern Yeah, I'm trying to be
I don't honor. That's sus at all. Oh god, I
hate I hate it.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
I hate it.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
They must they must love it. Here's the thing. Is
this similar to when, well, you won't be able to
answer this. I always forget you're ten years younger than me.
When the Valley Girls song came out and everybody all
of a sudden overnight started talking like a valley girl.
It drove my parents insane, And I wonder if it's
just like that same kind of thing where to us

(02:09):
we're like, oh, oh my god, we like we have
to talk like this, Like it was that thing where
we didn't understand there was an option to remove yourself
from the trend, right because you kind of were the
trend was for you. You were eating the trend.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah, shit, man, are we going to get into fucking
sociology now, because I have no clue.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Let's light up this bong and get into our version
of sociology.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
See, they don't even have it would be a vape.
They don't even have bongs anymore. That's how fuck and
bad we are.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
We don't know what that is.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Don't do bongs.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
It's actually bad.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
For the environment.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
It's a fossil fuel.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yeah, bo, that's right, speaking of and can I bring
it down completely?

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Oh? Yes?

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Are you watching One Night in Idaho? No, a new
documentary about the.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Colberger Murderah, No, I have not seen it.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
So heart wrenching, and it's by our friend Liz garbuss It.
She's one of the directors. Incredible, so of course it's
incredible and heartbreaking, heartbreaking, heartbreaking, but like just really well
done and not you know, gross, right, you got to
watch it, that story, I mean still yeah, well, you know,
he just fucking pled guilty. Yeah, thank god, Yeah, thank god,

(03:20):
thank god. Those families don't have to sit through the
trial and the appeals and the you know.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
And hearing all of those and and the kids that
lived that, Like people are trying to somehow that's.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
The whole first episode is the kids getting interviewed. They
interview everyone. Oh, and that's the whole first episode and
it's just like, you know, you couldn't have found a
more innocent place to have this happen, right, So it's
really heartbreaking, but you know, as a true crime doc,
it's good.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Speaking of we were going to talk about murder Land,
that's right, the book. Yes, So the book has just
came out. It's called murder Land, Crime and Bloodlust in
the Time of serial Killers by Caroline Fraser, and it's
basically about the thing we've talked about, which is that
between nineteen twenty and the nineties, when leaded gasoline was
legal and abundant, the rise in violent crime follows the

(04:12):
same track of how much lead is in the air. Yeah,
and so it talks about all these serial killers, mainly
in the Pacific Northwest because there was like smelt, there
were all these like smelting just completely immoral manufacturers of
arsenic and lead and just dumping everything into the sky
and into the fucking water, and all these serial killers
came out of it.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
It's so fascinating and heartbreaking.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
It's like I'm just thinking of just like why aren't
there more or are there more we don't know about?
Or did they go? Was it like the serial killing
switch flipped in some people but then other things flipped
in other people?

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Probably? I mean, well, in general, it just made everyone's
i Q lower. It just kind of made like three
generations of people less. You know, I can't think of
the word because I'm part of that generation. Maybe beus
I was born than nineteen eighty, it's I'm fucked. I mean,
my parents grew up in La so like that's just
there's just that's all city.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
It's led in the air and also then the smock
situation where it keeps it in the like breathing environment.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
So if you're into history at all, I think that
Murderland is a really great but you're gonna love it. It's fascinating,
it's fascinating.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
I want it.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
Okay, you can have it when I'm done. Almost done?

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Okay, good, Yeah, I can't wait. Well, speaking of the
Pacific Northwest and other regions of this nation, look right,
we announced last week that we are going on tour.
Now we are recording this episode obviously Monday, four days
before it actually airs, so we don't know what the

(05:42):
status of the tickets will be when you are hearing this,
so we can't really tell you what's going on. But
if you might still want a ticket, give it a try.
Go over to my favorite murder dot com forward slash
Live all the cities. There's pages for every city there
and you can go on and see if they're sold
out or not.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Those last tickets come to the late show. They're always weird.
Oh and we should tell people that the late show
and the early show are not going to be the
same stories. I think we didn't tell people that and
so they don't know how to get both tickets stay
out all night.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, we haven't done same story two shows since our
first tour where we found out by people asking us
and then being overtly disappointed in our faces. Are you
doing the same story for the second show?

Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yes? Remember that if you seattle, because we said it
on the stage and I like there was a groan.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, we're like, oh so we double work double Okay,
sounds good.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
For that night. Same dress though, same I'm not fucking changing.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
There's no fucking way we're changing.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
So sorry, if you wanted to see a different dress,
don't get a ticket. But if you want to hear
a different story, get a ticket for the Late show
and the Early show.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
We're immediately making this a negative thing one. In fact,
people were very excited when we made this announcement. We
actually asked Chan and our social media manager, Hey, do
you mind co finding us some funny comments? Oh stuff
that people said? So My first one that made me
laugh so hard is Courtney on Instagram said I'm skipping
my son's toddler swim class tomorrow just for the fan

(07:06):
cl precink. Oh my gosh. Send him with someone else though.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
Don't send him alone too bad.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
No, that baby will not learn to swim because of us.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Oh I can hear him in his therapist's office in
twenty years.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, mom, okay, we love true crime.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
This one says I'm canceling my honeymoon from Katie them
on Instagram.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Thank you, Katie. This one Wildlo from Instagram. This must
be in reference to the video that went out. It says,
do you stare each other dead in the eyes when
you talk? It looks like it in these recordings, so
I need to know. We just talked about that we
had to record something that was supposed to be a
promo where like, it's weird if we're saying this to

(07:46):
each other, but we do stare each other.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Sell it, say it, Sarah, say it, Sarah.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Have to What if I was just slightly turned out
like this? So anyway, George, I agree.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
I mean, maybe you're looking at my forehead and I
just don't know it. I could be this maybe is
one of the best ones off Instagram by the Wild Pine.
Not me wondering if I can hold my baby in
so I can make the Boston date on my due date.
Been waiting for this longer than her arrival. Oh here's
my pitch, have a baby at our live show.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
I mean, that would be of it. It would be
quite something.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
Can't get you can't pay for press like that. Where
the real baby? We are your baby?

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Where the baby? The baby's new?

Speaker 1 (08:26):
There has been a baby at our live shows before,
so oh, just.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
You know, make little baby and headphones so cute. We
also had a lot of people from small towns being
angry that we're not coming to their small town, which
we love. Bring that passionate rage to like I love it. Okay, Well,
there wasn't really. Paula McCambridge on Instagram said, I sure,
hope you're coming to a tiny little town in Michigan's

(08:51):
remote Upper Peninsula, namely the historic Calumet Theater. So Paula
lives in Calumet, Michigan. That has it's a town of
six hundred and seventies people.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
And they'll all be there.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Hey show, they have to come to every show four times.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah, yeah, we've got Savannah. We know you want to
come Australia. Lots of Canada apologies. This is you know,
this is us dipping our toe and just kind of
giving it a.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Canada is like, we can't come to your country anymore. Yeah,
our government warned against it. Also, Anna Rose with two
a's at the bottom and two e's at the end, says,
want to make a quick trip to Okinawa, Japan. K
thanks bye, Yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
We do, yes, but I can't imagine that's gonna sell out.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
And then Kay Taylor Gore said, please come remotely near Mississippi.
You can even come to my house if you want.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
It's nice.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
That's a tiny little store, just people's houses. Yeah that's
Maria Bamford. Did that? Did you ever see that special?

Speaker 1 (09:47):
No?

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Oh, it's the best comedy special. It's literally like twelve
people sitting around a living room and it's kind of dark,
and she's up there.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
And she just does like a tour of people's house.
That's so brilliant. She's so brilliant, so funny. She heard
the dog park and I'm always like.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Hey, she's the best. God, she's such a good comic.
Well that was fun. Yeah, So thanks you guys for
caring and being excited. We are too.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, but tell me look me in the eye when
you say that.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Oh oh thanks guys, guys, it means so much to us.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
We appreciate it. White eye telling each other only.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Oh I saw a TikTok about someone who is like,
if there's a man that you feel is somehow trying
to intimidate you, don't turn away, don't try to get away.
It's like the best thing you can do is make
eye contact and widen your eyes a little bit.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
I just look super terrifying. Mm hmm. That's good.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
I like that. I could do that in my sleep, right,
Let the predator know. Well.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
My favorite one, though, is that is when she is
being followed by the student. He says something to her
and she turns to him and goes. You can see
me you can see him and starts chasing him. You
could see me, k how can you see me?

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Like ghost or something?

Speaker 1 (10:51):
And I'm just like, wow, Yeah, that's that's fucking fallsy.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
That's creative, it's effective, it's not Yeah, it's hilarious, going
for it.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Oh, speaking of what, this is a complete left turn?
Where are you going over here? Bye bye, Georgia.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Karen's turning, She's got getting something.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
This is a belated birthday gift for you for me?

Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yes, okay, I just want to we have to point
out that the ribbons are ketchup and mustard color. Oh
is that on purpose?

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Is that?

Speaker 1 (11:21):
Is that a hint?

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Well? Oh my god, thank you.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
You said something a couple episodes ago when you're like,
and my birthday and I was like, oh shit, because
the the Italian hand was huge.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Held on that for like three months though it wasn't
specifically for your birthday, and I was like, it's coming
up soon enough.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yeah, okay, yeah, Oh.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
My god, it's a hot dog phone.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
It's a hot dog phone. Oh god? Where did you
find this?

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Is it vintage?

Speaker 2 (11:51):
Our writer Alison Augusti found that online and was like,
I don't know it feels like you never gave Georgia
anything for her birthday. Fucking shit.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
It's like like the nineteen eight do you and do
you know this was used?

Speaker 2 (12:08):
This is Newman's phone on Seinfeld Newman, the irritating neighbor.
Of course he gets in trouble one time. There's an
episode and he answers his phone, and that's the phone
he answers.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Honestly, this might be the most amazing thing I've ever
seen in my life. And it's got its original box,
which is like so big. You know.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yeah, I'm acting like I had anything to do with it,
but I thank you, was like, don't you want to
give this to Jordan? I'm like, yes I did.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
When was the last time you held a fucking phone
in your hand?

Speaker 2 (12:34):
Like hang up? Like people?

Speaker 1 (12:36):
You know, it's like.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
Slam me star down. Yeah, hello Oscar Maya.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
Dude.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
It's so weird.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
I love it. And you can make it either tone
or pulse when you die.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
I remember the Oh my god, there's a redial R button. Shit,
this is crazy. This is amazing. Thank you. Can we
put it here?

Speaker 2 (12:54):
Here're welcome? Oh my god, yes, hot dog phone. And
we should get this made into a real landline, and
eventually people can call in on the hot dogs like
one call an episode. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
That is like a fucking amasic, like I'm steeless.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yay, okay, good, I'm glad because it's Italian hand. So
much better than the Hamberger hammer phone. It's a hot yeah,
so much better. I really would I unwrapped that Italian hand.
I was like, oh god, I don't even know. I
don't even know how I'm going to match this thing.
It's so epic and perfect.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
Thank you you did it?

Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Alison.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
Oh my, she had her eyes she had her eye out.
She was like, how do we make this all work?

Speaker 1 (13:36):
It's vintage in its original box, Like that is like
a that's a shifkiss, not an Italian hand gesture.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
It's a yes, it's a positive yeah. But also, who
was the person that bought that and never fucking touched it?

Speaker 1 (13:48):
Someone bought it as a joke for their grandma or something?

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Oh that right, thank you?

Speaker 1 (13:53):
Grandma always ate hot dogs?

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yeah that's right.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Did your grandma have a hot dog phone? Or did
someone you know have a hot dog phone?

Speaker 2 (13:59):
Growing up?

Speaker 1 (13:59):
About it? At my favorite murder at Gmail, we want.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
To call us one eight hundred h O T d
OgH no comment and tell us if you had a
hot dog phone on on this post.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
Okay, by the way, we have an exactly right network.
It's a podcast network. It's called exactly Right Media.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
Where the exactly right shows go right.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
That's right. Here's some information about them.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
Like, for example, we have a podcast called Ghosted by
Roz Hernandez and this week Roz is gagged and goosebumped
for the arrival of Canadian ghost hunting duo lu Cutchi
and Matthew Finland. They share spooky origin stories and behind
the scenes moments with their celebrity ghost hunting web series
Ghosting with Lou Cutchie and Matthew Finland.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
So fine getting the professionals in. I love it.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
I mean Roz must have been freaking out.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
On Genia Ride, Karen over there and Chris welcome. Comedian
and musician Paul Danky love him. See him at a
party and they talk about disappointed Dad's backtub wine and more.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
I will I love Paul Dinky. He truly is one
of the funniest stand up comedians. He's the guy that
can play all over this great country of and do
amazing because he's just a guy that, like you want
to talk to you at a party. He's very likable,
and he is one of the first friends I made
when I went back to stand up after I yeah,
like my big return to stand up, which was so humiliating. Yeah,

(15:15):
and I made like he and I met at a
show and it was like we were just immediately best friends.
Love him. He's great. He's the best I know. Over
on the Knife Off Record, Hannah and Patia sit down
with Anna Sinfield, who is the producer and writer of
the podcast The Girlfriends, and they're talking about telling stories
where women win. Anna previews the new season of the
show The Girlfriend's Jail House Lawyer, and Hannah shares a

(15:39):
legal update on the Brenda Andrew case. That is such
a great podcast, so good, it's so compelling.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yeah, yeah, all right, is that it?

Speaker 2 (15:50):
I think that's it.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
I think I'm first. So for my story, we're going
to go to the summer of nineteen seventy three. We're
going to go to have you been?

Speaker 2 (16:02):
I have? I was recently? Right? I actually for my
last vacation the last fall, I went to Italy And
then we've been joking about me doing a video for
the fan call, where I show everybody my pictures in
a real boring slide show style and narrate them because
they're just They're the pictures everyone has when they go
to Italy.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
It's called Instagram. I don't know if you've met it.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
I have not at all. I don't know her. I
don't know that man.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
All right. So we're in summer in nineteen seventy three.
We're in Rome and a sixteen year old boy vanishes
off the streets. It's not just any boy, though, it's
not just any normal kid. He was born John Paul Getty,
the third heir to the vast Getty oil fortune. Of course,
what follows is a bizarre tale of ransom, severed ears,

(16:47):
and a billionaire grandfather who refuses to pay up.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
Can I just first of all, I really love this story.
I'm very excited you're about to tell it. Yeah, my
dad loves to talk about how sheep but Getty was
no way because he can't believe that someone would be
that rich, and that he goes, do you know he goes,
Do you know that there is no phone to use
in that house? You had to use a payphone. I

(17:13):
have it in my story. I'm so sorry, it's true
like that. That's like everyone knows that. It's apparently so hilarious, Like.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
You're that rich and you put a payphone in your castle?

Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah, Like it's a castle. What what do you keep
in it?

Speaker 1 (17:25):
Well, I'll tell you even worse shit about this guy. Okay,
but we can argue it because there is like an
excuse for it that he gives. And I'm like, I
hear you, but you're still a dick, okay, okay. And
so the main sources for the story are a nineteen
seventy four article from Rolling Stone by Joe Estrahas, who
is the screenwriter of such famous films as Flash Dance,
Basic Instinct, and your favorite movie of all time, show Girls.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
That's right, we'll see this. He's the screenwriter. Okay, I
thought it was a director.

Speaker 4 (17:54):
All right.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
Let's talk about J.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
Paul Getty. He amassed his fortune through the Getty Oil Company,
which he founded at the nineteenth fifties, which kind of
has a through line to that Murderland book. You know,
just people people use in Earth's resources to get wealthy
and make other people work hard and then die early
for them.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah, And when they get the science back that hey,
maybe your invention isn't that great for people, They're like
too late. Now they literally hide it. They literally hide it.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
This book is a little infuriating, I must say, like,
I bet anyway.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
That's not this, this is all this.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
Not this, this is something else. So but his father
had been involved in the oil industry in the early
twentieth century. You know, the rich get richer people in
La of course know the Getty family name thanks of
the sprawling Getty Museum campus. We all have been to
the Getty It's an art museum housed in several palatial
buildings that are owned by the family. And we also
know Balthasar Getty, the actor.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
Oh, such a beautiful young man.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
The kidnapped boy's son.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yes, the kidnaps son's son, the grandson some call them.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
But the kidnapped kid it's his son, his actual son.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
Right it Balthazar Getty is his son, right yeah? Yea's okay,
take that out. No, that was fascinating.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
I don't know where.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
We are, Okay. So the Jay and this is confusing.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
The Jay and j Paul Getty stands for Jean, like
the French version of John he names his own son,
John Paul Getty the second, and then John Paul Getty
the second names his own son, John Paul Getty the third,
but most people refer to the third the kid, as Paul,
so we're gonna call him that through the rest of
this just for simplicity's sake. It gets confusing.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
Just let me know.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
So Grandpa Jay Paul Getty gets married five different times
and has five children. By the nineteen seventies, when our
story takes place, he is quite literally the richest man
in the world. Oh wow, with an estimated fortune of
about you're gonna laugh at this and we could talk
about it. Okay, one billion dollars, oh, which is adorable
in today's money.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
That's why everything is so fucked.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
So how much would that be in today's money?

Speaker 2 (19:56):
Seventies billion, seventies one billion, one billion? Is it seventies?
Isn't that long ago? Is it? Yes, it is. It's
fifty years, fifty billion. Seven.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
I know you're gonna get it wrong because it's like
too small. It should be bigger, but it's not. But however,
this is really interesting that Ali let me know, she said,
as an aside, the current wealthiest man in the world.
Elon Musk is worth about three hundred and eighty one
billion dollars. In fact, a fortune of that seven billion
dollars today wouldn't even crack the list of the top

(20:31):
three hundred richest people. And then Ali wrote, just to
give you an idea of how much has changed in
terms of wealth disparity over.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
The past fifty years.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
And I like, I love you, yes, right, So, like
that is absurd and insane and unnecessary and gross.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
That's what happens when you deregulate and you buy up
all the representatives and everything goes fucking crooked.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
Right, And Okay, back to our story, she wrote, back
to our story, because she probably knew we'd go off
on a tang.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah, I'm so sorry. But why did I fuck you
put a sweater on at the beginning of this. I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
Yeah, I'm hot, always more acy, We're over forty, thank you, okay.
And so, in addition to being enormously wealthy, J. Paul
is known for being extremely cheap. I guess, which was
news back then that everyone knew about.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah, well, I'm sure it's what a fun thing to talk, right,
You have it all and your penny pinching totally.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Everyone loves that. And the most extreme example is that
he had a castle outside of London called Sutton Place,
literally a former residence of Henry the Eighth, and he
put in a payphone so his guests wouldn't charge him
for long distance phone calls, which were expensive at the time. Yeah,
dime calling, no, no, no, remember calling long distance? When you
were a kind you got in trouble because you called

(21:42):
your best friend from camp and oh, oh long distance.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
I get you. Yeah, but I know, I know that,
I know You're like, it was expensive. I'm like, a
dime isn't expensive.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
A diamond today's money wouldn't be. But here's here's a
darker illustration of how he was cheap. He had a
son with his fifth wife, a woman named Luis Geddy,
who is known by the name Teddy. Their son, Timmy,
is diagnosed with a brain tumor when he's six years
old in the early fifties, causes him to go blind.

(22:13):
J Paul scolds Teddy for her spending on his medical treatments,
says she spent too much on them. Yep. Teddy dies
from his illness sadly when he's twelve years old, and
Jay Paul does not attend the funeral, saying he's too
busy with work. So it's basically it's basically what's his
name of the Simpsons, Monty Oh yeah Burns, mister Burns. Yeah,

(22:36):
think of him.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
Yeah, I mean, either he's a complete sociopath or he's
making those decisions and then when the like effects of
those decisions come up, he's like, I can't.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Look at that or deal with that. Okay, you're being kind.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Trying to figure it out. How the fuck do you
have all that money? And that's the way you're living
your life. Totally, Totally, you're a miserable Then you're electing
to be miserb.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
Your life isn't happy, and so what's the fucking point?

Speaker 2 (23:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (23:01):
Those are the people that, like, on their deathbed, they're like,
I wish I had and it's always something they could
have done, you know, spend time with my family. Yeah yeah,
we all knew that. Spend less time with dickheads? Did
you see that? How do you see that meme? It's
a guy with a strong Australian accent who says, spend
less time with your kids? Oh yeah, And he says
spend those time with dickheads. What the guy thinks he's saying, Okay,

(23:21):
stop it, okay, focus okuys. So, Paul, the son, the
teenager that we're talking about at the center of the story,
is born in nineteen fifty six to Eugene Getty, you know,
the second, and a woman named Gail Harris. She's a
San Francisco socialite. Hey, what if she knew your family?

Speaker 2 (23:36):
She is really good friends with my mom.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
Maybe you're a grandma cleaned her house?

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah? For really, I was gonna say, there's no socialites
crossing over with the Kilgarris or the pet Knights.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
She was called in as a cador one night for literally, No,
I'm not that sounds insulting. Maybe she cleaned her Maybe
your grandma cleaned her house, and your grandma was.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
A My grandma was a maid.

Speaker 1 (23:55):
A maid absolutely, So I'm not being an asshole. Yeah,
not on the list, thank you. Family moves to Rome
when Paul is two years old, and of course Paul
is born into in life of enormous privilege, but it's
not a particularly happy one. As none of us are
surprised to hear he's a sensitive child. He just immediately
is aware of the disconnect between his family and everyone

(24:16):
else around him, spends a lot of time alone and
says he has absolutely no fond childhood memory. Oh no,
I was abused, and I have fond childhood memories, you
know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
Yes, Like it's so no, usually it's a mix, you know, Yeah,
it's a but that's absolutely awful. Also, it makes sense
if you already are disconnected, if you are like the
uber wealthy anyway, because.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
The only kids you meet are like, yeah, the people
who work for you their children, and they have to
be nice to you or they have to come to
your party, and they just don't really like.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
That that creepy sadness, sad thing. Also, he didn't have
any dimes to make phone calls with, right.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
And like, yeah, woe is woe the little rich boy.
We know, Like just just go bear with us for
the story, Okay, But.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
I think like, if you're going to come in hard
for that argument, it's like, but quality of life is
not as we've all learned. It's like those people. Elon
Musk spends a lot of his time on Twitter right
fighting with people. He could literally buy himself a whale
and ride it around in the ocean if he wanted to.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, but I'd rather be lonely than starving, you.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Know, true, right, Well, I don't know. Sometimes you're like priority,
you're starving, but you're like, how many parties did you
go to in your twenties? We were just kind of like,
maybe I'll steal some once. You're saying that, because you
were starving throughout your twenties literally and in deep, deep
to a lot of parties, and I basically was like,
this is better than having any money in my bank account.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
We had. We had a really good time in our
twenties respectively.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, we did. Wow, what are we talking? I don't know.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
This is problematic and the kids these days. No, but
he loves reading. He loves hiding away with a book.
He reads about oceanographers. He's just loves hiding away with
a book.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
That's his child.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
In nineteen sixty six, when he's ten, Paul's parents separate
and his father moves out of the country. The two
never spent much time together, but this point their contact
becomes extremely limited. It seems like the dad and the
families are not in it to win it. Yeah, So
as a teenager, Paul not surprisingly has behavioral issues. He
bounces from school to school. He has issues with any

(26:21):
authority figure, and his signature move was to make himself
throw up on the desk and class. I mean that's aggressive,
it's wild.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
Yeah. My cousin Stevie used to hold his breath until
he passed out when he didn't get what he wanted.
Holy shit, he would do it all.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
Oh my, why haven't I been using that?

Speaker 2 (26:41):
I know it's good, it's pretty. It's a wild one.
But that's like intentionally throwing up.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah, that's pretty, that's like a that's a sign.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
Stevie's thing was more internal, and it's like he did
it to himself. Yeah, but that's you're doing it to
everyone else totally so gross.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
However, he's still actually popular, surprisingly with other students, because
they like agree with him that this sucks enough to
make yourself throw up on Who knows what the story
is there?

Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yeah, maybe they just thought it was cool. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
Despite these major issues, Paul is actually his grandfather, his
dick of a grandfather's favorite grandchild and Jay Paul tells
him that repeatedly, and then around this time, Paul's dad, Eugene,
who laughed, marries another woman Her name is TALITHA Pole,
and she dies tragically young at the age of thirty
one in nineteen seventy one, maybe from a heroin overdose,

(27:27):
maybe cardiac arrest due to the mixture of alcohol grabituates.
It's like a little suspicion, little sus Oh yeah, And
so all this is to say that in nineteen seventy three,
Paul is now sixteen years old. He's incredibly privileged, and
his life has also been incredibly chaotic. He's a cutie pie.
He's got the long seventies curly hair.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
What was that like?

Speaker 1 (27:51):
Name some heart throbs from the seventies.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
Andy Gibb, Leaf, Garrett, He's got Leaf Garrett vibes slash.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
What was the other one? Who was the sibling?

Speaker 2 (27:59):
All the siblings on eight is enough? No?

Speaker 1 (28:02):
In the like their their band they all had a band.
Osmond's Oh Donnie right, Donnie Osmond?

Speaker 2 (28:10):
Is that right? He's the one that had the big
teeth and he's he's Mormon. Well here look at his face.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
He's got Donnie Osmond vibes kind of leaf.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
He's got that like cute, Yes, he's cute, and he's
kind of like he actually looks like Danny Bonaducci from
The Partridge Family. Is that who you were thinking of?

Speaker 1 (28:25):
Probably all of the above.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
He's kind of a mix of all of them. Yeah,
he's like a cute little cutie pie.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
He looks like a sweet little face.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
Yes, he looks like the kind of boy that you
would pick because you would think he might like it's
not like he's.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
Dashing, and he looks like he's gonna be so hot
when he's older too, Like he has right.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yeah, because he has almost like a poetic, winsome kind
of face. Yeah, totally. Hmmm, don't get sad. His mother
looks like Julie Christie. Oh yeah, okay, Oh no, I know.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
His grandpa look's like Mandy Burns.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
Give me a die.

Speaker 4 (28:58):
You know.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
You know who played him in movie that came out recently?

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Donald Sutherland? Yes, oh I saw it? But who did
Christopher Plumber play? Christopher Plumber? Oh it? Did Christopher Palmer
play it? And not Donald Sutherland? I think?

Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah, but he looks like Donald Sutherland. But you know,
Kevin Spacey was cast originally, and that's the movie that
they had to stop and redo because of the allegations
against Wow, Kevin Spacey and so Christopher Plummer took his place.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
Oh that's amazing, and got.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
Nominated for an oscar. The movie's called All the Money
in the World. Oh, okay, did you see that?

Speaker 2 (29:30):
No, I'm thinking of the one they made on FX.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yeah, yeah, And I think that was Donald Sutherland because
I just remember the fucking phone, the phone with the
right like he made a normal phone into a pay phone.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah, it looks like he looks like Donald Sutherland. Yeah,
and Christopher Plumber. He's living at this point in an
apartment with friends at sixteen in Rome, not really going
to school, partying with celebrities and fucking Rome like Jack
Nicholson and they done away. There's a huge disco scene Rome,
like take me there. Can you imagine in the eighties,

(30:03):
in the seventies or early seventies, so like every shit,
anything is a go.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Also, the people there are so good looking? Are they?

Speaker 1 (30:11):
I bet?

Speaker 2 (30:11):
I mean just like they just are. It's like they're
like chic and good looking. In the day to day.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah, when he's not out partying, he's mostly he mostly
hangs out in the Piazza Navona.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
Did you go there?

Speaker 1 (30:24):
Probably it's a popular tourist destination in the center of
Rome with this famous fountain.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
Dude, did I tell you my Trevy Fountain story really quick?

Speaker 1 (30:32):
It's not Trevy Fountain, but it's yes, it's a different
it's a different mount but yes, no, you didn't tell me.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
Just that it was. It was blocked off when we
were there because they were redoing everything for the jubilee,
and but people, of course still went and stood in
front of the fence that was in front of it
while they were cleaning it. And somebody, somebody near the
front tried to throw a coin over the fence so
they could still even though it was like drained and stuff.

(30:57):
But they ended up throwing it backwards, acid and just
hitting somebody else. And it was the good luck. It's
so funny. It was so hilarious. And the person in
the back got so mad where they're like these fucking
taurus like there's so many tourists. Oh my god, it
was wild. How is the base House wedding? Though? Oh
my god? I loved it.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
I loved Kim's outfit. Kim Kim Kardashian, she's all over
that thing. Okay, we're back.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
So I did not go to Jeffrey.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
Bezos wed She wasn't even invited. He is not talking
and go to save the day and then no invite, Like,
how rude is.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
That they changed their mind? Yeah, so Paul has.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
Some walking around money from his mother, but since he's
not yet an adult, he doesn't have access to the
family's fortune. I'm sure he does fine. Yeah, he sometimes
sells paintings for money. But that's what everyone in Rome
knows that Paul is a getty. You know, his name
gets him into clubs and parties, and unfortunately it also
winds up getting him kidnapped. In the very early morning

(31:56):
hours of July tenth in nineteen seventy three, sixteen year
old Paul has been out partying and now he's wandering
the streets of Rome as you did when you were young.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
What a place to wander around drunk?

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Yeah, and high and like the light's coming up. It's
so beautiful.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
It's an unbelievable city. You've had a couple of aperarel spritzes.
You get out there and say, coke, get that's what?
And just a general like totally unrealistic life up until
that point.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
I'm sixteen and everything's ahead of me, and.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Everyone kind of likes me because even if they can't
get something from me in that moment.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Maybe later dude to doote and then he gets hit
over the back of the Head's so.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Easy walking by himself.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
It sounds like he's by himself. He stops at a
newstand to get a magazine and a Nickey Mouse comic book,
which is like, oh, he's a baby. He is at
least drunk, if not more. And so a white car
pulls up with four guys in it. They jump out
and they hit him on the back of the head
with their pistol butts and then put a cloth over
his face and he thinks it has chloroform on it

(32:58):
because he passes out. He wakes up sometime later in
the moving car. He's blindfolded and the back of his
head is bleeding, and his wrists and ankles are tied together.
The kidnappers drive Paul for about six hours and there
was no air conditioning.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
I bet either no no way.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
When they stop, they carry Paul out of the car.
He gets the sense. He later says that he's in
the mountain area because of the wind, and he worries
the kidnappers are going to throw him off a cliff,
but Instead, they lie him down on a blanket on
the ground, so he doesn't know it's for ransom yet.
It's just like I've just been kidnapped. Every few days,
the kidnappers move Paul to a new location they feel

(33:34):
mostly outdoors. To Paul, he remains blindfolded, but sometimes he
can tell he's like in a little hut or something.
After what feels like a few days, the kidnappers bring
him a pen and paper and ask for his grandfather's
address because they want to send him a ransom letter. Yeah,
and Paul has to write it, and he like considers
like trying to write in code, trying to get like

(33:56):
just somehow a message across, and he's probably staring and hurt,
and he's like, I can't even think of how I
would do that, right, So he just writes the letter.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
Here's how I would do it. Yeah, dear Grandpa, Yeah,
you've always been so generous to me. I know that
this won't be a big deal to you, because I
know how much you don't care about money.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
It's not him, it's not No, they wouldn't know it's him.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
Yeah, it'd be like something's terrible.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
Ring was wrong. That's a good point so that he
does that, and now Paul knows that it's definitely a
ransom kidnapping, and he he knows that his grandpa is tightfisted,
so he's like, I'm yeah. He's not like, oh good,
I'll maybe I'll survive this.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
He's like, shit, I'm living in this hut from now on. Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Paul has been kidnapped by a group called the undrunk Etty,
a mafia syndicate that operates out of Calabria, which is
all the way in the south of Italy. It's the
toe of the boot, and in the nineteen seventies it's
still a very poor area and very much run by
the mafia. At first, people think that there's evidence that
he helped with the kidnapping to get some money himself.

(34:59):
Oh yeah, because he's sixteen years old, it lives by
himself on Rome. He doesn't have a ton of money
to his name. But it's quickly shown that he has
nothing to do with the plot.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
Annas, yeah, that's not the way.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
He's like, they're not getting ransom money, and I wouldn't
get any of the ransom money that you guys got,
so he has nothing to do with it.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
So then on July eighteenth, the ransom letter arrives, one
to Gail, the mother and one to J. Paul Geddy,
the grandpa. Gail's letter says, quote, Dear mummy, I have
fallen into the hands of kidnappers. Don't let me be killed.
Arrange things so that the police don't intervene. You must
absolutely not take this thing as a joke. Try and
get in contact with the kidnappers in the manner and

(35:37):
the way they tell you. Don't let the public know
about the negotiations if you don't want me killed. He's like, please,
don't take this as a joke. And no, this isn't
just me running away. Like I know, I've done shitty
things and the weird stuff in the past, and I
party all night.

Speaker 2 (35:49):
But this is not that. You have to get all
of that said in one letter of like, okay, we
don't hang up, but totally in a letter, yes, exactly.
It's horrible.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
I want to live and to be free again. Don't
publicize my kidnapping.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Pay.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
I beg you pay as soon as possible if you
wish me well. This is all you have to know.
If you delay, it is very dangerous for me, I
love you, Paul end quote, and to his grandpa, he
simply says, quote, I know we haven't been very close,
but I hope you know that I love you. Please
do whatever you can to get me out of here.
This is serious love, Paul. That's kind of like all

(36:22):
he can.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
Yeah, he doesn't. He knows the other way won't work totally.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
Despite Paul's warnings not to publicize the kidnapping, the news
gets out and J. Paul Getty releases a statement to
the press saying he doesn't plan to pay any ransom,
and now let's play devil's advocate. He says, quote, although
I see my grandson infrequently and I'm not particularly close
to him, didn't need to say that. Thou didn't need
to be no connection. No, no, don't care. I love

(36:48):
him nonetheless, like to just say you love him, You
don't have to. Okay, However, I don't believe in paying kidnappers.
I have fourteen other grandchildren and if I pay one
penny now, then I'll have fourteen kidnapps grandchildren end quote,
which is, yeah, don't negotiate with terrorists like that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
Yes, it does, it completely does.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
But you're still you're still in a hard place.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
But also the way he's lived the rest of his
life makes no sense. So it's like suddenly he's making
all kinds of sense where it's like, right, cough up
the fucking brain cancer money, would you please? Like? What
are you doing?

Speaker 1 (37:23):
Brain cancer? Was holding your kid ransom before and you
didn't care out?

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Yeah, so I suggested that, but then you put it
into the perfect statement. Oh yeah, so now it's your
being mean, not mean, don't mean to.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Be allowed in the getty again. That's like on the
band list. Fine, I don't like museums.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Your pictures right there in the ticket booth.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
My painting is Ryther.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
Did you say I don't like museums? Anyway?

Speaker 1 (37:50):
Gayl The mom instructs the kidnappers to speak with the
family lawyer, and they have the rest of the correspondence
with him. They tell the lawyer that they want ten
billion lira, which is about seven teen million dollars. You
want to guess what that is in today's money?

Speaker 2 (38:03):
Seventeen million dollars. Ten billion lira would in today's money
be thirty billion lira, which would be roughly around.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
Well you said no already, Oh no, I thought you
were saying thirty, No, twenty five, one hundred and twenty
two million. Oh, so they went they went high, Yeah,
they did. The kidnappers go back and forth negotiating with
the lawyer for weeks, negotiating for this person's life turns
into months, and meanwhile the Italian police have basically dismissed
the whole thing, saying it's either a hoax or that
Paul himself orchestrated the kidnapping. So no one's taking it seriously.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
Again, that thing the police do where they're like, no
work for us here, because we've se heurized that there
is no work for us.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
You know what, I bet that's what they said.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
I bet it's this, I bet it's not real. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
While this is going on, Paul's kidnappers continue to move
him around. He's got to be so fucking bombed at
this point. Eventually they march him for eight hours up
a high mountain to a cave, and he thinks later
that it's an abandoned Nazi bunker, so he's not anywhere comfortable.
In October of nineteen seventy three, Okay, this is when
it gets serious for him. They say that they're going
to give him a haircut, and he is like, oh no, oh,

(39:08):
thinking they're about to slice off one of his fingers.
But they do give him a haircut, and then they
pour alcohol all over one side of his head and
they cut off his ear and you can see it
in the photos later, like ear is gone, not a
tip of the ear, cut off his entire year, which is.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
So just sad.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
He's an excruciating pain. He pays in and out over
the next couple of days.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
I mean, can you can you you like, I cut
my fingers so often when I feed my damn dogs
because I do that like dog roll or whatever that
I'm always cutting up. Yeah, I'm like, you walk around
with that for a couple days. It's like uh huhm. Yeah,
it's so awful. It's your whole ear, your whole.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
Ear, and you're in the mountains, and so the only
pain Killery really has his alcohol. It seems like they
give him a lot of alcohol.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
Well that's lasia, is that I mean?

Speaker 1 (39:56):
But then the hangovers, okay.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
So you can never sleep on that. So oh, it's
just like the pain.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
The captors seal the ear in a plastic envelope with
the lock of his hair, so they did cut his
hair for a reason, and a letter threatening to further
mutilate Paul if the negotiations keep dragging on. They mail
it to an Italian newspaper because they're like maybe they're
the only ones who will give a shit. Yeah, which
is smart, But there's a problem.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
This is so sad.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
There's a postal strike going on.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
No.

Speaker 1 (40:22):
Yeah, so the ear takes three weeks to arrive at
its destination. Like what bad luck. That's horrible for him. Horrible, right,
It's just like just like a shitty thing.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
Also, just like why can't they just place him somewhere,
I mean, yeah, out in the countryside or whatever, just
like moving him around and always keeping him like in
a cave or somewhere exposed.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
Go drop that letter off at the Yeah, yeah, there's
no there's no CCTV at the time, Like, just throw
that letter somewhere and yeah, don't mail I'm in a basement. Yeah,
once it does get there. In mid November, the reporters
contact the Getty family and the police. Though the police
still think the kid upping as a hoax. They're holding
on Paul's mom, Gail doesn't have access to that kind
of money herself, you know, of course. But at this

(41:08):
point Paul's father, Eugene Jay Paul Gety the second, finally
gets in touch. He's not in Italy and he doesn't
want to come back to Italy because he's wanted for
questioning in his second wife's death. Remember, she died of
a possible drug overdose. There's not really evidence he has
anything to do with the death, but it does seem
fair to say that he doesn't want to deal with
the Italian police. So Eugene says he's willing to pay

(41:29):
a reduced ransom for his son of one million, which
is about ten million in today's money, but tries to
simultaneously negotiate with his ex wife Gail, for custody of
their children if he pays it. So he turns this
into thing about himself.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
Right of course, like he has to get something out.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
Of I'll do it, but yeah, I'll save your son.
But the kidnappers reject the offer, saying they want two
point nine million, which is more than twenty million in
today's money. They're like, you're negotiating for your child. His
ear's gone.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
I feel like my family would like get us some
sort of a chili cook off together and raise money,
you know what I mean? Like this idea that he
has to keep passing it from relative to relative. You'd
like to think.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
Do you wonder they're like if they saw the ear,
if they'd know it was his ear? Like, would you
be able to pick your own ear out of a lineup?
I don't know if I could.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
I could. I just have I have big ears, Okay,
so I think i'd be able to be Like do
you think they think it was.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
Like a big Lebowski little toe situation where like this
could be anyone's little toe too, right, Yeah, you should
have something more recognizable.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah, and ear is tough. Although they say they can
use them to identify people, like in aging and stuff
like that. That's true, yeah, okay, but not separate from
the head. No, I mean, I don't know what people
can do.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
Let us know, forensic people who are in please write in,
Please let us know. So they want two point nine million.
It's only at this point that the family patriarch J.
Paul Getty, the og the world's richest man, says he'll pay,
but he actually only pays two point two million, just
as this is like a final fuck you I'll pay it,
but I'm only paying two point two million because that's

(43:11):
the maximum amount that's tax deductible. What in the actual fuck?

Speaker 4 (43:16):
Wow?

Speaker 2 (43:16):
These people like right, and he's He's also like and
I'm minused every time I had to make a phone
call about this. Yeah, and that's that's over one hundred dimes.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
He pays two point two but to get to that
two point nine, which they still want, he then gives
the rest of the amount to his son to pay
that part of it so he doesn't have to pay
taxes on it, but he gives it to him as
a loan with interest.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
Good lord, I mean that's like, yeah, diabolical and also
like it's mental illness at that point, you just can't
not track money.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Yeah, all while the Italian media is running photos of
his teenage grandson's severed ears, so I think people were
probably like, felt pretty bad for Paul.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
I mean, it was actually the kidnappers best move is
to just send that ear to the press or just right.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
The Getty family hires an XCIA officer to handle the exchange,
and in December he leaps packages of money along the
side of the road in Calabria. The captors tell Paul
that they've received the money, but they have to wait
until the next day, Monday, to release him because there's
a gas shortage in Italy and no one is allowed
to drive anywhere on Sundays.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
Like, dude, what I know. It was a bad time
in Italy.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
Thankfully, the next day, the cafters blindfold Paul, bring him
to a car, drive him to remote location, and leave
him on the side of the road to be picked up. Eventually,
and I don't know how long that is, the local
police find him. Go poor dude. Paula arrives in Rome
to a huge amount of attention from the press and
from bystanders. He's mobbed at the police station. Eventually, his
mother takes him to a private clinic to recover, and

(44:50):
then he goes to the Alps to rest and rebuild
his muscles by skiing, which is like that sounds nice,
you know.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
Yeah, you can also do that in physical theory, right right,
It's like that's yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
The Talian The police ultimately arrest nine people for the kidnapping,
but only two are ever convicted. Most of the ransom
money is never recovered.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
Oh yeah, so they kind of got away with it.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
Some people got away with it Gay. All the Moms
suggests that Paul calls his grandfather to thank him for
paying the ransom, but Jay Paul Getty doesn't come to
the phone, yeah, to say you're welcome for the ransom.
My grandson. The Getty patriarch dies about a year after
his grandson's kidnapping, and everyone said good riddance with.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
A roll of dimes clutched to his chest. I mean,
that's right. I can't let it go because phone calls
used to be really cheap.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
Yeah, so let's something like harboring the local only thing, Like,
it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
It was really expensive long distance.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
I wish I had like a really happy ending to this.
We all want him to like go on to a
happy life of charity and giving and everything, but unfortunately
he doesn't. He grows up, gets married, moves to New York,
has a son, the actor of Balthazargetti. He's not surprisingly
forever traumatized by his kidnapping, of course, and will always struggle.

(46:10):
He struggles with substance abuse and alcohol abuse. He's just
not there's no therapy for him. I'm sure it's just
he's like not just the kidnapping, but that your family
wouldn't pay it.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
Yes, it's this idea of like your value, nobody for
you your Yeah, no one's on your side, no one's going
to fight like hell, no one's gonna do anything. Yeah,
it sucks.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
And in nineteen eighty one, when he's only twenty five,
he suffers an overdose and this causes him to have
a stroke, which leaves him paralyzed and unable to speak
for the rest of his life. And he's in a wheelchair.
It's so heartbreaking, those spiders of him and it's just
like you try to see the man he could have been. Yeah,
and it's just he never had a chance.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
Paul's mother, Gail, cares for him full time after that,
and in twenty eleven he dies at the age of
fifty four.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
And that is the sad story of the kidnapping of
John Paul Getty the third That's us. Sorry, I knew, damn,
it's just tragedy.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Because I'll be honest. When I was watching the FX
series Trust Trust.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Yeah, I want to watch it now.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
It's great. Yeah, and of course like it's really well done,
but I stopped watching because I think it was a
mini series if I'm not mistaken, so like, if that
is the case, then after three episodes, I was like,
I just don't The people that played the Italian kidnappers
were hot, hot, hot, wow, and wearing like seventies like
like a leather jacket with like a big V, very

(47:39):
disco hot. Yeah, so that was fun.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
I want to watch it.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
But then after a while you're just like, oh, yeah,
this sucks. And this is kind of this human condition
where we get this idea of like, if I have
ex it'll make me happy.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
I mean we know that because like many people have
been broken that there's nothing worse than when you're stressing
about No, it's the worst.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
You're trame off of your life, the stress of it's
horror being broke, and it.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
Makes you desperate and all those things. But it's like,
but there's a desperation to being on the other side,
which is it's hard.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
To empathize with. But yeah, this is what we do
as people.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
But I just think it's really important that we care
for the billionaires at a time like this in America.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
Try to understand the billionaire's point of view. They're sad,
they have so much art that's all they have.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
We're joking, clearly. Please don't add us. Please don't take
anything we say too.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
Oh my god, you do something happier, Yes I do?

Speaker 2 (48:32):
Oh good? Are you ready to churn it around? Please?
This one's light and fun yay. And I have to
put my sweater back on. I'm fifty five.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
It's so hot in here right now. I don't know
why I got cold. I'm sweating.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
This is all I do all night long, back and forth,
back and and I'm just like, get out of them there,
hold on a second, okay, okay.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
I also found out that when you're on SSRIs as
I am, it makes you intolerant to temperature changes, especially heat.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Oh so now you're like extra sensitive.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
So when I'm at a party, like it's hot, right,
it's hot right, It's like it's.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Not yeah just me, Okay, you're not alone. It's hot
to other people too.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
A lot to other people with depression too, menopause, a
lot of us.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
It's random heat syndrome where you're just todd hot for
no reason. People who run hot.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
So my story today takes place in Franklin County, Kentucky,
which is home to the state capitol and what's the
capital of Kentucky. Louisville. That's right, Frankfurt. Oh my god,
I wrote that's right Frankfort. No matter what you're going
to say is going to pretend you said Frankfurt. Oh man,

(49:51):
you really believed you you had it right. I'm so excited.
Oh that's embarrassing.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
Franklin. It's going to be mad at me, and Louisville
is going to be mad in me.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Everyone, it doesn't matter. Everyone's always mad at us. It
doesn't matter. Now we have to go there on tour.
Now we've ad a date. Dam Frankfurt, harey come, Franklin County.
Here we come.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
That's what I meant. I said, Frankfurt.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
Frankfort is the city in Franklin County. Is the area
of it? Sorry, And we're probably pronouncing it wrong. Also
because it's frank Fort, which I'm sure.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
It's ham Fort. The ford is silent? Isn't silent?

Speaker 2 (50:26):
It sounds like Appalachia. Okay, give us an what is
It's called pneumonic aid and we will remember always So
this part of Kentucky, this Carter, Kentucky, tends to be
pretty quiet. The population of Franklin County is around fifty
thousand for everybody. That means for everybody, that means every
resident of Franklin County can fit in Dodger Stadium. Wow,

(50:49):
shut up, So it's small. That's crazy people wise. So
when Franklin County made headlines in October of twenty thirteen,
the people who live there could not believe it because
it wasn't the local paper or the local news station
that was reporting. The case that was being talked about
was on the national news and then it went international,

(51:09):
But it wasn't the kind of case that normally gets
that level of press. You could say, it's actually a
very Kentucky crime. Dozens of cases of bourbon had gone
missing from one of the state's most well known distilleries,
a distillery called Buffalo Trace, which is based right there
in Franklin County. It's good shit, right.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
That's what's in this cup right here. It's just all bourbon,
just like the glass of warm bourbon.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
It's seven fingers of bourbon and Georgia's travel monk. So
you know, bourbon going missing normally would not ignite a
media frenzy. But it was no ordinary bourbon. It was
a very rare whiskey. With a cult following. A single
bottle could sell for thousands of dollars on the black market.
It was called Pappy van Winkle. Oh you heard of this.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
I don't think I've heard of this, but I know
Pappy van Winkle. No you do. I don't think I
know this. Oh sure, I like bourbon.

Speaker 2 (52:01):
So this is the story of the Pappy Gate heist
and the man who'd find himself at the center of
it all. And his name is Toby Kurtzinger.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
Wow, I don't know this, okay.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
So the sources that Maren used for the story today
are reporting by the Lexington Harold Ledger. There's a magazine
called Garden and Gun and that's real. Wow. There is
an article in it by a journalist's named Guy Martin
entitled what Netflix gets right and wrong about Pappy Gate.
So it's like the definitive, like locals knowing the story,

(52:33):
which is so the coastal elite.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
Yeah for Garden and Gun. Yeah, I mean, hey, we
have gardens and guns out here in California. Got both.
We got both. I don't think we have a lot
of magazines about it. And then, of course, two episodes
of the Netflix series Heist that feature this story and
the rest of the sources are in our show notes.
So this all begins in nineteen eighty eight, because that's
the year that a young man in his late teens

(52:58):
named Toby Kurtzinger is hired by the Buffalo Trace Distillery.
So Toby starts out working in the warehouse, and then
over the next two decades he basically moves around to
different departments at the distillery. He works in shipping, then
he works on the loading docks, so he has a
very good understanding of how this distillery works. And on

(53:19):
that Netflix show Heist, Toby explains firsthand that when he
first starts working at Buffalo Trace, he isn't a big
whiskey guy himself, but it is part of the workplace cultures.
You could imagine everybody drinks. He picks up the habit quickly,
and according to Toby, everybody who works there also dips
into the distilleries bourbon supply. It's not unusual for employees

(53:41):
to head home with a bottle or two or three,
and it's mostly tolerated and probably actually even expected. It's
probably part great business. Yeah, and it's like you put
that up in your cabinet and you pour it to
your friends when they come over, and then that's just
more business. So basically, a little missing inventory here and
there does not draw much attention. And again everyone is drunk,

(54:03):
so who's to say, Just kidding, I put that in.
So outside of work, Toby's world revolves around the local
adult softball league. He and his teammates are a tight
knit group, and they take the game very very seriously,
as men love to do with casual sports outing. They
actually go start lifting weights at the local gym together.

(54:25):
They're always trying to get bigger and stronger and more
intimidating on that field. Is that ball harder?

Speaker 1 (54:30):
I don't know what.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
Toby even starts taking steroids first fucking softball? Yes, friend,
I mean, because winning is everything and softball is everything.
I told you about the year I played entertainment innermural
softball when I was on speed in the nineties.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
Anyone anyone cool on the team on our team? Yeah,
that you can brag about.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
Mister Shows, John Ennis, Oh, mister Show's David Cross go.
There was a lot of good people. I had one
game where I was so hi and I was so
good at this game that people applauded for me at
the end of the game. Holy shit, And I was
just like, oh no, I'm just going faster than everybody else.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
I just like my game works. Yeah, just trajectories and
shit make total sense to Karen Kilgera.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
I am into doping for sports. I think it works, works,
it works if you work it. Yeah. So he's now
beefed up and great at softball, and of course he
meets a woman at the gym named Julie sparks Fly.
They get married in two thousand and one when Toby
is around thirty years old, and they quickly have two
children together. And Toby loves his family, but he does

(55:38):
have trouble adjusting to marriage, like the responsibilities of marriage
and fatherhood. He still is spending all his time playing softball,
his passion, and of course working out. So that means
his wife, Julie, who is a very busy real estate agent,
has to pick up all the slack. Oh no, so
she is forced to give Toby the ultimatum his family

(55:59):
are softball, Like.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
That's just not something you picture in your like ten
year plan of life, as like fighting with your husband
about softball.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
Now, you know, but it makes sense that like I
think if you you didn't play sports in high school,
I didn't.

Speaker 1 (56:15):
I did drugs in high school, so I but I
played sports before. I played soccer before pretty like aggressively.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
Okay. Yeah, and you were very good at kickball afterwards
in the in the two thousands when kickball rehab.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
Oh yeah, you get like kickball rehab. Now I got
really at the table tennis because.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
But I mean, I think that's that thing where like
I remember, I wasn't even that good at softball, but
when I left high school, I would have dreams about
playing it all the time because it was just this
kind of ritualistic this is how I spend my time.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
Yeah, I'm not making fun, like everyone should have their hobby,
but it gets in the way of your family.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
Then it's like, yeah, you gotta you gotta come on. Yeah.
And also women don't get the choice, right, which is
the thing I think, you know, people are starting to
realize now of like, yeah, you did just get to
go play softball after work. If you pick there is
slack and you're not picking it up. Yeah, brog it up.
So he picks family over softball. Sure he's a decent
human being, but there is genuine grief over having to

(57:07):
quit the team, like she's just quit, yeah, because she's like,
you got to come home at night. Yeah. So now
we fast forward to a night in two thousand and eight,
Toby invites one of his old softball friends over. He
never names this person, but in their hang in his
man cave, just kidding, put the iyad. At that end,
he decides to pull out his special bottle of twenty

(57:27):
year old Pappy van Winkle for them to drink. Okay,
Pappy van Winkle by two thousand and eight is worth
around one thousand dollars a bottle. I had no idea. Yeah,
and it's worth more on the black market. So this
is the stuff. It's because it's aged for twenty years
and all that whatever. It's by very specialty. And so
of course he wants to treat his friend and it's
their special night and fun times. And also here's why

(57:50):
twenty year Pappy is so expensive because since it's debut
in nineteen ninety four, this bourbon has been recommended, heralded,
and celebrated by everyone from casual drinkers and bartenders to
whiskey experts and celebrities. The most important one being Anthony Boardin.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
Oh shit, so that's like his favorite honas right? Okay,
Oh yeah, you talked about it a lot. I fucking
can hear Anthony Boardine saying yeah. Writer Paul Walkder reports
for New York Magazine. Quote, twenty year old Pappy van
Winkle has become the most covetable whiskey.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
On the planet. It's defining characteristics are an unusual sweetness
and an uncannily long, complex finish that's described as having
the flavors of everything from cigar boxes to coconut to
dried tangerine.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
We've got to ask Paul Holes about that. He's a
connoisseur too.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
Oh, I wonder if he's tried it. Yeah, call him
on the hot Dog phone. Wouldn't that be amazing? Yeah?
If you pick up the phone, any straight to Paul Holes?
Oh any hosts? Yeah, No, you're right.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
Straight to ball Hole to ask him a question. Hey,
is it illegal too?

Speaker 2 (58:54):
And he has to pick it up yes, thereby his
fish tank in his office where he records all his
talk talk. Okay, so, over the last three decades, the
hype around Pappy van Winkle has snowballed so much that
Buffalo Trace which has a very long, very specific distilling
process for this particular bourbon just can't keep up with demand.

(59:15):
They're only able to produce about seven thy twelve bottle
cases a year. Okay, So, for example, Jack Daniels produces
more than ten million cases of black label whiskey every year.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
Okay, seven how'd you say?

Speaker 2 (59:27):
Seven hundred seven thousand?

Speaker 1 (59:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (59:30):
Oh wow? Okay, yeah. Yeah. So. A Thrillist article describes
twenty year Pappy as quote the sort of thing that
millionaires will fight each other for.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
Guys, guys, guys, your softballing fucking thousand dollars whiskey. You
come on and listen. My husband's into professional wrestling like
a lot. So I shouldn't be judging other people's hobbies.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
But I love any British film that involves Jane Austen
in any way, shape or form.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
That's what yours is, Yeah, that's mine. Cats, just fucking
cats have all the hard, cared cat and vintage yes, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
I also like to swim and read, Okay, so it's
obviously a big treat. When Toby pulls this bottle out
to share it with his softball friend, it seems possible
that his friend has never even seen a bottle of
twenty year pappy before, because you cannot find it on
liquor store shelves, and the lucky shops that do get

(01:00:26):
it in only have a few bottles like a year.
Then they have to decide. The liquor store has to
decide how to sell it, So some stores have years
long waiting lists for it oly shit. Other ones raffle
them off, like have a random drawn art to see
if they get their pappy. I had no idea. Yeah,
you might be able to find a restaurant or a
bar that has it on the menu, but a single

(01:00:48):
shot of twenty year pappy will likely cost you at
least two hundred and fifty one hundred dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
Damn it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
I just realized as you were guessing, I was like,
this is probably anti climactic.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
I was thinking of the other one. I was like,
don't guess. You shouldn't guess. It's not that fun. Yeah, though,
for a shot, it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
So when Toby brings out the pappy to impress his guest,
it works. His friend is so excited to be getting
to drink it. He even asked Toby if he can
buy the rest of the bottle they're drinking right then
and there, Toby does his friend one better. He pulls
out two more bottles of twenty year pappy and he
offers them up like you can buy these from me,
oh shit, And the friend happily takes the bourbon and

(01:01:30):
returns the next day with a bunch of cash for
Toby and a request for more. And in Toby's mind,
it's easy money. He has easy access to this very
expensive bourbon. He's never got in trouble for taking anything
before from work, and he genuinely doesn't think anyone will
leave a notice if a couple more bottles go missing,

(01:01:50):
So Toby figures he's just going to steal one or
two more twenty year pappies to sell to this front.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
They weren't locking them up or anything.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
In fact, they talk about it, they had a very
antiquated security system. In general, it was all very lax
and casual. They didn't have video cameras the I'll talk
about it later, but the place where they did hold it,
the hinge was broken so you could just like open
the door anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
It's reminding me of the Great maple Syrup heist. Sorry
where it's just like.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
It's just like that. So Toby's taken it very casually.
He's like, oh, we'll be fine. But of course, when
that cash starts rolling in, because it is so valuable,
things quickly get out of hand. Toby starts showing up
at local poker nights with a stolen bottle of twenty
year pappy, knowing that there will be doctors, lawyers, judges
and politicians there, the kind of people who want and

(01:02:43):
can afford the price of the pappy. It sort of
becomes a promotional ploy him showing with that bottle and
basically alerting the wealthy around town that he can be
their pappy hookup. And it works. Everyone wants Toby to
get them a bottle a twenty year pappy, and he
promises that he can. He says, quote, you got people going, hey,

(01:03:07):
i'll give you this for a bottle, and what they're
offering is twice what you make in two weeks, and
it's tax free.

Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
And you know, I feel like it's like that broken
window syndrome or whatever it's called, where it's.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
Like it's not locked up.

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
So he is assuming it's not as valuable to them
as it would be he's not breaking any he's not
breaking into anything. He's just walking in. So they must
not care about it that much. Yes, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
Yeah, it's just it's very easy to rationalize. I think
that's like why religion was started, because if people are
left to their own devices, they're just like, it's all that. Yeah,
Like that's all. We've told the story many times. Like
one of my first jobs, I worked at a cafe
and I was like, I deserve to take twenty dollars
out of the tiller at night so I can buy beer. Yeah,

(01:03:51):
like I did it twice.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
And then the manager's like, I think the janitor's stealing.
And I was like, oh yeah, that's when when the
rationalization meets the Thankfully you had that insight at least, yes,
And I had home Jim on the phone, who's like,
there's some people he said it, like almost out of
the blue one day and he's like, you know, there's
some people they just can't keep their hands out of
the till. And then I was like, oh, no, they

(01:04:15):
know that's me. That's good that he knew he could tell.
So Toby's starting price for one bottle seven hundred and
fifty dollars and it's normally like a thousand. It's he's
basically like friends and family, I guess smart. But if
you go and I Maren keeps using the term black market, Yeah,
but I think it's like any it's so hard to

(01:04:38):
get that you would probably end up having to pay
this much. Right, So he's kind of like, I'm your
guy that can get it for you for this Yeah,
but he's fulfilling these orders by simply stealing bottles from
work as needed. Jesus and as I said, the cage
where Buffalo Trace keeps the pappy has a broken hinge,
so Toby walks in and out and takes it anytime

(01:04:58):
he wants to no one's looking, he can take as
much as he wants. So this sales plan obviously is
not sustainable and basically, very quickly he can't meet his
own demand. He's kind of like worked it around and
been like the big man at the party with the
twenty year pappy, but he can't actually get it done,
so he enlists some help. One of his first recruits

(01:05:19):
is a friend at work who's a new father, and
Toby figures he can use some cash. This coworker comes
up with a very straightforward plan. They can steal the
twenty year Pappy that's currently staged in one of the
distilleries display cases. So basically, there's a bunch of bottles
of it just sitting somewhere like for show people that
are going to be at the distillery.

Speaker 1 (01:05:40):
It's like five layers deep, and you just take the
fifth layer, just like.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
The maple syrup ice. Yeah, so the men simply walk up,
open the glass case, take the pappy out, rearrange the
rest of the bottles to hide the gap. That time,
they take four bottles a twenty year Pappy, which Toby
sells to a local doctor for four thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
Holy shit, no discount there, I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
No, No, it's a doctor chargermann armand leg. He and
his coworker split that money and then we're spreads around
the distillery that Toby is the go to guy for
moving stolen bourbon. So a few more coworkers take note.
One Buffalo Trace employee from the warehouse pilfers around eighty
cases of anything he can get his hands on, not

(01:06:22):
even Pappy van Winkle, just a bunch of other Buffalo
Trace products and dumps them on Toby's doorstep. Eighty cases.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
Yes, that's too many.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
It's not for Toby, though, he is able to sell
the stolen liquor to two different buyers, while no one
a Buffalo trace notices that anything is gone. It's all
so good faith. It's like, you know, like a small
time distillery. That's like we've always treated our employees black family,
and it's like, that's your mistake. So Toby says this

(01:06:55):
in the Netflix series Heist. He says, quote, I was
the kind of guy that you knew could get stuff.
I was kind of like a mini Amazon. And if
you got to talking to me and we became friends
and you said, hey, man, can you help me get this,
I'd help you get it. Boom. Helping you get something
released a small endorphin that made me feel good.

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
Sure, so to stealing, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
And so to softball. So Toby eventually pulls a few
old softball buddies into this scheme, some his accomplices and
others as buyers. One guy works as a truck driver
for another Kentucky based dicillery, a bigger one called Wild Turkey.
This friend mentioned having access to entire barrels of Wild

(01:07:37):
Turkey bourbon, and those barrels hold around fifty gallons of
liquor each, So Toby winds up moving several barrels himself. Basically,
his friend from Wild Turkey pulls his delivery truck over
on the road and Toby pulls up behind him, and
they just put the barrels into the back of Toby's
truck and Toby drives it home and hides it in

(01:07:57):
his shed on his property. What are you going to
do with a barrel? Sell it? Sell it, Sell it
to all these people that want this. How do you
bottle it? Even I don't know. They're like, come and
you have to put your head under the barrel. Yeah,
you get to three turns.

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
Yeah, you over your head.

Speaker 2 (01:08:14):
It's a great way to get people to party with
you and your shit, definitely. So depending on the product,
Toby will sell these between one thousand and fifteen hundred dollars,
a fraction of what they're worth at the distilleries. So
each barrel is valued it between three and six thousand dollars,
depending on the content. So he's moving like a bunch

(01:08:35):
of liquor. Again, no one at while Turkey realizes their
barrels have gone missing. That's because it's such a massive,
you know, a business. At one point, Toby and his
accomplices make off with a barrel of Buffalo TRACE's high
end bourbon called Ego Rare, and Toby sells it to
a woman who tells him that she's looking for a
special Christmas gift for her husband. We don't know how

(01:08:58):
much Toby got for the Eagle Rare, but we do
know that a barrel of it has a retail value
of more than ten thousand dollars. Holy shit. Yeah, and
that also I have the same question, which is is
he selling does this lady roll in a barrel of
bourbon for her husband? And it's like that da dada?
So I mean like tap that shit right kind of
fun and then you can wear it afterwards, you can

(01:09:21):
go down a waterfall in it. Yeah, okay. So by
the twenty tens, Toby is now in his forties. He's
been reselling stolen bourbon in a pretty messy ring made
up of his friends and colleagues for years, but the
side hustle does help him support his family. It's also
given him a way to reconnect to his old softball

(01:09:41):
buddies that he missed so much. Then in the fall
of twenty thirteen, someone working at Buffalo Trace Discillery notices
something shocking. They're missing sixty five cases of twenty year
old Pappy van Winkle, which is around two hundred bottles
of it, which would be worth twenty five thousand dollars
on the black market. It could be worth as much

(01:10:01):
as one hundred thousand dollars. Holy shit. So for the record,
Toby insists he is not responsible for all of those
missing cases of Pappy, which does seem plausible. There's no security.
A lot of people at distillery know that he's doing it,
so why wouldn't they do it? I mean, you know,
kind of a free for all. Either way, the discovery

(01:10:21):
drums up a ton of press, probably because some reporters
refer to this as a heist, suggesting an organized, well
planned Ocean's eleven style situation, and that plus the Kentucky setting,
the stolen loot being bourbon, and the name Pappy itself,
all of this is like catnip to the media. Reporters
dubbed the case Pappy Gait, and they call the thief

(01:10:45):
the Pappy Bandita.

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
They were bored that week.

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
Yes, that's right. How fun though to finally of all
the stories that have come across your desk, Oh my god, seriously. So,
as the story goes international, Franklin County Sheriff Pat Melton
launches an investigation. His gut's telling him it's an inside job,
so his officers interview around one hundred Buffalo Trace employees
hoping for a lead. Meanwhile, Toby keeps doing it, presumably

(01:11:11):
because he knows he has friends in high places. His
buyers include some of Franklin County's most respected lawyers, cops,
and politicians, so he must have felt untouchable. He's like,
this is what the people want. He even starts selling
smuggled steroids alongside what moron.

Speaker 1 (01:11:28):
It's a different thing now.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
It's like he's like, wait a second, I think I'm
good at this. I can do black market ship. Does
his wife know anything?

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
I mean, doesn't seem like it's yeah, she doesn't have
to testify against him.

Speaker 2 (01:11:40):
He's out in the shit. Well, he had the barrels
in the shed, right, He's like, honey, don't look at
that ship.

Speaker 1 (01:11:45):
Oh in the she shed, don't go in the.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
That's mahi shit my man gave. So here's the good news.
No one at this distillery says a thing to the sheriff,
so that investigation goes cold. There were no no snitches
at that place. They must have been proud, so that's
pretty amazing, I know, right, probably because they're all maybe
all a little bit involved. So a couple years pass,

(01:12:10):
then in March or twenty fifteen, a tip finally does
come in. The tipster tells officers that a local man
has barrels of bourbons suspiciously sitting in his backyard. And
this is how Toby Kurt Singer first lands on Sheriff
Milton's radar. Again, I say, do not fight with your neighbors,
do not over anything for any reason. Everything's great all

(01:12:32):
the time, yep. Because where you get to that kind
of shit, right, that's where you live. Yeah, you can't
get away from them. So before long, investigators head out
towards Toby's property and they park on adjacent land, hoping
to get a good look at the backyard without having
to enter it, which would of course require a search warrant.
Then they decide to walk through the woods a little bit,

(01:12:52):
and as they approach the property line, they're hit with
a familiar smell. One of the officers will later say, quote,
if you grow up and can tue you know what
it smells like. It's kind of a sweet smell. And
when it's in a barrel like that, there's no doubt
in your mind you can smell bourbon.

Speaker 1 (01:13:07):
It can smell it in every dive bar I've ever
been in, Like you know that smell?

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):
Yeah, you really do.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
Wow, that's that shouldn't be something's leaking well.

Speaker 2 (01:13:16):
And also I wonder if it's like that's hilarious because
it's like in Pedaluma certain times a year when they
turn like the chicken shit for fertilizer. Yeah, that's what
the whole town smells like. And I wonder if it's
that thing that's like from childhood. Yeah, you'll just get
a waft of bourbon. Total, that's the biz. Okay, So
from here I had to explain to you how smells work.

(01:13:39):
From here, they easily get a search warrant. They find
they easily get a search warrant for the shed. They
find all sorts of contraband, including five barrels of wild
turkey bourbon, and a bulk quantity of steroids.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):
Oh that's see, that's that's Federal prison.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
That's his little store back there. I got everything from
bourbon to steroids. And police also sees Toby's personal cell phone,
which is bad because that's what he'd been using the
entire time to move all of these stolen goods. So
now the police have the names of Toby's accomplices, his buyers,
even the details of the specific deals he's made. Because

(01:14:15):
he's not a criminal. He's just like casual guy trying.

Speaker 1 (01:14:18):
To liken her phone.

Speaker 2 (01:14:19):
Who needs it. I just work in shipping, totally. I'm
going to get a little money.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
I miss softball. I work in shipping, Like.

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
Why can't I have some fun? As investigators piece together
this haphazard network, they ultimately recover around twenty barrels of
bourbon and two dozen bottles of Pappy van Winkle. It's
estimated that Tobian his accomplices stolen resold about one hundred
thousand dollars worth of bourbon in this entire scheme. Okay,
Toby's immediately branded the ring leader, and he has handed

(01:14:48):
felony theft charges and a misdemeanor for selling those steroids.
Oh yeah, I guess it's.

Speaker 1 (01:14:53):
Not theft in sales or not. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):
I don't either, but I guess maybe steroids aren't a
full on on, a big deal narcotic.

Speaker 1 (01:15:02):
Maybe not a big deal. Maybe he didn't have a
large enough supply intent. Maybe the intent, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:15:08):
Maybe there was a mistake on the paperwork when they
were filling it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:11):
Maybe it was actually just cotton candy. Yeah, then I
thought it was steroids.

Speaker 2 (01:15:16):
Were so drunk on bourbon that they're like at least
aoids are amazing. And again I got in trouble for that.
That's not the accent. Don't add us, don't don't attack
me from my generalized Southern accent. So Toby pleads guilty
and he's sentenced to fifteen years in prison. We could
have just called Paul holes about the ought. Damn it

(01:15:37):
class a felony, yes or no? Okay, fifteen years fifteen years.
Sheriff Milton sees this as a win. He stands up
in front of cameras he declares Peppy Gate solved, which
must have felt amazing, t climactic maybe too. I know
it's no Oceans eleven, that's for sure. And while what
Toby and his accomplices did is of course criminal, at

(01:15:57):
the end of the day, police only recover a handful
of stolen pappy. Much of the bourbon Toby is caught
with is from wild Turkey, oh Reporters from around the
world are present at that sheriff's presser, and the word
of Toby's arrest is covered in papers as far away
as Pakistan. Wow, people love Pappy Gate.

Speaker 1 (01:16:18):
Just trying to tell me that town didn't have a
cold case murder to solve.

Speaker 2 (01:16:22):
I mean, for real, not to be a bummer, but
still like, can't we get involved in some stuff. Ten
people are ultimately indicted in Toby's bourbon ring. Several of
them take plea deals. Only one person has ever tried, convicted,
and sentenced, and that is Toby Kurtzinger. He will later say, quote,
there's an old saying the devil deceived me, showed me
something I wanted. It felt good, it looked good. But

(01:16:44):
guess what, sooner or later that bill comes due. Damn
very true, Toby. I mean, it's kind of he probably
kind of knew it the.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
Whole time, but it's waitafe for it to happen.

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
How do you stop doing a thing that's so easy
and right, seems.

Speaker 1 (01:16:59):
Like and if you know you're gonna get caught anyways,
Like why stop now? Yeah, just keep going until you
get caught.

Speaker 2 (01:17:04):
That looks like every heist movie, every kind of criminal.
That's scarface. Toby does not end up serving the full
fifteen years. Instead, he's granted something called shock probation, which
is a Kentucky program that basically gives non violent first
offenders some leniency. Sounds like a good idea.

Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
A great idea.

Speaker 2 (01:17:24):
He's paroled after just thirty days, and then he serves
on probation until twenty twenty three, so wow years.

Speaker 1 (01:17:31):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
So essentially it's just like probation. Yeah, long, long, long probation.

Speaker 1 (01:17:37):
So those weekends picking up trash.

Speaker 2 (01:17:41):
And then you can't travel certain places. I don't know
all the restrictions.

Speaker 1 (01:17:44):
But can't play softball.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
Oh my god, what if it's softball only probation. You
can't talk about softball, you can't go to the gym
to work out for softball. So Toby Hertzinger now lives
a quiet life and seems basically just be working on
trying to mend his relationship with his family because there
was fallout from the scandal, and of course that's the

(01:18:07):
you know, that's the other thing that probably never even
thought of, right of like, when this actually happens, how
will it affect everybody else? So to this day, the
vast majority of those two hundred or so missing bottles
of twenty year Pappy from twenty thirteen have never been found. Wow.
And in an unexpected twist, this story is only fueled
the bourbon craze and prices of pappy have skyrocketed since

(01:18:30):
the news of the theft first broke. I have no idea, right,
so bottles of twenty year Pappy that once went for
one thousand dollars on the secondary market are now worth
five thousand.

Speaker 1 (01:18:39):
Dollars more inflation, I guess right.

Speaker 2 (01:18:43):
And also just like it's even harder legendary. Yeah, oh
my god, because now they put a lock on the
that where you keep that patcheese. They took it all
out of the display case.

Speaker 1 (01:18:55):
Good.

Speaker 2 (01:18:56):
Those are just plastic bodies. So in a weird way,
this entire order deal, while still being a bit of
an embarrassment, has been great for Buffalo TRACE's bourbon business.
And that is the story behind the Pappygate Bourbon Heights.

Speaker 1 (01:19:09):
Wow, did he have to give any of the money back?

Speaker 2 (01:19:10):
Do I know, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:12):
I wonder if he got fined probably, probably, but who knows. Honestly,
I'm thinking about his wife. I don't think i'd leave
events over that.

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
Wait, no, trying to get a little cash going.

Speaker 1 (01:19:24):
I'd be disappointed in him, you know, But I don't
think i'd divorce.

Speaker 2 (01:19:27):
Him over that because it isn't really it's liquor. Yeah,
it's just liquor. He doesn't have the right.

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
To sell, right, And you could like argue about sticking
it to the man. Yeah, I don't know. If I
don't know if Buffalo Choice is the man? Are they
I don't know, bullet.

Speaker 2 (01:19:42):
Let's call the labor board. See excuse me?

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
Are they the man? Dot Com needs to be called?

Speaker 2 (01:19:49):
Get the hot Dog phone? Do they deserve to be
stolen from dot com? It's a family business? Then no?

Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
Wow, good one, right, such a good one. Upnoe true crime,
but Upnote this is what we try to do, fun
and flirty, but also like serious summertime.

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):
Yeah, it's a very hot dog phone coded episode.

Speaker 1 (01:20:11):
It is, and that's all we try to give you people.

Speaker 2 (01:20:14):
That's right. That is that it? I think that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:20:17):
Okay, thank you guys. So much for doing this with
us again.

Speaker 2 (01:20:21):
Also, you know, I have to say, after six years
of not going on the road, George and I were
very scared to find out whether or not anybody would
care if we were going on the road again. And
your response. You know, hopefully we've said this already, but
it really means the world to us that you still
give a shit and want to come see us and
are doing what you can to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
Yeah, we can't wait to be in front of you.

Speaker 2 (01:20:44):
Guys, screaming and pointing at you cute dresses, talking about
the pockets. Yeah, stay sexy, I don't get murdered.

Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
Goodbye, Elvis. Do you want a cookie?

Speaker 2 (01:21:01):
Hey, it's low lablanc and Nagan Elizabeth.

Speaker 4 (01:21:04):
We're so excited to announce three turn of our podcast
trust Me on Wednesday, July thirtieth.

Speaker 5 (01:21:09):
Trust Me is a podcast about cults, extreme belief, manipulation,
and high control groups, and we know all about it
because we're survivors ourselves.

Speaker 4 (01:21:17):
Each week we talk to former believers, experts, and sometimes
even the people still inside to analyze how these systems
work and how smart everyday people get pulled in.

Speaker 5 (01:21:27):
Because it's not just robes and compounds sometimes it's your
friend group, your yoga studio, your unlicensed therapist.

Speaker 4 (01:21:35):
We know what this experience feels like, and we're here
to make sense of it.

Speaker 5 (01:21:38):
And now you can find us on the Exactly Right
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Speaker 2 (01:21:42):
That's right.

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We're so excited to announce that trust Me has officially
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Speaker 5 (01:21:53):
Same show, same us, new charismatic leader.

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So if you're into cults, porson or just wild human behavior,
you're in the right place. Trust Me returns on July
thirtieth and drop some new episodes every Wednesday.

Speaker 2 (01:22:07):
Now I'm exactly right.

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You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 (01:22:14):
You are going to want to hear this trust Me.
This has been an exactly Right production.

Speaker 1 (01:22:29):
Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.

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Speaker 1 (01:22:34):
This episode was mixed by Leona Scuolacci.

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