May 18, 2023 • 46 mins
Most people spice up their boring lives with fun hobbies or social events. That wasn't enough for Lawrence Bader. He went and made himself a whole new life, this time as Omaha, Nebraska's hippest bachelor. Flagpole sitting, war injuries, hearses, pillow piles -- his new life had it all!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Not much. You know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Yes, stop right there, I do. Yeah, Okay, global warming
climate change is not good, right, okay, but this will
sound crazy, but just wait stick with what if it's
not all bad?
Speaker 4 (00:18):
Wildcat?
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Okay. What I'm saying is, look, hear me out. Okay.
You know how sea ice is melting and polar bears
live on ice flows. Yeah okay, and you know how
that as the ice melts, they've had to move inland
so they don't drown. Yeah right, and that's bad, right.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
But once they got in and they started to bumping
into like grizzly bears and being mammals, well they started
like getting busy with grizzly bears. Right, So now there's
this new half polar bear, half grizzly bear species. It's
being created. Do you know what they call them? No,
pizzly bears. No, I really want to see they also
(00:51):
some scientists, hearing how silly that sounds, they prefer to
call them zebra bears, which makes no sense. Or the
other one is grizzlar bears, which just sounds like you're
trying to prove a point or that you just.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Like you didn't speak. I like a grizzl.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Bear, exactly large bruise lar bear to go.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I like pisly bears. I mean it's it's actually heartbreaking, but.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
But there you got adorable silver lining in the heartbreak.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
That is ridiculous. You want to know what else is ridiculous?
I'm faking your death to become a swinging bachelor living
the wildlife in Omaha, Nebraska.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Okay, until you said, Omaha thought this was me?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Hey, no offense, Omaha, this is ridiculous crime A podcast
(01:52):
about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always
ninety nine percent murder free and one hunder ridiculous. Saren,
you can't prove that we've had a guy disappearing resurface
on here before. What was his name? Don le Rose?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yes, Don Rose?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Mayor he ran off? Are you an an o ft?
He became a radio DJ and the mayor popular Dose
And if you want to believe in happy endings, we
can say that that maybe Bumfardo ran off and is
living his best life somewhere.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Yeah, sure, I'm not that much.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Jay. We love you, bum Yeah fly high with the
Eagles never stops upping k T too good to be forgotten.
Have a great summer, Well, Champ, I got another one
for you.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah, I love to call me Champ.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
This guy, I mean this guy, this guy over here.
His name Lawrence Joseph Batter ah l J. Batter. Okay,
Larry Joe Batter.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Larry Joe Madu the Baiter LJ.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
When was he born? You must be wondering.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I was. I was about asked that Sarah was this
man born Elizabeth Saren?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
He he was born?
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
When and that happened? December second, nineteen twenty six. Where
did this happen?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Probably near his mother, Yes, adjacent to.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Her, Akron, Ohio. A. His dad was a big wig
in town. I don't think he wore a wig, but
he was a big wig. He was a dentist.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Oh back in the day. That was a big wig.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
You can call him doctor Bater.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
I ever met him.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Will you know what his first name.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Was, Bob Bob Batter Darth Town. No, it was so.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
He was actually one of the leading dentists in Akron, Ohio.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Doctor Darth Baterers, Darth Baders.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
The whole Bader family was well respected in the community.
That's a lot of pressure to be from a straight laced,
well known family, Like what if you don't fit in.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
And that's a lot of cloud for cleaning teeth.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Well, yeah, there's that. But if you don't think that's
kind of what happened to Larry Joe.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, I reat.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
He dropped out of high school and he joined the
Navy in nineteen forty four, and that was the time
to do it, though I don't know about that. He
gets swept up in the excite forty eight but it's
like it's so exciting as a sense of dude, it's
like growing a victory.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
There's the time if you're going to join, you want
to join the war exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
So he served two years and then he returned to
Akron and graduated from high school. Okay him, he enrolled
at the University of Akron. He made it through one
semester and then he flunked out. Okay, it's kind of
hard to do, is it. Well, they don't, don't. They
usually give you like a semester to turn it around,
like write the ship.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Well, it depends what you mean by flunked out. Sometimes,
like your parents say, like you're coming home and that's.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Where you all funked out.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
So they said your grades are so bad, you're.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I thought that they gave you time to fix it.
That's what they did for me my first.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yeah, well, I can definitely say for me, they definitely
give you like, hey, look man, you don't seem to
realize where you are. You're in college.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
You know, figure this out, get some good grades for once.
It was a disaster for me, but you know, it
wound up not being so much of a disaster for Lawrence.
He dropped out of school and he got a job
at a campus restaurant.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Okay, so he still want to be a part of
campus life exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
But his college instructors remembered him. They said that he
always had some new money making scheme, but it would
never pan out.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Maybe that's how he flunked out. He got caught in
the dorm. But where's the thing.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
It's like one thing for high school teachers to be
aware of students having schemes in machinesis oh, yeah, totally,
But it's another for your college professors to notice.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
They barely noticed the students.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
It's the University of Akrons, not a small school.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
No, And they got a lot of students to keep
track of. So if you were only there for one
semester and in that time multiple ones that all remember
you as a stame.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
This said. One of the reasons that he fell behind
in his grades is because he spent so much time
running a small hamburger stand that he had set up
across the street from the school. He's like taking a
test hold on, It'll be right back. I got like
four customers.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
So he's got like his own little whimpy stand and
he's sitting there auditioning out burger.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Hecuyse, where's the little paper hat?
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
So it may mean it makes sense that he bailed
on school to go work in a restaurant. But I
don't think they had hospitality degrees then. But during this
time he met his first wife, Mary Lou Nap, and
on April nineteenth, nineteen fifty two, they were married.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
That's what people did back, so happy for them. Good job.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
In nineteen fifty seven, they had three kids a fourth
on the way. They lived in the West Hills.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
They had three kids in one year. That's a lot
of kids.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Fifty two they were married, oh, for two years.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
He said. They had three kids in nineteen fifty seven.
They had three kids. Oh I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
So they lived in the West Hills neighborhood of Akron.
Larry was described by his friend to United Press International
as a quote red blooded, beer drinking, all around nice guy.
He could talk your ear off and you'd love to
sit and listen. He was a family man too. It
was just like salt of the earth. He was also
an excellent archer. He won a tri state archery contest.
(06:39):
He loved to do weird things to shock his friends,
Like what you ask, what Elizabeth like devouring a chicken
hole bones and.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
All, wait, what I'm going to need you to back
that up again?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
He would just he would just be running a scene
on the Costco deli side. I mean, let's just stop
for a second, Maryland. I mean, I'm going to presume
it's cooked. So he goes and he gets a rotisserie chicken. Okay,
gathers his friends around. I have to assume there's alcohol
and follow to the show. Well, he like takes the
(07:10):
chicken from the paper wrapping, like I imagine. I don't
know how he did it, but how do you imagine?
I imagined he shoves his fist in the cavity and
then he just starts going to town on it like
it's a candy apple. All that jubbly juice from the
skin in the bottom tumbles down his chin in his arm.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Just spin it on his hand.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I should have made this into the picture it anyway,
He's just like tearing into it. His friends look on
in horror. And by friends, I mean his packistray dogs
in an alley like he's crushing the bones, grinding them
down to swallow them. Shard a chicken leg bone pokes
through his esausague and out the skin on his neck.
He's sweating. I mean, come on, friends are crying. He
(07:52):
eats so fast and so hard he almost takes off
one of his fingers. That's how I like to picture it.
Pee blooms across the front of his pants.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
So you're not taking back.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
No, he's doing this in like less than five five minutes.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Yeah, in my mind, this is fast speedy.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
He gets to the very last joint at the end
of the chicken leg, he swallows, burps, throws his head.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Back and howls championship.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Just run for their lives. Yeah, so Larry did weird stuff?
I got you like going to town on a whole chicken.
That's andre the giant kind of behavior. Oh hell, wrecking shop. Anyway,
he gets a job not as a at a carnival
side show, but as a cookwear salesman for Reynolds Medals Corporation,
Reynolds Rep. Yeah, that's sweet Reynolds wrap baby good stuff.
(08:36):
He was making good money. He brought home ten thousand
dollars a year and that's the equivalent of one hundred
and seven thousand dollars today.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Then good money.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, there's no way a cookwear salesman could make that today.
And that's what's wrong with America's here.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
You got to stand up for the cookwear sales the world.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
So, despite bringing home significant cabbage, it wasn't enough. He
had a lot of household bills. He had a car payment,
and he had to pay the interest on a seventeen
thousand dollars mortgage. So when I take a step back,
like imagine like we're almost to double his salary for
the cost of the home. Right, it's a seventeen thousand more,
you'll say twenty. So if we today take your salary,
(09:15):
double it and imagine that's what your house would be worth.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
I couldn't get anything.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
It doesn't operate like that.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
No I get like a car. I think I wouldn't
get that.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
He tried to save money, He clipped coupons, he bought
bargain brand goods. He didn't and then he also just
didn't file his income tax returns between nineteen fifty two
and nineteen fifty seven. That's one way to say, that's
a way to say, you know, pinch pennies.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
But also, yeah, in.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Nineteen fifty seven he was twenty thousand dollars in debt,
so that's like two hundred and fifteen thousand today.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
Damn.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
He couldn't even pay the milkman. Yeah, they stopped, they
stopped delivering the milk.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
That's a sad moment man, Like looks your house has.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Keeps going and then the kids like run out in
the back and milk an alley cat for sustenance.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Anyway, So why did you deal with your hands?
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Why did you have to act it out? Little little teast?
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Little Yeah, I'm never going to get tiny hands. That's
why we use child labors.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Erin it's burned in Elizabeth.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Anyway, May nineteen fifty seven, Larry Lawrence. He's thirty years
all at the time, Baiter. He packed his car with
fishing gear. He told Mary Lou he was gonna go
look into some bad checks he'd been dealing with.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Farewell, Mary Lou.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
And then maybe it's gonna go fishing. Okay, Uh yeah,
He's like people, I can't pay anyone because people are
writing me bad check.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
That's the problem, Mary Well, totally the problem.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
It was a beautiful day when he left, but the
news said a storm was coming. Mary Lou pointed this
out to him, like, maybe fishing isn't the best choice
right now. Eh, Larry tells her I might going, I
might not. Who knows. You know, he's breezy.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I'm a carefree man, Mary Lou.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
So off he goes. Bater cashed a check for four
hundred dollars, which is about forty three hundred dollars today.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Used it to pay a few bills, including one quarterly
life insurance premium. Okay, got to make sure that's taken
care of. He had almost forty thousand dollars in life insurance.
That's like a four hundred and thirty thousand today. He'd
recently upgraded the policy clause in case of accidental death.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Just within like weeks.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Five minutes before, he rented a boat at Eddie's boat
House at the Rocky River near Cleveland.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Nice crazy Eddies, Crazy Eddy steals on the river.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Lawrence Cottler, who ran the place, told Larry not to
go out because of the impending storm.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Lawrence Cutler, who runs Eddies.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Okay, yeah, these aren't important names, no, said Larry.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
No, no, no, bad bad.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Stomped his foot. I got a fish. He wanted to
be a carp dressed man, sarin free. He was feeling crappy.
He wanted to call himself a man of steel head.
He wanted to get He wanted wall the Walleye action.
He was gonna he wanted to walk Pike an Egyptian.
They could stop.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
I'm gonna put down a baseline for this waite, a
bass line. Dark.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Well, he did promise he'd be back before dark. So
he looked at Cotler, and he pulled out a large
roll of cash, peeled off fifteen dollars to pay for
the deposit. Then he asked for a set of running
lights to be installed on the boat. I'll be back
before dark, but just put a bunch of lights on here.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Just in case really quickly.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
So Cottler's like, you know what, It's going to be
dark in four hours, and that's when the storm is
supposed to hit. Please Larry Lawrence, mister bad, do not
go out there. Larry goes four point thirty in the evening.
Off he goes, he headed out.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
On the rock evening.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, great time with a storm coming. So he goes
out on the Rocky River toward Lake Erie in a
fourteen foot boat with a small outboard motor in a prayer.
Because Larry motored away, Coytler noticed that among like his
fishing gear, he sees a small suitcase. Wait what yeah,
let's take a break.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Why does Darth Vader Junior nit a small suitcase of
go fishing?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Well, we come back, we'll learn more about this mysterious
fishing trip deal Zarin, Yes, welcome. I've decided I'm gonna
(13:32):
start pronouncing bass fish as bass fish.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Okay, you like that, just run with it well, and
then I'm going.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
To go become like an expert bass fisher woman and
enter contest and win like the World Grand prize, all
while mispronouncing the word I'm really good at that. Champion
base Champion Larry the chicken pounding impromptu fishermen.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Wait, dam weren't you sponsored by bass Pro.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Bass Pro Shop?
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Hey, can you tell me how to get to bass
Pro Shop? That just gonna drive people in nuts. May fifteenth,
nineteen fifty seven.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Yeah, that's where we were.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Lawrence Joseph Bader just rented a fishing boat just ahead
of nightfall, just ahead of a large storm. So after
the sun went down, the coast guards spotted Larry out
on Lake Erie and they're like, heypes, buddy, get over here,
there's a storm coming. He's like, yeah, yeah, I know's
we'll escort you back to shore. He is, you know,
Larry with a live chicken dangling out of his mouth.
(14:27):
Refuses him. He's like, no, I'm good, come on, good alone,
I'm good, leave me alone, So mind your own business.
The next morning, the boat was discovered washed ashore on
the rocks of Perkins Beach, was about six miles away
from Murray started. That's five point two nautical miles. Okay,
there's There was just a little damage to the boat,
a scratch on the hull, a bent propeller, an ore
(14:48):
was missing, but no Larry chicken feathers everywhere. No Larry,
No Larry. So the coast guard towed the boat back
to Cotler. At Eddie's boat house, Cadler took a look
at it, and he's wondering if the fifteen dollars deposit
is going to cover these damages. But then he noticed something,
something very wrong. The gas line had been disconnected. And
(15:09):
according to Cutler quote, gas lines do not accidentally become disconnected.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
This is very true, very true. And they also don't
disconnect themselves. No, your honor.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Case closed. The coast guard said the water had been
so rough during the storm that no man could have
survived falling overboard. The life jacket was still in the boat,
so was his fishing gear, but there was no Baiter.
There was no small suitcase.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Uh oh.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
So it appeared to Cutler and the investigators that the
boat hadn't capsized during Bater's adventure. There's no evidence of that.
And everyone was puzzled as to how someone so athletic
and powerful a swimmer as Baiter could have been separated
from the boat and taken the suitcase. Maybe it fell over,
who knows. Some thought that maybe Baiter had been hijacked
and robbed suitcase well like the scourge of Lake Erie pirates.
(16:00):
Of course you know about pirates Sandusky sailing out of Toledo,
hiding out in one of the Canadian sides to bird
name points. They have Peacock Point, Turkey Point. Nothing came in.
Listen the Google street View investigations. I did, Yes, lots
of cool places along the Canadian shore of Lake Erie.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
By the way, dude, that's a good part of the world. Actually,
it kind of picts your asque.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
It's gorgeous. My work here is brought to you courtesy
of newspapers dot Com. I'm still looking for that sponsorship
that includes a cool logo, bomber jacket and Google street View. There's,
as you talk about, all I have in my life. Anyway.
The search for Larry Batter went on for two months.
They just stood out on the shore with their hand
over tom.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Nope, nope, nope.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Let's check again. In ten hours after Bader disappeared, his
father had this to say to the police searching for him, quote,
I can't put my finger on it, but there's something
about this that stinks. Stinks.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
You made him sound extra weirdess.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
That was good, Doctor Bater. In nineteen sixty three years
after his disappearance, he was declared dead. Mary Lou petitioned
to make that. So, so now she's a widow. She's
a widow with four children and a monthly Social Security payment.
And those checks weren't as much as they should have
been because Bader had those income tax issues. Oh, so
(17:22):
the IRS garnished some of the checks to pay down
the debt. Good news for the widow Bater was that
the one bill her late husband always made sure to
pay was the life insurance policy.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
But was she the beneficiary.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yes, she got a pretty good chunk of change.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Good So.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Meanwhile, back in nineteen fifty seven, just a few days
after Lawrence Bader disappeared, a newcomer arrived in Omaha, Nebraska.
Now Omaha is seven hundred and forty miles west of
the Rocky River by the ways erin Okay.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
I'm keep that in mind, seven hundred.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
And forty miles.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
So a guy walked into the round Table bar looking
for a bartending job. He said he'd been in the
Navy for the last fourteen years and he was just
because he had a bad back. I have to say
that if you have a bad back, bartending is not
for you.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Yeah, a lot of lifting and bending.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Oh, standing, lifting, twisting, you know.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Wait, to carry liquid is always weird.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
To carry you're covered in liquid.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Whatever. So this stranger he had a pencil mustache like
John Waters Get Out. Yeah, and a Boston accent.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Wait, that's not an Elizabeth detail.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
That's a real thing. You have a little pencil that's
just disguise mustache Boston accent. So he's like, I just
went and packed my car.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
All he had with him was a small suitcase, a
navy sea bag, and a bartender's guide. So as he's
like walking the seven hundred and forty miles, he picks
up the bartender's guide. A woman named Betty was working
at the bar that evening when the stranger appeared. She
this is what she said about it.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
He was fascinating Debonair, well dressed and not broke. He
asked me out everything going for him? Fascinating devn Air,
well dressed, not.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Broke, not broke. It is whose are the top four?
Speaker 2 (19:09):
So two days later he lands a job. He started
bartending at Ross's Steakhouse. This place was the steakhouse in Omaha. A.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
You're telling me, sister, that's.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Saying a lot and Omaha Steakhouse.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
R Chris can blow this place is the.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Esquire magazine once called it the King of Omaha steakhouses.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yeah, and there's an Omaha steakhouse place and they call
themselves the king and they're like, we're not.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
No Ross's. It was owned by Ross Lorello. He opened
it in nineteen fifty six, so it was sort of
new on the scene when the stranger arrived. The Lorello
family actually shut it down in nineteen ninety six rather
than selling it out of the family a respect, So
it's just a legend.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Oh, I do like that.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
There's a great ad for the place that I found online.
It reads Rosses has purchased the Axar Bend four h
Grand Champion Beef six times in recent years. Ross's Steakhouse
is famous. That's all caps for serving the ultimate and
exquisite because including Omaha's finest steaks, chicken see food Italian Fair,
Seafoods Tour.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
I mean, need you to read that all again. That
was a lot of fun. We just do that again
from the top.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
You know. They also had a place in the restaurant
called the Cleopatra Piano Lounge.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Oh, my god, are you serious. Yeah, meet me and
the Cleopatra Piano.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Nineteen fifties, Omaha Steakhouse, the Cleopatra Piano, l Piano Land.
It's just melting my face thinking about it. Back to
the Stranger, I want to stay there for a second.
I want to be in the Cleopatra Lounge. As he
attended bar, he would tell stories about how he grew
up in an orphanage in Boston. He was one of
(20:40):
twenty two orphans there and apparently, according to him, everyone
there was named John Johnson because he.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Couldn't remember anything and he didn't want to do that
goodwill hunting where he had to remember all the names.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, John Johnson, the George Foreman. Totally orphanage.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
There's like one nun who just knew a guy back
in the day.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
And the kids John Johnson. Well, this John Johnson was
given the nickname Fritz.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
I mean John John's son, a little Fritzy Fritz.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
He joined the Navy, he said, he joined the Navy
at seventeen, and he's served in World War two in
the Korean War. Thank you for your service, even if
it's fake.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
And he was.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Hospitalized for a back injury in fifty seven after before
being officially discharged. So now here he is slinging gimlets
and old fashions with the smell of seared beef in
the air. Here he is pretty soon. Fritz was a
local celebrity to raise money for polio. He liked fighting polio,
not like encouraging.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
I thought, he's everyone to have polico, some of the
rare people who was immunity. I want everyone to get it.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
So I'm raising money. So he raised money to fight
polio or just polio awareness. You know those aware, what's
up with an awareness campaign? Like, I'm aware of it.
I know, let's do something about it. My awareness doesn't
help anyway. He competed in a flagpole sitting contest.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Yes, I love it.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
It used to be a thing like you'd sit at
the top of a flagpole and I guess like people
would make a pledge to donate a certain amount for
every year.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
It's like loading college kids in a in a phone boot.
Get in there.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yes, he sat on a flagpole for thirty days. What
thirty days?
Speaker 3 (22:19):
If he would have done that like one hundred years earlier,
they would have called him a saint or a witch.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Thirty days sarin past September. While he was up there,
his friends would send up milk bottles twice a day.
And you know it was in those milk bottles chocolate martinis,
which I means, like I guess that means.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Just like he's just getting liquered on top of the
flag vodka.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
And a splash of remooth, like just send them up
vodka bottles.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
It's heavier.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
There's just like like one olive floating in it, and
they're just.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Making drinks at the bottom of flagpole, sending them up.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
When he came down from the pole after a month
he was working the poles arin, he had a long
beard and it took him a while to get used
to walking again. I bet where did he go to
the bathroom?
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Down the pole? Just gravity took care of it and
he held it in.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
And they had to hospitalize him. So he got down
from the pole.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
You didn't have a bedpen. He has a flagpole.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
He says, like a balloon, and then he drops some
of the people. Mom Zo. So he got down from
the pole and then he has like a balloon in
a funnel. So so he gets down from the pole,
he hobbles around and then they push him into a
(23:32):
convertible stuff with bonaceous babes, and he was escorted away
to a parade.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Wait are you kidding me? Like a ticker day.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Yeah, they're like, hooray, you sat up there for a month.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
You really helped the fight for polio against from.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
An orphanage A full full of John Johnson's to.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
This man start at the bottom, now we hear.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
So he had other jobs through the years beyond bartending.
He got a job in radio like Don the Rose,
and he became a disc jockey for a local radio
show on AM station KBON, just like k b O.
By the way, the call letters KBON have subsequently been
assigned to a Cajun radio station in Louisiana.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Come on, I like that.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
He also got a gig as the sports director for
television station k E t V k E TV, Omaha's
favorite news source.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
It feels like that's missing a letter. I know that
it's k EV's four letters, but it just sounds like
it's missing a letter.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, I don't know. He wasn't just behind the scenes there,
though he made announcements on it on our talent. Yeah,
Fritz was basically the most popular and most flamboyant citizen
in Omaha.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
So he's going as Fritz at this point with the pencils.
There mustache just swunging around being like Omaha, just enjoy.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Feasting in he he had this swinging bachelor pad. It
was filled with dozens of pillows, but no furniture.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
You're kidding, No, I'm not kidding.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
He is so fifties dream like.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yes, he hosted wild champagne parties, like right there in
the pillows, a messy. He kept tropical fish as pas.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yeah, you have Irish poets. His best friends he had.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
They were simes fighting fish who eventually ate each other.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
This is amazing.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
So he's like swamming around town. He wore a leather beret,
of course, is that amazing. He was a real ladies man.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Oh, does he have like a sidecar motorcycle?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Probably no, you're gonna hear what he has. He said
that he dated every beautiful girl he met. He's like you,
you're going out on a date and the same thing.
Probably not okay. So you wanted to know about his transportation,
suggest what's his ride?
Speaker 3 (25:30):
He bought a.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Hearse from an undertaker in Kansas for one hundred and
fifty bucks. It gets better, it gets better.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Hold on.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
So he and a friend customized it with a wrought
iron table, a coffee bar, pillows of course, and a
Buddhist statue incense burner.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
So is John Waters. He's doing an impression of this man.
I think we found the John Water source materials. He
was like a boy in the fifties, right. He saw
this guy again the news. He's like, I want that life,
but I'll make films.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Is the city lice? This is the hearse is a
quote hunting vehicle?
Speaker 4 (26:02):
What this is?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
So Austin Towers. Oh yeah, he's on the prowl. One
day he told everyone that he decided to take up
archery and he thought it would be like a good
way to strengthen up his back muscles.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Oh he hasn't shown. Nobody knows he's an archery champion.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Like, I want to get into a fight and shape.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
I want to try this new thing.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Five weeks later, he won the Nebraska state championship. He's
just all, hey, I don't know. He loved to be
the life of the party and amuse his friends. One
day they're all hanging out. I'm going to assume, like
in the pillow pile at Schaefritz.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
And he's like juggling circus monkeys.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Oh yeah, No, he reaches over, pulls out an entire
chicken and he ate it, bones and all. He's back baby,
living his best life. Too bad, So sad, Mary Lou.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
You never appreciated Marry Lou.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Even though he ate chickens whole, probably while lying on
the ground so everyone could watch the chicken move through
his digestive system like a snake devouring a small toe.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Oh oh my god, Shirtlet so the grease runs through
the fur on his chair.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
You see, you see the chicken moving along his county.
Even though he drove around in a hearse that was
repurposed as a love done.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
I'm picturing it's like painted purple or something.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Probably. And even though he won archery championships after just
learning the way of the bow, no one thought he
was a show offer, a braggart.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
What he's quoted is the Midwest.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yeah, he has quoted as one saying all my life
I've had people tell me what to do in the
Navy and the Orphanage. Well now I'm going to do
what I like to do.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
We heard this come up a lot.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Yeah right. He avoided using his last name Johnson. All
his bills were made out simply to Fritz.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Just care of the city, Fritz, Yeah, Fritz.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
And that's also how he signed everything, just Fritz. He
never dated his checks. He would fill in the dateline
with the season spring, summer, winterfall.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
That works well.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
The tellers at the bank would call him a couple
days prior to the seasons changing and remind him of
that impending change, like, hey, Fritz, people be Fritz Hello.
They get him on the Fritz is that you It's
going to be summer tomorrow. He's all exactly he even
(28:15):
though he's like a big local media guy, he made
it a point to never watch the news or read papers.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
I'm learning that he may be right about.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Adopt this very tempting. He came across as really carefree
and happy. People loved him. Everyone loves him. He's just
oblivious and happy, and he was fun to be around.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
He's just a child in an adult's body.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
People would come to him for guidance when they were
having a tough time.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
He's the village idiot.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Well this no, this is what a friend said. The
only time I ever saw him depressed were when his
friends were in a jam.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
So he's yeah, he's just.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
He's like the guy who's just like a chance the gardener,
you know, the he's a holy fool, the holy fool
than you, more so than a villagitia, a holy fool.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah. Another thing he hated more than the news was
the institution of marriage. Oh and his roommate is quoted
as saying he was death on it. Whenever people told
him he was getting married, he would exclaim.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
Oh, you fool, you fool.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Okay, when we come back from this break, I'll tell
you about Fritzie and his stance on marriage.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
Oh Fritz, Yeah, Fritz my du beata.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Mystery, Omaha beatnik raising hell and eyebrows.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
I love that. Omaha loves this beatnik with the pencil
than mustache, just going around going, Oh, come remember my
furniture list.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Home embodying late fifties early sixties Nebraska.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Quite frankly, it just blowing my mind. Like I have
fans in the Midwest and they don't from Nebraska.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
From Almaha.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Yeah, it's a tall grass, kids cut kind of culture.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Huh. He thought people who got married were idiots. Okay,
So in nineteen sixty one, he married Nancy Zimmer.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
She disapproved the point. It was like, watch how bad
this is.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Twenty one year old photographer's model dev orse.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Now watch what happens to the man you all love watches?
I am broken by this institution.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
She's from Chicago. Okay, this is what a friend of
his said.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
So she was a divorcee, like he is a. Well
he's a she's a don't give me the expose exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Quote. We really kidded him about it, but he didn't
say anything at all. He just smiled. So when people
are like, oh, you said you're an idiot to get married, yeah, grin.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Okay, so she's probably a little tea. She wealthy, No,
she was a model.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Maybe maybe she got money in the divorce.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Okay, but he's not marrying her for money obviously.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
No. I mean she's a little bit younger than he is.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
But I kind of guess that part. And you said
the model, Oh, Nancy.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
He adopted her daughter from a previous marriage. Two years later,
the couple had a son of their own. So he's
just building this family. Along with working at k ETV,
he also got a part time job as an advisor
to archery companies.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
He's a state champion.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Oh, he's a total champ. In nineteen sixty four, a
malignant tumor was discovered behind his left eye and he
lost the eye and had to wear an eye patch,
which only made him look cool.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Totally, just cultivates more of his image.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
So and I's got the mustache, the ipatch. He's mysterious Zarin. Yeah,
close your eyes. Oh yes, I want you to picture it.
It's February second, nineteen sixty five. You are at a
sports sales convention at McCormick Place in Chicago. A guys,
You've come from Akron, Ohio to check out the sports show.
(31:53):
You own a sporting goods store and you're really interested
to see what new products you could stock for your customers.
You know, if you have got them in mind. The
convention hall is packed. People stroll from booth to booth,
chattering over the easy listening playing over the speakers. You
walk past a booth where a guy is bouncing a basketball,
waxing on about the superior new materials in the thing.
(32:14):
At the next booth, two young women play ping pong
while a salesman lists the benefits of having table tennis
for America's youth. You reach the end of the row
of booths and you're now standing in front of a
large display area. There's a wall of hay bales with
a bullseye target on it and a man standing in
position with his bow drawn, arrow aimed. You think adding
(32:34):
archery equipment to your store might be a good idea.
See step closer. The man releases his zero from the
taut bowstring and it whizzes to the target, dead center bullseye.
The crowd responds with polite applause. What's remarkable is that
the guy wears an eye patch. You marvel at his
depth perception in the face of ocular limitation. You look
at the face of the man holding the bow as
(32:55):
the sales rep for the archery company details the features
in their equipment. You can't put your finger on it,
but the guy looks familiar. You stare and stare, and
then the guy lets out a chuckle and you see
that familiar grin. You look again, just to be sure,
and then you dart off to the bank of payphones
in the lobby. You fish a bunch of change from
your pocket and pour it into the phone. You dial
(33:16):
a number it rings. You wait, A woman answers, Suzanne.
You say you've called your friend Suzanne Pika. She lives
here in Chicago, but she's originally from Akron. You tell
Suzanne you think you've seen her missing uncle, Lawrence Baiter.
You ask her to come down to the show. She says,
she's on her way. A little while later, Suzanne arrives.
(33:37):
She looks at Fritz and asks, pardon me, but aren't
you my uncle Larry Bater, who disappeared seven years ago.
Fritz just laughed it off. No way, he said, I
don't know what you're talking about. Suzanne knew he was lying.
She knew her own kin. So she ran out to
the lobby and called two more people, John and Dick Baiter,
Larry's brothers. Yes, they immediately boarded a private plane from
(34:01):
Akron to Chicago. Remember, the family was well known in town.
I'm guessing that cavity cash, So I'm going to guess
that this happened in the morning and that the brothers
were able to arrive that afternoon, like yeah, yeah, the
little skipper. Otherwise, I can't believe that Fritz would stick
around for day two of the event after possibly being
made anyway, John and Dick they take one look at
(34:24):
Larry slash Fritz and they said it was without a doubt,
they're missing brother.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
Oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Fritz still refuses to admit it. He said he had
never even been to Akron, had no idea who these
men were claiming to be his brother. So to let
them know that they were making a mistake, he said,
you know what, I'm going to go with, you fingerprint me.
Let's go to the police station.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Yeah, So the police took his prints. The cops sent
the Prince to the FBI. The FBI compared them to
prints on file with the Navy, and the prints matched
this Ding dong.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
So the next day I was assuming there was going
to be something he had done to falsify the record.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
No.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
The next day, Chicago Police Lieutenant Emil Geiss called Fritz
and said, the Prince, I took off your fingers and
the fingerprints of the missing Larry Baiter are identical. Either
you are or this is something from outer space or beyond.
You know, those are your choices. It's like you it's
either this or a ghost. Well for him, it's like
you're either him or aliens exactly. Someone I respect that
(35:23):
logic exactly. So Fritz, now confirmed as being the missing,
presumed dead, Baiter said of this moment, quote, it was
like a physical shock. Up until that moment, I had
no doubt that I was not Larry Bater. But when
I heard that, it was like a door it slammed
and someone had hit me in the face.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Yeah, yeah, I'm not buying it. Bro Well.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Bader would spend the next ten days under medical observation
run by a special team of psychologists and neurologists. He
hired a lawyer. The lawyer advised him to say that
he had recently had a tumor removed and maybe that
had an impact on his memory. Good, but like that
was recent.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Yeah, I think the doctors could probably backtrack and be like,
that wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Have been Yeah anyway, Fritz slash Baiter at one point
was put under hypnosis, but he was so worked up
that the investigators decided not to use sodium penthanol true ceremonial.
So it was determined that there was quote no indication
that mister Johnson has any recollection of his life as
Larry Bater, nor did we find any neurotic or psychotic
(36:26):
tendencies to explain this loss of memory.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Hypnotism only works if you want it to work, right.
It's not something that like you can just automatically hypnotize
the person against their will. It's literally they hand their
will over to you exactly if you don't hand it over.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
And he I don't know what's going on with him,
but either way, so they figure out.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Helpful man, and I would I know that you couldn't
hyptize me unless I mean, honestly, people have tried to
be like, it ain't gonna work. I don't believe in it.
Not that I don't believe it can happen. I believe
it can happen, and I believe that you can't hypnotize me.
And as long as I believe that it won't work,
I believe this dude.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Because they decided that there's nothing wrong with his brain.
There's nothing wrong with him psychologically, but he's just he
obviously doesn't remember this. They didn't charge him with fraud
or bigamy. Isn't that unreal? I mean I thinking too,
like the you know, getting the life insurance all paid
the insurance.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
In the suit can't pay for milk, but the suitcase.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Yeah, so he had this doctor who said of his
reinvention of a life quote, it could be a mixture
of some hysterical reaction or unconscious wish fulfillment. He remembered, give.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Me a I'm sorry, I was silently rolling my eyes
over here.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Well, whether Bader had some medical condition or it was
just an amazing liar, people wanted their money back.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
I bet they did.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
So.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
There was Eddie's boat House, which wanted money for the
damages incurred to the boat he rented seven years ago.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
I'll tell you one thing, a rental boat house is
going to get it to money to get their money.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
There was Social Security they wanted its two hundred and
fifty four dollars a month back. There was the insurance
company that paid out his quote widow to the tune
of them at forty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Oh, another company's going to get his money back.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
And he had another inevitable the irs. He had unpaid taxes.
Then there was his marriage. Yeah, once his declaration of
death was reversed, he was once again married to Mary Lou.
Sucks to be you, marylu All this so she started
dating someone after he disappeared. She was a really strict Catholic,
(38:23):
she could only remarry as a widow, not a divorcee,
and that's why she had the whole declared dead thing.
So she got remarried. She had just married her bow
when bade her surface. I know. So now she's married
de Larry.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Again and now she's got to get it annulled or something.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
So this is what she said to the Akron Beacon Journal.
The news was quote like shell shock and quote I
haven't been able to think clearly since then.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yeah, she's the one who could have an actual reaction.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
So she she's still married to Larry. Her her current
marriage is voided, and because she's Catholic, she can't get
a divorce.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Her husband's Catholic, so he may not be cool with
all this, right.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
So she's poor Mary. Friends from Fritz's past life, as
Bader thought, maybe he just wanted like a change in
oh mah. His you know friends were TV personalities. The
friends of Fritz barflies, models, pr men, free spirits, right
and nonconformists. Back in Akron, his friends were ultra conservative,
(39:22):
content conformists, except for when they watched him put the
herd on an entire chicken. Can I circle back to
that again, I'm still having problems with it. I've forgotten it,
like it's the eating of the bones sticks in. It
makes me think of a disobedient dog.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Okay, that's not what I picture, but go on, well anyway, no,
how do you picture a disobedient It's like, you know,
we win, like.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Dogs grab food off accounter and then you can't get
it away from him and they just start eating it.
You imagine he was eating Yeah, okay, he climbed up
onto a counter.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Chicken.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
He's Fritzy the chicken appreciated.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
He's running around the backyard eating it.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Chicken appreciator has entered the chat. A friend of his
was quoted as saying, in our group, if anyone had
done some of the things Fritz Johnson did, the flagpole,
the hearse, why no one would have even talked to you.
So those like the friends back home year.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
I can. I get why he left. I get why
he faked it, but I don't get why he tried
to pull the two dumb moves of being like I'm
not that guy to his own brothers, then being like
you don't believe me, fingers me right.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
And I think that's actually kind of genius. Though, is
if you know your cop like fingerprint me, and then
you can be like something happen, I don't know, but
if you try and avoid it, then it's like you
have knowledge of the fact that you're lying.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
Well, okay, you know the actor Richard Harris, Yes, okay,
So one time he's a known drinker and he was
at with Peter O'Toole and he went up on a
bad bender, right, Like, he flew to a different country,
got drunk, stayed there for like a month. He's married, right,
his wife's worried to hell, doesn't know where he is.
He's not contacting her, right, doesn't say anything to her.
His wife bind you. By the way, his named Elizabeth
at this time, so poor Elizabeth is all worried about
Richard Harris. And then finally he decides it alsover after
(40:59):
this month long drinking, like I'd have to go see
my rugby team, the type of bender. Right, gets back home,
knocks on the door. He does not know what he's
going to tell his wife that he's been gone for
a month, and so what does he do? Boom the
door opens. She looks up at him with her like
loving eyes but also terrified and somewhat angry and somewhat scared,
and just a mix of emotions. He looks down at her,
takes a moment and goes, why didn't you pay the ransom?
(41:21):
Oh my god, that's what he reminds me of.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
That's exactly That's just what he should have said.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
That would have been the smart one. He's a professional,
he's an actor.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Hester towards the archery sales.
Speaker 4 (41:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
So another old neighbor of his said quote, Larry wanted
to be a high liver and a swinger, but the
wife and kids and all the debts cramped his style.
Maybe he just packed up and took off. So, you know,
I think it's pretty much the old neighbors got it.
Bader kept his job with the TV station and he
(41:56):
began sending half of his paycheck to Mary Lou. Despite
his marriage to Zimmer becoming Nolan void, she stayed and
said she would stay with him no matter what right, right,
or die?
Speaker 3 (42:07):
Did marry Lu's husband stay? Do we know?
Speaker 2 (42:09):
I don't know. Eventually, the TV station fired him and
he got a new job working as a bartender again.
So he passed away at the age of thirty nine
on September sixteenth, nineteen sixty six. H Well, his tumor resurface,
but this time in his liver. Oh so he had
a short time. He used every moment. Oh yeah, he
squeezed out all the life, he said, Johnson, you know
(42:30):
he Baterer refused to go to go back to being
addressed as Baiter. He wanted to always be Johnson. He
was open and frank when speaking about the events that
occurred surrounding this revelation of being someone else, but he
absolutely refused to even make an attempt to recall his
past life. He said, quote, I'm very sorry, but my
doctors have warned me not to try and figure it
(42:51):
out by myself. They say it might hurt me.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
Wow, So like it caused like a psychic schism or something.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Yeah, but isn't that a great doctor's note that all
telling the truth.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
I don't mean, I haven't I'm saw on the fence,
Like could it be that his mind? Actually? You know?
Did you know like if you go through enough trauma,
you'll have like these periods of people they cannot remember things.
Your brain will literally forget a thing to protect you.
So psychologically, he's correct that we know that that occurs
do you think that living in you know, in Ohio
was so bad for him that it was they reached
(43:23):
the level of trauma so that way he could actually,
as a married man, have like a blackout, create a
new life for himself, go do that, and then erase
his entire past just to protect himself.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
I find that that's a lot of planning that tests.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
My ability to believe that what the mind can forget
true true.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Because he had to keep the he went and paid
the life.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
And show all this stuff is so wilful.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
You got four kids and your milk delivery gets cut
off life insurance, That's what I'm saying. Then you go
and you rent a boat and everyone's telling you no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Exactly everybody. And then also like the whole thing with
the suitcase and then the no no no. Those two
things together it's like, man.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Come on, yeah, he's not just cut I don't buy it.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
I wanted to be who he is. I wanted to
have his life in Omaha. I wanted to go be free, willing,
pillow loving Larry. But at the same time, like you
got four kids, man, you got to like handle your
business too.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Exactly, So what's your ridiculous takeaway? Was that your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Oh, my ridiculous takeaways. I had no idea how swing
in Omaha was in the fifties. If you would have
gone to my head is there? Can you imagine this
party and Omaha, I'd be like, I guess you're ventilating
my head. No, I can't imagine that.
Speaker 5 (44:27):
It was shocking, dude. Honestly, I'm happy for them. The
parties that you see like in like you know, like
the fictitious like New York of the fifties and movies
like that. They would try to capture these bone vivone
kind of parties. Yeah, that's why I mentioned the whole
Irish poet like do you have best friends Irish posts.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
I've seen these scenes play out in these movies. I
just never had them in Omaha and that they were real.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
That's it for today. I'm gonna go eat a whole chicken.
You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com.
We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram.
You can email at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.
You can download the iheartapp and leave a talk back
reach out baby tune in next Time My rud Dudes.
(45:14):
Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Sarah Burnett,
produced and edited by Omaha's favorite drivetime radio personality, Dave Cousten.
Research is by host of MTV eight's Pimp My Hearst
Marissa Brown and nineteen fifty eight's Archer of the Year
Andrea Song Sharpened hear The theme song is by Opening
Shift bartender Thomas Lee and Wizened Lake Erie lighthouse Keeper
(45:34):
Travis Dutton. Executive producers are John Johnson, Ben Bollen, John Johnson,
John Johnson, Noel Brown, and John Johnson.
Speaker 4 (45:47):
D Crime Say It One More Time Crime.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts
my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Not much. You know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Yes, stop right there, I do. Yeah, Okay, global warming
climate change is not good, right, okay, but this will
sound crazy, but just wait stick with what if it's
not all bad?
Speaker 4 (00:18):
Wildcat?
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Okay. What I'm saying is, look, hear me out. Okay.
You know how sea ice is melting and polar bears
live on ice flows. Yeah okay, and you know how
that as the ice melts, they've had to move inland
so they don't drown. Yeah right, and that's bad, right.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
But once they got in and they started to bumping
into like grizzly bears and being mammals, well they started
like getting busy with grizzly bears. Right, So now there's
this new half polar bear, half grizzly bear species. It's
being created. Do you know what they call them? No,
pizzly bears. No, I really want to see they also
(00:51):
some scientists, hearing how silly that sounds, they prefer to
call them zebra bears, which makes no sense. Or the
other one is grizzlar bears, which just sounds like you're
trying to prove a point or that you just.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Like you didn't speak. I like a grizzl.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Bear, exactly large bruise lar bear to go.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I like pisly bears. I mean it's it's actually heartbreaking, but.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
But there you got adorable silver lining in the heartbreak.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
That is ridiculous. You want to know what else is ridiculous?
I'm faking your death to become a swinging bachelor living
the wildlife in Omaha, Nebraska.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Okay, until you said, Omaha thought this was me?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Hey, no offense, Omaha, this is ridiculous crime A podcast
(01:52):
about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always
ninety nine percent murder free and one hunder ridiculous. Saren,
you can't prove that we've had a guy disappearing resurface
on here before. What was his name? Don le Rose?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yes, Don Rose?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Mayor he ran off? Are you an an o ft?
He became a radio DJ and the mayor popular Dose
And if you want to believe in happy endings, we
can say that that maybe Bumfardo ran off and is
living his best life somewhere.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Yeah, sure, I'm not that much.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Jay. We love you, bum Yeah fly high with the
Eagles never stops upping k T too good to be forgotten.
Have a great summer, Well, Champ, I got another one
for you.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah, I love to call me Champ.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
This guy, I mean this guy, this guy over here.
His name Lawrence Joseph Batter ah l J. Batter. Okay,
Larry Joe Batter.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Larry Joe Madu the Baiter LJ.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
When was he born? You must be wondering.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I was. I was about asked that Sarah was this
man born Elizabeth Saren?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
He he was born?
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
When and that happened? December second, nineteen twenty six. Where
did this happen?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Probably near his mother, Yes, adjacent to.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Her, Akron, Ohio. A. His dad was a big wig
in town. I don't think he wore a wig, but
he was a big wig. He was a dentist.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Oh back in the day. That was a big wig.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
You can call him doctor Bater.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
I ever met him.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Will you know what his first name.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Was, Bob Bob Batter Darth Town. No, it was so.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
He was actually one of the leading dentists in Akron, Ohio.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Doctor Darth Baterers, Darth Baders.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
The whole Bader family was well respected in the community.
That's a lot of pressure to be from a straight laced,
well known family, Like what if you don't fit in.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
And that's a lot of cloud for cleaning teeth.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Well, yeah, there's that. But if you don't think that's
kind of what happened to Larry Joe.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, I reat.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
He dropped out of high school and he joined the
Navy in nineteen forty four, and that was the time
to do it, though I don't know about that. He
gets swept up in the excite forty eight but it's
like it's so exciting as a sense of dude, it's
like growing a victory.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
There's the time if you're going to join, you want
to join the war exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
So he served two years and then he returned to
Akron and graduated from high school. Okay him, he enrolled
at the University of Akron. He made it through one
semester and then he flunked out. Okay, it's kind of
hard to do, is it. Well, they don't, don't. They
usually give you like a semester to turn it around,
like write the ship.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Well, it depends what you mean by flunked out. Sometimes,
like your parents say, like you're coming home and that's.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Where you all funked out.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
So they said your grades are so bad, you're.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I thought that they gave you time to fix it.
That's what they did for me my first.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yeah, well, I can definitely say for me, they definitely
give you like, hey, look man, you don't seem to
realize where you are. You're in college.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
You know, figure this out, get some good grades for once.
It was a disaster for me, but you know, it
wound up not being so much of a disaster for Lawrence.
He dropped out of school and he got a job
at a campus restaurant.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Okay, so he still want to be a part of
campus life exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
But his college instructors remembered him. They said that he
always had some new money making scheme, but it would
never pan out.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Maybe that's how he flunked out. He got caught in
the dorm. But where's the thing.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
It's like one thing for high school teachers to be
aware of students having schemes in machinesis oh, yeah, totally,
But it's another for your college professors to notice.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
They barely noticed the students.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
It's the University of Akrons, not a small school.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
No, And they got a lot of students to keep
track of. So if you were only there for one
semester and in that time multiple ones that all remember
you as a stame.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
This said. One of the reasons that he fell behind
in his grades is because he spent so much time
running a small hamburger stand that he had set up
across the street from the school. He's like taking a
test hold on, It'll be right back. I got like
four customers.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
So he's got like his own little whimpy stand and
he's sitting there auditioning out burger.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Hecuyse, where's the little paper hat?
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
So it may mean it makes sense that he bailed
on school to go work in a restaurant. But I
don't think they had hospitality degrees then. But during this
time he met his first wife, Mary Lou Nap, and
on April nineteenth, nineteen fifty two, they were married.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
That's what people did back, so happy for them. Good job.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
In nineteen fifty seven, they had three kids a fourth
on the way. They lived in the West Hills.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
They had three kids in one year. That's a lot
of kids.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Fifty two they were married, oh, for two years.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
He said. They had three kids in nineteen fifty seven.
They had three kids. Oh I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
So they lived in the West Hills neighborhood of Akron.
Larry was described by his friend to United Press International
as a quote red blooded, beer drinking, all around nice guy.
He could talk your ear off and you'd love to
sit and listen. He was a family man too. It
was just like salt of the earth. He was also
an excellent archer. He won a tri state archery contest.
(06:39):
He loved to do weird things to shock his friends,
Like what you ask, what Elizabeth like devouring a chicken
hole bones and.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
All, wait, what I'm going to need you to back
that up again?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
He would just he would just be running a scene
on the Costco deli side. I mean, let's just stop
for a second, Maryland. I mean, I'm going to presume
it's cooked. So he goes and he gets a rotisserie chicken. Okay,
gathers his friends around. I have to assume there's alcohol
and follow to the show. Well, he like takes the
(07:10):
chicken from the paper wrapping, like I imagine. I don't
know how he did it, but how do you imagine?
I imagined he shoves his fist in the cavity and
then he just starts going to town on it like
it's a candy apple. All that jubbly juice from the
skin in the bottom tumbles down his chin in his arm.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Just spin it on his hand.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I should have made this into the picture it anyway,
He's just like tearing into it. His friends look on
in horror. And by friends, I mean his packistray dogs
in an alley like he's crushing the bones, grinding them
down to swallow them. Shard a chicken leg bone pokes
through his esausague and out the skin on his neck.
He's sweating. I mean, come on, friends are crying. He
(07:52):
eats so fast and so hard he almost takes off
one of his fingers. That's how I like to picture it.
Pee blooms across the front of his pants.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
So you're not taking back.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
No, he's doing this in like less than five five minutes.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Yeah, in my mind, this is fast speedy.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
He gets to the very last joint at the end
of the chicken leg, he swallows, burps, throws his head.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Back and howls championship.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Just run for their lives. Yeah, so Larry did weird stuff?
I got you like going to town on a whole chicken.
That's andre the giant kind of behavior. Oh hell, wrecking shop. Anyway,
he gets a job not as a at a carnival
side show, but as a cookwear salesman for Reynolds Medals Corporation,
Reynolds Rep. Yeah, that's sweet Reynolds wrap baby good stuff.
(08:36):
He was making good money. He brought home ten thousand
dollars a year and that's the equivalent of one hundred
and seven thousand dollars today.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Then good money.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, there's no way a cookwear salesman could make that today.
And that's what's wrong with America's here.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
You got to stand up for the cookwear sales the world.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
So, despite bringing home significant cabbage, it wasn't enough. He
had a lot of household bills. He had a car payment,
and he had to pay the interest on a seventeen
thousand dollars mortgage. So when I take a step back,
like imagine like we're almost to double his salary for
the cost of the home. Right, it's a seventeen thousand more,
you'll say twenty. So if we today take your salary,
(09:15):
double it and imagine that's what your house would be worth.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
I couldn't get anything.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
It doesn't operate like that.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
No I get like a car. I think I wouldn't
get that.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
He tried to save money, He clipped coupons, he bought
bargain brand goods. He didn't and then he also just
didn't file his income tax returns between nineteen fifty two
and nineteen fifty seven. That's one way to say, that's
a way to say, you know, pinch pennies.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
But also, yeah, in.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Nineteen fifty seven he was twenty thousand dollars in debt,
so that's like two hundred and fifteen thousand today.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
Damn.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
He couldn't even pay the milkman. Yeah, they stopped, they
stopped delivering the milk.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
That's a sad moment man, Like looks your house has.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Keeps going and then the kids like run out in
the back and milk an alley cat for sustenance.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Anyway, So why did you deal with your hands?
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Why did you have to act it out? Little little teast?
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Little Yeah, I'm never going to get tiny hands. That's
why we use child labors.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Erin it's burned in Elizabeth.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Anyway, May nineteen fifty seven, Larry Lawrence. He's thirty years
all at the time, Baiter. He packed his car with
fishing gear. He told Mary Lou he was gonna go
look into some bad checks he'd been dealing with.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Farewell, Mary Lou.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
And then maybe it's gonna go fishing. Okay, Uh yeah,
He's like people, I can't pay anyone because people are
writing me bad check.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
That's the problem, Mary Well, totally the problem.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
It was a beautiful day when he left, but the
news said a storm was coming. Mary Lou pointed this
out to him, like, maybe fishing isn't the best choice
right now. Eh, Larry tells her I might going, I
might not. Who knows. You know, he's breezy.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I'm a carefree man, Mary Lou.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
So off he goes. Bater cashed a check for four
hundred dollars, which is about forty three hundred dollars today.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Used it to pay a few bills, including one quarterly
life insurance premium. Okay, got to make sure that's taken
care of. He had almost forty thousand dollars in life insurance.
That's like a four hundred and thirty thousand today. He'd
recently upgraded the policy clause in case of accidental death.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Just within like weeks.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Five minutes before, he rented a boat at Eddie's boat
House at the Rocky River near Cleveland.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Nice crazy Eddies, Crazy Eddy steals on the river.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Lawrence Cottler, who ran the place, told Larry not to
go out because of the impending storm.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Lawrence Cutler, who runs Eddies.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Okay, yeah, these aren't important names, no, said Larry.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
No, no, no, bad bad.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Stomped his foot. I got a fish. He wanted to
be a carp dressed man, sarin free. He was feeling crappy.
He wanted to call himself a man of steel head.
He wanted to get He wanted wall the Walleye action.
He was gonna he wanted to walk Pike an Egyptian.
They could stop.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
I'm gonna put down a baseline for this waite, a
bass line. Dark.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Well, he did promise he'd be back before dark. So
he looked at Cotler, and he pulled out a large
roll of cash, peeled off fifteen dollars to pay for
the deposit. Then he asked for a set of running
lights to be installed on the boat. I'll be back
before dark, but just put a bunch of lights on here.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Just in case really quickly.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
So Cottler's like, you know what, It's going to be
dark in four hours, and that's when the storm is
supposed to hit. Please Larry Lawrence, mister bad, do not
go out there. Larry goes four point thirty in the evening.
Off he goes, he headed out.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
On the rock evening.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, great time with a storm coming. So he goes
out on the Rocky River toward Lake Erie in a
fourteen foot boat with a small outboard motor in a prayer.
Because Larry motored away, Coytler noticed that among like his
fishing gear, he sees a small suitcase. Wait what yeah,
let's take a break.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Why does Darth Vader Junior nit a small suitcase of
go fishing?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Well, we come back, we'll learn more about this mysterious
fishing trip deal Zarin, Yes, welcome. I've decided I'm gonna
(13:32):
start pronouncing bass fish as bass fish.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Okay, you like that, just run with it well, and
then I'm going.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
To go become like an expert bass fisher woman and
enter contest and win like the World Grand prize, all
while mispronouncing the word I'm really good at that. Champion
base Champion Larry the chicken pounding impromptu fishermen.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Wait, dam weren't you sponsored by bass Pro.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Bass Pro Shop?
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Hey, can you tell me how to get to bass
Pro Shop? That just gonna drive people in nuts. May fifteenth,
nineteen fifty seven.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Yeah, that's where we were.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Lawrence Joseph Bader just rented a fishing boat just ahead
of nightfall, just ahead of a large storm. So after
the sun went down, the coast guards spotted Larry out
on Lake Erie and they're like, heypes, buddy, get over here,
there's a storm coming. He's like, yeah, yeah, I know's
we'll escort you back to shore. He is, you know,
Larry with a live chicken dangling out of his mouth.
(14:27):
Refuses him. He's like, no, I'm good, come on, good alone,
I'm good, leave me alone, So mind your own business.
The next morning, the boat was discovered washed ashore on
the rocks of Perkins Beach, was about six miles away
from Murray started. That's five point two nautical miles. Okay,
there's There was just a little damage to the boat,
a scratch on the hull, a bent propeller, an ore
(14:48):
was missing, but no Larry chicken feathers everywhere. No Larry,
No Larry. So the coast guard towed the boat back
to Cotler. At Eddie's boat house, Cadler took a look
at it, and he's wondering if the fifteen dollars deposit
is going to cover these damages. But then he noticed something,
something very wrong. The gas line had been disconnected. And
(15:09):
according to Cutler quote, gas lines do not accidentally become disconnected.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
This is very true, very true. And they also don't
disconnect themselves. No, your honor.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Case closed. The coast guard said the water had been
so rough during the storm that no man could have
survived falling overboard. The life jacket was still in the boat,
so was his fishing gear, but there was no Baiter.
There was no small suitcase.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Uh oh.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
So it appeared to Cutler and the investigators that the
boat hadn't capsized during Bater's adventure. There's no evidence of that.
And everyone was puzzled as to how someone so athletic
and powerful a swimmer as Baiter could have been separated
from the boat and taken the suitcase. Maybe it fell over,
who knows. Some thought that maybe Baiter had been hijacked
and robbed suitcase well like the scourge of Lake Erie pirates.
(16:00):
Of course you know about pirates Sandusky sailing out of Toledo,
hiding out in one of the Canadian sides to bird
name points. They have Peacock Point, Turkey Point. Nothing came in.
Listen the Google street View investigations. I did, Yes, lots
of cool places along the Canadian shore of Lake Erie.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
By the way, dude, that's a good part of the world. Actually,
it kind of picts your asque.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
It's gorgeous. My work here is brought to you courtesy
of newspapers dot Com. I'm still looking for that sponsorship
that includes a cool logo, bomber jacket and Google street View. There's,
as you talk about, all I have in my life. Anyway.
The search for Larry Batter went on for two months.
They just stood out on the shore with their hand
over tom.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Nope, nope, nope.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Let's check again. In ten hours after Bader disappeared, his
father had this to say to the police searching for him, quote,
I can't put my finger on it, but there's something
about this that stinks. Stinks.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
You made him sound extra weirdess.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
That was good, Doctor Bater. In nineteen sixty three years
after his disappearance, he was declared dead. Mary Lou petitioned
to make that. So, so now she's a widow. She's
a widow with four children and a monthly Social Security payment.
And those checks weren't as much as they should have
been because Bader had those income tax issues. Oh, so
(17:22):
the IRS garnished some of the checks to pay down
the debt. Good news for the widow Bater was that
the one bill her late husband always made sure to
pay was the life insurance policy.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
But was she the beneficiary.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yes, she got a pretty good chunk of change.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Good So.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Meanwhile, back in nineteen fifty seven, just a few days
after Lawrence Bader disappeared, a newcomer arrived in Omaha, Nebraska.
Now Omaha is seven hundred and forty miles west of
the Rocky River by the ways erin Okay.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
I'm keep that in mind, seven hundred.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
And forty miles.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
So a guy walked into the round Table bar looking
for a bartending job. He said he'd been in the
Navy for the last fourteen years and he was just
because he had a bad back. I have to say
that if you have a bad back, bartending is not
for you.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Yeah, a lot of lifting and bending.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Oh, standing, lifting, twisting, you know.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Wait, to carry liquid is always weird.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
To carry you're covered in liquid.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Whatever. So this stranger he had a pencil mustache like
John Waters Get Out. Yeah, and a Boston accent.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Wait, that's not an Elizabeth detail.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
That's a real thing. You have a little pencil that's
just disguise mustache Boston accent. So he's like, I just
went and packed my car.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
All he had with him was a small suitcase, a
navy sea bag, and a bartender's guide. So as he's
like walking the seven hundred and forty miles, he picks
up the bartender's guide. A woman named Betty was working
at the bar that evening when the stranger appeared. She
this is what she said about it.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
He was fascinating Debonair, well dressed and not broke. He
asked me out everything going for him? Fascinating devn Air,
well dressed, not.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Broke, not broke. It is whose are the top four?
Speaker 2 (19:09):
So two days later he lands a job. He started
bartending at Ross's Steakhouse. This place was the steakhouse in Omaha. A.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
You're telling me, sister, that's.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Saying a lot and Omaha Steakhouse.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
R Chris can blow this place is the.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Esquire magazine once called it the King of Omaha steakhouses.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yeah, and there's an Omaha steakhouse place and they call
themselves the king and they're like, we're not.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
No Ross's. It was owned by Ross Lorello. He opened
it in nineteen fifty six, so it was sort of
new on the scene when the stranger arrived. The Lorello
family actually shut it down in nineteen ninety six rather
than selling it out of the family a respect, So
it's just a legend.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Oh, I do like that.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
There's a great ad for the place that I found online.
It reads Rosses has purchased the Axar Bend four h
Grand Champion Beef six times in recent years. Ross's Steakhouse
is famous. That's all caps for serving the ultimate and
exquisite because including Omaha's finest steaks, chicken see food Italian Fair,
Seafoods Tour.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
I mean, need you to read that all again. That
was a lot of fun. We just do that again
from the top.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
You know. They also had a place in the restaurant
called the Cleopatra Piano Lounge.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Oh, my god, are you serious. Yeah, meet me and
the Cleopatra Piano.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Nineteen fifties, Omaha Steakhouse, the Cleopatra Piano, l Piano Land.
It's just melting my face thinking about it. Back to
the Stranger, I want to stay there for a second.
I want to be in the Cleopatra Lounge. As he
attended bar, he would tell stories about how he grew
up in an orphanage in Boston. He was one of
(20:40):
twenty two orphans there and apparently, according to him, everyone
there was named John Johnson because he.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Couldn't remember anything and he didn't want to do that
goodwill hunting where he had to remember all the names.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, John Johnson, the George Foreman. Totally orphanage.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
There's like one nun who just knew a guy back
in the day.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
And the kids John Johnson. Well, this John Johnson was
given the nickname Fritz.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
I mean John John's son, a little Fritzy Fritz.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
He joined the Navy, he said, he joined the Navy
at seventeen, and he's served in World War two in
the Korean War. Thank you for your service, even if
it's fake.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
And he was.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Hospitalized for a back injury in fifty seven after before
being officially discharged. So now here he is slinging gimlets
and old fashions with the smell of seared beef in
the air. Here he is pretty soon. Fritz was a
local celebrity to raise money for polio. He liked fighting polio,
not like encouraging.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
I thought, he's everyone to have polico, some of the
rare people who was immunity. I want everyone to get it.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
So I'm raising money. So he raised money to fight
polio or just polio awareness. You know those aware, what's
up with an awareness campaign? Like, I'm aware of it.
I know, let's do something about it. My awareness doesn't
help anyway. He competed in a flagpole sitting contest.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Yes, I love it.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
It used to be a thing like you'd sit at
the top of a flagpole and I guess like people
would make a pledge to donate a certain amount for
every year.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
It's like loading college kids in a in a phone boot.
Get in there.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yes, he sat on a flagpole for thirty days. What
thirty days?
Speaker 3 (22:19):
If he would have done that like one hundred years earlier,
they would have called him a saint or a witch.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Thirty days sarin past September. While he was up there,
his friends would send up milk bottles twice a day.
And you know it was in those milk bottles chocolate martinis,
which I means, like I guess that means.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Just like he's just getting liquered on top of the
flag vodka.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
And a splash of remooth, like just send them up
vodka bottles.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
It's heavier.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
There's just like like one olive floating in it, and
they're just.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Making drinks at the bottom of flagpole, sending them up.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
When he came down from the pole after a month
he was working the poles arin, he had a long
beard and it took him a while to get used
to walking again. I bet where did he go to
the bathroom?
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Down the pole? Just gravity took care of it and
he held it in.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
And they had to hospitalize him. So he got down
from the pole.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
You didn't have a bedpen. He has a flagpole.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
He says, like a balloon, and then he drops some
of the people. Mom Zo. So he got down from
the pole and then he has like a balloon in
a funnel. So so he gets down from the pole,
he hobbles around and then they push him into a
(23:32):
convertible stuff with bonaceous babes, and he was escorted away
to a parade.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Wait are you kidding me? Like a ticker day.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Yeah, they're like, hooray, you sat up there for a month.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
You really helped the fight for polio against from.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
An orphanage A full full of John Johnson's to.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
This man start at the bottom, now we hear.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
So he had other jobs through the years beyond bartending.
He got a job in radio like Don the Rose,
and he became a disc jockey for a local radio
show on AM station KBON, just like k b O.
By the way, the call letters KBON have subsequently been
assigned to a Cajun radio station in Louisiana.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Come on, I like that.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
He also got a gig as the sports director for
television station k E t V k E TV, Omaha's
favorite news source.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
It feels like that's missing a letter. I know that
it's k EV's four letters, but it just sounds like
it's missing a letter.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, I don't know. He wasn't just behind the scenes there,
though he made announcements on it on our talent. Yeah,
Fritz was basically the most popular and most flamboyant citizen
in Omaha.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
So he's going as Fritz at this point with the pencils.
There mustache just swunging around being like Omaha, just enjoy.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Feasting in he he had this swinging bachelor pad. It
was filled with dozens of pillows, but no furniture.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
You're kidding, No, I'm not kidding.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
He is so fifties dream like.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yes, he hosted wild champagne parties, like right there in
the pillows, a messy. He kept tropical fish as pas.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yeah, you have Irish poets. His best friends he had.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
They were simes fighting fish who eventually ate each other.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
This is amazing.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
So he's like swamming around town. He wore a leather beret,
of course, is that amazing. He was a real ladies man.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Oh, does he have like a sidecar motorcycle?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Probably no, you're gonna hear what he has. He said
that he dated every beautiful girl he met. He's like you,
you're going out on a date and the same thing.
Probably not okay. So you wanted to know about his transportation,
suggest what's his ride?
Speaker 3 (25:30):
He bought a.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Hearse from an undertaker in Kansas for one hundred and
fifty bucks. It gets better, it gets better.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Hold on.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
So he and a friend customized it with a wrought
iron table, a coffee bar, pillows of course, and a
Buddhist statue incense burner.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
So is John Waters. He's doing an impression of this man.
I think we found the John Water source materials. He
was like a boy in the fifties, right. He saw
this guy again the news. He's like, I want that life,
but I'll make films.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Is the city lice? This is the hearse is a
quote hunting vehicle?
Speaker 4 (26:02):
What this is?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
So Austin Towers. Oh yeah, he's on the prowl. One
day he told everyone that he decided to take up
archery and he thought it would be like a good
way to strengthen up his back muscles.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Oh he hasn't shown. Nobody knows he's an archery champion.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Like, I want to get into a fight and shape.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
I want to try this new thing.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Five weeks later, he won the Nebraska state championship. He's
just all, hey, I don't know. He loved to be
the life of the party and amuse his friends. One
day they're all hanging out. I'm going to assume, like
in the pillow pile at Schaefritz.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
And he's like juggling circus monkeys.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Oh yeah, No, he reaches over, pulls out an entire
chicken and he ate it, bones and all. He's back baby,
living his best life. Too bad, So sad, Mary Lou.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
You never appreciated Marry Lou.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Even though he ate chickens whole, probably while lying on
the ground so everyone could watch the chicken move through
his digestive system like a snake devouring a small toe.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Oh oh my god, Shirtlet so the grease runs through
the fur on his chair.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
You see, you see the chicken moving along his county.
Even though he drove around in a hearse that was
repurposed as a love done.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
I'm picturing it's like painted purple or something.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Probably. And even though he won archery championships after just
learning the way of the bow, no one thought he
was a show offer, a braggart.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
What he's quoted is the Midwest.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yeah, he has quoted as one saying all my life
I've had people tell me what to do in the
Navy and the Orphanage. Well now I'm going to do
what I like to do.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
We heard this come up a lot.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Yeah right. He avoided using his last name Johnson. All
his bills were made out simply to Fritz.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Just care of the city, Fritz, Yeah, Fritz.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
And that's also how he signed everything, just Fritz. He
never dated his checks. He would fill in the dateline
with the season spring, summer, winterfall.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
That works well.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
The tellers at the bank would call him a couple
days prior to the seasons changing and remind him of
that impending change, like, hey, Fritz, people be Fritz Hello.
They get him on the Fritz is that you It's
going to be summer tomorrow. He's all exactly he even
(28:15):
though he's like a big local media guy, he made
it a point to never watch the news or read papers.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
I'm learning that he may be right about.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Adopt this very tempting. He came across as really carefree
and happy. People loved him. Everyone loves him. He's just
oblivious and happy, and he was fun to be around.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
He's just a child in an adult's body.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
People would come to him for guidance when they were
having a tough time.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
He's the village idiot.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Well this no, this is what a friend said. The
only time I ever saw him depressed were when his
friends were in a jam.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
So he's yeah, he's just.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
He's like the guy who's just like a chance the gardener,
you know, the he's a holy fool, the holy fool
than you, more so than a villagitia, a holy fool.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah. Another thing he hated more than the news was
the institution of marriage. Oh and his roommate is quoted
as saying he was death on it. Whenever people told
him he was getting married, he would exclaim.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
Oh, you fool, you fool.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Okay, when we come back from this break, I'll tell
you about Fritzie and his stance on marriage.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
Oh Fritz, Yeah, Fritz my du beata.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Mystery, Omaha beatnik raising hell and eyebrows.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
I love that. Omaha loves this beatnik with the pencil
than mustache, just going around going, Oh, come remember my
furniture list.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Home embodying late fifties early sixties Nebraska.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Quite frankly, it just blowing my mind. Like I have
fans in the Midwest and they don't from Nebraska.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
From Almaha.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Yeah, it's a tall grass, kids cut kind of culture.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Huh. He thought people who got married were idiots. Okay,
So in nineteen sixty one, he married Nancy Zimmer.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
She disapproved the point. It was like, watch how bad
this is.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Twenty one year old photographer's model dev orse.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Now watch what happens to the man you all love watches?
I am broken by this institution.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
She's from Chicago. Okay, this is what a friend of
his said.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
So she was a divorcee, like he is a. Well
he's a she's a don't give me the expose exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Quote. We really kidded him about it, but he didn't
say anything at all. He just smiled. So when people
are like, oh, you said you're an idiot to get married, yeah, grin.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Okay, so she's probably a little tea. She wealthy, No,
she was a model.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Maybe maybe she got money in the divorce.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Okay, but he's not marrying her for money obviously.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
No. I mean she's a little bit younger than he is.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
But I kind of guess that part. And you said
the model, Oh, Nancy.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
He adopted her daughter from a previous marriage. Two years later,
the couple had a son of their own. So he's
just building this family. Along with working at k ETV,
he also got a part time job as an advisor
to archery companies.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
He's a state champion.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Oh, he's a total champ. In nineteen sixty four, a
malignant tumor was discovered behind his left eye and he
lost the eye and had to wear an eye patch,
which only made him look cool.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Totally, just cultivates more of his image.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
So and I's got the mustache, the ipatch. He's mysterious Zarin. Yeah,
close your eyes. Oh yes, I want you to picture it.
It's February second, nineteen sixty five. You are at a
sports sales convention at McCormick Place in Chicago. A guys,
You've come from Akron, Ohio to check out the sports show.
(31:53):
You own a sporting goods store and you're really interested
to see what new products you could stock for your customers.
You know, if you have got them in mind. The
convention hall is packed. People stroll from booth to booth,
chattering over the easy listening playing over the speakers. You
walk past a booth where a guy is bouncing a basketball,
waxing on about the superior new materials in the thing.
(32:14):
At the next booth, two young women play ping pong
while a salesman lists the benefits of having table tennis
for America's youth. You reach the end of the row
of booths and you're now standing in front of a
large display area. There's a wall of hay bales with
a bullseye target on it and a man standing in
position with his bow drawn, arrow aimed. You think adding
(32:34):
archery equipment to your store might be a good idea.
See step closer. The man releases his zero from the
taut bowstring and it whizzes to the target, dead center bullseye.
The crowd responds with polite applause. What's remarkable is that
the guy wears an eye patch. You marvel at his
depth perception in the face of ocular limitation. You look
at the face of the man holding the bow as
(32:55):
the sales rep for the archery company details the features
in their equipment. You can't put your finger on it,
but the guy looks familiar. You stare and stare, and
then the guy lets out a chuckle and you see
that familiar grin. You look again, just to be sure,
and then you dart off to the bank of payphones
in the lobby. You fish a bunch of change from
your pocket and pour it into the phone. You dial
(33:16):
a number it rings. You wait, A woman answers, Suzanne.
You say you've called your friend Suzanne Pika. She lives
here in Chicago, but she's originally from Akron. You tell
Suzanne you think you've seen her missing uncle, Lawrence Baiter.
You ask her to come down to the show. She says,
she's on her way. A little while later, Suzanne arrives.
(33:37):
She looks at Fritz and asks, pardon me, but aren't
you my uncle Larry Bater, who disappeared seven years ago.
Fritz just laughed it off. No way, he said, I
don't know what you're talking about. Suzanne knew he was lying.
She knew her own kin. So she ran out to
the lobby and called two more people, John and Dick Baiter,
Larry's brothers. Yes, they immediately boarded a private plane from
(34:01):
Akron to Chicago. Remember, the family was well known in town.
I'm guessing that cavity cash, So I'm going to guess
that this happened in the morning and that the brothers
were able to arrive that afternoon, like yeah, yeah, the
little skipper. Otherwise, I can't believe that Fritz would stick
around for day two of the event after possibly being
made anyway, John and Dick they take one look at
(34:24):
Larry slash Fritz and they said it was without a doubt,
they're missing brother.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
Oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Fritz still refuses to admit it. He said he had
never even been to Akron, had no idea who these
men were claiming to be his brother. So to let
them know that they were making a mistake, he said,
you know what, I'm going to go with, you fingerprint me.
Let's go to the police station.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Yeah, So the police took his prints. The cops sent
the Prince to the FBI. The FBI compared them to
prints on file with the Navy, and the prints matched
this Ding dong.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
So the next day I was assuming there was going
to be something he had done to falsify the record.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
No.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
The next day, Chicago Police Lieutenant Emil Geiss called Fritz
and said, the Prince, I took off your fingers and
the fingerprints of the missing Larry Baiter are identical. Either
you are or this is something from outer space or beyond.
You know, those are your choices. It's like you it's
either this or a ghost. Well for him, it's like
you're either him or aliens exactly. Someone I respect that
(35:23):
logic exactly. So Fritz, now confirmed as being the missing,
presumed dead, Baiter said of this moment, quote, it was
like a physical shock. Up until that moment, I had
no doubt that I was not Larry Bater. But when
I heard that, it was like a door it slammed
and someone had hit me in the face.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Yeah, yeah, I'm not buying it. Bro Well.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Bader would spend the next ten days under medical observation
run by a special team of psychologists and neurologists. He
hired a lawyer. The lawyer advised him to say that
he had recently had a tumor removed and maybe that
had an impact on his memory. Good, but like that
was recent.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Yeah, I think the doctors could probably backtrack and be like,
that wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Have been Yeah anyway, Fritz slash Baiter at one point
was put under hypnosis, but he was so worked up
that the investigators decided not to use sodium penthanol true ceremonial.
So it was determined that there was quote no indication
that mister Johnson has any recollection of his life as
Larry Bater, nor did we find any neurotic or psychotic
(36:26):
tendencies to explain this loss of memory.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Hypnotism only works if you want it to work, right.
It's not something that like you can just automatically hypnotize
the person against their will. It's literally they hand their
will over to you exactly if you don't hand it over.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
And he I don't know what's going on with him,
but either way, so they figure out.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Helpful man, and I would I know that you couldn't
hyptize me unless I mean, honestly, people have tried to
be like, it ain't gonna work. I don't believe in it.
Not that I don't believe it can happen. I believe
it can happen, and I believe that you can't hypnotize me.
And as long as I believe that it won't work,
I believe this dude.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Because they decided that there's nothing wrong with his brain.
There's nothing wrong with him psychologically, but he's just he
obviously doesn't remember this. They didn't charge him with fraud
or bigamy. Isn't that unreal? I mean I thinking too,
like the you know, getting the life insurance all paid
the insurance.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
In the suit can't pay for milk, but the suitcase.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Yeah, so he had this doctor who said of his
reinvention of a life quote, it could be a mixture
of some hysterical reaction or unconscious wish fulfillment. He remembered, give.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Me a I'm sorry, I was silently rolling my eyes
over here.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Well, whether Bader had some medical condition or it was
just an amazing liar, people wanted their money back.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
I bet they did.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
So.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
There was Eddie's boat House, which wanted money for the
damages incurred to the boat he rented seven years ago.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
I'll tell you one thing, a rental boat house is
going to get it to money to get their money.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
There was Social Security they wanted its two hundred and
fifty four dollars a month back. There was the insurance
company that paid out his quote widow to the tune
of them at forty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Oh, another company's going to get his money back.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
And he had another inevitable the irs. He had unpaid taxes.
Then there was his marriage. Yeah, once his declaration of
death was reversed, he was once again married to Mary Lou.
Sucks to be you, marylu All this so she started
dating someone after he disappeared. She was a really strict Catholic,
(38:23):
she could only remarry as a widow, not a divorcee,
and that's why she had the whole declared dead thing.
So she got remarried. She had just married her bow
when bade her surface. I know. So now she's married
de Larry.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Again and now she's got to get it annulled or something.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
So this is what she said to the Akron Beacon Journal.
The news was quote like shell shock and quote I
haven't been able to think clearly since then.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yeah, she's the one who could have an actual reaction.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
So she she's still married to Larry. Her her current
marriage is voided, and because she's Catholic, she can't get
a divorce.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Her husband's Catholic, so he may not be cool with
all this, right.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
So she's poor Mary. Friends from Fritz's past life, as
Bader thought, maybe he just wanted like a change in
oh mah. His you know friends were TV personalities. The
friends of Fritz barflies, models, pr men, free spirits, right
and nonconformists. Back in Akron, his friends were ultra conservative,
(39:22):
content conformists, except for when they watched him put the
herd on an entire chicken. Can I circle back to
that again, I'm still having problems with it. I've forgotten it,
like it's the eating of the bones sticks in. It
makes me think of a disobedient dog.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Okay, that's not what I picture, but go on, well anyway, no,
how do you picture a disobedient It's like, you know,
we win, like.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Dogs grab food off accounter and then you can't get
it away from him and they just start eating it.
You imagine he was eating Yeah, okay, he climbed up
onto a counter.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Chicken.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
He's Fritzy the chicken appreciated.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
He's running around the backyard eating it.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Chicken appreciator has entered the chat. A friend of his
was quoted as saying, in our group, if anyone had
done some of the things Fritz Johnson did, the flagpole,
the hearse, why no one would have even talked to you.
So those like the friends back home year.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
I can. I get why he left. I get why
he faked it, but I don't get why he tried
to pull the two dumb moves of being like I'm
not that guy to his own brothers, then being like
you don't believe me, fingers me right.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
And I think that's actually kind of genius. Though, is
if you know your cop like fingerprint me, and then
you can be like something happen, I don't know, but
if you try and avoid it, then it's like you
have knowledge of the fact that you're lying.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
Well, okay, you know the actor Richard Harris, Yes, okay,
So one time he's a known drinker and he was
at with Peter O'Toole and he went up on a
bad bender, right, Like, he flew to a different country,
got drunk, stayed there for like a month. He's married, right,
his wife's worried to hell, doesn't know where he is.
He's not contacting her, right, doesn't say anything to her.
His wife bind you. By the way, his named Elizabeth
at this time, so poor Elizabeth is all worried about
Richard Harris. And then finally he decides it alsover after
(40:59):
this month long drinking, like I'd have to go see
my rugby team, the type of bender. Right, gets back home,
knocks on the door. He does not know what he's
going to tell his wife that he's been gone for
a month, and so what does he do? Boom the
door opens. She looks up at him with her like
loving eyes but also terrified and somewhat angry and somewhat scared,
and just a mix of emotions. He looks down at her,
takes a moment and goes, why didn't you pay the ransom?
(41:21):
Oh my god, that's what he reminds me of.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
That's exactly That's just what he should have said.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
That would have been the smart one. He's a professional,
he's an actor.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Hester towards the archery sales.
Speaker 4 (41:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
So another old neighbor of his said quote, Larry wanted
to be a high liver and a swinger, but the
wife and kids and all the debts cramped his style.
Maybe he just packed up and took off. So, you know,
I think it's pretty much the old neighbors got it.
Bader kept his job with the TV station and he
(41:56):
began sending half of his paycheck to Mary Lou. Despite
his marriage to Zimmer becoming Nolan void, she stayed and
said she would stay with him no matter what right, right,
or die?
Speaker 3 (42:07):
Did marry Lu's husband stay? Do we know?
Speaker 2 (42:09):
I don't know. Eventually, the TV station fired him and
he got a new job working as a bartender again.
So he passed away at the age of thirty nine
on September sixteenth, nineteen sixty six. H Well, his tumor resurface,
but this time in his liver. Oh so he had
a short time. He used every moment. Oh yeah, he
squeezed out all the life, he said, Johnson, you know
(42:30):
he Baterer refused to go to go back to being
addressed as Baiter. He wanted to always be Johnson. He
was open and frank when speaking about the events that
occurred surrounding this revelation of being someone else, but he
absolutely refused to even make an attempt to recall his
past life. He said, quote, I'm very sorry, but my
doctors have warned me not to try and figure it
(42:51):
out by myself. They say it might hurt me.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
Wow, So like it caused like a psychic schism or something.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Yeah, but isn't that a great doctor's note that all
telling the truth.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
I don't mean, I haven't I'm saw on the fence,
Like could it be that his mind? Actually? You know?
Did you know like if you go through enough trauma,
you'll have like these periods of people they cannot remember things.
Your brain will literally forget a thing to protect you.
So psychologically, he's correct that we know that that occurs
do you think that living in you know, in Ohio
was so bad for him that it was they reached
(43:23):
the level of trauma so that way he could actually,
as a married man, have like a blackout, create a
new life for himself, go do that, and then erase
his entire past just to protect himself.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
I find that that's a lot of planning that tests.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
My ability to believe that what the mind can forget
true true.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Because he had to keep the he went and paid
the life.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
And show all this stuff is so wilful.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
You got four kids and your milk delivery gets cut
off life insurance, That's what I'm saying. Then you go
and you rent a boat and everyone's telling you no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Exactly everybody. And then also like the whole thing with
the suitcase and then the no no no. Those two
things together it's like, man.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Come on, yeah, he's not just cut I don't buy it.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
I wanted to be who he is. I wanted to
have his life in Omaha. I wanted to go be free, willing,
pillow loving Larry. But at the same time, like you
got four kids, man, you got to like handle your
business too.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Exactly, So what's your ridiculous takeaway? Was that your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Oh, my ridiculous takeaways. I had no idea how swing
in Omaha was in the fifties. If you would have
gone to my head is there? Can you imagine this
party and Omaha, I'd be like, I guess you're ventilating
my head. No, I can't imagine that.
Speaker 5 (44:27):
It was shocking, dude. Honestly, I'm happy for them. The
parties that you see like in like you know, like
the fictitious like New York of the fifties and movies
like that. They would try to capture these bone vivone
kind of parties. Yeah, that's why I mentioned the whole
Irish poet like do you have best friends Irish posts.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
I've seen these scenes play out in these movies. I
just never had them in Omaha and that they were real.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
That's it for today. I'm gonna go eat a whole chicken.
You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com.
We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram.
You can email at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.
You can download the iheartapp and leave a talk back
reach out baby tune in next Time My rud Dudes.
(45:14):
Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Sarah Burnett,
produced and edited by Omaha's favorite drivetime radio personality, Dave Cousten.
Research is by host of MTV eight's Pimp My Hearst
Marissa Brown and nineteen fifty eight's Archer of the Year
Andrea Song Sharpened hear The theme song is by Opening
Shift bartender Thomas Lee and Wizened Lake Erie lighthouse Keeper
(45:34):
Travis Dutton. Executive producers are John Johnson, Ben Bollen, John Johnson,
John Johnson, Noel Brown, and John Johnson.
Speaker 4 (45:47):
D Crime Say It One More Time Crime.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts
my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Elizabeth Dutton
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