September 26, 2025 • 40 mins
In August of 1980 a bomb containing 1,000 pounds of dynamite was quietly delivered to Harvey’s, a casino and resort at Lake Tahoe. This kicked off a whirlwind caper that lasted 30 hours and ended up nearly demolishing the 11-story resort.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The bombing of Harvey's Casino in Lake Tahoe, Nevada is
one of the great overlooked capers. It's kind of nuts
how anything like the Harvey's bombing could ever be forgotten
considering the outcome. This episode has it all. A great
plot in competent criminals, an amazingly well designed bomb, and
a huge explosion. And it's made even cooler somehow because
(00:22):
it takes place in nineteen eighty plus no one dies,
which makes it okay for me to call this episode
kind of charming. Enjoy.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's here and this is Stuff you Should Know.
The true crime edition where nobody gets hurt. Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah? I think this falls into our sort of caper edith.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yes, well put well put edition. Do we have any
other capers?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, like the Chow Chilli kidnapping And I think any
non murder crime podcast I think would fall under this. TB.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Cooper right exactly. And before I forget Chuck, that was
definitely a caper. Good call. This was a request which,
like you said last time. We've been doing a lot
of these lately, but this one's requested by Nick Hales,
and I say, good request Nick, Thanks for that, And
I totally spaced on shouting out Neil Stevens from the
(01:33):
UK for Georgia Guideston's episode. He requested it and gave
me the idea to do it.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
All right, nice work. This one was so familiar to
me that I was sure that we had either touched
on it or that I saw. What I really thought
was that I saw a documentary about it, but I
hadn't because I don't think there's been one. I don't
know what it is. It was really familiar with some
other true life thing that I saw.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I don't know, I don't know, but the fact that
there's not a movie about this is insane.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, I don't know if it's movie worthy.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Oh really? Yeah? Oh man, just like the pork Chop
Sideburns alone, I think would warrant a movie. But because
I said pork chop Sideburns, of course we're talking about
nineteen eighty, right, Chuck, August twenty sixth, nineteen eighty.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
That's right. And on August twenty sixth, nineteen eighty very
early in the morning. A couple of delivery dudes would
be delivery dudes wield a big piece of equipment, had
a cover on it, said IBM into Harvey's Resort Hotel
in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Shout out to our buddy, Aaron
(02:43):
Hagar representing Lake in Tahoe. Oh yeah, he's got it
made out there in Tahoe. Nice except for the bears
and wildfires.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
I'll bet he's heard of this story.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Then, I bet you he has. We'll hear from him
on this. But anyway, they wheeled in there, up to
the second floor offices and dropped it off and basically
skid autled. After that, they had a guy waiting in
a van outside and drove them the heck out of there.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah, so it's kind of weird five am to drop
off a piece of office equipment, not waiting around for
everybody to sign it. Kind of odd. And within an
hour the oddity behind it kind of became really apparent.
A slot manager, I believe, or maybe the night manager
in general, he noticed this piece of office equipment that
was kind of randomly placed on the second floor offices,
(03:29):
and he saw that there was a note by it,
and he gathered some other employees and they were all
kind of hanging out reading the note. And one of
the details I love that I saw in a Adam
higginbottom article on the atavist was that one of the
people reading the note was leaning up against the machine
while they were reading the note.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
All right, the notes, sid, Should we read the note?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, because then it makes the whole thing about somebody
leaning up against it really hilarious.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
All right, stern warning to the management and bomb squad,
in which case I would have been out of there.
That's all I need to hear, right exactly. Do not
move or tilt this bomb because the mechanism controlling the
detonators in it will set it off at a movement
of less than point zero one of the open end
Richter scale. So let's confuse people right out of the gate.
(04:20):
Is with this note, is what this guy's thinking. Sure,
don't try to flood or gas the bomb. There's a
float switch and an atmosphere pressure switch set at two
numbers twenty six point zero zero to thirty three. Both
are attached to detonators. Do not try to take it apart.
The flathead screws are attached to triggers, and as much
(04:40):
of a quarter to three quarters of a turn will
cause the explosion. In other words, this bomb is so
sensitive that the slightest movement, either inside or outside, will
cause it to explode full stop.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah. And you can guess the person leaning against the
machine stood up and moved away from it, right.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
That's right. And basically they said, I love that part.
No one can detonate or no one can can deactivate
this bomb, not even I, not even the creator can
diffuse this thing. So it is going to go off
at some point. Your best hope of not getting hurt
is to pay a three thousand dollars ransom, and you're
(05:16):
going to receive instructions on how to move it out
of here so it can explode somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, and it would have been a bargain for three
thousand dollars. There was actually a three million dollar ransom
and to save three thousand you did, I think you
were being optimistic. Yeah, but it was a it was
a big fat ransom. And the bomb itself, I mean,
if you just look at the at the ransom note
when it's talking about the bomb, that's a pretty amazing bomb.
(05:44):
And It actually became pretty legendary with the FBI, so
much so that I saw that they still I don't
know if they still do today, but for many years
they used it as a teaching model for bomb technicians,
and the FBI considered it very sophisticated, and they, I said,
it was unlike anything any bomb technician had ever seen before.
No one had ever made a bomb like this.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, very good bomb, if there was such a thing.
It was a couple of stacked boxes ligned with metal
and rubber that through conventional methods, you couldn't separate, of
course without it going boom. And so that FBI did
what they do in this case. They come in, they
start taking pictures, they X ray it, they sweep it
(06:27):
for fingerprints. Obviously, they don't move it. They find out
that it has about a thousand pounds of dynamite inside. Yeah,
and they can't find a way to Like basically they're saying,
this note seems to be right on the money, Like
we can't find a way at least right off the
bat about how to diffuse this thing safely.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah, and very famously, the bomb technicians in the room
started running around in aimless circles saying, oh my god,
oh my god, oh my god. And they did that
for a good three hours, I think before somebody stepped
in and stopped them. But that handsome note also showed
a lot of planning, not just the bomb. This bomb
was amazing, just full stop, amazing, one to really be
(07:07):
proud of if you were a bomb maker. But the
actual heist itself had like a real shot at extorting
this three million dollars successfully. And it started with they
knew what they were doing. Out of the gate. They said,
we want three million dollars in used bills, one hundred
dollars bills already used, not marked, not bug don't even
(07:28):
try to chemically treat them. And we want you to
fly a helicopter to Lake Tahoe Airport, have the pilot
land by the payphone, and wait by the payphone for instructions.
Our instruction is going to come from the payphone. Who knows.
They could also come by taxi. They could also come
by carrier pigeon. I'm making that last one up. But
(07:49):
they were just trying out of the gate to confuse
them so that they couldn't plan for everything. And it
was I think it was a really well planned heist.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, I mean basically said, no one involved from this
point that you meet up with, like anyone that might
deliver a note, any someone that might drive a vehicle
that's involved, Like, no one's going to know anything, So
don't bother. And I think I believe that that's probably true.
They said that the you know, I the creator of
(08:20):
the bomb, I'm not going to be a part of
this money drop. I'm not going to be around Nobody
that's a part of any of this exchange of money
is going to know anything about how to diffuse this bomb. Like,
this thing is going to go off and there's nothing
you can do to stop it. Again, the only thing
that you can do is follow what will ultimately be
six sets of instructions to safely get this bomb out
(08:43):
of there after I get my loot.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yeah, after he gets the loot or they so, the
first set of instructions was going to be given to
the helicopter pilot. The rest of the instructions would arrive
through the local post office, which is putting a lot
of a lot of faith in the USPS. But then
there was another demand too, that was probably the most
ridiculous demand of all. They said that all news media,
(09:07):
local or national was to be kept ignorant of the
heist until the bomb was successfully removed, right, yeah, And
that was impossible, totally impossible because the first thing the
cops did when they realized like this is for real,
which they figured out pretty quickly. I think the thing
was discovered before six am, and by seven or eight
at the very latest, they were rousing hotel guests at Harvey's,
(09:32):
many of them from sleep, telling them like, nope, you
don't have time to grab your belongings. You got to go.
And not only did they evacuate Harvey's. A thousand pounds
of dynamite can do some real damage, they actually evacuated
heras across the street from Harvey's too.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah, so they said you're all going to go to
this nearby high school. And of course the media it's
a big thing when that happens, when people are being
like massively bust out in their bathrobes and stuff. So
basically within a few hours, like all the media knows this,
they cordon off the area. There's people hanging out, there's gawkers,
(10:07):
there's reporters, there's before you know it, of course, because
there's casinos around there. They're taking bets, of course, like
over under on whether this thing's going to detonate. And
not only did they not keep the media out of it,
but it became like I mean, call the sensation indicates
that it drug on. It was like a day and change,
but it was a crazy day and change for the
(10:29):
media for sure.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
And it was over the week before Labor Day weekend,
so Tahoe was crawling with people. And this was nineteen
eighty right, just thirty six years before the first casino
was opened on the south shore of Lake Tahoe. And
it was opened by the same guy who's hotel now
how to bomb in it, Harvey Gross. His first thing
(10:54):
was Harvey's wagon Wheel Saloon and gambling Hall, which I
saw described as a cabin that had six slot machines
in it. And at the time in Tahoe Chuck there
was no phone, no water, no sewer, no power lines.
The roads would close at like the first sign of snow,
and it was like a real podunk area. But gambling
(11:17):
made it actually put it on the map.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
For a second there. I thought you were going to say,
not a single luxury.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Oh man, I really should have I wish I had
I'm not on my game today.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Like Robinson Caruso. There were what primitives can be.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Right, that's what they said. But it was the sixties.
You wouldn't say that anymore.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
So things go great for Harvey and his little wagon
wheel cabin. You know, it's on the state line of California.
So that's a pretty smart thing because you get those
out of staters, those richies from California throwing down some money.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Yeah, and it was so on the state line. It
was in a town called state Line.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
That's very Nevada.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
It's very on the nose. I'm so nervous about us
saying it the right way because those people will email
you like Gangbusters.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Oh it's Nevada. But I always say Nevada.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Okay, but they say it Nevada.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, everyone outside the state of Nevada says Nevada. And
that drives them.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Nuts, drives them crazy. It's really something.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
So Harvey, no, let's wait on break. So Harvey was
doing great with this little tiny casino in the forties
through the fifties makes a lot of dough and by
sixty three had expanded and upgraded to Harvey's Lake Tahoe,
which at the time was the tallest building at eleven stories,
(12:39):
which is you know, that's a pretty tall building for
that area of the country.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah, less than twenty years. Who went from a cabin
to an eleven story casino resort? Yeah, and I believe
it was at that same eleven story casino resort that
this bomb was placed in nineteen eighty, seventeen years later.
And Harvey himself was like, I mean, he was a
casino owner in Nevada. Like he had I don't want
(13:05):
to say a checkered past, but he had a pass
like he'd been hauled in front of the irs for
tax evasion. There was. He had been given an honorary
name by the Nevada Inner Tribal Did I say it
right Nevada?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Nope?
Speaker 1 (13:20):
By the Nevada Inner Tribal Council. He was called Chief
who Nai. And there was an article that was written
back in I think nineteen eighty that said that it
meant the man who runs the game and takes a
percentage of the bets.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
I don't know if that's a joke or not. I
can't tell.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
I don't either, because that's definitely like that era kind
of joke. You know, you can see that on like
a tiki napkin.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
But the long and short of it is he was
He'd had his little run ends with the irs and
stuff and the gaming board, but it wasn't anything unusual.
He wasn't like some bad guy like mafioso type. He was,
like you said, he owned a casino and there's you know,
he's gonna be brought up by the irs at some point.
But all of this to say, he wasn't like some
(14:06):
some big mark because of all his dirty dealings in
his past.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Basically I saw him actually referred to as a good
guy by some people. It sounds like it like he
was well known to have put off expansion, like he
didn't want to expand to other towns. He's basically said,
I'm making enough money. He had a quote that he
would refer to as I have a nice little business.
How many steaks can I eat? Which is to say
(14:34):
like he had everything he needed and this was fine.
He was happy with his business where it was.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
That's right. But it was the seventies and into the
early eighties, which was just sort of the golden age
of all this kind of stuff of kidnappings and ransoms
and hijackings, and it just seems like all this kind
of high jinks. There's still stuff like that happens ocasionally,
(15:00):
but not like it did back then.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
I think it's because, Chuck, the police state hadn't evolved
enough that they would catch you no matter what. Yeah,
AMers everywhere now right, and leaded gas had been around
long enough to really have the effects on a whole
new generation of brains. So you put those two things together,
you have everything converging on the seventies for people trying
all sorts of heists and kidnappings and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, and that happened back then around there even I
think as far back as the early seventies there were
kidnapping conspiracies against gross ransom things that had been uncovered
in the late seventies. There were smoke bombs with ransom
notes found at other casinos around Tahoe.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
So I don't know about that.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
It was what the smoke bombs?
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Yeah, what is that? You might as well say, like
there's a box of sparklers in your lobby, give me
five hundred thousand simoleons, or else give.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Me thirty five cents, I know, to pay me back
for the smoke both. So it was a time where
if you owned a casino that brought in I think
he made about four million profit, but brought in like
seventy million dollars a year like his did, then that
simply just meant you were a mark by virtue of
that fact alone.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Right. The thing is, though, is the FBI found out
as they started investigating the case about a year after that,
it actually was a personal vendetta against Tarve himself or
Harvey's casino that led to that bomb being placed there
in August of nineteen eighty.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
That sounds like a great cliffhanger for a break.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Thank you, Thanks man.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
All Right, we'll get back to it right after this,
(16:59):
all right, And so we're back in action here at
the bomb site. The FBI's bomb squad is working hard
trying to figure this thing out. They have another team
working on a fake ransom drop. Special Agent William Jonky
basically told Harvey, hey, listen, why don't we drag this
thing out as much as we can. We'll do a
fake payoff arrangement. Maybe we can just sort of put
(17:23):
off this bomb going off long enough for us to
figure it out either how to stop it or how
to catch these people, like, the bomb is going to
go off no matter what. And once Gross heard that,
he was like, well, I'm not paying anything. If this
thing's going off no matter what, you can use my
By God, you can use my own helicopter for the
drop even And that's what they did. They use his
(17:44):
own personal helicopter. But the pilot was a fed, and
there was another fed with a gun hiding behind the
pilot's seat with a suitcase full of mostly fake money.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah, I think a few grand is what I saw.
And just like the ransom note said, the agent flew
the helicopter Lake Tahoe Airport, landed next to the payphone
and got there just in time from what I saw,
just for the phone to start ringing, although I suspect
they were being watched and the phone rang and rather
than giving them instructions over the phone, I think it's
(18:16):
hilarious that they said, look underneath the phone. There's instructions
taped beneath the phone, and then I guess hung up.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
We didn't want to tape it to the front of
the phone.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Booth, right, So he checks out the instructions and it says, okay,
this is what you're gonna do. You're going to fly
west along the highway for fifteen minutes from the airport,
and you're going to turn. There's some compassitting and they
told him to turn toward I never found which one.
And then after a certain amount of time he should
start looking for a beacon, which is going to be
(18:47):
a strobe light in a field. He should land there
and that's where the money drop would happen. And so
the pilot took off and he did exactly as the
thing instructed, the ransom note instructed, and there was nothing.
He flew around for forty five minutes, just waiting, hoping.
I guess probably came close to running out of gas.
And then he flew back to the Lake Tahoe airport
(19:07):
and went back to the payphone in case they called
to say, like, what the heck's going on? And they
never did call. Actually, so the money drop never happened.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I wonder. The FED takes off and he's got the
other FED behind him hiding with a gun, and he's like, hey,
how do you think this guy knows how far we're
going to be in fifteen minutes? And the other fed
went beats me, and that's exactly what happened. And it's
at this point in the story where we will introduce
you to the guy behind the whole thing, and we'll
(19:39):
learn more about him later. But his name was John
Waldo Burgess Sor and that was one of the key
mistakes he made. He kind of botched this money drop
because he should have said miles, like fly so many miles,
or fly to this destination. He just said fly for
fifteen minutes. And I don't know if he put at
(20:00):
like at an average rate of speed for your helicopter. Right,
But the long and short of it is they didn't
know after he had flown fifteen then it's exactly where
he was going to end up. And they were like, well,
that stinks. And this is after they had forgotten the
battery to the Strobe light.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Right, they left it in Fresno.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
They eventually got one. Yeah, they left it at their place.
They eventually got one. They tried to break into an
autopartch store to get one and got chased off, and
then got one at a shell station. So they had
the Strobe. But by the time all this happens, they
don't even know where the helicopter is.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
No, and that shell station also has its own hilarious
story because the gas station attendant they were trying to
buy the battery from basically was like, why no, you
need this kind of battery for the Volvo that you
have parked outside that you're driving. They're like, it doesn't
matter what kind of battery it's for. He's like, well, yeah,
it does, because Volvo won't take any battery. And they finally,
(20:56):
I guess, convinced him to just sell them a battery
and he's like, fine, I guess you're gonna find out
yourself that it's not gonna work, and they finally drove off.
That's how they got the battery. But they made it
to that drop point, which was twenty five miles away
from the airport, and they sat there and waited and
waited and waited and waited and waited. No helicopter. No
(21:18):
helicopter came. And the reason why is because they were separated,
separated by so many miles. They couldn't even hear the
helicopter where it was. It was so far away from
where they were at the drop site.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
All right, so this is botched. Back at the bomb
site at the casino, this a full on party is
going on because it's a casino and people are just
out of their minds at those places. So the barricades
are set up, people are selling T shirts. I got
bombed at Lake Tahoe. I had a dynamite time at
Lake Tahoe. Like that's how quickly this thing was moving.
(21:51):
And the bomb squad team said, all right, here's what
I think we should do, like they call this and
they said, if we flip switch number five, then it'll
buy some more time because this thing isn't playing out
quite right. But I don't know if I trust that.
No one volunteered to flick that switch like they felt basically,
we should go on our own, like with our own
(22:12):
gut feeling on how to do this, which is to
basically blow this box apart, but do it so quickly
that it severs the relay switch, like before the signal
can reach the dynamite.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yeah, it's just pretty fast. And it was possible. They
had They had some of the greatest minds in the
United States who knew about bombs working on this problem,
and they designed to charge especially for this, and it
was built and brought to the site and put up
and they said, this still has at best a twenty
five to thirty percent chance. But we talked to the engineer,
(22:47):
one of the engineers at Harvey's, and he said, it
probably won't bring the whole building down, so let's give
it a shot. And so, almost thirty five hours after
the bomb had been discovered, around three pm the next day,
a guy named Daniel was the person who volunteered to
go take the charge, put it on the bomb exactly
at the angle he was told to put it at,
(23:09):
and then walked out and started the countdown for the
remote triggering. And remember there are hundreds, if not thousands
of people thronged together to watch this to see if
it worked. And when they finally did, apparently, they broadcast
the radio the countdown on local radio Chuck. And when
they finally set it off, that charge did not work
(23:32):
the way it was intended.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
No, it set off the bomb. The entire thing went off,
and it was, like we said, it was a thousand
pounds of dynamite. It created a forty to fifty foot
hole in the ground in the middle of this casino,
shooting shrapnel everywhere, obviously, shooting cash and chips everywhere, which
is obviously problematic. They said, there were TV sets swinging
(23:56):
on cords, toilets hanging by the pipes. It was a huge,
massive explosion in the middle of a casino. And because
it's a casino and because it's Tahoe, it was not
very long afterward that the surrounding casinos got right back
to business, and it didn't take too long. A couple
of days before Harvey's got back to business. With what
(24:18):
was left of the casino, they put glass around it
and was kind of like, hey, come see the bomb
hole and gamble some.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
And watch the FBI work on this crime scene that
just took place. So one of the other great details
of this story for me is that the bandits didn't
know that the bomb had been detonated, and so a
few minutes after the bomb went off, they called the
local sheriff's office and said, we'll be calling back in
one hour to arrange another payment drop.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
He said, whatever.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah. Can you imagine like the person who took the
call being like, oh, yeah, great, okay, we'll talk to
you in an hour.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah yeah, So that didn't matter. Harvey Gross was very sad.
He just cried and he saw the damage eighteen million
dollars worth of damage, and you know, we'll tell you
what ultimately happened later. But they got back to business,
like I said, and I guess we should talk a
little bit more about who this mastermind was.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
I agree, Chuck, and I say, before we start talking
about the mastermind behind the plot, we take a.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Break, all right, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
So we already revealed who it was. A guy named
John Burgess, and his son wrote a book later that
I saw. He called the publisher to find out how
many copies had been sold at the time, and they
told him zero. But in this book he depicts his
dad as not a very nice guy. He was an
abusive husband, physically abusive, a really terrible dad. He liked
(26:06):
to emotionally blackmail his family by threatening to take his
life by suicide. And he was an actual Nazi, like
a genuine Nazi. Just to put the cherry on top
of everything.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah, he flew for the Luftwaffa and spent eight years
in a Soviet prison camp before coming to America and
becoming a multimillionaire, So it kind of ended up okay
for him. He had a landscaping business in Fresno that
apparently did really, really well but he also liked to
gamble a lot and lost a ton of money over
(26:41):
the years. I think about seven hundred and fifty thousand
dollars they'd estimated that he lost. I think at Harvey's alone, right.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
I think that was the whole shebang, But most of
that was at Harvey's. That was my take on.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
It, okay, And we do need to put a pin
in something else, is that years before he had a business,
a restaurant that it was pretty clear that he burned
down for the insurance money, got up three hundred and
fifty five thousand dollars from that and gambled that away.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, he was that kind of guy, right. So the
heist itself, it was it was an attempt to make
back some of the money that the house had taken
from him over the years that he felt bitter about.
But also the reason that he targeted Harvey's, they later
found out, was that on some New Year's Eve a
year or two before he had been given the high
(27:34):
Rollers suite. That's how often he gambled at Harvey's, Like
he was well known there, but he had amassed such
a debt that they actually took him that evening out
of the high roller suite and put him in a
regular room. Was in much to his great humiliation. Yeah,
I mean that was pretty much why he, at very
at least why he targeted Harvey's. He considered that quite
(27:57):
a loss of pride because I I guess he was
with a date and the date was like I thought
you said you were a big time right, which didn't
make it any better. So that's why Harvey's got targeted
in particular.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
That's right. And they put Aaron Hagar in that suite instead.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
They did, and everything was right with the world.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
That's right. So actually Aaron's he's about mate. So he
would have been a kid back then, or maybe they did.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
He could have been high rolling.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Maybe he was like a nine or ten year old,
like running the show in that gambling room.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
I could totally see it.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
So we mentioned he was Burgess Senior. There was a
Burgess Junior. He had a couple of sons, John Junior
and Jimmy, who were twenty and eighteen respectively, and then
Jimmy or wait, was Ella Williams the senior's girlfriend. Yes, okay,
so he had a girlfriend named Ela Williams who were
also in on it. And these two numbskulls who delivered
(28:50):
the bomb, named Bill Brown and Terry Hall.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
The FBI later said after they caught Bill Brown they
described him or no, it was from a report like
somebody who witnessed the bomb being delivered. They said one
of them was a hay seed, a real goober type.
That's how they described Bill Brown. And it's sad for
Bill Brown and Terry hallchuck, because they got a total
of twenty one hundred bucks. But it wasn't until after
(29:16):
they were driven away early that morning that they were
told what they'd just done. They did not know that
they were delivering a bomb until after they delivered the bomb.
Isn't that terrible?
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah? I mean they they were probably just sold here
some money, go deliver this thing.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
That was a lot of money, that's exactly right. Yeah,
and John Burgess Junior just totally misled him, which is
another mark against that guy.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
All Right, So spinning back a little bit, when they
hatched this plan, the first thing they did was go
out and get all this dynamite which they stole from
a power plant in California and stash it in their
walk in freezer in their garage and started building this bomb,
and no one. That's kind of one of the mysteries
(29:59):
of this. It was such a sophisticated device, and no
one still really knows how this guy managed to build
this thing, if he had help, if he was just
this bomb genius that no one knew about, or was
just super smart and did his research, but no one
really knows how he managed to build such a sophisticated bomb.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
I mean, it's still not clear. I don't think anybody
will ever know he just did it. And what's crazy
is John Burgess might have gotten away with the whole thing.
The FBI did not. They were not on him initially.
They interviewed something like five hundred suspects in the whole case.
And there were two things that seemed to have brought
(30:40):
Burgess down. One was a hotel owner who was the
night manager of the hotel that Burgess, Brown, and Hall
stayed at before they planted the bomb. Her name was
Nancy Domenico, and she found those three suspicious enough that
she wrote down their license plate on their van, model
(31:00):
color and the license plate number and just kept it
on file just in case. And it turned out that
would become really important later on. And then the other
factor was John Burgess Junior had a really loud mouth.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
It turns out, yeah, he had a girlfriend leading up
to the event, and he would just brag all about
this thing. They break up. You never think about the
breakup side of things when you're spilling your innermost thoughts. Yeah,
and she has a new boyfriend, tells him all about
this guy I dated before you that told me all
(31:33):
about this bomb plot. The new boyfriend calls in the
FBI tip. So now they have a couple of tips
pointing to these dudes. Yeah, they tracked down the van
that the Nancy Domenico had reported as shady, and it
was a van that was registered to the restaurant that
Burgess Senior allegedly had burned down. So that's where that
(31:55):
comes back into play.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Yeah, so they're like, okay, let's go interview John Burgess Senior,
and on Burgess Senior says, oh, John Junior was driving
the van.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Completely gave his immediately.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Yeah, I mean like that first interview said him, probably
said here's his address. Hopefully at least called his son
to give him a heads up. I don't know. But
they went over and they interviewed John Junior and he said, yes,
I was around uh Tahoe at the time. Yes, I
was with my van, but I was looking for places
(32:26):
to plant marijuana. And you know that's true because I've
just admitted to a crime to the FBI, right right.
And apparently the FBI didn't didn't really buy it. They said, like,
this story is awful, but he stuck to it and
they didn't have anything else they could get him on
right then, but he was definitely on their radar from
that point forward.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
I thought it was a pretty good story to be
put on the spot. Personally, Well, well, it didn't work,
but like to admit to another crime, I was like, right,
all right, not bad, I'll give you that part.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
The part of the FBI. The FBI was like, you're
you're kidding, right, He's said the battery died, so I
abandoned the van. Somebody must have taken it and used
it in the crime and then brought it back while
I was away from the van.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Right well, which is a long way of saying, was
it wasn't me, right exactly. So they you know, they
do what they do in the movies. They don't have
enough hard evidence, so they spend a year getting that
evidence building a case.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
I'm a montage with a great like upbeat song where
they're putting this stuff together. Right.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Sure, I don't know why John Junior and John Senior
are still in the country. I would have been out
of there so fast.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Where would you go?
Speaker 2 (33:39):
I'd leave the country?
Speaker 1 (33:41):
I know where where'd you go?
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Oh, that's a really good question. Everyone just always talks about,
like who would you have over for dinner? Living or dead?
Like where would you go if you were guilty of
a bombing blot?
Speaker 1 (33:53):
I mean, it's got to be a non extradition treaty country, right,
So you're looking at like Venezuela.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
I'd have to do my research then, but yeah, I
would go someplace with a beach and like a very
quiet life. Okay, yeah, and then they just you know,
they eventually show up at the beach in the movie
as well. So yeah, but I tie out of your hands,
and your Canada has beaches, sure, lovely beaches. Not quite
(34:19):
the beaches I was looking for, though, You're welcome, Chunk.
So the FBI is getting this evidence. They have rewards.
I think like a half a million bucks is about
as high as the reward went. And finally about a
year later, they arrest John Junior and Jimmy and they say,
(34:41):
they dangle a little carrot in front of their faces,
how would you like to how'd you like to turn
on dad and maybe get a little leniency And they
went that jerk, I'm happy to And that's exactly what
they did.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Right, And they turn on their dad. They arrested their dad.
They arrested Ella william Bill Brown, Terry Hall, and from
what we understand, every single person who had anything to
do with that was rounded up in one fell swoop basically,
and the conviction started coming out. Ella Williams got seven
years for her involvement. And she hasn't factored in hugely
into this podcast, but she was definitely an accomplished She
(35:18):
typed the ransom notes up, she did a lot. I
think she dropped some people off at one of the
landing sites, like she was very much involved. So she
got seven years, but a judge later overturned her conviction,
and I couldn't see why. But as far as I know,
she did not do any time in prison. Maybe beyond
her trial.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah, I think the sons did get that leniency. As
for John Senior, he represented himself in court. Cross examined
his own sons. Eventually got twenty years in federal prison,
and then I believe life without parole in state prison.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Yeah. The big key to his defense was his son's
had given him a father's day car that said you're
the best dad around ten years before. It didn't work
on the jury.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
That's sorry, how could I have done this? He served
sixteen years, died in prison of cancer. But then there's
one final little potential twist here.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Right, Yeah, so John Burgess had talked to a reporter
while he was alive and he said, you know what,
this wasn't my idea. I was a patsy, I was
a rube. I got and I got dragged into this
by a loan shark. I owed sixty large too. That's
what you say when you're a gambler. And he recruited
me to plant this bomb. And that really the loan
(36:37):
shark was working on behalf of Harvey's top executives and
the mafia who were conspiring to blow the place up
so that they could collect the insurance money.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Look you there, you believe it not at all?
Speaker 1 (36:51):
No?
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Same, no, and the like the.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
The thing that just like completely proves it is yeah,
they used insurance money to rebuild. It's like, No, that
doesn't prove anything. Of course you're going to use insurance
money to rebuild. It doesn't mean there was a conspiracy there.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Right, Is that place still there any idea?
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Yeah, it's still there. I think it's been updated even
more since then. But yeah, as far as I know,
Harvey's is still there.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Awesome. I don't know why over the past two weeks
I've ever thought to look that.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Up me either. I'm almost positive we'll have to leave
it to Aaron Hagar to tell us whether it's there
or not.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Sweet it is. I'm looking at a picture of it.
It's definitely been updated.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Well, while you're online, why don't you look at eBay
and see if there's any like I got bombed at
Harvey's T shirts still around?
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Oh wow, Well, if there are, I'm not going to
tell you. I'm just going to get you one for Christmas.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Fair enough. I like that a lot. That's a good plan. Well,
since Chuck said but he's gonna get me for Christmas,
and I realized, Man, I've got to figure out what
to get Chuck for Christmas. It's time for listener mail.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
You just got me a great record, which one.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Oh, the Bill Evans one. Yeah, yeah, you like it?
Have you listened to it yet?
Speaker 2 (38:03):
I love it? I mean a it's Bill Evans, but
it's just uh yeah, it's good, very evocative of changing
the seasons, which I think was the whole.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Point for sure. I'm glad you liked it.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
All right, Hey, guys, After listening to the Introvert Extrovert episode,
I thought i'd reach out because Chuck at one point
talked about finding ways to discipline his child by removing
fun activities. I remember saying that, but I guess.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Oh, you were so mad, You're like frothing at the mouth.
I've never heard you more angry.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
You don't even really do that, so I'm not sure
if I may have been kidding or not. Anyway, I'm
a third grade teacher because this is like a tip here,
so we got to read the tips. I'm a third
grade teacher on a reservation, and with sixteen kids in
my class, I have never had to use discipline. My
classroom functions like a well oiled machine. Due to a
type of behavior management, known in the educational world as
(38:55):
pbis positive behaviors and supports manage challenging child behavior solely,
solely through the use of using praise and rewards. Wow,
I can easily be applied in the context of raising
your own.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Child, especially if you want to raise a psychopath.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
This is a huge topic, and when there's near and
dear to my heart, I thought it might be incredibly
useful for all the parents out there who, like Chuck,
struggle to find a way to manage their child's behavior.
You convention your discipline.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Man, this guy's scoring all over you, Chuck.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
A little bit. This is Anthony. You guys rock. Thanks
for all the wonderful knowledge and Hilary's dialogue. I want
to be super clear, Anthony, we don't struggle to find
a way to manage her behavior. She's a good kid.
And not to say that kids who have trouble behaving
are bad kids at all. Everyone has their challenges as
(39:49):
kids and parents. But it's not too bad. And I
don't know that this pbis would work necessarily in my household.
I mean, we already do that kind of thing, but
I'll ramp it up and see if that helps.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Hey, good run an experiment, Chuck and true sysk fashion.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Sure. I'm curious though, because Anthony didn't say if Anthony
had kids, I will say that the way kids behave
for teachers is not at all related to how they
behave for parents.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
A lot of it I can imagine for sure.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
So yeah, I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Yeah, if you guys listening out there, try this, let
us know if it works or what. And also, Anthony,
thank you very much for writing in Anthony. It was great.
So if you want to be like Anthony, you can
write into to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
The bombing of Harvey's Casino in Lake Tahoe, Nevada is
one of the great overlooked capers. It's kind of nuts
how anything like the Harvey's bombing could ever be forgotten
considering the outcome. This episode has it all. A great
plot in competent criminals, an amazingly well designed bomb, and
a huge explosion. And it's made even cooler somehow because
(00:22):
it takes place in nineteen eighty plus no one dies,
which makes it okay for me to call this episode
kind of charming. Enjoy.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's here and this is Stuff you Should Know.
The true crime edition where nobody gets hurt. Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah? I think this falls into our sort of caper edith.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yes, well put well put edition. Do we have any
other capers?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, like the Chow Chilli kidnapping And I think any
non murder crime podcast I think would fall under this. TB.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Cooper right exactly. And before I forget Chuck, that was
definitely a caper. Good call. This was a request which,
like you said last time. We've been doing a lot
of these lately, but this one's requested by Nick Hales,
and I say, good request Nick, Thanks for that, And
I totally spaced on shouting out Neil Stevens from the
(01:33):
UK for Georgia Guideston's episode. He requested it and gave
me the idea to do it.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
All right, nice work. This one was so familiar to
me that I was sure that we had either touched
on it or that I saw. What I really thought
was that I saw a documentary about it, but I
hadn't because I don't think there's been one. I don't
know what it is. It was really familiar with some
other true life thing that I saw.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I don't know, I don't know, but the fact that
there's not a movie about this is insane.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, I don't know if it's movie worthy.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Oh really? Yeah? Oh man, just like the pork Chop
Sideburns alone, I think would warrant a movie. But because
I said pork chop Sideburns, of course we're talking about
nineteen eighty, right, Chuck, August twenty sixth, nineteen eighty.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
That's right. And on August twenty sixth, nineteen eighty very
early in the morning. A couple of delivery dudes would
be delivery dudes wield a big piece of equipment, had
a cover on it, said IBM into Harvey's Resort Hotel
in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Shout out to our buddy, Aaron
(02:43):
Hagar representing Lake in Tahoe. Oh yeah, he's got it
made out there in Tahoe. Nice except for the bears
and wildfires.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
I'll bet he's heard of this story.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Then, I bet you he has. We'll hear from him
on this. But anyway, they wheeled in there, up to
the second floor offices and dropped it off and basically
skid autled. After that, they had a guy waiting in
a van outside and drove them the heck out of there.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah, so it's kind of weird five am to drop
off a piece of office equipment, not waiting around for
everybody to sign it. Kind of odd. And within an
hour the oddity behind it kind of became really apparent.
A slot manager, I believe, or maybe the night manager
in general, he noticed this piece of office equipment that
was kind of randomly placed on the second floor offices,
(03:29):
and he saw that there was a note by it,
and he gathered some other employees and they were all
kind of hanging out reading the note. And one of
the details I love that I saw in a Adam
higginbottom article on the atavist was that one of the
people reading the note was leaning up against the machine
while they were reading the note.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
All right, the notes, sid, Should we read the note?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, because then it makes the whole thing about somebody
leaning up against it really hilarious.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
All right, stern warning to the management and bomb squad,
in which case I would have been out of there.
That's all I need to hear, right exactly. Do not
move or tilt this bomb because the mechanism controlling the
detonators in it will set it off at a movement
of less than point zero one of the open end
Richter scale. So let's confuse people right out of the gate.
(04:20):
Is with this note, is what this guy's thinking. Sure,
don't try to flood or gas the bomb. There's a
float switch and an atmosphere pressure switch set at two
numbers twenty six point zero zero to thirty three. Both
are attached to detonators. Do not try to take it apart.
The flathead screws are attached to triggers, and as much
(04:40):
of a quarter to three quarters of a turn will
cause the explosion. In other words, this bomb is so
sensitive that the slightest movement, either inside or outside, will
cause it to explode full stop.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah. And you can guess the person leaning against the
machine stood up and moved away from it, right.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
That's right. And basically they said, I love that part.
No one can detonate or no one can can deactivate
this bomb, not even I, not even the creator can
diffuse this thing. So it is going to go off
at some point. Your best hope of not getting hurt
is to pay a three thousand dollars ransom, and you're
(05:16):
going to receive instructions on how to move it out
of here so it can explode somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, and it would have been a bargain for three
thousand dollars. There was actually a three million dollar ransom
and to save three thousand you did, I think you
were being optimistic. Yeah, but it was a it was
a big fat ransom. And the bomb itself, I mean,
if you just look at the at the ransom note
when it's talking about the bomb, that's a pretty amazing bomb.
(05:44):
And It actually became pretty legendary with the FBI, so
much so that I saw that they still I don't
know if they still do today, but for many years
they used it as a teaching model for bomb technicians,
and the FBI considered it very sophisticated, and they, I said,
it was unlike anything any bomb technician had ever seen before.
No one had ever made a bomb like this.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, very good bomb, if there was such a thing.
It was a couple of stacked boxes ligned with metal
and rubber that through conventional methods, you couldn't separate, of
course without it going boom. And so that FBI did
what they do in this case. They come in, they
start taking pictures, they X ray it, they sweep it
(06:27):
for fingerprints. Obviously, they don't move it. They find out
that it has about a thousand pounds of dynamite inside. Yeah,
and they can't find a way to Like basically they're saying,
this note seems to be right on the money, Like
we can't find a way at least right off the
bat about how to diffuse this thing safely.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah, and very famously, the bomb technicians in the room
started running around in aimless circles saying, oh my god,
oh my god, oh my god. And they did that
for a good three hours, I think before somebody stepped
in and stopped them. But that handsome note also showed
a lot of planning, not just the bomb. This bomb
was amazing, just full stop, amazing, one to really be
(07:07):
proud of if you were a bomb maker. But the
actual heist itself had like a real shot at extorting
this three million dollars successfully. And it started with they
knew what they were doing. Out of the gate. They said,
we want three million dollars in used bills, one hundred
dollars bills already used, not marked, not bug don't even
(07:28):
try to chemically treat them. And we want you to
fly a helicopter to Lake Tahoe Airport, have the pilot
land by the payphone, and wait by the payphone for instructions.
Our instruction is going to come from the payphone. Who knows.
They could also come by taxi. They could also come
by carrier pigeon. I'm making that last one up. But
(07:49):
they were just trying out of the gate to confuse
them so that they couldn't plan for everything. And it
was I think it was a really well planned heist.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, I mean basically said, no one involved from this
point that you meet up with, like anyone that might
deliver a note, any someone that might drive a vehicle
that's involved, Like, no one's going to know anything, So
don't bother. And I think I believe that that's probably true.
They said that the you know, I the creator of
(08:20):
the bomb, I'm not going to be a part of
this money drop. I'm not going to be around Nobody
that's a part of any of this exchange of money
is going to know anything about how to diffuse this bomb. Like,
this thing is going to go off and there's nothing
you can do to stop it. Again, the only thing
that you can do is follow what will ultimately be
six sets of instructions to safely get this bomb out
(08:43):
of there after I get my loot.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yeah, after he gets the loot or they so, the
first set of instructions was going to be given to
the helicopter pilot. The rest of the instructions would arrive
through the local post office, which is putting a lot
of a lot of faith in the USPS. But then
there was another demand too, that was probably the most
ridiculous demand of all. They said that all news media,
(09:07):
local or national was to be kept ignorant of the
heist until the bomb was successfully removed, right, yeah, And
that was impossible, totally impossible because the first thing the
cops did when they realized like this is for real,
which they figured out pretty quickly. I think the thing
was discovered before six am, and by seven or eight
at the very latest, they were rousing hotel guests at Harvey's,
(09:32):
many of them from sleep, telling them like, nope, you
don't have time to grab your belongings. You got to go.
And not only did they evacuate Harvey's. A thousand pounds
of dynamite can do some real damage, they actually evacuated
heras across the street from Harvey's too.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah, so they said you're all going to go to
this nearby high school. And of course the media it's
a big thing when that happens, when people are being
like massively bust out in their bathrobes and stuff. So
basically within a few hours, like all the media knows this,
they cordon off the area. There's people hanging out, there's gawkers,
(10:07):
there's reporters, there's before you know it, of course, because
there's casinos around there. They're taking bets, of course, like
over under on whether this thing's going to detonate. And
not only did they not keep the media out of it,
but it became like I mean, call the sensation indicates
that it drug on. It was like a day and change,
but it was a crazy day and change for the
(10:29):
media for sure.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
And it was over the week before Labor Day weekend,
so Tahoe was crawling with people. And this was nineteen
eighty right, just thirty six years before the first casino
was opened on the south shore of Lake Tahoe. And
it was opened by the same guy who's hotel now
how to bomb in it, Harvey Gross. His first thing
(10:54):
was Harvey's wagon Wheel Saloon and gambling Hall, which I
saw described as a cabin that had six slot machines
in it. And at the time in Tahoe Chuck there
was no phone, no water, no sewer, no power lines.
The roads would close at like the first sign of snow,
and it was like a real podunk area. But gambling
(11:17):
made it actually put it on the map.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
For a second there. I thought you were going to say,
not a single luxury.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Oh man, I really should have I wish I had
I'm not on my game today.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Like Robinson Caruso. There were what primitives can be.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Right, that's what they said. But it was the sixties.
You wouldn't say that anymore.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
So things go great for Harvey and his little wagon
wheel cabin. You know, it's on the state line of California.
So that's a pretty smart thing because you get those
out of staters, those richies from California throwing down some money.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Yeah, and it was so on the state line. It
was in a town called state Line.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
That's very Nevada.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
It's very on the nose. I'm so nervous about us
saying it the right way because those people will email
you like Gangbusters.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Oh it's Nevada. But I always say Nevada.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Okay, but they say it Nevada.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, everyone outside the state of Nevada says Nevada. And
that drives them.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Nuts, drives them crazy. It's really something.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
So Harvey, no, let's wait on break. So Harvey was
doing great with this little tiny casino in the forties
through the fifties makes a lot of dough and by
sixty three had expanded and upgraded to Harvey's Lake Tahoe,
which at the time was the tallest building at eleven stories,
(12:39):
which is you know, that's a pretty tall building for
that area of the country.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah, less than twenty years. Who went from a cabin
to an eleven story casino resort? Yeah, and I believe
it was at that same eleven story casino resort that
this bomb was placed in nineteen eighty, seventeen years later.
And Harvey himself was like, I mean, he was a
casino owner in Nevada. Like he had I don't want
(13:05):
to say a checkered past, but he had a pass
like he'd been hauled in front of the irs for
tax evasion. There was. He had been given an honorary
name by the Nevada Inner Tribal Did I say it
right Nevada?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Nope?
Speaker 1 (13:20):
By the Nevada Inner Tribal Council. He was called Chief
who Nai. And there was an article that was written
back in I think nineteen eighty that said that it
meant the man who runs the game and takes a
percentage of the bets.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
I don't know if that's a joke or not. I
can't tell.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
I don't either, because that's definitely like that era kind
of joke. You know, you can see that on like
a tiki napkin.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
But the long and short of it is he was
He'd had his little run ends with the irs and
stuff and the gaming board, but it wasn't anything unusual.
He wasn't like some bad guy like mafioso type. He was,
like you said, he owned a casino and there's you know,
he's gonna be brought up by the irs at some point.
But all of this to say, he wasn't like some
(14:06):
some big mark because of all his dirty dealings in
his past.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Basically I saw him actually referred to as a good
guy by some people. It sounds like it like he
was well known to have put off expansion, like he
didn't want to expand to other towns. He's basically said,
I'm making enough money. He had a quote that he
would refer to as I have a nice little business.
How many steaks can I eat? Which is to say
(14:34):
like he had everything he needed and this was fine.
He was happy with his business where it was.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
That's right. But it was the seventies and into the
early eighties, which was just sort of the golden age
of all this kind of stuff of kidnappings and ransoms
and hijackings, and it just seems like all this kind
of high jinks. There's still stuff like that happens ocasionally,
(15:00):
but not like it did back then.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
I think it's because, Chuck, the police state hadn't evolved
enough that they would catch you no matter what. Yeah,
AMers everywhere now right, and leaded gas had been around
long enough to really have the effects on a whole
new generation of brains. So you put those two things together,
you have everything converging on the seventies for people trying
all sorts of heists and kidnappings and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, and that happened back then around there even I
think as far back as the early seventies there were
kidnapping conspiracies against gross ransom things that had been uncovered
in the late seventies. There were smoke bombs with ransom
notes found at other casinos around Tahoe.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
So I don't know about that.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
It was what the smoke bombs?
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Yeah, what is that? You might as well say, like
there's a box of sparklers in your lobby, give me
five hundred thousand simoleons, or else give.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Me thirty five cents, I know, to pay me back
for the smoke both. So it was a time where
if you owned a casino that brought in I think
he made about four million profit, but brought in like
seventy million dollars a year like his did, then that
simply just meant you were a mark by virtue of
that fact alone.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Right. The thing is, though, is the FBI found out
as they started investigating the case about a year after that,
it actually was a personal vendetta against Tarve himself or
Harvey's casino that led to that bomb being placed there
in August of nineteen eighty.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
That sounds like a great cliffhanger for a break.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Thank you, Thanks man.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
All Right, we'll get back to it right after this,
(16:59):
all right, And so we're back in action here at
the bomb site. The FBI's bomb squad is working hard
trying to figure this thing out. They have another team
working on a fake ransom drop. Special Agent William Jonky
basically told Harvey, hey, listen, why don't we drag this
thing out as much as we can. We'll do a
fake payoff arrangement. Maybe we can just sort of put
(17:23):
off this bomb going off long enough for us to
figure it out either how to stop it or how
to catch these people, like, the bomb is going to
go off no matter what. And once Gross heard that,
he was like, well, I'm not paying anything. If this
thing's going off no matter what, you can use my
By God, you can use my own helicopter for the
drop even And that's what they did. They use his
(17:44):
own personal helicopter. But the pilot was a fed, and
there was another fed with a gun hiding behind the
pilot's seat with a suitcase full of mostly fake money.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah, I think a few grand is what I saw.
And just like the ransom note said, the agent flew
the helicopter Lake Tahoe Airport, landed next to the payphone
and got there just in time from what I saw,
just for the phone to start ringing, although I suspect
they were being watched and the phone rang and rather
than giving them instructions over the phone, I think it's
(18:16):
hilarious that they said, look underneath the phone. There's instructions
taped beneath the phone, and then I guess hung up.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
We didn't want to tape it to the front of
the phone.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Booth, right, So he checks out the instructions and it says, okay,
this is what you're gonna do. You're going to fly
west along the highway for fifteen minutes from the airport,
and you're going to turn. There's some compassitting and they
told him to turn toward I never found which one.
And then after a certain amount of time he should
start looking for a beacon, which is going to be
(18:47):
a strobe light in a field. He should land there
and that's where the money drop would happen. And so
the pilot took off and he did exactly as the
thing instructed, the ransom note instructed, and there was nothing.
He flew around for forty five minutes, just waiting, hoping.
I guess probably came close to running out of gas.
And then he flew back to the Lake Tahoe airport
(19:07):
and went back to the payphone in case they called
to say, like, what the heck's going on? And they
never did call. Actually, so the money drop never happened.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I wonder. The FED takes off and he's got the
other FED behind him hiding with a gun, and he's like, hey,
how do you think this guy knows how far we're
going to be in fifteen minutes? And the other fed
went beats me, and that's exactly what happened. And it's
at this point in the story where we will introduce
you to the guy behind the whole thing, and we'll
(19:39):
learn more about him later. But his name was John
Waldo Burgess Sor and that was one of the key
mistakes he made. He kind of botched this money drop
because he should have said miles, like fly so many miles,
or fly to this destination. He just said fly for
fifteen minutes. And I don't know if he put at
(20:00):
like at an average rate of speed for your helicopter. Right,
But the long and short of it is they didn't
know after he had flown fifteen then it's exactly where
he was going to end up. And they were like, well,
that stinks. And this is after they had forgotten the
battery to the Strobe light.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Right, they left it in Fresno.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
They eventually got one. Yeah, they left it at their place.
They eventually got one. They tried to break into an
autopartch store to get one and got chased off, and
then got one at a shell station. So they had
the Strobe. But by the time all this happens, they
don't even know where the helicopter is.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
No, and that shell station also has its own hilarious
story because the gas station attendant they were trying to
buy the battery from basically was like, why no, you
need this kind of battery for the Volvo that you
have parked outside that you're driving. They're like, it doesn't
matter what kind of battery it's for. He's like, well, yeah,
it does, because Volvo won't take any battery. And they finally,
(20:56):
I guess, convinced him to just sell them a battery
and he's like, fine, I guess you're gonna find out
yourself that it's not gonna work, and they finally drove off.
That's how they got the battery. But they made it
to that drop point, which was twenty five miles away
from the airport, and they sat there and waited and
waited and waited and waited and waited. No helicopter. No
(21:18):
helicopter came. And the reason why is because they were separated,
separated by so many miles. They couldn't even hear the
helicopter where it was. It was so far away from
where they were at the drop site.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
All right, so this is botched. Back at the bomb
site at the casino, this a full on party is
going on because it's a casino and people are just
out of their minds at those places. So the barricades
are set up, people are selling T shirts. I got
bombed at Lake Tahoe. I had a dynamite time at
Lake Tahoe. Like that's how quickly this thing was moving.
(21:51):
And the bomb squad team said, all right, here's what
I think we should do, like they call this and
they said, if we flip switch number five, then it'll
buy some more time because this thing isn't playing out
quite right. But I don't know if I trust that.
No one volunteered to flick that switch like they felt basically,
we should go on our own, like with our own
(22:12):
gut feeling on how to do this, which is to
basically blow this box apart, but do it so quickly
that it severs the relay switch, like before the signal
can reach the dynamite.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yeah, it's just pretty fast. And it was possible. They
had They had some of the greatest minds in the
United States who knew about bombs working on this problem,
and they designed to charge especially for this, and it
was built and brought to the site and put up
and they said, this still has at best a twenty
five to thirty percent chance. But we talked to the engineer,
(22:47):
one of the engineers at Harvey's, and he said, it
probably won't bring the whole building down, so let's give
it a shot. And so, almost thirty five hours after
the bomb had been discovered, around three pm the next day,
a guy named Daniel was the person who volunteered to
go take the charge, put it on the bomb exactly
at the angle he was told to put it at,
(23:09):
and then walked out and started the countdown for the
remote triggering. And remember there are hundreds, if not thousands
of people thronged together to watch this to see if
it worked. And when they finally did, apparently, they broadcast
the radio the countdown on local radio Chuck. And when
they finally set it off, that charge did not work
(23:32):
the way it was intended.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
No, it set off the bomb. The entire thing went off,
and it was, like we said, it was a thousand
pounds of dynamite. It created a forty to fifty foot
hole in the ground in the middle of this casino,
shooting shrapnel everywhere, obviously, shooting cash and chips everywhere, which
is obviously problematic. They said, there were TV sets swinging
(23:56):
on cords, toilets hanging by the pipes. It was a huge,
massive explosion in the middle of a casino. And because
it's a casino and because it's Tahoe, it was not
very long afterward that the surrounding casinos got right back
to business, and it didn't take too long. A couple
of days before Harvey's got back to business. With what
(24:18):
was left of the casino, they put glass around it
and was kind of like, hey, come see the bomb
hole and gamble some.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
And watch the FBI work on this crime scene that
just took place. So one of the other great details
of this story for me is that the bandits didn't
know that the bomb had been detonated, and so a
few minutes after the bomb went off, they called the
local sheriff's office and said, we'll be calling back in
one hour to arrange another payment drop.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
He said, whatever.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah. Can you imagine like the person who took the
call being like, oh, yeah, great, okay, we'll talk to
you in an hour.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah yeah, So that didn't matter. Harvey Gross was very sad.
He just cried and he saw the damage eighteen million
dollars worth of damage, and you know, we'll tell you
what ultimately happened later. But they got back to business,
like I said, and I guess we should talk a
little bit more about who this mastermind was.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
I agree, Chuck, and I say, before we start talking
about the mastermind behind the plot, we take a.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Break, all right, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
So we already revealed who it was. A guy named
John Burgess, and his son wrote a book later that
I saw. He called the publisher to find out how
many copies had been sold at the time, and they
told him zero. But in this book he depicts his
dad as not a very nice guy. He was an
abusive husband, physically abusive, a really terrible dad. He liked
(26:06):
to emotionally blackmail his family by threatening to take his
life by suicide. And he was an actual Nazi, like
a genuine Nazi. Just to put the cherry on top
of everything.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah, he flew for the Luftwaffa and spent eight years
in a Soviet prison camp before coming to America and
becoming a multimillionaire, So it kind of ended up okay
for him. He had a landscaping business in Fresno that
apparently did really, really well but he also liked to
gamble a lot and lost a ton of money over
(26:41):
the years. I think about seven hundred and fifty thousand
dollars they'd estimated that he lost. I think at Harvey's alone, right.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
I think that was the whole shebang, But most of
that was at Harvey's. That was my take on.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
It, okay, And we do need to put a pin
in something else, is that years before he had a business,
a restaurant that it was pretty clear that he burned
down for the insurance money, got up three hundred and
fifty five thousand dollars from that and gambled that away.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, he was that kind of guy, right. So the
heist itself, it was it was an attempt to make
back some of the money that the house had taken
from him over the years that he felt bitter about.
But also the reason that he targeted Harvey's, they later
found out, was that on some New Year's Eve a
year or two before he had been given the high
(27:34):
Rollers suite. That's how often he gambled at Harvey's, Like
he was well known there, but he had amassed such
a debt that they actually took him that evening out
of the high roller suite and put him in a
regular room. Was in much to his great humiliation. Yeah,
I mean that was pretty much why he, at very
at least why he targeted Harvey's. He considered that quite
(27:57):
a loss of pride because I I guess he was
with a date and the date was like I thought
you said you were a big time right, which didn't
make it any better. So that's why Harvey's got targeted
in particular.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
That's right. And they put Aaron Hagar in that suite instead.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
They did, and everything was right with the world.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
That's right. So actually Aaron's he's about mate. So he
would have been a kid back then, or maybe they did.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
He could have been high rolling.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Maybe he was like a nine or ten year old,
like running the show in that gambling room.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
I could totally see it.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
So we mentioned he was Burgess Senior. There was a
Burgess Junior. He had a couple of sons, John Junior
and Jimmy, who were twenty and eighteen respectively, and then
Jimmy or wait, was Ella Williams the senior's girlfriend. Yes, okay,
so he had a girlfriend named Ela Williams who were
also in on it. And these two numbskulls who delivered
(28:50):
the bomb, named Bill Brown and Terry Hall.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
The FBI later said after they caught Bill Brown they
described him or no, it was from a report like
somebody who witnessed the bomb being delivered. They said one
of them was a hay seed, a real goober type.
That's how they described Bill Brown. And it's sad for
Bill Brown and Terry hallchuck, because they got a total
of twenty one hundred bucks. But it wasn't until after
(29:16):
they were driven away early that morning that they were
told what they'd just done. They did not know that
they were delivering a bomb until after they delivered the bomb.
Isn't that terrible?
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah? I mean they they were probably just sold here
some money, go deliver this thing.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
That was a lot of money, that's exactly right. Yeah,
and John Burgess Junior just totally misled him, which is
another mark against that guy.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
All Right, So spinning back a little bit, when they
hatched this plan, the first thing they did was go
out and get all this dynamite which they stole from
a power plant in California and stash it in their
walk in freezer in their garage and started building this bomb,
and no one. That's kind of one of the mysteries
(29:59):
of this. It was such a sophisticated device, and no
one still really knows how this guy managed to build
this thing, if he had help, if he was just
this bomb genius that no one knew about, or was
just super smart and did his research, but no one
really knows how he managed to build such a sophisticated bomb.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
I mean, it's still not clear. I don't think anybody
will ever know he just did it. And what's crazy
is John Burgess might have gotten away with the whole thing.
The FBI did not. They were not on him initially.
They interviewed something like five hundred suspects in the whole case.
And there were two things that seemed to have brought
(30:40):
Burgess down. One was a hotel owner who was the
night manager of the hotel that Burgess, Brown, and Hall
stayed at before they planted the bomb. Her name was
Nancy Domenico, and she found those three suspicious enough that
she wrote down their license plate on their van, model
(31:00):
color and the license plate number and just kept it
on file just in case. And it turned out that
would become really important later on. And then the other
factor was John Burgess Junior had a really loud mouth.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
It turns out, yeah, he had a girlfriend leading up
to the event, and he would just brag all about
this thing. They break up. You never think about the
breakup side of things when you're spilling your innermost thoughts. Yeah,
and she has a new boyfriend, tells him all about
this guy I dated before you that told me all
(31:33):
about this bomb plot. The new boyfriend calls in the
FBI tip. So now they have a couple of tips
pointing to these dudes. Yeah, they tracked down the van
that the Nancy Domenico had reported as shady, and it
was a van that was registered to the restaurant that
Burgess Senior allegedly had burned down. So that's where that
(31:55):
comes back into play.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Yeah, so they're like, okay, let's go interview John Burgess Senior,
and on Burgess Senior says, oh, John Junior was driving
the van.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Completely gave his immediately.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Yeah, I mean like that first interview said him, probably
said here's his address. Hopefully at least called his son
to give him a heads up. I don't know. But
they went over and they interviewed John Junior and he said, yes,
I was around uh Tahoe at the time. Yes, I
was with my van, but I was looking for places
(32:26):
to plant marijuana. And you know that's true because I've
just admitted to a crime to the FBI, right right.
And apparently the FBI didn't didn't really buy it. They said, like,
this story is awful, but he stuck to it and
they didn't have anything else they could get him on
right then, but he was definitely on their radar from
that point forward.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
I thought it was a pretty good story to be
put on the spot. Personally, Well, well, it didn't work,
but like to admit to another crime, I was like, right,
all right, not bad, I'll give you that part.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
The part of the FBI. The FBI was like, you're
you're kidding, right, He's said the battery died, so I
abandoned the van. Somebody must have taken it and used
it in the crime and then brought it back while
I was away from the van.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Right well, which is a long way of saying, was
it wasn't me, right exactly. So they you know, they
do what they do in the movies. They don't have
enough hard evidence, so they spend a year getting that
evidence building a case.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
I'm a montage with a great like upbeat song where
they're putting this stuff together. Right.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Sure, I don't know why John Junior and John Senior
are still in the country. I would have been out
of there so fast.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Where would you go?
Speaker 2 (33:39):
I'd leave the country?
Speaker 1 (33:41):
I know where where'd you go?
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Oh, that's a really good question. Everyone just always talks about,
like who would you have over for dinner? Living or dead?
Like where would you go if you were guilty of
a bombing blot?
Speaker 1 (33:53):
I mean, it's got to be a non extradition treaty country, right,
So you're looking at like Venezuela.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
I'd have to do my research then, but yeah, I
would go someplace with a beach and like a very
quiet life. Okay, yeah, and then they just you know,
they eventually show up at the beach in the movie
as well. So yeah, but I tie out of your hands,
and your Canada has beaches, sure, lovely beaches. Not quite
(34:19):
the beaches I was looking for, though, You're welcome, Chunk.
So the FBI is getting this evidence. They have rewards.
I think like a half a million bucks is about
as high as the reward went. And finally about a
year later, they arrest John Junior and Jimmy and they say,
(34:41):
they dangle a little carrot in front of their faces,
how would you like to how'd you like to turn
on dad and maybe get a little leniency And they
went that jerk, I'm happy to And that's exactly what
they did.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Right, And they turn on their dad. They arrested their dad.
They arrested Ella william Bill Brown, Terry Hall, and from
what we understand, every single person who had anything to
do with that was rounded up in one fell swoop basically,
and the conviction started coming out. Ella Williams got seven
years for her involvement. And she hasn't factored in hugely
into this podcast, but she was definitely an accomplished She
(35:18):
typed the ransom notes up, she did a lot. I
think she dropped some people off at one of the
landing sites, like she was very much involved. So she
got seven years, but a judge later overturned her conviction,
and I couldn't see why. But as far as I know,
she did not do any time in prison. Maybe beyond
her trial.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah, I think the sons did get that leniency. As
for John Senior, he represented himself in court. Cross examined
his own sons. Eventually got twenty years in federal prison,
and then I believe life without parole in state prison.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Yeah. The big key to his defense was his son's
had given him a father's day car that said you're
the best dad around ten years before. It didn't work
on the jury.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
That's sorry, how could I have done this? He served
sixteen years, died in prison of cancer. But then there's
one final little potential twist here.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Right, Yeah, so John Burgess had talked to a reporter
while he was alive and he said, you know what,
this wasn't my idea. I was a patsy, I was
a rube. I got and I got dragged into this
by a loan shark. I owed sixty large too. That's
what you say when you're a gambler. And he recruited
me to plant this bomb. And that really the loan
(36:37):
shark was working on behalf of Harvey's top executives and
the mafia who were conspiring to blow the place up
so that they could collect the insurance money.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Look you there, you believe it not at all?
Speaker 1 (36:51):
No?
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Same, no, and the like the.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
The thing that just like completely proves it is yeah,
they used insurance money to rebuild. It's like, No, that
doesn't prove anything. Of course you're going to use insurance
money to rebuild. It doesn't mean there was a conspiracy there.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Right, Is that place still there any idea?
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Yeah, it's still there. I think it's been updated even
more since then. But yeah, as far as I know,
Harvey's is still there.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Awesome. I don't know why over the past two weeks
I've ever thought to look that.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Up me either. I'm almost positive we'll have to leave
it to Aaron Hagar to tell us whether it's there
or not.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Sweet it is. I'm looking at a picture of it.
It's definitely been updated.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Well, while you're online, why don't you look at eBay
and see if there's any like I got bombed at
Harvey's T shirts still around?
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Oh wow, Well, if there are, I'm not going to
tell you. I'm just going to get you one for Christmas.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Fair enough. I like that a lot. That's a good plan. Well,
since Chuck said but he's gonna get me for Christmas,
and I realized, Man, I've got to figure out what
to get Chuck for Christmas. It's time for listener mail.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
You just got me a great record, which one.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Oh, the Bill Evans one. Yeah, yeah, you like it?
Have you listened to it yet?
Speaker 2 (38:03):
I love it? I mean a it's Bill Evans, but
it's just uh yeah, it's good, very evocative of changing
the seasons, which I think was the whole.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Point for sure. I'm glad you liked it.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
All right, Hey, guys, After listening to the Introvert Extrovert episode,
I thought i'd reach out because Chuck at one point
talked about finding ways to discipline his child by removing
fun activities. I remember saying that, but I guess.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Oh, you were so mad, You're like frothing at the mouth.
I've never heard you more angry.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
You don't even really do that, so I'm not sure
if I may have been kidding or not. Anyway, I'm
a third grade teacher because this is like a tip here,
so we got to read the tips. I'm a third
grade teacher on a reservation, and with sixteen kids in
my class, I have never had to use discipline. My
classroom functions like a well oiled machine. Due to a
type of behavior management, known in the educational world as
(38:55):
pbis positive behaviors and supports manage challenging child behavior solely,
solely through the use of using praise and rewards. Wow,
I can easily be applied in the context of raising
your own.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Child, especially if you want to raise a psychopath.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
This is a huge topic, and when there's near and
dear to my heart, I thought it might be incredibly
useful for all the parents out there who, like Chuck,
struggle to find a way to manage their child's behavior.
You convention your discipline.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Man, this guy's scoring all over you, Chuck.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
A little bit. This is Anthony. You guys rock. Thanks
for all the wonderful knowledge and Hilary's dialogue. I want
to be super clear, Anthony, we don't struggle to find
a way to manage her behavior. She's a good kid.
And not to say that kids who have trouble behaving
are bad kids at all. Everyone has their challenges as
(39:49):
kids and parents. But it's not too bad. And I
don't know that this pbis would work necessarily in my household.
I mean, we already do that kind of thing, but
I'll ramp it up and see if that helps.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Hey, good run an experiment, Chuck and true sysk fashion.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Sure. I'm curious though, because Anthony didn't say if Anthony
had kids, I will say that the way kids behave
for teachers is not at all related to how they
behave for parents.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
A lot of it I can imagine for sure.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
So yeah, I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Yeah, if you guys listening out there, try this, let
us know if it works or what. And also, Anthony,
thank you very much for writing in Anthony. It was great.
So if you want to be like Anthony, you can
write into to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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