May 2, 2019 • 40 mins
Amanda, a game-changing character, tells her story.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
We'll just start it all up. What did you say?
I said today? I think we should do like a
bunch of searching. You gotta remind me here, I don't
know what we're talking. What are we talking about? So
I found out that Billy might have a daughter. Austin
and I are in the studio discussing the possibility that
Billy Balls had a daughter named Amanda. Only. The reason
(00:21):
why Amanda holds such importance is because everyone else who
might be able to actually shed light on like governmental
things like his death certificate, they're all dead. Amanda maybe
the only one who can access Billy's records. But we're
also just curious about her. According to my mom, when
she was two and a half, Amanda was sent to
(00:43):
live with Lynne Todd's mother. We think Amanda's mom was
Lynn Todd, Billy's girlfriend before my mom and I guess
after they broke up, the family took Amanda back to
Washington State. What does she know about her father? They've
(01:04):
told her a story of him that is going to
be different than the story that we've already heard. Yeah,
so it's also totally possible that there's a person out
there for whom Billy is just as folkloric as he
is for me. What, yeah, you two have the same
relationship to Billy basically or not totally the same father.
(01:26):
But like besides that part, oh yeah, I forgot about
that part well. And also if you lost a parent
who was such a larger than life character, Like if
Billy was a legend in my life and he's not
my father, what is he going to be in her life?
(01:48):
We'll never know unless we find her. Obituaries are a
really great source of information because they often list family members.
My mom had told us that Lynta, Amanda's mother, had
passed away. If there's non obituary for Lynn Todd, they
might list her daughter, birth of daughter, Laura's birth of son,
(02:11):
birth of daughter. We're not seeing any amand this yet.
It was actually a lot harder than we thought it
was going to be the grandmother. Wait, but does it
say but finally we found a name? Five? There it
is there, It is there, It is there. It is Amanda.
Ohly Ship Yes, oh my god, fucking google her right now.
(02:32):
I don't know you want it. Let's just take a break.
You're killing mate. One public record weight up at the top.
One public record lived in New York, in Washington. We
fucking found her years old in oh Ship. There's a
phone number. Are you ready to to call her today?
(02:54):
You think yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, or at
least call the number that we have. Okay, my palms
are sweating. Your call has been forwarded to an automatic
(03:20):
voice message system Commanda. It's not available. Hi there, UM,
my name is Io, right, and I am looking for
the daughter of Lynn todd Um and I'm wondering if
that's you. I know this is probably a very insane
(03:41):
phone call to get um I am, I guess connected
to your family and um have I would love to
tell you what I'm looking for and trying to track down.
But again, my name is Io and I would very
much love um to talk to you if you have
a minute, that would be fantastic. Thank you so much.
I'll talk to you soon. Bye. Oh Jesus, oh Jesus.
(04:08):
So now it's this thing where we get it's like
I just have to my phone's can bring him a
heart attack? Okay, all right, okay. And then just as
we were about to leave the studio for the day,
I just got a text from them like Hey, got
your message. Didn't quite understand your name and what you're
(04:29):
looking for. That's it. That's it. Okay, I'm gonna write
her back. Hey, my name is Io. Till it right.
I'm hoping that you're the Amanda this time. I asked
if she knew a William Heightsman. My headphones are backwards,
I'm standing up, I'm jumping around. Amanda just texted me.
Holy fucking ship. Okay, she says, Hey, Io, Yes, Billy
(04:50):
is my father. Oh my god, Oh my god. Do
you or your mom have any photos of him? Girl?
I have caught photos for you. I'm trying to arrange
Sunday or Monday for a meeting. Yes, I see Io
(05:10):
up ahead. How'd it go? What happened? Wow? It definitely
went well, Amanda. She's very dry and very funny and
very unaffected and like not at all woe is me?
So did you ask her about her birth certificate? If
he's honest, she's seen her birth certificate. He is on it.
(05:31):
Oh my god, amazing. She's like, I'll help you with
anything you need. So Amanda's life is wild. I feel
as though I found like a pseudo sibling today on
the show. Billie's daughter from Crimetown. I'm io till it right,
(05:55):
and this is the ballad of Billy Balls. I do
remember vaguely a kid at one point. Yeah. Yeah, she
was a sweet old girl. What have it happened to her?
(06:18):
She was the daughter of Linton and Billy's the legal father.
Did they tell you her name when they first told
you about it? Amanda? Chapter six? Amanda, is it recording now? Yeah?
(06:48):
So I just recorded. It's you can see though the
wave forms a little bit popping. Amanda was nervous about
being recorded, but ultimately decided to share her story. Unfortunately,
I was across the country at the time, So Amanda
sat down with Austin. Hear my voice in here? Yeah,
if you want, you can put those on and hear
your voice. To preserve her privacy, we won't be using
(07:09):
her last name. I guess we could just start with, like,
who who is your dad? Who was my dad? My father,
William John Heitzman. He had a stage name, Billy Balls.
(07:31):
He's a musician, he played piano, he played every instrument.
He My mother was also a musician and a singer,
and they worked together in a lot of things. Who
was your mother? Lynn Todd. Amanda says her mom came
(07:54):
to New York City in nineteen sixty nine when she
was in her mid teens to pursue a music career.
Almost as soon as she arrived, she crossed paths with Billy.
She said, she met my dad on the corner. I'm
not sure exactly what street they met on, but the
Lower East Side. I think she was standing there or something,
(08:17):
waiting across the street, and he came up to her
and he asked her she knew how to fix a
microphone because I guess she looked rock and roll. She
ended up saying she knew how to do it and
that she was she sang, and I think that that's
kind of how they ended up getting involved with one another.
(08:38):
Sounds so cheesy. She was like fifteen when she met him,
I know, really young, and he was nine years older.
So that was pretty crazy to me. Billy and Lynn
began to make music together. Oh, this is a recording
of one of their rehearsals with them. She had a
(09:01):
low voice, and there was kind of a sadness and
a darkness to that voice in that style, which I
think she had a lot in her Yeah, I think
(09:26):
they got involved with one another pretty quickly. Um, and
then five years later I was born. My mother was
still very young when she had me. You know. She
would tell me that my dad and who really did
love each other, and that I really was born from
(09:46):
real love that they had for one another. So that's
like what would make me strong enough to survive life.
I guess I remember a bit of them, of the music.
I have visuals of studios and stuff and singing and
(10:08):
people and microphones. My mother said, I always slept in
a guitar case. I never had a bed, But I
do remember being around music and them and music and music,
like a lot of it. Amanda says her memories of
(10:28):
her dad are just images and fragments, memories of him
painting his nails black and white, and him painting my
nails black and white. I used to do this, Miss
Mary mac Ryan. We would do that together. I remember
(10:51):
there was no bathtub, so we would have to He
would have to shower with me, and that's how you'd
have to wash me. I mean, I'd just remember these
ideas of things I don't really remember. I remember like
a lot of chords, like everywhere, black cords on the floor,
(11:19):
like tripping over things and playing with eggs and touching things.
They had to leave that don and drugs, but I
didn't know that it was bad what they were doing,
so it was just like they were smoking cigarettes like
other people's parents did. I mean, I could just jump
(11:49):
in and tell you exactly when I remember of him.
This is Geeta Gash in the mid seventies. She was
making music, going to shows and hanging out down to down.
She was a friend of Billy's. I met him in
uh nineteen seventy six. I was always going to clubs Max's,
(12:12):
Kansas City and CBGB's, mostly Max's because I lived around
the corner. I don't know how I met him, but
somehow I met him and we hooked up. Unmust have
gone home with him or him with me. We were
like hanging out together and fling around, having sex whatever.
(12:33):
He had a phone call and said, oh, you know,
be quiet. You know, I don't say anything like why. Well,
it was pretty obvious that he was talking to a
wife and or a girlfriend who turned out to be
Lynn Todd. Eventually Geita got to know the whole family.
I went to visit him at his apartment on the
(12:55):
Lower East Side, which he shared with Lynn and the
bay Be which turned out to be Amanda who we
called the bean Beanie was her nickname. Um really really cute,
little blonde, little toddler. And Lynn, who was a really
cool lady, and she and I like hit it off,
(13:17):
like right away. Billy tried to put a band together
with Lynn singing and myself and animal X. They wanted
to do the three girl harmony thing and him like
(13:37):
banging on the piano, you know, like a maniac in
like Jerry Lee Louis style, black pleated pants with suspenders,
no shirt and wild, wild as a motherfucker, and playing
like Jerry Lee Louis styles, stumping, rumping piano. M well,
(14:04):
like one minute we're singing like this beautiful harmony or
trying but so high that God knows what it sounded like.
You know. Yeah. See there's things up that that concerned
the baby that I don't want her to learn of,
(14:26):
and I don't want to hurt any feelings, you know,
But there was a situation there where you had like irresponsible,
active drug addicts that should not have been parenting a child.
Billy was a mad speed freak, I mean to the
point of like bouncing off the damn walls. They did
(14:50):
a lot of two oxen. They had shiploads of that
little yellow pill. Remember them breaking it up, you know,
and him to chumping on them constantly, like you'll be
chewing on like tic TACs. Never fucking slept except maybe
like crash out for a couple of hours in the afternoon.
(15:12):
You know, I'm talking like, never fucking sleeping in the
bars after hours, sun comes up, still going, still going,
you know, just crazy, Just shut up now. They would
fight over anything. Could have been money, it could have
(15:36):
been babysitting. That was the norm between them. A lot
of screaming whatever, we're we're not a distance from the mic,
like we had some fucking sense, so we're all going
into it equal, you know what I mean that we're
still not equal distant drugs. That makes it really hard
(16:05):
to have a functioning relationship. I think they were both
strong headed, so I don't think that was the best match.
And I'm sure Toddler in that mix isn't isn't easy.
And I do remember they would fight. Was he violent
(16:26):
with her? You know? See again I don't really I
don't remember her saying anything. But I also don't think
she wants me to see him that way if anything
did happen, So she never told me anything. I don't
have any memory of her telling me that he was
physically violent with her. Ever, you know it could be
(16:47):
because it's true. You know, I don't have any reason
to believe it's not. It's not like I have memories
of him being physically violent with me. But you know,
he did a lot of drugs, and people are unpredictable
when that stuff happens. If you're agitated or pushed fire enough,
who knows what could happen. I have a very clear
(17:09):
memory of being in the apartment at sunrise with Lynn
and the baby and Billy just attacking the two of us,
and I remember he took a fork and he stabbed
me in the face with a fork. I had like
a you know, like the four pronged holes in my chin.
(17:33):
Oh my god. He was just like beating the ship
out of everybody. We're afraid for the baby and screaming.
I remember screaming out the window and some guy he
just like flew up the fire escape, jumped into the
apartment and started like beating the ship out of Billy,
and then Billy ran out like a chicken out the
window down the fire escape. Yeah. Ship, like that crazy
(17:57):
ship used to happen all the time. Just a note,
We tried to verify this story with other people and
we weren't able to. Did you like Billy I did.
(18:20):
I loved him. I mean he was great. I loved
him a lot. His soul was warm, funny, creative, loving um.
But you know, also it's like loving a mad dog.
You know, you have to be cautious, and you know,
when they're calm and sweet, they're wonderful, but then they
(18:43):
can turn around and rip you to shreds or you know.
But that was mainly the drug taking that you know,
method and fat. I mean that's like heavy and when
you're doing it or seven day and day out, week
after week, month after month, your brain goes like you
(19:05):
become psychotic. You know. His relationship with Lynn was deteriorating
because of the drug use, and Geeta says that Amanda
would often be caught between Billy and Lynn to the
point of like Lynn going to CBGBs with me to
hang out and Billy showing up dragging Amanda like a
(19:30):
toddler two year old staying here. Take a kid because
he was jealous of Lynn hanging out with other people
and Lynn, she had been faithful to Billy for so long,
and then she just went hog wild, you know, when
she was sucking around on him, and their relationship just
hit the skids. And then she got into heroin, as
(19:52):
we all did. She used heroine, so she was a
heavy drug user. You know. Obviously it was definitelyly not
good when I was young with her, because she would
forget to take care of me a lot and give
me basic needs. I think she would forget about me
and like put me places I guess, and either pass
out or leave. I was like keys, It's like she
(20:15):
lost me somewhere and she had to retrace her steps
to get back to me. She forgot I was there,
I existed. I'm not gonna say they were neglectful, but
they were not the best parents. Eventually she took Amanda
and sent her to Lynn's mother's house. My mother told
(20:37):
me that my father was taken care of me because
she'd been bitten by a spider and was in the
hospital with a really bad infection. His version was I
think more that he didn't know where my well, this
is what he told my grandmother. He didn't know where
my mother was, that she just left me with him,
and that he couldn't take care of me anymore, and
if she didn't come get me, he was going to
(20:58):
sell me on the black market. But he she said,
she always told me he said that. But he if
he said that, I don't believe. It was like he
was saying it to get her to come because he
knew he couldn't take care of me. It wasn't something
that you I was gonna do. So she flew to
(21:20):
JFK and my dad brought me there, and it was November.
I remember having this like furried jacket on that was
like a pinkish white, and all my clothes were too small,
my grandmother said, as wearing clothes that were sent to
me two years before. He had cowboy boots. I guess
(21:43):
on me that She said the heel were cut out
of to make them fit me, and I was dirty.
He just handed me over. It was such a difficult exchange,
if you will, at the airport that she couldn't knew.
She could barely look at him. She was so disgusted
by him, you know, he was so worried about himself
(22:06):
when doing his thing, and she said, I had a
bottle and I was like four years old, and she's like,
you're way too old for this. And she said she
threw it in the garbage and she said, bye, bottle,
and I said bye. I guess I was waiting for
somebody to like pay attention to me and realized that
(22:29):
the bottle had seen better days. She said, the milk
was spoiled inside. But see, she I don't know, she
she said, scenes a little bit, a little embellishment. Everybody's
point of view is very different, so it is hard
to know what the truth is. Amanda says when she
(22:51):
was four, she moved in with her grandmother in Seattle,
but it took her a long time to recover from
her life in New York. I ended up being sick
after that for a while because I was neglected and
not cared for properly. I'd have my tonsils taken out
and I had two put in my ears. I was
six deaf when she got me because I wasn't really
(23:13):
cleaned properly, I don't think, so there was a lot
of neglect that she had to deal with. Did he
keep in touch, Not that I know of. My mother
did but you know, my like, I think my mom
(23:35):
came to or whatever the situation with her ended up being,
and she was like, what the fund did you do
with Amanda? But I think that both my mother and
father pretty quickly realized how much easier life was without
a toddler, you know, without me. I'm just curious about
(23:56):
your relationship with Amanda. Did you have one with her
after she left the city. No? Um, she got sent
to her mother's Lynn's mother, which I thought was a godsend.
And it's around this time that Billy met my mom, Rebecca.
(24:16):
It's funny. Rebecca a lot of ways reminded me of Linn.
She was very similar in stature, very tall, similar facial features,
and they seemed to be crazy and love and that
I was very happy for him, and he became a
different person. He was a lot lighter. Why why do
you say that? Oh, they were very affectionate in public
(24:40):
to each other, meaning you know, they're physically and you
could tell that she loved him and was very enamored
by him, and he was like, so happy to have
a hot chick, you know. And they were both like
bubbly and it was they were great together. They were
great together. I remain friends with Lynn and Um. I
(25:11):
had heard that that he had gotten shot and then
he was in the hospital. And then right after that
she called me and told me that he died and
that he was assassinated while in the hospital, that his
death was actually a murderer. I was on the last
(25:39):
day of first grade and I was living with my grandmother,
and she picked me up from daycare and then she
brought me home and she took me in the den
and told me to sit down because she had something
important to tell me. She said, your father was in
a store, like a bodega or a corner store, and
(26:04):
there were robbers, and um, police were called and they
shot at the robbers, and your your father was caught
in the crossfire in between and was was killed. And
I remember looking at her and UM. I remember thinking, Um,
(26:27):
she doesn't want me to feel sad about this, and
if I feel sad about this, it's gonna make her sad,
so uh. And I remember getting up and then going
and looking outside, and it was Seattle, so it was raining,
(26:47):
and I looked outside and I remember looking at that
a long driveway in front of their place, and it
was raining, and it was black and it was dark,
and it looked like it almost looked like patent leather.
And I remember just staring at it and she's like, Amanda,
if you want to cry, it's okay to cry. And
she was always like telling me all the feelings that
it was okay to have that I didn't have any
(27:07):
interest in having. So I said, I haven't seen him
in a long time, and he's not in my life,
so it doesn't matter, right, So I think that made
her sad. H So, uh oh, I'm sorry, it's okay. Yeah,
(27:42):
but yeah, So that's my memory of it. I just
always wondered. I always kind of didn't believe and maybe
it was a mistake and they had the wrong person.
My mom told me the version, you know, about what
she knew when I was like eleven or so twelve,
(28:03):
So it's like I understood from then on what really happened.
That's coming up after the break. When I was younger,
(28:24):
I used to think about at all the time. I
used to think about my father all the time. When
Amanda was seven years old, she learned that her dad
had died. Her grandmother told her that he had been
in the wrong place at the wrong time and was shot.
When Amanda was eleven or twelve, her mom told her
what she thought really happened. So what she told me
(28:46):
was that, um, there was an undercover cop and he,
I believe, kind of had a known drinking problem, and
he seemed to have this certain obsession with my father.
You know. My mom made it sound more like it
was because my dad was so cool, and he was.
(29:08):
He was obsessed with him because he saw my dad's
lifestyle and was a little bit jealous. My mother told
me that he thought my father was a drug dealer
and that he was selling big drugs, big drugs like
what well, like speed or her when like drugs like that.
I think maybe he was involved in selling like a
(29:31):
little bit of weed here and there, That's what she
would kind of say. But this cop thought that he
was more involved in something bigger than he actually was.
From what I understand, he was drunk and he went
over to where my father was living, pushed his way in,
and they got physical with one another, and then this
(29:52):
guy ended up shooting him. So that's what I've been told.
Amanda grew up without her father, but the memory of
him haunted her. She never forgot him. And I used to,
you know, like I would do things because I would
(30:15):
think he was there. I would leave MTV on in
my room when I'd go to school so he could
watch that, just in case he was in my room
all day all night. When I was a kid, I
thought that he should have MTV to watch music television,
you know. And I just I thought about him all
the time. I I every day I thought about him.
(30:47):
I was playing with Linn. We had hooked up to
play and we did some gigs. This is Gregor Laroc,
who you met in a previous episode in the early nineties.
He was performing with Lynde Odd in New York. Well,
Lynn at this time, I think she hadn't seen Amanda
(31:10):
for a long time, and I think she said, well,
she's gonna be coming and she wanted to meet her.
So she was looking for a good place to get together.
So would it be all right for her to come
to my place. Gregor says that Lynn and Amanda reconnected
at his apartment in the East Village. It was great.
(31:30):
I mean, she was older, and um, it was just
like a nice meeting. I don't remember anything weird or
you know, it was just like amazing to see her
as a kid, as a little child, and then see
he's a grown up again. And he says, Amanda asked
about Billy, I think she I think she might have been,
(31:51):
you know, trying to get information or find out about him.
I just always felt like the people that knew him
when I talked to him and asked about my dad,
like I don't know, like if they knew stuff that
made them feel like they were implicating themselves. Anybody I
(32:11):
met over the years growing up that knew my father
that I was so excited about meeting they kind of
all responded in a similar way, just complimentary of him
and said how musically talented he was, he was funny,
how smart he was, you know, stylish, he was a genius,
Like in the same things my mom would say to me,
(32:38):
what what happened with your mom? She like, how did
this all end for her? She she died. She never
got clean, She would never able to get clean. Lynde's
old friend Geta Gash says that towards the end, she
(32:59):
and Lynne had a fall out and Lynn and I
were dust of Fred. Although our relationship went to ship
because of drugs and she got really crazy at the
end of her life, just became a very angry, kind
of nasty person, burned a lot of bridges, and she
suffered some brain aneurism or something, and she had a
(33:25):
brain aneurism and then died pretty quickly after that. I
was a strange from my mother at that time, and
I was getting ready to start talking to her again too,
but it was always a lot, so I had to
take a time out and um My, my grandmother said
(33:46):
she hadn't heard from my mother and she was getting worried,
and I'm like, she's fine. I never believed she wasn't fine,
because she'd been through so much that I really kind
of started to think she was never going to die
and nothing was going to happen. She always survived it.
Lynn Todd died on December one, two thousand and ten.
(34:14):
I don't know. I think about her a lot too,
especially with my daughter, and I think she would have
really liked my daughter. Amanda's daughter is two years old now.
I talked to my kid about their grandparents and they
show them pictures and all of that, and my kid
(34:34):
talks about their grandparents and gets excited even though she's
so young. So it's she, you know, she knows. I
feel like she understands like who they are, but it's
not something I talk about all the time. But when
she does think about Grandpa Billy, Amanda imagines that he's
(34:54):
retired and living where retired people live. My dad would
probably be in Florida. I could see him down there
moving it up. I think he'd be tan definitely. Um
it looked like he might be balding, so he might
(35:15):
not have a lot of hair going on, which I
think would have really upset him. But he think he
would have made peace with it by now. You know,
like he's in his seven daies. He's like that ship sailed,
so he's got he's bald, cleanly bald, yep, shaved, nice tan,
probably like a little stomach going on. He probably would
(35:37):
still be into kind of dressing cool, you know, like
a fitted pant maybe, and he would keep it looser uptown,
you know, like a vacation style shirt, you know, like
a Hawaiian print or something loose fitting. I feel like
he would probably still smoke, and then he would be
(35:59):
down there in a retirement community playing music. He would
play like local events in Florida. Who knows what he
(36:19):
could have done and it's you know, even in my mind,
I think that if he would have turned things around,
it probably would have influenced my mom to do the same.
Maybe she would have been like, you know, if he
can do what I can do it, he would have
like come back into my life and we would have reconnected.
(36:41):
But that might just be a movie ending. You know,
I've always thought about I. I do want to you know,
I've always wanted to know. Amanda still wonders what the
(37:02):
truth is about what happened to her dad, because it's
always been a shady, kind of strange story and always
something that seemed very off. It didn't feel ever finished.
Next week, Amanda helps us track down some pieces of paper.
(37:26):
It's kind of shocking, right, is your heart beating because
mine was when I was reading it. I'm really like
shaking right now. It's pretty pretty fucking crazy. Crimetown is
(37:51):
Zack Stewart Pontier and Mark Smarling. The Ballad of Billy
Balls is hosted by me Io Till It Right and
made in partnership with Caden's Thirteen. You can find me
on the Internet. Um Io loves you on everything Say hello,
and if you want to know more, about my story.
You should pick up my memoir Darling Days. We also
(38:17):
want to hear from you. We have a voicemail set
up for you to call us. This is Allison, This
podcast for Nana. Thanks Allison. If there's somebody Billy reminds
you of, or you have a theory on what could
have happened, or if you can make me laugh, call
(38:37):
and leave us a voicemail at five seven ohezo a giggle.
Get you some stickers. You can also get into our
discussion forum on our website, The Ballad of Billy Balls
dot com. This show is produced by Me, Kevin Shepard
(38:57):
and Ryan swigert A. Senior producers Austin Mitchell, editing by
Zack Stewart Pontier and Mark Smirling. Fact checking by Jennifer Blackman.
This episode was mixed and sound designed by Kenny Qcak.
Music was by Kenny Qcak. That Guy Does a Lot.
Our title track is Dark Allies by Light Asylum. Archival
(39:23):
research by Brennan Reese. Thanks as always to Daniella Aria,
Rachel Lee Right, Emily Wiedemann, Green Card Pictures, Alessandro sent Toro,
Bill Clegg, Ben Davis or In Rosenbaum and the team
at Cadence thirteen, and of course, my mom, without whom
none of this would be possible. Thanks Mom, MHM
We'll just start it all up. What did you say?
I said today? I think we should do like a
bunch of searching. You gotta remind me here, I don't
know what we're talking. What are we talking about? So
I found out that Billy might have a daughter. Austin
and I are in the studio discussing the possibility that
Billy Balls had a daughter named Amanda. Only. The reason
(00:21):
why Amanda holds such importance is because everyone else who
might be able to actually shed light on like governmental
things like his death certificate, they're all dead. Amanda maybe
the only one who can access Billy's records. But we're
also just curious about her. According to my mom, when
she was two and a half, Amanda was sent to
(00:43):
live with Lynne Todd's mother. We think Amanda's mom was
Lynn Todd, Billy's girlfriend before my mom and I guess
after they broke up, the family took Amanda back to
Washington State. What does she know about her father? They've
(01:04):
told her a story of him that is going to
be different than the story that we've already heard. Yeah,
so it's also totally possible that there's a person out
there for whom Billy is just as folkloric as he
is for me. What, yeah, you two have the same
relationship to Billy basically or not totally the same father.
(01:26):
But like besides that part, oh yeah, I forgot about
that part well. And also if you lost a parent
who was such a larger than life character, Like if
Billy was a legend in my life and he's not
my father, what is he going to be in her life?
(01:48):
We'll never know unless we find her. Obituaries are a
really great source of information because they often list family members.
My mom had told us that Lynta, Amanda's mother, had
passed away. If there's non obituary for Lynn Todd, they
might list her daughter, birth of daughter, Laura's birth of son,
(02:11):
birth of daughter. We're not seeing any amand this yet.
It was actually a lot harder than we thought it
was going to be the grandmother. Wait, but does it
say but finally we found a name? Five? There it
is there, It is there, It is there. It is Amanda.
Ohly Ship Yes, oh my god, fucking google her right now.
(02:32):
I don't know you want it. Let's just take a break.
You're killing mate. One public record weight up at the top.
One public record lived in New York, in Washington. We
fucking found her years old in oh Ship. There's a
phone number. Are you ready to to call her today?
(02:54):
You think yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, or at
least call the number that we have. Okay, my palms
are sweating. Your call has been forwarded to an automatic
(03:20):
voice message system Commanda. It's not available. Hi there, UM,
my name is Io, right, and I am looking for
the daughter of Lynn todd Um and I'm wondering if
that's you. I know this is probably a very insane
(03:41):
phone call to get um I am, I guess connected
to your family and um have I would love to
tell you what I'm looking for and trying to track down.
But again, my name is Io and I would very
much love um to talk to you if you have
a minute, that would be fantastic. Thank you so much.
I'll talk to you soon. Bye. Oh Jesus, oh Jesus.
(04:08):
So now it's this thing where we get it's like
I just have to my phone's can bring him a
heart attack? Okay, all right, okay. And then just as
we were about to leave the studio for the day,
I just got a text from them like Hey, got
your message. Didn't quite understand your name and what you're
(04:29):
looking for. That's it. That's it. Okay, I'm gonna write
her back. Hey, my name is Io. Till it right.
I'm hoping that you're the Amanda this time. I asked
if she knew a William Heightsman. My headphones are backwards,
I'm standing up, I'm jumping around. Amanda just texted me.
Holy fucking ship. Okay, she says, Hey, Io, Yes, Billy
(04:50):
is my father. Oh my god, Oh my god. Do
you or your mom have any photos of him? Girl?
I have caught photos for you. I'm trying to arrange
Sunday or Monday for a meeting. Yes, I see Io
(05:10):
up ahead. How'd it go? What happened? Wow? It definitely
went well, Amanda. She's very dry and very funny and
very unaffected and like not at all woe is me?
So did you ask her about her birth certificate? If
he's honest, she's seen her birth certificate. He is on it.
(05:31):
Oh my god, amazing. She's like, I'll help you with
anything you need. So Amanda's life is wild. I feel
as though I found like a pseudo sibling today on
the show. Billie's daughter from Crimetown. I'm io till it right,
(05:55):
and this is the ballad of Billy Balls. I do
remember vaguely a kid at one point. Yeah. Yeah, she
was a sweet old girl. What have it happened to her?
(06:18):
She was the daughter of Linton and Billy's the legal father.
Did they tell you her name when they first told
you about it? Amanda? Chapter six? Amanda, is it recording now? Yeah?
(06:48):
So I just recorded. It's you can see though the
wave forms a little bit popping. Amanda was nervous about
being recorded, but ultimately decided to share her story. Unfortunately,
I was across the country at the time, So Amanda
sat down with Austin. Hear my voice in here? Yeah,
if you want, you can put those on and hear
your voice. To preserve her privacy, we won't be using
(07:09):
her last name. I guess we could just start with, like,
who who is your dad? Who was my dad? My father,
William John Heitzman. He had a stage name, Billy Balls.
(07:31):
He's a musician, he played piano, he played every instrument.
He My mother was also a musician and a singer,
and they worked together in a lot of things. Who
was your mother? Lynn Todd. Amanda says her mom came
(07:54):
to New York City in nineteen sixty nine when she
was in her mid teens to pursue a music career.
Almost as soon as she arrived, she crossed paths with Billy.
She said, she met my dad on the corner. I'm
not sure exactly what street they met on, but the
Lower East Side. I think she was standing there or something,
(08:17):
waiting across the street, and he came up to her
and he asked her she knew how to fix a
microphone because I guess she looked rock and roll. She
ended up saying she knew how to do it and
that she was she sang, and I think that that's
kind of how they ended up getting involved with one another.
(08:38):
Sounds so cheesy. She was like fifteen when she met him,
I know, really young, and he was nine years older.
So that was pretty crazy to me. Billy and Lynn
began to make music together. Oh, this is a recording
of one of their rehearsals with them. She had a
(09:01):
low voice, and there was kind of a sadness and
a darkness to that voice in that style, which I
think she had a lot in her Yeah, I think
(09:26):
they got involved with one another pretty quickly. Um, and
then five years later I was born. My mother was
still very young when she had me. You know. She
would tell me that my dad and who really did
love each other, and that I really was born from
(09:46):
real love that they had for one another. So that's
like what would make me strong enough to survive life.
I guess I remember a bit of them, of the music.
I have visuals of studios and stuff and singing and
(10:08):
people and microphones. My mother said, I always slept in
a guitar case. I never had a bed, But I
do remember being around music and them and music and music,
like a lot of it. Amanda says her memories of
(10:28):
her dad are just images and fragments, memories of him
painting his nails black and white, and him painting my
nails black and white. I used to do this, Miss
Mary mac Ryan. We would do that together. I remember
(10:51):
there was no bathtub, so we would have to He
would have to shower with me, and that's how you'd
have to wash me. I mean, I'd just remember these
ideas of things I don't really remember. I remember like
a lot of chords, like everywhere, black cords on the floor,
(11:19):
like tripping over things and playing with eggs and touching things.
They had to leave that don and drugs, but I
didn't know that it was bad what they were doing,
so it was just like they were smoking cigarettes like
other people's parents did. I mean, I could just jump
(11:49):
in and tell you exactly when I remember of him.
This is Geeta Gash in the mid seventies. She was
making music, going to shows and hanging out down to down.
She was a friend of Billy's. I met him in
uh nineteen seventy six. I was always going to clubs Max's,
(12:12):
Kansas City and CBGB's, mostly Max's because I lived around
the corner. I don't know how I met him, but
somehow I met him and we hooked up. Unmust have
gone home with him or him with me. We were
like hanging out together and fling around, having sex whatever.
(12:33):
He had a phone call and said, oh, you know,
be quiet. You know, I don't say anything like why. Well,
it was pretty obvious that he was talking to a
wife and or a girlfriend who turned out to be
Lynn Todd. Eventually Geita got to know the whole family.
I went to visit him at his apartment on the
(12:55):
Lower East Side, which he shared with Lynn and the
bay Be which turned out to be Amanda who we
called the bean Beanie was her nickname. Um really really cute,
little blonde, little toddler. And Lynn, who was a really
cool lady, and she and I like hit it off,
(13:17):
like right away. Billy tried to put a band together
with Lynn singing and myself and animal X. They wanted
to do the three girl harmony thing and him like
(13:37):
banging on the piano, you know, like a maniac in
like Jerry Lee Louis style, black pleated pants with suspenders,
no shirt and wild, wild as a motherfucker, and playing
like Jerry Lee Louis styles, stumping, rumping piano. M well,
(14:04):
like one minute we're singing like this beautiful harmony or
trying but so high that God knows what it sounded like.
You know. Yeah. See there's things up that that concerned
the baby that I don't want her to learn of,
(14:26):
and I don't want to hurt any feelings, you know,
But there was a situation there where you had like irresponsible,
active drug addicts that should not have been parenting a child.
Billy was a mad speed freak, I mean to the
point of like bouncing off the damn walls. They did
(14:50):
a lot of two oxen. They had shiploads of that
little yellow pill. Remember them breaking it up, you know,
and him to chumping on them constantly, like you'll be
chewing on like tic TACs. Never fucking slept except maybe
like crash out for a couple of hours in the afternoon.
(15:12):
You know, I'm talking like, never fucking sleeping in the
bars after hours, sun comes up, still going, still going,
you know, just crazy, Just shut up now. They would
fight over anything. Could have been money, it could have
(15:36):
been babysitting. That was the norm between them. A lot
of screaming whatever, we're we're not a distance from the mic,
like we had some fucking sense, so we're all going
into it equal, you know what I mean that we're
still not equal distant drugs. That makes it really hard
(16:05):
to have a functioning relationship. I think they were both
strong headed, so I don't think that was the best match.
And I'm sure Toddler in that mix isn't isn't easy.
And I do remember they would fight. Was he violent
(16:26):
with her? You know? See again I don't really I
don't remember her saying anything. But I also don't think
she wants me to see him that way if anything
did happen, So she never told me anything. I don't
have any memory of her telling me that he was
physically violent with her. Ever, you know it could be
(16:47):
because it's true. You know, I don't have any reason
to believe it's not. It's not like I have memories
of him being physically violent with me. But you know,
he did a lot of drugs, and people are unpredictable
when that stuff happens. If you're agitated or pushed fire enough,
who knows what could happen. I have a very clear
(17:09):
memory of being in the apartment at sunrise with Lynn
and the baby and Billy just attacking the two of us,
and I remember he took a fork and he stabbed
me in the face with a fork. I had like
a you know, like the four pronged holes in my chin.
(17:33):
Oh my god. He was just like beating the ship
out of everybody. We're afraid for the baby and screaming.
I remember screaming out the window and some guy he
just like flew up the fire escape, jumped into the
apartment and started like beating the ship out of Billy,
and then Billy ran out like a chicken out the
window down the fire escape. Yeah. Ship, like that crazy
(17:57):
ship used to happen all the time. Just a note,
We tried to verify this story with other people and
we weren't able to. Did you like Billy I did.
(18:20):
I loved him. I mean he was great. I loved
him a lot. His soul was warm, funny, creative, loving um.
But you know, also it's like loving a mad dog.
You know, you have to be cautious, and you know,
when they're calm and sweet, they're wonderful, but then they
(18:43):
can turn around and rip you to shreds or you know.
But that was mainly the drug taking that you know,
method and fat. I mean that's like heavy and when
you're doing it or seven day and day out, week
after week, month after month, your brain goes like you
(19:05):
become psychotic. You know. His relationship with Lynn was deteriorating
because of the drug use, and Geeta says that Amanda
would often be caught between Billy and Lynn to the
point of like Lynn going to CBGBs with me to
hang out and Billy showing up dragging Amanda like a
(19:30):
toddler two year old staying here. Take a kid because
he was jealous of Lynn hanging out with other people
and Lynn, she had been faithful to Billy for so long,
and then she just went hog wild, you know, when
she was sucking around on him, and their relationship just
hit the skids. And then she got into heroin, as
(19:52):
we all did. She used heroine, so she was a
heavy drug user. You know. Obviously it was definitelyly not
good when I was young with her, because she would
forget to take care of me a lot and give
me basic needs. I think she would forget about me
and like put me places I guess, and either pass
out or leave. I was like keys, It's like she
(20:15):
lost me somewhere and she had to retrace her steps
to get back to me. She forgot I was there,
I existed. I'm not gonna say they were neglectful, but
they were not the best parents. Eventually she took Amanda
and sent her to Lynn's mother's house. My mother told
(20:37):
me that my father was taken care of me because
she'd been bitten by a spider and was in the
hospital with a really bad infection. His version was I
think more that he didn't know where my well, this
is what he told my grandmother. He didn't know where
my mother was, that she just left me with him,
and that he couldn't take care of me anymore, and
if she didn't come get me, he was going to
(20:58):
sell me on the black market. But he she said,
she always told me he said that. But he if
he said that, I don't believe. It was like he
was saying it to get her to come because he
knew he couldn't take care of me. It wasn't something
that you I was gonna do. So she flew to
(21:20):
JFK and my dad brought me there, and it was November.
I remember having this like furried jacket on that was
like a pinkish white, and all my clothes were too small,
my grandmother said, as wearing clothes that were sent to
me two years before. He had cowboy boots. I guess
(21:43):
on me that She said the heel were cut out
of to make them fit me, and I was dirty.
He just handed me over. It was such a difficult exchange,
if you will, at the airport that she couldn't knew.
She could barely look at him. She was so disgusted
by him, you know, he was so worried about himself
(22:06):
when doing his thing, and she said, I had a
bottle and I was like four years old, and she's like,
you're way too old for this. And she said she
threw it in the garbage and she said, bye, bottle,
and I said bye. I guess I was waiting for
somebody to like pay attention to me and realized that
(22:29):
the bottle had seen better days. She said, the milk
was spoiled inside. But see, she I don't know, she
she said, scenes a little bit, a little embellishment. Everybody's
point of view is very different, so it is hard
to know what the truth is. Amanda says when she
(22:51):
was four, she moved in with her grandmother in Seattle,
but it took her a long time to recover from
her life in New York. I ended up being sick
after that for a while because I was neglected and
not cared for properly. I'd have my tonsils taken out
and I had two put in my ears. I was
six deaf when she got me because I wasn't really
(23:13):
cleaned properly, I don't think, so there was a lot
of neglect that she had to deal with. Did he
keep in touch, Not that I know of. My mother
did but you know, my like, I think my mom
(23:35):
came to or whatever the situation with her ended up being,
and she was like, what the fund did you do
with Amanda? But I think that both my mother and
father pretty quickly realized how much easier life was without
a toddler, you know, without me. I'm just curious about
(23:56):
your relationship with Amanda. Did you have one with her
after she left the city. No? Um, she got sent
to her mother's Lynn's mother, which I thought was a godsend.
And it's around this time that Billy met my mom, Rebecca.
(24:16):
It's funny. Rebecca a lot of ways reminded me of Linn.
She was very similar in stature, very tall, similar facial features,
and they seemed to be crazy and love and that
I was very happy for him, and he became a
different person. He was a lot lighter. Why why do
you say that? Oh, they were very affectionate in public
(24:40):
to each other, meaning you know, they're physically and you
could tell that she loved him and was very enamored
by him, and he was like, so happy to have
a hot chick, you know. And they were both like
bubbly and it was they were great together. They were
great together. I remain friends with Lynn and Um. I
(25:11):
had heard that that he had gotten shot and then
he was in the hospital. And then right after that
she called me and told me that he died and
that he was assassinated while in the hospital, that his
death was actually a murderer. I was on the last
(25:39):
day of first grade and I was living with my grandmother,
and she picked me up from daycare and then she
brought me home and she took me in the den
and told me to sit down because she had something
important to tell me. She said, your father was in
a store, like a bodega or a corner store, and
(26:04):
there were robbers, and um, police were called and they
shot at the robbers, and your your father was caught
in the crossfire in between and was was killed. And
I remember looking at her and UM. I remember thinking, Um,
(26:27):
she doesn't want me to feel sad about this, and
if I feel sad about this, it's gonna make her sad,
so uh. And I remember getting up and then going
and looking outside, and it was Seattle, so it was raining,
(26:47):
and I looked outside and I remember looking at that
a long driveway in front of their place, and it
was raining, and it was black and it was dark,
and it looked like it almost looked like patent leather.
And I remember just staring at it and she's like, Amanda,
if you want to cry, it's okay to cry. And
she was always like telling me all the feelings that
it was okay to have that I didn't have any
(27:07):
interest in having. So I said, I haven't seen him
in a long time, and he's not in my life,
so it doesn't matter, right, So I think that made
her sad. H So, uh oh, I'm sorry, it's okay. Yeah,
(27:42):
but yeah, So that's my memory of it. I just
always wondered. I always kind of didn't believe and maybe
it was a mistake and they had the wrong person.
My mom told me the version, you know, about what
she knew when I was like eleven or so twelve,
(28:03):
So it's like I understood from then on what really happened.
That's coming up after the break. When I was younger,
(28:24):
I used to think about at all the time. I
used to think about my father all the time. When
Amanda was seven years old, she learned that her dad
had died. Her grandmother told her that he had been
in the wrong place at the wrong time and was shot.
When Amanda was eleven or twelve, her mom told her
what she thought really happened. So what she told me
(28:46):
was that, um, there was an undercover cop and he,
I believe, kind of had a known drinking problem, and
he seemed to have this certain obsession with my father.
You know. My mom made it sound more like it
was because my dad was so cool, and he was.
(29:08):
He was obsessed with him because he saw my dad's
lifestyle and was a little bit jealous. My mother told
me that he thought my father was a drug dealer
and that he was selling big drugs, big drugs like
what well, like speed or her when like drugs like that.
I think maybe he was involved in selling like a
(29:31):
little bit of weed here and there, That's what she
would kind of say. But this cop thought that he
was more involved in something bigger than he actually was.
From what I understand, he was drunk and he went
over to where my father was living, pushed his way in,
and they got physical with one another, and then this
(29:52):
guy ended up shooting him. So that's what I've been told.
Amanda grew up without her father, but the memory of
him haunted her. She never forgot him. And I used to,
you know, like I would do things because I would
(30:15):
think he was there. I would leave MTV on in
my room when I'd go to school so he could
watch that, just in case he was in my room
all day all night. When I was a kid, I
thought that he should have MTV to watch music television,
you know. And I just I thought about him all
the time. I I every day I thought about him.
(30:47):
I was playing with Linn. We had hooked up to
play and we did some gigs. This is Gregor Laroc,
who you met in a previous episode in the early nineties.
He was performing with Lynde Odd in New York. Well,
Lynn at this time, I think she hadn't seen Amanda
(31:10):
for a long time, and I think she said, well,
she's gonna be coming and she wanted to meet her.
So she was looking for a good place to get together.
So would it be all right for her to come
to my place. Gregor says that Lynn and Amanda reconnected
at his apartment in the East Village. It was great.
(31:30):
I mean, she was older, and um, it was just
like a nice meeting. I don't remember anything weird or
you know, it was just like amazing to see her
as a kid, as a little child, and then see
he's a grown up again. And he says, Amanda asked
about Billy, I think she I think she might have been,
(31:51):
you know, trying to get information or find out about him.
I just always felt like the people that knew him
when I talked to him and asked about my dad,
like I don't know, like if they knew stuff that
made them feel like they were implicating themselves. Anybody I
(32:11):
met over the years growing up that knew my father
that I was so excited about meeting they kind of
all responded in a similar way, just complimentary of him
and said how musically talented he was, he was funny,
how smart he was, you know, stylish, he was a genius,
Like in the same things my mom would say to me,
(32:38):
what what happened with your mom? She like, how did
this all end for her? She she died. She never
got clean, She would never able to get clean. Lynde's
old friend Geta Gash says that towards the end, she
(32:59):
and Lynne had a fall out and Lynn and I
were dust of Fred. Although our relationship went to ship
because of drugs and she got really crazy at the
end of her life, just became a very angry, kind
of nasty person, burned a lot of bridges, and she
suffered some brain aneurism or something, and she had a
(33:25):
brain aneurism and then died pretty quickly after that. I
was a strange from my mother at that time, and
I was getting ready to start talking to her again too,
but it was always a lot, so I had to
take a time out and um My, my grandmother said
(33:46):
she hadn't heard from my mother and she was getting worried,
and I'm like, she's fine. I never believed she wasn't fine,
because she'd been through so much that I really kind
of started to think she was never going to die
and nothing was going to happen. She always survived it.
Lynn Todd died on December one, two thousand and ten.
(34:14):
I don't know. I think about her a lot too,
especially with my daughter, and I think she would have
really liked my daughter. Amanda's daughter is two years old now.
I talked to my kid about their grandparents and they
show them pictures and all of that, and my kid
(34:34):
talks about their grandparents and gets excited even though she's
so young. So it's she, you know, she knows. I
feel like she understands like who they are, but it's
not something I talk about all the time. But when
she does think about Grandpa Billy, Amanda imagines that he's
(34:54):
retired and living where retired people live. My dad would
probably be in Florida. I could see him down there
moving it up. I think he'd be tan definitely. Um
it looked like he might be balding, so he might
(35:15):
not have a lot of hair going on, which I
think would have really upset him. But he think he
would have made peace with it by now. You know,
like he's in his seven daies. He's like that ship sailed,
so he's got he's bald, cleanly bald, yep, shaved, nice tan,
probably like a little stomach going on. He probably would
(35:37):
still be into kind of dressing cool, you know, like
a fitted pant maybe, and he would keep it looser uptown,
you know, like a vacation style shirt, you know, like
a Hawaiian print or something loose fitting. I feel like
he would probably still smoke, and then he would be
(35:59):
down there in a retirement community playing music. He would
play like local events in Florida. Who knows what he
(36:19):
could have done and it's you know, even in my mind,
I think that if he would have turned things around,
it probably would have influenced my mom to do the same.
Maybe she would have been like, you know, if he
can do what I can do it, he would have
like come back into my life and we would have reconnected.
(36:41):
But that might just be a movie ending. You know,
I've always thought about I. I do want to you know,
I've always wanted to know. Amanda still wonders what the
(37:02):
truth is about what happened to her dad, because it's
always been a shady, kind of strange story and always
something that seemed very off. It didn't feel ever finished.
Next week, Amanda helps us track down some pieces of paper.
(37:26):
It's kind of shocking, right, is your heart beating because
mine was when I was reading it. I'm really like
shaking right now. It's pretty pretty fucking crazy. Crimetown is
(37:51):
Zack Stewart Pontier and Mark Smarling. The Ballad of Billy
Balls is hosted by me Io Till It Right and
made in partnership with Caden's Thirteen. You can find me
on the Internet. Um Io loves you on everything Say hello,
and if you want to know more, about my story.
You should pick up my memoir Darling Days. We also
(38:17):
want to hear from you. We have a voicemail set
up for you to call us. This is Allison, This
podcast for Nana. Thanks Allison. If there's somebody Billy reminds
you of, or you have a theory on what could
have happened, or if you can make me laugh, call
(38:37):
and leave us a voicemail at five seven ohezo a giggle.
Get you some stickers. You can also get into our
discussion forum on our website, The Ballad of Billy Balls
dot com. This show is produced by Me, Kevin Shepard
(38:57):
and Ryan swigert A. Senior producers Austin Mitchell, editing by
Zack Stewart Pontier and Mark Smirling. Fact checking by Jennifer Blackman.
This episode was mixed and sound designed by Kenny Qcak.
Music was by Kenny Qcak. That Guy Does a Lot.
Our title track is Dark Allies by Light Asylum. Archival
(39:23):
research by Brennan Reese. Thanks as always to Daniella Aria,
Rachel Lee Right, Emily Wiedemann, Green Card Pictures, Alessandro sent Toro,
Bill Clegg, Ben Davis or In Rosenbaum and the team
at Cadence thirteen, and of course, my mom, without whom
none of this would be possible. Thanks Mom, MHM
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