Ritter Family Murders, Amelia Earhart and Colombian Drug Traffickers

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey everybody, I'm Sierra and I'm bad and welcome back
to another episode of The Unsolved Couple. For every week,
Ben and I recapt one.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
More Rich, He'll gate REEKBS Prime Unsolved Mister, We're good,
all right, yep, great intro.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Thank you you did wonderful, so did you.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
It is perfect. It was perfect in every way. It's
just how it should go every time.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
I've officially had fifty one weeks of practice. Because next
week is our one year anniversary, is it? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (00:46):
Next week? Yeah, I guess week.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Don't ruin, don't take away the podcast magic, it's next week.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
All right, Okay, I'm excited for you. I'm happy for you.
Excited for me, Yes, for you. Absolutely?

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Are you still being held against your will?

Speaker 3 (01:03):
No? No, no, but this is your baby? This was
I mean, let's just be hon this, this entire idea,
all of this was here. And on top of it,
she does practically all the work. I don't really, I
literally just show up. Looks handsome, Yeah, she does. You

(01:24):
run all the equipment, you do, all the editing, you do,
all the marketing. Yeah, and I literally just show up
and talking to a microphone. I am a uh, it's
a prima donna. Is that the right word?

Speaker 1 (01:38):
You're giving main character energy? Is that what the kids say?

Speaker 3 (01:42):
I'm the guy that just sits and sits in his
trailer and says, tell me what am I scene?

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yes? Ready, no one else talk or look to him
or yeah, look at him or talk to him.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, just bring me my filtered water. So I'm excited
for You've worked really hard.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Thank you. So then you don't get to complain that
for our one year celebration, we're going to cover We're
actually gonna take a break from Unsolved Mysteries the show
just for a few weeks, and we're going to do
a two or three part series on the Amy Bradley
documentary on Netflix.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
I think we could cover it in one you think so, Yeah,
I do, Okay, I mean it is a little story.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, but it might just be a little bit longer
if we're going to recap it and break it down
the interviews and the theories and different things like that.
But we'll see. I just I wanted to do this
as a thank you to our patrons because if literally
these people were not downloading this and listening and following

(02:48):
us and all that stuff, there'd be no point in like,
keep doing it, doing this, So it's just thank you
to everybody, so be expecting that next week as a
thank you. And according to Ben, we're gonna bust it
out in one episode. I'm saying two to three parts,
but we'll see.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
So is this the last unsolved mysteries? I have to
watch no, just for just.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
For one.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
This is great because I need a break because this episode.
I had such a hard time just getting it done.
I didn't want to do it.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
We're feeling it.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
I just did not want to do it. I had
nothing actually to do with the stories on the subject.
I just did want to do it every time I
sat down, And when you are writing.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
And being creative, you have to be in the mindset
to do it or it just doesn't work.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
Every time I sat down to do my notes, I
just got angry. I just didn't want to do it.
But I did it, and I'm here.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Okay, Well, I'm giving you a week or two off.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
Oh that's great, that's the best.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Things cover the Amy, But you have to watch the Amy.
Bradley Dock and then we're gonna get right back into
n self mysteries, right back right back into it. I mean,
that's what the people are here for. A yeah, so
speaking of that, we are Ben is reluctantly, but I'm excited.
I actually had no problem taking my notes or anything

(04:21):
at all.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
It was an interesting episode. I actually I am not
even trying to speak ill of the episode.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
I had less to do with the podcast and more
to do with the fact that we just life is
a little kind of busy right now. We got a
thousand other things going on, and people don't understand, even
Benja show, this does take hours of investment and time

(04:48):
and energy.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
It's not just an hour I think everyone.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah, understand, so to find the time for it sometimes
when all you want to do and it's baseball season,
so let's be honest, all Ben wants to be doing
right now is either reading about baseball, watching baseball, or
listening about baseball.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
Unless I am not complaining that I have a heart here, Okay,
I'm literally just sitting in a microphone. I just there
was just so many other things I wanted.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
You wanted to do.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah, and yes, baseball is one. I just I love
I love the season.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
And it's I mean, you wanted to go paddle boarding
today and I had to be like, first, yeah, we
have to get this episode.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
I did want to go to the lake. We got
several more paddle boards, so I wanted to get down
there and enjoy the sun.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
It is something we enjoy doing. Yeah, and you know,
and I had to And.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
That seems like it's such a better idea. And I'm
telling you all right now, if you have the ability
pause this.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
So we're actually just going to turn this off and
we're going to load the paddle boards so we'll be
back next week.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
Let's go.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
No, we're going to recap season three, episode eight. We
only have three stories and I'm going to kick us
off with a very interesting story that I was expecting
to get a ton more information from. But we're going
to find out there wasn't a trial, So well, are

(06:24):
you gonna.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
Starts out with that one? This is the hardest this
is the hardest story.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah, let's get this story out of it because this
is a this is a harder story. It's pretty dark.
So Raymond and Ruth and Ritter, which I love that
there is a Raymond Ruth Ridder that's a husband and wife.
They lived in Woodstock, Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago.
They were married in nineteen sixty eight and welcomed three

(06:53):
children into their home, Colleen, the oldest, Steve, and Matthew.
They were very close and happy. Colleen started dating a
family friend in high school. Okay, so they live in
this area. They go to the local high school. They

(07:16):
are involved in their church as a family. They're a
very close family, and they had been family friends with
the Church family for a while.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
What their last name is Church?

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, the Church family and the Rider family. I've known
each other for years. And Colleen starts dating the son
Richard ben Is. No one should date ever in high school.
Oh yeah, yes, that's only because we have teenagers now.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
So these two are both students at the local Catholic
high school. She's a sophomore, he's a senior. Tale's old
as time. They date for over a year, and then
what happens happens at the end of your senior year.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
He goes to college.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, go off to college. I'm pretty sure there's even
a song called like Strawberry Wine that's kind of about this, Like,
oh no, that's about a summer romance. And I think
he's older, way different, way different way scratch that. But
tailor's oldest time, right, she's a year younger. So she
stays at home obviously to start her senior year, and.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
Richard senior junior because she was dating.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
Oh, she was a sophomore and he was a senior.
So in America it's freshman, sophomore, junior, senior years ago.
In my mind for some reason, that she was only
a year younger than him, even though in my notes
it says otherwise. Okay, yeah, thank you, Ben. So she's
getting ready to kick off for junior year and he's

(08:55):
headed off to college. That makes me uncomfortable. The age gap,
there is a.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
Lot well the software you're sixteen.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
No, I understand. Theoretically the age gap is normal, but
there is a line that crosses when you leave high school.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
And here's she's now high in high school. She doesn't
want she wants to be in high school, and Richard.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Should want to go to college and be a boy
and living away from home and enjoy college.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
You know this is coming. Yeah, it should be coming.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
It should be it should be.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
The breakup it's happening.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yeah. However, yeah, so their relationship starts too as one
would become strained, right right on track, Richard, though, does
not take this well mm hmmm.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
Interesting.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
He would call Colleen from his dorm room, upset and
edgy non stop when she said that she was doing homework,
studying for a test, or had other activities going on
as one girl would in high school. Because the other
thing I read this wasn't on Unsolved Mysteries. She was

(10:12):
a cheerleader and he was a football player. They were
both very popular, very good looking, all Americans. So she
is social, she has other things to be doing. He
would get upset with her, and in June of nineteen
eighty eight, he comes home from school, so they date.
That's maybe where I think I got this from. They

(10:34):
date that whole year. Well, he's in college while he's
in college, and she's a junior. However, at this start
of the summer June nineteen eighty eight, he comes home
from school. He finds out, unfortunately that while he's been
away at college, his parents have separated in our filing
for divorce. Okay, fair, that's hard, Yeah, that's not easy.

(11:00):
And then Colleen at that point also breaks up with
him and.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
Listen, I'm not going into my senior year.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, And she says, like, you've become possessive, you are
controlling you.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
It's not a healthy.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
It's not a healthy relationship anymore. And from my understanding too,
my side research, she had talked to her parents extensively
about this and they had supported her, and it's because
she cared for him, but it was not healthy. And
I'm you know what, there's a lot of girls that
and a lot of guys like people don't recognize these

(11:38):
warning signs and relationships. And she did not want to
be in a toxic relationship, so she had every right
to say I don't want to be in this anymore.
And yeah, so, and she's open and canon with them. However, she,
as most women do and most girls do, is happy

(12:00):
to remain friends with him if he can respect those boundaries.

Speaker 3 (12:03):
Let's just be friends. And that never goes well.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
I think the person saying that always has the best
of intentions, because she said in her so, this is
what's wild, guys, she's full on interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries,
she sure is. Yeah, and you're gonna find out later
that that's even crazier. But she explains to us they
had grown up together, that they'd been friends for like

(12:27):
since elementary school before they became boyfriend and girlfriend, and
she's like, I just wanted to set the reset button,
and I think she was willing to do that. We're
going to find out later though he wasn't. The calls continued,
Did you.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
Ever date a friend and I now work out and
you guys don't stay friends.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
I never dated any of my guy friends. Have kissed
a few of them, yeah, but no, here's the thing.
When growing up I had a big group of guys friends,
even from elementary school on who still to this day

(13:07):
I consider friends, and I never dated any of them.
Every guy I dated in school I had met outside
of that friendship circle, and it became that I love
having guy friends. But I think I was surprised as
I got older that that became more complicated than I expected.

(13:29):
It too, always does, it always does, and it sucks
because I like, yeah, you and I've had this conversation
before too, But no, I don't think that anyone I
ever dated I stayed friends with, Like, no, no one

(13:49):
that I talked to or even I hope I wish
them all well, But no, what about you?

Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah, we were friends for a couple couple of years
in high school. Yeah, decided to.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
Had you always had a crush on her though secretly?

Speaker 3 (14:06):
Oh interesting, No, she was just a friend. And then
we decided, hey, let's try to see if this can
be the last said three weeks, and both her and
I said, you know what we're is the only time
we both were like, we're better friends. We broke up
and we stayed friends. Really, but I do I just.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
Had did it feel a little uncomfortable being like her girl?
As far as know when you were dating her, I
feel more uncomfortable dating her. Yeah, you were like, this
feels like I'm dating both of us.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
I just think that we're both were.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
I love you dearly, but only in the friendship.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
Yeah, it literally lasted two to three weeks. So we
both were like this, we're just better friends.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
And then went on with no problems.

Speaker 3 (14:49):
And we went on.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
But again, that was a few weeks.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
It wasn't too Yes, this is very different. It was
not years, and it.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
Just did you ever stay friends with any of your
serious relationships?

Speaker 2 (15:03):
No.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
It's funny because Ben and I started dating in our
early twenties, and we're married by the time we were like,
what twenty two, Yeah, so it's not like there's a
laundry list. I don't know what it's like to like
I guess date in adulthood maybe it's different. But anyways,
So fast forward to the end of summer. So we're

(15:26):
at the end of summer. August twentieth, nineteen eighty eight.
Colleen is happily in this place where every once in
a while she's taking these phone calls. She's still friends
with him, but has no desire to still be in
a relationship with him. She's happy with her choices. So
August twentieth, nineteen eighty eight, Colleen has a friend stay

(15:48):
in the night, as did her little brother Matthew. Raymond
and Ruth Anne were out with some friends. So typical
summer night in the eighties. We got the old sister babysitting.
She's got a girlfriend over for a sleepover. Little brother's home.
I think he's seven or eight at the time.

Speaker 3 (16:09):
He's young. Yeah, it's like ten years difference.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Yeah, he's the caboose baby for sure.

Speaker 3 (16:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
And Steve, the older brother is away. Actually he might
be the oldest. I can't remember. He's not at home
at all and not planning on coming home. So Richard
ex boyfriend calls calling and asks what she's doing, what
are you doing, and again starts acting possessive. He's getting

(16:39):
mad that she doesn't want to sit on the phone
for hours on end and have a conversation with him,
so she tells him listen, I am doing stuff. I'm
hanging out. I do not want to talk to you.
I will call you later, and like lets him go,
not really suspecting this is run of the mill behavior
from this kid. Five point fifteen. The following morning, Richard

(17:05):
breaks in to the home, the family home, and goes
on to brutally attack every member of this family, first
going into the parents' bedroom, which is on the ground floor,
and stabs them multiple times, killing them both. Next, he
goes upstairs and stabs the little brother, Matthew twice in

(17:30):
the hallway, leaving him for dead.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
Were the friends gone?

Speaker 1 (17:35):
No, So Colleen awakes and sees her ex boyfriend standing
in the hallway. Can you even imagine?

Speaker 3 (17:45):
No, this is terrible.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
She's interviewed. She's telling us this story.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
Yeah, it is wild.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
So she runs into another bedroom and calls nine to
one one. Hoever, while she's trying to call nine one one,
he breaks into the door breaks down the door and
begins to stab her multiple times. So there is She
lays down on a cedar chest of like at the

(18:18):
end of a bed and starts to play dead, hoping
that he'll stop. She's recounting this, and he continues to
stab her over and over and over again. She starts
baking him and pleading him. She's like, I love you,
Why are you doing this? She's like says in the inniverse.
She's saying and doing whatever she can to get through
to him to get him to stop. So finally where

(18:44):
she finds the strength for this, I do not know,
she realizes he's not going to quit until I am dead.
She somehow manages to run down the stairs, run outside
and is screaming as she's running down the road until

(19:06):
the neighbors come out, and he's continuing to follow her
and try to assault her. Two neighbors finally come out
because they hear it. It's five in the morning. Yeah,
some girls screaming, bloody murder literally and come running out
and run Richard off and mind you. At this time,

(19:32):
while this is going on, Matthew, the like seven or
eight year old boy, has been able to drag himself
into the room, call nine to one one and give
his address to the dispatcher. WO is it so crazy?

Speaker 3 (19:49):
Wild?

Speaker 1 (19:50):
So because of that, the police had already been notified
and we're on their way. They arrived within seconds after
the neighbors had come out into the onto the street.
A neighbor believes that he had actually saw seen Richard
run back into the family home. So the police officers

(20:14):
go in like guns drawn, trying to figure out they
think that there is an active murderer in the home. Yeah,
So searching the scene, they find Matthew injured upstairs, he's
with his friend now who is completely unharmed, and Colleen's
friend was also found hiding somewhere in the house unharmed. Unfortunately,

(20:38):
the parents, Raymond and Ruth Anne, are pronounced dead at
the scene.

Speaker 3 (20:43):
That is crazy, I know.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
At the same time, boyfriend Richard has now ran twelve
blocks home and packs his belongings and by five forty five,
so this still take place in thirty minutes. Thirty minutes,
he murders two people, stabs in a text to others,
and then runs and runs home. He loads up into

(21:09):
his mother's truck and vanishes. Authorities instantly starts searching for
him as doctors work to save Calleen in Matthew's lives.
Matthew was treated and released the next day. However, Colleen
had serious injuries. She had received a total of twenty
stab wounds, mostly inflicted on the back of her head

(21:32):
and neck.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
That's wild.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
How does girl live? Tale is like a miracle. Yeah,
and not only lived, but ran out of the home.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
So she's in ICU for several days, unfortunately, and they
never go into detail. I tried to find more about
this while she's in ICU. I don't know who made call.
They decide to bury her parents and have the funeral
she was unable to attend. They didn't wait for her
to get out of the hospital.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
It had to have been other family members, grandparents and stuff.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
I know, but you would think that maybe I don't know.
I'm not a grieving person. But it's hard because she's
interviewed and she that's one of the things that she
struggles with is not only when you're going through a
hard time, most people want their parents by their sides.
But she didn't even get to like mourn and say
goodbye to her parents.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
Yeah, But at the same time, I'm going to guess.
I'm throwing I guess out here. It's the grandparents that
are showing up. You have two sets of grandparents here,
they each are burying a child. And then on top
of it, you have two grandkids that have been brutally attacking.
Your whole world has been flipped upside down. You're just

(22:52):
trying to shut things off, the list to put things
back together for some people and for yourself.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
So it just broke my heart. And this girl when
she's interviewed, is.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
This is shortly after Absolutely, and that's just like poor baby. Absolutely. Yeah,
It's it's tough because I'm sure she wanted to be there.
I just think it's a bad situation for everybody involved.
And so I can't I can't even imagine the decisions
and the things that had to be made at that time.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah. So fortunately Colleen survives, as we can see, she's
here interviewed, but Richard has yet to be brought to justice.
His mother's truck that he had used to flee the
scene had been abandoned in West Hollywood, California. We kind
of get a description of him, and so.

Speaker 3 (23:42):
He drove all the way across the country.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah, this was Illinois to California, and they're asking for
the public's help to find this kid.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
So there you go to justice, all right. Update salved.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
After three years on the run, Richard was arrested in
a fast food restaurant in Salt Lake City November nineteen
ninety one. A detective had recognized him from the FBI
Most Wanted poster and he was living under an assumed name,
Danny Lee Carson. In July nineteen ninety two, he pled
guilty to the murders to avoid the death penalty. As

(24:24):
a result, he was sentenced to life in prison without
the possibility of parole, and he is still there to
this day.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
So a detective recognized him at a fast food in place.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
From the We've covered a few of these things right
where it's like agents, local agents or local law enforcement
is paying attention to the FBI's wanted list and the
posters and the pictures and just kind of taking a
snapshot of that in their mind.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
And yeah, well there was that one girls bank robbery
with murder. Yeah, and the FBI just talked to the
Philly Police Department that morning.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
I walked out here and she was down the.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
Street and Caesar's like, uh, for this guy. You know,
it's one thing when these guys are on the runt
because I've seen a lot of bolos, and usually it's
right after Hey, we're looking. Here's a vehicle, here's the description.
What's up?

Speaker 1 (25:21):
Do they include photos? Okay?

Speaker 3 (25:23):
If they have a suspect, it's like here it is,
But I can't imagine it being really.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
Can you imagine if you saw something and then you're
out and about working or grabbing lunch. Yeah, you walk
into in and out and you see someone and you're like,
why does that person look familiar? Did I have the
wherewithal as law enforcement to be like why does that
person look familiar? And to be able to put it
together confidently enough, because that's the next thing is like,

(25:54):
no one wants to arrest the wrong person, and this
person's also dangerous.

Speaker 3 (25:59):
Well, you're you're trying to say is my memory correct?
And is this really the guy?

Speaker 1 (26:05):
Or they just yeah, this is ninety one to so
you don't have your smartphone on you to google a person.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
Real quick and you're in Salt Lake, right. So the
thing is this guy's wanted to hear he was seeing here?
What are the odds?

Speaker 1 (26:17):
Hey? He was seeing in Illinois and California.

Speaker 3 (26:20):
So you're sitting there thinking, is this him or is
someone that just looks a lot like him? Yeah, I
don't know. For me personally, i'd be questioning.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah. So I tried to look too to see if
there was any kind of like just how Colleen had
maybe what she was doing. I didn't really find much
about her. The only thing I found is that the
house that they had lived in had obviously gotten kind
of a bad rap. Obviously it had gone through several
different sales, foreclosures. It was finally like basically fore clothes

(26:51):
on and just been sitting in abandon. Habitat for Humanity
has actually purchased the home, and I'm not I should
have looked at the date. They are currently or have
finished recently redoing the home, remodeling it, and they're gifting
it to a local to a family in need. And
the person who is gifting it was interviewed there aware

(27:14):
of the history of the house, so they're excited. This
is I mean, Habitat for Humanity here gives homes to
families in need, even families sometimes that are struggling, maybe
with a debilitating disease of a child or of the parent, like,
it's a great program and the person is so grateful

(27:35):
to be able to kind of bring new life into
this home and to be able to use it in
this positive way to kind of make it a happy
place to get and to build good memories into it.
So yeah, there, you guys go. That is I mean,
I had never heard of this story before. It's not

(27:55):
covered on a lot of podcasts, and I think mainly
because it's solved. It was featured on America's Most Wanted
as well, and the person plied guilty, so there's not
a lot of trial stuff to it.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah, So good job for all the people involved in
bringing up guided justice because that's yeah, I mean, you
get broken up with and yeah, so all right, Ben,
what do you have for us? Okay, well, Ben's pulling

(28:31):
up his notes. I'll give you, guys our little housekeeping plugs.
Did you know that you can now support the Unsolved Couple?

Speaker 3 (28:40):
I didn't tell me all about it.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
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(29:07):
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(29:28):
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(29:49):
at gmail dot com and I will send you some
free merch stickers that we have. Okay, Ben, what do
you have for us?

Speaker 3 (29:58):
Okay? The story of Amelia Airhart.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
I love a million air Hart.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
Yeah, yes, great? All right? Who is she? Sreah?

Speaker 1 (30:08):
She was a bad ay because the world of aviation,
still to this day, is very much a male dominated field. Okay, Okay,
but back then for a woman to decide to get
into aviations was like unheard of. So she was a

(30:29):
pioneer in that way. One and then two she started
breaking records left and right of just insane flights. So
she became kind of just like American history in the
world of like especially during like women's rights movements and
women's suffrage and all of that stuff kind of just

(30:51):
became something that women and girls of all ages.

Speaker 3 (30:55):
Could look up to. Yep, first woman to fly across
the Atlantic. So, and she was trying to be the
first woman or person to fly around the world at
its for this point equinox.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
Yeah, right, is that what it is?

Speaker 3 (31:14):
That equator?

Speaker 1 (31:15):
Equatorquo? What is equinox on the ear? Is that anything?
Or did I just make that word up?

Speaker 3 (31:20):
Don't You? Probably didn't, I don't know. So she wanted
to be the first one to fly around the world
at its largest point there around the equator. So yeah,
she sets off to do that with a navigator called
Fred Noonan. All right, they tell us she started in Oakland, California.

(31:41):
All my research start her at Miami.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yeah, okay, thank you, because when they said on Unsolved
Mysteries that she started in California and flew from Oakland
to Tucson. Huh and then what headed south from there? No?

Speaker 3 (32:00):
She flies all the way to Miami.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
To Miami from Tucson or no where. I was like,
first off, we've lived here for thirteen plus years now.
I never in my life have seen a single thing
that Amelia Earhart stopped here. And I've never seen a
single bit of history either that she started her flight
in California.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
Yeah. So, I mean technically, for to fly around the world,
that part of it is you got to fly across
the United States.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
I understand that, but I guess I just was not
aware of that part because yeah, I believed the same thing.
I thought that she had departed from the southeast.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
Yeah. Well, I mean I think for her flight around
the world, we start considering it from Miami. But they
tell us May twentieth, nineteen thirty seven, she leaves Oakland.
She flies here to Tucson and makes multiple steps. Yeah,
hits Miami and then on June first, from Miamily, Miamily, Miami.

(33:01):
I've had a rough time lately. She starts her trek
and this goes on. I have a list of like
where her route took her, but you know, Miami to
Puerto Rico, Brazil, then across to Africa, Sudan, India, and
on June twenty ninth she makes it to Loo, New

(33:26):
Guinea and that's where that's kind of the edge of
that one. Now this is going to be her longest
trek because now she's going to make it across the Pacific.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
I just had a light bulb moment. Okay, So I
don't think I've shared this with our friends yet, but
for my entire life, until I just started teaching homeschool,
I thought that the Bermuda Triangle was like east of
like Africa, Asia, like that whole area between like Japan,

(33:59):
the Marshall Islands and Australia, right that sort of open land.
I think that the reason I thought that was because
I believed in my mind that Amelia Earhart went missing
in the Bermuda Triangle and.

Speaker 3 (34:20):
That's where the legend started.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Not no, no, no, this is just like me so
embarrassing thing.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
I literally, even though Bermuda is off the Florida like,
it's not lost on me. How ridiculous that for some
reason I thought the Bermuda Triangle was over there when
it's several thousands of miles, and but I am having
a light bulb moment that for some reason in my mind,

(34:48):
I just assumed Amelia Earhart went missing in the Bermuda Triangle,
and I knew the location of which she went missing
was over there by the Marshall Islands. And that's wear it,
because I'm always like, how did I get that? In
my mind? That makes no sense? But I remember for
a while, in like elementary school, being fascinated with the

(35:09):
missing of Amelia Earhart. It's like, okay, sorry, that was
like a whole like flash before my eyes moment that
now I understand why my brain was short circuiting. Okay, sorry,
continue all right.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
So he tells they tell us they get some historians
people have written about Amelia Heart's disappearance. They spent a
few days in New guineaw New Guinea, and before they
got to start this, it's a pretty and it's a
very dangerous trek all the way across specific back to California. Right,

(35:47):
So they tell us July second, They're supposed to leave
the first, but there were some storms so they held
off for a day. So July second, ten am boom.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
They've been Trilie now for about a month before they
take off. I mean, this is really left the longest trek.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
They left California May twentieth, That's what I've written down,
and then they left June first from Okay, so it's
even Yeah, it has been over a month to make
this because I do think they were stopping these places
refeeling and resting. It's not like they stopped refeeling boom when.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
This was going to be one of their longest flights.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
Thiseen hours, right, is going to be their longest without stopping. Yeah,
And so they're aiming for Howland Island is their next stop.
It's an eighteen hour flight from New Guinea. They tell
us that Helen Island is a mile and a half long,

(36:42):
about half a mile wide.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
Crazy time. It is a dot in the vastness of
what the ocean is yet, so they have to be
and the elevation is nothing.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
That they have to be precise in their navigation to
get there. Yeah, okay, and that's their target. They're going
to stop there before then they start their They finished
their track across the Pacific, so they leave ten am

(37:14):
and they start. So historian comes in and kind of
tells us like listen. Radio communications was kind of Amelia
Earhart's achilles. She didn't always keep He says, she didn't
keep up on the technology of them.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
It wasn't her thing. Yeah, so it was newer technology
wasn't so it wasn't really the first one.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
And I think it's newer and it was changing, yeah, obviously. Yeah,
and planes, I think the thirties planes are a new thing,
so it's probably evolving quickly. I don't know. I'm throwing
out guesses here. So the coast Guard a Taska, there's
a ship out there is out in that area and
they are there to help with radio communications and that.

(38:03):
So they say seventeen hours and fourteen minutes in they
get a radio bearing, or she asked for a radio
bearing from her radio. So, because there's no GPS at
this time, what she needed to do was hold her
mike open for a while and they would be able
to ping, ping her and then tell her where she's at.

(38:27):
So she's asking for this radio bearing. She asks it
and then whistles into the radio. But then she lets
go and they say she needed to hold that open
for thirty seconds for them to be able to ping her.
And give her a location, and it appears that she's
not hearing them because they're trying to tell her.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
They can hear her, but she cannot hear them.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
She not hear them, and so they're not able to
give her that radio bearing. So nineteen hours in they
pretty much say they were supposed to see the island.
By this time, they're not seeing it. She's telling them
we don't see the island that.

Speaker 1 (39:10):
And you can tell on the recordings. Panic is starting
to sit in a little bit. Yeah, so sure, exhaustion, Yeah,
I mean you've been flying for as nineteen hours, yeah,
almost a full day, maybe a passenger on a plane
for nineteen hours. Yeah, and you have to pay attention
to everything, and I bet your stress level is up.

(39:32):
You know that you've got this tiny little window and
you're aiming for this tiny thing. Yeah, and if you
miss it, that's bad newspaarers, all right, which is why,
which I will say, and maybe this is jumping up,
but I didn't realize this. They had emergency plans on
the ship, emergency supplies and plants, and that was one

(39:52):
thing I didn't I actually learned watching on cellsteries.

Speaker 3 (39:56):
Yeah, so they said only one did she acknowledge that
she could hear the a Taska so they're trying to
talk to her. She only once told them, and they
did say they will. It is possible she would use
a radio and then turn it off because on one
of her flights she ran out of battery because these
radios are battery powered, they're not even powered by the planes.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
Yeah, it's not She's in the mindset, I've got to
conserve this battery energy.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
I've got to concern because it's problems.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
This is how I find the island.

Speaker 3 (40:26):
Yeah, well, and this is all I have to communicate,
so I don't want to waste my battery. So twenty
hours and thirteen minutes into the flight, that's where they
get her last transmission. She tells them, we don't see
the island. We need help a radio bearing and then
she says she's switching frequencies and they're confused because that's

(40:47):
not what you're supposed to do. And that's where they
say they think some of her knowledge, maybe not her
best knowledge in radio communication. I don't know. I'm not one.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
If you have anyone that's lost, they always tell people
like if you get lost, like you need to kind
of stay where you were, like last dad. But people
start panicking and she's jumping around to different frequencies because
she's starting to panic, but she's also not hearing their
commun educations.

Speaker 3 (41:17):
Yeah, I mean, I will say they say that it was.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
A series of unfortunate events.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
It seems like they say that maybe her her knowledge
of radio frequencies as might have been her doawmple. I
don't know about that. I have a hard time you
can say that, but that might still, that doesn't mean
that it changes radiofrequencies.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
Also, Yeah, weren't guaranteed to ever work at all.

Speaker 3 (41:37):
That the technology was new, and maybe it just wasn't working.
So anyways, it's a disaster. That's her last transmission. And
here's the thing. The Coastguard they start searching immediately, immediately
that day, and they're looking for They searched a two
hundred and fifty thousand square that's around how Holland Island. Yeah,

(42:04):
and they searched for sixteen days. That's a long time
for search. It would use all types of planes and ships.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
It was not a small effort.

Speaker 3 (42:17):
No, Yeah, they put in a massive effort. They do
believe that if she'd run out of fuel. Her plane
would have at least floated for four or five hours.
So that's why they started it immediately, trying to find
that plane because that was a way easier target to
find than that. They said they had a life a.

(42:37):
They had like a two person raft with supplies, water, food,
So they do believe they could have survived for a while.
But guess what they were never nothing was ever found,
Nothing was ever found. Yeah, so what happened to her?

Speaker 1 (42:52):
That's yeah, that's the official.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
Investigation was that they ran in a fuel and ditched
in the sea somewhere. All right. Fast forward to July
nineteen forty four, we get told a story by Sergeant
Thomas Divine. He tells us he was a marine stationed
on Saipain and him and another military guy they had

(43:15):
taken a jeep to a part of the island and
they get to a hangar and they're told they can't
go in there's top secret. And he tells us he
hears some other military guys talking and they say, we
got Amelia Earhart's plane in there, and he's like, what's
going on? And then some secret government agent that's in

(43:38):
playing clothes comes out starts yelling at everybody and threatening
everybody get him, and his companion that are in the
jeep are like, dude, whatever, man, we're out of here.
We drive off, and then he says later on he
sees this plane flying over. It's not a military plane
because it doesn't have the marketings, but he he just
happens to write down the tail number and it is

(44:00):
and our one six to zero two zero, which.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
Was a million air hurts, was a million hearts.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
And then later that day he rolls up, I guess what,
this plane is on fire just right there on the
you know, feel just burning up. Okay, So did the
government have their plane? Did the government end up finding
the plane on Sigon after we had invaded, because what's

(44:29):
going on in nineteen forty four World War two? We
found it, and then we decided as a country, oh
my gosh, we no one can know. We can't let
him know we found Amelia Airs plane. We got to
burn it.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
That.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
This doesn't make any sense, It makes zero sense, and
it almost kind of takes me off. Yeah, you're telling
me that the government found Amelia Airharts plane on Sigon
and we decided, uh huh, we're not telling people we
found a millionaire.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
What would be the reason for them not to tell me?

Speaker 3 (45:03):
I don't know. Yeah, why why would you want to
then burn the plane and hide all the evidence that
you found are plane? Yeah? Of what interest is that
to the United States?

Speaker 1 (45:18):
Can you tell me the And this is reaching The
only thing I can think of, and this makes almost
no sense, is that at what point? Because here's the thing.
The history is.

Speaker 3 (45:32):
Between America, I said, Sipan.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
Sipan, Saigon is Vietnam.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
Isn't it way different?

Speaker 1 (45:38):
Way different? Sip Sipan. So, Japan and America for a
long time had a really rocky relationship, obviously, I mean, so,
I don't was it possible that in order to try

(45:58):
to move forward with a positive relationship with Japan, the
government was like, if American citizens because Amelia Earhart was
so beloved find out that she washed ashore here accidentally
or landed here at a time where things weren't good

(46:20):
and we had a hand in her demise, that that's
going to strain relationships even more. And we're in the
middle of World War two, so we don't want that's
I don't know. That's the only thing I can think of.

Speaker 3 (46:38):
Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, here's this guy.
Clearly this happened to this guy. He saw a plane.
There was something going on. It is World War two. Yeah,
there's a lot going on. Yeah, and nineteen forty four
we are going from island to island. It is massive

(46:59):
bloodshed and yeah, so I'm just having a hard time.
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I
just it does not make sense that the government would
find Amelia Earhart's plane and say.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
No, no one can know about this, let's burn it.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
Why. Yeah, I was more America wants to know what happened.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:22):
So anyways, then we get told the story by the
name of Bob. Bob Wallach. He was also on Sidepan.
He was a marine. He said they didn't have anything
to do during the day. They've already they've already conquered this,
this island. Whatever they're going in. They're looking through old
buildings that and they find this safe. They blow it open.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
They start that would be I'd be like, you, guys,
let's open this up. Yet.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
Yeah, they start rummaging. He gets a briefcase and he
starts going through and it's a bunch of papers and
he says it's a Melia are papers. He doesn't say
what it is or what it says.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
It just has something to do with some thing to
do with her.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
So he says he turned it into someone above him.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
I actually believe this marine more than I believe that the.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
I believe the other marine. So he did.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
I just don't know if it was Amelia Airharts. Yeah,
I'm just not buying it was Amelia Airharts plane, or
that the government orchestrated that fire.

Speaker 3 (48:17):
Yeah, he's the thing. It is war for a plane
to be burning not in common.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:22):
So anyways, he says he turned it in. What happened
to it, doesn't know, Yeah, but yeah, I do. So
then we get told by the story by the name
of Buddy Brennan. He's a researcher and author. He says
he met us a Sidepan woman in nineteen eighty seven

(48:47):
and interviewed her. She tells a story that she was
on Sidepan when the Japanese they were occupying it at
the time. Yeah, and late two people were brought to
the town square and they were stripped down, and they

(49:07):
were two what looked like Americans, and one of them
was a female.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
Yeah, which she was surprised by because she was wearing
men's pants. She was wearing pants just in general, and
she never as a And that's I will say. I
red the story to meet Treks. Whether it was a
milliahire or not, makes sense. And the fact that this
was shocking to her to see a woman wearing pants.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
Yeah, So they made them stripped down in the square,
they yelled at them, they put them in prison. Supposedly,
I guess she saw them. Well, I'm a little amazed
by how much this lady saw them. She said she
saw them bring a rice in prison, and the lady
threw the rice back at the prisoners. Where were you

(49:53):
hanging out where you saw all this? Then she just
so happened to be walking through this field and a
motorcycle will come. So she hides in this cornfield or
this rice field, rice field, and then miraculous, she was
right there where there was a grave, Doug and they saw.
She said she saw a lady be brought out and

(50:16):
shot and executed, and she was blindfolded.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
But what happens next?

Speaker 3 (50:21):
So she said she planted a little fruit tree there
by the grave.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (50:26):
So she tells this story to Buddy and in nineteen
eighty seven, he gets the ability to excavate.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
That is crazy. Here's me. You had to have some
evidence in order to get this permission.

Speaker 3 (50:38):
So but they only gave them to escape for twelve hours.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
Also, which makes me think someone doesn't want things found.

Speaker 3 (50:47):
But there was no remains found they did. All they
did find was a piece of cloth that does appear
to be a blindfold.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
Blindfold, yes, but that is that's all. I don't believe
in a ton of coincidences. All the same time, that's
a lot of coincidences anyways.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
So those are our three kind of theories that are
presented by I will say this so that we get
this other historian, this author, and he comes to tell us,
he's like, listen, I don't believe any of those stories.
I do believe. The official investigation is she lost a sea.
Lost a sea right now. And he says he goes

(51:25):
to the US nautical charts that Noonan was using, come
to find out had mislocated Howland Island by six miles.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
That's at six miles, do you guys, when you're at
the curvature of the earth, plus the way you fly
with the degrees you're getting off every.

Speaker 3 (51:45):
Single like, you're off by six miles. If that map
says how an island is here and that's six miles
away from where it actually is, then yes, you have
a problem lost and you're never Yeah, you have no
way to navigate to the true hall and I A yeah,
I mean that's kind of a nail on the coffin
right there at least.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
So anyways, he says, he he just thinks that. Unfortunately,
what happened was they ran out of fuel and they
had a digitsu.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
Yeah they were, and no one was able to find him.

Speaker 3 (52:17):
No one was able to Yeah, so that's where mysteries
leaves us. It happened to ameliaire.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
We still don't know, right, is there any update date?
We do not know.

Speaker 3 (52:27):
There is a new theory, and it actually is it's
got a little more bite to it. Okay, so I
will say I read up on this, buddy Brennan. No
one is buying into his theory.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
Okay. I had heard that theory before that she had
landed somewhere more in what you would consider at the
time in enemy territory and considered a spy.

Speaker 3 (52:51):
Or Yeah, there is that theory that he she was
considered a spy. That theory has no teeth, okay, But
there is the theory out there that she had crash landed.
So there's two theories. She crash landed on some type
of island, the Japanese did pick her up and take

(53:15):
her as a prisoner to Saipan and possibly executor. Unfortunately,
we have no evidence of that besides what this guy
said that no remains have ever been found. So let
me pull up. This is the other theory that is

(53:36):
out there. It's called I have no wrong there. It's
called the Gardner Island theory. So they is that they
crashed made an emergency landing on Gardner Island now called

(53:58):
nikamar Roo so it's part of the Phoenix Islands.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
So was it uninhabited at the time. M hmm, yeah,
that's what I remember hearing this one too.

Speaker 3 (54:14):
They think that she might have spotted that island. There's
was a and there's a reef at low tide that
she could have landed on. Interesting, okay, And that they
that her and Noonan survived for a time. And this
is the evidence that they state that there supposedly was
radio signals coming from that island at the time. And

(54:41):
this is this is evidence that comes from It's called TIGER,
the International Group of Historic Aircraft Recovery, and they've led
expeditions to this island to try to find it. But
a British colonel later said that he had found like
settlements there during the war. He'd found some type of.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
Look at people were trying to live there, of some
sty there.

Speaker 3 (55:05):
Was something debris there.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
In nineteen forty a British officer, Gerald Gallagher, found a
partial human skeleton and a woman's shoe a sexton box
on the island. The remains were analyzed in nineteen forty
one and initially thought to be male, but they re
analyzed it and it was suggested it was a Caucasian female. Okay,

(55:31):
so unfortunately we don't have those remains anymore. Yeah, and
then there was a piece of aluminum, possibly aircraft that
was found, a broken pocket knife, glass jars and one
possibly for frequo cream. I don't know, that was popular

(55:52):
in the thirties. So and then he found an area
that he thought was a campsite, charred bird and turtle bone,
suggesting humans were trying to survive there. So that is
the theory they did find.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
I mean, yeah, that's evidence that somebody tried to survive there,
or at least at one point somebody was surviving. What
the quality was, I can't tell you.

Speaker 3 (56:15):
But so unfortunately there's no conclusive proof that it was heard,
but there was a skull found, there was some evidence
found there that someone tried to survive there, and they
think that she might have landed on that reef. Then
high tide came and took that ship, took the plane away, yeah,
took it into the ocean. But they do say that
there is a reef that and low tide you could

(56:36):
have landed on. So it's too I think those are
probably your two most impossible she landed there, she died
on that island because no one came to found and
found her.

Speaker 1 (56:46):
Yeah, and.

Speaker 3 (56:49):
Or she just died to see that's it's so vast.
How are you going to find anything?

Speaker 1 (56:54):
So, guys, that's why ocean freaks me out.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
Man. Anyways, that's it. That's all I go for you.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
Okay, Well, thanks, I mean that's interesting. I always have
found Amelia Earhart's story fascinating. It's just one of those
great American mysteries. All right, are you ready to talk
about drugs?

Speaker 3 (57:17):
Yes? And the FBI.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
Drugs and the FBI this is back to a time
with the War on drugs was real going on. And
here's the thing. We're going to be in Florida in
the eighties, and everything about the re enactment is like
I thought. It was the cell phones, the pagers, like

(57:46):
the hair. Everything was awesome. Chest hair that you guys,
there was chest hair for days, ches hair. There was
chest hair everywhere. And I'm excited to tell you guys
about this story. So this is actually one of those
segments again and now again this is before America's most wanted.
So every once in a while the FBI pops on

(58:06):
over to unsolved mysteries and asks to showcase something that
they're working on. And so they're here.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
I'm here for it. Okay.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
Colombian drug traffickers have reaked havoc throughout Columbia during the
nineteen eighties. It was I'll give you this. It was
a brutal time. It was a wild time, and the
United States became a hub for the cartels to sell
cocaine and other drugs. And in order to combat these cartels,

(58:41):
the FBI decides to set up a risky sting operation
at an electronics store.

Speaker 3 (58:48):
Whoever came up with this idea genius, I am they
deserve great credit.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
Yeah, this was Yes, this was genius. The operation started
in May of nineteen eighty seven, taking place at a
electronics store called r A Communications in Miami, Florida. We're
back in Miami. Should play the Will Smith song at
this point, but I don't have the finances to get

(59:16):
rights to play Welcome to Miami. But it's a good song.
The company sold sophisticated and I'm gonna use the air quotes,
sophisticated telephone systems and electronic devices.

Speaker 3 (59:30):
This wasn't a company, This was the FBI established.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
Everything's in air quotes right now, right. Yeah. Some of
the new devices included cellular phones, car phones, and the
big gray Zach Morrison phone, right, and beepers, which beepers
kind of came on and then left and we've never really.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
These weren't the beepers from Israel too, Yeah, that we're
going to blow up.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
No, these were like, yeah, they're just beepers. So the
manager his name is Jay. We've got a receptionist Sandy.
They're both high end FBI agents. They are the top
of the top agents and they're undercover. Soon drug traffickers

(01:00:19):
start rolling into the store. And what are they looking for?

Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
Ben, Well, they got money, so they got nice cars,
they do, and they want to put a carphone in
their nice cars.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
So what is the main thing they're hoping to avoid
with telephones?

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
Wire taps?

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
They do not want to be wired tap. That would
be really inconvenient right by the FBI. So they are
interested in car phones, ship to shore radios, airplanes they
want to talk to ship They want airplane telecommunication devices.

(01:00:57):
So they also want to talk to their pilots.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
Why would they need to do that?

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
And overall they need all of these things to be
untraceable communications. I'm just going to let you guys in
on a little secret that doesn't really exist, especially at
the time of the eighties, but I bet this electronic
company told them it does exist, do right, so ak
the FBI. So these drug cartel guys, these drug lords,

(01:01:25):
basically it's their lucky day because RI Communications happens to
have the only devices that cannot be traced or infiltrated
by any sort of authority. Of course, yeah, we got
what you're looking for, over your boys.

Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
Because we already set it up for wire.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
Taps can't be tapped because it all it comes tapped, right, Yeah,
don't look.

Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
At that label. Yes we know it says property of
the US federal government. Don't look at that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
Don't look at that. That's how we keep them from
tappiness because I think we own these.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
Yeah, you make it look like if the government tries
to tap it, they seems like, oh, it's already on.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
You know, that's we made that part of But within
six months, nearly one hundred percent of the customers are
people associated with drug trafficking. This was like a light
beacon to drug traffickers. In six months. To have almost
one hundred percent of your people coming in.

Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
All you had to do is get one trafficker to
come in, and you make them all these promises. You
install it. You're supposed to show.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
That apparently these cartel members were working together or at
least communicating in some way. Right, your business doing good
means my business. There was didn't seem to be a
turf war over.

Speaker 3 (01:02:43):
There is enough cocaine, and there's enough cocaine to go around.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
Everybody's welcome, right, We're seeing the opposite of what we
see in a lot of other like turf wars where
it's like, don't be in my area. They were like,
all are welcome in Miami. Yeah. So all of the
main players, or at least the mass majority of major
players of the drug trafficking world start frequently in the store.

(01:03:08):
FBI does another genius thing. What do they offer to
these men in this position? They invite them to use
their clubhouse. You guys, this is so not only are
they selling them devices for these people to use in
their personal use, they set up a back room with

(01:03:30):
radios and phones and cell phones and couches and palm
trees and mirrors on the wall and weird shapes. Because
this is all clubhouse for VIP only customers aka drug traffickers. AKA,
it's one hundred percent being surveyed with video and wired.

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
Here's the best part, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
And these drug lords are just hanging out in this clubhouse.

Speaker 3 (01:04:02):
I can guarantee this is what happened.

Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
Uh huh.

Speaker 3 (01:04:05):
Someone came up with this idea the FBI field off.
It's like, hey man, why don't we just put up
a front electronic company and we'll install and maybe if
we can get a couple guys, drunk guys and we
can install their phones. Maybe it will lead us to
some other things. And it was a genius idea. And
then all of a sudden, all these guys said, hey,

(01:04:26):
all these traffickers were like, we love this business. It's
our favorite. And the FBI was probably like, oh my gosh,
this just turned out ten times better than what we
were expecting. Hey, why don't we just make it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
They're going to come to us instead of us having
to like go to literally.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
Using their phones at their business. That's their business. FBI
business and are conducted by.

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
Sorry, the FBI guys undercover are leaning into this. They
act as if they tell them, like, we know what
you're doing. We're going to set up these top secret
secure area go away, use it, come and go as
I imagine, there's a mini fridging there with beverages. They
are going to make this as comfortable for these men

(01:05:12):
as possible. So the clubhouse is popping. But on top
of that, the FBI agents start, they're hanging around and
these drug bloads start to like become.

Speaker 3 (01:05:31):
Buddies with them. It's awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
They freely discuss drug operations around them amongst them. With them,
they're tossing ideas off of them. They're making drug deals
using these phones. Everything is being both audio and a
coming in. One dealer by the name of Cruise even
plans on receiving one hundred kilos of cocaine in early
November on a boat with the boat's name. He all

(01:05:57):
of the information, So the FBI con the coastguard and
they seize over eight hundred pounds of cocaine. The next day,
the drug lord that's name's Cruise shows up at ri
Communications along with his bodyguards. This guy is high up,
surprisingly unaware that the boat's been seized. So j the

(01:06:19):
FBI agent is like, oh man, sorry to hear about
the boat and like the seizure of all your drugs,
and Cruise is infuriated, but instead of putting the pieces together,
he like has no clue that Jay and everyone else

(01:06:41):
is responsible for this happening, continues to conduct business as usual.

Speaker 3 (01:06:48):
At the clubhouse, they play actual footage.

Speaker 1 (01:06:52):
Yeah you see footage of this. It's insane, it's awesome.
So Fall of nineteen eighty eight, one of the tell
leaders this is where it becomes a problem, begins making
romantic advances towards Sandy, and she's the undercover female agent,
and I this sucks for her because she's a top agent.

(01:07:13):
She is a professional and in the eighties to be
an undercover FBI agent as a female, I cannot imagine
how hard she had to work to prove her worth
to be there.

Speaker 3 (01:07:24):
Well, and now you have these high end drug cartels.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
Yeah, is this what?

Speaker 3 (01:07:29):
Did they just assume they can get whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:07:32):
Whatever they want? So Sandy's physically this is a problem.
She has potential to be in grave danger. So the
FBI decides at this point they've gotten a ton of information,
they're good to go, and they decide to end operations.
December sixth, nineteen eighty eight, they bring charges against ninety

(01:07:55):
let are read drug traffickers, all of like because of
this clubhouse, the FBI is able to capture every single
one of the ninety three people minus two.

Speaker 3 (01:08:10):
That's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
Hayesus and Cruise slipped through the crack. See what I
did there? Crack because it's like crack cocaine.

Speaker 3 (01:08:21):
Get it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
I wrote that joke on my notes and was laughing
out loud at myself. Okay, their whale routes are unknown.
We're seeing pictures and they're asking for the pupil's help
to find them. And that's where it leaves us. All right,
update Cruise is later arrested. Don't have a ton of
information about that. Jesus still at large, according to Okay,

(01:08:48):
So here's my thing. I will say something is sus
because I looked and looked and looked. I looked at
dea FBI CI, I looked at anywhere you could find.
To this day, I cannot find a warrant or that
Jesus is on any sort of FBI wanted list or
has a current worn out for his arrest. It says

(01:09:08):
it on the Unsolved Mysteries website that there is that
he has a worn out for his arrest. I cannot
find documentations. His name or his photo is not on
any federal agency list.

Speaker 3 (01:09:23):
This is my theory.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
And so because of that, it makes me believe that
what my theory is.

Speaker 3 (01:09:29):
Is that probably he went back to Columbia and got
put in the ground. Yeah, and the government probably has
a pretty good idea that that's what happened to him,
but we can't say, and we're not a part of it,
and it's not here.

Speaker 1 (01:09:44):
So the only other thing I can think of, so
maybe he became an informant and.

Speaker 3 (01:09:52):
Maybe but it maybe, but there would be no need
for him nowadays. I think they probably win through the
grapevine because here's the thing. We already know the DEA,
and they had people in Colombia. We were doing operations.

Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
Kay. This was during the War on Drugs, so there
was an insane amount of.

Speaker 3 (01:10:11):
Funding of They probably got wind of what happened to them,
and you know, but you can't Unfortunately you have no
proof of so they probably just aren't even looking for him,
or they didn't even care anymore. Yeah, move on, and
it's it was the eighties. Once these guys are out
of the picture, all new guys are in the picture.
So you're worried about the people.

Speaker 1 (01:10:32):
Cocaine is still a problem, maybe not as much as
it was in the eighties, just because I here's the thing,
I don't know a lot of people that are like
into the world of cocaine in my tiny little community
here in Arizona, but it seemed to have been a
really big popular drug in the eighties and nineties. I
don't know if the demand is still there as much,

(01:10:54):
but yeah, there's still drug lords selling cocaine, is still
coming into the country from Columbia. So, yeah, you arrested
ninety something people.

Speaker 3 (01:11:03):
And they just got replaced. They just got replaced in
the next two to three months. Absolutely, and that doesn't
mean that's not to discount what they did. That's awesome.
I think it's great that they grab all those guys.

Speaker 1 (01:11:14):
You know, No, I thought the undercover I just thought
the story was fascinating.

Speaker 3 (01:11:18):
So I thought it was cool, a great operation, and hey, yeah,
so that's it, guys.

Speaker 1 (01:11:25):
That's season three, episode eight, if you'd like to stick
around now is the part of our podcast where I
asked BENI silly question and normally he doesn't have an
answer right.

Speaker 3 (01:11:37):
Answered the last couple weeks.

Speaker 1 (01:11:39):
That's because I'm calling you on the carpet.

Speaker 3 (01:11:41):
You keep trying to call me out.

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
Okay, So I thought of this the other day because
I remembered something. Have you ever failed miserably, yes, at
trying to cook a food or like a meal of

(01:12:02):
some sort, and just like had everything go wrong and
I just all fall apart and all of that work
goes to nothing. If so, what were you trying to cook?

Speaker 3 (01:12:11):
I mean, yeah, I'm I've definitely failed at cooking a meal.
I did I actually I failed a lot. What it
was last year or the year before. You were in school, right,
you were taking classes.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
Oh yeah, I started going back to school before, so
that was actually a couple of years ago. Yeah, so
I was you were super working full time, no podcast
yet and was taking night classes online and they were
hours long where you had to like be in front.

Speaker 3 (01:12:45):
Of your screen.

Speaker 1 (01:12:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:12:47):
So I took on some of the dinners. And let's
just make this very clear. Okay, Sierra is an amazing
mother and wife where she she cooks for us as
a family at least five six nights a week.

Speaker 1 (01:13:02):
I do. I enjoy. It's actually I was mourning the
loss of cooking when I went to school because that's
when I listened to a lot of my podcasts.

Speaker 3 (01:13:10):
So, yeah, I have been a very spoiled husband. And
the fact of I get a home cooked meal where
I practically do almost zero, I literally just show you afterwards, I, yes,
I did it. Is you do that? So it is
my responsibility. I clean the kitchen when you're done after
at the end of the night. So but I had

(01:13:34):
to take on some of the responsibilities happily to cook
some dinners. And here's the thing, Sierra is such a
good cook. She would send me the recipe, said, because
she would still obviously she's amazing. She would still do
the grocery shopping and say, these are the meals I
have planned. Well, I'm not a good cook. And Sierra
just looks at a recipe and knows it. And then

(01:13:56):
if she didn't have some things, she just knew how
to substitute or what to do.

Speaker 1 (01:14:02):
I like to you call you you at the time,
you were like, I didn't realize how much you church
up a recipe.

Speaker 3 (01:14:07):
Yeah, church it up. And I can't remember I was
supposed I was trying to make like this gravy of
some sort to put on an eye.

Speaker 1 (01:14:21):
I think it was haystecks.

Speaker 3 (01:14:23):
I watched it so bad because and I'm having to
read it, and a lot of times it's like, we'll
cook this for a minute, then add this. But by
the time I read and knew what I was supposed
to do, it had been five minutes. I was a mess,
and it what would take you twenty minutes, It was

(01:14:43):
taking me an hour, and I was a hot mess
trying to get dinner. And there was I think one
or two of them that you an hour gone and
it was so done. Yes, there was one where I
wish I could remember exactly what it was. But we
sat down to eat at me and the kids, and

(01:15:04):
we took some bites and I looked at them and
they're just trying to be nice to me about it,
and I said, you guys don't have to eat if
you want cyrial, like, okay, thanks, and they put it
inside and just got a bowl of cereals. So I
did not do it, but sorry, I'm going to go
along my other one funny story. I didn't botch the meal,
but I it was when we were dating.

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
I wondered if you were going to bring this story up.

Speaker 3 (01:15:28):
Yeah, so we were dating. We might have been engaged
maybe at the time my apartment. So we were engaged
at the time. I went to your apartment. You were
working late and I was going to make you dinner.
I made you tacos and I didn't botch the meal.
I made it right, but I was in your apartment
doing it. Sierra had a cat and that was the

(01:15:49):
love of her life. His name was Ramsey.

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
Ramsey. He was my first hairless cat and he like
him and I went a breakup together and like living
alone for the first time together. Yeah, he was the
love of my life at the time.

Speaker 3 (01:16:07):
So I made your dinner and as I'm getting done
with getting it ready and I'm picking you up from
work and I'm looking for your cat, I cannot find him.
I searched your apartment. It wasn't big, and.

Speaker 1 (01:16:23):
Ramsey liked to try to dart out the back door.

Speaker 3 (01:16:26):
Yes, he wanted to go outside all the time. And
I had gone out to the back out the sliding
guss door.

Speaker 1 (01:16:31):
At one point, I had two sliding I had. That
apartment was incredible. We had two sliding glass doors onto
the porch and we were on the bottom floor, which
now has a like even more true crime fanatic. I'm like,
as a female, I lived alone with humongous windows looking
into my apartment on the bottom floor. But behind it
was a wildlife preserve that had a pond. And what

(01:16:54):
were those things that lived in it. I don't know
those They're like giant rodents, newts something. Anyways, it was
an amazing thing. But yeah, Ramsey like to try to
bolt out there because he liked to sit on the
back patio and like watch the birds and all of
that stuff. But Ben did this as a surprise. I

(01:17:14):
don't think you had ever been like just alone in
my apartment hanging out, so he didn't know the ins
and outs of the rules of like the cat.

Speaker 3 (01:17:21):
So I'm looking for him. I can't find him. I
searched the place high and low, can't find him. And
I'm looking outside. I'm looking in this while I cannot find.

Speaker 1 (01:17:31):
Ben's climbed the fence and is looking in the wildlife person.

Speaker 3 (01:17:34):
In mud looking for this cat, and I'm thinking he's
run away. He's probably pissed that I was in this
apartment and his girlfriend, Sierra is gone. So I pick
her up from work. And the first thing you get
in the truck and I say, okay, I tortually understood.
What did I say?

Speaker 1 (01:17:55):
If you never want to talk to me again and
this is the end of our relationship, I totally understand.
I understand, but I can't find your cat.

Speaker 3 (01:18:04):
But I think I lost your cat. So we get
that back and did freak.

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
Out what you did? I did not, because I'm I
like I hear some thing. I knew exactly where he
probably was because he's a butt head, so and I have.

Speaker 3 (01:18:20):
Been calling him. I've been shaking trees.

Speaker 1 (01:18:21):
I'm not going to listen to you. He didn't like you.

Speaker 3 (01:18:24):
So we went back and what was supposed to be
like this nice evening where dinner because I.

Speaker 1 (01:18:31):
Love surprises, and I'll say in all honestly, my entire life,
I've not had a lot of like people ever like
go out of their way. I've never had a surprise party. Nothing.
And so Ben like tried and I worked at front
desk at a hotel. I worked until like midnight, till
the midnight like overnight laundry guy came in and so

(01:18:51):
I worked late and I was, yeah, this was a
huge romantic, like kind gesture.

Speaker 3 (01:18:58):
So we get back and I was I was me,
I'm looking for some we ate dinner.

Speaker 1 (01:19:05):
Yeah, I was a killed show up. He didn't go far.

Speaker 3 (01:19:07):
I go to put dinner away and open the cupboard
and there he is, curled up in a pot.

Speaker 1 (01:19:14):
Yeah sounds sleep happyest.

Speaker 3 (01:19:16):
Can be in a pot.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
I was so mad.

Speaker 3 (01:19:18):
But anyways, that was my two very long stories. Sorry,
all right, what about you?

Speaker 1 (01:19:25):
The biggest one that I can remember, And I don't
know why this even sticks around so much. We were
first married, living at that tiny little we moved out
of the nice apartment into a very low priced apartment
because we were broke, married college students, And I got

(01:19:47):
into my mind the same thing that like you, we
were going to school and like working, you were going
to school and working full time late, that I wanted
to make a roast dinner, like a Sunday roast with
like because your grandpa had a certain way of like
he didn't like mashed potatoes, so like I learned this
from Ben's family, that he liked these egg noodles cooked

(01:20:08):
in like the bone broth, like the roast and the
roast drippings and carrots and celery and all of this stuff.
And so I like went to like the fancy grocery
store and bought like a smaller roast because it was
just me and you and all the stuff for it.
Gone home, spent all afternoon cooking this. And we didn't

(01:20:28):
have a crockpot at the time or a pressure cooker,
so the only way to cook a roast at that
point was like eight hours in the oven. And I
spent all day cooking that thing, like cleaning and cooking
and doing all of this stuff, and I was so excited.
So you get home, the house smells amazing, like there's
no indication at any point that this is not going

(01:20:50):
to turn out how I want it to. And I
pull the roast out and it is like shrink down,
and I was like, I don't think that's how it's
supposed to be, but here we go, and then like
I start trying to cut it and it's just like leather.
It's like I'm cutting up like a piece of a
shoe or something. It was not this like our whole

(01:21:11):
lives growing up, like our moms had both cooked roast,
and my grandma cooked roast all the time. When she
made Tomali's, it like falls apart, and this is not
falling apart. And I think, bless your heart, Like both
you and I like tried to eat it and you're
like thanks, babe, and you're trying it, and I was
like I think I said the thing like will can

(01:21:34):
we just order our pizza and like chalk this up
as a loss, yeah something, and got it delivered or
went picked it up and we just both kind of laughed.
But that was like one of the first big meals
I had tried to make us as like hus we'd
been married only maybe a few weeks because we didn't
live in that apartment for crazy long and my kitchen
was time tiny. Yeah yeah, we didn't even have like

(01:21:57):
a real dining room, like our tiny little table was
in there, and I made the table and I was
so excited for this like domestic wife moment I was
having because both you and I worked full time, like
we're going to school, like we were never home and
I had this random free day and I spent the
whole day doing it and I was like, this is
my first thing, is like this wife moment, and I

(01:22:19):
failed it miserably and we both laughed and moved on.
But yeah, now I'm make dinner week and I love it. Yeah,
and that's I've always been a decent cook. So that
was like it's been a long time since I had
failed to me all that bad and it just happened
to be like one that.

Speaker 3 (01:22:37):
Was important happenings.

Speaker 1 (01:22:38):
Yeah. All right, guys, well that is everything we got
for you. So we will be back next week for
our one year anniversary, where we won't be recappying your
original capway driving a true crime, but we'll be recappying
what ben.

Speaker 3 (01:22:57):
Different, Damie Brett.

Speaker 1 (01:23:02):
Alright, bye, h

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