Reporter Gary Craig

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The Woodcliffe Hotel and Spa. Sometimesyou forgot somebody, or you're thinking,
I don't know what to get them. I don't know what to get them.
You're going to see them after theholiday, but before the New year.
Get them a Woodcliffe Hotel and SPAgift card. Very easy to do.
You can do it right on theirwebsite at Woodcliffe HOTELSPA dot com.
The spa is phenomenal, next level. Spend the day, get a treatment,

(00:24):
hang out in the Tranquility room,have a nice beverage and unwind.
Let all the holiday stress just dripfrom your body. An overnight's stay and
great winter packages as well, maybefor a future stay. And the restaurant
exceptional, great wine selection. You'regonna love it. Even live music and
a spectacular New Year's Eve party thatyou can find out more about at Woodcliffe

(00:46):
Hotel SPA dot com. From theMac of All Trade Studio in Fairport and
driven by Victor Chrysler Dots jeep Ram, It's Bilified the Bill Moran Podcast.

(01:10):
Well, hello and welcome. Thanksfor getting your pot on, thanks for
telling a friend. That's how wespread the word about the pirate ship.
Today a nice one on one andI've been excited to do this for a
while. It was always a bigfan. Gary Craig is. I'll just
read what they have in the Democratand Chronicle website. He is a member
of the Democrat and Chronicles Watchdog teamand focuses on public safety and criminal justice.

(01:34):
Has worked in Rochester newspapers since theearly nineties or nineteen ninety covering city
hall politics federal courts before joining thenewspaper's investigative team. He has won state
national investigative writing awards. He alsohas a website, Garycraig writer dot com,
and his book seven Million is aboutone of the biggest and most mysterious

(01:57):
heists of our aides, the Brinxrobbery. Here which happened? What year?
Gary? Give you the date?January fifth, nineteen ninety three.
Nineteen ninety three, Okay, soI would have been I think I had
taken a sabbatical from Saint John Fisherfor that year at the request of my
father, and then and I woundup working in radio midnight to six.

(02:22):
It was the greatest training ground ever. Yeah. I used to call payphones
and ask for the weather down inthe like the worst parts of Poughkeepsie,
That's where I grew up, madeand cherry, and it would where like
all the drug dealers and pim's hungout and they would answer the phone in
the middle of the night. Ohthat's it's so funny talking about payphones because
I used to. Yeah, Iwas still of the era where we would

(02:45):
dash in court to try to beateach other to the payphones to call the
office to break a story about it. Yeah, happened at court, right,
Sure, boy, isn't that funny? How technology is? I have
so many questions to ask you,but let's start here. How does it
all begin for you? Well,let me go with this. What did
your parents do? My mother stayedhome with the kids, and my dad

(03:09):
was both a pilot and a professionalphotographer. He did both. He was
a pilot, Yeah, he wasboth military, then he was commercial,
and then he was actually uh,then he was private corporate. Did you
move around a lot as a pilot? No? No, I mean by
the time I was the second waveof children we had. I have three
brothers, and my older brothers arethirteen and ten years older. And by

(03:34):
the time he was doing some commercialflying when I was born, and then
he went corporate and we moved toWinston Salem where Rgie Reynolds Wasn't he corporate
for them for a while, Okay? And I like to joke my two
older brothers. One it was apilot for life. He's retired out of
the other is a great photographer,does and other stuff. So I was
sort of left without anything, youknow. Yeah, but I don't have
anything left to screat. That's funnybecause my uncle was a pilot nom and

(03:58):
then was a pilot for Western Airlinesand then they got bought out by Delta,
and then he was the president ofthe union. I spend the summer
with him. He lives in ParkCity. That's great. Yeah. And
my brother was the old Southern airline, Piedmont Airlines, and they got okay,
US Airways. So you're a Southernguy. Yeah. I'm born in

(04:19):
Virginia, grew up in North Carolina, worked in Virginia, then came here.
Yeah, so that that's kind ofa is it was a culture shock
coming to the Northeast a little bit, or at least weather shock. Yeah.
The weather or the weather might havebeen more of a shock. And
but I I've acclimated. I Idon't to me, it's you know,
the cold in the snow. Don'tbother me that, I guess probably what

(04:41):
bothers me most if it's March andApril and it's still gray, and yes,
south right spring has come. Yes, let me be one thing real
quick, if you don't mind,I'm yeah. Also, wonder if I
needed to know? So? Butwere you? Did you always? I
wanted to say the way I woulddescribe you as your storyteller? You tell

(05:05):
people's stories. So was that alwayssomething inside you? It's interesting. I
love to write as a kid.I mean I wrote. I wrote for
high school newspapers and college newspapers,and edited the college newspaper one year.
And then where did you? Wherewas that? It's a small college in
northern uh and north of Richmond,Randolph Making College, which made the Division

(05:28):
three semifinals this past weekend, butthey got crushed by Courtland in football football.
Yeah, I heard Courtland. Itdid very very well. It was
ugly. But then I came outof school and and realized I wasn't going
to write the great American novel soonif ever, and and went into newspaper
in a small Farmville, Virginia,a small newspaper started there, and in

(05:51):
the in the Northern Virginia. Thenhere in the process, I actually found
that I loved the reporting almost asmuch as the writing. I loved the
not even more. Some days.I love the the interview and the ability
to meet people. I love documents. I can I can live in a
stack of documents for hours trying tofind the one seed of a news story.
So is there there's a bit ofdetective in you? Would that be

(06:14):
fair to say? I think so. I didn't. I didn't realize that
until I got in the newspaper.Uh, and the yeah, that's that's
probably safe to say. Yeah.So the plan was to be the great
American novelist. But then you youthere's clearly a passion for writing, and
clearly a passion for finding. Butyou kind of like the research and the
finding that that thing that we don'tknow very very much. I uh,

(06:42):
that's it exactly. And and andthe more you do it, especially with
documents and interviews too, but especiallywith documents, you get to the point
where I think you're able to findthat that nugget in five hundred pages without
having to read all five hundred pages. You get better at knowing well,
well, yeah, I always saywith anything, it's reps in life,
right, that's it exactly rep That'sexactly what it is. Yeah, and

(07:03):
it's the more you do it,the more you do it, the more
you do it. So what iskind Who was the biggest influence, let's
say, on you on your career. Was there anybody as you went through
that you went, well, Ireally admire what this person did. Or
I mean it could even be yourparents in terms of just being supportive and
stuff. No, I mean,yeah, the family for sure, probably

(07:26):
to be honestly, the editor atthe daily I worked with in Northern Virginia,
Craig Nesbit, who actually left newspaperoddly enough, because he, as
I recall, and this is afterI'd left him come up here and he
was working elsewhere. He was likeencouraged by the owner of a newspaper to
do a hit piece on somebody thatthe owner didn't like. And yeah,
they did all the research and wasn'tanything there. And the person was like,

(07:50):
still, yeah, that wasn't yourstaff find something dirty on this person?
And this guy, this guy wasthe most hard driving, hardcore news
or. And I think that's wherea lot of the reporting. I enjoyed
it before that, but working underCraig, he was just he was a
mentor, just hard you know,that old term newsman, but hardcore newsman.
He was that person. I justI learned so much from him and

(08:11):
found how much I really enjoyed doingit. Yeah, because it is.
It takes a lot. Because Iwas thinking, like, there's a bit
of Colombo there as you're digging throughthings, and you know, I gotta
think that maybe doing that kind ofresearch, seeing things, seeing patterns of
behavior with people, Yes, maybeyou have even helped you as a parent.

(08:33):
When your kids tried to pull oneover your it's probably best to ask
them about that. I was justtalking to our oldest daughter last night on
the phone and she was talking aboutstuff, and then I was asking a
number of probably half ear you know. Some of the questions were relevant,
some were not relevant. And shestarted laughing and she talked about her somebody

(08:54):
in her life who says, youknow, you always ask too many questions,
and she said, I got thatfrom your dad. Yeah, I
was asking questions that had nothing todo with really what we were talking about.
Yeah, but it sometimes gives youthe uh, well, it opens
people up. Yes, right,it's disarming in a way. Yeah,
And you know, in interviewing whatyou know from doing it. I mean
there is kind of an art tointerviewing and you I mean there's different interviews.

(09:18):
I mean I do actually a lotof arts reporting too, because I
enjoy it and we don't really havemuch of an art staff anymore. And
so you know, if I sitdown with like recently Danielle Ponder or somebody
else in doing interview, that's verydifferent from if I'm sitting down with somebody
who I know, you know,built you know, company X out of
hundreds of thousands of dollars. Soyou're really, you know, you're framing
each one differently. Well, yeah, I would think that you have such

(09:43):
a calm demeanor, nice way aboutyou that I would think talking to you
would be very easy. But Ialso wonder for you, and I think
I know the answer. But seeingsome of the ugly side of humanity,
right, I mean, you're seeingsometimes people at the worst, people who
have gone through really tough things.It does it give you ever change your

(10:07):
perspective on mankind humanity? Like didit change your do you distrust at all
more? Or you more let's saycautious. I'm probably more cautious. I
mean, you know that the thingof reporting is the old adage. You
know, if your mother says sheloves you, check it out. So
there's you know, so there's alwaysthat sort of level of you you're gonna

(10:28):
have to prove. How do youdo that? I don't know that.
Yeah, I don't know that.Well, we'll let me say this.
Let me ask you this. Whenyour mom says I love all of you
equally, yes, right, BecauseI have three sons, my youngest son
will always say to me, comeon, exactly, come on, dad.
You know I'm your favorite. Stayaway from that conversation. Yes,
this is the conversation you stay awayfrom. However, as a reporter,
did you ever try to kind offigure that out on your own? I

(10:50):
never know. I never did.So how many kids in your family growing
up? Well, I I lostmy parents actually at an early age.
So oh I'm sorry, Oh no, no, thank no, thank you.
I mean it's a long time ago, as I was eight years old,
but so two brothers older brothers thirteenand ten years older, and then
my parents died in a plane crash. But it's funny I still love to

(11:11):
fly, have no problem with it. And the younger brother was on the
plane too, So so I reallyfrom eight years old, I had yeah,
pretty much two older brothers. Andthe who raised you actually my oldest
brother he was you know, Iwas eight, he was twenty one.
He got married shortly thereafter, andso they had an eight year old son

(11:35):
to start with. And so yeah, so they they raised me, and
uh yeah, and yeah, Ican never be thankful enough. That's amazing.
Yeah, no, they're great.Just a dear older brother. He's
the one that flew. He's beenretired, he keeps seventy seven and he's
still training military people in flight simula. Yeah, and my uncle was doing
that too for a while. Yeahthat's a great gig. And uh so

(11:58):
yeah, so that's so. Soit's weird. I mean, it's like
what res' hearts meat answer with mymother question, I may have asked her
if yes, I'm sorry. Ididn't know what I was stepping into.
But I finally, don't worry.Don't worry. I know, I find
this very very interesting because I'm thinkingI have a son who's twenty one.
I wouldn't trust him with an eightyear old and maybe my brother at that

(12:20):
age, who knows, and wellI didn't know better. Sometimes I think
that you'll know this probably from allthe stories you've done over a lifetime.
People rise to the occasion, ohvery much. And yeah he's solid,
salt of the earth, right,wonderful person, which means that she probably
had really solid parents. Yes,yeah, I believe. I mean and

(12:43):
in my middle brother, I saymiddle because of the three of us,
it's sort of the family or helives lives in Costa Rican now the family
archivest and he's constantly sending me oldphotos and history of stuff that I don't
really remember sure my age. Yeahwow, yeah so that's yeah, so
that yeah, so that's and it'sagainst something I don't mind talking about.

(13:03):
If it comes up in conversation,I talk about it, but it's not
something by the way. Yeah,no, no, this is something that
did you mind if I ask morequestions? Because I really find something like
that really forges who you are?Does that make you more independent? Like
you're kind of on your own?Like at twenty one, now you're gonna

(13:26):
raise your and I obviously everything workedout right, twenty one year old brothers
raising you but that's not mom anddad to guide. It's not dad playing
in the backyard. There are certainthings you just I guess you intuitively know
you become a parent. It's almostlike intuitive it's a different it's a different

(13:46):
thing than probably you're still my youngerbrother and you annoy me, right,
and then not that your kids don'tannoy you, that's not but it's a
different and uh, I mean whereyou kind of on your own, is
that what made you this this guywho goes and finds answers to things.
Because yet you'll only really had youto rew eye on to figure it out.

(14:09):
That's a good question. I thinkit did breed independence. But at
the same time, I think,yeah, my brother and sister in law
were as solid as parents from dayone of having to take me, and
they didn't have to. They choseto take me in as has you know,
I'd been their own child. Yearlater in life. Sure, I

(14:30):
mean my brother started, I meanhe was flying for the airlines and it's
early twenty. He was always veryhe was he was teaching flying when,
you know, because he learned frommy dad teaching flying when he was probably
twenty. And then a couple ofyears later, he was already with the
airlines, so he was already ona very sort of professional adult route,
right, right, And so Ithink there is that probably that independence which

(14:52):
which I thought about, do youmam a good point that I think comes
from that. But at the sametime, I wasn't really alone, and
I still had a very solid familialstructure, yes, right, and people
you could count on and be there. And you know, there's a lot
of bumps and things that happened growingup that's inevitable. I mean, you
know, that's a it's a youknow, it's clearly a tragic situation and

(15:13):
your nerves are a frayed in theoutset, but you sort of and again
this is from an eight year oldmemory. Yeah, yeah, sure,
you push the wood and then itbecame really a fairly I think typical life
from there on. Yeah. Sothat's that's an impressive I f I I.
I don't know, there's something aboutthat that I find uh comforting in

(15:33):
a way, that that family comestogether, that you're you're an eight year
old boy, you're you're lost andyou lost your younger brother. That that
is chaotic. I don't know how, you know, just to even get
through that, and then to betwenty one and trying to cope with it
yourself, and now I'm going toguide you along the way. That's pretty
may downside. And I get remindedof us sometimes from people because because I

(15:56):
did, I think, because Ihad such a solid sort of landing spot
of land on is I am notas sympathetic sometimes as I probably should be
to people who have had similar eventsin their life and have gone off the
rails. Yes, right, right, right right, Yes, I do
understand that. And I've had peopletell me, I mean, including my
own children, like Dad, youknow you were you were really lucky,

(16:17):
you know, you really had thatthat foundation you had when this happened to
you, and not everybody had that, And so I've been trying to be
better about that even at this age. That's interesting because I always think,
I mean, you're right, right, you can go two paths, yes,
right, some people can't cope atall. Drugs, you try to
escape, right, and then whoknows, you go off the rails exactly
exactly. And then the other isthat you kind of got this inner guidance

(16:41):
system. And I always think,intuitively, we know, oh yeah,
I don't I mean, I reallydo. I really believe that all of
us know and if you want tocall it your soul, if you believe
in God or whatever, and well, I can't. I wake up every
day and I go, there's gotto be a I are intelligence somewhere,
because I often thought about did Irotate the earth properly this morning to make

(17:04):
it? You know what I mean? It's still hanging out there, the
moon, the sun's up, youknow, maybe it's cloudy, but I
that I mean those things so tome, and I always go, there's
something in there that we know,we just know, and uh, hopefully
you listen to that and don't anddon't and don't let anybody put out that

(17:25):
fire. You know. Oh yeah, that's a great way to put it.
I mean, because there will bea lot of people that, you
know, whether it's a professional,personal, emotional, want to you know,
squelch the fire. Well, it'ssomething that I always say to people.
If you have an idea, don'tdon't tell anybody. And I would
always try to use the the BiblicalAnd I think my father, who has

(17:48):
a doctor in philosophy, gets annoyeda little bit when I say this,
but because he says, I quoteit wrong from the Bible, but when
Jesus would heal people, we wouldsay go forth and tell no one.
And the thinking behind them, inmy mind is because if you came in
here and go, hey, Imet Jesus and he cured me, and
I'll go, oh, you know, Gary, I mean some people,
it comes back in about two weeksand you know what I mean. And

(18:11):
so then the doubt comes in yourhead. And it was funny because my
mom just had hip replacement surgery yesterdayand she's already up and walking. She
calls me last night and said,you know, somebody was telling me that
the guy in the condo across theway had the same surgery and it's taken
him. Oh he's been in somuch pain for three weeks. And I

(18:32):
said, that's why you just don'tlisten, because if you do, it's
the doubt no matter what it isin life, you know, And I
think for you to just I'm sureyou had people go oh, Gary,
I'm so sorry, like when you'rea little boy, and how are you
going to do it? And youcould really go one of two ways.
No, that's very true, andagain, a lot of it is a

(18:52):
blur. I mean I can't really. I mean I can remember some of
the day it happened, and butlike you know, I was out of
school for probably two weeks. Ican tell you nothing about what it was
like going back to school. Ihave no recollection of that whatsoever. Sometimes
that's protective in the right way.And then I also think like a lot
of times, you know, eventslike that, they they can change the

(19:17):
course of your life. But todayis today, right, Today is today,
and we have to remember the presentmoment and that happened then, and
it shouldn't it does since the memory, but we bring that with us.
Yes, we don't have to knowexactly the idea of put it down or
as some people say, let goand like god and you know that that

(19:40):
kind of thing that that's what itmeans. Great words, not easy,
But I always believe that's the realpractice. Oh I'm not real practice for
these very reasons. I'm not onethat's big on excuse making. I mean,
it's not that I don't accept whenpeople you have something falls, it
goes awry and they have early reasons. But if it's if it's a t
friend in life. Did you everwatch Justified? The show Justified. No

(20:03):
I didn't. This is getting offtrack, but no, no, no,
I still love it's one of thegreat I highly recommend FAX start the
first season. It's amazing. It'sabout a federal marshal and he there's you
know, arrest this guy one dayor he's taking him and I forgot maybe
it's some warrant he's got to bestill arrest him and the guy's complaining he's
taking him in the guy's complaining aboutyou know, all these people that rubbed

(20:23):
him the wrong way during the dayand all I'm paraphrase, but basically,
you know the marshal, the RaylenGibbons character system. You know, if
you wake up in the morning andyou have a bad encounter with somebody,
that person could be the asshole.If your whole day is bad encounters,
you're the asshole. And it's justand I just you know they're there.
That's I have a hard time withpeople who constantly find bad rationales to do

(20:47):
bad things. Yep, they thinkit's good rational but yes, and getting
off track and no, no,you're you're kinda not. Because this goes
right to something I say often andI try to tell even my sons.
This is that. It's momentum.So if I get up in the morning
and I stub my toe, God, yes and right, and then then
I go from there and let's say, all of a sudden, I drop

(21:11):
my toothbrush in the toilet, andit's all these minor things. And then
I'm driving to work and I'm bam, I hit a deer. And I
know this sounds completely freaky, butI believe you did that. You did
that. Your brain's a magnet.You did that. You're on this wavelength
of of shitty things. Yes,and if you you control that. And
we don't want to believe it.We want to react to everybody else and

(21:33):
blame everybody else. And the showsounds amazing because I'm a big believer in
you can justify it. But butyou know it's a great I can't.
All you do is argue for yourlimitations, right, That's it. You
know. With the work I do, I hear a lot of people rationalizing.

(21:56):
I'm sure is there any stories overthe years, So you wrote for
the Democrat and Chronicle. You comefrom Virginia right then to hear and then
this is where life kind of you'vedecided to stay you're gonna make your home.
Yeah, we have yeah, yeah, And it was also The Rochester
at the time, I mean hadthe morning paper in the afternoon paper,

(22:18):
which I was not. I guessI was somewhat familiar with it. I
don't remember in New York City whichone came out in the afternoon, but
I was actually in the Poughkeepsie area. But I remember my family the all
tabloids were the big thing because theywere easy to read on the train and
the subway and all that stuff.But yeah, I remember when the afternoon

(22:40):
paper went away, Yes, Iremember it. It was a really weird
story, real quickly. Yes,So nineteen ninety two they merged the staffs
the TU the Times Union of theevening paper continued to exist until ninety seven,
I think, but it was basicallyit was almost like the web.
We would update news during the day, but it was large would have been

(23:00):
in the DNC in the morning.But we had a major, major party
in ninety seven at High Falls upstairsconference space, and I forgot the name
of the restaurant that was the firstone there that was really good on the
lower level. And we had becausethe Ta the Rochester was once the headquarters
of Gannet. So we had corporateleaders coming from all over the country right

(23:21):
for this party, and we gotwe rented a coffin from Arleans, the
costume shop, and I layered itwith historical tears because you know the TU
when the pullups were for Attica coverageand seventy one. But so, good
friend Greg Levadis and I picked upthe coffin from I think it was Arlene's.
I think they probably had fake coffins. And to get to the upper

(23:42):
space, we had to go throughthe downstairs outdoor restaurant and it was it
was a beautiful sunny day and everybodywas eating outside and we basically carrying this
what looks like a real coffin rightbetween all of them and winding up the
stairs. It gets it away exactly. We didn't we did, of course,
we just played along. We didn'ttell anybody was Yeah, ninety seven

(24:04):
I think was the final TU edition. Okay, now let's talk about some
of your the stories you've covered.I'm sure you've met interesting people. You
did the whole Axe murder one.Now I'm only familiar with the current version
of the stories, but you dida lot of investigating on that when you

(24:26):
do these stories, sometimes you willmeet someone who is i'll call them a
survivor, or we'll call them asurvivor. Do you ever stay in contact
over the years or check back juston a on a human level, just
because you kind of I can't imagineyou don't get somewhat invested. No,

(24:47):
that's very true. There there aredefinitely some that I do. It's it's
rare, to be honest, okay, because it's just I sadly there's so
many of them. But there's beenthe late Audrey Smith, who founded Families
and Friends of what was then Familiesand Friends of Murdered Children. Was the
original name with the last bad youknow, not the last but you know

(25:10):
what was the record setting homicide yearin Rochester until we had the most recent
which I guess I think it wasninety one, or it may have been
ninety three actually, And she foundedthat after losing her son, and I
became good friends with Audrey. Shedied a number of years ago, as
well as members of that group.I was often at their meetings, and
there are you know a number ofyou know, people who've lost folks.
I stay in touch with her,you know, or they'll they'll they'll reach

(25:32):
out to me and just throw emailor whatever and we'll catch up. But
yeah, because I mean, youdo a lot what what stories over the
years when you when you think backon a career that how many years would
you say we'll go on? Imean, if I go back, I'm
forty forty two years and forty twoyears okay, So is there anyone that
kind of jumps off the page inyour memory? You know, it's really

(25:55):
weird. I mean I've done Uh, it was funny because I just threw
through a pile of newspapers this morning, because I've forgotten much more than I
remember, and still to this day. My favorite story I've ever worked on
was actually my last. I wasdoing an investigative series with the Northern Virginia
paper. I worked for the smallest, smaller newspaper or small news. We

(26:15):
were not the smallest. And youtry to condense this very much. It
was about electromagnetic pulse testing by theArmy in a Northern Virginia base. And
so what electromagnetic pulse is. Ifyou see the day after some of those
nuclear holocaust movies, the nuclear bombitself as part of its fallouts sets off,

(26:36):
what's this electromagnetic pulse or may notbe and what that cripples electronics?
Everywhere they found this out I thinkin the well they probably knew to a
agree, but they really found outin the fifties with over above ground testing
in Hawaii. Before they shut thatdown at they just stop lights, everything
went dead, you know, yourradios, everything just stopped. And so
in northern Virginia they had this basewhere they would football size zappers basically the

(27:02):
length of football, and what theywould do because they couldn't do real nuclear
testing anymore, and they would bringeverything from tanks to transistor radios and they
would try to mimic with this bigpiece of equipment what electromagnetic pulses like,
and they would zap them and thenthey would quote harden the wiring the circuitry
to a point where it would survivethe electroc with the ideas it would survive.

(27:23):
Okay, so we can still communicateexactly the tanks will roll and everything.
Yeah. Well, the problem was, as well as zapping horizontally,
some of this power goes upward andsome of the army officials discovered that it
was it could disrupt what are knownflight is flight by wire aircraft with a

(27:45):
lot of commercial arc and it wasright in the flight corridor for what was
then National and what is now ReaganAirport. And they, a number of
them tried their darn just to keepthis secret. You know. Basically,
they had environmental tests, said hey, you got to be concerned, and
and through some whistle blowers we gotwhen I talk about I literally had which
were later stolen from my car afterI moved to Rochester, which is a

(28:07):
whole other story. But thousands ofpages of documents about this from whistleblowers and
freedom of information request everything, andI spent six months on this. It
was it was just a blast.It's still my favorite. Let me talk
about sort of detective Yeah, detectivework. I mean that's really what is
So as we're talking, more andmore questions are coming up in my mind.

(28:27):
But when you cover a story likethat and you've got whistle blowers coming
to you, do you ever havesomebody go come to you and say,
hey, cut it out, weneed to or or stop or any kind
of threat in any way. Iknow, you know, it's funny because
I've dealt with a lot of youknow, quote bad people in my life,

(28:47):
and you know, people who committedcrimes, yeah, serial killers,
h you know, former mobsters,et cetera. And I've never in people.
I whenever I do a talk atplaces, one of the questions afterly
comes up, if you've ever beenafraid? And I've actually had, And
I think because I try to befair with them, and you know,
but I'm still going to call themout for what they did or may have
done. And but no, Ireally have never. I think. I

(29:12):
think there's only one time in mycareer where I walked into a situation and
I felt I didn't really think thisout, which was was I was going
into the house of a guy whohad come out of prison for a I
don't think he got the murder charge. I forgot he got out earlier and
had incriminated somebody else who had donetwenty five years that might not have done

(29:33):
it. And this is pre cellphone and everything. I found the guy.
I was going into his house andknocking those doors coming in. You
know, this guy may not wantto really tell me the story. And
I've told nobody where I'm going.You know, I told my wife,
I'm going to do an interview asa nighttime interview, And so I walked
into the door as pre cell phone, and I remember just as I walked
in, said yeah, just let'sbe safer. So I asked a guy,

(29:53):
can I use your phone? Saysyeah. I called the office the
desk and said, hey, Iknow you guys might be look in form
me for something later. So ifyou need me, you know, here's
the phone number to call me.Okay. And that's the only time I
think I've ever really sort of walkedinto a situation and said, this is
a little unnerving. Did you getthe information we're looking for from the now?
He? I mean, and itmay I don't know what the truth

(30:15):
is. I know the guy,the guy came out of prison that I'm
actually still in touch with him andhis wife. This fellow who came out
of prison after twenty five years,Uh, we still keep in touch for
you know, he made he wasparole and he maintains his innocence in this
murder. And there was a lotof evidence that he didn't do it.
Uh, but he I mean,actually, I mean our stories. He

(30:36):
went to his first parole bid andthis was back but you know, when
you really didn't get parole on yourfirst bid on a murder and he used
stories that we'd done, which raidersreal questions about the cops from that era
and other convictions they've been involved withwere bad convictions, and they released him
on his first parole bid. Doyou ever see the uh, the justice
system get it wrong? Oh?Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean

(31:00):
I think and I I am ahuge support of our justice system. Yeah,
I think it's more often than notgets it right. I agree with
more often than not, I wouldagree with that, but but there are
times when it gets it wrong,and and more often than not, it's
just it's it's it's not so muchthat the system goes awry, whether the
statutes or whatever. That can happentoo, it's more it's human error.

(31:21):
You get people that get myopic andthey just get you know, they get
centered on them. They they're surethey know what happened right, and then
sometimes to reverse that, it's it'salmost trying to move egos. I would
assume, Oh, yes, yeah, I think very much. Yeah,
which is who nobody wants to admitbeing wrong. No, exactly. I
mean that's the thing. I mean, I've done a number of I mean
not done dozens, but you know, a number of wrongful conviction stories through

(31:44):
the years, and and it's it'stough too, because the families of those
who've been convinced that they knew whokilled their loved one, yes, and
they find out five, ten,some cases twenty years later they were wrong.
Those same egos that have the investmentin the wrongful conviction, it typically

(32:06):
convince those people, you know thatthey got it right too. Yeah,
And it's really that's tough when yousee them sort of battling that, Oh
my gosh, you know, yes, you're wrong all these years, yes,
right, that is I mean,it's funny. Has anything changed your
belief? Did you ever do anythingdifferently after a story that you did?
You know? I mean I alwaysthink a belief is just a thought we

(32:27):
think over and over and over again. Right, So along the lines of
what you just said, I've thoughtfor years, over and over and over
again, this person was the personthat can committed the murder or the crime.
And then I find out that it'sthis And it's hard to change that
sometimes. But I mean, Ithink through the years, it's probably not
one instance. Through the years,you know, Yeah, you learn more

(32:51):
and more as you're doing it.To be skeptical, not cynical, but
skeptical. I think there's a realdifference there. And so and I go,
I mean there's some in the professionwho will I think they know the
answers right away. They'll see somethingand whether it's the conspiracy theory or whether
it's this or that, and they'lljump to the conclusion and hope they get
the facts that lead them there.They may or they may not. I

(33:12):
I completely go backwards from that.I don't make any decisions right earlier,
often even until near the end reporting. So talk to me then about your
thoughts on I would I guess thestate of journalism today, and well,
you know, we've got social media. I would think that x or Twitter
to me is more where I wouldfind news, where the other stuff is

(33:37):
more. I guess we could callit a news feed on Facebook, but
it's filled with you know, moreopinion right right and Twitter X Twitter,
I mean ex Twitter or whatever.The You still have to sort you know,
and know what's reliable and what's notwhen you're thinking to something. And

(33:58):
it has I think admittedly gotten worseunder Musk but uh okay, but it
But you know, I think withall of them, you have to weather
and it's even its your daily media, you know. And that's the problem
now, I think is it's aweird dichotomy where we have far more choices
than we ever have, but peoplefind their silos, their ideological silos or

(34:21):
whatever, and they just and allit does is just solidify their beliefs and
they don't look outside of it.Right, right, I'm looking from like
minded people to support my point ofview and exactly and tell me I'm right,
yes, exactly that. And Ialways think that the world has gone
from uh, conversation, open mindin his dialogue to uh, you're dead
fucking wrong. Yeah, And Ithink that's the trouble. Oh it is,

(34:43):
I mean, you know, it'sit's it's a weird look back.
You know. Greg Popovia is thegreat coach of the San Antonio Spurs.
You recently stopped the game when theywere booing Kawhi Leonard, who plays for
the Clippers and used to play forthe Spurs and won them one of their
championship banners. And later he pointedout, you know, he said,
you know, five years ago KawhiLeonard came of this building and the fans
cheered him because they knew what he'ddone for this franchise. And now there

(35:07):
has been this kind of this shifttoward meanness at all. That's just really
bothersome. Yeah it is. ButI also I'll ask you this because it's
something that gets tossed around a lot, and I don't know if it's a
fully understood concept or not. Freedomof speech, yes, you know,

(35:29):
when you see things and it becamea very popular term. It seems to
be the pendulum maybe swinging slightly back, but the cancel culture that we had,
and people say, well, freedomof speech, Well, you know,
private organizations do not have to supportbecause they get advertising dollars that what
you say or what you do.Now we're starting to see things and I

(35:52):
think freedom of speech, in myopinion, is ugly. It can be
ugly because it can be along thelines of what you said. People find
their silos, yes, and theywant their beliefs. Now someone speaking out
something I don't like, well Idon't like that, yes, but that's
what freedom of speech is. AndI'm watching the stuff that's happening on college

(36:15):
campuses with the Palestinian thing, andI think we just had one pro Palestinian
rally on the U of R campusthat led to some violence. Yes,
I mean, I'm just seeing thestory too. I am as well.
But my only concern when I seenow presidents and a lot of influences at

(36:35):
Ivy League schools. Look, Idon't like some of the Hummas things.
It was awful, some of themost horrible, inhumane things I've ever seen.
And yet at the same time,I go, but that's what freedom
of speech is, if we're goingto speak and assemble peacefully and make our
points. And sometimes I feel likeon college campus is that's where ideas should

(37:00):
be exchanged and opened up and dialoguediscussion. But we don't do that.
And I think that the dialogue partis I mean, it's it's bothersome to
me on all sides of the spectrumwhere I mean, are there some people
college campuses probably shouldn't have come speakingif you have like a Holocaust buyer,
you know, but there are somewho aren't that far that they're going to

(37:21):
be. But then again, alot of times some of these we could
go back to the private institution.We have guidelines and standards by which we
cannot you know, we don't supportideologically, but we will allow you to
whatever I don't. I mean,you know you of ours a private college
exactly, so you know, Ialways think I've always said to people,
look if you if you agree towalk in the door, let's say,

(37:45):
of a church, and this iswhat they believe, well, then you're
playing by the rules. If youdon't want to, don't be part of
that. And that's I get annoyed, I admit with and some of my
friends on both sides of the wouldprobably disagree with me here, but we're
where and it's happened on college campuseswhere a speaker will come, a speaker
will be controversial, and people justshout him or her down. It's like

(38:07):
if there's a Q and a question, ask pointed questions, right, you
listen. You don't have to agreewith it. I mean, as you
said, you know you're walking tothe church or you know, probably going
in what you're going to disagree withabout this person. This idea of just
like shouting people down is just well, I that's a very good point.
I think that we don't have discussions, and I often think around race,

(38:32):
for example, the idea is alwayswe need to have a discussion. Okay,
Well then let's have the discussion,but we don't because it's either too
hard, too ugly. But butthat it seems like the world has moved
away. And I don't know ifthat's a social media in terms of calm

(38:53):
exchange of ideas. You know,it's really interesting to talk race because I
am from the South, and Iwent to bust integrated schools and and then
I'm not saying there was there wasabundant racism in the South and that sadly
hasn't changed in some quarters. Butwhat's what's interesting is I found more of

(39:15):
a willingness. And actually I meanand this has happened with me moving north
because a lot of like through familiesand friends, they were at the beginners,
typically all black women who lost theirchildren and and a lot of them
had come up from the Great Migration. They were older than I maybe by
twenty years, and had moved fromthe South. And I don't know,
I don't know what. I don'tknow if it's the Southern thing or what.

(39:37):
But I always found it much easierto discuss race. Then it seems
to be having moved to the northeast. If that makes sense, right,
Yeah, no, it does.It makes perfect sense because yeah, well
I think a lot of the timesthe North was always like, wasn't us
Well, no, I think that'sit. Yeah, really too. I

(39:57):
know that sounds maybe simplistic and dumb, but I always think that wasn't our
fault. And yet at the sametime, well, it's a great trauma
on a race of people that Ithink will take five hundred years to figure
out. Oh if that, ifwe know, if we can stop from
finding new ways, do you continueto continue that? But I was only

(40:19):
using racist terms of the idea ofhaving the discussion, whether it be politics
or anything. We don't know,we really we really don't. I mean,
and it's wasn't it was it?Uh? Who was the Speaker of
the House under Reagan? Yeah,it's a big Irish but you know,
you had two people on the othersides that seemed to have some kind of

(40:40):
discourse that has has left. AndI would think also, terms like fake
journalism, fake news have got tohurt Oh the very thing you do.
Yeah, no, it does.And it's just you know, it's such
nonsense. Most of the time.I mean, there is truly bad news
and fake news and tilted news,but most of the people I know in

(41:01):
the profession work really hard to getit right, you know. I mean
we come in with our biases andall, and and for me that probably
dictates more of what I opt tocover than actually what the story is when
I've completed it or as I'm reportingit. But most people I know really
really try hard to get it right. Yeah, I believe that. I

(41:21):
mean having spent some time at anews station. You know, I did
the news in the morning on anAM station. I didn't I didn't write
it. I just read it,but I watched the guy who put it
together really try very hard to makesure it was correct exactly and not rush
to judgment. Not that. AndI think sometimes now it's it's a foot

(41:43):
race, right, I think who'sgoing to get it first? But just
because you had it first, LikeI always think that that it was a
ridiculous idea of for example, inradio and some big artists was coming to
town. Oh we got to getthe exclusive, we got to get the
exclusive. Well, nobody gives youshit if you had the exclusive. Just
do the better interview, do thebetter conversation. So true, to stop

(42:04):
this idea just because that person hasthem, doesn't. Yes, people may
go, Yeah, they're gonna golisten. When they come to yours,
they're gonna come listen exactly if they'refans of the person, that's why you're
having them in do the Better interview. Stop with this, you know it's
so it's and after man. II'm because it is part of the profession
where it's like, oh I gotthe school, yeah I got it first

(42:27):
and yes, but but you're rightat the end of the day, especially
with social media, where you knowyou put it online as somebody else is
going to repeat it twenty seconds later, so who's going to know. But
it is one of the things Ilearned through the years. If I if
I get beaten on a story that'sin my Bailey Wick and I feel,
oh, man, I'm I'm gonnago out and beat the heck out of
it the second day and do itfar. But it's my goal. Whether

(42:47):
it's acceedar's not another story. ButI'm gonna try to make sure that if
it's a story, I think theonly person you're competing with is you.
It is true, I mean,and I know that it's it's hard not
to write. I mean, youwatch I love documentaries and things I was
a big fan of the Last Dancewith about the Chicago Bulls. I think
I've watched that gary maybe three orfour times. My youngest daughter and I

(43:10):
and she that was they She camehome during Both daughters came home during COVID
actual because they can work remote,and that was our Sunday night view,
and she and I would watch theLast Dance, Yes so, and in
that Jordan would make things up inhis head about people who did him wrong.
Exactly. It's a very human thing, but the only person he's really

(43:31):
competing against is himself. Nobody canreally do anything to you. And the
crazy thing with Jordan and I'm fromNorth Carolina. I'm a huge Carolina basketball
fan, have been since I waseight. He gives his Hall of Fame
speech and it's still like that.He's still beating people up in his Hall
of Fame speech, which in away I went, Okay, at least

(43:52):
you're tried and true right through.Exactly, this is the character. There
is no there's no soft soaping,there's no faith, there's no fake that
how fake? The high school coachthat decided I wasn't ready for the varsity,
Yeah yeah, come on, howconcerned, are you when when we
talk about things with AI and deepfakes in terms of news, very concerned.

(44:13):
I'm very concerned. I mean,I'm concerned about our company using it,
you know AI. I mean,I think we've seen their their denying.
I think we've seen instances with Connettefalling back on just some you know,
some AI scripted you know, sportsstuff or something. OK, it's
just I mean, and it's allwell, I guess there's different ways.
There's the deep fake stuff with politicalads and things like that, which really
yeah, anything I see on Twitternow, even if something like oh I

(44:36):
agree with that one hundred percent,I check it twenty times down before I
would ever put it back out again. And the AI sort of constructed journalism.
What bothers me is I think,you know it's going to be something
and maybe you know, this teamplayed that team. It's going to get
the fact straight, et cetera,et cetera. But you're you're losing.
You know, we're our great styal, we got great Bills reporters st before,

(45:00):
I'm our high school reporters. Theybring something different to their writing.
It's not going to show up inthat. I agree with you now I
have used chat GPT, I haven'thow I'm curious yet, flowery, I
would say in terms of writing somethings now, I would do it for
more ideas, starters and things.I talked to a New York Times reporter

(45:22):
who said that they used it,but used it maybe for a better way
to turn a phrase or an ideastarter, which I thought, Yeah,
I kind of like it for that, but anything beyond that. I agree
with you. There's something about there'ssomething about you that you bring to your
writing that people enjoy. Yes,I mean this doesn't happen phrase, it's

(45:45):
really I mean, if you're talkingabout using it for uses like that,
it's really nothing different than using nothingstars exactly. I should have used that
word in say yes right, yeah, I mean has your job gotten easier
or harder with technology? Both?By mean you know, the ability to
look up court documents and documents withouthaving to constantly, though I'd still like

(46:05):
going to the court just because it'smore fun. The problem is that the
workplace, the demands that are onyou because you know, they want your
social media output. You know,yes, some people want me to do
Instagram. I don't do Instagram personally. I mean I should I probably should.
I, well, I do itbecause my Facebook goes to Instagram automatically.
OK. But you know, andit's this constant sort of we should

(46:27):
be doing this, we should bedoing that. And we have a significantly
smaller staff than when I started.And you know, so now you're writing
your headlines. You're worried about makingyour headline something that will be attractive to
Google, so you'll get the betteralgorithms and you'll move up. And it's
just the you know, the abilityto sit down and like, I'm just
going to spend the next three hoursjust writing a damn story. It seems
like there's constantly because the technology somethingpully to me, Yeah, some other

(46:52):
little thing right now? You knownow because like you know, now,
can you can you write your yourheadline for your story? We're not going
to use it, but can youwrite your headline for your story before you
started the story, because you know, we have an editor so and so
and other places in the country thatmight want to use it so they can
see it. It's just this constantsort of swirl of technology just you know,
and we're always changing how we're usingit seems like every week, and

(47:14):
it's just this constant just leave mealone and let me write my story.
Yeah, really happens. It's funnybecause you know, spending thirty years in
or plus in radio, and yousaw technological changes. And when I was
last on radio, I was doingeighty stations around the country. I was

(47:36):
doing the morning stuff, midday stuff, afternoon and then you know your day.
Just you're right, it was moreand more and more because there's less
and less and less. So theyput you up. But I always thought,
and I would curious if you werelike this as well, that I
rented space for them and hung outmy shingle. It was my shop.

(47:57):
I'd much did the chagrin of someof my Yeah. Yeah, And I
feel like that's the only way I'lluse the term win. Is the only
way you win, because you know, all this idea of hey, Gary,
we need some social media posts overhere, and how about the headline
because they needed in Wichita, andyou know all this other stuff becomes like,

(48:19):
well, you've got to be yourown independent person more or less.
And I would even think for you, Gary, I think it would be
fascinating if you could get someone tojust like if you could almost hire a
young kid to just follow you andjust document your day. That's a social
media dream. You know. It'sfunny you say that I tell young reporters

(48:42):
to do something that I really wishI had done, because I admittedly,
I mean, I was looking atstories today. I remember and do you
remember Long Island Alita Amy Fishery?Oh? Yeah, so I have a
crazy story with her, you do, which I completely forgot until I was
going through old news. Wait,I gotta hear this. So I mean
a lot of but the thing is, I've forgotten so damn any of them.
Yeah, And I tell young reportersstarted journal, it's you know,
there's you're going to have your articles. But the articles are one fifth of

(49:07):
what I has time for the journal. Now that's the problem. That's the
problem. It is, it reallyis. It's unfortunate that sometimes I wish
we could take a step back andnot be trying to rush so much because
there is so much rich to death. That's a great idea, and I
wish I had because I mean,I you know the great you know,
late comedian Dick Gregory of the AfricanAmerican comedian. I was I was going

(49:30):
through there's newspapers, dot com andonline where you can go back through old
DNC and hundreds of other papers.I interviewed Dick Gregory. I had no
recollection of that. I know itwas by phone, but I just came
across the story where I interviewed DickGregory was to speak. I have no
recollection of that whatsoever. Okay,So Dick Gregory is somebody. Let's say,
I'm fifty two. I don't knowthat I ever really saw it sixty

(49:53):
four and so I never saw him, but I i he was you know,
I'm a huge comedy fan. Yeah, so he was a legend,
and he was more political. AndI would say I often think today that
the philosophers of the world are thecomedians. I think there's something some not

(50:15):
everybody, but I believe you becomea comedian in my mind because you want
to say whatever you want to saywhatever you want, and you don't want
anybody to tell you you can't,right. I mean, you know,
whether it's the politics of Dick Gregoryor I mean, I don't know.
If you listen to Nate BARGATSI,yes, I mean it's just slice of
life. Yes, it is SliceLife. He's great and he's a Southern

(50:37):
guy. I just love the guy. I stumbled on him like a year
ago. He's hilarious, hilarious,But I was thinking of like Chappelle to
me, to me, you know, Chappelle isn't here if we don't have
a Dick Gregory. Oh yes itis. It's the natural lineans. And
I always feel like Dick Gregory wasbrilliant, like in an overused term,

(50:59):
I think brilliant, and we saythat too often about people, but he
really is or was. And Ithink that there are guys like Lenny Bruce
who get more attention than that DickGregory. And I don't know if that's
because somebody's got more melawtnin than theother person. I don't know. It
could it could be because we don'twant to hear the uppity black guy telling

(51:20):
us all the things that are wrong. In sort of the connective tissue between
Gregory and Chappelle is how amazing Priorwas. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Prior was as well. And Ialways loved the Eddie Murphy story where Cosby
had called him up and said,you never heard of this, all right,
so Eddie Murphy, you know,Edie, Eddie explodes on the scene
and when I look back at EddieMurphy's career and he's on Saturday Night Live

(51:45):
at nineteen years old. I guessit is because I sit here at my
age now and I go, doyou realize how poised you have to be?
I was. I could never havepulled that off. I would have
been two weeks I had over animated. No one would want to watch that.
He was fantastic, I mean justin himself. But when he did

(52:07):
his stand up and I loved Deliriousas a child because it was so dirty
but so funny. And I thinkBill took his kids to see it,
and he said he gets a callfrom Cosby and he does the Cosby impression,
saying basically, you know, whydo he got to use those words
and things and and and Bill priorto everything we knew. I always think

(52:29):
I have a big theory of overcompensation, you know, like if I
see Ellen dancing a lot on hershow, I go, bet she doesn't
do that in real life exactly,you know. But Bill Cosby was America's
dad. He was telling people,who's telling African Americans pull up your pants?
Speak of right? All this stuffand really rubbed some people the wrong
way. But he had called EddieMurphy and said, you know, you

(52:51):
need to clean it up. Andthen he said, Richard Pryor, and
again I'm paraphrasing, you could findit. He goes, Richard Prior calls
and goes, damn fuck Bill CosbyMan, you do it, Yeah,
something to that effect. And itwas. It was funny. And you
know, I'm big Richard Pryor fanas well. You know, I always
think that Live on the Sunset Stripmay be the best live comedy that you

(53:14):
could watch. If you go backand watch it, it's just it's good.
It's so good, and it's soso much of him at that point.
You know, you could see aman at at a stage in life
who had lived a life that waspretty interesting, growing up in a brothel
and you know all this stuff.Can you talk about sort of your Murphy
And you know this he was doingit in the comedy clubs Chappelle. But

(53:37):
if you because I remember John Stewart, I think when Chappelle was getting the
Mark Twain price saying, you knowhe saw him at like age seventeen in
a New York City comedy club andhe was already like fully formed. Yeah,
hilarious. Yeah, it's interesting howsome people can just just intuitively have
it. It's it's a wonderful gift. I mean to me, humor is
a wonderful gift. Yes, Imean I even laughed Rex Ryan, who

(53:58):
used to be the head coach ofthe Buffalo Bills for years and there was
that whole foot fetish thing. He'snow on ESPN, and we had a
controversy in the Kansas City game withthe Kadarius Tony being on the line and
he says that's a toe too farand somebody else goes man when you turn
Rex Ryan off to feet and Rexembraced all of it, and I go,

(54:19):
that's I love that. When youhaven't sense of humor, I love
that. Well. You talk aboutbeing in touch with people, Oftentimes I'm
in too. I come across alot of out there people at my job,
and it used to be I mean, it's funny you talk about being
afraid and when we're at the oldbuilding, people seem if they got released
from the psych center and they hadsome story they want to tell, they
would come to our office. Securitycalled me because I was the one that

(54:44):
would just talk to everybody and Iwas never afraid. I would go down
I talk to him and give mesome crean occasion would be a seat.
Well that's interesting. So you mentionedfoot fetish. Do you remember the guy
who got arrested for tickling feet inthe libraries? I, yes, I
do. This wasn't that long ago. It's probably twelve Yeah, okay,
ten to prison for a while.Yeah, he got out. He ended

(55:07):
up homeless in DC. I knowthis, and he actually he just called
me this past weekend. Uh,and he has lots of you know,
sort of theories about what's happening inthe world which are out there. But
uh, you know, I thinkI did a story. I didn't cover
his case. I think I dida story with an appeal of his and
he found my number and started callingme. And occasionally he had just called

(55:29):
me from anywhere in the country andI had not heard from him in like,
oh my goodness, several years,and this weekend or two weekends ago,
I got a call from him inDC. Let me know what's not
really Yes, that's that's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure you've
covered. Did you do the Shawcrossstuff? I did not. I I
was that's right, serial kill WhenI caught you here. Yeah, when

(55:52):
I came here, first five yearswere crazy with criminal news. I mean
Shawcross had been arrested. I actuallydid a story for I was living in
northern Virginia. Did you work inthe paper there? And I covered the
Marine Corps base and the FBI academywas there, so the profiler for the
Shawcross case was actually there and Igot them, so I actually interviewed him
to have this story when I cameup here, because Shawcross had been arrested.

(56:15):
The Shawcross story I did. Ishouldn't laugh because it is when he
died. I did a number ofShawcross stories. But when he died,
he had taken very ill and itseemed as if the folks transporting him from
the prison to the medical facility tookthe probably the most circuitous long route you
could possibly take, which did nothave to help his health, and he

(56:37):
died I think in the hospital later. And oddly I got tipped about that
from somebody in the system, inthe correction system who was so offended.
And with prison deaths and inmate desksor something called the Commission of Correction in
New York which studies them or looksaid them and decides if anything went awry,
and that report sure came out andsort of blistered the corrections folks for

(56:59):
basically led me exacerbating his health issuesto the point where it could have been
what caused his death. Really,that was an odd show because like I
was a fan of Arthur Shawcross,but uh no, but I think that
there's a humanity element to it,right, there's a humanity element to it,
even if we don't like it,you know, in the end,
it's it's a human being. Latethe late judge to Lescom, I got

(57:22):
to know what the coverage of theAttica aftermath and him handling the Attica settlement.
Yeah, he used to, youknow, and he's a Reagan appointee,
and he said, people always like, why are you treating these former
inmates? Like I said, yeah, the the constitution doesn't stop at the
prison door, No, it stillapplies. Yeah, I mean that's always
where when I've talked to people whowere defense attorneys, there there are things,

(57:42):
Look, you have you want somebodywho's going to defend your rights and
freedoms, because that's how our justicesystem is set up exactly. And we
you know, oftentimes we always say, well it isn't proven guilty anymore.
Right, it's the court of publicopinion. At least, it doesn't mean
that that's the way things go.Your book seven million, about the Brinkx

(58:07):
robbery, which is a very interestingstory that happened here in Rochester in ninety
What did you say so that storythat? How long did it take you
to write the book? And isthat a greater love for you than maybe
anything else you do more? I'mmy grand plan now is two years if

(58:28):
I make it to retire and domore of that. I'm starting research on
some other stuff. I just knowwith the time demands of working on couldn't
really do it. It's it's likeeverything else that's it's not a quick easy
answer because I covered the arrests Ididn't cover down in New York City,
and from the very first day,I like, wow, this is a
fascinating cast of characters. You gota priest, you got the retired cop,

(58:51):
you've got the Ira gorilla, andand and then they got convicted a
trial ninety four, well two ofthem did. Actually the cop was acquitted
and a person who's one of mybest friends, Bill Klaus, was represented
the priest and he and I arestill really good friends. We've run a
couple of times a week. AndI then said, I was thinking,

(59:14):
Man, I don't really this isa great book. It's not too much
the robbery. The robbery was reallynot It's not Ocean's eleven. It was
pretty tracing, but the cast ofcharacters. And I interviewed Father Pat the
priest in prison, and started workingon the ninety five probably and wrote like
two chapters and put it on ashelf and forgot about it, and then
I got pulled into looking. Andthen you talk about talking to a family,

(59:37):
this is actually one that probably theclosest I've ever gotten with someone.
Ronnie Gibbons, who was a guythat went missing in connection with the robbery.
He was in the original planning,got cut out, came up here
to collect some money, ends upin body parts in the Thousand Islands,
and I got to start. Hismom lived in Liverpool, England, even

(59:58):
though when I wrote the original nostory about Ronnie's disappearance, one of the
copy editors figured it was in theUS and put on a Dogga county after
Liverpool. Sure right, thanks,and uh, and clearly I haven't forgotten
and and his his and I,you know, I hate these TV shows,
these cop TV shows where people say, oh, we're going to find

(01:00:19):
the killer for you. You might, you might not, who knows.
And and Ronnie's mom, you know, I looked for years trying to help
her find Ronnie and they ultimately Ididn't what the police did. And talked
to her all all the time,and we and and often just not even
about the case. We just webecame dear friends telephonically for years. And
I finally met her after Ronnie wasfound and he had a beautiful day.

(01:00:39):
She since passed two. And andso when that happened, and I was
involved in this hunt for this missingguy for really from ninety six until twenty
eleven, I think probably if Ihave my dates right, and all that
came in between, because I hadthis weird sort of enough I'm friends with
all of the cops who got involvedin the later part where the lines got

(01:01:00):
a little blurred as to okay,what what is you know, because they
would share information with me, andI would share stuff that I felt I
could share, you know, andthen some some that I couldn't I didn't
and and and and then you know, all this happened on my shoot,
maybe I should go back and dothis try this book again. So so
I then went back and started pulledout what I had, went back,

(01:01:22):
got all you know have the clerk'soffice at Federal Court. Here was marvelous
to me. They got all thetranscripts from the tryal had them up there
for years for me. They don'tthin. They only sent him back last
year and and worked on the book. And it was It was crazy because
I got an agent who was theagent for a former colleague of mine,
Sean Lehman, who's done a lotof sports books. And we thought,
like, within a week of youput out a nonfiction proposal, I think

(01:01:44):
within a week or two, theagent Robin I had a bite like,
oh wow, this is easier.And I thought, yeah, I knew
it was going to be a midlevel small publisher. I knew it wasn't
going to be Simon and Schust orsomething and and the and then so the
publishing firm has some questions, weget and the answers. They're supposed to
meet on a Wednesday to give thego ahead, and like on the day
before, two days before they getbought out by somebody and everybody that was

(01:02:07):
behind the book is laid off,and so that nothing happens for two more
years, like dead silence, untilwe finally got a publisher. But during
those years, I did you know, Justin Murphy likes the joke that this
was. This was a really smartmove on my part to try to help
the company, you know, helpme write the book. I did this,
and I didn't really think of itthis way, but it worked.

(01:02:28):
I started this blog about the caseof the crime, and I thought this
would be a year long thing,maybe forty fifty installments. It went three
years in like two hundred to threehundred installments. And because of that,
I got so much more information thatI wouldn't have had if I just started
doing the research. And it justit gave me so much more information.

(01:02:49):
People were giving me stuff right andleft, I mean, on all sides
of the law. It was amazingto me. And then you know,
the book came out in twenty seventeenand there was a documentary that was loosely
based on it last year. Yeah, and uh, in a perfect world
will have another life. You know, it is a dramatized movie. But
that has that hasn't happened yet thathasn't happened. Is there a talk of
that? There has been on andoff. I've been target to some people,

(01:03:12):
but it's it's as I learned withUh, you know, the documentary,
you know, those things are it'sI don't cash any checks until learn
my hand. But to see yourwork appreciated by others in the business,
I think is I can't think ofa better endorsement. Right, No,

(01:03:32):
you can't think of a better endorsement. It really was, and I still
you know, and it's like allthe awards and everything, but to have
somebody say, hey, you whatyou wrote will make a great movie.
Here's our exactly. No, it'sit's so true. It really it does
mean a lot. And you knowin the book still you know, it's
I mean, I've done co writtenone other you know with UH about Attica
and Gwyn Miller who lost her dadat Attica. Since that, but uh

(01:03:55):
and then both they are still outthere. And but you know, the
book came on TOOY seventeen and Istill get people still talk to me about
it all the time. Yeah,well it was one of the biggest things
to happen. Well, that's truehere, you know, it's seven million
dollars. It's pretty uh well,the crazy thing is, I mean,
I've got as much informat I stillI got a box of documents I came
across the other day on the AMSAheist, which was almost eleven million from

(01:04:16):
nineteen ninety, which is a wholeother great story, But I just don't
think of another heist book in me. People have approached me about it,
I'm sure. I'm sure. Soover this forty two year career and seeing
the good, the bad, theart side, what have you learned about
humanity? You know, I ammaybe seem like a silly question, but

(01:04:40):
it doesn't at all. No,I am still I guess I still want
to believe in the good in people. Yeah, I mean, obviously I
see a lot that isn't. Butyou know, but I see, you
know, we talked about law enforcement. Most people I known law enforcement out
there, you know, busting theirbutts to try to do the right thing
for right good people in all neighborhoods, and and so I still kind of

(01:05:04):
hold on to that, you kindand I think that helps me with the
coverage. I mean, I talkabout people through the years who've gotten in
trouble. I mean I didn't coverShawcross. I did cover some of Bruce
Bihowski, who uh killed three Ithink four at least and but doesn't want
to be called a serial killer.That defends him and you know, and

(01:05:27):
I know, no, you know, and I mean, I but I
got to know. I mean,it's weird because Bruce Wrot first name.
Uh, you know, to thepoint where when I teach a class at
ri t occasionally at in the criminaljustice department about media coverage of crime.
And one year I had the classright questions for Bruce send him to him
in prison. Bruce responded and youknow, answered the questions interesting. I

(01:05:49):
mean, I think it's and it'snot that I see good and Bruce necessarily,
but I think I'm I'm fair inmy with dealing with the people that
makes sense, But yes it does, I don't I'm not sort of there's
only a couple of big people likethe joke because I what was that line
I used one time? But somebodywouldn't let me forget And it's like my

(01:06:11):
least favorite criminal or my least favoritemurders. There's only a couple of people
that I've dealt with in the criminalsector that to this day, I just
I to test what they did,of course, but to the today,
I just detest them as people.You do. Yeah, it makes sense,
it does because I like we've allheard sort of the I guess I'll
label the hippie thing that we're allone and we're all this. But you

(01:06:34):
know, I kind of buy intothat. I think that to your point,
I think there's some good in everybody, and maybe it's a privation of
good with others. I don't believethat there's a dark force out there with
stuff. I just think that youknow, you have everybody kind of has

(01:06:54):
the same, and people are gonnahate this the same opportunities. You just
choose different as and sometimes yes,you're born into different circumstances, but ultimately
you get out of that and thenyou get to choose more and more and
more. Yeah. And I'm notsaying, like with Bruce Pahowski, that
I ever wanted to come out ofprison. No, I don't. But
at the same time I can communicatewith him. Yes, on a personal

(01:07:16):
level. It's a fascinating career.This has been quite a conversation. Before
you go, though, I dowant to hear the the Amy Baby Fisher
Amy Fisher's story only because I mean, look, I was I mean,
it was Long Island at that time. What year was that, eight nineties?
That had to be like ninety ninety. Well, I think she was

(01:07:36):
in prison in ninety six. Yeah, but I mean I thought the murder
happened in like the early nineties becauseJoey was shooting. Yeah, Joey Butterfuco,
Yeah, right, right to shooting. But oh no, it was
uh Mary Mary Joe. Wasn't itto Mary Joe Copecne? Yeah, yeah,
no, yes, so Joey Joeywas the boyfriend, right, but
what was his wife's name? Ican't remember. I thought her name was

(01:07:58):
Mary Joe Butfuco. Yeah, Ithink you're where am I coming up?
Married Compacne? That's another case.But yeah, yeah, there was the
wife who got shot by Amy.Yeah. Amy so just showed up and
you know that, a young girlin love and so so in the mid
nineties, she did she go toAttica? Oh no, she went to
Albion. She was there and that'swhere we well we never met, but

(01:08:19):
I met her mom so a coupleof times early. So what happened in
the mid nineties, it's hard tobelieve. I mean, I can't imagine
this happening. I was doing aseries of stories or working on some research
on the female prisons in New Yorkand in the conditions there, and there
were a lot there were issues ofyou know, some issues of sexual assault
by corrections officers, and there's issuesof health care that really was not geared

(01:08:42):
towards women. It really was notat all. And I was doing a
lot of research on this. It'shard to I can't even imagine it's happening
now. Prisoner's Legal Services knew Iwas working on this, and actually because
I communicated with them the cases andthey like put word out at Albion.
You know, if you if youhave any issues, you know, let
us know. We'll contact Gary.And you know, you know a lot

(01:09:02):
of people in prison claim they haveissues which they don't. But there was
there was a lot of legitimate wellyou know, part of this was looking
at some sexual assault stuff. Wellthis is the same time Amy Fisher brings
a lawsuit claiming that she'd been rapedby one or two corrections officers at Albion
in Orleans County. I, tobe honest, was trying to keep this
away from Amy Fisher's story because Ididn't because that would just overwhelm everything,

(01:09:26):
because there's a lot of other womenthat were having issues that you know,
we're not going to get because itwas not going to make a tabloid.
Well, so what happens is AmyFisher's mom gets wind of it and reaches
out to me that I'm doing this, and so so we start meeting and
I think I can tell us now, I don't think she would mind us,
and so we start meeting and shetells me, you know, I've

(01:09:47):
it's almost like the Bill Clinton thing. I can't remember what it was pants
or something or underwear that we smuggledout that have seamen stains on him from
one of the corrections officers. Wow, and it's like whoa, okay said,
But we're getting it tested to proveit to seamen and all. You
know, So we're getting it tested, so you can't write anying, get
or anything that's okay. And I'mstill obviously I got to want the story.

(01:10:13):
There's that part of me it wantsthe story. But I still don't
want this whole series because at thispoint in time, I've interviewed a number
of women and at Albion and actuallydownstate too, who've had some issues,
and I really want this story tobe them, and I want to be
Amy Fisher. I'll never free catwhere my in laws then lived in Northern
Virginia, and we would often godown fifteen and into Northern Virginia. And
we're driving fifteen. We stopped forlunch your dinner somewhere as a weekend,

(01:10:39):
and I pick up the Daily.No, it's probably the New York Post,
and there's a story on there aboutlove letters from Amy Fisher to a
corrections officer and which really didn't quitehave anything to do, but clearly somebody's
like, okay, we're going toget Amy Fisher in trouble in prison.
And she had done it, writtenthe letters. But I knew this was
going to take off the mother,So I've reached out to them other right

(01:11:00):
away, and she says, yeah, and we've got the DNA back in
it Seemen and she tells me this. Of course I'm on the way to
Virginia. Yeah. So I'm likecalling the office and saying, hey,
you guys, sorry, you guysgot to do this story. So sure
enough, we're so then, butthen they give me the name of the
corrections officer who the interluded happened with. And it's the same guy that I've
already got two other women. Wow. Talking about wow, I was like,

(01:11:20):
oh, and so we do theinitial story, which we don't really
name the guy at that point becauseI don't think I had it a point
where I could name him. Icall I think another reporter ends I'm doing
the story. You know that wasn'tlike add a laptops, So I think,
go with me. Then, soI get to connect. We get
the story, you know, DailyNews and New York Post follows it a
week later. And this is actually, this is what's talking about being proud

(01:11:41):
of. This is even though Iwas writing some stuff about questionable practice of
the corrections department, I had agood relationship with him because I was always
fair, to the point that whenthey put out the press release about this,
they said, as first reported inthe Democrat and chronicles in the corrections
and so it went. Then weend up doing the story later that identifies,

(01:12:01):
you know, not only is theguy accused of this with Amy Fisher's,
but here's two other women. We'veinterviewed, one Albion one I think
a Taconic downstate. And and sowhen Amy Fisher came out, if you
find her autobiography, I'm in there, could thank or something. And when
she came out of prison, shewas scheduled doing it and she did an
interview with Oprah. She did aninterview with Oprah, like one day,

(01:12:24):
the week after we actually had thefirst interview. She called me for the
first interview, but she said,but just I've told yet, can you
wait till Oprah airs? Because I'vetold her that she will be first.
So like we had the interview thenext day after the Oprah. It was
it was just a crazy time.Yeah, that is that is a crazy
time. Who's the most famous personin your phone? I've got a new

(01:12:45):
phone in ninety percent of my contactsdidn't migrate. So technology, you know,
it's interesting. I don't you know, I I don't think mostly local.
I actually, did you know ifI had my old Rolodex, which
which I really wish I hadn't gottenrid of, I did have Vonnegut in
there. I had Vonnicuts. Oh, I always was a fan of I
had Vonnegut's number in New York,Okay, and it was I did a

(01:13:09):
magazine small magazine piece on him onetime. He was in Virginia where I
was working in my first newspaper,and spent much of a day and did
it like a Virginia magazine article.And he was promoting the book for his
wife, who was a photographer Chilebaking out but and he did a great
He really wanted me to promote thebook. And I forgot something about the
book when I was writing the storyand my notes weren't clear, and I

(01:13:32):
called his agent and said, look, can you just get this answer.
It's just like one sentence, butI just want to make sure because he
really wanted to mention it. SoI'm living in Farmville, Virginia, of
all places. One Saturday morning,the phone rings. It' Vonnegut and he
says, hey, I just likethe agent could have gotten answered. I
just heard you had this question.Let me clear it up. And we
talked for like fifteen minutes, andhe said, here's my number if you
ever want to call. And Ialways wish I never did. Again,

(01:13:54):
Yeah, sure, but I wishI did. Yeah. How interesting?
You know when you look at nowthe guys on the podcast always make fun
of me because I say the barrierto entry is gone right now you can
do anything we had. There's anindependent journalist who wrote a I think a

(01:14:14):
twenty thousand word I'm going to callit an essay on the Buffalo bills and
all, and I have read someof it. It's behind the paywall.
I have no problem with that.And I think some of the stuff you
could say was fair on the leadership. But do you see some of the
things that get sensationalized. And inthis story, the sensationalized part is that

(01:14:35):
coach McDermott used in referenced nine toeleven as a motivational speech in what was
it? Four years ago? Twentyseventeen to oh, twenty nineteen? And
I believe, I know that Iwas told that the local press knew about
it at the time. He hadapologized to the players, and none of

(01:14:56):
the players spoke about it outside ofthat. I mean, when you're looking
at things and in the independent wayit is, I mean, look,
I think Anison Cooper started out grantedhe had deeper pockets for most people to
go find these stories and well,I don't know if you do the Shining
Path of Peru or whatever it was, but the uh, what would be
your advice because sometimes the sensational stuffcertainly gets people, and you want to

(01:15:20):
and a good headline and if itbleeds leads in that old news adage isn't
necessarily wrong. But there's something aboutjust a good story and telling it fairly.
I think that's I think that's key. I'm and I probably making my
editors crazy because I am so yeah, because like court stories, you have

(01:15:40):
to be so nuanced with the headline, and I think to be fair to
everybody involved, and I'm constantly like, up, can't do that. That's
that's going too far. And butbut I think, I mean A,
I think you've hitting both nails onthe head A telling the story in a
way that's going to bring the readerin and keep the you know, we
have metrics where you know, Ican look on the line and say,
oh, so many people are readingmy story right now right And to me,

(01:16:02):
yeah, I mean I want tohave as many as possible. But
to me, the engagement time numberwhere I see they're staying in the story
and they're not abandoned it after fourparagraph is important to me. And and
so telling the story and then Ithink telling it fairly, I think,
you know, I've been doing ita long time, so I don't know
if I started now and that wasmy approach, what I would I still
have? You know that. Thankfully, I've got a lot of people like

(01:16:25):
to read my stuff. I'm veryhappy about that and thank them. You
know, what I have that now, I don't know, is just something
I've developed through the ears. Butand maybe it's harder to do that now.
And there's so many again we talkedabout so many people want their ideology
reinforced every day. Yeah, yeah, yes, what let's say when when
you said you're going to retire,maybe in two years that's the plan.

(01:16:45):
My wife's retired and I envy herright now? Yeah, sure I don't.
But you're you're never going to stop. I can see it. I
mean, you'll never It's just inthere. But you're not going to have
to do the daily grind of itexactly. But when that career, that
part of the career is over,what would you want people to either say

(01:17:08):
behind your back, let's say that, say what would you want them to
say? Now? What? Butmaybe what they say what a pain in
the asked? Maybe change the headlineall the time exactly, But what what
would you want them to say,or what do you want people to know
about Gary? That's a good question. I mean, if we're talking professionally,
and I think some of this Ithink spills over to yourself too professional

(01:17:30):
is it comes from our personal yes, settlers, So you can't really completely
divide the two. I mean,I would think, and I think,
you know, knock on wood.If I don't screw up the next two
years, I'm at least on adecent road. Twitter that he you know
that he he treated people fairly aboutmy career. He reported accurately. You
know, we could if his namewas on it, I could read it

(01:17:51):
and believe that I was getting I'mweird in this regard and talk to journalism
classes about this all down. There'sso many people and I don't I don't
say this is wrong. A lotof my friends do this. I'm seeking
truth. I'm seeking truth. I'mseeking facts. You know, I don't
you know, I've sometimes reported thingsI had all the facts I had at

(01:18:11):
the time. In a year later, I wish I'd known this. You
know, it's still was accurate atthe time, right, And just that
you know that that you know whatwhat I read of Gary Craigs. I
believe was, you know, thethe best most reliable version of facts.
It could be accumulated at that timeand could get me as close to the
truth as possible at that time.Yeah, that's interesting and in today's world

(01:18:33):
harder and harder at times, ohvery very you know. I mean we've
even yesterday we were talking about newAI apps that if you put a picture
up, they can show you whatthey believe the person would look like naked.
So that way is the the thinkof the problems that we could get
with that right, go down theline. I believe that the only conviction

(01:18:55):
was a psychiatrist because they can't doanything with fake let's call it revenge porn
or whatever for adults, but minors. So this psychiatrist, I think,
got forty years because he took picturesof patients fully clothed, put them through
this app, and then put themout as though they were Yeah, bizarre,

(01:19:18):
right, And so you know Iwas saying to the guys in the
podcast, I go here would bethe thing of that were my child.
I would never want the kid toknow because nothing happened. Yes, you
know what I'm saying, Nothing happened, And I said that was always like
a problem with me in certain relationshipsbecause well, we'll wait a second.
Something didn't No, no, nothinghappened to the kid. I understand this

(01:19:39):
person's got a real problem. Weneed that person needs help. But nothing
happened to the kids. So let'snot scare the kid because this is one
the bad apple gets the spotlight.There's more good than bad. Yeah,
exactly right, And that's always that'salways the case. Yeh. Yeah.
So hopefully hopefully when I'm done,that's and hopefully between that when I'm done,

(01:19:59):
Yeah, yeah, people will readthe stuff. It's yeah, well
I think that's I think that,you know, if that was the aim
for you, you've hit the mark. It's been very Uh it wasn't that.
I'm usually aimless, so I don'treally know if I had an aim,
but well, I mean, ifthe idea was to get the facts,
I believe that that you've you've hitthat well pretty well, right,
you know, And it's been uh, what a great conversation. I could

(01:20:23):
talk to you for a wonderful thankyou. Yeah, this has been a
real pleasure. Please go to uhGary craig writer dot com. You can
buy the book there. Yes,seven million. It's a great Christmas gift
for somebody. I mean, andyou know, if people want to uh,
they can just write me at mywork account G Craig G c R
E I G at g A ane tt dot com. And I I've

(01:20:45):
met people to sign books at Starbucksand other places if they really nice,
and we still do some signing isgreat. And again, let me The
prison Guard's Daughter, which I cowrote with de Quinn Miller's just I was
honored to be able to tell herstory, to be able to help her
tell her story. Is that bookalso available through the website your website think
so? Okay, but it's definitelyAmazon and Barnes and Noble definitely. Yes.
Okay, all right, Gary Craigplease read his stuff in the Democratic

(01:21:11):
Chronicle as well, and it isfantastic. Thank you, Gary. It's
been a lot of fun. Iappreciate it. I'm Bill Moran. We'll
see Tomorrowtail didn't know what to do. I'm TV. BTV would fire pizza

(01:21:38):
and grill in the mall at GreeceRidge. If you're going back to do
returnables, why not returnables since Ican? But you know, gifts that
you think you may have to returnsomewhere. You got the wrong size,
or you got something you didn't likebut you pretended to like but you really
didn't like, but there was agift receipts, so you're gonna bring it
back. Well. bTB, stopin, have a great lunch, fantastic
specials the month of December. Getin there, have one of There are

(01:22:00):
great drinks over fifty TVs. You'renever going to miss any of the action
when you're there. You know what, They have a shareable that I really
won't try, and I haven't yet. It's the Dorido crusted mozzarella stick.
How good does that sound? Evenif it's just shareables because a lot of
us have eaten, eaten, butyou get hungry. You're working up an
appetite. bTB wood Fire Pizza andGrille in the mall at Grease Ridge

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Fudd Around And Find Out

Crime Junkie

The Breakfast Club

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Reporter Gary Craig

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Fudd Around And Find Out

Crime Junkie

The Breakfast Club

All Episodes

Reporter Gary Craig

Fudd Around And Find Out