Episode 209 - It's Free Real Estate

We've all had a bad day, but these people took their frustrations to a whole new level. Join Vicky and Rachel as they explore the shocking—and surprisingly creative—cases of ordinary folks who turned to homemade explosives to settle scores, get rich, or just make a statement.

You can check out Murder and Such here!

Research links below!

FBI - "Harvey's Casino Bombing"
The New York Times - "F.B.I. Says Casino Bombing Figure Considered Coast Bank Extortion"
The Record-Courier - "40 years ago, Tahoe casino bombing was biggest in U.S. history"
The Atavist Magazine - "A Thousand Pounds of Dynamite"
The New York Times - "Federal Grand Jury Indicts 6 in Bombing of Casino at Tahoe"

State Library Victoria - "The day that shook Russell Street"
National Trust - "Russell Street Bombing Exhibition"
Informit - "The Russell Street Bombing 30 years on"
Ergo - "Russell Street Bombing"
eMelbourne - "Russell Street Bombing"
Monument Australia - "Constable Angela Taylor"

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, their arrivals. They did. It's got to worry about.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Something.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
If I couldn't keep them there with me whole, at
least I felt that I could keep their skeletons.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Hello and welcome to the Bad Taste Crime Podcast. I'm Vicky,
I'm Rachel. We are back again. How are you gone?
We just had some before we started, some like kitten cuddle.
Oh my god, I feel so relaxed. Yeah with TIF
Tiff got a new cat named Pickle, and he's so
he's like a little baby kitten. He's so he climbed

(00:57):
right up on my shoulder like a parrot. I was
just like, oh my god. So he's ten minutes before
the show to like get a little kitten cuddle. Yeah,
get in the vis Yeah, get our mood up. You
know she has a new kitten and a new puppy. Yes,
so we've just been like getting all morning so sweet cute.
So let's talk about murder that. Yeah, let's go from

(01:18):
really cute. Yeah, this is how we balance out, like
talking about true crime and then immediately going downstairs and
like cuddling with a puppy and a kitten. And that's
what you should do too, of your mental health. Yes,
literally analysts. Yeah, this is first time listening a special
Hello to you. Well, got a very fun show today.

(01:39):
But first let's head over to the news room. Let's
go there.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Watching today.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
We had fifty this week. Our news comes from Bangor, Maine,
where a guy thought some drugs were in a chimney.
Oh no, so strange place to put drugs. Yeah, so
in the well, you would say, I mean, I guess

(02:11):
it's like a drop off point or something. Oh, okay,
you know what I'm saying. Oh yeah, Yeah. So it's
a thirty nine year old man named Stephen Nason who,
in the very early hours of the morning it was
like four am, climbed on the roof of somebody's house,
like a random person's house. Okay, the people inside, the

(02:34):
residents inside, heard something happening, so they went outside. At
least that's Santa Claus. They see this. Yeah, they see
this guy in the roof. They're like, what the fuck?
Please get down. They go to the back. They see
that there's like a ladder that he used to climb
onto the roof. Okay, they don't know who this person is,
they've never seen him before. They're yelling at him to

(02:54):
get off the roof. He's like, I'm trying to get
the drugs that are in this chimney. Pause sir. Yeah.
So they called police, nice, which came, and they let
me see it. Says the fire department put a basket
up near the roof. He jumped to get the basket

(03:18):
and there apparently there was an axe attached to it.
What yeah, oh my god. Oh like the basket, I'm sorry,
the basket of the fire truck like to but there's
an axe attached to the right basket. Chop open stuff, right,
So he jumped from the roof into the basket, grabs
the axe, jumps from the basket back to the roof, athletic,

(03:41):
and then he started chopping holes in the roof. I'm
kind of impressed, I know, I know. And they were,
I mean, they were obviously trying to assume that maybe
this is somebody in like a mental health crisis or whatever,
to retrieve them safely, not assuming, you know, they didn't
want to turn it into like a whole big no.
They're like, oh my god, this guy needs help. He

(04:02):
stuck on a roof and he's like, no, I'm not
a mission. Yeah, give me that hatchet. Yeah, so it
says they finally got him down. He was taken into
custody about eleven thirty he surrendered. Sounds like hey, he
was sent to the hospital for a physical and mental
health evow. He has been charged with aggravated criminal mischief,
creating a police standoff, and violating probation k and has

(04:27):
not appeared in Coore yet. So wow. Yeah, so he's
only been charged, but he is in jail. That's crazy.
But imagine I get so freaked out by like the
little unexpected noises. Yeah, absolutely, certain noises in your house
that you're like expecting. Yeah, even late at night. Yeah,
it's like the house subtly little creeks, but somebody it's like,

(04:48):
oh I haven't heard that before. Yeah, that's like someone
is that to kill Like Wendy Williams the killer, that's
the killer? Yeah yeah, I love her so much. So
it's like, and I get that a lot too, because
is where I live. It's above some businesses. It's like
a business see area with my departments above it. So
there are times late at night where there's like random

(05:10):
people walking through the parking lot or like you know
what I mean, And especially when it's nicer out and
I have my windows open. There's a bowling alley that's
like two storefronts down from us, so at like two
o'clock in the morning, people will be drunk and yelling
and whatever else. Right, But sometimes that shit scares me
because it sounds like you can get a clay. It's crazy.
I actually kind of want to get an airhorn to

(05:31):
just be like shit when any of that shit is happening,
because it or like you're so high up you could
get like a super soaker and just like squirt. It's
not they're not that close there. It's like a really
far super soaker. I can't even see them. I just
know that it's there. I just can't even see the people. Yeah,
you know, wake me up and then I get rook me.

(05:52):
That's the whole thing. Yeah, I guess I could just
sleep with my windows closed, But what what's the fun is? Yeah, exactly,
I have windows. If you're not, I mean you're German,
don't they do that? They air out the house. That
is a thing. Yes, there's the name Ping you can't remember.
I don't know, but I know what's talking about. Where
they like let all the fresh air it's in your blood.
It is it's your true blood. It's true. Did you
hear there's a whole thing going on in Europe now
with like AC units, air conditioning units and stuff, and

(06:15):
like obviously they're in the middle of a heat wave
and people are like, we kind of want to start
getting as because they don't really have them. But there's
politicians coming out being like, please don't do that. You're
gonna put so much stress on the electrical grid and
blah blah blah blah blah whatever. It is a very
interesting conversation. Yeah, and they never I mean, they're just
not used to heat like that. We we are used

(06:37):
to the extremes, right, like really fucking hot in the summer,
really cold in the winter. Yeah, I feel like it's
so like balmy in most of Europe. They don't need them,
They really don't need them. So anyway, this is a
total aside, But I did hear about that. It's such
an interesting conversation walks and they're like the worst part
about Europe is they don't have AC and they don't

(06:58):
drink water. Yeah, it's nowhere serves water. That's wild crazy, Like,
how are you not all dehydrated. I don't get it.
I don't know the tea they are going to have tea.
There's water in tea. Tea is a diuretic. Yeah, but
there's water in it. Thirsty, it makes you thirsty. Yeah,
but there's water in it. It makes is what I'm saying,
p and all out doesn't absorb. But so is coffee.

(07:18):
And we drink a funkalot of coffee here, so I
also drink water. Yeah, I have wat it right now.
Welcome to them? Oh god, no, all right, We're going
to move on to Netflix and Kill, which this week
is an HBO and to Kill and yes, and we
are talking about the Mortician. Oh very good, super new.

(07:41):
It came out beginning of June. It's only three episodes,
and it focuses on the Lamb Funeral Home in California,
I believe, and specifically this guy named David Sconce who

(08:01):
essentially sought to maximize the profits of the organization by
some very not legal, not proper or moral means. Yeah
and yeah, yeah yeah, and he is. It's so it's
really interesting because he is in prison and being released

(08:24):
for something else, like he goes on to do just
frauds things fraud, things like check fraud and some other
randoms business plan. Yeah right. So they pick him up
as he's being released for from jail for this and
they interview him for the entire documentary about this whole thing.
So he basically was the son of lam Lamb funeral

(08:47):
home was owned by let me see, well it was
scoon'sa's like that family, like a long time very yeah
something in the family, and they they were like very
well known in the area. They're like the place to
go if you die, you go there. Yeah, right, he was.

(09:07):
He was not as interested in like the funeral aspect
of it, but he did get very involved in the
mortician aspect of it, so things like embombing bodies, cremating bodies,
things like that. He starts basically running. They end up
buying this crematorium that is on the property of their
cemetery like where the funeral home is at, which is uncommon.

(09:30):
A lot of people had to like go to a
third party, right, they had to go outsource, thank you. Yeah,
They had to like outsource their cremations to a third party,
which was expensive, like hundreds of dollars. It's so nearby
and people would. He was doing it for like a
quarter of the cost of any other place. So not
only were they doing it for their funeral home, they

(09:51):
were doing it for funeral homes in the area because
because it was so cheap, nice and innocent. Turns out,
and he was putting like ten fifteen bodies into the
ovens at one time. That's horrible, yeah, because they're talking
about Okay, when you cremate a single body, it can

(10:11):
take they say about two to four hours. It's like
two hours to cremate, another two hours for things to
cool down and all the ash to s out on
whatever else, and then you do another one. So you
can only get you know, maybe four to eight done
in a day, depending on how many ovens you have
and things. Right, But it's not it's a little causes delays, right,

(10:32):
especially when you're increasing volume and trying to build your business.
We'll just get more ovens. Yeah, So he decided that
was the way to go. Awful. They also he was
like taking gold fillings out and keeping them. There was
some organ harvesting and trade happening. Eventually the crematorium burns

(10:55):
down Karma, So he said it was because one of
the guys who was like smoking just like dropped a
joint in laying the stoner. Well then they're like, well
we still have all these bodies to creemate. So they
sort of it sounded like broker to deal with a local.
It was a it was a kiln for like pottery.
It was like a local film place. No, no, no,

(11:17):
they get caught. See, there's like this whole people kind
of knew what was happening. There's some other shady shit
with like potentially trying to murder his business rivals some
things like that, and so people kind of knew this arrangement.
But because a lot of these things that he was
doing were not felony crimes, right although they were not
approved by like the mortician society or funerary society, they're

(11:40):
not like felonies, so it's hard to go after him
for those. They get picked up by a guy who
works for like the federal government testing air quality because
out of this kilm as a corpsy. Yes, he gets
called in because residents were complaining and he realized is
it's like all this kilm And they roll up with

(12:02):
like partially burned bodies, partially cremated bodies, picturing like little
feet sticking out. Yeah, and like multiple and they're like
breaking limbs and stuff to like get these to fit.
I know. It's horrible. So anyway, so that's he finally
goes down for that. He ends up getting five years
for mutilating corpses, holding mass cremations, and hiring hitman for

(12:25):
rival morticians. He then he does his time. He gets out.
He's like he does hold on, let me let me
because he gets He ends up pleading guilty to some
and then he gets sees charges. He gets out. There's
like lawsuits. He does end up going to jail for

(12:48):
later for like, like I said, it was like check
fraud or something. Anyway, Wow, and the guy is fucking weird. Yeah,
he's so weird. It's like the equivalent of not quite
as weird. But it is like the equivalent of interviewing
Robert Durst a little where he's just like, is very

(13:11):
matter of factly talking about the things. He's very much like,
I personally do not believe that when somebody dies that
there's anything left of that person in the body. It's
just a body. Like maybe that's your belief, right, not
the belief. He's like, so I don't understand why all
these people are up in arms because that's not their
loved one anymore, because you're supposed to give them their ashes,
and now they have Tom Dick and Harry in there

(13:32):
as well. I actually I watched a video of somebody
who was like a victim of that where they had
the ashes tested in different people. Yes, wasn't their mind
in this? Like the funerary and mortuary crime has been
on the rise. I've noticed that in the last probably

(13:53):
I would say, ten to fifteen years, you're hearing more
and more about it. And I think a lot of
that is because people have become savvy and like understand
what is supposed to happen and when things are a
little off. But there's also been this sort of increase
in black market organ trading and harvesting or donations of
bodies for various things. Right, Yeah, Yeah, it's a very

(14:18):
interesting documentary though it's only three episodes. It's on HBO Max.
It's called The Mortician. Definitely check it out. It's it's
worth of watch because the guy is just kind of
fucking weird. It sounds like a character because there's a
point at the at the very end where he's like, well,
I could tell you about these three and the guy

(14:38):
the documentarian is like, well, if you're about to tell
me something that is, like, you know, maybe something I
don't I can't unhear, you know, like if it's illegal,
because obviously then they have to report it. He's like,
if you're about to tell me something like that, like
just don't say anything. And he's like, yeah, I probably

(15:01):
you know what I mean. Like is very it's very
fucking weird, but really good document It's kind of a
lame documentarian, I know, like, I you're going to do that,
speak directly into the No, I get it. I get
it because it's like the second you tell me something, right, No,
I understand. But you know, I don't want to be
a party to this. I don't want to, you know,
like I give that to me, Yeah, report on it afterwards,

(15:23):
but don't tell me. Yeah, right right, I do get that.
So this is that part of the show where we
say content may not be appropriate for all listeners. This week,
it's honestly more on the tame side, but we are
talking about explosions, explosives, people using explosives in the pursuance

(15:45):
of crime. It's a very explosive episode, and it's interesting
to me because we're gonna blow you up there. There's Okay,
there's like a lot of random and it's not like
there's a standard thing that happens. I mean, I guess
when you're talking about things like terrorism or domestic terrorism,
like a lot of times there's explosives involved there obviously

(16:06):
acts of wartime and things like that, but just like
regular old crime, Yeah, you don't always see and when
you do, it's like a random occuris like, what's happening here?
Totally and obviously we have had some major bombings here right,
like the Olympic Park bombing, fucking what's his face? The unibomber. Yeah, yeah,

(16:28):
like we've had a lot of these things in the US. Yes,
for random people, a lot of them use like the
anarchist cookbook. Now you can just use Google. Like no,
I'm not saying I am not let me be clear,
I am not saying search Google how to make a bomb,
because you will a thousand percent be put on some
kind of list. So they watch that shit, there's that.

(16:49):
Don't do that. But yeah, I wanted to look at
some of these cases. Such a cool topic. They tend
to be kind of interesting. Yeah, I always. I mean
not to stereotype, but I feel like you gotta be
kind of an interesting person to know how to build
a bomb. Yeah, it's so technical, it is, and you
gotta have a lot of free time, true, and space,

(17:11):
access to materials. Yes, however that may right. I also
say that mine is a little bit shorter this week,
which I'm shorter too, But I wanted to talk about
the Harvey Resort Hotel bombing. Okay, this is wild, oh
very wild. Tell me about it. So the event begins

(17:34):
with a man named John Burgess Senior, who actually immigrated
to the US from Hungary. He claims that he flew
for the Luftwaft in World War Two, but while he
was doing that, he was actually feeding intelligence to the
United States. Oh sneaky, So he was a little double

(17:55):
cross action. This is again according to him. I don't
know that they have wreckords of this or anything, but right.
He was eventually caught and captured and sent to a
Soviet gulag for twenty five years. Not good, not great,
But eight years in he was released during a repatriation.

(18:17):
There was like a mass repatriation of people from World
War two, got it? So he gets released, he gets
sent back to Hungary, and then from there he decides
to head to the United States for good cool, which
if he was I mean, kind of makes sense if
he was feeding intelligence to the US. He's like, they
probably loved me there. Yeah, I mean, he would probably
have a better time in Europe saying I helped you

(18:38):
guys out than being like, I helped you guys out
while fighting for the Nazis, y like, while also being
a Nazi. Right whatever, right, And let's be real, the
US was like give us all your Nazis after World
War Two, So like them in South America. Oh god, yeah. Anyway,
so he comes over to the US. Burgess was eager

(18:59):
to a stand, bablish himself and started what became honestly
a pretty successful landscaping business. He might have also had
interest in real estate, like for some reason, I'm remembering,
like it's for real estate. He maybe is for real estate.
Maybe he had some like hotels or some restaurant I
think he might have been a restauranteur type of thing.

(19:19):
So he's going into business for himself, well he's trying to,
but he also had a very successful gambling problem. Oh dear,
that resulted in him being very successful at losing large
sums of money. I was gonna say, like, is it successful?
I mean, what is your definition of success here? If

(19:40):
you're trying to lose just lose large sums of money,
then yes, extremely success. Did that? Shit? He really did
go oking? Hen't lose that money? So you have this
money problem, right, yeah? How typically how do you think
somebody would go about solving this? But probably by using

(20:04):
a lot of explosives. Yeah, to blow the side off
of a bank and yeah, just take all the money off.
Yeah right right like that, Yeah, you know, just go
to the source of the money. That's where they get money. Actually,
he decided extortion, Oh was the way to go. That's
as aided by bomb building. Okay, of course, I can't
forget that, of course. So the plan was to build

(20:28):
a bomb, okay, and leave it at Harvey's Resort hotel
and casino in State Line, Nevada. Sounds kind of fancy
where it I get the impression it was because it
was connected via a tunnel to Harrah's Okay, So like
it sounds like it was right on the main strip,
like a full again resort and casino, like, I mean,

(20:51):
it looked pretty nice yeah before well, yes, before it
blew up, definitely. Uh So. Burgess actually claimed to have
lost about seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars gambling at hopes.
This is approximately two point eight four million jeez in

(21:11):
today's money, few, which is also crazy. It's crazy at
the amount of because this was in let me, did
I even put a date of when this was, I
don't know, eighties? Yeah, it was in the early eighties,
like eighties, that's primetime gambling time, eighty eighty eighty one. Yeah,

(21:32):
to a little cold play, a little poker. We'll just
the amount of inflation between eight well yeah today anyways, crazy,
it is a little crazy. So I got a lot
of my information directly from the FBI website. Cool for
reasons that will become clear later. Nice. So, according to
the FBI, oh here, on the morning of August twenty sixth,
nineteen eighty two, men wearing white jumpsuits entered the casino

(21:56):
and pretended that they were delivering an IBA copy machine. Okay,
they just they literally rolling with this machine. To have confidence.
They take it up to the second floor of the casino,
where they leave it the men exit the building, and
then they leave in this white van that is marked
with IBM on the side. Okay, so steems legit. They

(22:19):
just leave it. Cool. A note is left with the
bomb that contained instructions and demands. Now I could read
this whole thing. It's pretty long, though, so I just
I pulled some excerpts. Ye, because it's a lot of
instructions and it is a pretty long note, and it
will be if you want to read it in full.
The link is available in the show notes. Cool, you

(22:40):
can still read it in full. Yeah, the FBI's got
it posted on their fucking website. They're like, here's the ransomer.
It is crazy. Okay. So this reads in part quote,
do not move or tilt this bomb because the mechanism
controlling the detonators in it will set off at a
movement of less than point oh one of the open
and Richter scale. Wow, don't try to flood or gas

(23:03):
the bomb. There is a float switch and an atmospheric
pressure pressure switch set at twenty six to thirty three.
Both are attached to detonators. Do not try to take
it apart. The flathead screws are also attached to triggers
and as much as as a quarter to three quarters
of a turn will cause an explosion, sadly puts away
Philip's screwtiny. In other words, this bomb is so sensitive

(23:29):
that the slightest movement, either inside or outside, will cause
it to explode. Wow. The letter goes on to claim
that there was enough T and T to severely damage
the haras across the street, the one that was connected
via tunnel, followed by a demand for three million dollars
and used one hundred dollar bills. Obviously they're like used

(23:49):
one hundred dollars bills, unmarked, untraceable, blah blah blah blah blah,
in exchange for instructions on how to move the bomb
to another area to be debton safely. Wow. Because he
in this note, he's like, even I can't like just
show up and hit a switch to like deactivate things,
Like you can't deactivate it, but I'll give you instructions

(24:11):
on how to move it safely so it can be detonated,
uh huh elsewhere. I hate to say it, this is
a pretty good plan so far. This is pretty well
thought out. I mean it really is. And the the
amount of detail that he goes into on the side
of the truck. Yeah, thing really looking like a fucking printer. Yes,
that's cool, Like, yeah, fuck this guy, but like that's interesting.

(24:34):
He goes on to say that he lays out instructions
for the exchange of the money. Okay, he asked for
the money to be moved by helicopter and provided instructions
on how all of that would work. So he's basically
like one one person in a helicopter with the money.
Once he's in the air, like, tune the radio to
whatever station, instructions will follow on the next steps to

(24:55):
deliver the money type of thing, like yeah, and he uh.
Also makes a point to point out that he would
not personally be involved in any of the like exchanges,
so they shouldn't try to apprehend anyone because these are
all third parties. He's like these people only like each

(25:16):
person involved only knows their part of the plan. Nobody
knows the entire thing. It's not worth it to apprehend
any of these people because none of them are Meg.
Isn't that crazy. It's a lot of working parts, Yeah,
a lot of moving parts. Oh my god. See, he
could have just not done a life of crime, and
he could have been such a good like stage manager.

(25:36):
I mean, yes, that's not where I thought you were
going at that. But he would have been really good
at something, you know what I mean, Like he has
all these skills. He seems like a very intelligent guy. Yeah,
so it's a shame that he's blowing up about it.
We're trying to anyway, Yeah, contempting it. Also said quote
and again, if you don't want to be stuck with

(25:57):
a thousand pounds of T and T, do not allow
any investigation by local authorities, FBI, or any other investigative
agency action before the bomb is removed. WHOA. Obviously the
FBI were immediately called them. Yeah, no, they immediately called
the police. Anyway, we're already here. Yeah, they immediately called
the police, and they start an investigation to determine what,

(26:20):
if anything could be done like that. Obviously, the most
immediate threat is this fucking bomb in a hotel and
resort that has current visitors by police staffed like m
So when they arrive the printer, well, and I could
see I could see why they would think it was

(26:41):
or why it looked they thought it looks like a printer.
You know what I'm saying. Let me see if I
can pull up. Nope, not that one. I will try
and pull up the pictures to show you, because they're like,
I don't know, it's it's literally like a big printer
size metal box with a smaller box on top. Okay,

(27:02):
also metal. I think this is the one that has
the pictures. I thought. They just like, do you have
to come over there? No, I'll show you. I'll come
over there. Damn it, don't come over. Do not come here. Yeah.
So it's like, oh, that doesn't look like a printer.
That looks like a metal box. But I mean, at

(27:23):
the same time, maybe you have to take the metal off.
Maybe it's inside. I was gonna say, as someone who
like doesn't work in like an office, Yeah, I feel
like I wouldn't really question it, especially if they had
like what was it IBM uniforms on or whatever? Right, Well, no,
they just had they just had white jumpsuits on. I
don't think there are the jumpsuits had any like indication

(27:45):
of who they were, where they were from. But they
were just like, I'm glad you showed me because I
was definitely pictured. They just like gutted a printer and
put a little bomb inside. No, no, no, Wow, So they
see these steel boxes. When it had been dropped off,
it was made exactly level and then armed using at
least eight triggering mechanisms. Wow. Initial investigations made the FBI

(28:10):
believe it would take at least four people to move
the device because as you moved it, you would have
to keep it exactly even right, And there was no
way to determine if they had successfully disarmed the bomb.
Even if they did attempt to disarm it, Oh, like
you would not be able to tell. Great, So almost

(28:31):
immediately the decision was made to evacuate the hotel of
all guests and staff and shut off the gas. Maine
good plan. Yes, they also decided that they would in
fact have to attempt to disarm it inside of the hotel. Yeah, Like,
how are you gonna get it? Like down the stairs?
In right, There's no way. Yeah. The fact that it
was on the second floor is like, what a bunch

(28:51):
of dicks? Cool cuckoo cool. The bomb people are like wow,
So they they evacuate everybody from the hotel. Bomb bomb
technicians were brought in to examine the device, and they
used X rays in an attempt to figure out how
to safely detonate it. They also dusted for prints to

(29:12):
see if they could glean anything from that, like where
it came from, who it was. It would take thirty
hours of just like investing there, just like examining, investigating,
trying to figure out what to do. They put a
plan together. Now again this is from the FBI, despite
the many warnings, many warnings in the no authorities believed
quote if the two boxes could be severed using a

(29:33):
shaped charge of C four explosive, it might disconnect, disconnect
the detonator wiring from the dynamite. Okay, so that's their
plan blow up. Okay, so you're gonna not have the
explosion by making a different explode, smaller, more pointed explosion.
I love that. Yes, explosions solve problems sometimes. I mean

(29:56):
in a way they do solve every problem. They you
solve every problem, right, So these just to be extra careful.
The surrounding hotels were evacuated. Good, especially because he said
it's enough that it could like damage other properties. But
of course now people kind of know what's going on,
So there's like rods and shit forming. Yeah. Absolutely, And

(30:18):
there's a lot of pictures of like the explosion happening
because it was a triggered explosion, so people kind of
knew when it was going to come. So there were
people ready with cameras and yeah and video and like
yeah some wienies. Yeah yeah, pretty much. Yeah, you know,
like a regular demolition. Yeah. So what they didn't know

(30:39):
was that Burgess had placed dynamite in the top box
as well, and when they detonated the CEA four charge,
it also detonated the top box, which set off the
entire device. God damn it. And I mean luckily because
it was remotely detonated, no one was injured, but most
of the hotel was destroyed. Well well, there's also damage

(31:02):
to the neighboring Hairs Casino with uh most of it
was broken windows just from like the blast impact. And
in total, the damage cost about eighteen million dollars, which
is approximately sixty eight point one million dollars now geez, yeah,

(31:23):
I let me. I should also have a picture of
the explosion here, because it was like, was that it caboo?
Oh this is I think a video of the explosion.
Oh hell yeah, look show me that shit. Yeah they're
like oops, whoa. The people are cheering like it's a

(31:44):
planned dumpolition. That's crazy. I'm big building. Yeah it is.
Oh yeah, there's the first charge and then it comes
out the side and then oh wow, that's a lot
of smoke. Yeah, whoa, that is crazy. Just it's very

(32:08):
eighties the amount of people that are danger so standing
out there. But in total it oh, like I said,
it was about eighteen million dollars. Amazingly, Harvey's Casino partially
reopened just forty eight hours later. Hello, and the rest
of the hotel was fixed and reopened fully in the

(32:32):
next like eight months. Oh my god. Yeah, they're like whatever, Yeah, yeah,
that would honestly be kind of funny, Like I'm sure
that would draw in a lot of crowds, like come
into our very smoky, newly renovated Yeah, very newly renovated.
We're airing out the place a little newly renovated, and
in fact, renovations are not fully complete. And it's crazy hot,

(32:54):
like truly, like how much damage was done because there's
In some of the interviews they talk about how when
they went into the building afterwards, they could they would
look up and could see like TVs like hanging and
telephones like hanging off of the wires that were still
connected to the like outlets in the halls and easy. Yeah,

(33:17):
just like blew all the floors and walls off. Yeah,
I'm trying to find there was There was one of
these articles that had a bunch of pictures on the bottom,
and it had a really good picture of the like
side of the building post the explosion, still stuck on them.
Okay for like bingo night, like right after, they had
like a bomb themed playlist. T t know, Mike, Yeah,

(33:41):
that's funny. That's that's what you're going with. Yeah, okay,
I'm trying to think of more bomb songs. No, that's
all I got. That's it. That's all you got. All
the other ones are like much more recent. This about
to blow up? That's bad. That's kusha. How dare you?

(34:10):
I don't know. If I find it later, I'll show
it to you. But it's like the entire side is
blown out. It's crazy, dude, whoa crazy? Anyway? So now
that the immediate threat is dealt with, they started their
investigation in earnest into like who actually put this bomb there? Right?
There were some witnesses who came forward, remembering the white

(34:32):
van they had. They were like yes, we saw this
white van that said IBM on it. It was IBM. Yeah,
they go after them. Authorities were actually first drawn to
Vergis as a potential suspect when information surfaced that a
white van belonging to him was seen in South Tahoe
at the time the bombing took place, which is only
about fifteen minutes from Harvey's. Like, it's very I looked

(34:56):
at the map. It's pretty close to where Harvey's got it.
A tip came in that would change everything. A man
called the FBI directly pointing the finger at Burgess apparently,
which this is like one of those things that it's like,
oh yeah. Apparently Burgess's son, one of his sons, he
had two sons, had told a girl that he was

(35:20):
dating at the time that his dad was the one
who planted the bomb. Get out of here. The two
of them broke up, and she starts seeing other people,
as you do. And while on a date with one
of the guys that she was seeing, they hear about
this reward that there was for information about the Harvey's bomb.

(35:42):
He's like, baby, I forgot by wallet. She's like, don't
even worry about it. Yeah, Well, she then tells this guy, oh,
I think I know who did that, And this guy
that she was seeing calls the FBI. WHOA, that's amazing. Yeah,
I'm like, this is why I don't know. I always
this is why you don't to tell your partners things

(36:02):
like this that maybe you want to keep secret, because
if you break up, especially if you're just dating, if
you're not like married or whatever, like, you have no
loyalty to you literally literally. So yeah, So he calls
the FBI and is like, I know who did it.
There was also something that happened two months earlier that
the FBI believes is connected. So in June nineteen eighty,

(36:24):
there was a dynamite blast in North Fresno that had
destroyed the wooden trusts of a nearby bridge. Wow. Further
investigation revealed that more dynabyte dynamite had been hidden near
the creek that was right there. And they think this
might have been a test run for Harvey's right, it's
such an operation. I'm sure he would have done little tests.

(36:46):
I don't think that's too far. Well, and again, he
seems intelligent enough and savvy enough to like put that
person sure, yeah, yeah, first yep, clever. So John Burgess
and both of his sons were arrested in relation to
the bombing. The sons both entered guilty please in nineteen

(37:06):
eighty one, deciding instead to testify against their dad in
exchange for receiving zero prison time. Wow, which talk about
no loyalty. They're like, absolutely said, our father to prison
as long as we don't have to go. Maybe he
was a shitty dad. I mean, I don't know. He
immigrated to the US to escape Well, I don't know.

(37:31):
He might not have been in a good position. And yeah,
I don't know how people would have felt about him
in Hungary right after having gone to the gulag and
come out and been I don't know. I don't know
if he got fathering where they where they stood, everywhere
where they stood on things after World War Two, Like,
I actually don't know. So I don't know. I don't

(37:51):
know what their relationship was. They were like, maybe you
should have gotten us that xbox in the eighties. Yeah,
Atari Atari is more like yeah. So they told authorities
that they had helped their father steal the dynamite from
a construction site and then it had taken from June
to August to assemble. The FBI estimated that there was

(38:13):
approximately one thousand pounds of dynamite used in this bomb,
Wow Harvey's bomb. They also said that they helped place
the bomb in the van before it was taken to
the casino, okay, and that shortly after the detonation at
Harvey's casino, Burgess stole an additional six hundred pounds of
dynamite and buried it, planning to use it later for

(38:35):
a second bomb to be placed either at Harvey's again
or at the main office of Bank of America in
San Francisco. But oh my god, dude, yeah, so they
and they did, like they told him exactly where he
had buried it. They went and dug it up, and
they were like, oh, yeah, here's a six hundred pounds
of dynamite that you're telling us about. Yeah, that guy,

(38:59):
I know. So I assume largely thanks to that testimony
and then being like, yes, we were there for all
of it. Burgess was found guilty and sentenced to life
without parole. H The other two accomplices, Terry Lee Hall
and Hall's father in law Willis Brown, were charged with

(39:19):
conspiracy and interstate transport of explosives. I believe these were
the two in the white suits that dropped it off.
That makes sense at the hotel. In total, there's six
people charged in this. Shees John Burgess was the mastermind.
But there are six people charged in this whole right,
So John Burgess was one the two sons the willis

(39:43):
excuse me, Terry Lee Hall and Willis Brown for the
actual carrying it in. Both played guilty and exchanged four
reduced sentences. The last person charged is a woman named
Ella Joan Williams, who was arrested for being the one
who typed up the some note, Oh, she actually did
the typing of it. You can get secretary experience elsewhere.

(40:06):
She well, and I think, if I remember correctly, she
like worked for like the clerk's office or like the
like in government somewhere or something like that, maybe for
the correctional facility or something like. She was in Like, girl,
that was dumb. I know, I know, you're dumb. So
she was charged and convicted of attempted extortion, conspiracy, and

(40:28):
interstate travel in aid of extortion.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
On appeal her conviction was overturned, but when it went
for retrial, Williams pled guilty to accessory in the extortion bombing,
and at that point was recommended for parole. Okay, she
had spent this time in jail and all this other stuff.
Sixteen years and a day after the bombing in nineteen
ninety six, Burgess died of liver cancer while still incarcerated. Wow,

(40:56):
a mockup of the BOB that the FBI found so fascinating.
They still say that it is the most interesting. Wow.
Yeah yeah, Like all the bomb squad guys were like,
whoa yeah. They said it was one of the most
unique and largest improvised explosive devices that they've ever had

(41:20):
to deal with. What So they rebuild a mockup of
this and it is still used for training by the
laboratory the FBI. Whose here's sort of the this is
the mockup of they use for training. Oh yeah, oh
there's little red lines and everything. I know, it's kind
of hard to see, but it's like, hell yeah, I

(41:41):
mean you can see with the amount of just like
wires and shit, yeah that is in here. Here's a
better look at it. Whoa yeah, someone were like, cut
the red wire, you'd be fucked. They're they're all red
or black. The help actually that's kind of clever because
he did use mostly black wires he did. That looks crazy, Yeah,

(42:03):
it looks really kind and that it is huge. See
this is like the floating mechanism like a toilet almost
like how in the back of a toilet, you know
what I'm saying. Yes, crazy to measure like motion. Maybe
interesting that was if they tried to fill it with
gas or air or water or trigger everything got it.

(42:25):
So that is the what Arby's casino bombing. That's crazy.
That was a good one. Yea, thank you nice. I

(42:49):
love this topic. I always feel like anytime I have
to do it in explosion and just like your average
tude crime, like there's always some interesting it's something going on.
I feel like people like explosions, I mean clearly from
clearly everybody surrounding Harvey's casino and then sharing when the
bomb went off, right demolition, and like that's always fun. Yeah,

(43:14):
it's fun to like, I mean as well as nobody
gets hurt right in mine, one person damn does die. Well,
so it's it's like rude, right and not that kind
of episode rude. So I'm going all the way down
to Melbourne, Australia. Mine because this is the Russell Street bombing.

(43:36):
Mine's also in the eighties, Okay, as we just do
things the same, there is. I think there was more
of this type of thing then because the materials were
easier to get. Oh that makes sense. Maybe they weren't
like as aware of like, hey, if you're buying all
these things together, well and that kind of stuff is
not it was much it's much more regulated. I'm like,

(43:57):
who's authorized to buy and to sell and not saying
you can't get it, but like it got the pseudo
fed treatment. Yes, you just can't buy it. Too much
of that exactly. You just to be in an industry
that uses it to get your hands on it. Allergies.
Give me the fucking just kid allergy meds. I have them. No,
you're not taking them though, are you? No? You're hokod

(44:19):
justin I am. Okay, this sounds more like a you problem,
Rachel less it so yeah. The Russell Street bombings took
place on March twenty seventh of nineteen eighty six, Okay, Melbourne, Australia, Melbourne.
This explosion unfortunately led to the death of Australian police

(44:43):
woman Angela Rose Taylor. She was the first Australian police
woman to ever be killed like in the line of duty. Wow,
this was like a huge deal. Well there's part of it.
It's like, so how many police women did they actually have?
Well right at I mean right, which frankly would make

(45:03):
the statistic even greater because there's not that many, you
know what I mean. Yeah, and she probably had no
idea what was going on, which is really sad. Yeah.
So the location of the bombing was at the Russell
Street police headquarters, so he was obviously clearly trying to
target policeman. Yeah, and it's I mean, it's very sad

(45:28):
that she passed away, but it's crazy that she was
the only casualty, right right, there be mad cops on
that stuff. Yeah, absolutely, they're literally right there. Right. So
this explosion, so your explosion was in a printer. Mine
was a printer. This is the ugly ass car eighties,

(45:53):
very eighties, very eighties car. It's just like shit brown. Yeah,
so it is it really is that poopy. So I
don't know cars, so I'll explain it to you guys.
It's a nineteen seventy nine Holden Commodore. So it's like
a real boxy eighties car, Okay, just sort of like
a normal car. Yeah. The explosion at the police station

(46:19):
caused a huge amount of damage, not only to the
police station, but to surrounding buildings estimated. Okay, let's see,
let's do this conversion. So at the time it said
the damage was around like a million dollars, and now
with inflation, it's like five point three six. Yeah, that
sounds an Australian dollars. That sounds about right, which is deeply,

(46:42):
deeply insane. Yes, that's crazy. The reason that it was
so one of the reasons that it was so damaging
like that it was able to cause so much damage
was because I thought this was really interesting. The impact
of the blast was exacerbated by the open war plan
of the building. It said, quote had acted like a

(47:05):
clay more mine, Okay. Because it was so open, it
was able to there's just nothing like shrapnel and shit
from just going after right, and there was a ton
of shrapnel in the air. Okay. So that's what caused
a lot of the surrounding damage, okay, okay, And that's
what happened, unfortunately to Police Constable Angela Rois Taylor. She

(47:29):
was only twenty one years old, Like you figure she
probably just started right. She was hit by the shrapnel
and later died I believe at the hospital. Okay. And
then in the whole thing, she was the only one
who was like seriously injured, but there were twenty two
other people who also suffered injuries. Gotcha. This was such

(47:49):
a big ass big as last. Yes, So now on
to the investigation, okay, like who did this? So they
just they drop it off and then goes off. Yeah,
the bomb goes off. Okay, they didn't have they didn't
know who had dropped off the car. They didn't have
any information. It was just like in the parking garage. Okay,
and remind me, the parking garage was under the building. Okay, okay, yeah,

(48:13):
with you with you, right, So they're trying to figure
out so just like before, they're trying to be like, okay,
let's see who's buying bomb material? Right, So there was
this nearby mine, uh tyr counel mine okay, and dynamite
I would assume for the mining thing, right, they stole

(48:37):
detonators and explosive materials from this mine, like they had reported,
like there was all this stuff stolen and when they
looked into it. They were like, yeah, that's enough to
have done this. Yeah. And then earlier, like the year before,
the car had been reported stolen and they were like,

(48:58):
obviously that's the car. They were able to find like
in the records that that was the cars. They were like, okay,
this has been planned out for like at least two years. Okay,
because that's when everything was stolen, was two years previous.
They were like, shit, right, and so that's some long
game right right there, right now, Like let's just blow
up the police station today. So they weren't sure at

(49:20):
first whether or not the police station was the main
target because in that same area actually, I think like
right across the street or like Caddy Corner was the
Melbourne Magistrate's Court okay, and there had been bombings and
murders committed at that establishment before damn, like where everybody
gets sentenced and everything like that. You know, tensions are high.

(49:43):
They were like, oh, this is just another attack run
the magistrate okay. So they're trying to rule out links
to that. So they're trying to figure out like is
this for the police station, is this for the magistrate.
A week after the bombing, the police station obviously a
not blown up. One got an anonymous caller stating that

(50:06):
they had footage like of the guys before the explosion,
and they were like, that's so great, we would love
to hear that information. And he was like, yeah, I
want five hundred thousand dollars in American money placed in
a Swiss bank account. And they were like, no, no,

(50:26):
we don't pay for stories. Yeah there, no, thank you.
You can actually like come down in the station on
your kangaroo and come down here, get in it right, No,
but this caller, so they were like no. But the
caller continued to contact them during the investigation five separate

(50:47):
times call in and be like, I have all this information,
give me money. They trace the calls. They were like,
who is this clown? It was just in a bunch
of phone boxes like phone box, which is a very
vintage thing. It but they were obviously like, okay were
they all were all the phone boxes in like the

(51:07):
same area, in the area of a town called Saint Kilda,
which was okay, so right, the call is coming from
inside the room, like okay, where he says exactly. They
were like, okay, let's try to get him to call again.
I don't know why. I took five calls for them
to be like maybe this guy, maybe you should kill somehow.

(51:29):
So the commissioner was like okay, he went on TV
and was like, yeah, we will definitely. I like this
in parentheses. It offered the callers amount as a reward
for information, but they did not say that they would
give it in US dollars or put it in a
Swiss bank account, and yeah, we'll give you five hundred
thousand if you come forward. This guy who's been calling

(51:51):
for sure, why don't you come forward? Okay. So, because
of the broadcast and do the information they received, they
id fighted the caller as a thirty thirty eight year
old chemist named Vladimir Reichta okay, because they found him
in the phone box making the call. Okay. He was, well,

(52:13):
at that point, you're just giving that fucking money, and
they were like knock knock, right at that point, you
just stake out all that. I mean, I can't depending
on how big the town is, Like how many phone
box do they have? You know what I mean? You
just put an officer on each box, right exactly, yeah, exactly,
And that's what they did. They were like Nope, I
don't think so. So he ended up getting charged with

(52:36):
hindering a police investigation. Okay, and he was convicted and
sentenced two months imprisonment. Okay, Like he's just a crazy guy.
He's just a guy who wanted money at that point.
So then they were like, okay, let's move on to
the next lead. Luckily, there was a lady, a female witness,

(52:57):
and she was like, I saw somebody parking this car. Okay,
so that's good. So they were like, okay, let's they
had like a police sketch artist because she saw the driver. Okay.
It matched the description of career criminal Claudio Creopie, very Italian. Okay.

(53:17):
He was a big, like mob guy, kind of an
armed robber, would go to jail all the time. He
hated cops hours and had a grudge, like a very
well known grudge against a particular officer who worked in
that office. Okay, I had just blown up. Oh geez,
and he was on bail at this time, so my god. Okay,

(53:40):
they probably took him and booked him through that station
and then released him on bail right oh my god.
And right after the bombing, he was like, I'm not
gonna be in Melbourne right now, bye, I'm gonna go
somewhere else oops, which is to Sydney. Oops. So they
the police were like, let's go to his house, and
he wasn't there because he had flood the scene. And

(54:01):
they found a homemade device on his kitchen table. Oh
like a little homemade bomb. Oh boy. They were like,
holy shit. Yeah, so they tracked him to Sydney, where
he was arrested and brought back for questioning. And under
the questioning, this is super funny because guess what is
he involved? No, but he had been making a bomb,

(54:25):
so it was just a coincidence that he was also
planning the same thing and somebody beat him to it.
Isn't that funny? Wow? He's like, no, I was gonna
but I can. So they already blowed it up. I
wonder if, like, once he got out on bail and
was working on his bomb and then heard the news
that it had gotten blown up, if he was like, fuck,

(54:47):
this does not actually look good for me. Let me
just leave. Yeah, yep exactly. I thought that was sunny,
Like he seems perfect for it because he's this career criminal.
They already know him. Like, I love the idea that
did the sketch, and they're like, it's that motherfucker. Yeah,
it's that he was right this guy like what a day? Yeah,
which honest, I mean, it's a fair line of suspect,

(55:12):
you know, like I get why they went that direction
and the first one too, and like these kinds of
cases are so frustrating because it's like this guy's the
perfect guy and he didn't do it right. And this
guy's the perfect guy and he didn't. So finally they
were So this seemed to be separate at first. There
was this incident that happened that seemed like different stuff.

(55:32):
So Victoria police was trying to find a different car
that had been stolen. They were tracking a red Dammler Sovereign. Okay,
I don't know a car. Uh So they found it.
They get into a cheeky little police chase. The Dollmer
turned onto a side street. It's probably Dammler, like Damler, Chrysler.

(55:56):
Oh maybe it's d A. I am l E R.
So maybe I don't know. We don't know cars. I
don't know Damler. I'm pathetic, I really am, Like I
could not identify, Like this wasn't that a thing? Daymark Chrysler.
I literally would be the last to know. Nope, I'm
not Daymark Chrysler, the name of a German American auto

(56:20):
Daymark Chrysler. Was like Chrysler, Yeah, you heard it here. Anyway,
bad taste car. I don't know anything about cars, and
I'm like, this is one of those things that I
probably heard in passing that just like stuck stuck in
my brain. I've never heard of that in mind. Anyway,
keep going, keep going. So they're they're they're like, this
car has been stolen. We're gonna drive after this guy.

(56:42):
The guy crashes the car and they get into like
a whole thing. He holds another motorist at gunpoint and
makes his escape, but the car is still there. So
they're like, okay, well we can get the car. Let's
look inside the car. And they opened the boot, the
boot of the car, in which they found a set
of license plates that had been cut into pieces. Oh

(57:07):
like that's a little suspicious. That's not suspicious. What are
you talking about? I like my license plates and pieces.
That's the only way I'll take them. I want gy
I want to put them together. I can't relate. I
do that for five minutes and I'm like, get me,
I have no patience. When they were put together, they

(57:28):
came back the license plate numbers came back to another
a silver nineteen eighty five VK Commodore okay, that had
also been stolen stolen before the bombing. This matched the
description of a vehicle being used in an armed bank
robbery the day of the bombing. Okay, So the vehicle

(57:52):
was used. They like slammed it like into I love
how they just keep accidentally solving crime completely. It's like,
oh my god, you guys are doing so good. Damn it.
We talked about that one, the one that we're working on.
I want to go home, Like, honestly, this is funny.
But like the crime that this car was used to
commit is what I pictured. When you were like, oh,

(58:14):
we're going to do explosives. I immediately pictured like the
Old West, where like they're slamming like a car with
like a bomb on it into like the front of
a bank and blowing the window out so they can
all jump in and be like give me the money.
Was immediately became to mind. It was like some Jesse
James ship. Yeah. So I was like, oh my god,
full circle. That's so funny. But like the day of

(58:35):
the bombing, it was they were like, this is the car.
The license plates with this car or in this other
stolen car. Okay, that's suspicious. These two bomby crimes are
happening at the same time, right, So they were like,
let's find the silver Commodore and they found it at
the bottom of a river. Okay, it's also suspicious. Car

(58:58):
needed a bath, right, so yeah, nice, but it couldn't,
which was probably the point, right, like, let's wash off
all these fingerprints and all this, you know, pak dust.
But they couldn't wash off everything because the the VIN
number on the chassis had been drilled off. Oh right, okay,

(59:20):
so but and they somehow knew, like they were able
to trace, and they were like, this means that this
is the exact car that was in fact used in
the bombing. License plates we have are in fact. They
were like all coming together, this is clearly intentional and
somebody took the VIN number off. Yeah right, so they
were able to kind of link it. They were like,
all right, so they're trying to figure out so obviously

(59:41):
the guy who was driving the red car that was
stolen held up a passing motorist and made us escapes.
They were like, let's figure out who this guy is.
Good idea Okay. One of the traffic officers was able
to like give a sketch and identify the driver as
Peter Reid. Okay. Peter Reid born Peter Komasiak was a

(01:00:05):
suspected armed robber and karthief. Oh god, okay, sounds like
a straight up guy his So right away they're like,
we're putting all of his family and associates and everyone
on surveillance, yea, so that we can find him. Yeah,
So they did that, they had them on surveillance, and
then on the twenty fifth of April nineteen eighty six,

(01:00:25):
they raided the home because he was staying with a friend,
Carl Zelinka. Okay, so they decided to raid his home
as they were reading his home, which of course they
did by like announcing reads home or the place where
he was staying, the place where he was staying, which
was essentially his home. They were kind of living together,
but I think that in like a cute way. When

(01:00:49):
they forced entry, they obviously yelled like police, but Reid
was like, actually, I'm gonna shoot you. So he pulled
out his smith and wesson and fired at police. He
injured an officer super seriously, and then another officer shot
him and kind of ended the whole thing. Yeah, not

(01:01:10):
killing him though, Yeah, just ended the standoff, right, Okay,
it was like a crazy little I'm sure they just
thought they were going to go in there like early.
You never know what you expect, especially when you're dealing
with people who are like career criminals, right, who are
going to blow up a building, like, come on, dude.
So they search his home. They find several guns where

(01:01:31):
the VIN numbers have been drilled off or the serial
numbers of the FIN numbers. And they're looking and they're like,
this looks like the other thing that happened. Sure. They
also recovered several more license plates from other stolen vehicles awesome,
a police scanner handy to have, and two detonators. Okay,

(01:01:52):
here we go. But is this a real bomber fake bo? Right?
Was this the bomb the bomb or is this a
different bo This one's real. It was just the detonators,
not the full bomb. But they also found a backpack
with sticks of a dynamite like material called gellic knights. Okay,
which is you know similar. Yeah, so they were able

(01:02:15):
to take both men into questioning because obviously all the
shit is man suspicion. Sure. Zealinka, who was Peter Reed's friend,
admitted that like he was like, okay, we do all
kind of know each other. Yeah, we know each other.
And there was this other guy too that they were
trying to get crag Minou like Kylie Mino. Probably related
because they're all Australian, so they were all kind of

(01:02:38):
like ratting each other out. So it seems like Zealinka
was not as heavily involved as you might assume with
this guy sort of like living in his house. Yeah,
because a lot of the information that he was giving
was like, well I saw them driving this like shit
brown commodore, and I saw them kind of talking about
bombs together. And then after the explosion, Uh, this other

(01:03:01):
guy in Minogue was like giving him stuff like here,
take this like bag of stuff and just put it
in the garbage. Yeah, just don't look at it. So
very but also very much like not implicating himself. Correct,
that's all right, okay, right, And this was which guy
was saying this. This was the guy that he was
staying with, which Silinka okay. Zilinka also told detectives that

(01:03:24):
while like all of these like criminals were staying at
his house, they were being I loved this. I love
this little detail they were being because they were like, okay,
who who all is involved? But tell me all of
the visitors that they had. And he was like, oh,
I'll tell you all about Stand the Man, Stand the Man.
They were like hello. He was like, yeah, this guy

(01:03:45):
was coming and like helping them and talking about like
this is how we're going to do this crime. But
I only knew him as Stand the Man. And one
of the officers there was like, oh no, we know
that guy. I know Stand the Fuck. Oh god, this
description match known armed Robbert Stanley Bryant. Oh my god,
an extensive criminal record. His first offense was at the

(01:04:08):
age of eight years old. Wow, what a great nickname.
Though I know stand Man, Stand the Man. I love it, Like,
how bad can you? I feel like if I ever
know any Stands or Stanley's, that would a classic instantly
call him Stand the Man. So good. Yeah. So he's
kind of an interesting character, as you can already tell.
Sure he had kind of had this like life of

(01:04:29):
crime in and out of like even as a child,
in out of boys homes, in out of borstal in,
and out of jail. While in jail, he actually seemed
to sort of turn his life around. You know that
some some jails will like put on like plays and musicals.
Yehich I think is so fun. Sure, he was in
several of those productions, and when he got out, he

(01:04:50):
pursued acting that. He was in an episode of the
show Prisoner in nineteen seventy nine. Oh funny, like a
bit actress. He was in a bunch of like TV shows, right,
But I mean listen, even criminals need hobbies. Yeah, you know,
he just needs to express himself. Yeah, he just has
an explosive Yeah. So they were able to Obviously they

(01:05:15):
probably looked at his SAG card or whatever and was like, oh,
that's where you live. We're gonna go and get you.
So they went and got him, and he kind of
immediately was like, oh yeah, no, we did that shit.
Yeah wow. I'm kind of surprised that he gave it up.
So oh he's saying like immediately is what it said? Like, no, no, no,
I'm just yep. So through his information and all of

(01:05:39):
them talking, they were able to discover like things that
kind of helped them with the crime, such as a
large high speed engraving machine. That's how they were drilling
off all of these numbers. They were able to find
that at Stand the Man's residence. Okay, okay. So as

(01:06:01):
they're uh kind of talking to them, they figure out that, uh,
not only do Stand the Man have this cool nickname,
but they're all in a really really cool armed robbery
crew together. You are not ready for the name of
this crew, Stand the Man and the Band. See I
love that. I would have Animal and the Boy's Crew. Okay,
the out of here, get out. I don't like that.

(01:06:23):
That's so animal, Animal and the Boy's Crew not even
men boys crows, oh the boys boys boys. And once
like that came out, the police were like, Oh, that's
who's been committing all of these like armed robberies and
ship God damn it, it's these assholes. Yeahgether, Oh my god.
So it's like as it came together, it was like, oh,

(01:06:43):
they've been committing all of these crimes. They they solve
the one crime they're setting out, and then still accidentally
solve more crime right their way into solving all Yes,
so funny so let's go to the trial. Let's go
to the trial. Uh, prosecutors didn't really see. I feel

(01:07:06):
like a lot of times in these cases it comes
down to like specifics like who drove the car, who
built the bomb. Yeah, they were kind of like, no,
all of these guys just kind of did it together.
Australian law seems very like whatever, you're just gonna go
to yes and no. In some ways, it's hard if
you have a harder time of differentiating who did what

(01:07:27):
because there was so much crossover. There's no way in
having the separate charges very true you can likely especially
they felt like they could prove yeah. Yeah. And it
seems like there's certain laws like that in America too,
where like I think, like especially in California, where it's
like if you drive someone to a house and they
go in and commit a murder, you're also charged with murder. Yes,

(01:07:49):
you know what I mean, Like it seems kind of
like that, like nope, you were all there, so you're
all kind of getting yeah. Yeah. So they were like, nope,
this was just kind of a team effort essentially. Sure,
they had a six month trial in the Supreme Court
of Victoria. They were all tried together. Yes, okay. Craigmuanau

(01:08:09):
was convicted of mainly murder and then other offensive for
the one police officer who had died, and then other offenses.
Peter Reid and uh Craigmanneau had a brother, Rodney Minoau,
who was also kind of in on it, but it
wasn't interesting. They were acquitted of any like bombing related offenses,
but because they were career criminals, they were convicted with

(01:08:31):
a bunch of other shit, both relating to the arrest
and the shooting and stuff like that, and like the
drivingway in the cars. So Reid was sentenced to twelve years.
Taylor was sentenced to life imprisonment and he was the
first person ever in Victoria to be they have like

(01:08:52):
a life imprisonment with no minimum term. Sure, Craigmanau was
sentenced to life imprisonment them twenty eight years, and he
actually became eligible for parole in like twenty sixteen. But
they were like, no, you're actually gonna stay there. Yeah. Yeah.
And both Minou and Reed have within recent years because

(01:09:16):
like with DNA and everything, a lot of sexual assault
charges are coming up. They have both been charged with
sexual assault charges that occurred before the bombing. They're probably like, well,
good thing, We're just leaving them in prison, right right,
we know where these guys are. Yeah. Yes, the police
headquarters had moved to like another area, the old like

(01:09:39):
bombed out building. They never rebuilt it into another police headquarters,
which I thought was unusual, saying they ended up converting
it into apartments. But on the apartments there is a big,
nice memorial plaque to Officer Angela Rose Taylor who lost
her life in the bombing. All of the offenders are

(01:10:00):
still in jail as far as I can tell. Yeah,
and I think they should stay there, don't blow people up.
That is wild, just how many crimes they accidentally saw
in pursuit of this one bombing part of this case.
It's like it's just the one, but it's like, oh,
it turns out it's this whole thing. Do you think
that there was that the bombing was just as a

(01:10:21):
way to get back at the police or was it
a distraction tactic for one of the robberies. That's interesting.
Didn't you say there was a robbery that happened at
the same time they committed at the same time. That
was the car that was in the river. Yeah, so
that's interesting. I'm wondering, like, set that off because you
don't have respond people responding to like, Oh I think,

(01:10:42):
so you think? I mean maybe it could have been
a little of both. It's difficult because none of these
assholes wanted to be like I did it because of this.
They were all like, shut up, sure, mostly except for
the one guy who was like his friend and my
moment in the spotlight waiting for this ye cast of characters, funny,

(01:11:02):
isn't that great? That's cool? Not great. That was a
really interesting story that is very interesting. Before you decide
to build a bomb first fault, don't yeah, don't do that.
No homemade bombs, no pipe bombs, no bomb threads. Let's
not do that, uh bombs instead of okay? Instead, why
don't you check out this podcast. My name is Hunter

(01:11:24):
and I'm Haley, and we're your hosts.

Speaker 3 (01:11:26):
Of Murder and Such, a podcast about true crime, serial killers,
and other dark subject matter. Join us while we fill
your ear holes with some crappy comedy and disgusting tales.

Speaker 2 (01:11:39):
You can now find us on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, Podgy,
and all of your podcast or services. You can like
us on Facebook Instagram and follow.

Speaker 3 (01:11:48):
Us on Twitter at Murder and such.

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
Hope to hear from you guys soon. Bye bye. All right,
that has been our show this week. Do you have
any final thoughts before we finish up? Don't blow stuff up?
Don't do that. Basically I had to even attempt, I
would blow myself up and I would die, Like it

(01:12:12):
just seems so like scary. Yeah, I'm not that careful.
As the story of me. We talked earlier about me
and then dumping my coffee over and burning my finger
and doing all these ten minutes terrible. You've probably heard
how many times I have like hit the table and
the mic or whatever in just this episode, Like what

(01:12:33):
the fuck is even going on with I could definitely
not build a bomb, that's yeah. No, I would be
building it and I would like too, and then everything
would go on just enough vibration it would set off
the mechan But well, on that note, our sound and
editing is by Tiff Fulman. Our music is by Jason
Zakschevski The Enigma. This has been the Bad Taste Crime Podcast.

(01:12:57):
We will see you in two weeks. Goodbye.

Speaker 1 (01:13:00):
There the young women that left.

Speaker 2 (01:13:01):
Their bodies on the mill's eyes along the highways to
see they're wearing. It was as if the wave of
the people washed over with towns to see they're wearing
in some form or another