Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Zaren go.
Speaker 2: Hey, Hi Elizabeth Arnett, how are you.
Speaker 3: I was just having quiet time, my head down on
Speaker 3: my desk, like I finished my test early.
Speaker 2: I love quiet.
Speaker 4: I know you do. I know you finished your test early,
Speaker 4: Love quiet.
Speaker 2: Listen. Yes you know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 4: Oh my goodness. Jim Morrison yeah right, yeah, period, No,
Speaker 4: I liked.
Speaker 3: I have to admit I was a Jim Morrison Stan
Speaker 3: when I was a young man, Like I was that kid.
Speaker 3: But I just found out recently that there was a
Speaker 3: memorial bust of Jim Morrison at the perry Leche Cemetery
Speaker 3: of Paris, and it was like a head and shoulders
Speaker 3: and it was like kind of very famous.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then it.
Speaker 3: Was stolen in nineteen Yeah, it was stolen nineteen eighty
Speaker 3: eight and it's been gone for a long time. The
Speaker 3: family eventually paid for a new one to replace it,
Speaker 3: but after thirty seven years, the Paris police just found it.
Speaker 3: Good job Paris police years turns out totally by mistake.
Speaker 3: They were just they were serve a warrant on an
Speaker 3: unrelated case. No, yeah, as they said a quote, this
Speaker 3: was a chance discovery made during his search order than
Speaker 3: by and examining magistrates.
Speaker 4: That's the Paris quotes.
Speaker 3: Wow, so they just stumbled across the gym Morrison busy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, is this important?
Speaker 2: It is tacking on the charges now.
Speaker 4: So there you go.
Speaker 3: I thought that was a ridiculous That is ridiculous French
Speaker 3: police recovery.
Speaker 4: Years later.
Speaker 2: Do you want to know what else is ridiculous? Please?
Speaker 2: Smuggling literal tons of weed? Like tons? Oh oh, this
Speaker 2: is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers,
Speaker 2: heists and cons It is always always ninety nine percent
Speaker 2: murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 4: I hope that.
Speaker 2: I hope so too. I would like to open with
Speaker 2: a reading a poem of sorts from a poet I
Speaker 2: can't stand, but that I think you'll appreciate and through
Speaker 2: whom this tale I tell you today resonates strongly. This
Speaker 2: won't be a close reading, just a contemplation on a theme.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm prepared here.
Speaker 2: It is as the son of a son of a sailor,
Speaker 2: I went out on the sea for adventure, expanding the
Speaker 2: view of the captain and crew like a man just
Speaker 2: released from indenture. As a dreamer of dreams and a
Speaker 2: traveling man. I have chalked up many a mile, read
Speaker 2: dozens of books about heroes and crooks, and I learned
Speaker 2: much from both of their styles.
Speaker 5: Son of a son, son of a son, son of
Speaker 5: a son of a sailor, son of a gun load
Speaker 5: the last time, one step ahead of the jailer.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you. That's right. It's the lyrics to
Speaker 2: the song son of a Son of a Sailor by
Speaker 2: Jimmy Buffett, James Buffett, Jimmy Buffet.
Speaker 4: My dad.
Speaker 2: My dad loved Jimmy Buffett. I can tell because he
Speaker 2: was all about like sailboats in the ocean and cheeseburgers,
Speaker 2: and and I think, well, then you know my nephew
Speaker 2: is the son of a son of a sailorically. But
Speaker 2: I can't stand Jimmy Buffett. I think I was trying
Speaker 2: to what I was trying to investigate this. It was
Speaker 2: like Elizabeth, I always think he's a good time. Anytime
Speaker 2: that you really like don't like someone, you really have
Speaker 2: to investigate and think a lot of times, not all
Speaker 2: the time, but many times it's the things that you
Speaker 2: don't like about yourself or what you see in that
Speaker 2: person or what you're afraid you are.
Speaker 4: But then I really you're afraid you're a beach bomb
Speaker 4: who at all?
Speaker 2: What irks me about Jimmy Buffett, I decided, is the
Speaker 2: longing that his fans feel for this like life of
Speaker 2: no obligation, and then their search for it they kind
Speaker 2: of abandon obligation, like the obligation to not be drunk
Speaker 2: in public.
Speaker 4: You don't like the divorce dad energy.
Speaker 2: There's so much divorced energy, like the fans didn't or
Speaker 2: don't like. Do like the infantile describing of any minor
Speaker 2: responsibility as quote adulting. Sure that is nails on.
Speaker 4: I know you hate that term, but the one that
Speaker 4: you don't want Sunday scary.
Speaker 2: Sunday scary never I hear that.
Speaker 3: I Like, I used to be in pitch meetings and
Speaker 3: then people would say that that in Monday morning.
Speaker 4: They'd be like, I had a real bad case.
Speaker 3: It's Sunday scaries, and I'd have to keep a straight
Speaker 3: face a zoom call.
Speaker 4: I'm just not you know me, I'm more of a
Speaker 4: cowboy that I've never gone even.
Speaker 2: If that life is about obligations. And I think I've
Speaker 2: told you before that my big run in with a
Speaker 2: Jimmy Buffett fan was when I was like maybe eight
Speaker 2: years old and the neighbors across the street were like
Speaker 2: pre partying for a Jimmy Buffett concert, and this lady
Speaker 2: came up to me, like I can see her leathery
Speaker 2: dec letee and like the visor over crispy bleached hair,
Speaker 2: Like you can see like her bikini straps under the
Speaker 2: tank top.
Speaker 4: Yes, if you wear a tank top over a bikini.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, and then like shorts and flip flops
Speaker 2: and like an anklet and she's no, that'd be amazing. No.
Speaker 2: And she was the one who said, you know, like
Speaker 2: unbidden walks up to a child and says, the best
Speaker 2: cure for a hangover is a tuna sandwich, French fries
Speaker 2: and a chocolate shake.
Speaker 4: Well, you've always remembered it, so apparently.
Speaker 2: It is burned. It is like, yeah, but so.
Speaker 4: You ever used medical advice? No, and like good advice,
Speaker 4: I never got it's actually correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So if parent heads we want to hear from
Speaker 2: you ridiculous crime dot com.
Speaker 3: Oh, by the way, I will represent I've been to
Speaker 3: multiple show I have the appeal.
Speaker 2: Of Jimmy Buffett's people. Like, okay, So life is about obligations.
Speaker 2: People depend on us, systems depend on our reliability. There
Speaker 2: should be satisfaction in stepping up and embracing responsibility.
Speaker 4: This is the cowboy adulting. Yes, this is where I'm
Speaker 4: got it adulting.
Speaker 2: Just do your life. The Jimmy buz Well, the aesthetic
Speaker 2: of Jimmy Buffett is all about abandoning responsibility for pure
Speaker 2: relaxations and enjoyment. I love to enjoy things, and I
Speaker 2: wish I knew what relaxation felt like. But there are limits, boks.
Speaker 2: That's what I say. So today I want to tell
Speaker 2: you a very Jimmy Buffett story. Yes, yeah, it's got
Speaker 2: a dash of Stephen Still's.
Speaker 4: I'll take it thrown in there. I love, I get this.
Speaker 2: This is more Buffet than Stills, I think.
Speaker 4: But this is criminal.
Speaker 2: This is about a complex character, a guy with shifting
Speaker 2: obligations that he embraces and abandons in equal turns. So
Speaker 2: this is the story of Raymond Grady Stancil Junior.
Speaker 4: A name Grady Stancil j.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna call him ray He was born in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty seven. He grew up in Saint Petersburg, Florida.
Speaker 2: You could say that he was the son of a sailor.
Speaker 2: His dad was a commercial fisherman, and that's a punishing job. Yes,
Speaker 2: he was born into a very outdoorsy family and he
Speaker 2: fell he fell right into it is your family outdoorsy
Speaker 2: Some of.
Speaker 3: Them are, yeah, some are very bookish and scholarly, and
Speaker 3: others are really outdoors Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. My dad's side of family very outdoorsy. My mom's
Speaker 2: side not so much. They make an effort good you know. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Ray total outdoors man. So he started young with the
Speaker 2: f when he was six, he helped his dad by
Speaker 2: casting out a net to pull in bait for like
Speaker 2: big fish.
Speaker 4: Oh total yeah, great fish.
Speaker 2: And he loved and respected the water. You have to
Speaker 2: you've got sailor waterman.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And when he was in his teens, he saw the
Speaker 2: destruction around him that dredging was doing to the wetlands
Speaker 2: in Florida.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So he went out one day and he sank one
Speaker 2: of the big dredging vessels out in Tampa Bay. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So a little bit of a folk care outlaw. He
Speaker 2: got out of high school in the mid fifties and
Speaker 2: listed in the Air Force, but he bailed on that
Speaker 2: really quickly, and then he went out to follow in
Speaker 2: his dad's footsteps. He became a professional fisherman. So there's
Speaker 2: this really great feature ray in the magazine Outside Magazine.
Speaker 2: It's a great one. Here's a quote from that where
Speaker 2: he's basically painted as the most interesting man alive.
Speaker 4: Nice quote.
Speaker 2: Stancil was said to be able to back a forty
Speaker 2: six foot sport fishing boat into a slip with the
Speaker 2: wind blowing fifteen knots and the tide running against him.
Speaker 2: Legend has it he wants single handedly brought up a
Speaker 2: ninety foot barge that had sunk in one hundred foot
Speaker 2: waters using only scuba gear and inflatable tubes. He was
Speaker 2: caught more than two thousand pounds of grouper in a
Speaker 2: single weekend. All this despite the fact that he was
Speaker 2: blind in his left eye, a consequence of being struck
Speaker 2: in the face with a broom as he and a
Speaker 2: friend swept the cafeteria floor in middle school. This is good, right,
Speaker 2: I shouldn't laugh at the last bit about the eye
Speaker 2: that whatever falls shortened. Yeah, exactly. So by the time
Speaker 2: he was thirty, married, four kids, nineteen sixty five, he
Speaker 2: gets hired to be the private captain for the founder
Speaker 2: of the Dallas Cowboys, Clinton Murchison Junior. Oh wow, fun fact.
Speaker 2: Clint was an oil air who funded the creation of
Speaker 2: a Swedish pirate radio station that operated off the coast
Speaker 2: of Sweden from March of nineteen sixty one to June
Speaker 2: of nineteen sixty two. No one did, I just made
Speaker 2: that up. Okay, it really is true. So Ray's gig
Speaker 2: for Clint that only lasted a couple of years, and
Speaker 2: then when it wrapped up, Ray picked up moved his
Speaker 2: family back to Florida. So he started his business running
Speaker 2: charter boats. But the waters and the weather very yeah,
Speaker 2: and so it's an unpredictable weather, unpredictable business, which is
Speaker 2: not good business.
Speaker 4: It's a tough business. I was saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So he tried setting out stone crass.
Speaker 3: Business where you're what you're investing in you have to
Speaker 3: feed it or if it floats.
Speaker 4: Is a rough business.
Speaker 2: That's that's good. That is good.
Speaker 4: Saren told that one.
Speaker 6: I like that.
Speaker 2: He tried doing stone crab traps, but the pickings were
Speaker 2: slimm and like he just couldn't eke out a living.
Speaker 2: But then he did, Oh, Zaren, how do you think
Speaker 2: Ray was able to make money in Florida in the
Speaker 2: early seventies when he had a boat and lots of
Speaker 2: maritime experience and skill.
Speaker 4: Elizabeth, how was Ray able to make money in the
Speaker 4: early seven when he had a boat and limited maritime skill,
Speaker 4: lots of marriage talking about me.
Speaker 2: You're right there, you got it right, Drugs.
Speaker 3: Drugs, muddeling, you got He was moving the marijuana rugas.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know how he first got into it,
Speaker 2: but he was really good at it, really like he
Speaker 2: moved weight. So at the time, weed super cheap in Jamaica.
Speaker 2: The good stuff grown up in the mountains was sold
Speaker 2: by the fifty pound bat sack on the beach to
Speaker 2: those who were in the no ten dollars a pound,
Speaker 2: if you can believe it, ten bucks a pound. So
Speaker 2: dealers they'd pick up a few sacks and then they
Speaker 2: would sell it for one hundred and seventy five a pounds.
Speaker 2: That's market. Yeah, but that's a lot of stuff, like
Speaker 2: hundreds of pounds.
Speaker 4: It's a lot to move.
Speaker 2: You aren't just shoving that in your undies when you
Speaker 2: go through customs.
Speaker 4: Now you're now a trucker.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the dealers they contracted with Ray, he's a pro.
Speaker 2: He knew every nook and cranny on the coast. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he could pilot a boat swiftly, safely. Remember you get
Speaker 2: like back at us a.
Speaker 4: Lot of sandbars and navigate in Florida. I mean that's areas.
Speaker 2: He could read the weather.
Speaker 4: You don't want to get beached with the bales.
Speaker 2: Of Oh no, he was the ace. So Jamaican weed
Speaker 2: was known to be good, but the best weed was
Speaker 2: supposed to be coming in from Columbia. So that's where
Speaker 2: Ray set his sight.
Speaker 4: Nice, there you go.
Speaker 2: So he teamed up with this big dog weed supplier
Speaker 2: named Raoul Davila Jimeno. And to the rest of the world,
Speaker 2: that guy was like a sugar, coffee, and petroleum exporter.
Speaker 2: Sure to the drug world, he was the major supplier
Speaker 2: for the Black Tuna Gang. Black Tuna Gang got its
Speaker 2: name because that was Raoul's radio code name. Ever called
Speaker 2: him Black Tuna, and most of the gang members they
Speaker 2: wore these solid gold medallions, these necklaces that had like
Speaker 2: a black Tuna emblem on it.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that looks cool.
Speaker 2: It was super cool. It's like their good luck charm.
Speaker 2: But it was also a symbol of their gang, and
Speaker 2: so Raoul's basically got this like small private army, and
Speaker 2: he ruled Santa Marta, Colombia, which happened to be where
Speaker 2: most of the Colombian marijuana was.
Speaker 4: That is like a beautiful coastal city. Beautiful, it was
Speaker 4: just incredible.
Speaker 2: So the Black Tuna Gang they ran Santa march To Columbia,
Speaker 2: but they operated out of a suite at the Fontaine
Speaker 2: Blue Hotel in Miami Beach. Yeah, and they had they
Speaker 2: had like in their pocket this vice president of this
Speaker 2: fancy Fort Lauderdale yacht brokerage, and he got them access
Speaker 2: to specialized boats that could carry tons of marijuana without
Speaker 2: sitting like suspiciously low the water. So the contraband was
Speaker 2: transported in these modified boats and they unloaded it at
Speaker 2: these there were all these stash houses along the water,
Speaker 2: really nice neighborhoods.
Speaker 4: Interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they like, you know, you wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 4: Neighborhood dumped some stuff at late at night onto the dock, and.
Speaker 2: It's just everyone just kind of mind's your own business.
Speaker 2: It would take Ray five days to get from Jamaica
Speaker 2: to Florida, and it took him ten days to get
Speaker 2: from Columbia to Florida.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is in the era before the go fast
Speaker 3: boats and cocaine, so they're doing the opposite.
Speaker 4: They're taking the slow boats exactly.
Speaker 2: So he'd pilot this like specially fitted boat through the
Speaker 2: maze of as you were saying, all these Florida inlets
Speaker 2: in the middle of the night. His crew would move
Speaker 2: the bales of weed from the boat to the beach,
Speaker 2: and then the marijuana bundles, which like one of his
Speaker 2: guys later said that it looked like horse feed because
Speaker 2: it's just big bales of it. The bales of it
Speaker 2: would be weighed on these huge, like enormous scales and
Speaker 2: then transferred to the stash houses. And this went on
Speaker 2: for years. They were moving like one hundred thousand pounds
Speaker 2: at a time, like I said weight. So when a
Speaker 2: criminal enterprise is doing really well, like bringing in a
Speaker 2: lot of cash, it often becomes really hard to store
Speaker 2: and keep that physical cash. So you can't just you
Speaker 2: can't just deposit it in the bank for so many reasons.
Speaker 2: You know, they're the daily limits. You need to be
Speaker 2: able to like pick up.
Speaker 3: And run, you need to pay your guys, and you
Speaker 3: don't want to go to the bank to get your payroll.
Speaker 4: For criminal enterprise, you need to.
Speaker 2: Be totally liquid and transferable and like free from seats, definitely.
Speaker 2: So Ray he dealt with his cash storage problems by
Speaker 2: storing stacks of hundreds in orange crates in his parents' attic.
Speaker 2: But then one day his dad found, of course, and
Speaker 2: that's hard to explain. I wonder if he had like
Speaker 2: break some off to his dad to be quiet, like
Speaker 2: you didn't see this. Here's a crate.
Speaker 4: Totally keep your.
Speaker 2: Ray's like, I gotta get serious about this. I can't
Speaker 2: stash it at my parents house. He opened a bank
Speaker 2: account in the Cayman Islands, so now he's adultings. Then
Speaker 2: he used some of the cash to get gold bars.
Speaker 2: And it's all about the laundering obviously. So he established
Speaker 2: like seafood and boat building companies in Panama and Honduras.
Speaker 2: Smart and then he invested it, bought.
Speaker 4: More boats, good grof you want to grow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So here's the thing, though, fishermen have to be observant,
Speaker 2: like they monitor all the little changes and shifts around them,
Speaker 2: same with sailors and the fo Yeah, the fishermen who
Speaker 2: shared the docks with raised boats, they noticed something like
Speaker 2: he goes out a lot, comes back fully laden, but
Speaker 2: he never left the pier with ice, and like, you
Speaker 2: have to have that if you're going to go out
Speaker 2: and plan on catching fishes. Never loaded up ice.
Speaker 4: You don't want hot fishing on your boat.
Speaker 2: Okay. So this big full boat comes back and his
Speaker 2: nets were always unused and dry.
Speaker 4: That's another give away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it just wasn't adding up. So in June
Speaker 2: of nineteen seventy four, the cops they're onto him. He
Speaker 2: gets arrested. When he got busted, he had five four
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy six dollars in cash in his pockets.
Speaker 2: He also had a briefcase in sight there was another
Speaker 2: twenty grand in US currency. Yeah, he had cash from
Speaker 2: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Kenya. He had some really sweet picks
Speaker 2: of marijuana, like nice photos weed shot. Yeah, Like I
Speaker 2: don't know, is it souvenirs? Is it request? Yeah? Look
Speaker 2: you look, look what I can get for you. Also
Speaker 2: in the briefcase blank tourist visas, so he could get
Speaker 2: into Nicarago whenever he wanted. Oh, he had blank checks
Speaker 2: for a Swiss bank account. This paperwork from a German
Speaker 2: company about a new Mercedes that was ready to be
Speaker 2: shipped out to him, and then his passport, and according
Speaker 2: to Outside magazine, it was quote so thick that it
Speaker 2: stretched out like an accordion and indicated that he had
Speaker 2: been to twelve countries in the past thirty days, including Jamaica, Columbia, Japan,
Speaker 2: Hong Kong, Panama, and the Cayman Islands. It's like red flags.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my friend Dave used to travel a lot and
Speaker 3: he had no I know, I've never seen anyone have this.
Speaker 4: There's an extension.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, yeah, I've seen that too. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: His bond when he's busted, like, it's red flag city, right,
Speaker 2: there's all this evidence again against him. The bond is
Speaker 2: set at five hundred thousand dollars and he had to
Speaker 2: surrender that crazy passport. Three months later. His lawyer handed
Speaker 2: over a cashier's check for the whole amount. Didn't go
Speaker 2: through a bail bondsman. He's like, ray, we're out of here.
Speaker 2: It was the largest bond ever posted in Florida's history
Speaker 2: at that point.
Speaker 4: In Florida's history. Yeah, and some history.
Speaker 2: Uh huh. So this grand jury indicted him for smuggling
Speaker 2: more than twelve tons of marijuana and the prosecutors were
Speaker 2: calling him like a soldier of fortune, tree top flyer
Speaker 2: of the seas basically. So the trial was supposed to
Speaker 2: start on January fifth, nineteen seventy five, and he was
Speaker 2: looking at five years if convey of the smuggling charge,
Speaker 2: only five because the War.
Speaker 4: On drugs had had not started. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: He probably would get more as more charges would be
Speaker 2: tacked on. But then something horrible happened. Ray's lawyer went
Speaker 2: to the court and like made a public announcement that
Speaker 2: Raymond Grady Stancil Junior had died on New Year's Eve
Speaker 2: in a scuba diving accident off the coast of Honduras. Well,
Speaker 2: they were still searching for his body, but it was
Speaker 2: going to be for like recovery, not rescue.
Speaker 4: Its tragic.
Speaker 2: Let's take a break and when we get back entertainment
Speaker 2: and we get back from dangerous diving diving for deals
Speaker 2: with these ads, We're going to continue this sad tale, Zaren, Karen,
Speaker 2: Let's have a moment of silence for Raymond Grady Stancil Junior.
Speaker 4: Can I laugh during it? Dead?
Speaker 2: No, don't laugh. It's so it's so sad. This is
Speaker 2: what They're said, because he wasn't murdered. Yeah, of course,
Speaker 2: not dead at the age of thirty seven.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm sure his lawyer is broken up.
Speaker 2: It is. I don't know why you find this so funny.
Speaker 4: I don't know either.
Speaker 2: Gave his life to Davy Jones's locker.
Speaker 4: What's wrong face?
Speaker 2: He died? Jarren shouldn't be smiling, but he didn't. No
Speaker 2: one believed he was really.
Speaker 3: No one would the federal prin He's like.
Speaker 2: After a week after he made bail, he hopped on
Speaker 2: a motorcycle and he tore out of Tampa from there, right,
Speaker 2: he goes to this small airstrip and a buddy of
Speaker 2: his is waiting there with the plane. Okay, so the
Speaker 2: two of them they fly to Key West and they
Speaker 2: met up with his girlfriend, Janet Wood. Now, wait, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: didn't this guy have a wife and four kids?
Speaker 4: That's right?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, he did. Great questions there he and the
Speaker 2: missus were estranged.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, profriend makes.
Speaker 2: Sense not to like the Key West girlfriend? Like, is
Speaker 2: this a Jimmy Buffers?
Speaker 4: I think it sounds so.
Speaker 2: It gets good. According to the Tampa Bay Times, Janet
Speaker 2: and Ray met quote after he spotted her at the
Speaker 2: famed chart Room Bar in Key West in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 2: It was a watering hole for an neglectic mix of politicians, millionaires, artists, musicians,
Speaker 2: treasure hunters, and various unsavory types. Singer Jimmy Buffett and
Speaker 2: treasure hunter Mel Fisherman frequent visitors in those days. Ms
Speaker 2: treasure Hunter and then he's like, sees her across the
Speaker 2: bar as well, and she's like, ohbuh, there it is
Speaker 2: Jimmy Buffetts sighting was Jimmy Buffett there and introduced.
Speaker 4: Who knows the right of only Carl Town.
Speaker 2: So in Key West, he gets there, he's out on it.
Speaker 2: He begs Janet come with me on the run. They're
Speaker 2: gonna say I drowned in Honduras.
Speaker 4: Not true.
Speaker 2: He's like, you don't have to ask me twice. Let's
Speaker 2: get out. Yeah, So off they go. They didn't have
Speaker 2: a set plan, but like no, Ray knew all the
Speaker 2: right people for this sort of thing.
Speaker 4: Network.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the people he knew. They knew how to
Speaker 2: move someone silently invisibly a person like drugs and do
Speaker 2: that pretty much. So first they went to Honduras. He
Speaker 2: knew it well. He'd run a lot of drugs out
Speaker 2: of there down there. In fact, he basically knew the
Speaker 2: entire Gulf of Mexico like the back of his hand.
Speaker 2: In Honduras, he walked directly into the American embassy and
Speaker 2: he was like, hello, I am an American tourist and
Speaker 2: I've lost my passport. I mean, he did lose it,
Speaker 2: but not in the way that he happlired Like, what's
Speaker 2: your name, Dennis Lafferty? I am thirty three years old.
Speaker 2: I live in Florida. They're like, okay. So it turns
Speaker 2: out there was a Dennis Lafferty who lived in Florida
Speaker 2: who would have been thirty three, but he died a
Speaker 2: year before this. So with a new ID and travel
Speaker 2: papers secured. Huh, ray Janet, they moved on damn Son. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so they go to the island of Roatan. I'm probably
Speaker 2: not saying that right, forty five miles off the northern
Speaker 2: coast of Hondura. So during this Christmas break before he
Speaker 2: fakes his death, all four of his kids, all between
Speaker 2: the ages of eleven and sixteen. Yeah, they joined him
Speaker 2: there and they like lived it up. They went snorkling,
Speaker 2: never fishing in what may have been a torturous development.
Speaker 2: They all sat around at night and listened to Janet
Speaker 2: play the guitar, or maybe it was nice, like there's
Speaker 2: just lots of puff. The magic Dragon rock me up
Speaker 2: to say, she's like singing about blowing out a flip
Speaker 2: flop top. So when the kids made it back to Florida,
Speaker 2: the cops were there waiting to ask them and their
Speaker 2: mom if they knew about Ray, like where can we
Speaker 2: find him? They're like, no, idea, I don't know. The
Speaker 2: four of us miners just all went to Honduras and
Speaker 2: hung out on an island by ourselves. Get over it.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: So from the island, Ray and Janet they went to
Speaker 2: Guatemala City, Guatemala, and they came up with a plan. Finally,
Speaker 2: they're like, how about this, Let's get a forty foot
Speaker 2: boat and just spend our days sailing the seven seas.
Speaker 4: I mean, I like the plan. I like where your
Speaker 4: head's at? You crazy cos it's not really a plan. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's the beginning.
Speaker 2: And then they're like, how about how about this part
Speaker 2: of the plant like a dream, We'll just keep going
Speaker 2: until we get to the Great Barrier reef Wow, Okay,
Speaker 2: do you have a general Pacific.
Speaker 4: But good luck with that.
Speaker 2: So off they go. They went Nicaragua, Anama, Colombia, Aruba, Currasow, Bonair.
Speaker 2: They ditched the boat for a while and then hopped
Speaker 2: on a motorcycle and like toodled all over the various
Speaker 2: like Central American mountain ranges. Okay, And when they got
Speaker 2: to Belize, things got dicey. They were recognized. One of
Speaker 2: them was Janet was recognized, and but people didn't think
Speaker 2: she was Janet. They thought she was Patty.
Speaker 4: Hurst because and she was kidnapping, held.
Speaker 2: For twenty four hours and then released.
Speaker 1: But they're like, oh.
Speaker 2: They finally, no, I'm not Patty Hurst. Off she goes.
Speaker 2: She got pregnant. Congratulations you two. That sounds like a
Speaker 2: fantastic stable like. So in her condition, the couple opted
Speaker 2: to ditch the boat for good and just fly everyone.
Speaker 4: Also medical care during the pregnancy.
Speaker 2: Yes, So they go to Venezuela, Peru, Tahiti New Hebrides
Speaker 2: now called Vanawatu. Yeah, and it was there that they
Speaker 2: got married. But then sadly, Janet lost the baby, so
Speaker 2: they were understandably bereft, and they they headed off to
Speaker 2: Australia finally, you know, heading towards a great barrier reef.
Speaker 2: They finally settled in North Queensland. It's super rural and
Speaker 2: remote and the people their mind their own business and
Speaker 2: it has amazing fish. Yeah, it's a perfect place for Ray.
Speaker 2: So I have to say that Port Douglas, where they went,
Speaker 2: might be the perfect place for me. It's I mean
Speaker 2: it is. It's hot and tropical and muggy and prona
Speaker 2: monsoons and cyclones for you. But according to Google street
Speaker 2: View it's gorgeous. Gorgeous street are gorgeous and not crowded. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't love all the hot, tropical Oh my god,
Speaker 2: the bugs, I can't even the bugs. Scene must be horrible.
Speaker 2: But anyway, here's from the outside article quote. There's a
Speaker 2: saying in Australia's Far North Queensland region, your history starts here.
Speaker 2: For decades, this remote stre of pristine beaches and lush
Speaker 2: rainforest along the continent's northeastern edge has attracted an odd
Speaker 2: ball mix of Australian hippies and starry eyed foreigners seeking
Speaker 2: a fresh start. You could be a German count or
Speaker 2: a renegade chemist who supplied LSD to the grateful dead.
Speaker 2: No one gives us stuff, said Andrew Forsyth, himself a
Speaker 2: former pilot who ferried Pope John Paul the Second and
Speaker 2: Queen Elizabeth around the world, and relocated to the area
Speaker 2: in two thousand and two after first visiting some forty
Speaker 2: years prior. You could fire a gun down the street
Speaker 2: and you wouldn't hit anybody, said Norm Clinch, a machinist
Speaker 2: from Brisbane who often fished out of Port Douglas. The
Speaker 2: police there was one station and they'd be all in
Speaker 2: their drunk or asleep.
Speaker 4: A man, I would miss live music.
Speaker 2: I probably have live music, but you're not going to
Speaker 2: see the famous people. But you know, I think right now,
Speaker 2: I think this region. I know Eastern Australia is having
Speaker 2: terrible floodings.
Speaker 4: Oh right now, took the summer the wildfire. God.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Anyways, Sarah, close your eyes. Oh really, yeah, really,
Speaker 2: I want you to picture it. It's October nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 2: springtime in Australia. You are a bartender at the Courthouse
Speaker 2: Hotel in Port Douglas. It's the oldest pub in Port
Speaker 2: Douglas and, according to ownership, one of the most iconic
Speaker 2: pubs in all of Australia. Clean and breezy. The place
Speaker 2: sits on a corner of the port's main street and
Speaker 2: looks out over Anzac Park and the harbor. From your
Speaker 2: vantage point at the bar, you can look through the
Speaker 2: wide open veranda to the street and the coral sea beyond.
Speaker 2: You hear the rumble of an old fifties station wagon
Speaker 2: come down Wharf Street. It's a slow afternoon at the pub.
Speaker 2: The sun is shining and there's a lovely, sweet breeze.
Speaker 2: You watch as the faded green station wagon eases into
Speaker 2: a spot by the park, and then you watch a
Speaker 2: couple get out of the car. They stretch out and
Speaker 2: turn their faces to the sun, obviously stiff and tired
Speaker 2: from a long drive. There's no traffic around them, just
Speaker 2: the sound of the waves and the wind and some
Speaker 2: palm trees. He's a tall, shaggy haired fellow with a
Speaker 2: healthy mustache. She's a fit and happy brunette. As you expected,
Speaker 2: they make their way from the parking lot to your bar.
Speaker 2: The only patron inside on this afternoon is peg Leg Tommy.
Speaker 2: He rests his one barefoot on the leg of his barstool,
Speaker 2: with his rough artificial leg dangling beneath him. He's been
Speaker 2: here since you open this morning like many other days.
Speaker 2: Nursing a whiskey sour and reading the newspaper out of
Speaker 2: Townsville City, the couple enter the pub and approach the bar.
Speaker 2: What can I get for you? Ask in a clear
Speaker 2: American accent. The man asks for a logger. The woman
Speaker 2: orders a soda water peg Leg Tommy turns to them,
Speaker 2: extends his hand for a shake, and introduces himself. The
Speaker 2: couple are charmed by him. They pull up stools and
Speaker 2: settle in. Tommy asks them what brings them to Port Douglas. Yes,
Speaker 2: they tell him they've just relocated here. Lots of weeds
Speaker 2: tumble in peg Leg. Tommy tells them they smile weed.
Speaker 2: The man chuckles. You place their drinks on the bar
Speaker 2: and share an odd with the man. Tommy asks where
Speaker 2: they're from. I'm Lee Lafferty from Galveston, Texas in the USA.
Speaker 2: He says. This is my wife, Janet. She's originally from Michigan.
Speaker 2: To you and Tommy, that information means pretty much nothing,
Speaker 2: but you both nod sagely. I'm a fisherman, Lee tells
Speaker 2: you both, and my parents are dead. Janet says, you
Speaker 2: and Tommy exchange side eyes. We really do get the
Speaker 2: weirdos here, you think. Tommy launches into one of his
Speaker 2: monologues about life in far North Queensland, regaling the couple
Speaker 2: with tales of bull sharks and massive crocodiles. He hints
Speaker 2: that that's how he lost his leg. You know better,
Speaker 2: he got drunk and passed out at a lumber mill
Speaker 2: when he was in his twenties in New South Wales.
Speaker 2: Tommy asks the couple where they're living in the motel
Speaker 2: down the road a bit, Lee says, But then he
Speaker 2: tells you both that he's planning on designing a boat,
Speaker 2: a fifty three footer they'll live on. That sounds like
Speaker 2: a plan, Tommy says. He and Lee raise a toast
Speaker 2: to that. Clinking glasses. You look out at the road
Speaker 2: and wonder if the couple will like it here, make
Speaker 2: a home here. You hope they do.
Speaker 4: Like a cool couple.
Speaker 2: Cool couples there, and you get that wish.
Speaker 4: I do so.
Speaker 2: Ray. He did build that big boat, and the couple
Speaker 2: lived on it for seven years. It was their first home.
Speaker 4: Oh for seven years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he designed and built this big, big old boat.
Speaker 2: But meanwhile, back at the ranch or the United States,
Speaker 2: it was Ray's Stancil sighting fever. Yeah, so tips came
Speaker 2: in that he was in a brothel in Belize, on
Speaker 2: the beach in Panama, like sipping drinks and Aruba, hanging
Speaker 2: out in Florida. North Florida Prosecutor David McGee said, quote,
Speaker 2: it was like Elvis. He became kind of a legend.
Speaker 2: So in nineteen seventy six, a hot tip came in
Speaker 2: from Doris. He wasn't just spotted, he was captured. The
Speaker 2: Florida Department of Law Enforcement. They were thrilled, so they
Speaker 2: released this public announcement that Ray was alive in custody
Speaker 2: and they were on their way to Honduras to go
Speaker 2: scoop them up. But when they released, they get down
Speaker 2: there and the cell is empty. But we knew that
Speaker 2: because he wasn't he was in Australia.
Speaker 3: I was assuming is that somebody who was using his
Speaker 3: old passport, somebody had stolen found.
Speaker 2: I don't know what the story is. Dotris was just
Speaker 2: yank in their chain. I don't know. Back in Australia,
Speaker 2: Ray A Ka Lee and Janet she just used her
Speaker 2: name because she's like, I'm not on the run. They
Speaker 2: were doing great, according to outside quote. Lee outfished the
Speaker 2: locals in part by using live bait caught with the
Speaker 2: specially designed cast nets that he had Janet made and sold,
Speaker 2: and quickly established himself as one of the best port
Speaker 2: Douglas had ever known. He wasn't just fitting in, he
Speaker 2: was thriving totally. Yeah, everyone loved him, and he wasn't
Speaker 2: making anyone suspicious by like throwing cash around totally.
Speaker 3: And also just about to say that the thing about
Speaker 3: I liked about him being good at fishing is you
Speaker 3: can bomb with locals if you're a good fisherman, no
Speaker 3: respect that, and they doesn't necessarily challenge them in the
Speaker 3: way that they're going to get angry.
Speaker 2: And it's not like he had these nuts and he
Speaker 2: was all proprietary about it. He's like, we'll make some sold.
Speaker 2: At one point he actually he he borrowed eight grand
Speaker 2: from this other American expat in order to fix his boat.
Speaker 2: So it was just like he was just a normal
Speaker 2: guy and he like paid him back or whatever because.
Speaker 4: He think he didn't have the money.
Speaker 2: I think he took a lot of the money, and
Speaker 2: I think they burned through a lot of the money
Speaker 2: flipped all over South America. Yeah, so, but he was
Speaker 2: just a normal guy. He did not go back for
Speaker 2: visits to the United States. They can, yeah, and they
Speaker 2: just became like a part of the fabric of the community.
Speaker 2: So after they settled in.
Speaker 4: His kids never came to visit him again. Now the
Speaker 4: ones who visited him new interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he settles in. He and Janet they had two daughters,
Speaker 2: Jesse born in nineteen seventy six and Keana born in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty. So Lee and Janet ray slash Lee. They
Speaker 2: told their daughters a little bit about their dad's former life,
Speaker 2: but they made it clear that this was just house talk, like,
Speaker 2: don't tell anyone about this, So of course they told
Speaker 2: people about it.
Speaker 4: Well, they told one person.
Speaker 2: When they were teenagers, the girls told their horseback riding
Speaker 2: instructor about their dad and his you know, former smuggling ways.
Speaker 2: The instructor Christine Doane. She was a former Olympic horseback
Speaker 2: rider from the United States, So another tumble in. She
Speaker 2: didn't tell anyone what she'd been told, and then her
Speaker 2: brother married one of the girls, so she knew it
Speaker 2: was like best to keep a zipped on family business.
Speaker 2: She later though, told Outside magazine that she didn't like
Speaker 2: the quote lies in secrecy, which created so much collateral
Speaker 2: damage in the family. The secrecy and paranoia of the
Speaker 2: entire family is twisted. Janet is one of the most
Speaker 2: in denial humans I ever met. The family used to
Speaker 2: treat this as a young man's hoot. They have an
Speaker 2: enormous need to whitewash this, so let's consider that. Take
Speaker 2: a break for some ads. When we return more Tales
Speaker 2: of life on the run in remote Australia, zaren. When
Speaker 2: we left off Ray and Janet, they had settled in
Speaker 2: far North Queensland in Australia. Do you think I can
Speaker 2: convince Admiral iHeart to pay for us to go to
Speaker 2: Australia and meet up with AUSSI rude dudes and tour
Speaker 2: the country at a leisurely pace.
Speaker 4: You're very charming.
Speaker 2: Do you have any good blackmail materials on the Admiral
Speaker 2: that would.
Speaker 4: Help give me a couple of weeks?
Speaker 2: Okay, So anyway, by the.
Speaker 3: Way, I'm loving this story because it's like, you know,
Speaker 3: actors get to do this where they get to live
Speaker 3: a life that they didn't live by playing apart, whereas
Speaker 3: I'm hearing a story that's like Oh, the road not taken.
Speaker 4: It is the Baker daff and run away to Australia.
Speaker 2: It's the Catharsis of Greek theater. We get to actually
Speaker 2: live it without having to live it. Ray and Janet
Speaker 2: they settled in kept quiet. So in the early eighties
Speaker 2: they moved off the boat and they bought some property
Speaker 2: and then Ray Aka Lee he founded Danetree River Cruise
Speaker 2: Center and it still exists today.
Speaker 4: You can still go there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, may I read to you from their website.
Speaker 4: It's for IoT have to ask thank you.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty seven, Lee and Janet Lafferty opened the
Speaker 2: Danetree River Cruise Center with a vision to share the
Speaker 2: spectacular wildlife and rainforest in the most environmentally sensitive way
Speaker 2: possible dedicated conservationists with an infectious passion for wildlife. The
Speaker 2: Laffarty name quickly became synonymous with eco tourism and the
Speaker 2: Danetree River. Lee was one of the original guides on
Speaker 2: the river and gained a reputation as the authority on
Speaker 2: its flora and fauna with his encyclopedic memory and constant
Speaker 2: fascination with the river. He spent the rest of his
Speaker 2: life educating others and sharing his passion through his tours.
Speaker 4: I love on the early wave of eco tourism.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and like so over the next decade, the
Speaker 2: business just like takes off. It's an important part of
Speaker 2: the region and it brought in a ton of tourist dollars.
Speaker 2: And you see like pictures of it. It's there's a
Speaker 2: river tour similar to it. It feels like in Kawaii
Speaker 2: just about ask it looks like yeah, and it's like, so.
Speaker 3: It looks like you're in Raiders of the Lost Art
Speaker 3: South America exactly.
Speaker 2: And it was it was important, like the business was
Speaker 2: really important in establishing best practices for like cultural respect.
Speaker 2: They got these you know, aboriginal cognition and stuff, conservation
Speaker 2: community projects, that kind of stuff. So the family ran
Speaker 2: this business for thirty five years. Ray aka Lee and Janet.
Speaker 2: They lived happy, loving, fulfilling lives. But then in June
Speaker 2: twenty eleventh, some major news broke. An American drug smuggler
Speaker 2: hiding out in far North Queensland since the eighties had
Speaker 2: been captured. Not Ray Peyton Edison i'dson.
Speaker 4: There was another smuggler hiding.
Speaker 2: In Idson or for those living in Juliatan don't j
Speaker 2: U L A T T E. N apologies. I don't
Speaker 2: know how to say it. An hour inland of Port Douglas,
Speaker 2: an our away. They knew him as Michael McGoldrick McGoldrick.
Speaker 2: But there's so that is right, there's another smuggler had
Speaker 2: drifted out to Ray's middle of nowhere to start a
Speaker 2: new life under a new identity just an hour way.
Speaker 2: So Peyton Idsen he was the leader of a Santa Rosa,
Speaker 2: California smuggling ring. He'd been busted operating an ocean going
Speaker 2: freighter hauling forty thousand pounds at a time of weed
Speaker 2: from Thailand to the States.
Speaker 4: Twenty tons of pop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, twenty. This was child's play for Ray, though He's like.
Speaker 4: Both twenty that money over here, it's a huge amount.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Ray was doing one hundred thousand pounds at
Speaker 2: a time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, it's still.
Speaker 2: It's a lot. Both of those guys, they're both impressive,
Speaker 2: both day boys.
Speaker 3: I'm very impressive, both of them pulling long Daddy's one
Speaker 3: of them is much more impressive.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty six, this Peyton he skipped bail and
Speaker 2: he and his wife and daughter used fake passports to
Speaker 2: flee to Australia, and so just like Ray and Janet,
Speaker 2: they opened a tourist operation. They had this like health
Speaker 2: spa and luxury mountain retreat, okay, and just like Ray
Speaker 2: a Janet, they'd become beloved members.
Speaker 4: Of the community gratually.
Speaker 2: So at some point in twenty eleven, the Australian authorities
Speaker 2: figured out that the real Michael McGoldrick had died in
Speaker 2: Las Vegas in the eighties, So who is this guy?
Speaker 2: So they contacted the US Diplomatic Security Service and like
Speaker 2: a little sleuthing here, some snoop in there, boom, they
Speaker 2: uncover him Peyton and it was just an hour away
Speaker 2: from Ray. I'm still trying to get my head around this.
Speaker 2: And since they both owned tourist operations, I wonder if
Speaker 2: they ever crossed paths.
Speaker 4: I'm sure they had to have tourist industry like conventions, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Getting awards. Wow.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine though, Ray or whatever, Ray's fear when
Speaker 3: he sees that headline and he's like, there's no cops
Speaker 3: out the window, but he's.
Speaker 2: Like freaked him out, Like the whole thing freaked him out,
Speaker 2: and like he he and Janet were just squirrely after
Speaker 2: this bet because then just three years later, someone grasped him,
Speaker 2: someone ratted him out. I have my suspicions horse raider. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we don't know, we don't know whoever it was. Didn't
Speaker 2: go to the cops, though. They went to the press,
Speaker 2: specifically to Pulitzer Prize winning Florida newspaper reporter Lucy Morgan.
Speaker 2: So at this point, she's semi retired, she's seventy four
Speaker 2: years old, but she has spent like much of her
Speaker 2: career reporting on Ray and like keeping tabs on all
Speaker 2: the sightings. She'd written all these articles about him and
Speaker 2: like that whole smuggling scene, and then as they're like
Speaker 2: taken down one by one, she reports on it everyone
Speaker 2: but Ray. So she got all these tips over the years,
Speaker 2: and she's like, you know, I get kind of tired
Speaker 2: of I'll look into this one and like, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, Ray living is like an envirol warrior in
Speaker 2: rural Australia. Like, oh fine, I'll just chase this one down.
Speaker 2: It's original. So she starts doing her deep dives. Where
Speaker 2: was Ray at this point, Well, he's still on the
Speaker 2: tour service, but now he was battling Parkinson's disease.
Speaker 4: All right, he's getting up there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like medication was helping, but it limited his activities,
Speaker 2: so he couldn't do as much on the boats. He
Speaker 2: wasn't supposed to be driving. His hands shook something terrible
Speaker 2: and he was getting really weak, like a lot of
Speaker 2: muscle loss. On the afternoon of May twenty six, twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: a call came into local police. A pickup truck driving
Speaker 2: on a winding road had wrecked and wrapped around a
Speaker 2: massive gum tree. There was this old dog of Beichmpfreze
Speaker 2: in the truck that was like a little bit dazed
Speaker 2: but was going to be okay. But the driver gone
Speaker 2: killed instantly. It was ray this time he really did die.
Speaker 6: Oh.
Speaker 2: Everyone in Port Douglas is absolutely devastated. The mayor called
Speaker 2: him a lovely man and a gentleman. His neighbors and
Speaker 2: his friends like praised his extensive scientific knowledge, his drive
Speaker 2: for preservation. One guy said that he didn't have a
Speaker 2: bad bone in his body.
Speaker 4: Take surprise, come to your way.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and you know they had some bad bones
Speaker 2: in his body. He had used him in one of
Speaker 2: the metaphors, are.
Speaker 4: There bones in your body? Like doesn't have a racist
Speaker 4: bone in their body, doesn't have a bad bone in
Speaker 4: the kid. The whole idea of thematic bones and bodies
Speaker 4: kills me, right.
Speaker 2: Exactly, So the truth comes out. Lucy Morgan broke the
Speaker 2: story in the Tampa Bay Times, so she gets the
Speaker 2: tip he dies, and then.
Speaker 4: She breaks the confirmation he divorced.
Speaker 2: He had divorced Janet in twenty eleven, but.
Speaker 4: It really got squirrely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So either because of that or maybe despite that,
Speaker 2: I don't know. This huge piece runs in the Tampa
Speaker 2: Bay Times. His sister said, quote, it really just broke
Speaker 2: my heart when he disappeared. He never tried to contact
Speaker 2: us again. I felt so bad that his children had
Speaker 2: to grow up without him. So you know he's this
Speaker 2: he's two people, Yeah, totally. And about those kids though,
Speaker 2: two of the boys, Ronald and Raymond Junior, Raymond the third.
Speaker 2: So if Ronald and Raimon in the third, Yeah, they
Speaker 2: did time in federal prison importing cocaine. Hell, you know
Speaker 2: they were.
Speaker 4: In legends like that. You're gonna think this is always
Speaker 4: an option.
Speaker 2: Sure, well, they were indicted in nineteen ninety one. Both
Speaker 2: of them then immediately went on the LAMB. I learned
Speaker 2: it from Watching You, Ronald, he got picked up in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four, but Ray the Third he was able
Speaker 2: to avoid capture for twenty years, just like.
Speaker 4: Popa Wow, knock off the bill.
Speaker 2: He headed up to Alaska. He went the other direction,
Speaker 2: and he used the name Don Davenport. Oh, He's like,
Speaker 2: I'm Don Davenport from Colorado. Yeah, so he got married.
Speaker 2: What's amazing is that he married a cop. One of
Speaker 2: the articles refers to her as a Kodiak police officer.
Speaker 2: So I like to imagine a big bear in a
Speaker 2: police So much more fun that way. So Ray the Third, Oh,
Speaker 2: when he's married to the to the bear. He also
Speaker 2: had a wife and kid back in Florida. But whatever
Speaker 2: did he do it? Just like Papa from Watching You,
Speaker 2: he got busted in Texas in twenty ten, gets extradited
Speaker 2: to Florida. Yeah, he told Outside Magazine via a letter
Speaker 2: written from the Federal pen quote, I think my father
Speaker 2: picked a good place to have a life, and I'm
Speaker 2: glad that he won and got out of here when
Speaker 2: he did. I missed him, but used what he taught
Speaker 2: me and lived without regrets for my life. That's yeah,
Speaker 2: devastating about what he taught you. Ronald was right there
Speaker 2: with his brother. He wrote in a letter to Outside
Speaker 2: from the Federal.
Speaker 4: Pen quote, they have time.
Speaker 2: I don't blame Dad for not showing up. I'm sure
Speaker 2: that he missed certain aspects of what was left behind.
Speaker 2: It's like you cut a chunk out of your heart leaving.
Speaker 2: But things seldom end the way you visualize. In life.
Speaker 2: You can only take your best shot and roll with
Speaker 2: the punches.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's had some rough emotional lows.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, like I said, the Riverboat Company still exists. This
Speaker 2: is from their website. When Lee passed away in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: his daughter Kiana inherited the business and assumed the responsibility
Speaker 2: of championing this amazing ecosystem to the world. Keana has
Speaker 2: remained dedicated to operating sustainably and in harmony with the
Speaker 2: environment and local community. She continues to uphold all the
Speaker 2: values put in place by her father and has proven
Speaker 2: herself not only as a business owner, but also as
Speaker 2: a passionate environmental activist.
Speaker 4: Good for her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, to close this out, I'd like to leave
Speaker 2: you with commentary from Norman Duke.
Speaker 4: Not the Norman Duke.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the world's foremost authority on Mangrove for us and
Speaker 2: also close friend of Ray Slash Lee. Thank you When
Speaker 2: asked about how people in far North Queensland talk about
Speaker 2: Lee as someone who found redemption, as a man running
Speaker 2: away from a troubled past, who transformed himself into a
Speaker 2: protector of one of the world's most pristine natural habitats.
Speaker 2: This is what Duke had to say, quote reflecting on
Speaker 2: it now, It's just what Australia is all about. It's
Speaker 2: all about redemption, all about finding a new life.
Speaker 4: Interesting way I look at colonialism.
Speaker 2: Sorry, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 4: Hearing the road not taken? I am glad I took
Speaker 4: the road.
Speaker 3: I did he too, because living life on the lamb
Speaker 3: sounds like just punishing for anyone who ever once loved you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I think is my takeaway. Thank you
Speaker 2: for asking. All right, Yeah, what did you think is
Speaker 2: the complexity of being these two? He's still in there,
Speaker 2: there's the bone and the body thing, right, Like, so
Speaker 2: he's the as a as a fugitive or as a criminal.
Speaker 2: He's got these good aspects to who he is. He's
Speaker 2: always been an environmentalist and like you know, but like
Speaker 2: a very personal likable.
Speaker 4: You know, they like people.
Speaker 2: He wasn't violent, he didn't hurt people, but there was
Speaker 2: a certain violence to abandoning the family.
Speaker 4: And the kids.
Speaker 2: And you see that like his his boys think that
Speaker 2: he's you know, he was a good role model, I guess,
Speaker 2: whereas like he took down both of their I don't
Speaker 2: see it like when from like a they stand back
Speaker 2: when we get a view from where we see it
Speaker 2: of like the damage that he did to these guys, because.
Speaker 3: I don't fault them for thinking what they think, and
Speaker 3: I don't even pity them. It's not like that, but
Speaker 3: I can see the limits of their world like a
Speaker 3: snow globe, yea, And they don't know that they're in
Speaker 3: the snow globe, and it doesn't have to be the
Speaker 3: way they know right and smart for what they know
Speaker 3: from based on where they what they have, no, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. I admire how they reacted to
Speaker 3: their world. In some ways, I feel bad that their
Speaker 3: dad pushed him into that snowbe.
Speaker 2: And the Horseback Lady talking about Janet being so in denial.
Speaker 2: We have to survive, Like how having that hang over
Speaker 2: you that you have you build this lovely life in
Speaker 2: this community come crashing down in one moment. That the
Speaker 2: pressure of that, you kind of have to disassociated the
Speaker 2: same thing. Yeah, what was horse lady?
Speaker 3: No, I don't mean that she decided not to snitch
Speaker 3: because it benefited her family.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's the same. It's the same choice she's not
Speaker 4: because it benefits her family, exactly.
Speaker 2: A choice exactly. But so like this notion of redemption,
Speaker 2: I am fully a believer in that, and I'm a
Speaker 2: believer in reinvention of oneself. I think that's an important solitary.
Speaker 2: But the wreckage in your wake.
Speaker 4: Good, none of us are in island, Jack.
Speaker 2: No, and it brings me back to.
Speaker 4: Obligations, your original thesis.
Speaker 2: Thank you, yes that in summary, embrace your obligations. You
Speaker 2: know that you have. You can't run from them, and
Speaker 2: it causes more wreckage when you do. Dave, I need
Speaker 2: to talk back.
Speaker 4: I got your covered.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, Hella, get.
Speaker 6: Hey, producer, d Darren and Elizabeth, this is Heather from Texas. First,
Speaker 6: thank you for renewing my love of garden and gun
Speaker 6: with that fabulus story from Alabama a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 6: And thank you for being my constant companions in the car.
Speaker 6: You make me laugh every day. I love widiquitous quime.
Speaker 3: Yeah, here we do it for you for the people.
Speaker 2: Garden and Guns should cut us in on a new subscriptions.
Speaker 4: That's what you want.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love that one. Uh that's us for today.
Speaker 2: You can find us online at Ridiculous Crime dot com,
Speaker 2: which is on the ten most Wanted websites list. Thank again.
Speaker 2: You can also find us on Blue Sky and Instagram.
Speaker 2: We're on YouTube, Ridiculous Crime Pod. Email us at Ridiculous
Speaker 2: Crime at gmail dot com. Leave us a talkback on
Speaker 2: the iHeart app. We also, I don't know when it's
Speaker 2: going to come out, if it has or if it
Speaker 2: will be in a few weeks. There's the Puzzler podcast
Speaker 2: and iHeart podcast. We're on that on two. Yeah. We'll
Speaker 2: link at places and keep your eyes peeled. Izz Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's excellent, but whatever you do, reach out. Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 2: is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and
Speaker 2: edited by noted Australian drifter Dave Cousten, starring Annals Rutger
Speaker 2: as Youith. Research is by fugitive riverboat guide Marisa Brown.
Speaker 2: The theme song is by One Legged Crocodile Hunter Thomas
Speaker 2: Lee and one Armed beer Slinger Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe
Speaker 2: is provided by Botany five hundred guest haarn makeup by
Speaker 2: Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are Rat Snitch tour
Speaker 2: Boat Customers on Hold with the Paper in Florida, Ben
Speaker 2: Bowen and Noel Brown. Ridicous Crime Say It One More
Speaker 2: Time Gequious Crime.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows