Speaker 1: Gampsy Media Large.
Speaker 2: Okay, Rory, we have reached literally the final stretch. I
Speaker 2: can see the finish line and that little man waving
Speaker 2: the checkered flag. This is your final recap what happened
Speaker 2: last week.
Speaker 3: Last week we got to find out the sentencing of
Speaker 3: all these guilty people, Mike and Steve and David and
Speaker 3: Michelle and Kelly.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think it was kind of interesting to get to
Speaker 3: know where everybody ended up in what their sentencing was,
Speaker 3: and also how they kind of reacted and felt about it.
Speaker 3: And I have to say, true to form of everybody
Speaker 3: who we've heard, they all seem to kind of be
Speaker 3: okay with it. They definitely went through a hard time,
Speaker 3: and maybe these interviews are so far after getting released
Speaker 3: from prison that they're a little more optimistic, But they
Speaker 3: all just kind of seemed to be like, Yeah, I
Speaker 3: went to jail and it was like this, as opposed
Speaker 3: to deeply devastated by it.
Speaker 2: I feel like I would not have that react.
Speaker 3: I would not at all. I would be changed forever,
Speaker 3: probably for the worst.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: They do all seem to have come out with better perspective.
Speaker 2: Agreed, it's a lesson for all of us. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: on that note, I'm proud to hand it off to
Speaker 2: Johnny knox Hill one more time for the finale of
Speaker 2: Crimeless Hillbilly Heis Episode eight, Let's Go.
Speaker 5: By February of nineteen ninety nine, David and the rest
Speaker 5: of the heist crew are all locked away in prison,
Speaker 5: but the government is still working on vacuuming up all
Speaker 5: the scattered money in all of its forms. So the
Speaker 5: fans hold an auction at the Metrolena Expo Center in Charlotte,
Speaker 5: North Carolina to sell off all of Steven Michelle's crazy
Speaker 5: purchases and give the money back to Loomis Fargo and
Speaker 5: its insurance company. Because no one needs a cash infusion
Speaker 5: more than a giant corporation and its insurance company, the
Speaker 5: public comes and droves to get their chance in owning
Speaker 5: a piece of sweet contraband. They're joined by local reporters
Speaker 5: and TV crews from the national networks.
Speaker 2: The federal government held an auction in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Speaker 2: Some of the items purchased with the stolen money.
Speaker 6: Some are here just to see what seventeen million dollars
Speaker 6: can buy.
Speaker 7: They're looking for a steal.
Speaker 5: Even People Magazine is in attendance, and of course a
Speaker 5: social event in the Charlotte area would not be complete
Speaker 5: without the Mayor of Cramerton, Kathy with the Sea, and
Speaker 5: their best friend and neighbor.
Speaker 7: Kathy with a k Here's Kathy with the Sea.
Speaker 8: It was a very festive, upbeat party type setting and
Speaker 8: his concession foods sold and everybody spent the day just
Speaker 8: watching everything get get auctioned off.
Speaker 7: But the Kathys weren't here just to spectate.
Speaker 5: They wanted their own piece of the true luxury, the
Speaker 5: kind that could only be picked by the discerning eyes
Speaker 5: of Steve and Michelle Chambers. This was a chance to
Speaker 5: own a piece of Gaston County history.
Speaker 8: There was a very large six or seven foot tall
Speaker 8: wooden Indian.
Speaker 7: There were tanning.
Speaker 8: Beds, luxury vehicles, furniture. Everybody wanted to get a little
Speaker 8: piece of the story to have to remind them of it.
Speaker 7: And Kathy with the Case's husband wanted more than just
Speaker 7: a piece of history. He was a victim too and
Speaker 7: was at the auction to demand his own restitution. You see,
Speaker 7: the FBI had.
Speaker 5: A sneaking suspicion that the Chambers had more stolen cash
Speaker 5: buried somewhere on their property, probably a fair gas. So
Speaker 5: they borrowed Kathy with the Case's husband's trusty shovel to
Speaker 5: dig around for the loop, and despite the FBI's status
Speaker 5: as upstanding citizens, they never gave it back.
Speaker 9: So when he knew that there was going to be
Speaker 9: a you know, auction, He's like, I'm going to go
Speaker 9: and get my shovel back.
Speaker 5: But sadly, Kathy with the case husband was undone.
Speaker 7: By his own pride, Bobby wasn't gonna bit on it.
Speaker 10: Yeah, he didn't.
Speaker 6: He thought they should give it back to him, the FBI,
Speaker 6: but they they wouldn't, so I don't know how much
Speaker 6: they got for.
Speaker 7: It, but the Kathy's refused to go home empty handed.
Speaker 8: I bought a sideboard table that is in my fourrier.
Speaker 4: I got a platter.
Speaker 9: Oh that's right, I didn't buy a platter.
Speaker 5: Michelle's BMW went for less than market value, but a
Speaker 5: bona fide Steve Chambers money storage barrel made of the
Speaker 5: finest blue plastic, with all of the cash and dog
Speaker 5: food cleaned out of it, went for more than one
Speaker 5: thousand bucks. The FEDS had already sold off Stephen Michelle's mansion,
Speaker 5: but not before removing the and prize of the auction,
Speaker 5: the Peace Day Resistance. That's right, the velvet Elvis painting.
Speaker 5: It's sold to the owner of a pawnshop for sixteen
Speaker 5: hundred dollars. Sixteen hundred dollars really, and so the bounty
Speaker 5: of the heist was dispersed among the people of Gaston
Speaker 5: County and the nation. But the legend of the heist
Speaker 5: was just beginning from SmartLess media, campsite media, and big
Speaker 5: money players in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. I'm Johnny Knoxville,
Speaker 5: and you're listening to Crime List.
Speaker 7: Bill Billy Heist. This is our eighth and final episode.
Speaker 7: Come up and other reference.
Speaker 5: There's a saying David Gant used to hear growing up
Speaker 5: in Gaston County.
Speaker 6: Sometimes you have to put legs on your prayers.
Speaker 5: Putting legs on your prayers means sometimes you have to
Speaker 5: do the dirty work on behalf of the angels. Like
Speaker 5: let's say you're a security guard with a dead end
Speaker 5: job and a failing marriage and what you really need
Speaker 5: is a new start in life. Well, you do what
Speaker 5: you got to do and hope that the ends justify
Speaker 5: the means, or if it goes poorly, your prayer legs
Speaker 5: might wind up pacing around a jail cell.
Speaker 6: I'm a dreamer, and I don't think there's anything wrong
Speaker 6: with that.
Speaker 5: But what happens when you get out of jail in
Speaker 5: your thirties and still have a bunch of dreams in
Speaker 5: your head but also have a criminal record, not to
Speaker 5: mention a national reputation, is someone liable to get massive
Speaker 5: revenge on any employer who screws you over. David's not
Speaker 5: starting from zero, He's starting from way less than zero
Speaker 5: if you count the four million dollars in restitution eos.
Speaker 5: David's winning combo of likability and good behavior saw him
Speaker 5: released on parole after serving just over five years of
Speaker 5: a seven and a half year sentence. After growing up
Speaker 5: in North Carolina and going on to commit the crime
Speaker 5: of the Century in North Carolina and serving his entire
Speaker 5: sentence in a federal prison in North Carolina, David knew
Speaker 5: he needed a change of scenery.
Speaker 6: Too many memories, too many codefendants, too many questions from
Speaker 6: nosy people. I wanted to start over clean, start fresh.
Speaker 5: And what better way to start fresh than to limit
Speaker 5: your time on the Earth's surface as much as possible.
Speaker 6: And I had this bizarre notion becoming a professional scuba diver.
Speaker 6: It's crazy, not real off on.
Speaker 5: Out, But there was a school for that in Jacksonville, Florida.
Speaker 7: So that's where David wound up.
Speaker 6: It's hot, it's humid. Every puddle of water you encounter
Speaker 6: probably has a reptile of some sort in it. You
Speaker 6: get used to the summers, you know, it grows on you,
Speaker 6: and after a while it becomes very, very normal. You
Speaker 6: don't notice the heat as bad, and you get used
Speaker 6: to it.
Speaker 5: Life after prison is difficult in all kinds of ways,
Speaker 5: some of them surprising.
Speaker 6: One of the unique things about being in prison you
Speaker 6: become what you call buggy. I would hoard salt and
Speaker 6: pepper packets, and I would have stashes of stuff hidden
Speaker 6: in my room. One of the things I found myself
Speaker 6: doing was doing an early morning count. I would just
Speaker 6: be up the prescribed time, stand beside my bed like
Speaker 6: a moron, and one day it slapped me in the face.
Speaker 6: Why am I still doing prison crap?
Speaker 5: Tammy was out of the picture by this point. She
Speaker 5: divorced David while he was in prison, which even he understands.
Speaker 5: But David got back to rebuilding his life. He managed
Speaker 5: to find a job running a bulldozer for a construction company.
Speaker 7: Steady work with steady hours.
Speaker 5: Not the kind of pascal he'd hoped for when he
Speaker 5: was in his twenties and trying to live up to
Speaker 5: his parents, but it was a real career, just like
Speaker 5: his dad had. And then the biggest piece of the
Speaker 5: puzzle came into place. He fell in love and got
Speaker 5: married to a woman named Christy.
Speaker 6: She helped me break the being buggy cycle. She started
Speaker 6: teaching me about technology, and you know, like the good
Speaker 6: mother that she is, she kind of took me by
Speaker 6: my hands said, listen, that's how computers kind of work. Now,
Speaker 6: this is what's changed, and we've just been together ever since.
Speaker 5: The budget for The American Dream was considerably tighter than
Speaker 5: he had hoped, but he kept going for it.
Speaker 6: I've got a dollar named Belatricks, and you know she's
Speaker 6: my heart.
Speaker 5: If you like me, assumed that David must be a
Speaker 5: Harry Potter fan, you like me, would be wrong. That's
Speaker 5: not where he got Bellatrix. She's named after the third
Speaker 5: brightest star in the Orion constellation, which was named six
Speaker 5: centuries before your favorite movie franchise came about so there.
Speaker 7: For the most part, David was glad to have his
Speaker 7: old life.
Speaker 6: In the rear view, I remember getting a letter from
Speaker 6: Kelly in prison, and what did she say. This is
Speaker 6: where my memory gets a little screw because it's not
Speaker 6: to me, it's not an important event. I think she
Speaker 6: found Jesus and she apologized, and I don't mean her
Speaker 6: any harm, but I don't. I didn't care then, and
Speaker 6: if you had been my real friend, you never need
Speaker 6: to apologize. I don't hate her. I don't hate any
Speaker 6: of them, you know, but I think there's a part
Speaker 6: of me that I'll always kind of hold a grudge
Speaker 6: that their first thought was this dude's got to die.
Speaker 6: And I can't help but contact that personally. Well, if
Speaker 6: I'm wrong in comment.
Speaker 5: Below, I gotta say, David, I don't blame you. But then,
Speaker 5: almost fifteen years after the heist, Hollywood came calling.
Speaker 6: So this guy calls me up, says we want to
Speaker 6: make a movie about your story. I tell him to
Speaker 6: f off. I hang up on him.
Speaker 5: But instead of affing off the Hollywood big wigs persist,
Speaker 5: David talks with the director, the guy who directed Napoleon
Speaker 5: Dynamite and Nacho Lebra and suddenly the whole thing starts
Speaker 5: to feel more and more real.
Speaker 6: He's like, Zach Galifanakis wants to meet you, would you
Speaker 6: mind flying out here for Los Angeles.
Speaker 5: Zach Galafanakis ended up playing David in the comedy movie
Speaker 5: called Masterminds, which garnered an all star comedy cast including
Speaker 5: Owen Wilson, Kristen Wig, Jason Sedakis, and Kate McKinnon, and
Speaker 5: was released in the summer of twenty sixteen in theaters
Speaker 5: across the globe.
Speaker 2: This is a tough shelf disguise.
Speaker 9: I look like if Jesus and Cat had a baby,
Speaker 9: which is a nice thought too, you know.
Speaker 5: And David's daughter got to go on set and be
Speaker 5: treated like a jillionaire heiress.
Speaker 6: And the catering people. I had a special Beltrick's shelf
Speaker 6: with me and cheese and her little snacks.
Speaker 5: David got paid to consult on the movie and was
Speaker 5: fine with the idea of them turning his life story
Speaker 5: into slapstick.
Speaker 6: And then next thing you know, I'm in La from
Speaker 6: the Chinese Theater in Hollywood at a premiere on the
Speaker 6: red carpet with true famous people's movie stars, and I
Speaker 6: got to meet all kinds of people, you know, big
Speaker 6: people up from the movie business, and just it's kind
Speaker 6: of overwhelming.
Speaker 5: David's even got new celebrity friends.
Speaker 6: I still stay in touch with Zach. I'm kind of
Speaker 6: hit and miss. But one of his favorite things to
Speaker 6: do is if he's traveling in an armored car drives
Speaker 6: by him, he'll think of me and he'll usually send
Speaker 6: me a text or a picture.
Speaker 5: Kelly said goodbye to Camp Cupcake in two thousand and four,
Speaker 5: having served just over five years.
Speaker 9: When I was getting ready to leave prison, there was
Speaker 9: one of the guards said, you'll be back. They all
Speaker 9: come back. I said, I'll tell you right now, I'll
Speaker 9: never be back. Oh, they all come back.
Speaker 5: But Kelly was determined not to come back. Instead, she
Speaker 5: returned to her home in Gaston County. It looked a
Speaker 5: lot different than when she left before she was arrested.
Speaker 5: She put in new wood paneling a way to upgrade
Speaker 5: the house that was more discreet than say, buying a mansion.
Speaker 5: But once the FBI got inside, they found the new
Speaker 5: wall suspicious.
Speaker 9: They had ripped the paneling off the walls because they
Speaker 9: thought maybe I was hiding money in the walls of
Speaker 9: the trailer.
Speaker 7: Thanks guys.
Speaker 5: Anyway, Kelly had found the lord and kicked the devil's
Speaker 5: let us while she was in prison. Now she was
Speaker 5: ready to get on with her life.
Speaker 9: I didn't let the millions of dollar restitution hang over
Speaker 9: my head and fred over that for the rest of
Speaker 9: my life. I just kind of got on with my life.
Speaker 9: My kids didn't hold anything against me, which was fantastic.
Speaker 9: Tried to rebuild relationships with them.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 5: Kelly was locked up, her mother and her husband Spanky,
Speaker 5: worked to take care of her kids. After she got out.
Speaker 5: She tried to make the marriage work, but it just didn't.
Speaker 5: She ended up getting divorced.
Speaker 9: Me and my first husband didn't make it, but I
Speaker 9: found love somewhere else, and we were doing pretty good.
Speaker 9: We've got five grandkids and we were running a business,
Speaker 9: our own business, and thanks for going good.
Speaker 5: Kelly and her husband run a wealthy and construction business,
Speaker 5: which pays the bills and avoids a kind of relationship
Speaker 5: with your job that makes you want to rob the place.
Speaker 9: If you're working from somebody else, you're never going to
Speaker 9: get anywhere. You're just going to stay writing the rut
Speaker 9: that you're in, and the only person getting rich and
Speaker 9: getting better is the person you're working for.
Speaker 5: Running your own business does keep Kelly close to her
Speaker 5: one remaining vice.
Speaker 9: Well, I still love money and I'll take all I
Speaker 9: can get. I do my husband sometimes I'm like, why
Speaker 9: are you paying so and so to do that? I
Speaker 9: can do that. You know I'm greedy. He's like, I
Speaker 9: know you're greedy.
Speaker 5: But don't worry. She's got her cravings in check.
Speaker 9: I mean, I wouldn't rob a bank again. But yeah,
Speaker 9: I mean, I do love money, but I love my
Speaker 9: kids more and my grandkids more. But I can have
Speaker 9: more fun with them with more money.
Speaker 5: Kelly didn't participate in the movie about her story. She
Speaker 5: was played by Kristin Wig.
Speaker 8: Two lovers on the Lamb in Mexico.
Speaker 9: You know they say, the beach is there. They're life
Speaker 9: like powdered sugar. Just rub each other all day with
Speaker 9: coconut juices.
Speaker 5: Instead, she and her husband just waited for it to
Speaker 5: come out and watched it at the drive in, which
Speaker 5: apparently still exist.
Speaker 9: They didn't portray me as stupidly as they portrayed the
Speaker 9: other characters in it, so I wasn't really displeased.
Speaker 5: You might think a Christian ex bank robber would run
Speaker 5: into a lot of judgment. But most people Kelly meets
Speaker 5: are actually cool.
Speaker 9: It was either like you're my hero or I can't
Speaker 9: believe I'm meeting you. Will you sign my autograph?
Speaker 5: And life is A famous grandmother has its perks.
Speaker 9: That's what my oldest granddaughter says. Her friend's say, well,
Speaker 9: bet your grandma so cool, I'd like to meet her.
Speaker 9: I did call a radio station one time because they
Speaker 9: were looking for famous people. I can't remember what it
Speaker 9: was all about now, I don't know why, but I
Speaker 9: called him. I said, what about infamous people? They didn't
Speaker 9: take my call and put it on the radio.
Speaker 5: Other than the occasional run in with her fan base,
Speaker 5: Kelly doesn't think about the heist much anymore, although having
Speaker 5: stuck around North Carolina, she has had a couple of
Speaker 5: chance encounters over the years. Steve's still around, and he's
Speaker 5: apparently traded being a wanna be mafia kingpin into shopping
Speaker 5: for bargains.
Speaker 9: I ran into him in a dollar tree, him and
Speaker 9: his mom one day after I'd got out. We talked briefly,
Speaker 9: not much, and I've not ran into him since then.
Speaker 7: As for Michelle, once I.
Speaker 9: Ran into her in a grocery store one time. But
Speaker 9: I don't think she's seen me, because when I seen her,
Speaker 9: I went the other way. It's like, what do you
Speaker 9: even say to each other? So I'd rather just not
Speaker 9: talk to her.
Speaker 5: As I said in the first episode, Steve and Michelle
Speaker 5: declined to speak to us, but we know that they divorced,
Speaker 5: and we know that Steve got really into lifting weights
Speaker 5: in prison and now owns his own gym. As for
Speaker 5: Michelle Chambers, like all good x cons looking to turn
Speaker 5: over a new leaf, she's living under an alias, so
Speaker 5: it was no mean feat to track her down. Sources
Speaker 5: say that she's quietly living the country life as a
Speaker 5: goat farmer. Mike mckinnie's feelings on Steve have mellowed over
Speaker 5: the decades.
Speaker 10: I personally just.
Speaker 4: Thought he was a piece of trash for what he did,
Speaker 4: for coughing up people that weren't caught yet.
Speaker 5: Maybe not, but he and Steve got out of prison
Speaker 5: about the same time and went their separate ways, Steve
Speaker 5: back to North Carolina and Mike back to Illinois.
Speaker 4: I'm just really glad we we live so far apart
Speaker 4: where we'd go, had no chance of us running into
Speaker 4: each other.
Speaker 5: Mike's experience in prison was decidedly different from Camp Cupcake.
Speaker 5: He had trouble trying to figure out how to cross
Speaker 5: the street when he got out. It had been nearly
Speaker 5: a decade since he had to navigate traffic, and he
Speaker 5: wasn't used to getting to go outside whenever he felt
Speaker 5: like it.
Speaker 4: It just feels weird whenever you're actually at your house
Speaker 4: that I can actually go outside my front door anytime
Speaker 4: I want to.
Speaker 10: Just sit on my porch.
Speaker 5: Yet life on the outside wasn't necessarily easier.
Speaker 4: You still have to grind whether you're locked up or
Speaker 4: out here. It just you have different priorities. Inside. You're
Speaker 4: more worried about your physical safety. Out here it's a
Speaker 4: bigger grind because then you have a more stress actually
Speaker 4: finances and such like that. Putting everything back together is
Speaker 4: still an ongoing process.
Speaker 5: Mike mckennie's a lot of things, X con ex marine
Speaker 5: hit man, but also a family man.
Speaker 4: But the biggest regret is while you're locked up. My
Speaker 4: big one was kids grown up without me. I basically
Speaker 4: just stayed in touch with my kids as much as
Speaker 4: I could write them once a week, maybe get to
Speaker 4: call them once a week.
Speaker 5: He didn't see his kids for four years after he
Speaker 5: went to prison, and didn't see them regularly for nine
Speaker 5: years while he still had his hands on the money
Speaker 5: before he got himself locked up. Life wasn't all pham parties,
Speaker 5: hookers and murder plots. He also did a family vacation.
Speaker 4: The most enjoyable thing I spent any of the money
Speaker 4: on was actually taking my daughters to the Bahamas for vacation.
Speaker 7: They had one hell of a law Christmas together.
Speaker 4: I actually hired a stretch Limo to drive up from Evansville,
Speaker 4: picked me and my daughters and I think one or
Speaker 4: two of my buddies up and we drove down to
Speaker 4: the mall that's when they still had actually malls, and
Speaker 4: I let them pick out whatever they wanted for Christmas.
Speaker 4: And then we actually picked up a ferret along the way.
Speaker 5: Not just any ferret, a high class ferret.
Speaker 4: And I think it is probably the first and only
Speaker 4: time a ferret ever ridden in next trench Limo.
Speaker 5: Today is kids call them pops and cherish them with pride.
Speaker 5: Mike is also played by a super famous movie star.
Speaker 10: Jason Sadaka's played me.
Speaker 4: All I can say is at least at least they
Speaker 4: got somebody close to my size.
Speaker 5: Actually, Mike likes Jason Sadakas. It's just that his portrayal
Speaker 5: of Mike is a bit sinister.
Speaker 2: That's where I've take his life.
Speaker 11: I like to take it.
Speaker 6: That ain't your life no more. It's my life, my life.
Speaker 5: And if you're wondering who the lovable family man hero
Speaker 5: of this story is, there's only one answer. Unfortunately, according
Speaker 5: to Mike, Hollywood got it wrong.
Speaker 4: Well, first thing they were off on was how Gant
Speaker 4: was the hero of the movie.
Speaker 10: That was the first thing he got wrong.
Speaker 5: Mike was apparently more comfortable with his depiction in Jeff
Speaker 5: Diamond's book about the heist.
Speaker 4: He sent me two autographed copies for my daughters and
Speaker 4: uh my oldest daughter actually did a book report on
Speaker 4: that book on the heist in school.
Speaker 5: Like many celebrity x almost assassins, Mike has a complicated
Speaker 5: love life.
Speaker 4: I don't know if I pick crazy women or if
Speaker 4: I make them crazy.
Speaker 10: So yeah, it's one of those things.
Speaker 7: And a taste for exotic pets.
Speaker 4: It was only about maybe a two foot baby alligator.
Speaker 10: His name was mister happy Face.
Speaker 4: I actually kept him in the bathtub, just put the
Speaker 4: stopper in. Let a little water in that by the
Speaker 4: drain end, and go to take a shower of that day,
Speaker 4: pull out the gaters, take him on the floor, take your.
Speaker 10: Shower and put him back in there, and buddies come over.
Speaker 10: We'll be drinking.
Speaker 4: And if you didn't know anybody, you go in and
Speaker 4: it was a small bathroom. It's an old claw foot tub.
Speaker 4: The toilet's like right next to it. You go in there,
Speaker 4: all of a sudden you get a little baby gater
Speaker 4: just hissing at you.
Speaker 5: And if mister happy face didn't kill the mood for
Speaker 5: potential love interests, he's got back up.
Speaker 4: Both the venomous snakes and the alligator in the bathtub,
Speaker 4: both romance crushers. I still have a few translats too.
Speaker 4: I have that way about me.
Speaker 10: I guess it's.
Speaker 7: A lot to get pasted on a dating profile.
Speaker 5: Must be in the deadly Snakes, giant spires, a tubgator,
Speaker 5: and former thwarted assassins. But with experience comes wisdom, and
Speaker 5: Mike has a lot of it by now.
Speaker 10: If I could give my younger self advice.
Speaker 4: As soon as Steve offered that contract to me, I'd
Speaker 4: take the money up front, turn around and leave with it.
Speaker 10: I'd tell my younger self to do.
Speaker 4: Turn and burn on him, take the money and run,
Speaker 4: crossing the dawn of Don Steve the big Cheese Chambers
Speaker 4: seems like a risk not worth taking. They must not
Speaker 4: have known too many hit men because they'd hired me
Speaker 4: for the other contract, So it wasn't that big of.
Speaker 10: A threat, was it. I mean, how many hitmen did
Speaker 10: they actually know?
Speaker 5: Maybe Mike shouldn't be so confident in his ability to
Speaker 5: fly with his money and his life. Not with FBI
Speaker 5: agent John Widra on the case. The dude took his
Speaker 5: job pretty seriously.
Speaker 11: There are a lot of people in jail that thought
Speaker 11: they were smarter than me. And I've never lost a
Speaker 11: case in twenty three years. I got one hundred percent conviction, right,
Speaker 11: So I just liked it.
Speaker 10: I enjoyed the job.
Speaker 7: Obsession might be a fair word.
Speaker 11: I remember writing an Affidavid in the hospital room while
Speaker 11: my wife was in labor, like that's that's how into
Speaker 11: this job I was.
Speaker 5: But for all his righteous fury, Widra is sympathetic to
Speaker 5: the high screw to a point.
Speaker 11: They're not generally accepted. They're looked down upon as being
Speaker 11: from Gastonia. They didn't participate in the American Dream, so
Speaker 11: you know, in some ways it was fed to them.
Speaker 11: And think this just made logical sense to this gang
Speaker 11: to move on and do this, And it's also wild.
Speaker 10: They're still proud.
Speaker 11: But I see no reason that anyone should have to
Speaker 11: steal like that from anyone just because you started out
Speaker 11: with nothing. I'm really actually quite tired of this victim
Speaker 11: mentality in this country where I don't have something and
Speaker 11: you do, so I'm the victim. You can get out
Speaker 11: and work for it if you if you work hard,
Speaker 11: you can get there. Stephen Michelle could have made money,
Speaker 11: I mean, and they could have made it legitimately I
Speaker 11: had I started with nothing like I started with debt.
Speaker 11: I was the first person to get through college.
Speaker 10: In my family.
Speaker 11: So I'm not interested in hearing this story about like
Speaker 11: wo is me. I was born in a trailer and
Speaker 11: I can't I can't make it. That's that's just not true.
Speaker 5: Now retired from the FBI, Widra tries to never It's
Speaker 5: been more than ten days at a time in one.
Speaker 7: Place sounds exhausting.
Speaker 5: He's living the dream, but with all this time on
Speaker 5: his hands, does he relate somewhat to the freedom David
Speaker 5: was chasing.
Speaker 11: It's liberating not having anybody telling you what to do
Speaker 11: or influencing you where to be. You know, if I
Speaker 11: want to get up and leave now, I'll get up
Speaker 11: and leave. I could be in London by tomorrow.
Speaker 7: Settle down, John.
Speaker 11: So you know, and I've done that. I've been somewhere
Speaker 11: and the wife calls and says, I got a really
Speaker 11: good deal on a cruise. I changed your flight. You're
Speaker 11: flying into Fort Lauderdale. I'll see you there.
Speaker 5: Wydro's life now is actually pretty much the Jimmy Buffett
Speaker 5: fancy David Gant was dreaming about in the Bank vault.
Speaker 11: Nightlife for me starts at four pm and ends at
Speaker 11: seven pm.
Speaker 5: Okay, not exactly, but still. He has an inspirational message
Speaker 5: for the heist crew, pining for retirement.
Speaker 11: Well, you know what, I've given up a lot of
Speaker 11: happiness over my life to save and to generate that.
Speaker 11: And that's the way I describe it. You know, it's
Speaker 11: happiness is a currency, and you spend it or you
Speaker 11: waste it, and you can spend it on the wrong things.
Speaker 7: But as fate would have it, while the.
Speaker 5: Team was recording these interviews at a lake house on
Speaker 5: the border of North and South Carolina. Something very right happened.
Speaker 5: At the exact moment that Wider was standing up to leave,
Speaker 5: David Gant was arriving fresh off a plane from Jacksonville, Florida.
Speaker 5: The good vibes were just radiating everywhere, so we just
Speaker 5: had to reunite the former g man to the former thief.
Speaker 6: What's so, John, I'm seeing you? And how long?
Speaker 8: Now?
Speaker 9: Oh?
Speaker 5: You can tell David's not nervous at all. He's quick
Speaker 5: to point out that he's gainfully employed.
Speaker 6: Pretty good, pretty good deals, not never get rich off
Speaker 6: of it. It's kept rufe overhead. Yeah, honest work.
Speaker 11: Did you paid your debt?
Speaker 2: Yeah? No hard feelings, no.
Speaker 6: And I've looked at towards you guys the same you.
Speaker 6: You're just doing your job. You did the best job
Speaker 6: you could and you know, I appreciate that you were
Speaker 6: timely and not rude about it, not mean about it.
Speaker 2: It's not personal.
Speaker 5: No, just two guys reminiscing about old times.
Speaker 7: Is it just me? Or is this heartwarming? A smitche awkward,
Speaker 7: but heartwarming.
Speaker 11: I heard today that Kelly apologized for I apologize to
Speaker 11: you Becca back in the day.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's okay.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I shouldn't hold I wouldn't call it a grudge.
Speaker 5: But they were.
Speaker 6: They voted me right off the island. I'm never going
Speaker 6: to put you.
Speaker 10: Off the planet.
Speaker 5: David has said he does recognize that he might be
Speaker 5: dead were not for the FBI.
Speaker 6: Because if my co conspirators had been even reasonably competent,
Speaker 6: I'm glad they're not, or weren't, I wouldn't be here.
Speaker 2: No, you almost weren't.
Speaker 7: Wydro wonders if David has learned his lesson.
Speaker 2: So you still think you'd do it again.
Speaker 6: I think I would have to do it again, but
Speaker 6: I probably do it alone.
Speaker 11: She shouldn't taken the money.
Speaker 6: Read I should have taken the money.
Speaker 7: Okay, maybe not.
Speaker 6: You're retired now.
Speaker 2: I'm retired.
Speaker 6: Awesome, I'm done.
Speaker 11: Hundred people down.
Speaker 6: Congratulations, thank you.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
Speaker 11: Well, David, it was nice to meet you. Yeah, good
Speaker 11: luck to you, to your family. You handle the money
Speaker 11: at the house, No, now.
Speaker 6: I let the wife handle that. Yeah she knows, she knows, Yeah,
Speaker 6: she knows. I got impulses.
Speaker 5: David Gant was only rich for fifteen to twenty minutes.
Speaker 5: If you think about it, he had seventeen point three
Speaker 5: million dollars for the time it took to drive a
Speaker 5: stolen Loomis Fargo van. I was down the highway and
Speaker 5: then became pretty close to broke again as soon as
Speaker 5: he left the keys with his co conspirators.
Speaker 6: It was either a Hell's angel or Ben Franklin said,
Speaker 6: three can keep a secret of two dead, and I
Speaker 6: wish I'd known.
Speaker 7: That then, But still he doesn't have many regrets.
Speaker 6: Philosophically, If I change what I did, I don't end
Speaker 6: up where I'm at now, And I really like where
Speaker 6: I ended.
Speaker 5: Up, even the whole my partners were trying to kill
Speaker 5: me thing as its benefits.
Speaker 6: I think that there was a plot to kill me
Speaker 6: enhances the joy I have for the life I have.
Speaker 5: I really like David Gann, and speaking as a person
Speaker 5: who used to be at war with himself, I'm glad
Speaker 5: he's found peace.
Speaker 6: Where I live. Not greatest, not the best, but it's
Speaker 6: a house filled with love.
Speaker 5: It took saying goodbye to everything he'd ever known, but
Speaker 5: he managed to find the life he always wanted.
Speaker 6: If I had to give advice to my younger self,
Speaker 6: I would tell him pay attention to your instincts and
Speaker 6: don't give in to your impulses as much. And don't
Speaker 6: play basketball in prison because you'll tear your acl.
Speaker 5: Thanks for listening to Crimeless Hillbilly Heist.
Speaker 10: This was our.
Speaker 5: Final episode, and David, I'm going to michiea. Kelly not
Speaker 5: so much. Actually, I'm glad you're doing good Kelly.
Speaker 2: So Rory. This is like the episode equivalent of those
Speaker 2: cards that pop up at the end of the movies
Speaker 2: where you see what happened to everyone? Yeah, and they're
Speaker 2: stolen goods. Yep. I love that the Kathys bought a souvenir.
Speaker 3: The Kathy's are their own TV show, They are their
Speaker 3: own spinoff, The Kathys. This auction seems bizarre to me.
Speaker 3: I don't know how much all the money that Steven
Speaker 3: Michelle spent Slash hid, but I can't imagine an auction
Speaker 3: of all these goods puts puts a lot of that
Speaker 3: money back in your pocket. Maybe it does, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I would assume that a lot of people coming to
Speaker 3: an auction are just not coming out to spend that
Speaker 3: kind of money on these kind of items. But again,
Speaker 3: maybe maybe when you mark something down ten thousand dollars
Speaker 3: from sixty thousand. You're happy that you got fifty thousand back.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I kind of want to attend an
Speaker 2: FBI auction.
Speaker 10: I would love to.
Speaker 3: You never asked me to do anything outside of this job,
Speaker 3: and I feel like this could be our first big outing.
Speaker 3: We'll both have microphones on it. We'll play by play
Speaker 3: the whole thing live, live stream it.
Speaker 2: Our hero David Gampt, he has a happy ending of sorts,
Speaker 2: and I feel like Scuba Instructor is a perfect outcome
Speaker 2: for him.
Speaker 3: It is, It is a perfect outcome. I get it
Speaker 3: ending up in Jacksonville one hundred percent, get it, the
Speaker 3: fact that they made a movie about this. But I
Speaker 3: gotta say, biggest surprise of all the FBI agent Wydra,
Speaker 3: just John Widra, just going off about what he thinks
Speaker 3: about people working their way up in their lives. It
Speaker 3: was the darkest I felt about him when he's like,
Speaker 3: everyone can work hard and make it, and I just
Speaker 3: I want to be like, I don't know that that's
Speaker 3: entirely I'm not saying go commit crimes, but I don't
Speaker 3: know that we're all in a position to just succeed
Speaker 3: in the same way, which is why, as I stated
Speaker 3: early on in this series, I fully understand why everybody
Speaker 3: decided to steal seventeen million dollars, the fact that they
Speaker 3: did it from a major company that's ensured. Johnny Knoxville
Speaker 3: made his own joke about it during the episode, but
Speaker 3: he's right, these are who are you really taking this
Speaker 3: money from? And it's all because you got so tired
Speaker 3: of the life that you were given. You wanted to
Speaker 3: do something else. And it's not like these people are
Speaker 3: just given the opportunity to go have some kind of
Speaker 3: other life. Yes, I guess they could all work harder
Speaker 3: or find their way out, but there's also a little
Speaker 3: bit of an allusion to that you're not going to
Speaker 3: become a CEO of a company just because you worked hard, exactly,
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: Well, but it was very like federal agent mindset.
Speaker 3: Of course, yes, very black and white about everything, which
Speaker 3: is John, that's John Wydra's that's just him at his core.
Speaker 2: But I loved it.
Speaker 3: I love that they I love that Galifanakis keeps in
Speaker 3: touch with him. I love that Zach will send him
Speaker 3: pictures of the trucks whenever he sees the Armored armored
Speaker 3: trucks as a bit. I think that's hilarious. And I
Speaker 3: love that Michelle owns a goat farm somewhere.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 2: I love that David never wrote back to Kelly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, David. He finally grew up and said now
Speaker 3: we're done. It took him a while to say we're done.
Speaker 3: And even though she had sort of said we're definitely
Speaker 3: done when she tried to have him professionally killed, he
Speaker 3: finally accepted it.
Speaker 2: I feel like I got to talk about Mike and
Speaker 2: the great time he had with the heist money during
Speaker 2: that short Periodny had it.
Speaker 3: Can I tell you what this is what kind of
Speaker 3: burns my biscuits. And I know you said, don't use
Speaker 3: that kind of language on these shows, but what burns
Speaker 3: my biscuits about this whole thing is that Mike wasn't
Speaker 3: given the chance to go to trial. And for some reason,
Speaker 3: I feel like if he could have gone to trial
Speaker 3: and told people what he did with his money and
Speaker 3: his daughters, that would have warmed some people's hearts to
Speaker 3: probably not have him receive an as extreme of a sentence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he took his daughter to the Bahamas. He got
Speaker 2: a stretched limo for them. And their friends.
Speaker 3: It just seemed like he was more selfless about it,
Speaker 3: the guy who the guy who talks a big game
Speaker 3: with hookers and coke and hot tubs. Can I just
Speaker 3: say also, and this is a previous episode for sure,
Speaker 3: but I love that talked about doing coke off hookers
Speaker 3: asses and then he goes, can't say I ever did.
Speaker 1: That Just felt so just so wholesome about the strangest topics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he turns out to be like almost as amazing
Speaker 2: as David.
Speaker 3: I think, so. I actually would like to see the
Speaker 3: two of them together. I'd like to see the two
Speaker 3: of them in the Kathy spinoff. And maybe, honestly, what
Speaker 3: we're talking about is Laverne and Shirley at the end
Speaker 3: of the.
Speaker 2: Day, they definitely have Laverne and Shirley energy. I also
Speaker 2: loved I feel like I got to mention David's advice
Speaker 2: to his younger self, which is, don't give into your
Speaker 2: impulses and don't play basketball in prison. She'll terryor acl.
Speaker 3: That's honestly, the moment David mentions that you're like I
Speaker 3: that might be the only thing he's hung up on
Speaker 3: about this entire heist, Like, don't give into your impulses.
Speaker 7: He doesn't say, hey, don't rob people.
Speaker 3: Even when he meets John Wydra.
Speaker 7: He says, I would do it again.
Speaker 3: That's how likable he is, because he's that level of honest.
Speaker 2: Any final takeaways or lessons for you, Rory that we
Speaker 2: should impart to the crime lest nation? What should people?
Speaker 2: What should the takeaway be for this show?
Speaker 3: Well, I've recently started working at a Loomis Fargo, and
Speaker 3: I've obviously I'm not gonna do what I intended to do.
Speaker 3: And why, like why I got the job in the
Speaker 3: first place, I don't know. I think if you're gonna
Speaker 3: steal money, lay low for about five years before you
Speaker 3: decide to do anything with it, launder it as best
Speaker 3: as you can be better, be better as a criminal
Speaker 3: that you could have they could have gotten. I don't
Speaker 3: think they would have ever gotten away with this, because
Speaker 3: there are too many cooks in the kitchen, but I
Speaker 3: think they could have done a little bit better. I
Speaker 3: think David Gant on his own could have stolen less
Speaker 3: money and probably never left the country and probably gotten
Speaker 3: away with it. That I genuinely believe that.
Speaker 2: Well, you're right about the lay low for five years
Speaker 2: I believe in episode one was that Kelly even said
Speaker 2: she heard that after two years, the FBI considers it
Speaker 2: a cold case. And yet nobody could even wait two weeks.
Speaker 3: No one could wait two weeks before buying a mansion.
Speaker 2: And a BMW and boom. All right, well that was
Speaker 2: a lot of fun. We should do this more often.
Speaker 3: We should. In fact, why don't we do it weekly?
Speaker 2: That's such a great idea. Yeah. So, if you enjoyed
Speaker 2: listening to Rory and me talk about dumb criminals, I
Speaker 2: have a surprise for you every week, a new story
Speaker 2: or more. Starting next week, Crimeless the Weekly where Rory
Speaker 2: will call in from his globe trotting comedy adventures and
Speaker 2: make jokes about dumb guys.
Speaker 8: That's right.
Speaker 2: Smash that follow button, folks, and spread the word because
Speaker 2: Crimeless has coming your way next week in this channel.
Speaker 2: And I also want to say a quick thanks to
Speaker 2: Johnny Knoxville, who did an amazing job as an area
Speaker 2: almost like I couldn't imagine anyone else doing it. I
Speaker 2: don't know how you felt were I loved it. I
Speaker 2: thought Johnny was great.
Speaker 3: It was a great storytelling. Everyone did an incredible job
Speaker 3: putting this together.
Speaker 7: Crimeless.
Speaker 5: Hill Billy Heist is a production of SmartLess Media, camp
Speaker 5: Side Media and Big Money Players in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 5: Bill Billy Heist is narrated by Johnny Knoxville and created
Speaker 5: by Liz Elkington and Stuart Bailey. Written by Michael Kenyon
Speaker 5: Meyer with Liz Elkington and Stuart Bailey, Produced by Lane
Speaker 5: Rose and Sierra Franco.
Speaker 7: Additional production help by Rajeev Gola.
Speaker 5: The series was sound designed and mixed by ewin Ly Tremwen,
Speaker 5: fact checking by Gray Lanta and a special thanks to
Speaker 5: our operations team Doug Slaywyn, Ashley Warren, Sabina Mara and
Speaker 5: Destiny Dingle. iHeart Podcasts and Big Money Players. Executive producers
Speaker 5: are Jack O'Brien, Lindsay Hoffman, and Matt Appadeca. Campside Media's
Speaker 5: executive producers are Josh Deen, Vanessa Grigoriatis, Adam hoff and
Speaker 5: Matt Cher. Executive producers are Liz Elkington and Stuart Bailey.
Speaker 5: From SmartLess Media, the producers are Will Arnett, Jason Bateman,
Speaker 5: Sean Hayes, and Richard Corson. Bernie Kaminski is the head
Speaker 5: of Production. The associate producer is Mattie McCann.
Speaker 7: If you've enjoyed
Speaker 5: Crime Less Hillbilly Hies, please rate and review the show
Speaker 5: wherever you get your podcasts.