Speaker 1: GAMSI Media Large, Rory, could you please recap what happened
Speaker 1: last week on episode four for the people at home?
Speaker 2: I sure caad folks.
Speaker 3: Last week we got to meet a new character. His
Speaker 3: name is Bruno. His real name is Mike McKinnie, but
Speaker 3: he goes by Bruno, and his three greatest passions in
Speaker 3: life are cocaine, hookers, and hot tubs. We now know
Speaker 3: and understand that. And he has been hired by Steve
Speaker 3: Chambers to go down to Mexico and quote unquote deliver
Speaker 3: money to David Gant. We've also learned that he is
Speaker 3: in the running to beat the person to kill David Gant.
Speaker 3: Whether that happens or not, Folks, we're gonna find out
Speaker 3: today on episode.
Speaker 2: Five of Hillbilly Heist.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get onto the episode.
Speaker 4: David Gant knows he needs to get out of can Kun. Ever,
Speaker 4: since he was recognized by some nosy tourist at the
Speaker 4: Hard Rock Cafe, he's been laying low and waiting for
Speaker 4: help to arrive from the States. Finally, Bruno arrived with
Speaker 4: a bit more money and a plan to help David disappear.
Speaker 4: But David doesn't totally trust Bruno.
Speaker 5: He asked me a really weird question. Do you have
Speaker 5: a gun? Do you carry a knife?
Speaker 6: I know?
Speaker 5: Do you lock your doors? Questions like that.
Speaker 4: But Kelly is still stateside and Bruno is David's only
Speaker 4: source of help, so he doesn't have much of a
Speaker 4: choice but to go along for the ride. The plan,
Speaker 4: Bruno says, is to get David out of Cancun, maybe
Speaker 4: across Mexico to Acapulco, maybe to Mexico City, and then
Speaker 4: eventually to Brazil.
Speaker 2: But the first leg of.
Speaker 4: The journey is to make themselves scarce by fleeing to
Speaker 4: yet another popular tourist town, just a short ways down
Speaker 4: the beach from the one David has been hanging around
Speaker 4: in for months. They check into a fancy hotel overlooking
Speaker 4: the beach and decide to have a drink on the balcony.
Speaker 4: Maybe David's sick of having to pretend he's a tourist
Speaker 4: instead of a famous bank robber. Maybe it's the booze.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's the adrenaline wearing off after another day on
Speaker 4: the run. Whatever the reason, David starts to open up
Speaker 4: to Mike McKinney or Bruno.
Speaker 7: And that's when we're sitting outside of his room on
Speaker 7: his balcony, having a couple of beers, and that's when
Speaker 7: he told me where the money came from.
Speaker 4: David tells McKinny that he had hit a bank for
Speaker 4: seventeen million dollars, and that's how Mike learns he's an
Speaker 4: accessory to one of the biggest bank hei sin history.
Speaker 4: He had never known where the money came from until
Speaker 4: this moment. Author Jeff Diamond explains the fallout, and.
Speaker 8: It becomes clear in that moment to McKinney that he
Speaker 8: was in a world of trouble because until that point,
Speaker 8: McKinney had assumed that this was some nondescript who knows
Speaker 8: what type of crime that that nobody would in the
Speaker 8: United States really cared about.
Speaker 4: Now Mike knows that David's on the FBI's most wanted
Speaker 4: list and that he's probably going to get caught unless
Speaker 4: he has some other nimrod do the dirty work.
Speaker 8: So at that point McKinney gets the idea to subcontract
Speaker 8: this murder out.
Speaker 4: Mike's wheels start turning, slowly but turning nonetheless. Maybe he
Speaker 4: could get David to Mexico City.
Speaker 9: In Mexico City, they'd cut your arm off for a
Speaker 9: time x.
Speaker 7: So if we're got out this dude was wandering around
Speaker 7: downtown that he had like ten thousand dollars cash on him,
Speaker 7: he would have been found out a dumpster and I
Speaker 7: wouldn't have had to lift a finger.
Speaker 4: Or even simpler, maybe he could get someone closer by
Speaker 4: to do it, because when hiring a hit man, proximity
Speaker 4: is of course far more important than qualifications. He already
Speaker 4: has someone in mind, a guy named Robert.
Speaker 9: Robert.
Speaker 7: I'd met him down there. He is one of the
Speaker 7: street hustlers. You know, he was the one trying to
Speaker 7: sell you the timeshares.
Speaker 4: Ooh, timeshare, that's a slippery slope. You invest in the timesharing,
Speaker 4: the next thing, you know, you're wagering on pro wrestling
Speaker 4: and wife swapping.
Speaker 10: Oh yeah.
Speaker 4: Robert also told Mike he was willing to do other
Speaker 4: more violent crimes. So there on the balcony, Mike tells
Speaker 4: David that he knows someone that can help them out
Speaker 4: from SmartLess media, campsite media, and big money players. In
Speaker 4: partnership with iHeart Podcasts, I'm Johnny Knoxville, and you're listening
Speaker 4: to Crimeless Hillbilly Heist.
Speaker 2: This is our fifth.
Speaker 4: Episode on the run. Can you imagine getting off in
Speaker 4: senior Frogs talk about adding insult to injury? Your family
Speaker 4: would be forced to lie about it to save face. No, no, no,
Speaker 4: he actually got shot into Kenny Rogers Roasters. You dig
Speaker 4: But right around Christmas nineteen ninety seven, David Gant found
Speaker 4: himself in danger of meeting just such an undignified end.
Speaker 4: According to David, he was sitting at the beach side bar,
Speaker 4: nervous and sweating, and wearing this Pittsburgh Steelers jersey, one
Speaker 4: of his last reminders of life back home.
Speaker 2: He's been a fans he was a kid.
Speaker 5: They were known for being a really tough team. And
Speaker 5: I love the colors, the black and the gold. And
Speaker 5: I hate to admit as guy, but I really liked
Speaker 5: the jersey more than the team.
Speaker 4: When David looked up from his table, he saw a
Speaker 4: huge man towering over him, six foot three and three
Speaker 4: hundred pounds, a brooding menace who looks right at home
Speaker 4: in Cancun's dark underbelly. This must be Bruno's friend Robert,
Speaker 4: the latest chucklehead in the plot to kill David. But
Speaker 4: David thinks Robert's going to help him get out of town.
Speaker 5: He was someone who arranged things like if he needed
Speaker 5: a new idea, or he needed a car, or you
Speaker 5: needed this, needed a place to stay, a place to go,
Speaker 5: a boat, stuff like that. He arranged things.
Speaker 4: A good person to know as long as you're on
Speaker 4: the right side of the arrangement. After sizing David up,
Speaker 4: Robert introduces himself and makes a cunning proposition.
Speaker 5: You trade me that jersey. I'll let you in on
Speaker 5: a secret about Bruno.
Speaker 4: Turns out Robert's a huge Pittsburgh Steelers fan. He's been
Speaker 4: looking all over for a jersey like this.
Speaker 5: I go chanin shirts. I like you probably is a
Speaker 5: good Washington because when swimming this morning, it's a little sandy.
Speaker 5: But here you go, brother, and he's way too big
Speaker 5: a guy for this jersey. He's a big boy, but
Speaker 5: he wants it.
Speaker 4: Now that David's kept his end of the bargain, Robert
Speaker 4: does the same.
Speaker 5: He says, you know Bruno was in my place looking
Speaker 5: to buy done. He says, I think he's gonna try
Speaker 5: and kill you.
Speaker 4: Turns out Robert couldn't bear to help murder a fellow
Speaker 4: Steelers fan.
Speaker 5: For what I paid for that Pittsburgh Steelers Jersey and
Speaker 5: what it repaid. I mean, it probably saved my life.
Speaker 5: I'm either really really lucky or when I came up
Speaker 5: with my character sheet, I rolled high on charisma.
Speaker 4: But the warm feelings can't do much to take the
Speaker 4: edge off some really shitty news, because I mean, he
Speaker 4: was already feeling pretty sorry for himself. No Kelly, no money,
Speaker 4: and now someone wants him dead.
Speaker 8: After David learned about the fact that his cohorts were
Speaker 8: trying to have him killed, his life changed considerably. As
Speaker 8: you would imagine, he was extremely nervous. He started constantly
Speaker 8: looking around him all the time. He was justifiably paranoid,
Speaker 8: you might say.
Speaker 4: Once David finds out that Bruno intends to kill him,
Speaker 4: his first instinct is to lay low. But his second instinct.
Speaker 6: Is that.
Speaker 4: He has to protect Kelly, sweet innocent Kelly, who just
Speaker 4: hasn't found her way down to Mexico yet. Surely Steve
Speaker 4: is putting Bruno up to the murder, and if Steve
Speaker 4: wants him dead, he probably wants Kelly dead too. David
Speaker 4: never really trusted Steve, but now he really really doesn't
Speaker 4: trust him, and he has decent reasons for feeling this way.
Speaker 4: One is the murder plot that he suspects Steve is behind.
Speaker 4: The other is something Steve's hit man let slip. That
Speaker 4: night on the balcony, when David confessed where he got
Speaker 4: the money, Bruno returned the favor and shared a secret
Speaker 4: with David too. He told him all about steve spending.
Speaker 4: So the next time David calls Kelly, he decides that
Speaker 4: they need to have a heart to heart, like the
Speaker 4: lovers they are. David intends to really bear a soul
Speaker 4: on this whole Steve spending all the money and hiring
Speaker 4: people to kill him things. When Kelly answers, David says
Speaker 4: he knows about the move from the trailer to the
Speaker 4: giant mansion.
Speaker 5: He's bought a BMW and his wife's got new boobs
Speaker 5: and huge horse killer diamond ring.
Speaker 2: David also drops some hints about Bruno.
Speaker 5: What's the deal with this clown?
Speaker 4: Kelly keeps to the party line. She admits that Steve's
Speaker 4: been spending like crazy, but she says it's just him,
Speaker 4: not her. All she's bought is a van, and she
Speaker 4: says Bruno's just the delivery guy.
Speaker 5: You know that the same thing they've got planned for me.
Speaker 5: They've got planned for years. That's when she got quiet.
Speaker 4: David tells Kelly he doesn't want to meet with Bruno anymore,
Speaker 4: but he's still encouraging her to come down to meet him,
Speaker 4: and he's still holding out hope that he might get
Speaker 4: his share of the money. Oh, David, David David David.
Speaker 4: David says he'll talk to Kelly again next week.
Speaker 11: We Title three is a court order and it's just
Speaker 11: a part of the US Criminal Code that allows FBI
Speaker 11: to listen to a tell upone conversation or plant a
Speaker 11: bug in your house or something of that nature.
Speaker 4: Even with the mountain of evidence against Kelly and Steve
Speaker 4: and Michelle Chambers, there was still a lot that John
Speaker 4: Wydra and his fellow FBI agents didn't know. Two missing
Speaker 4: pieces in particular, that prevented them from being able to
Speaker 4: swoop in for the arrests.
Speaker 11: It became a matter of where's the money and where's David.
Speaker 4: If they made the arrest without knowing where the money was,
Speaker 4: they might never recover it. And if they made the
Speaker 4: arrest without knowing where David was, they might never find
Speaker 4: them or even know whether he's still alive. To track
Speaker 4: down David and the money. The agents decided they needed
Speaker 4: to listen to Steve's phone calls. Took a while to
Speaker 4: make this happen.
Speaker 11: You can't just say, hey, I want to listen to
Speaker 11: Stephen Michelle Chambers because they're involved in the Loomis case.
Speaker 9: That's not enough.
Speaker 11: It's got to be proven that we can't get this
Speaker 11: information any other way. And then it's limited. The amount
Speaker 11: of time we have it, it's very limited.
Speaker 4: The warrant got approved in the agents tapped the phone
Speaker 4: lines at Steven Michelle's mansion. It might have taken a
Speaker 4: lot of time to get the approval, but it took
Speaker 4: next to no time to hear criminal mastermind Steve say
Speaker 4: a slop jar full of incriminating.
Speaker 11: Stuff, taking trips, taking friends and family out, and spending cash,
Speaker 11: getting in a fight with him guy at a bar,
Speaker 11: and offering to buy the place for you know, four
Speaker 11: hundred twenty dollars bills.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this is good.
Speaker 4: Steve got in a fight in a bar and when
Speaker 4: they kicked him out, he did the classic I'll come
Speaker 4: back here and buy this place. It's the kind of
Speaker 4: genius idea you share with your favorite gun for hire.
Speaker 9: He wanted to buy the place and make it a knockoff.
Speaker 7: Hooters with the prison theme. Yeah, it was weird. Steve
Speaker 7: was wanting to have the girls dressing the slutty prison
Speaker 7: guard or the slutty convict halloween outfits.
Speaker 4: I deal, and here we were making fun of senior frogs.
Speaker 11: Then he's going to convert it into a bar called
Speaker 11: the Big House where all the staff are prisoners. He
Speaker 11: wanted to put them in stripes, but you actually wear
Speaker 11: an orange jumpsuit.
Speaker 4: That's the kind idea that would make Colonel Sanders a sergeant.
Speaker 4: Steve even came up with the brilliant marketing slogan, if
Speaker 4: you're going to do the time, do it right.
Speaker 7: When Steve floated that out it to me, I was like,
Speaker 7: you never know, that might be the next big thing.
Speaker 9: You really don't know.
Speaker 4: Until he tried it, you kind of know. And the
Speaker 4: evidence continued piling up.
Speaker 11: We found what I called the next stage, which was
Speaker 11: called the friends and family clan. And at the time,
Speaker 11: in nineteen ninety seven, I found that to be hilarious
Speaker 11: because that was the AT and T's motto for cell phones,
Speaker 11: and that was mom, dad, grandparents, friends that were not
Speaker 11: involved in either of the planning or any of the
Speaker 11: major spending afterwards. But they all agreed to hide one
Speaker 11: hundred two hundred three hundred thousand dollars in a safe
Speaker 11: deposit box in their name in exchange for payment of
Speaker 11: ten twenty thousand dollars or bottom a car or something
Speaker 11: like that.
Speaker 4: So the FBI is starting to get answers to the
Speaker 4: money question, but there still isn't any mention of David
Speaker 4: on the wire tap. David Gant knows he's being hunted,
Speaker 4: and his funds are dwindling faster than a barnyard quickie
Speaker 4: gone or the days of fancy hotels, lobster on the halfshell,
Speaker 4: and premium tequila.
Speaker 5: When the tribal bulletins say don't leave the tourist area,
Speaker 5: don't eat ice, don't buy street food, they mean it.
Speaker 2: He made this mistake with the can coon street food.
Speaker 5: Early on, it tasted really, really good. But about seven
Speaker 5: eight hours later, I'm up in my really nice hotel
Speaker 5: and that's when it hit me. The bug that's in
Speaker 5: their water, in their food. It's horrible. It is straight
Speaker 5: from the pits of hell.
Speaker 4: But this was back when David still had a fancy
Speaker 4: hotel to pamperum. So there were solutions within reach.
Speaker 5: I crawled to the door and I called room service
Speaker 5: and they sent the little kid up. I gave him.
Speaker 5: I don't know how much money, I said, pepto bismol grindde.
Speaker 5: Once you do that and you survive, you can eat anywhere.
Speaker 4: Also, like Jason Bourne, David Gant knows every language.
Speaker 5: If you want to learn Spanish, got to immerse yourself
Speaker 5: to watch the Latino soap operas because you can get
Speaker 5: the gist of what they're seeing and you can start
Speaker 5: putting it together. Calesinko in the Cancoon, and that's how
Speaker 5: you learn basic Spanish. There's gotta be a beautiful woman,
Speaker 5: there's gotta be an old angry woman. There's gonna be
Speaker 5: one fat cowboy, and then there's dashing hero them the
Speaker 5: Antonio Banderas looking guy. Because you know when the woman
Speaker 5: is standing there with her hand or you know the
Speaker 5: gist of what she says, you start putting it together.
Speaker 2: David's also a master the art of the skies.
Speaker 5: I'm dressing like the whitest Mexican you've ever seen. The
Speaker 5: flip flops. Keep your feet good and cool. You want
Speaker 5: wherever you want, and go to the beach. You can
Speaker 5: go down to the club, no one notice. The baggy
Speaker 5: shirt allows the sweat to wick away. The cut off
Speaker 5: shorts are just convenient.
Speaker 4: Okay, maybe he needs someone other than David to explain
Speaker 4: how terrifying his situation actually was.
Speaker 8: David told me that everywhere he was going he was
Speaker 8: turning his head.
Speaker 9: He said.
Speaker 8: He told me once he was getting he was at
Speaker 8: a barbershop getting his hair dyed brown, and in the
Speaker 8: middle of it all, he heard someone say police and
Speaker 8: he got up to go to the bathroom and like
Speaker 8: went out the window or something in the back with
Speaker 8: his hair half died.
Speaker 4: That's author Jeff Diamond, who interviewed David a little bit
Speaker 4: after these events.
Speaker 8: He was staying in his hotel room eating eminem, listening
Speaker 8: to the Eagles, watching Men in Black on TV all
Speaker 8: day and really just like terrified to go anywhere.
Speaker 5: I probably financially ruined myself by eating the M and
Speaker 5: ms out of the snack bar in the in the room.
Speaker 5: Calls like a dummy. I've never has snack bar, and
Speaker 5: I didn't know every time he touched that has three bucks.
Speaker 2: That shit adds up.
Speaker 5: And if he's put more thought into it, your allyes.
Speaker 5: The men come in two flavors. They're either a giant
Speaker 5: teenage or John Toddler. It's just a matter of toys
Speaker 5: and an attitude. I'm typically a giant Toddler.
Speaker 4: To summarize, David's in deep, He's cowering in a hotel
Speaker 4: room in a foreign country, with no friends, no Kelly,
Speaker 4: no work prospects, in a stash of cash is shrinking
Speaker 4: by the day. Maybe it's just time to go to
Speaker 4: the embassy and give himself up like he threatened to do.
Speaker 4: But willfully putting yourself in the pokey is a decision
Speaker 4: you tend to procrastinate on. Same for officially giving up
Speaker 4: on millions of dollars. So what's the latest with Kelly.
Speaker 4: The FBI has been conducting physical surveillance on Kelly since
Speaker 4: shortly after the heist. They know she lied about being
Speaker 4: in touch with David the day of the robbery, and
Speaker 4: they notice she makes frequent trips to a payphone outside
Speaker 4: a convenience store. Kelly k new talking on a payphone
Speaker 4: created extra hassle for the FBI, so to be able to.
Speaker 11: Get a wire tap on a payphone back then, not
Speaker 11: knowing where it was going to be or when it
Speaker 11: was going to be, because they're not going to allow
Speaker 11: you to listen to anybody's conversation on that payphone except
Speaker 11: that one call. So we're trying to figure out through
Speaker 11: other wiretaps, what time she's supposed to be at which payphone.
Speaker 11: Then you have to write it up and get it
Speaker 11: to a judge for signature, and then get it to
Speaker 11: the telephone company so that you can listen to that call.
Speaker 11: So you're running around. You got an attorney that's just
Speaker 11: sitting in a room waiting to fill in information from another
Speaker 11: team that's listening to a phone call.
Speaker 4: So finally the FBI figures out the time and the
Speaker 4: location and gets the approval of the judge. Now they're
Speaker 4: just waiting for Kelly to show up and take the
Speaker 4: call so they can listen in and hopefully finally track
Speaker 4: down David Gamm. Kelly seems to be running late. Finally,
Speaker 4: almost twenty minutes.
Speaker 2: After the first call, Kelly still.
Speaker 4: Hasn't shown up, but the phone rings again. An agent
Speaker 4: decides to pick up and says hello. A kind of
Speaker 4: nervous sounding guy with a North Carolina accent says he
Speaker 4: must have the wrong number and hangs.
Speaker 2: Up pretty suspicious, except this.
Speaker 4: Is North Carolina and a lot of people have that accent.
Speaker 4: The agent hangs around, still know Kelly not surprised. Then
Speaker 4: the phone rings again. The agent picks up. The same
Speaker 4: male voice with the North Carolina accent asks who's there.
Speaker 4: The agent says, I'm just standing here and I picked
Speaker 4: up the phone man, and then the man hangs up.
Speaker 4: All that work and lawyers waiting in rooms and trips
Speaker 4: to judges and still no phone call between Kelly and David.
Speaker 6: But it had to be him, right, because when I
Speaker 6: talked to him on the phone, he would be like, well,
Speaker 6: when are you coming down?
Speaker 10: Well, when can you get me some money? And I
Speaker 10: would just make up excuses like, well, I think I
Speaker 10: should probably stay here so I keep on what's going on,
Speaker 10: or I'm scared. If I leave now, then the FBI
Speaker 10: is going to be wondering why just up and left,
Speaker 10: and it's going to cause them to start looking further.
Speaker 10: You know, I just kept making up excuses and kept
Speaker 10: telling him that yes, I was coming.
Speaker 4: In the previous weeks, whenever she got off the phone
Speaker 4: with David, Kelly always reported dutifully back to Steve. She
Speaker 4: told him right away that David didn't trust Bruno anymore,
Speaker 4: and Steve emphasized to Kelly that she had to keep
Speaker 4: close tabs on David. Now she was the only one
Speaker 4: left keeping an eye on him and making sure he
Speaker 4: wouldn't turn them all in. Her job was the same
Speaker 4: as it had been since the beginning of the heist,
Speaker 4: keeping David happy, leading them on. It's just that the
Speaker 4: stakes were even higher now. But driving to a payphone
Speaker 4: once a week to hear a heartbroken paranoid man who
Speaker 4: you completely screwed over plead with you is just really
Speaker 4: hard work.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 10: I guess the most aggravating part was Steve not doing
Speaker 10: enough to keep David pacified, because, you know, if he
Speaker 10: would have just sent him more money. I think that
Speaker 10: was the biggest thing with David was because he wasn't
Speaker 10: getting as much money as he thought he should, which
Speaker 10: I agree he should have, but I don't know if
Speaker 10: that was Steve's greed or why he didn't just you know,
Speaker 10: take him home hundred thousand that, you know, then we
Speaker 10: won't have to worry about it for a little while.
Speaker 4: And by complete coincidence, that same day in February, when
Speaker 4: Kelly was too tired to go to take David's call.
Speaker 4: Was the same day the FBI was staking out the payphone.
Speaker 4: You might say Kelly did David a favor by failing
Speaker 4: to show that day and keeping him off a wiretap.
Speaker 4: But even without knowing exactly what's going on, David's an
Speaker 4: understanding guy, too understanding.
Speaker 5: Mexico doesn't do the whole time switch in the seasons
Speaker 5: where they moved the clocks forward. It's throwing our schedule
Speaker 5: out of whack.
Speaker 4: Steve freaked out when Kelly told them she missed the
Speaker 4: call with David. So when David Paige has set up
Speaker 4: another call for the next day, she made sure to
Speaker 4: be there on time. David tells where he's staying. The
Speaker 4: FBI is listening, and now they know for sure that
Speaker 4: David's in Mexico. But it's the next call Kelly makes
Speaker 4: the Steve that really gets the bureaus attention.
Speaker 10: That's when he asked me if I would go to Mexico.
Speaker 10: Because Bruno is saying he can't draw him out, he
Speaker 10: can't get him to go anywhere that would be private.
Speaker 10: That's when he asked me if I would go down there.
Speaker 4: The FBI heard every word of this plot to kill David,
Speaker 4: and even though Steve was leading the conversation, Kelly participated
Speaker 4: and provided Steve information on David's whereabouts. The legal community
Speaker 4: might refer to Kelly's criminal exposure.
Speaker 2: As cagaste e soutaste and la kaka, which means you
Speaker 2: just shit and jumped in it.
Speaker 11: She was part of their conspiracy to commit murder. She
Speaker 11: talked freely about trying to get a gun down in Mexico,
Speaker 11: which to me was ridiculous. It's easy to get a
Speaker 11: gun in Mexico, but who you buy it from might
Speaker 11: get you killed. But they talked about injecting David camp
Speaker 11: with Leitch, We're getting cyanide. Kelly Campbell was all part
Speaker 11: of those conversations with Steve Chambers and Michael McKinney. And
Speaker 11: I know, I don't think Steve or Kelly would have
Speaker 11: done it themselves, but they definitely would have hired somebody,
Speaker 11: and they did to do it. I guess that it's
Speaker 11: worthy of an apology. I mean, sorry, I tried to
Speaker 11: kill you. Can we still be friends? I don't know
Speaker 11: how that works.
Speaker 4: The FBI now knows that David is in Mexico and
Speaker 4: that his life is in danger, so they immediately send
Speaker 4: an agent south of the border to start looking for him.
Speaker 4: They traced his phone call to a hotel and Plia
Speaker 4: del Carmon. Agents in the States continue to keep an
Speaker 4: eye on Steve, Michelle, and Kelly, but now they have
Speaker 4: a new person they haven't heard of before, some nut
Speaker 4: named Bruno.
Speaker 11: We know that Steve Chambers is moving on with his
Speaker 11: mob boss mentality, playing in this gangster role, and he
Speaker 11: wants to have David Gant killed. They were all pretending
Speaker 11: to be in a movie, so Bruno sounds a lot
Speaker 11: scarier than Michael McKinney. I don't know why they wanted
Speaker 11: to intimidate and scare David Gant, because he's not like
Speaker 11: a very intimidating figure.
Speaker 4: As the full Pitcher comes together, the agents and me
Speaker 4: are starting to feel kind of sorry for David. They
Speaker 4: know about all the one four three texts, They heard
Speaker 4: him tell Kelly he loved her on the phone, and
Speaker 4: they heard his good pal Kelly immediately turn around and
Speaker 4: start planning his murder with Steve.
Speaker 11: He was just a key to unlock the vault door
Speaker 11: and get the money out to Steve. That's all it was.
Speaker 11: I still wonder whether or not they had the guts
Speaker 11: to go through with it. But the problem with a
Speaker 11: gun is it only takes one second to make that decision.
Speaker 11: You could feel bad the rest of your life. But
Speaker 11: if you have the guts for one second to pull
Speaker 11: that trigger and then it's over right, you can look
Speaker 11: back and say, God, I wish I hadn't done that,
Speaker 11: but it's already done. So did he have the guts
Speaker 11: to drip and fly down there?
Speaker 2: Clearly?
Speaker 11: Did he have the guts to discuss it?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 11: Did he have the ability to pull that trigger in
Speaker 11: that one moment? I think pretty much anybody does.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 4: The FBI starts looking into Bruno and quickly finds Mike McKinney.
Speaker 4: McKinny is still living in a hotel in Charlotte, working
Speaker 4: to Steve's bodyguard. The FBI intercepts a lot of calls
Speaker 4: between Steve and Mike talking about how to lure David
Speaker 4: to his death. It's hard to say why exactly it
Speaker 4: took Steve so long to tell Mike to go through
Speaker 4: with the murder.
Speaker 11: And then at some point it was just annoying to
Speaker 11: Steve that he had to give money to anybody else,
Speaker 11: including the guy that helped him get it, and that's
Speaker 11: when the plan started to be, like, we're going to
Speaker 11: kill him.
Speaker 4: They keep listening to the calls as a plan to
Speaker 4: kill David take shape, and then they learned that Mike
Speaker 4: mckennie is buying a plane ticket to Mexico.
Speaker 11: I believe McKenny was supposed to get on the flight
Speaker 11: on March second or third. In the State Department and
Speaker 11: the FBI were like, we're not letting a hit man
Speaker 11: fly to another country. That's not happening. Nothing good can
Speaker 11: come out of this. So that's when it was decided
Speaker 11: we're going to arrest everybody on March second, whether we
Speaker 11: found David or not, because the cat would be out
Speaker 11: of the bag once we arrested McKenny.
Speaker 4: Mike McKinny had seen a lot of idiotic stuff since
Speaker 4: gain of all the Steve Chambers, the prison theme, hooters,
Speaker 4: the boneheaded assassination instructions, and of course Steve's gigantic and
Speaker 4: tasteful painting.
Speaker 2: Of dogs playing billiards.
Speaker 4: But all that stuff seemed a whole lot dumber and
Speaker 4: more risky once he learned Steve's money came from the
Speaker 4: famous Loomis heist. Now Mike is worried he's going to
Speaker 4: get caught. It seems like the prospects of all this
Speaker 4: ending well were getting slimmer.
Speaker 6: By the day.
Speaker 4: He had hoped that outsourcing David's murder to Robert the
Speaker 4: Plan B hit Man, would solve everything. David would be dead,
Speaker 4: Mike would get his feet, and the murder would never
Speaker 4: be linked back to him. But Robert and his new
Speaker 4: Pittsburgh Steelers Jersey were no longer in the assassination game.
Speaker 11: Robert was.
Speaker 7: He was a hustler. He was just playing both sides,
Speaker 7: playing it simple.
Speaker 4: Mike's job was so easy when Gant was just a
Speaker 4: phone call away.
Speaker 7: A lot of it was just not having the responsibilities
Speaker 7: of actually having to get up to go to work.
Speaker 9: He could stay out all night and whenever he woke.
Speaker 7: Up, go sit on the pier, eat fresh seafood, a hammock,
Speaker 7: drink a few beers, hang out until it's time to
Speaker 7: go back out that night.
Speaker 4: Hmmm, this Hitman game doesn't sound half bad. But now
Speaker 4: he and Steve were having to scheme on how to
Speaker 4: lure David out into the open.
Speaker 9: Can't absolutely refuse to meet with me.
Speaker 4: They still didn't really have a plan, but Steve's more
Speaker 4: serious than ever about getting rid of David, and Mike
Speaker 4: was quite literally leaving for Mexico the next morning.
Speaker 9: I was actually stuck in the hotel.
Speaker 7: I was waiting for Steve to drop some money off
Speaker 7: so I could go to Mexico. And I actually sat
Speaker 7: in my room, read a book and drank a six
Speaker 7: pack in my room. It was probably something like it
Speaker 7: one of the Grisham books, whichever newest one was out.
Speaker 4: Even with a six pack and a crummy book to
Speaker 4: read on the beach, Mike wasn't feeling very optimistic about
Speaker 4: landing in Mexico the next day.
Speaker 7: True sixth sense or paranoid kicking in by then. But
Speaker 7: like that evening, when I was going into the hotel,
Speaker 7: there were a couple of local cops and I heard
Speaker 7: him throw out a coat on the radios and I
Speaker 7: didn't know what the codes were.
Speaker 9: I was like, this isn't good.
Speaker 4: Mike kept hearing strange sounds coming from the other room,
Speaker 4: but there wasn't anything he could do about it. The
Speaker 4: holy tranity of hookers, cocaine, and hot tubs seemed far
Speaker 4: on the horizon. Hell at this point he probably would
Speaker 4: have settled for a hot pocket and a hand job.
Speaker 4: But in a few short hours, the FBI hopes to
Speaker 4: make him the recipient of a rude awakening. And he's
Speaker 4: not the only one the FBI plans to rub the
Speaker 4: wrong way.
Speaker 11: So now you got ten agent sawed guns. We know
Speaker 11: that Michelle and Steve have guns, and we got two
Speaker 11: little kids in the house.
Speaker 4: That's next time on Crimeless Hillbilly Heist.
Speaker 1: So Rory Mike slash Bruno is having a bit of
Speaker 1: a crisis of conscience here. He was happy to take
Speaker 1: that money to kill someone. Yeah, less stoke to find
Speaker 1: out he's killing one of the most wanted men in America.
Speaker 3: That's right, That is correct. My heart actually goes out
Speaker 3: to Mike in this case where he doesn't even understand yet. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 3: he's been hired to kill someone. Here's some things I respect. One,
Speaker 3: he didn't even understand who he was killing and he
Speaker 3: was still willing to do it. That's a guy who
Speaker 3: needs a paycheck. And two, he was willing to subcontract
Speaker 3: that workout. That is a thinker.
Speaker 2: That's a guy.
Speaker 3: Who really just wants to be in a hot tub
Speaker 3: doing coke with hookers. That's that's the American dream he
Speaker 3: was living it up in Mexico.
Speaker 1: I didn't know you could subcontract murders for hire.
Speaker 3: I didn't either. I thought, I what a slippery slope
Speaker 3: to hire one hit man, but to hire to subcontract out.
Speaker 3: And I have to say, my favorite part of this
Speaker 3: entire episode is quite literally the fact that owning a
Speaker 3: Steelers Jersey is potentially why David Gant is alive to
Speaker 3: this dame.
Speaker 1: I was gonna I was gonna say, what a great
Speaker 1: advertisement for the Steelers, like maybe they could use this
Speaker 1: as an ad.
Speaker 3: Yes, and just having that on and a guy like
Speaker 3: I want it. I want that and be like, oh,
Speaker 3: here you go. Anyways, they're trying to kill you.
Speaker 1: What a twist, What.
Speaker 3: An absolute insane twist. That's when you just think things
Speaker 3: are uh they all things happen for a reason. Is
Speaker 3: that a moment like that moment of kismet? Like that
Speaker 3: for sure? But yeah, usual usual, fair From the other
Speaker 3: other episodes, Kelly is still aloof I will say this
Speaker 3: is the first time it kind of felt good to
Speaker 3: have David be a little more confrontational with her. But
Speaker 3: also the fact that he explained to Kelly what they're
Speaker 3: gonna do to me, they're probably gonna do to you.
Speaker 3: And that was the first time. That was the first
Speaker 3: time her brain cells actually lit up with legitimate information
Speaker 3: of what she was truly involve often.
Speaker 1: I know, But poor David Man, he's still longing for Kelly,
Speaker 1: So I know, I just know. I just want him
Speaker 1: to meet a lady in Cancun. Yeah, like a divorce
Speaker 1: at the pool.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then finally our cliffhanger this week, the Feds decide
Speaker 1: to make their move because they just can't let an assassin.
Speaker 5: Get on an airplane.
Speaker 1: I guess that's the that's the red line.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you do have to pump the brakes at
Speaker 3: some point.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's stay tuned next week as we
Speaker 1: wait to find out will Bruno kill David.
Speaker 5: Gant this time Bump Bump bu.
Speaker 1: Or will a different sports team Jersey save his life?
Speaker 4: Crimeless Hill Billy Heist is a production of SmartLess Media,
Speaker 4: camp Side Media, and Big Money Players in partnership with
Speaker 4: iHeart Podcasts. Bill Billy Heist is narrated by me Johnny
Speaker 4: Knoxville and created by Liz Elkington and Stuart Bailey. Written
Speaker 4: by Michael Kenyon Meyer with Liz Elkington.
Speaker 2: And Stuart Bailey.
Speaker 4: Produced by Lane Rose and Sierra Franco. Additional production help
Speaker 4: by Rajeev Gola. The series was sound designed and mixed
Speaker 4: by ewin Le Tremwen, fact checking by Gray Lanta and
Speaker 4: a special thanks to our operations team Doug Slaywyn Ashley Warren,
Speaker 4: Sabina Mara and Destiny Dingle iHeart Podcasts and Big Money Players.
Speaker 4: Executive producers are Jack O'Brien, Lindsay Hoffman, and Matt Appadeca.
Speaker 4: Campside Media's executive producers are Josh Deen, Vanessa Grigoriatis, Adam
Speaker 4: hoff and Matt Cher. Executive producers are Liz Elkington and
Speaker 4: Stuart Bailey. From SmartLess Media, the producers are Will Arnett,
Speaker 4: Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Richard Corson. Bernie Kaminski is
Speaker 4: the head of production. The associate producer is Mattie McCann.
Speaker 4: If you've enjoyed crime Less Hillbilly Hies, please rate and
Speaker 4: review the show wherever you get your podcasts.