Speaker 1: Gampsite Media Large Lash.
Speaker 2: Okay, Rory, we're on the home stretch now, episode seven.
Speaker 2: Where did we leave off last week?
Speaker 3: I mean the big takeaway is that now everyone's caught,
Speaker 3: we're in the final we're in the red zone here,
Speaker 3: we're in the phase of sentencing and whatever. How how
Speaker 3: the hammer is going to drop on on everybody, and
Speaker 3: we got to know how everyone did it. Whydra the
Speaker 3: FBI agent who busted everybody, really really really did his job,
Speaker 3: covered every base and checked every box, and uh yeah,
Speaker 3: now we're gonna we're gonna find out what the sentencing
Speaker 3: is gonna be of everybody.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's find out by getting into episode seven of
Speaker 2: Crimeless Hillbilly Heist.
Speaker 4: Take it away, Johnny.
Speaker 5: For Kelly Campbell. It's been a long day and it's
Speaker 5: still not even eight in the morning. Kelly was arrested
Speaker 5: by the FBI a couple of hours ago. The agent's
Speaker 5: brought her to the women's holding cell at the County Courthouse.
Speaker 5: She's been stuck there with Michelle Chambers ever since.
Speaker 6: She was pretty distraught. She's almost to the point of hyperventilating.
Speaker 5: The reason that Michelle's freaking out other than being arrested
Speaker 5: by the FBI for her role in the second largest
Speaker 5: cash heist in American history. Is because her husband is
Speaker 5: putting a lot of pressure on her. From the other
Speaker 5: side of the wall in the men's holding cell, Steve's
Speaker 5: yelling an urgent message to Michelle. It's the same message
Speaker 5: she's told everyone since the beginning, keep your big mouth shut.
Speaker 6: Steve kept trying to talk through the wall, asking Michelle stuff.
Speaker 6: For saying stuff to Michelle. The only thing he was
Speaker 6: worried about, what's she going to say? Don't say nothing,
Speaker 6: and this and that.
Speaker 5: Kelly tells Steve to knock it off.
Speaker 6: Even though it wasn't me and her that had the
Speaker 6: you know, close friend relationship. I just kind of felt
Speaker 6: the need to protect her, and I'm like, just just
Speaker 6: leave her alone.
Speaker 5: Finally, agents step in to isolate Stephen Michelle. The criminal
Speaker 5: masterminds to separate rooms for interrogation, and Kelly has left
Speaker 5: to wonder if Michelle will crack under pressure. Michelle is
Speaker 5: interviewed by John Wydra and another agent. Apparently she's been
Speaker 5: able to compose herself. The strength of her husband has
Speaker 5: given her new resolve.
Speaker 7: She wouldn't say anything. She didn't talk. She wouldn't admit anything.
Speaker 5: Whydra and the other agent work on her for hours,
Speaker 5: with Widra playing bad cop. They show her evidence of
Speaker 5: all her extravagant purchases. They show her video foot her
Speaker 5: depositing the exact same, just under the federal limit bundle
Speaker 5: of cash with bank tellers, over and over again. She
Speaker 5: won't budge.
Speaker 7: Meanwhile, her husband was in another room down the hall,
Speaker 7: just running his mouth, telling us everything.
Speaker 5: He's singing like Leotine Price. His criminal record may have
Speaker 5: been a bit lackluster, but his track record as a
Speaker 5: canary was much more solid, and he relied heavily on it.
Speaker 7: Now because he knew the game, like he was an
Speaker 7: FBI informant. He knew it was done. He knows that
Speaker 7: the FBI, when they come to arrest you, we already
Speaker 7: have all the evidence.
Speaker 8: We're not guessing.
Speaker 9: What happened was right after the arrests, Steve immediately started
Speaker 9: talking about everybody, after having told them for a long time,
Speaker 9: you know, don't tell anybody anything. He was the first
Speaker 9: person who kind of realized the strategic value of being
Speaker 9: the first one to talk in a multi defending criminal case.
Speaker 9: And that benefit is that the person with the most
Speaker 9: information against other people winds up having a great advantage
Speaker 9: in the process.
Speaker 5: Steve knows that he's facing a lot of time and
Speaker 5: he can get a more lenient sentence if he is
Speaker 5: the first to tell the FBI everything and screw over
Speaker 5: everybody else, and so that's exactly what he does. He
Speaker 5: tells him about Kelly, claiming the heist was her idea.
Speaker 5: He tells him about his wife, He tells him about
Speaker 5: his cousin Scott and Eric, plenty of new boobs pained.
Speaker 5: He even rats out Michelle's parents for hiding money for him,
Speaker 5: and his own parents for hiding money for him. His
Speaker 5: own parents don't know about you, but I wouldn't care
Speaker 5: if this fella's ass fell off. Meanwhile, Wydras still isn't
Speaker 5: getting anywhere with Michelle.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Michelle didn't care at all.
Speaker 5: Widra confers with the other agents. They agree to have
Speaker 5: Steve go in and talk to Michelle, now that he's
Speaker 5: had first DIBs on telling them everything. He walks in
Speaker 5: sobbing and tells her to confess, which she eventually does.
Speaker 5: Between Steve and Michelle, the FBI already has everything they
Speaker 5: need and Kelly is out of bargaining chips and weed
Speaker 5: from SmartLess media, campsite Media, and big money players in
Speaker 5: partnership with iHeart Podcasts. I'm Johnny Knoxville and you're listening
Speaker 5: to crime List Hillbilly Heis. This is our seventh episode,
Speaker 5: The Dreams Done Died. It's a real shit position to
Speaker 5: have to pay the price for a dream that never
Speaker 5: quite worked out. It's kind of like owing money on
Speaker 5: a wreck vehicle or paying alimony to a wife that
Speaker 5: cheated on you. The Loomis gang is currently dealing with
Speaker 5: a searing headache of regret while intense public scrutiny wears
Speaker 5: on their nerves. Kelly's still figuring this out when she's
Speaker 5: led out of the courthouse in handcuffs after her interrogation.
Speaker 6: We knew that the camera people were going to be
Speaker 6: out there, and it's like the vultures, you know, give
Speaker 6: them something to lick at.
Speaker 5: Kelly stuck out her tongue and made a goofy face
Speaker 5: while holding up her shackled hands towards the camera. The
Speaker 5: picture was widely circulated. Kelly says she was trying to
Speaker 5: say hi to her deaf sister.
Speaker 6: She happened to be walking down the sidewalk when we
Speaker 6: were coming out the back of the building, and I
Speaker 6: did this, which is I love you in sign language.
Speaker 6: And then when they wrote the article they said she
Speaker 6: was throwing gang signs. I'm like, that's not a gang sign.
Speaker 5: But it was too late. Kelly was about to have
Speaker 5: her moment with the judge, American public, and also with
Speaker 5: her court appointed defense attorney, James Gronquist.
Speaker 10: And when I saw that, of course I was saying, Okay,
Speaker 10: here we go. This is going to be a little
Speaker 10: bit of work to get this person back in line
Speaker 10: and see that she doesn't get too hurt by this.
Speaker 5: James Gronquist has got the vibe of a patient, pragmatic
Speaker 5: high school woodshop teacher. Hygiens will happen, Well, let's make
Speaker 5: sure not that many students lose a finger.
Speaker 10: By the time I saw, she'd been in jail a
Speaker 10: little while and she had settled down, so to speak.
Speaker 10: But she sort of looked tired, worn out, confused, upset
Speaker 10: about what was going on because she knew that her
Speaker 10: whole life was going to change as a result.
Speaker 5: He quickly takes to defending Kelly, not just in the
Speaker 5: legal system, but also in the court of public opinion.
Speaker 10: Quit laughing at these people, folks. They pulled up something
Speaker 10: that you haven't done, you know, and probably couldn't do.
Speaker 5: James knows that Kelly's going to have a hard time
Speaker 5: getting much sympathy, let alone leniency. Steve's confession is already
Speaker 5: hanging over everyone in the case.
Speaker 10: The moment that he knew the jig was up, he said,
Speaker 10: where's my microphonel, let me sing.
Speaker 5: James advice to Kelly was to play the same game
Speaker 5: as Steve and confessed as quickly as possible.
Speaker 10: You're one of the principal players in this and so
Speaker 10: you have a lot to lose, but you also have a.
Speaker 8: Lot to gain if he pulled down.
Speaker 10: The line began to fold after a while, when they
Speaker 10: realized that they're taking the weight for what somebody else
Speaker 10: wanted them to do.
Speaker 6: I was really lucky when I got James Cronquist from
Speaker 6: my attorney. He did care about my situation and my
Speaker 6: family that was going to be left behind, and I
Speaker 6: remember him, you know, talking to my mom and doing
Speaker 6: what he could to console her.
Speaker 5: The consequences for her family weighed most heavily on Kelly.
Speaker 5: She remembers her mom and kids in the audience at
Speaker 5: one of the pre trial hearings.
Speaker 6: I had to get up there and tell the truth
Speaker 6: in front of my family and my kids and everybody watching.
Speaker 8: It was hard.
Speaker 5: And then she hears the crime she's charged with.
Speaker 6: There was five different charges, I think, but the main
Speaker 6: ones were bank larceny and the one that really got
Speaker 6: me was conspiracy to commit murder.
Speaker 5: For her, now, she's staring at many decades in prison
Speaker 5: and languishing behind bars until her young children were well
Speaker 5: into adulthood.
Speaker 6: I think during the time that I was going to court,
Speaker 6: when we were, you know, all figuring out how many
Speaker 6: years we could get and stuff, when it all hit me,
Speaker 6: that was probably the only time in my life I
Speaker 6: feel like killing myself. So yeah, it was pretty hard.
Speaker 5: During the heist cruise reunion in the holding cell, David
Speaker 5: Gant is still in the process of being hauled back
Speaker 5: for Mexico, but when he got off the plane in Charlotte,
Speaker 5: he knew life in his hometown would never be the same.
Speaker 1: When we landed in Charlotte, I'm looking and there's all
Speaker 1: these police cars, and there's the press gallery.
Speaker 5: All these people being in custody is still a relief
Speaker 5: compared to being hunted by Bruno and Cancun. After all,
Speaker 5: he really dodged a bullet or whatever hair brain scheme
Speaker 5: Steve was cooking up a bleach injection, exploding street tacos,
Speaker 5: or swallowing murder hornets. But he still has a lot
Speaker 5: of adjustments to make.
Speaker 1: The next few months are a blur, you know, until
Speaker 1: I get used to jail life and get used to
Speaker 1: dealing with my lawyer and the FBI.
Speaker 5: And facing lawyers and judges and reporters is a lot
Speaker 5: easier than facing his wife and family.
Speaker 1: Reconnecting with my family was very difficult, painful for both
Speaker 1: of us for all of us, and reconnecting with Tammy,
Speaker 1: which was painful.
Speaker 5: David's FaceTime with the wife and family he abandoned was
Speaker 5: pretty limited. He had more proximity to his co conspirators
Speaker 5: the company he chose in place of his family, but
Speaker 5: given that they had wanted to kill him, the government
Speaker 5: tried to limit their interaction.
Speaker 1: I didn't see Kelly or Steve or Michelle except for
Speaker 1: fleeting glimpses here and there in the courtroom or when
Speaker 1: they were transporting us. Because of the situation, I wasn't
Speaker 1: allowed to be transported with them. I wasn't allowed to
Speaker 1: be putting the same cell with them. And one time
Speaker 1: they were in the holesales straight across from me.
Speaker 5: And then there was the time David accidentally got a
Speaker 5: little quality time with Steve.
Speaker 1: One of the marshals made a minor mistake put Steve
Speaker 1: in there with me. I'm like, I'm thinking my head,
Speaker 1: I may have to hurt this dude, or one of
Speaker 1: us is going to get hurt, possibly, so I'm prepared
Speaker 1: to defend myself. And then the marshall comes back tack
Speaker 1: Steve out of there, because you know, they weren't supposed
Speaker 1: to put us together.
Speaker 5: Yeah, when Steve got with an earshot of David, he
Speaker 5: said that Kelly was the one that wanted him killed.
Speaker 5: David's reunion with Kelly was not quite what he had
Speaker 5: hoped for when he stole the money.
Speaker 6: David looked trained when I saw him after we'd all
Speaker 6: been arrested. And I do remember saying to David when
Speaker 6: either when I went by his cell or he went
Speaker 6: by mine or something, and I remember telling him and
Speaker 6: I was sorry, I just didn't say anything.
Speaker 7: Did you understand that I did.
Speaker 5: Like the rest of his co conspirators, David was facing
Speaker 5: multiple decades in prison.
Speaker 1: The biggest charge against me was bank larceny. That's the
Speaker 1: most serious, the one where it was obvious.
Speaker 5: Obvious meaning the Feds had video from the vault of
Speaker 5: him committing the crime. It was technically bank larceny, not
Speaker 5: bank robbery, since David didn't stick up Loumis Fargo at gunpoint.
Speaker 1: But the money laundering charges, if push come to shove,
Speaker 1: they would have to show some sort of documentation where
Speaker 1: I laundered money, which, even by the looses definition because
Speaker 1: I read up on it later, I didn't commit.
Speaker 5: David's argument is that putting stolen money in a pair
Speaker 5: of pantyhose isn't money laundering, So why is he getting
Speaker 5: the same charges as the guy who used the money
Speaker 5: to buy a mansion. The Feds didn't agree.
Speaker 1: They would stack charges on people and just crush you
Speaker 1: with weight.
Speaker 5: Adding to David's legal complications, he was going to have
Speaker 5: trouble making a sincere apology.
Speaker 1: If I'm gonna be remorseful about anything, it's not about
Speaker 1: stealing money from the government or putting a hurting home Fargo.
Speaker 1: My remorse comes from hurting my family. My remorse comes
Speaker 1: from hurting Tammy. That's still that's something I'm gonna always
Speaker 1: carry with me, you know, because it's always hurt me
Speaker 1: to know that if my brain and my mental state
Speaker 1: had been better, I would have never hurt Tammy, and
Speaker 1: I would have never hurt my family. But stubbornness and pride,
Speaker 1: you know, calls me and them a lot of pain.
Speaker 5: There weren't gonna be any trials. It would be great
Speaker 5: to say that jury saw the video of David stealing
Speaker 5: all the money and they just let him off anyway,
Speaker 5: or that Michelle had a chance to give an impassioned
Speaker 5: courtroom speech about buying her boobs before the heist, or
Speaker 5: that Mike used a phone party as an alibi. But
Speaker 5: the truth is, going to trial carries a high risk
Speaker 5: of a guilty verdict and a maximum sentence, So everyone
Speaker 5: worked to get the best deal they could, pled guilty
Speaker 5: and hope the judge would go easy on them. The
Speaker 5: one exception was Steve's lawyer, who was charged with money
Speaker 5: laundering after storing some money for Steve in his office.
Speaker 5: He fought the case in trial, lost and got a
Speaker 5: longer sentence than many of the people who actually stole
Speaker 5: the money for Mike McKenny party time was decidedly over.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, we were in the orange jumpsuits with.
Speaker 11: The Billy chain shackle.
Speaker 8: Ankles were shackled. Oh it sucks.
Speaker 11: Because I basically have to take half steps in shackles.
Speaker 5: Mike prefers to disassociate from this whole chapter of his
Speaker 5: life when he talks about it. He tends to say
Speaker 5: you instead of eye, like maybe all of this happened
Speaker 5: to someone other than him.
Speaker 11: Whenever they actually give you your sentence, that is when
Speaker 11: it kind of feels like a sandbags laying on your chest.
Speaker 11: I mean, my lawyer told me, you plead out, basically,
Speaker 11: you get seventy seven months, you take this to trial
Speaker 11: and lose, you can get one hundred and thirty five months.
Speaker 11: I plaid out, and then whenever they sentenced me, it
Speaker 11: was one hundred and thirty five months.
Speaker 8: Anyway, I kind of got pissy with him after that.
Speaker 8: It's like, so basically, y'all just fucked me out of
Speaker 8: a trial.
Speaker 11: I probably would have got at the same time or
Speaker 11: more from a trial, but at least I would have
Speaker 11: cost the Feds more money to do it.
Speaker 8: You gotta take your spite however you can.
Speaker 5: One hundred and thirty five months is eleven years and
Speaker 5: three months. In the Slammer, Mike and Steve got the
Speaker 5: exact same prison term. Mike is still pretty pissed about
Speaker 5: that one. Steve was the kingpin, after all, he stole
Speaker 5: the money and paid Mike for a murder that never happened, unless,
Speaker 5: of course, you count the gallons of margaritas he killed
Speaker 5: at Senior Frogs. And then he got a sentence reduced
Speaker 5: for just blabbing about the whole thing.
Speaker 8: Yeah, there's not a whole lot of honor among thieves.
Speaker 11: Words were exchanged, but that that's as far as I'll
Speaker 11: go now.
Speaker 5: Then he was off to complete his sentence. However, there's
Speaker 5: an advantage to being Mike McKinnie in the prison yard.
Speaker 8: The prisons, it's full of predators.
Speaker 11: I'm larger than the average person, was a drawer head,
Speaker 11: and I was in there for being a hitman, so
Speaker 11: I was kind of the last person they wanted to press,
Speaker 11: and I was in there doing my own thing.
Speaker 8: I wasn't gambling, doing.
Speaker 11: Drugs, messing with the punks, so I was basically left
Speaker 11: alone anyway. But in there, if you are pressed, you
Speaker 11: have to be ready to roll. You can't hesitate. They
Speaker 11: come at you, You've got to go back hard. It doesn't
Speaker 11: matter if you're actually very good at fighting. It just
Speaker 11: depends on if you're willing to. Because there's easier prey
Speaker 11: out there, and if you're willing to fight, it starts
Speaker 11: going in their head. Well I might get hurt, so
Speaker 11: they go onto easier prey.
Speaker 5: Well that's terrifying. One of his most eventful days in
Speaker 5: prison actually came at the beginning of a sentence. He
Speaker 5: had just been moved from the county jail in Charlotte
Speaker 5: to another county jail. I stop over on the way
Speaker 5: to federal prison.
Speaker 11: So I went shuffling in there, and the first person
Speaker 11: I saw was David Gant coming down the stairs. He
Speaker 11: saw me, his eyes got about this big ran straight
Speaker 11: to the garden, said that was the guy that was
Speaker 11: hard to kill me.
Speaker 8: You need to get him out of here.
Speaker 11: And so I was pulled over to the sun asked
Speaker 11: the fare was going to be a problem. I said, no,
Speaker 11: no money on Gant anymore, and so they shipped me
Speaker 11: over to actually the Christian pod. Those were all the
Speaker 11: dope fans that found the lord before trial to try
Speaker 11: to reduce her sentence and all that, and I was
Speaker 11: just the odd ball. I was a fed prisoner that
Speaker 11: had already been sentenced, and that was the only place
Speaker 11: they could stick me. I guess because I had done
Speaker 11: anything to have to sit in the hole.
Speaker 5: I have used his time in the Christian pod to
Speaker 5: preach the virtues of the Unholy Trinity or pay homage
Speaker 5: to the Father, the Son, and the Holy hot tub.
Speaker 8: But he didn't. He just slept pretty good in the
Speaker 8: Christian pod.
Speaker 11: Beds were pretty comfy, And actually that was the last
Speaker 11: time I actually slept on a true mattress for what
Speaker 11: the next nine years.
Speaker 5: As a reward for his impeccable squealing, Steve was sentenced
Speaker 5: to the same eleven years and three months as Mike McKinney.
Speaker 5: Steve's parents were convicted of money laundering and serve their
Speaker 5: sentence on house arrest. Michelle gets seven years and eight
Speaker 5: months her annex. On the day of her arrest, when
Speaker 5: she hid the forty three thousand dollars diamond ring from
Speaker 5: the FBI, did it exactly help her cause.
Speaker 7: Michelle accused me of stealing this diamond ring that was missing.
Speaker 7: We were looking for it because I had a receipt
Speaker 7: for forty three thousand dollars. Now, think about the logic
Speaker 7: of that I have in the search warrant that I'm
Speaker 7: looking for dollar ring, right, and she accused me of
Speaker 7: stealing it. Meanwhile, she put it in the suitcase. Grandparents
Speaker 7: were holding on to it. They weren't going to say anything,
Speaker 7: and then we arrested them. We arrested the grandparents.
Speaker 5: The grandparents are Michelle's parents, her children's grandparents. They later
Speaker 5: received probation. I wonder if that ever comes up at Thanksgiving.
Speaker 7: It added to his prison time too, took away any
Speaker 7: cooperation that she had, so she didn't get any kind
Speaker 7: of break.
Speaker 5: Kelly ends up getting five years and ten months. The
Speaker 5: charge of conspiracy to commit murder for hire added extra
Speaker 5: weight to her sentence.
Speaker 6: And that prevented me from doing things when I was
Speaker 6: in prison. I couldn't participate in programs like where they
Speaker 6: got to go out into town where there was a
Speaker 6: firefighter program and they'd get to go out into town
Speaker 6: and do different things. I couldn't participate in that because
Speaker 6: it would consider a violent crime. I couldn't participate in
Speaker 6: the drug rehab program and get time knocked off of
Speaker 6: my sentence because it was considered a violent crime.
Speaker 5: In addition to her prison time, Kelly was also ordered
Speaker 5: to pay restitution to Loomis Fargo and its insurance company.
Speaker 5: Even though the Feds have recovered just about all the money,
Speaker 5: and it's a big number, almost five million dollars. The
Speaker 5: rest of the crew has to pay restitution as well,
Speaker 5: but somehow, singing Steve Chambers figure is a million dollars
Speaker 5: less than Kelly's.
Speaker 6: It's like you're gonna be penished for the rest of
Speaker 6: your life because they know I'm never gonna pay back
Speaker 6: five million dollars. Where am I gonna get five million dollars?
Speaker 6: I mean, if you think about it, it's like you're
Speaker 6: gonna make this person go out and commit another crime
Speaker 6: to pay this crime off.
Speaker 5: Kelly is sent to one of the most notorious prisons
Speaker 5: in the country.
Speaker 6: From West Virginia, but it was called Camp Copcake because
Speaker 6: there was no towers, no barbar fences. I mean, if
Speaker 6: somebody wanted to leave, they could leave. It's actually where
Speaker 6: they sent Martha's steward. I actually left probably a couple
Speaker 6: of months before she arrived, so I missed out there,
Speaker 6: but I wouldn't have wanted to stay just to hang
Speaker 6: out with Martha.
Speaker 5: Maybe that's why to this day, Kelly's dining table centerpieces
Speaker 5: are not what they could be. When Kelly arrived, she
Speaker 5: too was greeted by a familiar face.
Speaker 6: When I went into prison, they asked me if there
Speaker 6: was going to be an issue if Michelle and I
Speaker 6: worked at the same place or housed in the same area,
Speaker 6: And I told them in the beginning that I would
Speaker 6: prefer that they keep me and Michelle separate from each other.
Speaker 6: The thing about it is if you did something bad,
Speaker 6: if you got into a fight or something like that,
Speaker 6: then you know Camp cl Cake was over for you.
Speaker 6: You went somewhere else.
Speaker 5: Camp Cupcake is tamed by prison standards, but it's still
Speaker 5: a prison. Like all the new inmates, Kelly is assigned
Speaker 5: to a giant building everyone calls the Titanic.
Speaker 6: And the way that's set up is just they had
Speaker 6: half walls for instead of the wall to your cubicle
Speaker 6: going all the way to the ceiling, it was just
Speaker 6: half walls, so anybody on the top bunk could see
Speaker 6: everybody else on the top punk. So if you're on
Speaker 6: the top bunk, you didn't have any privacy and of course,
Speaker 6: without any walls, there wasn't no privacy anyway, because you
Speaker 6: can hear everything that's going on.
Speaker 5: The system was set up so that, with a long
Speaker 5: enough stretch of good behavior, Kelly could work her way
Speaker 5: into more comfortable accommodations. After a while, she got moved
Speaker 5: to a cottage with several roommates. This is Camp Cupcake
Speaker 5: we're talking about. They literally call it a cottage. Then
Speaker 5: she got to move to a cottage with fewer roommates,
Speaker 5: and finally.
Speaker 6: I did manage to work my way into a private
Speaker 6: room with the door, which was fantastic. It made things
Speaker 6: a lot easier.
Speaker 5: Beats pooping in front of people.
Speaker 6: You have free rain on the prison yard. If you
Speaker 6: was to leave your cottage, you'd have to write down
Speaker 6: what time you were leaving and where you were going,
Speaker 6: and then when you'd come back, you'd sign back in
Speaker 6: so they would know where to find you if they
Speaker 6: needed you. There's a reason they caught it Camp Cupcake.
Speaker 5: Kelly sent us photos of her time at Camp Cupcake,
Speaker 5: and they're pretty incredible. She's wearing civilian clothes, sitting on
Speaker 5: a rock, head turned to camera, smiling like the photo
Speaker 5: shoot you do when you graduate from high school or
Speaker 5: get incarcerated on a murder for higher scheme. The grounds
Speaker 5: are surrounded by a lush, old growth forest like a
Speaker 5: summer camp with Stooley's and shame and the finest pruno.
Speaker 5: Kelly also got closer to the Lord while she was
Speaker 5: in prison. Her faith helped her get through the time
Speaker 5: away from her kids. Meanwhile, David is sentenced to seven
Speaker 5: and a half years, and even though he only saw
Speaker 5: maybe one hundred grand of the stolen money after the
Speaker 5: first night, he owes his former bosses at Loomis Fargo
Speaker 5: almost four million in restitution. After his close call with
Speaker 5: Mike McKinnie in County jail, he was sent to a
Speaker 5: medium security federal prison in North Carolina, a prison that
Speaker 5: is not named after a dessert.
Speaker 1: A lot of those guys have like really long sentences,
Speaker 1: or they've done violence or certain crimes, and they're probably
Speaker 1: never going to some of them are never gonna leave.
Speaker 1: And that's where I did all my time.
Speaker 5: The prison is an open dorm, which means that the
Speaker 5: inmates aren't kept in individual cells. Instead, they all sleep
Speaker 5: in bunks in the same giant room and.
Speaker 1: Up at the front what they call the beach. There's
Speaker 1: four beds under the lights, ten feet from the guard shack,
Speaker 1: and that's where all the new fish go. And it's
Speaker 1: a horrible place to live because the bathrooms are right there,
Speaker 1: the TV rooms are right here, the guard shacks here,
Speaker 1: mail calls here. People in and out all night, all night,
Speaker 1: all day, no sleeping.
Speaker 5: But David didn't have to do any time on this beach.
Speaker 8: I got lucky.
Speaker 1: When I showed up, the beach was filled with people
Speaker 1: who had pissed the guards off.
Speaker 5: Instead, David got put in the part of the prison
Speaker 5: run by a violent biker gang.
Speaker 1: So they put them with the bikers, which is cool.
Speaker 5: Lucky. Mike McKinny got by in prison thanks to his
Speaker 5: size and his reputation as an ex marine turned hitman.
Speaker 5: David got by by being David. For example, one of
Speaker 5: his acquaintances in prison was a member of the Pagan
Speaker 5: motorcycle Gang.
Speaker 1: One of the coolest guys you ever meet. Play guitar.
Speaker 1: Was generous with his food and stuff, but you know
Speaker 1: that in real life when he had to be he was,
Speaker 1: you know, not somebody to be trifled with. You spoke
Speaker 1: to him wrong, you might end up beat the death.
Speaker 5: David Gant can charm anyone into not beating him to death.
Speaker 5: He's just that kind of guy, and during his time
Speaker 5: behind bars, his optimism never wavered.
Speaker 1: You think of all the movies and stuff you've seen
Speaker 1: on TV, and you think it's gonna be a certain way,
Speaker 1: and I hate to bust people's bubbles.
Speaker 8: But you get there.
Speaker 1: The grass is nicely cut. There's an education center and
Speaker 1: library where you go eat, medical, the special housing unit,
Speaker 1: visitor center, and if you didn't know any better, you
Speaker 1: think it was just a really bizarre college campus.
Speaker 5: Still, David isn't exactly enamored with his new life. His
Speaker 5: frustration comes to a head one day early on.
Speaker 1: Being famous in prison is kind of terrible because they
Speaker 1: had done a rerun of Was It twenty twenty some show?
Speaker 1: And so here I am, I'm crashed out on my bunk, comfortable,
Speaker 1: and here comes six people. Hey man, you're on TV.
Speaker 1: You're gonna go watch it? And they wake me up?
Speaker 1: And if you wake me up without coffee, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna be happy. And so I rolled, I said, what
Speaker 1: do you idiots? Won't just as sarcastic as a possible
Speaker 1: can marriage without being overly rude and like, oh you're
Speaker 1: on TV. Don't you want to come see it? Like
Speaker 1: m Efforts I.
Speaker 8: Lived, go away.
Speaker 5: David got himself here because he was hoping to get
Speaker 5: himself unstuck from a dark period in his life. He
Speaker 5: was in a deadened job that he hated, a marriage
Speaker 5: he was unsure of, and just feeling like he could
Speaker 5: never get ahead. Now he's literally stuck in the same
Speaker 5: building for the next seven years, and he owes the
Speaker 5: former employer who spent all those years underpaying him four
Speaker 5: million dollars. When he gets out, he'll be in his
Speaker 5: early thirties with a criminal record, and it'll be time
Speaker 5: to figure out his next chapter.
Speaker 1: He's like Zach Galifnakis to meet you, would you mind
Speaker 1: flying out here to Los Angeles?
Speaker 5: That's next time. On the final episode of Crimeless, Hillbilly.
Speaker 2: Heist Steve Man, after all that, he's just singing like
Speaker 2: a canary or a parrot, whatever songbird is the appropriate
Speaker 2: bird to use in this metaphor.
Speaker 3: Any bird that talks. He is imitating them.
Speaker 4: One thing gets.
Speaker 3: Shocking Kelly being a little Kelly being a little surprised
Speaker 3: that she was being charged with conspiracy to commit murder
Speaker 3: for hire, even though she had openly on a tapped
Speaker 3: phone call, talked about doing that.
Speaker 4: Interesting that she was like, Oh, I didn't remember even
Speaker 4: I'm doing that.
Speaker 7: I don't.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of things I forget throughout the week.
Speaker 3: For myself, I think I would always remember for the
Speaker 3: rest of my life when I tried to have someone
Speaker 3: professionally killed. I just feel like that would be a
Speaker 3: core memory.
Speaker 2: I mean, this continues to be a psa about the
Speaker 2: dangers of marijuana smoking.
Speaker 3: Yes, here's what I want to know your own personal feelings.
Speaker 3: What do you think about Mike's lawyer telling him to
Speaker 3: plead out and then he still got the same amount
Speaker 3: had he fought it. That actually kind of upset me
Speaker 3: a little bit about his lawyer.
Speaker 2: I totally agree. I feel like that. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you can like punish a lawyer. Can you say, like,
Speaker 2: I don't know that a person who has been convicted of, yeah,
Speaker 2: of murder for hire has much recourse. But yes, he
Speaker 2: told him to take a plea to get less time,
Speaker 2: and then he got the same amount of time, Yeah,
Speaker 2: than if he had fought it and maybe been clear.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I kind of thought, when you take a plea when
Speaker 3: they say a plea bargain, it's been there's been a bargain,
Speaker 3: there's a bargain. The literally the word bargain meant you
Speaker 3: won't get the same thing because there's a bargain. And
Speaker 3: so the fact that he pleaded guilty and yet still
Speaker 3: got the same that I don't know enough about the
Speaker 3: law how these things work. And I realized Mike McKinney
Speaker 3: was hired to kill someone and obviously was doing something
Speaker 3: illegal at its core, no matter how you cut it up.
Speaker 3: But that does seem shady that he would be treated
Speaker 3: like that when he's being represented by a lawyer, and
Speaker 3: I can't wait to find out who his lawyer is
Speaker 3: and write a letter.
Speaker 11: I got.
Speaker 3: David's affinity for his prison is just the that's the
Speaker 3: clearest cut example of his optimism. That he's in prison
Speaker 3: and he's like it seems like a nice college campus
Speaker 3: and yet he's been paired up with like murderous biker gangs,
Speaker 3: and yet he's like it's like college, Like, you know,
Speaker 3: college is different for everybody.
Speaker 2: What's it gonna take for David to like be bummed out?
Speaker 3: Don't I don't know that it can happen. I think
Speaker 3: the only thing that ever bummed him out, and he
Speaker 3: even talks about it pretty optimistically now, is just Kelly
Speaker 3: never reciprocating his love.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well you're right.
Speaker 2: Everything else, he's kind of like, Eh, yeah, it's prison,
Speaker 2: but it's not bad, not bad, It's not that bad
Speaker 2: of a place.
Speaker 3: I got to say, I was kind of surprised with
Speaker 3: all of it, the sentencing, the amounts. I did feel
Speaker 3: strange that Mike got the same as Steve. That just
Speaker 3: felt very bizarre. I don't know if Steve got less
Speaker 3: because he rat it on everybody, and I think, as
Speaker 3: they stated, he knew that he would get less if
Speaker 3: he got in there, got on the microphone first. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I will say it was interesting that Kelly got to
Speaker 3: go to Camp Cupcake with Martha, with Martha or just mister,
Speaker 3: but yeah, Martha, it's pretty incredible. I did like that
Speaker 3: David got out early for good behavior. That made perfect
Speaker 3: sense because he's so he probably they were like, this
Speaker 3: isn't even a punishment. He doesn't even think he's in
Speaker 3: a bad place.
Speaker 2: I just imagine David volunteering for like job in the prison.
Speaker 2: He's like working in the kitchen, he's cleaning bathrooms. He's
Speaker 2: just whistling.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean he was down in Mexico. He's probably
Speaker 3: so lonely, and he's like, this isn't so bad. Hang
Speaker 3: I got roommates. He probably thought there were roommates everybody
Speaker 3: in prison.
Speaker 4: Oh man.
Speaker 2: He just continues to be the best character.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, all right.
Speaker 2: Well, we have just one episode left in our season.
Speaker 2: Next week we get a little meta because I think
Speaker 2: Hollywood comes calling.
Speaker 5: That's right, Crimeless Hillbilly Heist is a production of SmartLess Media,
Speaker 5: Campside Media and Big Money Players in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 5: Bill Billy Heist is narrated by me Johnny Knoxville and
Speaker 5: created by Liz Elkington and Stewart Bailey. Written by Michael
Speaker 5: Kenyon Meyer with Liz Elkington and Stuart Bailey, Produced by
Speaker 5: Lane Rose and Sierra Franco. Additional production help by Rejeeve Gola.
Speaker 5: The series with sound design and mixed by ewin Le Tremwen,
Speaker 5: fact checking by Gray Lanta, and a special thanks for
Speaker 5: our operations team Doug Slaywin, 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. Campsite 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. If you've
Speaker 5: enjoyed Crimeless Hillbilly heis, please rate and review the show
Speaker 5: wherever you get your podcasts.