Speaker 1: If FBI informant Mickey Windecker has a favorite movie, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure I know what it is. The Punisher and
Speaker 1: certain extreme situations The Law is Inadequate. In the two
Speaker 1: thousand and four film, actor Thomas Jane plays a guy
Speaker 1: named Frank Castle whose family is murdered by the mafia.
Speaker 1: As a result, he becomes a bone crushing vigilante on
Speaker 1: the hunt for his family's killers. The Punisher is an outlaw,
Speaker 1: a man who meets out his own brand of justice
Speaker 1: as a way to make up for what he sees
Speaker 1: as the failures of the police and the criminal justice system.
Speaker 1: He's not bound by rules or laws. He's bound only
Speaker 1: by his own sense of morality and justice. He's judged
Speaker 1: jury and Punisher. This is not vengeance. Revenge is not
Speaker 1: a valid motive. It's an emotional response. No, not vengeance.
Speaker 1: Mickey two thinks of himself as being bound only by
Speaker 1: his unique sense of morality and justice. But there's more
Speaker 1: to it than that. Mickey wants to be the Punisher,
Speaker 1: and you know who helps make that happen, the FBI.
Speaker 1: I'm Trevor Aaronson from Western Sound and I Heart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: This is Alphabet Boys, episode four, The Punisher. I drive
Speaker 1: out to a nondescript apartment complex north of Denver. I
Speaker 1: knock on a first floor unit near the parking lot,
Speaker 1: and Cassie Windecker opens the door wearing sweatpants and a
Speaker 1: baggy tshirt. The door opens to Cassie's living room, which
Speaker 1: has a floor to ceiling stripper pole in the middle.
Speaker 1: On the wall our movie posters for Beetlejuice and Friday
Speaker 1: the Thirteenth. Gothic decorations are strewn throughout the apartment. Halloween
Speaker 1: isn't anytime soon. Cassie's just really into the imagery. I
Speaker 1: start setting up my recording equipment. I was like, gosh,
Speaker 1: it's this video. Cassie was working late the night before
Speaker 1: and she's just rolled out of bed. She sees I
Speaker 1: have an audio recorder, not a camera, and she's relieved
Speaker 1: because I'm known as this model, like might be good
Speaker 1: for our reputation. I don't know. So I'm recording now.
Speaker 1: If you could just introduce yourself the way you'd like
Speaker 1: to be referred. Okay, Hi, my name is Cassieky. Did
Speaker 1: you go by Cassie Windecker? Honestly, so the whole vin
Speaker 1: Decker thing Windecker. I hate it. I'm trying your intimate.
Speaker 1: I'm so tired of it. Cassie started seeing Mickey in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, about five years before Mickey would become an
Speaker 1: FBI informant investigating racial justice activists in Denver. Cassie is
Speaker 1: Mickey Windecker's third ex wife. Her hair is long and
Speaker 1: her eyes are green. She has gauges in both of
Speaker 1: her ears and tattoos all over her body, including a
Speaker 1: Halloween pumpkin on her neck, an anchor below one eye,
Speaker 1: and large letters across part of her forehead that read confidence.
Speaker 1: These days, Cassie works at a strip club and as
Speaker 1: an adult model. Online, she's known as kill A Cassie
Speaker 1: Cassie with a A if you want to look her
Speaker 1: up on Instagram. Cassie is short for Cassandra, you know,
Speaker 1: the Trojan princess in Greek mythology who uttered prophecies that
Speaker 1: were true, but we're doomed to be ignored to the
Speaker 1: extent she can. Cassie has been warning people about Mickey Windecker,
Speaker 1: who entered her life when he came to her aid
Speaker 1: over a torn ear. One of my gauges, well, my
Speaker 1: left ear lobe it had ripped, and I made a
Speaker 1: status on Facebook, like can anybody at a shop or
Speaker 1: anything like fix my ear? And he had commented on it.
Speaker 1: And he used to work at like all the strip clubs.
Speaker 1: He used to go to Hers Call and he did
Speaker 1: all the stuff I did. He has known as like
Speaker 1: the vampire guy, like the guy with the hers, the
Speaker 1: cool guy. You know, everybody loved him. And I go
Speaker 1: down there and like he fixed my ear, which is cool.
Speaker 1: You know, it was fine. It's still fixed by him.
Speaker 1: Like he did a good job. But like that's how
Speaker 1: I met him. Mickey and Cassie had been acquainted through
Speaker 1: Denver's Gassine and the Denver Hearse Association, an organization for
Speaker 1: people who drive around in hearses and want to show
Speaker 1: off their rides. The Denver Hearse Association publishes photos of
Speaker 1: young beautiful women posing next to what some people call
Speaker 1: undertaker's limousines or more crudely, meat wagons. Cassie was the
Speaker 1: Hearse Girl of the Year two years in a row.
Speaker 1: Mickey was known for driving around Denver and his hearse,
Speaker 1: for participating in Zombie Apocalypse cosplay events around town, and
Speaker 1: for playing a bit part In a locally produced grindhouse
Speaker 1: movie called Killer Inc. About a tattoo artist who doubles
Speaker 1: as a serial killer. About an hour into Killer Inc,
Speaker 1: Two women, one blonde, the other burnette, pull into a
Speaker 1: wooded area and a black hearse. The hearse was one
Speaker 1: Mickey owned at the time, with a biohazard symbol painted
Speaker 1: on the hood. Jamie, Mickey's second wife, played the burnette.
Speaker 1: In the scene, both women get out of the hearse.
Speaker 1: I thought you were tired, Mickey's x Jamie says, as
Speaker 1: the blonde woman takes off her top. The two women
Speaker 1: then start making out in the back of the hearse
Speaker 1: as Mickey, baseball bat in hand, walks up and watches
Speaker 1: Peeping Tom style. He's flipping the bat in his hands
Speaker 1: as if getting ready to attack the two women. Just then,
Speaker 1: Killer Ink's main character sneaks up behind Mickey, snaps his neck,
Speaker 1: grabs the baseball bat, clubs one of the women, and
Speaker 1: then strangles the other with his bare hands. Mickey didn't
Speaker 1: get a single line in the movie, and honestly, his
Speaker 1: scene didn't make a whole lot of sense. But then
Speaker 1: no one watches a grindhouse movie for the story. I
Speaker 1: guess anyway back when Mickey fixed Cassie's ear. This is
Speaker 1: what she knew of him her sky zombie cosplay role
Speaker 1: in that Grindhouse movie. And at that time, Mickey had
Speaker 1: a girlfriend and Cassie a fiance, but that didn't stop
Speaker 1: them from getting together. Yep. It was nuts because we
Speaker 1: didn't date, we didn't anything. We moved in together immediately,
Speaker 1: and then he at my grandma's house asked me and
Speaker 1: Miriam was in a couple of days. Typical military men,
Speaker 1: which is unfortunate. Not all of them, but a lot
Speaker 1: of military men. I want to marry right away because
Speaker 1: I've had happened before. I should have learned the first time.
Speaker 1: Those are at least real military men. Cassie's infatuation with
Speaker 1: Mickey wasn't based on any physical connection. I didn't even
Speaker 1: find him attractive the whole time, which was crazy. The
Speaker 1: infatuation was based on drugs, which Cassie says Mickey provided
Speaker 1: to her. My drug of choice was heroin and xanax
Speaker 1: at the time, and on money, which Mickey appeared to
Speaker 1: have lots of in cash. And he laid down all
Speaker 1: this money on his boat like ten gran and he
Speaker 1: took a picture of it and he send it to me,
Speaker 1: and he was like, do you want to come home
Speaker 1: to this every day? And I was like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: all stupid about it. Some people are like that. I
Speaker 1: was very shallow with the money. Cassie says Mickey didn't
Speaker 1: work much, not any sort of official job anyway, and
Speaker 1: the drugs he provided to her acted as a kind
Speaker 1: of leash. He could pull her in any direction he
Speaker 1: wanted to, so long as he had pills to offer.
Speaker 1: Their relationship could get pretty dark and violent. Many of
Speaker 1: Cassie's allegations about Mickey in this episode are impossible to corroborate.
Speaker 1: In most cases, she and Mickey were the only witnesses
Speaker 1: to the alleged behavior, But the claims Cassie makes about drugs, money,
Speaker 1: and violence are similar to others about Mickey that can
Speaker 1: be found in criminal and civil court files over the
Speaker 1: last two decades. Some of these claims are also documented
Speaker 1: in the FBI's internal reports about Mickey. Throughout their relationship,
Speaker 1: Cassie says Mickey was controlling. For example, he would go
Speaker 1: to the strip club when she was working and count
Speaker 1: the number of private dances she did in a night,
Speaker 1: and then calculate how much money she should have and
Speaker 1: if I was short or like got too much, he
Speaker 1: would flip his shit. Oh it was bad. Any money
Speaker 1: she earned was his, none of it was mine. And
Speaker 1: when we would go shopping, he'd be like he'd drained me.
Speaker 1: And by the time I'd get to a store, I
Speaker 1: wanted Cassie, that's stupid, and it's just like we're at Claire's.
Speaker 1: Let me get some cool I'm a girl and I'm
Speaker 1: a stripper. I want some glitterary perfume or something that's stupid.
Speaker 1: And you know you're gonna guys are gonna want you.
Speaker 1: That's my job. I want them to want me so
Speaker 1: I get money. I hope I'm asking this. Was he
Speaker 1: sexually or physically abusive. Yeah, So he would always and
Speaker 1: this is this is gonna make me laugh, because I
Speaker 1: do get nervous. I have a nervous laugh. He would
Speaker 1: always say, I don't know why, but I have sex
Speaker 1: in my sleep. And I would say, huh, that sounds weird.
Speaker 1: I was like, what dreams? You know? I can understand that,
Speaker 1: And I could understand fantasizing and you know, you're you're
Speaker 1: you're a human being. We all do it. But no,
Speaker 1: he would literally have sex with me while I was
Speaker 1: asleep and I would catch him. He would be wide awake,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, I'm not I'm not a woman
Speaker 1: that's like I need consent. You know, you're my husband,
Speaker 1: totally cool. I tell every boyfriend and whatever this, You're
Speaker 1: totally fine. Do whatever you want when I'm asleep. So
Speaker 1: it wasn't like a rape thing or anything. I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not hashtag me too. I'm not doing that. But
Speaker 1: I will say it'd be weird because he would only
Speaker 1: want to do stuff when I was like asleep, and
Speaker 1: I feel like that's so he could do what he wants,
Speaker 1: get it over with and that'd be it. And whenever
Speaker 1: I wanted anything sexual, it was just like I don't
Speaker 1: want to right now. Phsd's acting up, YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 1: But if you go do anything like you're cheating, I'm like,
Speaker 1: how is porn cheating? How is anything you know besides
Speaker 1: another person cheating. I mean he met like masturbating with yeah,
Speaker 1: and I was like, you know, I was a lot
Speaker 1: younger at the time too, and you know, being on
Speaker 1: drugs and just you know, you you want to do that,
Speaker 1: and even even anybody come on, you know, thirty forty
Speaker 1: fifty doesn't matter who you are. There's times when you're
Speaker 1: not getting anything. If you're not happy, you're gonna want
Speaker 1: to master ate. And he would, like he would, he
Speaker 1: would just abuse you for that. He had abuse it
Speaker 1: for being on your period. I remember he used to
Speaker 1: have me put up a little red string when I
Speaker 1: was on my period because he hated the word period.
Speaker 1: He hated me talking about it. I had to go
Speaker 1: to therapy just to be able to learn how to
Speaker 1: talk about my female organs again and use the word.
Speaker 1: And even I feel disgusted saying period because of Mickey.
Speaker 1: So yeah, he would, um, he would. He would say,
Speaker 1: women who bleed are disgusting, And I'm like, we all bled, dude,
Speaker 1: how do you think you were made? How do you
Speaker 1: think you were on this earth ruining shit? Like, oh,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is all classic woman hating stuff. But
Speaker 1: Cassie stayed, I don't really know what I want was doing,
Speaker 1: to be honest, but it was just like I was
Speaker 1: constantly getting spoiled too, and I know that was probably
Speaker 1: dirty money. I think, you know, he never worked, but
Speaker 1: it was like constantly, you know, every finger I had
Speaker 1: had a ring on it every finger, and one time,
Speaker 1: out of curiosity, I went to like, you know, get
Speaker 1: it tested. All of them were real, you know, real gold,
Speaker 1: real diamond. It's like, wow, did did he ever say
Speaker 1: you know where he would have gotten the money to
Speaker 1: bude us? Yeah, because once in a while I would ask,
Speaker 1: and if the gift was really big, I wouldn't even
Speaker 1: I'd be like, whoa, I'm not even gonna ask. I
Speaker 1: don't want to know. I don't want to know. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like that would be the good Fellas. You're like,
Speaker 1: what is he doing? But I don't know because I'm
Speaker 1: happy and I got nice dresses and shit, so I
Speaker 1: don't want to ask, you know, just go on your day.
Speaker 1: Mickey would tell Cassie that his father had owned a
Speaker 1: taxi company and left him a bunch of money, but
Speaker 1: that never made sense to her because Mickey's money came
Speaker 1: in erratically and always in cash. So one time I
Speaker 1: remember we go to some type of like court house
Speaker 1: slash like just police station thing and a rappahole, and
Speaker 1: I remember I waited in the car again and he
Speaker 1: came back out and he was just like, here's a
Speaker 1: new iPhone. And I was like, huh new iPhone, huh,
Speaker 1: and it was a government building that he got it from. Yes,
Speaker 1: And at the time I'm just like, oh iPhone, like
Speaker 1: you know. But then also I'm like, did he go
Speaker 1: in there? Because it was like evidence, you know, it's
Speaker 1: a police station. Cassie began to suspect that Mickey was
Speaker 1: working with the cops and that's how he was getting
Speaker 1: his money more after the break so, Cassie began to
Speaker 1: suspect that her new husband was secretly working for the police,
Speaker 1: or maybe Mickey just liked pretending to be a cop.
Speaker 1: Cassie wasn't sure. Mickey, remember, has been accused multiple times
Speaker 1: in criminal and civil court proceedings of impersonating a police officer.
Speaker 1: One time, we went downtown and we were near the library.
Speaker 1: There's this like water fountain thing by the library, watching
Speaker 1: homeless people and like drug dealers hang out there, just
Speaker 1: kind of the spot to be when you're doing bad shit.
Speaker 1: So we're down there. I'm kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: why are we down here? I remember I was smoking
Speaker 1: weed eat a hot dog, and I'm like, huh, this
Speaker 1: is weird. Why are we down here? And I keep
Speaker 1: asking him, you know, why are we down here, and
Speaker 1: his excuse was always like, oh, I'm gonna take you
Speaker 1: somewhere to eat, but I'm want to cruise around and stuff.
Speaker 1: There was this guy, you know, he like rolled up
Speaker 1: to the window and he's like, hey, you guys want
Speaker 1: to buy anything, And Mickey was like he went to
Speaker 1: grab towards his shirt like he had a little intercom
Speaker 1: speaker and went, there's some activity going on down here,
Speaker 1: and he is some like weird code. I don't remember
Speaker 1: the code, so we'll just go with four eight nine
Speaker 1: to something and the guy said whoa whoa wall put
Speaker 1: his hands up the drug dealer and he goes, dude, please,
Speaker 1: I'll do anything. And then Michael pulls out his iPad,
Speaker 1: grabs it, takes picture of the dude and it is
Speaker 1: like again reaching for like his upper shoulder, and he's
Speaker 1: like nine oh two, we gotta da da datta da
Speaker 1: cha cha chid to the left, to the right, boom
Speaker 1: boom bam, and the guy just he runs and Michael
Speaker 1: literally were in my Honda Civic chasing this dude and
Speaker 1: I'm like, why are we chasing this guy? Like what
Speaker 1: do you do to you? And he would just like
Speaker 1: shut up. Cassie like just shut up, like he wouldn't
Speaker 1: tell you, he'd just shut the fuck up, like and
Speaker 1: he would like abuse you while you're like, you know,
Speaker 1: like shut up, like use force, like press you down
Speaker 1: on your seat type, like you know what, you're about
Speaker 1: to get in a car accident and somebody called you back.
Speaker 1: He would do that in my car. It wasn't his car.
Speaker 1: I remember at that moment, I was like, he just
Speaker 1: impersonated a whole as Coop and I was right, there,
Speaker 1: can I get in trouble? Like what in the fuck?
Speaker 1: Like whoa? And the way he did it was just
Speaker 1: so nonchalant and so natural. He's done this before and
Speaker 1: he's doing it again. Mickey had an obsession with the Punisher,
Speaker 1: the Marvel Comics anti hero, and He's not alone. The
Speaker 1: Punisher logo, a skull with long teeth, has been widely
Speaker 1: adopted as a symbol by police officers and pro police
Speaker 1: Blue Lives Matter demonstrators. It's not uncommon these days to
Speaker 1: see T shirts and flags adorned with the Punisher logo,
Speaker 1: an American flag and a thin blue line. During the
Speaker 1: summer of twenty twenty, the Punisher became a symbol of
Speaker 1: police solidarity against the Black Lives Matter movement that was
Speaker 1: critical of American policing. Some of the January six insurrectionists
Speaker 1: also wore clothing with the Punisher logo. Anyway, back to Mickey,
Speaker 1: anything you see, the Punisher logo was on it. Anything
Speaker 1: you see, And he would always wear the Punisher necklace
Speaker 1: even when he took a shower or a bath, like
Speaker 1: never came off, just like a big kid in the
Speaker 1: worst way, in the worst way. It's awful. Cassie says
Speaker 1: that obsession bordered on identity crisis. He literally thought he
Speaker 1: was the Punisher and the Punisher's badass, so that's a disgrace.
Speaker 1: But yeah, no, he definitely thought that was who he was.
Speaker 1: And that's the hard part, right when you're dealing with
Speaker 1: the psychopath or somebody who's narcissistic, they believe themselves so
Speaker 1: much that they will believe their own lies to the
Speaker 1: point where it becomes true. They lie to themselves so
Speaker 1: much to where if they were to take a polygraph,
Speaker 1: they'd pass it because he believes he's the Punisher. If
Speaker 1: you ask, are you the Punisher, Michael Vindecker, yes, fullhearted me.
Speaker 1: He would pass with flying colors because when you believe something,
Speaker 1: you become that thing. And narcissists, that's the number one
Speaker 1: rule that they have. It's like fight club, you know,
Speaker 1: that's their number one rule, believe what you think. In
Speaker 1: the comic book series, The Punisher is a marine, but
Speaker 1: Mickey I couldn't find any record of him ever serving
Speaker 1: in the US military, and as far as I can
Speaker 1: tell from court records, Mickey's never been one for steady
Speaker 1: employment either. He was divorced twice before he married Cassie,
Speaker 1: and then one of those divorce filings, Mickey listed that
Speaker 1: he was unemployed and had been unemployed. But people who
Speaker 1: knew Mickey also told me that he was flushed with cash,
Speaker 1: always with wads of money in his pockets. Where did
Speaker 1: the money come from? Why do you have so much money?
Speaker 1: And he's like, you like money, that's why he got
Speaker 1: with me, and it's just like, okay, you have a point. True. However,
Speaker 1: now is the time to ask questions because I could
Speaker 1: show you where I get mine. I bust my ass
Speaker 1: literally on a poll. What are you doing? I remember
Speaker 1: when I said that, he got really pissed and left again,
Speaker 1: took the car again, and I would just go walk
Speaker 1: to friends houses because it's like you took my car,
Speaker 1: so I would just go walk and it was like
Speaker 1: he had come back in the night and just flip
Speaker 1: it around. I need to do that creepy shit where
Speaker 1: he'd like sit in the corner with the cigara and
Speaker 1: all dark so you can just see like the cherry
Speaker 1: of it all read, and then he flipped the line
Speaker 1: on them, but like where have you been, just as
Speaker 1: he did when he introduced himself to the racial justice
Speaker 1: protesters in twenty twenty. Mickey wore military fatigues when he
Speaker 1: was married to Cassie. He had patches all over his shirt,
Speaker 1: the kind that looked like they have to be earned
Speaker 1: in battle. He spoke some Kurdish and he told Cassie
Speaker 1: he'd fought in the Rock. But she soon learned that
Speaker 1: his uniform and patches weren't exactly standard issue. He'd buy
Speaker 1: his uniform at the local army surplus store, and those
Speaker 1: patches he'd get them printed at a local shop. We've
Speaker 1: got to calar on the middles a lot because they
Speaker 1: knew like screen printing and patches and stuff. And he's
Speaker 1: always like Kurdish this, Kurdish that, And there was actual
Speaker 1: like Kurdish people who worked there. Oh, they hated him
Speaker 1: because they were like, this is illegal. But he pumped
Speaker 1: him up so much and made him believe that he
Speaker 1: was actually Kurdish like because he learned the language. One day,
Speaker 1: Mickey began telling Cassie that the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighting
Speaker 1: force in Iraq, had called him up for duty. She
Speaker 1: had to buy his plane ticket, which even then she
Speaker 1: thought was strange considering they was being called up. But whatever,
Speaker 1: Cassie thought, maybe that's how it works with the Kurdish forces.
Speaker 1: So Mickey the Punisher in his own mind, flew to
Speaker 1: Iraq to join the Peshmerga fighting the Islamic State. But
Speaker 1: Mickey's tour in the Middle East didn't last long. I
Speaker 1: spoke to several people who were with Mickey in Iraq,
Speaker 1: and few of them wanted to be publicly associated with
Speaker 1: him in any way. You know how when you first
Speaker 1: meet people or either go to a job, you know,
Speaker 1: everyone wants to do like a little round table, introduce
Speaker 1: yourself stuff like that. Well that's what we did. One
Speaker 1: of these guys agreed to be recorded if I didn't
Speaker 1: use his name. He remembered meeting Mickey when he first
Speaker 1: arrived in Iraq, and Mickey, out of everybody, he was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm retired sergeant major of Army, which already knew that
Speaker 1: was bullshit because the dude was only like forty years old,
Speaker 1: forty two something like that. But he was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was retired from the French Foreign Legion after ten years.
Speaker 1: So obviously all that time doesn't actually add up. How
Speaker 1: much combat did did Mickey c in A Rock and
Speaker 1: Syrie when you were with him, Oh the sea, So
Speaker 1: our very first fight, firefight, he showed up very very late,
Speaker 1: like right at the tail end of the firefight. I
Speaker 1: mean he was going around telling everybody he was a
Speaker 1: demolition specialist. Dude was going around literally cutting wires off
Speaker 1: of IDs, so he could have got anybody's killed, you
Speaker 1: know in the vicinity. Was he a skilled fighter or
Speaker 1: you know, like, how would you despire them? No? Okay,
Speaker 1: call of duty. There you go that he got most
Speaker 1: of his training from video games, I would say, more
Speaker 1: or less TV. When Mickey was with the Peshmurga and
Speaker 1: I Rock, he'd posts pictures of dead bodies on Facebook.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he'd pose with them. These pictures always seems suspicious
Speaker 1: to me. Because the bodies Mickey would pose next to
Speaker 1: appeared to have been dead for a while. I found
Speaker 1: a guy named Alan Duncan, a Scottish volunteer fighter for
Speaker 1: the Peshmerga. At the time I contacted him, he was
Speaker 1: in Kiev helping Ukrainian forces as a medic during the
Speaker 1: early months of the Russian invasion. Power things in Key
Speaker 1: for you, Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's fine. It depends
Speaker 1: on the part of the city that you're in. You know,
Speaker 1: the sorry rens go off every now and again, but
Speaker 1: there's no blinkket carpet and they seemed very target at
Speaker 1: the minutes. You know. Duncan knew about Mickey's tour with
Speaker 1: the Peshmerga, and he told me that it wasn't uncommon
Speaker 1: for Americans to come to a rock, take pictures and
Speaker 1: then return home as if they were war heroes. There
Speaker 1: is this really suspicious photo that I saw he had
Speaker 1: posted where it looked like it was it was I
Speaker 1: assume it was an ISIS fighter, could have been another fighter,
Speaker 1: but this guy had clearly been shot in the head
Speaker 1: and his body had been out for quite a while,
Speaker 1: like just based on the deterioration, and Mickey is standing
Speaker 1: over it, like he killed the man. It's like, I
Speaker 1: think that body's been there a while, you know. It's
Speaker 1: like it did seemed like that that he was just
Speaker 1: trying to kind of, you know, take pictures that put
Speaker 1: himself in the in the action kind of thing. Pretty much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he probably went down a few days later. I thought,
Speaker 1: probably what it is, probably there for a couple of hours,
Speaker 1: and then they took him away back wherever he was
Speaker 1: living up. This is all in line with what Cassie
Speaker 1: was hearing. Back in Denver. Mickey had bragged to some
Speaker 1: of his Kurdish comrades that he was married to a
Speaker 1: model back in the United States, and some of those
Speaker 1: men looked up Cassie online and started messaging her. And
Speaker 1: it was pretty cool. And I was having people send
Speaker 1: videos if I love you, kill a Cassie and I
Speaker 1: love you, you know, in their language. I was felt
Speaker 1: so loved, and they would tell me things. They'd be like,
Speaker 1: Mickey is like a volunteer. Mickey is just having fun
Speaker 1: all days, sleeping, like telling me the truth. In Iraq,
Speaker 1: the American volunteers began complaining about Mickey in private conversations
Speaker 1: as well as on social media. One of Mickey's fellow
Speaker 1: American fighters posted the Facebook fucker is a liability to us.
Speaker 1: We would like to ship his ass out. After just
Speaker 1: two months in a Rock, Mickey arrived back at the
Speaker 1: Denver Airport. He said he was honorably discharged, portraying himself
Speaker 1: as a war hero. Once back in the United States,
Speaker 1: Mickey would tell everyone he could that he was a
Speaker 1: Kurdish diplomat and that he had diplomatic immunity. He uses
Speaker 1: that twos and now at the restaurants. If this food
Speaker 1: comes back wrong, he'll be like, I'll beat your the
Speaker 1: shit out of you. I got the diplomatic community any
Speaker 1: chance he gets. That word comes out of his mouth
Speaker 1: like it's saliva. And Mickey also started providing information to
Speaker 1: a small local police department outside Denver. He began giving
Speaker 1: officers a lot of tips, and that started to annoy
Speaker 1: the cops. That's that's the break. After Mickey had returned
Speaker 1: from a Rock, Cassie kicked drugs and left him. I
Speaker 1: got out, I got my cats. Didn't even grab my stuff.
Speaker 1: I just grab the cats. Mickey through everything in the trash.
Speaker 1: It's like whatever, it's material, I'm not me and my
Speaker 1: cats we're not material. Well, we're literally gonna die. We
Speaker 1: need to get out. But a couple of weeks after
Speaker 1: leaving him, Cassie needed to return to Mickey's apartment to
Speaker 1: collector mail. And this is gonna sound very petty and stupid,
Speaker 1: but I'm a female and I was waiting for a
Speaker 1: tooth lightning kit. I paid a lot of money for it,
Speaker 1: and all my mill is still going there, all my checksum.
Speaker 1: I ended up ordering like another debit card too that
Speaker 1: got sent there by accident. Had no choice but to
Speaker 1: go and get my mill. Cassie asked a friend named
Speaker 1: Travis to accompany her. As she and Travis entered the apartment,
Speaker 1: Mickey was holding the mail in his hand. Cassie remembers
Speaker 1: Mickey asking, this is what you fucking came for, right?
Speaker 1: He was like, you left me, You left the best
Speaker 1: thing of your life, like you and now you're not
Speaker 1: leaving at all. And he goes in to his room,
Speaker 1: our old room, grabs his gun, and I'm just like, oh,
Speaker 1: so I turned to leave. Travis leaves and I am
Speaker 1: just like, oh shit, oh this is it. I'm done.
Speaker 1: This is exactly what I was afraid of. I'm done
Speaker 1: over mail, and so he gets the gun. Michael gets
Speaker 1: the gun. There was a wooden table in the little room,
Speaker 1: and we're both standing there and I'm just at this point,
Speaker 1: I'm like, fucking do it. I'm tired of your ship.
Speaker 1: Just do it. Like you've ruined me so much, just
Speaker 1: kill me, please, Like I was begging him to just
Speaker 1: do it, kind of just testing him to fucking do it.
Speaker 1: I kept saying that, and he was like, if I
Speaker 1: cannot have you, nobody's gonna have you. You're gonna die today.
Speaker 1: And all I remember is he picked me up, but
Speaker 1: my throat body slam me onto the table like literally
Speaker 1: like wwe type shit, And I blacked out for a
Speaker 1: little bit and then I woke up to the gun
Speaker 1: and him just right on me, like like straddling on
Speaker 1: top of me with this gun. And I remember I
Speaker 1: was I was sitting there and I was like, don't
Speaker 1: die like this. Don't let Michael be your ending. He
Speaker 1: already fucked it up enough. So I took everything in
Speaker 1: me and I got up and got somehow I kicked
Speaker 1: the back door out and like I started screaming bloody murder,
Speaker 1: like help me, he's gonna kill me. Local police from Sheridan,
Speaker 1: a city just south of Denver, responded to nine one
Speaker 1: one calls about Cassie screaming as she ran out of
Speaker 1: the apartment. The officers who responded were wearing body cameras.
Speaker 1: Cassie was sitting in the driver's seat of her Honda Civic,
Speaker 1: holding the back of her head and complaining of pain.
Speaker 1: I went inside. He like walked on the doors. I
Speaker 1: tried to leave and start getting violins. If you're not
Speaker 1: gonna leave, I'll kill you. I'll kill you, So then
Speaker 1: I please leave it. Tell him twenty times, please back up,
Speaker 1: Please leave? What's his name, Michael? What's his last name?
Speaker 1: Michael Windecker? Want to go? Where's Michael at now? He's
Speaker 1: like he threw me against the table. Michael Windecker, He's
Speaker 1: inside the apartment. Through cheers, her voice cracking with emotion
Speaker 1: and fear, Cassie told police the story you just heard.
Speaker 1: She went to get the mail. Mickey got a gun
Speaker 1: and then grabbed her and slammed her against the table.
Speaker 1: Why do you think able to style? Okay? The police
Speaker 1: officer then walked up to the apartment where Mickey was waiting.
Speaker 1: In the video, I see he's wearing black pants with
Speaker 1: a wallet chain and a black short sleeved shirt with
Speaker 1: a punisher logo printed on the upper left side. On
Speaker 1: Mickey's bedroom door was another larger logo for the punisher.
Speaker 1: Inside the bedroom, police officer saw what appeared to be
Speaker 1: a gun. Hey, why don't you come out of her?
Speaker 1: You get guns in there? It looks like an air
Speaker 1: fifteen right there. No, that's my airsoft, Mickey said. An
Speaker 1: airsoft rifle looks similar to a real one, but it
Speaker 1: fires pellets instead of bullets. Mickey told the police officers
Speaker 1: that Cassie was lying. He didn't assault her, she assaulted him.
Speaker 1: In fact, he said he was so sure this would happen,
Speaker 1: that she'd assault him and then claim he did it,
Speaker 1: that he secretly set up a camera to record Cassie's visit.
Speaker 1: But oddly, the camera only recorded the first minute after
Speaker 1: Cassie arrived and then shut off comes down. I try
Speaker 1: to record it with my camera right there. For some reason,
Speaker 1: they don't record the amount of time while I'm sitting
Speaker 1: down and shut off. I don't know why. So then
Speaker 1: hafter it's all said and done, she comes over and
Speaker 1: I'm like, look, I told her, I still love you.
Speaker 1: I'm still worried about you. Look, I know you're on drugs,
Speaker 1: You're fucking these other guys, you're doing prostitutions. I say,
Speaker 1: I still care about you, but you know this is
Speaker 1: not cool. She starts getting like she gets defends it
Speaker 1: the entire time. I'm like, cass I'm I'm trying to
Speaker 1: defense it. I'm trying to talk to you, be civil here.
Speaker 1: So literally, I'm sitting. She literally blows the head gasket.
Speaker 1: So I stand up. Now, literally I'm this far away
Speaker 1: from her the whole entire time, not twenty minutes. She
Speaker 1: blows a head gasket. Well, that's why I'm trying to waiting.
Speaker 1: So she I'm standing this far away from her. I
Speaker 1: stand up at the chair and I'm like, Cassie, I'm like,
Speaker 1: the fuck are you talking about? I'm trying to be
Speaker 1: cool and civil here. And she's like whatever, bro, fuck
Speaker 1: you da dada, and she starts going off the fucking chain.
Speaker 1: So then she starts fucking screaming. She tosses the fucking table,
Speaker 1: starts fucking throwing the fucking chair. I lay fell over
Speaker 1: the fucking chair. Okay, that's how I got the She
Speaker 1: got the claw mark on me and on my fucking face.
Speaker 1: I literally followed her in the chair. I get up,
Speaker 1: I'm like, what the fuck. Then she goes to fucking
Speaker 1: come out. What do you mean you got the claw
Speaker 1: mark by falling off the chair. I got cover because
Speaker 1: she called me. She fucking called my fucking face in
Speaker 1: my hand. Okay. So then she starts fucking screaming da
Speaker 1: da da da Da da da da da. Then she
Speaker 1: fucking goes fucking ape shit ballistic, tossing the fucking table,
Speaker 1: and then she's like next day, No, I'm over here
Speaker 1: like this. Lewis down here and she's like, fuck you, dadda.
Speaker 1: She grabs the fucking table, throws the fucking table, goes
Speaker 1: down with the fucking table, gets back up, starts fucking screaming.
Speaker 1: I'm like what the fuck. She storms out the door,
Speaker 1: So I try to build. I'm like, Cassie, what the
Speaker 1: fuck is wrong? If you calm down, don't act like
Speaker 1: a goddamn heathen. So I go outside to talk to
Speaker 1: her and she starts running down the street screaming of
Speaker 1: bloody fucking murder. I'm like, what the fuck. One of
Speaker 1: the officers shined his flashlight on Mickey's neck trying to
Speaker 1: find the claw marks he was claiming to have. They
Speaker 1: couldn't see any. That's when the officer asked Mickey a
Speaker 1: specific question. So, Michael, you always call us for everything.
Speaker 1: Why didn't you call us for this? Because I already
Speaker 1: saw she was on the phone with you. Guys, how
Speaker 1: do you know she was on the phone with us.
Speaker 1: I could hear screaming outside. I can hear her. That
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. You call us for everything, the
Speaker 1: police officer told Mickey. What he meant was Mickey would
Speaker 1: constantly call the Sheridan Police Department, claiming to have information
Speaker 1: about crimes. His calls were so frequent that the officers
Speaker 1: knew Mickey. Mickey reported all sorts of alleged crimes, most minor.
Speaker 1: He reported a verbal disturbance when two of his neighbors
Speaker 1: were arguing. He reported a kid who was shoplifting, He
Speaker 1: reported a couple trying to steal a motorcycle, and on
Speaker 1: and on call after call to police. Yeah, Mickey was
Speaker 1: a snitch, and so if Cassie really assaulted Mickey, police
Speaker 1: officers appeared to reason, why wouldn't he have been the
Speaker 1: first one to call them to report the incident? They
Speaker 1: concluded inside the apartment that Mickey was the one who
Speaker 1: assaulted Cassie. All right, what's your phone down for me? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're under arrest. Turn around, but chance bend your back.
Speaker 1: Her spreads feet for me. Putch hands together, alish fingers.
Speaker 1: There you go, so she should not be arrested for anything.
Speaker 1: No thrown in a jail cell. Mickey tried once again
Speaker 1: to demonstrate his value as an informant, presumably to help
Speaker 1: him wriggle out of his current predicament. A police officer
Speaker 1: walked up to Mickey's jail cell door, the body camera
Speaker 1: recording the interaction. Somebody one of the officers said that
Speaker 1: you had to speak to me about a murder. What's that? Okay? Well,
Speaker 1: actually you'll need to probably talk to two detectives about that.
Speaker 1: Well it's tough to hear. But Mickey says, when I
Speaker 1: get out, I'll go to the scene where the murder happened. Okay,
Speaker 1: So it didn't happen in Sheridan. This has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with Sheridan, Okay, all right, hang tight, all right.
Speaker 1: Mickey appeared to be offering information for sale. Meanwhile, Cassie
Speaker 1: was taken to the hospital and within like thirty minutes
Speaker 1: that I was in the hospital, I get a text
Speaker 1: from Michael, Hey, bitch, I'm out, and I'm just like
Speaker 1: the cops were still they're getting statements from me, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, excuse me, hello, hello, Like when I show
Speaker 1: them in the text and they were just like, we
Speaker 1: don't know how he's out. Mickey was never charged with
Speaker 1: a crime for his alleged assault of Cassie, and Cassie
Speaker 1: continues to live in fear that one day he'll try
Speaker 1: to kill her. Everybody excuse me as this very you know,
Speaker 1: I go by kill a Cassie. Oh she's strong, she's
Speaker 1: never been through it really much. You know, she's she's
Speaker 1: a bad girl, you know. Oh yeah, I am terrified.
Speaker 1: Every day when I hear a motorcycle, my ibs flares
Speaker 1: and I'm like, where's the emmodium? Like you gotta laugh
Speaker 1: at it, because what else you gonna do. I had
Speaker 1: told Cassie that the reason I was interested in Mickey
Speaker 1: was because he'd worked as an FBI informant who had
Speaker 1: been infiltrating racial justice activist groups. I asked her if
Speaker 1: she found that surprising, I'm not surprised. If anything, I
Speaker 1: was like, Wow, he's still doing that shit. He didn't
Speaker 1: calm down. I'm not gonna lie as a little selfish.
Speaker 1: I was like, at least he's staying away from me.
Speaker 1: You know. I felt really bad for the people that
Speaker 1: I knew he was screwing over Everything he does just
Speaker 1: gets expunged because he's working for the cops, and it's
Speaker 1: freaking terrifying. He can literally murder somebody and they're like, well,
Speaker 1: you're giving us good information. We're just gonna sweep that
Speaker 1: body under the rug. Because it happens a lot. Happens
Speaker 1: way more than we think. People get sweeped under, you know,
Speaker 1: put in the dirt, get cremated, and then they wipe
Speaker 1: their hands, they move on because it's a good dirty cop.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what's going on. Mickey's long history of
Speaker 1: deception and violence. It didn't appear to give the FBI
Speaker 1: any pause when they signed him up to spy on
Speaker 1: protesters around Denver in the summer of twenty twenty, and
Speaker 1: it also didn't appear to concern federal agents that Mickey
Speaker 1: became a leader in the very movement he was supposed
Speaker 1: to be spying on. The activists even had a nickname
Speaker 1: for him. They called him Drill Sergeant. Can I feel
Speaker 1: so a jickin here? You? That's in the next episode.
Speaker 1: This is Trojan Hearse, Season one of Alphabet Boys. Alphabet
Speaker 1: Boys is the production of Western Sound and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: The show is reported, written, and hosted by me, Trevor Aaronson.
Speaker 1: For more information about the series or to drop us
Speaker 1: a tip, head to our website Alphabet Boys dot xyz.
Speaker 1: You can contact me on Twitter and Instagram at Trevor Aaronson.
Speaker 1: We believe this story is important and could result in
Speaker 1: changes to FBI oversight and public policy. But to have impact,
Speaker 1: people need to hear the story, so we need your help. First,
Speaker 1: tell your friends about the show. Personal recommendations are the
Speaker 1: best recommendations. Second, spread the word on social media. At
Speaker 1: alphabet Boys dot xyz. You'll find FBI undercover recordings and
Speaker 1: secret documents. You can share stuff the government never wanted public. Third,
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Speaker 1: find us. And thanks for listening.