Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Dutton, Zaron Brenette. So good to see him, Good
Speaker 2: to see you, Ben. I've been good. I honestly, I've
Speaker 2: been good. No complaints. I got a little muscle tey
Speaker 2: in my back right now, but that's just because I
Speaker 2: was doing dumb stuff putting back into it. I deserved it.
Speaker 2: You can do it. Yeah, My muscles were like, who
Speaker 2: are we kidding?
Speaker 3: You're like, can we can we talk?
Speaker 2: Yeah? We're gonna need to have a coffee clutch. So
Speaker 2: I got a question for you, and then evolved my back.
Speaker 2: Do you know it's ridiculous?
Speaker 3: Involve your neck and your back.
Speaker 2: I cannot answer that.
Speaker 3: We've just slipped its track. That's the g rated than
Speaker 3: you do. I know what's ridiculous. You're asking me.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at you like a professional.
Speaker 3: Oh I know, I know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: You want to share it?
Speaker 3: Sit down, all right? So Grillos our favorite pickle brain.
Speaker 2: Yes, shout out Grillos.
Speaker 3: They're a menace.
Speaker 2: Wait one there, menace.
Speaker 3: I bought the biggest tub of grillos at Costco.
Speaker 4: You know the day.
Speaker 3: How fun is this conversation? This is like when someone
Speaker 3: recommends a podcast and I'm like, oh, yeah, listen, and
Speaker 3: then I'm like, minute ten, they're still talking about what
Speaker 3: the person I don't give it. You'll see where I'm
Speaker 3: going with this. This is a point, all right. So, uh, Grillos, Right,
Speaker 3: We've talked about them multiple times and we still don't
Speaker 3: have a sponsorship. I can't believe, which is a little offensive.
Speaker 2: I think I'm shocked. People shock.
Speaker 3: I feel like I've been profiled. But aside from that,
Speaker 3: so anyway, there's apparently this thing spear in a beer
Speaker 3: at dive bars where they'll put a beer. Right. Well,
Speaker 3: Grillos an absolute menace in the mashup category.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 3: I just had to that one teamed up with another
Speaker 3: absolute menace. But that when we haven't seen a lot
Speaker 3: of perhaps blue Ribbon a PBR. So they're coming together
Speaker 3: to have a limited edition PBR X Grillos Pickle.
Speaker 2: Beer available on at Midwest Ballparks.
Speaker 3: Well it's it is a limited time. Like I said,
Speaker 3: you can pick it up at Walmart, Albertson's, Safeway, Public's
Speaker 3: Food Line, Total Wine and More, Go Puff, Quick Trip,
Speaker 3: and other retailers. That shall remain a mystery. Why not
Speaker 3: that starts on May fourth. Oh, and then it's wall
Speaker 3: supplies last, so I don't know if the supplies lasted.
Speaker 2: I gonna guess is there a Star Wars game in here?
Speaker 2: Like the fourth point of that.
Speaker 3: So many people sent this to us, but the whole
Speaker 3: point is the quotes in the press release.
Speaker 2: I say this begrudgingly. This is hit me with it.
Speaker 3: Rachel Keaton, Papst Senior brand director quote. I don't think
Speaker 3: the founder of PAPS saw this one coming, but somewhere
Speaker 3: along the line someone put a pickle and a beer
Speaker 3: and never looked back. We're taking that ritual and making
Speaker 3: it official with Rillows. It's exactly as good as it
Speaker 3: sounds like. I really put some heat on that one.
Speaker 3: And then Mark Luker, Grillo's chief commercial officer, who needs
Speaker 3: to have a time out, quote, We've been working on
Speaker 3: this collab for quite some time and we're pumped to
Speaker 3: see it come to live. Pibr has been a great
Speaker 3: partner in this collaboration. Delivers a crisp, refreshing blend of
Speaker 3: both brands. We're excited for beer and pickle lovers to try. Now.
Speaker 3: I will say this, I joke, I poke fun this
Speaker 3: would make a great beer caned chicken.
Speaker 2: I think, oh yeah, because the salt is and.
Speaker 3: There, and then you put some spices in the can
Speaker 3: like you do, and then you you insert it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like a probe. It's better than my chicken a
Speaker 2: la coc and peanuts.
Speaker 3: Well there's that too. We won't talk about that incident
Speaker 3: and that.
Speaker 2: It is ridiculousous. It is nice work.
Speaker 3: They always are, you know something, Zaron, The mashups always are.
Speaker 3: But see, there was a reason I had to talk.
Speaker 3: I had to soften the blow talking about pickle. I
Speaker 3: appreciated it and to welcome you into my pickleedje.
Speaker 2: It only brewis it didn't break, Thank god. Well I
Speaker 2: got one for you. If you get a group of
Speaker 2: humans together, sure, and then you have them compete at something,
Speaker 2: something that means like the world to them, right, it
Speaker 2: won't be long before some of them will get caught cheating.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, This is Ridiculous Crime a podcast about absurd
Speaker 5: and outrageous capers, heists and cons.
Speaker 2: It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
Speaker 2: percent ridiculous. So ridiculous, Elizabeth, you once did an episode
Speaker 2: on competition crimes.
Speaker 3: I did I remember that?
Speaker 2: I am currently surfing. Your coattails are hardcore pop on
Speaker 2: ye Comfy. Well, thinking your episode, I had this theory.
Speaker 2: I bet there were plenty of other competitive crimers out
Speaker 2: there pretty much. Yeah, wherever there's competition. Oh bro, And
Speaker 2: wouldn't you know what that incidinct was one thousand percent correct?
Speaker 2: So let's call this competition crimes too. A slight return
Speaker 2: to begin, Elizabeth, I give you this headline, cheating scandal
Speaker 2: rocks World Stone Skimming Championships. Oh yeah, that's from a
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five BBC story that investigated what went down
Speaker 2: at the annual Stone skipping going to make it American
Speaker 2: Stone Skipping Championship.
Speaker 3: Shit, they should know better than those kind of puns
Speaker 3: in a headline.
Speaker 2: Totally, But to give full credit for this one, had
Speaker 2: tip to producer d for sending this one my way. Okay,
Speaker 2: so what's the story in these stones skipping cheaters? Great question, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: coming out hot?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: First I have a question for you.
Speaker 3: Sure you do?
Speaker 2: Have you ever skipped a stone?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: I have a follow up. Were you any good?
Speaker 3: You know? I feel like it's something where for me
Speaker 3: I shouldn't say you for me personally? Why you know
Speaker 3: you get into the zone and so like sometimes it's
Speaker 3: not a productive activity, but like when you have the
Speaker 3: right stone and you're you're feeling it and that just
Speaker 3: the vibe is right. Oh my gosh, dude, So.
Speaker 2: You can actually get them to skip like a multiple times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been able to do that in my past.
Speaker 2: Nice. Did you and your brother ever compete?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was always with Travy.
Speaker 2: Okay, was he any good?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's really good. Well, he's just a great He
Speaker 3: has a great arm, so he's a you know, he's
Speaker 3: a good arm in baseball.
Speaker 2: I got you. He's a good bowler.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't think I've ever seen him bowl.
Speaker 2: We got to take him bowling.
Speaker 3: Yeah. My bowling has always been very private.
Speaker 2: I keep it from my family. I didn't mean to
Speaker 2: get into it.
Speaker 3: I had to do a bowling league ages ago for work,
Speaker 3: and I didn't want to do it, and I didn't
Speaker 3: want to wear other people's shoes, so I bought my
Speaker 3: own shoes and then they gave us a ball. And
Speaker 3: I didn't like the people in the other leagues, the
Speaker 3: other offices, and they would ask me what I did,
Speaker 3: and I told them that I wrote erotica for children.
Speaker 3: Oh dear god, I didn't get arrested, apparent, but I
Speaker 3: got left alone.
Speaker 2: I guess you would. So you didn't go with your
Speaker 2: normal like taxidermy.
Speaker 3: No. No, even though I was with an office team,
Speaker 3: they you know, these guys weren't swift.
Speaker 2: You know. I also have my own bowling shoes and
Speaker 2: I stole them from a bowling alley and then I
Speaker 2: wore them to that bowling alley all the time. They
Speaker 2: can come and get them whenever they want.
Speaker 3: But someone wore them before you at something.
Speaker 2: I didn't have your ick factor with the hole someone else.
Speaker 2: I just put my name, or my bowling name, captain,
Speaker 2: and then on one foot, and then on the other
Speaker 2: foot Florabama Captain, Florabama, Florida. It was my bowling name. Anyway,
Speaker 2: The ked to being a good stone skipper, Elizabeth, thank
Speaker 2: you for asking. Is the stone you planned to skip?
Speaker 2: It's not just vibes. Vibes is half of it. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you need to also if you need to have your
Speaker 2: technique dialed in right, that's obviously important as well. You
Speaker 2: get to get your arm at the right angle, and
Speaker 2: you need, like trap to have a good arm and
Speaker 2: of course, you know, once again you need to impart
Speaker 2: some spin. But none of that will matter if you
Speaker 2: don't first select a good skipping stone. Elizabeth, Yeah, do
Speaker 2: you know how to select a good skipping stone?
Speaker 3: Flat?
Speaker 2: Smooth?
Speaker 3: The water's got to be smooth too.
Speaker 2: That helps you.
Speaker 3: You know, you're not going to go down to the Pacific.
Speaker 2: No, no, not skipping nothing on the Pacific.
Speaker 3: Smooth and flat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, all.
Speaker 3: Like, it can't be too big, but also not too
Speaker 3: small because you need some He's.
Speaker 2: Got to be right there in that like sweet spot.
Speaker 2: So basically you want a stone to be both flat
Speaker 2: and round and the you know, proportionally good sizes to itself.
Speaker 2: It's not too big too small basically, you know, flatten around.
Speaker 2: You want to like an overdone cookie that has like
Speaker 2: too much butter in the batter. Oh yeah, I guess
Speaker 2: what cookies. It's dough, not batter, but you know, yeah in.
Speaker 3: The dough, you know whatever. We all know what you're
Speaker 3: talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyway, what's up with the annual Stone Skipping Championship
Speaker 2: is well, it takes place on an island that's located
Speaker 2: near your adopted second home of Scotland. The island is
Speaker 2: called Easdale, and you ever heard of it? I had not, No.
Speaker 2: Easdale's apparently an island in the Inner Hebrides. Oh okay,
Speaker 2: it's the smallest of the permanently inhabited islands. Population of
Speaker 2: the island sixty people.
Speaker 3: That's probably why I haven't heard of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is why. Also, the annual Stone Skipping Championship
Speaker 2: is a big deal there. They're like that much going
Speaker 2: on and lots of folks traveled from around the world
Speaker 2: to compete there. In twenty twenty five, there were twenty
Speaker 2: two hundred people who traveled from twenty seven countries just
Speaker 2: to attend the Stone Skipping Championship. Oh hell yeah.
Speaker 3: Did they stay like you? Probably wouldn't know if they
Speaker 3: stay on other islands to the camp.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming they're camping. I do not know. I wish
Speaker 2: I had good answers for lamping. Most likely at least
Speaker 2: half of them these are professional athletes, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: They just dig a hole and sleep in it.
Speaker 2: The event started way back in nineteen eighty three. He
Speaker 2: was created by a resident of Eastdale Island, a man
Speaker 2: named Albert Baker, and in a very seemingly suitable Scottish way,
Speaker 2: The idea to hold a own skipping competition came about
Speaker 2: in a local pub. Of course, right, they're like, you know,
Speaker 2: it's basically a complicated bar.
Speaker 3: Bess where you get the best ideas completely.
Speaker 2: Now, the first attempt saw some success, but much like
Speaker 2: a skipping stone, it ran out of momentum and sank
Speaker 2: into the water. Thank you No. In nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 2: the Stone Skipping Championship was back on baby. I guess
Speaker 2: the locals they had missed out on it, or perhaps
Speaker 2: they recognized the economic boost that the increased tourism provided.
Speaker 2: I don't know either way. A ninety seven local community
Speaker 2: group called the Alien Iceed Deal brought back the Stone
Speaker 2: Skipping champion Ship, and now it's run as a benefit
Speaker 2: for charity. I but you would like that.
Speaker 3: I do like that. Well, I mean, it depends on
Speaker 3: the charity.
Speaker 2: They're given to local charity groups. I don't know much
Speaker 2: about all of that now. The competition occurs at a
Speaker 2: former rock quarry where locals used to cut out slabs
Speaker 2: of slate from the land. Oh yeah, it was like
Speaker 2: right up by the sea, because in eighteen eighty one
Speaker 2: the quarry was flooded by a tidal wave. And so
Speaker 2: much for that quarry. So now it sits abandoned, filled
Speaker 2: with seawater or whatever I guess, you know, brackish water.
Speaker 2: And it's free though of any professional rock harvesting operation.
Speaker 2: So enter the stone skippers. So the rules for the
Speaker 2: competition are straightforward, Elizabeth. A person must collect their stones
Speaker 2: from what's naturally occurring on the island. You can't bring
Speaker 2: in any stones from somewhere else. No Appellationian rocks are allowed.
Speaker 2: So the expectation is that the stones are slate, since
Speaker 2: that's the big you know, rock on the island. And
Speaker 2: then the competitors they kick about the island looking for
Speaker 2: the perfect stones to skip. The stones must be no
Speaker 2: bigger than three inches in diameter, and that's just to
Speaker 2: ensure that the stones are the appropriate size. The judges.
Speaker 2: They have this measuring device they call the ring of truth.
Speaker 3: The ring of truth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a ring that's roughly three inches in diameter.
Speaker 2: It ensures the skipping stones are no bigger than the
Speaker 2: allowed size. So once the rocks are selected, each stone
Speaker 2: skipper gets to cast three tosses, so three rocks across
Speaker 2: this two hundred and seven foot long quarry. The skipping
Speaker 2: stones must bounce off the surface, obviously at least twice
Speaker 2: to be counted as an official skip, and then they
Speaker 2: also must travel within this like designated skipping lane. Well.
Speaker 2: One of the main organizers of the competition is this
Speaker 2: fellow named doctor Kyle Matthews. He also announces all of
Speaker 2: the stone skips. He's like the big announcer. He provides
Speaker 2: knowledgeable commentary on the stone skipping action. Doctor Matthews is
Speaker 2: also known as the toss Master. Oh yeah, so this
Speaker 2: past year, the annual Stone Skipping Championship was held on
Speaker 2: September sixth, So this is a almost autumnal sport. Okay, now, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: two thousand stone skipping hopefuls registered online to claim one
Speaker 2: of the four hundred available spots.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, so it's not just two thousand people lining.
Speaker 2: Up, No, only four hundred again, and you got to
Speaker 2: compete the event registration sold out in three minutes, no way.
Speaker 2: And of those lucky four hundred competitors, they were all
Speaker 2: geeked to go toss their twelve hundred stones across the water,
Speaker 2: eager to be crowned the champion of that year. But Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: that could be only one stone skipping champ or really
Speaker 2: there could be two, one from the women's division, one
Speaker 2: from the men's division. So this past year, doctor Matthews
Speaker 2: admitted that after the event went down that there were
Speaker 2: quote rumors and murmurings of some nefarious deeds. Doctor Matthews
Speaker 2: told the BBC radio show Good Morning Scotland that quote,
Speaker 2: there was a little bit of Stone.
Speaker 3: Doctoring Stone doctor, the Stone doctors. It's like a spin
Speaker 3: doctor's cover.
Speaker 2: And they blamed Missula.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, like I was reading this, I'm like, are you
Speaker 2: kidding me? Stone Skippers, we can't even count on you
Speaker 2: to have a love of the game completely. So it
Speaker 2: seems that according to doctor Matthews quote, they had shaped
Speaker 2: it so that was perfectly circular and fitted our three
Speaker 2: inch measurer aka the Ring of Truth right now. Doctor
Speaker 2: Matthews didn't blame the Ring of Truth for any discrepancy
Speaker 2: in the stones. He said, and I quote, as it's
Speaker 2: a piece of metal, I don't think we can blame
Speaker 2: it too much. The problem was we didn't just notice
Speaker 2: at the time that they were suspiciously circular fun crowd.
Speaker 2: So he blamed himself. In an interview with no less
Speaker 2: than The New York Times, doctor Matthews said that as
Speaker 2: the announcer and the toss master, he'd personally witnessed every
Speaker 2: single one of the twelve hundred tosses. But as he
Speaker 2: told The Times, quote, unfortunately these couples slipped through my
Speaker 2: hawk like vision. Oh okay, dude, he's a little self important.
Speaker 2: So once the whispers and murmurs emerged, doctor Matthews and
Speaker 2: other organizers they confronted the bubbling scandal. He contacted the
Speaker 2: competitors who had many believed had been cheated, and thankfully
Speaker 2: those entrants did not argue. They didn't throw a fit
Speaker 2: or threatened to sue. Instead, they confessed that they had
Speaker 2: indeed cheated. Gracefully, they agreed to be retroactively disqualified from
Speaker 2: the Stone Skipping Championship.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So when the dust claritor, rather the ripples fell still,
Speaker 2: Lucy Wood won her sixth Stone Skipping Championship. Huh Yeah.
Speaker 2: She was glad to see the cheaters not fight or
Speaker 2: make a scene instead just say yeah, mate, it was me.
Speaker 2: So they took their punishment, you know, kept it moving.
Speaker 2: As she told The New York Time, you wouldn't get
Speaker 2: that in a lot of sports. That's very true, right,
Speaker 2: side note, My girl Lucy Wood is quite the stone
Speaker 2: skipper Elizabeth. She's the current Guinness World Record holder for
Speaker 2: most wins in the women's division of the Stone Skipping Championship.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 2: Her story is fun. She first came to Eastdale Island
Speaker 2: back in twenty eleven. She was just a tourist visiting
Speaker 2: the island with her husband. They were there on a
Speaker 2: vak and when she's there, she's like, you know, she
Speaker 2: sees that there's this stone skipping competition going down while
Speaker 2: they're there, and she's like, what if I enter and
Speaker 2: get this? She meddled first time medals. She one third place.
Speaker 3: Where is she from?
Speaker 2: I think from somewhere in Britain, I don't know.
Speaker 3: So she just like they go outside, she's just training
Speaker 3: all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's thrown rocks against the side of the house.
Speaker 2: Does she have like a ten year.
Speaker 3: Old synthetic ones that she throws across upon for training purpose.
Speaker 2: Like fungo stones? Yes, And she told it. I got
Speaker 2: a bit hooked, and then like you know, she's totally
Speaker 2: happy to admit that her rare stone skipping skill is
Speaker 2: quote a really useless life skill, but I seem to
Speaker 2: have it.
Speaker 3: I wonder she'd be good at disc golf.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, probably she with a forward toss. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 2: if you're wondering what her secret to stone skipping is,
Speaker 2: Lucy Wood says, it's all about how you use your fingers,
Speaker 2: just like in basketball or baseball. You want to get
Speaker 2: a good finger roll going. And ors Lucy would put
Speaker 2: it quote, it's the spinning of the stone that stabilizes it.
Speaker 2: It's not necessarily the rist action. So I was wrong there.
Speaker 2: I always thought you had to have good risk action.
Speaker 2: Dating back to when she first started skipping stones in
Speaker 2: twenty eleven, Lucy Wood says it, these days it's become
Speaker 2: really competitive. It's getting harder and harder. So yeah, I know.
Speaker 2: In the twenty twenty five Men's Championship stone skipper was
Speaker 2: an American named John Jennings. No h, and that was
Speaker 2: the first time an American won it all. So yeah,
Speaker 2: now is the new world's raining stone skipping champ. Jennings
Speaker 2: was a little worried about how this scandal made the
Speaker 2: sport of competitive stone skipping look to the fans and
Speaker 2: to the people who may have never heard of the sport.
Speaker 2: And this is introduction. I mean, he didn't want the
Speaker 2: cheating to besmirch the reputation of this Nietzsche sport. He right,
Speaker 2: and then it was going down. Jennings had spotted some
Speaker 2: of the cheaters trying to slip in their cheater stones,
Speaker 2: and Jennings told The Times, I did see some stones
Speaker 2: that looked a little too perfect. Oh so he knows
Speaker 2: what he's talking about, because not only does he competitively
Speaker 2: skip stones, Elizabeth, he also runs his own stone skipping
Speaker 2: competition back in Kentucky, where he lives.
Speaker 3: I thought maybe he was Minnesota on the lakes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But you know something, John Jennings, if you see something,
Speaker 3: say something right. Come on. What I was saying, he's
Speaker 3: a part of the problem.
Speaker 2: Was the good old boy put it quote. Some people
Speaker 2: see glory as a different thing. I see it as
Speaker 2: following the rules, doing what I'm supposed to, and winning
Speaker 2: in true fashion. Some people see Gloria's winning at all cost, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: I said, these are precious folks. If you like me,
Speaker 2: you're wondering, I'll just tell you. John Jennings skipped his
Speaker 2: three stones a total of one hundred and seventy seven
Speaker 2: meters or roughly five hundred and eighty one feet across
Speaker 2: the quarry because you add up all three.
Speaker 3: Stones distance, not number of skips that you're looking for.
Speaker 2: Exactly you want distance, and then you add up your
Speaker 2: your three stone tosses into whatever your cumulative is. That's
Speaker 2: your amount, right, and eighty one feet excuse me, that's
Speaker 2: pretty damn far it is. That was good enough to
Speaker 2: win the male division of the championship. Now, let's hope
Speaker 2: next year that no cheats show up with suspiciously round,
Speaker 2: doctored up stones, because why ruin the.
Speaker 3: Fund grinding down the edge.
Speaker 2: I think they're giving them kind of like a sharper.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe they had a top and a bottom, you know,
Speaker 2: like around.
Speaker 3: Your bottom, And I'd love to see their work like a.
Speaker 2: Wing or something. You know, you have a differential. I
Speaker 2: don't know. So anyway, Raining Women's champ Lucy Wood now
Speaker 2: can look forward to defending her crown in the sport
Speaker 2: that she describes as quote super quirky.
Speaker 3: It is super quirky.
Speaker 2: I wanted that one for you because I know how
Speaker 2: much you love. Okay, now that we've warmed it up,
Speaker 2: let's take a little break and after these messages, we'll
Speaker 2: be back with more cheaters and fraudsters on the competitive circuits,
Speaker 2: and we're back, Elizabeth.
Speaker 5: Hello.
Speaker 2: Now, that first one obviously didn't involve any actual crime.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, the law never came into it.
Speaker 3: All right, I'll listen, be honest, I'm sure that they
Speaker 3: could have found some Scottish detectives in exactly Well, this.
Speaker 2: Is not true for this next one, because Johnny Law
Speaker 2: jumps up into the scene before we dive into this
Speaker 2: next tale of cheating, conning, and criming. I have another
Speaker 2: question for you, Elizabeth. If I say to you faral Hogs,
Speaker 2: what do you think.
Speaker 3: Of I think of that? Was it a tweet?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: Do you remember?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well did you probably recall? It all kicked off back
Speaker 2: in August of twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: Oh we were so young.
Speaker 2: Musician Jason Isabel isbel Ispel. He posted about the guns
Speaker 2: that get labeled as assault weapons. Yeah, and he there
Speaker 2: was a Twitter debate about gun control and Isbel posted quote,
Speaker 2: if you're on here arguing the definition of assault weapon today,
Speaker 2: you are part of the problem. You know what an
Speaker 2: assault weapon is, and you know you don't need one. Clearly,
Speaker 2: he's against them now, and you know what that means.
Speaker 2: Some gun lovers are going to post back about how
Speaker 2: much they do need their assault rifles and how wrong
Speaker 2: he is, which is exactly what happened. So this self
Speaker 2: described libertarian, a man named William McNabb no relationship to
Speaker 2: uh Donovan, Thank you good, look at you? So he
Speaker 2: posted in response to Ispel that he had a real
Speaker 2: question about owning assault weapons. He wasn't challenging him, He
Speaker 2: was just like, what about this, sir?
Speaker 3: What about this? You know? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And I quote the legit question for rural Americans? How
Speaker 2: do I kill the thirty to fifty feral hogs that
Speaker 2: run into my yard within three to five minutes while
Speaker 2: my small kids play? That was McNabb's question.
Speaker 3: The ranges fifty five minutes.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So this led to a deluge of responses because
Speaker 2: tons of folks found the whole premise of thirty to
Speaker 2: fifty faral hogs roaming America in hog gangs looking to
Speaker 2: start trouble to be hilarious. So one Twitter user posted
Speaker 2: a response to McNabb quote, seriously, please post video of this.
Speaker 2: I legitimately have got to see what thirty to fifties
Speaker 2: stampeding farall hogs looks like you and your neighbors just
Speaker 2: must live in constant terror entrenched inside your homes. And
Speaker 2: then another line of McNabb. You know he seemed genuine.
Speaker 2: He responded to that, and he wrote, and I quote
Speaker 2: in subsequent replies, I answer this, It's happened four times.
Speaker 2: I do not own an assault rifle, never said I did.
Speaker 2: Some of my neighbors do, and from personal experience, I
Speaker 2: can see how it helped them. I simply post a
Speaker 2: real question from my own experiences, So which begs the
Speaker 2: question mowing them down? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Can you imagine do they just keep regenerating a.
Speaker 2: Video game just respawning hogs? So imagine you're in the
Speaker 2: backyard of like I don't know, your Arkansas home, and
Speaker 2: your small children are playing on a swing set or whatever,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden, thirty to fifty feral
Speaker 2: hogs just rampage into your yard. They started attacking you
Speaker 2: and your family like I know, like the sweaty outlaw
Speaker 2: bikers hopped up on like you know, trailer meth and
Speaker 2: brown liquor. Yeah. One Twitter user said and posted quote,
Speaker 2: I hate when thirty to fifty faral hogs running into
Speaker 2: my yard is my kids play forcing me to duel
Speaker 2: wheeled ar fifteens. As I mowed them down, another one
Speaker 2: jumped in and responded to that tweet and said, exactly
Speaker 2: last week, my sons Brantford and Highland, were out drinking
Speaker 2: bush heavy on the back deck. They're thirteen and eleven
Speaker 2: when a pack of seventy six Farll hogs came running up.
Speaker 2: I only had a bolt action rifle and by the
Speaker 2: time I took out number seven six, Branford was already gone.
Speaker 2: I miss him dearly. I love the name Branford so perfect,
Speaker 2: and his sister Brayley and their new baby, Chadsworth. But
Speaker 2: to be fair, well, folks got their jokes off. The
Speaker 2: truth of the matter bubbled up to the surface, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: As you likely know, Farrell hogs are no joke, are concern.
Speaker 3: They will like I've seen pictures that people have posted
Speaker 3: of after they come running through the yards.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they just tear it up.
Speaker 3: And they're yeah like digging big deep trenches and stuff
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: They can knock a fence down. And the javelinas the
Speaker 2: boors like you watch them, they run fast as a car.
Speaker 2: They're insane. So if you got thirty or fifty of these,
Speaker 2: you're gonna got a serious problem in firepower. So that
Speaker 2: was McNabb's original point, Elizabeth, you.
Speaker 3: Can show how it serves the thing that you just like, Craig, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Like artillery. Oh no, yeah, he used like a gatling gun.
Speaker 2: You just turn that.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: So in Texas they estimated, by the way, in twenty
Speaker 2: seventeen that faral hogs are responsible for one hundred million
Speaker 2: dollars in property damage.
Speaker 3: No, like what every day for the.
Speaker 2: Year, for the calendar year that you didn't specify. I'm sorry. Now.
Speaker 2: Two days after the viral thirty to fifty faral hogs
Speaker 2: debate popped off on Twitter, Dale Nolty of the USDA's
Speaker 2: National Feral Swine Program decided he'd weigh in to let
Speaker 2: the public know roving herds of faral hogs are threatening
Speaker 2: to cross the US Canada border and if they invaded
Speaker 2: the US, it would be quote a disaster.
Speaker 3: We already have them, I know. Don't you better look
Speaker 3: out for ours?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Canadian bacon faral hogs. No, no borders, No, it's
Speaker 2: just color on a map to them. So obviously, when
Speaker 2: this all reignited the meme cycle and Twitter users jumped
Speaker 2: in and McNabb tried to warn us they're like he
Speaker 2: was telling us anyway, Old Dale Noltia, as I said,
Speaker 2: tried to warn the public as program manager for the
Speaker 2: USDA's National Feral Swine Damage Management Program, that's his full title.
Speaker 3: I wonder if he's been defunded.
Speaker 2: I'm back only reported that quote. We initially believe feral
Speaker 2: swine caused one point five billion in damage a year
Speaker 2: in the US, but now we think that the number
Speaker 2: is closer to two point five billion, not accounting for
Speaker 2: the environmental damage that is hard to assign a dollar value.
Speaker 2: I think that's lost children. I've worked with a lot
Speaker 2: of different species, and they normally cause damage in a
Speaker 2: certain area, but not feral swine. They caused damage across
Speaker 2: every sector. Apparently they're just like ruining bus traffic.
Speaker 3: I can airline.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Anyway. I say all this to set
Speaker 2: the table for our next group of competition cheaters, in
Speaker 2: this case, crimers, the folks who mitigate the feral hog
Speaker 2: problem as sport wild hog hunters. Elizabeth. Now, there is
Speaker 2: a group of wild hog hunters. They dubbed themselves the
Speaker 2: piney wood pimps. I do not know what pineywood pimps
Speaker 2: has to do with hog hunting.
Speaker 3: But there's a lot of hogs in the piney Woods.
Speaker 2: It was the pimp part that I didn't just what
Speaker 2: pips have to do with hog hunting, I mean, but
Speaker 2: we press on. So the story goes the so called
Speaker 2: piney Wood Pimps. We're a gang of relatively young men
Speaker 2: from Louisiana who came together to hunt Farrell hogs competitively.
Speaker 2: Their names are Trace Davis thirty of Long Billed Louisiana,
Speaker 2: Hunter Webb twenty seven of Pitkin, Louisiana, Coolby Bushnell twenty
Speaker 2: six of Dry Creek. They're all from Louisiana. Yeah, Davy
Speaker 2: Hammond thirty five of Pitkin, Nathan Grainger thirty four of Vinton,
Speaker 2: and Don Pollard Junior forty, also of Pitkin. Okay, now,
Speaker 2: these six men they enter the annual Dylan Dingler Wild
Speaker 2: Hog round Up.
Speaker 3: Stuff, which is and one of them, the disney is
Speaker 3: named Hunter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, kid right up there, Hunter. Well. So
Speaker 2: the Dingler Wild Hog Round Up is held in Bienville
Speaker 2: Parish between February ninth and tenth, and it's hosted by
Speaker 2: Randy Dingler. It's a memorial hunt he holds in honor
Speaker 2: of his son. He's been hosting those hunts since twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2: And about the cheating scandal, Dingler noted, quote, you always
Speaker 2: have somebody wanting to cheat. Luckily we got wildlife and
Speaker 2: fisheries and they stepped in. What they did I never
Speaker 2: would have known. So, Elizabeth, it wasn't just the Dingler
Speaker 2: wild Hog round Up. The Piney Wood Pimps also pulled
Speaker 2: their con job at the Swamp Time Hog Hunt held
Speaker 2: in Caldwell Parish between March fourteenth and sixteenth. The Piney
Speaker 2: Wood Pimps took all the prizes in both hog hunting contests.
Speaker 2: So how did these wild hog hunters cheat? Fantastic question.
Speaker 3: I am so glad you asked that question.
Speaker 2: Let me explain now. In the Dingler wild Hog round Up,
Speaker 2: the rules state that the competitors must form four or
Speaker 2: five man teams. This is like a witness to a crime.
Speaker 2: It's four or five men. So with one or two
Speaker 2: helpers they can trek off into the swamps and woods
Speaker 2: to find wild hogs. Presumably this is to safeguard people
Speaker 2: from the rampaging faral hogs. Anyway, the teams they have
Speaker 2: a time limit to catch the five biggest hogs they
Speaker 2: can scare out of the woods. They're not allowed to
Speaker 2: use fences, nor can they use traps because this is
Speaker 2: a round up, they're not hunting them. The faral hogs
Speaker 2: must be caught by hunting dogs.
Speaker 3: Oh so they're alive.
Speaker 2: They're alive. Yeah, and then the hunters wrangle the faral
Speaker 2: hogs into a trailer, where they're then transported back to
Speaker 2: the contest site to be waved. That's why that's the
Speaker 2: real fight in the trailer them. I don't know if
Speaker 2: that's in the rule book. There's there's. Yeah, there's no
Speaker 2: law on the rule book that a dog can't be
Speaker 2: part of the hunt and or that you can use
Speaker 2: a taser.
Speaker 3: Or do they have to give them tresidon and gabba
Speaker 3: pen and like a piece of cheese to get.
Speaker 2: The train com So, the contestants are supposed to take
Speaker 2: pictures with the hogs they catch and then send that
Speaker 2: pick to the organizer for confirmation. The picture also must
Speaker 2: include the team's assigned number. This is designed so that
Speaker 2: the randomly assigned number determines the hogs were caught during
Speaker 2: the competition. Okay, so you got all the rules right,
Speaker 2: it's all making sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all making sense.
Speaker 2: Well, the piney Wood Pimps they came back to the
Speaker 2: contest site and they had definitely caught the biggest bore
Speaker 2: of the competition. As the contest organizer Dingler put it,
Speaker 2: this winning team had the biggest bore if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 2: and they also got first place. They had the heaviest
Speaker 2: way to fud hogs. So good.
Speaker 3: How big are each of them?
Speaker 2: Like hundreds and hundred Yeah, so.
Speaker 3: It's like a two ton one that they out could
Speaker 3: barely walk.
Speaker 2: Six hundred pounds. Yeah. So now since they had.
Speaker 3: Caught the build on a mobility scooter, they're like, gotcha, you're.
Speaker 2: Seeing like Hogzilla. I mean they can get big like halftime.
Speaker 2: So the biggest hog in the Dingler Wild Hog Round Up.
Speaker 2: Each member of the Piney Wood Pimps they won a
Speaker 2: custom belt buckle, you know like a Bronco Bust and
Speaker 2: Rodeo Star would win, right. So that's also for catching
Speaker 2: the heaviest bore of the contest. They also want a jackpot.
Speaker 2: You want to guess how much they won in their.
Speaker 3: Prize twelve thousand dollars one.
Speaker 2: Hundred and eighty dollars.
Speaker 3: Whoa I think thousand those ready to be shocked, or.
Speaker 2: In other words, thirty six dollars per person.
Speaker 3: In the what's the entry feed?
Speaker 2: But that's not all to enter. They also won twenty
Speaker 2: sacks of feed provided by one of the annual hog
Speaker 2: round up spot.
Speaker 3: This is a huge event.
Speaker 2: This is huge. There were, however, two events. Remember the
Speaker 2: second event, the swamp time hog Hunt. That same team,
Speaker 2: the piney Wood Pimps, also managed to bag the biggest
Speaker 2: five hogs string of faral hogs that netted them an
Speaker 2: additional fifteen hundred and fifty eight dollars real money. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that's enough to like gas up a truck, So
Speaker 2: that's not all, Elizabeth. The piny Wood Pamps also won
Speaker 2: a few side prizes, for instance for bagging the largest
Speaker 2: sal that paid another eight hundred dollars, and they won
Speaker 2: a side prize for the single biggest bore, which paid
Speaker 2: out eleven hundred dollars. All told, they won three thousand,
Speaker 2: six hundred and thirty eight dollars for their four man
Speaker 2: team to split, plus the twenty sacks of feet. So no,
Speaker 2: that's for the first one. I'm saving in total, so
Speaker 2: they worked out to be They hauled eight hundred and
Speaker 2: fourteen dollars and fifty cents per person, and then the
Speaker 2: five sacks of feed per person as well. So of
Speaker 2: course there's also the custom bell buckles, let's not forget those,
Speaker 2: and the bragging rights which last a lifetime. So and
Speaker 2: that is, of course, unless you cheat, and especially if
Speaker 2: you get caught, which is what happened here. You see
Speaker 2: a member of the law enforcement, Sergeant Raymond Davis of
Speaker 2: the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. He'd heard rumors
Speaker 2: that there were cheaters operating in the annual hog hunts
Speaker 2: and round wild hog roundups, so when this new season
Speaker 2: rolled around, he decided he'd launch himself an investigation to
Speaker 2: ferret out any of these cheaters I hear so much about,
Speaker 2: So he enlisted fellow agents from the LDFW, And, as
Speaker 2: Sergeant Davis put it, I had already had an idea
Speaker 2: that there's something going on, just not exactly sure how
Speaker 2: they were cheating. So what does he care?
Speaker 3: How was breaking the law?
Speaker 2: Oh? Good to that. Apparently Sergeant Davis is just as
Speaker 2: good at hunting down cheaters as the pineywood pimps are
Speaker 2: good at faking their hunting down hogs. Louisiana Hog Hunt
Speaker 2: task Force, which he'd formed, collected evidence, they interviewed suspects,
Speaker 2: and this eventually shook the piney Wood pimps. Soon enough,
Speaker 2: five of the six men admitted that they had indeed cheated.
Speaker 2: As Sergeant Davis tells it, when we started interviewing them,
Speaker 2: a couple of the guys are very forthcoming, admitted to
Speaker 2: actually putting the hogs in a holding pan for the
Speaker 2: Binville event prior to the hunt dates, and when it
Speaker 2: got time that pulled the hogs out the holden pans
Speaker 2: and staged the photos with them.
Speaker 3: So they were like, they're hogs. Apparently, well they domesticated,
Speaker 3: I can tell you.
Speaker 2: Where they came from. Okay. But also this explains how
Speaker 2: they won the Dingler wild hog round up and the
Speaker 2: Swamp Time hog hunt because they rounded up the faral
Speaker 2: hogs at a landfill across state lines in East Texas.
Speaker 2: Oh no, they brought them the wild hogs over the
Speaker 2: border into Louisiana. Oh that's the crime boom you called it,
Speaker 2: because they yeah, they'd use the faral hogs to win
Speaker 2: both contests, and a Sergeant Davis kindly explains the complaint
Speaker 2: was they had hunted in Texas. Maybe one of the
Speaker 2: guys says something to someone work got out. We went
Speaker 2: to investigate. We were able to establish that during the
Speaker 2: hunt dates they were in the vicinity of a landfall
Speaker 2: and be on a Texas at the time. They took
Speaker 2: some of the photos and sent the pictures. So as
Speaker 2: for state law, it's illegal to hunt faral hogs in
Speaker 2: Texas and bring them back over state lines into Louisiana.
Speaker 3: Don't bring any extra ones into the state.
Speaker 2: Unless you have permission from the USDA the US Department
Speaker 2: of Agricultures, then it's fine. So keep that in mind
Speaker 2: if you ever rounding up faral hoggs, ask permission for
Speaker 2: So the piney Wood Pimps were accused of not only cheating,
Speaker 2: but also running a criminal conspiracy since they'd acted as
Speaker 2: a team. Yeah, and then the piney Wood Pimps Trace
Speaker 2: Davis Hunter, Webb, Coley Bushnell, Davy Harmon, Nathan Granger, and
Speaker 2: Don Pollard were all charged with hunting contest fraud and
Speaker 2: criminal conspiracy. Hunting contest fraud. Now Davis, Webb, Bushnell, Hayman,
Speaker 2: and Pollard Junior also were charged with violating interstate commerce.
Speaker 2: That's we're bringing the hogs over the border. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: Davis also caught an additional charge of obstruction to justice
Speaker 2: for attempting to destroy evidence of their crime. I think
Speaker 2: he deleted photos web caught a hunter. Webb caught a
Speaker 2: bonus charge of hunting while his hunting license was suspended.
Speaker 2: So hunter, hunter, that hunter, don't hunt. No, Now the
Speaker 2: men face serious charges. Apparently down in Louisiana they take
Speaker 2: hunting contests frauds seriously.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Since the men faced a possible one year in jail,
Speaker 2: any three thousand dollars fine interstate commerce violations, I can
Speaker 2: land you another one hundred and twenty days in jail
Speaker 2: with a nine hundred and fifty dollars fine. The big charge, though,
Speaker 2: is obstruction of justice that connects you a five year
Speaker 2: prison sentence and a ten thousand dollars fine.
Speaker 3: Ooh, yeah, they didn't win that much, which just.
Speaker 2: Goes to show that roving hordes of feral hawks aren't
Speaker 2: the only danger in the swamp. You can also catch charges.
Speaker 2: So all right, So now we got that one out
Speaker 2: of the way. I got another goodman. Before you're coming up, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: take another little break. We'll put the piny wood pimps
Speaker 2: behind us. When we get back, we'll see how cheating
Speaker 2: plays out when you're competing to be one of the
Speaker 2: smartest men in Britain.
Speaker 6: Oh okay, we're back, Elizabeth, Yeah, we are all right.
Speaker 2: So we've done stone Skippers, we've done hog hunters and
Speaker 2: rounder uppers. Well now we're going to uh I mean not,
Speaker 2: these are strange roads to travel down. We're gonna go
Speaker 2: with something a little more familiar to you. Okay, right,
Speaker 2: you and I both love Jeopardy. Oh yes, Now can
Speaker 2: you imagine trying to cheat at Jeopardy? I mean not
Speaker 2: like at home, like you watch the East Coast broadcast
Speaker 2: and then you memorize the answers and watched the West
Speaker 2: Coast broadcast with friends or family. I don't mean that, right,
Speaker 2: I mean like in the studio, in front of the audience,
Speaker 2: with the cameras and everything. Do that. Well, that's what
Speaker 2: happened on the British version of Who Wants to Be
Speaker 2: a Millionaire?
Speaker 3: Oh really, A dude.
Speaker 2: Went on the show and there before the audience, with
Speaker 2: the cameras and the millions of people watching at home,
Speaker 2: he cheated his way to a million pounds. And how
Speaker 2: he did it is ridiculous. Oh, Elizabeth, meet Major Charles Ingram.
Speaker 2: That's his rank, not his name. Major. And the late eighties,
Speaker 2: Major Ingram became a member of the British Army. He
Speaker 2: trained at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst. He was
Speaker 2: then commissioned as an officer. He joined the Royal Engineers.
Speaker 2: By nineteen ninety he was made a captain five years later.
Speaker 2: He in ninety five he was a major. And then
Speaker 2: in September two thousand and one, Major Ingram appeared on
Speaker 2: the British version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Speaker 3: That was the og the originator totally yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, both his brother and his wife had already appeared
Speaker 2: on the show, which seems suspicious on a terme. His
Speaker 2: family went in out all these.
Speaker 3: Spots, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Apparently that part was all legit, and they had both
Speaker 2: won money, not the big grand prize of a million pounds.
Speaker 2: He each won thirty two thousand pounds.
Speaker 3: That's nothing else.
Speaker 2: No, at the time it was about forty two thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: So then on September ninth, two thousand and one, Major
Speaker 2: Ingram appears on the show and on camera Major carried
Speaker 2: himself he's got this military demeanor, you know, like the
Speaker 2: short clip sentences. He's also kind of like cocky and
Speaker 2: like full of himself, but he also tries to play
Speaker 2: like I don't know he does. He works both sides
Speaker 2: of the way. Also, apparently he was allegedly deeply in debt,
Speaker 2: so he had he owed an estimated fifty thousand pounds,
Speaker 2: so he had fifty thousand reasons to win some big money.
Speaker 3: I love it, so you know the answer going a
Speaker 3: game show?
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, that was his answer. He and his wife
Speaker 2: are like, you know, I won thirty two thousand pounds.
Speaker 2: We just need a little bit more. You go go
Speaker 2: further me. We're good. So also to do the translation
Speaker 2: of how much that is, it's about sixty six thousand
Speaker 2: dollars in debt, he was if you put it in dollars.
Speaker 3: Okay, but don't forget got to pay taxes on those winnings.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, So he needs to win more than the
Speaker 2: fifty thousands. So he told the show producers he'd prepared
Speaker 2: for the show by practicing twenty minutes a day on
Speaker 2: a homemade device he he'd created. He called it the
Speaker 2: fastest finger first machine. Okay, whatever, so in reality, the
Speaker 2: big way he'd prepared to win some money was that
Speaker 2: he and his wife had come up with a plant
Speaker 2: to cheat. So the story goes Elizabeth. He was on
Speaker 2: the show for two days. First day, he was barely
Speaker 2: hanging in there in the early rounds. He was forced
Speaker 2: to use two of his three lifelines just to make
Speaker 2: it to like the four thousand pound mark on the board,
Speaker 2: which is pretty low. And you know, so he finishes
Speaker 2: his first day of filming right at four thousand pounds,
Speaker 2: got one lifeline left, and he's got his fifty to
Speaker 2: fifty lifeline, if that means anything to you, So it
Speaker 2: reduces the possible number of answers from four to two. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: And so he's got a now fifty.
Speaker 3: To fifty choice friends.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly. I don't know what the other one is like,
Speaker 2: ask somebody in the crowd.
Speaker 3: I don't think so.
Speaker 2: So the then comes the second day of filming, September tenth,
Speaker 2: two thousand and one, major Ingram sitting it's another one
Speaker 2: of our crimes, right for four nine to eleven, Yes exactly.
Speaker 2: So major Ingram is sitting there on his four thousand
Speaker 2: pounds of winnings, which is roughly fifty three hundred dollars dollars.
Speaker 2: Going into that second day of filming, the show's producer's
Speaker 2: productions taff they all doubted that this guy major Ingram
Speaker 2: had what it took to win the million pound prize.
Speaker 2: So they're like, yeah, whatever, how much longer? When do
Speaker 2: we need to get our next competitor in here? Because
Speaker 2: the contestants are waiting for their turn, nobody knows when
Speaker 2: it'll be, so they're sitting there watching the game occur.
Speaker 2: And this is when things fun Elizabeth, or at least fraudulent.
Speaker 2: You see, major Ingram had a secret. He and his
Speaker 2: wife they'd found a way to sneak a ringer into
Speaker 2: the crowd of the game show. Their ringer was a
Speaker 2: college professor, a fellow competitor, fellow entrant named Tekwin wittok Wittick.
Speaker 2: His wife, Diana Ingram, had met Professor Whittick on the
Speaker 2: British trivia game show circuit. Oh apparently okay. So their
Speaker 2: plan was simple. For each question, major Ingram would kind
Speaker 2: of like reread the question aloud as if he were
Speaker 2: thinking out loud, and then that made for good TV.
Speaker 2: So the producers love that. It was a good cover.
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, yeah, I don't know. It could be
Speaker 2: this one, could be that one. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 2: so he's doing all that. The real deal is when
Speaker 2: he read the question aloud and the four possible answers,
Speaker 2: their ringer would signal the correct answer by coughing, and
Speaker 2: that way major Ingram would hear which was the right answer.
Speaker 2: Then he'd like him and Hoffer a little.
Speaker 3: Bit more number of times yeah, and then.
Speaker 2: Do so like, do some more thinking out loud. Then
Speaker 2: he would do whatever the answer was. The Professor Whittick
Speaker 2: coughed at simple straight forward, So there was for instance,
Speaker 2: there was the question who had a hit UK album
Speaker 2: with Born to Do It released in two thousand, So
Speaker 2: before he reads the question back in the puzzle anthem,
Speaker 2: major Ingram offered that he'd never heard of one of
Speaker 2: the answers, this artist named Craig David, who it turns
Speaker 2: out had recorded that song and was the correct answer.
Speaker 2: But major Ingram was undeniably still in the game, so
Speaker 2: he thought, you know, the correct answer might be a
Speaker 2: different group. This group a one. He's like, I think
Speaker 2: it may be a one that was one of the
Speaker 2: four choices. But then he did his active thinking out loud,
Speaker 2: reading the question back and forth, considering the four possible answers.
Speaker 2: He hears Professor Whittick cough as he says the correct
Speaker 2: answer of Craig David. And now Major Ingram has to
Speaker 2: find his way back to the correct answer and ditch
Speaker 2: a previous interest in A one. So he's like, no,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go Craig David, right, And the Major explains
Speaker 2: his backtracking by saying, eighty percent of the time I'm
Speaker 2: wrong when I guess, you know what, I'll go with
Speaker 2: Craig David. So that's his whole, like, I don't know
Speaker 2: what I'm doing, but yeah, and when you know what,
Speaker 2: he was right, it was Craig David. So he keeps going,
Speaker 2: going on like this until he reaches the penultimate question,
Speaker 2: worth five hundred thousand pounds. He's one answer away from
Speaker 2: the final answer, which is obviously worth a million pounds.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So for this pen ultimate question, Major Ingram is asked
Speaker 2: Baron Hausman is best known for his planning of which
Speaker 2: city his options are A Athens, b Rome, C Paris,
Speaker 2: or D Berlin. Major Ingram reasons that the answer must
Speaker 2: be Berlin. He's like, I think it's Berlin. His reason
Speaker 2: is obvious because Houseman is a German name and Berlin
Speaker 2: is a German city, but he doesn't think like maybe
Speaker 2: this is a trick question. Right later on, he's like,
Speaker 2: but I'm never sure. If I was at home, I'd
Speaker 2: be saying Berlin. If I was watching on TV. He
Speaker 2: just freely admits, like, you know, all of his thinking
Speaker 2: and also how dumb he is about certain things. Host
Speaker 2: of the game show reminds him this question is worth
Speaker 2: five hundred thousand pounds. If he gets it wrong, he
Speaker 2: loses everything. He could walk away with what he has
Speaker 2: up till now, which would take care of his debt.
Speaker 2: Major Ingram He's like, no, I think it's Berlin. Host
Speaker 2: tells him take your time, you know, like, let's think
Speaker 2: about this. Then suddenly here's someone in the audience cough
Speaker 2: and then also sounds like they literally say no right
Speaker 2: after the cough. I watched the whole video. It's crazy.
Speaker 2: So major Ingram he does more of his thinking out loud,
Speaker 2: and he says, well, I don't think it's Paris, and
Speaker 2: then again he rolls out Athens in Rome. He's down
Speaker 2: to it either being Paris or Berlin, right, and then
Speaker 2: again he backtracks. He course corrects. He says, I thought
Speaker 2: it was Berlin, but there's a chance it's Paris. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure. Let me think. As he pretends to think,
Speaker 2: the host says, you know, he doesn't have to answer,
Speaker 2: once again reminds him he can walk home with the
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty pounds.
Speaker 3: They're loving him dragging this.
Speaker 2: It's fantastic, teav Yeah, right, it's exactly what the producers want,
Speaker 2: especially when nobody saw this guy going this far. It
Speaker 2: looks like it's purely luck or something like that. So
Speaker 2: Majoringham presses on and he goes. He thinks aloud, I
Speaker 2: think it's Paris, and after he hamsen Hall a little bit,
Speaker 2: he locks in his answer. Majoringham says, okay, I'm to
Speaker 2: go for Parish. Final answer, Ding ding ding, wouldn't you
Speaker 2: know it? Once again stumbles his way into a correct answer.
Speaker 2: Now the host is like, you're the luckiest man in Britain.
Speaker 2: This is incredible. So now he's one answer away from
Speaker 2: his million pounds. But you know what, Elizabeth, rather than me,
Speaker 2: tell you about that one answer away, close your eyes,
Speaker 2: I want you to picture it's September tenth, two thousand
Speaker 2: and one, and you are on the set of Who
Speaker 2: Wants to Be a Millionaire? You are a contestant who
Speaker 2: is waiting for your turn in the hot seat. But
Speaker 2: at the moment you're watching the second day of filming
Speaker 2: for current contestant, Major Charles Ingram, the British military engineer,
Speaker 2: had a shaky first day. You did not think he'd
Speaker 2: make it. As far as he's come, he doesn't seem
Speaker 2: to know much, yet he keeps getting lucky, talking himself
Speaker 2: into answers he clearly does not know by his own admission,
Speaker 2: But as he says over and over again, by process
Speaker 2: of elimination, he somehow keeps finding the right answers. Now
Speaker 2: he's on the threat threshold of winning the grand prize.
Speaker 2: The host says that they've reached the million pound question,
Speaker 2: question fifteen. If he's right, he'll become the third person
Speaker 2: in Britain to win the million pound pot. The game
Speaker 2: show producers play the familiar music they use to heighten
Speaker 2: the tension, and then the host reads the one million
Speaker 2: pound question. A number one followed by one hundred zeros
Speaker 2: is known by what name A Google, B, Megatron, C, gigabit, D, nanomole,
Speaker 2: and then you hear it, the silence that stretches and
Speaker 2: fills the void of any answers or words from major Ingram.
Speaker 2: After a long pause, the kind that makes for great TV,
Speaker 2: major Ingram says, all right, then you think to yourself
Speaker 2: what I am? You also remind yourself when it's your
Speaker 2: turn in the hot seat, you're not going to do
Speaker 2: any cheeky games of false modesty or whatever the hell
Speaker 2: major Ingram is doing. You check his wife in the
Speaker 2: audience to see how she's handling this moment, and she
Speaker 2: holds bald up fists next to her face, blocking her mouth.
Speaker 2: She's clearly nervous for her husband, but he can't see her.
Speaker 2: She's seated behind him to prevent any cheating, sending signals
Speaker 2: the kind that a couple can send with just their eyes.
Speaker 2: Major Ingram thinks aloud, Mega, No, No, He thinks more,
Speaker 2: and he says, I'm not sure. The host has an
Speaker 2: amusement coloring his voice. Charles, you haven't been sure since
Speaker 2: question number two? Major Ingram nervously laughs. He confesses that
Speaker 2: his doubts have magnified again. You think what I am? Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: major Ingram presses on he says, I think it's a nanomole.
Speaker 2: This is followed by silence from the audience. Then major
Speaker 2: Ingram corrects himself and says, but it could be a gigabit.
Speaker 2: Again silence from the crowd, and so he starts over,
Speaker 2: I don't think it's a megatron. More silence. Then he
Speaker 2: considers one answer he's yet to say. Major Ingram thinks aloud, says,
Speaker 2: and I have to say, I don't think I've ever
Speaker 2: heard of a Google. He says again to himself, Google
Speaker 2: like it's a weird word in his mouth, like it's
Speaker 2: made up from some sci fi show he never watched.
Speaker 2: And that's when you hear it. That's odd. There's that
Speaker 2: scratchy throat guy again. Someone in the crowd really needs
Speaker 2: a lozenge. Meanwhile, major Ingram says, by process of elimination,
Speaker 2: I actually think it's Google, but I don't know what
Speaker 2: a Google is. Then there's more coffin. It sounds almost emphatic.
Speaker 2: Now major Ingram continues to think aloud. I don't think
Speaker 2: it's a gigabit. I don't think it's a nanomole. I
Speaker 2: don't think it's a megatron. I really do think it's
Speaker 2: a Google. And just like clockwork, you look around to
Speaker 2: see who the scratchy throat guy is who keeps coughing.
Speaker 2: The host reminds major Ingram, but you thought it was
Speaker 2: a nanomole. You've never heard of a Google, and there's
Speaker 2: a million pounds involved. Major Ingram says, now confidently, I know,
Speaker 2: but it's not a gigabit, a nano mole, or a megatron,
Speaker 2: and there's only four of them, so it must be
Speaker 2: a Google. He reiterates that I don't actually know what
Speaker 2: Google is, but I mean it's the only chance I'll
Speaker 2: or ever have a winning a million. As the audience laughs,
Speaker 2: the host reminds him, Charles, it's also the only chance
Speaker 2: you will have of losing four hundred and sixty eight
Speaker 2: thousan pounds. The audience laughs again. Then the host tells
Speaker 2: him take a time. Major Ingram wipes his face with
Speaker 2: his hands. His wife holds her hands against her face,
Speaker 2: so nervous, and then you both hear major Ingram say,
Speaker 2: I mean, my strategy has worked so far. Just take
Speaker 2: it by the bid and go for it. And he
Speaker 2: adds that I have to rethink it. I don't think
Speaker 2: it's a gigabit. Silence from the crowd, major Ingram says,
Speaker 2: I don't think it's a nanomole. More silence. Then he says,
Speaker 2: thinking aloud again, Megatron Mega Mega Mega Mega. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't think it's a megatron. More silence. Major Ingram says,
Speaker 2: I'm sure it's a Google. That's it. This is more
Speaker 2: than mere coincidence. You know the answer is Google. You're
Speaker 2: certain it. It sure seems like someone else in the crowd
Speaker 2: knows this is true too. Meanwhile, major Ingram stops thinking aloud.
Speaker 2: He says, Okay, I'm gonna play it. The audience casts.
Speaker 2: Major Ingram can't be shaken. He says, I'm gonna play it.
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me? You look around to see if
Speaker 2: anyone else hears what you hear. Meanwhile, major Ingram says,
Speaker 2: now quite confident about something he's admitted to having never
Speaker 2: heard of before this moment. It's a Google, he says,
Speaker 2: to the heavens God, is it a Google? Silence. He
Speaker 2: looks at the host and says, yeah, it's a Google.
Speaker 2: There it is again. This is egregious. You think you
Speaker 2: look to see if the production team here's what you hear.
Speaker 2: In that same moment, major Ingram says I'm going to
Speaker 2: play Google and those says final answer. Yes, final answer.
Speaker 2: Then the show goes for commercial break to heighten the
Speaker 2: drum or perhaps it's two by time for the production
Speaker 2: team to go back over the footage to see who
Speaker 2: the coughing guy is, You think to yourself, they have
Speaker 2: to have heard that spate of coughing. Every time there's
Speaker 2: mention of the correct answers, and the show does come
Speaker 2: back from commercial break, the host builds up back up
Speaker 2: the drama. The music plays. He recounts major Ingram's improbable
Speaker 2: path to a million pound question. The host rereads the
Speaker 2: question the four possible answers. He finally tells major Ingram, Charles,
Speaker 2: give me back that check for five hundred thousand pounds,
Speaker 2: the one that Charles is holding. You watch his major
Speaker 2: Ingram complies. The host rips up the check and says
Speaker 2: you no longer have that now you The crowd major
Speaker 2: Ingram all wait for the final answer, and finally the
Speaker 2: host announces you just won one million pounds. The audience
Speaker 2: goes wild, the cheers, major Ingram shouts yes. The host
Speaker 2: steps forward, hugs him. Confetti rains down from the studio ceiling.
Speaker 2: It's like a month. Soon of like shiny paper, the
Speaker 2: confetti covers the set. As game show music plays, the
Speaker 2: host says to major Ingram, you are the most amazing
Speaker 2: contestant we've ever ever had. So there you go. You
Speaker 2: just watched a man steal a million pounds in front
Speaker 2: of you. To the crowd, the cameras, the audience watching
Speaker 2: at home, you've all been witnessed this episode. A major
Speaker 2: Ingram just brazly pulled off a game show heist.
Speaker 3: Unbelievable.
Speaker 2: So what happens next? Great question?
Speaker 3: Is such a good question.
Speaker 2: Didn't take long for questions to be raised, for doubts
Speaker 2: to surface, for producers and other contestants to voice their
Speaker 2: concerns that major Ingram's million pounds win might not be
Speaker 2: on the up and up. In fact, producers was so
Speaker 2: suspicious that they ordered a search of major Ingram's body
Speaker 2: before he left the studio. Really production team. They checked
Speaker 2: his hair, his clothes, his pockets, his shoes.
Speaker 3: They the contents. I guess I get so sensitive to
Speaker 3: those things. Of the sound of people.
Speaker 2: Why I put you in.
Speaker 3: It's supposed to be so quiet.
Speaker 2: I try to play up the silent silence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, And you watched this, I watched the whole thing,
Speaker 3: watched the whole thing, and uhous.
Speaker 2: So they can find no clear indication that he cheated,
Speaker 2: so they let him go. Right then the unexpected happens,
Speaker 2: major Ingram and his wife reunite backstage. Yeah right, they're
Speaker 2: all going to celebrate the win. But when the show's
Speaker 2: producers go back by the like the dressing room that
Speaker 2: they're in, they overhear the couple arguing, like shouting, screaming
Speaker 2: at each other.
Speaker 6: What.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's speculation later on that he was only supposed
Speaker 2: to go so far, but apparently he just wanted to
Speaker 2: win the million dollars because which is far more suspicious
Speaker 2: than he would have won like one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: eight thousand. Yeah, and which is all they needed to
Speaker 2: clear their debts. Remember they did this to clear their debts. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and now he's like, I'm going for broke baby, So
Speaker 2: she's like, you've ruined it all.
Speaker 3: This is not the time to have the argument at all.
Speaker 2: They're they're a classic game face game face. So in
Speaker 2: the moments before the host brings them champagne to celebrate,
Speaker 2: pretty much half of the production staff hears them screaming
Speaker 2: and shouting and the producer's suspicions now are completely alerted.
Speaker 2: So they go back and they check the tape and
Speaker 2: that's when they notice what you heard during the live recording,
Speaker 2: the coughing. They figure out that it's coming from one
Speaker 2: of the other contestants waiting for his turn, a man
Speaker 2: named Professor Whittick, and there were other coughs coming from Diana.
Speaker 2: Major Ingram's wife was up there. The two of them
Speaker 2: were both taking turns to get him there, which is
Speaker 2: more than just suspicious, it's proof of crime. So producers
Speaker 2: they don't give major Ingram his one million pound check
Speaker 2: they told it instead. The show's tapes are then given
Speaker 2: to London Metro Police to go over, which they do.
Speaker 2: The obvious coughing stands out to them as it did
Speaker 2: to your ears. They draw up criminal charges. Major Ingram,
Speaker 2: his wife, Diana, Professor Whittick. They're all arrested, charged with
Speaker 2: fraud or is the British barristers prefer to call it
Speaker 2: procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception.
Speaker 3: It sounds like the characters on an episode of Father
Speaker 3: Brown like totally Professor Whittick.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the trial lasts four weeks. The jury comes back.
Speaker 2: They deliberate for three and a half days. Oh, which
Speaker 2: is a lot more. I thought it would be three
Speaker 2: and a half hours. Yeah, exactly, No, they were. They
Speaker 2: were almost a hung jury. In the end, all three
Speaker 2: are found guilty. They're convicted. The Ingrams catch eighteen month sentences.
Speaker 2: Professor Whittick is sentenced to a year behind bars. Are
Speaker 2: for game show manipulation, so they also get fined. The
Speaker 2: Ingrams are forced to pay the court costs for the
Speaker 2: for the prosecution. So this amounts to roughly one hundred
Speaker 2: and fourteen thousand pounds, which is about one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty two thousand dollars America.
Speaker 3: Hey you were in debt before, Yeah, no, honey, Yeah.
Speaker 2: He just tripled it or trebled it, so that's not all.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth major Ingram was still an active British Army officer.
Speaker 2: Oh no, you know, they don't play on that kind. No,
Speaker 2: so no stiff rupper lip and carry on on. This
Speaker 2: one Army stepped in. They handed down their own punishment.
Speaker 2: Major Ingram was forced to resign. He did get to
Speaker 2: keep his pensions.
Speaker 3: Oh he did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't think he was going to get that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: So that's how major Ingram missed out on a life
Speaker 2: changing million pound prize and instead became a laughing stock
Speaker 2: for flagrant cheating and showing his hole behind on TV
Speaker 2: one cough at a time. So there you go, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: What is our ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3: Yeah, cheaters never prosper. Oh that's nice. What's yours?
Speaker 2: I love that? Just that their plan was we're gonna
Speaker 2: you know, obviously they weren't going for the million pounds,
Speaker 2: but let's say they were going for like one hundred
Speaker 2: and you know, twenty eight one hundred and twenty five
Speaker 2: thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Their idea was we'll just cough racket. They didn't have
Speaker 2: anything more complicated than that. They didn't mix it up
Speaker 2: with like other sounds like a sneeze, a cough, maybe
Speaker 2: like a deep scratching or like a yawn. It was
Speaker 2: just one sound always.
Speaker 3: At the same time, they're also risking the notion that
Speaker 3: they the producers could be like, I'm sorry, we got
Speaker 3: to run this one again. Someone was making noise in
Speaker 3: the audience, yea. Or they're taking the guy out his
Speaker 3: coughing and be like yeah, outside.
Speaker 2: Removing the ringer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you're obviously disturbing the recording.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, do you need medical assistance? So there you go.
Speaker 3: And when the ringer that I use on this podcast
Speaker 3: starts hacking it up too much, I say, X Nate waits.
Speaker 2: The eye signals, So there you go. You're in the
Speaker 2: mood for a talk pack. We can rinse this one bag.
Speaker 3: Oh I love that.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. I went gee.
Speaker 4: Re listening to your tom VU episode and you were like,
Speaker 4: I'd like to see him try not to let me
Speaker 4: go to the bathroom. I'd go in the corner. In
Speaker 4: high school, we had a teacher that wouldn't let us
Speaker 4: go to the bathroom. One of the boys in class
Speaker 4: really had to go, and he kept saying, I got
Speaker 4: a pee. You don't understand. I gotta go. She wouldn't
Speaker 4: let him go, so he stood up, walked to the
Speaker 4: corner and did his business in her trash can. As
Speaker 4: ridiculous and thank you for always making me laugh.
Speaker 3: I love that. He's a hero, you know, one of
Speaker 3: your steople. The teachers are like they want to you know,
Speaker 3: because kids say they want to go to the bathroom,
Speaker 3: they go horse around or go to other stuff becomes.
Speaker 2: A power play.
Speaker 3: But that you could that is not healthy. That's a
Speaker 3: bad thing to do to.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, keeping like flatter infections, all kinds of yes, exactly.
Speaker 3: It's a power trip sometimes. Yeah, I love that. Just
Speaker 3: pin in the corner.
Speaker 5: There you go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't matter what I as always. You can
Speaker 2: find his online Ridiculous Crime on Instagram and Blue Sky
Speaker 2: on Instagram. We have pictures from the show. If you
Speaker 2: want to see what major ingram looks like, go check
Speaker 2: that out. And uh, we also have our account Ridiculous
Speaker 2: Crime pod pod on YouTube, so you can watch these shows.
Speaker 2: It doesn't feature us if you're just animation, but it's
Speaker 2: just as fun to watch. Or you can listen if
Speaker 2: you like listening on YouTube. Do your thing. We ain't
Speaker 2: gonna judge. We also have our website, Ridiculous Crime dot
Speaker 2: com and that's where you can find merch and gifts
Speaker 2: and and apparently we were nominated for a Newberry Award,
Speaker 2: so I was very excited about that. We'll see what
Speaker 2: happens there, Elizabeth. And clearly we love the talkback, so
Speaker 2: please go downloaded, leave yourself at talkback. Maybe you get
Speaker 2: to hear your voice here. We'd love to hear it.
Speaker 2: And uh, oh, forgot emails. You can always email us
Speaker 2: if you like it Ridiculous Crime at gmail jamail dot com.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening and we will catch you next.
Speaker 4: Crime.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaron Burnett,
Speaker 2: produced and edited by inventor of Uncle Dave's Throat Coat
Speaker 2: Tea for Scratchy throat Cheaters, Mister Dave Kusten, and starring
Speaker 2: analysch Rucker Is Judith. Research is by the Professor Whittick
Speaker 2: to our major Ingram Marissa Brown and Jabari Davis. Our
Speaker 2: theme song is by Regis Philbin and The Quiz Show
Speaker 2: Kings aka Thomas Lee and Travis Duddy. Post wardrobe provided
Speaker 2: by Body five hundred producer. Dave's wardrobe provided by mister
Speaker 2: Guy of Beverly Hills. Tear and makeup by Sparkleshock and
Speaker 2: mister Andre. Executive producers are Ben Please call me Megatron
Speaker 2: Boldin and No call me Nano Nol Brown.
Speaker 3: Ridicous Crime Say it one More Times. Crime.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts.
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.