Speaker 1: Pushkin Stevie Lay and I'd like to welcome you into
Speaker 1: the studio. Thanks for being here. Oh, I'm recording. I
Speaker 1: hope you know.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you for telling me.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I have your verbal consent.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm opting in.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm recording.
Speaker 2: I'm also recording.
Speaker 1: I don't remember being asked for my consent.
Speaker 2: Jonathan, can I record?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: You may, Thank you, Jonathan.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna be re listening to an encore presentation
Speaker 1: of an episode that we did or that you know
Speaker 1: you produced six years ago about a man named Scott. Yes,
Speaker 1: and here's a little glimpse behind the curtain. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of investigation. Yes, that takes place, and you're captain
Speaker 1: of the heavyweight investigative Bureau.
Speaker 2: I love attending that my job is a PI.
Speaker 1: Well, it's kind of. I mean, it's like it is.
Speaker 1: That's what I did a lot of research I did.
Speaker 4: I will say that this is an episode that genuinely
Speaker 4: at every turn we were surprised by what happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was.
Speaker 4: Really I feel like that was like really fun while
Speaker 4: making it. Yeah, but like I do feel that that
Speaker 4: translates into the story in a really amazing way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and at the very end, I'm going to catch
Speaker 1: up with Scott. We're going to find out where in
Speaker 1: his life he is all these years later.
Speaker 2: So I guess should should we play it for the people.
Speaker 1: Without a do or a don't? Let's sit back, pop
Speaker 1: the foot, rest on your bark a lounger and enjoy.
Speaker 1: But oh, sorry, did I scare you?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 1: Okay, well I just wanted to. Sorry I got excited.
Speaker 1: But first a word from our sponsors. Let's play truth
Speaker 1: or dare? Okay, go ahead, No, Jackie, you cut out.
Speaker 1: You cut out. I couldn't hear if you said truth
Speaker 1: or dare? Which one did you say?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 3: I'm not willing, I'm not interested. I don't want to play.
Speaker 1: Have you ever have you ever peed in a shower?
Speaker 1: Tell the truth? Have you ever peed in a shower? Jackie.
Speaker 3: That's just not a question, John, is it?
Speaker 1: Because the answer is yes?
Speaker 3: Affirmative?
Speaker 1: Okay? Have you ever peed in a bathtub?
Speaker 3: Negative?
Speaker 1: You've never peed in a bathtub.
Speaker 3: That's disgusting. Why would you peel on yourself?
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that I did you did?
Speaker 3: You just said no?
Speaker 1: I didn't? Okay, Okay, you you were surprised because I'm
Speaker 1: not in the hot seat.
Speaker 7: You are, You're not.
Speaker 3: We're having a conversation.
Speaker 1: I want to have a we are having a conversation. Okay,
Speaker 1: you could do you want to get read the conversation
Speaker 1: from Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight
Speaker 1: Today's episode. Scott. Okay, we're rolling. So Scott, first of all,
Speaker 1: thank you. Maybe the thing to do would go on
Speaker 1: if you're lucky. The mistakes you make as you move
Speaker 1: through life are small and harmless, calling your teacher mommy,
Speaker 1: leaving gum in your jeans in the wash, or talking
Speaker 1: over the person you're trying to talk to. No, no, sorry, sure,
Speaker 1: hang on a second, Yeah, yeah, tell me more, Scott.
Speaker 1: But the mistake Scott made wasn't the small kind. It
Speaker 1: was the big kind. Big because it hurt his dad,
Speaker 1: one of the people Scott loves most, and he's been
Speaker 1: trying to fix that mistake for the past eight years.
Speaker 1: For Scott, the story all begins when he was a kid,
Speaker 1: which is when he first discovered drugs.
Speaker 8: The first one was weed, I know, that was when
Speaker 8: I was thirteen, and then alcohol, and then it quickly
Speaker 8: kind of descended from there. So I first did cocaine
Speaker 8: when I was fourteen fifteen, first did meth when I
Speaker 8: was about fifteen, and then it was around that same
Speaker 8: time that I found opiates.
Speaker 1: Scott's mom suffered from chronic pain and there were always
Speaker 1: pills in her medicine cabinet, stuff like OxyContin and fentanyl.
Speaker 8: It is this feeling of like finding a missing piece
Speaker 8: to a puzzle. All of the sudden, my anxiety was gone.
Speaker 8: I didn't have as much self doubt, and I was
Speaker 8: able to speak my mind and connect and talk and
Speaker 8: approach girls. And at the time it really felt like
Speaker 8: a cheat code that I would have for life.
Speaker 1: And for a while it worked. Scott graduated high school,
Speaker 1: then college, and found his way into a job as
Speaker 1: a well paid graphic designer, but he was still using
Speaker 1: drugs the way he always had to manage his anxiety
Speaker 1: and make friends, like the friend who got him to
Speaker 1: shoot heroin for the first time.
Speaker 8: And I say friend now by looking back on it,
Speaker 8: we weren't necessarily friends at all. But he said, if
Speaker 8: you can give me a ride to go pick up
Speaker 8: some drugs, then I'll give you some for your trouble.
Speaker 8: And so we're driving down I seventy. He's in shotgun.
Speaker 8: I'm in the driver's seat with my arm extended out
Speaker 8: over the middle part of the car as he shoots
Speaker 8: me up for the first time, and I instantly passed
Speaker 8: out and kind of swerved across three lanes before he
Speaker 8: grabbed the wheel, and then I kind of came back
Speaker 8: to a foot away from hitting a guard rail that
Speaker 8: right there just threw gasoline onto the fire. It went
Speaker 8: from you know, doing it on the weekends once or
Speaker 8: twice a month, to doing it every weekend, to doing
Speaker 8: it every few days to every other day.
Speaker 1: Within a year, Scott lost his job and moved into
Speaker 1: his dad's basement, back into his childhood home in Colorado.
Speaker 1: He still needed to get high every day and now
Speaker 1: had no money. There were boxes in the basement filled
Speaker 1: with old jewelry and silverware, stuff that had belonged to
Speaker 1: Scott's mom before she'd passed away, So Scott started stealing
Speaker 1: stuff from the boxes to bring to a pawnshop down
Speaker 1: the road. He figured an item or two wouldn't be missed,
Speaker 1: but pretty soon it became a daily thing.
Speaker 8: All the while, the voice in the back of my
Speaker 8: head was still there, knowing what was right and was wrong,
Speaker 8: and so I felt immense guilt.
Speaker 1: Soon the boxes were empty, and Scott began to eye
Speaker 1: other things, things right out in the open, things that
Speaker 1: belonged to his dad.
Speaker 8: So like a radio on the shelf, just right there
Speaker 8: in the living room, taking that, and then a baseball
Speaker 8: signed by the early thirties New York Yankees, you know,
Speaker 8: Babe Ruth and Louke Eric and everything like that.
Speaker 1: Did your dad know what was going on?
Speaker 8: I mean, my dad is a very unique person. He's
Speaker 8: kind of like chronically petrified of direct conversations, you know.
Speaker 8: I remember, even as a kid, he would have me
Speaker 8: order the pizza, you know, when we were ordering a
Speaker 8: pizza or something like that, because he didn't want to
Speaker 8: talk to the person on the phone.
Speaker 1: So Scott's dad never brought up the missing stuff until
Speaker 1: Scott started taking money.
Speaker 8: I knew right where his checkbook was, you know, it
Speaker 8: was right there on the secretary by the front door.
Speaker 8: And I had a light table where I put down
Speaker 8: a piece of paperwork that I'd found with his signature
Speaker 8: on it, and then put the check over it and
Speaker 8: kind of traced over it.
Speaker 1: The checks were small, sixty dollars here and there, but
Speaker 1: soon the account was thousands of dollars overdrawn, so his
Speaker 1: dad had to make a decision. It was one thing
Speaker 1: for a clock to go missing, another thing entirely for
Speaker 1: his savings to disappear. So the man who couldn't bring
Speaker 1: himself to pick up the phone to order pizza, picked
Speaker 1: up the phone and reported his son to the police.
Speaker 8: So then they piled me into the back of the
Speaker 8: police car and then brought me to the jail.
Speaker 1: Were you scared at this point?
Speaker 8: I was petrified. I was petrified of the legal consequences
Speaker 8: I had, but I think I was equally or more
Speaker 8: petrified of the detox that I knew that was coming.
Speaker 8: I remember scrawling out the hours I was sober on
Speaker 8: a little jail house notepad that they give you, And
Speaker 8: you know, I was doing three hundred dollars a day
Speaker 8: of heroin at that point. So it was a really, really,
Speaker 8: really bad withdraw There was just a series of horrible
Speaker 8: days where I just couldn't stop crying. I would have
Speaker 8: these kind of vivid dreams of seeing family or being happy,
Speaker 8: and then wake up to realize I'm still in a
Speaker 8: jail cell.
Speaker 1: A couple of weeks into his detention, a garbled voice
Speaker 1: came over the loud speaker. Scott had a visitor.
Speaker 8: Nobody had visited me yet, and so I thought it
Speaker 8: was a mistake at first. So I go up there
Speaker 8: and there's my dad come to visit me.
Speaker 1: But Scott's father wasn't there to offer support. He was
Speaker 1: there to present his son with a list of all
Speaker 1: the things he'd stolen. The radios, the watch collection, the
Speaker 1: family silver. It was two columns containing some fifty items,
Speaker 1: and at the very top of the page.
Speaker 8: His most prized possession, the luger, this German pistol that
Speaker 8: my grandfather had taken off of a German in World
Speaker 8: War II. This gun was something that I knew was
Speaker 8: like his pride and joy. That was like the quintessential
Speaker 8: memento and the biggest piece that my dad had to
Speaker 8: remember his dad by. And so that was the one
Speaker 8: big thing that I had promised myself that I would
Speaker 8: never take, and I took it.
Speaker 1: Of all the things Scott had stolen from his dad,
Speaker 1: of all the mistakes he'd made, this is the one
Speaker 1: he regrets most.
Speaker 8: I've only seen my father cry when his dad passed away,
Speaker 8: when my mom passed away, And in that jail when
Speaker 8: he was telling me about him knowing about the gun
Speaker 8: and being gone. You know, this was a piece of
Speaker 8: his father that he thought he would be able to
Speaker 8: hold on to for the rest of his life. And
Speaker 8: I sold for fourteen hundred dollars worth of drugs.
Speaker 1: For four months, Scott sat in jail awaiting trial. When
Speaker 1: he was finally sentenced, the judge decided to dismiss the
Speaker 1: charges if Scott completed this two year treatment program that
Speaker 1: was modeled on rehab programs from the seventies. Scott would
Speaker 1: have to shave his head and scrub the floors with
Speaker 1: a toothbrush, that kind of thing. The judge told Scott
Speaker 1: that of the roughly three hundred people he'd sent there,
Speaker 1: none had made it through.
Speaker 8: So that was encouraging right at the very beginning. But
Speaker 8: I was like, get me in. Whatever I need to do,
Speaker 8: I'm going to do it.
Speaker 1: After two years, Scott walked out of the facility and
Speaker 1: he's been clean since. He has a wife, two young kids,
Speaker 1: and a job at a residential treatment facility in Colorado
Speaker 1: where he works with addicts and their families. He's trying
Speaker 1: to make up for who he used to be by
Speaker 1: paying it forward, but there's one person he's never been
Speaker 1: able to pay back.
Speaker 8: I have all but forgiven myself for a lot of
Speaker 8: the things that I've done in the past, but this
Speaker 8: is one thing that, no matter the amount of counseling,
Speaker 8: it still bothers me on the deepest level that I
Speaker 8: did this to my dad.
Speaker 1: So about five years ago, Scott took his dad's list
Speaker 1: of the stolen items and set off to recover the
Speaker 1: luger along with everything else.
Speaker 8: So I went to the old antique stores that I
Speaker 8: used to go to. I went to the old sports
Speaker 8: memorabilia spot to see if I could track down the
Speaker 8: baseball that I had sold.
Speaker 1: He succeeded in getting some things back, a Crossley antique radio,
Speaker 1: a Ham radio, and that Christmas, with his sister, all
Speaker 1: his aunts and uncles gathered round, Scott surprised his dad
Speaker 1: with the items he'd recovered. Scott was feeling pretty proud
Speaker 1: of himself until Uncle Bill piped up.
Speaker 8: And my uncle, you know, basically says, well, he's the luger.
Speaker 8: In there is the luger, one of the things that
Speaker 8: you were able to get back.
Speaker 1: Uncle Bill was close with Scott's grandfather, like him, he'd
Speaker 1: also served in the military. He believed the luger should
Speaker 1: have been his to begin with, not a little brothers.
Speaker 8: And I was like, no, no, I wasn't able to
Speaker 8: find that. And then that led to probably about a
Speaker 8: ten minute spiel of his about how important that gun
Speaker 8: was to him. And I remember the day when I
Speaker 8: found out that that was stolen. It still bothers me
Speaker 8: and and it was just like in the middle of
Speaker 8: Christmas morning and were out presence, and every word that
Speaker 8: he said just like, uugh, it felt like a kick
Speaker 8: in the gut.
Speaker 1: And how do you think it made your father feel.
Speaker 8: Very uncomfortable, very uncomfortable. Yeah, yeah, but he's not the
Speaker 8: type of person that would toss it back in my face.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 8: That's kind of my uncle's style, but not necessarily his.
Speaker 1: Although Scott's dad didn't say anything, Scott understood that his
Speaker 1: dad felt the same way as Uncle Bill, that it
Speaker 1: was nice to have all those items returned, but the
Speaker 1: only one he really cared about was the luger and
Speaker 1: it was gone all because of Scott.
Speaker 8: I know that there's still trust issues there. I know
Speaker 8: that there's still pain there, and I've told him over
Speaker 8: the years that I'm going to do what I can
Speaker 8: to try and get it back, And I know by
Speaker 8: the glean in his eye that that would matter quite
Speaker 8: a bit, and that if I am able to track
Speaker 8: this down, it would be seismic.
Speaker 1: No matter what Scott accomplishes in life or how good
Speaker 1: he feels, there's always that nagging voice that cries out,
Speaker 1: what about the luger? Were you able to get that back?
Speaker 1: Even when Scott is relaxing in front of the TV,
Speaker 1: if anything about World War two comes on, he has
Speaker 1: to change the channel. And so Scott's come to me.
Speaker 1: He wants to find his grandfather's luger and has no
Speaker 1: idea where to begin. My first thought is why me?
Speaker 1: Why not the guys from Firearms Chat podcast, the Reloading Podcast,
Speaker 1: Wasted Ammo podcast, Socialist Rifle Association Podcast, Concealed Carry Podcast,
Speaker 1: New Shooter Canada or gun Girl Radio, the firearms show
Speaker 1: for the Second Amendment. Woman, I'm more the wistful type
Speaker 1: than the pistol type, more the pond type than the
Speaker 1: gun type. Do you think we'll have to go to
Speaker 1: a gun show?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 8: I think it just kind of depends on where it
Speaker 8: ended up.
Speaker 1: Like the thing that's a little scary, and maybe I'm
Speaker 1: completely like out of line with thinking this, But is
Speaker 1: it possible like that these guns can filter back into
Speaker 1: like a kind of nether world of.
Speaker 8: Like Nazi sympathizer people.
Speaker 1: Exactly like, yeah, it's possible. Yeah, I don't abide by
Speaker 1: Nazi sympathizers, but I'm rapidly becoming a Skatzi sympathizer. As
Speaker 1: Anton Chekhov once said, if a gun shows up in
Speaker 1: the first act, it must be fired in the second
Speaker 1: and that's a lot of presh. But as Jonathan Goldstein
Speaker 1: once said, if a gun's to be fired at all,
Speaker 1: please don't let it hit me in the wallet, because
Speaker 1: that's where I keep the charge card I use for
Speaker 1: purchasing quality products like the ones coming your way. Not
Speaker 1: knowing where to start, I spend several hours on a
Speaker 1: gun collector's discussion board run by someone named Jan with
Speaker 1: an iron cross for an avatar. I introduce myself to
Speaker 1: my fellow gun nuts and announce that I'm looking for
Speaker 1: a gun. Right away, an Internet pop up pops up,
Speaker 1: telling me that my content has been blocked and to
Speaker 1: quote see administrator. Immediately after, the Gimblet Media HR department
Speaker 1: confiscates my computer. I unholster my weapon of choice, the telephone.
Speaker 1: I dial gun dealerships all over the country to seek advice.
Speaker 3: It's going to be almost impossible.
Speaker 9: There may not be any type of record because it.
Speaker 10: Could just be in some private collector's collection. It's gonna be.
Speaker 7: Hard for you.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you straight up.
Speaker 5: Do you know when it was sold?
Speaker 8: Do you have any type of serial number?
Speaker 1: Of course, a serial number. Scott doesn't know the serial number,
Speaker 1: but he admits there's one person who.
Speaker 8: Might, Uncle Bill, my dad's older brother.
Speaker 1: Yeah, mister Christmas Morning himself. Are you in touch with
Speaker 1: your uncle?
Speaker 8: I am, I mean not a ton, but I am.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So maybe he would. He would be a place
Speaker 1: to start.
Speaker 8: Now, I'm uh, I mean, of course, there's a cloud
Speaker 8: of anxiety. My chest starts tightening when I think about
Speaker 8: actually doing it.
Speaker 1: Shortness of breath would come next, then burning in the
Speaker 1: chestel region. It was sounding to this reporter like the
Speaker 1: healing process had already begun.
Speaker 8: But maybe we could both do it. Yeah, we could
Speaker 8: do a three person call.
Speaker 1: So with me on the line as his emotional defibrillator,
Speaker 1: Scott dials up Uncle Bill.
Speaker 3: Good after that this is Bill.
Speaker 8: Hello, Uncle Bill, how are you.
Speaker 3: I'm good, mister Goldstein.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Hi. After Scott and I jockey over who will
Speaker 1: hide behind who's petty coats? Scott boldly peers out from
Speaker 1: behind my petty coats and asks Uncle Bill about the
Speaker 1: serial number.
Speaker 3: I believe it had a fairly low serial number, but
Speaker 3: unfortunately we never took a photo of the writing on
Speaker 3: the inside of.
Speaker 1: The holster, so you don't have the serial number. I
Speaker 1: do not. But the moment we bring up the gun,
Speaker 1: it's Christmas Morning all over again.
Speaker 3: It's a piece of history of his history that was
Speaker 3: part of what formed him to be the man that
Speaker 3: I knew. And that's about all we have from him
Speaker 3: from that era, and now we don't have that.
Speaker 1: When Uncle Bill speaks to the gun, it's as though Scott,
Speaker 1: the person responsible for its disappearance, isn't there, even when
Speaker 1: he pipes up to defend himself.
Speaker 3: The gun disappeared to help beat his habit, and I
Speaker 3: was really pissed at him.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I paid off every cent with his dad either.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: It wasn't like I was going to go and beat
Speaker 3: him up or anything, but I was pissed that he
Speaker 3: felt the need to quote keep it safe, and then
Speaker 3: he didn't keep it safe.
Speaker 1: Do you still feel like you fault your brother for that?
Speaker 3: Somewhat?
Speaker 6: Now?
Speaker 3: The reality of World War two events is that they
Speaker 3: didn't really like to talk about the war. We didn't
Speaker 3: have PTSD as a doosis. The damage was usually doubtless
Speaker 3: with alcohol, and he a lawful lot of them drank
Speaker 3: too much, and that's how they self medicated.
Speaker 1: After the war, Scott's grandfather became an alcoholic. He spent
Speaker 1: his days in an easy chair with a glass in
Speaker 1: his hand, and in the evenings he kept a bottle
Speaker 1: of whiskey on the nightstand to make sure he didn't
Speaker 1: wake up in a withdrawal. Like the Luger, it seems
Speaker 1: addiction has also been a part of Scott's family for decades.
Speaker 1: Before getting off the phone, Uncle Bill does offer a
Speaker 1: couple helpful bits of information. He tells us that the
Speaker 1: Luger was a mouser and that returning World War II
Speaker 1: soldiers were often issued something called bring back papers, documents
Speaker 1: detailing any items they took home. If we could find
Speaker 1: those papers, Bill says, there's a chance the gun's serial
Speaker 1: number might be there. He also says that if anyone
Speaker 1: has the bringback papers, it'd be Scott's older sister, Mary,
Speaker 1: the family record keeper and also one of Scott's biggest supporters.
Speaker 8: She's a good person and an honest one.
Speaker 1: When Scott was in jail, Mary was the one who
Speaker 1: visited most, gave him money for the commissary, and helped
Speaker 1: him with his court case. When I explained the length
Speaker 1: Scott's going through to get their dad's gun back, Mary
Speaker 1: becomes emotional. The whole thing reminds her of a story
Speaker 1: from when they were kids. Mary, Scott, and their dad
Speaker 1: had gone out shopping.
Speaker 5: He accidentally still a bookmark from the store, just because
Speaker 5: he thought we'd paid for it.
Speaker 10: And we hadn't, and he cried all the way home
Speaker 10: and made us go all the way back to the
Speaker 10: store almost an hour away, to return it.
Speaker 1: Mary still sees her little brother as the same well
Speaker 1: meaning kid who's trying to make things right. She's not
Speaker 1: sure she has the bringback papers, but wants to help,
Speaker 1: so over the weekend she digs through their grandfather's old stuff.
Speaker 1: She finds wartime postcards, letters to their grandmother, photos of
Speaker 1: their grandfather and his army buddies huddled in fox holes.
Speaker 10: And then she found the actual document the bringback papers.
Speaker 1: Holy cow, Okay, so what and.
Speaker 3: By now it's pretty crazy?
Speaker 10: Yeah, but yellowing with it almost looks like it as
Speaker 10: a coffee stains right through the metal. And then it
Speaker 10: has just written in underneath it Luger pistol cerial number
Speaker 10: four five nine.
Speaker 1: Wow, Hi Giovanni, how are you, Johnson? I'm good. How
Speaker 1: are you? I'm doing well, doing well. I get Giovanni's
Speaker 1: number from another gun dealer who tells me that if
Speaker 1: I'm looking for a World War two era luger, Giovanni
Speaker 1: is my man. Giovanni owns one of Colorado's largest historical
Speaker 1: firearm shops and is something of an expert in lugers,
Speaker 1: and so armed with the serial number, I get ready
Speaker 1: to make some headway. The serial number is four or
Speaker 1: five nine.
Speaker 3: Okay, No, you have any incomplete synumer.
Speaker 1: Giovanni explains that lugers serial numbers have both numbers and letters,
Speaker 1: so there could be a four five nine, A four
Speaker 1: five nine B and so on. I re examined the
Speaker 1: scan Scott sent me, but no letter. How many four
Speaker 1: five nine serial number guns are there? Probably out there?
Speaker 3: Lugers probably about.
Speaker 10: It could be one hundred.
Speaker 1: Hoping to narrow the pool. I tell Giovanni it wasn't
Speaker 1: just any luger, it was a mouser. Does that give
Speaker 1: you an event? Okay? So in giving you that serial number,
Speaker 1: it's not like you can look it up in a
Speaker 1: database or anything.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely no.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 1: What would you do if you were trying to track
Speaker 1: down this gun?
Speaker 3: I will give up.
Speaker 1: Before hanging up, Giovanni says, there's one last thing we
Speaker 1: could try, retracing the gun's path. Go back to the
Speaker 1: pawnshop clerk to see if he has a record of
Speaker 1: who he sold the gun to. Giovanni says, the clerk
Speaker 1: has no obligation to reveal that information, but it's worth
Speaker 1: a shot. The clerk's name is George, and he and
Speaker 1: Scott were friendly back when Scott was living with his dad.
Speaker 1: They're still connected on Facebook. So Scott messages asking if
Speaker 1: George might be willing to talk to us, and George says.
Speaker 10: Yes, and then he calls me back a couple minutes later,
Speaker 10: just in tears.
Speaker 1: It turns out that when George bought the gun from
Speaker 1: Scott eight years ago, he intended to keep it for
Speaker 1: himself at the time, George and his wife were expecting
Speaker 1: a baby.
Speaker 10: And about two weeks after I had sold him that gun,
Speaker 10: he found out his wife had brain cancer.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, like really aggressive.
Speaker 10: Brain cancer, and she ended up having to go undergo
Speaker 10: really aggressive radiation, and so because of that, they ended
Speaker 10: up losing the baby.
Speaker 1: Just months after buying the gun from Scott, George sold
Speaker 1: it to pay for his wife's medical bills, and.
Speaker 10: Then she passed away a number of months after that.
Speaker 10: And it just brings up these kind of horrible memories
Speaker 10: that he's trying to avoid diving back into.
Speaker 1: Each time the gun has changed hands, it seems it's
Speaker 1: been in the midst of violence, desperation, and personal tragedy. Well,
Speaker 1: George doesn't want to talk. He does remember the name
Speaker 1: of the person he sold the gun to, the owner
Speaker 1: of a rare coin and gold boullion shop, a man
Speaker 1: named Klaus.
Speaker 5: I just keep my collecting interest private. You know, some
Speaker 5: people think just because you buy Nazi guns that you
Speaker 5: are na seen.
Speaker 1: When I first phone Klaus at his store, he's reluctant
Speaker 1: to talk. He's nervous about being judged for his hobby.
Speaker 5: I'm a collector, but you know, some people associated collecting
Speaker 5: World War two German memorabilia with, you know, Nazism.
Speaker 1: I reassure Klaus that that's not what I think, But
Speaker 1: over the course of our phone call, I become less
Speaker 1: sure of what I think.
Speaker 5: I have a Luger serial number seven. What makes it
Speaker 5: so interesting that Hitler's party pen number was number seven,
Speaker 5: so he was, you know, the party member number seven.
Speaker 5: I have a number seven Luger.
Speaker 1: How did you acquire something like that?
Speaker 5: I have some things that are very, very unusual, you know,
Speaker 5: I came I'm an immigrant.
Speaker 8: I came from Germany.
Speaker 5: My grandfather was a Nazi officer, and my father was
Speaker 5: was in the youth.
Speaker 1: I have many questions for Klaus. First and foremost, why
Speaker 1: are you telling me Jonathan Goldstein about your familial ties
Speaker 1: to the Nazis? But I'm not here to interrogate Klaus.
Speaker 1: I'm here to find Scott's gun. So I try to
Speaker 1: steer us back on track. I tell Klaus that I'm
Speaker 1: calling on behalf of a man named Scott, whose grandfather
Speaker 1: once owned a Mauser Luger that George sold to him
Speaker 1: some years ago. Klaus tells me that's not possible. He
Speaker 1: tells me he never bought a gun from George. He
Speaker 1: doesn't even know who George is. And besides, he says
Speaker 1: he's never owned a Mauser Luger. Maybe you're mistaken, I say,
Speaker 1: all these guns kind of look alike, black, shiny, shooty.
Speaker 1: Maybe you lost track of it, maybe it fell behind
Speaker 1: the couch. Klaus tells me he'll look around, but he's
Speaker 1: non committal, just trying to get me off the phone.
Speaker 1: Then at eleven thirteen PM, I get a text, Hello Jonathan.
Speaker 1: It reads call me at your convenience, and speaking of convenience,
Speaker 1: no need to so much as move a muscle, because
Speaker 1: I'm about to march right over there and dump a
Speaker 1: truckload of savings directly onto your face. Discu Hey, this
Speaker 1: is Jonathan Goldstein speaking. How are you well. I have
Speaker 1: some news for you. I found the gun.
Speaker 11: What Yeah, are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: No, are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 7: Oh my god?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 7: You found it?
Speaker 9: Yes?
Speaker 10: Wow, Yeah, I'm blown away.
Speaker 1: It's a matter of whether we'll be able to get it. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's still in Klaus's possession.
Speaker 7: So did you talk to him?
Speaker 1: I did, and uh, it was an interesting conversation. So
Speaker 1: you found you found the gun.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I was surprised last night. It took
Speaker 5: a look and I went into my vault room and
Speaker 5: I found it.
Speaker 1: The luger was still in the original holster. Attached to
Speaker 1: it was a tag with Scott's grandfather's name. Would you
Speaker 1: be open to, uh, the idea of selling it back
Speaker 1: to him?
Speaker 5: Well, my first thought is probably not. It's just that
Speaker 5: I legally purchased the gun. And I mean I'm a collector,
Speaker 5: and you know I paid for it.
Speaker 1: So I mean, would you would you say that his
Speaker 1: grandfather paid for it with his service?
Speaker 5: I mean it's war bounty that someone brought over from Germany.
Speaker 5: You know, he didn't pay for it.
Speaker 1: From Claus's perspective, the gun Scott stole was already stolen property.
Speaker 5: He took it off as a German officer. And you know,
Speaker 5: as we spoke prior, my grandfather was an officer in
Speaker 5: World War Two, and you know, my thoughts were chia,
Speaker 5: you know, could that gun been his? At this point,
Speaker 5: I'm not really compelled to let go of the gun,
Speaker 5: but I still give it some thoughts.
Speaker 1: So the way that we left it was u He
Speaker 1: said that he'd think about it.
Speaker 7: Okay, Well, I won't start celebrating yet, but we know
Speaker 7: who has it, we know where it is, so now
Speaker 7: it's just kind of tactfully figuring out what it's going
Speaker 7: to take to get it back.
Speaker 1: I really do respect your optimism. I don't think we're
Speaker 1: going to get the gun back. Personally, I'm gonna try.
Speaker 3: We're going to get that gun.
Speaker 1: Since Scott's not ready to admit defeat, I suggest he
Speaker 1: tried making his case directly to Klaus in a letter,
Speaker 1: So Scott writes from the heart. He explains the full
Speaker 1: story of his addiction, his time in jail, and his
Speaker 1: guilt about his dad. My greatest regret was that I
Speaker 1: would never be able to get this heirloom back in
Speaker 1: the hands of my father, Scott writes, But now, for
Speaker 1: the first time, that seems like a possibility. Eight years ago,
Speaker 1: I was so addicted to heroin that I was pretty
Speaker 1: sure I was going to die. That fact has since
Speaker 1: been replaced with another, more hope filled one second chances
Speaker 1: are real. Klaus receives the letter but offers no response.
Speaker 1: Two weeks go by and still we hear nothing, so
Speaker 1: I send another email. Klaus's answer is short. I have
Speaker 1: considered Scott's response, and I have decided to not sell
Speaker 1: the gun at this time. If my position ever changes,
Speaker 1: I will contact you.
Speaker 11: Klaus.
Speaker 7: That's just ridiculous.
Speaker 8: Settling on the fact that we know where it is
Speaker 8: and not getting it back.
Speaker 3: That's just like super frustrating.
Speaker 7: I mean, there's got to be something we can do.
Speaker 1: Scott says he's willing to pay whatever Klaus wants for
Speaker 1: the gun. So again, I contact Klaus. It's not a
Speaker 1: money issue. Klaus responds almost immediately, I'm just not interested
Speaker 1: in selling a gun to an individual. I can't figure
Speaker 1: out what exactly Klaus means by an individual. Maybe in
Speaker 1: the past he sold guns to organizations or museums. When
Speaker 1: I write him back, he responds with this, based on
Speaker 1: the background information, I would not sell this gun back
Speaker 1: to Scott. So it's not really an individual per se,
Speaker 1: it's this individual. Scott's letter hadn't made Klaus feel sympathetic.
Speaker 1: It made him feel nervous. Like with Scott's criminal past,
Speaker 1: A gun and a second chance might not make for
Speaker 1: a great combo. If there was any hope, it's now gone. Well,
Speaker 1: I have an update update Okay. A couple days later,
Speaker 1: I catch Scott at work. Yeah, I have another update.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, it looks like Klaus is willing to sell
Speaker 1: the gun.
Speaker 7: Ah, you're kidding me.
Speaker 1: No, you were right. Oh, you were right to be hopeful.
Speaker 1: I did not think that I was going to be
Speaker 1: reporting this back to you.
Speaker 3: What brought it about? What changed his mind?
Speaker 1: I'd asked Klaus the same question. It seemed as though
Speaker 1: over the weekend you had a change of heart.
Speaker 5: I figured you were going to haunt me until I
Speaker 5: finally get it back to the guy.
Speaker 1: I probably would.
Speaker 5: I just thought, you know, it seems like the guy
Speaker 5: really wanted that item back. So yeah, I just didn't
Speaker 5: want to be haunted about it.
Speaker 7: So oh, I can't even believe it.
Speaker 1: But there was still one thing that Klaus hadn't changed
Speaker 1: his mind about, And I feel bad having to tell Scott.
Speaker 1: He is saying that he is willing to sell the gun,
Speaker 1: but he won't sell it to you. Klaus doesn't trust Scott.
Speaker 1: Bottom line, I mean, he doesn't know me.
Speaker 8: He doesn't know that it's become a contributing member of society.
Speaker 1: After everything Scott's done to redeem himself, the rehab, the
Speaker 1: good works, Klaus's judgment stings, but Scott gets it. It's
Speaker 1: something he's experienced before, people accusing him of theft when
Speaker 1: things go missing, women breaking things off when they learn
Speaker 1: he was once an addict. The world still sees Scott
Speaker 1: as a bad bet, but he sweeps aside his feelings
Speaker 1: to address the more pressing question, who can we get
Speaker 1: to buy the gun? The first person that comes to
Speaker 1: my mind is the person who's always believed in Scott most.
Speaker 1: What about your sister?
Speaker 8: Yeah, absolutely, now, she would be totally open and willing
Speaker 8: to do that.
Speaker 7: Oh, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: Well, it looks like we're going to be buying a gun.
Speaker 8: Let's buy a gun.
Speaker 1: That's right, except we don't. After looking into Colorado's complicated
Speaker 1: gun laws, we learn that because Mary's not a full
Speaker 1: time Colorado resident, it's illegal for her to buy the gun,
Speaker 1: so we discuss options. Scott's could buy it and give
Speaker 1: it to his dad, but that's also illegal in Colorado.
Speaker 1: Only blood relatives can gift each other guns. We consider
Speaker 1: Uncle Bill totally legal, but Scott's worried he'd buy it
Speaker 1: and then want to keep it for himself. Out of
Speaker 1: viable family members, we consider getting a middleman to buy
Speaker 1: the gun from Klaus, then sell it to Scott, who
Speaker 1: can then give it to his dad. But as it
Speaker 1: turns out, there's a term for this, a straw purchase,
Speaker 1: and it's a federal felony. It's been nearly two weeks
Speaker 1: of phone calls with Scott, with lawyers with the Colorado
Speaker 1: Firearms Unit, and with each passing day, I become increasingly
Speaker 1: nervous about Klaus changing his mind. So I present Scott
Speaker 1: with what might be our last remaining option, his dad Win.
Speaker 1: Scott falls silent for the first time in the course
Speaker 1: of this quest. He seems defeated. Thought of placing his father, Win,
Speaker 1: the man afraid of the crack voiced pizza boy, in
Speaker 1: a room with Klaus, the man with the gun vault
Speaker 1: and the luger that may or may not have belonged
Speaker 1: to Adolf Hitler, makes him wonder if maybe it's all
Speaker 1: just gone too far. But at this point it's the
Speaker 1: only way to get the gun, so Scott agrees Win
Speaker 1: will buy the luger. After the break, Win and Klaus.
Speaker 3: Hello.
Speaker 1: Scott and his dad Win meet me on the way
Speaker 1: to see Klaus. Mary's here too, She's come along for support.
Speaker 1: Klaus told us to meet him at a gun shop.
Speaker 1: He knows where they can run the necessary background check.
Speaker 1: We all get into Scott's.
Speaker 9: Car, people with microphones and stuff.
Speaker 1: Scott's dad, Win is seated up front. He's brought along
Speaker 1: the luger's empty case, which sits on his lap. When
Speaker 1: is bride eyed and smiley, but knowing from Scott how
Speaker 1: shy and nervous his dad can be, gives his jolliness
Speaker 1: a slightly forced quality. A road work case in point,
Speaker 1: when our eta gets pushed back due to roadwork, Win
Speaker 1: bursts into song, Oh work here? Or this is when
Speaker 1: as Scott tells us about his day's pretty dark day,
Speaker 1: when is the one giggling in the background.
Speaker 8: Four people into detox programs this morning, So a lot
Speaker 8: of distraught parents and overdosing teenagers to deal with this morning.
Speaker 2: The destination is on your land.
Speaker 1: Maybe you can even pull in. Oh what is a
Speaker 1: private party? We pull into a parking lot and we
Speaker 1: all get out of the car, all except for Scott.
Speaker 1: After the way Klaus responded to his letter, He's afraid
Speaker 1: if he goes in he'll blow the whole deal.
Speaker 9: We'll be right back.
Speaker 11: Cool, well, have fun.
Speaker 9: Yes, all right?
Speaker 1: From behind the windshield, Scott watches as his father ambles
Speaker 1: towards the gun shop, empty gun case in his hand.
Speaker 1: I can imagine how Scott's feeling. Scott already believes he's
Speaker 1: failed his dad in so many ways, Sending him to
Speaker 1: buy back his own gun in a rundown looking gun
Speaker 1: shop with bars on the windows must feel like one
Speaker 1: more failing. Let's buy ourselves a gun. Time to buy
Speaker 1: a gun. At the door, a large man wearing sunglasses
Speaker 1: and a holstered gun silently greets us wind Ducks. Inside
Speaker 1: walls and shelves of the gun shop are full of
Speaker 1: Nazi metals, Nazi helmets, Nazi hats, belts, uniforms, guns, and
Speaker 1: Swastika armbands. And at the center of it all is Klaus,
Speaker 1: who is at present chummily talking to a large tattooed
Speaker 1: clerk with a white goatee. They quiet down when Win,
Speaker 1: Mary and I approach. Klaus appears to be in his sixties.
Speaker 1: He's a slight man with thinning, slick back hair. Winn
Speaker 1: walks over, smiling nervously as Klaus turns to greet him,
Speaker 1: and then the grandson of a Nazi officer shakes hands
Speaker 1: with the son of an American soldier. As Mary and
Speaker 1: Klaus introduce themselves, I adjust the levels on my recorder.
Speaker 1: The goateed man has a look about him that says
Speaker 1: I don't listen to podcasts just the same. I take
Speaker 1: a deep breath, scoop my testes out of my MPR
Speaker 1: tote bag, and, in my best vocal approximation of Ira Glass,
Speaker 1: demand my journalistic rights. Uh. And would it be okay
Speaker 1: if we were to be recording for the thing they
Speaker 1: we're doing in the background?
Speaker 5: Absolutely not okay, Absolutely no.
Speaker 1: Cut it. The luger sits on a glass display counter.
Speaker 1: Winn walks over. That's it, he says, his father took
Speaker 1: it off of my grandfather. Klaus jokes to the goateed
Speaker 1: man the gun is pristine. Mary and I take turns
Speaker 1: holding it. It's heavier than we expect. Win hands a
Speaker 1: driver's license over for the background check. While we wait,
Speaker 1: there's an awkward silence. I consider asking if anyone seen
Speaker 1: Mama Mia too. Here we go again, and if so,
Speaker 1: whether they thought the closing super Trooper number at the
Speaker 1: Hotel Belladonna was a bit much. But before I can
Speaker 1: clear my throat of anxiety, mucus, the background check is complete.
Speaker 1: After all the hoopla. It took all of ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Wind gives Klaus the money, and Klaus gives Win the gun.
Speaker 1: For perhaps the first time ever, the luger changes hands
Speaker 1: without incident. Klaus watches as Winn carefully places the gun
Speaker 1: back into its case. Don't let it get out of
Speaker 1: the family anymore, he says, as the goated man watches
Speaker 1: us Wind our way to the exit. On the ride back,
Speaker 1: everyone is quiet. I imagine Scott is feeling relief, Mary
Speaker 1: Pride and her brother, but watching Win in the front seat,
Speaker 1: staring out the window, gun case at his feet, it's
Speaker 1: hard to say what he's feeling.
Speaker 8: God, this is crazy to see.
Speaker 1: At Mary's apartment, we all have around the dining room table,
Speaker 1: Scott's grandfather's gun has been placed at the center. Scott
Speaker 1: and Mary marvel at it, but I'm amazed at the
Speaker 1: tag is still on it. Yeah, and it has a number.
Speaker 8: Four or five nine. Look at that.
Speaker 2: This is crazy.
Speaker 8: You understand how crazy this is.
Speaker 1: If Winn does understand how crazy it is, it's hard
Speaker 1: to tell. There's something muted about his response. In fact,
Speaker 1: since we've entered the apartment, Wind hasn't seemed interested in
Speaker 1: his father's gun at all. When Scott asks him if
Speaker 1: he'd like to hold it, he declines, well, Scott and
Speaker 1: Mary passed their grandfather's gun between them. Winn sits silently.
Speaker 1: I tried to draw him out. Did you put any
Speaker 1: hopes in ever getting that gun back?
Speaker 9: I thought it was unfortunate that this appeared, but I
Speaker 9: pusn't saying darn. I wish I could find that gun.
Speaker 9: It's just a material of object.
Speaker 1: No one is sure what to say. Sure, it's a
Speaker 1: material object, but it's a material object that carries great meaning.
Speaker 1: It's a material object that connects him to his dad.
Speaker 9: I was not as close to my dad as I
Speaker 9: would like to have been, the guy with a glass
Speaker 9: of Scotch whiskey in his hands, sitting in the easy chair,
Speaker 9: tossing out criticisms as needed. The way you grow a
Speaker 9: better son is to criticize.
Speaker 1: Him for the first time all day when isn't cracking
Speaker 1: a silly joke or smiling.
Speaker 9: My main memory of my dad was being afraid of him. Remember,
Speaker 9: one of my early memories is that I'd somehow succeeded
Speaker 9: in getting a bruised bone on my shin, and I
Speaker 9: was like three years old, and my mother was sufficient
Speaker 9: concerned that she took me to the doctor and had
Speaker 9: an X rayed, and it was, oh, how in the
Speaker 9: world did little teddy that was me then get a
Speaker 9: bruise on his bone? And I think what it is
Speaker 9: is that I think I got kicked by a guy
Speaker 9: wearing size twelve wingtips.
Speaker 1: Scott's never heard this story before, and it seems almost
Speaker 1: like he doesn't want to believe it.
Speaker 8: Were there good parts about your relationship with him, if
Speaker 8: you had to name, if.
Speaker 9: I had to name, hmmm, I don't know. He was
Speaker 9: just kind of scary all the time.
Speaker 1: Wynn explains that his relationship with his father wasn't the
Speaker 1: same as Bill's relationship with their father.
Speaker 9: I think I felt criticized mostly for not being as
Speaker 9: good as my brother. He always did well in school,
Speaker 9: and I wasn't always so wondrous, and I always saw
Speaker 9: myself as a little more plump and a little less at.
Speaker 1: The Bill was always the louder voice in the room.
Speaker 1: So that Christmas, when Bill lectured Scott about the significance
Speaker 1: of the luger, Scott had assumed Bill was speaking for
Speaker 1: his dad too, But he wasn't.
Speaker 8: I saw it as this treasured possession that linked to
Speaker 8: you to the good parts of Grandpa. But your relationship
Speaker 8: with him is complicated and different than I even knew.
Speaker 1: Scott was right in believing that the gun was a
Speaker 1: reminder of Win's father, and that it carried a lot
Speaker 1: of meaning for Win. He just misunderstood the nature of
Speaker 1: that meaning. To know that Scott had been thinking about
Speaker 1: it all these years, even maybe past year, having thought
Speaker 1: about it, how does that make you feel?
Speaker 9: It makes me feel loved that he would make it
Speaker 9: a part of his life to try to track it down.
Speaker 9: It feels like maybe I was at least partially successful
Speaker 9: in not being like my dad. Yeah, that I was
Speaker 9: somebody he could run over to and climb up in
Speaker 9: the lap of when he was little and stick his
Speaker 9: fingers up my nose. He used to like to do that.
Speaker 9: I could never stick my fingers up my dad's nose.
Speaker 1: Wynn looks over at his son.
Speaker 9: Don't let it bother you anymore. The greatest prize that
Speaker 9: I got out of this whole thing was the fact that,
Speaker 9: even though all this crap disappeared, I got to get
Speaker 9: my boy back. The funeral plot that I had bought
Speaker 9: for myself to be next to your mom. I thought
Speaker 9: I was going to have to bury my sons in it,
Speaker 9: and I am delighted that I never had to do that.
Speaker 9: That's ever so much better.
Speaker 1: Maybe eight years ago, during Wind's visit to Scott in jail,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the missing gun that had made him cry.
Speaker 1: It was missing his son. But now the gun tells
Speaker 1: a different story.
Speaker 9: The gun has grown, so it's not just my dad anymore.
Speaker 9: It has a whole story to tell about my son.
Speaker 9: And it's back returned by this guy here. Thank you
Speaker 9: for doing all that.
Speaker 1: Of course, a few weeks later, I get this text
Speaker 1: from Scott the other night. It reads, I stumbled upon
Speaker 1: a World War II documentary and for the first time
Speaker 1: in eight years, Scott didn't changed the channel.
Speaker 6: Now that the fern ures raft turned into its goodwill home,
Speaker 6: Now that the last month's raft is stealing with the
Speaker 6: damaged pos.
Speaker 1: Take this moment to dissolve.
Speaker 2: If we mess him, if we talk.
Speaker 1: The things that accident. Hey Scott, Scott, I'm good.
Speaker 10: How are you?
Speaker 9: Yes?
Speaker 1: Good and good. This is kind of suiting that we're
Speaker 1: out of sync. This is exactly what happened during our
Speaker 1: first interview. Do you remember I remember that is suiting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to catch up with you and see
Speaker 1: what's changed.
Speaker 11: I mean, the biggest changes is my my dad passing away.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry to hear this.
Speaker 7: Thank you.
Speaker 11: I mean, it's it was truly in his style of
Speaker 11: how he let us know that he had lever cancer
Speaker 11: was a group text message and the words were, I
Speaker 11: have terminal cancer and there's nothing that they say it
Speaker 11: can do. Very sad news. Oh no, kind of a thing.
Speaker 11: And that was in alignment with his wanting to avoid
Speaker 11: talking over the phone.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He wouldn't even talk with the pizza delivery guy.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 12: And and so then it was, yeah, it was.
Speaker 11: It was about a year, a little little over a
Speaker 11: year from what he sent out that mass text that
Speaker 11: he passed away.
Speaker 1: Do you think that returning the luger changed your relationship
Speaker 1: with your dad in his last years.
Speaker 11: Our relationship opened up on a much deeper level after this,
Speaker 11: And I mean that's the full circle part.
Speaker 12: Of it is you go back to, you know, those
Speaker 12: early days, my dad changing the locks on his house.
Speaker 12: So you go from that fear of me to cut
Speaker 12: to fifteen years later, I was the only person with
Speaker 12: a key to his house. I was the one that
Speaker 12: was at his bedside all throughout him declining through this disease,
Speaker 12: and then I was the executor of his estate, Like
Speaker 12: I'm the one combing through and looking through all of
Speaker 12: these things to figure out what sentimental belongings to hold
Speaker 12: on to and what to let go of.
Speaker 1: Where is the gun now?
Speaker 11: After my dad was diagnosed, he had offered the gun
Speaker 11: to me, Oh, and he said, I would like you
Speaker 11: to have this just because of all of the work
Speaker 11: and everything you did to get it back, But it
Speaker 11: meant so much more to my uncle, you know.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so it's actually uncle Bill who has the gun now.
Speaker 1: Scott, thank you so much for talking.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Thanks to everyone who helped put this episode together.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with another Encore presentation and
Speaker 1: along with it, another update from our guest