Speaker 1: Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio previously on
Speaker 1: Murder in Miami. On June twentieth of nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 1: drug smuggler Lamar Chester was killed in a plane crash
Speaker 1: on his property in rural northern Georgia.
Speaker 2: Lamar Chester died in a very strange plane crash.
Speaker 3: And when you look back at a nonsensical really that
Speaker 3: they could have come to any sort of conclusions about
Speaker 3: the cause of the crash in less than twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: At the time, the initial explanation for the crash was
Speaker 1: that the plane had run out of fuel.
Speaker 3: One of their agents, Frank Baker Junior, was on the
Speaker 3: scene almost immediately. He had to be there when the
Speaker 3: plane went down. Among those who considered it more than
Speaker 3: just suspicious was Lamar's best friend, Ron Elliott, who was
Speaker 3: at the ranch at the Chicken Farm in North Georgia
Speaker 3: the night before the crash.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you have a coroner's a quest, particularly given
Speaker 1: the circumstances.
Speaker 4: They wanted to see the body, and when they opened
Speaker 4: the casket, the body had already been crea made.
Speaker 1: So what happened to the plane? The wreckage?
Speaker 3: The plane was gone and all that was left was
Speaker 3: an oil spot on the floor.
Speaker 1: Hello, Lauren, So I have an update. Okay, Detective Denmark
Speaker 1: was able to track down Clay Williams medical records and
Speaker 1: he actually has the file.
Speaker 5: No kidding. What'd you find out?
Speaker 1: Well? A lot more than expected. Turns out that we're
Speaker 1: not the only ones who were interested in tracking down
Speaker 1: that file.
Speaker 5: Now that is interesting. Who I was cared about it?
Speaker 1: Multiple government agencies, fill multiple ones. I'm Lauren brat Pacheco
Speaker 1: and this is the final episode of Murder in Miami.
Speaker 1: Six months after I'd submitted a formal request for information
Speaker 1: regarding the murder of Clay Williams, Miami Dade cold case,
Speaker 1: Detective David Denmark reached out with news he'd located the
Speaker 1: medical report.
Speaker 6: We always hope that we're going to find something in
Speaker 6: it to be complete, but we understand when it's not
Speaker 6: because of the workload that's put on each case. We
Speaker 6: want to find everything, but if we can't, we'll take
Speaker 6: any little piece of that case because then we can
Speaker 6: explore a different avenue of that information we have, and
Speaker 6: the medical examiner is one of those sources. But we
Speaker 6: always hope to find the entire five and everything that
Speaker 6: was put in there.
Speaker 1: In this case, apparently we got lucky. Okay, Now, once
Speaker 1: you got your hands on Clay Williams medical records, what
Speaker 1: immediately popped out as useful for you pictures.
Speaker 6: Pictures is huge. I would tell you it's in my opinion,
Speaker 6: but I think a lot of other investigators want to
Speaker 6: see what's going on. And you could study a picture
Speaker 6: of pictures one hundred times, and every time you receive
Speaker 6: information outside of those pictures, either from a file, a
Speaker 6: piece of paper, a witness, anything that regards that case,
Speaker 6: that picture changes for you. Where you were not looking
Speaker 6: for something in the background, information by reviewing the file
Speaker 6: may point your eyes in that direction, and now you
Speaker 6: have a picture that contains a very important piece of evidence.
Speaker 1: And so what kind of pictures were included in Clay's file?
Speaker 6: Those were that of the landscape, which was a flooded
Speaker 6: area beyond southwest two hundred and seventeenth Avenue, which is
Speaker 6: way out west Everglades. Basically, it gives the waterways and
Speaker 6: then it gives the horrifying look of a torsto that
Speaker 6: has been mutilated by alligators and affected by the sun
Speaker 6: and being decomposed. So those pictures bring all that to light, pictures.
Speaker 1: That were likely the same one shown to Phil Stamford
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 6: And again when you read it into someone's investigative rite up,
Speaker 6: it's different when you're reading it and looking at the
Speaker 6: picture that they're describing, because words can't describe what we
Speaker 6: see and how bodies are mutilated and decomposed. The detective
Speaker 6: does their best to point out injuries and possible injuries,
Speaker 6: and in this case, the key thing is which brings
Speaker 6: the medical examiner on board is that the detective will
Speaker 6: point to puncture wounds in the sk of this person,
Speaker 6: and we think, as investigators, gets a gunshot wounds, so
Speaker 6: maybe this person was shot in the head, But the
Speaker 6: medical examiner, being the people they are, say no, this
Speaker 6: was actually puncture wounds from an alligator. Through that helps
Speaker 6: out a lot, because now we know he wasn't shot
Speaker 6: in the head. Those were alligator markings of the alligator
Speaker 6: biting his head.
Speaker 1: The file also contained a small clipping from the Sunday,
Speaker 1: October fourth edition of the Miami Herald, under the headline
Speaker 1: body found in flooded glades may be missing. Private detective
Speaker 1: quote a mutilated, decomposed body discovered by Florida National Guardsmen
Speaker 1: in a flooded East Everglades area maybe the remains of
Speaker 1: a missing private detective, police said Saturday. There's no way
Speaker 1: to recognize him, said Metro homicide detective John Parmenter. The
Speaker 1: body was mutilated by alligators and probably run over by
Speaker 1: trucks unquote. Article goes on to mention that the nude
Speaker 1: body was found floating in two to three feet of
Speaker 1: water by guardsmen while providing flood relief aid to residence. Initially,
Speaker 1: they believed the body to be an animal carcass, but
Speaker 1: upon closer inspection realized it was human. Quote. I think
Speaker 1: he was killed and dumped, said Parmenter, though we may never,
Speaker 1: because of the body's condition, be able to prove how
Speaker 1: he was killed unquote. The article also mentions the remains
Speaker 1: were believed to be those of a white man six
Speaker 1: foot or taller, but that dental records would be utilized
Speaker 1: to identify the victim and the possibility that it could
Speaker 1: be a missing private detective. It concludes with the sentence
Speaker 1: that quote police would not release the name of the
Speaker 1: private detective unquote, but it would seem that by nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty three, many others were aware of Clay William's name.
Speaker 6: By reviewing the medical examined report, we found out that
Speaker 6: there's at least four or five different agencies that were involved,
Speaker 6: to include fd LEE, US customs Irs, Marshalls, and of
Speaker 6: course Miami Dad or Metro daid back then, which will
Speaker 6: always raise an eyebrow on the detective's part, actually everybody's part,
Speaker 6: because they start understanding the amount of people and different
Speaker 6: agencies that are involved. The medical exambler or someone that
Speaker 6: was in control of that file would document as notes
Speaker 6: came in and agencies were calling in and saying, hey,
Speaker 6: you know what happened? Who is it? Is it probably identified?
Speaker 6: This is something that definitely again raised another eyebrow that
Speaker 6: who's inquiring, why are they inquiring and what kind of
Speaker 6: information do they want? Something was special about this case.
Speaker 6: You know, someone gets killed on the side of the road,
Speaker 6: You're not going to have so many agencies looking into
Speaker 6: it unless they were involved in something deeper that we
Speaker 6: don't know about.
Speaker 1: Here's Phil Stanford.
Speaker 3: I think that it's because Leslie was talking to the
Speaker 3: grand jury about and it looked like Clay's death might
Speaker 3: be connected to Lamar and these agencies I had no idea.
Speaker 3: There were so many of them wanted to get in
Speaker 3: on it, see what was there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, David Denmark said that as a detective, that raises
Speaker 1: a lot of eyebrows, and suddenly this is much more
Speaker 1: valuable and interesting than anybody thought. I'm going to turn
Speaker 1: over everything that I've accumulated during the research of all
Speaker 1: of this to the Miami Dade Cold Case Division. I
Speaker 1: think that they will utilize it. They might be able
Speaker 1: to close out the Clay Williams case based on what
Speaker 1: we've uncovered, which would be closure to his family because
Speaker 1: even if Chester wasn't personally responsible for the murder, he
Speaker 1: was aware that it had happened, and looks like he
Speaker 1: was aware that had happened before the body was even found.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's certainly a possibility.
Speaker 3: A lot of that depends on Leslie's recollection of the dates,
Speaker 3: and that's going to be hard for them to pin down.
Speaker 3: But I know the family would like to know what
Speaker 3: happened to Clay.
Speaker 1: But if Leslie's recollection is accurate, it would support the
Speaker 1: likelihood Chester and Bob Adams were aware of the murder
Speaker 1: of Clay Williams before his body was even found. Which
Speaker 1: adds additional weight to Phil's initial interactions with Bob at intercept.
Speaker 1: Having an investigative reporter call and then show up in
Speaker 1: person asking for a man they might have just gotten
Speaker 1: rid of days after his murder would likely have been
Speaker 1: rather unnerving, and given Phil's Washington slash political resume, possibly
Speaker 1: played into their mistaken belief Phil was actually with the CIA,
Speaker 1: speaking of which the number of agencies interested in the
Speaker 1: autopsy of Clay Williams the number of agencies lamar Chester
Speaker 1: claimed in the press to have worked with, including the CIA,
Speaker 1: the DEA, US Air Force Intelligence, US Naval Intelligence, and
Speaker 1: the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I did make a request
Speaker 1: through the Freedom of Information Act slash Privacy Act inquiring
Speaker 1: as to any files involving lamar Chester or Clay Williams.
Speaker 1: The DEA determination letter I received back States regarding your
Speaker 1: request for records on Baines, Clayton Williams, and Tilton lamar
Speaker 1: Chester Junior. Please be advised that we have decided to
Speaker 1: neither confirm nor deny the existence of such records, pursuant
Speaker 1: to various exemptions that they go on to list and
Speaker 1: stating that quote this is our standard response to such
Speaker 1: requests and should not be taken to mean the records
Speaker 1: do or do not exist. Unquote, in light of the
Speaker 1: number of agencies interested in the autopsy of Clay Williams,
Speaker 1: and agencies Chester had spoken on record about being involved with,
Speaker 1: it's interesting to revisit the observation made by Clay's friend
Speaker 1: Ted about the computers at Intercept.
Speaker 7: He introduced me to Bob Adams and another fellow there,
Speaker 7: and I had understood from Clay that these were former
Speaker 7: intelligence people from the federal government, whether it's CIA, army intelligence,
Speaker 7: and they had what I thought was an awfully large
Speaker 7: computer setup. I just was impressed that such a small
Speaker 7: office would have such a an enormous setup for computers.
Speaker 7: I don't know what these guys accessed.
Speaker 1: But the prosecutors in Operation Lone Star had a definite
Speaker 1: theory Intercepts computers would pop up in the transcripts and
Speaker 1: connection with the allegation that Chester might attempt to obstruct
Speaker 1: their investigation, stating that quote, mister Chester and mister Adams
Speaker 1: had discussed the purchase of a computer that would be
Speaker 1: used to tap into their various federal law enforcement agencies,
Speaker 1: and that such an advanced computer was apparently purchased for
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars. Does the name Intercept strike you, particularly
Speaker 1: since they all had such a sardonic sense of humor.
Speaker 1: Do you think that that was just a random name
Speaker 1: that they chose, or do you think there may have
Speaker 1: been more behind the name Intercept Now looking back.
Speaker 3: Oh, I think that they tried to pick a name
Speaker 3: that made them sound competent and somewhat mys serious. I
Speaker 3: don't see too much behind it. There may be, but
Speaker 3: I don't know if there is.
Speaker 1: I did think it was interesting, though, that the prosecution
Speaker 1: at one point claimed that Chester and Adams were trying
Speaker 1: to break into other agencies computers to interfere with the investigation.
Speaker 5: Oh, I'm sure they were.
Speaker 3: I don't doubt that Bob was up trying to do
Speaker 3: everything like he could find out about the investigation.
Speaker 5: That's that's Bob.
Speaker 1: Technology under understanding of its capabilities has obviously evolved, and
Speaker 1: Happy Miles says, so has our views on drugs, especially cocaine,
Speaker 1: which is why he've used his coconut grove smuggling days
Speaker 1: as a bit more innocent than they may seem today.
Speaker 4: Back in the seventies and mid seventies, cocaine was seen
Speaker 4: in a different light. Cocaine wasn't the addictive drug that
Speaker 4: we found it out to be. It was a high
Speaker 4: end drug for high end earners. The people that were
Speaker 4: using it were doctors, lawyers, businessmen, Wall street people. It
Speaker 4: wasn't looked like it is now. The laws were different
Speaker 4: too back then as far as punishment went. In the beginning,
Speaker 4: it was a different deal. And it was fifty thousand
Speaker 4: dollars a key then now it's fourteen thousand dollars a key.
Speaker 4: So you know, supply and the man, the supply is
Speaker 4: so great thanks to the government and their effort on drugs.
Speaker 4: And all you have to do is look how cricket
Speaker 4: our government's gotten from where it was then it was
Speaker 4: small agents and dea and everything that we're maybe trying
Speaker 4: to make an extra buck. And what have you allowed
Speaker 4: to go on which it has been corruption, corrupts, It
Speaker 4: goes to unbelievable levels until it corrupts obsolute. We're almost
Speaker 4: at a point of no return, we really are.
Speaker 1: You thought at one point there was a way to
Speaker 1: shut it down. Do you think there's any way to
Speaker 1: shut it down anymore?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: Then let her hercu leam cash it would be.
Speaker 1: During the production of this podcast, I was able to
Speaker 1: reconnect Happy with C. B. Hackworth, whose paths had not
Speaker 1: crossed since their initial meeting at the Ritz Carlton, and
Speaker 1: I'm happy to report that the two may collaborate on
Speaker 1: assembling a collection of Happy's adventures during his Adventurers Club
Speaker 1: and cartel days.
Speaker 5: You're a good writer.
Speaker 4: I love what I read all the articles in your
Speaker 4: wrote back when, and.
Speaker 8: I was impressed with them.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm impressed by what I know of your
Speaker 2: adventures and I'm looking forward to hearing more. I'm actually
Speaker 2: ready to come out there.
Speaker 4: So I've got to fence that'll write the forward to
Speaker 4: this thing too.
Speaker 1: Some of those stories will undoubtedly involve Happy's young protege
Speaker 1: of sorts, Jack Devo. If you'll remember, Deveau is now
Speaker 1: in witness protection but ended up testifying against Noriega.
Speaker 4: Yep testsiflied before Congress with a hood in his face, Wow,
Speaker 4: with the black hoodover's head.
Speaker 1: In addition to Clay's murder and Chester's questionable crash, one
Speaker 1: of the enduring mysteries in this Twisting Tail is the
Speaker 1: identity of the informant who turned on Jack Devo.
Speaker 6: Our greatest sale ever Newmark and Lewis's presidential recon.
Speaker 9: We believe this ring is the largest cocaine trafficking ring
Speaker 9: ever organized, said Robert Dempsey, Commissioner of the Florida Department
Speaker 9: of Law Enforcement. The ring was responsible for flying fifteen
Speaker 9: eight hundred and thirty seven pounds of high grade cocaine
Speaker 9: with a street value of two point two billion dollars
Speaker 9: into the United States between June nineteen eighty two and
Speaker 9: November nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1: Happy Miles has long taken great offense at any innu
Speaker 1: that he rolled on devot.
Speaker 4: You gotta remember Jack and I were really good friends.
Speaker 1: Jack didn't know who flipped on him and even asked
Speaker 1: if you'd done it.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Well, of course everybody thinks because of the
Speaker 4: deal I ended up with, and I'm the guy that
Speaker 4: rolled on everybody, which is in true.
Speaker 1: During my research for this podcast, another former smuggler linked
Speaker 1: to the Coconut Grove guys who wishes to remain unnamed,
Speaker 1: sent me two extremely detailed Florida Department of Law Enforcement
Speaker 1: logs from nineteen eighty three, detailing twelve cocaine trips from
Speaker 1: departure the cocaine's origin, Columbia, sight of the offload, and
Speaker 1: point of entry into the US. The level of detail
Speaker 1: was so specific that when I ran them past Happy,
Speaker 1: he assumed they must have come from Devout himself because
Speaker 1: they contained information only someone with access to Ocean Reef,
Speaker 1: the US point of entry for half of the trips
Speaker 1: would have. You were also saying when we spoke about
Speaker 1: the spreadsheet I sent you about the charges of the
Speaker 1: different runs.
Speaker 4: That had to be from a debrief of Jack Devo.
Speaker 4: I'm sure because nobody would have had all that information.
Speaker 4: It was just too detailed.
Speaker 1: Ah, So you attribute all the information on that to.
Speaker 4: Jack, I would say, so, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they certainly had everybody's names and all the details.
Speaker 4: And they have the amount of the load where.
Speaker 1: And so it could be because Chester shows up on
Speaker 1: that list, but that's from nineteen eighty three, so he
Speaker 1: was already being investigated before that.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Chester's name only appears once linked with Little Darby. But
Speaker 1: my anonymous source added that quote all of the ones
Speaker 1: stating Rudder cut Key were transported to the US via
Speaker 1: Darby Island, unquote, accounting for another five trips six in total,
Speaker 1: half of the twelve My source also mentioned Jack DeVoe
Speaker 1: was trying to purchase the larger Darby Island from Chester.
Speaker 1: That would resonate more deeply a bit later, when I
Speaker 1: read DeVoe's mention of it in his testimony before the
Speaker 1: inquiry in the Bahamas on June twenty third of nineteen eighty.
Speaker 9: Four, Lamar asked me he seemed to know about the trips.
Speaker 9: Would I like to buy big Darby Island.
Speaker 1: DeVoe goes on to state that they settled on a
Speaker 1: purchase price of two million dollars and his down payment
Speaker 1: made to Chester.
Speaker 9: I bought the island. I gave him a half a
Speaker 9: million dollars. I gave him several planes after that, and
Speaker 9: more money and a couple of keys of coke, almost
Speaker 9: a million dollars over a period of time. It was
Speaker 9: not all done in a day. It started off with
Speaker 9: a half a million. Devout adds there was no paperwork.
Speaker 1: It was a handshake, something he was comfortable with because.
Speaker 9: We had known each other a long time and that
Speaker 9: we trusted each other.
Speaker 1: Apparently, de Vaux was busted after that payment, but before
Speaker 1: the sale occurred, and the logs were actually used as
Speaker 1: evidence to indict Devout. All of which makes the tape
Speaker 1: you're about to hear even more telling. Here's Lamar Chester
Speaker 1: proving his participation with the FEDS to C. B.
Speaker 9: Hackworth April.
Speaker 8: In particular, starting in December, who were working in the
Speaker 8: Dragon podcast on Dark.
Speaker 10: These same agents were living on that I mean physically
Speaker 10: living there total every day for.
Speaker 7: Three weeks now.
Speaker 8: It's flat him back and forth to Miami.
Speaker 10: I think the first who of him, NASA wrote him down,
Speaker 10: got him set up. There was a lot of things
Speaker 10: that preceded that. We're not guns where they produced gruns,
Speaker 10: alphabolos or any other guns on many half done there
Speaker 10: for their own protection, and then brought on some guns
Speaker 10: from Massaw that had to come from the embassy because
Speaker 10: it couldn't come through the custom.
Speaker 1: That Chester mentions he was working on the Jack Devau case.
Speaker 8: Who're working Jack Purcas.
Speaker 1: Makes Chester's acceptance of that million dollar down payment from
Speaker 1: Devout seem calculated, especially since the man he took it
Speaker 1: from ended up incarcerated before testifying against people like Noriega
Speaker 1: and apparently is now in the witness Protection plan. It
Speaker 1: also lends more weight to the comment on the Georgia
Speaker 1: Bureau of Investigations crash report that mentions Chester was quote
Speaker 1: rumored to be cooperating with authorities unquote. Here's Chester in
Speaker 1: his own words, speaking to C. B. Hackworth about assisting
Speaker 1: a task Force.
Speaker 8: Passport pace.
Speaker 10: Yeah, a drug enforcement for they assigned the pastor was
Speaker 10: hollow where signed passwork, and that's where I had been
Speaker 10: meeting them, meeting with them at task force headquarters and
Speaker 10: walking across the.
Speaker 8: Street to drug enforcement headquarters. Passports got out in commercial office.
Speaker 10: Building out in dot of Miami International Airport and right
Speaker 10: next to it is a new drug enforcement building and
Speaker 10: passports head like a huge ready room math you know, the.
Speaker 8: Huge ball chark radios.
Speaker 10: You know, all set up and rosters, games of desk
Speaker 10: in the main room, and then private offices for these guys.
Speaker 8: Each had a private office each other. That's the caliber.
Speaker 8: Good guys.
Speaker 1: Here's the response of mister Happy Miles to that audio.
Speaker 4: Let her up, Let her at Jack. If you're listening
Speaker 4: to this, number one, get a hold of them. And
Speaker 4: number two, if you want to know who the hell
Speaker 4: we're outed you out, it was Lamar. That's unreal. That's
Speaker 4: just totally unreal. How he's bragging them out, flying them
Speaker 4: back and forth and bringing them guns, and you know
Speaker 4: they needed guns on Darby like I need a hole
Speaker 4: in my head going after Jack. And then then to
Speaker 4: take a million dollars from the guy to sell them
Speaker 4: Darby when he knew he wasn't gonna sell it to
Speaker 4: him anyway, that he'd be going away for a long time,
Speaker 4: or let me cut a deal after doing eight and
Speaker 4: a half years and every rattle hell hole around the
Speaker 4: country testifying against two hundred and forty guys to get
Speaker 4: his freedom. Unbelievable, just unbelievable.
Speaker 1: The revelation also contradicted a sort of smuggler's code that
Speaker 1: Happy maintains. Set the Coconut Grove guys apart.
Speaker 4: We were in a different league.
Speaker 1: And maybe that fed into the icarous complex of flying
Speaker 1: too close to the sun. What was the mistake that
Speaker 1: Chester made.
Speaker 4: Well, not having any moral compass, not having any loyalty
Speaker 4: to everybody he was working with. It just shows who
Speaker 4: he was and you can't live that way. Everybody should
Speaker 4: have morals and integrity.
Speaker 1: Here's Phil Stanford's reaction. Now that it appears that Chester
Speaker 1: actually flipped on Jack Devo, Does that open up more
Speaker 1: questions than answers in terms of who possibly could have
Speaker 1: wanted him dead.
Speaker 3: The list keeps expending, doesn't it. I don't think that
Speaker 3: devote should be added to the list. But you you know,
Speaker 3: you've got, of course the obvious, the CIA. But then,
Speaker 3: as Trento writes in his book, there was a CIA
Speaker 3: outside the CIA, and I think that's actually where Lamar
Speaker 3: and Elliott came in. The same guys who were running
Speaker 3: the drugs and guns trade in Southeast Asia were transferred
Speaker 3: to Central America. In fact, Ron Elliott had contact with
Speaker 3: them in the Mid East, so they're part of the list.
Speaker 3: Then you have the mob. Chester had borrowed lots of
Speaker 3: money from the Mob to buy his airplanes. And if
Speaker 3: he was going on trial for basically his life, had
Speaker 3: like three hundred years worth of prison time he could
Speaker 3: be sentenced to no telling what he might talk about.
Speaker 5: If he got there. So you have that.
Speaker 3: You have the law enforcement officials in White County who
Speaker 3: didn't get along with him. One was in fact on
Speaker 3: the scene of the crash as the plane was going down.
Speaker 3: It might have done on their own. They might have
Speaker 3: done it at the behest of one or another agency.
Speaker 3: And the cartels and the cartels of course, yeah, who
Speaker 3: would have had the wherewithal to buy whatever help they needed.
Speaker 3: So far from answering questions, I think the list keeps expanding.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: It's also true though, knowing that he set up Devot
Speaker 1: and tried to sell him an island and took a
Speaker 1: down payment for it before Devout went away for the
Speaker 1: rest of his life, that would have made a lot
Speaker 1: of people nervous because he was capable of flipping on anybody,
Speaker 1: and the domino effect of that, because de Vaux had
Speaker 1: links to the cartel, so there were a lot of
Speaker 1: people who would have been pretty nervous as to who
Speaker 1: he was willing to turn on.
Speaker 5: Oh I agree, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: For Leslie Beckerton, her sense of betrayal and loss of
Speaker 1: faith on multiple levels was a direct result of her
Speaker 1: experience with Lone Star and Chester, and it set her
Speaker 1: on a very specific path.
Speaker 11: What happened forty two years ago, that loss of security
Speaker 11: of who I am as a human being. I remember
Speaker 11: I was telling you about just being humiliated in that
Speaker 11: Atlanta court. It's amazing how just something like that can
Speaker 11: just trip you down where you become like a ghost.
Speaker 11: And that had such a profound impact on me, and
Speaker 11: you lose a complete sense of yourself. You're worthless, collateral damage.
Speaker 11: You know you're worthless. It's a wound and it's traumatic
Speaker 11: and it's a scar. And so what inspired out of
Speaker 11: that an education wanting to understand how other people think,
Speaker 11: other cultures. Right, The first graduate degree is in international
Speaker 11: education and my second degree, which was at Brown in
Speaker 11: Latin American and Caribbean history. I love teaching and I
Speaker 11: love working with people, so I was able to combine
Speaker 11: both of those and as a result, I actually started
Speaker 11: with educational school gardens in Cambodia up in rural areas.
Speaker 11: The work that I do and have been doing for
Speaker 11: such a long time as my humanitarian work in war
Speaker 11: torn countries and teaching train small rural farmers and widows overseas,
Speaker 11: and I install nutritional kitchen gardens and orphanages and schools,
Speaker 11: and I established demonstration sites, farming sites and all low
Speaker 11: tech and the beauty of it is right, This goes
Speaker 11: back to loss of one's sense of self that you
Speaker 11: count and these people have never counted, you know, They're
Speaker 11: just brushed to the side. There's like an anguish in
Speaker 11: their faces, and it's something I'm really sensitive to. Well,
Speaker 11: the irony is that because I am a woman, I
Speaker 11: can go into places that a man can't, and specifically
Speaker 11: say Afghanistan, care in Jordan, so I can live and
Speaker 11: work with families. And also I'm not a threat. I'm
Speaker 11: a woman.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 11: That allows me to understand, say another culture and other
Speaker 11: people their history, and to also establish trust.
Speaker 1: It seems like your path has almost been to move
Speaker 1: into these places where you know the drug trade has
Speaker 1: wreaked havoc. You're almost on the cleanup crew.
Speaker 11: Yes, right, more ways than one.
Speaker 1: This past summer I traveled to meet Bickerton in person.
Speaker 1: It's like little islands nestled. Oh my gosh, there's a
Speaker 1: house nestled on that island, like a cabin. See it.
Speaker 7: Your destination is on the left.
Speaker 1: Now, in her early seventies, she still strikes a commanding presence.
Speaker 11: Hey, there's noble, a good why.
Speaker 1: Tall and athletic and not prone to artifice. As we
Speaker 1: pulled up, she was sporting jeans and a baseball cap
Speaker 1: while hard at work watering the botanist level garden that
Speaker 1: frames one side of the rustic picturesque property she shares
Speaker 1: with her husband four decades.
Speaker 12: Okay, so there was nothing here. Okay, this was all
Speaker 12: literally rubble. Okay, there wasn't even grass growing. So this
Speaker 12: is all perennials okay. And pollinators. Wow, look at the
Speaker 12: little beat all sleeping.
Speaker 9: They're nesting in the flowers.
Speaker 1: Bickerton radiates a crackling sort of energy. There's a shifting
Speaker 1: vulnerability to her, at times almost brittle, at other times edgy, sharp,
Speaker 1: but always with a bit of defensiveness and self deprecating humor.
Speaker 11: And I'm blaming her my mother because I was breech birth.
Speaker 11: I came out feet kicking. My mom tied me on
Speaker 11: a rope when I was two.
Speaker 9: Years of age.
Speaker 12: Where you get your wanderlust, Jandra, she says, I could
Speaker 12: never keep track of you.
Speaker 1: Inside Bickerton's home exudes an eclectic, creative aesthetic, filled with comfortable,
Speaker 1: dog friendly furnishings. The walls are lined with art, both
Speaker 1: displayed and propped along the sides awaiting display. During our tour,
Speaker 1: she unwrapped several of them, a series of enlarged photographs
Speaker 1: taken Afghanistan during Leslie's humanitarian travels there.
Speaker 11: So they build this the Chinese wall, this huge wall,
Speaker 11: pomp pom, and then within it was going to be
Speaker 11: the farm in a couple of buildings and this man
Speaker 11: single handedly, They would throw the mud up to him
Speaker 11: in the straw and I've got photos of it, and
Speaker 11: he would build them in rectangular shapes, and he built
Speaker 11: the entire wall.
Speaker 1: One photo in particular stands out of Bickerton standing in
Speaker 1: the center of a small group of young men in
Speaker 1: a rural setting, holding a small sandy brown puppy in
Speaker 1: her arms.
Speaker 13: You're wearing this beautiful Fusia traditional garb with a sky
Speaker 13: blue scarf and a very western looking orange zippo.
Speaker 1: It's noteworthy not just because of the moment it captures
Speaker 1: and the fact the men were breaking social norms by
Speaker 1: standing in close proximity with a woman, because of the
Speaker 1: calm joy Leslie radiates. It's fine.
Speaker 11: I went all over the world and don't want a
Speaker 11: good because I teach and I trained farmers food and
Speaker 11: water security, and this place just grabbed my heart and
Speaker 11: it's it's second home for me. My mom said, she said,
Speaker 11: you're at peace with himself here I are in a
Speaker 11: war country time country. She said, You're in your element.
Speaker 4: You've found your way.
Speaker 1: It's been an unlikely and unpredictable path that's led to
Speaker 1: this point one, intensified by the uneasiness that's lingered in
Speaker 1: her life since Lone Star, but further compounded and complicated
Speaker 1: by the fact that Leslie met her husband of four decades, Mike,
Speaker 1: during the Lone Star grand jury?
Speaker 11: Was it the grand jury in Houston? There was one
Speaker 11: other person there, nobody else who was just me and
Speaker 11: somebody else. And that other somebody else is a person
Speaker 11: that I married, and he was there to testify. I
Speaker 11: didn't know for what. I didn't bother to ask him
Speaker 11: about the connection that we had is that we were
Speaker 11: both hardcore sailors in the waiting room, struck up a conversation.
Speaker 1: Now a doctor, that husband was once very much involved
Speaker 1: with Chester's smuggling operations, which makes one of her last
Speaker 1: memories of Lamar Chester after she was married and shortly
Speaker 1: before Chester's crash that much more revealing.
Speaker 11: It was down in Key Largo that Lamar shows up.
Speaker 11: Mike seems to think that it was just by sheer
Speaker 11: luck that Lamar happened to be on the same road
Speaker 11: that we were on, which is a northern part of
Speaker 11: Key Largo that connects Homestead to Ocean Reef. So Mike thought, oh,
Speaker 11: just by chance, an accident that Lamar's following us. I mean,
Speaker 11: just so the bumped in to him. I'm like, knowing
Speaker 11: everything we know about Lamar, Lamar doesn't do anything by accident.
Speaker 11: We went out to dinner with him. Mike must have
Speaker 11: invited him to stay over whatever, and so Lamar was
Speaker 11: in the house with us.
Speaker 1: After Mike turned in for the night. Bickerton says she
Speaker 1: had what would be one of the final interactions she
Speaker 1: would ever have with Lamar Chester.
Speaker 11: Lamar then in the house told me that he wanted
Speaker 11: me to come back to him, and I was like, wow,
Speaker 11: this is what you do to your friends.
Speaker 1: How disrespectful that was.
Speaker 11: And I told him no, flat out. But there was
Speaker 11: something about it was just something about Lamar that I
Speaker 11: almost felt sorry for him. I think he knew something
Speaker 11: was coming. It's weird. And then he, you know, he
Speaker 11: got murdered.
Speaker 1: As for Chester dying in a plane crash, shrouded in mystery,
Speaker 1: here's c. B. Hackworth.
Speaker 2: That really wasn't the ending that anybody had anybody had expected.
Speaker 1: Except maybe Chester. Here's a snippet from one of his
Speaker 1: calls to CB.
Speaker 8: Hey, I'm not gonna make me run, give me make
Speaker 8: me right.
Speaker 1: We've tried to improve the quality of the tape, but
Speaker 1: it definitely sounds like Chester's saying they're going to kill
Speaker 1: me or make me run.
Speaker 8: They make me run, give.
Speaker 1: Me Revisiting his extensive recorded interviews with Chester has given C. B.
Speaker 1: Hackworth new insight into Lone Star, which he will further
Speaker 1: explore in an upcoming book.
Speaker 2: It worked out well for some of the targets, and
Speaker 2: then it ultimately, you know, didn't work out well for Lamar,
Speaker 2: except to the extent that he he did manage to
Speaker 2: extend this whole proceeding and turn the tables on the
Speaker 2: government and put the government on trial for so long
Speaker 2: that he did live out the rest of his life
Speaker 2: without going to jail, without ever doing what the government
Speaker 2: instructed him to do or any judge instructed him to do.
Speaker 2: He did live life on his own terms until he died.
Speaker 1: In an op ed letter Chester wrote published in the
Speaker 1: Gainesville Times December fourteenth of nineteen eighty four, Chester wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: the indictment against me was not brought by the DEA,
Speaker 1: but is an IRS indictment brought by the US Department
Speaker 1: of Justice based on what the government says is my
Speaker 1: net worth with the importation of marijuana and cocaine as
Speaker 1: probable sources of income. Those issues may very well have
Speaker 1: to be decided in court before a jury. I am
Speaker 1: in the fifth month of emotion to dismiss the indictment
Speaker 1: based on the false ofation of evidence, leaks of grand
Speaker 1: jury material by federal agents and prosecutors, and gross governmental misconduct.
Speaker 1: If I am successful with that motion, I will definitely
Speaker 1: tell my story to the public. If that motion fails,
Speaker 1: then the story will be told in Gainesville at trial.
Speaker 1: In any case, the truth will finally out. Six months
Speaker 1: after that letter, Chester was dead. Here's Phil Stamford.
Speaker 5: It did continue to trouble me. It haunted me.
Speaker 1: What happened in your world after Chester died?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I was back in DC when I
Speaker 3: got the word from Bob that Lamar died in a crash.
Speaker 3: I did some work, investigative work to make some money,
Speaker 3: but no luck with congressional offices or with newspapers.
Speaker 5: That what I needed was a.
Speaker 3: Job, and finally, finally I got one in Portland, Oregon,
Speaker 3: which I guess was the only place my reputation hadn't
Speaker 3: caught up with me with The Oregonian, initially as a reporter.
Speaker 3: But after a few months they made me a columnist
Speaker 3: and I was one of two Metro columnists writing three
Speaker 3: times a week telling stories, which is really what I
Speaker 3: wanted to do. It was going pretty well, and then
Speaker 3: here came the Frankie case, the news that the head
Speaker 3: of the corrections department had been stabbed to death outside
Speaker 3: his office. Eventually got crosswise with the management of the
Speaker 3: paper because I was raising questions I was doing because
Speaker 3: I was doing my job, and I got pushed out.
Speaker 1: Phil and I revisit the killing of Michael Frankie in
Speaker 1: the Murder in Oregon podcast. It's compelling content, as are
Speaker 1: the book Stanford wrote after leaving The Oregonian.
Speaker 3: I wrote several books about official corruption in Portland and
Speaker 3: also in Washington, DC. I did a book about the
Speaker 3: Watergate break in, and after a few years of that,
Speaker 3: I started getting interested again in Miami.
Speaker 1: As he struggled to make sense of his Miami experience,
Speaker 1: Stamford decided to start his own investigation Lamar's claims.
Speaker 3: I'd been very skeptical of them in the beginning, maybe
Speaker 3: because he just hadn't done a good job of explaining
Speaker 3: to me or to anyone else what it was that
Speaker 3: he did with the CIA, and it wasn't clear to
Speaker 3: me that he even knew that he was working for
Speaker 3: the CIA. I think he was working for Naval intelligence
Speaker 3: at one time. I think he was working for someone
Speaker 3: who was connected to the CIA at one time, but
Speaker 3: he didn't know. And so to come to some sort
Speaker 3: of understanding about what I got involved in, I started
Speaker 3: trying to go back over some of this territory and
Speaker 3: I went down to Georgia talked to Bobby Lee Cook
Speaker 3: sitting in his office in this Somerville, Georgia, littletown in Georgia,
Speaker 3: and he's sitting behind his desk, and I say, did
Speaker 3: you think the christ was accidentally? Says hell no, he
Speaker 3: was quite convinced he was murdered. And I said, well,
Speaker 3: tell me what he did for the CIA, and he
Speaker 3: begked off.
Speaker 5: He said, I really don't know.
Speaker 3: You know, you'll have to ask ed Marger who was
Speaker 3: the other lawyer just down the road about sixty miles,
Speaker 3: and he told me that he didn't think that either
Speaker 3: Lamar or Ron Elliott had direct contact with the CIA.
Speaker 3: And there's a guy who had won the green Mail
Speaker 3: defense before, and he said, you ought to ask Bobby
Speaker 3: Lee Cook. It was Bobby Lee Cook who came up
Speaker 3: with the idea of the gray mail defense.
Speaker 1: So they sent you back and forth between the two
Speaker 1: of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I said, of course I already talked to
Speaker 3: him and he sent me to you, So it didn't
Speaker 3: really answer any questions. And of course nothing I found
Speaker 3: out reduced in any way my feeling that Lamar had
Speaker 3: been murdered, that his plane was sabotaged.
Speaker 1: A feeling that would be reinforced by information he'd later
Speaker 1: learn back in DC.
Speaker 3: Made some phone calls, got in touch with a guy
Speaker 3: named Ferris Bond, who had been with the US Justice
Speaker 3: Department at the time and on a team working on
Speaker 3: Lamar's prosecution. He told me about the time before the trial.
Speaker 3: Of course they were more than just aware of Lamar's
Speaker 3: gray Mail defense. They had arranged for someone from the
Speaker 3: CIA to come speak to them and tell them what
Speaker 3: was going on. And so he said, some guy came.
Speaker 3: They said, didn't look at all like what you'd imagine
Speaker 3: a CIA agent would be.
Speaker 5: I guess he was sort.
Speaker 3: Of shortened, spindling, and put his briefcase on the desk,
Speaker 3: And before he said anything, he told them that if
Speaker 3: he talked to them they would not be able to
Speaker 3: reveal his name, and they said that as lawyers they
Speaker 3: were bound to tell the other side what they knew.
Speaker 3: I guess in discovery it was an issue with that.
Speaker 3: And he put everything back in his briefcase and walked
Speaker 3: out and.
Speaker 5: That was the end of that.
Speaker 1: So what do you make of all of this now,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's another interesting layer.
Speaker 3: It had been, of course, a very intense experience for me,
Speaker 3: and I'd never really figured out was Lamar telling the
Speaker 3: truth when he said he was working with the CIA
Speaker 3: or not. You know, even looking back at it now,
Speaker 3: after we've done all of this, you know, it has
Speaker 3: been useful to me to revisit it again.
Speaker 1: Well, certainly as the eighties unfolded, his claims became much
Speaker 1: less far fetched.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it allowed me to see it made me
Speaker 3: see that these things are real, especially with the Kerry
Speaker 3: Committee and the press. Eventually there really was no doubt
Speaker 3: that there had been in a drugs for gun trade
Speaker 3: going on that was somehow connected with the government. Lamar
Speaker 3: was anything but silent about it. One of the remarkable
Speaker 3: things about this to me is that when Lamar's plane
Speaker 3: went down June of nineteen eighty five, there was a
Speaker 3: story in the New York Times about how this indicted
Speaker 3: drug smuggler had died in a plane crash, but no
Speaker 3: mention at all of the grey maial defense that had
Speaker 3: been written about in CB Hacker's paper.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's a very strange omission. Yeah, as I was wrapping
Speaker 1: up the research and interviews for this podcast, I would
Speaker 1: connect with a most unlikely and surprising target of interest.
Speaker 1: You will never guess in a million years who I
Speaker 1: just got off the phone with and who I was
Speaker 1: able to track down. Who Morgan Cherry.
Speaker 5: You gotta be kidding.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 1: And the good news is we had a really interesting chat.
Speaker 1: The bad news is that he is not surprisingly unwilling
Speaker 1: to speak with me on the record and declined my
Speaker 1: request for an interview.
Speaker 3: I bet he did it very elegantly too.
Speaker 5: This is a very smooth guy.
Speaker 1: I can neither confirm nor deny that he was smooth.
Speaker 5: This is the.
Speaker 3: Guy whose name Lamar dropped in the Bahamian tribunal said
Speaker 3: it was his contact with the CIA. Ron Elliott told
Speaker 3: me that Morgan Cherry was Lamar's CIA contact. Did you
Speaker 3: ask him specifically about his involvement with the CIA and Dea.
Speaker 1: Phil, I can neither confirm nor deny that we had
Speaker 1: any such discussion.
Speaker 5: That's fitting.
Speaker 1: The once conspiracy concept of covert operations and shadow wars
Speaker 1: has percolated closer to the surface over the years, and
Speaker 1: continues to do so today. My dad used to quote
Speaker 1: the opening line from a legendary radio detective show that
Speaker 1: ran from the nineteen thirties to the nineteen fifties. Who
Speaker 1: knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The
Speaker 1: shadow knows. It's something that kept popping to mind throughout
Speaker 1: this production, but what happens in the shadows will likely
Speaker 1: stay there as long as it profits and protects the
Speaker 1: people in power on both sides. As we wrap up
Speaker 1: this season, I just want to thank our small but
Speaker 1: powerful team of Nick and Evan and Taylor who have
Speaker 1: just brought an incredible expertise and enthusiasm to every single
Speaker 1: aspect of this production. And Phil, I just want to
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being such a wise, witty
Speaker 1: and wonderful storyteller, and so thank you so much for
Speaker 1: sharing this one.
Speaker 5: It's been great working with you.
Speaker 1: We're all so appreciative to the incredible array of people
Speaker 1: we've encountered and interviewed during this process, those named and unnamed.
Speaker 1: We also want to thank you the listener for your
Speaker 1: time and support. Murder Miami is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Lauren brad Pacheco, Taylor Chaqoine, and Phil Stamford.
Speaker 1: Written by Phil Stamford and Lauren brad Pacheco, Audio editing
Speaker 1: and sound designed by Nicholas Harder, Evan Tyer and Taylor Chaqoine,
Speaker 1: featuring music by Evan Tyer, Phil Meyer, John Murchison and
Speaker 1: Taylor Chaqoine. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the story step move
Speaker 1: here