Speaker 1: Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio, previously on
Speaker 1: Murder in Miami. I think I actually found Leslie Bickerton.
Speaker 2: She's been hiding for forty years. That's it's no way
Speaker 2: to live Phil.
Speaker 1: She's still afraid for her life.
Speaker 3: I've realized this over the years. What happened to me
Speaker 3: forty one years ago has been with me my entire life.
Speaker 3: I mean, it stole my life and I stole my voice.
Speaker 1: By the time Leslie Bickerton, who also dabbled in modeling
Speaker 1: while living in Hawaii, crossed paths with Lamar Chester, she
Speaker 1: was barely thirty years old.
Speaker 3: Before I had even heard of Lamar Chester. I was
Speaker 3: working in the Caymans because I have a CPA background
Speaker 3: and an international tax background.
Speaker 1: In addition to accepting the challenge of living on the
Speaker 1: island and the job with him, Leslie Bickerton would also
Speaker 1: become romantically involved with Chester. All three of those things
Speaker 1: come back to haunt her.
Speaker 3: Just boom boom boom. And then about somebody that had
Speaker 3: been killed off. Yeah, I was going to talk about him,
Speaker 3: I guess. And there were contracts out on his life
Speaker 3: and contracts that I was also in danger.
Speaker 1: So in the fall of nineteen eighty one, a frantic
Speaker 1: Leslie Bickerton is trying to figure out how to undo
Speaker 1: the damage done by crossing paths.
Speaker 2: With international drug smuggler Lamar Chester.
Speaker 1: Though she only worked with him off and on over
Speaker 1: the course of seven months, in many ways, she's still
Speaker 1: trying to figure out the ripple effect of that time period.
Speaker 3: Changed the course of my life, and still today it's
Speaker 3: like it just happened yesterday. In one sense, forty one years.
Speaker 3: It's not like I was allowed then to go back
Speaker 3: to a normal life.
Speaker 1: Those months forever, I'll your life, oh completely, It's set
Speaker 1: a course that I didn't even know.
Speaker 3: I wasn't setting the course. Somebody else was setting the
Speaker 3: course and I didn't even know it.
Speaker 1: Having been told by Chester that her life was in danger,
Speaker 1: not knowing who was behind that threat, and isolated on
Speaker 1: his farm in a time before cell phones or the internet,
Speaker 1: Bickerton's fears are left to fester.
Speaker 3: Just sort of left me there. So emotionally me just
Speaker 3: a wreck, scared to death. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: so when my brain works anyway kind of a little
Speaker 3: bit analytically, it's like, Okay, what do I need to do? Right, okay, one, two, three, four,
Speaker 3: immediately coming up with the names in my mind that
Speaker 3: I had to take me into consideration. It wasn't just
Speaker 3: about me. It was about those that could be at
Speaker 3: risk and protecting everybody just in case, because I didn't
Speaker 3: know what I was dealing with. I mean, I knew
Speaker 3: I was dealing with something that was big, really big,
Speaker 3: and way out of control. That's all that I knew.
Speaker 1: It must have felt like being unknowingly exposed to a
Speaker 1: very contagious, very deadly disease.
Speaker 3: Beyond that, horrific. That's the impact that it had on me.
Speaker 1: And how do you disprove that if someone tells you, well,
Speaker 1: now you're in a lot of trouble and someone's out
Speaker 1: to kill you.
Speaker 3: Right, and you isolate them? M hmm, right, that's one
Speaker 3: of the other parts of that. The more you isolate
Speaker 3: a person, you keep them right separate from everybody, You
Speaker 3: keep them separate from their families, friends, people who can
Speaker 3: help them, and you war and more psychologically feel like
Speaker 3: you're out there on your own.
Speaker 1: And that would have broken you down pretty quickly.
Speaker 3: Oh very much, so, very much so.
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren brad Pacheco, and this is murdered in Miami.
Speaker 1: Feeling trapped, Bickerton was also terrified of confiding to anyone
Speaker 1: she knew, bearing it could place them in danger too.
Speaker 3: I think sometimes you draw deep withinside yourself, even though
Speaker 3: you don't have the answers, you'll figure it out, you know,
Speaker 3: a survival mechanism.
Speaker 1: And in that mode, Bickerton remembered a group of Army
Speaker 1: rangers stationed nearby she'd befriended after coming to Georgia.
Speaker 3: I went up to this event in Helen, Georgia, these
Speaker 3: hot air balloons and it saw place Touristco And that's
Speaker 3: on the big grounds that they had there for the
Speaker 3: hot air balloons. That's where I met them. Just stuck
Speaker 3: up a conversation. I don't drink drink, but had a
Speaker 3: beer with them and just kind of like clicked. And
Speaker 3: they were really great. And they were just funny, great
Speaker 3: sense to humor.
Speaker 1: Wholesome and friendly.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were also oddly suited to understand the situation
Speaker 1: and danger. Bickerton suddenly found herself.
Speaker 3: In the Airborne Ranger. Guys that I met were staff sergeant.
Speaker 3: I mean these were like the top top guys in
Speaker 3: the training and I know one of them was like
Speaker 3: one of the top snipers. They were telling me about
Speaker 3: their adventures overseas, what they were doing, and that's who
Speaker 3: I immediately thought to reach out to. That's the only
Speaker 3: people I knew up there were those military guys.
Speaker 1: Rangers are the Army's elite and premier infantry force, rigorously
Speaker 1: trained to carry out intricate operations such as raids and
Speaker 1: assault missions well within enemy territory. It's a position requiring
Speaker 1: a daunting degree of mental, physical and moral fortitude.
Speaker 3: I have a contract all my life. So I did
Speaker 3: reach out to the military guys and we kind of
Speaker 3: figured out a game plan.
Speaker 1: A plan that plays like a movie plot.
Speaker 3: I would marry one because that would then they could
Speaker 3: legitimately bring me over to the camp so that Lamar
Speaker 3: couldn't get near me and nobody could get near me,
Speaker 3: that I would be physically protected. They were concerned about me,
Speaker 3: like being at war. You know, all right, strategy immediately
Speaker 3: thinking outside the box. You got to think on your
Speaker 3: feet what can be done right now? What can be
Speaker 3: done next? What can be done next? And by marrying
Speaker 3: in name only as that allowed.
Speaker 1: So you thought the plan that you hashed out with
Speaker 1: these guys. Was that you would make a public show
Speaker 1: of marrying one of them, so Lamar would be intimidated
Speaker 1: to no longer mess with you. Exactly, And apparently that's
Speaker 1: exactly what did immediately planning a wedding, which seemed a
Speaker 1: sensical option given her surreal situation.
Speaker 3: I knew Lamark was not going to mess with these
Speaker 3: guys period. Instinctively, people liked Lamar. They just know who
Speaker 3: not to mess with. We actually had a ceremony as well.
Speaker 1: A ceremony Bickerton's family attended, fully believing to be real.
Speaker 3: From the outside, it all looked real or unreal, but legitimate.
Speaker 1: Almost like for the same reasons people fake their own death.
Speaker 1: You wanted your own family to believe it. You wanted
Speaker 1: to really sell it so that you could then disappear. Yes,
Speaker 1: was it a marriage and name only?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And it was a note within two months or
Speaker 3: something like that.
Speaker 1: While it may sound like a far fetched plan, Bickerton
Speaker 1: sent me photos of the small outdoor wedding. In them,
Speaker 1: Leslie's wear ring a somber expression and a simple white
Speaker 1: sleeveless gown while clutching a simple bouquet of wild flowers.
Speaker 1: She's standing next to her groom, whose name she doesn't
Speaker 1: want revealed, but is formally decked out in full Rangers
Speaker 1: dress uniform. The couple is surrounded by other fully outfitted
Speaker 1: Airborne Rangers, and the small group of gathered well wishers
Speaker 1: include Leslie's family. Her mother is standing in front of
Speaker 1: a goateed and grinning Lamar Chester, who's sporting a sport coat,
Speaker 1: alongside his wife Artist, who's wearing white slax, a pink
Speaker 1: top and dark sunglasses, while leaning to her left so
Speaker 1: as to get a better view of the bride. The
Speaker 1: photo also provides something else.
Speaker 3: My father loved photography. He took the photos, and my
Speaker 3: father labels everything. It's meticulous. So that's how I could
Speaker 3: get the date. It said September nineteen eighty one, because
Speaker 3: I couldn't remember the month when I was married to
Speaker 3: this military person.
Speaker 1: I want to quickly point out. Leslie says she hastily
Speaker 1: arranged the wedding immediately after Chester told her about a
Speaker 1: Clayton being murdered and fed to the alligators. Williams went
Speaker 1: missing mid September, but his body wasn't found until October tewod,
Speaker 1: which gives weight to the theory Chester knew of the
Speaker 1: murder before the body was found, and to Bickerton's concern
Speaker 1: for her safety at the time.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm just grateful for the military guys in Georgia,
Speaker 3: that group of guys, because I don't know if I
Speaker 3: would have ever been able to even get out of Georgia,
Speaker 3: but it bought me enough time. Without them, i'd be
Speaker 3: I'd probably did. I'm almost sure of it. I owe
Speaker 3: my life to them.
Speaker 1: After the nuptials, Bickerton says she hit out with the
Speaker 1: rangers until she could put together a plan to flee
Speaker 1: to another location. Interestingly, Dan Davis, the reporter slash River
Speaker 1: Hills publicist who was on Chester's payroll, would later be
Speaker 1: interviewed by CEB Hackworth in nineteen eighty three for an
Speaker 1: article in the Citizen Chester series. In that article, Davis
Speaker 1: would offer a pretty scathing interpretation of the wedding, characterizing
Speaker 1: the groom as quote one of those gung home military
Speaker 1: types who enters the service at sixteen unquote, and Bickerton,
Speaker 1: who was thirty one at the time as quote Leslie
Speaker 1: who was maybe thirty five or forty, and there's this
Speaker 1: Rick twenty and she wanted to get married so they did. Unquote.
Speaker 1: The same article quotes Chester reacting to Leslie being referenced
Speaker 1: as his mistress and public record. Quote. He balks at
Speaker 1: that description and refers to her instead as an occasional
Speaker 1: girl I saw unquote. Now keep in mind that Chester
Speaker 1: was married and that Davis was basically his hired mouthpiece.
Speaker 1: Here's Leslie.
Speaker 3: This whole article basically was a smear campaign against me.
Speaker 3: If it was nowadays and this was happen, I take
Speaker 3: them to court like it's nobody's business and I would win.
Speaker 3: And again, nobody has ever bothered to approach me back
Speaker 3: then or any time to get my side of the
Speaker 3: story or exactly what was happening during that time period.
Speaker 1: And you had never seen this article until I sent
Speaker 1: it to you. Correct.
Speaker 3: Correct, So it's interesting looking at it now and going
Speaker 3: through all of this several comments. I'm going to make
Speaker 3: this emphasis on age and this was somebody that I
Speaker 3: had married that was young and naive, and that's not
Speaker 3: true at all. None of it that they wrote down
Speaker 3: is true.
Speaker 1: They somehow tried to discredit you by claiming there was
Speaker 1: an age difference between you and your groom, when Chester's
Speaker 1: the one who's twenty years older. Right, he had children your.
Speaker 3: Age, Oh right, and I knew his children. Looking back
Speaker 3: at it now, in the pattern that Lamar Chester presents
Speaker 3: himself to the media, presenting themselves in such a way
Speaker 3: that they can't be touched. And so how do you
Speaker 3: present you discredit the other person, right, You create your
Speaker 3: own storyline to raise your own image as a so
Speaker 3: called family man, which he wasn't. I mean, Lamar had
Speaker 3: relationships with other women. I know that for a fact.
Speaker 1: So interesting that he quote bulks at the description of
Speaker 1: you as his quote mistress and public record, it almost
Speaker 1: sounds like it's Chester's way of appeasing his bruised male ego.
Speaker 3: A lot of it is ego. And by dismissing who
Speaker 3: I am, then it takes the judgment off of him, right,
Speaker 3: which is sort of a classic and by ment. And
Speaker 3: I thought about this. I wasn't as mistress, I mean,
Speaker 3: now you know, I look at it, give the definition
Speaker 3: of a mistress. I wasn't. I wasn't being kept right
Speaker 3: as a kept woman. Kept have sort of here's my
Speaker 3: dark humor coming again, right, you know, Yes, I was
Speaker 3: kept as a hostage. In one sense, I would never
Speaker 3: have gone to Georgia had not been for my dog.
Speaker 1: After the rushed and staged wedding, Bickerton would land in Houston,
Speaker 1: which was also the location of the Lone Star investigation,
Speaker 1: something of which Bickerton a test. She was unaware.
Speaker 3: It was inferred that I went to Houston and that
Speaker 3: I just showed up at the Federal Building, turned myself
Speaker 3: in to the Feds of the Federal Building and gave
Speaker 3: them all this information. And that is not true. So
Speaker 3: you're moving really fast, and it's like, where can I
Speaker 3: go next? Try to figure what would be my next step,
Speaker 3: and didn't want I jeopardized my own family, so I
Speaker 3: would not have gone back up to New England. I
Speaker 3: would not have gone back to the Cayman Islands because
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have put anybody in jeopardy there that had
Speaker 3: nothing to do with Lamar. So I had some friends
Speaker 3: in Houston, so I made a call and stayed with
Speaker 3: friends actually initially, but didn't want to put them in
Speaker 3: jeopardy because I didn't know how extensive this was. I
Speaker 3: knew it was serious, so I rented a small apartment
Speaker 3: and just took a temporary job. Had no plans of
Speaker 3: staying there. It was just temporary. And then that's when
Speaker 3: I got that phone call saying that Houston people, Feds
Speaker 3: in Houston were going to come after me. And so
Speaker 3: that's when I met the people in Houston. I think
Speaker 3: it was the grand jury first.
Speaker 1: The only reason you went to Houston was because you
Speaker 1: had a friend there who could get you employment and
Speaker 1: you could live under the radar there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, temporary, it was where can I go immediately? I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm just thinking on my feet, knowing that my life
Speaker 3: was probably in jeopardy and knowing what Lamar was now
Speaker 3: more involved with.
Speaker 1: You left Georgia and then the FED show up at
Speaker 1: the military base looking for you. Yes, yes, and you
Speaker 1: get the heads up that they're looking for you while
Speaker 1: you're in Houston.
Speaker 3: So that then would have been getting a phone call
Speaker 3: that Houston people were going to come looking for me.
Speaker 3: That also meant the CIA, because don't forget, Lamar told
Speaker 3: me about that he was involved with the CIA. So
Speaker 3: I didn't know what was Houston. All I knew was
Speaker 3: the FEDS, which could have been anybody, were looking for me,
Speaker 3: and that would have been October is when they tried
Speaker 3: to find me on the military base and the guys
Speaker 3: were protecting me.
Speaker 1: And when they found her, the prosecution already seemed to
Speaker 1: have honed in on Bickerton's fears in terms of safety
Speaker 1: and her other vulnerabilities too.
Speaker 3: Houston had promised me that they were going to get
Speaker 3: my dog.
Speaker 1: And so they promised you that they would go to
Speaker 1: the Derby Islands and get your dobermen.
Speaker 3: Yep, no problem.
Speaker 1: And did they no? Oh no, But you had no
Speaker 1: idea that there was an investigation into Lamar in Houston.
Speaker 3: No, no, And didn't know about Lance Eisenberg either, investigation
Speaker 3: with Smythe.
Speaker 1: Smythe was the name of the Cayman's account.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what Euston was after, was Smythe with
Speaker 3: Lance Eisenberg and his clients.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a line out of Casablanca. But of
Speaker 1: all the the states in the country, you end up
Speaker 1: in the one state, in the one city.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, you're right, He knew right. So here's
Speaker 3: my dark New England humor. You know the old cartoons Bullwinkle,
Speaker 3: my God, watch me pull a rabbit out of my
Speaker 3: hat and the lion comes out roaring and blow Winkle
Speaker 3: goes wrong, hat wrong hat.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: I had no idea. I didn't know anything about Houston
Speaker 3: and their investigation. I didn't know that Houston was looking
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 1: Phil Stanford finds Leslie's explanation of her move to Houston
Speaker 1: in keeping with many surreal aspects we've covered.
Speaker 2: Coincidences have happened all through this story, my meeting Playway
Speaker 2: in the bar, Happy, flying over the ocean, and meeting
Speaker 2: Lamire at several thousand feet, So I don't have any
Speaker 2: problem with it being a coincidence she ended up in Houston,
Speaker 2: as she says that the FEDS went to her soldier
Speaker 2: friends in Georgia said where is she? And they said
Speaker 2: she's in Houston, and then they tracked her down. In
Speaker 2: any case, they would have found her anyway.
Speaker 1: She's adamant that it was a coincidence, and either which
Speaker 1: way it certainly wasn't beneficial for her.
Speaker 2: She does say that they got involved. She does say
Speaker 2: that she took a job knowing that he was looking
Speaker 2: for an accountant and a mistress. It's easy enough to
Speaker 2: falter her judgment on that all sorts of people have
Speaker 2: made mistakes along the way in this story and just
Speaker 2: about any other story.
Speaker 1: I suppose what I think is interesting, though you have
Speaker 1: this young woman. He's her employer. Then at that point
Speaker 1: then I felt that she was pretty maligned in the
Speaker 1: press as being of less moral character because she was
Speaker 1: as mistress. When he's the one who's married, he's the
Speaker 1: one with the wife and kid. He's the one who's
Speaker 1: twenty years older. And I thought it interesting that not
Speaker 1: a single reporter, not one, ever reached out to her.
Speaker 1: But there was pretty widespread coverage of the nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: three grand jury in Atlanta, sensationalized by the fact the
Speaker 1: foundation of it was built upon the Houston leg of
Speaker 1: Operation Lone Star, which would be mired in controversy and
Speaker 1: allegations of corruption and misconduct. Here again is phil The.
Speaker 2: Real corruption was in the US Attorney's office in Houston.
Speaker 2: The investigators had been touring the Caribbean for some time
Speaker 2: on the government tab. A new junior US attorney had
Speaker 2: come in and tried to report them and gotten crosswise.
Speaker 2: The whole office was in turmoil. In fact, one of
Speaker 2: the US attorneys had actually contacted Jeff Bogart, one of
Speaker 2: Lamar's lawyers, and offered to tell him about the illegal
Speaker 2: tactics that they were using, including altering the documents for
Speaker 2: the grand Jury offered to sell it for a couple
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: That chaos spilled into the tone and content of Atlanta's proceedings.
Speaker 4: It was a mess, a hot mess. It sounds like
Speaker 4: some hotshot crosscutors were trying to bring in some big
Speaker 4: money or hundred indictments and fell down at rabbit hole
Speaker 4: and found up an alice in wonder owner.
Speaker 1: That's reporter Tracy Thompson's take. She's now a prolific author
Speaker 1: and journalist, but was then reporting for the Atlanta Constitution.
Speaker 1: In addition to covering the Atlanta Grand Jury, she had
Speaker 1: also extensively covered the charismatic council representing Lamar Chester in
Speaker 1: the case. Bobby Lee Cook a man known for his
Speaker 1: flamboyant personal style and equally fetching eloquence.
Speaker 4: He had a type of charisma that very few people have.
Speaker 4: It was an interesting thing when he walked into the room.
Speaker 4: Everybody who bodyly Cooked was there. He could easily have
Speaker 4: walked out of the nineteenth century. He parted his hair
Speaker 4: in the middle. He had gold spectacles that he bore
Speaker 4: on the tip of his nose so he could look
Speaker 4: at you over them. He had a gold pocket watch
Speaker 4: and this very large chain that he kept on He
Speaker 4: very easily could have walked out of eighteen seventy. He
Speaker 4: cultivated that damage. He also had a Rolls Royce and
Speaker 4: a chauffeur. And somebody asked him once if he was
Speaker 4: afraid that that would be off putting to jurors, and
Speaker 4: he said no. He said, I think they see me
Speaker 4: with a Rolls Royce and they know I'm a smart guy.
Speaker 4: Got my money because of smart and and trust me because.
Speaker 1: Of that, and they could trust he would ruthlessly defend
Speaker 1: his clients.
Speaker 4: People were scared of him, and I needed to be
Speaker 4: scared of him because he was. He was vicious and
Speaker 4: cross examinations. You didn't want to tell bobbyly Cook a
Speaker 4: story with any holes in it, because he would find
Speaker 4: it and ruth was late with them.
Speaker 1: Here's Phil Stamford's take.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Bobby Lee Cook is certainly one of the more
Speaker 2: formidable people I've ever run across. Extremely smart lawyer. Never
Speaker 2: seen anyone who could talk on his feet like that.
Speaker 2: He lived in this tiny town in North Georgia that
Speaker 2: was half boarded up. When I finally went down there
Speaker 2: and talked to him. He had a chauffeur driven Rolls Royce,
Speaker 2: and he looked so homespun that was part of his act.
Speaker 2: He wore hush puppies, suspenders, had a beard, and he
Speaker 2: could adapt to just about anything. I mean. He represented
Speaker 2: the Rockefellers and the Carnegies in some dispute. He represented
Speaker 2: a lot of the Southern mob who's a wonderful lawyer.
Speaker 2: At one time he was thought to have been the
Speaker 2: model for this TV character, Matt Locke, a serious about
Speaker 2: a Southern lawyer who was also very homespun and very effective,
Speaker 2: like Bobby Lee Cook.
Speaker 1: Tracy Thompson has agreed to read excerpts from one of
Speaker 1: her pieces at the time, which really paints a picture
Speaker 1: of the courtroom dynamic. As one of the former prosecutors
Speaker 1: from Lone Star's Houston leg John Johnson, was questioned by
Speaker 1: Bobby Lee Cook.
Speaker 4: John Johnson, a baby former federal prosecutor from Houston that
Speaker 4: gripping the size of the witness box like a man
Speaker 4: driving a tractor. Before him stood Somerville's defense attorney Bobby
Speaker 4: Lee Cook, who surveyed Johnson over the rims of his
Speaker 4: glasses like a cat contemplating a cage canary. The subject
Speaker 4: a four year old federal drug probe named Operation Lone Star,
Speaker 4: and the secret government informant named Leslie Bickergon MS Vickerton,
Speaker 4: Chester's former office bookkeeper, told Houston investigators that Chester eliminated
Speaker 4: one potential snitch from his organization by having him murdered
Speaker 4: and feeding his courts to alligators in Florida. Quickly became
Speaker 4: the unofficial master of ceremonies, striding about the room waving
Speaker 4: his arm glaring that witnesses like a pale, blue eyed,
Speaker 4: rapid god preacher. The flamboyant Somerville lawyer dominated the proceedings.
Speaker 1: In a phone conversation we had C. B. Hackworth recalls
Speaker 1: bumping into Cook that day, right before he headed into
Speaker 1: the courtroom to question Johnson.
Speaker 5: We were outside the program after a lunch break. Bobby
Speaker 5: Lee Cook was pacing back and forth in the hallway.
Speaker 5: He was obviously getting his thoughts together to go in
Speaker 5: and begin his cross examination of John Johnson, who had
Speaker 5: said some potentially damaging things. And just as the bailiff
Speaker 5: came out and said that the magistrate, Allan Chancey was
Speaker 5: coming back in, I got a Bobby Lee turned to me,
Speaker 5: looked right at me. Because I was sitting there, not
Speaker 5: because I was special, and said let's go feed somebody
Speaker 5: to the gators, and he was referring to John Johnson,
Speaker 5: and in my estimation, he pretty much did exactly that.
Speaker 5: He dismantled John Johnson in a way that I can't
Speaker 5: remember ever seeing before or since, anyone just so completely humiliated.
Speaker 2: In the courtorate.
Speaker 1: Bobby Lee Cook would also question Leslie Bickerton in court,
Speaker 1: and perhaps his skill as an attorney is most apparent
Speaker 1: in that Bickerton herself had a very different personal experience
Speaker 1: than those observing the interaction.
Speaker 3: I had no idea what I was walking into that courtroom.
Speaker 3: I didn't even know who Bobby the Cook was. Nobody
Speaker 3: had ever mentioned his name to me. Leafeds never told
Speaker 3: me about who this attorney was and what to expect
Speaker 3: that day, and so again I'm just set out there.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that he was able to really ingratiate himself
Speaker 1: to you because he completely understood your plight.
Speaker 3: The way that he started off the conversation, and I
Speaker 3: distinctly remember, was about dogs and about his bloodhounds and
Speaker 3: about my dog Covina that was stuck down on the
Speaker 3: Darby Islands.
Speaker 1: Stolen from you.
Speaker 3: Really, yeah, I'm never given back. And that's what Bobby
Speaker 3: Lee Cook started right off my dog Covino and put
Speaker 3: me at ease. I don't remember even how long I
Speaker 3: was on that witness stand. I just I don't, but
Speaker 3: I do remember at some point whatever the questions were
Speaker 3: that mister Cook was directing at me, I just I flose.
Speaker 3: It was like being in a road in the semi's
Speaker 3: coming straight at you. You know you have to move,
Speaker 3: but you can't move. C. B.
Speaker 1: Hackworth wrote about the exchange.
Speaker 5: A key prosecution witness wept yesterday as she admitted to
Speaker 5: defense attorneys having lied at the behest of government agents
Speaker 5: in an attempt to ensnare accused White County drugs muggler
Speaker 5: Lamar Chester, saying that, quote, it wasn't right. From the beginning,
Speaker 5: it wasn't right. None of it was right, said Leslie
Speaker 5: Bickerton thirty three. She said she was physically afraid of
Speaker 5: John Johnson, a former US attorney in Houston. Quote. I
Speaker 5: felt like he didn't have any regard for anybody, Miss
Speaker 5: Bickerton said, or for the truth, added Chester's lead defense attorney,
Speaker 5: Bobby Lee Cook of Summervil. Yes, sir, he wanted you
Speaker 5: to lie, charged Cook. Yes, Sir, said Miss Bickerton, dabbing
Speaker 5: her eyes. Miss Bickerton testified that Johnson told her he
Speaker 5: believed there was a link between Chester and the Baamian
Speaker 5: Prime Minister Lyndon Pendling.
Speaker 1: It also became apparent that Bickerton felt she was being
Speaker 1: played and manipulated by both sides.
Speaker 3: I remember Bogarth and others in that courtroom laughing at
Speaker 3: me while mister Cook was asking questionsself for me, and
Speaker 3: that was a joke. I'll never forget that. And I remembered,
Speaker 3: I don't know what answers I was giving at that point.
Speaker 3: I just froze. That stuck with me.
Speaker 1: Back to Cebe's reading of his article.
Speaker 5: She said her knowledge of what the government agents and
Speaker 5: prosecutors were willing to do made her fear them. Miss
Speaker 5: Bickerton said she also came to the conclusion she was
Speaker 5: being used by the government and decided to stop cooperating
Speaker 5: immediately after her appearance before a federal grand jury in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Phil Stanford recalls Cook's questioning also exposed something else Bickerton's
Speaker 1: feelings for Chester.
Speaker 2: Bobby Lee Cook was questioning Leslie about this and it
Speaker 2: was remarkable. I mean, he's a remarkable talker. He was
Speaker 2: creating this novel on his feet and drawing her into it.
Speaker 2: And he says, and this is I think when she
Speaker 2: had left Houston and go back to Atlanta to tell
Speaker 2: Lamar and his lawyers about the changes she'd made to
Speaker 2: the records, and he's sort of drawing her into this story,
Speaker 2: into her story as he would see it, of how
Speaker 2: she felt at this time. And he said, and there
Speaker 2: was this big pirate of a guy that you know
Speaker 2: she obviously couldn't resist, and he just swept you off
Speaker 2: your feet. And the US attorney Gaffney stands up in
Speaker 2: his double soled wingtips and says, I object, your honor,
Speaker 2: and she says, no, no, let him continue. It was
Speaker 2: for me the high point of the hearing. But it showed, yeah,
Speaker 2: there was an emotional tie between the two of them.
Speaker 1: But how and why Bickerton got tied up in that
Speaker 1: emotional relationship and the crosshairs of a federal investigation is
Speaker 1: something she continues to grapple with, particularly since some of
Speaker 1: it seemed orchestrated by Chester. You mentioned that he was
Speaker 1: controlling and calculating for lack of a better word. Looking back, now,
Speaker 1: do you see his advances on you as part of
Speaker 1: that calculation?
Speaker 3: Mm hmm, yep, mixed feelings because I liked Lamar. But
Speaker 3: then you also know that you've just been betrayed and
Speaker 3: that you've been set up that this is a person
Speaker 3: who is a threat that can hurt me, really hurt me.
Speaker 1: And at the same time somebody who who is presenting
Speaker 1: themselves as your protector and your predator at the same time.
Speaker 1: Right after telling her her life was in jeopardy, Chester
Speaker 1: offered to sneak Bickerton out of the country, which she
Speaker 1: immediately took as another potential threat, further indicative of their
Speaker 1: dysfunctional personal relationship, something she's still processing. So when he
Speaker 1: crossed the line over the professional relationship into a personal
Speaker 1: and romantic for lack of a better word, when did
Speaker 1: that happen and what was the context of it?
Speaker 3: Looking back at it, I'd say it makes you feel comfortable.
Speaker 3: And I'm not just saying this for myself, because I
Speaker 3: know a lot of other people that have been connected
Speaker 3: with him, and I've asked, is it just me a predator?
Speaker 3: Time is on their side in most cases, and they're
Speaker 3: just waiting for the right person, right mark, to come along. Psychologically,
Speaker 3: what predators can do is to make you feel very comfortable,
Speaker 3: and it's done on purpose, so that you're not even
Speaker 3: asking questions that you should be asking and being a
Speaker 3: little bit more careful given that he's you know, this
Speaker 3: person's a stranger. So psychologically it's very subtle and it's deliberate,
Speaker 3: and it's extremely manipulative and controlling, so subtle that you
Speaker 3: don't see the signs. You just don't. So when I
Speaker 3: first met him, he was cordial and maybe comfortable, you know,
Speaker 3: because I was interested in going to Darby Island and
Speaker 3: did so. The romantic side of it, if you want
Speaker 3: to call it that, I don't know, maybe a month
Speaker 3: or two months something like that, But there wasn't. It wasn't.
Speaker 3: I didn't fall in love with them. And it's hard
Speaker 3: to explain, Lauren, it really is.
Speaker 1: It was part of the manipulation, part of getting you
Speaker 1: to trust him and then also being beholden to him,
Speaker 1: right and then it's like you see the opposite side
Speaker 1: of the coin.
Speaker 3: It's evil. It's pure evil, a darkness that is emotionally, mentally,
Speaker 3: physically beyond human comprehension. It changes you forever. There's just
Speaker 3: something that you're always always on your guard. So nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty one what to nineteen eighty five. So four intense
Speaker 3: years of hiding because I never knew who was going
Speaker 3: to come at me and everything that was going on
Speaker 3: at that time. So you have that period of time.
Speaker 3: But then the ripple effects was ongoing.
Speaker 1: As for Chester, his growing desperation and belief that Phil
Speaker 1: Stanford would somehow facilitate CIA efforts to sweep in and
Speaker 1: make his legal issues disappear continued.
Speaker 2: Lamar sends me to DC to talk to my people.
Speaker 2: I go and just spend some time. And Lamar asked
Speaker 2: me over the phone when I found out, and I
Speaker 2: say nothing. You know, as usual, I'm not very talkative.
Speaker 2: And at that point, from then on, Lamar really didn't
Speaker 2: expect anything from me. In Miami, things was really falling apart.
Speaker 2: I was doing some other investigative work that was leading
Speaker 2: in sort of dark directions. I had to get out.
Speaker 2: I loaded everything in my car and drove back, moved
Speaker 2: back to DC and went back to all the usual
Speaker 2: places on the hill, congressional offices, magazines, trying to get
Speaker 2: a job and I remember going back to one of
Speaker 2: the places where I used to work and I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: you used to be someone, And it didn't mean that
Speaker 2: much to me then, but I see what he meant now.
Speaker 2: One of the people I did I do some work
Speaker 2: for was Danny who had the Christic Institute, and at
Speaker 2: that time they were in the course of their own
Speaker 2: investigations into El Salvador and then the death squads. There
Speaker 2: come across information about what the United States was doing
Speaker 2: in Nicaragua and other places in Central America and the
Speaker 2: drugs for guns trade they were trying to expose that.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting, particularly if you go back to Chester's
Speaker 1: claim that he was running guns into Nicaragua, and then
Speaker 1: also in court filings and in articles with CB Hackworth,
Speaker 1: Chester claimed that he was involved with flying Samosa, you know,
Speaker 1: Nicaragua's then president before he was overthrown and assassinated in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty by the Sandinistas. Chester claimed he flew Somosa's
Speaker 1: son in and out of Florida at the request of
Speaker 1: the US government. So it's it's just interesting that Shean's
Speaker 1: looking into Nicaragua and Chester's claims back up what he
Speaker 1: seems to be looking into.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and have to remember that this was at least
Speaker 2: a year and a half, two years before any of
Speaker 2: this really started surfacing in the press in the United States,
Speaker 2: So it was still hard even for me. I wasn't
Speaker 2: convinced that Chester was telling the truth about this. It
Speaker 2: all seems so crazy and it could have been true,
Speaker 2: it might have been false.
Speaker 1: I think it's also interesting that Bobby Lee Cook has
Speaker 1: a Nicaragua Somemosa connection because Simosa hired Bobby Lee Cook
Speaker 1: basically to clean up a report about Nicaragua in terms
Speaker 1: of its reputation in terms of human rights because he
Speaker 1: wanted to get more aid from the US State Department.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm not sure what connection, if any, that has
Speaker 2: to Lamar's activities, but it's more an indication to me anyway,
Speaker 2: Bobby Lee Cook's connections to people in high places.
Speaker 1: And if Chester started to sound paranoid about perceived threats
Speaker 1: to his life, it's hard to know where they'd be
Speaker 1: coming from. As in addition to his claims of CIA connections,
Speaker 1: multiple reports tied him to mob connections and Colombian cartels,
Speaker 1: but his legal issues weren't exactly mild or insignificant either.
Speaker 1: He was openly boasting about being a prolific drug smuggler
Speaker 1: and having run hundreds of trips into the United States.
Speaker 1: Contrasts that to the sentence we mentioned linked to the
Speaker 1: Black Tuna Gang in episode one, and you can see
Speaker 1: why Chester might have felt desperate.
Speaker 6: Drug smuggling was also the topic at federal court today
Speaker 6: with the beginning of testimony in the government's Black Tuna case.
Speaker 1: As a recap, the Black Tuna Gang ran Miami's drug
Speaker 1: trade in the nineteen seventies. All in all, the gang
Speaker 1: was accused of importing around five hundred tons of marijuana
Speaker 1: and to the United States over the course of sixteen months.
Speaker 6: Federal Judge James King listened as one time smuggler turned
Speaker 6: government informant Luke McLeod told of the eight tons of
Speaker 6: marijuana which he claims to have delivered to the key defendants,
Speaker 6: Robert Meinster and Robert Plattshorn in nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 2: Nineteen seventy five. They charged Platshorn under a Kingpin statute
Speaker 2: that was meant for much heavier drug offenses. But I
Speaker 2: really remembered about that is that he got sixty years
Speaker 2: for smuggling marijuana in the United States.
Speaker 1: Bobby Platshorn was actually sentenced to sixty four years and
Speaker 1: served thirty until recently earning the dubious distinction of being
Speaker 1: America's longest imprisoned nonviolent marijuana offender. Now in his mid seventies,
Speaker 1: Platshorn says the magnitude of his crimes was a fraction
Speaker 1: of what he was accused.
Speaker 7: Prison for importing marijuana, first offense, non violent. I caught
Speaker 7: the first kingpin charge they ever gave for marijuana, and
Speaker 7: I was prosecuted for eight forty eight continuing criminal enterprise,
Speaker 7: also known as the kingpin statue. When I first saw that,
Speaker 7: I had no idea what it meant, because I don't
Speaker 7: think I was even a safety pit, let alone a kingpin,
Speaker 7: but the government hung on me.
Speaker 1: Today, plat Storm's a marijuana legalization activist and an entrepreneur
Speaker 1: putting to use his knowledge of the law that was
Speaker 1: weaponized against him.
Speaker 7: I put it to work when I got out of
Speaker 7: prison by starting the Silver Tour to change minds about marijuana,
Speaker 7: to cater to the senior demographic who have the all
Speaker 7: important vote in just about every state in the Union.
Speaker 7: And I'm known for thirty eight years in prison and
Speaker 7: the last ten years, legalizing one state after another.
Speaker 1: In addition to now being a pioneering pot advocate for
Speaker 1: the elderly, which is the fastest growing segment of the
Speaker 1: medical marijuana market, Platshorn's made his mark in the legalized
Speaker 1: weed world with his aptly named and super popular Black
Speaker 1: Tuna marijuana strain. He's also written Black Tuna Diaries, a memoir,
Speaker 1: and is featured in the documentary Square Grouper. And she
Speaker 1: remains adamant that his noteworthy and notorious sentence was actually
Speaker 1: more connected to corruption than cannabis.
Speaker 7: Corruption Here funny of corruption. Here an attorney who I
Speaker 7: knew to be the bagman for federal judge said, the
Speaker 7: judge wants three million bucks, which would gladly give him
Speaker 7: If we had three million bucks. We had put the
Speaker 7: money in our homes, in our businesses. Between Robbie and
Speaker 7: I we were able to scrape up about a million
Speaker 7: three a million and a half, and the judge send
Speaker 7: us a message, you'll be.
Speaker 2: Sorry, and we were.
Speaker 1: Plat Shorn says he sat through his trial knowing the
Speaker 1: whole thing was a farce.
Speaker 7: It was a show trial beginning to end. Half the
Speaker 7: things that happened or were set at the trial just
Speaker 7: were made up out of thin air.
Speaker 1: At sentencing, Judge James Lawrence King said, quote, the price
Speaker 1: for participation in this traffic should be prohibitive. It should
Speaker 1: be made too dangerous to be attractive. Unquote. Now this
Speaker 1: is only mister Platshorn's version of the events, but it
Speaker 1: does show the potential impact that law used to make
Speaker 1: a statement an example, could have had on someone as
Speaker 1: public and vocal about their illicit activities as lamar Chester.
Speaker 1: I did reach out multiple times to the office of
Speaker 1: Judge King for a statement, but received no response. It
Speaker 1: is interesting to note that Judge King was also responsible
Speaker 1: for the ruling in nineteen eighty nine which would put
Speaker 1: an end to the Christian Institute the Public Interest law
Speaker 1: firm which employed Phil Stamford for a time.
Speaker 2: I had first come across the Judge James King when
Speaker 2: I was covering the Black Tuna trial down in Miami.
Speaker 2: I was working at the newspaper. Then I went back
Speaker 2: to the files and looked him up, and it turned
Speaker 2: out he had been on the board of a mob
Speaker 2: bank back in the sixties. The board of directors of
Speaker 2: a Mayer Lansky bank that's connected to the Teamsters Central
Speaker 2: Fund and Central States Fund.
Speaker 1: Phil remembers talking to Danny Sheen about Judge King, who
Speaker 1: was presiding over Shean's case.
Speaker 2: He'd made this a a court case of I think
Speaker 2: it was a ReHO case in federal court, and he
Speaker 2: was going to prove that the US government was complicit
Speaker 2: in this drugs and arms trade in the wars in
Speaker 2: Central America. So what do you think of the judge?
Speaker 2: What do you think of Judge King? He said, Oh,
Speaker 2: I think he's been pretty fair up to now. Well,
Speaker 2: it turns out that King was just giving them enough
Speaker 2: rope to hang themselves with. And after about a year
Speaker 2: of Danny's trial in DC, he threw out Danny's case,
Speaker 2: said he didn't have the evidence he needed to argue it,
Speaker 2: and charged him in the Christic Institute with legal fees
Speaker 2: for the other side, which came to a million dollars,
Speaker 2: effectively bankrupted the Christic Institute.
Speaker 1: Okay, back to our timeline and story. It's now June
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty five, and.
Speaker 2: So I'm back in DC for about a year and
Speaker 2: I get a call from Bob Adams down in Miami
Speaker 2: and he says, you're not going to believe it. Lamar
Speaker 2: just died. He was in a plane crash at his
Speaker 2: farm in Georgia. Remember how Lamar was fighting to get
Speaker 2: his pilot's license back. Trial's coming up in a few weeks.
Speaker 2: The Fed inside to give him his pilot's license back,
Speaker 2: so to celebrate, he took his Piper cub up little
Speaker 2: daughter Ajs, five years old with him for a joy
Speaker 2: ride around his farm and they crashed.
Speaker 1: What happened to his daughter, she was in the hospital.
Speaker 2: She'd broken her back and no one knew what was
Speaker 2: going to happen to her. And the official explanation of
Speaker 2: the crash was that he ran out of fuel, but
Speaker 2: no one believed that an experienced pilot like Lamar would
Speaker 2: check the fuel levels before he took off. And the
Speaker 2: first person on the scene was a GBI agent who
Speaker 2: Lamar had had some run ins with.
Speaker 1: Georgia Bureau of Investigations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he just happened to be there at the scene.
Speaker 2: He even got to the crash before Lamar's father, who
Speaker 2: was living on the property.
Speaker 1: So you found the story about the crash suspicious.
Speaker 2: Not just suspicious, unbelievable. He was murdered.
Speaker 1: On the next murder in Miami, Ron Elliott shares his
Speaker 1: version of being at Chester's farm on the night before
Speaker 1: he died in the crash.
Speaker 2: I yelled at him, be careful that two cars out there.
Speaker 2: The cars tore off towards the gate. Lamar yelled at
Speaker 2: me to get in the pickup. He was coming with a.
Speaker 1: Shotgun and an expert on the coport activities of the
Speaker 1: CIA weighs in on the plausibility of the Gray Maale
Speaker 1: defense of international drug smuggler Lamar Chester.
Speaker 2: Absolutely credible, that's credible.
Speaker 3: All that makes absolute sense.
Speaker 1: Murder of Miami is a production of iHeartRadio. Executive producers
Speaker 1: are Lauren Bright Pacheco, Taylor Chicogne, and Phil Stamford. Written
Speaker 1: by Phil Stamford and Lauren brag Pacheco, Vidio editing and
Speaker 1: sound design by Nicholas Harder, Evan Tyre and Taylor Chakoyne.
Speaker 1: Featuring music by Evan Tyre, Phil Mayer, John Murchison, and
Speaker 1: Taylor Chacoyne. Archival elements provided by Lennon Lewis Wolfson the
Speaker 1: Second Florida Moving Image Archives. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: the stories that matter to you,