WEBVTT - Fake It 'Til You Make It: William and Beryl Toye 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:04.519 Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Saren Burnett. 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:06.280 It's up Elizabeth dunn not the much. 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:09.000 How you Be Girl, I'm Elizabeth Dutton. 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:10.920 I'm Elizabeth Dunton. 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:12.840 And do you know what's ridiculous? 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:13.440 I do? 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:13.720 Oh? 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:14.840 Yeah, tell got a sack? 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:15.200 Yeah? 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:20.960 Okay. Your favorite band, Guns n' Roses. So in nineteen 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:23.120 eighty nine they were on a world tour, right, so 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:25.560 that was like there for appetite destruction. I guess they're 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:28.520 opening right, So they get back from the road after 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:31.280 that tour, and then Slash has nothing to do. So 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:32.440 what Slash gonna do? 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:32.559 Well? 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:35.000 Apparently being on the Yeah, being on the road had 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:37.360 given him like a regular schedule. Without a schedule, he 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:41.519 falls into a really bad cocaine and heroin problem for 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:45.600 two years now. Apparently, as he said and I quote, 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:47.000 it turned out to be the start of a long 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:50.120 and night Marrish obsession with heroin, and it lasted from 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:53.040 nineteen eighty nine until nineteen ninety one. While he was 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:56.120 on that night Marrish obsession with heroin, he had a 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:59.320 particularly funny exchange. I know you're like, how can that be? 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.360 Thereon trust You'll laugh when you hear it. Dudes out 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:05.480 there on a binch, he's like on heroin and cocaine, 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:08.200 and just like you know, zooted to the high heck 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:12.240 and slash. He starts tripping like hallucinating. I don't know 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:13.960 if he hadn't been sleeping or if he's mixing in 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:16.880 other drugs. All I can find is definitely heroin and cocaine. 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:19.679 I'm imagining some other drugs in there too, possibly hadn't 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:23.800 eaten well, I don't know. He's hallucinating, and he starts 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:26.600 he's also buying you on a golf course in Arizona. Okay, 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:31.720 so golf course Arizona, Slash hallucinating. It's nighttime. He remembers thinking, 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:34.280 and I quote that he was being chased by predators 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:41.640 with rubbery looking dreadlocks. So these rubbery dreadlocks predators. They 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:44.560 also had harpoons like they were on a whaling expedition 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:47.280 in Arizona, and machine guns, so they had hard pones 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:49.920 and machine guns. He was booking, he was running right, 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:51.760 So then what does he do. He runs through a 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:55.280 glass door and then he gets into like I don't know, 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:57.000 like a maid in the in the golf course. He 0:01:57.080 --> 0:01:59.440 grabs her tries to use her as a human shield 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:04.880 the courage, and then the police come and they stop him, 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:06.960 they arrest him, and he tells the whole story to 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:09.520 the police in vivid detail. Case. He's still tripping, so 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:12.000 he's telling them and I quote, I was still high 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:13.639 enough that I told the story without a shred of 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:17.040 self consciousness. Oh can you imagine, Slash tell you that. 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:19.040 Can? 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:20.800 So there you go. 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:23.760 See I told you, well, yeah, that is ridiculous. But 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:26.800 poor dear, do you know what else is ridiculous? 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:28.600 No, but I was hoping you did. 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:32.600 Accusing the victim of the very crime you've perpetrated against them? 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:54.560 Oh yeah, this is ridiculous. 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:54.880 Crime. 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:59.520 A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.000 It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:04.520 percent ridiculous. 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:05.520 I know you heard that. 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:07.440 I love eccentrics. 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:09.919 Yeah you do. You are kind of them. 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:14.160 I have a book by Edith Sitwell called English Eccentrics. 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:15.720 Oh yes, some of the world's best. 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:18.880 Oh yeah, it's wild. Princess Caribou is in the book. 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:23.639 We talked about her before. There are Hermits, adventurers, Charlatan's 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:28.639 weirdos as a weirdo. I love these folks, and there 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:34.160 are degrees of delusion in eccentrics, some more severe than others. True, 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:37.880 So I have for you today a grifter, an art forger, 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:43.440 a liar, a supreme eccentric talk that talk. He has, 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:47.240 of course, an equally eccentric wife. I mean, you have 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:51.480 to be a straight a sort of folly ido. Although 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:53.720 I don't want to wait into any like issues of 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:57.560 mental illness, let's stick with eccentric for now. His name 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:01.000 is William Toy and he was born nineteen thirty one, 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:09.000 Tye Tolly, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Birth. This boy, this is 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:14.080 to get you situated in times. So he dropped, He 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:16.760 dropped out of high school, and that seems like it 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:19.120 was a lot easier to do in the late nineteen forties. 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:20.240 Just had to slip out. 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:22.320 Well yeah, I mean, like my grandpa dropped out of 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:24.679 sixth grade to get a job to help the family 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:27.640 back in the day, like pre that time, it was 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:31.839 like last year anyway, my grandpa sixth grade, last year, 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:36.160 Toy he bailed on high school and he was artistically 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:39.960 and mechanically inclined, and he eventually worked his way up 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.880 to a gig making architectural models for engineering firms. That's 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:48.080 not bad, rrect impressive. He taught himself to paint along 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:50.880 the way, and by the nineteen sixties he was working 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:54.360 as an artist. That was his gig. So another artist 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:56.719 who was also self taught but had a much more 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:00.280 compelling and impressive story was Clementine Hunter. 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:02.080 Don't know that name. 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:04.320 She was born in late eighteen eighty six to a 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:09.560 Creole family at a plantation in Nagadocia's Parish, Louisiana. Her 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:14.000 grandparents were enslaved on a nearby plantation and it was, 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:17.160 you know, here on this other one that she got 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:20.400 to picking cotton and pecans or pecans, you can stay 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.600 down there. She worked as a maid and a cook. 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:25.599 And again this is like, you know, post Civil War. 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.080 Here's a fun fact about her. On the morning that 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:31.760 she gave birth to one of her kids, she harvested 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:34.200 seventy eight pounds of cotton and then she went home 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:35.440 and called for the midwife. 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:38.159 Great, wait a minute, you said, on the day she 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:40.839 gave birth. Yeah, so she's she's like hours from labor. 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.120 She picked seventy eight pounds of cotton. 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:44.559 Seventy eight pounds. 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:46.719 Now I know a little about picking cotton from family stories. 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:49.680 That's a lot of day. I mean, like, that's that's 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:50.640 a real good day. 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:55.159 She is a strong, smart woman who was denied in education. 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:57.599 She couldn't read or write. And I think it's important 0:05:57.600 --> 0:05:59.960 to remember that when the Civil War ended and slave 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:02.839 people weren't just free to wave goodbye to their oppressors 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:04.600 and walk to the city and get a job in 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:07.760 an apartment. You know, they were in economic shackles. 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:08.880 Yeah, definitely. 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:11.440 And for those who you know ignorantly say, oh, but 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:13.800 they learned to trade, they had nothing. 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:16.520 Oh no, they had nothing. I mean, coming out of slavery, 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:19.159 you got to think about like, okay, someone used to 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:21.440 own you, so if you let your dog go, what 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:24.240 would they have? That was basically slavery. But you know, 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:26.039 you just obviously I don't want to make the comparison 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:27.960 to animals, but I'm saying, when you own something, that 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:31.440 is a fitting comparison for slavery. They were not allowed 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:33.920 to have anything other than like, you know, some ragtag 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:36.000 clothing they got each year, like here's your coat for 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:37.640 the year, here's your seeing. 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:42.480 These animals chattel lives, so they had no money, no education, 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:45.279 no real rights, and then so they're generally stuck where 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:49.360 they were totally and now they're just getting a pittance 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.560 and basically prevent it from advancing it anyway. This is 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:56.640 a historical fact, it's our truth. So kick rocks. If 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:59.200 you aren't willing to confront this and the ramifications as well, 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:00.000 I'm not talking to you. 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:02.440 Oh you mean, like someone would say that like coming 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:04.360 out of slavery, you're in a good spot now you're 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:05.159 free or something. 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:10.000 Yeah, exactly. So. Clementine she couldn't read, she couldn't write, 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:12.320 but she soaked up what she saw in the world 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:15.960 around her. And one day in the late nineteen thirties, Clementine, 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:19.040 now a grandmother, she found a box of paint tubes 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:22.280 left behind by a visitor to the plantation, because the 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:24.960 plantation by that time had become sort of a literary 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.840 and artistic salon. Oh wow, it was like a retreat. 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:29.800 Never expect that, No, not at all. 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:33.240 So she was fascinated by the colors and the textures 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:35.680 of the paint, and she goes back to her living quarter. 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:39.200 She pulls down a window shade and begins conveying in paint. 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.680 The realities of her daily life, the images of her memory, 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:46.920 the musings of her imagination. Sure, she became a folk artist, 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:50.400 sort of an outsider artist. Her figures are very much 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:53.520 reminiscent of those in quilt making, and that was the 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:55.920 skill in an art that she learned early in life. 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.480 And eventually she would incorporate sewing and quilting and even 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:02.440 weaving into her visual art. But for this point like 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:06.760 she's just painting. She started selling paintings after her husband died. 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:09.200 She put up a sign outside of her cabin that 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:14.880 said Clementine Hunter Artist, twenty five cents to look. So 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:19.360 she got her first shows in walk into this sailwich 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:21.960 picking have them on display. Yeah, exactly, Maybe you can 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:24.240 make an offer. So she gets her first shows in 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:27.320 nineteen forty five, and then in nineteen forty nine she 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:30.160 got wider recognition thanks to the New Orleans Arts and 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:30.760 Craft Show. 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:31.880 I said forty nine. 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:34.640 Forty nine, And in nineteen fifty three she was profiled 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:38.320 in Look magazine and that took her national So the 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.200 people involved with the writers and the artist's colony at 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.120 the Plantation, they helped her out. There was this journalist 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:48.400 Francois Mignon, who was a friend of Cammy Henry. Cammy 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:52.360 Henry was the owner of the plantation, and so Francois Mignon. 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:56.319 He provided Clementine with paint and materials and then sang 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:59.520 her praises to everyone he met. And her paintings got 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.480 displayed first in a local drug store and they were 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.240 on sale for a dollar a pop, just like twelve 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:09.840 dollars today. But you know, she's just gaining all this momentum. 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:13.080 In nineteen fifty six, she and Francois Mignon, they wrote 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:16.240 a cookbook together about the food at the plantation, So 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:20.720 she contributed recipes illustrations and these were like family recipes 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.440 that went back. So she's getting this like recognition and 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:28.240 acknowledgment in all of this. She painted for decades. She 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:30.959 had a lot of exhibitions and shows all over the South. 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:33.360 She was the first black artist to have a solo 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:37.840 exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art. She received 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.760 an invitation to the White House from President Jimmy Carter, 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:44.640 and she got a letter from President Ronald Reagan. A 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:48.920 Northwestern State University of Louisiana gave her an honorary doctorate 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:53.640 of Fine arts. In nineteen eighty six, Louisiana Governor Edwin 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:58.079 Edwards made her an honorary colonel, and in twenty nineteen, 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:02.520 long after she passed, state legislators passed a resolution that 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:07.640 designated October first as Clementine Hunter Day. Right, so she 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:09.600 painted right up until the end of her life in 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.040 nineteen eighty eight, at the age of one hundred and one. 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:14.520 I love that she started late in all this. I 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:15.760 mean charches a grammar. 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:16.360 Versus a grandmother. 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:17.000 That's amazing. 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:18.960 I think that the letter from Reagan was for her 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:19.959 one hundredth birthday. 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.320 I'm kind of guessing you said forty fifty yea, guys. 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:25.280 But to do this, to come from absolutely nothing amazing 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.560 and create this in hundreds well, and by the time 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:30.720 of her death in one hundred and one, her paintings 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:33.720 were selling for thousands of dollars. She goes from twenty 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:36.240 five cents to take a look to thousands of dollars. 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:40.679 In her life, she painted four thousand to five thousand 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:44.320 paintings like There's just tons And because of like her 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:47.360 sort of primitive style, people thought that they could forge 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:47.840 her work. 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:49.560 Oh like bask yacht stuff. 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.440 Yes, yes, so even her own relatives, as well as 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:57.280 those of plantation owner Cammy Henry. They made fakes of 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:00.520 clement Yeah, James L. We don't be going to. 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:02.839 Exploit enough of your family, so we wanted to exploit. 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:06.520 You, right, James L. Wilson, in his book Clementine Hunter 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:10.800 American Folk Artists quote. In nineteen seventy four, Hunter's reputation 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.800 had grown so and with it the price of her works, 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:18.000 that the inevitable occurred. A forgery scare. Rumors that either 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.959 a grandson or a nephew was grinding out Hunter copies 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:23.680 and selling them began to fly, and in New Orleans 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:26.439 an artist was charged with copying her paintings and trying 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:30.280 to sell them as Hunter originals. We're going to talk 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:31.000 about that artist. 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:32.960 Why did you go, Elizabeth. You found a way to 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:35.000 make me not root for a criminal. 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.760 Right right now? Look at me. So like art dealers, 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:41.840 they've been complaining about these fakes. So the New Orleans 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:43.359 police opened an investigation. 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:44.000 Get them. 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:49.600 Detective Robert Poadavon and Officer Roma Kent. They answered a 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:52.920 newspaper ad for the sale of Clementine Hunter paintings. They 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:55.600 went undercover to meet with the seller at a house 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:56.480 on Canal Street. 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:57.480 On Canal Street. 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:01.240 Yeah, the guy shows the Plaine clothes cops twelve paintings 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:06.840 supposedly painted by Clementine Hunter, and upon inspection, the officers 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:09.560 determined they were fakes. So they had studied up, they 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:13.200 knew everything about her work. They arrested the cellar and 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.640 they even discovered ten more fakes at his own house. Wow, 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:20.680 who is this guy? William Toy Ah bad Billy Toy, 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:25.120 Bad Billy Toy. He gets booked on twenty two counts 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:28.080 of forgery and it was alleged by police that he 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:31.719 forged both the works of Clementine Hunter and her initials, 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:34.000 her signature. So it wasn't just like I'm painting this 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:36.360 and it's unattributed. Remember we've talked. 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:39.880 About that's what makes it. Yeah, fraud, that's what makes 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:40.520 it a forgery. 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:42.080 And that's why he couldn't say it was like an 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:45.800 appreciation piece or whatever Tony Tetro used to say. So 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:49.319 the police they tracked down other paintings sold by Toy 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:53.520 and took them to Clementine for authentication. Oh yeah, she's 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:56.760 ninety two years old. She's living in Melrose, Louisiana. She 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.880 confirmed you know what, I didn't paint these and this 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.520 signature total forgery. So after that, then the cops brought 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:06.640 in another twenty two paintings for her to authenticate because 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:10.240 they've got the source. Toy spent a day in jail, 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:13.600 then he hired the best defense attorney in town. He 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:17.240 posted bail via a two thousand dollars bond. The case, though, 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:20.640 was never prosecuted, just kind of fell apart. Who knows 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:22.280 why ninety seven he strikes. 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:24.080 I guess they felt there wasn't a major victims. 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:28.439 I suppose he strikes again in Baton Rouge in ninety seven, 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:31.720 so he and his wife they consigned more paintings to 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:35.880 the Louisiana Auction Exchange in Baton Rouge. But these weren't 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:39.600 just Clementine Hunter pieces. They were also works by Matisse 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:44.600 and Dega. Yeah, all fake, of course. So he accused. 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.360 Toy accused the owner of the auction house, Ronald Causey, 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:50.679 of taking the real pieces and then counterfeiting them and 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:53.600 putting those up for sale. Oh like, I gave you 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:55.440 the blueprint and you made a copy and that's what. 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:59.079 So now I'm the victim, I'm the problem. 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:03.600 Yeah, so Toy files complaints with Louisiana Auctioneer's Licensing Board 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:06.840 against Kasey against the guy he ripped off, saying that 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:09.880 Kasey withheld payments for the paintings that were sold at auction. 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:14.760 The board took no action then. Causey later passed away 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:20.200 from lung cancer. However, Toy started spreading rumors that the 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.600 FBI had been trying to conduct a raid on Casey's house, 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:26.240 and he told people that while Kasey's wife tried to 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:28.440 barricade the door, Kasey went to the back of the 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:31.800 house and took his own life. Whoa he said, quote, 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:34.160 there was a gunshot. The FBI pushed the door open 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:38.200 and went in and found Kusey dead. None of it's true. 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:42.800 Toy's wife, Beryl b e r Y lt Not like 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:47.520 create Ann. Beryl Beryl wrote to a friend of hers 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:51.120 who's also an accomplice, Robert Lucky. Quote, he stole about 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:53.480 one point three million worth of art from us. He 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:57.040 was a dangerous criminal who surrounded himself with other dangerous criminals. 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:01.640 We literally hounded him to his death. They're saying that Casey. 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:06.440 Here's what Casey's widow, Sondra had to say. Quote Ron 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:08.800 would be the last person in the world to kill himself. 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:11.600 He died of lung cancer. My husband was a fine, 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:14.040 big hearted person who didn't like to think people could 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:16.600 do bad things to you, and so he trusted mister 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:19.680 Toy and the whole time mister Toy was deceiving him. 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:22.240 By the time we finished dealing with mister Toy, both 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:24.960 Ron and I were convinced he was either completely insane 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:26.040 or completely evil. 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:29.120 So he took the other approach on dead men, tell 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:32.200 no tales. My dead men can't change what I'm saying. 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:33.360 Uh huh, that's. 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.640 No, completely insane, completely evil? Why not both? 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:38.600 That's what I'm with, right, So when. 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:41.240 We come back, we'll dive further into the bizarre behavior 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:42.760 of William and Beryl Toy. 0:15:42.960 --> 0:16:05.920 All right, Zarenizabeth over here over here? 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:10.040 Question? Yes, thank you? What was I talking about? 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:11.520 Oh, Beryl good? 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:14.400 Good call William and Beryl Toy? 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:18.160 Like I just kept this barrel her name Beryl Beryl 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:21.520 wise could be Beryl and boy Toy. That just sounds is. 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:26.120 Like a really like a failed eighties movie like script 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:27.080 that everyone got. 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:27.960 Made once a computer. 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:30.640 Hear me out, beryln boy Toy. 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:34.320 No, it's not a real barrel. It's a computer. What 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:34.560 was that? 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.320 Crazy cooked out producers named Don Simpson. 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:39.280 Oh yeah, and Jerry Bruckheim cast on that. 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:43.280 Could you believe that Beryl and boy toy? So William 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:44.120 and Beryl. 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:48.280 Was my friend's hero. The you looked at that, He's like, 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:49.120 I want to be like. 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:53.480 That, dear god man. Anyway, So these two, this gruesome twosome, 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:58.560 they're forging paintings by local renowned folks, outsider artist Clementine 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:02.080 Hunter and then also world famous French painters throw it in. 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:06.159 Why they are sewing chaos and nastiness wherever they go. 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.960 As their crimes advanced, so did their paranoia and delusion. 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:15.719 Ah yes, methis people exact after the whole Causy affair, 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.920 they start spiraling out. They installed bulletproof glass in their 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:24.200 downstairs windows, which you know can't hurt. It's not cheap listen. Yeah, 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:26.560 I would do it at my house. Did you know 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:28.960 I had a car once that had bulletproof windows and 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:30.080 a bomb plate underneath? 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:30.640 What? 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:31.840 It was so comforting? 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:33.040 What I did? 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:33.399 Serious? 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:34.840 How did you have a bomb plate? 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:37.320 I want to talk about it, but I did. I 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:39.160 didn't know I had a bomb plate until I took 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:41.639 it to the mechanic the first time, like you know, 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:44.240 and they put it up. They're like, this is registering 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:45.959 is so much heavier than it should be. And they 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:47.600 put it up on the lift thing and like wow, 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:49.080 why do you have a bomb plate? 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:50.800 I'm like, stretch the length of the car. 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:53.640 And then I had a bullet Like when you rolled 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:55.960 the window down, it was double. They were bulletproof glass. 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:58.160 Why are you driving one of Pablo Escobar's cars? 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:02.160 Because for real, how did you? I want to talk? 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:08.400 I have so many questions, Like a bulletproof car. 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:10.040 I was very comfort comforting. 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:10.959 I bet it was. 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:13.840 It was. It was awesome. So they didn't stop at 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:18.359 the glass in their house. The glass. They put a 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.240 booby trap under the window in the car port, which 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:24.800 is it's a clever one. So they had they laid 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:26.879 down a bunch of marbles and then they put a 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:29.840 sheet of glass on top of that. So that this 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.600 is how this is what William Toy said, quote anybody 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:34.720 who steps on it will be in for a surprise. 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:40.440 Wait what what inside the home? Underneath a window. 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:43.040 Outside the home outside their house, Like there's the car 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:45.960 port and there's this window there and the like, if 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:47.600 you try and break in, you're going to step on 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:48.480 marbles and glass. 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:51.080 You're not going to notice the marbles and glass. 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.199 No, because who looks where they're walkings there? Yes, of 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:55.200 course it's all very home alone. 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:56.800 It's very home alone. 0:18:57.080 --> 0:18:59.520 So in the middle of all this, the toys are 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.000 at at that the paintings they're trying to sell are 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:08.639 totally real, totally legal, totally cool, trap home alone. And 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:11.280 they said that they were the real victims here. This 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:14.159 is a witch hunt. Of course, how were they the victims? 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:15.679 Well, it's obvious they're saying they are. 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:19.320 This is what they said. They said that international drug dealers. 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:23.080 Of course, we're using auction houses to steal legitimate paintings 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:27.159 from honest, trusting sellers like them. They said that the 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:31.640 dealers switched out the good paintings with copies and then 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:34.120 went back to the auction houses saying that the pieces 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:36.240 were fake and they wanted their money back. 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:37.880 Because everyone loves the investigators, like. 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:41.159 Okay, Pablo escobars out there buying hippos with his booger 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.480 sugar money. And then these supposed kingpins are creating a 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:47.000 large number of fake paintings in order to flee small 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:48.280 auction houses in the South. 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:49.879 Yes, he's like, how do I get in on an 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:51.560 in insurance scam in Louisiana? 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:58.960 Very slow on a crew of forgers. 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:00.200 For the kind of games that I get for are 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:01.840 just a tenth of a plane load. 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:05.520 Right, So the consigners of the paintings, the toys, they 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:08.600 didn't get paid and all they had were they're worthless fakes, 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:11.359 garbage that had been swapped out by drug dealers. Of course, 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:16.119