WEBVTT - #38 Justine 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:05.120 Hello, Mary Cloude. 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:09.760 But Jackie's not answering the phone, so you're college. 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:12.920 That's why I was phoning. I know this sounds totally paranoid, 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:16.840 but do you think has Jackie been avoiding my calls? 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:20.759 She's avoiding your calls? 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:22.759 Why? 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:25.959 She has life and children and maybe she wants to 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:26.920 spend a few minutes. 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:28.200 Well, she gives her children. 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:29.320 I'm supposed to talk to you. 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:31.240 You don't think this is like some kind of cry 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:35.559 for help that she's kind of like isolating and everything. Yeah, well, 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:37.040 I just had a couple questions that I was going 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:39.279 to ask Jackie, but maybe since you guys are such 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:40.720 good friends, maybe you can answer them. 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:43.960 Yeah, it's literally four o three I need to leave, 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:44.920 So this is okay. 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:48.120 I was just going through my bar mitzvah rs vps 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:51.519 and I noticed that Jackie did not attend. 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:54.280 Do you know why did you read your barmst phone 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:57.280 the same Saturday as a very popular kid and everyone 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:01.000 went to his yes steadiers Eric Leidenheim. 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:02.840 Where she was? 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:15.959 Well, I guess at least she was at Temple from 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:22.520 Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode. 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:39.760 Justine right after the break, This is me, this is 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:40.360 your daddy. 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.880 Okay, I love you more than anything. 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:44.759 Okay, You're the. 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:48.640 Greatest thing, says Slice Bread. You're the greatest thing since 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:49.400 can beer. 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:53.480 In two thousand and seven, Gary recorded himself onto a 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:56.960 series of dictaphone cassettes, which he gave to his daughter Justine. 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:00.800 Ever since Justine was a kid, he's worked as a 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:04.720 mattress salesman. But he'd always tell Justine's stories about the 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:06.240 wildlife he once led. 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:09.280 And I kept saying to him, like, you need to 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:12.760 write a memoir, Like you can't just end your life 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:14.000 as a mattress salesman. 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:17.080 Gary said there was no way he could write a memoir. 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.160 He'd get too caught up in every little detail, and 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:23.000 titles can be such a hassle. What would he even 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:23.480 name it? 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:27.480 And he goes, but I'll compromise. What if I'd just 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:29.960 tell my life story into these tapes and you can 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:34.160 have them. 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:38.360 Gary's life, as he tells it, is one full of heroism, debauchery, 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:39.840 and brushes with fame. 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:42.320 He got into Georgetown from high school. 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:46.800 My room was the same room that President Bill Clinton 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:48.280 had when he was a freshman. 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:52.119 But then he got there and realized it was all bullshit, 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:53.200 dropped out. 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:56.799 Of Georktown after getting straight a's the first semester there, was. 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:59.720 Bored, so he transferred to Antioch. 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:03.440 At Antioch in nineteen sixty nine, Gary fell in with 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:09.040 a revolutionary crowd and began protesting Vietnam in a revolutionary way. 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:14.080 Robbing banks and giving the money to anti war causes, 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:19.240 and got in legal trouble because of that stuff. I 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:21.800 mean seven years in the federal penitentiary. He says. 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:24.480 I'm going to give you the actual story of just 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.200 say it with flowers, banded bank rapper. The only reason 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:29.320 why I called that because the newspapers called. 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:32.520 Gary says, sure he was a bank robber, but he 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.960 never used a gun. Instead, he'd walk into the bank 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:39.280 with just a bouquet of flowers and use hypnosis on 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:41.800 the teller to get what he wanted, like. 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.680 Using his powers of persuasion, which supposedly he learned on 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:47.240 an ashram. 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:50.000 Gary says he broke out of prison, auditioned for the 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.720 game show Jeopardy, got on, won the game, and then 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:55.480 got arrested. On the flight back home. 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:58.960 I went seventeen thousand dollars, so I kicked ass and 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:01.800 I want to fucking at the La fucking airport and 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:03.280 they fucking drive me off the plane. 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:05.760 Once he was back in prison, Gary says he won 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:10.040 a prison bridge tournament with his partner H. R. Haldeman. 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:12.320 Was HR. Haldeman, who was the chief of staff of 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:15.720 the Nixon Weisshause, the second most powerful man of his country. 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:19.840 Labor Day bridge tournament in September of nineteen seventy six 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:22.480 at Lompoke Federal Penitentiary. 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:25.000 The tapes are filled with hour after hour of stories 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:25.320 like this. 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:27.920 Later on, I lived in the cave, I went to 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:30.599 spy school, and I bought a horse. 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:39.919 Gary stories were out there, but he had this magical 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.640 quality that made anything seem possible. He could get justine 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:47.120 tickets for sold out concerts, appointments with doctors who were 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:47.839 booked solid. 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:51.240 She idolized her dad, and all my friends knew how 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:53.280 cool he was. I was always talking about my dad. 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:57.360 It's so silly. I have this one memory of when 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:00.240 I was in high school. So I was dreaming, like 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.680 from my dad's point of view, that he was driving 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:07.600 over a bridge, like on accident. And I was awakened 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:10.159 from that dream by my dad calling me on my 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:12.240 cell phone at like two in the morning and I 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:14.200 picked it up and he had a dream that I 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:17.880 was dying, and I couldn't wait to tell my friends 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:20.599 because it was just like, we have this cosmic connection, 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:21.880 me and my dad. 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.040 But there are other things about Gary that, looking back 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:29.480 on as an adult, Justine has a hard time reconciling 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:33.760 with the dad she's so adored. For one, they're cosmic connection. 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:37.280 Gary would often tell Justine that the two of them 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:40.880 were different than everyone else, different than her mom, who 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:44.200 divorced Gary when Justine was only three, and different from 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.880 her brother Stephen. She and Gary were a gang of two. 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.920 We are smarter, we get it. We were different from them. 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:56.479 And then when I became a mother, I just felt like, 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:01.559 you know, it's kind of inexcusable. I was just able 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:05.760 to zoom out a little bit and see some of 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:19.320 the inappropriateness of things. He is an addict, and sometimes 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:23.560 he would be completely wasted driving us, which was like 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:26.480 scary for me. I remember crying a lot in the backseat. 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:30.200 We would go to restaurants and there were times when 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:34.000 the patrons of the restaurants would call the police because 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:37.159 they were concerned about our welfare and I would be 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:39.560 like making jokes to the waitress to try to like 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.200 diffuse the situte. Like he would be really embarrassing and 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:45.240 obviously drunk, and I would say, hey, can we get 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.000 the guy some milk? You know, like just a nine 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:49.520 year old trying the smooth things over. 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:53.240 If the kids needed a babysitter, Gary would find the 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:57.760 neighborhood teenager and pay them in marijuana. Other times he'd 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:00.760 leave the kids to their own devices. Justine and her 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:03.680 brother Stephen would wander over to the Lowe's hardware store 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:07.799 beside their apartment complex and occupy themselves for hours playing 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:11.840 hide and seek among the appliances. Justine says Gary would 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:14.200 often drop her off at elementary school with her hair 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.280 unbrushed and a half eaten Big Mac wrapped in tinfoil 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.520 for lunch, and when middle school rolled around. 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:23.040 He would like show up drunk in the cafeteria during 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:24.680 lunchtime to come talk to me in. 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:28.760 Did you at this point did your friends still think 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:29.600 that he was cool? 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:31.080 Yep? 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:34.240 What was it that made them feel that way? 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:38.160 He would bring me money, which was you know cool? 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:42.520 When you're in seventh grade, he would crack a lot 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:47.320 of like inappropriate jokes like he he would talk about 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:51.360 sex like there are absolutely no boundaries in terms of 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.040 what he felt was appropriate for kids. He just treated 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:55.560 us like adults. 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:58.280 I'm not sure I'm a good parent. I'm sorry for 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:02.920 everything I've done wrong. I'm sorry for well living the 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:04.320 incredible lifestyle I live. 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:07.600 At this point in her life, Justine knows her dad 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:11.360 can be manipulative. She knows he's an addict, but she 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:14.360 still wants to believe that's not all he is. A 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:17.000 Part of her holds to that childhood belief that her 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:21.200 father's life truly was the stuff of memoirs. Those stories 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:25.040 feel like her inheritance. Yet at thirty one, she's forced 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:29.280 to ask herself, are those unbelievable stories about robbing banks 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:33.160 and winning Jeopardy so unbelievable because they're simply not to 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:33.840 be believed. 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:40.160 As I get older and my childhood begins to feel 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:45.000 more and more alarming to me, like I realize that 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:50.839 I have to know what was true, Like I have 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:53.760 to know this is my dad we're talking about, and 0:08:53.840 --> 0:09:00.840 if none of it's true, then that's completely insane and 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:07.200 I need to reevaluate everything. You know, if he's telling 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:10.720 these same lies in great detail, over and over, like 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.280 he's a fraud and a pathological liar. I just want 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:25.040 to I need to know that I started to discover 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:28.160 little things that he said that weren't so true, Like 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:32.520 there have been so many times when he's told me 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:35.839 that he's dying. I thought that he would never even 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:39.360 see me graduate high school, like I always have thought he. 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:43.240 Was dying after a lifetime of drug use and alcoholism. 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:47.160 Gary is in consistently poor health. It's just not clear 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:50.559 exactly how poor. Since he's been saying that he's dying 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:56.079 for over a decade, the prognosis is murky, like Justine's 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:58.080 fairly certain he does have hepatitis. 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:03.200 Oh, diabetes too, he got diabetes and that you like, Yes, 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:04.920 they had to like remove a toe, you know. 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:08.160 And you've seen you've seen this, uh this missing toe. 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:11.040 Yes, I was there in the hospital. 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:13.120 I'm sorry to have to ask that. 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:15.480 I mean, I haven't seen the toe, but I've seen 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:16.360 like the lack of a toe. 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:19.960 I've seen the lack of a toe. Okay, Yes, Gary 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:24.040 stuck to the same stories, often verbatim, for decades. So 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:26.839 at this point Justine doesn't feel like sitting down with 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.400 him to re examine, and requestion will yield new results. 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:34.880 She needs a neutral outsider to train an objective eye 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.880 onto Gary's stories and finally offer some clarity. And what 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:41.240 and what do you? What do you want me? You 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:46.240 want me to bring my powers of fact checking and 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:47.400 research to bear. 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:51.440 Or yes, you know, listen to the tapes. Maybe try 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:53.560 and pull out a couple of claims that you think 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:57.400 could be verifiable one way or the other. Yeah, start simple. 0:10:57.559 --> 0:10:59.000 Did he go to Georgetown? 0:10:59.120 --> 0:10:59.200 Like? 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.320 Start there? Yeah, and then just see what we can 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:03.199 verify and what we. 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:13.280 Can't after the break the facts. 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:16.680 Listen, I'm not making this shit up. I don't have to. 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:23.880 I'm sorry. 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:28.080 These tapes sometimes are incoherent, and I'm sober, I'm half drunk, 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:30.800 I'm totally drunk. But it's the real daddy. 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:34.679 It's the real meat, I must confess. As I begin 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.160 looking into Gary stories, I expect to quickly discover that 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.640 all of his stories are lies. I've met plenty of 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:44.920 Gary's in bars, on greyhound buses, and even at a 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:48.880 few public radio conventions, charming liars who lie to self 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:53.480 aggrandize or for no discernible reason at all. But as 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:57.600 I start the process of fact checking disproving Gary unequivocally 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.200 turns out to be more difficult than expected. I keep 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:04.560 phoning and emailing Georgetown, but no one gets back to me. 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:07.760 I look through an old Jeopardy archive, but it only 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:10.960 goes back to nineteen eighty five, years after Gary would 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:13.520 have been on the show. And while I do discover 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:16.960 that H. R. Haldeman was an inmate at Lompoke Federal 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:20.160 Penitentiary on the dates Gary said, I can find no 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:24.439 record of a Labor Day prison bridge tournament. Finally, though, 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.320 I alight upon one small claim I can weigh in 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:32.160 on with confidence. So I phoned Justine with the news scared. 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:34.600 Does it feel like stuff is getting real? 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:36.240 Yeah? 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:36.920 Is that okay? 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:41.360 Yeah? It's about time something got real. 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.959 Now the most underrated man on the history of the world. 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:49.160 Just so you know, a band called Buffalo Springfield has 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:51.959 Neil Young in it. Also Richie Fury, by the way, 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:54.760 who was a friend of mine in Yellow Springs, Ohio. 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:58.800 Had Gary been friends with a member of Buffalo Springfield. 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:02.360 I'd gone to Fire's website and filled out a contact 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:06.200 for him that said it was for all inquiries. My inquiry, 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:08.839 I explained, was that I was trying to figure out 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:13.200 whether someone's dad was a pathological liar, and so might 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:15.680 mister Fiura be able to tell me if he remembered 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:19.160 hanging out with a man named Gary in Yellow Springs, 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:24.080 Ohio in the early nineteen seventies. The next day, I 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:28.400 got an email back from Richie Fire's manager David. He 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:32.320 said that Richie left Yellow Springs in nineteen sixty four 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:36.800 and does not recognize the name, so that that came 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:37.640 back negative. 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:43.480 Okay, I'm really happy right now. 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:46.000 Really? Why? 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:51.960 Yeah, I guess it's the clarity. Wow, that's one. I 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:53.559 feel a little bit lighter for some. 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:57.400 Reason, and like, Okay, learning your father is a liar 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:01.160 is never good news, but for just it's better than 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:04.679 the years of not knowing. To misquote the most underrated 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:09.640 band in history. Something's happening here and what it is 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:11.560 is becoming increasingly clear. 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:13.560 The clouds are opening up a little. 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:16.360 Your dad did not know one of the members of 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:18.280 Buffalo Springfield. 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:21.400 And so the cloud's part And now I feel lighter. 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:26.080 It's great Buffalo Springfield is still bringing joy and meaning 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:40.240 to people. Justine mentions another musician story I should look into. 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:43.840 There's a local celebrity blues guitarist named Jean Deear, who 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.200 Gary always claimed to have discovered. They were great friends. 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:49.920 Gary said, until a big falling out. 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:54.080 Believe me, Christine, I've heard from so many people that 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:57.720 I'm an asshole for ever putting any money into Jean Dear. 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.480 I've sponsored him. I found him, pay for dental bills, 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:04.320 pay for home bills, fight it so much for him. 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:07.040 He just thinks he's God because he can play guitar. 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:10.200 Well, he may be a good person to contact. I'm sure. 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:12.400 I'm sure he's got information and stories. 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:17.400 I would say as far as discovering me, I'd have 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:18.760 to give him a thumbs up on that. 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:26.320 This is Jean Dear, and gen Deere says Gary is 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:29.640 telling the truth. Back when Jeane was twenty three years old, 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:32.760 he and his band were playing a small Indianapolis bar 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:35.240 one night when Gary just walked up to him. 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:37.480 I'm on the stage. He got a fool stick under 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:40.880 his arm, a drink in that hand, and then the 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:44.520 other hand he's handed me for money. He goes, take this, 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:46.480 take this. I'm his first time I re saw him, 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:49.040 said take this. I want to record you guys. I 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:53.120 want to make you famous. 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:59.760 Gary financed and produced Jene's first album, and forty years on, 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:02.800 Gene is still making a living from his music alone, 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:07.320 all thanks to Gary, and Jane says. If there was 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:10.200 any drama in their friendship, it played out on Gary's 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:10.800 side alone. 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:13.040 I hold it and in very high regard. 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:17.560 I hadn't expected Gary's story about Gene to be true, 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:20.320 and as I continue in my research, more of my 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:30.280 expectations are upended. Hello, Hey, justin Hi, So a couple 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:32.920 orders of business on the docket. I'd finally gotten an 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:37.280 email back from the communications office at Georgetown, confirmed by 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:41.000 our records. Said the email, Gary attended Georgetown in fall 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:46.200 nineteen sixty eight, And yet another surprise. Spend some time 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:52.080 looking into this say It with Flowers bandit. This is 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:55.200 what I was able to find. There was a robber. 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:58.760 I discovered several articles in a small Washington paper called 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:02.200 the Bellingham Herald, which covered the search for a say 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:05.520 It with Flowers bank robber. The robber had come into 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:08.240 a local bank wearing sunglasses, a pea coat, and a 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:11.280 stocking cab covering his hair. He stole eight hundred and 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:14.879 forty eight dollars and was never caught. There doesn't seem 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:17.680 to have been any hypnosis though, and the robber was armed, 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:21.520 which is a significant departure from Gary's telling, But all 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:24.719 the other details line up. The year is right, nineteen 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:28.520 seventy four, and the robber was Gary's age and Gary's height, 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:33.399 and he'd been carrying a bundle of white carnations, just 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:38.879 like Gary always said. Here's another telling detail. Have you 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:40.560 ever known your father to wear a beard? 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:42.400 Always? 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:44.840 What color would you describe as beard? 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:48.400 As being pictures I've seen from like the eighties where 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:52.720 he had a very full, long, disgusting beard. It was 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:55.479 kind of like a reddish brown, but like growing up, 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:57.199 you know, he would keep it closer to the face 0:17:57.359 --> 0:17:57.840 so then it. 0:17:57.800 --> 0:17:58.439 Was like darker. 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:02.000 Well, according to this article, bank personnel said he had 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:05.880 quote British type reddish colored whiskers with about a five 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:06.560 day growth. 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:11.520 Like for me, this corroborates, like I feel like it 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.560 was true. 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.399 I mean, look like, is it not possible that he 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:21.320 read about this bandit who has never caught and took 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:24.280 credit for him. Maybe at the time. The reason I 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:27.960 sound skeptical is because I am. The job I've been 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:30.919 handed was to fact check, to allow the facts to 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:34.200 speak for themselves, But over the course of my research 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:37.879 something kept eating at me. I'm going to play something 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:41.720 for you from my first conversation with Justine that initially 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:43.520 I wasn't going to include. 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:47.160 So this part, if it could please just remain off 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:47.560 the record. 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:49.920 Sure it's like really important, okay. 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:53.439 But that might like might give you some insight into well. 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:56.800 Originally this wasn't something Justine wanted to make public. She 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:01.520 since reconsidered, so I'm sharing it with her. Permisis. When 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:05.080 she was very young, around seven years old, Justine says 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:06.480 her father told her a secret. 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:09.760 He was like drunk and crying to me when I 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.840 was younger, and he told me this, And he said 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.879 to me that if I ever tell anyone that he 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:20.640 would wring my neck in public. When he met my mom, 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:23.959 she was pregnant with my brother, and my brother doesn't 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:27.720 know that he like my brother doesn't know that he 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:29.160 doesn't know who his dad. 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:33.280 Is, that is, Stephen doesn't know that Gary is not 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:34.680 his biological father. 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:41.480 Like according to the public knowledge would be that my 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:44.960 brother and I are siblings from my mom and dad, 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:47.720 that we are their two children. But the truth is only. 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:51.840 I am after his drunken confession. Gary never brought up 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:55.639 Stephen's paternity again, and until Justine mentioned it to me, 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:59.520 neither a. She she was terrified by her dad's threat, 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:03.840 so all the way into adulthood, she never told anyone, 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:04.680 not even her mom. 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:08.600 And so my mom doesn't know that I know. Nobody 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:11.800 knows that I know. And it's like kind of a 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:14.000 painful thing because I feel like my brother should know. 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:16.119 But I just keep, you know, I try not to 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:16.719 think about it. 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:20.880 And so the secret made a silent home inside her head, 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:25.159 becoming a wedge between her and Stephen. But when Justine 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:27.920 first laid all this out for me, I was incredulous, 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:30.840 you know, given the fact that, like there's a lot 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.240 of doubts surrounding the veracity of the things that your 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:37.160 dad has told you. Have you ever questioned whether that 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:38.040 was that was the truth? 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:40.800 WHOA, No, I never have. 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:46.720 I was thrown by Justine's reaction. If everything her father 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:49.920 had ever told her was suspect, why wasn't this story 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:54.320 about Stephen's paternity suspect too, especially since it seemed to 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:57.520 belie an agenda. I mean, you're saying that he had 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:00.159 all these techniques for like, you know, grouping yar you 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:03.480 two together against the world and everyone. I mean, that 0:21:03.680 --> 0:21:05.199 seems to fit in with that. 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:08.240 Yeah, that's this is true. So there are a couple 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:10.600 of reasons why I think I never questioned it. 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:14.120 For one, Stephen is pale with bright red hair. Well 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:18.680 Gary is dark complexion with dark hair. Plus garyot also 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:22.200 revealed a secret about a cousin's paternity, which did turn 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:25.960 out to be true. So from Justine's perspective, in the 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:30.640 secret paternity department, Gary was batting a thousand. But from 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:34.000 my perspective, none of that is definitive. So as I 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:38.160 updated Justine on Buffalo, Springfield and Georgetown and the say 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:41.159 It with Flowers bandit, I continue to obsess over the 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:44.000 story of her brother, Stephen's paternity. You have any further 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:47.919 thoughts about the business with your brother? Gary had saddled 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:50.840 six year old Justine with an albatross of shame and 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:54.200 secrecy that adult Justine still couldn't laid to rest. 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:58.440 All of these couple decades, it's been like, number one, 0:21:58.720 --> 0:21:59.440 do not do that. 0:21:59.640 --> 0:21:59.960 What's work? 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:03.879 The secret she'd been entrusted with maybe wasn't even true, 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:09.440 So to me, proving it false would relieve a huge burden. Plus, 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:13.360 unlike some of Gary's other stories, there wasn't space for ambiguity. 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:17.359 He either was Stephen's dad or he wasn't, so proving 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:21.120 the truth about Stephen's paternity would inevitably shed light onto 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:32.360 everything else. Stephen's paternity was the master key. I ask 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:35.200 Justine if she's ever considered talking to her mom about it, 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:37.880 to see if the story is true. It's a new 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:42.160 idea for Justine, one that takes time to process. Until now. 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:44.840 She's always assumed she'd keep the secret her whole life, 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:48.840 But I keep nudging her. Have you continued to think about, 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:52.920 like talking with your mother? In February, Justine absolutely did 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:54.160