Speaker 1: Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio. Previously on
Speaker 1: Murder in Miami. Stanford was all too willing to dive
Speaker 1: into the new role of private investigator.
Speaker 2: I was an utter failure at it. I said, Bob,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I said, oh, don't worry about it. And
Speaker 2: he pulled out a roll of bills, peeled off five hundreds,
Speaker 2: and he said, good work.
Speaker 1: Why didn't the police or Intercept ever get to the
Speaker 1: bottom of who killed Clay Williams.
Speaker 2: It was a strange funeral anyway. Standing in the back
Speaker 2: end of the trailer were about four or five very
Speaker 2: big guys, obviously detectives. They were there to send a message.
Speaker 1: As far as the family's concerned. They never had any
Speaker 1: true answers as to who murdered Clay or why.
Speaker 3: I had understood from Clay that these were former intelligence
Speaker 3: people from the federal government, whether it's CIA, Army intelligence,
Speaker 3: they were all associated.
Speaker 1: I think maybe Intercept had something to do with this death.
Speaker 2: I certainly didn't think so at the time, but the
Speaker 2: more we look into it, the more possible it seems.
Speaker 1: So what was the tie between the Central Intelligence Agency
Speaker 1: and Miami.
Speaker 2: It's still an open murder case in Miami Dade and
Speaker 2: they can't find the papers. Makes you wonder, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: Following up nineteen eighty's record of five hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: three murders, nineteen eighty one would become Miami's deadliest year
Speaker 1: to date. Just seven months into nineteen eighty one, Miami's
Speaker 1: homicide count was already at two hundred and ninety six.
Speaker 1: By the end of the year, the number would reach
Speaker 1: six hundred and twenty one. Clay Williams was just one
Speaker 1: of those murders. Perhaps that violence played into this strange
Speaker 1: and surreal time. Bill Stamford soon found himself navigating before
Speaker 1: his path would cross in person with Lamar Chester. I'm
Speaker 1: Lauren bred Pacheco, and this is murder in Miami.
Speaker 2: So it's nineteen eighty two and basically I'm hanging out
Speaker 2: of the car Doza doing odd jobs for Intercept now
Speaker 2: and then. But after a while the jobs head Interceptor
Speaker 2: are drying up. Bob tells me that he can't hire
Speaker 2: me full time unless I have a private investigator's license.
Speaker 2: So I put in for the license, but they tell
Speaker 2: me it'll take several months to get it. So right
Speaker 2: about that I actually made some money selling ads for
Speaker 2: telephone time and temperature for a guy named Uncle Dudley
Speaker 2: who wore an ice cream suit and was really quite
Speaker 2: a character himself. Today is Friday, June third, The current
Speaker 2: time eleven forty five pm and the temperature seventy five degrees.
Speaker 4: How did you connect with him?
Speaker 2: That was another Ruth connection from Alabama. I'm sure she'd
Speaker 2: met him back there.
Speaker 4: Was it enough to pay the rent?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I wasn't making that much money, but it was
Speaker 2: enough to get by on. I was really kind of
Speaker 2: drifting at that point, So that's why I decided how
Speaker 2: to go back to Washington, D C. And see what
Speaker 2: was cooking back there?
Speaker 1: Were you second guessing your decision to walk away from
Speaker 1: your career.
Speaker 2: It's always sort of in the back of my mind.
Speaker 1: I suppose Phil, you downplay it, but you had some
Speaker 1: serious bylines before you moved to Miami. I mean, major
Speaker 1: articles in the New York Times, the Columbia Journalism Review
Speaker 1: on defense and intelligence matters. That's an extreme impressive level
Speaker 1: of success as a journalist.
Speaker 2: Uh, yeah, I suppose. So what you've got to understand
Speaker 2: I guess I've been trying to figure this out myself
Speaker 2: as we've gotten along with the podcast, is what effect
Speaker 2: that had on me? And head on all this? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I wrote several pieces for the New York Times magazine.
Speaker 2: One piece I did for them to cover story about
Speaker 2: nuclear missile submarines. It was a big success by journalistic standards.
Speaker 2: All the major magazines in Europe reprinted it. Readers, Digest,
Speaker 2: the New Yorker wrote a Talk of the Town article
Speaker 2: about it. So I sat back and waited for the reaction.
Speaker 2: I guess I expected the legislatures of the world to
Speaker 2: do something recognizing the essential insanity of the nuclear arms race.
Speaker 2: Once again, how dumb can you be? And shortly after that,
Speaker 2: the New York Times asked me to do another piece.
Speaker 2: This went on terrorism, and I knew this from my
Speaker 2: dealings with them so far that it probably never even printed.
Speaker 2: That they wouldn't want to hear what I had to
Speaker 2: say about the terror bombing of North Vietnam, or the
Speaker 2: Ragun or the Stern Gang. So I punted. That's when
Speaker 2: I began my retreat. I took a job on that
Speaker 2: little political magazine we've talking about. I dropped out, went
Speaker 2: to Miami, wrote some crime stories for the Miami News,
Speaker 2: and ended up working for Intercept.
Speaker 1: Is it safe to say that you were disillusioned?
Speaker 2: Yeah, except that I'd never really had that many illusions,
Speaker 2: So I guess it cou'd be more accurate to say
Speaker 2: I was printed out.
Speaker 1: Maybe sitting around and hearing the former CIA and intelligence
Speaker 1: guys it Intercept somewhat reignited Stanford's inner investigative urges, or
Speaker 1: maybe it just made a missus former beat a bit.
Speaker 1: But Bill decided to make a trip back to Washington
Speaker 1: to reconnect with some former contacts, only to find some
Speaker 1: doors had closed during his time away.
Speaker 2: I'd only been away for a little over a year,
Speaker 2: I guess, but going it seemed like a very strange place,
Speaker 2: especially after the intensity of what I had felt in Miami.
Speaker 2: And one thing was apparent right away. Everyone knew I'd
Speaker 2: gotten off the ladder to success. And I think whether
Speaker 2: they thought of that consciously or not entered into all
Speaker 2: their considerations, or maybe they just sensed as I did,
Speaker 2: that Miami had changed me somewhat in what way I'd
Speaker 2: really gotten to see a glimpse into the way things
Speaker 2: really work. Before everything had been sort of abstract nuclear strategy,
Speaker 2: mega tonage political programs, that sort of thing. And along
Speaker 2: the way it had occurred to me that the people
Speaker 2: I considered the real criminals were the people who were
Speaker 2: running things in Washington and other places.
Speaker 1: Like that, a realization that led Stamford to reach out
Speaker 1: to a like minded connection.
Speaker 2: So I got in touch with an old friend, Sheen,
Speaker 2: who had but I suppose most people would call a
Speaker 2: radical peace and justice organization called the Christic Institute in Washington.
Speaker 2: He was a Harvard trained lawyer. They were associated with
Speaker 2: the Jesuits, and they used the legal system to achieve
Speaker 2: their ends.
Speaker 1: The Christic Institute was a non profit public interest law
Speaker 1: firm founded in nineteen eighty by Danny Shean, his wife
Speaker 1: Sarah Nelson, and a Jesuit priest named William Davis. The
Speaker 1: firm was a unique and revolutionary model for social reform,
Speaker 1: combining investigation, litigation, and education while mobilizing public support for
Speaker 1: worthy causes. They sought to wield the law as a
Speaker 1: weapon of progressive change against a number of daunting targets
Speaker 1: like the KKK, the American Nazi Party, as well as
Speaker 1: corrupt cops and federal agents.
Speaker 2: Bob Adams, the guys head of the Detective Agency, had
Speaker 2: been part of a military intelligence unity in Europe that
Speaker 2: provided logistical support for assassinations conducted by the United States,
Speaker 2: and I thought it offered a way to prove that
Speaker 2: power did. Indeed, this is Mao's dictum. I believe that
Speaker 2: power came from the barrel of a gun. I mean,
Speaker 2: it probably sounded as stupid then as naive as it
Speaker 2: does now, but that's how I was thinking. And in
Speaker 2: any case, Danny offered me a monthly stipend of twenty
Speaker 2: five hundred dollars a month, which was more than I
Speaker 2: usually made as a freelance writer, for sure, And I
Speaker 2: put everything in the car again and went back to Wyomi.
Speaker 1: So now you're basically working as a private investigator, investigative
Speaker 1: journalist investigating Intercept, a private investigation from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 1: So you're lucky you didn't get yourself killed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I suppose so, although I don't know, maybe Bob
Speaker 2: would have sort of enjoyed the deviousness of it.
Speaker 1: That investigating Intercept would prove a bit inconvenient.
Speaker 2: The funny part is that when I got back, I
Speaker 2: went out to the office in Parne and it was closed.
Speaker 2: It was shut down. There wasn't even a sign on
Speaker 2: the door. Anymore that said Intercept. I should have known
Speaker 2: something was up. When I was in DC. I'd gotten
Speaker 2: a call from Ruth saying that a couple of federal
Speaker 2: agents had knocked on her door one evening and asked
Speaker 2: to talk to me. She said I'd moved out and
Speaker 2: gone to Miami Beach some time ago, and she didn't
Speaker 2: have a clue where I was. Then after they left,
Speaker 2: of course, she called me and told me what had happened.
Speaker 4: Did you wonder what they wanted?
Speaker 2: Well, I knew it had something to do with Intercept,
Speaker 2: but no, as far as I could see, I hadn't
Speaker 2: done anything illegal. So I just sort of pushed it
Speaker 2: out of my mind and forgot about it.
Speaker 1: And at this point you also had a new girlfriend
Speaker 1: who was probably a wonderful distraction.
Speaker 2: Probably more than a distraction. Actually, yeah, I met Nicky
Speaker 2: one night. There's a party on the roof of the
Speaker 2: Cardozo and she was there with a girlfriend and struck
Speaker 2: me as a slightly shorter version of Melanie Griffith, which
Speaker 2: I liked very much.
Speaker 1: Depending upon your age, you'd likely know actress Melanie Griffith
Speaker 1: from films like Working Girl or Bonfire of the Vanities,
Speaker 1: or as the daughter of Tipp Hendron, or the mother
Speaker 1: of Dakota Johnson, who Griffith had with her then husband
Speaker 1: Don Johnson, the star of Miami weis. For those unfamiliar
Speaker 1: with any of the aforementioned, let's just say Phil found
Speaker 1: Mickey very attractive.
Speaker 2: So there I was, after a hiatus in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: Back in Miami or Miami Beach to be precise, or
Speaker 2: even more precise, hanging out at the good old Cardozo
Speaker 2: looking out at the ocean, getting twenty five hundred dollars
Speaker 2: a month from the Christic Institute, doing virtually nothing.
Speaker 1: That doesn't sound like such a bad life, no kidding.
Speaker 1: And it was also an oddly unstructured, somewhat surreal period
Speaker 1: in Stanford's life.
Speaker 2: It was a great time. It was a strange time.
Speaker 2: There was this jazz combo that played at the Cardoza
Speaker 2: several nights a week, and I got to be friends
Speaker 2: with a saxophone player whose name I can't remember now,
Speaker 2: but I know he came from New Jersey and he
Speaker 2: was down in Miami Beach hanging out with the rest
Speaker 2: of us ne'er do wells. And he'd kid me seeing
Speaker 2: me spending all the time on the porch at the
Speaker 2: car Dozo, without any apparent source of income, and he says, Stanford,
Speaker 2: what is your scan? What is your scam? And of
Speaker 2: course I couldn't say I was getting paid for spying
Speaker 2: on a detective agency that, for all practical purposes, didn't
Speaker 2: exist anymore, but was affront for a major drug operation
Speaker 2: with CIA connections that may or may not exist. So
Speaker 2: I just smiled at him, and he'd say it again,
Speaker 2: what is your scam? And it was a big joke
Speaker 2: between us. Anyway. One day he said he was out
Speaker 2: of towels, and so I said, well, I've got some
Speaker 2: extra ones in my room. So I gave him three
Speaker 2: or four towels and said just give him back to
Speaker 2: me when you're done, and didn't think again about it
Speaker 2: for another four or five weeks when it hit me
Speaker 2: that the son of a gun still had my towels.
Speaker 2: Although it's probably worth mentioning that that we hadn't so
Speaker 2: much as mentioned the dawn towels since the day I
Speaker 2: gave them to him. Problem was I didn't have his
Speaker 2: phone number, so no way to call him, but I
Speaker 2: knew that he lived down the beach about four blocks
Speaker 2: and then a block back in a corner hotel there.
Speaker 2: So I hopped in my Volkswagen van, which is what
Speaker 2: I was driving then, and drove down Ocean Drive, turned
Speaker 2: right one block and there he was standing on the corner,
Speaker 2: almost at attention, elbows at his side, palms up, holding
Speaker 2: my towels in front of him, all laundered and neatly folded,
Speaker 2: and he said something like I thought you might be
Speaker 2: needing these, and he handed them to me through the window.
Speaker 2: I took the towels and said thank you very much,
Speaker 2: exchanged a few more words, and I drove off.
Speaker 1: So he just knew you were going to drive up.
Speaker 1: That sounds like something out of a David Lynch movie.
Speaker 1: What do you How do you explain that? Like mental telepathy,
Speaker 1: whatever you.
Speaker 2: Call it, You know, I've seen it so many times.
Speaker 2: There are ways of communicating that we don't normally recognize.
Speaker 2: Or synchronicity or meaningful coincidence is another way into that
Speaker 2: particular world. And I think everyone is probably capable of
Speaker 2: that sort of thing. Some are more susceptible than others,
Speaker 2: and people are more susceptible at different times of their lives.
Speaker 2: I think it has a lot to do with being
Speaker 2: in a position where you're not necessarily governed by the
Speaker 2: expectations that we've all had ingrained in us. This was
Speaker 2: sort of that time for me. I was floating as
Speaker 2: going with the flow.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, I know you were dealing with the
Speaker 1: divorce and the change of profession and a new place
Speaker 1: to live. But do you think on some level you
Speaker 1: were in some sort of altered reality.
Speaker 2: No, I think it's perhaps a more real reality. I
Speaker 2: think usually we allow ourselves to live in a more
Speaker 2: limited reality. That's probably a discussion for another time.
Speaker 1: Okay, back to Miami Beach. In nineteen eighty three, Bill
Speaker 1: would eventually move into Mickey's hipster apartment building, which would
Speaker 1: later be converted into a private mansion for designer Gianni Versace,
Speaker 1: the same location where Versace was murdered in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: seven by spree killer Andrew Cananen. But in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties it was far from glamorous, even though it
Speaker 1: was called the Amsterdam Palace.
Speaker 4: Here's Mickey Relliot. It wasn't a palace, but you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, Well.
Speaker 1: Describe the building at that time and the neighborhood that
Speaker 1: it sat in.
Speaker 5: Okay, so it's a building that was a replicant of
Speaker 5: Christopher Columbus's House in Dominican Republic, something like that. It
Speaker 5: was built in nineteen twenty two, so it was not
Speaker 5: included in the Art Deco movement or buildings that were
Speaker 5: being showcased for Our Deco. In fact, people in our
Speaker 5: building were always insulted. We were never part of the
Speaker 5: Our Deco movement.
Speaker 4: But Goes.
Speaker 5: Really the building wasn't our Deco, and it was gorgeous,
Speaker 5: and all along the building, Lauren, there were all these
Speaker 5: plaques of socialists like Emma Goldman, and all the apartments
Speaker 5: were inside, you know, looked inside into the main courtyard
Speaker 5: with SLLT toraszo.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's so cool it was.
Speaker 5: And I had only found it because my friend wanted
Speaker 5: to go and buy beads on Lincoln Road, and then
Speaker 5: we drove up Ocean Drive and I had her stop
Speaker 5: the car because I just couldn't believe how beautiful this
Speaker 5: building was. And it had this beautiful bronze statue outside
Speaker 5: of a crouching woman, and I thought, oh my god,
Speaker 5: there's a rent sign, and I just went in met
Speaker 5: the woman who was like eighty something was managing it,
Speaker 5: and I rented the room.
Speaker 1: Would you say that the building was, as the neighborhood
Speaker 1: a bit in decline at the time.
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: Absolutely?
Speaker 5: How did I get to live there? I mean when
Speaker 5: I would invite people that I met in Miami to
Speaker 5: come over to the Amsterdam Palace, they were like, ugh,
Speaker 5: who could live there? Not the Amsterdam Palace necessarily, but
Speaker 5: who would live on South Beach.
Speaker 4: Wow? Things have changed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, At the time, Amsterdam Palace and Miami Beach weren't
Speaker 1: exactly prime real estate or a prized destination location.
Speaker 5: And when I moved there, they had the whole beach
Speaker 5: filled with the mary Alitos. You could smell the chicken
Speaker 5: barbecuing for.
Speaker 6: Miles because they had the whole beach, like from fifteenth
Speaker 6: to fifth. Wow, that area was really rife with a
Speaker 6: lot of things happening, like not great things.
Speaker 5: I think my car was broken into a bunch of times.
Speaker 5: You had to be really careful where you were walking.
Speaker 5: And I worked a couple of jobs, so when I
Speaker 5: came home at night, it was really kind of scary
Speaker 5: to go into the building because now it's all protected,
Speaker 5: but then it was completely open. Anybody could come up
Speaker 5: to my louver door apartment.
Speaker 1: Miami at that time was known for drug related crimes,
Speaker 1: especially homicides. How prevalent and present was that on a
Speaker 1: daily basis? Was that always simmering under the surface.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I would say that there was always something going on.
Speaker 5: Like before I moved into the Amsdam Palace, I'd lived
Speaker 5: with my sister in this other house.
Speaker 1: Mickey and her sister rented rooms in a house from
Speaker 1: a family who had teenage kids. One day, their father
Speaker 1: basically disappeared.
Speaker 5: They were at the end of high school and their
Speaker 5: father flew drugs to Columbia and they never heard from
Speaker 5: the father again. Somebody knew somebody that was drug related.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting because there's this quote I read on
Speaker 1: Miami that you could choose not to do drugs, you
Speaker 1: could choose not to associate with people who did drugs
Speaker 1: or soul drugs, But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: living in Miami at that time, you could not escape
Speaker 1: the reality.
Speaker 4: Of drugs, right.
Speaker 5: I would agree with that one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: At the time Mickey was dating Phil, she was busy
Speaker 1: going to school and working two jobs, one as a waitress,
Speaker 1: but the drug culture still seeped in.
Speaker 5: I remember I was working at Tony Roma's and I
Speaker 5: had a table that was like three couples, and they
Speaker 5: ordered the most expensive double Johnny Walker blacks and then
Speaker 5: they wouldn't drink it. And then they ordered all the food,
Speaker 5: like all the things that you could order. They ordered everything,
Speaker 5: and they didn't eat it.
Speaker 7: And then they threw all these hundred dollars bills on
Speaker 7: the table, and I'm thinking, oh, that's a first for me,
Speaker 7: you know, like a fifteen hundred dollars tip after they
Speaker 7: paid for the drinks and food that they didn't eat.
Speaker 4: They were too coked up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that wasn't the set or scene you'd associate with
Speaker 1: the Amsterdam Palace, though.
Speaker 2: Here's phil Miami Beach was still in its tumble downstage,
Speaker 2: and so the owner's Amsterdam Palace had divided the entire
Speaker 2: place into studios and apartments.
Speaker 1: Fortuitously, or maybe just in keeping with his experiences at
Speaker 1: the time, Bill had secured the studio next to Mickey's.
Speaker 1: As the relationship progressed, so did their living spaces.
Speaker 2: After a few weeks, we took down the door between
Speaker 2: our studios and had one big apartment.
Speaker 5: We had a pretty fabulous place.
Speaker 2: It was on the water, and I remember being transfixed
Speaker 2: from time to time by the beauty of the place,
Speaker 2: looking out of the apartment through the curved window of
Speaker 2: the masonry wall, so everything's framed in white, looking out
Speaker 2: at the bright blue sky, the blue green sea lit
Speaker 2: with sun, the heavy green of a palm frond against them,
Speaker 2: and thinking the world is such a beautiful place and
Speaker 2: we have done nothing to deserve.
Speaker 1: It, And that picturesque location would soon attract the attention
Speaker 1: of a then unknown television show about to begin filming
Speaker 1: in Miami.
Speaker 8: I think they started scouting, probably eighty three four, because
Speaker 8: I wanted to see my place and the guy in
Speaker 8: the front place and I said, Oh, what are you
Speaker 8: scouting for?
Speaker 5: And he goes, oh, Miami Vice. And I go, what's
Speaker 5: it going to be about? He said, Cocaine? I said,
Speaker 5: do we really need that glorizing cocaine?
Speaker 2: I remember one morning waking up looking out the door
Speaker 2: that opened onto the courtyard, and there were these two
Speaker 2: guys coming out of two different doors. Or is one
Speaker 2: wearing a lavender sport coat another wearing a salmon colored
Speaker 2: sport coat, dropping down into the classic two hands on
Speaker 2: a pistol pose that TV detectives anyway always do it.
Speaker 1: But Bill's own private investigator slash detective adventures were proving
Speaker 1: a lot less glam or busy now that Intercept had
Speaker 1: shuttered its doors.
Speaker 2: So finally I tracked down Bob and we get together.
Speaker 2: I don't think it was at the Cardozo Parane Pub,
Speaker 2: probably was, and Bob tells me, turns out that Lamar
Speaker 2: has been under federal investigation for some time now, something
Speaker 2: called Operation Loan Star, and it's a very big deal.
Speaker 2: Grand jury's in Houston, Atlanta, and Miami.
Speaker 1: Which is likely why the Feds were looking for you
Speaker 1: in the first place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the smart thing Bob figures is to adopt
Speaker 2: a low profile. He's doing business from home now, he's
Speaker 2: working as a bodyguard, guardian, money shipments, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: So where does that leave you in terms of your
Speaker 1: fledgling private investigator career?
Speaker 2: So there really isn't much for me to do, not
Speaker 2: an intercept anyway, And it turns out not in my
Speaker 2: new career as a spy for the Christic Institute either,
Speaker 2: because it turns out Bob doesn't really know much more
Speaker 2: about the assassination business than he's already told me. He
Speaker 2: was in an Army security agency unit in Frankfurt, Germany,
Speaker 2: sort of enlisted man level jobs providing logistical support. But
Speaker 2: he does remember is one of these things. He says
Speaker 2: with the giggle that every five years, some shavetail lieutenant
Speaker 2: who probably has no idea what he's talking about or why,
Speaker 2: shows up at his door in Miami and reminds him
Speaker 2: he's still bound by his strict oath of security.
Speaker 4: And he found that amusing.
Speaker 2: Bob was always amused by how foolish or corrupt the
Speaker 2: world always proved itself to be. And as far as
Speaker 2: the case against Lamar, he says, that's really nothing to
Speaker 2: worry about either. Oh, sure, there's an indictment coming down,
Speaker 2: but Lamar's got everything under control. He's got the best
Speaker 2: lawyers in the world working for him. He's already got
Speaker 2: a change of venue to Northern Georgia, where he's got
Speaker 2: everyone bought off, and everybody had intercept with their intelligence connections,
Speaker 2: has already made their deals and been dropped from the indictment.
Speaker 1: Well, he's certainly right about the fact that there were
Speaker 1: significant indictments involved.
Speaker 9: Tilton Lamar, Chester forty five, a former Eastern Airlines pilot,
Speaker 9: is one of twelve people charged in a major federal
Speaker 9: investigation dubbed Operation Loan.
Speaker 10: Star, thirty six count indictment accuses Tilton Lamar Chester Junior.
Speaker 5: A Chester led a large smuggling organization.
Speaker 1: In the fall of nineteen eighty three. Those indictments were
Speaker 1: National News.
Speaker 10: A Georgia drug runner who federal authorities say engineered a
Speaker 10: drug smuggling and money launderings.
Speaker 5: SKI government agents received information that international drug smuggler Lamar Chester.
Speaker 10: Charging that Chester led a large smuggling organization.
Speaker 9: From the island he controlled in the Bahamas to his
Speaker 9: native Georgia and perhaps to a dozen other states.
Speaker 1: For some background, the Bahamas are comprised of an extensive
Speaker 1: chain of seven hundred islands and twenty four hundred low
Speaker 1: banks or reefs of coral, rock or sand called keys,
Speaker 1: spanning an area roughly the size of California, extending from
Speaker 1: Florida's coast on the northwest almost to Haiti on the southeast.
Speaker 1: The area has a long and notorious history of illicit activity.
Speaker 1: Pirates use the Bahamas as their preferred port because of
Speaker 1: its plentiful small islands, shallow waters, and coves, which served
Speaker 1: as ideal hiding places. The shallow waters were also perfect
Speaker 1: for the smaller faster boats favored by pirates, but too
Speaker 1: shallow for the larger man of warships, often in their pursuit.
Speaker 1: From nineteen seventeen to nineteen thirty three, when prohibition became
Speaker 1: the law of the land in America, Bahamas played an
Speaker 1: important part becoming an ideal hub for alcohol smuggling, offering
Speaker 1: numerous secretive places where alcohol could be stored en route
Speaker 1: to America. All of the above made the Bahamas an
Speaker 1: obvious destination location for drug smugglers looking to carve out
Speaker 1: their share of profiting off of America's insatiable and ever
Speaker 1: evolving appetite for illegal intoxicants. Okay, back to Chester's indictment.
Speaker 1: I'm reading from the October fourth, nineteen eighty three issue
Speaker 1: of The New York Times under the headline group and
Speaker 1: Bahamas charged in big Narcotic conspiracy. Federal prosecutors unseled a
Speaker 1: thirty six count indictment today charging that a Northeastern Georgia
Speaker 1: man led a large smuggling organization that shipped marijuana and
Speaker 1: cocaine into the United States from a base in the Bahamas.
Speaker 1: The indictment charged Tilton Lamar Chester Junior, forty five years
Speaker 1: Old of Cleveland, Georgia, and eleven others with drug offenses
Speaker 1: and conducting a criminal enterprise in a pattern of racketeering.
Speaker 1: It asserted that the group ran an organization that purchased
Speaker 1: the Darby Islands, a small group in the Bahamas as
Speaker 1: a base through which to move drugs from Jamaica and
Speaker 1: Columbia into the United States. Other defendants named in the
Speaker 1: article are Chester's attorney Lance Eisenberg, and another smuggler you'll
Speaker 1: hear much more about going forward, Ronald Elliott. And just
Speaker 1: a few days after the indictment is made public, Lamar
Speaker 1: is back in the news again.
Speaker 5: The indictment said Chester had houses and aircraft hangar and
Speaker 5: an airstrip built on the islands for use in the
Speaker 5: drug operation, and.
Speaker 2: Lamar is actually interviewed on an Atlanta television station saying,
Speaker 2: this is a paraphrase, Yes, I did it. I flew
Speaker 2: two hundred loads into the country. But I did it
Speaker 2: with the ok of the CIA and the DEA. And
Speaker 2: if the federal government is foolish enough to put me
Speaker 2: on trial for this, I'm going to tell everything I
Speaker 2: know about what the government's been up to. And I
Speaker 2: have enough evidence to shake the US government to its core.
Speaker 4: And so what did Bob think of all this?
Speaker 2: Bob couldn't be enjoined anymore. Lamar is so sure he's
Speaker 2: going to win, which means they'll drop the case before
Speaker 2: it even goes to trial. That he's got his lawyers
Speaker 2: spending half their time just trying to get his pilot's
Speaker 2: license back. When they indicted him, they took away his
Speaker 2: pilot's license just to punish him. Bob says, Lamar loves
Speaker 2: to fly, and he's got this little piper cub in
Speaker 2: addition to the planes he uses for the smuggling business,
Speaker 2: that he likes to fly for fun over his ranch
Speaker 2: up in northern Georgia.
Speaker 1: Well, what did you make about this? What did you
Speaker 1: think of Chester's gray mail defense? For anyone not familiar
Speaker 1: with the term, gray mail, like blackmail, implies the threat
Speaker 1: of revealing, compromising, or damaging information in exchange for benefit,
Speaker 1: except gray mail specifically threatens the revelation of state secrets
Speaker 1: in order to manipulate legal proceedings.
Speaker 2: Well, to tell the truth, I really didn't know I
Speaker 2: was were, of course that in the fifties and sixties
Speaker 2: and into the seventies, the United States, the CIA had
Speaker 2: been involved in using drugs to finance off the books
Speaker 2: wars in Asia. And I knew, of course that the
Speaker 2: guys in Intercept had intelligence connections. One had even been
Speaker 2: overt station chief of the Miami station during the Bay
Speaker 2: of Pig's time. But that didn't prove anything. Maybe it
Speaker 2: was true, maybe it wasn't. For all I know, Lamar
Speaker 2: might just be making it up.
Speaker 1: And at this point, you hadn't yet men Lamar in person, right.
Speaker 2: No, I still hadn't met Lamar. But the next thing
Speaker 2: I know, I get this call from Bob saying that
Speaker 2: Lamar wants to meet me at the Mutiny, which of
Speaker 2: course is the hangout for all the premier drug smugglers
Speaker 2: in Miami.
Speaker 1: So why in the world would he want to meet
Speaker 1: you at that point and at that place, given that
Speaker 1: he's already been indicted.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm wondering too.
Speaker 1: Located on the Bay in Coconut Grove and first open
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine, the Mutiny Hotel was known for
Speaker 1: its glitzy, debauchery and decadence. At one point in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, the Mutiny earned the distinction of selling more
Speaker 1: dom Perigno champagne than any other venue in America. Much
Speaker 1: of it served in hot tubs. The venue had one
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty rooms, including lavishly decorated fantasy themed suites
Speaker 1: with names like the Egyptian Suite, Gypsy Caravan, the Bordello,
Speaker 1: Hot Fudge, and Outer Space. Guests are said to have
Speaker 1: included the likes of Chaer, Jacqueline Onassis, led Zeppelin, George Bush,
Speaker 1: and Fleetwood Mac. By the eighties, it had infamously morphed
Speaker 1: into a cocaine cooled membership based Miami hot spot where
Speaker 1: notorious drug traffickers partied alongside celebrities, politicians, and the drug
Speaker 1: and law enforcement agents who were there under the guise
Speaker 1: of monitoring the action. It also had a rapidly growing
Speaker 1: reputation as the destination location for cocaine. Its infamous nightclub
Speaker 1: served as the inspiration for the Babylon Club.
Speaker 4: In the movie Scarface.
Speaker 1: Oliver Stone, al Pacino and the rest of the casting
Speaker 1: crew even checked into the mutiny during the filming for
Speaker 1: research purposes.
Speaker 2: Back to fill, so I go to the Mutiny with Bob.
Speaker 2: There must be about two or three on a weekday afternoon,
Speaker 2: so the place isn't really bustling yet. Lamar isn't there
Speaker 2: yet either or else he has other business to attend to.
Speaker 2: So Bob and I start drinking and drinking, and the
Speaker 2: Mutiny was a new luxury hotel and coconut grove. There
Speaker 2: were tables in the main barroom with telephones on each one,
Speaker 2: sort of old style. This is pre cell phone days.
Speaker 2: And it's where all the drug dealers hung out and
Speaker 2: made deals and very conspicuous deals. And of course all
Speaker 2: the DEA agents had memberships too, so they could sit
Speaker 2: there and watch the drug dealers. And outside there were
Speaker 2: several outdoor bars placed around the grounds of the hotel
Speaker 2: with big umbrellas above them, pretty Cuban girls serving drinks.
Speaker 2: Bob and I must have stopped at all of them
Speaker 2: while we were waiting for them, so you guys must
Speaker 2: have been pretty tipsy by the time Chester walked in. Well,
Speaker 2: finally Lamar shows up. We're waiting in his room and
Speaker 2: he breezes in. Yeah, because always we've had to drink
Speaker 2: by The recollection is a little bit hazy at some points,
Speaker 2: but I do remember thinking he looked a little bit
Speaker 2: slighter than I had expected from all of Bob's heroic
Speaker 2: descriptions of him. And I was also struck by what
Speaker 2: I remember is sort of a lounge lizard mustache, but
Speaker 2: that was something that I think was probably in style
Speaker 2: back in the seventies.
Speaker 4: What do you mean by the lounge lizard mustache?
Speaker 2: That he had what struck me as sort of a
Speaker 2: drug store cowboy mustache might expect to see in a
Speaker 2: show in Las Vegas or something like that.
Speaker 4: Do you remember what he was wearing?
Speaker 2: Nothing flicy shirt, jeans, loafers. So we start talking nothing
Speaker 2: special at first, How you doing? What do you think
Speaker 2: the mutiny? That sort of thing, Nothing about the indictment
Speaker 2: or his threat to spill the beans on the CIA
Speaker 2: and shake the government to its core. When out of
Speaker 2: the blue, Lamar says, with that big old door to
Speaker 2: door salesman smile of his, I bet you're wondering why
Speaker 2: I invited you down here, right. I must have mumbled
Speaker 2: something I don't remember exactly what I asked Bob, and
Speaker 2: Bob said, Lamar will explain it when we get there,
Speaker 2: and Lamar says, well, I just want you to know
Speaker 2: that I appreciate what you're doing here, but I sure
Speaker 2: as hell wish you and your boys back in Washington
Speaker 2: would get a move on it, out of the blue,
Speaker 2: just like that. And I say what, I certainly don't
Speaker 2: know what to make of it, And he says, oh,
Speaker 2: come on, now, you're with the CIA. Right?
Speaker 4: Wait? He thought you were with the CIA. Why?
Speaker 2: I had no idea At the time. I didn't even
Speaker 2: believe it was real. But then nothing I'd been doing
Speaker 2: was quite real either. The work I did for the
Speaker 2: intercept wasn't all of it quite real? And so why
Speaker 2: would this be any less unreal? I suppose? And I say, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm not with a CIA, at which point he nudges
Speaker 2: my shoulder with his elbow and in a friendly way.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's smiling. He says, good boy, that's just
Speaker 2: what you would say. And it hasn't hit me yet.
Speaker 2: But I'm in a very odd situation. The more I
Speaker 2: deny it, the more he believes I'm with the CIA.
Speaker 2: There's no way I can convince him otherwise.
Speaker 4: So how did that meeting end?
Speaker 2: Well, maybe I say a couple more times, I'm not
Speaker 2: with the CIA. I don't remember that, Or maybe it's
Speaker 2: since he's as far as he's concerned, my denial has
Speaker 2: already proved that I am with the CIA. We have
Speaker 2: just some more small talk, and then Bob and I
Speaker 2: stumble off, drunkard than skunks, starting to get now and
Speaker 2: on our way back to Miami Beach, I asked Bob
Speaker 2: if Lamar is kidding? It still hasn't sunk that any
Speaker 2: of this is real? Does he really believe I'm with
Speaker 2: the CIA? And very solemnly Bob says, yes he does.
Speaker 4: What about, Bob? Did he think you were with the CIA?
Speaker 2: Too? That's what's even more incredible. But it won't dawn
Speaker 2: on me till some time later. Is that, Bob the
Speaker 2: guy who hired me in the first place? For goodness sake?
Speaker 2: I think so too.
Speaker 1: So as Stanford staggered home, his head was spinning, and
Speaker 1: not just because of the alcohol. But his night was
Speaker 1: far from over, and a hangover wouldn't be the only
Speaker 1: thing he'd regret the next morning. On the next Murder
Speaker 1: of Miami, looking into Clay's death, Letes further into the
Speaker 1: mystery of dashing pilot Lamar Chester and to his inner circle,
Speaker 1: including a legendary former cocaine smuggler, Heglarder.
Speaker 2: Did you quit loving me? Happy? Miles? Here? Give me
Speaker 2: a call.
Speaker 1: Mister Miles was a close business associate and friend of
Speaker 1: Intercept's biggest client, Lamar Chester.
Speaker 2: And he was flying guns then to Nicaragua.
Speaker 1: And did he tell you who he was running the
Speaker 1: guns for?
Speaker 7: I would imagine the CIA was running that show.
Speaker 4: Like Icarus.
Speaker 1: All these guys would eventually fly a bit too close
Speaker 1: to the sun.
Speaker 2: They all got burned except Happy, Except Happy.
Speaker 1: Murder of Miami is a production of iHeart Radio. Executive
Speaker 1: producers are Lauren bred Pacheco, Taylor Chicogne, and Phil Stamford.
Speaker 1: Written by Phil Stamford and Lauren brad Pacheco, Audio editing
Speaker 1: and sound designed by Nicholas Harder, Evan Tyer, and Taylor Chackoine,
Speaker 1: featuring music by Evan Tyre, phill Mayer, John Murchison, and
Speaker 1: Taylor Chackoine. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4: App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that
Speaker 4: matter to you.