Speaker 1: My dad was a police officer.
Speaker 2: He actually worked at Nearmark Police Department for seven years
Speaker 2: when I was a kid growing up, and then he
Speaker 2: ultimately left and he went to Metro Dad Police Department,
Speaker 2: which happens to be the same department that Gil Fernandez
Speaker 2: worked for.
Speaker 3: By March of twenty twenty four, Detective Danny Smith had
Speaker 3: been the lead investigator on the Billy Halpern cold case
Speaker 3: for eighteen months, knowing that his father had been a
Speaker 3: Miramar police officer in nineteen eighty six at the time
Speaker 3: of the original investigation, I asked Danny if there was
Speaker 3: anything he would like to ask his father if he
Speaker 3: was still around.
Speaker 2: I'm curious as to the general sense of maybe urgency
Speaker 2: on clearing it.
Speaker 1: Was this something where it was all hands on deck.
Speaker 2: Would they just say put all your stuff down with
Speaker 2: everyone to work this or was it just like another
Speaker 2: murder violent eighties and we'll do what we can and
Speaker 2: then we'll move on.
Speaker 3: Over the course of his own investigation, Danny's been able
Speaker 3: to verify a lot of what was in the original
Speaker 3: case file. The detectives that were Billy's case in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty six were thorough and buy the book, but with
Speaker 3: everything that we've learned about this case, it still bothers
Speaker 3: us that Billy Hoppin's murder was never cleared and that
Speaker 3: his killers were never ideed or held accountable.
Speaker 2: I think that there was a small portion of that
Speaker 2: where the investigators knew who were involved, they knew the
Speaker 2: crew that was involved, and they felt good getting at
Speaker 2: the very least kill Fernandez and Bert Christie indicted and
Speaker 2: then found guilty.
Speaker 3: That's a sentiment shared by Billy's friend Dave Fosano.
Speaker 4: I think that it was true that they didn't pursue
Speaker 4: anything else because they're doing life, so that the cops
Speaker 4: and detectives just didn't pursue anything else. I believe that.
Speaker 5: Do you think that's right?
Speaker 4: No, because those families don't have clothing. Well, I'm almost
Speaker 4: ready to cry, I am.
Speaker 6: I'm just picturning. He was such a nice guy. I
Speaker 6: loved him like a brother. He was very good to me.
Speaker 6: We had a lot of good times.
Speaker 4: I wish he was alive today because we would still
Speaker 4: be by my side and he'd be so proud of me.
Speaker 3: Jil Fernandez and Burt Christie's conviction on the Danger Road
Speaker 3: murders brought an end to a complicated investigation, but it
Speaker 3: also left some important unanswered questions, like who stormed into
Speaker 3: Billy Halpern's town home, strangled him and then cut his
Speaker 3: throat so deeply he was nearly decapitated, What did he
Speaker 3: actually know that made him a target for such a
Speaker 3: brutal murder? And is it possible that someone within law
Speaker 3: enforcement had tipped off the ex cop Gil Fernandez about
Speaker 3: which members of the Apollo Jim posed a threat to
Speaker 3: his criminal enterprise.
Speaker 5: Danny was determined to keep digging.
Speaker 3: I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff, and
Speaker 3: this is cold blooded the Apollo Jim murders. Harry Collier
Speaker 3: was a reputed hit man from the Northeast, with an
Speaker 3: obsession with knives and a close relationship with Gil Fernandez
Speaker 3: and Bert Christie, and in nineteen eighty six, he was
Speaker 3: also married with his first child on the way. When
Speaker 3: Detective Danny Smith spoke to his widow, she confirmed that
Speaker 3: Collier's behavior had become erratic and suspicious in the months
Speaker 3: around Billy's murder and leading up to his own, whether
Speaker 3: that was due to his steroid use or his new
Speaker 3: job working for gil Fernandez doing what he called private investigations.
Speaker 3: She was never sure, but she told Danny that there
Speaker 3: were telltale signs that he was involved in something criminal.
Speaker 3: Guns stashed at their home, new cars, secretive late night
Speaker 3: phone calls, and even talk of one last big score,
Speaker 3: one that Harry Collier never returned from. But Collier's widow
Speaker 3: also made Danny aware of a piece of evidence that
Speaker 3: may prove critical improving his involvement in Billy Halpern's murder,
Speaker 3: a blood stained towel she discovered in her home shortly
Speaker 3: after her husband was killed. It felt like a long shot,
Speaker 3: but if forensic analysts could pull Billy's DNA from the
Speaker 3: forty year old stains, it would be the first direct
Speaker 3: connection between Collier and the crime scene and all but
Speaker 3: proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Collier was indeed one
Speaker 3: of Billy's killers.
Speaker 7: It's been almost a year that we've been actively involved
Speaker 7: in this case.
Speaker 3: Christina Savito at DNA Labs International is an expert in
Speaker 3: collecting and identifying DNA, and her dedication to this case
Speaker 3: has made her an invaluable member of the team.
Speaker 7: The first piece of evidence that we looked at back
Speaker 7: in March of last year, were two pieces of electrical tape,
Speaker 7: so there was electrical tape from the left wrist and
Speaker 7: then electrical tape from the right wrist, which had also
Speaker 7: a rubber glove tip on it as well.
Speaker 3: Danny thought the electrical tape and the glove tip would
Speaker 3: certainly identify the men that bound and killed Billy Halper,
Speaker 3: but as we've learned, it's never that easy.
Speaker 5: The DNA sample recovered was just too small.
Speaker 3: All but Danny's hopes were lifted when Christina combined the
Speaker 3: samples from the tape and the glove and the DNA
Speaker 3: mixture indicated the presence of three unknown individuals.
Speaker 7: When you have a mixture with multiple people, we have
Speaker 7: a software that we use. It's called star Mix. It
Speaker 7: helps us to resolve some of these mixtures and at
Speaker 7: times it can pull out individual profiles for the contributors
Speaker 7: or the people in that mixture. Unfortunately, for this sample,
Speaker 7: it wasn't able to pull out a specific profile for
Speaker 7: the people or the individuals in that mixture. However, it's
Speaker 7: still suitable for comparison, so any standards that we get
Speaker 7: at any point in time can be compared to this DNA.
Speaker 3: Profile in other words, this was not just a matter
Speaker 3: of dropping the DNA profile into codis and having it
Speaker 3: spit out the name of Billy's killer. We would need
Speaker 3: a one to one comparison between this DNA profile and
Speaker 3: a potential suspect. But here was the problem. Danny didn't
Speaker 3: have the DNA from any of the men at the
Speaker 3: top of his suspect list, the men he suspected of
Speaker 3: attacking Billy at his home, Harry Collier, Jimmy high Note,
Speaker 3: or Gil Fernandez. The blood samples on the spot cards
Speaker 3: from high Note and Collier stored by Browerck County ended
Speaker 3: up being too degraded and yielded no viable DNA. Fingernail
Speaker 3: clippings from Billy Haupern showed no evidence of foreign tissue
Speaker 3: or blood, and strands of the killer's hair that was
Speaker 3: supposed to be sealed in an evidence envelope had mysteriously
Speaker 3: gone missing. But the DNA profile Christina had developed still
Speaker 3: had crucial evidentiary value.
Speaker 7: Because this is a sample that is suitable for compares garrison.
Speaker 7: At this point we have that we just need additional
Speaker 7: standards to compare to in order to figure out who
Speaker 7: might be contributing to that DNA profile.
Speaker 5: The solution was straightforward.
Speaker 3: Danny needed to find a way to get a fresh
Speaker 3: DNA sample from suspects that were either unwilling, missing, or dead.
Speaker 7: That actually happens more than you would think, so, especially
Speaker 7: with these cool cases. You know, people pass away and
Speaker 7: they're still suspects, right, and you can't go out and
Speaker 7: get a buckle swab because they're gone. And maybe you
Speaker 7: could go out and exoom their bones and try to
Speaker 7: get a reference sample that way, but that's obviously time
Speaker 7: consuming and it's costly. So one option we have is
Speaker 7: using the DNA profile from a relative, and.
Speaker 5: So that's exactly what Danny did.
Speaker 3: Collier's adult son consented to a cheek swab and agreed
Speaker 3: to submit his DNA for comparison.
Speaker 7: Able to pull out a DNA profile and we're able
Speaker 7: to compare it, we can run something like a paternity
Speaker 7: statistic and say, okay, well this person can't be ruled out.
Speaker 3: Christina developed a DNA profile of Harry Collier's son, and
Speaker 3: Danny and I held our breaths waiting for the results.
Speaker 7: So we compared him to the electrical tape sample and
Speaker 7: he was excluded as a contributor to the mixed DNA profile.
Speaker 3: With almost certainty, Harry Collier had been excluded as a
Speaker 3: contributor to the DNA found on the electrical tape used
Speaker 3: to tie up Billy halper It was a letdown, for sure,
Speaker 3: But maybe it just meant that Collier never touched the tape.
Speaker 3: Maybe he just held the knife, And now we might
Speaker 3: even have the proof that he was in the room.
Speaker 8: And then there was also a white towel which was
Speaker 8: collected from Collier's wife at the time.
Speaker 9: Who apparently told us that he brought it home from
Speaker 9: on one night and it was full of blood.
Speaker 5: My hope and Danny's hope was this was the hail Mary,
Speaker 5: so to speak.
Speaker 7: So in the seventh report, we collected a sample from
Speaker 7: the right from both sides of the towel.
Speaker 3: After all, if the bloodstained towel that Collier's widow found
Speaker 3: contained any of Billy Halpern's DNA, it would prove a
Speaker 3: direct link between Collier and the helping crime scene. Why
Speaker 3: else would Collier be in possession of a towel containing
Speaker 3: a murder victim's blood unless he was there wiping the
Speaker 3: victim's blood from his hands, his face, or even the
Speaker 3: murder weapon itself. The towel in question had been stored
Speaker 3: at the Briar Sheriff's office. Danny took custody of the
Speaker 3: evidence and delivered it to Christina.
Speaker 7: We used a collection device known as the end back,
Speaker 7: and I like to think of it as almost like
Speaker 7: something like a wet vacuum that you would use in
Speaker 7: your house, like if you use one to clean carpet,
Speaker 7: for example. It's like that, but for DNA. After we
Speaker 7: vacuum it up and we collect that liquid, we run
Speaker 7: it through a filter where it basically catches the DNA
Speaker 7: but allows all the other liquid to flow through, and
Speaker 7: then we cut out that filter and that's what's set
Speaker 7: forward in the laboratory.
Speaker 3: As suspected, there was DNA present on the towel.
Speaker 7: The DNA profile obtained from that sample with a mixture
Speaker 7: of at least two individuals with at least one male contributor,
Speaker 7: but unfortunately, due to the complexity of that sample, it's inconclusive.
Speaker 5: The likely cause.
Speaker 3: The towel had gone through the washing machine before it
Speaker 3: was given over to police. The brown stain remained, but
Speaker 3: the DNA that survived was just too degraded to be
Speaker 3: of much use.
Speaker 7: We discussed it here internally, and we decided that we
Speaker 7: wanted to do another sample and try a little bit
Speaker 7: of a different strategy in the laboratory, try maybe some
Speaker 7: other cleanup methods to try to see if we could
Speaker 7: really get a cleaner sample that would get us a
Speaker 7: better profile. When we did that, we obtained a mixture
Speaker 7: of at least three individuals with at least one male contributor,
Speaker 7: But unfortunately it was still too complex and it was
Speaker 7: inconclusive for comparison purposes as a result.
Speaker 5: I've got to be honest here.
Speaker 3: At this point, Danny and I were both starting to
Speaker 3: lose hope that science was going to solve this case.
Speaker 5: It just felt like one strikeout after another.
Speaker 7: Over time, DNA is going to break down, and you know,
Speaker 7: you're kind of almost in a race with it. You
Speaker 7: want to use the new technolog as best as possible,
Speaker 7: but you don't want to use it if there's not
Speaker 7: a good chance you might get a result. So if
Speaker 7: we had this technology ten twenty years ago, then maybe
Speaker 7: the results would have looked different. So I think time
Speaker 7: has definitely been a factor here, and unfortunately a negative
Speaker 7: factor here.
Speaker 3: But Danny Smith had been deep in the count before
Speaker 3: and was still hopeful that there was one more DNA
Speaker 3: sample he could still get, but it would mean getting
Speaker 3: back inside the Florida State Prison and taking something from
Speaker 3: the one guy least likely to give it up, gil Fernandez.
Speaker 3: Danny's theory from the beginning was that Billy Haupurn was
Speaker 3: overpowered by multiple assailants, and one of those men could
Speaker 3: have been gil Fernandez.
Speaker 5: Could help prove it. Here's Danny.
Speaker 10: Well Go, being in the system, being in prison and
Speaker 10: convicted of multiple felonies. He was swabbed, his DNA was taken,
Speaker 10: and his DNA profile was uploaded into CODIS.
Speaker 1: The evidence that we have is good.
Speaker 10: For a one to one comparison, so I can't use
Speaker 10: the DNA profile that's in CODIS to compare to the
Speaker 10: evidence that we have, so I need to actually get
Speaker 10: another physical sample for that comparison.
Speaker 3: But as he explains, that was easier said than done.
Speaker 10: Normally, in a situation like this, we would get a
Speaker 10: warrant and a judge would sign it, and we would
Speaker 10: be able to go ahead and collect his DNA and it.
Speaker 1: Would be very simple.
Speaker 10: However, in this case, I don't have probable cause to
Speaker 10: get that body warrant.
Speaker 3: Bill was an ex cop, he was already doing life
Speaker 3: in prison. He had zero incentive to volunteer his own
Speaker 3: DNA to help an investigation that could potentially bring yet
Speaker 3: another murder charge against him, maybe as many as five.
Speaker 3: But as Christina explains, there was another way to get
Speaker 3: his DNA, one that would leave Fernandez none the wiser.
Speaker 7: A secondary standard is something where we don't take it
Speaker 7: directly off of something, but it's something that if we
Speaker 7: get a single source DNA profile, you know there's a
Speaker 7: reasonable expectation that it would come from that individual. So
Speaker 7: you know, police officers, for example, if they can't get
Speaker 7: a warrant for someone's DNA, they might try to collect
Speaker 7: discarded items like a cigarette butt or a water bottle
Speaker 7: or a coffee cup.
Speaker 10: He's been rafered for thirty plus years, and the idea
Speaker 10: would be to work with the Office of the Inspector
Speaker 10: General and see if there's a way that we can
Speaker 10: surrepiciously obtain an abandoned sample without him knowing.
Speaker 3: But as you can imagine, there were significant obstacles to
Speaker 3: this approach too. The guy has been in this particular
Speaker 3: prison camp for thirty years and believe it or not.
Speaker 3: Even a convicted killer like Gil Fernandez makes friends inside the.
Speaker 10: Fact that he's ben in prison, he has a relationship
Speaker 10: with the correction's officers. Presumably, I don't know if.
Speaker 1: He's going to get tipped off.
Speaker 10: I don't know that if I try to get an
Speaker 10: abandoned sample from him, that somebody's going to tip him off.
Speaker 3: And remember, Danny had a strong suspicion that it was
Speaker 3: Gill's connections in law enforcement that enabled some of his
Speaker 3: worst crimes in the past, So what was reason to
Speaker 3: assume that being tipped off was again a possibility.
Speaker 10: If he knows that we're coming for his DNA, there's
Speaker 10: a very good possibility that he's going to try to
Speaker 10: have another inmates DNA on this abandoned sample, and then
Speaker 10: when that's tested, it'll come back to someone who has
Speaker 10: no association with this case, or maybe not even South Florida,
Speaker 10: and that'll throw a big monkey wrench into the investigation.
Speaker 3: As long as Fernandez was in lock up in Rayford,
Speaker 3: getting a trusted DNA sample would be next to impossible.
Speaker 3: But then, finally, a stroke of incredible good fortune.
Speaker 8: I know you just texted me to tell me to
Speaker 8: jump on a call and to record it. You had
Speaker 8: some pretty big news, Scott. You're not going to believe this.
Speaker 8: I randomly, as I normally do, I pulled up Gill's
Speaker 8: Department of Corrections page, and he's been moved.
Speaker 5: Moved within the prison, moved to a block.
Speaker 1: He's no longer in rape.
Speaker 10: He's he's in a facility called Tomoka, which I just
Speaker 10: looked it up.
Speaker 1: It's in Daytona Beach.
Speaker 3: After thirty years of the same prison camp. Gil Fernandez
Speaker 3: had been moved. But why and why now? And didn't
Speaker 3: have anything to do with this new investigation.
Speaker 5: I think this is kind of stunning.
Speaker 9: I mean, is there a possibility that he has struck
Speaker 9: some kind of deal with the Feds that maybe they
Speaker 9: moved him or did he did he get into a fight?
Speaker 8: Is his life in danger?
Speaker 9: I mean, what what are I mean? What are some
Speaker 9: of the post I mean, what are the possibilities?
Speaker 1: I mean, he's definitely closer. It's Daytona Beach.
Speaker 10: It's a few hours away as opposed to six hour drive,
Speaker 10: so he's definitely closer to the family. I don't know
Speaker 10: if he somehow cut a deal. I don't know if
Speaker 10: it had anything to do with my visit with him,
Speaker 10: the fact that he is now in a new place,
Speaker 10: he may not have those relationships with the guards, with
Speaker 10: the corrections officers that he had in Rayford, and I
Speaker 10: may be able to kind of slide this operation in
Speaker 10: a little easier.
Speaker 3: You might have heard it in my voice, but my
Speaker 3: concern was that somehow Danny's visit had spooked Gil into
Speaker 3: cutting a deal with federal investigators and cutting Danny out
Speaker 3: of gaining a potential confession. You know, the rivalry you
Speaker 3: hear about local cops and the Feds.
Speaker 5: It's real.
Speaker 3: But Danny did some calling around and was able to
Speaker 3: conclude that, as far as he could tell, Gill moved
Speaker 3: to a new prison had been in the works for
Speaker 3: a while, which means it was entirely coincidental, not a
Speaker 3: result from some unwanted attention from a cold case detective.
Speaker 10: It looks like he had been working this process well
Speaker 10: before I even met him. So the fact that he
Speaker 10: was moved from Rayford to Tomoka really has nothing to
Speaker 10: do with my visit. And he's not working a deal.
Speaker 10: He has no no plea agreement, nothing going on. He's
Speaker 10: not ratting on anyone that I know of.
Speaker 3: Just it was a coincidence, and that means Fernandez will
Speaker 3: likely not be an alert for any surreptitious efforts to.
Speaker 5: Gain his abandoned DNA.
Speaker 3: More importantly, he likely hasn't had the time to establish
Speaker 3: the same relationships with inmates and possibly even correction officers
Speaker 3: that could potentially tip them off to these efforts. The
Speaker 3: move to a new prison was intended to be a
Speaker 3: reward for good behavior and a way for him to
Speaker 3: finish his sentence closer to his family. But even for
Speaker 3: an ex cop and model prisoner, being the new guy
Speaker 3: has its strawbacks.
Speaker 10: The initial plan was simply to have a couple of
Speaker 10: different officers or investigators that work in the prison to
Speaker 10: do some surveillance follow him, hopefully not be seen that
Speaker 10: they're following him, watching him, checking his daily routine, basically
Speaker 10: like a pattern of life, and then once they get
Speaker 10: a pattern of life, figure out a way that they
Speaker 10: would be able to take some kind of something abandoned
Speaker 10: from him, a sample abandoned without his knowledge.
Speaker 3: But as it turns out, Danny had more allies inside
Speaker 3: than Gilded, and the correction officers had to moke a
Speaker 3: prison owed their new prisoner no favors.
Speaker 5: They just wanted to make sure it was done right.
Speaker 10: Part of the issue that was reported back to me
Speaker 10: was that he's going to know that they went through
Speaker 10: his specific bunk. And when I was told that, I said,
Speaker 10: that's great. Actually, when you guys, when you leave and
Speaker 10: you leave the bunk and you walk past all the
Speaker 10: inmates that are sitting there trying to figure out what's
Speaker 10: going on, make sure that he sees the evidence bag
Speaker 10: walk past him.
Speaker 1: Everyone's going to see the evidence bag.
Speaker 10: No one's going to know exactly what it's about until
Speaker 10: Gil gets back to his bunk and he sees that
Speaker 10: his stuff was rising through.
Speaker 3: It was a bit of gamesmanship that Danny hoped would
Speaker 3: pay dividends, both practical and emotional.
Speaker 1: I wanted to elicit a response.
Speaker 10: I was hoping that, first of all, maybe get him thinking,
Speaker 10: Maybe turn the cruise on him a little bit and
Speaker 10: get him nervous, have him realize that now we have
Speaker 10: his DNA and there's really nothing he can do about it.
Speaker 3: Danny had played nice on his first visit to Guilfernande's
Speaker 3: in prison, careful not to spook him into a tight
Speaker 3: lipped retreat. So this was a dramatic and clear change
Speaker 3: in approach, one that would surely not go unnoticed by Gil.
Speaker 3: As Sherlock Holmes famously said, the game was afoot. In
Speaker 3: search of a new DNA sample to compare with evidence
Speaker 3: from the helper and crime scene, Danny had his sights
Speaker 3: on gathering personal items from guil Fernandez's new prison cell. Thankfully,
Speaker 3: Danny had the full cooperation of correctional officers at the
Speaker 3: Tomocha prison who actually had some ideas of their own
Speaker 3: and how to execute the operation, not just effectively, but
Speaker 3: with a little panache.
Speaker 10: They actually had everyone in his pot or his area,
Speaker 10: were in their bunks and their I guess space, and
Speaker 10: they ultimately pulled the fire alarm and herded them into
Speaker 10: another room kind of around the corner away. And when
Speaker 10: they did that, they had other investigators that were more
Speaker 10: or less hidden around the corner or in another room.
Speaker 10: And as soon as that room was empty, his area,
Speaker 10: his bunk was empty, they went in there and they
Speaker 10: were able to remove three items.
Speaker 3: Specifically, the officers removed a toothbrush, a coffee mug, and
Speaker 3: a used water bottle, items most likely to contain gills,
Speaker 3: saliva or touch DNA.
Speaker 10: They gave me call and they said that everything was
Speaker 10: a success. They did everything appropriately. They had tann of
Speaker 10: custody and they packaged all those individually and then they
Speaker 10: fed ex them next day over to us.
Speaker 3: Upon receipt of the items, hand delivered the new evidence
Speaker 3: to Christina at DNA Labs International. After the initial test,
Speaker 3: she was confident there was a good viable sample.
Speaker 7: We received a toothbrush, a coffee cup, and a water
Speaker 7: bottle from Gilbert Fernandez, and in this case it only
Speaker 7: indicated one male contributor. So because of that, we operate
Speaker 7: under the assumption that the DNA profile is from Gilbert Fernandez.
Speaker 3: As for the comparison sample, Danny had lost a lot
Speaker 3: of confidence in using that DNA mixture that was collected
Speaker 3: from the electrical tape, but so far it was all
Speaker 3: he had. Unfortunately, those low expectations proved all too realistic.
Speaker 3: Christina's test determined that there was a low probability of
Speaker 3: a match between gil fernandez fresh DNA sample and the
Speaker 3: DNA profile created from the tapes sample.
Speaker 7: So the analysis provided limited support for the proposition that
Speaker 7: mister Fernandez is a contributor. Just to give you kind
Speaker 7: of perspective on what that means, limited support is the
Speaker 7: bottom of our scale. Anything from two to ninety nine
Speaker 7: is limited support, and this is two point eight.
Speaker 3: But Danny had to look at the bright side. He
Speaker 3: now had a good sample or standard of Gills DNA
Speaker 3: that was strong enough for a one to one comparison
Speaker 3: to any DNA he may be able to find in
Speaker 3: the future.
Speaker 7: With this much contact, with this much blood, I would
Speaker 7: say there's a reasonable expectation that you would be able
Speaker 7: to find his DNA there.
Speaker 3: But it does raise an important question, what if gil
Speaker 3: Fernandez was not there when Billy was killed? What if
Speaker 3: this investigation has been on the wrong path from the beginning?
Speaker 3: Who else in Gill's crew may have helped to execute
Speaker 3: this deadly plan? Somebody who was not in jail or,
Speaker 3: in the case of high note Collier and berg Christie
Speaker 3: no longer alive.
Speaker 11: I mean, obviously, the name that would stand out as
Speaker 11: someone that I would say probably could have been there
Speaker 11: is Mike Carbone.
Speaker 12: Michael Bone was a heartless human being.
Speaker 3: Michael Carbone, the five time convicted felon that had testified
Speaker 3: in court that he had participated in one of Burtingill's
Speaker 3: deadly shakedowns.
Speaker 5: The nineteen eighty three scheme to.
Speaker 3: Rob three drug dealers of over one million dollars in
Speaker 3: cocaine that ended with three people being shot and dumped
Speaker 3: in the Everglades off of Danger Road.
Speaker 13: Fernandez and Christy were arrested after Michael Carbone told police
Speaker 13: he saw the victims shot to death that night in
Speaker 13: the Everglades. The defense says Carbone was the trigger man
Speaker 13: and lied to police to protect himself.
Speaker 3: Wasn't it possible that this was not carbon Jones's only
Speaker 3: time acting as Gill's muscle. Wasn't it possible that before
Speaker 3: he testified against Christy and Fernandez that he had played
Speaker 3: a part in the murders of Billy Halpern, Mitch Hall,
Speaker 3: and Charlondo Drought, maybe even Jimmy high Note and Harry Collier.
Speaker 3: Could Michael Carbone be the missing link in solving all
Speaker 3: five murders?
Speaker 10: After the press conference, I can easily say that I
Speaker 10: got more calls on this particular case than I did
Speaker 10: from any case and any other press conferences combined. I
Speaker 10: got calls from all over the country, people that somehow
Speaker 10: had a connection to.
Speaker 1: Either Gill or Billy or some.
Speaker 10: Of the other victims. Mitch Hall Jimmy high Note, Harry Collier.
Speaker 10: Many of the calls kept mentioning one particular name, which
Speaker 10: is a name that was already on my radar. Then
Speaker 10: that was Mike Carbone.
Speaker 14: We can't show you Michael Carbone's face because he's on
Speaker 14: the federal witness protection program. Carbone's testimony against Gilbert Fernandez
Speaker 14: and Hubert Christie. We'll keep him from going to jail
Speaker 14: on unrelated charges.
Speaker 3: Obviously, Carbone had been close enough to guil Fernandez to
Speaker 3: be asked to be part of a deadly robbery with
Speaker 3: a huge payoff. So common sense dictates that this would
Speaker 3: not have been Carbone's first time working with Fernandez and
Speaker 3: Christie's crew or the last.
Speaker 5: But what else did we know about Michael Carbone.
Speaker 11: Mike Colbone was a collector. It was a trupid collector
Speaker 11: down here. It was the muscle behind a lot of
Speaker 11: drug dealing. Wherever he went, there was a legal activity,
Speaker 11: there was trouble.
Speaker 3: This is the anonymous tipster who called Danny after the
Speaker 3: press conference, and if you remember, we are disguising his
Speaker 3: voice to protect his identity.
Speaker 11: Mike was just one of those guys who would never smile.
Speaker 11: He had this if you look like a shark. You
Speaker 11: could look in their eyes. There's like no life, no feeling,
Speaker 11: there's no emotions behind it. That's where Mark Carbone was.
Speaker 11: He was just a young, ruthless guy.
Speaker 5: Like the rest of Gil's crew. Carbone was also a
Speaker 5: regular at the Apollo.
Speaker 12: He was intimidating.
Speaker 11: He had a chest like a barrel, just arms and
Speaker 11: a chest that were massive, and he would just look
Speaker 11: at you and you could just feel it. This guy
Speaker 11: is cold, calculated, no soul.
Speaker 3: But according to this informant, Carbone's muscles were not just
Speaker 3: all show. He had the violent temperament to go with them.
Speaker 12: Mike Carbon was just aggressive. He was hostile.
Speaker 11: If someone would mess with him, he would have no
Speaker 11: problem just walking up to him and grabbing him, throwing
Speaker 11: and punching him.
Speaker 12: He had no problem doing that.
Speaker 11: I just don't remember too many people that were without ordness.
Speaker 3: In other words, he and Gil Fernandez were cut from
Speaker 3: the same cloth.
Speaker 5: But it was also always clear who was the boss.
Speaker 5: Here's Mark Lopez.
Speaker 15: Gil was also the kind of guy that gave direction
Speaker 15: like I wouldn't at all be shocked if Carbone was
Speaker 15: a guy who was a trigger man. Might have been
Speaker 15: a Gil's direction, and.
Speaker 3: While we don't know the specifics of their working relationship,
Speaker 3: investigation revealed the following timeline. In nineteen eighty three, Carbone
Speaker 3: and Fernandez together ambushed three men who were held at gunpoint, robbed,
Speaker 3: and then executed on Danger Road. In nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 3: Billy Halpern was ambushed, potentially robbed of the contents of
Speaker 3: his safe, and then killed. In nineteen eighty seven, Mitch
Speaker 3: Hall and his girlfriend were killed, and a week later
Speaker 3: two of Gil's own crew, Jimmy Hinoe and Harry Collier,
Speaker 3: met the same fate. But it was not until nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety after Michael Carbone was arrested and was facing yet
Speaker 3: another felony extortion charge, that he offered to testify against
Speaker 3: Fernandez and Christi in the Danger Road triple homicide. In
Speaker 3: other words, he waited seven years to come clean, which
Speaker 3: sounds less like he found a conscience and more like
Speaker 3: he was trying to stay one step ahead of the law.
Speaker 3: In Gil Fernandez, here's Dave Fassano.
Speaker 4: And everyone feels that they were killing all of the
Speaker 4: anyone that could turn on them, and we all and
Speaker 4: the rumor was that that's why Mike Carbone finally squealed
Speaker 4: because he felt that he was the last one left
Speaker 4: and they were going to murder him, so he decided
Speaker 4: to wrap them out before they could kill him.
Speaker 3: A deal with prosecutors earned him immunity and a new
Speaker 3: life and the witness protection program, but did it also
Speaker 3: let him avoid blame for multiple other murders.
Speaker 15: You have to realize that in that situation, guys flip,
Speaker 15: you know, pretty easy when they realize they're facing major
Speaker 15: time and they're going to give you anything they can
Speaker 15: to lighten their load. So if you know Carbone was
Speaker 15: the shooter by chance, like it's one guy's word against
Speaker 15: the others.
Speaker 16: Basically, needless to say, it was time to track down
Speaker 16: Michael Carbone, an alleged gangster and informant and maybe even
Speaker 16: a killer.
Speaker 5: It wouldn't be easy.
Speaker 10: I can say that in my career I've never actually
Speaker 10: had to track somebody down that was in witness p.
Speaker 3: And Danny couldn't expect any help from the federal agency
Speaker 3: that had promised to keep him hidden.
Speaker 5: Danny was on his own.
Speaker 3: No one had seen or heard from Carbone in thirty
Speaker 3: four years since the days immediately following Fernandez and Christie's sentencing,
Speaker 3: and since Carbone had no doubt changed his name, Danny
Speaker 3: wasn't even sure what he was looking for.
Speaker 10: So it was frustrating to run names data, birth socials,
Speaker 10: family names through the various databases and still come up
Speaker 10: with different This could be him, this could be him.
Speaker 10: He could be in California, he could be deceased, he
Speaker 10: can be overseas. So I got so much different information
Speaker 10: it was really hard to pinpoint exactly where he was.
Speaker 3: But Danny had more than a few contacts in law
Speaker 3: enforcement and some were willing to help out a fellow
Speaker 3: brother and blue I did.
Speaker 10: I had a good friend of mine who's a retired
Speaker 10: homicide detective who now is working as a priate investigator,
Speaker 10: contacted him and gave him what I had and asked.
Speaker 1: Him to do some research and see if he.
Speaker 10: Can't help me out and narrow down exactly where Carbone is.
Speaker 3: While interviewing Billy's friends and people associated with the Apollo,
Speaker 3: we had heard all kinds of rumors about Carbones whereabouts.
Speaker 3: Some said he was out west, while others suggested he
Speaker 3: fled the country and living the life of a John Doe,
Speaker 3: while others, like our anonymous tipster had heard that it
Speaker 3: was actually back in South Florida, running his mouth like
Speaker 3: nothing had ever happened.
Speaker 12: An individual who contacted me today told me.
Speaker 11: That he he said that Carbone was recently down within
Speaker 11: a few months ago at Hollywood Beach, exposing himself in
Speaker 11: a sense after being in the witness.
Speaker 12: Protection program all this time. That has some level of arrogance.
Speaker 3: So Danny hit the streets, asked around, even rattled some cages,
Speaker 3: but unfortunately he had little success running down those leads. Thankfully,
Speaker 3: Danny's PI buddy had much better luck.
Speaker 10: My buddy called me and he was excited. He said,
Speaker 10: I got him. I'm pretty sure I got him.
Speaker 12: Now.
Speaker 10: I had old photographs of Michael Carbone from back in
Speaker 10: the eighties, and my buddy had new photographs, and putting
Speaker 10: these two pictures side by side, there was no doubt
Speaker 10: he had found them. We were able to get his
Speaker 10: new name and where he lives, who he lives with,
Speaker 10: So that right there solved the year long issue of
Speaker 10: where is Michael Carbone.
Speaker 1: We find found him.
Speaker 12: Gan.
Speaker 3: He's been working this cold case for more than eighteen months.
Speaker 3: He'd run through countless scenarios and cast his net far
Speaker 3: and wide. But this felt like the big fish. Now
Speaker 3: it was time to reel him in Cold Blooded. The
Speaker 3: Apollo Jim Murders is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
Speaker 3: Authentic Wave Media. Scott Weinberger, Kevin Bennett, and Walker LeMond.
Speaker 5: Are executive producers.
Speaker 3: Sabrina Sire is our line producer, scoring sound design and
Speaker 3: mixing by Mark lamoorg Z. For iHeart Podcasts, Christina Everett
Speaker 3: is executive producer, and David Wasserman is brand marketing manager.
Speaker 3: And with special thanks to the Miramar Police Department, Chief
Speaker 3: del Rich Moss, p Io Tanya Ardaz
Speaker 5: And Detective Susie Smith