Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime is a production of iHeartRadio staring.
Speaker 2: You know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Oh hey, what's up? It's me.
Speaker 2: You know what's ridiculous. Yes, deals, deals.
Speaker 3: Yes, we're so bad at spotting them. Okay, I'm bad
Speaker 3: at spotting them, but you know, like I'll give you
Speaker 3: a for instance, pizza deals. Yeah, okay, what's a better deal?
Speaker 3: One eighteen inch pizza or two twelve inch pizzas' eighteen inch?
Speaker 2: You know, if people do.
Speaker 3: Math, I know one of them, So I'll do the
Speaker 3: math for you. So the diameter is twelve inches on
Speaker 3: your pizza, right, okay, So then that means you have
Speaker 3: an area inside the pizza of one hundred and thirteen
Speaker 3: square inches. Okay, so that now double that?
Speaker 2: Uh huh twenty six Boh, there you go, So.
Speaker 3: You can do math. Now, if your pizza is eighteen
Speaker 3: inches the diameter, then the area is two hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty four seven square inches. So you get more pizza
Speaker 3: from one eight eighteen inch er than two of the
Speaker 3: smaller pizzas. That's why they give you the two medium
Speaker 3: pizza deals. Oh wow or whatever?
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: You know, the thing is, you get two pizzas. You
Speaker 2: can have different topics and then more people are happy.
Speaker 2: I just want everyone to be happy.
Speaker 3: I just want more pizza.
Speaker 2: That's true. Now I want pizza.
Speaker 3: Isn't that ridiculous? Though?
Speaker 2: Math? Math is ridiculous see.
Speaker 3: Math exactly and our inability to do it on the fly.
Speaker 2: Gosh, I'm really proud of myself for double good.
Speaker 3: We're thirteen way to go good for me.
Speaker 2: Do you know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 3: Nope?
Speaker 2: Silver sing Blue Silver. This is Ridiculous Crime A podcast
Speaker 2: about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always
Speaker 2: ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3: So true that, uh you know that song. Mama tried, Yeah,
Speaker 3: Merle Merle Haggard Bakersfield own.
Speaker 2: Mama tried to raise me better, but her pleading I denied.
Speaker 2: That leaves me only to blame because mama tried.
Speaker 3: Mamma tried, Mamma tried.
Speaker 2: It has to be hard for mamas who try.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, ask mine, like.
Speaker 2: They try and the kids still go bad?
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, Yes, ask mine.
Speaker 2: Sharon Fitzsimmons was one of those. She said of her son, quote,
Speaker 2: he's not a completely bad person. He's a very likable person.
Speaker 2: I think his big problem was intelligence and no common sense.
Speaker 3: That can be a problem.
Speaker 2: I just wish this would all come to an end.
Speaker 2: The last time I talked to him about what he
Speaker 2: was doing, this was a few years back. His response
Speaker 2: was that it's an excitement thing. He said. He got bored.
Speaker 2: So I said, well, why don't you take up skydiving?
Speaker 2: I said, we're not wealthy people, but we'll back you up.
Speaker 2: We'll support you morally, We'll be there for you.
Speaker 3: I don't believe skydiving is a cheap hobby.
Speaker 2: No, we're not wealthy, but will do what we.
Speaker 3: Can to support your or.
Speaker 2: Your skydiving habit. And who is this guy? I could
Speaker 2: have taken up skydiving to save his mama the stress.
Speaker 2: A man named Blaine Nordall.
Speaker 3: Not Blaine Nordall, not the Blaine Nordal.
Speaker 2: Blaine. He came from a good, hard working fan His
Speaker 2: dad was actually an artist, like a really well regarded one.
Speaker 2: It's not an art crime today though. His dad painted
Speaker 2: realist paintings of apache life. And one day Michael Jackson
Speaker 2: was in Steven Spielberg's office and saw one of those paintings,
Speaker 2: and so Jackson reached out to Blaine's dad, Blaine Senior,
Speaker 2: and they became really close friends, and Nordall Blaine Senior,
Speaker 2: became Jackson's personal portraitist what yeah so? And they bonded.
Speaker 2: Blaine Senior and Michael Jackson bonded over their traumatic childhoods.
Speaker 2: This is what Blaine Senior said, quote, I grew up
Speaker 2: in a difficult home and he did too. We had
Speaker 2: no playtime growing up. We were both fanatical about work,
Speaker 2: so we have this like heavy work ethic in the house.
Speaker 2: His father said, quote, he could have been anything he
Speaker 2: wanted to be talking about Blaine, not Michael Jareff. He's
Speaker 2: never really given me an explanation of why. It just
Speaker 2: breaks your heart. When your children are growing up, you
Speaker 2: have all kinds of concerns. You want them to be healthy, happy, popular,
Speaker 2: but you never think what would happen if they didn't
Speaker 2: turn out to be proper citizens.
Speaker 3: Oh, Blaine nord All not a proper citizen.
Speaker 2: He got busted for the first time when he was sixteen.
Speaker 2: He stole from a store, had to pay it all back.
Speaker 2: He dropped out of school in nineteen seventy eight and
Speaker 2: worked construction, and then he got his ged and his
Speaker 2: parents gave him a choice. You can become a cop
Speaker 2: or you can join the military.
Speaker 3: So they wanted him.
Speaker 2: They wanted farms. So he joined in the Navy in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty and he did pretty well there for a while.
Speaker 2: He got Sailor of the Month, which for some reason
Speaker 2: is absolutely hilarious to me under like on the plaque
Speaker 2: you can take the picture off. Yeah, he got commendations,
Speaker 2: and he even was thinking he was like toying with
Speaker 2: the idea of becoming a Navy seal.
Speaker 3: Oh you know, was he too tall?
Speaker 2: Well, so much for that. No, he had no work ethics.
Speaker 2: So when he was just twenty one years old in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three, he stole sixteen hundred dollars worth of
Speaker 2: jewelry from a family in New Jersey on Halloween night.
Speaker 2: So the homeowner he hears like this commotion because his
Speaker 2: dog Saki alerted him. Let's hear it for sake.
Speaker 3: Let's hear it for sake.
Speaker 2: There's no mention in the newspaper articles of the time
Speaker 2: about the possible breed of Sake. So let's each envision
Speaker 2: our own version of Sake like a mini picture. It
Speaker 2: disclosed your eyes. Okay, that's Saki. So Nordall he stole quote,
Speaker 2: several gold chains, pendants, cufflings with the initials H jr.
Speaker 2: And an antique pocket knife.
Speaker 3: And so the.
Speaker 2: Homeowner he confronts Nordall on his way out and they tussled.
Speaker 3: They got oh it, well really prided him, not like
Speaker 3: he excuse me and.
Speaker 2: Somebody excuse me that'. And then Nordle's like he and
Speaker 2: he goes to run away and the guy jumps on him,
Speaker 2: tackles him. The home owner he rips Nordle's jacket off
Speaker 2: of it and then tries to chase him, but Blaine
Speaker 2: gets away. He's younger, and yeah, this is such a
Speaker 2: bum maneuver. By the way, like stealing from some random
Speaker 2: guy's house. It wasn't a mansion. It is just a
Speaker 2: working guy.
Speaker 3: I think we often like have to parse this line
Speaker 3: because like you know, you hear me. I always root
Speaker 3: for the criminals as long as nobody's getting hurt, but
Speaker 3: not when they're just robbing normal demotion of hurt.
Speaker 2: There's physical hurt and then.
Speaker 3: Exactly and also I don't want the violation of like
Speaker 3: you know, if you're going to break into a store
Speaker 3: that has insurance. That's one thing. If you're breaking into
Speaker 3: someone's home and like it's going to be traumatic for
Speaker 3: them or like, that's not what I'm going to excuse.
Speaker 3: It's like that's fun crime.
Speaker 2: Have you ever had your home broken into?
Speaker 3: Uh, not that I'm aware of. No. I've had stuff
Speaker 3: stolen from outside of my house a bunch, right, And
Speaker 3: I've had nineteen bikes stolen from me. It's god, nineteen.
Speaker 2: It's terrible, Like it's it's a violation, and like it's interesting.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about this because I was working on this
Speaker 2: outline today and then I got forward in an email
Speaker 2: from a listener named Hondo who had just had his
Speaker 2: home broken into. They trashed the place. They took a
Speaker 2: bunch of stuff, including heirlooms, and he kind of he
Speaker 2: just wanted to vent, but he said it changed his
Speaker 2: mind about nonviolent crimes, like they're just not funny anymore.
Speaker 2: I agree. I don't. I don't want anyone to be
Speaker 2: violated like that. I mean, like, okay, even the violently rich,
Speaker 2: when they experience a violation, that's bad. You know, it's
Speaker 2: just their personal stuff and the circumstances can be ridiculous,
Speaker 2: but it's still a crime. It's like a violation of
Speaker 2: the social.
Speaker 3: Yeah, robbing a museum is different than robbing a person's.
Speaker 2: House, right, So I just want to say, we don't
Speaker 2: endorse this kind.
Speaker 3: No, I don't endorse it, and we.
Speaker 2: Feel terrible for Hondo. We do big up yeah, and
Speaker 2: everyone else who's had some dusty clowns break in and
Speaker 2: take their stuff.
Speaker 3: It's horrible. It feels terrible, and we would never make jokes.
Speaker 2: So anyway, Blaine talk about that guy. This wasn't his
Speaker 2: first job in the neighborhood. That night, though, the cops
Speaker 2: were onto him. They set the bloodhounds on him because
Speaker 2: they had the jacket, the literal bloodhounds. They had the jacket.
Speaker 2: They're like, give this a huff and then go get them.
Speaker 3: Get them.
Speaker 2: For three hours, they searched for him with dogs, with
Speaker 2: a helicopter. They even they had to interrupt trick or
Speaker 2: treating like all. Yes, So if they caught him, that
Speaker 2: meant that they could charge him with, you know, all
Speaker 2: these other crimes. And they did. They caught him. They
Speaker 2: charged him with one count of theft and one count
Speaker 2: of burgway for another job in addition to the Halloween
Speaker 2: night one in an interview in nineteen ninety eight with
Speaker 2: Shrewsbury Police Captain James Wilson, looking back on the eighties,
Speaker 2: he said, quote, he hit us a number of times.
Speaker 2: He's the reason a wealthy older lady living here doesn't
Speaker 2: have any silver. She replaced it three times and he
Speaker 2: took it three times. Horrible. And he didn't just have
Speaker 2: these burglary charges hovering over him. Remember how he was
Speaker 2: in the Navy. He had an a wall charge because
Speaker 2: he just skipped out.
Speaker 3: I'm not in the Navy anymore.
Speaker 2: It's like remember them the Navy, in.
Speaker 3: The Navy, not anymore. I was in the Navy.
Speaker 2: I hit the door before he could be tried. Though.
Speaker 2: He got busted in New York and he racked up
Speaker 2: a bunch more charges. He wound up doing time the end. Okay,
Speaker 2: good for him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2: So what's your ridiculous take away? So he got out
Speaker 2: in the early nineties, but then he went straight the end,
Speaker 2: So what's your ridiculous again? He did get out in
Speaker 2: the early nineties, but he went back to criming almost immediately.
Speaker 2: Nineteen ninety one, Detective Lonnie.
Speaker 3: Mason got so common.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was wearing a floppy hat and a turtleneck.
Speaker 2: He said, he do so Mason was just driving me us,
Speaker 2: I can't believe I didn't pick up on that. Mason
Speaker 2: was an investigator for New Jersey's Monmouth County Prosecutors. He
Speaker 2: busted Nordall twice and he knew more about him than
Speaker 2: anyone else. So he gets a call from the local
Speaker 2: cops in RUMs in New Jersey. They wanted his help
Speaker 2: in nabbing Blaine after a bunch of silver related burglaries
Speaker 2: in the area, so they figured it had to be
Speaker 2: his work. So Mason he looks at the notes, he
Speaker 2: realizes that all the burglaries happened on a Thursday night,
Speaker 2: so he decided to go all out. They gave him
Speaker 2: sixteen officers.
Speaker 3: Someone's not watching friends, there's.
Speaker 2: Not mustse TV for them, and they set up an
Speaker 2: overnight stakeout that covered a two block area in Remson.
Speaker 2: Nothing happened, no burglaries. Mason later said, quote, I thought,
Speaker 2: thank God, maybe he saw one of our guys and
Speaker 2: called it off. But then Mason he gets a call
Speaker 2: from the chief. According to Mason, he said, quote, he said,
Speaker 2: can you tell me why I authorized all this overtime?
Speaker 2: Because he hit three houses last night, And I said, well,
Speaker 2: what section, because I know one section he didn't hit.
Speaker 2: My boss gave me the addresses and it was the
Speaker 2: two block radius we were in. Just in their two blocks,
Speaker 2: three houses. They couldn't sixteen dudes couldn't secure three times. Yes.
Speaker 2: So he did eventually get caught for those and others.
Speaker 2: In February of nineteen ninety two, he got locked up
Speaker 2: in New Jersey after being charged with forty three burglaries
Speaker 2: in Camden, Monmouth, Mercer, Morris and Somerset counties. In December
Speaker 2: of ninety four, he was out of jail and into crime.
Speaker 2: So he stole about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: worth of silver from four homes Salver, Jersey. He only
Speaker 2: stole silver. That was it.
Speaker 3: That's his thing.
Speaker 2: That was it.
Speaker 3: I know, it's good, we'll talk, ok.
Speaker 2: So he then worked his way from New Jersey in
Speaker 2: Philadelphia and like Westchester County in New York to Boston,
Speaker 2: Baltimore because around there, like the wealthy folks, they had
Speaker 2: more colonial silver.
Speaker 3: Yeah, real silver, you think of silver?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. He started like hitting all it's in a case.
Speaker 2: Rose Pointe, Michigan, Kennebunkport, Mainecastle, Delaware, Winnett, Illinois. I did,
Speaker 2: but it's true. So he wintered in Miami and Palm Beach.
Speaker 2: He hit them in the in the wintertime. How did
Speaker 2: the cops always know it was him?
Speaker 3: Because he's always taking silver?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: And is that it? Seriously?
Speaker 2: He had a signature. He was immaculate and precise. So
Speaker 2: this is maybe where his like childhood work ethic hammered.
Speaker 2: He he would wear either latex gloves or those cotton
Speaker 2: gardening gloves with like the little gripper dots on them
Speaker 2: to avoid leaving fingerprints. He carried a duffel bag that
Speaker 2: held screwdrivers, a carpet knife, wirecutters, a wood chisel, nail polars,
Speaker 2: a flashlight, a white cotton rag, duct tape, and like
Speaker 2: a really thin black steel pry bar.
Speaker 3: That's a hell of a crime kit.
Speaker 4: I like it.
Speaker 2: It's a good one. So he climbed power poles and
Speaker 2: he cut the electricity to get around alarm systems. And
Speaker 2: he was like five to four.
Speaker 3: Oh this a little very important.
Speaker 2: So it was easy for him to get into tight spaces. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he scraped putty from the windows or the doors, and
Speaker 2: like would remove the panes of glass using duct tape.
Speaker 2: He never set off sensors because no doors or windows
Speaker 2: were actually opened, and he always left the panes of
Speaker 2: glass stacked neatly against the outside of the house. Is
Speaker 2: very style, very particular. He used architectural digest to find targets,
Speaker 2: and like sometimes he'd call a real estate agent in
Speaker 2: the area and say that he wanted to buy like
Speaker 2: a really big, really old home in a established neighborhood,
Speaker 2: a settled neighborhood, and where would I look? What are
Speaker 2: some of those neighborhoods. So they'd give him all this information,
Speaker 2: and based on that, he'd scope the neighborhood during the
Speaker 2: day and he would look for houses that were like
Speaker 2: set far back from the road, and so you know,
Speaker 2: he'd figure out, Okay, this is where I want to hit.
Speaker 2: He'd go back to his motel, he'd take a nap,
Speaker 2: God bless, he'd have dinner people people, He'd have dinner,
Speaker 2: and then he'd go back out, like in the middle
Speaker 2: of the night to strike. And a lot of times
Speaker 2: he would hike through forest for miles and like forest
Speaker 2: backyards to get to his target. We've heard that before.
Speaker 3: With the dinner set gang. Yeah. So I mean, if
Speaker 3: you really want to be real about it, there's not
Speaker 3: many cops in the woods.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like you don't want to won't see a
Speaker 2: car park.
Speaker 3: People, People don't expect it right the way.
Speaker 2: So once he's in, he went only for silver. Like
Speaker 2: I said, so this is almost always downstairs, which means
Speaker 2: it's less likely to wake up the owner's upstairs. He'd
Speaker 2: hit the dining and pantry areas. He'd load everything into
Speaker 2: a tablecloth that he'd find or like even like a
Speaker 2: cabinet drawer.
Speaker 3: Everything is the noise of that much matters, like he's
Speaker 3: having to like I'm sure like put them in.
Speaker 2: With I'm guessing, And so then he'd take it all outside.
Speaker 2: Once he got outside, then he'd soar through the items.
Speaker 2: That's when it would get noisy. And he brought a
Speaker 2: test kit so he'd figure out is that silver is
Speaker 2: silver plated, And he'd only take the very best pieces,
Speaker 2: and I guess he just left the rest in the yard.
Speaker 2: He would leave the table cloth or the dresser drawer
Speaker 2: or whatever behind. A sneaker imprint was found on the
Speaker 2: countertop after one of his heists, and that led to
Speaker 2: his arrest in jail in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 3: Two off a sneaker print one.
Speaker 2: So he started throwing away his shoes, all his clothing,
Speaker 2: and his break in tools when he completed a heist.
Speaker 3: The other thing is is you buy your clothing at
Speaker 3: a good will so that there's no ability to trace
Speaker 3: the purchase.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good point or any kind of like DNA.
Speaker 3: Well anywhere. Yeah, but they wouldn't be able to say,
Speaker 3: like your yeah, your shoes. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So why silver?
Speaker 3: Why silver, Elizabeth?
Speaker 2: Thank you? Stephen Dubner of Navinnie Yorker wrote. Quote. Mason
Speaker 2: argues that silver was particularly appealing to Nordal because it
Speaker 2: connotes the sort of family that passes along precious things
Speaker 2: from one generation to the next, a family that was
Speaker 2: distinctly unlike Nordal's own. As Mason sees it, Nordal remained
Speaker 2: embittered by his parents' divorce. He resented his father and
Speaker 2: became extraordinarily close to his mother. When Mason got ahold
Speaker 2: of Nordal's phone records, he was astonished by the number
Speaker 2: of calls between the two. Nothing gave Nordal greater pleasure,
Speaker 2: Mason believes than stealing a rich man's silver and turning
Speaker 2: it into cash that he would shower on his mother, who,
Speaker 2: while unhappy about her son's calling, appreciated his devotion.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry I had to steal your silver, but I
Speaker 3: hate my dad. Yeah, basically, that's cool. That's an interesting one.
Speaker 2: If I was told that to my face, I'd be like,
Speaker 2: it's an interesting like psychological analysis.
Speaker 3: And wanting to send the money whatever to his mother,
Speaker 3: like yeah, to a kind of apologize for the dad,
Speaker 3: or like get over on. That's just a very interesting complex.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's not like the dusty clown behavior of
Speaker 2: most burglars who are just no exactly.
Speaker 3: It's not also like lack of impulse control. It's like
Speaker 3: a weird pathology exactly.
Speaker 2: So during one job, he left behind like one thousand
Speaker 2: dollars in cash that had been sitting on a dining
Speaker 2: room table, which ps who has a thousand dollars sitting
Speaker 2: on their dining room table? Not I you don't, said
Speaker 2: the fly.
Speaker 3: That's how I know it's my dining room table. It's
Speaker 3: got the thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: As it comes in, like the cop comes in, he
Speaker 2: sees it and he's like he's taunting us. This is
Speaker 2: he's just doing that so the cops they keep on
Speaker 2: this trail. He was the prime suspect of the May
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six theft of one hundred and fifty one
Speaker 2: thousand dollars worth of salt and pepper shakers. Huh silver ones. Yes,
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty dollars tiffany strawberry box, a ninety
Speaker 2: dollars limoge garlic box, a ninety dollars limoge chestnut box.
Speaker 3: Now, when you're saying these boxes is just like a
Speaker 3: box for my strawberries, a box for my garlic.
Speaker 2: I'm about to tell you a one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: dollars limoje lemon box and a one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: five dollars limoje artichoke heart box from Ivana Trump's place
Speaker 2: in Greenwich.
Speaker 3: What this is?
Speaker 2: What a limoje box lit.
Speaker 3: The one on the left.
Speaker 2: So basically they're small hinged porcelain trinkets, little boxes made
Speaker 2: in limoje. Friends, they're big, Yeah, they're super fanciful, particularly
Speaker 2: the fruit and vegetable ones. This is like something you'd
Speaker 2: get at gumps in the city in San Francis. Yes,
Speaker 2: so you wonder did Blaine give these to someone?
Speaker 3: Elizabeth. Did Blaine give these to outside.
Speaker 2: The Silver Uvra?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Well, Nordal had an on off again girlfriend named Luanne,
Speaker 2: like Zaren's favorite comic strip. Of course, this again off
Speaker 2: again girlfriend's a fun girl.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I I.
Speaker 2: Don't think he gave her the Limoje boxes, but it
Speaker 2: was a really great segue for me to get you
Speaker 2: to Luanne. So Luanne's girlfriend, but she also became an
Speaker 2: informant for Mason. That was in the off again time. Apparently,
Speaker 2: how did Mason flip Luwan?
Speaker 3: How did Mason flipped Elizabeth? Break?
Speaker 2: Let's take a break, we come back. I'm going to
Speaker 2: tell you how Mason flipped lu Wan. Welcome Blaine, nordle
Speaker 2: Red White and Blaine. That's a special shout out for
Speaker 2: old Phineas Gage. So I was telling you about how Detective.
Speaker 3: Lonnie Mason Common detective Common wo he loves hip hop,
Speaker 3: does the hip and the loves.
Speaker 2: Him Mammoth County Prosecutors Office. He convinced Blaine's girlfriend Luanne
Speaker 2: to become an informant. Luan was a troubled she had
Speaker 2: a heroin habit we should not be laughing about. But
Speaker 2: it's very bad. That's a bad thing.
Speaker 3: It's not just unfortunate thing.
Speaker 2: It's also kind of interesting seeing as how Blaine Nordal
Speaker 2: didn't do drugs Like he didn't. He didn't.
Speaker 3: You don't usually hear about people being in a relationship
Speaker 3: with someone who you're not doing heroin.
Speaker 2: It wasn't even that he didn't do drugs. He didn't drink,
Speaker 2: he didn't ingest caffeine.
Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, So and is this all like some moral
Speaker 3: compunction of his.
Speaker 2: It was just like his thing. His addiction was stealing things.
Speaker 3: I get that.
Speaker 2: A former girlfriend of his said he was obsessed with
Speaker 2: stealing every night and then quote he got high off it.
Speaker 2: He liked going into houses when people were sleeping. He
Speaker 2: says it's more exciting to go into a house when
Speaker 2: people are there and get away with it. So that's
Speaker 2: his high. Yeah. So Luann like she's having a rough
Speaker 2: one anyways.
Speaker 3: Like I don't do drugs, I do crime.
Speaker 2: Basically crime in my drugs. Mason put a bug in
Speaker 2: Luand's ear that he could help her. Now it was
Speaker 2: just up to her to reach out. And instead of
Speaker 2: telling you about it, Zarin close eye. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 2: want you to picture it. It's nineteen ninety six, you're
Speaker 2: a Greenwich, Connecticut police officer. What you are also on steroids?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 2: That doesn't have anything to do with anything. I just
Speaker 2: thought to be fun for you. You're also super into astrology.
Speaker 2: Doesn't have anything. I just thought that'd be fun. So
Speaker 2: about a week ago, you heard that someone broke into
Speaker 2: Avonna Trump's house and stole some stuff, real fancy stuff.
Speaker 2: And this morning you were told that Blaine Nordall's girlfriend
Speaker 2: was singing to Detective Mason. You've been assigned to his
Speaker 2: special task force trying to catch this guy. Word is
Speaker 2: Nordal is hold up at the Super eight in Stamford.
Speaker 2: It's now eleven thirty at night. You and the other
Speaker 2: dozen or so guys on your team are posted outside
Speaker 2: the Super eight. It's a warm night, and you're sitting
Speaker 2: in the passenger seat of an unmarked car with all
Speaker 2: the windows down, outside of Kathy's Dominican Beauty salon and
Speaker 2: Samela's barbershop next door. I should mention that Samela's has
Speaker 2: a one star operating with the only review being quote
Speaker 2: by chance. I saw this barber and decided that I
Speaker 2: really needed a shave. What a mistake. I suffered three
Speaker 2: cuts to the neck and face. FYI, it's just off
Speaker 2: Exit six in Stamford. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Speaker 3: That's the only review.
Speaker 2: That's the only review. So a cruiser is parked at
Speaker 2: the shell station on the corner. Another unmarked car is
Speaker 2: in the Super eight motel lot, waiting to give the
Speaker 2: signal that Blaine and the Wan have been spotted. You
Speaker 2: hear the Connecticut Turnpike, a block away, quiet buzz of
Speaker 2: traffic this time of night, big rigs humbi in the distance,
Speaker 2: but the air around you is filled with the sound
Speaker 2: of your police radio and cicadas. You have one job
Speaker 2: for tonight, and it's a dramatic one. Your radio crackles
Speaker 2: to life, and the announcement that Nordal has been spotted.
Speaker 2: I repeat, Blaine is on the move. He and Luan
Speaker 2: appear to be packing their car. Move, Move, Move. Your
Speaker 2: partner hits the gas and squeals out of the parking
Speaker 2: lot with a little too much gusto. Settle down, you
Speaker 2: tell him, tranquilo compadre. You do your job. You're one job.
Speaker 2: You dial a number on your cell phone, You say
Speaker 2: you there into the line, You get a yes. Hold on.
Speaker 2: You tell the person on the line, you and all
Speaker 2: the other Greenwich police officers with a few Stanford guys
Speaker 2: thrown in as a courtesy approach. Blaine and Luanne. You
Speaker 2: step forward dramatically. You hand Luann your cell phone. It's
Speaker 2: Lonnie Mason on the other end. Common Luanne, you have
Speaker 2: two choices here. Mason tells her, you can either stay
Speaker 2: on tour with Blaine and get indicted down the road,
Speaker 2: or you can go with these cops and cooperate. You
Speaker 2: know that Mason knows that Luanne has a ten year
Speaker 2: old son back in New Jersey. Oh, Mason tells Luann
Speaker 2: to think about him, not nor at all. Luanne starts
Speaker 2: crying and hangs up the phone. She turns and gets
Speaker 2: in the police car. What are you doing, nord All yells.
Speaker 2: He tells her that she'll be in trouble without him
Speaker 2: since he has her heroin. Whoa, whoa? You did not
Speaker 2: know about that part. I'll get it from the police.
Speaker 2: Luan says, Oh wow, there's a lot happening happening. There's
Speaker 2: so much happening. You really want to ask her what
Speaker 2: her sign is, to try and figure out the whole
Speaker 2: energy here.
Speaker 3: I have a good guest, though, She shuts the.
Speaker 2: Car door, gets in the in the squad car. You're like,
Speaker 2: I kind of need my phone back too, is what
Speaker 2: you're thinking. But Luanne is lost in her thoughts. You'll
Speaker 2: get it back later. So now Mason has Luanne on
Speaker 2: his side, but he needed to lock that in and
Speaker 2: get her to agree to testify.
Speaker 3: This is like the movie Heat.
Speaker 2: It's so amazing. So is so she started to talk
Speaker 2: One night after Mason drove to her house and showed
Speaker 2: a photo to her. It had been in Blaine's possession
Speaker 2: the last time he got pinched. It was a picture
Speaker 2: of a blonde woman in a white dress posing in
Speaker 2: front of the Manhattan skyline. Not her, Yeah, not her.
Speaker 2: Mason knows it's a gamble, but he's pretty sure it's
Speaker 2: going to pay off. That son of a She does
Speaker 2: what she shouts. Then she pulls a picture out of
Speaker 2: her purse. It's the exact same picture but with her
Speaker 2: in it, same pose, everything.
Speaker 3: He just take this thing.
Speaker 2: It's his thing. So Luanne, she's like, yeah, look I
Speaker 2: know where both of these photos are taken. It's a
Speaker 2: promenade and weehawken guess what you know? It's down the
Speaker 2: block his fence oh so, then like, okay, this is
Speaker 2: the last straw for her. So she starts giving the
Speaker 2: Greenwich police any information about Nordle that she can think of,
Speaker 2: and so they have the promise of her testimony. This
Speaker 2: Detective Cornell Abrunzini, he was able to obtain a warrant
Speaker 2: to arrest Nordal for six Greenwich burglaries.
Speaker 3: When you hear mister Abrazzini, you don't expect Cornell.
Speaker 2: Detective Cornell Cornell is so good. So despite Luann's help,
Speaker 2: Mason and Abersini, they couldn't find Nordall anywhere in New Jersey.
Speaker 2: He had a hunch that dude was hiding at his
Speaker 2: mom's place in Indiana, though, oh so he had the
Speaker 2: FBI put her home under surveillance. Nordal was spotted driving
Speaker 2: to his mom's house with a truck full of drywall.
Speaker 3: Apparently himself.
Speaker 2: You know, he was off, he had a break in
Speaker 2: his work and he had cash.
Speaker 3: It's like a lawn order SVU, like we found there's
Speaker 3: a whole room back here.
Speaker 2: So FBI agents they told Mason that they would take
Speaker 2: Blaine into custody, and Mason warned them against it. This
Speaker 2: is what he said quote. I'll never forget it. It
Speaker 2: was a rainy, nasty day, they said. We chased him
Speaker 2: in the front door of his mom's house and out
Speaker 2: the back, and he's in a wooded area. We haven't
Speaker 2: cordoned off. We have helicopters up, we got dogs here.
Speaker 2: It's nineteen degrees and it's going to snow. He can't
Speaker 2: survive in the woods for any length of time. I said,
Speaker 2: how long have you been out there? He said, oh,
Speaker 2: about forty five minutes. I said, I'm telling you right now,
Speaker 2: Blaine is gone. Blaine is probably ten miles away right now.
Speaker 2: Call me back when you find out I was right.
Speaker 2: Next day, I get a call. You're not going to
Speaker 2: believe this. He was at a bank withdrawing money by
Speaker 2: the time we were talking to you on the phone.
Speaker 3: Blaine's like a Czechoslovaki and interior decorator. He ain't gonna
Speaker 3: catch him in the woods. He's gone.
Speaker 2: He is. He is in the wind. So the FBI
Speaker 2: traced the credit card that he used to buy the
Speaker 2: dry wall. It had been issued to one of his aliases.
Speaker 2: So they issued this alert that described his car, and
Speaker 2: an off duty officer saw it at a Walmart in Sparta, Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: Whoa Yeah. October eighteenth, nineteen ninety six, at the age
Speaker 2: of thirty five years old, he was arrested at a
Speaker 2: Walmart in Sparta, Wisconsin. So at the Walmart, he was
Speaker 2: caught with like these big rubber maid containers. He had
Speaker 2: maps of the Connecticut's Fairfield County. He had a fake
Speaker 2: credit card, he had a directory of America's rich and
Speaker 2: famous on him, and they're like, you know, this is
Speaker 2: a little suspects some downtime reading. So the police they
Speaker 2: were like, they found out he had a storage locker
Speaker 2: in Wilton, Wisconsin. They're like, oh, this has got to
Speaker 2: be it. But you know there was nothing in there anyway.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Angie Cannon of Night rit Or News service said, quote,
Speaker 2: in the dead of night, dressed all in black, he
Speaker 2: slunk to the butler's pantries and swiped the sterling cat burglar. Yes,
Speaker 2: but it was no Carrie Grant that the police charged
Speaker 2: last week. This accused sneak thief is five foot four
Speaker 2: as a receding hairline drives a Dodge pickup. Was caught
Speaker 2: at a Walmart. And she goes on to quote Detective Brunzini.
Speaker 3: Why she got a like body sham and with the
Speaker 3: he's got a receiving hair car.
Speaker 2: What's up with the papers? With the unnecessary?
Speaker 3: They just throw him in for like, I got some
Speaker 3: space in his column A.
Speaker 2: Brunzini sprinkles a little on top. I don't think Hollywood
Speaker 2: will sign him up?
Speaker 3: What the hell?
Speaker 2: Come on, dude, you must be surprised. Exactly. So he's
Speaker 2: held on five hundred thousand.
Speaker 3: That is why the man steals, because you guys just
Speaker 3: won't let him.
Speaker 2: The world is cruel. He gets held on five hundred
Speaker 2: thousand dollars bond while extradition to Connecticut was pending, and
Speaker 2: that's where he was wanted for two counts of third
Speaker 2: degree larceny, four counts of first degree larseny, and six
Speaker 2: counts of second degree burglary.
Speaker 3: Did the fashion police come after? No counts?
Speaker 2: No counts on that? Apparently he bought his clothes at
Speaker 2: men's warehouse. Oh it's a fun fact.
Speaker 3: So research.
Speaker 2: No stolen ims were found in his home when it
Speaker 2: was searched, but they did find materials needed to make
Speaker 2: fake id's and they all found a video called how
Speaker 2: to Create a New Birth Certificate, a rubber stamp that
Speaker 2: read original document and a book called how to Launder Money?
Speaker 3: Don't you think the FBI is the one who writes
Speaker 3: these things, Like if you have a video and you're
Speaker 3: like clicking on it, they're like, we got another totally.
Speaker 2: So at this point, he's suspected of stealing one million
Speaker 2: dollars in silver in approximately forty burglaries over the past
Speaker 2: four years. This is like Connecticut, Florida, all of them.
Speaker 2: He also hit a bunch of places in Palm Beach, Florida,
Speaker 2: including the home of sportscaster Kurt Goudie. Yeah, so police
Speaker 2: they suspected him of breaking into Bruce Springsteen's place in
Speaker 2: RUMs And, New Jersey, but that turned out to be
Speaker 2: not true. I think they just thought maybe this is
Speaker 2: how we meet the race.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're just gonna suspect it.
Speaker 2: Bruce, ye call us, we got to come over.
Speaker 3: Yeah, tell the boss we have his silver.
Speaker 2: He was also the suspect of the theft of fifty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars worth of silver from the grounds of Andalucia,
Speaker 2: the childhood home of diplomat Nicholas Biddle, who's and that
Speaker 2: is now a National Historic Landmark on the river.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, public defender his his lawyer said, quote, everyone else
Speaker 2: in the East Coast who has an unexplained burglary is
Speaker 2: convinced he did it. And Jimmy Hoffs disappearance too.
Speaker 3: Hey got a comedian. Yeah, so lawyers always trying to
Speaker 3: do a quick five. I got a crowd here. Why
Speaker 3: got you guys?
Speaker 2: He wants to get on court TV. That was the
Speaker 2: thing of the day. Second Assistant prosecutor. That's a good title,
Speaker 2: Robert Honecker said, quote, He's the burglar to the stars.
Speaker 3: See what's the game?
Speaker 2: They all look, I'm quoting them, but Michael they won.
Speaker 3: Michael Chertoff though, he'll drop the bars.
Speaker 2: So the thing is like, he's this burglar to the stars.
Speaker 2: But he didn't know or care whose house he was hitting.
Speaker 3: Whose house runs house? Whose house?
Speaker 2: The only reason that he knew he'd taken stuff from
Speaker 2: Ivana Trump is that he got back to his motel
Speaker 2: and saw Trump stamp stamped on the back of two
Speaker 2: pewter plates. And he didn't care about that. He was
Speaker 2: more bone than he'd picked up pewter. Let's take a break.
Speaker 2: When we get back from this time of quiet contemplation,
Speaker 2: I am going to continue telling you about Blaine Nordal
Speaker 2: or not. Like, maybe I'll mix it up and change
Speaker 2: gears and push the envelope talk about something else. Maybe
Speaker 2: I'll talk about all the hobbies I picked up and
Speaker 2: never finish. Yeah, you're gonna have to tune in and see.
Speaker 3: Be the Zamboni you want to see in the world.
Speaker 2: Blaine, Blaine, Nordal.
Speaker 3: No, no Zaren.
Speaker 2: It's Zaren, But I always want to say Narwal. You
Speaker 2: look at it, see it, and I see Narwhal, but
Speaker 2: it's Nordal. It's not Narwal Zarin. Stop it. After his
Speaker 2: arrest at the Walmart at the Walls, about two point
Speaker 2: three million dollars in burglary claims in fourteen states were
Speaker 2: attributed to him. So first they're like, it's a million
Speaker 2: in and then all these other people are chiming in. Yeah,
Speaker 2: everyone was thrilled to have caught him, and they wanted
Speaker 2: to talk about him too. So let me read you
Speaker 2: a bunch of quotes of everyone wanting to and again
Speaker 2: they won because now I'm quoting them. Detective Sergeant Michael
Speaker 2: Shookt of Southampton Village on Long Island's East End said quote,
Speaker 2: when and if I meet him, I'd like to shake
Speaker 2: his hand. He was extremely good, very professional, very efficient,
Speaker 2: and they said that Nordal took quote a lot of
Speaker 2: intestinal fortitude.
Speaker 3: Cops want to be writers, lawyers want to be communians.
Speaker 2: Rock stars want to be I just want to go.
Speaker 3: You want to be asleep.
Speaker 2: I just want to be asleep. Monroe County District Attorney
Speaker 2: or I suppose if it were in the south of
Speaker 2: the Monroe but Monroe County District Attorney John me Twusecotball quote. See, yeah,
Speaker 2: I've had lots of guys try to intimidate me in court.
Speaker 3: Don't brag.
Speaker 2: Guys will stare you down and maybe say something. I
Speaker 2: always stare them down. The usually smile. But this guy
Speaker 2: is so cool. We had our stare down, but he
Speaker 2: didn't budge, which is unusual.
Speaker 3: Silverback psychology. I stare, they stare, sometimes smile.
Speaker 2: Detective Fred Nort the Southampton Police Department said, quote, Blaine
Speaker 2: was good, very good. One of the best cat burglars
Speaker 2: I've seen. He was never armed, he was never violent,
Speaker 2: he never heard anyone. He was like Robin Hood, stealing
Speaker 2: from the rich, except he didn't give to the poor.
Speaker 4: Guy.
Speaker 2: Lower Marion Police Sergeant Mark Keenan, what did he say?
Speaker 4: Saren.
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't know, but fan of Charles Bronson movies,
Speaker 3: I know it's gonna be good.
Speaker 2: Quote. He lives a very low key lifestyle. He never
Speaker 2: goes out controversy. Thanks thanks for telling us that.
Speaker 3: Are you projecting the investigation?
Speaker 2: It looked like most of his spending took place at
Speaker 2: Walmart and Walgreens and in the walls. During one six
Speaker 2: week stretch, he spent more than two.
Speaker 3: Grand at wall drinking. Harvey walbachers do that six.
Speaker 2: Weeks, you could do it nuts, Yeah, anyway, and then,
Speaker 2: like I said, he bought his clothes at Men's Warehouse
Speaker 2: after his arrest. After his arrest at the Walmart, it
Speaker 2: soon became obvious that, like, he's not going to do
Speaker 2: a bunch of time because none of the cases against
Speaker 2: him were strong. They had no forensic evidence, none of
Speaker 2: the silver was recovered, there's no record of any of
Speaker 2: the cash that he got from the sale of this. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then we got the little issue of our star witness.
Speaker 2: When is a heroin addict?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can usually assassinate that character.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So this is what his attorney said. Quote, if
Speaker 2: you're in law enforcement and you've got some cold cases,
Speaker 2: you'll give your kidney just to get somebody to say
Speaker 2: I did that. Blaine harms nobody, aside from the fact
Speaker 2: that you'll never see your great great great grandfather's knife
Speaker 2: and fork again. Okay, what if it happens to you, sir?
Speaker 2: You know, someday blaineill rob his own attorney. On October eleventh,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety seven, he confessed. Blaine confessed to making into
Speaker 2: seven Greenwich homes, including Evonna Trump's. He and his lawyer
Speaker 2: they signed a deal with federal prosecutors that laid out
Speaker 2: all the details of like one hundred and fifty recent burglaries.
Speaker 2: Blaine agreed to meet with police officers from the jurisdiction
Speaker 2: so that they could like officially clear the cases. In exchange,
Speaker 2: he would plead guilty only to the interstate Transportation of
Speaker 2: Stolen Property.
Speaker 3: Oh he went to federal chargem.
Speaker 2: Smart So, while free on bail, he gets arrested again
Speaker 2: smart Smart, this time this time by Baltimore police after
Speaker 2: they got a tip from Lower Marion police in Philadelphia
Speaker 2: who noticed him making his way to Baltimore. He was
Speaker 2: walking back to his nineteen ninety one red Cadillac Deville,
Speaker 2: which was parked outside of mansion. They had more than
Speaker 2: two dozen cops waiting at the car, like, oh hey, Blaine,
Speaker 2: what's up. He had burglary tools on him, but no silver,
Speaker 2: but they were able to tie him to these five
Speaker 2: other burglaries. So Baltimore police said that they had been
Speaker 2: preparing since summer to charge him with twelve burglaries that
Speaker 2: took place inside their city limits. That spree allegedly took
Speaker 2: place after he was released on bail. When police noticed
Speaker 2: that similar crimes were occurring again. They started keeping him
Speaker 2: under nighttime surveillance. And police though they'd lose him because
Speaker 2: he'd get off of highways onto deserted streets and they'd
Speaker 2: circle a few times and always lose the tail every time.
Speaker 2: So in this little spree, seven hundred thousand dollars worth
Speaker 2: of silver was stolen. According to one of the veteran
Speaker 2: cops quote, he knew the difference between silver plated and
Speaker 2: solid silver. He is a true professional. You just don't
Speaker 2: find a burgler like this every day. This has probably
Speaker 2: been the most difficult case as far as burglary goes
Speaker 2: that I've seen in my career.
Speaker 3: You know, you got to kind of hand it to
Speaker 3: cops for being honest about this, because you know, they
Speaker 3: deal with some of the dumbest most just like whoah,
Speaker 3: like yeah, gobsmack head hitting kind of like why would
Speaker 3: you do that? Criminals? And then finally got one guy
Speaker 3: who's like really good. They're like this guy's and you know,
Speaker 3: it's kind of like a comp meant to us why
Speaker 3: I got into this, Yeah, this is what I want
Speaker 3: to be doing.
Speaker 2: So in January of two thousand and two, this huge
Speaker 2: hall of silver gets stolen from a mansion in ryan Beck,
Speaker 2: New York, Edgewater not Yes, built in eighteen twenty three.
Speaker 2: The owner at the time, Richard Jenratt. He was a
Speaker 2: retired financier whose hobby was preserving historic homes. That's a great.
Speaker 3: Hobby, preserving like for like the historic record, or just
Speaker 3: like you know, maybe like like flipping them.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, like preserving them for the historic record,
Speaker 2: going through and making sure that everything is repaired to
Speaker 2: period details or whatever. You know. It's like kind of
Speaker 2: like one of my hobbies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that you do that on weeks.
Speaker 2: It's easy. It's so cheap.
Speaker 3: I mean, they're Barbie dream homes but the same stuff.
Speaker 2: Edgewater had been the home of the Donaldson family.
Speaker 3: Oh, yes, the Donaldson is good family. I've known them
Speaker 3: since the same dogs, ages and generatt.
Speaker 2: He tracked down the last living Donaldson descendant who had
Speaker 2: moved to the south of Spain, and he convinced her
Speaker 2: to keep the family's original silver at Edgewater.
Speaker 3: Well, they've had it for donkeys years and.
Speaker 2: It was a massive set. He's like repatriated back to
Speaker 2: the hump. All of that silver was starle gone, as
Speaker 2: well as a toddy ladle and it's fish server for
Speaker 2: a six piece tea set, luncheon knives and dematas spoons
Speaker 2: and a chocolate pot.
Speaker 3: Demotos spoons, chocolate pot, Come on, choco, that's one.
Speaker 2: He takes all the silver that had been like painstakingly
Speaker 2: returned to the home. Yes, and there was poor woman
Speaker 2: in Spain is like okay, great, thanks good advice. He
Speaker 2: left behind these like crazy expensive paintings and porcelain. Is
Speaker 2: he just blain? He just wanted silver. The same evening
Speaker 2: there was another burglary, same evening as Edgewater, ten miles
Speaker 2: south at Wilderstein or Wilderstein. I don't know how you
Speaker 2: say it, and quite frankly, I don't care. This was
Speaker 2: the former home.
Speaker 3: Of Daisy Suckley, not Daisy.
Speaker 2: You know who she is, distant cousin and close companion
Speaker 2: of Franklin Delano Rose.
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 2: I could throw on any name. Oh yes, of course.
Speaker 2: And then you tell me I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you,
Speaker 2: and not believe that you don't know. Okay, I'm so excited.
Speaker 2: I got one over.
Speaker 3: I need to work on a peerage of American royalty.
Speaker 2: Well, so at this place, at the old Suckley House,
Speaker 2: the only thing stolen there with silver. So both of
Speaker 2: these meticulous heists same night. It gets reported on in
Speaker 2: the New York Times. After, you know, reading this article
Speaker 2: about the double heist, Aberusini he calls the Rhinebeck Police,
Speaker 2: tells the trooper handling the case, quote, I know the
Speaker 2: guy who's doing your burglaries. It's like watching the same
Speaker 2: bad movie again and again, so which it must be.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh my god, he's striking everywhere. So Abersini
Speaker 2: gives them Nordal's name and his aliases David Price and
Speaker 2: Robert Damiani. Abersini told this this cop check the local
Speaker 2: motels under all three names. So he's calling. He's calling.
Speaker 2: On the tenth try. He calls a super eight, several
Speaker 2: miles south of Rightbeck, which because I think he had
Speaker 2: like a customer loyalty card to the superint hotels.
Speaker 3: It's going to be near the freeway, you know that.
Speaker 2: He finds out a man named David Price had paid
Speaker 2: cash for this room, and the clerk when he checks
Speaker 2: him in, writes down his car information, like the license
Speaker 2: plate for this Cadillac Civilli's driving, makes a photocopy of
Speaker 2: the driver's license. So the cops they race down there.
Speaker 2: The photo on the license is Blane, but it says
Speaker 2: David Price, and then they find out he'd checked out
Speaker 2: more than a week earlier. So so much for that.
Speaker 2: February of two thousand and two, the US Marshals they
Speaker 2: captured him outside of Duncan Donuts. Oh, Laurel, he was
Speaker 2: driving a green Cadillacsiville.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you may be on the lamb, but Duncan called.
Speaker 2: Duncan exactly off. He went to federal prison in Elkton, Ohio.
Speaker 2: He was released in November of twenty ten, and he
Speaker 2: ran a pool service with his girlfriend, Elizabeth Irene Music.
Speaker 3: That's a cool name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a cool name. So he stayed on
Speaker 2: the straight and narrow cleaning pools and like reading to
Speaker 2: orphan rescue dogs. No, no, he did not. August twenty sixth,
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen, he was arrested again, right back at him,
Speaker 2: right now, Blane's fifty one now.
Speaker 3: Way, Well, you know, you got to do what you
Speaker 3: know how to do, and if you do what you love,
Speaker 3: you never work a day in your life.
Speaker 2: Well, and at this point he'd reached it where he was.
Speaker 2: Now he gets arrested because he's responsible for millions of
Speaker 2: dollars worth of silver being stolen from homes in Athens,
Speaker 2: Georgia and all over the southeast.
Speaker 3: He needed to get high, Elizabeth, he really did, I
Speaker 3: want to tell you.
Speaker 2: So see nord Doll's probation.
Speaker 3: Athens, Georgia like a college town looking for old silver.
Speaker 2: Oh, he's going to all sorts of plantations.
Speaker 3: Like Savannah for that.
Speaker 2: Oh he did, He had all of it. So his
Speaker 2: probation was transferred to Florida when he moved to Jacksonville,
Speaker 2: and that was his new base of operations, and he
Speaker 2: would travel from there across state lines, but not so
Speaker 2: far away that he'd be missed by probation. Oh smart,
Speaker 2: So they figured that he was responsible for over seventy
Speaker 2: burglaries that took place throughout twenty thirteen Georgia, North Carolina,
Speaker 2: South Carol Line, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee. He hit Athens alone
Speaker 2: three times and lifted like thirty thousand dollars in silver.
Speaker 2: Damn Buckhead. Atlanta was hit pretty hard. Yeah, So in
Speaker 2: Atlanta detective he put together a task force. Blaine Nordal,
Speaker 2: the man who launched a million task forces. Blaine hit
Speaker 2: the Cullini plantation in Davy's County, North Carolina, and it
Speaker 2: was there that he lifted one hundred and forty eight
Speaker 2: thousand dollars of sterling silver, as well as priceless spoons
Speaker 2: made by Paul Revere Wow, and a tea set that
Speaker 2: had been saved by a slave who buried it when
Speaker 2: Union soldiers moved through.
Speaker 3: Damn yeah, they maked it.
Speaker 2: He is back on his bs.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 2: Another burglary victim said that he and his wife didn't
Speaker 2: realize their stuff was missing for a few days. Quote.
Speaker 2: My wife went into the dining room to straighten up
Speaker 2: before we had guests over, and she called out that
Speaker 2: there's glass missing from the window. Oh yeah, and then now,
Speaker 2: how are you going to entertain you have no silver.
Speaker 2: They know that a drawer was missing from the sideboard.
Speaker 2: He'd used the entire drawer and they punch bowl as
Speaker 2: vessels for two sets of sterling silver, flatware, a dematas set, balls, saucers,
Speaker 2: other assorted sterling silver and mint julip cups.
Speaker 3: Do you think he was having this stuff melted down?
Speaker 2: I don't know, because and he had a fence, and
Speaker 2: I don't know if he was selling it to the
Speaker 2: fence for weight of silver. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I would hope that for way of silver, because otherwise
Speaker 3: it's going to be pretty easy to find that stuff
Speaker 3: and then connect like.
Speaker 2: It's not melted.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't mean that way. I mean like
Speaker 3: if I was like the fence, I'm like sitting there
Speaker 3: talking to the fence, and I'm like, hey, we got
Speaker 3: to melt this down, illig you canna get caught in
Speaker 3: that way. I'm hoping they're doing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, seventeen, it all came crashing down.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 2: Five years prior, Blaine had broken into the home of
Speaker 2: Bill Jones, the third in a gated community on Saint
Speaker 2: Simon's Island.
Speaker 3: Oh Saint Simon's. Oh yeah, you're not going to get
Speaker 3: who is build the third son of the golfer, grandson
Speaker 3: the golf.
Speaker 2: Now, let me read to you from his profile in
Speaker 2: Cigar Offiicionaudo.
Speaker 3: Okay quote his name.
Speaker 2: His real name is A. W. Jones, the Third, but
Speaker 2: most friends and family in Sea Island, Georgia referred to
Speaker 2: him as Bill three. He's the fourth generation chairman and
Speaker 2: chief executive officer of the Sea Island Company, the proprietor
Speaker 2: of one of the world's largest and finest golf resorts,
Speaker 2: and the scion of an empire that encompasses sixty five
Speaker 2: thousand acres of prime low country coastal property, which he
Speaker 2: is continually developing and upgrading through both good and bad
Speaker 2: economic times, and enjoying the best that a cigar world
Speaker 2: has to offer.
Speaker 3: To Bobby Johnes, I'm not done, Sarah.
Speaker 2: I like a strong, powerful cigar that's rich in flavors,
Speaker 2: Bill three allows during a recent interview as he fires
Speaker 2: up Adente Opus X double Corona. I smoke two or
Speaker 2: three cigars a day, and I find it very relaxing activity.
Speaker 2: That's a great compliment to the things I enjoy doing outdoors.
Speaker 2: We get hit, we get we get Bill. So the
Speaker 2: article describes him with like these beautiful turns of phrases.
Speaker 2: Quote his sunburned complexion, smooth as sea island cotton. What
Speaker 2: and quote he owns well over four hundred Turkey calls
Speaker 2: handmade by the late Neil cost whom he calls the
Speaker 2: Stratavarius of Turkey. Calls his Robin's big blue eyes flicker
Speaker 2: with delight as he boasts of shedding thirty five pounds
Speaker 2: from his five foot nine inch frame. Like make it stop.
Speaker 2: I could not sleep.
Speaker 3: I don't want to hear them describe what former Speaker
Speaker 3: John Bayner looks like.
Speaker 2: Oh God, the most beautiful piece.
Speaker 3: Of tobacco or a wine stain left in the sun anyway.
Speaker 2: Twenty seventeen, FBI agents intercepted a FedEx shipment that had
Speaker 2: a silver charm bracelet in it that you know Bill three?
Speaker 2: Is it Bill Bob whatever?
Speaker 4: Bill?
Speaker 2: Bill three and his wife they could identify it. So Blaine,
Speaker 2: He's now fifty five years old. He pleads guilty to
Speaker 2: a charge of burglary in the first degree. Court Judge
Speaker 2: Anthony Harrison, I tell you that name because it's not important.
Speaker 2: Sentence nordaal To eleven years in prison and nine years
Speaker 2: probation as a repeat offender under the state recidivist statute.
Speaker 2: He was also he was up against like a possible
Speaker 2: life sentence in South Carolina because I guess they go
Speaker 2: hard on burglary South Carolina. Yeah, Detective Mason told the
Speaker 2: New Yorker quote, I said, Blaine, if you ever want
Speaker 2: to use your knowledge in a positive way, I'd work
Speaker 2: with you. You could work in the insurance industry, in
Speaker 2: the area of silver. You could work with alarm systems.
Speaker 2: If you want to team up, go into a business.
Speaker 2: We could turn this into a crime prevention program. What
Speaker 2: did he say, I asked. He said, I don't think so.
Speaker 3: I don't like work. Yeah, you'd probably tell from my
Speaker 3: career as a criminal.
Speaker 2: He is thought to have stolen at least ten million
Speaker 2: dollars worth of silver in over fifteen states in his career.
Speaker 3: Damn, they had a silver of old families that he
Speaker 3: has touched.
Speaker 2: I know. Is that your takeaway?
Speaker 3: Ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 2: What's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3: You should have go flatwear? Yeah, because that's class. Make
Speaker 3: it real. I like, I like electrically conductive flatware. Okay,
Speaker 3: otherwise I'm like, am I gonna get shocked.
Speaker 2: Come on, if I'm going to stick this into an outlet,
Speaker 2: let's make it worth it.
Speaker 3: You know, like give me a spark, or what are
Speaker 3: we doing here now? But for all intense and purposes,
Speaker 3: what would you say is your ridiculous take away? Elizabeth
Speaker 3: got that table turner?
Speaker 2: Oh how the turntables turn my takeaway? I you know,
Speaker 2: I've been thinking a lot before we even got the
Speaker 2: email from the listener. I've been thinking a lot about
Speaker 2: the personal violation of it. Yes, because we had we
Speaker 2: had some silver stolen in our family and it was like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, there's a part of me that's like
Speaker 2: it's just stuff, but at the same time, like it
Speaker 2: holds a lot of meaning to a family when it's
Speaker 2: like it wasn't like oh this opulent thing. These are
Speaker 2: like working class people who'd saved up and passed it
Speaker 2: down from generations.
Speaker 3: You don't want to be ablee to lose it for
Speaker 3: all these generations of them people trying to hold it.
Speaker 2: You don't want to be like, oh, yeah, like this
Speaker 2: survived all these other things. And so I think, you know,
Speaker 2: it's interesting about the violation of it. And what's even
Speaker 2: more interesting is this guy's addiction to it, and he's
Speaker 2: kind of getting high off the violation of it, which.
Speaker 3: Is just do you think?
Speaker 2: So, I don't know, I actually guess he said that, Yeah,
Speaker 2: ex girlfriends.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have put in the terms of violation, but
Speaker 3: now that you you do. But he really did. He
Speaker 3: said he liked to be in the house with the
Speaker 3: people while are sleeping, which is very much a violation
Speaker 3: of their sense of peace and privacy and so forth.
Speaker 2: So, I mean, I wish there was a party that
Speaker 2: could be honestly like, oh, it's just stuff. Who cares?
Speaker 2: But it does. There's you know, there's sentimental things, and
Speaker 2: then they are also just logistical issues when people steal
Speaker 2: stuff like that. So what I'm trying to say is
Speaker 2: they're all dusty bumbs, not like bums is and unhoused.
Speaker 2: But yes, you know, it's just such bum dusty behavior
Speaker 2: to esty behavior. So anyway, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3: Did you tell me the same one what you had?
Speaker 3: What you said, Yeah, that was mine. I'm just going
Speaker 3: to say it a little bit louder.
Speaker 2: That's us. That's us I have. That's all I have.
Speaker 2: You can find us online at Ridiculous Crime dot com.
Speaker 2: We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we are.
Speaker 2: Email ridiculs Crime at gmail dot com. You will likely
Speaker 2: not get a response. Leave us a talkback on the
Speaker 2: iHeart app just you know, reach out Baby. Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 2: is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and
Speaker 2: edited by Sea Island's Shadows scion Dave Cousten. Research is
Speaker 2: by cigar saboteur Marisa Brown and metals expert and by
Speaker 2: that I mean the Feist album Andrea song Sharp and Tear.
Speaker 2: The theme song is by Butler on a Smoke Break
Speaker 2: Thomas Lee and Super eight regional manager Travis Dutton. Post
Speaker 2: wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Executive producers are
Speaker 2: Low Country Land Advocate Ben Bolan, An Elusive Silver Fence,
Speaker 2: Noel Brown.
Speaker 4: Dis Clime Say It One More Time Crime.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more Podcasts
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