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Speaker 2: Previously on Crook.
Speaker 4: County for six months, he proposed to me.
Speaker 2: Kenny, got engaged, called it off only a few months later.
Speaker 2: He realized, at nineteen years old, what am I doing?
Speaker 2: Being a gain aged? The cops organized a few phony busts.
Speaker 1: So I took two of those and the girls would
Speaker 1: come with me and you know, a little party.
Speaker 2: Everybody be laughing, having a good time. And a robbery
Speaker 2: at the club turned out to be an inside job.
Speaker 1: Why Danny was working, He had someone come in and
Speaker 1: robbed the place, so of course Dan's gotta put up
Speaker 1: his arms, take the money and leave.
Speaker 2: Danny had to go, and Kenny was asked to step in.
Speaker 1: Got him in the car and drove him to one
Speaker 1: of the chop shops, dropped him off there, and whatever
Speaker 1: I did with him from.
Speaker 5: There, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Kyle Tequila, Welcome to Crook County.
Speaker 6: When we were growing up, Dad was the coolest guy
Speaker 6: in the whole town. Everybody wanted Dad as their dad,
Speaker 6: but they didn't know what was going on at home.
Speaker 6: The game that they played for me and Ken was
Speaker 6: really bad. There was a loud violence.
Speaker 2: Episode five, Bully.
Speaker 7: You can begin to listen to that crowd.
Speaker 5: They know they can tell.
Speaker 6: Slowly, but surely, the nineteen seventies are disappearing.
Speaker 7: The nineteen eighties will be upon us. He first nineteen
Speaker 7: in America.
Speaker 8: We have a brand new decade.
Speaker 7: It's a whole new beginning. Everybody, please kiss your loved one, Come.
Speaker 8: On, fish, your loved one, your husband, your sweetheart.
Speaker 7: I don't want the last next years, everybody, let's hear it.
Speaker 2: Everybody seen Nixon, Watergate, the end of the Vietnam War,
Speaker 2: a global recession, gas shortages, rolling blackouts, crime waves, record unemployment,
Speaker 2: and the ominous shadow of the Cold War, the nineteen
Speaker 2: seventies was a decade steeped in anxiety and uncertainty, and
Speaker 2: the curtain had been pulled back on the American dream. Hell,
Speaker 2: even Disco was dead. History may label this decade the
Speaker 2: Great Awakening, but for Ken, now in his mid twenties,
Speaker 2: it felt more like some terrible dream. And while the
Speaker 2: world was racing toward the glimmering promise of the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: Ken stood still feeling nothing at all, no comfort, no hope.
Speaker 2: He was simply numb. After they hit on Danny, the
Speaker 2: bosses knew they could count on Kenny for heavy work,
Speaker 2: and when the calls came, there wasn't so much of
Speaker 2: a question as a demand, and Kenny had no choice
Speaker 2: but to comply. As the pressures of his new reality mounted,
Speaker 2: he withdrew further and turned a cocaine to numbs pain.
Speaker 2: In this world, emotion was a weakness, and sympathy could
Speaker 2: get you killed. If he wanted to stay alive in
Speaker 2: his new role within the Outfit, he would need to
Speaker 2: dig deep down to the darkest part of his soul
Speaker 2: and abandon the light forever.
Speaker 1: I could be a pretty nasty for anyway, I was
Speaker 1: recruited into doing some hits. Okay, so there was another
Speaker 1: part of that. So not only working and running whorehouses,
Speaker 1: I'm doing occasional hits on the site, all right, ordered
Speaker 1: hits our own people.
Speaker 2: Rogue. I asked him what he means by going rogue?
Speaker 1: So what these guys would do. These guys are the
Speaker 1: guys that would fuck up. They'd steal, they'd rat, they
Speaker 1: were just bad seats, or they were or they were
Speaker 1: overly aggressive, or they became dangerous. They became rogue, meaning
Speaker 1: they lost control of what they were doing. They just
Speaker 1: started getting violent and you know, could start bringing the
Speaker 1: heat down on this particular outfit that I worked for.
Speaker 1: So we wanted to keep the heat away. So if
Speaker 1: somebody became rogue, somebody needed to do something about these people.
Speaker 1: My job was to be the heat, be the heat
Speaker 1: for my particular outfit. You know, I got a reputation
Speaker 1: though after a while, where you know, if they knew
Speaker 1: I was coming, he were running.
Speaker 2: I remembered something he used to tell my brother and
Speaker 2: I when we were kids. He would say when he
Speaker 2: was young that he was the bully of the bullies
Speaker 2: at his school and if we ever saw someone getting
Speaker 2: bullied at our school, that we should step in and
Speaker 2: stop it. He was quite proud of this bit of
Speaker 2: parenting advice, and to be honest, I was quite proud
Speaker 2: of him too. I always admired him for it, and
Speaker 2: to this day I think about those very words. I
Speaker 2: even taught that same lesson to my own kid, defend
Speaker 2: the weak and have the courage to fight against those
Speaker 2: who would fight against you. And now, more than twenty
Speaker 2: years later, here is my dad telling me that he
Speaker 2: was hired to apply a version of that logic to
Speaker 2: the metaphorical bullies of the outfit. At least that's what
Speaker 2: he's telling me. It is very possible that he's just
Speaker 2: softening the blow about the kind of people that were
Speaker 2: in his crosshairs. I mean, does it really make me
Speaker 2: feel any better that the only people he killed were
Speaker 2: bad guys? Honestly, the answer is yes, it does. But
Speaker 2: the simple fact is I will never really know if
Speaker 2: any of this stuff is true. All I can do
Speaker 2: is take him at his word.
Speaker 1: Whether it was a hit, whether it was a beating,
Speaker 1: just depend on what the punishment was called. Now, I
Speaker 1: never decided what the punishment was. I was always given
Speaker 1: the punishment on a little piece of paper by a
Speaker 1: guy named He always gave me my assignment big fat.
Speaker 2: And now let me introduce you to the next character
Speaker 2: in our story, a feared boss within the outfit and
Speaker 2: a man who would make an enormous impact on the
Speaker 2: life of young Kenny. Paul Taglia, which I will remind
Speaker 2: you for the safety of everyone involved, is not his
Speaker 2: real name.
Speaker 1: I would get a phone call, get on the phone,
Speaker 1: meet me, and I knew exactly where.
Speaker 2: To meet him.
Speaker 1: And I'd meet him in a parking lot and one
Speaker 1: of the houses were there, one of the whorehouses were there.
Speaker 1: I meet him at a parking lot. I'd walk up
Speaker 1: to his big fucking Cadillac and he'd rolled on his window,
Speaker 1: hand me a little piece of paper, and then he'd
Speaker 1: drive away. And on a piece of paper was where
Speaker 1: the person was going to be, the type of car
Speaker 1: he drove, and license plates, and that would and that
Speaker 1: What all that did was made me do more work.
Speaker 1: But it kept them even, kept them more and kept
Speaker 1: them further away from the hit. So because now I
Speaker 1: had to do all the leg work, So I'd have
Speaker 1: to go look for the car, look for the license plate,
Speaker 1: wait for the person, get in there, scope them, watch them. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's so I got to hit. I gotta hit that
Speaker 1: guy right there, based on the license plate and the
Speaker 1: car description. Okay, so I know I got a description
Speaker 1: a guy I have to hit, and then I would
Speaker 1: do my due diligence for about two weeks, follow him around,
Speaker 1: get a pattern, and then after I figured out how
Speaker 1: I was going to do it, and I always did
Speaker 1: it one way. I would uh, I would do it.
Speaker 1: It's all that was to it. It didn't happen a lot,
Speaker 1: but it happened to people. It happened enough for it
Speaker 1: and or it really bothers me. It really bothers me
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 2: I don't like to talk about this. I don't want
Speaker 2: to talk about that shit. Man.
Speaker 1: First of all, I'm trying desperately to forget all this stuff.
Speaker 1: A therapist is probably gonna tell me, no, you need
Speaker 1: to spit it out and then deal with it. Well,
Speaker 1: I think I've already dealt with it, but I'm still
Speaker 1: trying to bury it because it because it's not a
Speaker 1: pleasant thought. It's not something that I'm very proud of
Speaker 1: at all. And I got don't take a quick break.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I gotta.
Speaker 2: Swallow over so stupid, we decided to break for the day.
Speaker 2: He's exhausted, and honestly so am I. There's so much
Speaker 2: to unpack here and I don't even nowhere to begin.
Speaker 2: I started recording these interviews back in twenty seventeen, and
Speaker 2: it was apparent then that his health was failing him.
Speaker 2: Since then, he's continued to decline, and I honestly don't
Speaker 2: know how long he has left. He recently showed me
Speaker 2: an entire backpack full of prescriptions he's taken for a
Speaker 2: dozen or so conditions. He's pale, swollen, shakes uncontrollably. His
Speaker 2: legs are covered in red marks and bruises, and he's
Speaker 2: a hard time walking. He's about the furthest thing you
Speaker 2: can get from the Fearless Mafia, heavy of his youth.
Speaker 2: What the hell happened to this man? How was he
Speaker 2: able to do the things he did? What kind of
Speaker 2: person is my father? And what kind of person does
Speaker 2: that make me?
Speaker 7: Look at this guy?
Speaker 5: Man?
Speaker 9: How are you doing?
Speaker 5: Bud?
Speaker 2: Goodness to you? All right, it's been way, way too long.
Speaker 2: I'm back in Chicago visiting my uncle, rich Ken's twin brother.
Speaker 4: Long ago.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I got married and well I left school in
Speaker 6: oh seven, and I moved to Atlanta all right, pretty.
Speaker 2: Much came back like maybe once and there was too
Speaker 2: much shrama, and so I never came back.
Speaker 6: I left high school, never even looked over my shoulder.
Speaker 6: It's like, fuck you, I'm out.
Speaker 2: It's his birthday, that's right, Yeah, you remember that. What
Speaker 2: it's like in two days?
Speaker 4: Isn't it today?
Speaker 7: You probably should?
Speaker 2: Oh? My god, nice going, Kyle boy.
Speaker 6: You look like your dad.
Speaker 7: That look?
Speaker 4: That look? Did I just give you the Ken look?
Speaker 2: Look?
Speaker 4: Holy shit? Is it going to give you the chills?
Speaker 7: And that's a Ken look too.
Speaker 2: I am my father's son. We spent some time catching
Speaker 2: up and cracking jokes about my old man.
Speaker 4: What's the project again? So what's a podcast? So what's
Speaker 4: the deal?
Speaker 2: I can tell Rich is a bit hesitant to dig
Speaker 2: up the past like this, and I get it from
Speaker 2: what I've been hearing. It's not like they had the
Speaker 2: happiest childhood.
Speaker 4: My name's Rich.
Speaker 6: I'm the oldest twin Ken's fraternal twin brother by how long.
Speaker 4: Six minutes? I believe it is.
Speaker 6: And since I came out first, I've always said that
Speaker 6: the problems I have with my my back of my
Speaker 6: neck and stuff for your dad's fault, because you know
Speaker 6: he was stepping on me that whole time.
Speaker 4: In the womb.
Speaker 2: They were the firstborns of the family, followed by younger
Speaker 2: brothers Stan and.
Speaker 6: Matt Stands five years younger than myself and your dad,
Speaker 6: and then eleven years for Matt.
Speaker 2: He tells me there was a joke in the family
Speaker 2: that Ken must have had a different father.
Speaker 6: Because Ken and I are so different. We don't look
Speaker 6: the same, we don't act the same. I mean, there
Speaker 6: was nothing about us at that point that was even
Speaker 6: close to being twin material. So yeah, it always pissed
Speaker 6: off Mile though when we would say that, what's a
Speaker 6: family joke?
Speaker 2: So she's probably like, wait today, now.
Speaker 4: There was.
Speaker 6: You know, that's kind of funny because you know there
Speaker 6: was some kind of half truth meaning behind our thought process.
Speaker 1: But you know.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. If you remember from episode one, Kenny was
Speaker 2: kicked out of his house by his mom for accusing
Speaker 2: her of having an affair, which she was and which
Speaker 2: of course started off this whole chain of events that
Speaker 2: led to Ken joining the Outfit in the first place.
Speaker 2: I asked Ritch what he remembers I.
Speaker 6: Was out So when I came home, I walked through
Speaker 6: because I would always come in the basement door. And
Speaker 6: when I walked into the basement door, I heard screaming
Speaker 6: and yelling from the kitchen. So as you walk up
Speaker 6: the stairs, you walk right into the kitchen on you know,
Speaker 6: one end of the kitchen was Mom with Dad's forty five,
Speaker 6: just screaming, bloody murder and pointing to gun, just shaking,
Speaker 6: you know. And Ken was in the ollow corner of
Speaker 6: the kitchen, just you know, in the back. I don't
Speaker 6: remember anything that was said, just a lot of noise
Speaker 6: and stuff. And I walked up to mother and she's
Speaker 6: like this, I just stepped right in front of her.
Speaker 6: So now I got a gun pointing right at my chest.
Speaker 6: I grabbed her hand, I lifted them up so her
Speaker 6: hands are now over her head and I'm holding her
Speaker 6: hands on the gun compared to Ken said you should leave,
Speaker 6: and he.
Speaker 2: Left and that was it and he never came back. Wow. Wow, WOWOW.
Speaker 2: I loved my Grandma Adele. She was the sweetest old
Speaker 2: woman you could ever meet. She loved science and history
Speaker 2: and Native American culture. The stories of her younger years
Speaker 2: are full of intrigue and adventure. She moved out to
Speaker 2: California in her late teens and was one of the
Speaker 2: first women ever to work at NASA. She then took
Speaker 2: a job in the FBI and was only one of
Speaker 2: a handful of women there. She was a trailblazer and
Speaker 2: painted beautiful landscapes inspired by all her travels that filled
Speaker 2: the walls of her home. She taught me how to
Speaker 2: play piano and to appreciate the wild beauty of nature,
Speaker 2: and to picture this saint of a woman pointing a
Speaker 2: gun at her teenage son is completely unbelievable to me.
Speaker 2: But if I've learned anything at this point, it's that
Speaker 2: nobody is exactly who you think they are. And apparently
Speaker 2: my sweet old grandma wasn't always so sweet.
Speaker 6: Did she ever tell you the stories about her brawling
Speaker 6: in Chicago and stuff, the street fights everything?
Speaker 4: Never heard about that?
Speaker 5: Huh?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I remember my telling me that her and her friend's
Speaker 6: pals whatever would go out for the street fights, and
Speaker 6: the girls would take towels and they would wrap up
Speaker 6: their boobs, I mean, like tape them down, you know,
Speaker 6: so that there was nothing hanging out there, nothing to
Speaker 6: grab on, its nothing to get hurt. Basically before they
Speaker 6: went to their street fights.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, she.
Speaker 4: Was a badass.
Speaker 6: We're talking knives and clubs and all sorts of stuff,
Speaker 6: you bet, Oh yeah, yeah, sweep my ass.
Speaker 4: You didn't grow up with.
Speaker 2: Her, Okay. So if Grandma was some sort of fearless
Speaker 2: knife fighting street pirate, then I guess you can argue
Speaker 2: that a hot temper is just in our blood, and
Speaker 2: Ken was just to chip off the old block.
Speaker 6: Anything could set him off, anything, blind rage, out of
Speaker 6: control could not stop him temper, And until he got
Speaker 6: past that rage, you couldn't stop him. It's like he
Speaker 6: didn't even know what he was doing.
Speaker 4: Practically.
Speaker 2: He tells me a few old stories, like Ken punching
Speaker 2: out a gym teacher in high school, or stealing Rich's
Speaker 2: car at sixteen and disappearing for a week, apparently driving
Speaker 2: it all the way to California, and.
Speaker 4: I was gonna have him arrested for car theft, you know.
Speaker 2: And then showing up like nothing happened.
Speaker 6: Hey kids, Hot, eh raight, what's going on, buddy?
Speaker 4: Thing's fine. I'm like, fucking an asshole, you stole my
Speaker 4: fucking car.
Speaker 2: And stories of cruel violence.
Speaker 4: He shot me once, he stabbed me once.
Speaker 2: That was fun. He just stopped there. You have to
Speaker 2: tell me the story.
Speaker 6: It was a BB gun, but it was a BB
Speaker 6: gun that could go halfway through a two by four.
Speaker 6: I still have that BB gun, by the way, it's downstairs.
Speaker 4: You still have the BB in your flash. And all
Speaker 4: that we dug out is that way.
Speaker 2: So did the stabb income because he did.
Speaker 4: That was a different That was a different time.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 6: He he stabbed me with a needle. The needle was
Speaker 6: probably about eight inches long, and he just, you know,
Speaker 6: in his blank rage wisdom. I was walking up the
Speaker 6: stairs and he just came up behind me and just
Speaker 6: stabbed me right.
Speaker 4: And he asked, what.
Speaker 2: I'm beginning to doubt my dad's bully of the bullies claim.
Speaker 2: The story has always been he was the bully of
Speaker 2: the bullies, and you would beat up like the bullies
Speaker 2: at school. And as you know, he's the protector of
Speaker 2: the innocent at school, he.
Speaker 4: Particular through the innocent. He was a freaking cycle.
Speaker 7: Protector of the innocent. Did he tell you that the.
Speaker 4: Bully he was the bully? Yeah, he was a bully.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one hurt. I know it may sound silly
Speaker 2: after everything else we've heard, but this one positive character.
Speaker 2: Trait was something I held onto my whole life. It
Speaker 2: was foundational to the image I had of my father,
Speaker 2: and to learn it was complete bullshit. It's a fucking
Speaker 2: hard pill to swallow.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: As he got older, I'm sure he learned how to
Speaker 6: control it and use it to his advantage. But you know,
Speaker 6: as we were growing up, just totally out of control.
Speaker 6: There was a lot of pain in agony, and yeah,
Speaker 6: there was a lot of violence.
Speaker 2: Violence, both physical and emotional, was a constant part of
Speaker 2: their daily lives. The father would beat the kid's bloody wap.
Speaker 4: Right across the head against the wall, knock me up.
Speaker 2: And their mother, as we've learned, was just as cruel, and.
Speaker 6: She picked up a kitchen chair and she was going
Speaker 6: to crack me over the head with it.
Speaker 2: They would starve their kids while mom and dad ate
Speaker 2: a nice meal.
Speaker 6: I remember eating dog food because I was so damn hungry,
Speaker 6: Or when i'd give the dog a treat, I would.
Speaker 4: Bite the ends off and I would eat it before
Speaker 4: I would give it to the dog.
Speaker 2: I was hungry, and at times two things so horrible
Speaker 2: my uncle won't even speak of them.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: Some of the torture stuff I wouldn't. I'd never speak
Speaker 6: of it ever, Yeah, because I don't really want, you know,
Speaker 6: mom and Dad to be portrayed as you know, animal
Speaker 6: child abusers.
Speaker 4: Even though it was kind of like.
Speaker 6: That, you know, we probably would have been taken away,
Speaker 6: you know, in today's day and age. You know, I'm
Speaker 6: sure we would have taken away if somebody had said something.
Speaker 6: But that's not how it was back then.
Speaker 4: I Mean, the.
Speaker 2: Amazing thing is is I don't I don't see you
Speaker 2: as having any of this volatility and in his violence.
Speaker 4: And like that.
Speaker 2: D he never struck us.
Speaker 4: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: He never struck us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he made And that's another thing that so bizarre
Speaker 4: about this.
Speaker 2: It's like, why again, why we never even like, you know,
Speaker 2: I've seen him beat up a guy or two or
Speaker 2: three or five, But.
Speaker 6: Did he tell you about beat the guy up and
Speaker 6: left him on the hood of his car?
Speaker 4: Do you know why?
Speaker 2: That one?
Speaker 6: This was when we were working at the bar up
Speaker 6: in Northbrook at the hotel. Ken and I were both
Speaker 6: working there, and you know, they had cops that would
Speaker 6: come in and they would be the security, you know,
Speaker 6: part time job stuff. And he was telling me about
Speaker 6: this quality had that there was a guy passed out
Speaker 6: on the hood of his car in the middle of
Speaker 6: an intersection, and oh, okay, fine. Well the next day
Speaker 6: I'm talking to Ken and he's telling me about this
Speaker 6: guy who he dragged out of the window of his car,
Speaker 6: beat the shit out of him, and left him on
Speaker 6: the hood of his car in the intersection.
Speaker 7: I'm like, oh, that was you.
Speaker 2: What's interesting about this incident is it would have been
Speaker 2: in those early years after Ken joined the outfit, so
Speaker 2: it's very possible it was mob related. I asked him
Speaker 2: if he knew what his brother was into at that time.
Speaker 4: I knew that he was definitely dealing drugs. I knew
Speaker 4: that he was.
Speaker 6: Working quote unquote in a whorehouse. But I never got
Speaker 6: into any of those details.
Speaker 4: I really didn't want to know.
Speaker 6: You know, it just it wasn't my lifestyle. You know,
Speaker 6: it was nothing I really cared about. You know, that's
Speaker 6: what you want to.
Speaker 2: Do, that's what you do.
Speaker 4: You could see why he could be.
Speaker 6: An enforcer because he just had that mentality, very violent mentality.
Speaker 5: I should have word more in you were a man?
Speaker 2: Oh high? Yeah, yeah, I don't need to worry about
Speaker 2: some contagione.
Speaker 5: Nice to meet you.
Speaker 7: Well, I have met you several times, but you.
Speaker 4: Were a child, I was a baby.
Speaker 7: Huh.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 2: This is Maureen, my dad's high school girlfriend.
Speaker 7: Thank you for having me and doing this. I don't
Speaker 7: know what I'm doing. I don't know what you're doing here.
Speaker 5: Your father wouldn't tell me anything.
Speaker 7: He was very short and said, I don't have time.
Speaker 7: I will tell you.
Speaker 2: Everything, all right.
Speaker 7: Well that's true.
Speaker 2: I will tell you everything, and hopefully you'll tell me everything. Maureen.
Speaker 2: It was a name that would occasionally echo through our
Speaker 2: childhood home. She was like this mythical creature who at
Speaker 2: the very mention of her cursed name would send my
Speaker 2: mother into fits of rage and jealousy. And I just
Speaker 2: I feel so bad that she.
Speaker 5: I know, oh how much time she spent hating me,
Speaker 5: hating him, thinking, you know thoughts. I'm a woman, I
Speaker 5: know how women think. And if there's one regret that
Speaker 5: I have is that I feel bad that your mom
Speaker 5: thought Kenny and I were having interfere And we never did, never, ever, ever, ever,
Speaker 5: not since we were high school sweethearts at sixteen and
Speaker 5: seventeen years old.
Speaker 3: Tell me about it.
Speaker 5: We were just we were like the movie Grease. You know,
Speaker 5: it was like sort of like John Travolta and Olivia Newton.
Speaker 2: John, No, stop stop, stop, stop, stop stoping. No, I'm
Speaker 2: not doing this again. First, my dad is John Travolta
Speaker 2: from Saturday Night Fever. Okay, fine, but now you're telling
Speaker 2: me he's John Travolta from Greece. I just I can't.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do it. Okay, let's move on.
Speaker 5: He was cool, He was a real cool kid. He
Speaker 5: was my first boyfriend.
Speaker 7: And it was fun.
Speaker 5: We had fun, and we had good times, and of
Speaker 5: course we wanted to grow up and get married and
Speaker 5: have a household of kids and just didn't work out
Speaker 5: that way.
Speaker 2: I have a million questions for Maureen because she has
Speaker 2: a truly unique perspective in all this, as someone who
Speaker 2: saw a softer side of Kenny during those formative teenage years.
Speaker 5: I don't think I've ever loved anybody as much as
Speaker 5: a friend as him. You know, they say that you've
Speaker 5: got if you've got five good friends on one hand,
Speaker 5: you're a lucky person.
Speaker 4: And he's one of them.
Speaker 2: He's been we've been good friends. I asked her about
Speaker 2: Kenny's fabled hot temper.
Speaker 5: I never saw him with a temper or being aggressive
Speaker 5: or anything like that.
Speaker 2: Or if she was aware of the abuse the brothers
Speaker 2: were victims of at home.
Speaker 5: He didn't want to be at home. He didn't like
Speaker 5: being there. He liked being at our house. My mom
Speaker 5: would come into my room at ten or eleven o'clock
Speaker 5: and say, we're in someone's in the backyard. First, I
Speaker 5: looked out the front window, and I see his car,
Speaker 5: and I go in the back. He used to take
Speaker 5: a tent and tent in our backyard and sleep. Wow,
Speaker 5: I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, my mom said that
Speaker 5: she had seen it a few times, but it was
Speaker 5: too late to wake me up. And then that was
Speaker 5: and I went in there.
Speaker 2: And I was like, what are you doing? He said,
Speaker 2: I don't want to go home. Or if she knew
Speaker 2: of his ties to the mafia.
Speaker 5: There would be no way Ken would do any of
Speaker 5: those things. Everybody adored him, They loved him, They cared
Speaker 5: about him, and they trusted him.
Speaker 2: She goes on to say that she only recently heard
Speaker 2: about it from Kenny's mother, Adele, when he.
Speaker 5: Went over to Calibournia. She started calling me and telling
Speaker 5: me all these things, and that's when I found out
Speaker 5: about the mafia. That's when I found out about drugs.
Speaker 5: She said, well, you know he was junkie. I said, no,
Speaker 5: I didn't know that, but now I do. I guess.
Speaker 5: And she also told me that he murdered someone. Oh
Speaker 5: my god, I can't believe cute people.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, how did he get that way? She's
Speaker 2: crying and takes a moment to collect herself, and then
Speaker 2: suddenly she remembers something from long ago.
Speaker 5: Did he ever tell you a story of Kenny Mindelki,
Speaker 5: the boy that drowned? No, it was his best friend.
Speaker 7: They were all.
Speaker 5: Set to go scuba diving. There were like five boys,
Speaker 5: and I had to work that day, and my parents
Speaker 5: had to work at the restaurant. There was no one
Speaker 5: to watch my four siblings. And I said to Kenny,
Speaker 5: said would you do me a big favor and watch
Speaker 5: the kids? And he said, I'm already written signed up
Speaker 5: to go scuba diving with Mendelki and the rest of
Speaker 5: the guys. And I said please, and he said, okay,
Speaker 5: I'll do it. So he stayed home. The equipment that
Speaker 5: he was to have used was given to Mendelki, his buddy,
Speaker 5: and Mendelki's equipment failed and he was like, he's dead
Speaker 5: and it should have been Kenny. That should have been
Speaker 5: the equipment that he should have used.
Speaker 2: And it was really bad.
Speaker 5: But that was the first time that Kenny had to
Speaker 5: deal with death of a friend of a good friend.
Speaker 5: And also he felt guilty that if he would have gone,
Speaker 5: you know, Mondelki would have lived. And he and then
Speaker 5: he took off. And I think now that I think
Speaker 5: in in hindsight where him taking off. He took off
Speaker 5: in his car and he was gone for like two
Speaker 5: days after the funeral. Right after the funeral, nobody knew
Speaker 5: where he was. Richie went out for like a day
Speaker 5: looking for him. I think he ended up in Iowa
Speaker 5: or somewhere.
Speaker 7: He just ran.
Speaker 5: He just kept running and running and running until he
Speaker 5: probably ran out of money and gas and came back
Speaker 5: and probably be the start of major issues because that
Speaker 5: was hard on him, really really hard.
Speaker 6: You know, I'm glad you brought up workout martial arts stuff,
Speaker 6: because that's something I actually completely forgot about.
Speaker 1: Well, how do you think I could have done half
Speaker 1: the shit I did if I didn't have all that
Speaker 1: martial arts training. Well, that's what I want to talk
Speaker 1: to mom about that I had years of martial arts training,
Speaker 1: years martial arts training. I was a beast.
Speaker 2: It was widely known around the family that Ken was
Speaker 2: a fourth degree black belt. There were legends about his
Speaker 2: prowess on the mat, how even defeated his own master
Speaker 2: at one point. Even the style of martial arts he
Speaker 2: practiced sounded exotic and dangerous to us as kids.
Speaker 1: Was that Chung mu kwan was a really soft form.
Speaker 1: It was it was comfortul it wasn't a hard form.
Speaker 1: Caught it bullshit well, almost like a.
Speaker 2: Dance dance like movement. Chung mu kwan. I had never
Speaker 2: heard of it before and never had a reason to
Speaker 2: look into it until, of course, I started down this
Speaker 2: insane family rabbit hole of mine. I wasn't expecting to
Speaker 2: find anything interesting at all, to be honest, but when
Speaker 2: I learned the history of this mysterious brand of kung fu,
Speaker 2: I was absolutely shocked at what I found.
Speaker 10: Many students are attracted to Chung mu kwan because the
Speaker 10: training looks impressive. The schools say that by developing a
Speaker 10: strong mind and body, you not only learn self defense,
Speaker 10: but also learn to understand yourself and find fue happiness.
Speaker 10: A school brochure says Chung Mu Kwuan is an investment
Speaker 10: in life.
Speaker 2: I found this investigative news report from nineteen eighty nine
Speaker 2: about Chung Mu Kwan. It's fascinating.
Speaker 10: There are ten Chung Mu Kuan schools in the Chicago
Speaker 10: area and a dozen others across the country. They were
Speaker 10: founded here in the late nineteen seventies by John C. Kim,
Speaker 10: a former maintenance man who promotes him as a.
Speaker 7: Martial arts master.
Speaker 10: His followers say he has supernatural powers.
Speaker 5: His powers are phenomenal.
Speaker 8: They made him seem like a god to us.
Speaker 10: We talked to dozens of former students and instructors who've
Speaker 10: been with Chung Mu Kwan over the last twelve years.
Speaker 10: Most of them asked us to disguise their identities. They
Speaker 10: say they're afraid because the schools they were at thrived
Speaker 10: on an atmosphere of intimidation and violence.
Speaker 3: Our investigation found.
Speaker 10: That some of the schools have also exploited students to
Speaker 10: take their money and to take over their minds. That's
Speaker 10: why experts call it a cult.
Speaker 2: So not only is my dad and the mob, which
Speaker 2: is bad enough, by the way, he's also in some
Speaker 2: goddamn kung fu mind control cult. Jesus fucking Christ. He's
Speaker 2: either an evil genius or the unluckiest man alive.
Speaker 10: Experts say that some Chung mu Quan students seem to
Speaker 10: be subjected to a form of mind control that begins
Speaker 10: the martial arts training, for example, constantly repeating a movement
Speaker 10: or holding poses for long periods on orders from their instructor.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's stop there for a second. Now, listen to
Speaker 2: this clip for my dad. You would do a.
Speaker 1: Form for an hour, hour and a half. It's all
Speaker 1: you would do, is a form, A form? Is this movement?
Speaker 1: So constant movement for an hour and a half.
Speaker 11: What happens is that they go into an altered state
Speaker 11: of consciousness. In that type of altered state, they're very
Speaker 11: susceptible to suggestions. It's the same kind of thing that
Speaker 11: takes place in a hypnotic trance.
Speaker 2: Now, let's go back to episode one. Well, my dad
Speaker 2: talks about mentally preparing himself for a hit.
Speaker 1: I sit in my car and I do what I
Speaker 1: always do. I breathe, I make myself aware. I heighten
Speaker 1: my senses, my sight, my smell, my hearing. I don't
Speaker 1: know how I do it, but I do it. As
Speaker 1: I'm listening to the music, I feel my senses start
Speaker 1: to kick in. As they kick in, the moment arises.
Speaker 1: The moment always hits me. I don't know how it
Speaker 1: hits me, but I know when I'm ready for the.
Speaker 2: Moment, and there it is. This whole time, I've been
Speaker 2: struggling to understand just how he could take that enormous
Speaker 2: leap from doorman to hip man, or how he could
Speaker 2: jump back and forth so easily from mob life to
Speaker 2: family life without us ever even coming close to knowing.
Speaker 11: What happens is that they go into an altered state
Speaker 11: of consciousness. It's the same kind of thing that takes
Speaker 11: place in a hypnotic trance.
Speaker 2: Not a trance, not every trance. I think it was
Speaker 2: the perfect storm of terrible childhood, abusive parents, hitting the
Speaker 2: streets as a kid, no prospects finding a father figure,
Speaker 2: which just happens to be in the outfit, and then
Speaker 2: you introduce Chung Mu Kwan and it's meditative mind control techniques, but.
Speaker 1: You know it taught to you know all the points,
Speaker 1: all the all the all the points that can name kill,
Speaker 1: temporarily put somebody out of business. I always had that advantage.
Speaker 1: I had no fear at all, and that really got
Speaker 1: me through a lot.
Speaker 2: Next week on Crooked County.
Speaker 1: He was fucking up made guy or not, he was
Speaker 1: fucking up man, and eventually it was going to catch
Speaker 1: up to him, but I took care of it myselfe.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 2: Crook County is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Tenderfoot
Speaker 2: TV in association with Common Enemy. All episodes are written, produced,
Speaker 2: and hosted by Me Kyle Tequila. Executive producers are Donald
Speaker 2: Albright and Payne Lindsay. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set.
Speaker 2: Main title song is called Aloha by the band Starry Eyes,
Speaker 2: and credit song is called no Show, also by the
Speaker 2: band Starry Eyes. Sound mix by Cooper Skinner. Thank you
Speaker 2: to Orrin Rosenbaum and the excellent team at UTA for
Speaker 2: their support and to my fearless attorney, Wendy Bench for
Speaker 2: her guidance. To stay updated on all things Crook County,
Speaker 2: follow us on all socials at Crook County Podcast, or
Speaker 2: leave us a voicemail by visiting crookcountypodcast dot com. For
Speaker 2: more podcasts like Crook County, search Tenderfoot TV on your
Speaker 2: favorite podcast app, or visit Tenderfoot dot tv. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: The story continues next week.
Speaker 8: Awesome message Joe five, I watch show.
Speaker 9: Shower show. No no no no no no no no
Speaker 9: no