Speaker 1: Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio. Previously on
Speaker 1: Murder in Miami.
Speaker 2: Well, the world knows Vias Happy Miles.
Speaker 1: If you'd wager a former cocaine smuggler with eighty three
Speaker 1: years under their belt would have some pretty interesting stories
Speaker 1: to share with Happy, you'd hit the jackpot.
Speaker 2: Lamar Chester had a bunch of airplanes he couldn't pay for,
Speaker 2: so I bought them, and that's how I met Lamar. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Lamar wasn't afraid of anything. One time I went up
Speaker 2: to his apartment and he opened a foot locker and
Speaker 2: got a couple machine guns out of it. He was
Speaker 2: flying guns then to Nicaragua.
Speaker 1: And did he tell you who he was running the
Speaker 1: guns for?
Speaker 3: This CIA?
Speaker 2: I would imagine the CIA was running that show.
Speaker 3: Hey, I forgot to tell you something, but I'll tell
Speaker 3: you tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Remind me.
Speaker 1: Hey, gorgeous, Hey, you wanted me to remind you to
Speaker 1: tell me a story about landing on Lamar's island.
Speaker 2: Lamar Chester he never ran anything with Grass until I
Speaker 2: turned over that load of coke to him on the island.
Speaker 1: So this would have been one of his firsts.
Speaker 3: Right, do you think.
Speaker 1: That's the first time that he ever ran coke.
Speaker 2: Yes, I know it, because he told me that he
Speaker 2: had made more money off of that run than he
Speaker 2: had made his entire life running grass out of Columbia
Speaker 2: and Jamaica.
Speaker 1: Wow, I'm Lauren Bradfacheko, and this is murder in Miami.
Speaker 1: The story Happy's about to share about setting Lamar up
Speaker 1: with his first load of cocaine is set in nineteen eighty. Now,
Speaker 1: just explain to me. You were running coke from where.
Speaker 2: South America from Colombia. The trip had gone. It kind
Speaker 2: of ragged the trip before I barely got off this
Speaker 2: muddy Levy bank, and I knew I couldn't come out
Speaker 2: with full fuel because it had been raining ever since
Speaker 2: the last trip, and it would even be muddier, and
Speaker 2: so I decided I would only come out with a
Speaker 2: partial load of fuel.
Speaker 1: Weather had already complicated Happy's departure from Columbia in terms
Speaker 1: of flying out with a full tank of fuel, which
Speaker 1: would have made the plane too heavy to take off,
Speaker 1: But after he fueled up in South Cakos, weather would
Speaker 1: also complicate handing off the load in Florida to his
Speaker 1: associate Don too Well.
Speaker 3: The weather was so bad in Florida.
Speaker 2: That don didn't think I was going to come, or
Speaker 2: where the hell could I have gone? I mean, the
Speaker 2: trip was on. I was leaving Columbion. I needed to
Speaker 2: get there, and my plan was to land, give the
Speaker 2: load to down and him get out of their right away.
Speaker 3: Well, they went to lunch.
Speaker 1: While his cocaine unloading crew was lunching. Happy says he
Speaker 1: encountered a different sort of welcoming committee, and not the
Speaker 1: sort he welcomed.
Speaker 2: As I crossed the channel from Bimini to Opalaca, I
Speaker 2: realized they were on me, and I finally found out
Speaker 2: what frequency they were working on, and I was listening
Speaker 2: to home. In hell, there was a dozen of them
Speaker 2: on me. They were coordinating.
Speaker 1: A dozen planes were following you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everything DEA and Customs had was on me, and
Speaker 2: some state birds too.
Speaker 1: So you had gotten all the way back to Florida
Speaker 1: and realize that you have everybody on your tail.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 1: So, a rather unhappy Happy was left to formulate an
Speaker 1: escape on the fly.
Speaker 2: Literally, I turned around and headed east, not knowing what
Speaker 2: I was going to do, And as I came out of.
Speaker 3: A cloud, I wass to know.
Speaker 2: With their low helicopter and a helicopter. I mean we
Speaker 2: were three hundred and five hundred feet away from each
Speaker 2: other with a closure rate of over three hundred miles
Speaker 2: an hour.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. So you come out of a cloud
Speaker 1: and you are facing a helicopter.
Speaker 2: Yes. So he dropped the collective and went right under me,
Speaker 2: and I went right over the top and he landed
Speaker 2: in a field, and I circled him, and he was
Speaker 2: throwing up in the middle of the field.
Speaker 1: Because he thought he was gonna die.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so then I decided, Well, I'll go out to
Speaker 2: the Bahamas and probably end up ditching the airplane in
Speaker 2: deep water somewhere, but close enough that I can swim
Speaker 2: to the shore and the airplane will be so deep
Speaker 2: that they'll never be able.
Speaker 3: To get it, or they won't go get it, and
Speaker 3: I'll be home free.
Speaker 2: Well, I realized I had the two airplanes still following me.
Speaker 3: The Jetstar was on me, and the aero commander was
Speaker 3: on me.
Speaker 2: Well, Commander, I knew you didn't have radar and had
Speaker 2: to stay on me visually. And then I heard the
Speaker 2: jet Star landing in NASA, and he told the tower,
Speaker 2: it's an emergency. Can you get us a fuel truck out,
Speaker 2: and the guy in the tower said.
Speaker 3: Mon, who you think I is? You fewel and lucky,
Speaker 3: get your own fuel truck.
Speaker 1: That is mister Miles's impersonation of a behavian accent.
Speaker 2: So I knew he'd be on the ground for a
Speaker 2: while trying to get fuel.
Speaker 1: So the whole time they're following you, you're going through
Speaker 1: the different frequencies and picking up their transmissions. You're eavesdropping
Speaker 1: on them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm eavesdropping on them.
Speaker 2: So there's a great big thundercloud between me and NASA,
Speaker 2: and I'm headed like I'm going to Hawksbill ron Elliot's
Speaker 2: Island property is hotel.
Speaker 3: So I flew right.
Speaker 2: Into the thunderstorm, which they will never do because if
Speaker 2: you're not lucky, you get sucked up in the vortex
Speaker 2: and spit out at forty thousand feet in pieces. Till
Speaker 2: the minute I went in, they went around to the north.
Speaker 2: It was the shortest distance around the thunderstorm, and the
Speaker 2: minute I was in and they couldn't see me, I
Speaker 2: made a ninety degree turn to the right, came out
Speaker 2: the bottom of the thunderstorm headed south. So I'd been
Speaker 2: in the air for over ten and a half hours,
Speaker 2: at that time. Wow, and I only had eleven hours
Speaker 2: of fuel.
Speaker 1: And that is the point that Happy says. He happened
Speaker 1: upon international drug smuggler Lamar Chester, who happened to own
Speaker 1: two nearby islands.
Speaker 2: I come up on Captain America Lamar's red white and
Speaker 2: bleach two O seven.
Speaker 1: Just happened to pass him in the air.
Speaker 4: It just happened to.
Speaker 3: Be overtaking him.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: He was headed from NASA to his island.
Speaker 2: And when you're coming on an airplane from the back,
Speaker 2: you don't have anything to see. It's very hard to
Speaker 2: see an airplane from the back. He got a rudder
Speaker 2: and a horizontal and a wing, but nothing of mass.
Speaker 3: And I almost ran him over. I came within a.
Speaker 2: Quarter of a mile before I would have run him over,
Speaker 2: and I saw him. So I pulled up alongside of him,
Speaker 2: and we finally found each other on an obscure frequency
Speaker 2: and I said, hey, and I want to rent a boot.
Speaker 3: He said, I don't know if you can afford it.
Speaker 2: And I said, well, put an M on the end,
Speaker 2: and that should make you happy.
Speaker 3: What runway do you want me to use?
Speaker 1: And by putting an M on the number, mister Miles
Speaker 1: means one million dollars bail.
Speaker 2: He couldn't make up his mind, the big island, the
Speaker 2: little island, and finally at the last minute he said,
Speaker 2: land on the on the short strip. Well, he only
Speaker 2: has about nine hundred feet up there by the house
Speaker 2: on the hill, and you can land the command shee
Speaker 2: in six or seven hundred feet eight out of ten times.
Speaker 3: But the other two times are gonna get you. The airplane.
Speaker 3: It's gonna float and you're not gonna make it.
Speaker 2: And it ended into a blunt cliff, so you know
Speaker 2: you're gonna die. So I went in and I was
Speaker 2: only a few hundred feet from landing, and the left
Speaker 2: engine quit ran out of fuel. Well, when that happens,
Speaker 2: the airplane veers right away. So I had a hell
Speaker 2: of a time getting it back on track and a
Speaker 2: couple hundred feet and still landing.
Speaker 1: Holy moly.
Speaker 3: And luckily I.
Speaker 2: Touched down right at the start of the runway where
Speaker 2: it went straight after it came out of his undergown
Speaker 2: hangar and got the airplane stopped and six hundred feet.
Speaker 3: So he said, what do you got And I.
Speaker 2: Said, well, I've got four hundred and forty pounds of stuff.
Speaker 3: I need you to fly it in for me.
Speaker 2: He said, well, I'll fly it to georgiash, I'll give
Speaker 2: a shit where you fly it. Just take it in
Speaker 2: for me, and I'll give you a million bucks.
Speaker 3: That's what happened.
Speaker 1: So you offered Lamar a million dollars to land at
Speaker 1: his island and to bring the coke back to the
Speaker 1: United States, right, and that million it came out of
Speaker 1: the shipment. Happy was flying for Pablo Escobar. Yes, that
Speaker 1: Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug lord and narco terrorist who
Speaker 1: founded the Madayen cartel.
Speaker 2: Even when I took a million dollars of coke out
Speaker 2: of the load, I wasn't worried about getting rubbed out
Speaker 2: or anything because it was a legitimate expense. I mean,
Speaker 2: I was resourceful enough to still get the majority of
Speaker 2: the load through. I had two hundred and twenty keys
Speaker 2: and I lost thirty five of them to pay Lamar.
Speaker 3: Big deal.
Speaker 1: Uh, it is a big deal that Happy live to
Speaker 1: tell about it. But that's another story.
Speaker 3: I mean, I did what I had to do and
Speaker 3: it worked out.
Speaker 1: You've got to have like a cat, but instead of
Speaker 1: nine lives, you must have like nine hundred. By the way,
Speaker 1: Happy says he shared the same story about losing a
Speaker 1: dozen government agency planes trailing him with the federal agent
Speaker 1: who helped broker his equally incredible immunity deal, which we'll
Speaker 1: cover later. While the agent prefers not to be named,
Speaker 1: he was able to verify it.
Speaker 2: When started to tell the story I had told him
Speaker 2: to his Coharts, they said, it never happened.
Speaker 3: He's full of shit.
Speaker 2: So went down and chase my steps and finally found
Speaker 2: my motel receipt for that night when I was going
Speaker 2: back to Miami. And then he found the guys that
Speaker 2: were flying that day, and they said, oh, yeah, but
Speaker 2: Billy wrote the report. Go to Billy, Billy, did you
Speaker 2: write No Harry who was going to the report?
Speaker 3: Go to Harry. No, Charlie was going to write the report.
Speaker 3: They never wrote a report on it.
Speaker 2: I was worried they had my end number, but they
Speaker 2: never wrote a report on it.
Speaker 1: Why do you think, Oh, they had so much.
Speaker 2: Egg on their face that I could screw them all.
Speaker 1: Over by flying into that storm cloud. I mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: that Happy's dabbled in the film business before well. He
Speaker 1: sent me a DVD that contained a movie he made
Speaker 1: about the Bahamas Family Island Regatta, a celebrated sailing event
Speaker 1: and crowd pleaser since nineteen fifty four. Happy Foot of
Speaker 1: the bill for the extravagant production, which he places at
Speaker 1: a quarter of a million dollars and opens with a
Speaker 1: very formal mister Miles promoting his signature plane in conjunction
Speaker 1: with the film.
Speaker 2: This is the pby and I'm Happy Miles.
Speaker 3: Together we fly around the world to a joy.
Speaker 2: Of fulfillment in communities both large and small.
Speaker 1: Happy walks as he reads his lines, frequently stopping and
Speaker 1: changing directions along with the camera, making for some amusing edits.
Speaker 3: Come with me to see what it is.
Speaker 2: It rewards men and women with the sense of knowing
Speaker 2: they are the best that they can be.
Speaker 1: When you're doing your stand up and they have you
Speaker 1: walk three feet this way and then stop and then
Speaker 1: walk three feet that way to camera.
Speaker 5: Oh, because you should see the outtakes. I'm tuck at
Speaker 5: dyslexic and I can't read two cards. We had just
Speaker 5: come from lunch, and I've had about more Roman chokes,
Speaker 5: so I.
Speaker 2: Had a hell of the time getting my lines done.
Speaker 1: What follows is a lush and slick overview of the Regatta.
Speaker 1: But what makes the footage exceptionally interesting is the access
Speaker 1: at highlights between Happy and the Hamian government.
Speaker 6: The stage is set as Prime Minister Linden Pendling, along
Speaker 6: with the visiting dignitaries and island officials, gather for speeches
Speaker 6: and congratulations to all regatta participants.
Speaker 2: Do you know that I'm the only American allowed to
Speaker 2: race with the Behamans?
Speaker 1: Is that still true?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I'm a citizen one week out of the year and
Speaker 2: that week to be designated by out Island Regatta.
Speaker 1: How did you pull that off.
Speaker 3: Oh, Penling, the Prime Minister. Yeah, we just made a declaration.
Speaker 6: Prime Minister Pendling acknowledges the people of Exuma and all
Speaker 6: of those who have maintained the high standards over the
Speaker 6: years for the Family Island Regatta.
Speaker 1: Linden Pendling is perhaps the most famous and controversial Bahamian politician.
Speaker 1: He served as the first black Premier of the Colony
Speaker 1: of the Bahama Islands from nineteen sixty seven to nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine and as Prime Minister of the Bahamas from
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine to nineteen ninety two. Known as the
Speaker 1: Father of the Nation, he's also known for helming the
Speaker 1: darkest period in modern Bahavian history nineteen seventy seven to
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, a time when the Bahamas served as
Speaker 1: a convenient and corruptible stopover for contraband bound for the US.
Speaker 1: Something exposed, and in nineteen eighty three NBC investigative Peace
Speaker 1: titled the Bahamas a nation for Sale. The report alleged,
Speaker 1: among other things, that Carlos later the German Colombian drug lord,
Speaker 1: and members of his infamous made aen cartel used Norman's
Speaker 1: key in Exuma as a lay of our point to
Speaker 1: traffic cocaine into the United States. It also implied the
Speaker 1: Bahamas government and Peddling profited by turning a blind eye
Speaker 1: to drug smuggling, assisted by a prominent Behavian attorney named
Speaker 1: Nigel bo Well.
Speaker 2: Nigel was an attorney who was Pindling's bag man.
Speaker 1: Mainly for somebody who doesn't understand that expression, what does
Speaker 1: bagman mean?
Speaker 2: Well, it means that when later moved into the Bahamas,
Speaker 2: he paid a lot of money to be able to
Speaker 2: operate out enormous key like he did, and Nigel would
Speaker 2: go over and pick up the money and deliver it
Speaker 2: to Pinling.
Speaker 1: So bagman is the guy who's transporting the money from
Speaker 1: one party to the other.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So whatever Nigel said with the police or customs or
Speaker 2: anything was the same as probably Pendling saying it.
Speaker 3: He had a lot of clout.
Speaker 1: So if somebody wanted to get away with something illicit
Speaker 1: in the Bahamas, Nigel was the person you had to
Speaker 1: go through.
Speaker 3: He was the man.
Speaker 2: It was the man, yeah without Adell.
Speaker 1: Though Pendling and bo denied the accusations, the public outcry
Speaker 1: led to the creation in nineteen eighty four of the
Speaker 1: Royal Commission of Inquiry into drug trafficking and government Corruption
Speaker 1: in the Bahamas. A review of Pendling's personal finances by
Speaker 1: the Commission found that he had spent eight times his
Speaker 1: reported total earnings from nineteen seventy seven to nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 1: finding the Prime Minister and Lady Pendling have received at
Speaker 1: least fifty seven point three million dollars in cash.
Speaker 3: Explanations.
Speaker 1: First, some of these deposits were given but could not
Speaker 1: be verified, and also pulled into that inquiry a former
Speaker 1: Eastern Airlines pilot Lamar Chester. So how did Chester end
Speaker 1: up getting pulled into the Bahamas inquiry anyway?
Speaker 7: I'm really not sure just how he got pulled into it,
Speaker 7: but he certainly wanted to go. He had to get
Speaker 7: permission from the judge in his trial.
Speaker 4: He'd already been indicted.
Speaker 7: To leave the country, and after going through the ropes
Speaker 7: on that, he did flew down there.
Speaker 1: Remember, having been indicted in the US, Chester would have
Speaker 1: needed court permission to leave the country.
Speaker 7: As he knew at the time it was his chance
Speaker 7: to make a public statement of his gray Mail defense.
Speaker 4: That he did it for the CIA.
Speaker 7: He also knew that there weren't going to be any
Speaker 7: legal consequences for him, certainly in the Bahamas, because the
Speaker 7: inquiry didn't have the authority to indict anyone anyway.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. So it's possible that Chester was just
Speaker 1: incentivized to go there because it provided him with a
Speaker 1: platform and a megaphone to state the gray mail defense.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm sure he is assumed that he would get
Speaker 7: national publicity.
Speaker 8: One of the most significant things in this whole case
Speaker 8: was Lamar Chaster's appearance before a Royal Commission of Inquiry
Speaker 8: in the Bahamas, and that was at the time a
Speaker 8: really upsetting thing for the Bahamas because it was their
Speaker 8: version of Watergate.
Speaker 1: That's Atlanta based journalist, producer and documentarian C. B. Hackworth.
Speaker 8: Sir Lindon Pendling was the hero of Bahamian independence, and
Speaker 8: there were swirling allegations that he was corrupt of receiving
Speaker 8: payoffs through an attorney named Nigel Bow who also represented
Speaker 8: lamar Chester, that those payments were to permit drug smuggling
Speaker 8: in the Bahamas.
Speaker 1: Today seebe presents as a seasoned Southern journalist with at
Speaker 1: certain angles a passing resemblance to Robin Willilliams, which is
Speaker 1: reinforced by his fondness for suspenders, even when wearing jeans
Speaker 1: and a T shirt. But when Hackworth's path first crossed
Speaker 1: with lamar Chester and subsequently the Coconut Grove Guys in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, he was a twenty five year old
Speaker 1: reporter working at the Gainesville Times, a local paper in Georgia.
Speaker 8: I became aware of Lamarchester both through some earlier reporting
Speaker 8: in the newspaper where I was working, and because I
Speaker 8: was covering a cocaine smuggling trial in federal court in
Speaker 8: which one of the defendants ended up being an unindicted
Speaker 8: co conspirator in the lamar Chester case. So that was
Speaker 8: a tie between those two cases, and who was the
Speaker 8: tie in That was Grover Alexander, who was a local individual.
Speaker 8: Grover Alexander had been convicted of murder at some point,
Speaker 8: but was a car dealer in White County and he
Speaker 8: had repeatedly been arrested and was indicted with lamar Chester.
Speaker 8: It was not convicted in the case that I was covering,
Speaker 8: But while covering the biggest drug smuggling case in Georgia history,
Speaker 8: I overheard some conversations in which Lamarchester's name came up,
Speaker 8: and some federal officials were speculating that la Marchester was
Speaker 8: going to be indicted soon. So with those nudges, I
Speaker 8: took another look at what had already been reported, which
Speaker 8: was pretty substantial.
Speaker 1: And the work of a local reporter named Lavignia Miyese.
Speaker 8: Laviniam Miese was the correspondent in White County. I knew her,
Speaker 8: I came to know her well. We really worked together
Speaker 8: very closely in the Chester case, and I give her
Speaker 8: a real tip of the hat. Lavinia wrote about the
Speaker 8: River Hills project in White County, which was ill faded.
Speaker 1: River Hills was a short lived concept. Chester apparently created
Speaker 1: as a campsite for college kids, but was suspected to
Speaker 1: be a money laundering front, but that's not what upset
Speaker 1: local folks.
Speaker 8: It's strange because apparently by the time the controversy arose,
Speaker 8: they actually already had opened River Hills for a season
Speaker 8: I'm not sure how many weeks, and it had lost money.
Speaker 8: The River Hills had intended to be an outdoor recreational
Speaker 8: area for college students to come and drink and probably
Speaker 8: whatever else they wanted to do, and folks in White
Speaker 8: County aren't going to stand for that going on in
Speaker 8: their river. I mean, the people in North Georgia are
Speaker 8: kind of what you would expect, mostly salt of the earth, hard,
Speaker 8: war working. One of the county commission members was very
Speaker 8: upset by a flyer that he had found for River Hills,
Speaker 8: and he brought it up in a County commission meeting
Speaker 8: and it was come and drink and float down the river,
Speaker 8: and the county commissioner, he was just pretty upset.
Speaker 1: If River Hills didn't exactly sit well with the locals,
Speaker 1: it would prove very valuable to the federal investigators driving
Speaker 1: Operation Loan Star. You'll eventually hear more about Leslie Bickerton,
Speaker 1: the woman Chester brought in to oversee the River Hills project.
Speaker 1: She would become a very valuable and very controversial witness
Speaker 1: for both the prosecution and the defense. But we'll get
Speaker 1: into all of that a bit later. Back to C. B.
Speaker 8: Hackworth, Lavina had been speaking to Chester for a year
Speaker 8: or more. I mean, she had been trying to tell us,
Speaker 8: trying to tell the world this was a really big story,
Speaker 8: and nobody was really paying attention to her because she
Speaker 8: was just, you know, the White County correspondent.
Speaker 4: But CEB.
Speaker 1: Hockwartz says her journalistic instincts were on point. Here's Lavina
Speaker 1: meies Hex in her own words, sharing her written thoughts
Speaker 1: on Lamar Chester.
Speaker 9: Personally, I do not know whether or not Chester was
Speaker 9: guilty of the charges in the nineteen eighty three of
Speaker 9: Aged Dregs smuggling indictment. He claimed he was innocent and
Speaker 9: he had been working for the government and the CIA.
Speaker 9: He told me that the CIA had been attempted to
Speaker 9: overthrow the government in the Bahamas.
Speaker 8: And it was such a huge story that it sounds
Speaker 8: fantastical at first. Blush, but I've got to tell you.
Speaker 8: She had kept clippings and she had dug up in
Speaker 8: corporation papers, and it was one of the best guides
Speaker 8: and briefings I've ever had. I referred to it throughout
Speaker 8: the next year and a half that I ended up
Speaker 8: covering the Chester case on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: Lavigna Maize provided Cbe's introduction to Lamar Chester.
Speaker 8: At that time, Lamar was under very strict orders not
Speaker 8: to talk to reporters anyone connected to the media anyone
Speaker 8: period outside of his family and his legal team, and
Speaker 8: he violated that as much as he could. I think
Speaker 8: it was as much to prove that the government couldn't
Speaker 8: make him be quiet as it was to disseminate information.
Speaker 8: I also believe he enjoyed the coverage and being a
Speaker 8: local celebrity.
Speaker 1: That was his ego, and Chester did not disappoint in person.
Speaker 8: The first time I met him, I drove up to
Speaker 8: White County and out to the dirt road where his
Speaker 8: farm was.
Speaker 10: Used. The word farm.
Speaker 8: Very liberally because it was a sprawling piece of property
Speaker 8: with a grass landing strip. It's the biggest house in
Speaker 8: White County. Although not gaudy in any way, it was
Speaker 8: actually very tastefully done, but it was just so huge.
Speaker 8: The main room where I sat was enormous and it
Speaker 8: was a combination of a huge living room and a
Speaker 8: huge dining area. And Lamar met me shook my hand.
Speaker 8: He had a very warm, magnetic personality. I think he
Speaker 8: knew that and was able to use it to his
Speaker 8: advantage in many many situations, including dealing with the media.
Speaker 8: He had compromised some people who had reported on him.
Speaker 8: And I knew that Lamar was tall, he had a mustache,
Speaker 8: and he struck me as a man's man. Lavinia had
Speaker 8: described him in an article as a Marlborough man, really
Speaker 8: alpha male. I've met a few people like that. Sam
Speaker 8: Elliott is like that. You know, I'm in the presence
Speaker 8: of a real man. I remember Lamar smiling a lot,
Speaker 8: even though the circumstances you would think were kind of
Speaker 8: grim for him. I know there was a lean on
Speaker 8: the farm that had been placed by his lawyers, and
Speaker 8: of course he was facing indictment.
Speaker 1: And Ceb knew the meeting was serving a purpose, at
Speaker 1: least on Chester's end.
Speaker 8: Lamar was very open to meeting with me, and he
Speaker 8: was very open when I met him. I never made
Speaker 8: any agreement, nor was I asked to to protect him
Speaker 8: from himself from the fact that he was violating a
Speaker 8: court order, and he had already been significantly warned because
Speaker 8: of a television report that Fars Sawyer had done on
Speaker 8: WAGAATV in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Phil Stamford has already referenced that infamous interview, but I'll
Speaker 1: let Ceb remind you of what Chester claimed during it.
Speaker 8: Well, he boasted to Fara Sawyer, and he said to
Speaker 8: me separately, he said that he had flown a shipment
Speaker 8: of marijuana, a large shipment directly over wherever Ronald Reagan,
Speaker 8: who was then president was speaking at the time. I
Speaker 8: think it was Homestead Air Force Base, and that he
Speaker 8: could have shoved a bail out and dropped it at
Speaker 8: the President's feet if he wanted to. That's my recollection.
Speaker 8: He completely admitted to being one of the world's most
Speaker 8: prolific drugsugglers, that he had smuggled large shipments of marijuana
Speaker 8: from the Bahamas into the United States Florida, but primarily Georgia.
Speaker 8: Two hundred shipments or more is what I think he said.
Speaker 1: And the reaction that statement received seemed to be the
Speaker 1: intention behind making it.
Speaker 8: Lamar was talking to a lot of reporters and he
Speaker 8: wanted to stir this up. I wasn't oblivious to any
Speaker 8: of that stuff, even though I was young.
Speaker 1: But did you have any idea when you left his
Speaker 1: farm that day how intense and complicated your relationship with
Speaker 1: him would get.
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 8: You would think I would answer no, but I kind
Speaker 8: of did. The scope of what he had laid out
Speaker 8: was huge.
Speaker 1: Chester's interaction with Hackworth would intensify as the legal proceedings advanced.
Speaker 8: Lamar would call me often late at night, and sometimes,
Speaker 8: if not usually after he'd been drinking. Now I'm not
Speaker 8: saying he was bad to drink. I don't know that
Speaker 8: to be a fact, but I do know that sometimes
Speaker 8: he drank at night and sometimes he called me, and
Speaker 8: these were not short little conversations. We would discuss what
Speaker 8: was going on with the case. He guided me toward things.
Speaker 8: I recorded all of my conversations with Lamar Chester. Georgia
Speaker 8: is a one party consent state. You do not have
Speaker 8: to have permission from another person to record a conversation
Speaker 8: as long as you are a participant in that conversation.
Speaker 8: Down you're trying to stall until after the US they
Speaker 8: want to.
Speaker 1: Hear what you were listening to. Are the recordings of
Speaker 1: those actual conversations. Which C. B. Hackworth is sharing for
Speaker 1: the first time.
Speaker 11: Washington was prepared to a set one flee to anything,
Speaker 11: anything with a five year cat stand silent and sentence
Speaker 11: him say just to let me walk out, or sins
Speaker 11: being no more than five years, which you know I'll
Speaker 11: do ten to a month. But Washington would take a
Speaker 11: plea to anything taxivation at this point, and bear in
Speaker 11: mind this is June is indety Mars. Yeah, but they'd
Speaker 11: take anything, and if they give them minds a bow,
Speaker 11: I could walk clean with money. Now they also made
Speaker 11: this offer getting they make this off for the Bogart
Speaker 11: just prior to them that they want the Prime Minister
Speaker 11: also clean more.
Speaker 1: Lamar Chester is claiming the prosecutors offered to drop charges
Speaker 1: against him if he turned on the Bahamian Attorney Nigel
Speaker 1: bo and Prime Minister Pendling.
Speaker 8: But again, never once, despite everything he ever said to me,
Speaker 8: he never once did he say, hey, don't put this
Speaker 8: in the paper. Not once. When I wrote a five
Speaker 8: part series on lamar Chester, the heading on that rack
Speaker 8: card said master criminal or secret agent.
Speaker 1: It was pretty dramatic, as would be the travel assignment.
Speaker 1: Hackworth's paper Greenlet as the young reporter continued to cover Chester.
Speaker 8: He told me he was going to testify before this
Speaker 8: Royal Commission, and he told me what he was going
Speaker 8: to say, and he told me f Lee Bailey would
Speaker 8: be the attorney for the Prime Minister of the Bahamas,
Speaker 8: then he would be doing the questioning. I played a
Speaker 8: very short, perhaps sixty second excerpt of that conversation with
Speaker 8: Lamar for the publisher of the newspaper.
Speaker 11: Through my relations with government of Bahamas and businessmen there
Speaker 11: in elsewhere, I have contacts all over the world, in
Speaker 11: particular Central and South America, Europe and the parties.
Speaker 8: And they supported my outrageous quest for this story. The
Speaker 8: publisher he told me to go to the Bahamas when
Speaker 8: Lamar was there to testify. This was not a newspaper
Speaker 8: that routinely sent a reporter to the Bahamas. I stayed
Speaker 8: at the same resort hotel that Lamar stayed at. His
Speaker 8: lawyers did not know I was going to be there.
Speaker 8: They did not know the extent to which he was
Speaker 8: talking to me, and likely others. His lawyers could not
Speaker 8: control him.
Speaker 1: Seebee also taped the proceedings, and Bill has those recordings
Speaker 1: on micro cassettes, which he shared with me when we
Speaker 1: met in person.
Speaker 8: He was being questioned by f Lee Bailey, who, not
Speaker 8: by accident, was one of the most famous lawyers in America.
Speaker 8: An extremely talented, brilliant man.
Speaker 1: What do you mean, Cherry Well about to airport here?
Speaker 1: Attorney Flee Bailey questions Chester about his interaction with a
Speaker 1: man named Morgan Cherry specifically.
Speaker 4: Did he wants you to.
Speaker 11: He really didn't want me to come back, but I
Speaker 11: didn't come.
Speaker 1: Back to not reveal his identity.
Speaker 11: I believe you not reveal Morgan Cherry, Morgan Cherry's but
Speaker 11: his request was that you go back on her promises,
Speaker 11: commission and not return.
Speaker 4: That's fact.
Speaker 10: Believe you use the word to.
Speaker 11: Keep your shot as to indicate why his employers.
Speaker 7: And interested silence.
Speaker 10: They just didn't want to know.
Speaker 11: That they were engaged, that they had been uh instrument
Speaker 11: and the Bryan.
Speaker 1: Rosser, the Brian ross Report, that was the nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: three NBC investigative Peace titled the Bahamas a Nation for Sale?
Speaker 1: And the man named Morgan Cherry. Chester's referring to is
Speaker 1: his allegedly CIA connected link to the assignments he claims
Speaker 1: to have conducted on behalf of the US government.
Speaker 8: F Lee Bailey. He was very good that day. He
Speaker 8: was representing the Prime Minister of the Bahamas Times that
Speaker 8: that Morgan.
Speaker 3: Cherry claimed to be a person who.
Speaker 10: Had helped the NBC broadcast to begin with, and whose
Speaker 10: clients were profit by an investigation shore to follow such
Speaker 10: a broadcast to the point where he.
Speaker 11: Could promise you Besidey's representation. That pretty much sums of.
Speaker 1: That that was taped. Cebe recalls a very interesting interaction
Speaker 1: which led to an after court meeting at the hotel
Speaker 1: casino with Chester and two young women.
Speaker 8: Lamar went to get a drink of water and he said,
Speaker 8: if you have any questions, I'll be in the casino
Speaker 8: tonight at ten thirty in the hotel where we were staying.
Speaker 1: So did you go down to the casino at ten
Speaker 1: thirty that night?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 8: I went down to the casino and I think I
Speaker 8: had sixty four dollars that I was going to gamble with.
Speaker 8: I'm twenty five years old, working for a small daily newspaper,
Speaker 8: paying child support, so all I had on my first
Speaker 8: trip ever anywhere out of the country sixty four dollars
Speaker 8: to gamble with. I got there early and my sixty
Speaker 8: four dollars did not last long. I blew that money
Speaker 8: at the roulette wheel very quickly. So I did find
Speaker 8: Lamar standing at a slot machine, one that you fed
Speaker 8: dollar tokens in three at a time. I had played
Speaker 8: the slots earlier with quarters, and to me, this was
Speaker 8: like bordering on real money. And not only was he
Speaker 8: doing that, he was winning. You know, he put three
Speaker 8: things in and we're beginning to talk, and he'd pulled
Speaker 8: the lever and beat about to answer question, and tokens
Speaker 8: would pour out. He didn't care about the money that
Speaker 8: he was winning. He didn't care about the money he
Speaker 8: was putting into the slot machine.
Speaker 10: He just raded wealth.
Speaker 8: And that's part of what I think made him a
Speaker 8: track do to a lot of people, men as well
Speaker 8: as women. I don't mean sexually, but I mean wanting
Speaker 8: to be in his inner circle. And we weren't standing
Speaker 8: there very long before the young lady walked up and
Speaker 8: just started hanging around him. At first I thought it
Speaker 8: might be someone he knew, or a legal assistant or something,
Speaker 8: but it was she was a stranger.
Speaker 10: I guess it was.
Speaker 8: You know, people have described him as good looks or
Speaker 8: magnetic personality, whatever, and in addition the fact that money
Speaker 8: kept pouring out of this slot machine. I think the
Speaker 8: sound was some sort of mating call, but since I
Speaker 8: was standing there, I guess the young lady said, well,
Speaker 8: I'll be right back, and she came back with her friend.
Speaker 10: They were both pretty, they were both.
Speaker 8: Young, just having a good time on vacation in the Bahamas.
Speaker 8: There was a bar overlooking the casino. Next thing, I know,
Speaker 8: the drink I was supposed to have with Lamar, as
Speaker 8: we'd already said we're going to go upstairs and have
Speaker 8: a drink, ends up being these two young ladies following
Speaker 8: us up there.
Speaker 1: So it's starting to feel like a double date.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And that bothered me because, you know, on the
Speaker 8: one hand, I was a twenty five year old, fairly
Speaker 8: recently divorced young man and you know, a beautiful young
Speaker 8: woman sitting next to me. Now, I remember what I
Speaker 8: was thinking was, you know, they didn't really cover this
Speaker 8: specific thing in journalism school, in any of the classes
Speaker 8: I took. But I am fairly sure you're not allowed
Speaker 8: to pick up girls with the drug smuggler.
Speaker 10: That you're covering.
Speaker 8: And at the same time, it's very socially awkward because
Speaker 8: it was superficially a very nice, happy little group. But
Speaker 8: fortunately for me, as I'm sitting there trying to think
Speaker 8: how am I going to get out of this gracefully,
Speaker 8: Lamar actually provided me with the inspiration, not intentionally.
Speaker 1: And apparently did so with his signature style.
Speaker 8: When the conversation fairly quickly led to you know, who
Speaker 8: are you and what do you do? After they have
Speaker 8: talked about being a nurse and etc. Well who are you?
Speaker 8: And Lamar said something pretty instantly about, well, I'm one
Speaker 8: of the biggest drug smugglers in the world, and this
Speaker 8: guy's a reporter that has been following me, and you know,
Speaker 8: he writes about a lot of the things that I do.
Speaker 10: And I don't think that they believed in.
Speaker 1: Did they just kind of laugh at all.
Speaker 10: I think they kind of.
Speaker 8: Laughed it off, like oh sure. I was like, well, damn,
Speaker 8: that doesn't scare him off. And some people I've told
Speaker 8: this story to have said that may have made somebody
Speaker 8: more attractive. Well it didn't really, It was that they
Speaker 8: didn't believe it. I don't think the way that he
Speaker 8: said it, and again it's consistent with what he always said.
Speaker 8: He never shied away from it. You just can't believe
Speaker 8: that anybody was this upfront, but I guess that was
Speaker 8: his strategy. If you know you're going to be accused
Speaker 8: of smuggling massive amounts of marijuana, get in front of it.
Speaker 10: I think that was what he tried to do always.
Speaker 1: And it's not as if these ladies had like cell
Speaker 1: phones in their hands where they could google it quickly.
Speaker 10: Couldn't google it.
Speaker 1: That's when Ceb realized he could actually prove Chester's claim
Speaker 1: to their doting wanta be dates.
Speaker 10: My secret weapon.
Speaker 8: I suddenly realized it was like a light bulb going
Speaker 8: off over my head. I had a major series about
Speaker 8: Lamar Chester, five part series called Citizen Chester was running
Speaker 8: in my newspaper. I ran up to the room and
Speaker 8: got the card that is inserted into a newspaper rack
Speaker 8: that you put money in and pulled down the front
Speaker 8: of and get a paper out of. And this one
Speaker 8: had a photograph of Lamar Chester that I had taken
Speaker 8: on that first visit to the house, with a banner
Speaker 8: headline master criminal or secret Agent. And I took it out,
Speaker 8: went back downstairs, went right up to that table and
Speaker 8: unrolled it. I don't think I'm exaggerating to say that
Speaker 8: the color drained from their faces. There may have been
Speaker 8: women who would have been attracted by that, but these
Speaker 8: two were not. They soon made excuses.
Speaker 9: To leave, call it a night.
Speaker 8: And you know what, I don't think that bothered Lamar
Speaker 8: Chester at all. I think he was very happy that
Speaker 8: they knew who he was.
Speaker 1: So at the time that the inquiry was happening in
Speaker 1: the Bahamas, were you even aware that it was going on?
Speaker 4: No, I wasn't following it.
Speaker 7: I was back in DC for a few months, and
Speaker 7: my mind was elsewhere when it was happening, and I
Speaker 7: wasn't even aware of it. Later, when I came back
Speaker 7: and Bob Adams came up to me and said, do
Speaker 7: you know who Morgan Cherry is? Well, it was shortly
Speaker 7: after this that the mysterious Morgan Cherry mentioned that I
Speaker 7: got a call from Bob who said that Lamar wanted
Speaker 7: to hire me as a consultant. There was going to
Speaker 7: be a pre trial hearing in Atlanta and he wanted
Speaker 7: me to be there as a consultant.
Speaker 4: I said what he.
Speaker 7: Said, you know, look over transcripts, catch inconsistencies, that sort
Speaker 7: of thing. He said he'd pay me a couple hundred
Speaker 7: dollars a day plus travel. I decided, I guess I
Speaker 7: could be a consultant.
Speaker 1: After all, consultant for what using your ex tease as
Speaker 1: a journalist, because it almost seems as if it would
Speaker 1: be more a legal standpoint.
Speaker 7: Well, I was used to looking over government documents and
Speaker 7: finding discrepancies and that sort of thing, believe it or not.
Speaker 7: At this point, it still didn't seem real to me
Speaker 7: that they thought I was with the CIA. So it
Speaker 7: was just an extension of the craziness that had begun
Speaker 7: when I started working for Intercept and started getting paid
Speaker 7: for blowing assignments, and if they wanted to pay me,
Speaker 7: I figured why not.
Speaker 4: Of course I shouldn't have done it.
Speaker 7: I knew it had something to do with their belief
Speaker 7: that I was with the CIA.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, a couple hundred dollars a day plus
Speaker 1: travel doesn't sound that bad and probably seemed like much
Speaker 1: more in the early eighties.
Speaker 4: It was certainly enough for me, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: And if they did believe you were with the CIA,
Speaker 1: they might have thought they were compromising you. At the
Speaker 1: same time, they did compromise me that I wasn't with
Speaker 1: the CIA.
Speaker 7: I mean I was digging myself in pretty deep with
Speaker 7: people who I really didn't want to offend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the other thing I would point out. You
Speaker 1: didn't worry that you were getting into something that you
Speaker 1: might not escape from.
Speaker 4: I just sort of walked right into it.
Speaker 1: And that seems to have been the plan. Here's Chester
Speaker 1: talking to CB about Phil Stamford.
Speaker 8: I have a guy me together.
Speaker 2: He wouldn't.
Speaker 10: I am not, by.
Speaker 11: Any means commn not currently in active one of the
Speaker 11: guys that.
Speaker 4: Comedy.
Speaker 1: You heard that right? Lamar Chester claims someone working with
Speaker 1: the CIA confirmed Bill Stamford was also in the agency's
Speaker 1: employ On the next murder of Miami, Bill Stamford leaves
Speaker 1: the Amstdam Palace for a farm in Georgia.
Speaker 4: It was kind of strange. First thing.
Speaker 7: They put Bob up in the guesthouse and I'm staying
Speaker 7: at the main house with Lamarren artists, who I can
Speaker 7: tell right off really doesn't want me there at all.
Speaker 1: As the scope of Operation Loan Stark titans around La Marchester.
Speaker 8: Frankly, with what the government stating witnesses fed to alligators,
Speaker 8: I could not understand how someone who had just made
Speaker 8: a deal to testify against him would be anywhere near it.
Speaker 1: But I was going to find out and re ignites
Speaker 1: a cold case mystery from Miami.
Speaker 7: And this was right out of the blue because we've
Speaker 7: never spoken about Clay Williams, the Intercept detective who was
Speaker 7: found dead in the.
Speaker 4: Everglyn we will wait.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry he brought up Clay Williams, leading to a
Speaker 1: possible break in the Clay Williams murder that leads back
Speaker 1: to Intercept. Murder of Miami is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Lauren Bright Pacheco, Taylor Chackoine, and Phil Stamford.
Speaker 1: Written by Phil Stamford and Lauren Bright Pacheco, Audio editing
Speaker 1: and sound design by Nicholas Harder, Evan Tyer, and Taylor Chacoine,
Speaker 1: featuring music by Evan Tyer, Phil Mayer, John Murchison and
Speaker 1: Taylor Chacoine. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that matter
Speaker 1: to you.