Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Zern Elizabeth Larren, Yes, Elizabeth, are you doing hey? Oh
Speaker 2: you're over there? Yes, Elizabeth any here? Yes, I'm right here.
Speaker 2: How are you doing? Girl?
Speaker 3: Hey? Listen, I'm above ground and getting paid.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 3: That's all I care about.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get like you.
Speaker 3: That's that's my answer. When people ask how you doing
Speaker 3: above ground and getting paid?
Speaker 2: There you go. It's all you can ask. It's all
Speaker 2: you can ask.
Speaker 3: Literally, do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm so glad you asked me. I have an idea.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to give to Hollywood for free.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Right, this is totally ridiculous. So you know Santa
Speaker 2: Monica High, Yes, SAMO Yeah right, SAMO Hi. So there's
Speaker 2: a bunch of people who are all born like in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four and sixty five, who were all together
Speaker 2: at SAMO High.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's basically if you think about when they would
Speaker 2: have been in high school, it's the early eighties, like
Speaker 2: eighty eighty one, eighty two. So these are all classmates
Speaker 2: at sam O. Hi. Ready for this? Yeah, Robert Downey Junior. Okay,
Speaker 2: Emelio Westevez, Charlie Sheen right on, Penn Chris Penn, yeah,
Speaker 2: Rob Low, Yeah, Michael Bay, the director, Holly Robinson, Pete
Speaker 2: and Man, Lenny Kravitz, Am Leonard. Yeah, this is like
Speaker 2: a real eighties movie. You just have you can just
Speaker 2: tell their story, just imagine it. Boom.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I've watched the Charlie Sheen documentary.
Speaker 2: IP is right there, it's right there.
Speaker 3: I watched the Charlie Sheen documentary and he talks about
Speaker 3: like growing up with the pen and like I don't
Speaker 3: remember if Rob Low, rob Yeah, but yeah, it's crazy,
Speaker 3: like when you think about that whole you know, Santa Monica,
Speaker 3: Malibu crowd at all time.
Speaker 2: And also you could do a sequel with Maya Rudolph,
Speaker 2: Gwyneth Paltrow and Jack Black, who were also like they
Speaker 2: were born in seventy one to seventy two around that age. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so there are a couple of years behind obviously, but
Speaker 2: Gwyneth and uh, Maya Rudolph were best friends since the
Speaker 2: age of seven, so they were friends in high school
Speaker 2: you're kidding, Oh yeah, and then Maya Rudolph had a
Speaker 2: crush on Jack Black and so she would like follow
Speaker 2: him around. He talked her in to take in the
Speaker 2: improv class, then then gets her into Groundlings, and then
Speaker 2: launches her career in comedy because she had a crush
Speaker 2: on Jack Black. Yeah, I love so there you go.
Speaker 2: You got the sequel right there.
Speaker 3: You got the wrong com you did it, you did it.
Speaker 2: And that ridiculous.
Speaker 3: That's so ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Imagine them, classmates.
Speaker 3: I love it. That is ridiculous.
Speaker 2: I thought you didn't. Ridiculous And it's free Hollywood. Take it. Well,
Speaker 2: that's a previous ip.
Speaker 3: You want to know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, you know that. I lived for that.
Speaker 2: That's what keeps me above ground and getting paid.
Speaker 3: Wearing diamonds and a sombrero.
Speaker 4: Oh oh yeah.
Speaker 3: This is ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers.
Speaker 3: Heis and cons It's always ninety nine percent murder free
Speaker 3: and one hundred percent ridiculous. Take that to the bank, Yes, please,
Speaker 3: here's my deposital slip. The late actress Elizabeth Taylor.
Speaker 2: Oh, I've heard of her with the purple eyes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's associated with many things, those violet eyes. Violet sorry,
Speaker 3: very specific film roles.
Speaker 2: Sounds so much better than purple eyes.
Speaker 3: Purple eye, it's a condition, and that's like elevated.
Speaker 2: You need to see a specialists.
Speaker 3: Oh honey. Yeah, film roles like Cleopatra and Cleopatrick Jones.
Speaker 2: That was more surprising.
Speaker 3: Her tumultuous love life Richard Burton.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then also like the Larry the construction guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Oh my god, that's right. And then her friendship
Speaker 3: with Michael Jackson.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and Marlon Branda. They're like a triangle. We're intense.
Speaker 3: But one of the big associations that people have with
Speaker 3: O Liz is jewelry.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, this is true.
Speaker 3: She loved jewelry and she even called her perfume white diamonds.
Speaker 2: That's right. I know that from Christmas time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, those ads on TV where she's all soft focused
Speaker 3: and then like has some off the shoulder number.
Speaker 2: On like a quarter like a millimeter of vesseling on
Speaker 2: the lens and she's got like night grade lighting and
Speaker 2: some white puffy dress.
Speaker 3: I don't think you ever you ever huffed on that
Speaker 3: white diamonds, You ever smelled.
Speaker 2: That the perfume? I know, I've known some older ladies. Yes,
Speaker 2: you wear you.
Speaker 3: Wear that, buddy. I don't think I've ever smelled it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, No, I worked at a retirement home.
Speaker 3: Like diamonds.
Speaker 2: No, it smells like wealth and luxury.
Speaker 3: That's nice.
Speaker 2: Do you know some perfume smell like money. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: smells like you know.
Speaker 3: Wealthy or Janel Kashmir smells like money.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 3: When I say she collected jewelry though, I mean Mama
Speaker 3: collected jewelry really. Yeah. She didn't just do it for
Speaker 3: monetary or aesthetic value, but because of like the emotions
Speaker 3: and the relationships and the stories into crystal behind probably
Speaker 3: behind each piece. She wrote a book called My Love
Speaker 3: Affair with Jewelry.
Speaker 2: It's right in the cover, she.
Speaker 3: Described Jules's quote a way of remembering life's great loves, moments,
Speaker 3: and experiences jewelry Yeah, which I mean, I suppose is
Speaker 3: true if you live the kind of life where like
Speaker 3: gems and jewels are involved.
Speaker 2: In the mere giving jeweled gifts. Yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 3: I remember that it was the perfect cheese boo on
Speaker 3: the deck and I was emeralds. Yeah, I mean, like,
Speaker 3: you know, it's just so seet these things, the emeralds
Speaker 3: wearing emeralds. You know, the moments, moments in her life
Speaker 3: in anybody's life, the perfect cheeseburger. Many of her famous
Speaker 3: jewels came as gifts, as you were saying, from the
Speaker 3: men in her life, especially Richard Burton and then also
Speaker 3: Mike Todd and others. For her, like every gem was
Speaker 3: this tangible reminder of love. Milestones' reconciliations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so wrong. I love your baby. You can't
Speaker 2: leave me, baby, he is eighteen diamonds baby, miss Musk.
Speaker 3: She once said that Burton gave her quote the most
Speaker 3: extravagant gifts, but always with the story. Every kiss begins
Speaker 3: with k. The stories she has a friend in the
Speaker 3: diamond business. Stories mattered just as much as the stones did. Yeah,
Speaker 3: someone like gems, not the rolling stones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got that.
Speaker 3: So she she grew up her did.
Speaker 2: You say gemstones, I'm gonna be totally confused. The righteous ones, Yes,
Speaker 2: those are the ones.
Speaker 3: Her mom had jewels. She was like, it was the family. Yeah.
Speaker 2: She had an expectation of like I want you, and
Speaker 2: she's like.
Speaker 3: Those look really pretty, thank you. And then she also
Speaker 3: was so into Hollywood glamour and that's you knows a
Speaker 3: lot of jewels there. So by the nineteen fifties she
Speaker 3: was already like everyone knew, Elizabeth Taylor is all about diamonds.
Speaker 2: And Harry Winston. Number of yes.
Speaker 3: She called jewelry her quote drug of choice and yeah,
Speaker 3: and this was like excitement for her but also comfort,
Speaker 3: you know, when she had these like difficult marriages and
Speaker 3: her careers going up and down. She loved jewels with
Speaker 3: like long provenance. So she had one La Peregrina pearl
Speaker 3: that had been owned by Spanish queens marry the first
Speaker 3: of England. She had the taj Mahal diamond pendant, you know.
Speaker 3: So all of these things were just like she loved
Speaker 3: to like have the history.
Speaker 2: Do you like more than diamonds. She like rubies and
Speaker 2: sapphires too, She liked diamonds.
Speaker 3: She liked diamonds were like at the top of the pyramid.
Speaker 3: She didn't keep them locked away. She wore her jewels
Speaker 3: constantly for they felt like connected to her with the
Speaker 3: history part of this larger story. She really believed that
Speaker 3: jewelry was to be worn and enjoyed, like don't don't
Speaker 3: hide it away.
Speaker 2: Put your diamonds under a bushel exactly.
Speaker 3: She was wearing like huge diamonds to lunches, film sets,
Speaker 3: just around the house.
Speaker 2: Okay, so she would have really gone well with like
Speaker 2: NFL wide receivers. Yes, they would be like, you know,
Speaker 2: like when you sitting there and you get like a
Speaker 2: hair cut in it because you turn to I hate that.
Speaker 3: And they would all talk about how there's no better
Speaker 3: way to compliment your busy on the go lifestyles and
Speaker 3: shine and what if she had I wish she had
Speaker 3: lived long enough to have a grill, a diamond grill.
Speaker 2: How do you know she didn't.
Speaker 3: It's true. There's a lot we don't know about her.
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson, who was a crip, might have given her one.
Speaker 3: It's true. Michael Jackson was a crip.
Speaker 2: I look that up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw that today. He's straight crippin anyway, So
Speaker 3: she's like, you know, you gotta wear this stuff. You
Speaker 3: gotta live your life, totally live your life. So towards
Speaker 3: the end of her life that she had lived, she
Speaker 3: wanted to use that collection to make like a charitable
Speaker 3: legacy for herself. Interesting, so in twenty eleven Christie's As
Speaker 3: she held an auction through Christie's for the benefit of
Speaker 3: the Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation. And that was like so
Speaker 3: that the lifetime like she would live on anyse things, so.
Speaker 2: Bequeathed some of her like both her energy and her wealth.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, what were some of these jewels. We'll start
Speaker 3: with La Peregrina wandering Royal pearl. So this was this.
Speaker 3: It was a famous sixteenth century drop shaped natural pearl
Speaker 3: that she had Cardier set in like this ruby diamond
Speaker 3: and pearl necklace in nineteen seventy two. Thing. Yeah, And
Speaker 3: so the pearl was found in the fifteen hundreds and
Speaker 3: like like I said, the courts of Spain and England,
Speaker 3: it was passed to the Dukes of Abercorn in the
Speaker 3: nineteenth century, and then it went into the possession of
Speaker 3: Richard Burton Liz Taylor loved. Yeah, he bought it in
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty nine for around thirty seven thousand dollars and
Speaker 3: he gave it to Taylor. That's like spending three hundred
Speaker 3: and twenty five thousand dollars on it today.
Speaker 2: Wow, just outside of my price range.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, you're just so close. Let's save up
Speaker 3: a little more. Check your couch cushions, good calls, you.
Speaker 2: Know, might push yours in there.
Speaker 3: I can swim, yeah, my NFTs. So she famously wore
Speaker 3: this thing all the time and one time she's like
Speaker 3: swamming around the house with them on and she thought
Speaker 3: she lost it. There was a dog involved. But after
Speaker 3: that so she had Cardier.
Speaker 2: She had to wait like a couple of days until pasted.
Speaker 2: Oh thank god.
Speaker 3: They fixed it so that it wouldn't slip off, like
Speaker 3: they reinforced the class that was sold in twenty eleven
Speaker 3: at the AIDS Foundation charity sale for eleven point eight
Speaker 3: million dollars. That's a world record price for a pearl
Speaker 3: at the time. I bet eleven point eight million dollars.
Speaker 2: Crazy.
Speaker 3: So the next up we have the tea that, oh
Speaker 3: sure it must We got the Taylor Burton diamond. That's
Speaker 3: this like big pear shaped mama that cut by Harry
Speaker 3: Winston and it was it was sixty eight carrots cut
Speaker 3: down from a two hundred and forty one rough that
Speaker 3: came out of South Africa, came out of the ground
Speaker 3: thirteen sixty six. Yeah, that's true, that one. He Okay.
Speaker 3: So Cardier won the sixty nineteen sixty nine auction for
Speaker 3: the diamond just over a million, and they were like,
Speaker 3: this will be known as the Cardier Diamond and so
Speaker 3: then the next day Richard Burton comes in and buys
Speaker 3: it from him, gives it to Elizabeth Taylor. She wore
Speaker 3: it the nineteen seventy oscars on a special diamond necklace
Speaker 3: to cover her trichyotomy scar. Oh interesting, and they were like,
Speaker 3: this was now the Liz Taylor diamond in nineteen seventy nine. Yeah,
Speaker 3: she sold it to help fund a hospital in Botswana.
Speaker 2: Nine years wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but she sold it for five mil in nineteen yeah,
Speaker 3: and then it later got sold to this other dude.
Speaker 3: So coming up batting third, we have the Bulgary Emerald suite.
Speaker 2: Wow. Sweet.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So that's like a brooch, slash, pendant, necklace, earrings, bracelet, ring.
Speaker 3: It was all like put together in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 3: from Burton, and that brooch doubled as her engagement jewel. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Was he like just constantly messing up or did he
Speaker 2: also rocks?
Speaker 3: I think why not? Why not?
Speaker 2: Both?
Speaker 3: I think he was like that's the ticket out of
Speaker 3: the doghouse, over and over. That one sold at the
Speaker 3: charity sale for six point five million. That you know,
Speaker 3: the whole suite of it.
Speaker 2: The full sweet gift. Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, actually no, the pendant brooch did just the necklace
Speaker 3: six point one mill the ring three point three mill
Speaker 3: bracelet four million dollars, the earrings three point two millions.
Speaker 2: This is crazy.
Speaker 3: There's that taj Mahal heart shape pendant that was what
Speaker 3: it sounds like a herd shaped table cut diamond that
Speaker 3: Cardier put on a gold and ruby chain that was
Speaker 3: from the.
Speaker 2: Mughal court, oh like the India.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that was Burton's fortieth birthday gift to Taylor
Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy two forty It went into twenty eleven
Speaker 3: eight point eight million.
Speaker 2: She's traveling with this stuff, oh yeah.
Speaker 3: And wearing it all over the place, wearing it around
Speaker 3: the house. But then there was like a there was
Speaker 3: an issue with the sale because there was some dispute
Speaker 3: over the provenance of that and either way, not everything
Speaker 3: Richard Burton was up in that jewelry box. Mike Todd
Speaker 3: gave her a diamond tiara, a tiara it was from
Speaker 3: eighteen eighties. Yeah, she wore to the nineteen fifty seven Oscars.
Speaker 3: She wore to movie premieres maybe like the supermarket, I
Speaker 3: don't know they were when that came on shopping twenty
Speaker 3: eleven sale, they were like, this is going to get
Speaker 3: like sixty to eighty thousand dollars. It went for four
Speaker 3: point two million dollars.
Speaker 2: Slightly off.
Speaker 3: It's a little bit so. I mean that is when
Speaker 3: it's like that had everything to do with the fact
Speaker 3: that it was hers and not the actual like jewel value.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's crazy though, that she had that much like curb.
Speaker 3: Appeal to see I see that every day is erin
Speaker 3: do you when I see secretly sell your stuff on
Speaker 3: Facebook Marketplace? I get a good one to two percent
Speaker 3: increase in profit if I tell them it once belonged
Speaker 3: to Ziggie Marley. You Okay, here's a fun one. The
Speaker 3: Cardier Ruby sweet Ruby and diamond Cardier necklace. That's from
Speaker 3: Mike Todd. He gave it to her while she was
Speaker 3: swimming laps at their villa in the south of France.
Speaker 2: How do you think do you think just like draped
Speaker 2: it into the pool water like you're standing up.
Speaker 3: I mean, I love when that happens to me.
Speaker 2: Of course, when I'm doing laps.
Speaker 3: In my villain to France and some dude comes up
Speaker 3: is all here, yeah yeah, so she's he's like, I'll
Speaker 3: go you zoom, and so She's like, well, I don't
Speaker 3: want to try it on, but there's no mirror at
Speaker 3: the pool because you don't put glass by the pools.
Speaker 3: Erin thought about it, so she checked her reflection in
Speaker 3: the pool. She's like, this is beautiful, and then she
Speaker 3: actually squealed with joy this is and then she pulled
Speaker 3: him into the waters.
Speaker 2: Real, yeah, fully dressed. That's when you know it's for real.
Speaker 3: That's when you know it's for real. So, I mean,
Speaker 3: she's got like all these like big dog ones, she's
Speaker 3: got sapphires, she's got you know, some step more van
Speaker 3: Cleef and arpels.
Speaker 2: Oh wow. Yeah, I know they're.
Speaker 3: Using terms like pave and bag edd and pendants. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I know. I don't know any of the stuff. Is
Speaker 3: the ping pong diamonds ping pong? She and Richard Burton
Speaker 3: were playing table tennis and gustad and he was like,
Speaker 3: if you win, i'll give you a diamond, which is
Speaker 3: like and then she won and he pulled out this
Speaker 3: like what is called a tiny ring, but that I
Speaker 3: couldn't find the weight of it, but I saw a
Speaker 3: picture and it looks like an everyday modest engagement ring,
Speaker 3: like not like, oh, a diamond chip, like maybe a
Speaker 3: character to They're like so small you can barely see it,
Speaker 3: so funny. These are the ping pong diamonds. So anyway,
Speaker 3: all that aside, I haven't told you about the most
Speaker 3: major of her gems. That one would be the Krupp
Speaker 3: Diamond Crup Diamond thirty three point one nine carrots, which,
Speaker 3: while enormous, yeah that's sizable, is still far smaller than
Speaker 3: some of the big dogs in her collection.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not their biggest diruct.
Speaker 3: But this one's perfect, like it could be potentially internally
Speaker 3: flawless by the scans and the facets.
Speaker 2: You see all the facets.
Speaker 3: Right, all all the ratchet, real clear. It's like nitrogen
Speaker 3: freeze pure exceptionally colorless. There it is, jewel heads. It's
Speaker 3: a d color vs one cut, cornered rectangular step cut diamond,
Speaker 3: often called an astra cut.
Speaker 2: Thank you for putting that in terms I understand.
Speaker 3: Set in a ring flank by tapered bagatts. I love
Speaker 3: bagettes in the morning kind with the light so good.
Speaker 3: It's not A lot is known about the diamond's history
Speaker 3: before the early twentieth century. There's thought that it was
Speaker 3: unearthed from either South Africa's you know yaeger Font and
Speaker 3: mine or one of the ones in India, like the
Speaker 3: famous one there. But because of the way it's cut,
Speaker 3: if they think that it was like cut in the
Speaker 3: nineteen twenties, it's very art deco. I looked at it.
Speaker 3: It's a jaw dropper. Serious ice Now, the first famous
Speaker 3: owner was Vera Krupp, Martha Vera Hassenfeld, later Countess Mellenkroct.
Speaker 2: Like the German industrialist.
Speaker 3: Uh huh. She is at the center of what I
Speaker 3: want to tell you about today. Okay, the Liz Taylor
Speaker 3: stuff was just me pouring the foundation of the driveway.
Speaker 2: Get us to the Croup.
Speaker 3: Welcome you to the house that I'm building, the House
Speaker 3: of Croup, the House of Crop. Little reference, little context,
Speaker 3: a little bit of fun information.
Speaker 2: I learned so much.
Speaker 3: I know, did taking a look at how the other
Speaker 3: half lives?
Speaker 2: Are They doing well?
Speaker 3: In excess, that's how they live. But it's Vera Krupp
Speaker 3: who holds the keys here. I want to pause for
Speaker 3: some ads, slip into some jewels, and when we come.
Speaker 2: Back, krup zaren Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: I regaled you with tales of Elizabeth Taylor's jewelry collection.
Speaker 2: You brought the temperature of the room down a couple
Speaker 2: degrees with all that.
Speaker 3: Cool, all that ice. Yeah, it's just And I mentioned
Speaker 3: the Crep diamond. Do you remember when I said that
Speaker 3: towards the end? It was originally owned by Vera Krup
Speaker 3: via Crup. And I know what you're thinking, because I
Speaker 3: can read your mind. Who intarnation is via Crup.
Speaker 2: That's incredible.
Speaker 3: I'm glad I read you write.
Speaker 2: Down to the Tarnation.
Speaker 3: No, thank you, let's do this. What if I suddenly
Speaker 3: performed a rap about her? It's just a thought I
Speaker 3: had of you. I know, it just like came into
Speaker 3: my head, Like what if there was a pause and
Speaker 3: I just started rapping, Like what if I were someone
Speaker 3: who just breaks into wraps every now and then, like
Speaker 3: a less annoying linn men Brandon. What if that was me? Anyway?
Speaker 3: Vera so Vera She was born Martha Vera villem Heim.
Speaker 3: I don't know whatever sounds good, felt Hawson felt incorporated.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we're going to do.
Speaker 3: In mine Germany. Mine, it's mine.
Speaker 2: Oh, just mine yours.
Speaker 3: She later worked in German film under the stage name
Speaker 3: Vera von Langen. She became a naturalized US citizen in
Speaker 3: nineteen forty seven. Good time, good time, right whatever, honey,
Speaker 3: it gets better. So before her marriage to the steel
Speaker 3: magnet Alfried Kroup, she had married and divorced like three times,
Speaker 3: and so she had all these surnames von Langen, Wisbarnur
Speaker 3: that appear in all her records. She's kind of like
Speaker 3: a j she's like a minnie Liz Taylor.
Speaker 2: About that too, Thank you, good point.
Speaker 3: I mean I put it out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know why I could have knocked it.
Speaker 2: I turned my back missed it entirely.
Speaker 3: But you know what, anytime we can measure mentioned the
Speaker 3: old jag.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love her.
Speaker 3: Nineteen fifty five, okay, vera, she bought this ranch near
Speaker 3: Las Vegas.
Speaker 2: Oh, good time to do that.
Speaker 3: She ran cattle, I'm serious, white faced Hereford's and Brahmas.
Speaker 2: He's a gentlewoman ranch.
Speaker 3: Yes. She expanded and remodeled the main like Sandstone residents,
Speaker 3: added a guesthouse, some sheds, you gotta do that, a
Speaker 3: kennel for her great danes, oh goodness, and like you know,
Speaker 3: it was just all fitted out.
Speaker 2: So it's starting to come together.
Speaker 3: It's making sense now, Alfred. He was not permitted to
Speaker 3: enter the United States. So the marriage largely unfolded apart,
Speaker 3: and they divorced in nineteen fifty seven.
Speaker 2: I'm sure.
Speaker 3: Vera lived at the ranch until like nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 3: But here, let's back up a second. Wait, why couldn't
Speaker 3: Alfred Croup enter the country.
Speaker 2: German steel magnet in nineteen four?
Speaker 3: Let me tell you about, oh Alfreed. He was born
Speaker 3: in Essen in nineteen oh seven, and as you can
Speaker 3: guess from his last name, he was a member of
Speaker 3: the Krup family.
Speaker 2: Oh tell me more, big rich family.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a four hundred year old German dynasty. They
Speaker 3: are involved in steel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and weapon the type of magnet that I'm not
Speaker 2: a fan.
Speaker 3: Of, correct magnates.
Speaker 2: Yes, right.
Speaker 3: It all started in fifteen eighty seven with these men. Wow, yeah,
Speaker 3: aren't Croup? He moved to Essen, he joined them.
Speaker 2: Being rich for centuries, we're good at it.
Speaker 3: He joined the merchants Guild, and then like slowly but truly,
Speaker 3: he amassed money and eventually he was able to buy
Speaker 3: and sell real estate, and then before long he's like
Speaker 3: one of the richest guys in the city. So, like
Speaker 3: his children and grandchildren on down the line, they got
Speaker 3: into the business of.
Speaker 2: Small guns, small guns, a little ones, yeah.
Speaker 3: And those like those used in the Thirty Years War.
Speaker 2: So that was really the good time to be selling
Speaker 2: guns the what we like to call the European war centries.
Speaker 3: Yes exactly, they had mills, mines, forges during the Napoleonic Wars.
Speaker 3: They did bang up business and they attended.
Speaker 2: Being a weapons steeler, m Steeler.
Speaker 3: Their patriarch at that time, Patrick Croup, he started smelted
Speaker 3: steel production in eighteen sixteen and that was a game changer.
Speaker 3: So now the company's like this major industrial player and
Speaker 3: then pretty soon they would have what can only be
Speaker 3: described as like a steel empire and the family they
Speaker 3: went into large scale arms manufacturing for the Kingdom of
Speaker 3: Prussia in eighteen fifty nine. Germany, yeah, later the German
Speaker 3: Empire World War One. They're the ones who made big Bertha.
Speaker 2: Really yeah, that's the something to do with making the Bismarck.
Speaker 2: I mean, why not, why not steel?
Speaker 3: I'll say so we're going to fast forward to Alfried.
Speaker 3: His godfather was Kaiser Wilhelm the second what Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: he was like a keen yachtsman.
Speaker 2: In fact he was.
Speaker 3: He won an Olympic bronze as part of Germany's eight
Speaker 3: meter crew in the nineteen thirty six Berlin Games.
Speaker 2: A big game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and by the time of the family business, the
Speaker 3: operation was massive. So in nineteen forty three his name
Speaker 3: was Alfried Krup van Bohlen und Halbach. He followed his
Speaker 3: father Gustav as chairman of the board of directors of
Speaker 3: what was then called fried Krup ag Friedrich. In order
Speaker 3: for this to happen, this guy, Adolf Hitler, he issued
Speaker 3: something called.
Speaker 2: Lex Kroup in politics, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was a special decree that converted the company
Speaker 3: from a stock corporation into a family enterprise, so that
Speaker 3: the business and the Krupp name would pass to a
Speaker 3: single heir, Alfried. So he ditched all the other parts
Speaker 3: of his name and then he just had Krupp, Krup,
Speaker 3: Krupp c k r Upp.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Crupp. That's how I always I don't.
Speaker 3: Know, okay, So I should mention that at this point
Speaker 3: Fried Krupp was one of the biggest suppliers of armaments
Speaker 3: to Nazi Germany.
Speaker 2: Yeah, surprise, the arms dealer that was it. It's like,
Speaker 2: what do you do?
Speaker 3: I make Nazi weapons under Nazi rule? They profited from
Speaker 3: armaments like exploitation and occupied territories, extensive use of forced labor.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the names.
Speaker 3: And in fact, after the war, the US Military Tribunal
Speaker 3: at Nuremberg conducted the separate crub case US versus.
Speaker 2: Krupp at all probably had a lot to talk about tons.
Speaker 3: It was the thick notebook, big files. In July of
Speaker 3: nineteen forty eight, Alfred was convicted on counts including crimes
Speaker 3: against humanity. That's a big one, use of slave labor, plunder.
Speaker 3: What are you in for? Plunder?
Speaker 2: Charged with it wasn't a pirate, it wasn't a Viking.
Speaker 3: So he gets twelve years, has to forfeit his property.
Speaker 3: Nineteen fifty one US High Commissioner John J. McCloy granted
Speaker 3: and and see what yeah, And then he was released
Speaker 3: from Landsburg Prison. A year later he marries Vera.
Speaker 2: So he still had plenty on once he got out.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. In nineteen fifty three, there was this agreement
Speaker 3: where his confiscated assets were returned subject to Allied conditions.
Speaker 3: And that meant notably that the separation of the sale
Speaker 3: and certain mining and steel holdings.
Speaker 2: So they wanted him to like sell their to sell
Speaker 2: the mines off and then he can keep the rest
Speaker 2: of her own kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, so give
Speaker 2: us the natural resources, We'll let you keep your binary.
Speaker 3: Nineteen fifty three, he becomes head of Krepp again.
Speaker 2: It's like.
Speaker 3: It says, if nothing happened, I mentioned that. You know,
Speaker 3: obviously he's not permitted in the US because and that
Speaker 3: was because of his war crimes conviction, that little thing.
Speaker 3: But there's Verra right live in her best life in Vegas.
Speaker 3: Nineteen fifty five, the year before she divorced her Nazi husband,
Speaker 3: she bought the ranch. She's like, I love the States.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry you can't join me, but I don't want.
Speaker 2: To here Southwest. The climate is perfect.
Speaker 3: The light is incredible, I can breathe. And so she
Speaker 3: she bought the bar Nothing ranch from Chester luc who
Speaker 3: played Lum of the Lum and Abner radio team. And
Speaker 3: so the ranch was like at the foot of the
Speaker 3: east side of Mount Charleston, which is like twenty miles
Speaker 3: from the peak where observers sat to witness atomic tests
Speaker 3: at the Nevada test site. Okay, and so it also
Speaker 3: looked directly over the Las Vegas Strip, and she renamed
Speaker 3: it Spring Mountain Ranch, which is now a district in
Speaker 3: Vegas Spring Mountain. So she paid three hundred and thirty
Speaker 3: two thousand dollars for the ranch, yeah, which today is
Speaker 3: like four million. Oh ok, and it's so it's got
Speaker 3: this like swanky ranch house. It has more than eleven
Speaker 3: hundred acres of land, plus grazing rights on a quarter
Speaker 3: of a million acres owned by the federal government. So
Speaker 3: she had like the Clive and Bundy without.
Speaker 2: The without the shoots.
Speaker 3: You. So, a bunch of movies had been filmed at
Speaker 3: this place over the years.
Speaker 2: I was wondering.
Speaker 3: It was quite the spot and it was isolated to
Speaker 3: be sure, but like, yeah, Ford loved it. I'm sure
Speaker 3: of it. Probably. So around this time she'd also been
Speaker 3: involved with the development of a place called a New
Speaker 3: Frontier Hotel in Vegas. So she and a swimming pool
Speaker 3: contractor out of Los Angeles named Louis Mansion m A
Speaker 3: N H O N Mansion swimming pool contract So I
Speaker 3: had to put it in there. It was like cruise
Speaker 3: ship magician swimming pool contractor. They're trying to get a
Speaker 3: casino off the ground, and the effort it only lasted
Speaker 3: a few months before they had to give it up
Speaker 3: and sell it off to another group of stockholders. But
Speaker 3: those few months totally they racked up tons of lawsuits
Speaker 3: about like broken contracts, money owed, unpaid taxes. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: and like reading between the lines in all of the
Speaker 3: contemporaneous reporting, it sounds like me maybe Louis was her boyfriend,
Speaker 3: and then he kind of convinced her to go into
Speaker 3: this business venture that wasn't a casino. Yeah, you got money,
Speaker 3: I love I could design. Yeah, and it's not really
Speaker 3: thought out very well. I think someone else reading between
Speaker 3: the lines like that was missus Manson. Yeah, hold that
Speaker 3: thought so vera. She divorced the Nazi in nineteen fifty six, Yeah,
Speaker 3: finalized the next year. She'd originally asked for five million
Speaker 3: in the divorce settlement. That's like asking for sixty million today.
Speaker 2: It's more than I've ever asked for. So I don't
Speaker 2: even know.
Speaker 3: Well, I asked for it every day nothing happens. But
Speaker 3: then I guess the Nazi was really like fighting her
Speaker 3: on it. So she gave up the quest for five mil.
Speaker 3: But she still got a ton, So I don't know.
Speaker 3: She got some huge chunk of change. I'm not sure
Speaker 3: how much but as soon as she filed for divorce,
Speaker 3: Missus Mansion filed suit against Verra, claiming what the papers
Speaker 3: were calling, quote love theft, alienation of affection, but all
Speaker 3: the papers called it love theft. Yeah, so the missus
Speaker 3: she wanted three hundred thousand dollars for her troubles after
Speaker 3: she said Vera used her like German siren songs to
Speaker 3: lure Louisa. I don't know what became of that suit
Speaker 3: because it's just like all over the papers that she
Speaker 3: filed it. It was going to go to court. Nothing
Speaker 3: after that, probably, and I wish the misses well.
Speaker 2: That didn't make the papers.
Speaker 3: No, But so there's Vera back at the ranch. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: back at the ranch, it is a cool place, huge
Speaker 3: ranch house like rustic but still posh.
Speaker 2: You know, I'll take it.
Speaker 3: Let's go there, Zarin, close your eyes. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 3: want you to picture it. You are Harold Brotherson and
Speaker 3: you are a ranch hand at Spring Mountain Ranch. It's
Speaker 3: great work, all of the cowboys stuff without too much
Speaker 3: of the grit or discomfort. You want for nothing at
Speaker 3: this place. You have all the best equipment, You've got
Speaker 3: your own little cottage on the property. You are treated well.
Speaker 3: Best gig a guy could ask for. It's April tenth,
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty nine. You and the owner of the ranch,
Speaker 3: Vera Krupp, are just finishing up dinner. You're looking forward
Speaker 3: to retiring to your cottage to read and rest. Vera's
Speaker 3: a character and a great boss. As the housekeeper places
Speaker 3: the dishes in the sink and then excuses herself to
Speaker 3: go lie down, you look over at Vera and take
Speaker 3: stock of her. She's a handsome, good looking woman, always
Speaker 3: put together, has that funny accent, and always wears that
Speaker 3: giant diamond ring of hers, never takes it off. You're
Speaker 3: about to get up from the table and head out
Speaker 3: to your cottage when you hear tires crunching on the
Speaker 3: gravel drive outside. You see headlights brightened the windows in
Speaker 3: the living room. Then there's a knock at the back door.
Speaker 2: Vera jumps up.
Speaker 3: And walks across the kitchen to the door. She calls
Speaker 3: out through the sidelights. Who is it. A man's voice
Speaker 3: says he's a road contract. He wants to ask her
Speaker 3: about paving the driveway you've just been talking about this
Speaker 3: last week. Humph. Vera shrugs and unlocks the door, opening
Speaker 3: it up to the cool spring night. The man doesn't
Speaker 3: wait on the stoop to chat. He takes a large
Speaker 3: step into the house with two men right behind him.
Speaker 3: You're standing by the table when they draw their guns
Speaker 3: and shove Vera onto the kitchen floor. One heads your
Speaker 3: way and grabs you by the arm, throwing you to
Speaker 3: the ground as well. You don't fight or argue. The
Speaker 3: guy has a gun and all you have is your
Speaker 3: full belly. Your shotgun is in your cottage. One of
Speaker 3: the henchmen grabs a lamp from the side table nearby
Speaker 3: and yanks it from the wall. He then rips the
Speaker 3: cord from the lamp. His colleague grabs your arms and
Speaker 3: pulls them behind you, handcuffing your wrists. The first man
Speaker 3: has a firm grip on Vera's arm. She's trying to
Speaker 3: negotiate with him, tells him he doesn't have to do
Speaker 3: this in silence. The man looks at Vera's hand and
Speaker 3: sees the giant diamond. Sorry, Vera, he says. Then he
Speaker 3: rips the ring from her finger, drawing blood along the way.
Speaker 3: Vera whimpers. The man shoves the ring in his pocket
Speaker 3: while his buddy winds the long lamp cord around you,
Speaker 3: both shoving you back to back seated on the floor.
Speaker 3: The third guy binds Vera's hands with rope. Each time
Speaker 3: you're about to say something, Vera elbows you to keep quiet.
Speaker 3: The three robbers now barrel through the house, opening cabinets,
Speaker 3: dumping out drawers. You turn your head and look down
Speaker 3: the hall and see them walking through the house with purpose,
Speaker 3: like they know where everything is. Just as they arrived,
Speaker 3: they're suddenly gone. You hear their truck roar to life
Speaker 3: and tear down the driveway. Vera is calm in a
Speaker 3: measured tone. She tells you that she's going to go
Speaker 3: and get you both free. You can feel her wriggling
Speaker 3: and working her wrists until the rope is loose and
Speaker 3: her hands aliberated. She quickly unties the lamp cord and
Speaker 3: jumps to her feet. She runs out the back door,
Speaker 3: and then silence. Moments later, you hear her running back.
Speaker 3: You turn to see that she's got a hack saw
Speaker 3: in her hand. Hold still, she tells you, and then
Speaker 3: she begins to quickly saw at the small chain of
Speaker 3: your handcuffs. It takes a while, but Vera is determined
Speaker 3: and soon you are free. You jump up and race
Speaker 3: to the phone. It's battery powered. You can't get a
Speaker 3: regular phone this far out of town. You lift the receiver. Nothing,
Speaker 3: battery is dead. Let's go, Vera says, grabbing her keys
Speaker 3: from a dish on a beautifully varnished piece of antique furniture.
Speaker 3: If we can't get the cops to come to us,
Speaker 3: vi'a go to the cops and with that, we'll take
Speaker 3: a break. When we return the aftermath, we are back.
Speaker 3: Look at me. I'm back baby. When we left off,
Speaker 3: free dudes busted into Spring Mountain Ranch tied to Vera
Speaker 3: and her ranch hand. They took cash, a revolver, a camera,
Speaker 3: and the Krupp Diamond right offer for finger.
Speaker 2: Good for them.
Speaker 3: It was so tight that apparently she was like, let
Speaker 3: me spit on it and it'll be easier to get off,
Speaker 3: and they're like, no, no, no, time yanked it off.
Speaker 3: It ripped her finger.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I know so.
Speaker 3: About the cash, the FBI website cites the figure at
Speaker 3: seven hundred thousand dollars in cash just sitting around. That's
Speaker 3: a lot of cash, especially at nineteen fifty nine. But
Speaker 3: the newspaper reports immediately following the theft, in like tons
Speaker 3: of papers, not all just one, you know, a wire
Speaker 3: story all said seven hundred, which is way more reasonable.
Speaker 2: Yes, definitely.
Speaker 3: What I'm trying to say is that I am terribly
Speaker 3: disappointed with the proofreading and or fact checking on the
Speaker 3: FBI website. They're falling down on the job. Over there is.
Speaker 2: A recent edition probably.
Speaker 3: So Vera and Howard Brotherson. You they escaped, and he's
Speaker 3: so good, he's the best ranch handerness. They drove down
Speaker 3: the hill to the Las Vegas Airport and the sheriff
Speaker 3: issued in all points bulletin as signed four deputies to
Speaker 3: the case. It was like pretty obvious to most that
Speaker 3: the men and the loot and the diamond long gone
Speaker 3: across state lines. By this point, was.
Speaker 2: Wondering what the escape plan would It had.
Speaker 3: Been hours since the home invasion, and it's like they figured,
Speaker 3: like state lines have been crossed, we better call the FBI.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, and Vera's wealth and that ring they
Speaker 3: weren't secrets by any stretch of the imagination. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: and people who lived in like Spring Valley area, they'd
Speaker 3: seen her wearing it all over the place. She woren't
Speaker 3: to the grocery store along with her standard outfit of
Speaker 3: blue jeans and a sombrero. Really, this huge diamond, I
Speaker 3: mean it's huge. Sure, I'm imagining like basically see thirty
Speaker 3: carrot diamond, blue jeans and a sombrero to go to
Speaker 3: the market.
Speaker 2: It's a little high low mix in this epic and
Speaker 2: I love it. I'm having fun picturing the sombre. I'm
Speaker 2: picturing it like a nineteen seventies Mexican restaurant style sombrero. Large.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. Mine's felts, not like woven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, mine looks like it could hold chips for like
Speaker 2: a good party.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, totally, it's that ridiculous, ridiculous. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: like mine's like a maroon colored felt with straw. But
Speaker 3: I like your yeah, yeah, Well you know what she
Speaker 3: can share. Well, she may have had more than one sombrero,
Speaker 3: woman had money, or it's just smelly sombrerope had party again,
Speaker 3: here comes smelly Verra. Like you know, she's got this
Speaker 3: huge ring. But good wash your hair? All right, where
Speaker 3: were we epic sombrero? Okay, Anyway, while it seemed like
Speaker 3: maybe the robbers like had been in the house before. Okay,
Speaker 3: the truth is that a lot of people had and
Speaker 3: word had spread, you know well as to like what
Speaker 3: was in the house how Verra lived.
Speaker 2: A lot of candidates are an inside job.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the FBI at this point huge, huge, So
Speaker 3: it's just like irrelevant. The FBI is like positive, it's
Speaker 3: gone over state lines. And so they started calling all
Speaker 3: the field offices in the region and they get an
Speaker 3: alert that there was a similar crime out of bel Air, California. Oh,
Speaker 3: that makes very similar, Samemo. And the guy on the
Speaker 3: run and wanted for that score was John William Hagenson.
Speaker 3: And so the FBI they show via a group of photos.
Speaker 3: This wasn't just a six pack, as they said telestat,
Speaker 3: it was a sixty six pack, sixty six pictures of
Speaker 3: possible Oh, it was all tasteful, like all of his
Speaker 3: headshots for his career. They're sixty six different dudes. So like,
Speaker 3: these are all the possible suspects. So she's flipping through,
Speaker 3: flipping through, she picks out two of them and said
Speaker 3: that this looks like two of the robbers. One of
Speaker 3: the guys that she picked out had been in jail
Speaker 3: in LA at the time. So they're like, no, honey,
Speaker 3: that wasn't him. Try again, and she's like, maybe is
Speaker 3: this your card? She holds it up. It's John William Hagenson, like.
Speaker 2: Magic exactly.
Speaker 3: So his wife. Hagenson's wife had been working as a
Speaker 3: cocktail waitress in Vegas up until remember this was April tenth,
Speaker 3: was the robbery on April thirteenth, She just like quit
Speaker 3: and left.
Speaker 2: I got a new opportunity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so they're like, huh, that's curious, FBI. They
Speaker 3: start tracking Hagenson across the country. He went from Vegas
Speaker 3: to Ogden to Gallop to Roswell to Fort Worth to Miami,
Speaker 3: and then then he doubled back and he zig zagged
Speaker 3: all over. He went to Bowser City, Louisiana, Hot Springs, Arkansas,
Speaker 3: h Mobile, Birmingham, Perry, Florida, Saint Louis He went to
Speaker 3: Chicago twice, Newark, New Jersey.
Speaker 2: Everywhere he went minor league, like golf.
Speaker 3: Well he's doing that. I've been everywhere cash stock exactly.
Speaker 3: So everywhere he goes, the FBI is like on his tail.
Speaker 3: Field offices are working overtime to like keep on track
Speaker 3: and try to get one step ahead because they just
Speaker 3: find oh, he just left.
Speaker 2: You just missed him.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the Chicago there.
Speaker 2: Was the reports of him.
Speaker 3: You know, the FBI, they got a big.
Speaker 2: They got people everywhere. This is like, this is still
Speaker 2: Jagger Hoover's Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So this agent out of the Chicago office, he
Speaker 3: met a guy who said that Hagenson had been trying
Speaker 3: to fence some furs taken from that Bell Air robbery.
Speaker 3: And then back in Vegas, the dragnet pulled another suspect,
Speaker 3: Marion Carter Bowman. Dude. Supposedly he'd been flat broke, but
Speaker 3: like then he starts telling his pals there's this big
Speaker 3: deal that he's involved in. And then after April tenth,
Speaker 3: he's got tons of money.
Speaker 2: And more work and yeah, got a lot of time
Speaker 2: to play cards.
Speaker 3: And they got a tip that there were some people
Speaker 3: staying at the lan Western Hills Motel in Boser City,
Speaker 3: Louisiana who were quote acting strange. I don't know what
Speaker 3: that means.
Speaker 2: I wish I did. I've heard it about myself. I
Speaker 2: just don't know what it means.
Speaker 3: At the motel local officers. I would imagine at this place,
Speaker 3: the Lassan's Western Hills Motel, there's a lot of strange activities.
Speaker 3: So what stands out stand out in that? How do
Speaker 3: you be molto strange? Okay? So the local officers they
Speaker 3: show up, Hagens and his wife are there. They arrest
Speaker 3: him there in one room. Mary and Carter Bowman, William
Speaker 3: Snead Davy, and then Davy's wife they're in another room.
Speaker 3: They get busted. They find in Missus Davies's purse, the
Speaker 3: camera VIA's camera. All three guys claimed that they knew
Speaker 3: nothing about this crrup Ruby who I'm sorry, they where
Speaker 3: never heard of it? Las Vegas? What is this?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: No? So okay, So the FBI they find out that
Speaker 3: there's this man named Don s Evans. He just left
Speaker 3: the motel like right before the cops got there, and
Speaker 3: apparently he was the guy with the mink from the
Speaker 3: bell air job and so Bowman maryon Bowman. He was
Speaker 3: a self described golf pro.
Speaker 2: I see I caught it with the minor league golf.
Speaker 2: It totally sounds like the golf pro.
Speaker 3: But he also had a criminal record and a conviction
Speaker 3: that he did four months for theft. So that Don
Speaker 3: Evans guy that took off with the mink, he turned
Speaker 3: out to actually be James George Reeves. He's a thirty
Speaker 3: year old underworld figure with an extensive record of arrests
Speaker 3: in the South and the Midwest. So I love that.
Speaker 3: So a complaint I was like, how do I describe
Speaker 3: this man an underworld? So a complained had been filed
Speaker 3: against Hagenson on April twenty first, charging in with quote
Speaker 3: interstate flight to avoid prosecution for the LA the bell
Speaker 3: Air robbery, the others. They got released because there wasn't
Speaker 3: enough evidence.
Speaker 2: I could see that.
Speaker 3: But meanwhile, the FBI is like not giving up. Let's
Speaker 3: keep working this case. Let's focus on the East Coast.
Speaker 3: An agent in Newark, New Jersey learned that a large
Speaker 3: unmounted diamond reportedly stolen in Nevada had shown up in
Speaker 3: that city and it was being shown around to prospective
Speaker 3: buyers by Julius Berger. And when Burger was picked up,
Speaker 3: he said that the ring was being held by James
Speaker 3: George Reeves, who was driving a new Ford and staying
Speaker 3: with his wife at an Elizabeth, New Jersey motel. Now
Speaker 3: the name rang a bell for the agents because in
Speaker 3: Boser City, Don Evans had been identified as James Reeves,
Speaker 3: and that was they did it through like the car
Speaker 3: license listed on the motel's records, so Burger he gets
Speaker 3: charged with receiving stolen goods. The agents went to the motel,
Speaker 3: they found mister and missus Reeves. The couple both denied everything.
Speaker 3: I don't know nothing about nothing, But then they searched
Speaker 3: them and the diamond was found in the bottom left
Speaker 3: line of Reeve's jacket.
Speaker 2: She's seen his jacket just as.
Speaker 3: Jacket in the lining. He's like, if they look in
Speaker 3: the pockets, they'll never find it.
Speaker 2: And I mean I get with the like the a
Speaker 2: lot of like smugglers, Like you know, Pablo Escobar's mother
Speaker 2: made him a coat with the lining where you could
Speaker 2: like put in the cocaine. Like it's very common back then,
Speaker 2: it's in particular, but with something like that, it could
Speaker 2: cut through that fabric. It's like, why would you unless
Speaker 2: maybe it's reinforced. I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking it,
Speaker 2: but still I would think that they give it to
Speaker 2: the wife. I guess you didn't maybe trust her entirely,
Speaker 2: who knows.
Speaker 3: May twenty six, Reeves signs a statement where he admits
Speaker 3: his part in the robbery and he implicates the other
Speaker 3: suspects as well as this guy from Texas named Edward Hay.
Speaker 2: He turns still Rose.
Speaker 3: In another one. Here's the guy you haven't heard of yet,
Speaker 3: Eddie Hey.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, for get the fifth one.
Speaker 3: Free Julius Berger. He gave the FBI a seven page
Speaker 3: signed statement admitting his involvement.
Speaker 2: He had a lawyer.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah. Hagenson was sent back to LA to
Speaker 3: stand trial for the bell Aer robbery. When everyone else
Speaker 3: got released in Bowser City, they just ran for it.
Speaker 3: But the FBI is watching. With Reeve's statement, now they
Speaker 3: could charge all of them for transporting stolen property. In Hey,
Speaker 3: he gets picked up in Texas City May second. Davy
Speaker 3: and Bowman, they're located in Mexico and they're taken into
Speaker 3: custody by FBI agents when they re enter the US
Speaker 3: through Laredo.
Speaker 2: Oh okay.
Speaker 3: Almost immediately things got more complicated. Hagenson was released June
Speaker 3: first on a fifty thousand dollars bond, and like, so
Speaker 3: twenty five grand of that was the bell Ayer charge
Speaker 3: and twenty five was the federal catcha. He left La,
Speaker 3: went to Vegas as soon as he's on bail. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and then he like eats a bunch of sleeping pills
Speaker 3: winds up in the hospital. They're like, dude, come on,
Speaker 3: bail bondsman has to leave La. Go pick him up
Speaker 3: in Vegas, bring them back to La. Bond is revoked.
Speaker 3: They're like, we can't trust you. You get checked into
Speaker 3: the hospital. Federal grand jury in Las Vegas indicted Burger, who,
Speaker 3: by the way, was like owned a grocery store.
Speaker 2: So wondering about him, I figured he was up front
Speaker 2: and of fence, but I thought maybe he was closer
Speaker 2: to something other than groceries. He was selling something legit
Speaker 2: or something just.
Speaker 3: Like you could have shoved the diamond in like a
Speaker 3: cabin at. Yeah. So the federal grand jury in Vegas
Speaker 3: indicts Burger, Bowman, Davy, Hagenson, Hay and Reeves for conspiracy
Speaker 3: to transport stolen property interstate. Everyone except for Burger gets
Speaker 3: charged with interstate transportation of stolen property because he was
Speaker 3: out on the East Coast the whole time. On the
Speaker 3: first morning of the trial, things are already going badly
Speaker 3: for the defense, like.
Speaker 2: Burger, and they have very loose ties. I imagine, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Burger, he's the one who tried to sell the diamond
Speaker 3: in Newark. Yeah, he suddenly changes his plead guilty and
Speaker 3: flips on everybody.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of like a game theory who cheats first?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And on the third day, Reeves and Davy
Speaker 3: also changed their pleas to guilt, and then they get
Speaker 3: their conspiracy charges dropped. So Friday, November thirteen, confirm, so
Speaker 3: they have all that statement but they still have yeah,
Speaker 3: so they're finally like okay, fine, Hey Hagenson Bowman. They
Speaker 3: get found guilty on both conspiracy and transportation. A week later, Reeves, Davy,
Speaker 3: and Burger come up for sentencing on their guilty Please.
Speaker 3: Reeves gets sentenced to eight years in prison, but that's
Speaker 3: only after he had done He gets that once he
Speaker 3: has finished his pre existing two ten year sentences for
Speaker 3: burglary in Arkansas outstanding. Oh, Davy got five years, and
Speaker 3: then Burger got three years probation. Because it's always pays
Speaker 3: to be the first to sing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. December like this like the normal straight world of like.
Speaker 3: Exactly, let's see December eleventh, Hey, Hagenson Bowman. They get
Speaker 3: sentenced to five years for violation of the conspiracy statute,
Speaker 3: ten years on the transportation count, and it's going to
Speaker 3: run concurrently, so fifteen Hagenson's term would start after he'd
Speaker 3: served his California sentence of five years to life. Five
Speaker 3: to life what is that on the burglary charge. Here's
Speaker 3: a little wrinkle for you.
Speaker 2: I love wrinkles me too.
Speaker 3: The day before Hey, Hagenson and Bowman were sentence, the
Speaker 3: district court clerk, who had recorded the trial transcript in
Speaker 3: shorthand died in a car accident.
Speaker 2: The district court clerk okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so like you know, the distenographer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: So the court officials they ordered the notes to be
Speaker 3: transcribed by another stenographer. But then the lawyers for Hey,
Speaker 3: Hagenson and Bowman said, no, this new transcript is not satisfactory.
Speaker 3: We want a new trial.
Speaker 2: They can't read her handwrite.
Speaker 3: I don't know. They filed a motion for a new trial.
Speaker 3: So it wound up being moot for Hay because he
Speaker 3: passed away while free on bond. But Hagenson and Bowman
Speaker 3: June twentieth, nineteen sixty three, the motion for an a
Speaker 3: new trial was granted and they went on trial for
Speaker 3: the second time October first, nineteen sixty three. Hagenson the
Speaker 3: alleged idea man, right, he beat the rap. How I
Speaker 3: don't know. But then they sent him back to San
Speaker 3: Quentin to finish off the California sentence. Bowman, who was
Speaker 3: the guy who said he was the paving cottrector he
Speaker 3: knocked on the door. Yeah, that fateful night, that was him.
Speaker 3: He gets convicted and he draws a five year term,
Speaker 3: ten thousand dollars fine for conspiracy and then ten years
Speaker 3: for transporting stolen property. Yeah, so what of the diamond?
Speaker 2: Yeah, what happened to that?
Speaker 3: Well, with all three diamonds recovered, So the center stone
Speaker 3: was recovered, the side baguettes were recovered. Vera rebuilt the ring,
Speaker 3: Harry Winston reset it in platinum this time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So she later donated a glass replica of the diamond
Speaker 3: to the FBI in recognition of the case. Like you
Speaker 3: get some FBI loves this story. They have a big
Speaker 3: thing on their website. Oh yeah, they're all jazzed about it.
Speaker 2: We got a rock too.
Speaker 3: It makes them feel electric in their bodies. So Richard Burton,
Speaker 3: he eventually bought the diamonds and it was renamed and
Speaker 3: widely publicized as Elizabeth Taylor died. Right Taylor, She wore
Speaker 3: it all the time on screen, off screen like you
Speaker 3: can see it in some movies. She was like Vera, like,
Speaker 3: I'm not taking this thing off because it's amazing.
Speaker 2: Do you have soap and so?
Speaker 3: Then what happened to Vera? Although I heard if you
Speaker 3: if a ring gets stuck windex.
Speaker 2: Okay, what do you call it? Like floss? You wrap
Speaker 2: it around?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know that's good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, next time I want to rip a ring off
Speaker 3: some ladies and I'll put I'll put the windecks in
Speaker 3: like a holster, ready to go, and I'm armed, ready
Speaker 3: to go. So Vera kept remodeling the ranch. She added
Speaker 3: a secret passage bedroom. It looks like a bookcase. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you pull it open and you can run.
Speaker 2: She wanted to be dark.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she wanted escape routes in the house. After that
Speaker 3: horrible night. She lived at the ranch until sixty four.
Speaker 3: Then she moved to bell Air because of her poor health.
Speaker 3: In nineteen sixty seven, she sold the ranch to Howard Hughes,
Speaker 3: Sir exactly, friend of the show, six hundred and twenty
Speaker 3: five thousand dollars. He never lived there himself.
Speaker 2: He just wanted to have it.
Speaker 3: It was just part of his Vegas real estate portfolio.
Speaker 3: He sold it for one point five million to his
Speaker 3: business partners, Fletcher Jones and William Murphy in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 3: And Jones and Murphy they wanted to build this like
Speaker 3: huge equestrian oriented housing development there for like two thousand people,
Speaker 3: and the public was like, no, absolutely not, stop it.
Speaker 3: And they hit him with a paper.
Speaker 2: Why were they so against me?
Speaker 3: Because they're like, this is ridiculous. It's so beautiful in
Speaker 3: pristine and you want to put a development out there.
Speaker 2: Don't break up the ranch.
Speaker 3: So Jones was like fine, and they the public like
Speaker 3: puts so much pressure on the county that they're like,
Speaker 3: I don't think we're going to let you rezone it.
Speaker 2: This is our Yellowstone. Jones was like, Whateverton Ranch can't
Speaker 2: be broken up.
Speaker 3: So then he's like, fine, we'll just auction it off.
Speaker 3: This is too much trouble.
Speaker 2: Guys are a hassle. We're making our profit. We're out
Speaker 2: of here.
Speaker 3: The Bureau of Land Management and the Nevada State Parks
Speaker 3: they came up with this plan for the place, bought it.
Speaker 3: Spring Mountain Ranch became a state park in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 3: You can go there today, look in the house, see
Speaker 3: the secret passageway. Oh yeah, and they are all sorts
Speaker 3: of cool hiking trails.
Speaker 2: Grab the keys, come on, let's go.
Speaker 3: Oh vera. She passed away in nineteen sixty seven at
Speaker 3: the age of just forty eight, from complications from diabetes.
Speaker 2: That seemed said I didn't think I expected her to
Speaker 2: die in the eighties at the earliest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she died pretty young. You know, they didn't have
Speaker 3: I'm assuming she had type one diabetes, and they didn't
Speaker 3: really have good ways to treat those things.
Speaker 2: Maybe she didn't catch it early enough. She did, like
Speaker 2: like cellular damage.
Speaker 3: Really like that. When she moved to Bellair, and she
Speaker 3: was like, really went to Cedars SIINAI all the time.
Speaker 3: It's pastway.
Speaker 2: Some pizza's there all the time to really wealthy people.
Speaker 3: Was it in nineteen sixty seven, Were you bringing her pizza?
Speaker 2: No, but I did go. I'd have to get to
Speaker 2: go to the room cases and you get like a
Speaker 2: special dispensation because you're like a delivery person, and they're like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I don't want to deal with this. I'm busy, I'm
Speaker 2: a nurse, I'm an orderly Like I could go up
Speaker 2: to this room and and uh, that's a crazy hospital
Speaker 2: because I'm like some many people have private it. Look
Speaker 2: you walk in it looks like an apartment, looks like
Speaker 2: they have like they've decorated it.
Speaker 3: Did you go in with a pizza and then if
Speaker 3: they're asleep, you pulled the ivy out and just sucked
Speaker 3: out like a caprice son?
Speaker 2: So'ere like this is why they choose on my face.
Speaker 3: Like I can't move my arms, put it on my face.
Speaker 2: I just want to feel the warmth.
Speaker 3: What's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 2: By the way, oh man, this like I'm really curious
Speaker 2: about Richard Burton and his need for all the joy.
Speaker 2: That's a side note, But I love that Elizabeth Taylor
Speaker 2: is like yes to life and also diamonds. That is
Speaker 2: part of my yes to life, Like she lives so
Speaker 2: fully on a apologetically about like I like diamonds what
Speaker 2: and I don't care who they belong to if they
Speaker 2: are part of some violent crime that everyone's like kind
Speaker 2: of been horrified by. They make me happy.
Speaker 3: She lived a luxurious life.
Speaker 2: What's your ridiculous take away? A littab bit.
Speaker 3: My ridiculous takeaway is, uh, you know, I'm curious. I
Speaker 3: wanted I looked up more about this battery operated phone.
Speaker 3: It's weird to me.
Speaker 2: Well, it was basically like an early cell phone, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess sounds like you know the ones
Speaker 2: that used to have, like in the you see in
Speaker 2: the movies. And it doesn't matter once you get a
Speaker 2: certain level of technology, it's it's all pretty much the
Speaker 2: same as it was. Getting the power size down in
Speaker 2: the range and the receiver.
Speaker 3: That must have been horrible you pick it up.
Speaker 2: Oh so it's basically like a walk early walkie talking
Speaker 2: in a sense. But you're working on.
Speaker 3: A break breaker. Yeah, you know what we need right
Speaker 3: now as to talk back.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I.
Speaker 5: Love Hi, Elizabeth and Zarin. My name is Tom, and
Speaker 5: I just want to say I was so excited to
Speaker 5: hear that you guys are doing an episode on All
Speaker 5: the I'm like a huge fan of that place and
Speaker 5: always tell people to go there because it saves me
Speaker 5: so much on groceries. But as I was listening to
Speaker 5: your episode, I was preparing dinner and realized that all
Speaker 5: the chicken I bought from Aldi is woody and disgusting
Speaker 5: and pretty much not usable. So be cautious out there.
Speaker 5: Thanks guys, love your show.
Speaker 3: That's a good heads up, happened to you costco. That's
Speaker 3: a public service announcement, right, that's good stuff.
Speaker 2: Mind your chickens and that's all we have.
Speaker 3: Yes, you can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com.
Speaker 3: I have an announcement to make. We have received no
Speaker 3: awards this week.
Speaker 2: No nominations.
Speaker 3: We are unloved. We're also a ridiculous Crime on both
Speaker 3: Blue Sky and Instagram. We're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime Pod,
Speaker 3: and you can email Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3: Most importantly, leave a talkback on the free iHeart app
Speaker 3: reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and
Speaker 3: Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Elizabeth Taylor's secret forty
Speaker 3: third husband Dave Cousten, starring Annalys Rutger Is Judith. Research
Speaker 3: is by grocery store Diamond Fence Marissa Brown. The theme
Speaker 3: song is by Sleep Deprived FBI agents Thomas Lee and
Speaker 3: Travis Dutton. Host wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred.
Speaker 3: Guest Haron, makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers
Speaker 3: are Semi pro ranch Hands Ben Bollen and Noel Brown.
Speaker 3: Ridicous Crime say it one More Timequious.
Speaker 1: Crime, Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio or more podcasts.
Speaker 1: To my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.