Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Look Out.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I was just napping snuck in here.
Speaker 1: Sleeping on the beach. Listen, you know what's ridiculous? Oh
Speaker 1: please share?
Speaker 2: All right, all right, I'm just gonna tell just you.
Speaker 2: Last year at the well, you know the artist Pink.
Speaker 1: The performer, she flings herself around exactly.
Speaker 2: What the with the fabrics and stuff in the sky. Okay,
Speaker 2: so they had she had her summer carnival tour last year,
Speaker 2: very muscular. She was over there in the UK, right,
Speaker 2: they think they call it the Britain. She was at
Speaker 2: Hyde Park in London performing, right, and somebody's like, oh hey,
Speaker 2: you know, like our fans will throw like stuff on stage,
Speaker 2: Like if it's some people, they'll throw like a joint,
Speaker 2: or they'll throw like a bra or like no, no,
Speaker 2: like just fans in America, the fans in America, our fans,
Speaker 2: I would call them root dudes. But like the fans
Speaker 2: in America, when they like a music, she'll throw things
Speaker 2: like drugs or like underwear. Right. Well, in the UK,
Speaker 2: they threw a whole wheel of brie. And they just
Speaker 2: gave her a wheel of bri. Right, She's like, oh, thanks.
Speaker 2: I don't know what you do with this, but is
Speaker 2: this Belgium?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: What is this tradition? That wasn't the weirdest thing she got.
Speaker 2: Another fan was like, oh when I got something too
Speaker 2: right and they threw up a baggy and in the
Speaker 2: baggy was like a look like powder.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: She's like, what is this like heroin? I don't do
Speaker 2: that kind of drugs? Like, oh, no, that's that's uh.
Speaker 2: Turns out it was Ashes, Elizabeth no Ashes. Pink looked
Speaker 2: at the fan and she said, and I quote, is
Speaker 2: this your mom?
Speaker 1: Stop it?
Speaker 2: It was the fans cremated toss like, I don't know
Speaker 2: if that's like like her mom loved Pink. She loved
Speaker 2: Pink so much. She's like, here's my mom. I don't
Speaker 2: know how this goes. Pink had a moment where someone
Speaker 2: handed her first a wheel of bri and they're a
Speaker 2: bag of cremain and she had to perform I didn't
Speaker 2: even know the lives and stars leave.
Speaker 1: The stars are just like us.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Do you know what else is ridiculous? No, a hairdresser
Speaker 1: changing the way banks build their vaults. Yeah, wow, this
Speaker 1: is a ridiculous crime. A podcast about absurd and outrageous.
Speaker 1: Caper's ice and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder
Speaker 1: free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Arren, Nope.
Speaker 1: You ever cut your own hair?
Speaker 2: Yeah, all the time. Actually, most like the last I
Speaker 2: don't know ten years, I'm the one to cut my hair.
Speaker 2: I haven't been to a barber. I've been to a
Speaker 2: barber once since the turn of this century. Really interesting,
Speaker 2: I went to a barber, to a black barber in Oakland.
Speaker 2: I said, give me Muhammad Ali, Nope, give me the
Speaker 2: cash is clay, and and then he knew exactly what
Speaker 2: I meant, and I made that distinction. So I got
Speaker 2: this really cool, tight, like early sixties flat top, and
Speaker 2: that was nice. That was the last time I got
Speaker 2: a haircut. You were dreads back out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you were cutting off dreads when.
Speaker 2: I did that. That's the first time I cut dress.
Speaker 2: And then I grew them back out until now I
Speaker 2: cut the sides and so I'll use a you know
Speaker 2: whatever tremor to do side.
Speaker 1: Interesting. You know I used to cut my own hair.
Speaker 2: That seems a little more difficult than me doing well.
Speaker 1: I went to a salon once and the hairdresser was
Speaker 1: all cooked out and gave me like they always probably,
Speaker 1: but she gave me the world's worst haircut, really, like
Speaker 1: it was so short, and it was she kept trying
Speaker 1: to fix and balance things, and then suddenly I had
Speaker 1: short hair shorter, and and then I looked like a
Speaker 1: cub scout and.
Speaker 2: Then you look like a marine.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 1: It was terrible, and I stopped going to salon's for
Speaker 1: a long time after that. I just cut my hair
Speaker 1: at home, but like it helped that. I was trying
Speaker 1: to be all shaggy rocker kind of day, so I
Speaker 1: basically just did like bad Razor cuts on myself and
Speaker 1: dragged a pair of scissors through my hair, Oh, to
Speaker 1: make it shaggy. Sure, and then it like it was
Speaker 1: dyed all blue black and a ton of product in
Speaker 1: it cared. But then then after that, like I kind
Speaker 1: of got through that. But then I was too broke
Speaker 1: to go to a salon and I just maintained normal
Speaker 1: hair at home. Then I realized I'm a grown up
Speaker 1: and I needed to bite the bullet and get a
Speaker 1: decent hair gut.
Speaker 2: You have grown ass.
Speaker 1: So I've been going to hairdressers ever since, and they've
Speaker 1: all been great.
Speaker 2: What's that like? Has it stuff changed since the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: Has My current hairdresser, Hannah, She's amazing and I love her.
Speaker 1: Sometimes when she's cutting my hair, she has her little dog, Oscar,
Speaker 1: in a sling on her chest.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oscar has like no teeth and his tongue hangs out,
Speaker 1: but it makes the haircut look and feel so much better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's incredible. Most hairdressers are total artists, like Hannah is.
Speaker 2: The hairs are medium.
Speaker 1: It's a difficult medium in which to work, you know,
Speaker 1: unforgiving totally, and like most are, that's someone you gotta tip. Yeah,
Speaker 1: speaking on Tuesday about tipping, that's how you because something.
Speaker 1: But it's high stakes, something really important. Yeah, Like if
Speaker 1: they mess up, then you.
Speaker 2: Know had weeks, if not months, of looking.
Speaker 1: For years in my case. So like most artists, many hairdressers,
Speaker 1: they they're meticulous. They have a certain perspective, fine skills,
Speaker 1: and they apply them to other things. It's like drawing
Speaker 1: or handiworker crafts.
Speaker 2: Often artistic or crime.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they're criming. There are criming hairdressers, of course,
Speaker 1: why not. They exist.
Speaker 2: They're there artists.
Speaker 1: They're part of the crimer community too. Welcome in, and
Speaker 1: they're sometimes successful and there's sometimes not.
Speaker 2: Is it's like about that movie shampoo. That's always thing
Speaker 2: I know?
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Close. So there's actually a scam going
Speaker 1: around right now with hairdressers. Oh really, And here's how
Speaker 1: it happens. Someone posts somewhere like Facebook or something asking
Speaker 1: for a recommendation for a stylist, and then a person
Speaker 1: claiming to be a stylist will respond and say, I'd
Speaker 1: love to work with you, and like I can get
Speaker 1: you a discount at my salon and say that it's
Speaker 1: like this huge discount that they can get. But all
Speaker 1: the potential client has to do is just put down
Speaker 1: like forty to fifty maybe eighty five dollars to like
Speaker 1: as a deposit to hold their spot because the hairdresser
Speaker 1: is in such high demand. And like in a lot
Speaker 1: of places that's not unusual. Like when I go to
Speaker 1: get my haircut, they hold the credit card. Oh really, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then if I don't show, I get charged.
Speaker 2: Yeah, holding a credit card not being charged, that's one thing.
Speaker 2: But this like I've been paying a little juice to
Speaker 2: get a spot.
Speaker 1: And a lot of these scams they prey on people
Speaker 1: who are looking for braiders because it's so expensive and
Speaker 1: time can yeah, and it's if that is a crazy
Speaker 1: labor intensive art.
Speaker 2: And also that person's only going to be able to
Speaker 2: work so much on that Saturday, you know what I
Speaker 2: mean or whatever.
Speaker 1: And you have hours and hours and hours.
Speaker 2: They want to be scheduling tight.
Speaker 1: And because it's so expensive, if you find out you
Speaker 1: can get a discount, So like the phony braider will
Speaker 1: promise this great price for top notch work. They'll send
Speaker 1: pictures of their work and it's always just mind blowing.
Speaker 1: So the Mark gets sent a link to a scheduling
Speaker 1: web site in the book a time, and the site
Speaker 1: looks legit and the address is to a real salon
Speaker 1: on there like the physical address, and it's always a
Speaker 1: nice salon. So then the Mark has to send the
Speaker 1: deposit to the stylist, like through Venmo or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it seems because that's so common now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And then they show up at the appointment
Speaker 1: and the owner of the salon, you're not on the books,
Speaker 1: I've never even heard of this stylist. The Mark tries
Speaker 1: to contact the stylist, no dice. It's like it's a
Speaker 1: small scale scam. But it's getting more and more prevalent.
Speaker 2: This is what you always have to take things from
Speaker 2: word of mouth. If that you not know someone who
Speaker 2: knows this scam or this person who's offering you the offer, then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, don't do it. And so But there are
Speaker 1: bigger scammers of course. For example, Tina Roberts aka the
Speaker 1: Black Widow. Right, it's a scary name. She was a
Speaker 1: con artist. Some called her the devil in disguise. Now
Speaker 1: with a name and a description like that, what did
Speaker 1: she do?
Speaker 2: I'm thinking she uh, steals scalps.
Speaker 1: It sounds like she's going to use up a one
Speaker 1: percent over here. Yeah, it sounds like she condered clients.
Speaker 1: It's like totally overhead.
Speaker 2: I thought, like scissors in the neck or some stuff.
Speaker 1: True, is it?
Speaker 2: One old man, we're getting it.
Speaker 1: One victim called her that and then all the UK
Speaker 1: tabloids just ran with it.
Speaker 2: UK tabloids are the worst about hyperboles.
Speaker 1: Out of control.
Speaker 2: You You cannot ever get a sense of scale or
Speaker 2: perspective from anything, because everything's the worst. The last that's insane.
Speaker 2: This is never going to happen.
Speaker 1: Again, exactly, Like, come on people, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I thought you guys were good, but history Tea Roberts.
Speaker 1: The Black Widow, which I don't even know why you
Speaker 1: would give.
Speaker 2: Her this name, exactly, you're wasting it.
Speaker 1: She doesn't really have like black hair.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of Peter than the Wolf. Yeah, or
Speaker 2: no Peter, but crying wolf Peter's exactly.
Speaker 1: So she Tina, she's running all these cons twenty eleven.
Speaker 2: Did you imagine a hair salon where every haircutter had
Speaker 2: in their own musical instruments Peter exactly. Yeah, and the
Speaker 2: customers too. They also have.
Speaker 1: The noisiest that's the way noisier than normally noisies.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm sorry, go on.
Speaker 1: The Black Widow she gets convicted of scamming a terminally
Speaker 1: ill cancer patient, banks clients as well as her own
Speaker 1: friends for a million pounds. She posed as the England
Speaker 1: rugby team's physiotherapist. It's like to establish credibility team. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And she said that she got that gig after she
Speaker 1: saved the life of former English coach Sir Clive Woodward,
Speaker 1: that she performed a tracheotomy at a school match.
Speaker 2: Us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right. Another former England coach was like, that's not true,
Speaker 1: but right, So she's running this business where she's offering
Speaker 1: people nutritional advice, sports therapy, massage, but she's not qualified
Speaker 1: for it. She has like training in basic massage, and.
Speaker 2: You do too. I think being an adult you have
Speaker 2: training in basic.
Speaker 1: Massage massaging dogs. So once she got a client, she'd
Speaker 1: steal their credit card information to just go to town.
Speaker 1: But that's not all. According to the Southern Daily Echo newspaper,
Speaker 1: she told her marks that quote. She could not pay
Speaker 1: bills because the police had seized her computer and she'd
Speaker 1: been defrauded by an employee of HSBC, resulting in cash
Speaker 1: flow problems, and she desperately needed cash to buy supplies.
Speaker 1: She'd been working for the British cycling team.
Speaker 2: She has moved it all around.
Speaker 1: I'm a victim here, I so help me. So one
Speaker 1: of her clients, this guy Peter Lelliott, loaned her almost
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand pounds. Are you kidding No, I'm not
Speaker 1: kidding you. She took all the cash. Now remember it's
Speaker 1: like a million pounds in total, and she went on
Speaker 1: these crazy vacations to the Seychelles in South Africa, did
Speaker 1: something with it. But it's like they can't get like
Speaker 1: she's buying experiences you can't recoup them.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, just like I think it's brilliant, she's.
Speaker 1: Can't give it back. So she eventually gets caught. She's
Speaker 1: sentenced to seven years. But is she going to give up?
Speaker 2: No, not her, not on your life.
Speaker 1: She got a seven year sentence, but she was out
Speaker 1: before that because in twenty fifteen she was back at it.
Speaker 1: So now she was a hairdresser. Okay, she had a
Speaker 1: mobile business.
Speaker 2: She likes.
Speaker 1: She has this mobile business, no set storefront, of course,
Speaker 1: and she would generally service elderly clients who couldn't make
Speaker 1: it out of the house too easily, but they still
Speaker 1: wanted to look and feel like a million bucks.
Speaker 2: Of course.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the clients loved her, of course, because she made
Speaker 1: he was charming. She told great stories. And the stories
Speaker 1: that she told a lot of them were about her
Speaker 1: celebrity clients of course, Oh yes, because like see, the
Speaker 1: stars loved that she would go to them and they
Speaker 1: got privacy and her incredible artistic skills. So she's telling
Speaker 1: all these old grannies about you know which star of
Speaker 1: the east Enders she's been cutting. So once she'd get
Speaker 1: into their confidences, she would tell the clients about an
Speaker 1: investment opportunity that she had, and because of the high
Speaker 1: profile names that she was dropping, they all thought she
Speaker 1: was on the up and up, and she wasn't at
Speaker 1: first telling them do you want to invest?
Speaker 2: Well, this is where the problem with the word of
Speaker 2: mouth actually goes wrong, because they know her and it seems.
Speaker 1: Like she knows like she would know, and so she's
Speaker 1: telling them about this great deal and then they're like,
Speaker 1: I want in on this. So she says, look, if
Speaker 1: you want in, give me the money and I can
Speaker 1: a'll double we can double it. Seven women gave her
Speaker 1: somewhere between two hundred and twenty five pounds a piece
Speaker 1: and twenty five hundred pounds each in total thirteen thousand
Speaker 1: pounds between twenty fifteen twenty sixteen. Let's hear from some
Speaker 1: of the victims, shall we?
Speaker 2: Yeahs yeah.
Speaker 1: Phyllis King, aged sixty three from Barnstable, Devin. She told
Speaker 1: the Bristol Post quote, I feel upset, betrayed, and very
Speaker 1: bitter towards her. She is the black widow. She will
Speaker 1: spin you a web of lies.
Speaker 2: She's the one who Phyllis is, the one with a
Speaker 2: can turn a phrase.
Speaker 1: A criminal nickname is born. She also told the Bristol
Speaker 1: Post quote the money was going to be used to
Speaker 1: take my mom, who's in her eighties on holiday. Whoa Yeah, horrible.
Speaker 1: To Lisa White, forty three from Bristol, she got scammed
Speaker 1: out of two grand, she said, quote the fraud against
Speaker 1: me was two thousand pounds and meant our children had
Speaker 1: nothing for Christmas. I'm hacked off.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, shouldn't laught, but hacked off. I didn't expect that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's hacked off. But then also she gave away
Speaker 1: the Christmas money. Ye, come on now. Alison Coates from
Speaker 1: Weston super Mare, Somerset, she lost two hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five pounds to the black widow. She said, quote, I
Speaker 1: couldn't pay my care bill and I couldn't buy Christmas presents.
Speaker 1: Christmas present again, don't you know? Jane Foster she lost
Speaker 1: eighteen hundred pounds, she said quote She's very sweet, very charming,
Speaker 1: very manipulative and cunning. Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.
Speaker 1: I would say she's a devil in disguise, So that's
Speaker 1: the second part of it. But also I love Butterwood
Speaker 1: and melt in her mouth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she won cool character, total cool character.
Speaker 1: And of course Roberts was caught. She admitted to ten
Speaker 1: charges of fraud and she was sentenced to two years
Speaker 1: and three months, and the judge told her at her
Speaker 1: sentencing quote, your victims, in many cases were particularly vulnerable
Speaker 1: by reason of disability that left them housebound. You con
Speaker 1: them by your lies. And you were running a successful
Speaker 1: hairdressing business which listed celebrities among its clients. Like as
Speaker 1: if she wasn't there, he just gives her a recap.
Speaker 1: He's an expositions, like, yeah, I know, I did all that.
Speaker 1: Like the writers are clunky on this show. So the
Speaker 1: Anvila exposition just came down. Her defense solicitor said that
Speaker 1: she set up a legal legit business and that she
Speaker 1: had planned to pay back her quote unquote investors, and
Speaker 1: he was like, some of the cash was even repaid.
Speaker 2: How did some lawyers say the things they say? How
Speaker 2: do you stand in front of someone but you're gonna
Speaker 2: have to stand in front again in the future, be
Speaker 2: like yeah, this one she thought They were, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the ticket.
Speaker 1: He's done time for conning people in the exactly, and
Speaker 1: they're like all she owes now is ten five hundred
Speaker 1: pounds out of thirteen thousand. So it's not like, oh,
Speaker 1: she paid down one hundreds of thousands. No, So that's
Speaker 1: the Black Widow who for such a name as a disappointment.
Speaker 1: Very she wasn't smart, no really, and she was her victims.
Speaker 1: I really that really that cheeses me up.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we talk a lot. It's important to
Speaker 2: who you pick. You know, it's not just that we
Speaker 2: don't root for the criminals. It's like, okay, the targets
Speaker 2: are part of it. Exactly. You rob like an old museum.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to feel so bad as if you
Speaker 2: rob an old person, right right.
Speaker 1: And take people's Christmas money. She's she was brash, but
Speaker 1: she wasn't clever, and she wasn't meticulous. That's the thing.
Speaker 1: That's why she probably wasn't a good hair Probably not.
Speaker 1: I haven't I have a main course for you here.
Speaker 1: You talked about like who people, who you're going to
Speaker 1: steal from? Yeah, this this is the cut and styling
Speaker 1: after the wash and rints of the Black Widow.
Speaker 2: I don't do what is this? This is this good?
Speaker 1: Yes, it's good.
Speaker 2: Right, it seems like I should be excited too.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I'm talking about a man who was so
Speaker 1: smart It was his name, Smart Williams smart O, real name.
Speaker 2: How do you find these people? The thumbfardo Bill Smarto
Speaker 2: making these names up? Williams Smarto, that is Bill Smarto.
Speaker 1: In the seventies, you dream the story. He was a
Speaker 1: hairdresser at the Velvet Brush.
Speaker 2: Bill Smarto the hairdresser at vel vel.
Speaker 1: In Deerfield, Illinois. I one day, I am just going
Speaker 1: to make one up as I go. It'll be fun.
Speaker 2: I've done.
Speaker 1: I've done all I can to find out more about
Speaker 1: this salon, but I've come up empty. Like I went through.
Speaker 1: I tried to go through old phone books, newspapers. It's
Speaker 1: killing me because I want to see it. I want
Speaker 1: to know where it was, the physical location. But he
Speaker 1: wasn't just a hairdresser there. He was the owner toator.
Speaker 1: So here he is styling hair in the northern suburbs
Speaker 1: of Chicago in the seventies, swinging very shampoo. He had
Speaker 1: a wife and two kids. Good for it, and he
Speaker 1: had siblings, including one named Vincent, So William and Vincent
Speaker 1: Vincent Very Vinnie and Bobby Smarto. They had a hobby
Speaker 1: and it all started with safe deposit boxes. Okay, so
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy eight, Vincent he started going to banks
Speaker 1: and renting safe deposit boxes under the name John Barrow,
Speaker 1: which is not to be confused with one of the
Speaker 1: other great idiot aliases, John Barron.
Speaker 2: And isn't John Barrow. Oh that's Clyde Barrow.
Speaker 1: Ye Bonnie and John Barrow like John, call me wheel,
Speaker 1: Yeah Barrow. So one of the places that they rented
Speaker 1: boxes was the First National Bank of Deerfield, and they
Speaker 1: went to visit the boxes dozens and dozens of times.
Speaker 1: They cased the joint so while one would distract the
Speaker 1: vault attendant, the other one would scope out the particulars
Speaker 1: of the room. And each time they'd bring something with
Speaker 1: them to put in the boxes, and that's to be expected.
Speaker 1: But what Bobby Smarto was bringing in were tools bank
Speaker 1: burglary tools right into the lion's den. And so one
Speaker 1: of the times he went in the vault and I'm
Speaker 1: guessing you know this is like when he asked for
Speaker 1: privacy to look at the contents of his safe deposit box.
Speaker 1: He punched two holes in the alarm system sound sensors
Speaker 1: in the ceiling, and then in two said holes he
Speaker 1: put two alarm clocks and he nested them in like
Speaker 1: the dropped false ceiling.
Speaker 2: How good is the distraction? Guy is incredible? He's like, oh,
Speaker 2: so you feel tense here? Let message.
Speaker 1: So Smarto. He had set the alarms to ring for
Speaker 1: after the bank closed, and then he and his brother
Speaker 1: they camped out watching the bank overnight and they wanted
Speaker 1: to see if the cops came when the alarm clocks went. No,
Speaker 1: they didn't, and that's how they knew the vault alarm
Speaker 1: didn't work. And with that in mind, let's take a
Speaker 1: break and when we come back, we're gonna look at
Speaker 1: phase two of the heist. You are so welcome for
Speaker 1: those ads. You're welcome world. So juicy, it's so juicy.
Speaker 2: You have a napkin.
Speaker 1: Clean yourself up. You're embarrassing yourself, William Smartos, I'll get
Speaker 1: your rat owner and operator of the velvet brush hair
Speaker 1: salon and hilarious, so good a velvet rush velvet brush.
Speaker 2: You use a velvet brush I've never even heard of.
Speaker 2: They just put like a qualifier in front of brush. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that one. That's a velvet team brush's velvet.
Speaker 1: He is also a bank burglar. Yeah, hello, so dateline Sunday,
Speaker 1: July twenty second, nineteen seventy nine, good Year, Deerfield, Illinois,
Speaker 1: just north of Chicago, First National Bank of Deerfield. Outside
Speaker 1: the bank, William Smarto slip behind some bushes and he
Speaker 1: took a ventilation grate off the building and he climbed in.
Speaker 1: And then he dropped into a room right outside the
Speaker 1: safe deposit vault. Wow, he was prepared. He brought food, A.
Speaker 2: Drill his first thing he brought there for a while.
Speaker 1: I brought some hammergers. He brought a drill, four crowbars,
Speaker 1: two flashlights, a spork, two headlamps, two sledgehammers, three chisels.
Speaker 1: He has a spare in case something goes wrong.
Speaker 2: He's throwing a party.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, three chisels, eight screwdrivers, a vice grip, a hacksaw,
Speaker 1: and goggles.
Speaker 2: Okay, you have anic machine, maybe some cocktail glasses.
Speaker 1: So he's in this room, he's got his supplies tucked
Speaker 1: above the ceiling tiles. Did I mention that he was
Speaker 1: dressed like a workerman. No, he was dressed as a workerman.
Speaker 1: So we've talked about this before, how dressing like a
Speaker 1: maintenance worker is like a really great way to slip
Speaker 1: under the radar and go somewhere you aren'tupposed to.
Speaker 2: You're invisible unless you're a house spanner because people are
Speaker 2: drawn to the colors.
Speaker 1: Right, So Smarto he pulled a table over to a
Speaker 1: wall and he stood on it and he put He
Speaker 1: pulls out a drill and he gets to work making
Speaker 1: a hole in the wall. And then there he is
Speaker 1: mid drill when a janitor walks in and he's stuck
Speaker 1: to the ridiculous crime credo of act like you know, oh,
Speaker 1: I like it, so he doesn't flinch. The janitor looks
Speaker 1: down at the mess all over the floor, concrete, dust
Speaker 1: like bits of plaster, metal, sharks, and Smarto says, when
Speaker 1: I'm through, I hope somebody's going to clean up this mess.
Speaker 1: Gets an attitude that's the way, and the janitor's like
Speaker 1: size like yeah, I'll clean it up, and walks away.
Speaker 1: That's total. That's power move right.
Speaker 2: I had a friend who every time he got pulled over,
Speaker 2: he would hop out of his car and start asking
Speaker 2: the cops for directions or for help, and the cops
Speaker 2: always I don't want to deal with the do go
Speaker 2: and would leave. I was like, you can't. It's brilliant
Speaker 2: I tried it once I got arrested.
Speaker 1: Hop out of the car. It will get you lit up.
Speaker 2: But I mean like he wouldn't like hop out like
Speaker 2: that way. He would do it before the cops even
Speaker 2: had it, Like he would pull over and get out immediately,
Speaker 2: so they're not even thinking, and he wouldn't approach them.
Speaker 2: He'd hop out and be like, oh, thank god, I
Speaker 2: need your help them and then the company you're okay,
Speaker 2: and the drive away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it is pretty smart.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think throwing an attitude always throws people off. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they are unbalanced. They don't expect Yeah exactly, especially means
Speaker 2: you you should be guilty.
Speaker 1: So Smarto gets the janitor leave there, but like the
Speaker 1: attention kind of spooked him. Okay, so they can like yeah,
Speaker 1: so the well, the janitor doesn't care. He's like, this
Speaker 1: guy's a jerk. He's like every other you know, mean,
Speaker 1: this guy comes in here attitude. But Smart's like this
Speaker 1: is this isn't good. So he gives up on the
Speaker 1: Deerfield bank, looks for another target, just ditches it.
Speaker 2: Wow like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, William and Vincent, they knew what they wanted. They
Speaker 1: wanted banks in rich neighborhoods. So the next stop, first
Speaker 1: National Bank of Barrington. It's another Chicago suburbs. So Smarto
Speaker 1: he gets the box under the alias, and like last time,
Speaker 1: he visits it dozens and dozens of time. Each time
Speaker 1: he'd bring tools to stash in the boxes and in
Speaker 1: the ceiling tiles, and four flashlights this time, a sledgehammer,
Speaker 1: a crowbar, three screwdrivers, tape bat he's a wire stripper.
Speaker 2: A trowel, a seventy eight TA.
Speaker 1: Player, hizsors, plyers, steel bolts, and he brought a change
Speaker 1: of clothes to hide in there.
Speaker 2: And no food this time, change of clothes.
Speaker 1: And he did the whole alarm clock in the ceiling thing.
Speaker 2: So I got found. I wasn't hungry, but I definitely wanted.
Speaker 1: To really did want a new outfit, So costume change. Saturday,
Speaker 1: April eleventh, nineteen eighty one, the regular vault attendant was
Speaker 1: on vacation and no one else was on duty. And
Speaker 1: then all investigators could later figure was that Smarto used
Speaker 1: a credit card to get past a glass door that
Speaker 1: led to the vault. Wow, so like Jimmy's his way in.
Speaker 1: Then he crawled up to the top of the safety
Speaker 1: deposit boxes and dropped into a corner where there was
Speaker 1: a twenty four inch square open space.
Speaker 2: And that's between like between the corner and the wall.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so like there are two walls of safe deposit
Speaker 1: boxes and where they meet the corner, there's that empty
Speaker 1: square space I got. Yeah, so bank employees they had
Speaker 1: no idea that there was a dead space in that corner. Never,
Speaker 1: they never thought about it the vault store because this
Speaker 1: is a Saturday. The vault store closes at one o'clock.
Speaker 1: And then it was one of those timelock jobsday. Yeah,
Speaker 1: seven thirty in the morning Monday, they got a wait,
Speaker 1: so one o'clock vault locks. Ten minutes later, the alarm
Speaker 1: went off and the police arrived. They'd checked the bank,
Speaker 1: they couldn't find anything suspicious. You know, they leave. Ten
Speaker 1: minutes after that, the alarm goes off again. Now both
Speaker 1: the cops the bank employees, they're thinking the alarm's malfunctioning.
Speaker 1: This is you know, we got a squirrel on the
Speaker 1: cable totally, and so the alarm was tripping because Smarto
Speaker 1: was like getting himself situated and setting up. But it
Speaker 1: was this genius plan, or was it serendipity whatever. Everyone's
Speaker 1: ignoring the alarms. So Smarto's in there for the weekend now,
Speaker 1: and he's ready to get chopping' Come Monday morning. A
Speaker 1: bank teller sitting in her car in the bank parking
Speaker 1: lot before the bank opened, saw a man in work
Speaker 1: clothes come out the bank carrying two Duffel bags.
Speaker 2: He waited till Monday morning.
Speaker 3: Seven.
Speaker 1: Well, he was stuck in the vault.
Speaker 2: Of course, right right right seven thirty.
Speaker 1: It opens up, So she's waiting, like she probably starts
Speaker 1: at eight, so.
Speaker 2: You can just open from the inside it. So it's
Speaker 2: seven thirty. That's interesting. Yeah, I guess spin the wheel.
Speaker 2: Yeah huh.
Speaker 1: And so she sees or maybe like it opened up
Speaker 1: and then he popped out of the dead space. Anyway,
Speaker 1: she sees a guy in work clothes coming out of
Speaker 1: the bank carrying two Duffel bags, and she thinks that's
Speaker 1: a little weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: She goes into work and she sees the same guy
Speaker 1: leaving the vault again, this time with another two Duffle bags,
Speaker 1: and she's liked, well, it must be a maintenance guy.
Speaker 1: I mean, after all, we had those alarm issues on Saturday.
Speaker 1: We had all thoseuffle backs, dead squirrels that did shoot
Speaker 1: through the water. Yeah, zaren close your eyes always, I
Speaker 1: always do do all right. Here we go, I want
Speaker 1: you to picture it. It's Monday, April thirteenth, nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1: You're a customer of First National Bank of Barrington and
Speaker 1: you want to access your safety deposit box. You hop
Speaker 1: out of your lemon yellow nineteen eighty Cadillac El Dorado
Speaker 1: and make your way into the bank. You're whistling what
Speaker 1: you think is the song at the top of the charts,
Speaker 1: Kiss on My List by Hollan Oates, but you can't
Speaker 1: really carry a tune. It's close, though, it's close. You
Speaker 1: enter the bank, people chatting and musac coming filling the air.
Speaker 1: You ask to be taken to the safety deposit boxes.
Speaker 1: As you present your key and the clerk goes to
Speaker 1: open the box for you, something weird happens. The lock
Speaker 1: falls into the box, and while your bandana collection and
Speaker 1: stacks of rare two dollar bills should have padded, the
Speaker 1: locks tumble instead. You hear a clanging sound. The box
Speaker 1: is empty. You and the bank employee stare at each
Speaker 1: other for a moment, and then he gingerly lifts a
Speaker 1: finger and presses the face of the lock on the
Speaker 1: box next to yours. It slides easily away from the
Speaker 1: door of the box and clatters loudly into the empty box,
Speaker 1: metal on metal, just like yours. You are quickly ushered
Speaker 1: from the vault and told to wait in the glass
Speaker 1: walled meeting room that looks over the bank floor. Muzak
Speaker 1: fills the empty room as you watch the clerk scurry
Speaker 1: to the bank manager, tuck his head down and whisper something.
Speaker 1: The manager looks at the clerk, shock briefly flashing across
Speaker 1: her face. She immediately regains her composure and picks up
Speaker 1: the phone. You watch her have a quick conversation, her
Speaker 1: face stone serious. You pull a rolled up copy of
Speaker 1: Highlights magazine from your back pocket and start to flip through.
Speaker 1: You've done all the puzzle challenges and read all the stories.
Speaker 1: You toss the magazine in the trash. You reach into
Speaker 1: your other back pocket and you pull out a calculator.
Speaker 1: You type in fifty eight thousand and eight five eight
Speaker 1: zero zero eight. Then you flip the calculator upside down.
Speaker 1: The display reads boobs. You chuckle and return the calculator
Speaker 1: to your back pocket, from the front chest pocket to
Speaker 1: your short sleeve button down shirt. You take a folded
Speaker 1: up piece of paper. You gently open it, careful with
Speaker 1: the war increases and frayed edges. It's the abstract for
Speaker 1: Torsen v CLLs and David Huble's about to be Nobel
Speaker 1: winning research the ocular dominance columns. Oh yeah, you were
Speaker 1: just positive that in six months time they'll get the
Speaker 1: award for their work after all. By depriving kittens from
Speaker 1: using one eye, they showed that columns in the primary
Speaker 1: visual cortex receiving inputs from the other eye took over
Speaker 1: the areas that would normally receive input from the deprived eye.
Speaker 1: The kittens also did not develop areas receiving input from
Speaker 1: both eyes, a feature needed for binocular vision. Their experiments,
Speaker 1: saren showed that the ocular dominance develops irreversibly early in
Speaker 1: childhood development, and these studies opened the door for the
Speaker 1: understanding and treatment of childhood cataracts.
Speaker 2: A brutal but beautiful good assigns.
Speaker 1: They were also important to the study of cortical plasticity
Speaker 1: and so just then, though, just then you see movement
Speaker 1: out of the corner of your eye. Suits coming into
Speaker 1: the bank with purpose. You fold up the document and
Speaker 1: place it in your shirt pocket. These guys are definitely FEDS.
Speaker 1: You just want to know what happened to all the
Speaker 1: stuff in your safety deposit box. The clerk comes to
Speaker 1: get you and takes you back to the vault. The
Speaker 1: FBI agents swarmed the vault, peering into masses of empty boxes,
Speaker 1: and the agent walks you over to the remains of
Speaker 1: your safety deposit box. Can you confirm this box is yours? Yep?
Speaker 1: You tell him and U there were items in there
Speaker 1: last time you checked. Yep. He sighs and hands you
Speaker 1: a form telling you to list all the items in
Speaker 1: the box and provide your contact information. You walk out
Speaker 1: to your Cadillac, positive you'll never disclose. The extent of
Speaker 1: your bandana collection never saren So the FEDS took inventory,
Speaker 1: and they worked out that one hundred and fifty safety
Speaker 1: deposit boxes were very neatly broken into seventy four of
Speaker 1: them emptied out. More than a million in cash, as
Speaker 1: well as gold, coins and other valuables, all gone. After
Speaker 1: Smarto punched the locks out, he replaced all of the
Speaker 1: cylinders in the boxes and swept up the mess meticulous.
Speaker 1: He hid all the trash in the ceiling, so the
Speaker 1: vault looked totally normal when it was opened, and the
Speaker 1: he's walking back and forth bringing bags out doesn't look fishy.
Speaker 1: How did he get out? He hid in that corner
Speaker 1: dead space until the vault door was opened Monday morning,
Speaker 1: and according to US attorney Alan Grossman, quote, he took
Speaker 1: the risk that no one would be waiting outside the
Speaker 1: vault Monday morning because the alarm had gone off twice.
Speaker 1: He just calmly walked out. And then FBI agent Leroy
Speaker 1: Heinbach he said that it was the first successful looting
Speaker 1: of a safety deposit box vault in the United States. Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: us a number what yeah, Federal prosecutors said, whoever did
Speaker 1: it was a quote criminal genius. No, let's take a break.
Speaker 1: When we come back, I'm going to tell you more
Speaker 1: about this criminal genius. Get back here there, Oh hey,
Speaker 1: get back any here.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: William Smarto hairdresser, bank.
Speaker 2: Burglar, Billy Smarto.
Speaker 1: Bad Billy Smarto. By the way, he was still a
Speaker 1: hairstylist this whole time. I love it, running perms, stubbing
Speaker 1: out grays, just the whole deal.
Speaker 2: I was walking like early eighties perms like the like
Speaker 2: ay curl, spiral.
Speaker 1: Farms tight yeah, tight, tight tight, frizzy, and and stealing
Speaker 1: from safety deposit boxes with the help of his brother
Speaker 1: also frizzy, Yeah, super frizzy. They had no reason to stop.
Speaker 1: No Vincent rented safety deposit boxes again, this time at
Speaker 1: the First National Bank of Lake Forest, and once again
Speaker 1: under the name John Barrow, and once again William Smarto
Speaker 1: made a ton of visits case the place stored his tools,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. At the Barrington job, he'd almost been
Speaker 1: a Robin Hood.
Speaker 2: Oh really Yeah.
Speaker 1: He was going through the boxes and if he felt
Speaker 1: like he saw things in there that like mortgage notes
Speaker 1: or records that looked like the owner of the box
Speaker 1: couldn't afford to lose what was in there, he'd leave
Speaker 1: it alone. So that's why about half the boxes that
Speaker 1: were busted into weren't emptied. So he's like, that looks
Speaker 1: like these people need this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I respect Yeah.
Speaker 1: So back to Lake Forest. He visited the rented boxes
Speaker 1: fifty one times between mid January and he won fifty
Speaker 1: one and Labor Day of nineteen eighty two, so more
Speaker 1: than once a week.
Speaker 2: That's I mean, they all know you, They totally know
Speaker 2: him to have stories about you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And at one point he had to bring in big
Speaker 1: items like wooden shelves.
Speaker 2: Why how are you going to say, I'm going to
Speaker 2: put these in They're very important. My grandfather bought these back.
Speaker 1: In shelves to put you wanted to put shelving in
Speaker 1: the ceiling, the drop ceiling.
Speaker 2: Watch.
Speaker 1: So what he did is he'd put them in boxes
Speaker 1: and said they were pieces of art and that he
Speaker 1: was a collector.
Speaker 2: How big are these boxes? I don't know how big
Speaker 2: are these shells?
Speaker 1: Let me there was like, ikea flat pack is what
Speaker 1: I'm kind of imagining that he had to put it together. Wow,
Speaker 1: it's you know, he's a It's part of his sick artistry.
Speaker 1: Here a flat So here we are, Friday, September third,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two. Aberca dabber by the Steve Miller band
Speaker 1: is at the top of the charts. First National Bank
Speaker 1: of Lake I want to read and grab you. A
Speaker 1: customer at the bank, an old man. He had to
Speaker 1: use the bathroom.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as they do.
Speaker 1: Aren't you so happy that I didn't use this as
Speaker 1: the picture it.
Speaker 2: I'm actually surprised the word.
Speaker 1: I'm a little surprised too. So the guy uses the can.
Speaker 1: He comes out and he tells a bank employee that
Speaker 1: a wooden panel had fallen in.
Speaker 2: There for a couple of hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like a wooden panel fell from the ceiling.
Speaker 1: And the guy's like, dang, dude, what you doing there? No,
Speaker 1: that's not what he said. That is what sounds.
Speaker 2: I blew it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it was major. So they call the superintendent
Speaker 1: and maintenance, who goes to replace the panel. The only
Speaker 1: thing is he goes up the ladder to slide the
Speaker 1: panel in place, and he sees something eyes eyeballs staring
Speaker 1: back at him. He was face to face with the
Speaker 1: hiding William Smarto.
Speaker 2: He didn't think to move, I could back up.
Speaker 1: He just froze. Apparently Smarto had planned to spend the
Speaker 1: weekend like breaking into the safety deposit boxes, and then
Speaker 1: he was going to leave the morning of September fifth,
Speaker 1: like in jogging clothes. He had jogging clothes with him,
Speaker 1: and he had stashed his van nearby at Lake Forest College.
Speaker 2: He's a very new trend.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and he had like his whold backstory. And
Speaker 1: so anyway, the police they found seven bags containing tools
Speaker 1: for breaking into safety deposits. Every time he brings more
Speaker 1: and more stuff. This time he had an industrial sized jackhammer,
Speaker 1: a powerful land. He had teleand thermal lance. He had
Speaker 1: an electric saw to cut the hinges off the safe
Speaker 1: deposit boxes. He's like, it took too long to punch
Speaker 1: the locks. Let's just cut the hinges. He had a
Speaker 1: bottle of water, you know, stay hydrated.
Speaker 2: Oh you're you're a kind of okay. Yeah, and he
Speaker 2: also thinking like you doing a chemistry thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, just for sippons. And then he had an
Speaker 1: empty bottle to pee intwo, Why just p in the corner?
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: He had a radio, an alarm, clock, gloves, scissors, two flashlights, pliers,
Speaker 1: five screwdrivers, and then his jogging and it took us
Speaker 1: to the Cubs game. Yeah. And January twelfth, nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: he pleads guilty to charges of burglary and possession of
Speaker 1: burglary tools, and he got sentenced to three years by
Speaker 1: Judge John L. Hughes. Now the judge said he hoped
Speaker 1: that the sentence with John Hughes, John Hughes, John Carl
Speaker 1: John L.
Speaker 2: Hughes was like, Okay, I heard that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, judge said that he'd hope the.
Speaker 2: Sentence Saturday detention.
Speaker 1: It would deter possible copycats. And the judge said, quote,
Speaker 1: it almost seems like it's a script for a television
Speaker 1: show or a movie.
Speaker 2: Are we sure this isn't John Hughes's dad, right, I'm
Speaker 2: saying about those other brother.
Speaker 1: So Barrington police FBI agents they question him about Deerfield
Speaker 1: and Barrington the previous two no arrests had been made
Speaker 1: in those and they know fully the m O John
Speaker 1: Barrow had rented boxes at all three banks. And just
Speaker 1: like that, Smarto is BA BA busted for everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1: July of eighty four, while America is gripped with Olympic fever,
Speaker 1: Ricardo and his brother Vincent they're indicted by a grand
Speaker 1: jury for the safety deposit box robbery of First National
Speaker 1: Bank in Barrington.
Speaker 2: So he missed out on all of Edwin, Moses.
Speaker 1: Great, everything, Flow, Joe everything, Lewis. Yeah, they plead not guilty.
Speaker 1: In February of the next year, Smarto he gets convicted
Speaker 1: of bank burglary and conspiracy in federal court. Was flowed
Speaker 1: in eighty four was eighty eight, I'm jumping forward anyway,
Speaker 1: So he gets convicted. He's looking at fifty five years
Speaker 1: in prison. And Vincent was also charged, but he was
Speaker 1: really sick. He didn't stand trial. He had a severe
Speaker 1: heart attack, open heart surgery. His lawyers like, he can't
Speaker 1: take the stress of a trial. They're like, you know what,
Speaker 1: never mind, We'll just let it go. And according to
Speaker 1: an AFFI, David Smarto asked Vincent to open the safe
Speaker 1: deposit boxes, open those accounts at the three banks, and
Speaker 1: that around that time Smarto was quote involved in a
Speaker 1: bitter divorce and was trying to conceal assets from his wife.
Speaker 2: So we found a way to blame a woman.
Speaker 4: Yeah, pretty much, there was his wife, it exactly.
Speaker 1: And then Williams said that Vincent knew nothing about any
Speaker 1: of these bank robberies. I just thought he was getting
Speaker 1: you know, I want to hide my stuff in these
Speaker 1: safe deposit boxes. I like that both Smarto and his
Speaker 1: brother Vincent. They requested severance of counts because Vincent didn't
Speaker 1: participate to the extent that William Smarto did, and the
Speaker 1: criminal acts on the indictment or quote not all of
Speaker 1: the same or similar character. So in a plea for leniency,
Speaker 1: begging at the mercy of the court. Smarto's defense attorney,
Speaker 1: William's defense attorney pointed out that his crime was nonviolent
Speaker 1: and that he himself was a caring father of two sons,
Speaker 1: a sixteen year old and a twelve year old, and
Speaker 1: he went to point out that there was no evidence
Speaker 1: that Smarto had accumulated any wealth, you know, since the robbery.
Speaker 2: It was a blowing money on thanks for yeah, And.
Speaker 1: So April twenty third, nineteen eighty five, he gets sentenced
Speaker 1: to twenty years in prison by US District Judge Marvin Aspen.
Speaker 2: So no leniency, what you're telling me?
Speaker 1: Oh? Hold on. So he gets sentenced for the three
Speaker 1: bank jobs, even though one of them is the only
Speaker 1: one that was successful.
Speaker 2: But they can connect them bridezily.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the stolen goods were not recovered at this point.
Speaker 1: And so he also gets fined twenty five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: by Judge Aspen, who called Smarto quote a very bright,
Speaker 1: multifaceted person, multifaceted, and they say you got to start
Speaker 1: serving your sentence immediately. He maintains his innocence.
Speaker 2: He's like, sir, if I was so multifaceted, why would
Speaker 2: I wear this facet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he says like, I can't give you the
Speaker 1: loot because I don't I didn't do it. I have
Speaker 1: no idea where it is. Judge asspen not buying it though,
Speaker 1: he said, now listen, I will reduce your sentence in
Speaker 1: exchange for you owning up to what you did and
Speaker 1: you have to assist the authorities with recovering the missing items.
Speaker 1: Next thing you know, an anonymous package is left at
Speaker 1: Smarto's lawyer's office. FBI goes to pick it up. They
Speaker 1: said it was obvious that the thing had been sitting
Speaker 1: in a river somewhere. It was like damp, moldy, gross,
Speaker 1: it smelled terrible. Inside over four hundred pieces of jewelry
Speaker 1: and other items, A bunch of them, though, were catalog
Speaker 1: is quote tarnished and or damaged, and so, according to
Speaker 1: court documents, prosecutors said Smarto was quote try to pull
Speaker 1: a fast one due to the fact that the most
Speaker 1: expensive pieces were not returned and the ones that were
Speaker 1: returned were damaged because like the gemstones had been pride,
Speaker 1: so they were like brooches and rings, and one of
Speaker 1: them was a ten carrot ring. This is a rein
Speaker 1: carrot diamond ring. Yeah, so some of the items not recovered.
Speaker 1: Another ten carrot diamond ring valued it one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty eight thousand dollars at the time, Wow, which is
Speaker 1: like three hundred and seventy k today. A platinum engagement
Speaker 1: ring worth thirty eight thousand dollars gold coins valued it,
Speaker 1: you know, almost thirty four thousand dollars. A platinum emerald
Speaker 1: ring through fifteen thousand and approach valued at ten thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: which is like nearly twenty nine thousand. Smackaroos.
Speaker 2: I love those conversion.
Speaker 1: God, I love the conversions. I had him for all
Speaker 1: of them. I was like holding on to him. So anyway,
Speaker 1: because of this, the US Attorney's Office recommended against the
Speaker 1: sentence reduction. They're like, you know, he didn't give everything back.
Speaker 1: He obviously sold a bunch of stuff. Judge Aspen, he
Speaker 1: didn't listen. He reduced Smarto's twenty years sentenced to eight
Speaker 1: years due to the quote the defendant's substantial but incomplete
Speaker 1: restitution of the stolen items.
Speaker 2: Wow, and get him good faith.
Speaker 1: But then on top of that, he he sentenced him
Speaker 1: to five hundred hours of community service upon release and
Speaker 1: quote cooperation with law enforcement and banking authorities in developing
Speaker 1: internal security programs to combat potential bank robberies.
Speaker 2: But five hundred hours a community service, what is that?
Speaker 2: Two full months of eight hour days, five days a week. Well,
Speaker 2: so he had two months of work. Yeah, not that much,
Speaker 2: come on.
Speaker 1: So he had. But he tell like, the bigger thing
Speaker 1: is that the judge says, you got to work with
Speaker 1: the FBI to come up with protocols for banks to
Speaker 1: use to avoid people like you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, teach, it's what you know.
Speaker 1: And thanks to him, that's why bank vaults don't have
Speaker 1: false ceilings anymore or dead corners.
Speaker 2: Thanks to him. Thanks to him, they decided that was
Speaker 2: a bad idea.
Speaker 1: He worked with the FBI to estatl.
Speaker 2: With that on their own.
Speaker 1: Now they needed him, so wow, smarto. He sent the
Speaker 1: judge Judge Aspen, a handwritten letter sharing the quote happy
Speaker 1: reaction of himself and his loved ones to the reduction
Speaker 1: of the sentence and this part of his release, like
Speaker 1: when he got paroled, he was allowed to travel, and
Speaker 1: so he's on parole. He in nineteen eighty nine, he
Speaker 1: went to New Orleans. Nineteen ninety he went to Spain.
Speaker 1: He went to Wisconsin twice.
Speaker 4: He's traveling wells from Chicago, but he went to he
Speaker 4: got a new wife, wife wife, new wife, Bermuda, that
Speaker 4: went and it was never brought up, like how are
Speaker 4: you funding these these trips all this.
Speaker 2: You know whatever questions.
Speaker 1: Twenty eleven, he popped up again, this time as a
Speaker 1: real estate broker, and he hadn't burgled another bank, but
Speaker 1: his eighty five conviction had come back to haunt him
Speaker 1: all those years later. The Illinois Department of Financial and
Speaker 1: Professional regular they issued a disciplinary order and they placed
Speaker 1: his real estate broker license William Smarto of Lake Villa,
Speaker 1: on probation for five years and then Restrictedlycenger as a
Speaker 1: managing broker for five years due to his eighty five
Speaker 1: felony conviction. Now, all I could find was the order.
Speaker 1: So my guess is that he was acting as a
Speaker 1: broker and someone found out about it and ratia. It
Speaker 1: doesn't seem fair to me because like he did his time,
Speaker 1: he paid his debts in the way that we're prescribed
Speaker 1: to him. I think he's still kicking today. There's an
Speaker 1: episode of Masterminds about him, but it doesn't tell much
Speaker 1: about his personality, just that he's this genius who was
Speaker 1: respected by law enforcement who hunted him, But I wish
Speaker 1: I knew more about him as a person. Yeah, how
Speaker 1: did he get into hairdressing? What did he think about
Speaker 1: his crimes? How did his life go after he got out?
Speaker 2: Why did you think about the development of the Rachel?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Where is hairstyle? What I'm trying to say is I
Speaker 1: want him to write a book. Oh yeah, it might
Speaker 1: not be too late. No, he has not written a book.
Speaker 1: Please write a book, Zaren. I'm going to cut you
Speaker 1: off before you ask me. My ridiculous takeaway is that
Speaker 1: I hope he writes a book. Oh man, what's your
Speaker 1: ridiculous take.
Speaker 2: Whyl was the takeaway? Thank you for asking his He
Speaker 2: didn't write a book.
Speaker 1: He didn't write a book.
Speaker 2: That's wild. He didn't write it in all honesty. Do
Speaker 2: you think that like he doesn't have a chip on
Speaker 2: his shoulder right about being like you know, it's not like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm not a tough guy because I'm a hairdresser, right
Speaker 2: and he's not like a he doesn't have a chip
Speaker 2: on his shoulder. Like people didn't think I was smart.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to burn these people. Yeah, what was
Speaker 2: the motivator? Because it seems like he's kind of like
Speaker 2: a smart guy. He gets into real estate later on,
Speaker 2: like why did he have to do the Like I
Speaker 2: just I know where I'm asking a very large question,
Speaker 2: but like what do you suspect did he get a
Speaker 2: thrill out of it? Like getting over on the people
Speaker 2: from what you read? Like, yeah, is it the artist
Speaker 2: in him? Like you know how an artist can very
Speaker 2: much enjoy either a performance or the or the the
Speaker 2: pla stick act of creation. You know, It's like, was
Speaker 2: this his I think so?
Speaker 1: I think so. I think that he recognized the vulnerabilities
Speaker 1: in it and was smart and realized like this is God,
Speaker 1: I could totally do this, and there was an art
Speaker 1: to it. He was so meticulous and so careful in
Speaker 1: all the planning and all the time, and it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, you go to get your hair done and
Speaker 1: they're going to dye your hair and they lay everything
Speaker 1: out and they get it all ready, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that there was an art to it for him.
Speaker 1: And I think that he's just like too smart for
Speaker 1: his own good in that. But you know I wish him, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: there you go, So yeah, you know what would make
Speaker 1: me feel better not being able to read a book
Speaker 1: of his though, as if I had a talk back.
Speaker 1: Oh Captain d.
Speaker 2: Oh, oh my god, he su.
Speaker 3: I went get.
Speaker 5: I just finished listening to your episode about Lady under
Speaker 5: the Psychic Horse, and I just want to say, well done.
Speaker 5: You guys outdid yourselves. It is probably now my favorite
Speaker 5: episode that you have ever done. So thank you for that,
Speaker 5: and thanks for being awesome and keep up the good work.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: We're always glad that somebody enjoys and has a new phase.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that like positive message. We haven't really gotten
Speaker 1: any negative talkbacks.
Speaker 2: I don't know, except for my mother.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't censor them if we did.
Speaker 2: Get why did you do that? You're embarrassing the family.
Speaker 1: That's all. That's all I have. Happy note. You can
Speaker 1: find us online at ridiculous crime dot com. We're on
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Speaker 1: Leave us a talk back on the iHeart app, reach
Speaker 1: out to a suppose girl. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Chicago
Speaker 1: lands Frosted Tips expert Dave Cousten Research is by Marissa Feather.
Speaker 1: The Bangs Please Brown and Andrea New Year, New Cut,
Speaker 1: New Me song Sharpened Tear. The theme song is by
Speaker 1: two guys who collect the hair swept up from salon
Speaker 1: floors and stored in safety deposit boxes, Thomas Lee and
Speaker 1: Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five Hundred.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Surly Bank janitor Ben Bolan and Trusting
Speaker 1: Vault clerk Noel.
Speaker 3: Browns QUI Say It One More Time Crime.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts.
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