Speaker 1: Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio previously on
Speaker 1: Murder in Miami. So you offered Lamar a million dollars
Speaker 1: to land at his island and to bring the coke
Speaker 1: back to the United States.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: One of the most significant things in this whole case
Speaker 3: was Lamar Chaster's appearance before a Royal Commission of Inquiry
Speaker 3: in the Bahamas.
Speaker 1: So at the time that the inquiry was happening in
Speaker 1: the Bahamas, were you even aware that it was going on?
Speaker 4: Well, it was shortly after this that the mysterious Morgan
Speaker 4: Cherry mentioned that I got a call from Bob who
Speaker 4: said that Lamar wanted to hire me as a consultant.
Speaker 4: There was going to be a pre trial hearing in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: You didn't worry that you were getting into something that
Speaker 1: you might not escape from.
Speaker 4: I just sort of walked right into it.
Speaker 1: Here's Chester talking to CB about Phil Stamford.
Speaker 5: I am an eye, I mean, I am not by
Speaker 5: any mean any and me and Agne all.
Speaker 1: Right, So it's the fall of nineteen eighty four, and
Speaker 1: basically you agree to go to Georgia to help Lamar Chester,
Speaker 1: who you fully believe is a drug smuggler and who
Speaker 1: fully believes that you were in the CIA create a
Speaker 1: gray male defense pretty much. Yeah, and your girlfriend Mickey's
Speaker 1: okay with all.
Speaker 4: That, not exactly. Remember Bob and I were at the
Speaker 4: Mutiny to meet Lamoiar, drinking pretty much all afternoon before
Speaker 4: finally got to see him, and when we're finished, were
Speaker 4: both drunkard than Skunk's. Drove back to the apartment I
Speaker 4: got out. It was getting dark by then, so I
Speaker 4: guess I figured time to take a nap. Is So
Speaker 4: I dozed off, and when I wake up, for some reason,
Speaker 4: I decide I need to call this girl I met
Speaker 4: in Washington, d C. When I was up there, and
Speaker 4: it's dark in the apartment and I'm still so out
Speaker 4: of it. I don't hear Mickey open the door, and
Speaker 4: she's probably standing there for several minutes before I hang up,
Speaker 4: and there she is. By the time the call was over.
Speaker 2: I guess that was it.
Speaker 6: For Mickey and me.
Speaker 1: Phil, I'm sorry, that's kind of awkward.
Speaker 4: And the funny thing is the girl in DC didn't
Speaker 4: even remember my name when I called her.
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren brad Pacheco and this is murder in Miami.
Speaker 4: So I moved out of the Amsterdam Palace and ended
Speaker 4: up renting a room from Jack McClintock, a writer friend
Speaker 4: who actually did the piece you referred to earlier about
Speaker 4: the Cardozo. He and his girlfriend had a place in
Speaker 4: south of Miami.
Speaker 1: So when Bob called about the pre trial hearings, you
Speaker 1: were basically available for a consulting gig.
Speaker 4: Whatever that might be. Yeah, Bob said, I was supposed
Speaker 4: to look for inconsistencies in the daily transcript, and I'd
Speaker 4: be paid a couple hundred dollars a day plus travel,
Speaker 4: So it didn't sound like such a bad idea. Bob said,
Speaker 4: I could stay at Lamar's place in Cleveland while I
Speaker 4: was up there, and he was going to get the
Speaker 4: tickets and we'd fly on.
Speaker 1: I mean, not to sound like a broken record, but
Speaker 1: you seriously didn't have any hesitation about getting messed up
Speaker 1: with a federal investigation.
Speaker 4: You've got to realize I still didn't quite believe that
Speaker 4: what was going on was even real. But if Lamar
Speaker 4: thought I was with the CIA, and I told him
Speaker 4: the God's honest truth that I wasn't, who was I
Speaker 4: to turn down the money? Mostly though, I was just
Speaker 4: going whichever way the wind was blowing.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, at this point you had to have
Speaker 1: put some thought into why he would have thought that
Speaker 1: you were actually a CIA operative. I mean, those guys
Speaker 1: weren't exactly naive or stupid.
Speaker 4: Well, it has taken me years to get my head
Speaker 4: around that one. But here's what I think they were thinking. Now,
Speaker 4: here's this guy down here from Washington, DC. He's written
Speaker 4: for the New York Times on national security matters, for
Speaker 4: Christ's sakes, and everyone knows the agency uses journalists as
Speaker 4: cover all the time. He's even worked for congressman on
Speaker 4: the House Armed Services Committee and for a think tank
Speaker 4: in DC. It would be easy enough for them to
Speaker 4: have looked it up. So here's what they're thinking. Here's
Speaker 4: this guy. He's not down here writing, he's not asking questions,
Speaker 4: and he's obviously not interested in the money. No one's
Speaker 4: that dumb, so he must be with the c I A.
Speaker 1: Well, you know there's another possible reason too. Here's the
Speaker 1: recording of the taped phone call between Chester and C. B.
Speaker 7: Hackworth.
Speaker 2: I have a guy I'm made together our agreement Watt
Speaker 2: would I am not, by any meaning comment that he's
Speaker 2: not currently and to one of the guys that worshiped
Speaker 2: with his own attorney of.
Speaker 3: The combers on the guy, Russell Burt.
Speaker 4: I don't know who this guy is, Russell Burns or
Speaker 4: Russell Brooke. I never met him. There was a Russell
Speaker 4: Brooke who was in the indictment, so he would have
Speaker 4: testified in the Lone Star grand jury or have been
Speaker 4: a subject of the Lone Star brand jury. But whatever
Speaker 4: it was, I have no idea how he could have
Speaker 4: come to that conclusion. Probably just the same as Lamar
Speaker 4: and Bob. No one can be that dumb, so he
Speaker 4: must be with the CIA for background.
Speaker 1: Operation Lone Star was a sprawling federal investigation of money laundering,
Speaker 1: but it began in nineteen eighty one as a probe
Speaker 1: of oil price manipulation in Houston. One of the principal
Speaker 1: targets of the initial probe, Miami tax lawyer Lance Eisenberg,
Speaker 1: also happened to represent Lamar Chester, which is how the
Speaker 1: former Miami based Eastern Airlines pilot and his opulent lifestyle
Speaker 1: caught the attention of the US Customs and Internal Revenue
Speaker 1: Service agents assigned to the Lone Star task Force. As
Speaker 1: its scope widened, Lone Star spread to Atlanta, Charleston, West Virginia, Pittsburgh,
Speaker 1: New York City, and Florida. Eisenberg was indicted in Houston, Atlanta,
Speaker 1: and Charleston. He was suspected of masterminding the funneling of
Speaker 1: billions of dollars of laundered money through the Bahamas, Grand
Speaker 1: Cayman Islands and South Florida Banks. That's also why his client,
Speaker 1: Lamar Chester's involvement with a Nassau trust company and ownership
Speaker 1: of islands became the focus of the sprawling investigation that
Speaker 1: continued into Atlanta. And so you fly to Atlanta.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and when we land, Bob gets a rental car
Speaker 4: and we drive out to Lamar's place in the countryside
Speaker 4: outside Cleveland, which was what's left of a tiny old
Speaker 4: town in the Georgia Hills, about seventy five miles north
Speaker 4: of Atlanta. A gas station, hardware store, little diner with
Speaker 4: a fifties rock and roll theme.
Speaker 1: What was the atmosphere at Chester's place when you arrived,
Speaker 1: It was kind of strange.
Speaker 4: First thing, they put Bob up in the guest house
Speaker 4: on their property, drop them off there, and I'm staying
Speaker 4: at the main house with Lamar and artists his wife,
Speaker 4: who I can tell right off, really doesn't want me
Speaker 4: there at all.
Speaker 1: Why did you get that impression?
Speaker 4: I remember her as sort of a glowering presence, very dark,
Speaker 4: always in the background. I don't think she said a
Speaker 4: word to me the whole time I was there.
Speaker 1: Sounds welcoming.
Speaker 4: It was kind of strange, and I guess starting then,
Speaker 4: but certainly over the years, I've come to think of
Speaker 4: her as sort of a driving force beyond all. This
Speaker 4: sounds to me like she sort of egged Lamar on,
Speaker 4: and she was quite capable of doing that. Lamar was
Speaker 4: always trying to please her. Her previous marriage was to
Speaker 4: a guy from a mob family. Happy and Elliott both
Speaker 4: told me that Lamar got started buying airplanes with mob money,
Speaker 4: which is a big thing to consider here when we're
Speaker 4: considering possibilities that sometime later, when everything was going downhill,
Speaker 4: Ron Elliot showed up and there was that previous husband
Speaker 4: coming out of the Chester's house in Georgia. So, you know,
Speaker 4: my impression was that she was making it easier for
Speaker 4: Lamar to fulfill his fantasies. Drug smuggling were part of it.
Speaker 4: Women were part of it.
Speaker 1: A quick note here, I did request an interview with
Speaker 1: the artist through her daughter aj Henderson, who declined my
Speaker 1: request to speak with either one of them or to
Speaker 1: comment on Phil's characterization. It's interesting though to me that
Speaker 1: when you got there, you're the one staying in the
Speaker 1: main house and Bob staying in the guest house.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it didn't make much sense to me at the time. Actually,
Speaker 4: nothing about this was making any sense. What I eventually
Speaker 4: figured out was that they must have done this to
Speaker 4: make it easier for me to talk to Lamar about
Speaker 4: what my boss is back at CIA headquarters had in
Speaker 4: mind for him.
Speaker 1: What was your interaction like with Lamar? What did you
Speaker 1: guys talk about?
Speaker 4: Not too much for sure, because I, for one thing,
Speaker 4: I didn't say that much. One time though, I remember
Speaker 4: we were driving around the grounds there. He had about
Speaker 4: five hundred acres there, rolling hills and pasture, and we
Speaker 4: passed by this pond, an irrigation project that he was
Speaker 4: having some work done on at the time, and for
Speaker 4: some reason it reminded him. And this was right out
Speaker 4: of the blue, because we'd never spoken about the subject before.
Speaker 4: Of Clay Williams, the intercept detective who was found dead
Speaker 4: in the Everglades.
Speaker 1: We will wait. I'm sorry he brought up Clay Williams.
Speaker 1: Why didn't you mention that before?
Speaker 4: It just came to my mind when we were talking
Speaker 4: about driving around with Lamoire passed this irrigation project, and
Speaker 4: he said, you know, when they found him there, a
Speaker 4: lot of people thought I did it, which I didn't,
Speaker 4: but it sure gained me a lot of respect. I'll
Speaker 4: tell you that is sort of laughing when he said it.
Speaker 1: Not exactly comedic.
Speaker 3: Five.
Speaker 1: But did you push him for more details about what
Speaker 1: had happened?
Speaker 4: Like I have said before, I didn't ask too many questions.
Speaker 4: I think that's one of the reasons I was able
Speaker 4: to get along so Will. But I don't know then,
Speaker 4: and I certainly didn't know now exactly why he brought
Speaker 4: it up. You know, Lamar was always working the angles.
Speaker 4: Was efficient for information from me? Or was it a warning?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Clay Williams, let's pause here for a quick update.
Speaker 1: At this point, I'd poured through newspaper clippings that covered
Speaker 1: the Atlanta leg of Lone Star's grand jury hearings. In them,
Speaker 1: there were multiple mentions of a man murdered and left
Speaker 1: to alligators in the Everglades. Leslie Bickerton, a controversial witness
Speaker 1: who is in accounts described as Chester's former accountant, tax consultant,
Speaker 1: and or mistress, recounts conversation she had with Chester that
Speaker 1: involved A Clayton sometime in Ed Clayton quote and two
Speaker 1: other men had been murdered and fed to alligators unquote,
Speaker 1: and that quote Lamar was very mad at him unquote.
Speaker 1: I was now pretty convinced that Ed Clayton could be
Speaker 1: Clayton Williams, as the timing also checked out. MS. Bickerton's
Speaker 1: testimony placed that conversation in the fall of nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1: After making little headway with my initial records request, I
Speaker 1: reached back out again to Jeff Lewis, the former Miami
Speaker 1: Dade detective I interviewed in our first episode, who kindly
Speaker 1: linked me with the man you're about to meet.
Speaker 6: My name is David Denmark, and I'm a detective with
Speaker 6: the Miami Dade Homicide Cold Case Unit. I've been a
Speaker 6: cop since nineteen ninety three, so going on thirty years,
Speaker 6: and I spent twenty of those in homicide.
Speaker 1: Although the Records Department had done a thorough search, they
Speaker 1: were unable to locate the police report on Clay Williams's death.
Speaker 1: It was complicated by the fact that the department recycled
Speaker 1: case file numbers in those days, and when they pulled
Speaker 1: what they initially thought was the correct one, it contained
Speaker 1: the report for an entirely different murder. Frustrating but somewhat
Speaker 1: understandable given the time. According to Detective Denmark.
Speaker 6: There's over ten thousand goal cases in Miami Dade, which
Speaker 6: is a staggering number. I would tell you that the
Speaker 6: eighties were a very large part of the ten thousand cases.
Speaker 6: Compared to other years, they were handling two and three
Speaker 6: a day, and that lasted for quite.
Speaker 1: Some time, particularly since eighty one and eighty two saw
Speaker 1: record numbers of homicides in Miami.
Speaker 6: Yes, and to speak on that, the type of homicides
Speaker 6: that they were receiving were in vehicles, are in pools,
Speaker 6: meaning they would come out to the scene and there
Speaker 6: were three people unidentified in a pool and gagged and
Speaker 6: shot in the head. Or they would come into an
Speaker 6: apartment and there'd be two or three people bound and gagged,
Speaker 6: where they'd open up a trunk of a car and
Speaker 6: find two people bound and gaged. So it was rough
Speaker 6: on them. They were really a different type of investigator
Speaker 6: as to the investigator today because they didn't have the
Speaker 6: technology that we have today with advancement in DNA. DNA
Speaker 6: in general don passes, tag readers, computers, websites.
Speaker 1: And so those reports compiled pre computer era were contained
Speaker 1: in folders, consisted of physical paper clippings and photos stored
Speaker 1: in files and warehoused storage that has withstood physical relocation
Speaker 1: due to moves and catastrophes like hurricanes and flooding, all
Speaker 1: of which makes locating older case files much more complicated
Speaker 1: than simply searching a database.
Speaker 6: There's a process that we follow as Gold Case Detectives
Speaker 6: to locate files, and that includes our archived files. We
Speaker 6: contact our Property and Averdance bureau along with warehouse personnel
Speaker 6: and we'd give them the case number. Sometimes it takes
Speaker 6: two to three weeks for them to go through everything
Speaker 6: documentation folders that were created back in the day. We
Speaker 6: try to exhaust all of that before digging into the
Speaker 6: medical examiner records.
Speaker 1: And that's the point we'd gotten to. As Detective Denmark
Speaker 1: pursued tracking down the medical records for Clay Williams, I
Speaker 1: continued to look for anything that linked him to Lamar Chester.
Speaker 1: Back to Phil Stamford and his nineteen eighty four visit
Speaker 1: to Lamar Chester's five hundred acre farm in Cleveland, Georgia.
Speaker 4: Looking back on it all, I guess one of the
Speaker 4: reasons he thought I knew more than I did was
Speaker 4: because I never said that much. Most of the time,
Speaker 4: I just listened. Another time, we were sitting in their
Speaker 4: living room, nothing fancy about the place, shag carpets, heavy
Speaker 4: wooden furniture, big picture window, overlooking the gravel parking lot,
Speaker 4: listening to country music, and Lamar, for some reason, starts
Speaker 4: talking about this valuable German pistol he's recently acquired and
Speaker 4: brings it out to show. Actually, he says he's got
Speaker 4: two of them, a matching pair. And I say, Lamar,
Speaker 4: are you a pretty good shot? And he says, yeah,
Speaker 4: not bad, at which point I say, hey, Lamar, why
Speaker 4: don't we go out and get some target practice? Which
Speaker 4: was really a strange thing for me to say. I
Speaker 4: don't know where it came from, because I'm not a
Speaker 4: gun person. I'd been to the target range in Miami
Speaker 4: with Bob and some of the other Intercept guys maybe twice,
Speaker 4: but I'm really less than an average shot, and here
Speaker 4: I am challenging Lamar to a shooting contest.
Speaker 1: What happened?
Speaker 4: Well, I remember Lamar and artists. It was in the
Speaker 4: living room then looking at each other, exchanging glances. I
Speaker 4: even thought I saw a flicker of or at least
Speaker 4: uncertainty in his eyes. No, I don't think so, he said, because,
Speaker 4: as I realize now, he was probably worried that I'd
Speaker 4: take the opportunity to shoot him and say it was
Speaker 4: an accident. As he was telling everyone at the time,
Speaker 4: they were either going to have to drop the charges
Speaker 4: against him or they were going to have to kill him.
Speaker 1: So do you think maybe at this point he was
Speaker 1: getting a little paranoid?
Speaker 4: And to this day I have no idea how consciously
Speaker 4: I was playing on Lamar's fears or his belief that
Speaker 4: I was a CIA agent whould come to help him
Speaker 4: with his great meal defense. But I can see now
Speaker 4: I was really getting into it too.
Speaker 1: Wow. So how long were you a house guest and
Speaker 1: that dysfunctional dynamic before the pre trial hearings began in Atlanta.
Speaker 4: It couldn't have been too long, you know, just three
Speaker 4: or four days and Bob flew back to Miami, and
Speaker 4: Lamar R moved operations to Atlanta pre trial hearings were
Speaker 4: going on. And here I am staying at the rich
Speaker 4: Carlton Hotel, which I know is costing more per night
Speaker 4: than I'm probably paying a month in rent back in Miami,
Speaker 4: watching these proceedings in federal court. Exactly why, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I'm supposed to be a consultant, but no one Lamar
Speaker 4: or anyone else ever asks me to do anything, So
Speaker 4: I just watch.
Speaker 1: Did any of the testimony really stick out as noteworthy?
Speaker 4: Well? Yeah, the star witness, In fact, the whole point
Speaker 4: of the hearings was this tall, slim woman in her thirties,
Speaker 4: Leslie Bickerton, who the newspapers were billing as Lamar's bookkeeper
Speaker 4: and mistress.
Speaker 1: Do you remember seeing her testify? What do you remember
Speaker 1: about her?
Speaker 4: Lamar's lawyers are trying to get the case thrown out
Speaker 4: before it even gets to trial, and this is their claim.
Speaker 4: They say that Leslie, who at one point had skipped
Speaker 4: out on Lamar and gone over to the Feds, gave
Speaker 4: them some phony documents to make Lamar look even guiltier
Speaker 4: than he was. That they actually created some false documents
Speaker 4: and along with the investigator in Houston inserted them into
Speaker 4: a collection of actual documents she'd kept from her time
Speaker 4: working for Lamar, and those documents were used as evidence
Speaker 4: for the grand jury. And after that, they say she'd
Speaker 4: had a change of heart and gone back to Lamar
Speaker 4: and told his lawyers all about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, from what I've read, she seemed kind of caught
Speaker 1: in almost a tug of war in terms of her
Speaker 1: loyalty between the prosecution and the defense. You know, I
Speaker 1: did go back through old newspaper archives and looked into
Speaker 1: the testimony she'd given in Houston, and it would appear
Speaker 1: that Leslie Bickerton had gone to Georgia to help set
Speaker 1: up that college campsite River Hills for Chester, and that
Speaker 1: she ends up moving to Hugh and becomes a paid
Speaker 1: witness for the government there. You know, the papers do
Speaker 1: fluctuate between calling her Chester's mistress, bookkeeper, or accountant. But
Speaker 1: you know, the interesting thing to me anyway, is that
Speaker 1: she also mentioned that Chester had told her that he
Speaker 1: quote got rid of a man and fed him to
Speaker 1: the alligators. And she says that he mentioned the man's
Speaker 1: name as Ed Clayton. So if the timing works out,
Speaker 1: that's a pretty big coincidence, don't you think.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it's extremely important, and it sounds to me
Speaker 4: like she's someone we definitely ought to talk to her.
Speaker 4: I haven't talked to her, by the way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I've been trying to track her down.
Speaker 1: The problem is that in the paper they mentioned that
Speaker 1: she may or may not be in the witness Protection Plan.
Speaker 1: I mean, they spell her name in several different ways
Speaker 1: given the different publication. But I I've tried every single
Speaker 1: possible combination to search for her and reached out to
Speaker 1: even people I think are possible relatives in multiple states.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll keep you posted if I can and
Speaker 1: get in touch with her. But Ceb Hackworth was also
Speaker 1: covering at the same time that you were that pre
Speaker 1: trial hearing in Atlanta, and he shared some pretty interesting
Speaker 1: stories about driving Lamar to the Ritz Carlton to meet
Speaker 1: Happy Miles.
Speaker 3: I had never done anything in close proximity to Lamar
Speaker 3: other than in the Bahamas under the circumstances I had
Speaker 3: described before, so it was totally unexpected that he wanted
Speaker 3: me to give him a ride back to his hotel,
Speaker 3: which was the Ritz Carlton. Of course, my car was
Speaker 3: the car of a reporter who was making nine thousand
Speaker 3: dollars a year, and I lived in my car. It
Speaker 3: was full of trash, and I didn't even know if
Speaker 3: another person could fit in the passenger seat. So I
Speaker 3: was embarrassed to begin with. I might have made excuses
Speaker 3: not to do it, except that he wanted to introduce
Speaker 3: me to Happy Miles. I recognized the name from the indictment.
Speaker 3: He was not indicted, but he was an unindicted co
Speaker 3: conspirator in the case. I didn't know a great deal
Speaker 3: about him. The name kind of drew attention to itself.
Speaker 3: I was trying to be a reporter to gather information,
Speaker 3: so yes, I wanted to meet Happy Miles for whatever
Speaker 3: it was worth. As it turned out, it was well
Speaker 3: worth the trip.
Speaker 1: But first Cbe had to deal with the issue of
Speaker 1: his cluttered car and rather empty wallet.
Speaker 3: There was some embarrassment and professional tight rope that I
Speaker 3: felt like I was walking there for a minute, because
Speaker 3: I knew that I had barely enough money to get
Speaker 3: out of the parking lot that my car was parked
Speaker 3: in at the Federal Courthouse, and I knew that I
Speaker 3: was not going to have enough money to park at
Speaker 3: the Ritz Carlton and get out. So, in addition to
Speaker 3: being embarrassed about the transportation situation, period, I didn't know
Speaker 3: what to do about the money. People today may have
Speaker 3: difficulty placing themselves in my circumstances, but ATMs were not
Speaker 3: a thing. I did not have access to run and
Speaker 3: get money somewhere. Even if I had it, I don't
Speaker 3: know that I did.
Speaker 1: So all of this is running through his head as
Speaker 1: Cbe walks to his cluttered car with an international drug smuggler.
Speaker 1: Lamar Chester, did you rush before him and try to
Speaker 1: clear a space on the seat.
Speaker 3: My recollection is that I did not have time to
Speaker 3: even attempt to clean up my car. But at that
Speaker 3: point in my life again, I lived in my car,
Speaker 3: and I had valuable things. In the middle of the trash.
Speaker 3: McDonald's wrappers was just a pile of garbage. You opened
Speaker 3: the door and it spilled out. It was like something
Speaker 3: out of a comedy, except to me it wasn't. On
Speaker 3: top of the embarrassment, I was not entirely comfortable giving
Speaker 3: him a ride, period, because I wanted to keep him
Speaker 3: at arm's length, and he was closer than arm's length
Speaker 3: in my car. Lamar folded himself into my car. Somehow
Speaker 3: he didn't seem to mind sitting in my used McDonald's.
Speaker 3: I believe it was before we even left the parking lot.
Speaker 3: I brought up to Lamar that I wasn't going to
Speaker 3: be able to do this without borrowing enough money for parking,
Speaker 3: and I think seeing my car, he understood it perfectly well.
Speaker 3: And this was one of the more disconcerting moments to
Speaker 3: me of my entire experience of knowing Lamar Chester, because
Speaker 3: I was so careful to try to keep that professional distance.
Speaker 3: He said he would loan me the money, no problem,
Speaker 3: and he was in the passenger seat. He held out
Speaker 3: his wallet, opened it and it was full of large bills,
Speaker 3: and he turned his head in the other direction in
Speaker 3: a almost exaggerated manner.
Speaker 1: I cannot even imagine that moment.
Speaker 3: It was a moment that I was not really prepared for.
Speaker 3: And by that I don't mean in any way that
Speaker 3: I was tempted to take any of that money for myself.
Speaker 3: It was that it was so obvious to me what
Speaker 3: he was doing. He was turning his head, and it
Speaker 3: was a tacit invitation to take whatever I wanted. I
Speaker 3: had written enough articles about other people who had come
Speaker 3: under his influence, the chief of Police of Cleveland, others
Speaker 3: who were literally on his payroll. Dan Davis, who had
Speaker 3: been a reporter at one time and ended up as
Speaker 3: an officer of the company that held River Hills with Leslie.
Speaker 1: Bickerton, basically working as a publicist.
Speaker 3: Almost very aware of Dan and his transgressions, certainly as
Speaker 3: a reporter, because he continued to write about Lamar after
Speaker 3: he had was working for Lamar. You just don't do that,
Speaker 3: You certainly don't do it without telling your readers that
Speaker 3: you have that conflict. Dan wrote the notorious article in
Speaker 3: the Telegraph that had a glaring headline that said unglued
Speaker 3: agents pursue White County farmer. As if that was as
Speaker 3: simple as the government's investigation of Lamar Chester was. I
Speaker 3: was very keenly aware of people like Dan Davis and
Speaker 3: Charlie Harrington, the chief of Police, who had become financially
Speaker 3: beholden to Lamar Chester. I had written. I certainly was
Speaker 3: not going to be one of them. So I was
Speaker 3: quite uncomfortable taking even the money for parking. So he
Speaker 3: held out his wallet. It was full of large denomination bills, hundreds,
Speaker 3: and I looked while his head is turned for a
Speaker 3: small bill, and I believe it was a ten dollars bill.
Speaker 3: I reached in there with my fingers, my forefinger and
Speaker 3: my thumb. If I had a pair of tweezers with me,
Speaker 3: I would have tried to use them to pull it out.
Speaker 3: I so did not want to touch any of the
Speaker 3: real money in the drug smuggler's wallet. But I got
Speaker 3: this ten dollars bill out and I said something like okay,
Speaker 3: And when he looked back at me, I was holding
Speaker 3: the ten dollar bill in my four finger and thumb
Speaker 3: for him to see what I had taken.
Speaker 1: What happened after he saw you holding a ten dollar bill?
Speaker 3: He was grinning. I think that there was an unspoken
Speaker 3: understanding of what had just happened. That he gave me
Speaker 3: the opportunity to be bribed and I did not take it,
Speaker 3: and he was kind of amused. I told him profusely
Speaker 3: that I was going to repay this ten dollars, the
Speaker 3: ten dollars that I borrowed. Aside, I wasn't sure why
Speaker 3: I was going to the Ritz Carlton to meet this fella.
Speaker 3: I didn't know why he wanted me to. This is
Speaker 3: all sort of you know, back room drug smuggling buddy stuff,
Speaker 3: and he's inviting me to have an inside view at it.
Speaker 3: In my car. He's telling me that Happy Miles had
Speaker 3: cut a deal with the government in exchange for immunity,
Speaker 3: and he was supposed to testify against Lamar and other
Speaker 3: defendants in the case. Yet apparently Happy Miles was in
Speaker 3: Lamar's hotel room. I really couldn't quite reconcile that if
Speaker 3: the guy is going to be testifying against you, why
Speaker 3: have you got him in your room?
Speaker 1: As CB Chaufford chester to the Ritz Carlton, his thoughts
Speaker 1: were spinning.
Speaker 3: I mean, are there people in his room waiting to
Speaker 3: kill me? You know, those kinds of thoughts flash in
Speaker 3: your mind when you're dealing with someone who was accused
Speaker 3: of the things that Lamar was accused of, and that
Speaker 3: had the kind of testimony that had arisen in the case.
Speaker 1: A quick aside, in addition to the mention of a
Speaker 1: man fed to alligators who may or may not have
Speaker 1: been Clayton Williams, I discovered that in pre trial transcripts,
Speaker 1: a prosecutor involved in the Houston leg of Lone Star
Speaker 1: specifically refers to Clayton Williams by name as a potential
Speaker 1: witness against Lamar Chester. This lends extra weight to possible
Speaker 1: motive for his murder, particularly since Chester was quoted as
Speaker 1: calling him a snitch who had to be gotten rid
Speaker 1: of because information he possessed made him a threat. In
Speaker 1: addition to Williams, there were also several other lone Star
Speaker 1: witnesses who died prior to or shortly after testifying. I'll
Speaker 1: let Phil Stanford explain yeah.
Speaker 4: One of them was Sibley Riggs Papers, described as a
Speaker 4: beautiful young yacht salesman whose body was found stuffed in
Speaker 4: a trunk of a Mercedes in the Fort Lauderdal Airport
Speaker 4: in late nineteen eighty one, shortly after she'd been subpoenaed
Speaker 4: to appear before the grand jury in Houston. Another was
Speaker 4: her boyfriend, a mobster named Alan Rivenbark by all all accounts,
Speaker 4: a slightly crazy, dangerous person who had already testified before
Speaker 4: the grand Jury. He died in a plane crash on
Speaker 4: his way with some others to a mob hangout in Colorado.
Speaker 1: There was also an Alfred J. Miller, a business associate
Speaker 1: of Chesters with ties to River Hills, who died under
Speaker 1: suspicious circumstances in Nashville and was cremated almost immediately as
Speaker 1: in the next day. This happened in nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: shortly after he learned he was about to be subpoenaed
Speaker 1: to testify before Lone Star's Atlanta grand jury.
Speaker 4: So the question is, you know, were these connected if
Speaker 4: they had testified against Lamar, where they have been a
Speaker 4: further danger to him? If Lamar wasn't involved, was the
Speaker 4: mob because the mob certainly didn't want anyone expanding the
Speaker 4: scope of the investigation. Whatever the answer is, certainly it
Speaker 4: would have weighed heavily on Lamar's mind at the time,
Speaker 4: whether it was involved or not. Because of the additional
Speaker 4: deaths around him, he was quite worried about his own future.
Speaker 1: Back to Ceb Halfworth meeting mister Happy Miles at the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Ritz Carlton in nineteen eighty four, mister Miles having
Speaker 1: just returned from a sort of two year exile that
Speaker 1: was part of his immunity deal, two years basically spent
Speaker 1: sailing around the world.
Speaker 3: Lamar was happy, no pun intended. He could not have
Speaker 3: been more pleased that Happy Miles had made a deal
Speaker 3: that got him off the hook, even at Lamar's expense.
Speaker 3: What Lamar had to say about that was that he
Speaker 3: wasn't worried. He had nothing to hide, that whatever Happy
Speaker 3: was going to testify to truthfully was not anything that
Speaker 3: would get Lamar in trouble, according to Lamar.
Speaker 1: As Lamar escorted Cbe through the hotel lobby, they were
Speaker 1: met with a rather warm reception.
Speaker 3: It's hard to tell where Lamar ended and the Riz
Speaker 3: Carleton began because their customer service is so good they
Speaker 3: know their guests. As we walked in, somebody who worked
Speaker 3: at the Ritz, Carlton did say welcome back, mister Chester.
Speaker 3: He stayed at the Rich Carleton when he was in
Speaker 3: Atlanta for those prolonged pre trial hearings. It was his
Speaker 3: home away from home.
Speaker 1: I want to hear your first impressions of Happy Miles
Speaker 1: when the door opens.
Speaker 3: I would say his name suits him, almost like something
Speaker 3: Carl Hyason would come up with for a novel. I'm
Speaker 3: not at all sure that Lamar had even told Happy
Speaker 3: that I was coming, or who I was. It may
Speaker 3: have been a surprise to Happy. Didn't really matter. We
Speaker 3: got this warm reception. I think Happy had already had
Speaker 3: a few drinks and was making one for himself. Happy
Speaker 3: was not physically what I had imagined. The other codefendants
Speaker 3: who I had seen, like Ron Elliott, they were all
Speaker 3: what you would expect an airline pilot to look like,
Speaker 3: you know, a former airline pilot. I could always picture
Speaker 3: Lamar wearing an Eastern Airlines uniform. I could picture Ron
Speaker 3: Elliott wearing an Eastern Airlines uniform. I saw Happy Miles,
Speaker 3: and I could not picture him wearing an Eastern Airlines uniform.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure I could have pictured him wearing an
Speaker 3: Eastern Airlines mechanics outfit. Happy radiated good times. Without knowing
Speaker 3: his biography, you could infer from his physical appearance that
Speaker 3: he was a guy that liked to have a good time.
Speaker 1: A persona that didn't seem too dampened by the current circumstances.
Speaker 3: It's hard to say what I expected, but it was
Speaker 3: not laughter and this gregarious reception from somebody who is
Speaker 3: so immersed in consequential legal actions with the United States government. Here,
Speaker 3: I've got on one hand, Lamar Chester, who is flaunting
Speaker 3: practically his relationship with a member of the news media,
Speaker 3: and you've got Happy Miles, who is virtually flaunting the
Speaker 3: fact he's just got the deal of a lifetime.
Speaker 1: And in true form, that's not all Happy was flaunting.
Speaker 3: These days, you'd use the word bling. I don't think
Speaker 3: that was a thing then. It was unusual in my
Speaker 3: experience to see someone wearing so much of it. He
Speaker 3: had a rolex, he had something gold around his neck.
Speaker 3: He had a bracelet that spelled out his name in
Speaker 3: what I took to be diamonds. And I assumed that
Speaker 3: all this jewelry that looked like it was gold probably
Speaker 3: was gold. And again, what little I knew from Lamar
Speaker 3: on the way over to the hotel was about an
Speaker 3: immunity deal. I learned more about it in the room.
Speaker 3: Federal prosecutors in this case obviously did not make public
Speaker 3: developments like immunity deals. First of all, often it would
Speaker 3: get someone killed. But they didn't want us knowing anything
Speaker 3: that wasn't in open court.
Speaker 1: And yet here was a very happy, happy Miles, happily
Speaker 1: sharing his story with a young reporter on the record.
Speaker 3: I mean, you couldn't make this fella up as a character,
Speaker 3: and he's real, and he is in Lamar Chester's hotel room.
Speaker 7: So happy basically backed up what you had heard Chester
Speaker 7: testified to in the Bahamas his claim that he had
Speaker 7: done everything with the understanding of the DA and the CIA.
Speaker 3: Happy absolutely backed up Lamar's claims. Happy backed up everything
Speaker 3: Lamar said in terms of general statements about the drug
Speaker 3: smuggling having been done in concert with different government agencies
Speaker 3: and agents, that agents supposedly got information from Lamar, passed
Speaker 3: it on, acted on it successfully, according to Lamar, and
Speaker 3: in turn they let him continue to smuggle marijuana.
Speaker 1: After all these years. What sticks out most to C. B.
Speaker 1: Hackworth about the surreal gathering at the Ritz Carlton was
Speaker 1: the way it contrasted with the reality that other potential
Speaker 1: witnesses involved with the investigation, like Clay Williams, wound up dead.
Speaker 3: They didn't know who killed who, but there were dead people.
Speaker 3: It bothered me. I was a lot younger and braver
Speaker 3: than I am.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say I was ever reckless, but I didn't
Speaker 3: take as many precautions as I probably would now. But
Speaker 3: here I am in this room with two of the
Speaker 3: major players, and I can't believe that Happy Miles is
Speaker 3: in the room if he's going to testify against Lamar Chester,
Speaker 3: if even a small amount of what has been either
Speaker 3: implied or outright stated about Lamar Chester being dangerous is true,
Speaker 3: then how can you be a witness against him? A
Speaker 3: newly agreed upon I'm getting immunity, and I'm going to
Speaker 3: testify against you, witness, and they're sitting now yucking it
Speaker 3: up about old times. I mean, Lamar could killed him
Speaker 3: in front of me for all happiness. But I did
Speaker 3: take that to mean that Happy Miles literally was not
Speaker 3: afraid of Lamar Chester.
Speaker 1: But cb he was beginning to fear. The real danger
Speaker 1: involved the information Chester had shared and the people linked
Speaker 1: to it.
Speaker 3: I'm the person he called in the middle of the night.
Speaker 3: I worried that I knew too much.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting to feel like you're the confidante of
Speaker 1: somebody who knows things that may or may not have
Speaker 1: gotten people killed, and you're now on the receiving end
Speaker 1: of that information. Yes, on the next murder of Miami,
Speaker 1: Perseverance pays off on double fronts in a connection with
Speaker 1: a mysterious key player in the Lone Star legal proceedings.
Speaker 4: I can understand she would have been worried back then.
Speaker 4: For sure, bodies turn it up all over the.
Speaker 1: Place, and a major break in the search for information
Speaker 1: about the murder of Clay Williams. This man who was
Speaker 1: going to turn on him and had to get rid
Speaker 1: of him. Murder of Miami is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Lauren Bright Pacheco, Taylor Chicoigne, and Phil Stamford.
Speaker 1: Written by Phil Stamford and Lauren Greg Pacheco, Audio editing
Speaker 1: and sound design by Nicholas Harder, Evan Tyer, and Taylor
Speaker 1: chackoine featuring music by Evan Tyre, Phil Meyer, John Murchison
Speaker 1: and Taylor Chackoinne. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories
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