Speaker 1: On November while incarcerated for murder in Arizona, Jerry Paisley
Speaker 1: sat down with three investigators and made a series of
Speaker 1: startling claims. In a minute, we'll review them, but first
Speaker 1: let's go over what we know to be true. The facts.
Speaker 1: Fact Congressman Nick Begett vanished on October sixteenth, nineteen seventy two. Fact,
Speaker 1: Peggy Beggett, Nick's widow, married Jerry Paisley seventeen months later.
Speaker 1: Fact Paisley had documented ties to to mob families, the Bananas,
Speaker 1: and the look of Olie's. Fact Paisley committed at least
Speaker 1: five murders and three bombings. Fact. Paisley and Peggy started
Speaker 1: a business, Max Inc. Shortly after they married in nineteen Fact,
Speaker 1: Paisley and Peggy's partner, the company's vice president, was a
Speaker 1: man named Danny Zivinage. Fact, Peggy received a windfall of
Speaker 1: cash after Nick, her first husband, disappeared. These things we
Speaker 1: can prove now. Claims, and again these are Jerry Paisley's claims,
Speaker 1: not mine. Claim Peggy Beggett met with mob boss Joe
Speaker 1: Banano in the summer of nineteen seventy two, right before
Speaker 1: Nick Baggetts vanished. Claim Joey Tarrola, a Banana lieutenant nicknamed
Speaker 1: Joey the I, asked Paisley to carry a locked suit
Speaker 1: case to Alaska sometime around September nineteen seventy two. Claim
Speaker 1: Paisley flew the suit case to Anchorage, where he met
Speaker 1: up with three men, Danny Zevanich, Jean Fowler, and Larry Fowler.
Speaker 1: Claim Zevenitch later told Paisley that the suit case contained
Speaker 1: a bomb and that the congressmen were assassinated. From my
Speaker 1: Heart Media, this is Missing in Alaska. The story of
Speaker 1: two congressmen who vanished in nineteen seventy two and my
Speaker 1: quest to figure out what happened to them. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: John Waalzac. On January, Paisley reiterated his claims during a
Speaker 1: follow up interview. He kept naming the same names, including
Speaker 1: Larry Fowler. Only twenty seven days later, Fowler was shot
Speaker 1: to death on a remote road in Alaska. And that's
Speaker 1: a fact. Are you aware that twenty seven days after
Speaker 1: Paisley spoke with an agent in prison, that Larry Fowler
Speaker 1: was murdered? Did you know it was that shortly after
Speaker 1: Paisley spoke with an agent. Yes, that's Dave Tullis of
Speaker 1: the Alaska State Troopers, one of three investigators who interviewed Paisley,
Speaker 1: that whole homicide was a little bit strange also, But
Speaker 1: Larry Fowler was had a reputation, was not the nicest
Speaker 1: guy you'd ever want to meet here in Alaska. And
Speaker 1: Larry Fowler's homicide was odd. Yes. Why he was apparently
Speaker 1: drinking late at a club. He was the owner of
Speaker 1: a pawn shop. Uh. He called for a taxi. I
Speaker 1: don't know where his vehicle might have been at the time, uh,
Speaker 1: and instructed taxi driver where to go, and he ended
Speaker 1: up on the upper part of the hillside got really
Speaker 1: he had fallen asleep, woke up, was really disturbed. As
Speaker 1: I recall it, he pulled out a handgun and threatened
Speaker 1: the text cab driver. According to the surviving member of
Speaker 1: this which was a text cab driver, task cab driver
Speaker 1: just happened to have a weapon in his vehicle. He
Speaker 1: pulled it out and immediately shot Larry Feller. The cab
Speaker 1: driver said he acted in self defense. This task cab
Speaker 1: driver did not have a history of crime. He was
Speaker 1: a immigrant to the United States and to Alaska. He
Speaker 1: was I believe polish um. But I didn't find anything
Speaker 1: completely bizarre about his story, except for the fact that
Speaker 1: he just shot somebody, with the provocation being that he
Speaker 1: thought his life was being threatened and he was employing
Speaker 1: self defense. But it was just a strange homicide time.
Speaker 1: We had other homicides that followed. They were a little
Speaker 1: bit strange, also involving some Russian immigrants, but this one
Speaker 1: was particularly strange because Larry Feller was the victim. The
Speaker 1: night Fowler died, he had been drinking at an Anchorage
Speaker 1: bar called the Time Out Lounge. That's where the cabby
Speaker 1: picked him up. The cabby claimed that Fowler directed him
Speaker 1: into the hills outside Anchorage. He claimed that Fowler at
Speaker 1: some point, for some reason, pulled the gun, pointed it
Speaker 1: at him, and said, you will be dead, motherfucker, you
Speaker 1: will be dead. He said, he shot Fowler and self defense.
Speaker 1: He was afraid, in part because other local cabbies had
Speaker 1: been murd heard recently during botched robberies. Fowler's family found
Speaker 1: the story suspicious. Why was Fowler in some random, remote
Speaker 1: area outside Anchorage. Why would he pull a gun on
Speaker 1: the driver. Fowler was wealthy, He certainly wasn't trying to
Speaker 1: rob the driver. The night he died, Fowler was dripping
Speaker 1: in golden diamonds and he had cash on him on
Speaker 1: the flip side. The cops didn't believe that the driver
Speaker 1: was trying to rob Fowler either. They said the physical
Speaker 1: evidence backed up the driver's story and he took and
Speaker 1: passed a polygraph or Lie detector test. So on the surface,
Speaker 1: it seems that the timing of Fowler's death so soon
Speaker 1: after Paisley named him as someone with knowledge of the
Speaker 1: missing congressman's alleged assassination was a pure coincidence. While digging
Speaker 1: into Fowler's death, I managed to track down one of
Speaker 1: his friends, Bob Wheel, who had breakfast with him the
Speaker 1: day he died. That day, Wheel was raising money for
Speaker 1: his rotary club. He wanted it Fouler to chip in.
Speaker 1: The fundraiser was, shall we say creative. My rotary club
Speaker 1: does an event every year called Moose Marble Madness, and
Speaker 1: believe it or not, we take two thousand genuine moose nuggets.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever seen what a moose
Speaker 1: turd looks like, but they're about this bigger round. They're
Speaker 1: kind of oval shaped and because of their diet being
Speaker 1: these birch trees and willow trees and all that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. When they take a dump, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a solid, oval shaped nugget that's very hard. So we
Speaker 1: came up with the brilliant idea myself and my dentist
Speaker 1: and another dentist that was in my rotary club thirty
Speaker 1: one years ago, and decided to call it Moose Marble Madness.
Speaker 1: We numbered one through two thousand of these moose turds,
Speaker 1: and then we had tickets made and we would sell
Speaker 1: the turds for ten bucks apiece, and we'd go up
Speaker 1: in a helicopter and they would drop the moose nuggets
Speaker 1: out of a helicopter. Anyway, that morning, the day he died,
Speaker 1: Larry Fowler gave his buddy Bob Wheel a hundred bucks
Speaker 1: for ten tickets. The next day, when we learned of
Speaker 1: Fowler's death, he was stunned. He was also confused. Like
Speaker 1: Fowler's family, he wondered what his friend had been doing
Speaker 1: on some random, unfamiliar road. Why was he there? A
Speaker 1: short time later, we'll hurt an explanation. The only thing
Speaker 1: I know is that apparently somebody, somebody sent a woman
Speaker 1: in there from what I have heard, and the woman
Speaker 1: slipped Larry a piece of paper with her phone number
Speaker 1: on it and her address and said something in the
Speaker 1: effect why don't you come see me or visit me
Speaker 1: or something. So when Larry left the bar at one
Speaker 1: or two am, that was the reason for the taxi
Speaker 1: cab driver being on Rabbit Upper on Upper Rabbit Creek
Speaker 1: Road was apparently going to this woman's address that was
Speaker 1: on the piece of paper that Larry had that this
Speaker 1: woman had slipped him the night before. Fowler was married
Speaker 1: at the time, so if he was meeting up with
Speaker 1: another woman that night, it could explain why he was
Speaker 1: in an unfamiliar place and why it would be kept
Speaker 1: hush hush. Well, wasn't the only person who told me this.
Speaker 1: A second source said he heard the same thing. That
Speaker 1: source speculated that it was a setup, that Fowler was
Speaker 1: lured out of the bar and killed for some unknown reason.
Speaker 1: So who was this mystery woman? Did she know Fowler previously?
Speaker 1: Probably not, since she had to give him her phone number.
Speaker 1: Adding to the intrigue, multiple sources told me that at
Speaker 1: the time of his death, Fowler was funneling illegal contributions
Speaker 1: to political campaigns and cash directly to multiple politicians. I've
Speaker 1: heard names of people allegedly involved in the scheme, but
Speaker 1: without further proof, I can't disclose them for now. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: investigators believe the cab driver and in U the Anchorage
Speaker 1: d A declined to prosecute him. So Larry Fowler, one
Speaker 1: of five men Jerry Paisley said was involved with or
Speaker 1: knew of, the alleged bombing of the missing congressman's plane,
Speaker 1: was killed before investigators could question him. But what about
Speaker 1: the other four men Paisley named Joe Banano, Joeya Tarrola,
Speaker 1: Danny Zivinich, and Jeane Fowler. Banano died in two thousand two.
Speaker 1: Iya tar Rolla died in I tried to interview Aya
Speaker 1: tar Rolla before he died, but when I reached him
Speaker 1: by phone in late he declined to comment and he
Speaker 1: hung up on me. Zivinich declined multiple requests for an
Speaker 1: on the record interview, and Jean Fowler, well, wait, we'll
Speaker 1: get to him, Okay. So after Jerry Paisley made such
Speaker 1: startling claims, what exactly happened? What kind of investigation took place?
Speaker 1: Here's Dave Tullis, the Alaska State trooper. To my surprise,
Speaker 1: when I got back with the tapes. Uh, we did
Speaker 1: a transcript which I looked over and stored the tapes
Speaker 1: in evidence, and after I decided this was pretty big
Speaker 1: news and something that needs to be shared with bosses plural,
Speaker 1: I went to my sergeant and my lieutenant and gave
Speaker 1: them my transcript and a copy of my notes, and
Speaker 1: they looked at it for not a long period of
Speaker 1: time and said, we need to pass this off to
Speaker 1: the FBI. And they notified the FBI and gave them
Speaker 1: the transcript. And part of my recollection is that they
Speaker 1: gave them the tapes. Now, whether those were duplicate tapes
Speaker 1: the original tapes, I'm not sure. On December, the FBI's
Speaker 1: Anchorage office received a copy of the Paisley transcript. That
Speaker 1: did the bureau to launch a preliminary investigation, led by
Speaker 1: Special Agent Luianne Henderson. Multiple people described Henderson to me
Speaker 1: as an outstanding, hard working agent, but for some reason,
Speaker 1: her investigation into Paisley's claims was by all accounts, cursory, insufficient,
Speaker 1: and weak. Mainly, it consisted of reviewing the transcript, looking
Speaker 1: at court records, reviewing FBI files, and reading old newspaper clips.
Speaker 1: To my knowledge, Henderson conducted only a single interview on September.
Speaker 1: That day, Henderson and another agent spoke with Danny Zevenitch,
Speaker 1: Paisley's former business partner, the man who Paisley claimed told
Speaker 1: him that the missing congressman's plane was bombed. The FBI's
Speaker 1: interview was Zvinich, lasted a total of forty five minutes. Then,
Speaker 1: on that very same day, the office of the U
Speaker 1: S Attorney in Alaska declined to prosecute the case, which,
Speaker 1: funny enough, nobody seems to remember. Bob Bundy, the U
Speaker 1: S Attorney at the time, told me doesn't remember the case.
Speaker 1: Karen Leffler, the assistant U S attorney who handled it
Speaker 1: directly told me she doesn't remember the case, Whiley Thompson,
Speaker 1: at the time, the Special Agent in charge or s
Speaker 1: A C. Of the FBI in Alaska, told me he
Speaker 1: doesn't remember the case, and former special Agent Lewin Henderson
Speaker 1: declined a request for an on the record interview in September.
Speaker 1: The same month, the FBI closed its investigation into Paisley's claims.
Speaker 1: It replaced s a C. Wiley Thompson with another agent,
Speaker 1: Marshall Bratton. Bratton's name is on an FBI document acknowledging
Speaker 1: that the U. S. Attorney's Office declined to prosecute the case.
Speaker 1: Bratton told me he doesn't remember the case either. Kevin Friesley,
Speaker 1: a supervisor in the FBI's Anchor's office at the time,
Speaker 1: decline interview request. When I reached him by phone, he
Speaker 1: hung up on me. Danny Zevinich also declined multiple requests
Speaker 1: for an on the record interview. So basically nobody remembers
Speaker 1: the case and or nobody wants to talk about it.
Speaker 1: It's important to know that Zivinich's bar was at the
Speaker 1: time a popular watering hole for FBI agents. Many of
Speaker 1: the same agents who would have been tasked with investigating
Speaker 1: him were friends with him and hung out at his bar.
Speaker 1: I'm not insinuating that this was the case with Special
Speaker 1: Agent Henderson, who to my knowledge was not friends with
Speaker 1: Zivinach and did not frequent his bar unlike some of
Speaker 1: her colleagues. But why did the FBI only conduct a
Speaker 1: single interview the Zivinach interview. Theoretically the Bureau could have
Speaker 1: interviewed Larry Fowler, I guess, but to be fair, Fowler
Speaker 1: was killed only weeks after Paisley first named him, but
Speaker 1: the FBI never interviewed any of the other people Paisley named.
Speaker 1: Joe Banano was never interviewed, Gene Fowler was never interviewed,
Speaker 1: Joey A. Tarola was never interviewed, and Peggy Baggatte wasn't interviewed.
Speaker 1: The FBI only interviewed one person, Danny Zivinich, for forty
Speaker 1: five minutes. The three Arizona and Alaska investigators who interviewed
Speaker 1: Jerry Paisley before the FBI got involved have serious doubts
Speaker 1: about how the bureau investigated, or more specifically, failed to investigate,
Speaker 1: Paisley's claims. Do you think, given the severity and the
Speaker 1: seriousness of Jerry Paisley's allegations, that it is sufficient enough
Speaker 1: of an investigation to basically review archives and newspaper club
Speaker 1: bangs and talked to one suspect for forty five minutes.
Speaker 1: I would have to say no, I don't think that's
Speaker 1: sufficient at all. And one of the things I was
Speaker 1: cautious about is Arizona doesn't really allow recordings in a
Speaker 1: penal institution, but the Elastia State troopers insisted, and I
Speaker 1: insisted that we record the conversation. Had we not done that,
Speaker 1: there would have been no record of really what happened
Speaker 1: except our notes. The FBI doesn't record hardly anything. In
Speaker 1: my experience. They used three O two's where they write
Speaker 1: their notes, but they do not record. And I was
Speaker 1: very pleased that the troopers insisted, and I insisted on
Speaker 1: recording their conversations, and I was quite surprised that it
Speaker 1: didn't go any farther than that. In the FBI apparently
Speaker 1: didn't do an extensive investigation on the subject, and I
Speaker 1: didn't really know how much they had or had not done,
Speaker 1: but word filled back over a couple of years, and
Speaker 1: I thought it was not well done at all. Dave
Speaker 1: Tullus is a reliable swords if there ever was one.
Speaker 1: He served for twenty years in the US Air Force
Speaker 1: as both a fighter pilot and an aircraft accident investigator.
Speaker 1: He served for six years as an Alaska State trooper
Speaker 1: investigating major crimes, including homicides, and later he worked for
Speaker 1: the Anchorage International Airport Police and Fire Department. Then he retired.
Speaker 1: Mike Grimes, one of the other two investigators, also had
Speaker 1: decades of experience, first as a patrolman for the Anchorage
Speaker 1: Police Department, then on the vice squad, and finally as
Speaker 1: head of the department's homicide unit. Getting back to the FBI.
Speaker 1: When you got back to Alaska, what follow up did
Speaker 1: you see on what Paisley had told you about the
Speaker 1: alleged bombing. When I got back, I do you know
Speaker 1: him telling me this, I knew how big a deal
Speaker 1: it was, um, you know, to us Congressman might have
Speaker 1: been murdered while they were in Alaska. I called an
Speaker 1: FBI agent that I worked with numerous cases homicides and
Speaker 1: such as am and we met and I told her,
Speaker 1: and then you know, she said, you know, I gotta
Speaker 1: take this right to the s AC, you know. And
Speaker 1: I at that time I waited till uh we were
Speaker 1: thinking these murder these talents about if the body showed
Speaker 1: up or whatever. They were probably trooper cases, you know
Speaker 1: from where he's saying, they took them out somewhere. So
Speaker 1: Dave tall Us took the cassette tapes and had them
Speaker 1: all transcribed, and the transcription of multiple pages not that thick,
Speaker 1: and and so I waited until I got the transcript back,
Speaker 1: and uh so I ran off an extra copy and
Speaker 1: met with the FBI agent blue Ann Henderson, and I
Speaker 1: told her about it, and I said, here's the transcript,
Speaker 1: and I said, this is way way out of my
Speaker 1: league as far as uh my jurisdiction on such as that.
Speaker 1: And she took it and I didn't hear anything from
Speaker 1: her for three or four weeks, you know, nothing, and
Speaker 1: uh you know, which really uce me because we had
Speaker 1: worked so closely on some other cases. Uh. I mean,
Speaker 1: we did a drug murder where we had to uh
Speaker 1: again flight Arizona and worked with drug murder and brought
Speaker 1: the guy back with us. Uh, and he took us
Speaker 1: to where the body was up in Alaska. But so
Speaker 1: we had a great relationship and I really a lot
Speaker 1: of respect for it. Anyway, she came back or didn't
Speaker 1: come back with any information. I finally kept calling and
Speaker 1: calling and uh you know, and she said, well, meet
Speaker 1: me somewhere. So obviously she didn't want to meet in
Speaker 1: her office or my office. So we went and met
Speaker 1: and she said, I said, what's going on? I said,
Speaker 1: I keep waiting for a phone call with somebody wanting
Speaker 1: to interview me. And she goes, uh, this ain't being
Speaker 1: handled out of here. This thing s a C. He
Speaker 1: called Washington, and Washington said, don't do anything. You don't
Speaker 1: put anybody on this, do not open investigations, send everything
Speaker 1: you got to us. I go, oh okay. Then uh So,
Speaker 1: I said, well, I would imagine that there whoever they
Speaker 1: send to look into this is going to be calling me.
Speaker 1: That only makes sense. I know everybody. I did. That
Speaker 1: took the statement from him, and uh And I worked
Speaker 1: with the FBI over and over. I had just graduated
Speaker 1: from the FBI National Academy the year before that Quantico.
Speaker 1: I had been brought to Quantico to instruct on our
Speaker 1: homicide response team set up. And I've been to Quantico
Speaker 1: and FBI Academy JE probably seven eight nine times and
Speaker 1: they're not gonna call me. I mean that. I was amazed.
Speaker 1: I mean I was brought in the Alaska representative for
Speaker 1: the founding of the International Homicide Investigator Association, and I
Speaker 1: was the Alaska guy then. So I had been vetted
Speaker 1: by the the FEDS over and over again, and these
Speaker 1: guys are going to come out of Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: And they're not gonna call it one guy that knows
Speaker 1: all these people. That doesn't even make sense. The FBI's
Speaker 1: investigation went nowhere. Like Grimes and Tullus, Tom Davis, the
Speaker 1: third investigator, also had a long distinguished career in law enforcement.
Speaker 1: He worked for decades for the Arizona Department of Public Safety,
Speaker 1: focusing for a time un organized crime. Davis told me
Speaker 1: that other than him Grimes and tell us, someone from
Speaker 1: the FBI also interviewed Paisley directly. If that's true, and
Speaker 1: I can't prove that it is, there's no official record
Speaker 1: of the interview and no information on who conducted it.
Speaker 1: The Bureau I know for a fact interviewed Jerry Um
Speaker 1: only because they're answered to me was that we didn't
Speaker 1: need your approval. And I said back when I said,
Speaker 1: that's right, I said, did he cooperate? Wow, he's not believable.
Speaker 1: It's okay to your knowledge. Was there any more in
Speaker 1: depth investigation or follow up? No, But a lot of
Speaker 1: that basically has to do with the fact that the
Speaker 1: conversation had to do with a person that um, get
Speaker 1: in line, my friend. Uh, and you you want to
Speaker 1: push your weight around, that's fine, but get in line.
Speaker 1: In conclusion, then Tom Davis, Mike Grimes, and Dave Tollis,
Speaker 1: three seasoned investigators, interview Jerry Paisley in Arizona in November.
Speaker 1: Paisley told them that he transported a locked suitcase to
Speaker 1: Alaska nineteen seventy two that Danny's Ivanache, with whom he
Speaker 1: and Peggy Begett started a business, told him the suitcase
Speaker 1: contained high tech explosives and that the missing congressman's plane
Speaker 1: had been bombed. The FBI learned about this and conducted
Speaker 1: a cursory feeble investigation, and the U. S. Attorney for Alaska,
Speaker 1: the Assistant U. S Attorney, the Special Agent in charge
Speaker 1: of the FBI in Alaska, and the S A C
Speaker 1: who replaced him, none of them supposedly remember any of this.
Speaker 1: I guess it's possible to forget that time in your
Speaker 1: career when a murderer with mob ties who married the
Speaker 1: widow of a missing congressman claimed the congressman was assassinated
Speaker 1: and that a famous missing plane had been bombed. Is
Speaker 1: that something you would forget? So the FBI didn't do
Speaker 1: much and the U. S. Attorney's office declined to prosecute
Speaker 1: the case. What about the media In the mid nineties
Speaker 1: and enterprising producer for Dateline NBC named Chris Shoal learned
Speaker 1: about Paisley's allegations and launched his own investigation. Shoal, who's
Speaker 1: now an executive at NBC News, did a really good job.
Speaker 1: I respect him. We had some of the same sources.
Speaker 1: One of these sources gave me copies of letters and
Speaker 1: emails Shoal sent in the nineties and early two thousand's.
Speaker 1: Typically I would never report the content of another reporter's correspondence.
Speaker 1: But since so few people investigated Paisley's claims, so many
Speaker 1: sources have died, and the information is valuable, I'm breaking
Speaker 1: that rule. And an email sent to a source on
Speaker 1: September sev Seal wrote that he spoke quote to a
Speaker 1: former reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. He won a
Speaker 1: Pulitzer for reporting on the mafia and Alaska in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, and he told me my theory was not
Speaker 1: only plausible, but that law enforcement sources of his speculated
Speaker 1: about a bomb even back then. Shul continued quote. The
Speaker 1: reporter told me one of his law enforcement sources took
Speaker 1: several statements from witnesses that night who reported seeing someone
Speaker 1: lurking around the plane. I'm trying to locate the officer
Speaker 1: who told the reporter this and ultimately those witnesses. So
Speaker 1: here we have a four time Emmy Award winning investigative
Speaker 1: producer saying that one of his sources, a Pulitzer winner,
Speaker 1: heard directly from a cop that witnesses saw someone lurking
Speaker 1: around the congressman's plane the night before it disappeared. I
Speaker 1: know that's a chain of so and so heard from
Speaker 1: so and so, but look at the provenance. A cop
Speaker 1: told a Pulitzer winner, who in turn told a respected
Speaker 1: producer for Dateline NBC. In a separate letter to a
Speaker 1: different source, which I also obtained, Schol emphasized that he
Speaker 1: was in no way a conspiracy theorist. Quote. My profession
Speaker 1: requires skepticism, but I'm also a committed investigative journalist, and frankly,
Speaker 1: it just seems like something stinks here. He goes on
Speaker 1: to say that he was quote immensely skeptical of claims
Speaker 1: made by people like Paisley, who clearly enjoys talking about
Speaker 1: his past exploits. That alone may be enough motivation for
Speaker 1: him to lie, but beyond that, he seems to have
Speaker 1: little reason to completely fabricate a story, and in fact,
Speaker 1: large chunks of what he's saying I've been able to document. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I dreaded asking Schul for an interview. This is just
Speaker 1: a weird situation for both of us because now not
Speaker 1: only is schulan executive at NBC News, but specifically he
Speaker 1: helps to oversee news standards, working on issues of fairness
Speaker 1: and accuracy. Typically, he would be one of the people
Speaker 1: helping to decide whether or not NBC reporters should participate
Speaker 1: in a project like this. So was surprised that he
Speaker 1: agreed to do an interview, and I was excited to
Speaker 1: speak with him. You had the rare opportunity to speak
Speaker 1: to Jerry Paisley. Did you interview him in President I
Speaker 1: met him? Um, yeah, not with a camera, but yes,
Speaker 1: he wasn't a jail um um it was whatever the
Speaker 1: name of the jail is there in Tucson, the PMA
Speaker 1: County Jail, right, that sounds right. And what was what
Speaker 1: was that experience like meeting him? Um? Weird? I mean
Speaker 1: I arrived and you know, you go through the normal
Speaker 1: security stuff with the jail, um, glass reinforced doors, all
Speaker 1: of that kind of thing, went past the security booth,
Speaker 1: checked in my my stuff, um and uh, and went
Speaker 1: into the room, and it was a small room. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was sitting across the table from me, kind of
Speaker 1: at an angle and uh, I he was not wearing handcuffs,
Speaker 1: um uh and just was sitting there and we kind
Speaker 1: of shook hands, um and I sat down. He sat down,
Speaker 1: and that's about when he told me he uh he
Speaker 1: could kill me right right then if he wanted to,
Speaker 1: which was you know, I actually thought it was pretty silly.
Speaker 1: You know. It seemed like he was trying to uh
Speaker 1: a little bit of bluster, a little bit of a bluff.
Speaker 1: I didn't take him seriously, um, but it was I
Speaker 1: thought a pretty good sign uh as to what this
Speaker 1: guy was all about. I asked, so what he meant
Speaker 1: in the nineties when he wrote that quote something stinks here? Well,
Speaker 1: it was so weird, right, I mean, Paisley was an
Speaker 1: unquestionably lousy guy. And uh the fact that he was
Speaker 1: uh later got married to the the wife of a
Speaker 1: congressman who died, and that he was making claims about
Speaker 1: having some involvement in that um thinks right. I mean
Speaker 1: I don't know what it means. I wasn't able to
Speaker 1: determine for sure that he was telling the truth. That's clear.
Speaker 1: But I also wasn't uh aware of any evidence that
Speaker 1: I came across that would indicate he had a real
Speaker 1: good reason to lie. Prisoners, you know, guys like that
Speaker 1: lie all the time, and and they sometimes do it
Speaker 1: for their own reasons. It's not always clear what their
Speaker 1: reasoning is. Maybe he wanted to transfer to another facility somewhere,
Speaker 1: but from what I remember, there was no real upside
Speaker 1: to him lying about this, and I, as I had
Speaker 1: been told, he had also been truthful to uh, you know,
Speaker 1: on law enforcement officer on a number of other occasions
Speaker 1: about other things he had been involved with that they
Speaker 1: sort of knew he had been involved with. So my
Speaker 1: my conclusion was, this is weird. It stinks. It just
Speaker 1: by by that, it doesn't mean uh that I had
Speaker 1: you know, had this nail down. It means that something
Speaker 1: wasn't right. Has felt that way to me. Chol said
Speaker 1: that while he can't prove anything Paisley came across as truthful,
Speaker 1: I can tell you that when I when I walked in,
Speaker 1: when I sat down with him, um, I I came
Speaker 1: away believing him, at least in part and partly because
Speaker 1: he did not actually fest up to anything that would
Speaker 1: have made his role look you know, huge, right, He
Speaker 1: fessed up to a fairly minor role. Um and and
Speaker 1: he also professed that he didn't really know why that's
Speaker 1: my recollection anyway, He didn't really know what he was
Speaker 1: doing or the purpose of everything behind it. But he
Speaker 1: played this role, he said, so I to me, I
Speaker 1: came away because I thought, you know, if this guy
Speaker 1: was really trying to hype himself, he would have made
Speaker 1: himself a bigger character. He was already uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I think in life imprisoned at that point, he had
Speaker 1: really nothing to lose by fessing up two more uh,
Speaker 1: and I found him, you know, I mean, I've interviewed
Speaker 1: a lot of people through the years who um, who
Speaker 1: are lying or who have an incentive to life, and
Speaker 1: I have a pretty good radar for that. There's no
Speaker 1: way to know for sure with him, but I just
Speaker 1: found incredible. Seal also spoke briefly with Peggy Baggage. I
Speaker 1: assume there's probably nothing you can share directly about that conversation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get into the details. It's it's
Speaker 1: fair to say she thought she thought Beasley was a
Speaker 1: bad guy. Yea. She regretted it you put it that way,
Speaker 1: but beyond that, I don't want to characterize anything. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: despite Shul's hard work, Dateline didn't run the story, mainly
Speaker 1: because there was no definitive ending. So who was the
Speaker 1: pulitzer winning reporter who told Schul that witnesses saw someone
Speaker 1: lurking around the missing congressman's plane the night before it vanished?
Speaker 1: In an email, should didn't name the reporter, but his
Speaker 1: description of a reporter who won a pulitzer in Alaska
Speaker 1: in the seventies narrow sings down significantly. In fact, there
Speaker 1: are only two people who fit that profile, Bob Porterfield
Speaker 1: and Howard Weaver. Porterfield and Weaver worked for the Anchorage
Speaker 1: Daily News in ninety six. They want a Pulitzer for
Speaker 1: a series they did on the statewide influence of the
Speaker 1: powerful Teamsters Union. I tried to interview the men, both
Speaker 1: of whom are still alive. Porterfield declined requests from on
Speaker 1: the record interview. Weaver, however, agreed to speak with me,
Speaker 1: but after our initial email exchange, he stopped responding. Schul
Speaker 1: said that if memory serves him, it was Weaver, not Porterfield,
Speaker 1: who told him that witnesses saw someone lurking around the
Speaker 1: plane the night before it disappeared. Oddly enough, Weaver's name
Speaker 1: has come up repeatedly during my investigation, sometimes in unexpected situations.
Speaker 1: Multiple people, not Chris Shoal, but others, told me that
Speaker 1: Weaver knows much more about all of this than he's
Speaker 1: letting on. That he has specific important information about Paisley's claims.
Speaker 1: So Howard, if you're listening, call me. Around two thousand
Speaker 1: and award winning Alaska author named Charles Wolf started digging
Speaker 1: into Paisley's claims too. Among other people, woll four spoke
Speaker 1: with Mike Grimes, the Anchorage cop who helped interview Paisley.
Speaker 1: Grimes said he gave woll four everything he had, but
Speaker 1: for some reason, woll Fourth never wrote a book like
Speaker 1: Chris Schal, he dropped the project. According to Grimes, woll
Speaker 1: four got scared off. Woll Fourth did not respond to
Speaker 1: recent interview requests, but I did have a chance to
Speaker 1: speak with him briefly by phone. In During that call,
Speaker 1: wll Fourth told me that he dropped the project not
Speaker 1: because he was scared off, but because he was unable
Speaker 1: to corroborate Paisley's claims to definitively establish beyond doubt the
Speaker 1: correct narrative. But there's something odd here. See. Wal Fourth
Speaker 1: went to high school with Mark Beggatte and Tom beggat
Speaker 1: He's a friend of the Beggatte family. In fact, he
Speaker 1: told me that the Beggatte family cooperated with him on
Speaker 1: the project. So if you take him at his word,
Speaker 1: then he was investigating claims made by his friends x
Speaker 1: step father that their mother had been involved in the
Speaker 1: assassination of their father, and he was going to publish
Speaker 1: a book on all of this. Does that make sense
Speaker 1: to you? I mean, maybe to get ahead of the story,
Speaker 1: I guess, But it makes more sense to me that
Speaker 1: woll Fourth conducted what would typically be referred to as
Speaker 1: opposition research or OPO to see what dirt he could
Speaker 1: dig up on Mark Beggatt before Beggetts ran for public office.
Speaker 1: Shortly after wall Fourth dropped the project, Mark Beggatt was
Speaker 1: elected the mayor of Anchorage. He served two terms before
Speaker 1: winning a seat in the US Senate in two thousand eight.
Speaker 1: He lost his reelection bid. He lost a guber nottorial
Speaker 1: bid two Tom begat his brother, is also a politician
Speaker 1: an Alaska state Senator via email. Tom Beggett's denied that
Speaker 1: Wolforce research was some kind of OPO project conducted on
Speaker 1: behalf of the Beggage family, But that's not consistent with
Speaker 1: what Wolf Fourth, who spent six months on the project,
Speaker 1: told me. In wolf Fourth said quote, it was kind
Speaker 1: of a deal where the Beggage has welcomed me to
Speaker 1: work on it before Mark ran for mayor. I think
Speaker 1: they wanted to know what's the worst out there, and
Speaker 1: if I found anything, I was going to publish it.
Speaker 1: I was going to do a book. Wolf Fourth didn't
Speaker 1: publish a book, but he did go on to work
Speaker 1: as a consultant and speechwriter for Mark Beggatt from two
Speaker 1: thousand three to two thousand nine. So, in conclusion, before me,
Speaker 1: there were at least two other j analists who investigated
Speaker 1: Paisley's claims, Chris shal the Dateline producer, and Charles Wolfforth,
Speaker 1: the author. However, Paisley's claims were never made public until
Speaker 1: that's when I published fore Gone, an initial story on
Speaker 1: my findings, and that year I pitched my research to
Speaker 1: every major news outlet in Alaska, every newspaper, every magazine,
Speaker 1: every TV station, every news radio station. Not a single
Speaker 1: outlet in the state reported anything I found, And you
Speaker 1: know what, I respect that. Okay, nobody owes me anything, obviously,
Speaker 1: but this isn't about me. These were serious claims about
Speaker 1: a missing politician that prompted a previously unreported FBI investigation,
Speaker 1: and I made clear that I wasn't alleging anything. I
Speaker 1: did not pitch the story saying the plane was bombed.
Speaker 1: I pitched the story saying Jerry Paisley claimed the missing
Speaker 1: plane was bombed. I offered to connect reporters in Alaska
Speaker 1: to my own sources. I offered to provide documents. In
Speaker 1: the end, only a single allowsk of reporter interviewed me,
Speaker 1: and then that reporter didn't air the piece. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: Paisley's claims deserved to be investigated. Here we have a
Speaker 1: convicted murderer with documented mob ties who married the widow
Speaker 1: of a missing congressman and claimed he played a part
Speaker 1: in the death of the congressman. So why did the
Speaker 1: Alaska media ignore this story. I'm not entirely sure, but
Speaker 1: I can make a few educated guesses. First, it's toxic.
Speaker 1: Alaska is huge land wise, but it has a small
Speaker 1: insular circle of political and media elites. Why rock the boat?
Speaker 1: Why piste off a powerful political family in the state
Speaker 1: the Beggage is Second, I think there's general sympathy for
Speaker 1: the Beggage kids, which I understand. They lost their dad
Speaker 1: at a young age. They suffered a horrible loss and
Speaker 1: lifelong grief. Honestly, I feel bad for them. Third, the
Speaker 1: story is complex. It's easier to ignore than to investigate.
Speaker 1: I mean, here I am nine years later. Fourth, I
Speaker 1: was just a freelancer. It was easy to ignore me. Thankfully, though,
Speaker 1: I did get some press. In November, my friend and
Speaker 1: former colleague at Seattle Weekly, Rick Anderson, a really amazing
Speaker 1: old school reporter who later died, wrote a cover story
Speaker 1: on my findings. It was Seattle, not Alaska, but Seattle
Speaker 1: is the closest major American city to Alaska, and I'll
Speaker 1: always be grateful to Rick for writing that story. Rick's
Speaker 1: story opened Pandora's box. After it ran, I got many
Speaker 1: new tips, including one which really blew me away, a
Speaker 1: tip from a reliable source who said they may have
Speaker 1: found part of the missing plane. So later, in part
Speaker 1: because of that tip, we're going to Alaska. But first
Speaker 1: we're going to Arizona next time on missing in Alaska
Speaker 1: and your father met him at the airport. My father, Yes,
Speaker 1: Oh wow, did you did you not know that? No? No,
Speaker 1: this is the only thing I know about anything to
Speaker 1: do with with with with What I think you're talking
Speaker 1: about is Jerry was telling people there's a real big
Speaker 1: deal about to go down, and that was right about
Speaker 1: the time that the that the baggage plane went down.
Speaker 1: But uh no, this you're blown me away with this.
Speaker 1: Before we go, two things. First, we're dropping a bonus
Speaker 1: episode this week. It's the full text of a never
Speaker 1: before published report on Jerry Paisley, prepared by a private
Speaker 1: investigator for Dateline NBC. So check it out. Second, something
Speaker 1: new an epilogue. Two years after the FBI ended its
Speaker 1: investigation into Jerry Paisley's claims, the bureau got an interesting
Speaker 1: new lead. A tipster whose name is blacked out in
Speaker 1: records I obtained, sent the FBI copies of letters exchanged
Speaker 1: between two people who discussed the alleged assassination of the
Speaker 1: missing congressman. The names of these two individuals are blacked out,
Speaker 1: but let me read you part of an official FBI
Speaker 1: document with the word blank substituted in for redacted sections. Quote.
Speaker 1: The correspondence, which covers the period September twelve to October
Speaker 1: thirty one, consists of letters allegedly written by Blank to
Speaker 1: Blank that he had a conversation with Blank in which
Speaker 1: Blank claims that while in Alaska nineteen seventy two, he
Speaker 1: and Blank placed the bomb aboard Congressman Hail Boggs's plane.
Speaker 1: Blank allegedly told Blank that the bombing was carried out
Speaker 1: on the orders of his boss, alleged Blank, who was
Speaker 1: doing a favor for Hoover. According to Blank, Congressman Boggs
Speaker 1: wanted to cut the budget of the FBI, and Hoover
Speaker 1: wanted Boggs taken out. So again, that's part of an
Speaker 1: official FBI memo. Now here's something written by the tipster
Speaker 1: who forwarded the mysterious letters to the bureau. Quote the
Speaker 1: Hoover angle sounds far fetched to me. A convict conning
Speaker 1: a convict. On the other hand, however, the insurance motive
Speaker 1: obviously could have some basis in fact. At any rate,
Speaker 1: I will keep you informed if there are any subsequent letters.
Speaker 1: This is absolutely fascinating. Someone somehow got copies of letters
Speaker 1: exchanged between two people, two convicts, apparently discussing the alleged
Speaker 1: assassination of the missing congressman. Was one of the convicts,
Speaker 1: Jerry Paisley. Maybe maybe not. I don't know something else
Speaker 1: that's very interesting. The mystery letters covered the period of
Speaker 1: September twelve to October, so the letters start on September.
Speaker 1: That was exactly one day before the FBI interviewed Danny Zivinach,
Speaker 1: one day before the U. S. Attorney's Office declined to
Speaker 1: prosecute the case. So your task this week involves these letters,
Speaker 1: specifically the tipster who sent them to the FBI. The
Speaker 1: FBI blacked out nearly all of the tipsters information, nearly all.
Speaker 1: At the bottom of the tipster's letter, still visible in
Speaker 1: the footer, you can see the following Vanderbilt University one
Speaker 1: two zero seven eight Avenue South, Nashville, Tennessee three seven
Speaker 1: to one two telephone six three two one nine five
Speaker 1: six eight facts six to seven zero seven seven eight.
Speaker 1: So whoever sent the FBI the mystery letters in used
Speaker 1: Vanderbilt University letter head. If you know who sent the letters,
Speaker 1: or you are the person who sent the letters, please
Speaker 1: contact us. You can reach us by phone at one
Speaker 1: eight three three m I A tips that's one eight
Speaker 1: three three six four two eight four seven seven again
Speaker 1: one eight three three six four two eight war seven seven,
Speaker 1: or you can reach us via email at tips at
Speaker 1: i heeart media dot com. That's tips, T I P
Speaker 1: s at i heeart media dot com. An important note,
Speaker 1: none of the people Jerry Paisley claimed took part in
Speaker 1: or had knowledge of the alleged bombing Joe Bonano, Joey A. Tarola,
Speaker 1: Danny Zevianich, Gene Fowler, Larry Fowler, or Peggy Baggage where
Speaker 1: ever charged with or convicted of crimes tied to any
Speaker 1: of Paisley's allegations. Ben Boland is our executive producer. Paul
Speaker 1: Decan is our supervising producer, Chris Brown is our assistant producer,
Speaker 1: Seth Nicholas Johnson is our producer. Sam T. Garden is
Speaker 1: our research assistant. And I'm your host and executive producer,
Speaker 1: John Wallzac. You can find me on Twitter at at
Speaker 1: John Wallzac j O n W A L c z
Speaker 1: A K special thanks to Tom Davis, Mike Grimes, and
Speaker 1: Dave Tullis for having the courage to speak out while
Speaker 1: so many others remained silent. Missing in Alaska is a
Speaker 1: co production of I Heart Media and Greenfork Media. H