Speaker 1: Thinking Sideways. I don't know. You never know stories of
Speaker 1: things we simply don't know the answer to. Okay, it's
Speaker 1: up Thinking Sideways. The podcast I'm I'm Devin, joined as
Speaker 1: usual by Steve and Joe. Yeah, here we are. I
Speaker 1: get things for joining us again or joining us new,
Speaker 1: whichever you are, here's our podcast. I hope you like it.
Speaker 1: Of course it will. It's like a school project. We're
Speaker 1: going to hop right into it. Uh. This week's story
Speaker 1: is kind of like something you only see in movies.
Speaker 1: It really is a movie story, movie movie tails, so
Speaker 1: kind of they're kind of like embellished it quite a
Speaker 1: bit and made Oceans eleven. They added like ten guys,
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of suspense, a lot of gear and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So. Bill Brennan, thirty four, had been
Speaker 1: working as a cashier at the Stardust Casino in Las
Speaker 1: Vegas for about four years when on September twenty two,
Speaker 1: he left work either for the end of the day
Speaker 1: or for lunch, yeah, in the early morning hours, never
Speaker 1: to be seen again. Yeah. And I guess what makes
Speaker 1: this day even more unusual is that when he left,
Speaker 1: he left with a backpack or duffel bag stuffed with
Speaker 1: half a million dollars in cash and chips. He just
Speaker 1: walked out. Um, nobody questioned him. He actually missed all
Speaker 1: of the CCTV cameras cameras, thank you. Yeah, without a trace,
Speaker 1: just gone. Probably worth mentioning that a half million dollars
Speaker 1: is equivalent to eight hundred and forty seven thousand, six
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty five dollars and two cents in today's money. Wow,
Speaker 1: that was very good man to get the two cents
Speaker 1: in there. Yeah. I did it on the top of
Speaker 1: my head. It's been hitting as harder than I thought. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sure has This is the biggest quote successful robbery in
Speaker 1: the history of Vegas. Also compounded by the fact that
Speaker 1: it was carried out by one man, ostensibly one person.
Speaker 1: Not many people actually win that well at Vegas, so
Speaker 1: he actually he's one of the few winners. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: support this thing because he uh yeah, he's using canine.
Speaker 1: There's just such a big rip off. Yeah, so good
Speaker 1: for him. Yeah, worked there for four years. I don't
Speaker 1: know what, you know, finally broken but something maybe it
Speaker 1: was the penny slots Ben. Yeah, so let's start talking
Speaker 1: about Bill first. I'm talking about Bill. Then we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about the heist, then we're gonna talk about some
Speaker 1: mother stuff. Bill was apparently kind of a loner. He
Speaker 1: lived alone with his cat in an apartment with his cat,
Speaker 1: with his cat. Do I remember correctly that everybody knew
Speaker 1: he had a cat because he was one of those
Speaker 1: cat guys who always talked about his cat. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: loved his cat. He loved his cat. Was his cat
Speaker 1: called Mr Snuggles? Do we know what his cat was called?
Speaker 1: I never saw it in the reading. I was hoping
Speaker 1: somebody else maybe it could be. Maybe it could be
Speaker 1: Mr Snuggles. For all we know, it might be. His
Speaker 1: apartment manager said that he was quote just a nice kid.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of interviews around this, by the way. Yeah, however,
Speaker 1: apparently Bill got a little mixed up with a big
Speaker 1: time gambler or maybe a bookie or maybe a better
Speaker 1: All of the stories conflict. Yeah, I've heard a couple
Speaker 1: of versions of that. I've seen those. Yeah, and Bill
Speaker 1: went from a promising, quote good kid to a problem.
Speaker 1: His bosses started to take notice. This uh debtor that
Speaker 1: he was hanging out with was a quote shady character
Speaker 1: unquote so shady in fact that he apparently also disappeared.
Speaker 1: Within a few months after Bill disappeared, Bill had made
Speaker 1: it clear to his bosses that he really wanted to
Speaker 1: work his way up through the casino. He was lobbying
Speaker 1: to be a supervisor, but his boss was pretty leary
Speaker 1: and said, oh, where what's the quote? With his quote,
Speaker 1: with his change and attitude, I couldn't put in charge
Speaker 1: of all that money. According to many co workers, Bill
Speaker 1: was also reading books like how to Change your Identity,
Speaker 1: how to hide dead bodies, So apparently people were noticing
Speaker 1: that he was having a change in behavior. But I
Speaker 1: guess no what he thought that there would be a
Speaker 1: heist of any kind. In fact, the head of security
Speaker 1: at the time was like shocked, apparently baffled. What. I
Speaker 1: don't remember what did he do? Do you remember? What
Speaker 1: was his job? He was a cashier, so he was
Speaker 1: the guy that you wouldn't exchange your chips with. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: which is why he had access to all that money. Okay,
Speaker 1: that that makes sense. I was just making sure he
Speaker 1: wasn't a dealer or something. No, no, And actually that's
Speaker 1: that's a great question. The heist is kind of a
Speaker 1: work of pure simple genius in a way, stuff in
Speaker 1: the bag and walk out. Nobody really knows what happened.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's part of it, right, is that he
Speaker 1: wasn't caught on camera leaving. Nobody really saw him leaving.
Speaker 1: He was a cashier, so he did have access to
Speaker 1: the money, as we just said. But people in those
Speaker 1: positions are usually like padded down, their bags are checked
Speaker 1: things like that when they leave work, no matter what
Speaker 1: their position is or how long I've been in that position.
Speaker 1: Was that the procedure though in the early nineties, I
Speaker 1: know that is today. I think cameras are everywhere, but
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it's been procedure for a long time
Speaker 1: that I can see that, and it makes total sense.
Speaker 1: I just I know that things in the casino were
Speaker 1: much different in the seventies and eighties and bleeding into
Speaker 1: the nineties. So I just wondered if maybe they weren't
Speaker 1: as security conscious as they should have been with employees
Speaker 1: that they knew. Well, it's actually very interesting point I'd
Speaker 1: like to talk about in a little bit in terms
Speaker 1: of trust with the casinos in the seventies, eighties, and nineties. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: we're getting to it. Okay, Okay, So the fact that
Speaker 1: he didn't get patted down or checked or anything like
Speaker 1: that has led to a lot of speculation that he
Speaker 1: had an accomplice in the security department who allowed him
Speaker 1: to just leave without checking his bag or ant him
Speaker 1: down or anything. And that would make sense also because
Speaker 1: he successfully missed all the cameras, although it seems like
Speaker 1: that would be not so hard if you'd worked there
Speaker 1: for four years. But also, cameras are in casinos are
Speaker 1: meant to catch everything, so yeah, they I mean, if
Speaker 1: he'd worked there that long, he knows where the cameras are.
Speaker 1: And the cameras aren't comprehensive. They don't cover every square
Speaker 1: foot of territory. Well, and I remember reading somewhere on
Speaker 1: some forum somebody had put up the fact that, yeah,
Speaker 1: I knew where the cameras were, and they don't actually cover,
Speaker 1: as Joe said, every square inch. So it is possible
Speaker 1: if you knew where they were to plan your route, Well,
Speaker 1: you could could just walk through and not look out
Speaker 1: of place. You were, you know, doing the uh the
Speaker 1: mission impossible, duck and dive left and right, kind of
Speaker 1: following a little serpentine path out the door. Yeah, of
Speaker 1: course there's actolutely there's really no reason for him to
Speaker 1: try to even avoid the cameras. I mean, so what
Speaker 1: they go back to the tape and they see him
Speaker 1: walking out, and that's not going to enable them to
Speaker 1: catch him. That that's actually interesting and it brings up
Speaker 1: a really interesting point is that I wasn't able to
Speaker 1: find anywhere how they knew that it was him that
Speaker 1: stole all the money and chips, right, Because if they
Speaker 1: never found him and they didn't have him on TV
Speaker 1: walking out, I would assume that the only thing that
Speaker 1: happened is that somebody said, oh, yeah, I saw him
Speaker 1: walking out of here with a bag, but like he
Speaker 1: would have a bag anyways. And also then that person
Speaker 1: was saying, yeah, I let him walk out of here
Speaker 1: with a bag and I didn't check it. You know
Speaker 1: that That's another layer of weird complex mystery around this
Speaker 1: whole thing, is like, how do we even know for
Speaker 1: sure that he did this? That's true, I mean, they
Speaker 1: deduce set from the fact that he want he left,
Speaker 1: he left work and never came back. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: suppose I supposing you wanted to do something like that,
Speaker 1: you wanted to steal this money and keep your job,
Speaker 1: and you're willing to kill somebody. So after he leaves
Speaker 1: where you you you, you know, sneak out with all
Speaker 1: this money, and then you go over to his his
Speaker 1: apartment and you invite about for a drink, and then
Speaker 1: you murder him and bury his bodies somewhere on the desert,
Speaker 1: and he gets, you know, he gets to wrap for it.
Speaker 1: How long after he left, whether it be for lunch
Speaker 1: or the end of his shift, do you know, because
Speaker 1: I don't remember in the reading, how long was it
Speaker 1: after that he disappeared that they realized the cash was gone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't too long. I mean, I think that that
Speaker 1: must be the way, right that, like somebody went to
Speaker 1: go cash him out and realized you're missing like a
Speaker 1: half a million dollars, dude, that's not so within hours,
Speaker 1: Yeah it was, and they you know, all of the
Speaker 1: stories say that the police rushed to his apartment, where
Speaker 1: neither he nor his cat were to be found. That's right,
Speaker 1: Stuggles was gone. The others suggest that this mystery, like
Speaker 1: Big Better or Yeah the Skis, was Bill's accomplice. And
Speaker 1: there's a lot of allusions to this guy, allusions, but
Speaker 1: nobody ever names names, so you can't go out and
Speaker 1: do research on this, like mysterious shady character who also disappeared,
Speaker 1: who also disappeared, But they're not willing to say, like
Speaker 1: it was this dude who disappeared, and theoretically that guy
Speaker 1: is made up. Maybe probably if if nobody's ever named
Speaker 1: names and there's just interviews, he was hanging out with
Speaker 1: this shady guy who bet in the casino all the time,
Speaker 1: you don't know if that guy actually existed. So actually
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I want to talk about the Stardust for
Speaker 1: a minute, the history of the Stardust. This is because
Speaker 1: this this connects pretty well with the whole It would
Speaker 1: help explain why people are a little hesitant to name
Speaker 1: names of some big, better, shady character sort of thing.
Speaker 1: It's very true. So it turns out the Stardust has
Speaker 1: some really strong mob connections. Yeah, I know it did
Speaker 1: back in the day. Anyway, I'm not sure it still does.
Speaker 1: We'll find out. This is Vegas, of course, of course.
Speaker 1: In fact, I wanna I want to talk about the mob,
Speaker 1: and let's talk about Jimmy Hoffa. You know Jimmy. You
Speaker 1: know Jimmy Hoffa. Something we got to talk about Jimmy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. Yeah, he did disappear. Yeah we will be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we will be. I've been thinking about that one actually
Speaker 1: for a while. And actually, yes, I freely admit we're
Speaker 1: diverging from the story at hand for a minute, but
Speaker 1: just bear with me. It's going to tie in, I promise.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Hoffa, as you may or may not know, was
Speaker 1: the driving force in the Union's UH and Teamsters kind
Speaker 1: of movement in the fifties and sixties. In addition to this,
Speaker 1: he was also heavily involved with the Mob, mostly Chicago,
Speaker 1: but also in Kentucky and Kansas City. Kansas City. Kansas
Speaker 1: City was kind of a big mom headquarters. Turns out
Speaker 1: soon they're early sixties. Haffa, being a nice dude, loaned
Speaker 1: six point seven million dollars via a secret deal with
Speaker 1: the Las Vegas Teamsters to one Mr Alan to purchase
Speaker 1: the Stardust Hotel. Gets for that, Yeah, we're getting to it.
Speaker 1: We're getting to it. That means, I guess to clarify
Speaker 1: that in effect, for a while at least, the Mob
Speaker 1: legitimately owned the Stardust Hotel. Not only that, but they
Speaker 1: were getting these kickbacks. And I just want to go
Speaker 1: ahead and remind everybody. This is the sixties and the
Speaker 1: seventies that we're talking about here. So when we talk
Speaker 1: about millions, that's back when a million bucks was actually
Speaker 1: worth something. Was you know, when being a millionaire was
Speaker 1: actually something that's like mind blowing. All Right, we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about this little story shoot off here with a
Speaker 1: man named Frank Lefty Rosenthal. Lefty, he started working at
Speaker 1: the Stardust in two He's also got a strong mob connection,
Speaker 1: and he basically takes over the place. It turns out
Speaker 1: he and Glick were not pals. They butted heads a lot.
Speaker 1: Lefty was kind of a bad dude. He was a jerk.
Speaker 1: In the late nineteen seventies, the Nevada Gaming Commission rated
Speaker 1: the Stardust Hotels counting room and uncovered a skim on
Speaker 1: slot machines that was worth uh seven million dollars in
Speaker 1: a year. Now do you by skim do you mean
Speaker 1: that's that's money just giving off the top. That's unreported.
Speaker 1: Lefty was solely responsible for that. The Gaming Commission struggled
Speaker 1: for years with Lefty. They really wanted to Okay, they
Speaker 1: wanted to kick him out for I mean obvious reasons.
Speaker 1: Right He wasn't kicking back money too. He wasn't. In
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies six, they denied his application for a gaming license,
Speaker 1: which meant that he couldn't be involved in the casino anymore.
Speaker 1: You couldn't be an operator, Yeah, they And they blacklisted
Speaker 1: him actually a few years after that. So Lefty, Uh,
Speaker 1: not one to really listen to voices of authority, quit
Speaker 1: his job as casino manager, but not before he rehired
Speaker 1: himself and gave him the title of Food and Beverage
Speaker 1: Services and then entertainment director. He's also the reason that
Speaker 1: Siegfried and Roy were at the Stardust. This is like
Speaker 1: a little interesting. He's still the act. In the early eighties,
Speaker 1: the Gaming Commission finished up an investigation that had been
Speaker 1: ongoing essentially since Glick came into the picture, and Rosenthal
Speaker 1: as well, and they found out that about fifteen million
Speaker 1: dollars had been skimmed from the Stardust alone and kicked
Speaker 1: back to Mr Hassa, back to the mob. All that
Speaker 1: went back to the to the mob or to the teamsters.
Speaker 1: I mean not all, but a lot of a big
Speaker 1: chunk of it. I mean it was spread between Chicago
Speaker 1: and Kansas City, but I don't know Lefty. I really
Speaker 1: find him interesting now. He's he's the main character in
Speaker 1: the movie Casino, which is, oh gosh, who's the lead
Speaker 1: actor in that? Dustin Hoffman Nero de Niro plays him
Speaker 1: under a different name in that movie. But Yeah, what
Speaker 1: cracks me up is I was doing some reading about
Speaker 1: Lefty and he during this couple of year period when
Speaker 1: he was fighting with the Gaming Commission, they would put
Speaker 1: him unto, you know, in talks, and he would be, uh,
Speaker 1: he would badger them, and that's basically why he got
Speaker 1: kicked out. He's he wouldn't play ball with them. And
Speaker 1: when he was doing these things like you know, making himself,
Speaker 1: what was he food and beverage services director? He actually
Speaker 1: and he was entertainment director. He actually started a TV
Speaker 1: show in the casino and he would he would interview
Speaker 1: the acts and he would get them to talk about
Speaker 1: the Gaming Commission and he would beat them up. And
Speaker 1: evidently it was a terrible show. The Rosenthal shows a
Speaker 1: picture of him sitting on this on the set with
Speaker 1: Frank Sinatra. I don't know, I don't know what if
Speaker 1: Sinatra mentioned that in his memoirs at all. Probably Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's actually there's an awesome picture of Lefty that's like
Speaker 1: the quintessential like mob picture. I'm going to do the
Speaker 1: impression right now. I'll see if we can't like link
Speaker 1: to it or something on the website. The duck face.
Speaker 1: It's the one where he's just like, yeah, he's doing
Speaker 1: kind of a duck face, like yeah. That was when
Speaker 1: he was in one of those commission meetings and was
Speaker 1: not being a very nice gentleman. So finally the Gaming
Speaker 1: Commission got rid of Lefty. I actually think it was
Speaker 1: the mob that got rid of Lefty. I don't remember
Speaker 1: who got rid of left Yeah, he left the left
Speaker 1: He disappear, No, he his car was exploded. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: his car blew up with him in it. It was
Speaker 1: a big enough Catillac that he didn't get killed. There
Speaker 1: was a reinforced steel plate under his feet that saved him.
Speaker 1: He had like minor cuts and bruises. I gotta or
Speaker 1: if he had that put into that, because that's not
Speaker 1: standard in that vehicle. And they half inch thick steel
Speaker 1: plates underneath your vehicle. Sah, yeah, you know. I mean
Speaker 1: if I were in that business, I would probably have
Speaker 1: like an armored like like bulletproof glass and armor in
Speaker 1: the doors and everything like that. Yeah, that would be
Speaker 1: a good idea. So after Lefty Rosenthal left. Sorry everyone.
Speaker 1: The Gaming Commission, I guess, somehow was instrumental in installing
Speaker 1: the next two owners. They facilitated the deal of these
Speaker 1: owners buying the Stardust and in the mid eighties it
Speaker 1: turned out, oh oops, these guys had been skimming to
Speaker 1: they were fined what at that time was a record
Speaker 1: setting amount three point five million dollars each. That was
Speaker 1: the most that any individuals had been fined for. The
Speaker 1: Gaming Commission basically hated this artist at this point, it
Speaker 1: sounds like they did. And then somehow magically in the
Speaker 1: Startust was declared mob free, and but that there's no
Speaker 1: explanation on like how that happened or like, you know,
Speaker 1: they they put some bad guys in those seats. One
Speaker 1: they probably they probably co opted the game and still
Speaker 1: still kind of skimming off the top. Well, but you know,
Speaker 1: think about the mob was big in the fifties, sixties
Speaker 1: and began to wane in the seventies after that, and
Speaker 1: the government was going after them everywhere, so it's much
Speaker 1: harder for them to just freely operate and do what
Speaker 1: they want, and they've got to move more and more
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, which means it's it's much harder for
Speaker 1: them to do their business. And something that is that
Speaker 1: regulated gambling, you know, with the board and everything. I
Speaker 1: can't see it where they could just sneakily put somebody
Speaker 1: in anymore. Well, I think it's just generally, you know,
Speaker 1: they weaned down the population of mobsters in high positions
Speaker 1: and they were just stealing trucks and that was it.
Speaker 1: And so now I know they were doing more than that.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, so the government brilliantly got rid of
Speaker 1: the mob and now and now, of course we don't
Speaker 1: have any thing as organized crime in this country, and
Speaker 1: definitely not or you know, criminals in positions of power,
Speaker 1: or people who let greed take over their sense of
Speaker 1: think that I think actually it may in the end
Speaker 1: have been a mistake to get rid of the mob,
Speaker 1: because these guys at least played by a set of rules,
Speaker 1: whereas a lot of their successors and organized crime in America.
Speaker 1: So they had some serious rules and they gotta gotta
Speaker 1: admit there were some things that I liked about the
Speaker 1: mob days when you read about them, like, you know,
Speaker 1: the mob guys see some dude beating up his wife
Speaker 1: and suddenly the mob shows up at his house and
Speaker 1: he's got two broken legs and he never hits his
Speaker 1: kid again. Kind of thing. Like they there was some
Speaker 1: old school rules that they played by that were good things.
Speaker 1: They did a lot of bad things. Yeah, but for example,
Speaker 1: if you if you, if you whacked a guy, you
Speaker 1: didn't kill his family, and you did make sure not
Speaker 1: to do it in front of his family and then
Speaker 1: and they had all kinds of rules like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which they did bad things, but there's a there's a
Speaker 1: silver lining to sub of it right now, and that
Speaker 1: we are totally out this isn't a show about the mob. No, no,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Go ahead, We'll talk a lot more about
Speaker 1: the mob in our Jimmy Hoffa episode. Yeah, well, you
Speaker 1: guys want to talk about billsmore, we probably should. Yeah. Probably.
Speaker 1: I guess that whole tangent was a little bit to
Speaker 1: explain the history of the startups, to explain that people
Speaker 1: in power in the stardust have not always been the
Speaker 1: most honest. Well, yeah, it's Vegas. I mean, everybody knows
Speaker 1: about Vegas and its origins and all that stuff, and
Speaker 1: like say, maybe the mob is still there and may
Speaker 1: be not, but if they're if they're still there, that
Speaker 1: I would tell you why he's never heard from again.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not there anymore. What's that started stars? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I saw a picture of you guys probably saw it
Speaker 1: too on the web page of the old original Classic
Speaker 1: Startust Junkyard in a junkyard. Yeah, I want it so cool.
Speaker 1: I wonder if I wonder if they want to the
Speaker 1: Smithsonian Institution or something like that. You know, it's only
Speaker 1: an institute should have gotten that somebody should take. Hopefully
Speaker 1: somebody got a hold of it. You know, maybe I'll
Speaker 1: put it in my backyard. Yeah, we'll go over really
Speaker 1: well with my neighbors. I think it might be bigger
Speaker 1: than your backyard. You're gonna have to they're gonna have
Speaker 1: to get airspace rights over your neighbor's yards. Possibly. When
Speaker 1: it comes to Bill, there's really only two theories. You know,
Speaker 1: there's sub theories under it, right, but either he's a
Speaker 1: live or he's dead. Quick question. Yeah, of the cash
Speaker 1: and ships that he took, what how much was cash
Speaker 1: and how much was Yeah, that's that's kind of a
Speaker 1: big thing. Is that nobody knows? I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 1: they know, right, they wouldn't know, but it's not publicized
Speaker 1: how much. Because that's actually one of my big problems
Speaker 1: with some of these theories is that we don't know
Speaker 1: how much of it was money and how much of
Speaker 1: it was chips. I gotta be honest. If he was
Speaker 1: smart and he intended to get out of town, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't take a single chip. Well, I think it's interesting.
Speaker 1: You know you can if you plan this ahead, you say,
Speaker 1: I'm in a steal a bunch of chips, will you
Speaker 1: pay them for me, you know, at a reduced rate
Speaker 1: and market? Yeah, and then you can go. You set
Speaker 1: that deal up prior, you do it quick, and then
Speaker 1: you That's kind of what I was thinking is with
Speaker 1: the one of his gambling friends, you could have said, look,
Speaker 1: if I got you a pile of chips and I'm
Speaker 1: in a huge pilot chips, how much would you give me? Like,
Speaker 1: would you give me seven seventy cents on the dollar,
Speaker 1: you know something like that somewhere some reduced traight and
Speaker 1: just make a bulk sale. Yeah, absolutely, because yeah, obviously
Speaker 1: he can't go back and gamble rate chips, so he's
Speaker 1: gotta he had cash him in it. You don't even
Speaker 1: have to gamble him. You can just walk up and
Speaker 1: cash him out. And as soon as it was known,
Speaker 1: the casino put out all the other casinos. Hey, we
Speaker 1: had a whole bunch of chips stolen, so'll be watching
Speaker 1: out for random people walking in with huge stacks of
Speaker 1: our chips suddenly to be cashing you do. Well. Do
Speaker 1: other casinos honor the chips from from the other casinos?
Speaker 1: And I don't you know, I never gambled with chips
Speaker 1: in Vegas. I've always played slot machines because I weeny uh,
Speaker 1: and so I don't really know. I wouldn't think that
Speaker 1: they would, but I remember seeing stuff in the reading
Speaker 1: about them alerting other casinos to large denominations of their
Speaker 1: chips coming in. So I've got to imagine that there's
Speaker 1: a bit of a barter there. Now, maybe they don't
Speaker 1: give them a hundred face value, or maybe they do.
Speaker 1: May yeah, I don't know, but it seems like they'd
Speaker 1: have to have some kind of exchange when people are
Speaker 1: walking from casino to casino with getting paid in chips.
Speaker 1: I mean, selling them in bulk on the black market
Speaker 1: would be the smart way to do offload them fast. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: Let's let's say he's alive for now, shall we. This
Speaker 1: obviously means he's not in America anymore, because he's on
Speaker 1: the FBI's Most Wanted Fugitive list and also has appeared
Speaker 1: numerous times on America's Most Wanted. Well, you could have
Speaker 1: grown a beard and moved up into the hills and
Speaker 1: become a unibomber type living living in a little shop.
Speaker 1: That's true. But I also do want to think a
Speaker 1: little bit about half a million dollars, you know, five
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars. It's not such a high amount that
Speaker 1: you could totally live for the rest of your life
Speaker 1: on it. Suffice to say, you know, you can do
Speaker 1: the math. And actually a lot of people on the
Speaker 1: internet do do this math what they say, and it's
Speaker 1: been twenty two years since this happened. Five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: about by twenty two years equals about twenty two dollars
Speaker 1: a year, which is not enough to live on, as
Speaker 1: it turns out in America. Well, you could live on that,
Speaker 1: but you'd be yeah, and that that means that it
Speaker 1: would only be twenty two years that you're living You know,
Speaker 1: that number gets smaller and smaller the longer you live
Speaker 1: off of it. In the beginning, that's probably decent money
Speaker 1: to living. So I admit he probably ran out of
Speaker 1: cash if he's in this country. Yeah, and that's I
Speaker 1: think that I don't know why you would stay here.
Speaker 1: First of all, it's to live way cheaper places to live.
Speaker 1: I mean, he could he's probably not living in Europe
Speaker 1: because somehow that's even less money. But I just want
Speaker 1: to think about like the Pacific rim areas, lots of
Speaker 1: parts of Asia, South and Central America. I mean, I
Speaker 1: I have friends, you guys know, my friends that do
Speaker 1: this where they go and they work up in in
Speaker 1: the fish farms in Alaska and make thirty dollars in
Speaker 1: the summer, and then they just literally travel around and
Speaker 1: live on it for a whole year because you go
Speaker 1: cheap places to live, and that's so sufficient that it's crazy.
Speaker 1: I mean, so if you're gonna go, maybe like to
Speaker 1: the Philippines with half a million dollars, you canna live
Speaker 1: like a king. Yeah, you can do pretty well. Or
Speaker 1: another place if you got If your listeners are looking
Speaker 1: for a cheap place to go, Bolivia, Bolivia, it's really
Speaker 1: cheap Wow. Yeah, So for me, it's not a problem
Speaker 1: to say that it's not enough money to live on.
Speaker 1: I think it's not enough to live in America, but
Speaker 1: there are a lot of places you could go or
Speaker 1: would be enough. It also explains on like most of
Speaker 1: the other theories, that that his cat was gone, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, like if he if he got murdered, his
Speaker 1: cow would still be at his apartment. If you're a
Speaker 1: detail rated murderer, then you're gonna go take You're gonna
Speaker 1: go to his place and pack a bag and take
Speaker 1: the cat and hopefully you're not going to kill the cat.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you're gonna find him a new home, you know,
Speaker 1: but probably Yeah, yeah, that's what people who kill their
Speaker 1: cat society puts up. Puts up like a Craigslist d
Speaker 1: My my owner got whacked. I need a home, signed
Speaker 1: Mr Snuggles. Mr Snuggles. Anyways, I think, you know, it
Speaker 1: would have been pretty easy for him to have just
Speaker 1: drunk his cat up, stuck in the carrier, hopped on
Speaker 1: a plane. It just moved. But again there's the problem
Speaker 1: of we don't know how much money versus chips. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's say it was half and half, and of course
Speaker 1: I say I had to cut a deal with somebody,
Speaker 1: and let's say knock it down to like seven seven
Speaker 1: cents on the dime, do you think so? Yeah? You know,
Speaker 1: also that's how much I say, rough figure grand No,
Speaker 1: no's it'd be about so it's come out to about
Speaker 1: four if he's getting seven said, Yeah, let's say he's dead.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm kind of guessing that's a big probability.
Speaker 1: I think there are two kind of sub theories here.
Speaker 1: One is the accomplice theory, one is the mob theory.
Speaker 1: And then I guess there's like a third sub theory
Speaker 1: that we'll talk about after we're done talking about the
Speaker 1: accomplice in the mob. I mean he but he clearly
Speaker 1: had an accomplice, right, Either he walked out of a
Speaker 1: casino with a backpack or a duffel bag full of
Speaker 1: money and chips, he he would have had to had
Speaker 1: somebody let him through security. He would have had somebody
Speaker 1: at the very least by those chips off of him.
Speaker 1: He's not back in here laundering them the chips, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, somebody else has the chips at this point,
Speaker 1: I mean, not this current moment. After the Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's it's not as though he just had nobody helping him.
Speaker 1: I don't agree with that. Yeah, Okay, when the casino
Speaker 1: gets robbed, they rarely tell exactly how it was done
Speaker 1: and what was done right. They're a little sketchy on
Speaker 1: the details because they don't want any other Yahoo's figure
Speaker 1: you're in it out. Okay. So maybe he does have
Speaker 1: some shady guy who he knows he can take a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars worth the chips to and sell and
Speaker 1: the rest is in cash and then he just skips.
Speaker 1: But I personally think that I think this guy would
Speaker 1: have to be smart enough to know that chips are
Speaker 1: not the way to go. I would imagine that you
Speaker 1: would want to take the majority of what you steal
Speaker 1: in cash so you can just bounce with it. And
Speaker 1: he could have I mean, you know, if he's hanging
Speaker 1: up with a debtor and this guy is getting him
Speaker 1: to gamble and do bad things, he might have owed
Speaker 1: money to other people and he might have just walked
Speaker 1: by and said, hey, so I know I owe you
Speaker 1: a hunter grand here's chips from the stardust I'm out by,
Speaker 1: and takes off and then skips, like we've talked about.
Speaker 1: But he's got the other four hundred grand in cash,
Speaker 1: and we don't know how much he took. He might
Speaker 1: have just taken. He might have taken just a couple
Speaker 1: of hundred chips. He might have taken him just enough
Speaker 1: for his home poker set. Yeah, it's true, that's definitely true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just a souvenir kind of thing, you know. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think that's that's fair. I guess I would qualify
Speaker 1: somebody buying chips as some sort of accomplice, and that
Speaker 1: that person may be thinking, oh, you have this many chips,
Speaker 1: Well where'd you get him? You know, And if he's
Speaker 1: a smart guy, he says I accidentally walked out with
Speaker 1: him or something, right, it makes it a story, didn't
Speaker 1: tell every exactly. But he may not be a smart guy.
Speaker 1: He may be like, oh, I'll just rip the start
Speaker 1: ust off. I walked out of there with like half
Speaker 1: a million dollars, at which point somebody says, oh, oh really,
Speaker 1: I'll take that. Yeah. You think it would have kept
Speaker 1: his mouth shut about the cash, you would think that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But if he did have an accomplice, which again I
Speaker 1: think he does. Steve apparently thinks he doesn't, And I
Speaker 1: think it's a it's a good possibility. Then that wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily accomplice who helped commit the crime, but just somebody
Speaker 1: he arranged with the time to deliver a bunch of
Speaker 1: ships to Yeah, I think I think it's a good
Speaker 1: possibility that that person would have decided maybe all of
Speaker 1: the half a million dollars sounded better than just the three.
Speaker 1: All is better than half, all is better than hals these.
Speaker 1: Then there's the mob. Yeah, they were angry, so they attractive,
Speaker 1: but they are still involved in the Stardust. They don't
Speaker 1: have a good history of not reacting people who steal,
Speaker 1: turning the other cheek and all that stuff so much
Speaker 1: into that it turns out, so you have a mob
Speaker 1: or just not great people who run the Stardust. I mean,
Speaker 1: we talked a little bit about the Ocean's eleven connection,
Speaker 1: but since this is a story kind of ripped from
Speaker 1: a movie, Steve Well, all right, so I've been reading
Speaker 1: this and I really liked the story, but I'm not
Speaker 1: a super fan of the two main theories, so I've
Speaker 1: just kind of been spitballing, as I like to do.
Speaker 1: Time to spit is, I was thinking about it, and
Speaker 1: I've got two ideas. Okay, okay, So the first off,
Speaker 1: let's step back and remember that nobody saw him leave
Speaker 1: that I could have been murdered on set that he
Speaker 1: can Yeah, maybe not murdered, but like he may have
Speaker 1: made it out of the casino. Yeah, he may have
Speaker 1: been pinched in the casino. And they said, we don't
Speaker 1: know what happened to him and all this money, and
Speaker 1: now we've got us file this claim against insurance because
Speaker 1: he lost half a million dollars. Oops. Yeah, and actually
Speaker 1: added to that, it would be pretty easy for them to,
Speaker 1: you know, say, hey, homeless dude, here's a bunch of money.
Speaker 1: Launder it back into the company for a something like that. Right,
Speaker 1: So you make the insurance claim of half a million dollars,
Speaker 1: which again is a significant amount of money, almost closer
Speaker 1: to a million dollars at this point in today's money,
Speaker 1: You launder it back in, you've made your claim, you
Speaker 1: kind of come out on top, and you've eliminated a
Speaker 1: problem child. Yeah. But the problem with that I have
Speaker 1: with that theory is, and that's not a bad one,
Speaker 1: but if I were planning on doing something like that,
Speaker 1: I would have probably given the guy more responsibility and
Speaker 1: access to more cash, and then you whack him and
Speaker 1: then you and then you disappear to three million dollars.
Speaker 1: Oh well, this is this is they didn't realize he
Speaker 1: was going to do it, and they caught him, and
Speaker 1: they caught him. They catch him in the act and
Speaker 1: somebody acts rashly. Let's say, he freaks out and a
Speaker 1: gun goes off, as it does in the movies, and
Speaker 1: he slumps down dead in the hallway and one of
Speaker 1: the back hallways, and uh, we got to get rid
Speaker 1: of his body. Oh conveniently there's a desert out there,
Speaker 1: and explained this guy suddenly gone. That works for us.
Speaker 1: So I kind of wonder about that aspect, which we
Speaker 1: don't really see in any of the reading. That was
Speaker 1: my third Oh was it? I'm sorry? That's okay. I
Speaker 1: do have another idea. Yeah, so this one is even
Speaker 1: farther off the rails. Okay, I know I do, And
Speaker 1: I know Joe has a cat, and you're not a
Speaker 1: cat person. I am not a cat person. Okay. Sorry.
Speaker 1: Anybody that has a cat knows that your cat is
Speaker 1: out to kill you. So what if it was Mr Snuggles,
Speaker 1: Mr Snuggles with the candlestick. Mr Snuggles plotted the whole
Speaker 1: thing and then killed him. I went to Venezuela to
Speaker 1: eat sardines for the rest. What if Mr Snuggles wasn't
Speaker 1: actually a cat? What if he was paused? Why not?
Speaker 1: I'm really, if we're gonna be just accusing random things,
Speaker 1: may as well accuse the chupacabra. Absolutely. Um yeah. And
Speaker 1: if you have to say, an accomplice in the casino,
Speaker 1: and then of course, like it could be that he uh,
Speaker 1: they plotted it out together, and that is accomplished, just
Speaker 1: like you know, cat him with a lead pipe and
Speaker 1: stuffed him in a laundry cart and you know, took
Speaker 1: the body out that way. And that's the other thing
Speaker 1: is that that's how I explained why the cat has
Speaker 1: gone from the apartment if he did have an accomplice
Speaker 1: that knocked him off once he left, as he says, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna skip town. I'll meet you and give you
Speaker 1: your cut. So he's got his cat in the car
Speaker 1: cat carrier. He meets him at some abandoned lot. The
Speaker 1: guy waxed him in the head with a lead pipe
Speaker 1: and kills him, opens up the cat carrier and then
Speaker 1: sets the car on fire. And Mr Snuggles runs free
Speaker 1: to live with the you know, other feral cats in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood, and the car is destroyed or they run
Speaker 1: it out into the desert or something that would explain
Speaker 1: why the one thing that is disguy's anchor, the pud,
Speaker 1: is gone. Yeah. Do you know did they search the
Speaker 1: Humane Society to see if he cats turned up. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of guessing they didn't. The probably didn't. It's my
Speaker 1: guest too, so though they are the theories, and I
Speaker 1: guess unless you guys have anything else, If you're Bill Brennan,
Speaker 1: please call, would you please? Seriously? Won't we won't tell
Speaker 1: the FBI. They probably are monitoring this podcast. Well, obviously
Speaker 1: they are. We solving a lot of their mysteries for them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: With that, it's a nice little short episode for y'all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: on the back of like four or five. If you
Speaker 1: would like to read some of the links that we
Speaker 1: have been referencing tonight, they are as always on our website.
Speaker 1: That website is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. You may
Speaker 1: be listening to us there. You're probably listening to us
Speaker 1: on iTunes. If you're listening to us on iTunes, drop
Speaker 1: as a comment narrating if you would. If you forgot
Speaker 1: to download us, you could be streaming us on Stitcher,
Speaker 1: which is not the only thing that we're on these days.
Speaker 1: I think we're also in the Zooe Library, because apparently
Speaker 1: that's the thing still is still around. Yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: now we're in the I think getting into the Zooe
Speaker 1: Library puts us into the Microsoft library. Yeah. Evidently you
Speaker 1: can find us on Windows eight phones. They have a
Speaker 1: podcast app. Gosh, I guess. So we're on tune In
Speaker 1: as well as well. We're we're kind of all over
Speaker 1: the place these days. Yeah, we're also on Facebook. If
Speaker 1: you would like to connect with us there, please feel free.
Speaker 1: You know, we've got the group and the page. So
Speaker 1: like us and friend us. There's gonna be some interesting
Speaker 1: stuff coming along there pretty soon. Steve's making a face
Speaker 1: there is Yeah, Okay, what's it going to be. That's
Speaker 1: a surprise. It's interesting. We can't tell the teaser, Joe,
Speaker 1: that's what the teaser is. Yeah. Also, we're trying to
Speaker 1: make Twitter work for us. Everybody in this room is
Speaker 1: making a face. Sorry everyone. I'm reading a lot of
Speaker 1: Twitter help blogs. Yeah, I figured because I've never really
Speaker 1: used to Twitter trying to I'm reading Twitter for dummies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I figured out some of some of those
Speaker 1: medieval terrorist types over in the Middle East can figure
Speaker 1: out Twitter. Then a weekend too, probably that's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope you would. Hope. Also email, it's the best
Speaker 1: way to get in contact with us. That email address
Speaker 1: is Thinking Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. We have
Speaker 1: some listener mail. Actually, we've been putting off for so long.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. Mail bag is huge. Actually these days
Speaker 1: it's kind of over a little overflowing. So why don't
Speaker 1: we read those emails? Yeah, let's do This one is
Speaker 1: from Aubrey. She said, Hey there, my name is Aubrey.
Speaker 1: I'm a college student, sophomore studying psy call Gy, and
Speaker 1: I've been obsessed with your show, listening between classes and
Speaker 1: putting off work to listen as well. I promise I
Speaker 1: will keep my grades up, though, especially since I am
Speaker 1: nearing being caught up in horrified at the idea of
Speaker 1: running out of my ability to binge listen. Yeah, step
Speaker 1: your studies not really do want to really responsible think
Speaker 1: that that was actually one of the first things that
Speaker 1: were one of the big things. Keep your grades up
Speaker 1: because I was trying to think of something for a podcast,
Speaker 1: and everything had either already been done or so famous
Speaker 1: that I'm sure that you would eventually do them, or
Speaker 1: are tired of hearing them suggested. Bottom line, I had
Speaker 1: the a very disturbing but good idea. Anyways, that's you know,
Speaker 1: she the suggestion, and she just says keep podcasting, and
Speaker 1: she's classed up two thousand and seventeen, which is scary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's super scary. So thank you for the suggestion, Aubrey.
Speaker 1: I think that I will not be taking it, but
Speaker 1: somebody in this room probably well maybe. Yeah. It's uh,
Speaker 1: it's a disturbing idea or a disturbing story. It's it's
Speaker 1: very different from us but from what we do normally,
Speaker 1: but kind of vaguely like it. So it deals with
Speaker 1: bodily functions. Gross, it's gross. It's gross. Well, we'll get
Speaker 1: to it at some point in the near future. And
Speaker 1: I think, all right, well, we've got another one here
Speaker 1: that I wanted to I wanted to read for everybody,
Speaker 1: and this is from Linley. Linley says, Hi, guys, I
Speaker 1: adore your podcast. I look forward listening to it every
Speaker 1: week Thursday nights. I work alone in the basement of
Speaker 1: a library processing books, and your podcast is the perfect
Speaker 1: mood center. I don't alone in the basements. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't listen to our stuff when it's like dark out.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I leave, like from recording and I'm like, it's
Speaker 1: too creepy out here. Actually, After After Dark the only
Speaker 1: the only podcast I listened to our in the Muppets
Speaker 1: and Barney, Yeah, thank you for providing me with hours
Speaker 1: of entertainment and getting me through these long hours in
Speaker 1: a dusty room stacked with books. Literally, then goes on
Speaker 1: to suggest a story which I've got to admit I
Speaker 1: was really intrigued with. I hadn't ever heard of before,
Speaker 1: but yeah, working in a dark basement at night on
Speaker 1: your own listen with us. Yeah, I've been doing a
Speaker 1: lot of research on the library basement murders, and uh,
Speaker 1: we're probably gonna that just reminded me of that. I
Speaker 1: sort of let that slip and let us and so yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll be covering that soon. Yeah, don't worry. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know that actually makes me think, is I
Speaker 1: don't know that we share with our listeners or our
Speaker 1: listeners share with each other sometimes, is the other shows
Speaker 1: that they listened to for some folks that are in
Speaker 1: that situation where it's like, that's a creepy spot, you
Speaker 1: should listen to this instead. And I know I listened
Speaker 1: to a bunch of shows. I know, Devin, you listen
Speaker 1: to the Couples, Um and Joe listen to one or two.
Speaker 1: So I mean, you know, I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: worth it at some point for us to share that
Speaker 1: with our listeners and have our listeners share what they
Speaker 1: listened to. I think that might be fun for us
Speaker 1: to do sometimes. I mean, and you know, there's another
Speaker 1: thing I wanted to say. You know, we really appreciate
Speaker 1: the positive messages that we get, and I would say
Speaker 1: that of our emails are positive like that. But also,
Speaker 1: don't be afraid if you if you think that we've
Speaker 1: left something important out of a mystery, don't be afraid
Speaker 1: to chime in and let us know about that. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we've missed the mark on a point or two and
Speaker 1: about something wrong, and please let us know. I mean,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's nice that you say good stuff
Speaker 1: to us, but I feel free to criticize us to
Speaker 1: Joe needs to start going on Reddit because yeah, a
Speaker 1: little bit, Yeah, thank needs to be. There's some verbal ticks.
Speaker 1: Some of us have habits. They're habits that we're trying
Speaker 1: to get rid of. We're really really working on it,
Speaker 1: and no, thank you, And with that, I think I
Speaker 1: think we're going to call this one solved. Obviously Mr
Speaker 1: Snuggles voted for Mr Snuggles, So yeah, anyways, thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: We'll talk to you guys next week. Yeah. Well that
Speaker 1: a hard hitting mystery will be sold sweet