Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Dunton Zaren Brunette. I got a question for you. Yes,
Speaker 2: do you know what is ridiculous?
Speaker 3: I do know what is ridiculous?
Speaker 2: Lay it on me.
Speaker 3: Lick what lick what? Lick?
Speaker 2: Stop saying that.
Speaker 3: I can't remember when I was Remember when I was
Speaker 3: telling you about people getting the Hines fifty seven tattoos.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and it was oddly in Brazil. Yeah, well
Speaker 3: they've taken their craziness Hines over to another continent.
Speaker 2: They can't be stopped.
Speaker 3: No, they cannot. So Hines has partnered with a company
Speaker 3: called Lick.
Speaker 2: Okay go on, and it's so sure this is gonna
Speaker 2: be fun.
Speaker 3: We got a ton of these. This is forwarded to
Speaker 3: us by a ton of people.
Speaker 2: The Elizabeth Army was marching, Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: We rise up. Lick Paint. It's a paint company and
Speaker 3: so they have a matte.
Speaker 2: Paint I know, Blick Art supply the Yeah, they.
Speaker 3: Dropped the bee because they're not their crips and so
Speaker 3: they they it's Lick and they're out of the UK.
Speaker 3: So they spelled color COO l O U R.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: Anyway, they have this matte paint red HTK fifty seven.
Speaker 3: It's the Hinds Tomato ketchup color and so you can
Speaker 3: paint your walls like that and that's that's ridiculous. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so you know, ridiculous, gross, what have you? But
Speaker 3: I have another I knew there was more non mashup.
Speaker 3: Is this a really good message that we got on
Speaker 3: Instagram that was forwarded over to me from Helen w.
Speaker 3: She said, you know, in a past episode, I think
Speaker 3: it was when we were talking about that male heights
Speaker 3: to the planmeth mail highs crime Watch the show in
Speaker 3: the UK. She said, I know someone will have said,
Speaker 3: but sorry, Elizabeth. Crime Watch was canceled by the BBC
Speaker 3: and half of the UK true crime podcasters are still
Speaker 3: not over it. It is sad I loved a good
Speaker 3: crime watch. Sadly it isn't murder free, but it is
Speaker 3: ridiculous that one of the presenters of crime Watch, Jill Dando,
Speaker 3: was murdered on her doorstep. I know a man was
Speaker 3: tried and jailed for it, but then it was overturned
Speaker 3: and her killer has never been caught.
Speaker 2: I don't I just make light of this, but was
Speaker 2: her murder then presented on the show that she.
Speaker 3: That begs the question and we're not making light. I don't,
Speaker 3: but I just stole your one percent, so you're not
Speaker 3: allowed anything in there. Okay, but yeah, So I just
Speaker 3: thought that was like one of the greatest dms, like
Speaker 3: the two parters.
Speaker 2: Totally well structured. Yeah, way to miss your opportunity in
Speaker 2: your moment like crime Stoppers, Crime Watch watchers, crime watch Yeah,
Speaker 2: crime like, way to miss your moment Like now, true
Speaker 2: crime is bigger, let's cancel this right, you.
Speaker 3: Think that people be into it whatever. So in summary,
Speaker 3: those two things are ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous. Yep, well I got one for you. If you
Speaker 2: got a second, sit back down. This one has everything.
Speaker 2: I don't know. This man's life is in a movie, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: It's an oscar just waiting to happen. Brad Pitt's people
Speaker 2: call me no for real. First, seriously, I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2: When I read through this guy's life. I was just like,
Speaker 2: page after a page. I was like it was reported
Speaker 2: the newspapers, there was stuff in senate testimony. I was
Speaker 2: just just shocked, Elizabeth. Over the course of this show,
Speaker 2: we have talked drug smugglers. Yeah, we've talked hippie drug
Speaker 2: dealers in Hawaii. We've talked dudes who faked their own deaths,
Speaker 2: who talked about hypnosis. We talked about Pablo Escobar, who
Speaker 2: talked about the CIA. We've never talked about the Iaron
Speaker 2: Contra affair.
Speaker 3: Have we No? But it's right for the picking.
Speaker 2: Mix all of that together and you get this story.
Speaker 3: You're kidding.
Speaker 2: This is ridiculous crime. A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers.
Speaker 2: I sincds. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and
Speaker 2: one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3: You are damn right.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Barren in his own words, this guy I'm gonna
Speaker 2: tell you about it. He described himself as quote well, basically,
Speaker 2: I'm just a farm boy from Arkansas. There is a
Speaker 2: story here that is much deeper than it presents itself
Speaker 2: on the surface.
Speaker 3: Oh he says that, and he ain't lying.
Speaker 2: Meet Gary Betzner.
Speaker 3: Hi, Gary, all right.
Speaker 2: Gary had a rather all American upbringing. He was raised
Speaker 2: in the Heartland. He born in the early forties, during
Speaker 2: the war years, his formative years. This makes it be
Speaker 2: the nineteen fifties, one of those kids raised, you know,
Speaker 2: like I've talked before, Blue jeans Westerns on TV the
Speaker 2: whole bit, right, Milkman. By the late nineteen sixties, he
Speaker 2: was in his mid twenties, and so at this point
Speaker 2: he's joined the military. He's become a pilot in the military.
Speaker 2: He was one hell of a pilot while he was
Speaker 2: in the military. The head of the top Gun program
Speaker 2: reportedly told Gary that he was the best pilot he'd
Speaker 2: ever known. You know, the top Gun program, right, that's
Speaker 2: like the best pilots in the Navy. Yes, exactly. So
Speaker 2: back home in Hayes in Arkansas, population fourteen hundred, Gary,
Speaker 2: and there was what you might call a local celebrity,
Speaker 2: colorful character. Now to pay his bills. What did he do?
Speaker 2: What told you he'd become a pilot in the military,
Speaker 2: comes back home, becomes a crop duster. He loved it.
Speaker 2: He had thrills and chills and for you know, exhibitions
Speaker 2: on the weekends. He would be a stunt flier occasionally.
Speaker 3: Oh so he's like a crop duster. Did he want
Speaker 3: like did he walk around Walmart farting and then leaving
Speaker 3: the aisle? Like did you do that professional.
Speaker 2: High passes that the airplane kind airplane? Yeah, agricultural fields
Speaker 2: coming in low and fast and or low and slow. Actually,
Speaker 2: for instance, this guy, he was such a good pilot.
Speaker 2: He could skim the like watering holes and lakes around
Speaker 2: his hometown of Hazen. And what I mean skim is
Speaker 2: he put his waters right on the wheel and kind
Speaker 2: of just kissed the water with his wheel. That's real
Speaker 2: difficult because if you catch it'll pull your right out right.
Speaker 3: He makes me think of that Stephen Stills song Tree
Speaker 3: Top Flyer.
Speaker 2: Yes, I love that song very much.
Speaker 3: Mainly because of the line don't do business that don't
Speaker 3: make me smile.
Speaker 2: Such a good, good one. Well, this dude is good
Speaker 2: as the pilot dis he was. He also had his
Speaker 2: fair share near death experiences. He crashed eleven planes. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: Ever he walked away without a scratch, every single kidding.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean it's like a low flying slow crop
Speaker 3: duster just like jumps out and runs next.
Speaker 2: To it, races it to the ground. So in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty nine, he's out there, you know, single guy moving
Speaker 2: around in Hays in Arkansas summer totally Well, you girl,
Speaker 2: you don't even know. We're two years out of the
Speaker 2: summer love, and you know we're basically in the Oki
Speaker 2: from Muskogee era of this part of.
Speaker 3: The country took a while to flow out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're still like hanging on to like buzz cuts
Speaker 2: and like rolled up blue jeans. But oh yeah they
Speaker 2: did have The moon landing happened in nineteen sixty nine
Speaker 2: in July. Everyone's all excited. So these people they have
Speaker 2: a moon party. He goes to attend it. This is
Speaker 2: meeting was fortuitous because this night it becomes the night
Speaker 2: he beats the love of his life, or at least
Speaker 2: for the woman he met, he was the love of
Speaker 2: her life. I'll just say that. She says that I
Speaker 2: don't want words in his mouth. Anyway. Neil Armstrong took
Speaker 2: one small step from man one giant leap for mankind,
Speaker 2: and Sally met Gary. They were just like right there saying. Well,
Speaker 2: when she was telling the story, she said, and I quote,
Speaker 2: there was a boom in the universe. It just shook.
Speaker 2: So apparently two universal things happened that night. Yeah, she
Speaker 2: fell in love like Muhammad A. Lee boxed Elizabeth shook
Speaker 2: up the world. Anyway, There's one problem. Gary was already married.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he his wife was seven months pregnant. Oh,
Speaker 2: so that didn't stop married Gary from starting a family
Speaker 2: with Sally. Sally, Someone's universe got shook, I'm telling you.
Speaker 2: So his first wife, Claudia. Soon their daughter Pauli was
Speaker 2: born and then married Gary got a divorce, and he
Speaker 2: got right with Sally and he made an honest woman
Speaker 2: out of her, and they started a second family. So
Speaker 2: Polly had a brother and sister joined their number. They
Speaker 2: named the boy Travis named the girl Sarah Lee. Just
Speaker 2: like the Dutch bakery known for it's delicious frozen.
Speaker 3: Cakes, you know that, Like there's that jingle. Is it
Speaker 3: nobody doesn't like Sarah Lee? Or nobody does it like
Speaker 3: Sarah Lee?
Speaker 2: So glad you asked. I looked this up, the Mandel
Speaker 2: effect on this. I couldn't remember which it was. I
Speaker 2: was certain I was right, so I wanted to look
Speaker 2: it up. So yeah, so the question is on the
Speaker 2: line you'll find it's debate. Is it nobody does it
Speaker 2: like Sarah Lee? Or nobody doesn't like Sarah Lee?
Speaker 3: You know, hold on which one do you think it is?
Speaker 2: Which one do I think it is? How did you
Speaker 2: I always thought it was nobody does it like.
Speaker 3: Sarah That's what I always thought. Like and also like
Speaker 3: the bond. Nobody does it better. It makes it. It
Speaker 3: makes pound cake so sexy.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, it's like surely Bassi's thing.
Speaker 3: Walking down the freezer out crop dusting so sexy?
Speaker 2: Look, why do you do this to me? So I
Speaker 2: did as I told you. I looked at the answer.
Speaker 2: I found that the according to the Frozen cake maker themselves. Oh,
Speaker 2: when you hear the full phrasing, the jingle catch race
Speaker 2: makes way more sense. Right, So the full actual phrase
Speaker 2: is everybody doesn't like something, but nobody doesn't like Sarah Lee.
Speaker 3: That's stupid, right, I.
Speaker 2: Don't care about all that because I'm like, dude, it's
Speaker 2: nobody doesn't like Sarah Lee. That's Steve McQueen of clean phrasing.
Speaker 2: It's just like, it's not some weird double negative contradiction.
Speaker 3: That's exactly.
Speaker 2: Everybody doesn't like something, but nobody doesn't like I mean,
Speaker 2: what the hell's cake? Anyway? Sarah Lee is the name
Speaker 2: of gary second daughter. So what is this now? Twice
Speaker 2: married father of three makes his way as a stunt
Speaker 2: pilot and a crop duster. What does he do next?
Speaker 2: To Elizabeth? He goes into business for himself. He started
Speaker 2: a company called bettsnerch Flying Service. The company does well,
Speaker 2: in fact, does so well Elizabeth in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 2: he's able to sell his company.
Speaker 3: Is flying service.
Speaker 2: He does a crop dusting charter flights mostly crop dusting, right,
Speaker 2: So he takes the profits from that and he moves
Speaker 2: his family north. They relocate from Arkansas to Alaska, North Alaska.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've both been to Arkansas. Yeah, you've been to Alaska.
Speaker 2: I have not. For my edification, Elizabeth, how different Arkansas
Speaker 2: from Alaska? I mean, other than the weather that I'll
Speaker 2: be similar at all? A culture shop.
Speaker 3: I think it depends on where in Alaska.
Speaker 2: Okay. This is also by the way, Peak Hippie Commune, Alaska,
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy Yeah.
Speaker 3: I would imagine that there's not too much of a difference, Okay.
Speaker 2: I think rural it's a lot of the same people,
Speaker 2: you know, same types of people.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean there's like logging and fishing and so
Speaker 3: it's you know, hard work.
Speaker 2: At a lot of hard scrabble labor.
Speaker 3: They have a much higher percentage of men than women,
Speaker 3: I understand in Alaska.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But so, I mean I've only been to the tourist spots,
Speaker 3: you know, if I watched TV. Yes, I may have
Speaker 3: watched some sort of Alaskan cop show at some point, sure,
Speaker 3: and really learned a lot about you know, life and anchorage.
Speaker 2: Okay, I just know northern exposure, which is really fictional,
Speaker 2: so I think that is not accurate, very true. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Gary takes his family to Alaska for an opportunity working
Speaker 2: the oil pipeline business because it was huge. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So he went up there and he tries to go
Speaker 2: and like bid on like an oil reclamation business. But
Speaker 2: he he loses that because he doesn't now to like
Speaker 2: who to like the base. He claims bribe, he didn't
Speaker 2: know how to like work the permit process. He loses
Speaker 2: his bid, loses a ton of money. So he goes
Speaker 2: back to what is he he knows, Elizabeth, what does
Speaker 2: he know? Flying right? But he can't crop dust up there.
Speaker 2: So meanwhile, also at the same time, I told you
Speaker 2: it's nineteen seventy six peak hippie commune, Alaska. So he
Speaker 2: starts smoking pot. He then starts realizing, you know, I
Speaker 2: could help out with this, so he starts flying in
Speaker 2: loads of whiskey to the rural villagers and then picking
Speaker 2: up like you know, other stuff in trade money. Then
Speaker 2: he's like, oh, I could take out a you know,
Speaker 2: a pound of pot to those guys. Does that becomes
Speaker 2: a pot smuggler?
Speaker 3: I would imagine that there's tons of work taking supplies out.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, definitely, definitely. But there's also a lot of
Speaker 2: bush pilot's doing that.
Speaker 3: So you had to differentiate himself. Yeah, so he's like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, more costly load exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So meanwhile he turns his wife Sally onto pot. So
Speaker 2: now she loves it too, a little girl from Arkansas.
Speaker 2: I was like, wow, this is not I love this cosmic,
Speaker 2: wacky tebacy. But after this, you know, some time passes.
Speaker 2: His business starts to go bad with the pot smuggling
Speaker 2: because he loses his potcat and Gary finds it. He
Speaker 2: can only fly up there for about six months of
Speaker 2: the year, so he's really not able to make money.
Speaker 2: So they have to go back home. Family moves back
Speaker 2: down to the lower forty eight. Their return somewhat defeated
Speaker 2: to Arkansas. Right, they just keep wanting to get out
Speaker 2: of Hazen that they can't. But then fate played a hand. Elizabeth. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Gary was brought low by gout the pain from the
Speaker 2: condition was so debilitating he could no longer fly runs
Speaker 2: for his drug smuggling clients and people that he would
Speaker 2: like totally. So Fate played his second hand, Elizabeth, because
Speaker 2: Gary heard about a treatment for his gout, something miraculous,
Speaker 2: something that would alleviate the pain to just comfort and
Speaker 2: let him work PCP. The treatment was cocaine.
Speaker 3: Close.
Speaker 2: You're very close. Not angel does. Yeah, apparently it's actually
Speaker 2: he used because built it breaks up the uric acids
Speaker 2: and apparently the chemistry makes some sense. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I've never had gout.
Speaker 3: I've never used COCD, nor have I. I used to
Speaker 3: work with a guy who had gout.
Speaker 2: My father's got I hear about it.
Speaker 3: That's why he had to wear flip flop to work,
Speaker 3: and I just.
Speaker 2: Think that was a cover for possibly. But anyway, So
Speaker 2: Garry also like to drink his cocaine. He didn't start it,
Speaker 2: he'd just drop it in some gatorades.
Speaker 3: Wait what you can drink cocaine?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, as long as you get into the body.
Speaker 2: So he would like just drink it and then boom,
Speaker 2: as he said, you're on your way, So send it up.
Speaker 2: Gary found he also enjoyed cocaine recreationally. He's like, this
Speaker 2: isn't just good for my gout, it's good for the Gary.
Speaker 2: So that he starts to go to you know, I
Speaker 2: need to get more cocaine. It's hard to find in Arkansas.
Speaker 2: Where can I go to get myself more cocaine? I
Speaker 2: got a plane. I'm gonna fly down to Miami. So
Speaker 2: he roes down to Miami to looking to buy cocaine.
Speaker 2: He's a smart young man. He goes right to the source.
Speaker 2: He flies down. He decides, maybe I can get into
Speaker 2: business with the smugglers in Miami.
Speaker 3: Scratch a little off for garytop flying exactly.
Speaker 2: Y're this point in nineteen seventy seven. This is peak
Speaker 2: cocaine cowboys era of Miami. Right. So Gary Wesner wants
Speaker 2: to find himself a place inside that white lined world. Right.
Speaker 2: So Garry's like, how could I, a simple country boy
Speaker 2: from Arkansas climb the ladder of this year import export business.
Speaker 3: Pardon me, cocaine man.
Speaker 2: So he somebody who has cocaine, lots of cocaine, And
Speaker 2: Gary's like, you know what, let me get a little
Speaker 2: off that next kilo flocko and uh at this he
Speaker 2: arranges a coke by right, and so he's not supposed
Speaker 2: to go over and they pick up some kilos at
Speaker 2: his arranged coke buy. Gary feels that the vibe is
Speaker 2: off right, so he's like, hey, why don't you test
Speaker 2: that coke for me? Try it out muchacho, let me
Speaker 2: see if it's any good. The coke dealer he won't
Speaker 2: do it. Gary's it what? And this is the reason
Speaker 2: is for it? This is the guy is no drug smuggler.
Speaker 2: So Gary realizes this when he won't do the coke,
Speaker 2: and then the DEA rushes in and Gary gets busted
Speaker 2: at his first big coke by oh my god, they're
Speaker 2: all he was popped with seven pounds of cocaine.
Speaker 3: Seven pounds, yes, but it was a huge raid.
Speaker 2: That night in Miami, they also busted two Miami Dolphins
Speaker 2: players who were also caught selling cocaine. They were trying
Speaker 2: to sell a pound of cocaine. It was a mood
Speaker 2: a little.
Speaker 3: It was a different time. Now, is that why now? Like,
Speaker 3: do they encourage undercovered DEA officers to tune it up
Speaker 3: and take drugs?
Speaker 2: No they do not. They this point, Gary's facing twenty
Speaker 2: years behind bars. So Gary gets let out on bail.
Speaker 2: What's he doing now? He skidaddles back to Arkansas. He
Speaker 2: goes back to his family, Sally, the two to three kids.
Speaker 2: He has Polly with his first wife. It's like Daddy's
Speaker 2: home kids. So back in Arkansas, Gerry needs to work.
Speaker 2: He's got to pay for his lawyers or whatever. He
Speaker 2: goes back to doing what he knows best. He starts
Speaker 2: smuggling and he gets busted again.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: So out on bail. Gary's now facing mandatory sentences, decades
Speaker 2: in prison, possibly life. So time to get wicked with it.
Speaker 2: Gary thinks. Garry's like kids, load up, We're going for
Speaker 2: a drive.
Speaker 3: Is there are there no crops to dust?
Speaker 2: No? At this point, that won't pay for everything. September eighteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy seven, Besterner and his family left the town
Speaker 2: of Hazen, Arkansas. They planned to take an outing, just
Speaker 2: a family excursion. It's Gary, his wife, his daughter, Sarah Lee.
Speaker 2: Gary's behind the wheel of their family El Camino. Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: Oh your kid, are you free? Car?
Speaker 3: It's car, it's a truck. It's an el Comane.
Speaker 2: It's an el Camino. So they are headed to a
Speaker 2: Darry bar. Think Gary queen. Okay, Gary said he was
Speaker 2: having car trouble. He pulls over the family el Camene
Speaker 2: on the middle of a country bridge, you know, just
Speaker 2: matter like iron bridge, right right right, So he popped
Speaker 2: the hood, checks the engine. Then, as if possessed by
Speaker 2: a spirit or commanded by some unseen force, Gary walked
Speaker 2: away from the car over to the side of the bridge,
Speaker 2: and then he leapt over the side and plunged down
Speaker 2: to the rushing waters of the White River. Elizabeth seeing
Speaker 2: their husband, Cinema, who just ended his own life, his wife, Sally,
Speaker 2: burst into tears. And I don't mean like the wetwork.
Speaker 2: She erupted into hysterics. She's rending at garments, tearing hair.
Speaker 2: The daughter Sarah Lee, equally shocked.
Speaker 3: She's like, hey, nobody does it Like Sarah Lee, I
Speaker 3: would have survived that chump.
Speaker 2: Spoiler alert. He had not leapt to his death, nor
Speaker 2: had he intentionally ended his life. No, And now I'm
Speaker 2: sure you were wondering, was this one? Is this like
Speaker 2: a sneaky self one percent? No, it was not, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: You should know better than that. Anyway, Just so you know,
Speaker 2: he didn't end his own life, all right, So I
Speaker 2: will proceed now to make fun of what he did do. Okay,
Speaker 2: Gary Betsner had just faked his own death and he
Speaker 2: went the extra mile. His wife was in on it too.
Speaker 3: Wait and then she went through the hole? Oh no, yeah.
Speaker 2: They planned the moment, the bridge, the country drive, all
Speaker 2: of it. In fact, they've been preparing for months. That's
Speaker 2: how long Gary had been working on hypnotizing his wife.
Speaker 3: Okay, wait, wait, so she was hypnotized hypnotized? Yes, and
Speaker 3: so was she aware? Okay, I gotta listen to some
Speaker 3: ads and get my head right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's these ads? Hypnotized?
Speaker 3: Thank you?
Speaker 2: All right, one say back in a flash. All right, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: we're back. Yes, are you cool? Your mind?
Speaker 3: Right? Oh yeah? I think well yeah, I'm ready.
Speaker 2: Okay. So now let's get to the story the convincing widow.
Speaker 2: So they told you they took no chances on her
Speaker 2: having to be convincing to the law enforcement.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So the pair the couple, Gary and his wife Sally,
Speaker 2: they practiced for months of hypnotism so that way she
Speaker 2: would be believably acting. She would have to actually believe
Speaker 2: her husband was dead. So to do that super intensive
Speaker 2: hypnotism course, they work out their program. This is for
Speaker 2: three weeks, twice a day, they're doing all this hypnotism stuff.
Speaker 2: She's now primed to believe her husband's dead. The way
Speaker 2: it worked out like this, Gary would put Sally under
Speaker 2: Then he would tell her he'd jumped from a bridge
Speaker 2: near Hazen, Arkansas. Then he planted a hypnotic suggestion. Sally
Speaker 2: would believe Gary was dead at the sound of shoes
Speaker 2: hitting the water. When she heard the shoes hit the water,
Speaker 2: Sally would be triggered to sob uncontrollably because now her
Speaker 2: husband was dead. The hypnotism worked so beautifully, so well
Speaker 2: that Sally was the one who went and threw Gary's
Speaker 2: shoes off of the bridge that day she was on it.
Speaker 3: She takes self trick, knowing her.
Speaker 2: Own part in it. When the shoes hit the water,
Speaker 2: the hypnotism kicked in. When Sally heard gary shoes hit
Speaker 2: that water from the bridge, she burst into tears, sobs uncontrollably,
Speaker 2: her grief so profound that she was eventually checked into
Speaker 2: a psychiatric hospital.
Speaker 3: Oh nice, Yes, so he never actually jumped, She just
Speaker 3: threw the shoes.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Gary never went into the White River. He'd said
Speaker 2: he climbed into a coordinated getaway truck driven by his
Speaker 2: good buddy, and he took off for his new life
Speaker 2: on the lamb. He was now dead and loving it.
Speaker 2: By the way, when he was doing the hypnotism course,
Speaker 2: I watched the documentary about this as an HBO documentary
Speaker 2: called The Ghost Pilot, and in it, his wife mentions
Speaker 2: how he also added one other hypnotic suggestion he would
Speaker 2: be the only man to ever give her really satisfying orgasms.
Speaker 2: He put that in there, so for the rest of
Speaker 2: her time.
Speaker 3: She wasn't ready abandons.
Speaker 2: But she's telling the story, she laughs. So I don't
Speaker 2: know what.
Speaker 3: To do with that. What are you going to do?
Speaker 3: But like, honestly like the fact that she she's like,
Speaker 3: I believe in you so much. I want you to
Speaker 3: abandon me with these children so you can run off.
Speaker 2: So, after a while, believing her husband's dead, Gary contacted Sally.
Speaker 2: He contacted her by payphone board. No, it's part of
Speaker 2: the plan they'd worked out. It was a payphone one
Speaker 2: town away, so she would go there once a month.
Speaker 2: She'd drive over to that town at this pre arranged
Speaker 2: time and he would call. So kind of guess that
Speaker 2: on that first time he must have had like a
Speaker 2: post hypnotic suggestion that he like said on the phone
Speaker 2: and also like undid everything. I don't know, because otherwise
Speaker 2: she'd be shocked. All her phone and her husband's on
Speaker 2: the phone.
Speaker 3: She still likes zombieing around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. She pretty much was because she believed he
Speaker 2: was dead. That part of her was still gone, so
Speaker 2: he had to undo it.
Speaker 3: I'm assuming he talked about Oh my god, I have
Speaker 3: a really hard time believing.
Speaker 2: I do too, but this story made me much more
Speaker 2: of a believer anyway. In The Visible Pilot, Sally said,
Speaker 2: quote being in love with a smuggler, it gets complicated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 2: That's an understatement. So so Gary, where is he and
Speaker 2: all of this? Where did he run off onto the
Speaker 2: when he was on the way? Are you Gary was
Speaker 2: in Hawaii?
Speaker 3: Nice?
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean if you're going to run Oh totally.
Speaker 2: He changed his name to Lucas Nol Harmony like Noel. No.
Speaker 2: He picked his last name. I thought you'd like this, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: He picked his last name from a road sign for Harmony, Californy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm familiar.
Speaker 2: Yes, he says, Lucas it means light, Noel means peace
Speaker 2: and harmony. Well, harmony means harmony, so his name means
Speaker 2: peace harmony.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, by this point, thanks to a stint in
Speaker 2: California where he got into acid, Gary had switched up
Speaker 2: his persona and he was now a drug advocating hippie
Speaker 2: guru type living in Hawaii.
Speaker 3: You know, Gary wage behind him.
Speaker 2: On the run. So he contacts his wife and uh,
Speaker 2: you know, Gary says, hey, bring Trap and Sarah Lee.
Speaker 2: You know, don't not Polly. I didn't tell her I'm alive,
Speaker 2: so don't bring her, but bring Travis and Saraly and
Speaker 2: fly out. Uh you know. And oh, by the way,
Speaker 2: tell the kid, Hey, good news dad's not dead. So
Speaker 2: you got to tell them that to kids like at
Speaker 2: this point. Yeah, So he invites them at five and three,
Speaker 2: so invites them to join them in Hawaii. Sally picks
Speaker 2: up the kids, flees Arkansas. They relocate to go be
Speaker 2: Gary and they go become like become Buddhists. Right, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: that's the type of nudists. They became nudists. Yeah, they.
Speaker 3: Didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't say, just said Hawaii didn't. I don't know.
Speaker 2: They joined their hippie drug daddy, right, as I told you,
Speaker 2: quasi nudist bearded guru guy. So the family they all
Speaker 2: stripped down and like, okay, Dad, this is the new lifestyle.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you're alive and not dead. Gotta be
Speaker 2: a little bit of a mind bender. So from Arkansas
Speaker 2: to Alaska, back to Arkansas and now of Hawaii, Dad's undead.
Speaker 3: Tomb dade to the Naked Duster.
Speaker 2: Interestingly, Travis the Sun, he said that these are the
Speaker 2: happiest years of their lives. A pot growing, nudist hippie
Speaker 2: family on the lamb in Hawaii.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean it sounds like I do. Like
Speaker 3: most little boys like little boys.
Speaker 2: So that's just perfect exactly. It's warm enough they can
Speaker 2: at all time.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So things eventually don't work out well for the family
Speaker 2: in Hawaii because yet again Gary gets busted on drugs.
Speaker 2: This time they've been growing pot. He was actually growing it,
Speaker 2: he wasn't just smuggling. This time, you have big plants.
Speaker 2: Cops show up the house. They've got plants. Yeah, they're nudists, right,
Speaker 2: So like, could you put some clothes on you're coming
Speaker 2: with us? He gets brought in. He's fingerprinted when he's arrested.
Speaker 2: That's bad. He gets bailed out because it's just a misdemeanor.
Speaker 2: So before anything can come of the fingerprinting, Gerry's like,
Speaker 2: I'm out. Ye remember the last time you saw Gary
Speaker 2: it was So he goes back on the No more
Speaker 2: Hawaii for Sally and the family. She has to take
Speaker 2: the kids back state side to Hazen and Arkansas.
Speaker 3: Why couldn't she stay in Hawaiian.
Speaker 2: I don't think she can make a go of it,
Speaker 2: So she has her family backside, So she goes back
Speaker 2: to her family. Meanwhile, I mean this is where you know,
Speaker 2: we're only a couple of years past women being able
Speaker 2: to have credit cards for the first time legally. So true,
Speaker 2: you have to understand the options were not the same.
Speaker 3: Well, you know they're an unconventional bunch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, totally. She could go go unconventional, but she is,
Speaker 2: you know. Anyway, she's just a girl from a small
Speaker 2: town Arkansas with her smugglerr husband just got it. No
Speaker 2: sisters shoes. Anyway. Meanwhile, Gary, he gets back into drug
Speaker 2: smuggling and he goes international with it, and he's loving it,
Speaker 2: and right he gets back to his stunt flying days.
Speaker 2: They're all rolling around with heavy loads of pot, flying
Speaker 2: low between trees to avoid DA agents and radar. Loving
Speaker 2: it right, it's everything he loves. He's crop dustin, but
Speaker 2: more fun his hand he would have this handheld radar.
Speaker 2: He could see where the spots of radar were and
Speaker 2: would fly between the bubbles. You're kidding, Yeah, amazing fun failiar.
Speaker 2: Just he's down there, just inches from splashes of waves.
Speaker 2: I mean for a guy who's basically a grown up
Speaker 2: boy with a drug problem. Anyway, nineteen eighty two rolls around,
Speaker 2: he meets up with a speedboat racer similar mentality named
Speaker 2: George Morales.
Speaker 3: I mean, okay, what's your job, oh, speedboat international.
Speaker 2: Speedboat racers, so all around, good time, guy Morales.
Speaker 3: Excuse me, but there are fewer international speedboat racers than
Speaker 3: there are marine biologists.
Speaker 2: That's probably an even Yeah, so Morales. He was connected
Speaker 2: to the Metayan Cartel. The Median Cartel is aka Pablo
Speaker 2: Escobar's Cartel Hippo man So boom. Just like that, Gary
Speaker 2: is suddenly moving heavyweight for the Narco version of the
Speaker 2: Capo de Tute Cappo. Yeah. Being the pilot he is,
Speaker 2: Gary gets in good with the Medaian cartel. He becomes
Speaker 2: a smuggler, daredevil that they love. He starts flying bigger
Speaker 2: and bigger loads of drugs between Colombia and Florida. Things
Speaker 2: are going really well for Gary. He's made it to
Speaker 2: the top of the heat for smugglers. So he contacts Sally.
Speaker 2: He's like, baby, I got good news. I'm Morgan from
Speaker 2: Pablo Escobar. He has the family locate to Coconut Grove, Florida.
Speaker 2: According to Sally, at this point, Gary now lived like Scarface.
Speaker 2: Now what do I mean by he lived like Starface? Well,
Speaker 2: Sally and her two kids, Travis and Sara Lee. They
Speaker 2: show up in Florida and Gary attempts to fold them
Speaker 2: into his new lifestyle. Elizabeth, this would be difficult because
Speaker 2: and I'm talking about the cocaine or the drug cartel.
Speaker 2: That would make it difficult for most. But Sally arrived
Speaker 2: with her kids. She found that Gary was living with
Speaker 2: another woman.
Speaker 3: Yep, okay, a pattern with Gary. Gary, Gary did this
Speaker 3: for you, he will do it for another woman exactly.
Speaker 3: Can't stress that enough.
Speaker 2: He wanted them to start a polyamorous relationship. She's like, Hey,
Speaker 2: there's ward hasn't been coined yet, but do you want
Speaker 2: to become a thrupple, and so you know, she was like, eh, no,
Speaker 2: I'm from Hayes in Arkansas. I'm not into this. And
Speaker 2: Gary's like, okay, cool, cool, Then we'll stay here in
Speaker 2: the master suite. You and the kids can be down
Speaker 2: there in the kids room and he put them in
Speaker 2: these little room anyway, terrible guy. Okay, right, fun moment
Speaker 2: for Sally. So she's like, she stays in Florida. She stays,
Speaker 2: she doesn't leave. She stays with Lucas Noel, Harmony.
Speaker 3: She leaves Harmony, yes, and instead.
Speaker 2: She's going to go like coconut grow Florida. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: in a non functioning thropple, Like we keep it.
Speaker 3: Clean on this show language wise. But I just like
Speaker 3: what I would say to him in that moment, or
Speaker 3: if I could insert myself in that scene, say to her, yes,
Speaker 3: like smack some sense into her.
Speaker 2: Show up with a cab fully paid for here, get
Speaker 2: you back to the airport. Well, I got good news.
Speaker 2: By nineteen eighty three, Sally had enough. She took Travis
Speaker 2: and Sarah Lee and she bounced out of Miami. She
Speaker 2: even said, I have had enough. Okay direct quote the
Speaker 2: wild part is that. Sally still says that Gary is
Speaker 2: the love of her life to this day. No matter
Speaker 2: all of this.
Speaker 3: If you ask her the hypnosis, she says, you just
Speaker 3: got to hypnotize. She'll never know pleasure again.
Speaker 2: But she's still hypnotized exactly. Poor woman night. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Pabloar soar and the Mediine cartel to hear him tell it.
Speaker 2: Gary Besner and Pablo Escobar, they became tight homies, like
Speaker 2: real tight. They had like sympatico views of the world.
Speaker 2: I am number one, everybody number two. Right, So Pablo
Speaker 2: basically he knew all about his Gary's real life, his family.
Speaker 2: No at this point, remember he's going by Lucas Harmony, right,
Speaker 2: Lucas Noel Harmony. Yeah. So Pablo often asked him how Sally,
Speaker 2: Travis and Sarah Lee were doing. Yeah. So those poor kids, right,
Speaker 2: they have the most famous cocaine smuggler. He is asking
Speaker 2: about them now he knows them by name. The reason
Speaker 2: he's like, are they doing their homework? Are they good kids?
Speaker 2: You know? But he did this because their dad had
Speaker 2: been killing it in the cocaine game. So he'd sent
Speaker 2: people to find out about this guy, and he discovered
Speaker 2: that he faked his death. He found the real family,
Speaker 2: and then he had the people go up and talk
Speaker 2: to his family in public, take pictures of him, and
Speaker 2: come back and go and show him the photo.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, because then now you'll never step out of line.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, sure, Gary. He's at Gary. At this point,
Speaker 2: he's got five different identities. He's working with Pablo Escobar.
Speaker 2: He's making two hundred thousand dollars per load that he's
Speaker 2: flying into the US, right, so five loads million dollars
Speaker 2: he's smuggling. Loads are usually about four hundred pounds of cocaine,
Speaker 2: so he keeps wanting to push the loads. It's right.
Speaker 2: He's like, Oh, Pablo, we gotta go bigger, bigger. It
Speaker 2: was going to seven forty seven. He's like, Gary, are
Speaker 2: you sure? Right. The director of the documentary The Invisible Pilot, right,
Speaker 2: phill Lot, He told the New York Post, Gary tells
Speaker 2: this great story of purchasing planes, and he created Pablo
Speaker 2: Escobar's air force. And it was several planes, big planes,
Speaker 2: not just single injured and twin engines. These were jets,
Speaker 2: so all moral judgments inside and that's a huge mountain.
Speaker 2: We're moving to the side right now. Plane shopping with
Speaker 2: Pablo Escobar in.
Speaker 3: The idea that he has like the all this whole fleet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, can you imagine it? It's just you
Speaker 2: and Pablo and you go on a test flight with
Speaker 2: like a possible new coke smuggling beauty, and you're like, now,
Speaker 2: rather than to talk about this, Elizabs, let's just be
Speaker 2: about it. I'd like you to.
Speaker 3: Close your eyes as a close.
Speaker 2: And picture it. You are ten thousand feet off the
Speaker 2: you're flying. You're not like Superman though, more like Wonder Woman,
Speaker 2: as in, you are inside of a plane, but not
Speaker 2: an invisible plane like Wonder Woman. You are aboard a
Speaker 2: private plane. There is a pilot and a co pilot,
Speaker 2: and you are in the passenger section of this part plane,
Speaker 2: seated on a couch, sipping on a cocktail. Is Pablo Escobar.
Speaker 2: You are the private flight attendant. Oh god, the small
Speaker 2: plane is leerjetic, comfortable, wellbow pointed. You have just prepared
Speaker 2: a fresh round of drinks served on a silver tray.
Speaker 2: You hate your new job. You promised yourself you'd stop
Speaker 2: taking these random jobs. But you're doing a favor for
Speaker 2: our friend. They said, one charter flight.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 2: Cool, and you said, sure, sounds fun. Now you're in it.
Speaker 2: And anyway, the pilot of the plane, he gets up
Speaker 2: from the controls, he turns it over to the co pilot.
Speaker 2: He comes back and joins you in. Pablo Escobar. You
Speaker 2: offer a drink to the pilot, Gary Bettzner.
Speaker 3: He takes it almost to the pilot.
Speaker 2: He asked you like the view. You assume he's being flirtatious,
Speaker 2: but he means it literally. And also he's talking to Pablo,
Speaker 2: and so Pablo is focused on he's looking out the window.
Speaker 2: So you look to below you is this beautiful, lush
Speaker 2: green valley in the Colombian landscape. It's like a wrinkle
Speaker 2: between the mountains. It looks kind of like Hawaii, just
Speaker 2: more of everything, more leaves, more bushes, more trees. The
Speaker 2: valley is just a chaos of shades of green. The
Speaker 2: sky above christ in blue clouds above you, and then
Speaker 2: in in the distance they are thick, puffy, looks like
Speaker 2: rain's coming. Pablo says, stes Colombia, my friend. Now. Gary
Speaker 2: nods and he agrees Columbia. And Pablo looks back from
Speaker 2: the window. You hand him his refreshed drink. The ice
Speaker 2: clanks in the cut crystal glass. Go sit, Pablo tells you.
Speaker 2: He pats the seat next to him on the couch.
Speaker 2: You're a little leery, but you put down the silver
Speaker 2: tray and you sit with Pablo on the couch across
Speaker 2: the tiny coffee table on his own love seat. Gary
Speaker 2: takes the sip and says, this is a great man.
Speaker 3: Do you know who he is? Is who's flying the.
Speaker 2: Plane the copo? Okay, you do not know who this is.
Speaker 2: This is Pablo Escobar. He will be the next president
Speaker 2: of Colombia. He is a great humanitarian. Bablo smiles at
Speaker 2: the praise. You wonder what the point is. Gary continues,
Speaker 2: This man he gives the world cocaine. Give is a
Speaker 2: generous word for what Pablo Escobar does. But you pertly nod.
Speaker 2: You're polite. Gary goes on what he does is a
Speaker 2: holy thing, the service he has performed for mankind and gout.
Speaker 2: Gary sniffs a little, and that's when it all clicks
Speaker 2: into place. He's zooted on the coca Yes, hello, nods.
Speaker 2: He's seemingly understanding what's being said about him. He interrupts
Speaker 2: to talk more about planes Lucas. He says, because he
Speaker 2: knows him as Lucas. You have convinced me the leriget
Speaker 2: this is the way to go for us my business.
Speaker 2: I want to buy five of these now, Gary is key,
Speaker 2: That's what I'm talking about, Pablo. He turns back to you.
Speaker 2: This man, my friend here, he is a legend, and
Speaker 2: rightly so, I would sing his praises to anyone, to you,
Speaker 2: not only as a smuggler, but as a human being. Now, Pablo,
Speaker 2: He winces at the word smuggler. Pablo looks at you
Speaker 2: for reaction. You tell him that pays well, I imagine.
Speaker 2: Now Gary has brought out a small glass vial of cocaine.
Speaker 2: It attempts to discreetly do a little bit more. Pablo
Speaker 2: looks disappointed. He asks, can the co pilots land these
Speaker 2: plane now? Gary snorts a bump of coke off his
Speaker 2: hand and promise, Oh sure, yeah, no problem. He's crashed
Speaker 2: more planes and you've bought Pablo. This does not make
Speaker 2: Pablo Escobar feel better, doesn't make you feel better. You
Speaker 2: just wonder how do I end up in these situations?
Speaker 3: How do I up in these situations?
Speaker 2: Now? As fun as that all was for you and
Speaker 2: for him, right, Arry eventually grew tired of his cocaine
Speaker 2: smuggling days, Elizabeth, and probably that was as a result,
Speaker 2: as they told you, the Colombians showing up at Sally's
Speaker 2: house unannounced and taking pictures of his children, yeah, and
Speaker 2: showing them to him. So old Lucas, Noel Harmon. He's like,
Speaker 2: I need to get out, and I probably need to
Speaker 2: save my family too. So Gary plans his exit from
Speaker 2: the cartel. That's not easy. It's a little bit tricky
Speaker 2: because the problem is you know too much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: He still thought he could pull this off. I can
Speaker 2: get I'm Gary Betzner or Lucas with the lid off.
Speaker 2: Now he's like, I'll just tell Pablo. I want two
Speaker 2: weeks notice. No, wait, I'll tell Pablo a month. He's
Speaker 2: trying to figure out what does he tell Pablo. So
Speaker 2: his retirement plans were hastened when Florida cops busted a
Speaker 2: runner who was picking up a load from him at
Speaker 2: a local airport. Gary lost a whole plane load of
Speaker 2: Pablo Escobar's drugs, all right, So he's lucky to survive
Speaker 2: and stay free. So he's like, I gotta get out.
Speaker 2: He sees the riding on the wall. Yeah, and like quote,
Speaker 2: it was too risky. I packed my bags and locked
Speaker 2: the door and left. He cuts and runs right. He
Speaker 2: went back to where he felt safe, Hawaii. He's out
Speaker 2: there among the nudists, which you think about, it's pretty smart.
Speaker 2: Really damn hard to hide a gun if you're naked. True,
Speaker 2: So you see Pablo's men coming for you, then be
Speaker 2: the one sounds exactly, look all clean. So Gary at
Speaker 2: this point escaped cartel successfully, he'd escape the Florida police,
Speaker 2: escaped the US government. He's free. He's in a true
Speaker 2: paradise on Earth. Why what does Gary Betzner do next, Elizabeth?
Speaker 2: He goes back to Miami. Why three months after he
Speaker 2: escaped Florida with his life, Why why would he do that?
Speaker 2: He was out Well, the answer is very simple. His
Speaker 2: old boss and buddy, George Morales, after.
Speaker 3: From the speedboatboat Racer.
Speaker 2: Right, he owned an aviation firm and he had hired
Speaker 2: Gary to be one of his pilots. His friend gets busted,
Speaker 2: Morales contacted Gary and begged him to fly one last level.
Speaker 3: It's always it's always one Morales.
Speaker 2: He didn't want Gary to fly coc into America. Not
Speaker 2: this time, not this time Elizabeth. This time he wanted
Speaker 2: Gary to fly load into El Salvador. He was running
Speaker 2: weapons for a group called the contrast Us. Morow said
Speaker 2: it had to be Gary because he was the best
Speaker 2: pilot of the thirty pilots he had worked in his fleet.
Speaker 2: Gary called, I didn't want to do it, but I
Speaker 2: love and trusted George. He took me in when I
Speaker 2: was well, like an orphan. So he thinks about the
Speaker 2: bonds between men who called themselves outlaws, and he makes
Speaker 2: up his mind. Gary, He's explained it, he said, in
Speaker 2: our business, your word is your bond. Not to his wife,
Speaker 2: but to his business partners. His word is his bond. No,
Speaker 2: Gary Betzner, He's at this point working for Pablo Escobar,
Speaker 2: soon to be working for the CIA, running guns to
Speaker 2: the Contrasts. He's a conspiracy theorist, wet.
Speaker 3: Dream completely, so Morales.
Speaker 2: He promises, old buddy. Then, even if he got caught
Speaker 2: this time, he could lean onto CIA context to get
Speaker 2: Gary out of his legal trouble with any Feds or
Speaker 2: any smuggling issues, whatever came up. He was confident because
Speaker 2: by working with the CIA, Morales had been able to
Speaker 2: give about four million to five million dollars to the
Speaker 2: contrerass from drug profits now the Contras in the Narcos.
Speaker 2: They were natural allies, Elizabeth because in the world, the
Speaker 2: flow of world events, they were both virulent anti communists.
Speaker 2: That wasn't enough for them to have a bond and
Speaker 2: with Reagan, so they all just became a triangle. And
Speaker 2: so Gary's in business with Pablo Escobar, the Contras, the CIA,
Speaker 2: as he would later testify in the US Senate, it's
Speaker 2: strictly a capitalist movement, this drug business.
Speaker 3: Oh god.
Speaker 2: Anyway, setting history aside for just one moment. In nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty four, Gary Betsner was busted yet again. He was
Speaker 2: flying coke for Pablo Escobar's cartel and he got caught
Speaker 2: in Florida. Oooh yeah, Sadly, Gary Betster is no longer dead.
Speaker 2: He's now alive. He's all over the news. He's also
Speaker 2: in federal custody. His family now has to deal with
Speaker 2: the fact that Gary's been suddenly found alive. His wife
Speaker 2: lied about this. She's still in the small town. So
Speaker 2: everybody in the town now knows the truth. You know
Speaker 2: what hell that would be?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that small of a town.
Speaker 2: Yes, And Gary is still at this point counting on
Speaker 2: his CIA connections to keep him out of trouble, and
Speaker 2: he was wrong. Oh no, there was no such immunity
Speaker 2: in place. Gary Besner was tried, convicted, and sentenced to
Speaker 2: twenty seven years and two months in federal prison on
Speaker 2: charges of cocaine importation. It didn't take long for Gay
Speaker 2: to realize I do not like it in here a
Speaker 2: little bit. So he wanted out. What's he gonna do?
Speaker 2: He had a plant's take a break, do little ads,
Speaker 2: and next up, I'll tell you a helicopter escape attempt
Speaker 2: from federal prison and inter Senator John Kerry. Okay, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: where were we?
Speaker 3: That's right?
Speaker 2: Federal prison, the maghouse, the slammer, Yes, the Who's goal?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the FC Yes?
Speaker 2: What was it? Was it? Felony? Felony? University? No? Anyway,
Speaker 2: Bestner's inside, he doesn't like it. He gets his wife
Speaker 2: to work on the outside to help get him free. Baby, baby,
Speaker 2: if you just help me break out of prison this time,
Speaker 2: I swear I'll make it right for us.
Speaker 3: He's hypnotizing her.
Speaker 2: October ninth, nineteen eighty six, the UPI headline reads, FBI
Speaker 2: foils escape attempt. Oh boy, As the story reports, Dateline, Miami.
Speaker 2: Two convicts who chartered a helicopter to pluck them from
Speaker 2: a prison yard were surprised when the choppers passengers included
Speaker 2: three FBI agents. The FBI said Thursday. The choppers intended
Speaker 2: passages were Gary Morales and his new prison by the
Speaker 2: thirty year old fellow smuggler named Terry g. Brisino. Terry Yeah. Now,
Speaker 2: the story goes, quote, the two men ran to the
Speaker 2: middle of the football field at MCC and stood beneath
Speaker 2: the helicopter, which was hovering twenty feet above the field. Now,
Speaker 2: these two men, Gary and his buddy Terry, Gary and Terry, Yeah,
Speaker 2: they gaze up at the underside of the chopper like
Speaker 2: it's the face of freedom, right, And all of a
Speaker 2: sudden the face grimaces at them because Gary noticed, and
Speaker 2: I quote, they both suddenly realized the helicopter was occupied
Speaker 2: by three FBI agents and they were immediately taking into
Speaker 2: custody by other FBI agents and prison personnel on the ground.
Speaker 3: Wait, how did he know they were FBI? Looking at
Speaker 3: the moon, they were like dark suit.
Speaker 2: They had the FBI I had. They looked like the FBI.
Speaker 2: So according to the EPI, the two were arrested quote
Speaker 2: at seven thirty five pm Wednesday, on the football field
Speaker 2: at Metropolitan Correctional Center. In charge with attempted escape and conspiracy,
Speaker 2: said William E. Walls, special FBI Agent in charge of
Speaker 2: the Miami office. Anyway, my favorite detail about all this story, yeah,
Speaker 2: quote on Monday, Betsner's wife in Chapel Hill in North
Speaker 2: Carolina gave undercover FBI agents in nineteen eighty four BMW
Speaker 2: worth about forty thousand dollars as a down payment for
Speaker 2: the escape. The complaint said, if you wanted to know
Speaker 2: the BMW six thirty three oh prison officials had been
Speaker 2: listening in on the phone calls. The pilot was also
Speaker 2: completely connected to the FBI. He was a sheriff.
Speaker 3: So they were just like flipping through the paper the
Speaker 3: new helicopter tour service and they're like, people.
Speaker 2: I don't know how they tried to you have a
Speaker 2: collect call. Somebody contacted them. They're like, I'm trying to
Speaker 2: get out, and they talked to somebody, and then somebody
Speaker 2: was like, I think whoever. The first person they talked
Speaker 2: to in prison ratted them out, and then they connected
Speaker 2: him with like a sheriff, and the triffs like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm your guy, right, but.
Speaker 3: I like to imagine it that they called collect from
Speaker 3: the prison to the charter service. Yeah, and then we're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: my wife's gonna pay you. And she shows up and
Speaker 3: is like here will you take? Do you take car?
Speaker 2: He take silver Bullion?
Speaker 3: You except car?
Speaker 2: How about eighty four BMW's.
Speaker 3: Have a collect call from He gets.
Speaker 2: Busted, And this is at this point, we're in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty six. A year later, nineteen eighty seven, Sally goes
Speaker 2: to visit Gary in prison, after presumably helping him try
Speaker 2: to escape. She discovers that Gary was married to a
Speaker 2: new woman, a woman named Cynthia, and they had a son,
Speaker 2: a boy named William. Now the news story's only ever
Speaker 2: said his wife. I don't know which wife the love
Speaker 2: of his life, wife Sally or his new wife Cynthia.
Speaker 2: They don't mention by name. Huh yeah, So anyway, bad
Speaker 2: way do.
Speaker 3: You pick up this new wife? I don't know, I
Speaker 3: don't even know how real quick on this way?
Speaker 2: Like he was like he saw her, like on the
Speaker 2: prison bus. He was on his way anyway, but up
Speaker 2: the number. Yeah, anyway. The next year, eighty seven, Gary
Speaker 2: Bestner find himself to be the star of one of
Speaker 2: the most bizarre moments in US political history, a time
Speaker 2: known as the Iran Contra affair. Now the Iran Contra affair,
Speaker 2: if you remember that loads of guns that Gary had
Speaker 2: been running to El Salvador for George Morales, that one
Speaker 2: last load. There are other loads. Apparently that wasn't the
Speaker 2: only load. And during the one run of contraband, Gary
Speaker 2: was met at a rural out of the way airport
Speaker 2: by an American named Chris, whom he understood to be
Speaker 2: a CIA agent. Right now, to make sense of all
Speaker 2: this for the let's turn to the Congressional record and
Speaker 2: inter Senator John Kerrey. But actually know what before that,
Speaker 2: a quick little history? Who were the Contras? And what
Speaker 2: was the Iran Contra affair? Before I dive into it,
Speaker 2: like I'll just tell you, I'll keep it very mercifully brief.
Speaker 2: The Contras they were counter revolutionaries in Nicaragua. The Contras
Speaker 2: were less on a singular organized rebel army energy. They
Speaker 2: are more like an umbrella term that referred to all
Speaker 2: of the disparate groups who wanted to undo the Sandinistas.
Speaker 2: Now turning to Brown University, quote the contras were disparate
Speaker 2: groups comprised former National guardsmen, ex Sandinista soldiers critical of
Speaker 2: the new regime, peasants, farmers upset with intrusive Sandinista land policies.
Speaker 2: Nicaragua and exiles including former guardsmen and members of the
Speaker 2: Conservative Party gathered in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Miami
Speaker 2: and discussed the prospect of both unarmed and armed opposition
Speaker 2: to the Sandinistas. Now, the Sandinistas were the socialists, their revolutionaries. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they had been closely aligned with Cuba, Panama, Venezuela and
Speaker 2: then via them, the Soviet Union. So they took ower
Speaker 2: in January nineteen seventy nine, and that scared the hell
Speaker 2: out of the anti communists in the US. Meanwhile, what
Speaker 2: else was going on in nineteen seventy eight and nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy nine in the world Elizabeth in the Middle East region,
Speaker 2: the little thing called the Iranian Revolution That also scared
Speaker 2: the hell out of many of the same people back
Speaker 2: in the West. So they said, how do we get
Speaker 2: this chocolate in this peanut butter together. CIA is like, oh,
Speaker 2: we got a plan. So the Theia they get involved
Speaker 2: in thwarting both of these growing threats to the American hegemony. CIA,
Speaker 2: they just kind of swirled it together like a chocolate
Speaker 2: and vanilla ice cream, and they mixed their black book
Speaker 2: funds together and they started sending missiles to Iranian revolutionaries
Speaker 2: that were paid for with cocaine profits from Columbia. They
Speaker 2: were then circulated to the Nicaraguan counter revolutionaries, usually his
Speaker 2: Arms and Weapons. Okay, weird triangle. So nineteen eighty Ronald
Speaker 2: Reagan gets elected, things start getting anti communists real quick. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he loved to talk about the evil umpires. You probably recall.
Speaker 2: He was damn sure it wasn't gonna let any communism
Speaker 2: spread in Central America. So he says, CIA have at it.
Speaker 2: He gives them the green flag money whatever they need.
Speaker 2: CIA starts spending the beginning half of the eighties working
Speaker 2: with narco traffickers to fund the concert They're going to
Speaker 2: win this war with cocayen, so they use the drug
Speaker 2: profits from the concerts. They send that over to Israel
Speaker 2: to buy basically their own missiles, but to pay Israel
Speaker 2: to give them to Iran through second party vendors. It's
Speaker 2: a whole thing, right. October fifth, nineteen eighty six, A
Speaker 2: plane load to the contraband for the Concres gets shot
Speaker 2: down and Americanism on board. This becomes undeniable physical evidence
Speaker 2: of American involvement. Who Meanwhile, Congress had passed a law
Speaker 2: we could not be involved in this. President Reagan's like, nah, Son,
Speaker 2: you got your facts mixed up. I don't even know
Speaker 2: this dude, He don't know me. What are you talking about?
Speaker 2: Nothing comes of this shot down American but the conscious
Speaker 2: story it won't go away. Later the same month, another
Speaker 2: shipment of American missiles transported, once again via Israeli channels.
Speaker 2: It gets sent to Iran, intended for Iran's war against
Speaker 2: the Soviet backed neighbor Iraq.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, Iran had paid three point six million dollars to
Speaker 2: a CIA front company. The money was turned over to
Speaker 2: CIA officials who supplied the missiles. The CIA took their
Speaker 2: money from the Iran missile deal and diverted it through
Speaker 2: black market funds to the contras in Nicaragua. Presumably this
Speaker 2: money would be used to fight communists, all right, but
Speaker 2: it usually went to the aid of narco traffickers, folks
Speaker 2: like Pablo Escobar. So November nineteen eighty six, two Lebanese
Speaker 2: newspapers break this story and then that was it. It's
Speaker 2: all over. American TV investigative reporters jump on it. It's
Speaker 2: the new Watergate. The Washington Post finds George Morales, who's
Speaker 2: in prison. They hear the story about this guy, so
Speaker 2: they find him, and then George Morales tells him about
Speaker 2: his pilot, Gary Bester. You's got to talk to Gary.
Speaker 2: He'll corroborate what I say. Suddenly, this whole new Watergate
Speaker 2: has all these threads to pull on, and people started
Speaker 2: yanking Elizabeth. Oh, yeah, do you remember Iran Contra hearing?
Speaker 3: I do? I was, you know, I was young?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I just remember it took forever.
Speaker 3: It took forever, and I remember being very convoluted.
Speaker 2: At the time, forever like four hours, and I didn't.
Speaker 3: Quite follow it, you know, Like you said, I was
Speaker 3: very young and like very convoluted. Nor had I do
Speaker 3: remember too, like I used to have when I was young.
Speaker 3: I had a pin on like my jacket or whatever
Speaker 3: that said. I survived a Reagan administration. If you're wondering
Speaker 3: how obnoxious I was, yes, too, probably, but like honestly,
Speaker 3: like what what was I doing?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Who knows.
Speaker 2: It was probably came with one of your tope eggs
Speaker 2: from your subscriptions to the New Yorker.
Speaker 3: Legit I did so.
Speaker 2: Also, there was another big name in this. Uh, there's
Speaker 2: Colonel Oliver North.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Senator John Kerrey really made his name during this, other
Speaker 2: than obviously what he'd done with the My Life masker
Speaker 2: stuff as a soldier, but as a senator, this is
Speaker 2: what he makes his name in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: He's on the national news all the time. And at
Speaker 2: the center of all of this is Gary Bestner. Now
Speaker 2: we've talked about Gary Besner. Imagine adding this figure to.
Speaker 3: This, this little naked cropped us You.
Speaker 2: Ready to talk Gary, This is the last thing that
Speaker 2: the CIA wanted, all all right. Somehow Gary makes it
Speaker 2: safely to the Capitol and he's able to testify before
Speaker 2: the Senate on April seventh, nineteen eighty eight. Other witnesses
Speaker 2: are disappearing throughout this time. People are dropping deck and overdoses.
Speaker 2: It's bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So at one point Gary recalled force. Senator carried the
Speaker 2: excitement of his smuggling days and how he'd once had
Speaker 2: to employ evasive maneuvers to avoid two DA planes chasing him.
Speaker 2: He's like, I went between the condominiums and flew down
Speaker 2: along the waterway and Gary managed to sneak in like
Speaker 2: a landing at a nearby airport. John Carrey is loving this, right,
Speaker 2: she had another one. He's telling him a similar like
Speaker 2: hard luck story at the other end of a smuggling run.
Speaker 2: One time, he was flying a plane that had been
Speaker 2: painted military green. He was flying it low to avoid radar.
Speaker 2: He was low on fuel and he was loaded down
Speaker 2: with cocaine. He took a zigzag path over Cuban airspace
Speaker 2: that triggered a response from the Cuban Air Force. They
Speaker 2: sent up two MiG nineteens to shoot him down. He
Speaker 2: had to perform epic barrel rolls, disappeared behind a cloud bank,
Speaker 2: and he emerged from the thick cloud bank and dropped
Speaker 2: into this mountain valley and used the high valley walls
Speaker 2: as cover. He's literally doing like you know, the gun type.
Speaker 2: Why if we just saw yeah, so that scrape for
Speaker 2: the Cuban Air Force. It convinces him to get a
Speaker 2: transpotter code so he could alert the Cubans and who's
Speaker 2: going to be flying over their airspace? As he just
Speaker 2: makes a little change, like, hey, guys, ca I buy
Speaker 2: one of those transponders. Here's a million dollars. They're like okay.
Speaker 2: So so now I don't know if you know this,
Speaker 2: but Senator John Kerry is a pilot, so he was
Speaker 2: loving all. He keeps asking questions after a question, and
Speaker 2: people are like, Senators, should we talk about the Iran Contra.
Speaker 3: He's like, moral issues, Yeah, let's get.
Speaker 2: Back to the Iran contrace. So in an LA Time
Speaker 2: story from April eighth, nineteen eighty eight, with the headline
Speaker 2: gave Contras four million dollar drug smuggler testifies, it detailed
Speaker 2: Morales and Gary Betzner's stunning testimony before Senator John Kerrey subcommittee,
Speaker 2: and I quote Senator John Kerrey said that the testimony
Speaker 2: before the Foreign Relations sub Committee he heads quote makes
Speaker 2: it very clear that narcotics dollars were involved in the
Speaker 2: Contra support process. He also said the testimony indicates that
Speaker 2: the Reagan administration officials turned their back on drug trafficking
Speaker 2: and the interest of pressing their support of the Contra's
Speaker 2: guerrilla war against Nicaragua's San Denista government. So he basically
Speaker 2: connected that the CIA was doing all this stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you hear about. He's the one who's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: here it is Awaa doing the cocaine with the Contras
Speaker 2: and the Iran and the missiles. Yeah here it is. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm at the center of all of it. I flew
Speaker 2: that stuff.
Speaker 3: I'm Gary, exactly.
Speaker 2: Call me Gary. This is by buddy George. So they
Speaker 2: both testified, George and Gary. They testified before the Senate Commissions.
Speaker 2: Morales testified the using his fleet of planes his pilots
Speaker 2: delivered contraband. From nineteen eighty four through eighty five, he
Speaker 2: ranged six flights to landing strips in remote locations in
Speaker 2: Costa Rica, in particular, this one landing strip that was
Speaker 2: adjacent to a ranch owned by this mystery American farmer
Speaker 2: named John Hull. Now the details were like a real
Speaker 2: life spy movie. You got Iranian Iranian missile deals and
Speaker 2: narco traffickers and a mysterious American farmer. Totally right. So
Speaker 2: his best pilot, Gary Betzner, he corroborated his old buddy's testimony.
Speaker 2: He testified he indeed flew in loads of weapons to
Speaker 2: John Hall's landing strip in Costa Rica. In exchange, he'd
Speaker 2: fly at with Duffel bags of cocaine. So Morales is
Speaker 2: brought in by the CIA and the contrass he brings
Speaker 2: in his hippie pilot, Gary Bessner. Gary, I was operating
Speaker 2: under the assumption he was protected by CIA handlers. So
Speaker 2: he tells that to John Carrey. In senate testimony. Gary
Speaker 2: tells Senator Carry that he believed Morales quote had made
Speaker 2: a deal with the CIA to supply the contrast. He
Speaker 2: wanted me to fly guns in ammunition to the contrast
Speaker 2: and bring some contra band back. So he's like, this
Speaker 2: is what I was told. So Gary tells, you know,
Speaker 2: Senator Carry, that he'd also met the CIA mystery American
Speaker 2: John Hall on multiple occasions. He'd personally given him guns.
Speaker 2: He gave them some M sixteen machine guns, those big daddies.
Speaker 2: He gave him some M sixteen rifles as well a
Speaker 2: C four explosives. Land mines. The land mines were particular
Speaker 2: interests because they used them to mine the harbors and
Speaker 2: it became a big story and the nose and ships
Speaker 2: were going down. So he's like, oh, yeah, I delivered
Speaker 2: those exact mines, all of it for exchange for cocaine.
Speaker 2: It was great and they were like what he's like. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and over small arms. They gave me fifteen to seventeen
Speaker 2: buffel bags of cocaine. Now, Elizabeth, the nineteen eighties, America,
Speaker 2: the nation was shocked, shocked to hear this. So we
Speaker 2: may not be so shocked now, but they were shocked.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Gary told Sandra Carry with a straight face, he'd
Speaker 2: smuggled cocaine to safeguard the future of America. And I quote,
Speaker 2: somewhere inside of me, I have a deep appreciation of
Speaker 2: my country, It's history, the constitution, and what it stands for.
Speaker 2: It still moves my soul. Now, none of his testimony
Speaker 2: helped lessen his sentence. Perhaps he was telling the truth.
Speaker 2: I don't know that. Gary Betsner never got any protection
Speaker 2: from the CIA. He served at his full prison sentence.
Speaker 2: He was finally set free in twenty eleven. He's still
Speaker 2: alive today. As I said, he recently starred in the
Speaker 2: HBO documentary The Invisible Pilot. I recommend it if you
Speaker 2: actually a three part series. Now, Gary has remarried, in
Speaker 2: case you were wondering how his love life is doing.
Speaker 2: He has a fifth wife. Her name is Julie. They
Speaker 2: live in what seems to be her mother's basement. A
Speaker 2: typical night for them, according to Gary, is I usually
Speaker 2: sit there, Julie sits over here. She smokes cigarettes and
Speaker 2: I smoke weed. Oh so eighty year old Gary smoking
Speaker 2: weed the basement in Arkansas?
Speaker 3: Does he have a new child named Marie Calendar?
Speaker 2: If like me, you were still thinking about Gary's poor kids, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Sally spoke to this. She said in the documentary The Mother.
Speaker 2: You know, there's so many stories about crazy smugglers, but
Speaker 2: they never talk about the women in the family. They
Speaker 2: never talked about those that were left behind, who really
Speaker 2: carried the weight. Okay, now she only alluded to the kids.
Speaker 2: She didn't actually mentioned them. I guess there's your answer.
Speaker 2: The kids still came second, even.
Speaker 3: In her right always.
Speaker 2: I'll say this, if you ever hear this, Travis and
Speaker 2: Sarah Lee, I feel for y'all. I got a raw deal.
Speaker 2: I just hope you can laugh at this with us,
Speaker 2: because you can. Okay, Look, I'll put it this way.
Speaker 2: You can pick your nose, you can pick guitar, but
Speaker 2: you can't pick your family. So you just have to
Speaker 2: endure them gracefully. They're the heroes in Yes, I hope
Speaker 2: you're all in a good place. I really do. Honestly,
Speaker 2: there you go, Elizabeth the outlaw folk bower. Did the
Speaker 2: story have everything? I mean, do you remember when Gary
Speaker 2: hypnotized his wife to fake her own death?
Speaker 3: That was so long ago, it's like four years ago. Takeaway,
Speaker 3: my ridiculous takeaway is one if you if you wind
Speaker 3: up having to go to Hawaii, just stay in Hawaii,
Speaker 3: you know, although don't don't you know, impose on local culture.
Speaker 3: But yes, come on, like you're there.
Speaker 2: I got there.
Speaker 3: And then I think, too, I still don't believe the
Speaker 3: hypnosis thing, and is she still hypnotized? You'd have to ask, Yeah,
Speaker 3: what's your ridiculous take Oh my god, I.
Speaker 2: Thank you for asking. No, mine was actually yours. So
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna take it back. Hypnotism, that's wild, right,
Speaker 2: what's up with that? What's up with that? So I
Speaker 2: guess it really works. I mean, this is, like iose,
Speaker 2: for those who believe.
Speaker 3: It works, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And then that's the key aspect. When I was doing research,
Speaker 2: I was like seeing different people do hypnotism, and like,
Speaker 2: you know that they can get people to like put
Speaker 2: their like bodies on chairs and then they go up
Speaker 2: and stand on people and stuff to prove that they're
Speaker 2: like stiff as a board or you know, stiff a
Speaker 2: steel or whatever. So I've seen I saw a bunch
Speaker 2: of people just some wild stuff and they were just convinced.
Speaker 2: So I think it's just purely if you can convince
Speaker 2: a person, they can go a lot further than they
Speaker 2: would ever think possible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but even if I believe it, I don't think
Speaker 3: my body would be like, yeah, let's go planking. Like No.
Speaker 2: That's my point is that I think that it's it's
Speaker 2: you may break something, you may have written, you know,
Speaker 2: like you may never walk again. But I think for
Speaker 2: those seven seconds you would do it doing it and
Speaker 2: then your body would collapse or whatever. But yeah, that's
Speaker 2: what I was blown away by some power suggestion. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you don't do benefits, Gary Betzner. Anyway, that's all I
Speaker 2: got for it. I hope you enjoyed it. Beautiful as always.
Speaker 2: You can find us online a Ridiculous Crime, Twitter, Instagram,
Speaker 2: I don't know, look around. We have a website Ridiculous
Speaker 2: Crime dot com that was an no place to find us.
Speaker 2: Oh also the iHeart Talkback. You can find us there.
Speaker 2: You like it when you give us talkbacks. Yeah you
Speaker 2: like it when you call this big Daddy Now emails
Speaker 2: if you want a Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: As always, thanks for listening, Catch you next round. Ridiculous
Speaker 2: Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Duttan Zaron Brenette, produced and
Speaker 2: edited by the Pablo Escobar to our Gary Betsner Dave Research.
Speaker 2: This is by Marissa Peacelight, Harmony Brown and Andrea Harmony
Speaker 2: Peace Light Song Sharpened to You. Our theme song is
Speaker 2: by Thomas may Day Lee and Travis Crash Dutton. The
Speaker 2: host wardrobe provided I bought me from one hundred. Executive
Speaker 2: producers are Ben you are now hypnotized Bowlin and know
Speaker 2: Wait what happened to Ben? Where did he go? Brown?
Speaker 3: CUI say it one more time? Geek Wes Crime.
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