Speaker 1: I want to give a quick warning before we get started.
Speaker 1: This episode contains graphic descriptions of violence. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: The whole neighborhood was definitely quiet and dark. This part
Speaker 1: of our story takes place in the late eighties in
Speaker 1: a sleepy bedroom community in the Midwest. It was kind
Speaker 1: of eerie because typically in that neighborhood there's multiple street lights,
Speaker 1: people's lights on under front porches and so on. There
Speaker 1: was none of that. Steve Smith was a captain of
Speaker 1: the local police department, and that night around two am,
Speaker 1: he was awoken by a call from the communications center.
Speaker 1: Something unusual had happened out on a subdivision and he
Speaker 1: needed to get out there quick. He was met by
Speaker 1: now retired Sergeant Rusty James. It was really eerie because
Speaker 1: it knocked the street lights and everything out in the
Speaker 1: air you and everywhere you walked it crunched, and there
Speaker 1: was a strong smell of the dynamite and burnt flesh
Speaker 1: in the air. Rusty and his partner Sarah Vogelsberg had
Speaker 1: been the first who arrived that night. As I pulled up,
Speaker 1: uh there was still smoke in the air, and a
Speaker 1: neighbor came over and told me that that he had
Speaker 1: found where it occurred. It was at the swimming pool
Speaker 1: for a residential area there. In the early morning hours,
Speaker 1: someone had parked their car in the lot next to
Speaker 1: the swimming pool and proceeded to blow themselves up. He said, so, Officer,
Speaker 1: I think that's a head laying over on the sidewalk
Speaker 1: over there, but I'm not going to check. I said, no,
Speaker 1: just going back, the crime scene was bizarre and gruesome.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard enough to hear about something like this,
Speaker 1: let alone experience it. We were trying to figure out
Speaker 1: where this young man was because we knew where his
Speaker 1: head was, but there wasn't anything else, and so we
Speaker 1: started looking around fly slights, and there was one leg
Speaker 1: from the knee down in a tree. We probably didn't
Speaker 1: locate more than about forty maybe fifty pounds of identifiable
Speaker 1: body of hearts because they were spread out throughout the
Speaker 1: neighborhood and the woods close by. It was pretty horrific. Essentially,
Speaker 1: from his knees to his neck, he was just gone.
Speaker 1: When I first started reporting the story five years ago,
Speaker 1: there really wasn't a lot of information about the book
Speaker 1: hit Man, which just led to a lot of questions,
Speaker 1: most of all, why would this author, a woman who
Speaker 1: claims she never owned a gun, write a how to
Speaker 1: guide on killing people and getting away with it. I
Speaker 1: figured there had to be a story behind this book
Speaker 1: of nonfiction. It turns out there is, and it's stranger
Speaker 1: than fiction. This is the story of who I believe
Speaker 1: to be the real Rex Ferrell, not the woman who
Speaker 1: apparently wrote the book, but the man who may have
Speaker 1: inspired it or been inspired by it, a man who
Speaker 1: left an extraordinary amount of wreckage in his wake, like
Speaker 1: an explosion on a quiet night in a small Midwestern town.
Speaker 1: From my Heart Radio and Hit Home Media, I'm Jasmine
Speaker 1: Morris and MS is hit Map. Just the whole circumstance
Speaker 1: was one of those things that bothered me for some time.
Speaker 1: And now you know, I've gotten past that. But it
Speaker 1: involved psychologists and many trips to them to get past that.
Speaker 1: Where I where I would even answer a call in
Speaker 1: that area, I wouldn't even drive there. When I first
Speaker 1: reached out to Stephen Rusty, they were both pretty surprised.
Speaker 1: It been twenty five years since this explosion happened. But
Speaker 1: as soon as I called it kind of all came
Speaker 1: flooding back in and I remember almost like it had
Speaker 1: just occurred within you know, the last day or two.
Speaker 1: First responders see a lot of trauma, But when talking
Speaker 1: to these guys, especially Rusty, I mean, this was on
Speaker 1: a whole other level. I asked him if he was
Speaker 1: sure he even wanted to go through with the interview.
Speaker 1: You have to understand that incident was a little traumatic
Speaker 1: on me. This was the days before you got post
Speaker 1: traumatic stress assistance or anything. And with me and Sarah
Speaker 1: and we showed weakness over this, at which we did,
Speaker 1: I don't consider weakness, but everybod what else did really
Speaker 1: just imagine that day. It's a tight knit community. So
Speaker 1: when officers arrived, they recognized the car involved immediately they
Speaker 1: knew who the victim was, a sixteen year old named Gregory.
Speaker 1: His car the hood was blown off of it, and
Speaker 1: as we walked around the area we ended up finding
Speaker 1: some of his dismembered body parts. In the front seat
Speaker 1: of his car was boom box with the cassette tape
Speaker 1: in it that Gregory would have been listening to. He
Speaker 1: was not a bad kid, but he was just somebody
Speaker 1: that we had our eyes on. We had a couple
Speaker 1: of runnings with him, and but again not a bad kid,
Speaker 1: but he was very familiar to us, out and about
Speaker 1: in the community at odd hours for somebody his age.
Speaker 1: Steve and I, you know, we had had hard heart
Speaker 1: talks with Greg, trying to get him straightened up, you know,
Speaker 1: and we tried to do what we could for him
Speaker 1: and tried to keep him out of trouble, you know,
Speaker 1: protect him from himself. Stephen Rusty both said it sort
Speaker 1: of looked like an accident. What he did was he
Speaker 1: touched the blasting cap on that was attached to the dynamite.
Speaker 1: He didn't quite understand how dynamite works. I don't believe
Speaker 1: he touched the blasting cap on the battery terminals of
Speaker 1: his car and that was it. So he drove the
Speaker 1: car out with dynamite. But what was he hoping to
Speaker 1: do with it? You know, we really don't know, and
Speaker 1: the only two people that really know are no longer here,
Speaker 1: you know. So who is the other person that would
Speaker 1: be the mom's boyfriend. I don't know if that was
Speaker 1: just his name or not, but I do remember the
Speaker 1: name Rex. Rex. I mean, when I first heard that,
Speaker 1: you can imagine my reaction. It's probably the same one
Speaker 1: you're having. Ultimately, the teen's death was ruled a suicide,
Speaker 1: but the investigation had just begun. Well, any time somebody
Speaker 1: blows himself up dynamite, I would call it suspicious. Steve's
Speaker 1: first order of business was to try to figure out
Speaker 1: where this dynamite came from. So they reached out to
Speaker 1: local businesses and other police departments to see if any
Speaker 1: construction sites had been robbed. Eventually, in our investigation located
Speaker 1: a empty box that had some identifiers on it the
Speaker 1: Bureau of Alcohol to back when Farms did the follow
Speaker 1: up on that to fare out where it came from.
Speaker 1: Whatever they found, they linked it back to a construction
Speaker 1: site burglary and I can't remember for sure where it was,
Speaker 1: but it didn't help us and trying to identify anything
Speaker 1: about the story with the way it occurred, why it occurred,
Speaker 1: and so on. So detectives started asking around, interviewing people
Speaker 1: who knew Greg. That's when they discovered the boyfriend, rex Read.
Speaker 1: And we tried to identify rex Read, but we couldn't
Speaker 1: find any driver's license or anything that would match up
Speaker 1: with the description as far as height weight. Agents wanted
Speaker 1: this guy. Um, I thought that was kind of odd. Plus,
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, Rex Reid was the name of
Speaker 1: a character in a TV show, there's a renowned American
Speaker 1: film critic an occasional actor named Rex Reid. It was
Speaker 1: definitely not that Rex. Read. When you can't identify somebody
Speaker 1: and they've got some TV name, it kind of raises
Speaker 1: a flag. So detectives had a name or an alias
Speaker 1: and a lot of questions. Steve says they were discouraged
Speaker 1: from making contact with Greg's mother until after his funeral,
Speaker 1: but Rex was there for all of it, even when
Speaker 1: they notified Greg's mom about what had happened to her son.
Speaker 1: I just remember that, you know, he was close to her,
Speaker 1: being supportive in those things. He didn't want to talk
Speaker 1: to anybody, but he made it look like he was
Speaker 1: a stand up guy at the end and was there
Speaker 1: for the mom at the funeral and all that, and
Speaker 1: then at right after the funeral he was gone. But eventually,
Speaker 1: after speaking with Greg's mom and some of his friend end,
Speaker 1: they started to learn more. You know, Greg really didn't
Speaker 1: have a father figure, and I think Rex came into
Speaker 1: the picture, and you know, he was doing the karate stuff.
Speaker 1: This guy Rex Reid, supposedly had a black belt in karate.
Speaker 1: He and Rex had become close. He liked being around Rex,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure it's because just his attitude and he
Speaker 1: was a guy that didn't take any crap off anybody.
Speaker 1: And I believe that Greg was looking for anything at
Speaker 1: that time, and and Rex certainly fit the bill. And
Speaker 1: the fact that this guy was a little bit different
Speaker 1: than most you know, dad's or boyfriends or whatever. I
Speaker 1: think was attractive to him. That this guy is, you know,
Speaker 1: out there living on the edge, and you know, he's
Speaker 1: really cool. And I think that Greg may have been
Speaker 1: trying to emulate some of those things. Detectives determined the
Speaker 1: dynamite that Greg had used that had been stolen from
Speaker 1: a construction site had been taken by this boyfriend. Rex
Speaker 1: were both Rex and Greg, but other than that, they
Speaker 1: had no idea why the dynamite was stolen, let alone
Speaker 1: who this guy really was. We never identified, like, you know,
Speaker 1: he came here for a job, or he had family
Speaker 1: in the area or anything like that. He seemed to
Speaker 1: be a loner. People told us that they didn't know
Speaker 1: who he really was anyway, but they just said that
Speaker 1: Rex Reid was a bad guy. And that if anybody
Speaker 1: tried some mess with them that you guys will never
Speaker 1: take him alive, and you know, some officers might get
Speaker 1: hurt in the process. Greg's friends literally warned them about
Speaker 1: this guy from the very beginning. We were aggressive. If
Speaker 1: somebody needed to be found, we were going to find him.
Speaker 1: And Steve Smith is a great detective. He put a
Speaker 1: lot of time in on this case because we wanted
Speaker 1: that guy. He was obviously good at concealing his identity.
Speaker 1: He literally just kind of fell off the face of
Speaker 1: the earth. Eventually, the hunt for Rex led them to
Speaker 1: a boarding house where he had been staying, about thirty
Speaker 1: minutes away. We went to the house, made contact with
Speaker 1: the lady there, told her what was going on. She
Speaker 1: told me that Rex had disappeared the day before, she said,
Speaker 1: and we asked, you know, if he was going to
Speaker 1: be back she knew anything. She says, no, I think
Speaker 1: he's gone. He cleared out his room and they asked
Speaker 1: her for her permission to search his room. In the
Speaker 1: trash can, we located what turned out to be a
Speaker 1: driver's license had been cut up into fifty sixty little
Speaker 1: tiny pieces that one of the detectives, Alan Harris, very
Speaker 1: methodically putting back together, and then when he had it
Speaker 1: back together, we could get a name and a date
Speaker 1: of birth. He entered that in the computer and we
Speaker 1: immediately got an n C I s hit n C
Speaker 1: i C stands for the National Crime Information Center. They
Speaker 1: learned this guy who went by the name Rex Reid,
Speaker 1: had several warrants out of the state of Florida for
Speaker 1: a variety of serious felony crimes. And in order to
Speaker 1: protect the identity of the woman who I believe wrote Hitman,
Speaker 1: we're going to obscure his real name at times and
Speaker 1: call him by one of his alias is at others, Randall,
Speaker 1: Wayne Phelps. We did the computer work in lo and
Speaker 1: behold there he was the federal fugitive. Sometimes we'll hear
Speaker 1: Stephen Rusty called this guy Rex because that's what they
Speaker 1: initially knew him as, and it would be thirty two
Speaker 1: years before they finally learned the whole truth about him.
Speaker 1: All while reporting this story, I've talked to dozens of
Speaker 1: people who know a thing or two about a thing
Speaker 1: or two, but no one I've talked to knows the
Speaker 1: entire story, including Steven Rusty. They've never even heard of
Speaker 1: Hitman until I called, and then I told Rusty and
Speaker 1: Steve the book was linked to a triple murder. Did
Speaker 1: you know that? No, I did not know that until
Speaker 1: you had mentioned it. And then I, yeah, gone online
Speaker 1: and started looking at things and saw it, and I thought, well, no, great, big,
Speaker 1: giant surprise that he would author a book and somebody
Speaker 1: would think that would be the manual to go about
Speaker 1: doing bad things to good people. Even now, I keep
Speaker 1: finding new things. Just this week, as I was writing
Speaker 1: this episode, I stumbled onto a passage and hit man
Speaker 1: I didn't remember seeing before, probably because it wasn't relevant
Speaker 1: until now. Rex Ferrell says, quote dynamite is nice and
Speaker 1: can be picked up from many building sites or roads
Speaker 1: under construction, but during storage the sticks have to be
Speaker 1: turned over regularly to prevent settling of the nitro, and
Speaker 1: the blasting caps necessary to make it go off are
Speaker 1: so tricky that just by walking across the carpet enough
Speaker 1: static electricity could be created to blow you away. As
Speaker 1: I said in the beginning, unless you know what you
Speaker 1: are doing, stay away from requests for this type of
Speaker 1: extermination or the life you take, maybe your own. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back. I truly thought I'd reach the end
Speaker 1: of the Rex Feral story. I learned it was a
Speaker 1: woman now a grandmother in her seventies who originally wrote
Speaker 1: a book of fiction and wanted it pulled after it
Speaker 1: was associated with the triple murder in Maryland. But then
Speaker 1: late one night I decided to just plug a few
Speaker 1: names and dates I had into some archives, and there
Speaker 1: it was the story I knew had to be there.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've had some similar moments of discovery while
Speaker 1: making this podcast, but this was where I uncovered something huge,
Speaker 1: A part of this story that literally no one, not
Speaker 1: even Tiffany Horn, Bob Dean, Howard Siegel, I mean, no
Speaker 1: one knew about. And the more I read, the more
Speaker 1: I found about this guy, Randall Wayne Phelps, the more
Speaker 1: I really began to understand the genesis of this book.
Speaker 1: Remember what the author said to Pellatan editor Virginia Thomas.
Speaker 1: By the way, in answer to your question and that
Speaker 1: of Mr. Land, I get my materials from books, television, movies, newspapers,
Speaker 1: police officers, my karate instructor. Back in the early eighties,
Speaker 1: right around the time Hitman was written, Phelps was training
Speaker 1: to be a police officer in Florida, I got his
Speaker 1: personnel records and was able to learn a little bit
Speaker 1: more about him. Apparently, he was five ten and weighed
Speaker 1: one forty pounds. He was a U. S citizen and
Speaker 1: was engaged to be married. I assumed to the woman
Speaker 1: who I've been told authored hitman, because the emergency contact
Speaker 1: listed on his new higher payroll notice and the first
Speaker 1: name listed in his personal references that same name. Anyway,
Speaker 1: according to his application for employment, he says he got
Speaker 1: his g e d In attended community college in the seventies,
Speaker 1: and in his employment record he says he was a
Speaker 1: harpet installation mechanic and converted to a carpet salesman. He
Speaker 1: goes on to say, during this time, I have also
Speaker 1: taught classes in self defense and martial arts to perfect
Speaker 1: and maintain my skills for personal enjoyment and for additional income. Again,
Speaker 1: our Rex Ferrell actor, he cites his fifteen years of experience,
Speaker 1: is a fifth degree black belt karate instructor as a
Speaker 1: skill or qualification that would make him fit for the role.
Speaker 1: I hold belts in five styles, last being my own style,
Speaker 1: American Combat Karate, which is the layman's no nonsense approach
Speaker 1: to self defense and street fighting. As grand master of
Speaker 1: this style, I've taught many law enforcement officers. He goes
Speaker 1: on to list several local police departments and a narcotic squad,
Speaker 1: saying law enforcement agencies have always received training from me
Speaker 1: and no charge as a public service. A public affairs
Speaker 1: off sir from this department told us that back then
Speaker 1: the field training would have involved riding in a patrol
Speaker 1: car with an officer for a few days, and so
Speaker 1: there's a couple evaluation reports in these files. At the
Speaker 1: time his final evaluation report was issued, he was on
Speaker 1: probation and had been training for five and a half months.
Speaker 1: This report gives him an overall performance grade of not satisfactory,
Speaker 1: especially in the categories of public relations, knowledge of work,
Speaker 1: work judgments, jobs, skill level, quality of work accepts, direction,
Speaker 1: physical limitations, job attitude, etcetera. The field training officer giving
Speaker 1: this evaluation elaborates in the comments section by saying, quote
Speaker 1: two lacks in confronting suspects, traffic violation and field safety.
Speaker 1: Example standing in traffic while issuing traffic summons, hair length
Speaker 1: needs some attention, tends to be cold and indifferent to
Speaker 1: people in their problems, Cold and indifferent to coworkers, does
Speaker 1: not mingle into group. This comment section wasn't big enough.
Speaker 1: The evaluation continues onto an additional sheet of paper, going
Speaker 1: on to say things like recruit is very slow in
Speaker 1: writing reports and has many spelling mistakes. Recruit does assigned tasks,
Speaker 1: but acts as if he's board stiff doing them, very
Speaker 1: slow to accept changes and wants a detailed explanation for
Speaker 1: the changes. Cannot control interviews with I rate persons. Intends
Speaker 1: to become flustered and confused as to what actions to take.
Speaker 1: Apparently Phelps was color blind and he kept reading maps wrong,
Speaker 1: getting confused and ending up in the wrong area. The
Speaker 1: evaluation says he has quote very poor driving habits and
Speaker 1: kept nearly getting into accidents. And then there's this comment
Speaker 1: quote has told this FTO he is only interested in
Speaker 1: major cases, especially drug pushers, and he has his own
Speaker 1: definite opinion as to how they should be treated. Remember
Speaker 1: that this evaluation goes on and on. There are twenty
Speaker 1: nine different comments. Again, retired Captain Steve Smith. He didn't
Speaker 1: last very long. I think they got suspicious of his integrity.
Speaker 1: Helps His resignation letter dated June one reads, I find
Speaker 1: that I disagree with many of the practices and techniques
Speaker 1: advocated in my training period. Unwilling to compromise my views
Speaker 1: on the duties of a police officer as a public servant,
Speaker 1: I wish to be free to offer my services elsewhere.
Speaker 1: It was a short time after that that I believe
Speaker 1: him and his companions started doing the drug dealer rip offs.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to tell you about this book I
Speaker 1: found sounds familiar, but I'm talking about the other book.
Speaker 1: Rex Ferrell wrote. It looks like a comic book or
Speaker 1: a silly pulp novel, same as Hitman. The cover is
Speaker 1: orange and there's a masked man bursting into the room
Speaker 1: with a machine gun. He surprised two guys. They're jumping
Speaker 1: up from a table covered in money and drugs and
Speaker 1: open cans of beer. The book's title is just as ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It's called How to Rip Off a Drug Dealer and
Speaker 1: it was published in by Paladin. In the first chapter,
Speaker 1: Ferrell rights, ripping off or stealing the merchandise of drug
Speaker 1: dealers can be a very profitable business among the outlaws
Speaker 1: who grow, import and manufacture these illegal substances for distribution.
Speaker 1: There exists the law of the jungle survival of the strongest.
Speaker 1: Any outlaw who can outthink, out maneuver, or out fox
Speaker 1: any other outlaw is entitled to the bounty he appropriates.
Speaker 1: The author pitched this book before Hitman was even released.
Speaker 1: In her deposition, Paladin editor Virginia Thomas recounted something the
Speaker 1: author wrote in a letter. I'm anxious that Rex Savage
Speaker 1: established himself with Paladin readers as a top quality writer
Speaker 1: who knows his stuff. I have ideas for additional books,
Speaker 1: which we touched on briefly during our last phone conversation.
Speaker 1: And again that's our actor reading the author's words. I
Speaker 1: should have the first two chapters on popping drug dealers
Speaker 1: ready to send to you soon. I think it will
Speaker 1: be better than The hit Man. It is, in a
Speaker 1: weird way better than Hitman. Some of the hard boiled
Speaker 1: fantasy has been stripped away, and most of the book
Speaker 1: is straightforward, practical, actionable. How to assemble a team, how
Speaker 1: to train them, how to storm a room, how to
Speaker 1: dispose of the merchandise. Actually it's pretty scary the level
Speaker 1: of sophistication laid out in the book. The equipment and
Speaker 1: tactics are all military. Great Two Way Radio's bulletproof vests
Speaker 1: and infrared scopes. Rex Ferrell advises to use a fully
Speaker 1: automatic Mac ten, which would later fall under assault weapons ban,
Speaker 1: and votes a whole chapter to marksmanship too. Of course,
Speaker 1: this being a rex Feral book, there are totally absurd moments,
Speaker 1: like the long passage about why dressing up as a
Speaker 1: woman is the perfect disguise. You will need a method
Speaker 1: for very close removal of facial and maybe even leg
Speaker 1: hair in order to effectively portray a woman. Get your
Speaker 1: wife or girlfriend to help you. Select some inexpensive makeup,
Speaker 1: then practice applying the makeup until you achieve a natural look.
Speaker 1: Women's magazines tell you how you don't want to appear
Speaker 1: clownish or garish. You want your target to really think
Speaker 1: that you are female. He suggests picking up quote hard
Speaker 1: plastic breasts with nipples and other novelty items from party
Speaker 1: shops to complete the look, and he consoles the reader,
Speaker 1: so why you stand in front of the mirror feeling
Speaker 1: just a little bit queer? Keep in mind why you
Speaker 1: are playing in makeup if it bothers your macho self
Speaker 1: image so you can't sleep at night. Instead of counting sheep,
Speaker 1: try counting stacks of hundred dollar bills. The book How
Speaker 1: to rip Off a Drug Dealer is dedicated to this
Speaker 1: guy and quote to men of courage everywhere who dared
Speaker 1: to take a chance, and to all those outlaws. I
Speaker 1: dare not mention by name outlaw. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: hyperbole in these two books, but this is a detail
Speaker 1: that is not an exaggeration, because Phelps apparently wasn't just
Speaker 1: ripping off dealers. He was doing it while pretending to
Speaker 1: be a cop. There's a whole section on how to
Speaker 1: do this in the book. It's called the police assault.
Speaker 1: This method of entry is probably the safest and most
Speaker 1: profitable of all or the serious and well equipped team.
Speaker 1: It consists of entering the location by flashing seemingly legitimate
Speaker 1: police credentials and making the mark think he is under arrest.
Speaker 1: If handled correctly, the entire procedure will go smoothly and
Speaker 1: one job will possibly lead to future jobs without resistance
Speaker 1: or violence. This method requires one special skill, says Rex.
Speaker 1: At least one of the inside men should be capable
Speaker 1: of playing the part of a seasoned, knowledgeable, hardened cop.
Speaker 1: Randall Wayne Phelps, of course, had been training to be
Speaker 1: a police officer. Maybe he was better at playing a
Speaker 1: cop than he was at being a cop, So Phelps
Speaker 1: resigned from the police department in three started ripping off
Speaker 1: drug dealers the following year, and then the explosion happened
Speaker 1: three years later. So when Rusty and Steve started investigating
Speaker 1: that explosion, Phelps had already been on the run from
Speaker 1: the Feds. An investigator for a state's attorney's office in
Speaker 1: Florida actually hopped on a plane as soon as he
Speaker 1: heard about the explosion Steve was investigating. The guy's name
Speaker 1: was ed Boone. His nickname was Boomer, and he had
Speaker 1: a very booming voice, so it was appropriate I tried
Speaker 1: to reach ed Boone. Unfortunately he died in two thousand fourteen.
Speaker 1: Ed Boone ended up telling us that this had been
Speaker 1: involved in a number of crimes. They were ripping off
Speaker 1: drug dealers acting like they were the police. They would
Speaker 1: do their search warrants supposedly and confiscate the drugs and money.
Speaker 1: They would just tell the bad guys that somebody will
Speaker 1: notify you when the warrants issued and we'll be back
Speaker 1: to pick you up on that. If you're a drug
Speaker 1: suspect and the police never call you or show up again,
Speaker 1: you just kind of figure you skated and nothing else
Speaker 1: is going to go on. It's kind of a perfect crime.
Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds like that idea could actually work.
Speaker 1: But like James Harry, they messed up. They did make
Speaker 1: a mistake and hit a house that wasn't a drug house.
Speaker 1: I found a newspaper article from December that says three
Speaker 1: men Phelps as co conspirators, were found guilty of imprisoning
Speaker 1: two families and robbing their homes while posing as federal
Speaker 1: drug agents. The unsuspecting families inquired and these people ended
Speaker 1: up calling the police later to find out, you know,
Speaker 1: the circumstances and why they got targeted, And all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the Florida Law Enforcement Agency started putting two
Speaker 1: and two together that this was people out acting like
Speaker 1: they were police ripping off drug dealers. According to that
Speaker 1: article I found about the robbery that went wrong, police
Speaker 1: found the book how to rip Off a Drug Dealer
Speaker 1: in their possession. These men were convicted of two counts
Speaker 1: of kidnapping, two counts of false imprisonment, two counts of
Speaker 1: armed robbery, two counts of burglary, two counts of grant theft,
Speaker 1: two counts of conspiracy and eight counts of carrying a
Speaker 1: firearm during the sition of a felony. Phelps, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, he had kind of just disappeared into the wind,
Speaker 1: kind of like he did after we started looking for him.
Speaker 1: So these three guys got arrested. Phelps was on the run.
Speaker 1: But then I found this. Another article from March n
Speaker 1: said a thirty six year old woman had been arrested
Speaker 1: after providing fake Drug Enforcement Administration identification and warrants to
Speaker 1: the three men who committed the robbery. According to the
Speaker 1: arrest warrant and sworn testimony from one of those three men,
Speaker 1: she typed these false warrants and I das in her home.
Speaker 1: She had been charged with two counts each of conspiracy
Speaker 1: to commit a robbery with a firearm in conspiracy to
Speaker 1: commit a burglary of a dwelling in which an assault
Speaker 1: or battery occurred. So while Phelps got away, his girlfriend
Speaker 1: or fiance was being held accountable for her part in
Speaker 1: this crime. This woman's name, once again the same one
Speaker 1: I believe to be the author of hit Man. This
Speaker 1: article even says this woman calls herself a writer. Phelps
Speaker 1: went by several names, and while he was a federal fugitive.
Speaker 1: Some of the elias is popped up over the years
Speaker 1: and other states. At one point in August after the robbery,
Speaker 1: he was arrested in Florida after his car broke down.
Speaker 1: According to the booking report, the officer says, while on patrol,
Speaker 1: he saw a tan jeep off to the side of
Speaker 1: the road with the hood open. He pulled up behind
Speaker 1: the jeep and started running the Texas tags. He said
Speaker 1: he saw a white male approximately five nine and one
Speaker 1: fifty pounds, leaning in the jeep on the passenger side.
Speaker 1: He had his hands in the vehicle. He kept looking
Speaker 1: back at the officer and back into the jeep. He
Speaker 1: did this about six times. There was another man with him.
Speaker 1: The officer says. We were on a dark road and
Speaker 1: due to the suspicious furtive movement made, and for fear
Speaker 1: of my safety, I took a survey look into the
Speaker 1: vehicle to make sure there was no one else in
Speaker 1: the jeep to do me harm. When I did, I
Speaker 1: observed a light colored green shirt wrapped tightly around what
Speaker 1: outlined a gun on the front seat, where the person
Speaker 1: had been bent over. The officer says earlier that night
Speaker 1: he heard over his police radio that two people had
Speaker 1: held up a seven eleven and one of them had
Speaker 1: a green shirt wrapped around his hand to indicate he
Speaker 1: had a gun. The officer then discovered they had a
Speaker 1: duffel bag filled with holsters and other guns, handcuffs, a
Speaker 1: blue light, two badges, cans that look like tear gas,
Speaker 1: clips and ammo, and two items that look like silencers.
Speaker 1: There was also a large amount of marijuana next to
Speaker 1: this bag. This is kind of our only moment seeing
Speaker 1: Phelps up close, well, aside from his police evaluation Ed Boone,
Speaker 1: Steve Smith, Rusty James. They were always right behind him,
Speaker 1: but this officer actually interacts with him, even though he
Speaker 1: has no idea who he's dealing with. Literally, as he
Speaker 1: handed the officer his license, his real license with his
Speaker 1: real name, the officer saw another idea underneath it for
Speaker 1: Randall Wayne Phelps. This is where we learned of that Elias.
Speaker 1: When the officer asked him why he had to Florida
Speaker 1: I d S. Phelps said he got the driver's license
Speaker 1: with that name so he could write a book. After
Speaker 1: he was arrested and charged with carrying a concealed firearm
Speaker 1: in possession of marijuana, Phelps made bail and went on
Speaker 1: the run again. Do you know how long he was
Speaker 1: actually on the run for and all? It seems like
Speaker 1: initially six or eight years on the front end, and
Speaker 1: then after we tried to locate him, it was another
Speaker 1: six to nine years I think before he met his
Speaker 1: dumb eyes. We'll be right back. There are a ton
Speaker 1: of illustrations and photos and how to rip off a
Speaker 1: drug dealer, but there are two that I keep coming
Speaker 1: back to. There's a shot of a falsified d A
Speaker 1: I D. The man in the photo looks big, strong,
Speaker 1: He's wearing what's obviously a fake mustache and a wig.
Speaker 1: But am I looking at Phelps? I still haven't been
Speaker 1: able to locate his mug shot. And then there's another
Speaker 1: which is just so disturbing. It's in the section about
Speaker 1: interrogation techniques, about using a blade to get someone to talk.
Speaker 1: A young woman lies on the ground, her hands bound.
Speaker 1: A masked man kneels above her. He's got a handful
Speaker 1: of her hair and a knife to her throat. Who
Speaker 1: is that man? Is that Phelps? Who's the woman? Phelps
Speaker 1: was like this aberration, a ghost that would cause harm
Speaker 1: and then disappear after all these robberies, and after the explosion,
Speaker 1: he had somehow gotten away every time. Steve eventually learned
Speaker 1: that Phelps had returned to Florida. At some point, Ed
Speaker 1: Boone had given us the information about his girlfriend in Florida.
Speaker 1: He'd apparently gone back to his girlfriend fiance, the one
Speaker 1: who I think wrote hit man, who at the time
Speaker 1: had two children, including a teenage son, And Ed was
Speaker 1: going to pursue that a little bit more when he
Speaker 1: got back to Florida, to see if he started getting
Speaker 1: mail at her house or showed up to her house.
Speaker 1: And then one day Steve's phone rang, It was Ed Boone.
Speaker 1: When I answered, he just said, we got him, and
Speaker 1: I knew it was Boomer, and so I knew he
Speaker 1: had to be talking about. He told me that they
Speaker 1: had him, but he was in a box. And then
Speaker 1: his girlfriend's son shot and killed. You know, he had
Speaker 1: evidently been back there living again, and they had had
Speaker 1: another one of their fights, and evidently when it became physical,
Speaker 1: um this young man decided that this guy wasn't gonna
Speaker 1: hurt his mom anymore and shot and killed him. That's
Speaker 1: how I found out that we didn't need to be
Speaker 1: looking for him. Anymore. This happened just two weeks after Millie, Trevor,
Speaker 1: and Janice were murdered. A local newspaper article from this
Speaker 1: time says the young man who shot Phelps was fifteen
Speaker 1: years old, and that Phelps died after being shot in
Speaker 1: the head. This all happened in the family's living room.
Speaker 1: I was shocked, No wonder, she's never wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about this. Her teenage son shot her fugitive boyfriend right
Speaker 1: in front of her. The fifteen year old was arrested
Speaker 1: on an open count of murder. We also reached out
Speaker 1: to him for this podcast and got no response. Authorities
Speaker 1: also discovered a meth lab in a shed behind the
Speaker 1: house that they described as one of the more elaborate
Speaker 1: labs they'd seen. Sheriff's deputies believed Phelps built and operated
Speaker 1: the lab, so he'd gone from ripping off drug dealers
Speaker 1: to becoming one. Apparently, an officer from the same police
Speaker 1: department Phelps was kicked out of said when he learned
Speaker 1: Phelps had been killed, he wasn't terribly surprised. He called
Speaker 1: him extremely deadly. Rusty remembers getting the call. I just said, hey,
Speaker 1: who says there's no justice? You know he was a
Speaker 1: bad man. He's a bad guy. Do you know anything
Speaker 1: about that girlfriend in Florida? Nothing other that here than uh.
Speaker 1: I believe her son did the right thing. I think
Speaker 1: the kid he had a lot of courage. And I
Speaker 1: won't say I was happy, but I was glad that
Speaker 1: he was not going to be a threat to anyone else.
Speaker 1: I can't say that I was sad about it. It
Speaker 1: was like, good, he's off the street. He can't hurt
Speaker 1: anybody else or disrupting any other families lives. But there's
Speaker 1: one more question that keeps snagging at me. We know
Speaker 1: Phelps started ripping off drug dealers after the second book
Speaker 1: was written, but what about the first book was Rex
Speaker 1: hit Man? Now? I don't think we'll ever know, but
Speaker 1: I'd say that there's a good probability. Of course, if
Speaker 1: every department had a cold case squad, they could go
Speaker 1: back and look at the things in those books and
Speaker 1: then compared with what they have, I think they may
Speaker 1: be able to find some things like that, but that's
Speaker 1: the luxury. Most departments don't have. The stories I've told
Speaker 1: you about in this podcast could just be the ones
Speaker 1: we know about Hitman and how to rip off a
Speaker 1: drug dealer, might be the so called blueprints for other
Speaker 1: crimes committed by Phelps himself or others. I mean, the
Speaker 1: books just a book, obviously. But what's so crazy about
Speaker 1: all of this is that it seems like there was
Speaker 1: a real Rex Ferrell. Maybe he was the inspiration or
Speaker 1: the co writer, or Phelps somehow morphed into this character.
Speaker 1: But that persona the macho, rogue, dangerous maverick. He was real,
Speaker 1: and what else did Phelps do? We actually put in
Speaker 1: a Freedom of Information Act request into the FBI to
Speaker 1: try to get their files on Phelps, and just this
Speaker 1: morning we got back a reply that said, please be
Speaker 1: advised that quote unusual circumstances apply to the processing of
Speaker 1: your request. Apparently, unusual circumstances could mean a couple of
Speaker 1: different scenarios, like quote a need to search, for, collect,
Speaker 1: and examine a voluminous amount of separate and distinct records.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling I'll be finding more and more
Speaker 1: well after this podcast ends. I mean, we started this
Speaker 1: story talking about this book written by a so called
Speaker 1: hitman himself and then a triple murder, and then we
Speaker 1: discovered the author was actually a woman. But wait, there
Speaker 1: was also a man who seemed to have embodied the book.
Speaker 1: We've spent a lot of time with these wrong doers Randall,
Speaker 1: Wayne Phelps, Lawrence Horn, James Perry for some paid or
Speaker 1: Lund although maybe that's not fair, but anyway, we've spent
Speaker 1: time with these guys because we've had to. But this
Speaker 1: is where it all ends, with the people who really
Speaker 1: propelled and compelled me to tell this story, the survivors. Hi, Hi, right,
Speaker 1: how are you. I'm good? How are you doing? Oh good?
Speaker 1: I wanted to touch base with you and see how
Speaker 1: things are going. I kept Tiffany Horn updated on everything
Speaker 1: I learned over the last two years or so, every
Speaker 1: Motown interview, every lawyer I got back in touch with,
Speaker 1: but also every strange new twist I uncovered about the
Speaker 1: book and the story behind it. I was sort of
Speaker 1: driven to get to the bottom of this, in part
Speaker 1: for her, because she'd given me so much of her time,
Speaker 1: and meanwhile, Tiffany had to go on her own journey
Speaker 1: for closure, including a prison visit with her dad. There
Speaker 1: were so many demons and so many things that I
Speaker 1: had been battling, so much rage that I had had
Speaker 1: that had been building inside me. It was important for
Speaker 1: me to to let that go and to face him.
Speaker 1: I wanted to really settle with him and look him
Speaker 1: in his eye and also just see my dad again,
Speaker 1: like I wanted to be that little girl that I
Speaker 1: used to be and just look at him that way
Speaker 1: instead of as this monster that's next on hit Man.
Speaker 1: H Hitman is a production of I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: hit Home Media. It's produced and reported by me Jasmine Morris.
Speaker 1: Our supervising producer is Michelle Lance. Mark Latto is our
Speaker 1: story consultant. Executive producers are main Gesh, Hatika Door and Me.
Speaker 1: Mixing by Michelle Lance and Josh Ferguson. Our fact checker
Speaker 1: is not Sumi Ajisaka, voice acting by Levi Petrie and
Speaker 1: Kelly Jane Farnsworth. Our theme song by Alice McCoy and
Speaker 1: additional music written and produced by the students at DIME
Speaker 1: powered by the Detroit Institute of Music Education,