Speaker 1: Before we get started with today's episode, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to give you a heads up that I will begin
Speaker 1: to post photos from this case on my Instagram account
Speaker 1: which is at Weinberger Media, including some of the most
Speaker 1: crucial evidence which sat untested for decades now on to
Speaker 1: today's episode.
Speaker 2: Maybe nine months or so after I moved to Florida,
Speaker 2: there was a series of murders.
Speaker 1: That's the voice of Mark Lopez, a friend of Billy
Speaker 1: Halburn's and an ex employee of the Apollo Jim.
Speaker 2: I didn't know exactly what was going on, if they
Speaker 2: were selling dope or they were doing shakedowns or whatever
Speaker 2: they were doing, but suddenly people started to get killed,
Speaker 2: and a lot of them were two murders at a time.
Speaker 2: They were either shot in the back of the head
Speaker 2: roats cut.
Speaker 1: Mark is talking about the nineteen eighty six murder of
Speaker 1: Billy Helper and as well as the eighty seven murders
Speaker 1: of Billy's friend Mitch Hall, Mitch's girlfriend char Linda, and
Speaker 1: two more fellow members of the Apollo Jimmy high Note
Speaker 1: and Harry.
Speaker 2: Collier, and the Common Thread amongst them, where they were
Speaker 2: members of the Apollo Gym Right and some of these guys,
Speaker 2: you know, pad ties to gil.
Speaker 1: Five murders, but even more unanswered questions like why were
Speaker 1: they killed? Were all of the murders connected, and if so,
Speaker 1: who was behind them.
Speaker 3: My brother came to me and he said, Billy Helpern
Speaker 3: died and I'm going to find out who killed him.
Speaker 3: And I said, Mitch, don't can involve with those type
Speaker 3: of people. And then six months later, May sixth is
Speaker 3: when he was killed.
Speaker 1: Scott Weinberger, investigator, journalist, and former deputy sheriff. And this
Speaker 1: is cold blooded. The Apollo Gym murders. Back in May
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty seven, local investigators from the Miramar Police
Speaker 1: Department and the Brier County Sheriff's Office had their hands full.
Speaker 1: They were sitting on five execution style murders at three
Speaker 1: different crime scenes, no suspects, and very few leads. What
Speaker 1: physical evidence found at one of the crime scenes was
Speaker 1: about to pay some very big dividends, with the potential
Speaker 1: to break all three cases wide open. Investigators were able
Speaker 1: to pull a single partial fingerprint from the electrical tape
Speaker 1: found wrapped around Mitch Hall's wrists, and lo and behold,
Speaker 1: that print was a match with one of the victims
Speaker 1: found shot eight days later in Pembroke Pines, Harry Collier.
Speaker 4: I never knew very Gollier, but apparently his fingerprints were
Speaker 4: on the tape.
Speaker 5: They found the Collier's prints on the tape for his girl.
Speaker 1: Yes, this was huge. The discovery of Collier's partial print
Speaker 1: at the scene of the earlier murders seemed to be
Speaker 1: irrefutable proof that Harry Collier was at least one of
Speaker 1: the people responsible for killing Mitch Hall and his girlfriend
Speaker 1: Tarltonda Drought.
Speaker 6: They came to my work, I remember I was working
Speaker 6: at over there by the airport, Kay Realtive.
Speaker 1: That's Mitch's sister Kim, who remembers how Broward detectives delivered
Speaker 1: the news that they were making headway in her brother's case.
Speaker 6: Were basically saying that because they believe Collier and they
Speaker 6: believed Jimmy was there and they killed him, and now
Speaker 6: they're both dead, so we're going to close his murder case.
Speaker 6: I'm like, okay, you know what am I going to say?
Speaker 6: They're both dead, But they still believed there was other
Speaker 6: individuals involved.
Speaker 1: And given the similarities to the helping crime scene investigators
Speaker 1: were eager to conclude that Collier was a strong person
Speaker 1: of interest in Billy's murder, but obviously so many questions remained,
Speaker 1: like why was Billy killed in the first place, what
Speaker 1: was the motive? And who killed Jimmy high Note and
Speaker 1: Harry Collier. Those were the questions that haunted this case
Speaker 1: and that Danny Smith and I were determined to answer
Speaker 1: because Detective Smith wasn't willing to let sleeping dogs lie.
Speaker 1: Someone was behind the execution of five people and they
Speaker 1: had gone unidentified, unpunished for nearly forty years. It was
Speaker 1: time to bring that person to justice.
Speaker 5: International assist Kayla, can I help you?
Speaker 7: Hey?
Speaker 5: Kayla is Cassie and by chance, this is Danny Smith
Speaker 5: from Mirmarpiti.
Speaker 1: In April of twenty twenty three, Detective Danny Smith reached
Speaker 1: out to a private DNA lab located in Deerfield Beach, Florida,
Speaker 1: to request testing on some of the physical evidence that
Speaker 1: was collected in nineteen eighty six by the original investigators
Speaker 1: of Billy Halpern's murder. The evidence that seemed to have
Speaker 1: the most promising potential pieces of black electrical tape that
Speaker 1: were found around each of Billy's wrists. They had been
Speaker 1: stored in an evidence locker at the Baro Kenny Sheriff's
Speaker 1: office for nearly forty years, and before now, they had
Speaker 1: never been tested for evidence of DNA.
Speaker 5: The first moment that I realized that we may have
Speaker 5: something here is when we were able to locate the
Speaker 5: bindings from Billy Hawpern's wrist, the electrical tape. When that
Speaker 5: was found in evidence, unmolested, sealed, everything was good to
Speaker 5: go with that evidence. That was the first turning point
Speaker 5: for me where I actually said to myself, we have
Speaker 5: a shot here. This has never been tested before. We
Speaker 5: have it, we have a lab that's willing to test it,
Speaker 5: we have the money to test it. Let's get it done.
Speaker 1: Danny's on the phone with Cassie, a case manager at
Speaker 1: DNA Labs International.
Speaker 8: I also wanted to confirm who if.
Speaker 9: The tape is all kind.
Speaker 1: Of like jumbled up and you.
Speaker 2: Know, as pretty much, and isn't okay if we kind
Speaker 2: of like trying to easily take apart when it happened.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean it needs to get tested and
Speaker 5: you know, let's be honest, it's almost forty years old.
Speaker 1: We do we have to do when Billy's body was
Speaker 1: discovered the ribbon of thick black electrical tape wrapped around
Speaker 1: his wrists were actually torn in two, which should give
Speaker 1: you an idea just how strong Billy was. The two
Speaker 1: hundred plus pound bodybuilder had apparently broken free of his
Speaker 1: makeshift handcuffs in the struggle to save his own life,
Speaker 1: a struggle that tragically ended with his throat being slashed
Speaker 1: from ear to ear. But before he died, Billy had
Speaker 1: also managed to grab a fistful of hair, presumably from
Speaker 1: one of his attackers here that was recovered from the
Speaker 1: crime scene and also had the potential to help identify
Speaker 1: his killer.
Speaker 5: And regarding the hair, do you want me to go
Speaker 5: back and get it and drop it off to you guys?
Speaker 7: Or wait, I.
Speaker 9: Hold off the world why and longer?
Speaker 2: Okay, see what we get off of the and then
Speaker 2: we can kind of go from there.
Speaker 1: Danny was feeling confident that the DNA from the tape
Speaker 1: or the hair might finally reveal who is responsible for
Speaker 1: Billy's murder and answer a question that had dogged law
Speaker 1: enforcement for years. Was it connected to one of their own?
Speaker 1: Former Miami Dade Police officer Gil Fernandez.
Speaker 8: Well, what I've read about it was he was very violent,
Speaker 8: and he was in internal affairs a lot that he
Speaker 8: had a reputation for roughing up suspects. They seemed like
Speaker 8: a very violent individual, and he was like that as
Speaker 8: a law enforcement officer and continued to.
Speaker 7: Be that way.
Speaker 1: That's Cindy and Parrada. Cindy had started her law enforcement
Speaker 1: career as a police officer before putting herself through law
Speaker 1: school and eventually joining the statewide Prosecutor's office in Florida.
Speaker 1: And there may be no one who knows more about
Speaker 1: gil Fernandez and his career as both a cop and
Speaker 1: a criminal, which makes sense since she's ultimately the one
Speaker 1: responsible for putting him in jail, but we'll get to
Speaker 1: that later. Gilbert Fernandez Junior was born and raised in
Speaker 1: the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York, which in the
Speaker 1: fifties and sixties was a rough and tumble neighborhood of
Speaker 1: working class immigrants, Puerto Rican gangs, and the Irish mob.
Speaker 1: Street violence was commonplace and often fatal. It's no wonder
Speaker 1: why his parents moved the family to Florida when gil
Speaker 1: was just a teenager. The Fernandez family settled in Dade County,
Speaker 1: just outside of Miami. Gill Junior played a little football
Speaker 1: in high school, but skipped college instead entering the police
Speaker 1: academy and joining the Miami Dade Police Department as a
Speaker 1: patrolman in nineteen seventy six. In photographs, Fernandez looked like
Speaker 1: the part of a perfect cop, cropped black hair, a
Speaker 1: chin sculpted from granite, and a six foot two hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty pound frame that filled out his crisp blue uniform.
Speaker 1: But over the next six years, Fernandez was dogged by
Speaker 1: internal affairs and a growing list of brutality complaints. After
Speaker 1: the race riots broke out in Miami in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: after the death of Arthur McDuffie at the hands of
Speaker 1: white Miami Dade cops, Fernandez was singled out in the
Speaker 1: press for his brutal tactics. The reporter dubbed Fernandez the
Speaker 1: meanest cop in Miami. Guys that new Gil from the
Speaker 1: gym said he reveled in the notoriety. Here's Mark Lopez.
Speaker 2: When I met Gil, I never got the cop vibe
Speaker 2: from Gil. Like it almost still is crazy to me
Speaker 2: to think about it, because I just can't really picture
Speaker 2: him as a cop in my mind, because when I
Speaker 2: met Gil. The first impression to me in my mind
Speaker 2: was that guy is a fucking gangster, right Like, there
Speaker 2: was no Hey, this guy is law enforcement.
Speaker 1: But his days in law enforcement were numbered. The brass
Speaker 1: pulled him from his beat and banished him to the
Speaker 1: property room. He turned in his badge in nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1: After quitting the force, he turned his full attention to
Speaker 1: bodybuilding and found a new home at Them.
Speaker 2: I know, Gil didn't have really tons of money at
Speaker 2: that time. I mean he was driving around like a
Speaker 2: five or six year old Camaro that the air conditioning
Speaker 2: didn't work. You know, he was always kind of scraping
Speaker 2: for money. He started, really the first guy that I
Speaker 2: ever knew of that started doing personal training, and he
Speaker 2: was selling steroids as well.
Speaker 1: The Apollo became his refuge, and within months he had
Speaker 1: added forty pounds of pure muscle. The steroids helped, but
Speaker 1: they also made him irritable and short fused. Mark Lopez
Speaker 1: witnessed Gil's notorious temper firsthand.
Speaker 2: I'm in the gym working out. Gil was there behind
Speaker 2: the front desk, and there's a guy in the gym
Speaker 2: working out, another body builder by the name of Frank.
Speaker 2: It was a firefighter, but there's some type of verbal
Speaker 2: beef and all I heard Frank say.
Speaker 7: Was, well, fuck you, Gil.
Speaker 2: He says, no fuck me, just no fuck you, and
Speaker 2: Gil basically picks him up by the seat of the pants,
Speaker 2: in the back of the sweatshirt and ramrods his head
Speaker 2: right into the plate glass windows in the front of
Speaker 2: the gym.
Speaker 7: And I mean he.
Speaker 2: Hit his head so hard against the windows that I
Speaker 2: swear that the concrete slab shook that day when he
Speaker 2: did that, And like I thought that he killed them,
Speaker 2: like his next broke. You know, it just he's done,
Speaker 2: and everybody was just really silent, and when all that
Speaker 2: was over, everybody just went back to their business and
Speaker 2: their workout.
Speaker 1: Gil eventually became a co owner of the apologym with
Speaker 1: his mentor and former mister Florida, Bert Christie, who was
Speaker 1: twenty years Gil.
Speaker 2: Senior, and I think he nurtured that relationship with Gil
Speaker 2: when Gil was younger and became almost like a father
Speaker 2: figure at the Gil and you know, they had a
Speaker 2: very close relationship for a long time.
Speaker 1: Together. Bert and Gil trained a new crop of young bodybuilders,
Speaker 1: and their motto, if you're going to be dumb, you
Speaker 1: better be tough, but eventually their partnership would go far
Speaker 1: beyond bodybuilding.
Speaker 8: And that was when Burt Christy came into the picture.
Speaker 8: He was supposedly the organized crime connection.
Speaker 1: Christy cut his teeth in racketeering by collecting debts for
Speaker 1: Joey Flowers Rotano, who ran a gambling ring from a
Speaker 1: string of flower shops in Browie County. According to one
Speaker 1: federally protected witness, Christy may have also been responsible for
Speaker 1: two contract killings in nineteen eighty and nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 1: By the time he put Gil Fernandez under his wing,
Speaker 1: he was putting together his own crew, hiring muscle straight
Speaker 1: from the gym. It included Gil Fernandez and a handful
Speaker 1: of local bodybuilders like Tommy Felts, Jimmy high Note, and
Speaker 1: Harry Collier.
Speaker 2: Gill and Tommy were the muscle, and Bert was basically
Speaker 2: the guy given direction.
Speaker 8: I think that Burt trusted Gil but nobody else. So
Speaker 8: he would go to Gil with potential targets, and then
Speaker 8: Gil would get Tommy Felts or Collier, whoever it was,
Speaker 8: to go with him to do the job.
Speaker 1: The work was simple but brutal. On Bert's direction, they
Speaker 1: might shoot up a home of a local drug dealer
Speaker 1: and then return to sell them protection under threat of
Speaker 1: extreme violence. Another favorite scheme set up phony drug buys
Speaker 1: with local dealers in order to steal their stash, money
Speaker 1: or both.
Speaker 2: They were basically going to guys that Tommy Felts had
Speaker 2: gone to high school when junior high school with in Hollywood,
Speaker 2: that were guys now that were.
Speaker 7: You know, in the drug business.
Speaker 2: Generally just you know, little crews that banded together that
Speaker 2: were selling drugs, smuggling drugs.
Speaker 1: The drugs then flowed out of the Apollo gym with
Speaker 1: impunity while Bert and Gil scoped out bigger and better scores.
Speaker 2: And they were doing that to a number of different
Speaker 2: crews out there from all over the place.
Speaker 7: So you know, you're going to do that to the.
Speaker 2: Wrong people and eventually somebody is going to come for you.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty five, Tommy Felts was first to fall
Speaker 1: victim to a rival's violent retribution.
Speaker 2: Eventually Felts, you know, did that to the wrong guy,
Speaker 2: and they rolled up on him at a stop late
Speaker 2: right at Stirling Road. I got a Sunday afternoon and
Speaker 2: broad daylight and gunned them down.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty seven, Two more members of their crew,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Heinot and Harry Collier, were also found dead, this
Speaker 1: time with bullets to the back of the head. As
Speaker 1: Mark Lopez remembers it, a rising body count was starting
Speaker 1: to attract the wrong kind of attention.
Speaker 2: They started to notice that were, you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of cop surveillance around the gym's right, And I didn't
Speaker 2: know what it was initially at the time, and like
Speaker 2: it could have been anybody, right, because there was one
Speaker 2: hundred plus guys in the Jim DeLand dope. But then
Speaker 2: when you start hearing about friends getting called in by
Speaker 2: BSO and detectives spoking around asking questions, that's when you
Speaker 2: kind of knew the shit had hit the fan.
Speaker 1: The BSO would be the brawer of Sheriff's office also
Speaker 1: sniffing around the Apollo. The FBI.
Speaker 8: Defense were the ones that started the investigation because there
Speaker 8: were all these homicides, all these drug ripoffs that were
Speaker 8: in all different locations. But also I believe part of
Speaker 8: their interest was because of Bert Christie's organized crime connections,
Speaker 8: and I think that they were trying to make a
Speaker 8: reco case against him.
Speaker 2: At that time, we knew that law enforcement was out
Speaker 2: there poking around about Gil. They were starting to question
Speaker 2: people that were close to him, including me, And when
Speaker 2: it happened, I told Gil about it.
Speaker 7: I specifically told.
Speaker 2: Him that BSO was trying to call me in and
Speaker 2: that I said, listen, I said, I'm.
Speaker 7: Going to go in.
Speaker 2: I'm going on record with you now to tell you
Speaker 2: I'm not saying nothing. I don't know nothing. And I said,
Speaker 2: one word done, pawkin. I said, I'm gonna come right
Speaker 2: back to you and tell you exactly what They asked, MA,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna ta you exactly what I said.
Speaker 1: Detectives were looking for someone willing to testify against Fernandez
Speaker 1: and Christy.
Speaker 2: I said, you guys honestly think that me or anybody
Speaker 2: else like me is going to cooperate with you to
Speaker 2: go after Gil Fernandez. I said, you're crazy, Like I'm
Speaker 2: not that crazy. For one, I said, because if I
Speaker 2: ever agreed to do something like that, you know my
Speaker 2: fate is sealed.
Speaker 1: In other words, at the Apollo Jim, snitches get much
Speaker 1: more than stitches. They might wind up dead. But as
Speaker 1: the scrutiny from law enforcement increased, neither Gil nor Bert
Speaker 1: were above doing a little polishing of their public image.
Speaker 2: Well almost overnights, not just him, but him and Bert
Speaker 2: Christie become born again Christians, okay, which is like a
Speaker 2: black to white moment, right, And to me, I just
Speaker 2: love from the surface this is a cleanup act, right.
Speaker 1: But given the litany of their past sins and victims,
Speaker 1: there was little chance they could outrun their reputations.
Speaker 7: Bert just couldn't sell that act. He just couldn't, right,
Speaker 7: He tried to, he couldn't.
Speaker 1: But according to Mark Gill's act was considerably more convincing.
Speaker 2: Gil changed considerably and I didn't know if it was
Speaker 2: an act or if it was genuine. He went off
Speaker 2: all steroids, you know, so he lost a considerable amount
Speaker 2: of size and weight.
Speaker 7: His attitude changed.
Speaker 2: He started putting pictures of Jesus or religious pictures in
Speaker 2: the gym. He was going to church every week. And
Speaker 2: I was again small enough never to ask is this
Speaker 2: an act?
Speaker 1: But despite all the suspicions scrolling around him and his
Speaker 1: potential involvement in multiple unsolved homicides, Jill Fernandez was never arrested,
Speaker 1: never even brought in for questioning.
Speaker 2: Do you have to realize something that people were very
Speaker 2: afraid because you know, if he and he was the
Speaker 2: one committing these murders. They knew not he was the
Speaker 2: hardcore gangster, but he was an ex cop and he
Speaker 2: had friends still on the force, not just in Miami
Speaker 2: Metro where he was a cop, but you know, Hollywood, Davy,
Speaker 2: Cooper City, Fort Lauderdale, North Miami Beach.
Speaker 7: We had cop friends all over.
Speaker 2: So it was like, well, if you runted a law
Speaker 2: how do you know that one of his buddies, I'm
Speaker 2: going to look it back to him and then you're
Speaker 2: in trouble.
Speaker 1: But it would only be a matter of time before
Speaker 1: someone close to Gil would be forced to take that gamble.
Speaker 1: It would happen. In nineteen ninety, a member of Gill's
Speaker 1: crew was popped in Alabama and was being held on
Speaker 1: extortion charges, but rather than face federal time, he said
Speaker 1: he was ready to make a deal and he had
Speaker 1: the goods on Gill. He said, remember those three bodies
Speaker 1: that were found out on Danger Road, Yeah, that was us.
Speaker 1: Cindy and Parrado always wanted to be in law enforcement,
Speaker 1: and after graduate school, she spent nine years as a
Speaker 1: uniformed officer in Tallahassee.
Speaker 8: This was the early eighties, so there was a lot
Speaker 8: of resistance with mal law enforcement officers for females to
Speaker 8: be part of the crew. A lot of them only
Speaker 8: had high school educations and I had a master's degree,
Speaker 8: so they didn't like that, and you know, they could
Speaker 8: have figured out why I was there.
Speaker 1: But she eventually earned her stripes and her props within
Speaker 1: the force.
Speaker 8: I think the first time I got in a fight
Speaker 8: and got punched out and didn't cry or quit or
Speaker 8: anything else, then I became one of the boys and
Speaker 8: they accepted me.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty nine, Cindy began working her way through
Speaker 1: law school, eventually taking a job with the statewide Prosecutor's
Speaker 1: office in Fort Lauderdale. She first became familiar with the
Speaker 1: name gil Fernandez in nineteen ninety when she was a
Speaker 1: brand new prosecutor assigned to a triple homicide case that
Speaker 1: had gone unsolved for seven years.
Speaker 8: I worked homicide briefly when I was in Tallahassee, and
Speaker 8: it was like, well, you know, you were thomis IDEs before,
Speaker 8: and now you're a lawyer and you were a cop,
Speaker 8: so we're putting you on this.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty three, three years before Billy Hoppin's murder,
Speaker 1: the bodies of three men have been discovered on the
Speaker 1: edge of a canal about ten miles inland from Hollywood Beach.
Speaker 1: It was a stretch of Everglades backcountry that locals dubbed
Speaker 1: Danger Road.
Speaker 10: Michael White took his entarrain vehicle to Jones Fish Camp
Speaker 10: in the Everglades on a Sunday morning in April of
Speaker 10: nineteen eighty three. He hasn't forgotten what he found that day.
Speaker 11: Oh, we were riding along and we thought it was
Speaker 11: like a store dummy or something, and we stopped and
Speaker 11: got off and looked down to make sure, and there
Speaker 11: were three people dead there. I walked down there to
Speaker 11: the closest victim to me and nudged him with my
Speaker 11: foot to see, in fact, if he was dead, And
Speaker 11: how's the positioned. He had his hands time behind his back,
Speaker 11: laying face down.
Speaker 1: The crime scene suggested a professional execution. Three men had
Speaker 1: been bound, blindfolded and shot point blank in the head.
Speaker 1: The victims were identified as twenty six year old Walter Leahy,
Speaker 1: twenty five year old Richard Robinson, and thirty one year
Speaker 1: old Alfred Triingalli. Suspected low level cocaine dealers who had
Speaker 1: all grown up in and around South Florida. At the time,
Speaker 1: Brower County investigators had chalked up the murders to the
Speaker 1: escalating violence surrounding the drug trade ravaging South Florida in
Speaker 1: the early eighties. Their killers could have been Colombian suppliers,
Speaker 1: local mobsters, or just another group of crooks in a
Speaker 1: drug deal gone bad. With no witnesses or leads, their
Speaker 1: cases went unsolved for years, just another triple homicide in
Speaker 1: an never ending drug war. But in nineteen ninety that
Speaker 1: all changed when a detective from the Broward Sheriff's office
Speaker 1: responded to the Fort Lauter office of the FBI to
Speaker 1: hear the proffered statement of a man named Michael Carbone.
Speaker 1: I asked Mark Lopez what he knew about Carbone.
Speaker 2: Michael worked for a local mobster by the name of
Speaker 2: Joey Rotuno, who was a colombo guy. Joey everybody called
Speaker 2: Joey Flowers because he owned flower shops around Hollywood and
Speaker 2: Paramac and Allendale. Typical kind of strong arm mob guy
Speaker 2: where they were running you know, shylock business, sportsbook doing extortion,
Speaker 2: doing some drug dealing, some of the low level scams
Speaker 2: and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: The stocky, blonde haired Carbone was also a fixture at
Speaker 1: the Apollo Gym.
Speaker 2: Michael was generally mister Shakedown as I used to call him.
Speaker 2: But he was a dope because every time he tried
Speaker 2: to extorte somebody, they ran to the FBI and he'd
Speaker 2: get pinched. He was always in trouble, always was a liability.
Speaker 2: He wasn't well liked by anybody.
Speaker 1: As they say in the movies. He also had a
Speaker 1: rap sheet a mile long, including convictions in five separate felonies.
Speaker 8: Well, Michael Carbone got arrested again, so he knew he
Speaker 8: was going to prison.
Speaker 9: So that's when he said, well, I have something.
Speaker 1: Something was an understatement in exchange for immunity. Carbone was
Speaker 1: ready to confess to his role in the Everglades triple slaying,
Speaker 1: a crime he claimed was ordered by Burt Christie and
Speaker 1: carried out by his protege, Gil Fernandez, who in April
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, when the murders took place, was still
Speaker 1: a uniformed member of the Miami Dade Police Department. According
Speaker 1: to his sworn statement, Carbone had agreed to meet Fernandez
Speaker 1: and Tommy Feltz and a department in Hollywood Beach, where
Speaker 1: Gil had set up a drug buy with a trio
Speaker 1: of local dealers. When Danny Smith got his hands on
Speaker 1: Carbone's statement, it read like a scene out of a
Speaker 1: gangster movie.
Speaker 5: The plan that was given by Gil Fernandez was to
Speaker 5: have Carbone waiting or hiding into a nearby bedroom. They
Speaker 5: would show the drugs, and then Fernandez would give Carbone
Speaker 5: the signal he would call to him. Carbone would come
Speaker 5: out with his machine gun and essentially take charge of
Speaker 5: that room and make sure that nobody leaves or does
Speaker 5: anything that Fernandez doesn't want them to do well.
Speaker 1: Carbone claimed that when he entered the room wielding a
Speaker 1: vintage Tommy gun, he saw three men on their knees
Speaker 1: and Gil wearing latex gloves, holding a chrome plated revolver
Speaker 1: in the mouth of one of the victims.
Speaker 8: And then Carbone comes out of the other room with
Speaker 8: the Tommy gun and they all get gagged and blindfolded.
Speaker 5: They were there for quite some time, sitting there, blindfolded,
Speaker 5: bound with some kind of rope and held at gunpoint.
Speaker 5: They were contained and isolated, and they were essentially neutralized.
Speaker 1: Gil's crew would eventually relieve their victims of a cooler
Speaker 1: filled with eight kilos of cocaine worth close to one
Speaker 1: million dollars. But Fernandez had another much darker plan. This
Speaker 1: is actual audio from Michael Carbones's later court testimony.
Speaker 12: And I just feel that it's more than just going
Speaker 12: to be a rip off right here and then. And then,
Speaker 12: you know, they were yelling out that they were going
Speaker 12: to see the boss and different things like that. But
Speaker 12: I just knew deep down inside that there was more
Speaker 12: than this.
Speaker 1: The men were transported to Carbones car. Then they drove
Speaker 1: them in west out Highway twenty seven and pulled off
Speaker 1: the pavement just past a ramshackle tavern called Jones's Fish Camp.
Speaker 1: When he cut the engine in headlights, they were engulfed
Speaker 1: in the impenetrable darkness of the Florida Everglades.
Speaker 5: The Everglades are a place that's in addition to all
Speaker 5: the rumors and speculation and almost infamy of that area
Speaker 5: where quote unquote bodies have been left and never found
Speaker 5: over years and years, the Everglades is desolate, not very
Speaker 5: well lit, and the only time that anyone goes out
Speaker 5: there is either for hunting and vision or for something nefarious.
Speaker 1: In his statement and in court, Carbone went on to
Speaker 1: describe how Gil removed each of the men from the
Speaker 1: car and made them kneel at the edge of the
Speaker 1: Miami Canal.
Speaker 12: All I saw was him getting in the water with
Speaker 12: the individual, told the individual to kneel, and I heard
Speaker 12: a gunshot and then I heard the water splash.
Speaker 8: So you can imagine how terrified they must have been
Speaker 8: when they're telling you to walk down this shirt road
Speaker 8: into the water, and especially once you hear the first
Speaker 8: person get shot and dropped into the water. You know
Speaker 8: what's coming, You're next. It's not what You're never going
Speaker 8: to walk away. So the terror that they must have
Speaker 8: lived through from the time they were tied up until
Speaker 8: the time they were actually murdered, it's actually it's hard
Speaker 8: to conceive.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, Gil fires twice more, killing the other two men
Speaker 1: with bullets to the back of their heads.
Speaker 12: There's no doubt in my mind who shot the m
Speaker 12: three individuals there was Gil Fernandez.
Speaker 1: Carbone also clearly recalled what Fernandez said next.
Speaker 9: Says, if you ever opened your mouth, he says, I
Speaker 9: will kill your family.
Speaker 12: He says your kids, and he says, I o'kay, how far
Speaker 12: you go to China or whatever? He was going to
Speaker 12: kill my family.
Speaker 8: You get the feeling that he was supposed to be
Speaker 8: killed that night, because Gil was so frantic, telling him,
Speaker 8: if you ever say anything, I'm going to kill you,
Speaker 8: I'm going to kill your family.
Speaker 9: I'm coming, I'll come for you. And it just sounded like.
Speaker 8: Carbone probably was supposed to be taken out too, but
Speaker 8: it didn't happen.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, Carbone netted fifty thousand dollars for his cut of
Speaker 1: the robbery. Bill received one hundred and fifty thousand, and
Speaker 1: the rest of the loot trickles upstream to Burt Christy
Speaker 1: and beyond.
Speaker 8: I know it was a lot of money for all
Speaker 8: of them, And of course they were instructed, according to Carbone,
Speaker 8: to not go and buy anything fancy, do anything silly
Speaker 8: that would bring law enforcement attention, and I think everybody
Speaker 8: did just the opposite. These guys are going out buying
Speaker 8: new cars and doing silly things, which of course gets
Speaker 8: law enforcement's attention.
Speaker 1: But incredibly, Bill and his Apollo crew were not only
Speaker 1: able to avoid arrest, we'll continue to operate their criminal
Speaker 1: enterprise for years with little to no interference from the police.
Speaker 1: But as some members of the crew would find out
Speaker 1: the police were not the only threat they had to
Speaker 1: worry about. Two years after the danger Road murders, Tommy
Speaker 1: Felts would be gunned down in his car.
Speaker 8: Originally, the theory was that Gil had killed Tommy Felts
Speaker 8: because Tommy was there at the triple.
Speaker 1: Over the next year, Jimmy high Note and Harry Collier
Speaker 1: would also meet their fate. Was guild cleaning house or
Speaker 1: was it payback from his growing list of dangerous enemies.
Speaker 1: Either way, the chickens were certainly coming home to roost.
Speaker 8: The basic premise was that his mo was to rip
Speaker 8: off drug dealers and then kill them, and then kill
Speaker 8: whoever was with him when he did it, so there
Speaker 8: would never be any witnesses, and that's why Michael Carbone
Speaker 8: the fact that he was still alive was a lucky
Speaker 8: thing for us. But everybody else that he was involved
Speaker 8: with was murdered.
Speaker 1: And when Carbone turned state's witness, it seemed that Gil
Speaker 1: Fernandez and Burt Christie might finally face the music. But
Speaker 1: one thing remained uncertain. As law enforcement untangled the bloody
Speaker 1: web of ripoffs, shakedowns, and murder, would they ever uncover
Speaker 1: the evidence necessary to connect the murder of Billy Halpering
Speaker 1: or was there someone out there determined to keep it
Speaker 1: buried deep behind the thin blue line. According to Cindi
Speaker 1: and Perrado, the young prosecutor assigned to the case, Michael
Speaker 1: Carbone's cooperation against Gil Fernandez and Bert Christi was never guaranteed.
Speaker 8: I think he was afraid before of Gil, that Gil
Speaker 8: would kill him if he ever gave him up. Everybody
Speaker 8: was afraid, so Carbone was reluctant. But then when he
Speaker 8: was looking at significant time and this was federal time,
Speaker 8: That's how he ended up becoming a witness for the
Speaker 8: statewide prosecutor.
Speaker 1: Another real risk someone tipping off their suspects and Fernandez
Speaker 1: and Christie going on the run incredibly. Mark Lopez discussed
Speaker 1: this possibility with Fernandez himself.
Speaker 2: And I told him more than a couple of times,
Speaker 2: But I said, Gil, you know is how this is
Speaker 2: going to end, right, Like, why don't you just grown
Speaker 2: like going to lamp And I just think that he
Speaker 2: wasn't going to do that, right And his wife was
Speaker 2: pregnant by the time with their second kid, and he
Speaker 2: was like, well, he didn't say this to me, but
Speaker 2: I just thought he had the attitude like, if this
Speaker 2: is gonna come, I'm going to take it on the
Speaker 2: chin and I'm going to do what I can do.
Speaker 2: But I don't think he ever had any intentions in
Speaker 2: trying to run.
Speaker 8: Law enforcement was snooping around at the gym. They were
Speaker 8: going to Apollo. They were talking to people that he knew,
Speaker 8: and I think Gil definitely knew, because that was the
Speaker 8: theory is that's why he left the police department, that
Speaker 8: he knew that it was just a matter of time,
Speaker 8: and especially once we had carbone.
Speaker 1: Finally, in July of nineteen ninety, law enforcement made their move.
Speaker 2: We didn't know exactly when it was coming, but we
Speaker 2: knew it was coming. They knew he left early in
Speaker 2: the morning to go to the Apollo to open a gym.
Speaker 2: He would get there at five to work out. So
Speaker 2: I think, to my understanding, that they called the house
Speaker 2: right at like four o'clock or four thirty, and he
Speaker 2: entered the phone, they hung up. He was an ex cop, right,
Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, that's the all the strick in the book.
Speaker 2: They're trying to see if I'm here. He gets in
Speaker 2: this car driver to the gym and they pull him
Speaker 2: over on the road on the way to the gym,
Speaker 2: and they take him down right there.
Speaker 1: Thirty seven year old Gil Fernandez and fifty seven year
Speaker 1: old Bert Christie were both arrested and charged with three
Speaker 1: counts of first degree murder. Before their trial, each man
Speaker 1: was offered a chance to avoid the maximum penalty on
Speaker 1: the law by testifying against their alleged accomplice.
Speaker 8: I believe they were both offered life to cooperate against
Speaker 8: the other one.
Speaker 9: So Christy was offered.
Speaker 8: Life to testify and skill and Gil was offered life
Speaker 8: to testify against Christie, but they both rejected it, which
Speaker 8: is pretty normal for organized crime types the wise guy mentality.
Speaker 1: Both men would stand trial for the three homicides in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, but there was also pressure to hang
Speaker 1: more charges on Fernandez and Christy for their suspected involvement
Speaker 1: in many other crimes, including other murders.
Speaker 8: There was talk about if we had enough information to
Speaker 8: try to do a Williams rule when you have similar
Speaker 8: type crimes, that you can bring evidence of the other
Speaker 8: crimes in to prove the crime that you're trying.
Speaker 1: Even with several unsolved murders on the books, that strategy
Speaker 1: carried significant risk.
Speaker 8: In Florida, almost every case that prosecutes used Williams rule evidence,
Speaker 8: it seems to get reversed because it's just cumulative and
Speaker 8: kind of overwhelming for the jury. You're looking at this
Speaker 8: triple homicide, but now you're going to talk about five
Speaker 8: other homicides or how many other homicides that they allegedly
Speaker 8: occurred that you don't have enough to charge them.
Speaker 1: Charging Christine Fernandez in a federal reco case could have
Speaker 1: also allowed prosecutors to include other past homicides, possibly even
Speaker 1: the murders of Apollo Jim members, Jimmy high Note and
Speaker 1: Harry Collier, and if the evidence led them there, Mitch
Speaker 1: Hall and Billy Halpern.
Speaker 8: I had all those reports about all the different homicides
Speaker 8: and all the different players, so I was definitely familiar
Speaker 8: with it all. But it ended up being the focus
Speaker 8: on the triple, and the judge was very clear that
Speaker 8: we couldn't.
Speaker 9: Talk about anything else.
Speaker 8: But there just wasn't enough evidence in other cases at
Speaker 8: the time.
Speaker 1: CHRISTI and Fernandez's trial would be limited to the Danger
Speaker 1: Road murders.
Speaker 2: I never saw him post arrests. I was given in
Speaker 2: strict instructions from my father, do not go to County
Speaker 2: to see him.
Speaker 7: Do not go to trial.
Speaker 2: When he goes to trial, do not go to trial
Speaker 2: and go in the courtroom, stay away from the trial.
Speaker 1: With the brutal details of the triple homicide and they're
Speaker 1: alleged ties to organized crime, the trial did attract a
Speaker 1: considerable amount of attention from the press.
Speaker 10: Today, a Gilbert Fernandez, the ex com sits in court
Speaker 10: charged with killing the three men White found eight years ago.
Speaker 10: Prosecutors say Fernandez tied the victim's hands and shot them
Speaker 10: in the head. Investigators say the triple murder was the
Speaker 10: end result of a million dollar drug ripoff. The alleged
Speaker 10: mastermind is co defendant Hubert Christie.
Speaker 1: The trial's high profile put not a small amount of
Speaker 1: pressure on the young state prosecutor.
Speaker 8: I don't know if it was because it was such
Speaker 8: a high profile case.
Speaker 9: It's a triple homicide.
Speaker 8: You've got every newspaper, every camera on you twenty four
Speaker 8: to seven, so it can definitely make or break somebody's career,
Speaker 8: to your years out of law school doing a triple homicide,
Speaker 8: death penalty case, doing the opening statement, So it was
Speaker 8: very intimidating.
Speaker 1: Given the defendant's reputations for violence, and retribution against those
Speaker 1: that betray them. There was also considerable concern about the
Speaker 1: safety of their star witness.
Speaker 10: Carbone is the state's star witness, and he's expected to
Speaker 10: take the stand later this week. Carbone's testimony against Gilbert
Speaker 10: Fernandez and Hubert Christie will keep him from going to
Speaker 10: jail on unrelated charges.
Speaker 8: We had a battle at the judge because we wanted
Speaker 8: the marshals to be in the courtroom when Carbone was testifying,
Speaker 8: and he didn't want them there. The chances of somebody
Speaker 8: taking somebody out in court with all the security that
Speaker 8: we had for that child would be hard to imagine,
Speaker 8: but you never know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: As the trial got going, the challenges for the prosecution
Speaker 1: became readily apparent.
Speaker 8: There were no angels in this trial because even the
Speaker 8: victims were drug dealers, but certainly no one deserves what
Speaker 8: happened to them.
Speaker 9: Fernandez took his victim, who was gagged.
Speaker 8: Blindfolded, his hands tied behind his back, to the bank
Speaker 8: of the canal. He instructed him to kneel down, and
Speaker 8: with the coldness of an executioner, shot him twice in
Speaker 8: the head and killed him.
Speaker 1: Prosecutors painted a compelling picture of events, but they also
Speaker 1: had no murder weapon, no forensic evidence tying the accused
Speaker 1: to the crime scene, and no one able or willing
Speaker 1: to corroborate Carbone's story.
Speaker 8: One big concern was is jury going to believe Carbone?
Speaker 8: Obviously for him to be able to hold three people
Speaker 8: at gunpoint for multiple hours and be there for a
Speaker 8: triple homicide and be involved in other things, obviously he
Speaker 8: wasn't a good guy. We're out there on sketchy grounds
Speaker 8: relying on his testimony. I mean, if the jury didn't
Speaker 8: believe him, I think, you know, we would have been
Speaker 8: in big trouble. You know, it's not like we had
Speaker 8: fingerprints or DNA or something that you go to the
Speaker 8: jury and say, absolutely, this is what happens.
Speaker 9: So it's Carbone was basically the case.
Speaker 1: Neither Christi or Fernandez testified in their own defense, much
Speaker 1: to the dismay of the press and the trial audience,
Speaker 1: many of whom were giving the benefit of doubt to
Speaker 1: the Bible toting X cop and former mister Florida.
Speaker 2: There are people in there that were now coming in
Speaker 2: that only new Gill is born again Christian Gil, right,
Speaker 2: So these are people that are like, how I can't
Speaker 2: believe this? You know, I can't. He's such a good
Speaker 2: guy and so, you know, a sweetheart. I'm thinking I
Speaker 2: might go, well, you know, he might be a sweetheart
Speaker 2: in the hell. But believe me, a year ago, who
Speaker 2: you wouldn't have had.
Speaker 1: Fernandez and Christie sat there stoically as Carbone offered testimony
Speaker 1: that could put them both in the electric chair.
Speaker 10: Carbone, who's under the Federal Witness Protection Program, told the
Speaker 10: jury he was hired as a surveillance man to help
Speaker 10: in the drug scam. Since coming forward, Carbone has told
Speaker 10: his story half a dozen times. Each time details of
Speaker 10: his testimony changed.
Speaker 8: The problem with Carbone was he had given a statement
Speaker 8: to the Feds, he'd given a statement to the grand jury.
Speaker 9: He had given a deposition.
Speaker 8: So again, as you know from being a law enforcement officer,
Speaker 8: when you get a person on the witness stand and
Speaker 8: their subjects to cross examination, and now you've got four
Speaker 8: or five different statements and you can make a big
Speaker 8: deal out of small inconsistencies, it would be hard for
Speaker 8: me to fathom the jury not believing he was there.
Speaker 9: No one knew the details like he did. I mean,
Speaker 9: you knew that these people were ripped off. You knew
Speaker 9: they were murdered.
Speaker 8: You suspected Gil and Bert were involved, because that's how
Speaker 8: they operated. And Carbone there, you just couldn't make up
Speaker 8: all those details that he had about it.
Speaker 1: His story was also bolstered by the testimony of his wife,
Speaker 1: who also took the stand to say that Carbone had
Speaker 1: confessed to witnessing the triple murder.
Speaker 13: He told me that they got into the car, and
Speaker 13: that they took them out to some place somewhere out
Speaker 13: west by some water, and that they got out of
Speaker 13: the car, and that Gil took the one man into
Speaker 13: the water and then he shot him.
Speaker 1: The defense rested its case on one simple premise that
Speaker 1: the testimony of a career criminal purchased with a promise
Speaker 1: of immunity wasn't worth the paper it was written on.
Speaker 8: They didn't put on a real I mean, it was
Speaker 8: mostly just a tear apart our case, and be like,
Speaker 8: we'd improve it beyond a reasonable doubt, And how can
Speaker 8: you believe Carbone?
Speaker 9: And he's getting this sweet deal.
Speaker 8: He'll say whatever they want him to say.
Speaker 1: Now, there are many other lines that you'll find out,
Speaker 1: he says.
Speaker 2: The law enforcement on other cases, You're going to find.
Speaker 9: Out that he's a five time convicted.
Speaker 1: Felt Mark Lopez, the former Apollo employee, had no love
Speaker 1: for Michael Carbone, but he thought relying solely on Carbone's
Speaker 1: testimony made the state's case against his former boss flimsy
Speaker 1: at best.
Speaker 2: Look, he was a three time loser basing fifteen to
Speaker 2: life if this third extortion beef, and he would have
Speaker 2: gave up his own mother.
Speaker 7: To walk right.
Speaker 2: So I think that they thought that John was going
Speaker 2: to be able to break Carbone down on the stand,
Speaker 2: and that the jury would see that and think that
Speaker 2: he was allying a three time loser scumbag trying to
Speaker 2: save his own ass, which he was.
Speaker 1: It would be up to the jury to decide who
Speaker 1: to trust.
Speaker 7: The highly publicized murder trial of a former Metro Dad
Speaker 7: police officer and his business partner is in the hands
Speaker 7: of a brower jury at this hour.
Speaker 2: The men are accused of killing three drug dealers in
Speaker 2: the Everglades.
Speaker 8: Usually in a criminal case, the longer the jury's out,
Speaker 8: it's usually better for the defense. So when they were
Speaker 8: coming back with questions about different degrees of murder and
Speaker 8: everything else, we were believing we were sweating it out
Speaker 8: that they were going to come back with a lesser
Speaker 8: or do something else, or that they were going to
Speaker 8: be a hung jury.
Speaker 1: Instead, the jury found both men guilty.
Speaker 14: As to the defendant Gilbert Fernandez, as to count one
Speaker 14: of the indictment, the defendant is guilty of first degree
Speaker 14: murder without a firearm. To defendant Hubert Christie, as to
Speaker 14: count one of the indictment, the defendant is guilty of
Speaker 14: first felony murder.
Speaker 1: Eight years after the triple homicide on Danger Road, Fernandez
Speaker 1: and Christy were convicted of three counts of first degree
Speaker 1: murder in the commission of a felony and were handed
Speaker 1: down heavy sentences.
Speaker 8: Judge Tyson gave them consecutive life sentences, so there's no
Speaker 8: chance of him getting out, which was the idea.
Speaker 2: I was a little surprised, to be honest with you, because,
Speaker 2: like I said, I knew that you know beyond character witnesses,
Speaker 2: So I thought, wow, man, you can they can send
Speaker 2: you away for triple life on one guy's testimony like
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 7: That to me was a little surprising.
Speaker 1: As for Michael Carbone, he hasn't been seen in Florida since,
Speaker 1: and speculation is that for the last thirty four years
Speaker 1: has been a guest of a witness relocation program.
Speaker 2: I just talked to a regular friend of mine here
Speaker 2: that's local in Palm Beach County that was an' a
Speaker 2: member of the Apollo Gym too, And he had just
Speaker 2: asked me like a week ago. He said, Hey, whatever
Speaker 2: happened to Michael Carbone? We don't know you know where
Speaker 2: he is or anything. And I said, well, he's not
Speaker 2: Michael Carbone anymore, right, I said, he's Joe Smith in
Speaker 2: you know, Idaho. They said he's in witness protection.
Speaker 7: They got a new identity.
Speaker 2: So if he's still alive, which Michael would have to
Speaker 2: be pushing in like seventy now, you know, he's not
Speaker 2: Michael Carbone anymore.
Speaker 1: But despite justice being served for their role in the
Speaker 1: Danger Road murders, investigators believe there are still multiple unsolved
Speaker 1: homicides that they have good reason to believe were ordered
Speaker 1: and carried out by Bert Christi and Gil Fernandez. They
Speaker 1: include the brutal slayings of Mitch Hall, his girlfriend char Linda,
Speaker 1: and of course Lori Halpern's brother Billy.
Speaker 4: They had pretty much told me that Gil committed the murder,
Speaker 4: so I just figured which I'd be grateful if they
Speaker 4: can prove it. But Mike Hallman did not thought. You know,
Speaker 4: they didn't want to spend the money. They kind of
Speaker 4: knew that he did it. We really need to go
Speaker 4: any farther. Do you want to go through a trial?
Speaker 4: We kind of know we did it. I said, well,
Speaker 4: I don't want my parents to go through that. And
Speaker 4: if you know, I don't want them to. You know,
Speaker 4: they're going to make Billy look bad. And if if
Speaker 4: you think Gil killed Billy, then look, leave it alone.
Speaker 9: Bill kill Billy.
Speaker 1: But something in her heart told her that this wasn't
Speaker 1: the full story.
Speaker 8: I have sent, you know, feelers out to see if
Speaker 8: at some point Gil would be willing to confess to
Speaker 8: the rest of the murders to give the family member's
Speaker 8: peace of mind, if nothing else, for just pleading him
Speaker 8: out to concurrent time. And I do believe that the
Speaker 8: state's attitude was, like we can exceptionally clear these cases.
Speaker 8: You know, he's already serving life. He's not calling it,
Speaker 8: but he's lost all his appeals. It's not like he's
Speaker 8: going to walk out. But his attitude has been from
Speaker 8: the beginning that he's not saying anything. He's got two sons,
Speaker 8: I believe, and he never wants them to know what
Speaker 8: he did.
Speaker 1: But maybe would the emergence of more evidence, Jill Fernandez
Speaker 1: could be convinced to.
Speaker 5: Talk Calassie, say, what's going on?
Speaker 14: I just wanted to touch base with you, so we
Speaker 14: got some.
Speaker 7: Quant and go back.
Speaker 9: There is DNA there.
Speaker 1: Maybe with the new DNA evidence, he would have to.
Speaker 7: Did you go him?
Speaker 1: Now? Whatever you show me, I'll try to help you.
Speaker 2: But other than that, you know, really I'm on to
Speaker 2: hell out of respect.
Speaker 9: Of course, you know, I will just stay see you later.
Speaker 1: Man, if you ain't got a warn and you ain't
Speaker 1: gonna take me to jail or whatever, because I already
Speaker 1: a jail so you know, but yeah, go ahead, cold Blooded.
Speaker 1: The Apollo Jim Murders is a production of iHeart Podcasts
Speaker 1: and Authentic Wave Media. Scott Weinberger, Kevin be and Walker
Speaker 1: LeMond are executive producers. Sabrina Sire is our line producer,
Speaker 1: scoring sound design and mixing by Mark lamarg Z for
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts, Christina Everett is executive producer, and David Wasserman
Speaker 1: is brand marketing manager and with special thanks to the
Speaker 1: Miramar Police Department Chief del Rich Moss, Pio Tanya Ardaz,
Speaker 1: and Detective Susie Smith.