Speaker 1: My father had invested everything he had made from hustling,
Speaker 1: numbers and everything into this party because that was his dream.
Speaker 1: Everything was at state and to lose it like that
Speaker 1: and one night that was just like devastating because people
Speaker 1: thought he was responsible. Everybody thought my dad set that
Speaker 1: party up. You're having a party two or three days
Speaker 1: in a row. On that last day, the robberts could
Speaker 1: have been at the previous parties the nights before. And
Speaker 1: the fellow came into video what you were, and he
Speaker 1: took the lord of cocaine. And that's where you who
Speaker 1: you are. Some of the richest me into discut some
Speaker 1: of the toughest being in this guys not hesitate to
Speaker 1: throw your head off, you know, because you stepped on
Speaker 1: the shoes from my Heart radio and doghouse pictures. This
Speaker 1: is fight Night. I'm Jeff Keating. As we mentioned in
Speaker 1: episode five, we believe Richard Wheeler was the mastermind of
Speaker 1: the heist. Wheeler had flown back to New York as
Speaker 1: an alibi, but his top enforcer, a man named fast
Speaker 1: Eddie Parker, had his crew masked, armed and ready to
Speaker 1: hit the after party. I tracked down the house where
Speaker 1: the robbery occurred and the current owner, Chicken Man's nephew,
Speaker 1: invited me in. So we're standing here with the robbery
Speaker 1: took place almost fifty years ago. It's just unbelievable to
Speaker 1: be at the spot where this all took place. After
Speaker 1: doing so many years of research. I'm imagining where the
Speaker 1: robbers would have been stationed as all of the partygoers
Speaker 1: were coming up to the house, How they would have
Speaker 1: been communicating on their walkie talkies, How they would have
Speaker 1: been basically figuring out how to stay hidden while crowds
Speaker 1: of people were coming up to the house. It's a
Speaker 1: cul de sac. There's no way out. My name is
Speaker 1: James Martin. I'm the owner of the house, also the
Speaker 1: nephew of Chicken Man, Gordon Williams. So somewhere down on
Speaker 1: Handy Drive, I'm guessing maybe a football field or less.
Speaker 1: You've got a car parked with one or two of
Speaker 1: the robbers inside on walkie talkies, and they're basically communicating
Speaker 1: to one or two of the gentlemen at the front
Speaker 1: door of your house, letting them know that more cars
Speaker 1: and partygoers are coming up and preparing to come in.
Speaker 1: So they've got to look out Somewhere down there telling
Speaker 1: them what's about to happen as they enter the house.
Speaker 1: We also think that there's somebody parked on Old No
Speaker 1: on the other side of this that is letting that
Speaker 1: lookout car No that cars are about to turn as well.
Speaker 1: But I'm really imagining what's going on in the house
Speaker 1: right now, so I'm just inside the door where the
Speaker 1: robbery took place. Fast. Eddie Parker would have been one
Speaker 1: of the gunmen at the front door, holding a three
Speaker 1: fifty seven with a silencer. The other gunmen would have
Speaker 1: been McKinley Rogers holding a sawed off shotgun. William Knox
Speaker 1: is the first person that greets the party goers. We
Speaker 1: found out, and as soon as William let's in these
Speaker 1: three guys, a party is over and things are about
Speaker 1: to change. This is from one of my interviews with
Speaker 1: Chicken Man, as he reflected on that night. Barbara was
Speaker 1: getting ready in her bedroom when one of the masked
Speaker 1: gunmen came in while she was taking a blow of cocaine.
Speaker 1: This is the moment the robbery really began. The robbers
Speaker 1: came and planned themselves early in the house. Lived in
Speaker 1: the house. Yeah, she had some cocaine arobbit and she
Speaker 1: told me that she was in the making up in
Speaker 1: her bedroom and the fellow came into bed room where
Speaker 1: she were, and he took the blow of the cocaine
Speaker 1: and that's what he explaining her who you were, So
Speaker 1: they kept her there under under gone, the after party
Speaker 1: never gets going because the robbers came in during the
Speaker 1: time while everybody was leaving the Muhammad Ali fight and
Speaker 1: got set up before they arrived. James and I concluded
Speaker 1: how they entered Barbara's bedroom At some point there is
Speaker 1: one of the robbers that comes into the room, either
Speaker 1: through this front door leading into the bedroom or through
Speaker 1: the Jack and Jill bathroom, sneaking in this way, and
Speaker 1: as she's dressing, he basically pulls out a gun and
Speaker 1: lets her know that the robbery is on. And sense
Speaker 1: to me is that if you're having a party two
Speaker 1: or three days in a row, on that last day,
Speaker 1: the robbers could have been at the previous parties the
Speaker 1: nights before they were. They absolutely were casing the place out. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: after Ali's victory, Chicken Man left the municipal auditorium and
Speaker 1: headed to the Regency Hotel. He was so excited from
Speaker 1: the victory he wasn't even thinking about what was going
Speaker 1: down at his house. I go find it. Fight to
Speaker 1: the regions so I see Frank all the people I
Speaker 1: had Frank Frank Morden ring with the number. Chicken Man
Speaker 1: is speaking about Frank Molten, one of the key characters
Speaker 1: in our story. Frank started out running numbers in Atlanta
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties and sixties and eventually moved to
Speaker 1: New York. There he worked his way up and became
Speaker 1: a major drug dealer and distributor. Frank was known as
Speaker 1: the Black Godfather and supposedly one of the leaders of
Speaker 1: the Council of Twelve. This was a group of high
Speaker 1: level decision makers for black organized crime. The Council of
Speaker 1: Twelve was known to be responsible for drug dealing, prostitution, racketeering,
Speaker 1: and other illegal activities around the country. We found out
Speaker 1: that Frank Molten would eventually be indicted and charged with
Speaker 1: twenty five years to life for participating in a narcotics
Speaker 1: ring that had sold over two hundred million dollars worth
Speaker 1: of cocaine and heroin. Frank was a serious gangster, but
Speaker 1: he was also Chicken Man's friend, and Frank was the
Speaker 1: one who went to Fireball and told him to ask
Speaker 1: Chicken Man to host the after party in Atlanta. Here's
Speaker 1: Chicken Man telling j D where he went after the fight.
Speaker 1: I ain't ated the reading to for why. Talking to
Speaker 1: JB as a fish, he said, I might come out there,
Speaker 1: but he didn't really want to be where the gowls
Speaker 1: was because he was in the gownlin. I remember, Sen,
Speaker 1: you re bro back down when you back nine and
Speaker 1: came in and the people impressed and everybody, well, I
Speaker 1: was there, yeah, I remember seeing you. Now, at about
Speaker 1: one am, Chicken Man and Fireball leave the Regency, heading
Speaker 1: to the house where the robbery was already in full effect.
Speaker 1: Chicken Man is so hyped up from the celebration he's
Speaker 1: not even thinking about why Barbara Smith never showed up
Speaker 1: at the fight. They've never done on mean, why she
Speaker 1: didn't come, But God didn't matter that the fact was
Speaker 1: over nine. He's on the way home. So I tell
Speaker 1: a friend of Man don DNSA, the death's something to go.
Speaker 1: I go in good time. I go. I had no idea.
Speaker 1: I mean, they everything was up in there, back where
Speaker 1: the robbery took place. I continued my tour with James Martin.
Speaker 1: That's Chicken man's nephew and the current owner of the house.
Speaker 1: It was looking like a place where you were gonna
Speaker 1: go gamble. In part. The curtains were drawn, but there's
Speaker 1: music blaring from inside of the house and specifically the
Speaker 1: front room they had lights going, and that behind the
Speaker 1: curtains they had people dancing and partying. So even it
Speaker 1: looked like with the shadows and movement, like people were
Speaker 1: celebrating inside. So as you're walking towards the house, you
Speaker 1: feel like you're walking into a celebration. And people are
Speaker 1: walking up this stone walkway with grass on either side
Speaker 1: of it to the front door, probably drunk, probably high,
Speaker 1: and definitely completely excited and full of celebration after the
Speaker 1: Muhammad Ali fight, and many of them carrying stacks of
Speaker 1: cash and covered in jewelry. I'm thinking that the first
Speaker 1: thing your experiences is shock that you are celebrating about
Speaker 1: ten to twenty minutes earlier, and now you've got a
Speaker 1: shotgun or a three fifty seven with a silencer to
Speaker 1: your head. I'm thinking that you're scared. I'm thinking that
Speaker 1: you're trying to figure out what happened. Here's an interview
Speaker 1: between J. D. Hudson and Chicken Man That was recorded
Speaker 1: several years after the heist. Chicken Man is explaining what
Speaker 1: happened when he first arrived out at the house. I'm
Speaker 1: linking them to the park. But when I do show up,
Speaker 1: I mean the causes lying all around the play, you understand.
Speaker 1: I mean, I said, what do you people gonna think
Speaker 1: we have up in here? I had a special way
Speaker 1: I would come to that and this house handing to
Speaker 1: be where it waters. It was. It was you had
Speaker 1: to know where you were going. Yeah, to go down.
Speaker 1: There's no way you could have him up to get
Speaker 1: to go down and train and then train and then side.
Speaker 1: And when I came in that second drive as a
Speaker 1: Cadillac park ground, I don't know who's Kadak World? And
Speaker 1: I looked at my period cor to Lightning Place, New York.
Speaker 1: Actually play the causes lying all around the place, you understand.
Speaker 1: I mean, I said, what do you people gonna think
Speaker 1: we have up in here? All these cars, the Roles,
Speaker 1: Rows and Andrasine, and I don't know who's Kodak World.
Speaker 1: I come to find out it was them, the robberts.
Speaker 1: I fired to get me a little place on the corner,
Speaker 1: and I found about running out the way. They was
Speaker 1: doing the edge and it was the fake set up
Speaker 1: in the little room, and they had the music loud.
Speaker 1: And when I came to the door, by me having
Speaker 1: the key, everybody else knocked on the door where I can't.
Speaker 1: So the guy said, you must be the house man.
Speaker 1: Chicken Man came in the house jiggling his keys with
Speaker 1: fireball right behind him. The robbers thought, oh, he must
Speaker 1: be the house man. He's got the keys to the house.
Speaker 1: Here's what Chicken Man walked in on. When I came in,
Speaker 1: the robbery was in pri so he got a shotgun
Speaker 1: and he said it ain't nothing but a robber. And
Speaker 1: that reading he said it was number the robbery because
Speaker 1: it wasn't the police. You know that, because the robber
Speaker 1: could take the runy and go with it to put
Speaker 1: at least dad. We're gonna end back. The robbers announced
Speaker 1: the Chicken Man, the house man, this ain't nothing but
Speaker 1: a robbery. Chicken Man interprets this that losing their cash
Speaker 1: and jewelry isn't as bad as going to jail, which
Speaker 1: is what would have happened if the cops showed up.
Speaker 1: Our research shows that Chicken Man and every partygoer who
Speaker 1: stepped into the house had a three fifty seven magnum
Speaker 1: pushed up against their head by fast Eddie Parker, or,
Speaker 1: as was the case with Fireball, had assault off shotgun
Speaker 1: pressed against their back by McKinley Rogers. Tobe, the guest
Speaker 1: of honor, and a few partygoers were used as decoys
Speaker 1: in the front room of the house. Just imagine the
Speaker 1: extended horror on their faces as they were forced to
Speaker 1: fake party with the gunmen in the room for the
Speaker 1: past few hours. The tension in this scene must have
Speaker 1: been overwhelming. The gunmen had to manage every new guest
Speaker 1: as they walk through the door, and then forced them
Speaker 1: through the front room and the kitchen to the basement stairs.
Speaker 1: Here I am with James in the house at the
Speaker 1: top of the staircase. So just to be clear, is
Speaker 1: this always been the way that is down to the basement.
Speaker 1: These stairs are the original corponness. You've always had to
Speaker 1: come through the kitchen and gone down into the basement.
Speaker 1: So if we're talking a tight squeeze getting through this
Speaker 1: little thing, you got someone behind you. Oh my goodness, out,
Speaker 1: oh my goodness, and look at look at how why
Speaker 1: I mean you're talking. You can't even get two people
Speaker 1: necessarily side by side on this thing. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: here's Chicken Man telling J. D. Hudson what it was
Speaker 1: like being forced down into the basement. Will they take
Speaker 1: me downstre behind me? So so they hit him when
Speaker 1: they're coming in. They was a full basement in the house.
Speaker 1: So they took the people's down the steps into the
Speaker 1: basement and they were making to lay down, and men
Speaker 1: undressed so they could sist the pockets in that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. They were talking on the walker, talking, talking
Speaker 1: to the people in the car on the outside. Every
Speaker 1: time they see a car car, so they would follow
Speaker 1: him up and when they get out of coming to
Speaker 1: the house, they would tell the people in the house,
Speaker 1: how many people are coming to approaching. We know that
Speaker 1: this basement would have been decorated like a casino in Vegas,
Speaker 1: and Chicken Man wanted this to look just like Vegas.
Speaker 1: So the craps tables could have been over here. You
Speaker 1: could have had a blackjack table that was over here.
Speaker 1: You could have had another card table over here. There
Speaker 1: was supposedly a bar that was set up in this
Speaker 1: area right here, with maybe seven or eight bar stools
Speaker 1: for the ladies to say that. I mean it literally
Speaker 1: was supposed to look like a casino. Oh wow, okay,
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine that. Now this would have been
Speaker 1: like decked out to the nines. Here's j D asking
Speaker 1: Chicken Man if he remembers a woman being involved. They
Speaker 1: had to be about six of them and a level
Speaker 1: was there. Remember he has them he goes quick. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They said some of them had on high and they
Speaker 1: kept on getting ars quick and she was taking she
Speaker 1: had put in in the in the uh good looking.
Speaker 1: Some of the victims claimed they did hear high heels
Speaker 1: clicking on the basement floor, and so that gave them
Speaker 1: the idea that there may have been a woman involved
Speaker 1: in the robbery. Plus, one of the women who reported
Speaker 1: the robbery said she saw a thin female hand reaching
Speaker 1: towards one of the garbage cans where she had thrown
Speaker 1: her diamond necklace to try to hide it, and so
Speaker 1: that only increased their suspicions that a female was involved.
Speaker 1: That female robber may have been Lillian Dabney, and she
Speaker 1: could have been assisted by Bookie Brown. We think he
Speaker 1: was forcing people down into the basement with the help
Speaker 1: of James Henry Hall, Charles Lee was probably in the
Speaker 1: house somewhere as well, and maybe even Houston Hammond's. All
Speaker 1: of these names will continue to come up when j
Speaker 1: D begins his investigation into the robbery. Let's go back
Speaker 1: to the house where I explained to James what happened
Speaker 1: to his uncle. So, James, your uncle Gordon. Chicken Man
Speaker 1: comes in as the robbery is in full effect. Okay,
Speaker 1: Chicken Man walks in the door. He's got a shotgun
Speaker 1: that greets him in the face. They escorted him down here,
Speaker 1: they strip him out of his clothes. Supposedly, they robbed
Speaker 1: him of nine d seventy one dollars plus some jewelry.
Speaker 1: But what was interesting about Chicken Man is underneath his
Speaker 1: suit and stuff that he had for the Muhammad Ali fight,
Speaker 1: he had on long underwear. Now it's October and it
Speaker 1: may be kind of cold, but everybody else supposedly had
Speaker 1: kind of like skimpy underwear of just normal under Wherever
Speaker 1: a few of the hustlers who saw Chicken Man in
Speaker 1: his long underwear thought that he was prepared to be
Speaker 1: stripped and that meant he was implicated. But Chicken Man
Speaker 1: felt he was a victim, just like everyone else here
Speaker 1: he is remembering one woman named Gladys who did not
Speaker 1: want to give up her ring the same thing. Well,
Speaker 1: you can hear him. It was briefing that they were smoking,
Speaker 1: and you bet him. I know the man glad from
Speaker 1: New York and she said, you want to range, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want a big rain. You gotta get that right,
Speaker 1: which one said, Zach cut that they wouldn't drive. Here's
Speaker 1: how j D described it to me back in two
Speaker 1: thousand and two when we had our first interview together
Speaker 1: the Robins the preseason in math. They bought masks and
Speaker 1: saw a shot and stuff, and they pre seeded the bag.
Speaker 1: When they got bad, they gleeded, okay. And as each
Speaker 1: one came into a bad say, they run dressed for
Speaker 1: women and men that jury and many let's say, big shoes.
Speaker 1: They didn't take any means. And those out of gatto
Speaker 1: shoes they didn't take any They took cash and you okay, right, um, okay.
Speaker 1: So I'm still trying to get this in my heade.
Speaker 1: If people were down in the basements, you know, some
Speaker 1: of them are already there. Some of them were pulling
Speaker 1: up in there's roll or their big cars or their
Speaker 1: limousine and they can't tell anything that is going on
Speaker 1: as far as the robbery. There's no screaming going on,
Speaker 1: there's no gunshots going on. They don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1: I got shopped us. You know, we have guys who
Speaker 1: told us they went into the house of ten fifteen
Speaker 1: twenty thirty thousands in the pockets. A lot of people
Speaker 1: would we in that house. And that was when fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand novel is a lot of many, like having one
Speaker 1: point five million the US today, that's kind of many
Speaker 1: of those guys carried That was a hustler who always
Speaker 1: had three bodyguards. Anytime you went into a building to
Speaker 1: went inside with him. Once they within where it was
Speaker 1: on a building, oven stayed near the door, another one
Speaker 1: stayed outside in the car, never got out the car.
Speaker 1: And he was the last guy that came in. James,
Speaker 1: and I imagine what happened to Frank Mo, the Black
Speaker 1: Godfather and his bodyguards when they walked into shotguns pointed
Speaker 1: at their faces. A man they would have known Tobe,
Speaker 1: we found out was the honored birthday guest, and he
Speaker 1: was sitting with a ghastly look on his face, greeting
Speaker 1: the guests as they walked through the front door. James
Speaker 1: then asked me an important question. Were they able to
Speaker 1: get the guns from them as they were coming through
Speaker 1: the door. They did get the guns from them. As
Speaker 1: soon as they walked in the door. One of the
Speaker 1: guys supposedly not Frank's bodyguard on the back of the
Speaker 1: head or his back and basically pushed him down these stairs.
Speaker 1: As soon as you walk off the stairs here, you
Speaker 1: are probably forced into one corner of this basement. You've
Speaker 1: got one of those guns, either either a sawed off
Speaker 1: shotgun or a three seven with a silencer to your head.
Speaker 1: You are forced to undress down to your underwear. I'm
Speaker 1: imagining as a one when you're completely embarrassed and pissed
Speaker 1: and scared of what these men with guns might do
Speaker 1: to you outside of making you undress. Listen to how J. D.
Speaker 1: Hudson described these gangsters like Frank Moten to Chicken Man
Speaker 1: when I interviewed them on camera for the first time
Speaker 1: ever in two thousand and three. Some of the richest
Speaker 1: men in this guy, some of the toughest men in
Speaker 1: this country. Guys who were not hesitate to blow your
Speaker 1: head off, you know, because you stepped on that shoot,
Speaker 1: you're gonna take that money. And that was not impart
Speaker 1: of for them. What was the part of They made
Speaker 1: those goddess beautiful men with the meat coats and all
Speaker 1: the doubt be undressed down to their panics. Now that
Speaker 1: was then, so I can't protect my woman day. This
Speaker 1: is what it's crazy change. You have some of the
Speaker 1: biggest gangsters in the country, from Philadelphia, from d C,
Speaker 1: from Chicago, from New York. Some of them are killers.
Speaker 1: If they're not, they are tough hustlers from the streets.
Speaker 1: They all are packing heat and not a shot was
Speaker 1: fired that night, James, I still cannot figure that out.
Speaker 1: That to me is the most shocking part of this
Speaker 1: whole robbery. Now, I understand when you've got guns pointed
Speaker 1: to your head and when you've got sawed off shotguns
Speaker 1: at your back, that you know that if you make
Speaker 1: a move you could be killed. But there's so many
Speaker 1: of these gangsters that are being robbed. I just don't
Speaker 1: know how they don't pull off some type of retaliation
Speaker 1: during this whole thing. So with all this, I'm assuming
Speaker 1: that Chicken Man had been thinking, okay with everyone becoming
Speaker 1: from me at some point unless I've definitely proved that
Speaker 1: I had nothing to do with this, because they would
Speaker 1: think that he would have something to do with them
Speaker 1: with him being the owner of the home and having
Speaker 1: online Johns. So I definitely understand that even though not
Speaker 1: a shot is fired that night, you have to think
Speaker 1: that the gangsters who got robbed, who were embarrassed, who
Speaker 1: couldn't protect their women, had one thing on their minds.
Speaker 1: Payback Fight Night is a joint production from I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Will Packer Media and Doghouse Pictures in association with Psychopia Pictures.
Speaker 1: Produced and hosted by Jeff Keating. Executive producers are Will Packer,
Speaker 1: James Lopez, Kenny Burns, Dan Bush, Lars Jacobson, and Noel Brown.
Speaker 1: Supervising producer is Taylor Hickoyne. Story editors are Noel Brown
Speaker 1: and Dan Bush. Written by Jeff Keating and Jim Roberts.
Speaker 1: Edited by Matt Owen. Mixing and sound designed by Jeremiah
Speaker 1: Kolanni Prescott. Music written and performed by the Diamond Street Players.
Speaker 1: Additional music by Ben Lovett. Audio archives courtesy of WSB
Speaker 1: News Film and Video Tape Collection, Brown Media Archives, University
Speaker 1: of Georgia Libraries. Special thanks to Dr Maurice Hobson and
Speaker 1: David Davis. Fight Night is a production of I heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, check out the
Speaker 1: i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.