Speaker 1: Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio previously on
Speaker 1: Murder in Miami.
Speaker 2: Miami had become the murder capital of the United States.
Speaker 2: I would categorize it as the wild wild West. Every
Speaker 2: day somebody was getting shot, murdered, robbed.
Speaker 3: Does anybody that crossed the cartails and any white that
Speaker 3: gets killed? Everybody that was home down at the end.
Speaker 4: Of the bar.
Speaker 2: There's this guy nds me. His card says Clay Williams.
Speaker 2: Intercept Detective Agency.
Speaker 4: About two weeks.
Speaker 2: Later, got a call from Bob Adams, he's president of Intercept,
Speaker 2: and he said they found Clay. And so I go
Speaker 2: down Miami Dade Sheriff's office. At a certain point, they
Speaker 2: start pulling out pictures of Clay Williams's body, polaroids taken
Speaker 2: out in the Everglades and he's just he's a skeleton.
Speaker 2: And I tell him I think I might be responsible
Speaker 2: for the death. They said, look, you're involved with some
Speaker 2: dangerous people here. And I report back to Bob. I
Speaker 2: call and tell them what I found out. They said,
Speaker 2: good work, good work, and so that was sort of
Speaker 2: my first job.
Speaker 1: For Intercept as a private detective.
Speaker 2: As a newspaper reporter, slash private detective.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's October of nineteen eighty one, and Phil Stamford
Speaker 1: is basically moved into the job. Clay Williams murder has vacated,
Speaker 1: a murder he still believes he may have caused. As
Speaker 1: a result, Stanford's compelled to pay his respects by attending
Speaker 1: the deceased man's memorial service. All in all, it's an
Speaker 1: awkward situation.
Speaker 2: It was a strange funeral anyway, in a large sort
Speaker 2: of double wide trailer alongside Dixie Highway, and I got
Speaker 2: the feeling that some sort of fly by night preacher
Speaker 2: was conducting the ceremony. Boy, I wish I had a
Speaker 2: record of the ceremony, because it was all about the
Speaker 2: preacher wondering how God could allow something like this as
Speaker 2: awful as this to happen. And standing in the back
Speaker 2: end of the trailer were about four or five very
Speaker 2: big guys, obviously detectives from the Sheriff's officer Miami Police.
Speaker 2: Big guys, I mean like six ' five sixty six,
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty pounds or more, wearing sports coats
Speaker 2: and suits and sort of smiling. They were there to
Speaker 2: send a message.
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Bright, Pacheco and this is murder in Miami.
Speaker 1: So at this point are you still working for the newspaper?
Speaker 2: Well sort of, but remember I was expecting to get
Speaker 2: fired about this time, and after my visit with the detectives,
Speaker 2: Bob said he might have something for me. So yeah,
Speaker 2: it must have been shortly after the funeral that I
Speaker 2: sort of stopped going into the paper.
Speaker 4: Ruth and I broke up. We were still.
Speaker 2: Friends, though, I think, and I moved to Miami Beach,
Speaker 2: which wasn't anything like it is today. I mean at
Speaker 2: the time it was all pensioners and Mary Alita's completely
Speaker 2: run down. Tourists just didn't go there anymore. I got
Speaker 2: a room at the Cardozo, which was on Ocean Drive
Speaker 2: right across from the beach, one hundred and ninety dollars
Speaker 2: a month.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a good deal.
Speaker 2: I doubt that you could find a place for one
Speaker 2: night in Miami Beach at those rates anymore.
Speaker 1: Situated at thirteenth in Ocean Drive in South Beach's Art
Speaker 1: Deco district, Today, the Cordoza Hotel has been updated to
Speaker 1: surpass even its former glory, but at the time Stamford
Speaker 1: was staying there, it was a shabby she hipster hangout
Speaker 1: for artists, writers, and other creative sorts, many of whom
Speaker 1: sparred with witty banter on its legendary porch, hoping to
Speaker 1: make and leave their marks. Stanford already had access to
Speaker 1: the scene through an artsy and intellectual Bohemian couple by
Speaker 1: the last name of Rothchild.
Speaker 2: Oh Yeah, John and Susan Rothchild. They were friends of
Speaker 2: friends in DC. John was a writer and very sharp guy,
Speaker 2: and Susan, a beautiful woman, was a former New York socialite.
Speaker 2: Her father had owned the twenty one Club in New
Speaker 2: York City and turned hippie, and she and John had
Speaker 2: taken up together shortly before they landed in Miami Beach.
Speaker 2: They had a nice place in Miami Beach. They became
Speaker 2: good friends, and I saw a lot.
Speaker 4: Of them too.
Speaker 1: John Rothchild passed away a few years back, leaving behind
Speaker 1: an impressive array of books and compelling magazine articles. His
Speaker 1: New York Times obituary cited him as a prolific journalist
Speaker 1: who used humor to turn books about personal finance into
Speaker 1: engaging reads. His widow, Susan shares that with here's her
Speaker 1: outgoing voicemail message, Hi.
Speaker 3: If I'm not answering the phone right now. It's because
Speaker 3: I can't find my phone, and as soon as I
Speaker 3: find it, I'll call you back bye.
Speaker 1: When we connected, I passed along Phil's praise of both
Speaker 1: her intellect and stunning beauty.
Speaker 3: Well, I was, anyway, at eighty three out of us. Dummy,
Speaker 3: I am unless I hit someone over the head to stumble.
Speaker 1: But anyway, here's her take on Phil during his Cordoza
Speaker 1: Porch days.
Speaker 3: It wasn't actually my type, but he was attractive looking
Speaker 3: and smart. I would say I found it very simpatico.
Speaker 3: He was slightly brash, but he was very also involved.
Speaker 3: He had two adorable children, and it was very good
Speaker 3: with them. He was a very good single father.
Speaker 1: I think Phil's boys would visit from Oregon when their
Speaker 1: school breaks permitted.
Speaker 3: They were sort of our kids' age, and so we
Speaker 3: all hung out together. It was very easy.
Speaker 1: I recently read an article that Jack McClintock had written
Speaker 1: about life on the Porch of the Cordoza Cardozo. Yes,
Speaker 1: and it kind of glamorized the circle of writers, including
Speaker 1: your husband and Phil.
Speaker 3: Yes, they had fun and they were very involved in
Speaker 3: peripheral daring do.
Speaker 1: The article I'm referring to originally appeared in Marquee magazine
Speaker 1: and described the Cordoza as a place where that daring
Speaker 1: do rose to the most random of rivalries, including one
Speaker 1: for ugliest Hawaiian shirt. The author Jack McClintock thought he'd
Speaker 1: won that competition until he wrote.
Speaker 5: Phil Stanford, who was a surfer in Hawaii for a
Speaker 5: couple of years before he began writing for the New
Speaker 5: York Times magazine and being a political activist and the
Speaker 5: private detective and country songwriter and all the other things
Speaker 5: he was. Stanford started showing up wearing an entire series
Speaker 5: of sleazy Hawaiian print shirts, for which he claimed to
Speaker 5: have paid exactly a dollar seventy nine.
Speaker 1: Apiece For the record, Phil denies the country music allegation.
Speaker 1: McClintock goes on to write.
Speaker 5: Stanford thought he'd won hands down, and would have if
Speaker 5: it hadn't been for John Rothschild. John's nonfiction about Florida
Speaker 5: is as wise and wry as John D. McDonald's fiction
Speaker 5: about the same subject.
Speaker 1: According to his wife, Susan. For a time, John Rothschild
Speaker 1: focused on the more dangerous aspects of Miami, including drug
Speaker 1: smuggling and organized crime. When we talk about the lawlessness
Speaker 1: the wild West feel, Phil mentioned that there was at
Speaker 1: the time there was a traffic incident and one guy
Speaker 1: got out and started shooting, and the other guy got
Speaker 1: out of his car and started shooting. Was that a
Speaker 1: part of your reality there?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, we were driving There's an Italian restaurant named
Speaker 3: Austria Osteria Deloso.
Speaker 4: We were with.
Speaker 3: Sasha, who must have been nine or ten, in the car,
Speaker 3: and there were police outside. I said, oh, look, they
Speaker 3: must be shooting a movie. She said, no, they're not
Speaker 3: shooting a movie. That's a crime scene. And she was
Speaker 3: right because in the next day in the papers, to
Speaker 3: turn out the chef had been killed in that restaurant.
Speaker 3: Now how that nine year old knew, you know, growing
Speaker 3: up on Miami Beach.
Speaker 1: Back to Phil and his days at the Cordoza.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then there was my cop friend JD, who I'd
Speaker 2: met while I was still working at the News. He'd
Speaker 2: stopped by in street close of course, because he usually
Speaker 2: worked undercover, park his motorcycle out front and come up
Speaker 2: on the porch and talk.
Speaker 1: What was he like, JD?
Speaker 2: He was a tough boy, ex Special Forces in Vietna,
Speaker 2: and his job with Miami Dade Sheriff's Office was felony Warrens,
Speaker 2: which means he had to bring in the guys who
Speaker 2: were running from the law, who jumped bail, and.
Speaker 4: Usually pretty dangerous people.
Speaker 2: So he'd go into the roughest parts of Miami, put
Speaker 2: a gun to the fugitive head, and bring them out
Speaker 2: by himself. He said that if he worked alone, because
Speaker 2: if you worked with a partner, you might get yourself killed.
Speaker 2: When I tell JD about Intercept, he sort of smiles
Speaker 2: and says it sounds kind of hinky to him, which
Speaker 2: was cop talk at the time for suspicious or illegal.
Speaker 1: Naturally, I think this is very cool, perhaps a bit
Speaker 1: enamored by the danger and the sense of adventure. Stanford
Speaker 1: was all too willing to dive into the new role
Speaker 1: of private investigator by tackling the next assignment Intercept, and
Speaker 1: Bob Adams tossed his way.
Speaker 4: The first job was a surveillance job.
Speaker 2: He wanted me to follow a doctor who's getting divorced.
Speaker 2: The wife had hired them for some reason, it never
Speaker 2: clear to me. She wanted to know what he was doing.
Speaker 2: Bob had me do this, he said, the doctor's going
Speaker 2: to be picking up the two little boys must have
Speaker 2: been at the mother's house at this address tomorrow night.
Speaker 2: Just follow and see where they go. Why the wife
Speaker 2: would have wanted to know this, I have no idea,
Speaker 2: but the house was sort of at the bottom of
Speaker 2: a hill. I parked up the hill, looking down towards
Speaker 2: the house. It's already dark, and lights came on in
Speaker 2: the front porch. A man and two little boys came
Speaker 2: out in the lights, walked towards his car and started
Speaker 2: to get in, and I started to get nervous they
Speaker 2: get away before I wouldn't be able to keep up
Speaker 2: with them. So I started the car, which turned on
Speaker 2: the lights right away and sort of blasted them with light.
Speaker 2: And one of the kids said, Daddy, Daddy, someone's following us.
Speaker 2: That was my first job, and I was an utter
Speaker 2: failure at it. I was discovered by eight year old
Speaker 2: I just sort of slunk off, let the car roll down,
Speaker 2: turned off the first left I could, and that was that.
Speaker 2: The next morning went into Bob and I told him
Speaker 2: what had happened. I said, Bob, I'm sorry. He said, oh,
Speaker 2: don't worry about it. Don't worry about it, and laughed,
Speaker 2: he has had this giggle. And he pulled out a
Speaker 2: roll of bills turned out to be hundreds, all hundreds,
Speaker 2: and he started peeling them off for me. I think
Speaker 2: I peeled off five hundreds, and he said, good work.
Speaker 4: I'll let you know what. I have another job for you.
Speaker 1: If being handsomely rewarded for his ineptitude did strike Stamford
Speaker 1: his odd, he didn't let it keep him from taking
Speaker 1: on another job with Intercept.
Speaker 2: Days later he had another job. It was the same
Speaker 2: doctor again, and this time I was smarter. I followed
Speaker 2: the doctor. He had a sports car. I think they
Speaker 2: had a Porsche. A decent interval to an apartment building.
Speaker 2: A young lady came out of the apartment building, got
Speaker 2: in his car, followed them to a motel, sort of
Speaker 2: a CD motel on the outskirts of Miami. And after
Speaker 2: they parked. It was late in the afternoon, almost dusk.
Speaker 2: I pulled into the same parking lot at the other
Speaker 2: end of the parking lot and waited.
Speaker 4: And waited, and.
Speaker 2: Next thing I know, someone is tapping on my window
Speaker 2: with a coin or something, shouting, wake up, asshole.
Speaker 1: So you fell asleep on the job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And when I look out the windshield. The doctor's
Speaker 2: car has gone and there is JD grinning at me.
Speaker 2: He says, don't worry, I'm not going to get you fire.
Speaker 2: So we go to an all night diner and he
Speaker 2: clues me in, and what he tells me is the
Speaker 2: best he can figure out. I'm just there to handle
Speaker 2: the stuff that comes in from the Yellow Pages so
Speaker 2: the rest of the guys can tend to the real business,
Speaker 2: which is making the real money, which was the drug business.
Speaker 2: Of course, this is Miami, and so I go in
Speaker 2: the next morning to apologize, and Bob does the same
Speaker 2: thing as before. It says, don't worry about it. The
Speaker 2: main thing is we can tell his old lady that
Speaker 2: her husband and his girlfriend went to the motel. That's
Speaker 2: all she cares about, just wants something to be pissed
Speaker 2: off about. And then he peels off another five one
Speaker 2: hundred dollar belts, at which point I say, hey, Bob,
Speaker 2: now that's really generous of you, but just so you know,
Speaker 2: I do understand what my job here is, and that's
Speaker 2: to handle the stuff that comes in from the yellow pages,
Speaker 2: because you guys are too busy with other matters, right,
Speaker 2: And he looks at me does sort of a double take,
Speaker 2: and then he laughs and peels off another couple hundred
Speaker 2: or so, says, let's go get a couple of drinks,
Speaker 2: and this time you're buying, And just like that, I'm
Speaker 2: one of the guys.
Speaker 1: What was going through your head? So obviously your first
Speaker 1: two assignments weren't exactly home runs. Yet you're making a
Speaker 1: ton of money, a ton of money given the time,
Speaker 1: particularly cash.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I thought it was a great job.
Speaker 2: I mean, no matter what I did, I got paid
Speaker 2: very well, and I got to hang around talking with
Speaker 2: these guys who had great stories.
Speaker 4: They'd talk about their adventures and so take me into that.
Speaker 1: On top of being an investigation firm, it was staffed
Speaker 1: with some really charismatic, intriguing guys. Just tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit about stepping into that world.
Speaker 2: That was the payoff for me. I didn't that much
Speaker 2: about the money. They were willing to talk, and the
Speaker 2: people who've lived lives like that really have a lot
Speaker 2: of stories and they want to talk about other people
Speaker 2: don't understand how unusual their lives are.
Speaker 1: Sometimes, especially it would seem the head of Intercept, Bob Adams.
Speaker 2: Bob loved to talk and since I was no longer
Speaker 2: in the journalism business. A boy did have some stories
Speaker 2: to tell. It turns out all the top guys that
Speaker 2: intercept had been in military intelligence or the CIA.
Speaker 4: Bob had been with.
Speaker 2: A military intelligence unit in Frankfurt, Germany that he said
Speaker 2: provided logistical support for professional assassins working for the United States.
Speaker 2: Another guy on the board had been the CIA station
Speaker 2: chief in Miami during the Bay of Pigs time.
Speaker 1: So what was the tie between the Central Intelligence Agency
Speaker 1: and Miami, Cuba, and in particular the CIA's secret war
Speaker 1: to outs Fidel Castro. In fact, the CIA's largest outpost
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies was the infamous
Speaker 1: JM wave station at the University of Miami campus. The
Speaker 1: operation left many former agents in the region with some
Speaker 1: pretty interesting resumes in the nineteen eighties. Did Williams have
Speaker 1: a military background too or intelligence?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they said that Clay Williams, whose spot I guess
Speaker 2: you could say I took the detective Agency, had been
Speaker 2: with military intelligence.
Speaker 1: If you were involved with the front end stuff, the
Speaker 1: sort of business they get from calls on the Yellow Pages.
Speaker 1: What were the military intelligence guys doing with anything that
Speaker 1: had to do with drugs For the most part.
Speaker 4: That was really above my pay grade.
Speaker 2: But Bob did tell me one story about the time
Speaker 2: he and a couple of the guys had to go
Speaker 2: up to Georgia to clean.
Speaker 4: Some moldy money.
Speaker 2: Not launder money, but clean some money that had been
Speaker 2: stored underground so long that it.
Speaker 4: Was getting moldy.
Speaker 2: Bob said he cleaned it mostly in a washer dryer,
Speaker 2: and that he got one tenth of all they were
Speaker 2: able to salvage.
Speaker 1: What was in Georgia. Why did he have to go
Speaker 1: to Georgia to clean money?
Speaker 4: Oh? Yeah, sure, That's where Lamar was, Lamar Chester.
Speaker 2: And it was no big secret at all that their
Speaker 2: biggest client at the time was this dashing dope pilot
Speaker 2: by the name of Lamar Chester.
Speaker 1: So who was Lamar Chester to interceptor Bob Adams.
Speaker 2: To Bob, Lamar was a legend among dope pilots, one
Speaker 2: of the first to start flying marijuana directly from Colombia.
Speaker 2: He had an island in the Bahamas that was sort
Speaker 2: of a motel six for dope pilots making the run
Speaker 2: from South America. Lamar gotten into the business in Miami,
Speaker 2: but his home base was now a chicken ranch up
Speaker 2: in northern Georgia.
Speaker 4: That's where he was flying into.
Speaker 1: Now, in such an infamous era of drug smuggling, what
Speaker 1: made Chester stand out?
Speaker 2: Bob was fascinated by Lamore. He said his nickname was
Speaker 2: Captain America. He thought he looked like the Marlborough Man,
Speaker 2: and he said when you saw him, he usually had
Speaker 2: a girl on each arm.
Speaker 1: So, if Chester was involved with drug smuggling, an intercept
Speaker 1: was involved with Chester. Did you ever stop to think
Speaker 1: that that might have played a role in Clay Williams murder?
Speaker 2: If I did, I didn't spend too much time thinking
Speaker 2: about it. It was a place I didn't really really
Speaker 2: want to.
Speaker 1: Go, I guess, or maybe it was intentionally rationalized.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, the way Bob explained it to me was that
Speaker 2: Clay was sort of a facilitator. He'd hang out of
Speaker 2: the Prime Pub and used the payphone on the wall.
Speaker 4: Remember this was.
Speaker 2: Well before the day of cell phones, and he'd connect
Speaker 2: suppliers with pilots, or say, set up pilots with offload cruise.
Speaker 2: The way Bob explained it, just about every bar in
Speaker 2: Miami catered to a particular level of the drug trade,
Speaker 2: and the Prime Pub for example, was sort of mid level,
Speaker 2: but exactly what Clay Williams was doing they got him.
Speaker 4: Killed, If that's what it was. Bob never told me
Speaker 4: and I never asked.
Speaker 1: But didn't you think it was odd that here you
Speaker 1: are working for a private investigation firm and they didn't
Speaker 1: seem too interested in figuring out who had killed one
Speaker 1: of their employees or why? I mean, did you ever
Speaker 1: stop to think that maybe you could end up dead too?
Speaker 4: I was it a.
Speaker 2: Place in my life where I really didn't care about this.
Speaker 2: I think I was the only one I knew at
Speaker 2: that time. He didn't carry a gun, which is probably
Speaker 2: why no one shot at me. But I remember one
Speaker 2: time going into Bob Adams and I said, Bob, I
Speaker 2: got a threat. He said, oh, don't worry about the
Speaker 2: ones you hear. And I was happy for the job.
Speaker 1: Okay. But back to Clay Williams, there was no further
Speaker 1: attempt to find out who killed him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, other than the initial dog and pony show of
Speaker 2: driving me around after Clay was killed.
Speaker 1: So it didn't concern you at all that your new
Speaker 1: place of employment seemed caught up in sketchy, dangerous drug
Speaker 1: related activities.
Speaker 2: No, and to tell the truth, I actually thought it
Speaker 2: was kind of cool, just what I was looking for
Speaker 2: when I came to Miami. But I've got to say
Speaker 2: that even at the time, dumb as I was, I
Speaker 2: was at least smart enough to know that there's some
Speaker 2: things you don't ask questions about, and Clay Williams's death
Speaker 2: was probably one of them.
Speaker 1: What about now and now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's certainly one of the things about this story
Speaker 2: I'd like to get to the bottom of.
Speaker 1: When I started scouring newspaper archives for any mention of
Speaker 1: Williams either missing or being found, there was nothing which
Speaker 1: immediately struck me as odd, especially if he were former
Speaker 1: military intelligence. Since Phil had what he believed was his
Speaker 1: full name.
Speaker 2: Clay had slightly unusual names. It was Baines Clayton Williams.
Speaker 1: His date of birth, and that he was originally from
Speaker 1: North Carolina. I'd put in a formal request for any
Speaker 1: existing records with the Miami Dade Police Department on January
Speaker 1: fifth of twenty twenty two, explaining I was hoping to
Speaker 1: track down the police report on the murdered private investigator
Speaker 1: from Miami whose body was found in the Everglades in
Speaker 1: October of nineteen eighty one. In the meantime, Phil searched
Speaker 1: the archives of old newspapers.
Speaker 2: The one thing I was able to find was an
Speaker 2: obituary for Clay's mother, who died in twenty eleven in Charlotte,
Speaker 2: North Carolina, and it listed her living sons and her
Speaker 2: predeceased son, Baines Clayton Williams. And what turned out to
Speaker 2: be really important because the surviving children of her deceased
Speaker 2: son and their names were listed there.
Speaker 1: How many children did he have?
Speaker 4: He had had four kids.
Speaker 1: Next, we tracked down Clay's wedding announcement to a woman
Speaker 1: named Sandra.
Speaker 2: They were both young, a short announcement from the Charlotte paper.
Speaker 2: They were married in nineteen sixty one June of nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty one, and Clay was working at some electrical company.
Speaker 2: She was working at a store. Very pretty girl. They
Speaker 2: must have been a handsome couple.
Speaker 1: Using the names of the couple's children, I was able
Speaker 1: to do a reverse search of known relatives. After a
Speaker 1: series of dead ends and disconnected numbers, I called Phil
Speaker 1: with an update. I think I actually found Sandra. I
Speaker 1: ended up calling the house that had her name listed. Also,
Speaker 1: the man who I believe was her second husband, and
Speaker 1: he answered and unfortunately she passed away five years ago.
Speaker 1: But he was very open to my questions. He explained
Speaker 1: that it really remains a cold case as far as
Speaker 1: the family's concerned, that they never had any true answers
Speaker 1: as to who murdered Clay or why. But he was
Speaker 1: willing to link me with one of Clay's daughters, and
Speaker 1: she ended up returning my phone call, and so I
Speaker 1: spoke to her, and she also mentioned the large guys
Speaker 1: at the funeral that you mentioned seeing, who you believe
Speaker 1: were detectives.
Speaker 4: How old was she then?
Speaker 1: She would have been eight when her father passed. There
Speaker 1: were four kids. Her older sister was twelve. She has
Speaker 1: a twin sister who was also eight, and then there
Speaker 1: was the youngest child. Her little brother was just two
Speaker 1: months old when his father disappeared and ended up murdered.
Speaker 6: I have a.
Speaker 2: Vague recollection of the mother holding that baby at a funeral.
Speaker 1: Yeah. She also says that her father's car was found
Speaker 1: shortly after he disappeared in Texas, and that the car
Speaker 1: was found laden with drugs. Had you heard of that?
Speaker 4: No, that's news to me. What conclusions did she draw
Speaker 4: from that, you know.
Speaker 1: She was very pragmatic about it. She said that she
Speaker 1: didn't think that her father was linked to what they
Speaker 1: found in the car, but then again, this was the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties and Miami.
Speaker 6: Indeed it was.
Speaker 1: Eventually, Clay's daughter linked me with her elder sister, who
Speaker 1: was also willing to speak with me, but not to
Speaker 1: be interviewed. She did, though, suggest I reach out to
Speaker 1: a couple named Ted and Roseanne, who were close friends
Speaker 1: of her parents. Here's Ted.
Speaker 6: How I met Clay was through an associate of mine
Speaker 6: at work who knew Clay from the military, introduced me
Speaker 6: to Clay. I don't know how Clay got to be
Speaker 6: to Miami, but I think he was looking for a
Speaker 6: place to raise his children. He had three girls, and
Speaker 6: he wanted to start a new life.
Speaker 1: And Clay made an immediate impression, just as he had
Speaker 1: on Phil and Ruth in that bar in Parne when
Speaker 1: he handed them his card.
Speaker 6: He was good looking, tall, he was taller than six feet.
Speaker 6: He was lanky, very charming, nice smile, quick to laugh,
Speaker 6: always good humored, very much a family man.
Speaker 1: Family was what instantly connected the two men.
Speaker 6: We used together together with Clay and his family and
Speaker 6: He was a very family oriented person, easy spoken and
Speaker 6: charming to be around. We had a lot of fun
Speaker 6: together whenever we were together for barbecues, help each other
Speaker 6: around the house. We all had homes needed to repair,
Speaker 6: one type or another. I remember working on Clay's house
Speaker 6: one time, painting it, and we just got to know
Speaker 6: the families and we're just associated in that way. Just
Speaker 6: pure family relationships. Very handsome family, pretty wife.
Speaker 1: Their wives also became very close friends, and though Ted
Speaker 1: had an important job with the government employment agency, they
Speaker 1: didn't spend too much time talking about their professional lives.
Speaker 6: Never talked to any business. Really. I knew what Clay did.
Speaker 6: I knew he was a private investigator, and that's as
Speaker 6: far as I went in terms of knowing what kind
Speaker 6: of work he did.
Speaker 1: Did you ever get the chance to visit Clay at Intercept,
Speaker 1: the agency in Parne where he worked as a private investigator.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I was on an errand with Clay. He asked
Speaker 6: me to ride with him someplace I don't pick up something,
Speaker 6: maybe for the house, I don't remember right now, but
Speaker 6: he said I have to stop offer at the office.
Speaker 6: You want to come up?
Speaker 4: I said sure.
Speaker 6: He introduced me to Bob Adams and another fellow there.
Speaker 4: And I had.
Speaker 6: Understood from Clay that these were former intelligence people from
Speaker 6: the federal government, whether it's CIA, army intelligence, they were
Speaker 6: all associated. I think that's how Clay got to know
Speaker 6: these people through the army and intelligence contacts. And I
Speaker 6: was up there for a few minutes, looked around, and
Speaker 6: it was a nice office, and they had what I
Speaker 6: thought was an awfully large computer set up. You know,
Speaker 6: it wasn't at that time anything that I've ever seen
Speaker 6: in a small office. These weren't laptops us like what
Speaker 6: today would be described as service in other words, that's
Speaker 6: where all the main memory was contained. And no more
Speaker 6: than that.
Speaker 1: You worked for a government agency, how would you compare
Speaker 1: the technology of that computer compared to what you had
Speaker 1: at your office.
Speaker 6: Most government offices have a desktop and a little serve
Speaker 6: on the bottom. But this thing was, I mean to
Speaker 6: describe it close to Xerox machine at that time, you know,
Speaker 6: one of these heavy duty office machines. It was that
Speaker 6: kind of setup. Clay said, this was their computer system.
Speaker 6: I just was impressed that such a small office would
Speaker 6: have such a an enormous setup for computers.
Speaker 1: And at the time because of the size of the
Speaker 1: computer that would be directly in keeping with its capability,
Speaker 1: so it would have been advanced and expensive at the time.
Speaker 6: I would imagine him. You know, you usually see those
Speaker 6: in movies today where they could access almost anything as
Speaker 6: they do in the movies. I don't know what these
Speaker 6: guys accessed on that computer, but I'm sure it was
Speaker 6: more than what a citizen could attain on a home
Speaker 6: computer or an office computer.
Speaker 1: The computer capabilities of the agency stuck out to ted,
Speaker 1: but there was nothing that stuck out as odd in
Speaker 1: terms of Clay's job. Did he ever give you any
Speaker 1: indication that he was worried about his safety or involved
Speaker 1: with people who could be dangerous, No intercept.
Speaker 6: With their backgrounds. Were probably doing very sophisticated investigations on
Speaker 6: the side for the government. That was my impression. Not
Speaker 6: that they were involved in any of the local drug
Speaker 6: business that was rampant in Miami at the time.
Speaker 1: I never suspected that, and if that were the case,
Speaker 1: Clay probably wouldn't have brought you to his place of work.
Speaker 6: Well. I was quite happy with his employers over there.
Speaker 6: They seem to have a good ripport. When I went
Speaker 6: up to the office, and there was nothing sinister about
Speaker 6: the place at all.
Speaker 1: But Intercept was a fairly new job for Clay. Correct.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he lived in Carolinas and he came into Miami.
Speaker 6: He would have I don't know where he would have
Speaker 6: known them from outside of Miami.
Speaker 1: And there was nothing about Clay's lifestyle that would suggest
Speaker 1: he was enjoying the lucrative benefits and a legal source
Speaker 1: of income would afford. Remember, the group of friends rotated
Speaker 1: home maintenance projects to save money, and that lack of
Speaker 1: money was also apparent when Clay's widow was left with
Speaker 1: four kids, one of them a newborn.
Speaker 6: There was no money. She went to work. She had
Speaker 6: to go to work. I mean, they depended on Clay's
Speaker 6: income for everything, and.
Speaker 1: So they weren't stockpiling money anywhere.
Speaker 6: God No, Sandra had to go back to work as
Speaker 6: soon as she could. She worked as a legal secretary.
Speaker 6: She needed to support to support her family. I believe
Speaker 6: she got some benefits from Social Security as a widows
Speaker 6: with children or something like that, but that was certain
Speaker 6: that didn't cover her expenses at the house and kids
Speaker 6: in school and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So Clay wasn't making a notable income at the time
Speaker 1: immediately before his death, which was also unnotable, at least
Speaker 1: in terms of the media coverage. There wasn't press attention
Speaker 1: to his disappearance.
Speaker 6: No, no, there was nothing in the press. Why well,
Speaker 6: I guess there were other stories. He had to remember.
Speaker 6: Miami at that time was a wild town, and we
Speaker 6: never saw anything in the press about it. I don't
Speaker 6: even think there was an obituary column about Clay.
Speaker 1: Do you remember where you were or how you first
Speaker 1: learned that Clay's body had been found.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we were sitting with Sondra and maybe that's when
Speaker 6: the police came in and informed her they found the
Speaker 6: remains in the Everglades and suspected it was Clay, and
Speaker 6: then they did some forensic work on the remains and
Speaker 6: confirmed that it was Clay. But at that time I said, oh,
Speaker 6: that can't be right. I always felt now, but he's
Speaker 6: going to walk in because this is who Clay is.
Speaker 6: He's very family oriented and half the time when you
Speaker 6: Sandra had to go to work and the kids went
Speaker 6: to school, and it was it was something that I
Speaker 6: had to accept that he wasn't coming back.
Speaker 1: Clay didn't return, although his car did show up as
Speaker 1: his daughter mentioned in the Lone Star State.
Speaker 6: I don't know how it ever got to Texas. Anyways,
Speaker 6: they found the car, Customs I believe was the agency
Speaker 6: that contacted the family about the car.
Speaker 1: Were law enforcement helpful to her at the time, I
Speaker 1: don't think so.
Speaker 6: They wanted information from her, but they wouldn't give her
Speaker 6: any information. That was that kind of relationship. It was
Speaker 6: their investigation and you had no right to ask questions
Speaker 6: about it.
Speaker 1: Looking back now, do you have any theories as to
Speaker 1: what had happened?
Speaker 6: Yeah, it pretty much confirms my suspicions that he was
Speaker 6: on to something and that whoever he was on to
Speaker 6: found out about it and he had him killed. I
Speaker 6: thought it was more a high end gangster killing than
Speaker 6: it was a drug related.
Speaker 1: Thing like Phil and Clay's daughter. Ted also recalls a
Speaker 1: very prominent police presence at Clay's memorial service.
Speaker 6: What I thought would be just family turned out to
Speaker 6: be a parade of suits. I remember them lining up
Speaker 6: against the wall standing and it just struck me as
Speaker 6: so many of these law enforcement types, including the people
Speaker 6: from Intercept, and it was unusual for that kind of
Speaker 6: group to be at a funeral. And if anybody watches
Speaker 6: enough police TV. They always noticed that the police are
Speaker 6: always there at a suspected death funeral, but this was
Speaker 6: unusually law group. There must have been about a dozen
Speaker 6: of them in a small reception room at a memorial
Speaker 6: funeral place. It was crowded, you know, for a small
Speaker 6: room with these guys standing around. It's the only way
Speaker 6: I could describe it. It wasn't a massive room, but
Speaker 6: these guys were filling up the space.
Speaker 1: So they were hard to ignore. He couldn't take Nor
Speaker 1: did you get the feeling at the time that they
Speaker 1: were there to send a message.
Speaker 6: No. I kind of suspected that they were there because
Speaker 6: they had some interest in Clay, not a message, just
Speaker 6: wanted to pay their respects to a colleague.
Speaker 1: But funeral guests aside who would have killed Clay and
Speaker 1: why his children were left without a father and without
Speaker 1: answers to questions that have remained for more than forty years.
Speaker 1: Ted still struggles with the senselessness, just as he did
Speaker 1: after Clay's death, Even after.
Speaker 6: They found body and we had the memorial service. I
Speaker 6: just couldn't believe that Clay wouldn't be walking in the
Speaker 6: door one day. But it never happened, just carrying around
Speaker 6: his cremains in the car until they were disposed of
Speaker 6: by our friend. It typrovided what was the remaining of
Speaker 6: Clay because the cremains were in a box like a
Speaker 6: three by five box, an index card box that's about
Speaker 6: the size of it, and normally cremains go in a
Speaker 6: larger container, but there wasn't much of him to dispose
Speaker 6: of it, and our friend, usual friend took his ashes
Speaker 6: out to the ocean and put him in the water,
Speaker 6: which was a very sad experience because the girls were there.
Speaker 6: That pretty much ended the story of Clayton a little
Speaker 6: box of ashes dispersed at seen a very good friend.
Speaker 6: It was a trauma that the family lived through for
Speaker 6: many years. They never really had closure.
Speaker 1: So why didn't the police or intercept ever get to
Speaker 1: the bottom of who killed Clay Williams Back to Phil Stanford.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a big question that's still hanging out there.
Speaker 2: One explanation, one possible explanation is that somehow.
Speaker 4: They were involved.
Speaker 2: I mean, there was a lot of corruption in the
Speaker 2: Sheriff's department at that time. In fact, half of the
Speaker 2: homicide squad twenty eight to fifty six were either under
Speaker 2: suspension or under indictment. They've been taking money off of
Speaker 2: dead bodies and undoubtedly involved in the drug trade, so
Speaker 2: it's possible they had some sort of deal with Clay,
Speaker 2: which would explain why they've lost the records.
Speaker 1: For God's sake, another possibility is that he was working
Speaker 1: with them as some kind of an formant, and maybe
Speaker 1: Intercept had something to do with his death.
Speaker 2: I certainly didn't think so at the time, but the
Speaker 2: more we look into it, the more possible it seems,
Speaker 2: at least that Intercept connections had something to do with them.
Speaker 2: I know that Clay's friend had the idea that he
Speaker 2: was working for the government at that time. If he
Speaker 2: was working for the government, it was because he'd been
Speaker 2: caught by law enforcement and turned into an informant.
Speaker 1: Unless Devil's Advocate he was there undercover.
Speaker 2: That's so unusual that at this level to have an
Speaker 2: undercover cop posing as.
Speaker 4: A drug dealer.
Speaker 1: But how would you also explain the fact that his
Speaker 1: family had no money. I mean, the friend group were
Speaker 1: taking turns and helping one another on house projects because
Speaker 1: they didn't have money to hire outside contractors. And also
Speaker 1: she had to go to work immediately after Clay's death, if.
Speaker 2: He had been working for the government in any sort
Speaker 2: of official capacity, they would have had money. And so
Speaker 2: the lack of money I think is more than likely
Speaker 2: evidence that he Remember he just started an intercept they
Speaker 2: were making the major part of their money from drugs,
Speaker 2: and hadn't been there long enough. Let's suppose to cash.
Speaker 6: In on that.
Speaker 2: One of the major incentives for getting into some risky
Speaker 2: business like drug dealing is that you don't have money
Speaker 2: and you want to get it as much and as
Speaker 2: fast as possible. And so you can turn that lack
Speaker 2: of money around one hundred and eighty degrees and make
Speaker 2: it an argument why he would have been involved, perhaps
Speaker 2: in some sort of drug deal. And so for me,
Speaker 2: the question is whose side was he on? Very likely
Speaker 2: or there was a double cross, whether he double cross
Speaker 2: someone or someone doublecross him and.
Speaker 4: He got killed and dumped in the everplage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but why and by whom?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And it's still an open murder case in Miami Dade
Speaker 2: and they can't find the papers.
Speaker 4: Makes you wonder, doesn't.
Speaker 1: On the next murder of Miami, Phil Stamford returns to Washington.
Speaker 2: So I got in touch with a radical peace and
Speaker 2: justice organization.
Speaker 1: Leading him back to Miami with a dangerous new mission.
Speaker 1: You're lucky you didn't get yourself killed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I suppose so.
Speaker 1: Before accepting a life altering invitation.
Speaker 2: Lamour wants to meet me at the Mutiny, the hangout
Speaker 2: for all the premier drugs monsters in Miami.
Speaker 1: Murder of Miami is a production of iHeart Radio. Executive
Speaker 1: producers are Lauren Wright Pachecko, Taylor Chicoine, and Phil Stamford.
Speaker 1: Written by Phil Stamford and Lauren Bright Pacheco, Audio editing
Speaker 1: and sound design by Nicholas Harder, Van Tyer and Taylor Show,
Speaker 1: featuring music by Evan Tyre, Bill Mayer, John Murchison and
Speaker 1: Taylor Chackoigne. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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