Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth got totally. You've been waiting in here all day.
Speaker 3: With the lights out. My knees are killing me. I've
Speaker 3: been under that console.
Speaker 2: Why are you wearing a tiara?
Speaker 3: Why not? Dude?
Speaker 2: I mean, it looks good, but why aren't you wearing
Speaker 2: that was a permanent marker?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 2: Anyway, do you know what's ridiculous? Besides that?
Speaker 3: I do now there is a listener. He's not ridiculous
Speaker 3: in the slightest stever. Neither Steve Neither on Instagram. This
Speaker 3: man he sent something in that I swear to you,
Speaker 3: I thought was fake. There was just absolutely no way
Speaker 3: in the world this could be real.
Speaker 2: And then you got your team on it.
Speaker 3: I got the team on it me two dogs, hamster
Speaker 3: and a year old kid that I just found, you know,
Speaker 3: walking to school.
Speaker 2: Train circus monkey and only answers to Pierre.
Speaker 3: You know Pierre, Yeah, okay, cool the crap. My crack
Speaker 3: team and I mm hmm investigated this. It's true. This
Speaker 3: exist is true. This is one hundred percent true.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to take your word for it.
Speaker 3: Like, okay, So here's here's the thing. When what do
Speaker 3: you think of? When I say Tom Petty, I mean.
Speaker 2: But I think of music videos? Yeah, specifically like ones
Speaker 2: like about like you know.
Speaker 3: Scenes of l A Don't come around here no more?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, but then like the free falling.
Speaker 2: Free following. Yeah, what's the one with the Johnny is
Speaker 2: a Dead woman? Oh yeah, that was later one? Crazy yeah,
Speaker 2: crazy imagery that one.
Speaker 3: Great videos, liked it, great songs, American.
Speaker 2: Great songs, tragic end, Yes, this is it.
Speaker 3: Wasn't too long ago. You know, he was another victim
Speaker 3: of you knowventyl and, which is just the absolute devil.
Speaker 3: So when you think of him, do you think of
Speaker 3: any anything else? Like it's non music or video related.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3: Do you do you think of like Marshmallows?
Speaker 2: No? I know I don't, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: Moving on, do you think of a lot?
Speaker 2: Nope? Still no, you should.
Speaker 3: You should think of chocolate?
Speaker 2: Back my tracks up and thank my Chocolate.
Speaker 3: Nothing says chocolate, like Tom Petty, nothing, nothing, Florida. Nothing
Speaker 3: says chocolate. So there's this company Chocolate.
Speaker 2: Oh sure, sure, don't make me say that.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying it right. Probably Okay, So they have
Speaker 3: this collection of chocolate bars that are the it's a
Speaker 3: mash up, a crossover Tom Petty Voge chocolate, and it's
Speaker 3: a limited edition.
Speaker 2: This is the chocolate company that takes certain body parts
Speaker 2: and makes it.
Speaker 3: Okay, there you know. This collection marries the world of
Speaker 3: music with the art of chocolate making, offering an experience
Speaker 3: that transcends the ordinary. Let me tell you what makes
Speaker 3: this sound so horrible and fake?
Speaker 2: Please do I'm gonna.
Speaker 3: Read you about Chukla harmony.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: The magic of this chocolate collection lies in its unique
Speaker 3: infusion process. So we're talking about Tom Petty and chocolate
Speaker 3: and there's an infusion process.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm really hoping it's gonna be like some weed
Speaker 2: butter or something.
Speaker 3: As these bars gently make their way through the cooling tunnel,
Speaker 3: they are serenaded with the timeless music of Tom Petty.
Speaker 2: They're infused with the music.
Speaker 3: This innovative technique is inspired by the belief that music
Speaker 3: can influence the crystallization of chocolate, resulting in a product
Speaker 3: that not only tastes extraordinary, but also embodies the spirit
Speaker 3: and essence of Tom Petty's music.
Speaker 2: So this is like the same science of like if
Speaker 2: I whisper mean words to water it'll make ugly crystals
Speaker 2: of ice.
Speaker 3: It's sort of like like the movie like Water for chocolate,
Speaker 3: like Tom Petty that I don't you think there's sort
Speaker 3: of a sorrowful edge to Tom Petty.
Speaker 2: It's going to be some bitter chocolate.
Speaker 3: I don't like sad chocolate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's gonna be some sad, bitter Florida chocolate.
Speaker 3: They have three three flavors. Dark chocolate with sea salt
Speaker 3: that reads sad, sad, Deep milk chocolate with marshmallow.
Speaker 2: I'll go win some America, but go yeah.
Speaker 3: That's that's more American girl. Yeah, and then deep milk
Speaker 3: chocolate with crispy hazelnut.
Speaker 2: I don't know what to make of that.
Speaker 3: I don't mean either. But let me tell you something
Speaker 3: Saren Saren Walter by Elizabeth c. D.
Speaker 2: This is ridiculous. Oh I'll give you that one there.
Speaker 2: It is Produce Your Day of mark one up for Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: That's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: A box set of it is fifty bucks. Otherwise they're
Speaker 3: seven dollars a bar, which.
Speaker 2: I didn't like the CD old CD long boxes.
Speaker 3: Like almost almost. But yeah, and this's got like pretty
Speaker 3: cool art.
Speaker 2: But will kids be selling these at like public transportation
Speaker 2: stations to raise money for the school, and then maybe
Speaker 2: they'll get my seven.
Speaker 3: Bugs in like Brooklyn.
Speaker 2: Okay, cool, I'm going to do it. You got a second, Yeah,
Speaker 2: of course I got some ridiculous for you. Okay. You
Speaker 2: remember when you were young and dumb, you loved a
Speaker 2: particular band. Oh sure, it doesn't matter what band. Picture
Speaker 2: a band you loved, right, and even more specifically, picture
Speaker 2: a single performer that you loved. Right, You're just like
Speaker 2: I just longed and pined for them, right. Do you
Speaker 2: ever have like a musical crush where you felt their
Speaker 2: music so deeply in your bones, just like in every
Speaker 2: fiber of your body that didn't say, a weak moment
Speaker 2: maybe hmm, or maybe an emotional high. I don't know
Speaker 2: which way you roll. You would dream a particular dream,
Speaker 2: like what if I could literally kidnap that performer and
Speaker 2: make them saying just for me?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: I mean nothing weird or creepy, you know, it's just
Speaker 2: like more like a Genie wish, really positive Disneyfied wish. Right?
Speaker 3: Were you reading my journals? And you know what I
Speaker 3: wanted to do to victimone's.
Speaker 2: This is about to be Happy birthday, Elizabeth, I didn't know.
Speaker 2: But if you could have one performer other than the
Speaker 2: fabulous victimone play for you over a long weekend, who
Speaker 2: would it be?
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Victimone.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 2: That's it. Okay, that's your answer, your final answer. Well,
Speaker 2: today I have a pair of stories for you, not
Speaker 2: about Victim oone, but about people who did exactly that
Speaker 2: to people other than Victim oone. They lived your dark dream.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, you're ready. I'm so ready.
Speaker 2: This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists,
Speaker 2: and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and
Speaker 2: one ridiculous ridiculous. Hello, I feel like I should start over.
Speaker 2: I feel like I may have set up to your
Speaker 2: stories to sound kind of weird. We'll super creepy, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: but not in the fun flirting way, but like truth
Speaker 2: be told. These stories they're kind of weird, right, but
Speaker 2: not like I want to wear your skin is a suit?
Speaker 2: Kind of weird, you know, not that weird.
Speaker 3: Please victim O one, let me wear.
Speaker 2: Or like who did what to who? That kind of weird?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: You love that kind of weird? Okay, so let's dive in.
Speaker 3: I like all kinds of weird.
Speaker 2: You kind of a weird girl, I am, You're a
Speaker 2: maven of weird. Yeah. Well, anyway, what do you know
Speaker 2: about Fats Waller?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Wow, street name Fats Waller, government named Thomas Right Waller.
Speaker 3: Uh, nothing in depth?
Speaker 2: Right? He was one of the early jazz legends. Yeah right, yeah,
Speaker 2: piano of jazz. I know you know this, right, famous
Speaker 2: right took the New Orleans sound that was where jazz
Speaker 2: was getting to start, and he ran it through like
Speaker 2: a Harlem filter and out pop's stride piano, that style
Speaker 2: he basically took like the uh it's like jumping like
Speaker 2: yeah exactly. So you know anyway, born in nineteen oh
Speaker 2: four May twenty first, to be exact, comes into his
Speaker 2: full stride in the nineteen twenties. That was right when
Speaker 2: this is the point when jazz is the hottest thing
Speaker 2: going in the world. Right, And I think you know
Speaker 2: some of his songs. If I ran some titles past,
Speaker 2: you like yet me high suckle rose? Oh yeah, ain't misbehaving? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: I figure you do as I told you. Guy musical virtuo,
Speaker 2: So you put him on eighty eight keys and he
Speaker 2: would make that thing sing so pretty and This started
Speaker 2: back when he was six years old. Six six years old, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Father was a preacher. Father wanted his son to use
Speaker 2: his gifts for the law, and he was like, no,
Speaker 2: I want to do it for the coch So he
Speaker 2: got out there and he started dancing his fingers over
Speaker 2: the keys. All these beautiful ladies and dapper gentlemen. Would
Speaker 2: you know, get down. He loved that lifestyle. This man
Speaker 2: was about about it now. Also, he started so young
Speaker 2: as a performer, right, young Thomas Waller, he does the
Speaker 2: inevitable thing. He drops out of school, he chases the
Speaker 2: music on the night life. His father most displeased, but
Speaker 2: young Thomas Waller he's loving it. Right. Flash forward to
Speaker 2: the nineteen twenties, earned the nickname Fats, and now he's
Speaker 2: this up and coming piano player working in Harlem night spots.
Speaker 2: And as I said, dud dude, great personality, brash, funny, garrels,
Speaker 2: all kinds of charisma. Just you want to watch him.
Speaker 3: The right guy at the right time.
Speaker 2: Totally, totally. Now he's a star in the nightclub scene
Speaker 2: in Harlem. Boom kids, like nineteen years old, god years old, right,
Speaker 2: Fats Waller gets the attention of all kinds of people
Speaker 2: who are looking to make money in this new music, right,
Speaker 2: they get him at a studio, he cuts a record
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty four Boom, his first hit song, Squeeze Me
Speaker 2: right Fats Waller. Sound, as I said, stride piano. Now,
Speaker 2: you're more of a musician than I am, so maybe, well, anyway,
Speaker 2: the sound of what stride piano. I had to kind
Speaker 2: of look it up to make sure I got this
Speaker 2: all right. But if you take Scott Joplin's Ragtime, right,
Speaker 2: and then you made that sound a little more jaunty
Speaker 2: and jazzy, right, and then the piano player's left hand
Speaker 2: is the one that strides. Yeah, okay, so he kind
Speaker 2: of walks around on the keyboard and apparently he holds
Speaker 2: down a four beat rhythm, and then the left hand's
Speaker 2: playing on the ones and threes, and he's playing a
Speaker 2: chord right on the twos and four. So it's going
Speaker 2: back and forth between a rhythm note on the ones
Speaker 2: and threes and a chord on the twos and four.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of walking around right.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, as I said, you have more faculty with music
Speaker 2: than I do, or facility rather, Uh, I can play
Speaker 2: a harmonica. I like a messy instrument with like here
Speaker 2: kind of there, I'm gonna fudge it over here, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna bend it into this. Right. You played the cello, Yeah, correct,
Speaker 2: I did. So that you have a fingerboard, you're used
Speaker 2: to that placing the emphasis, because when you play an
Speaker 2: instrument with wind, it's very different about putting the emotion
Speaker 2: in it then with the fingers.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well there's no fret on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but there's no fresh there's a neck and but
Speaker 2: there's still basically a string section where you're running an
Speaker 2: imaginary threat.
Speaker 3: Board in your mind.
Speaker 2: You know where the Yeah, you're imposing it. So when
Speaker 2: you're putting emotion into strings, how did How does that occur?
Speaker 2: You know? Is it? Is it the rhythm? Is it?
Speaker 2: Do you feel it?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 3: I think it's particularly for something like the cello, it's
Speaker 3: it's you know, uh, when you're playing with a bow,
Speaker 3: it's you know, how the pressure on it, you know,
Speaker 3: verbrato with your finger or you can bend notes, you know,
Speaker 3: and move it.
Speaker 2: And do like thessando type stuff.
Speaker 3: And then if you want to do a sound sneaky,
Speaker 3: then you dozo little cat.
Speaker 2: So back to mymon Fats Waller, as I told you,
Speaker 2: lovable roguish character. He's able to impart emotion into the
Speaker 2: feeling of the strings. He's sitting there dancing on his
Speaker 2: piano bench. So imagine him in a suit, just gliding around,
Speaker 2: bouncing his little butt on the on the piano bench, playing,
Speaker 2: as I said, stride so ole. Everyone loves him. Now
Speaker 2: he starts recording on RCA Victor. He's got this six
Speaker 2: piece combo Elizabeth Fats Waller and his rhythm right, hottest
Speaker 2: thing going in the mid nineteen twenties. Fans all across
Speaker 2: the country, not just in Harlement, in Chicago and Detroit,
Speaker 2: but all across the country. One of his biggest fans,
Speaker 2: you know this man, you know his name, yes, one
Speaker 2: of the friend of the show. Oh, mister Alphonse Capone.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the legendary Chicago mob boss, king of a
Speaker 2: gang land right, Capo de tuti Copi. He was also
Speaker 2: a jazz.
Speaker 3: Man, really, I know, he played the banjo exactly.
Speaker 2: He liked the hothouse jazz tunes. He was sitting out
Speaker 2: there like Jango Ryan all right. Anyway, I always kind.
Speaker 3: Of imagine him playing like, you know, wagon wheel music
Speaker 3: on a banjo well, I think it's funnier that way.
Speaker 2: It's funnier, Yeah, definitely funnier. But picture his speakeasies right,
Speaker 2: he's hanging out. He loves the hot jazz.
Speaker 3: He kicked off the square dancing craze in fourth grades
Speaker 3: across the country.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna set that aside. The music the people
Speaker 2: listen to while sipping on his bootleg liquor, hot hot jazz. Yeah,
Speaker 2: square dance music now, also the ladies of the night
Speaker 2: who they beef dancing as folks are gambling in his
Speaker 2: Alicic casinos. What type of music, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: Banjo Scarce.
Speaker 2: As I'm pointing out, jazz, hothouse jazz into jazz, totally
Speaker 2: everything sexy, fun elictit. That's what al Capone is all about.
Speaker 3: And jazz is suaggy horns, yeah, exactly, jumping beats, hot Claire,
Speaker 3: and lift your skirt up, drums.
Speaker 2: Lift your skirt up? What kind of instruments you play
Speaker 2: when you're dancing? Oh we're back to dancing?
Speaker 3: Yeah, like you hear this music and you.
Speaker 2: Just player skirt over your head, dance.
Speaker 3: Stock still in the middle of the dance floor and
Speaker 3: lift your skirt. That's not how you dance at a
Speaker 3: jazz club.
Speaker 2: When I do it, I do more of a frilly skirt,
Speaker 2: like a flamenco dancer. I do the action with my skirt.
Speaker 2: I mean, what are you talking about here?
Speaker 3: I just let my wool socks sag down from between
Speaker 3: my knees to my ankles, and then I slowly lift
Speaker 3: up my skirt and people turn in host sailor. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So back to the nineteen twenties. Al Capone was born
Speaker 2: in January of eighteen ninety nine in Cicero. Yes, very good,
Speaker 2: January seventeenth, eighteen ninety nine. Thus he was always one
Speaker 2: year older than the date, right, Okay, Yeah, So nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty five al Capon's twenty six and eight nineteen twenty six,
Speaker 2: al Capone is.
Speaker 3: Elizabeth twenty seven.
Speaker 2: Very good, So let's focus on that. Keep going on this.
Speaker 2: What about the next?
Speaker 3: How about in nineteen eighty four?
Speaker 2: Trick question nineteen eighty four Elizabeth Gough? How old is he?
Speaker 3: He was nineteen eighty dead?
Speaker 2: He was dead? Nice, totally nailed it. Okay, So let's
Speaker 2: focus on Alcapone's twenty seventh birthday. Okay, he obviously did
Speaker 2: not join the twenty seven club so he made it
Speaker 2: past twenty seven.
Speaker 3: True.
Speaker 2: This story comes to us from Maurice Waller, the son
Speaker 2: of Fats Waller. He wrote a book about his dad.
Speaker 2: He shared a family story, right, So here we go
Speaker 2: the kidnapping of Fats Waller by the gangster al Capone.
Speaker 3: Wait, kidnapping.
Speaker 2: Fats Waller by the gangster alone.
Speaker 3: Sometimes my brain needs to catch up.
Speaker 2: But I told you this will be Who did what? Who?
Speaker 3: Where we are?
Speaker 2: So anyway, nineteen twenty six, Fats Waller is twenty one
Speaker 2: years old. Okay, he's been a star in Harlem now
Speaker 2: since he was nineteen. He's young, as I told you,
Speaker 2: but he's used to the night life by now, or
Speaker 2: so he thought. He gets booked on a tour. He's
Speaker 2: playing northern Midwestern cities Cleveland, Detroit, he makes out Chicago
Speaker 2: and he's playing a gig at a place called the
Speaker 2: Sherman Hotel Elizabeth. It's a multi night standing gig. Since
Speaker 2: it's nineteen twenty six, Fats Waller attracts a bunch of
Speaker 2: Chicago gangsters. They all come out to see them, right.
Speaker 2: They show up their big mohair coats. They got a
Speaker 2: dame on their arm, exactly picture that crowd, but it
Speaker 2: run through your imagination.
Speaker 3: Like an informal personal picture it right, Ca'm good? Yeah.
Speaker 2: So a bunch of dames on their arms who aren't
Speaker 2: their wives, yeah, men who are there basically to provide
Speaker 2: them protection. They got those bulges under their suits, right.
Speaker 2: Fats Waller, he's from New York. He's used to playing
Speaker 2: for gangster's. He's not afraid of this crowd. He's like,
Speaker 2: they're gonna dance in my music on anybody else. So,
Speaker 2: as I said, the bulging overcoats and the heaters with
Speaker 2: them don't worry him none. So after he gets done
Speaker 2: playing one night, Fats Waller walks out of Sherman Hotel.
Speaker 2: What does he walk into? Elizabeth? A pair of suspicious
Speaker 2: faces men walking right up on him. One has his
Speaker 2: gat out for persuasion. They hustle Fats Waller into a
Speaker 2: waiting getaway car, long black limousine. The two got him
Speaker 2: into the limo, right, So Fat wall is in their
Speaker 2: limo with him. One of the hoods gives the driver
Speaker 2: an instruction, He's like, take us back, d Cicero. Fats
Speaker 2: Waller has no business in his sister, right, so he's like,
Speaker 2: who did who did I wrong? Was there was there
Speaker 2: a dancer I've been talking to? I shouldn't have been
Speaker 2: talking to? Why have I done? He cannot figure out
Speaker 2: why he's being taken to Cio right, he's desperately trying
Speaker 2: to think of why he's been grabbed and who would
Speaker 2: want him dead?
Speaker 3: And fast Waller and came out just a little poop.
Speaker 2: So the long black limo arrives at his destination in
Speaker 2: East Cicero. It's a saloon Elizabeth called the Hawthorn in.
Speaker 2: The two hoods pull Fats Waller out of the car,
Speaker 2: take him inside the salon. But really, once he's inside,
Speaker 2: he notices it. Oh, it's more of a nightclub all right,
Speaker 2: for gangsters. It's just packed with monsters. In fact, the
Speaker 2: Hawthorn is is owned by a gangster, one Alphonse Capone
Speaker 2: business capone spot outside of town. So Fats Waller walks in,
Speaker 2: sees the joint is a jumpin folks, dancing, drink and
Speaker 2: carrying on the whole carousing bit hoods. With the one
Speaker 2: hood with the gun in his back, he guides Fat
Speaker 2: Swaller over to the piano. He tells him, you play now,
Speaker 2: Fats Waller All twenty one years of him and hoping
Speaker 2: to make twenty two. Yeah, he does, has instructed. He
Speaker 2: starts playing. He gets that piano up, bouncing those keys,
Speaker 2: start a singing, eating up and Fats Waller he gets
Speaker 2: done with his first song. Crowd applause. They go nuts,
Speaker 2: right everyone, because remember I said jazz is the hottest
Speaker 2: music going. And they got the man playing Fat Swaller
Speaker 2: above all this applause. After it starts to die down,
Speaker 2: there's one man who's clapping the loudest and he continues
Speaker 2: to clap. You know who that man is, Elizabeth. Friend
Speaker 2: of the show, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meadi pause himself al Capone.
Speaker 2: For his twenty seventh birthday, the boys got the boss
Speaker 2: a big surprise Fats Waller.
Speaker 3: That's crazy as a birthday presence.
Speaker 2: Yes, let's take a little break and when we get back,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you how this birthday surprise plays out for
Speaker 2: mister Waller. All right, Elizabeth, Yeah, Hey, we're back.
Speaker 3: Hey, what's it?
Speaker 2: Chicago specific East Cicero.
Speaker 3: I love I love Chicago.
Speaker 2: You're enjoying it right old time by the lake.
Speaker 3: I love Chicago. I'm loving this story. By the way,
Speaker 3: this is fantastic.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, let's get further into what happened with mister
Speaker 2: Fatz Walla and mister Alphonse Capone. So his boys grab
Speaker 2: the hottest musician in jazz, going to make sure that
Speaker 2: their boss has a great twenty seventh birthday. But they
Speaker 2: did not contact his agent or manager. They did it
Speaker 2: the Chicago way right right.
Speaker 3: So you could probably organize this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you could. There's people you can talk.
Speaker 3: Content you have to pay for.
Speaker 2: He has managed me, yes exactly. But they're like, no, no,
Speaker 2: I have a gun. This will work easier. No, ten
Speaker 2: percent of this one. So Fats Waller he's in good
Speaker 2: company now that he knows he's not going to die, right,
Speaker 2: He's like, they want me to play, They're not going
Speaker 2: to kill me. So he plays a second song, Then
Speaker 2: he plays a third song, fourth song, Elizabeth. He just
Speaker 2: keeps playing the rest of the night. When he gets tired,
Speaker 2: he stretches out on the piano bench and sleeps.
Speaker 3: It off like in the middle.
Speaker 2: In the middle of the party. The party keeps going
Speaker 2: on around him. He's justoz, just snoozing on the piano
Speaker 2: bench like a real piano player. For breakfast. When he
Speaker 2: wakes up, he has some vintage champagne and then boom,
Speaker 2: he's ready back to plark playing. Alphonse Capone is washed
Speaker 2: up and he's down there spat's qlean.
Speaker 3: He just never ends with these birthday.
Speaker 2: Soiree is gang stir. They want to have it be
Speaker 2: up to the nines. You know, they do crime for
Speaker 2: a reason, They want to live. Well, this is the
Speaker 2: boss's birthday.
Speaker 3: No hard you play, you play.
Speaker 2: So hard, Elizabeth, so fat swaller. He only would stop
Speaker 2: playing to sip champagne or to eat a little nache.
Speaker 3: He didn't go to bathroom.
Speaker 2: Well I guess he did that too. Let's just be
Speaker 2: real here, Okay, yes he did go also one and two. Okay,
Speaker 2: so he wasn't just on the threes and fours. He
Speaker 2: also did a little one in two. Now, of course,
Speaker 2: you know the food if this party must have been incredible.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine what is Alphonse Capone eat for twenty
Speaker 2: seventh birthday sausages? You're a little excited about that. So
Speaker 2: for three days this party last?
Speaker 3: Maybe hado, there we go, that's what for?
Speaker 2: Yes, I know you're all about the Rustica Italian recipes. Anyway,
Speaker 2: good for me, go ahead, So three days this party
Speaker 2: last Elizabeth. They're eating, well, they're drinking, well, they're one
Speaker 2: in two and well Fats Waller. He stays at the
Speaker 2: Hawthorne Name with al Capone and his gangster buddies the
Speaker 2: entire time, as I said, drinking vined Champagne, playing all
Speaker 2: the songs he knows some he's just making up right.
Speaker 2: According to his son Maurice, he was getting tipped one
Speaker 2: hundred dollars for every song he played. The gangsters they're
Speaker 2: shoveling Franklins just in his pockets. He's tickling the ivories.
Speaker 3: Right, yes, please.
Speaker 2: The big boss is loving it. Fats Waller's loving it too.
Speaker 2: He made thousands upon thousands of dollars after the three
Speaker 2: days pass same hoods originally grabbed. When they take Fats
Speaker 2: Waller on another long ride, this time back to Chicago.
Speaker 2: They take them back to the Sherman Hotel. I'm guessing
Speaker 2: the management was like cool with this because they're like,
Speaker 2: you know, we had a three day standing gig, but
Speaker 2: you know, I Falcpone wants him that super seedy.
Speaker 3: Does anyone have any like kind of maybe clue of
Speaker 3: where he was or are they just thinking.
Speaker 2: Got grabbed by the mob and gone.
Speaker 3: Oh, they figured he got grabbed by the mall.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming people some people saw him, like he was
Speaker 2: out front and he was pretty famous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I don't know. I thought maybe they got.
Speaker 2: In a long black limousine. Yeah, maybe a newspaper boy
Speaker 2: saw him. Just imagine a guy like a little hat.
Speaker 3: Like and then he runs to the newspaper.
Speaker 2: Tracks draft Fats while I grabbed by scoff ace.
Speaker 3: He saw. Look what I said exactly. I don't know
Speaker 3: what accent that was.
Speaker 2: It was interesting a choice.
Speaker 3: The kid had a speech.
Speaker 2: There was a law and order level of choices.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Choice. If you'd like to see Fats Waller perform for yourself,
Speaker 2: you can always watch him in the nineteen forty three
Speaker 2: film Stormy Weather.
Speaker 3: I thought you were going to say, like, you can
Speaker 3: buy tickets now he's dead.
Speaker 2: He's dead, Elizabeth what, Yes, one hundred years ago.
Speaker 3: I wanted ai Fats Waller at my next birthday party.
Speaker 2: I'm going to pretend you didn't say that through up
Speaker 2: there with your tupaca.
Speaker 3: You know, hologram, He's not a hologram. Let's be real.
Speaker 2: Let's be real about this. So anyway, I got another
Speaker 2: one for you if you got a second.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, this is the one a lot of seconds.
Speaker 2: This is the one I really wanted to tell you.
Speaker 2: So I kind of told you the Fats Waller one
Speaker 2: just to give you a sense of scale.
Speaker 3: Get me all head up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is you go like, oh, I've heard a
Speaker 2: story like this before, and then now I'm gonna blow
Speaker 2: your mind with a crazier story.
Speaker 3: Is it a kidnapping?
Speaker 2: Is a kidnap of a famous musician?
Speaker 3: Oh? Okay, yeah, so I have heard something like this before,
Speaker 3: right on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So let's jump forward in time from the Roaring
Speaker 2: twenties to the counterculture sixties. Ah, this next one is
Speaker 2: about Jimmy Hendricks.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he got okay.
Speaker 2: Jimmy Hendricks got napped as a man, he got mad napped.
Speaker 2: So in the summer of nineteen sixty nine, Jimmy Hendrix
Speaker 2: plays the Woodstock Festival. All right, that's where he played
Speaker 2: his epic version of the Star Spangled Banner for like
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand mud crazed hippies while they're lying about
Speaker 2: in sleeping bags, and you know, it's like, what was
Speaker 2: it breakfast in bed for one hundred thousand.
Speaker 3: I catered it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you were there you ate oatmeal? Yeah, I may be, dang,
Speaker 2: it should have put cinnamon in it.
Speaker 3: I did that. You weren't there, man, You don't understand waiting.
Speaker 2: So long to say Now a few months after Woodstock,
Speaker 2: this story takes place in the fall of nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 2: So this is Jimmy Hendrix post Woodstock.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: What I love about this story as it's told is
Speaker 2: Jimmy Hendrix was kidnapped and he was completely unaware of it.
Speaker 3: Oh honeycuse for him.
Speaker 2: Is just another lost weekend. Yeah, okay, now of coursing,
Speaker 2: I'm telling this somehow. This also tangentially involves cocaine, because
Speaker 2: to tell a story with the cocaine connection comes from
Speaker 2: John Roberts. He was a one.
Speaker 3: Times chief justice.
Speaker 2: No, not him, He was the guy who was John Roberts,
Speaker 2: not his real name, who was a one time mobster
Speaker 2: for the Gambino crime family.
Speaker 3: Oh so we got another connection there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he got in. He got later involved in the
Speaker 2: cocaine trade for the mafia and eventually became a full
Speaker 2: blown cocaine cowboy. When he taught the medi Yine cartel
Speaker 2: how to move stuff in Miami. He's like, here's how
Speaker 2: to get it over. So he got heavy in yes
Speaker 2: with pabloscar Bars.
Speaker 3: Group, Pablo another one.
Speaker 2: All day now. Yeah, they're like bookends of the spectrum. Now,
Speaker 2: not just as a drug flunky, this guy, right, he
Speaker 2: was integral to the rise of the Miami coch scene
Speaker 2: in the late seventies and early.
Speaker 3: Eighties, and then subsequently the Miami big bass sound exactly.
Speaker 2: And the rise of Two Life Crews. Now, this story
Speaker 2: takes place in nineteen sixty nine, back when John Roberts
Speaker 2: was just a young wanna be mobster. Okay, he wrote
Speaker 2: all of about this in a book called American Desperado,
Speaker 2: which we should add to our Ridiculous Crime Book Club.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I'm just going to open a library.
Speaker 2: You need to start that, Like I want to have
Speaker 2: a library on wheels.
Speaker 3: You evenly have like presidential libraries. What I'm crime library
Speaker 3: that I deserve it.
Speaker 2: Oh, Elizabeth Dutton library.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm I'm I'm just as good as they are.
Speaker 2: Of course, get me a possibly better.
Speaker 3: Let's get me a gold on library gold. I'm trying
Speaker 3: to say bad words.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that. John Roberts also library, Frazzle library, Elizabeth
Speaker 2: klod You know those little free life. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm going to put our logo on the side
Speaker 3: of one of them, and I'm going to fill it
Speaker 3: with these crime books. I like this, and someone's going
Speaker 3: to put some like Deepak Chopra one in there, and
Speaker 3: I'm going to take him a throw it in the street.
Speaker 2: You don't like it anyway, John Roberts, Yes, and his
Speaker 2: co writer. He had a co writer, Evan Wright, and
Speaker 2: during the writing of the book, his co writer write
Speaker 2: he noted that quote, A few stories strained credulity when
Speaker 2: we first sat down for the interviews that would form
Speaker 2: the basis of our book. Right, so he's like, I
Speaker 2: don't know about this mobster. I think he's lying. Such
Speaker 2: as the kidnapping of Jimmy Hendrix. He's like that he
Speaker 2: really happened. Come on, John Roberts. Now, as a co writer,
Speaker 2: Evan Wright noted, and I quote the tale seemed patently
Speaker 2: absurd until I began to look into the twisted history
Speaker 2: of the New York club scene in the late nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2: Based on research and interviews I conducted, it turns out
Speaker 2: that not only does Robert's story appear to be true,
Speaker 2: he solves a mystery that has intrigued Hendrick's biographers for
Speaker 2: more than three decades. No way, Yes, confirmation comes from
Speaker 2: Hendricks's inner circle. When he passed away in nineteen seven,
Speaker 2: his close friend spoke about time just a year earlier,
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty nine, when he was kidnapped by the
Speaker 2: mafia in New York. This was talk amongst them, right.
Speaker 2: The story at the time was Hendrix was grabbed as
Speaker 2: part of a dispute with his record label. Huh yeah,
Speaker 2: right now, that may or may not be true. But
Speaker 2: what was true, Elizabeth, was that one of his mafia
Speaker 2: abductors was a man named John Rico Bono, which coincidentally
Speaker 2: was the name of John Roberts before he.
Speaker 3: Changed it was he was the good Rico.
Speaker 2: Yeah, John Riccobono. I'm good, Rich, Hey, I'm so.
Speaker 3: Elizabeth you no, No, it's a Rico charge, but good.
Speaker 2: The story of the kidnapping of Jimmy Hendrix, I set
Speaker 2: it up enough right. First, Let's return to John Roberts
Speaker 2: in his book American Desperado. In it, he recollects his
Speaker 2: days as a nightclub impressario in the late nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2: Being the kind of guy he is, he had a
Speaker 2: lot of opinions about that particular line of work. And
Speaker 2: I quote, when you run a nightclub, you will always
Speaker 2: get heat from the cops. The liqua license gives them
Speaker 2: an automatic reason to come into your place and snoop
Speaker 2: with any of getting into the business. Andy and I
Speaker 2: started to draw a real heat from the New York cops,
Speaker 2: who could always be bought, but from the FBI. Two
Speaker 2: incidents made them nosy about us. I'll give you a
Speaker 2: guess about one of those incidents. It was the kidnapping
Speaker 2: and Jimmy Hendrix. Hey, FBI loves kidnappings well.
Speaker 3: And it's like you try. From my understanding is that
Speaker 3: most mafia activities you try and like keep it centralized
Speaker 3: and localized, and you don't want to flash out on
Speaker 3: anything to draw attention. And you know, Jimmy Hendrix doesn't
Speaker 3: fly under the reader.
Speaker 2: No, no, he is the opposite of discreet exactly. So
Speaker 2: imagine the New York nightclub scene at this point is
Speaker 2: popping off. But we're before clubs, you know, fifty four,
Speaker 2: this is pre disco, but still nightclub scene right this point,
Speaker 2: still all weed, pills, coke, uppers, downers, reds, greens, Kwayluke,
Speaker 2: exactly all your favorites, all right, sling in sixties, ha
Speaker 2: ha ha, all right, John Roberts and his partner Bradley Pierce. Right,
Speaker 2: they're in charge of giving everyone what they want in
Speaker 2: terms of pleasure. Right. So they open this new club
Speaker 2: called Salvation. Yeah right, so technically they reopened a shuttered club. Whatever.
Speaker 2: They turned the place out. Then they score a major coup.
Speaker 2: And they convinced Jimmy Hendrix to play the opening night
Speaker 2: of their club. And yeah he does, as John Robert recalled,
Speaker 2: and I quote at the.
Speaker 6: Reopening, we had movie stars, models and one of the
Speaker 6: Kennedy's all waiting to get in. My business partner, Andy
Speaker 6: was always a funny guy. He pulled me aside and said, John,
Speaker 6: let's spike the punch. Let them all freak out. At
Speaker 6: our party.
Speaker 2: We put handful of coueludes in the punch. People used
Speaker 2: to call quayludes leg openers because of the effect they
Speaker 2: had on women.
Speaker 6: Our party was unbelievable. People that had probably never been
Speaker 6: high on a drug in their life were taking a
Speaker 6: clothes off.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: What can I say, John Roberts class act.
Speaker 3: Huh, I mean, oh my god.
Speaker 2: Hey, So Anyway, back to Jimmy Hendrix. He's up on stage,
Speaker 2: he plays this gig, he kills it. The Kennedy's like,
Speaker 2: oh ho grudge Yeah, which one I don't know imagining
Speaker 2: a ted at this point, so unus. Yeah, maybe maybe
Speaker 2: he's hey. He's also, by the way, Jimmy Hendrix is
Speaker 2: out of his his zebo on drugs, right, just like
Speaker 2: not the good or sexy kind of drugs either. As
Speaker 2: Robert would put.
Speaker 6: It, Jimmy Hendrix tried to get me to shoot speed
Speaker 6: with him, but I wasn't into needles.
Speaker 2: So Jimmy Hendrix is shooting speed to play rock in
Speaker 2: front of these soon to be discoheads, right, what a.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's like a disco club and he's.
Speaker 2: Not quite exactly. Still a lot of people don't know
Speaker 2: that Jimmy Hendrix got down with shooting speed, right. They're like,
Speaker 2: I thought it was more like a hippie prize.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had a dark taste in drugs. He like speed,
Speaker 2: he liked heroin, right, That's I think the point. He
Speaker 2: was a hand drug sexual. Now, as John Roberts wrote
Speaker 2: in his book, and.
Speaker 6: I quote, Jimmy and I were never great friends. He
Speaker 6: was so far gone. I don't think he was truly
Speaker 6: friends with anybody. Jimmy was a bad junkie. Jimmy, we
Speaker 6: had people all around him all the time too. He
Speaker 6: was suffocating from these hangars. On after we met at Salvation,
Speaker 6: he came to our house on Fire Island so we
Speaker 6: could get away from it all. We'd made sure nobody
Speaker 6: bother him except for his real friends. Jimmy really liked
Speaker 6: the whose guitarist, Leslie West, and one night two of
Speaker 6: them played all living room all night long. Jimmy had
Speaker 6: to shoot speed in his arm to keep up with Lesson.
Speaker 6: That's how good Leslie West was a few times we
Speaker 6: took Jimmy waterski and off the back of my donzie.
Speaker 6: He like getting out doing things physically, even when he
Speaker 6: was stoned.
Speaker 2: So anyway, John Roberts and Jimmy obviously not super close, right,
Speaker 2: But his business partner, the Andy Pearce guy, right, he
Speaker 2: was close with Hendrix. So that said, John Roberts does
Speaker 2: have a particularly funny story of him and Andy taking
Speaker 2: Hendricks water skiing off the back of my donzie. Wait,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, what you know what a donzie is? Right? No,
Speaker 2: just picture the biggest motor boat. You can then add
Speaker 2: in like a tower for water.
Speaker 3: Skiing, so it's like nine hundred feet long.
Speaker 2: Not like that, not like not like a cigar boat. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I know, like hecurred like in the nineteen thirties retro
Speaker 2: wood all wood motor boats, like you'd see him in
Speaker 2: Italy going between the canals, right, Yeah, because the picture
Speaker 2: that and it just updated a little bit.
Speaker 3: A couple of tower on the back.
Speaker 2: No, we're putting a tower for the water skiing, but
Speaker 2: that they may have just had like a post. I'm
Speaker 2: adding the tower for you're.
Speaker 3: Imagining it's like a hunting tower in the woods.
Speaker 2: Well either way, Elizabeth, what I'd like you to do
Speaker 2: is like close your eyes.
Speaker 3: Oh and Pitch was in trouble as a clothes.
Speaker 2: You are at the twentieth century resort in playland for
Speaker 2: the rich and famous and the well connected semi wealthy,
Speaker 2: known as Fire Island. It's one of the barrier islands
Speaker 2: off the coast of Long Island. At the moment, you
Speaker 2: are the fabulous house guest of one John Robins, a
Speaker 2: nightclub in Presario, and Mafia wise guy. You are aboard
Speaker 2: his Donzie motor boat. It's a beautiful retro numbers would
Speaker 2: the whole bit of beauty the sound of its motor.
Speaker 2: It's like the Ferrari of the water. This one is
Speaker 2: in tip top shape and it purrs against the quiet
Speaker 2: of the morning ocean. You are holding a red flag
Speaker 2: in one hand and a cocktail in the other. You
Speaker 2: were also still drunk and high from the night before,
Speaker 2: and really none of you were in any kind of
Speaker 2: shape to be water skiing, but there you are, haha.
Speaker 2: So you're in charge of watching the skier when they
Speaker 2: go down, and you've been told to raise the red
Speaker 2: flag so that other boats know there's a water skier
Speaker 2: down in the water. As you sip from your cocktail,
Speaker 2: you watch the water skier carve long s turned in
Speaker 2: the glassy morning waters of the ocean. The water skiers,
Speaker 2: of course. Jimmy Hendricks, his wet afro hangs limpidly. Wet
Speaker 2: curls droop past his ears touch his shoulders. He looks
Speaker 2: like a strange combination of a wet cat and the
Speaker 2: happiest kit alive. He's not wearing a life jacket, just
Speaker 2: a huge beaming smile. He yells for John Roberts to
Speaker 2: go faster. You casually turning, you tell John Roberts. Jenny says,
Speaker 2: go faster, faster. He shouts over the loud purr of
Speaker 2: the Donzie engines. Okay, the engine changes pitch. It roars
Speaker 2: as the boat zooms forward faster, yanking. Jimmy Hendrick's a
Speaker 2: long whip it. He's giddy now he tries another esker.
Speaker 2: You take a sip of your cocktail. When you turn back,
Speaker 2: there's no one there. The rope is skipping along the
Speaker 2: wake of the boat. The Jimmy Hendrick's gone. You try
Speaker 2: to remember what to do right. The flag is in
Speaker 2: my hand. You raise it. A moment passes. Wait, that's
Speaker 2: not all. You turn and shout, Jimmy went down. Now.
Speaker 2: John Roberts cusses hard and then he drops the throttle.
Speaker 2: The boat slows dramatically. He spins the wheel, turns the
Speaker 2: boat around and heads back to go find Jimmy Hendrix
Speaker 2: lost in the Atlantic Ocean. Remember no life jacket, And
Speaker 2: if Jimmy Hendrix is anything like me, it also means
Speaker 2: he don't float. So, in other words, my man is
Speaker 2: moments away from being far less experienced. Yeah, dead and drowned.
Speaker 2: So anyway, you can't see Jimmy Hendrix, you were finishing
Speaker 2: your cocktail, and you keep lazily holding the red flag
Speaker 2: up for any other boaters. Meanwhile, John Roberts is in
Speaker 2: a half panic as he searches for Jimmy HENDRICKX. Finally
Speaker 2: he spots him. He shouts, he's in the water, thrashing
Speaker 2: the round. He tells you to throw the rope as
Speaker 2: he swings the boat past Jimmy. When you hesitate and
Speaker 2: continue to focus on the remainder of your tropical cocktail,
Speaker 2: John Roberts takes a step, grabs a rope from you,
Speaker 2: and he tosses it to Jimmy Hendricks. His aim sucks.
Speaker 2: The rope lands a few feet from Jimmy. He has
Speaker 2: to swim for it, which he tries to do. He's
Speaker 2: still flailing to get out of the water. He's frantic,
Speaker 2: like someone threw a house cat into a hot tub,
Speaker 2: waving his arms, slapping the water, wet afro flopping about.
Speaker 2: The question now is can Jimmy Hendricks even swim? Because
Speaker 2: I would in the Army. I thought they trained people
Speaker 2: in the Army to swim. It doesn't matter. Clearly he
Speaker 2: cannot swim well because Jimmy he can't even make the rope.
Speaker 2: The business partner, Andy jumps over the side of the
Speaker 2: boat and swims the rope over to Jimmy Hendrick. He
Speaker 2: makes it, saving Jimmy Hendricks's life as he glides the
Speaker 2: boat clover closer to them. You hear John Roberts mutter
Speaker 2: to himself.
Speaker 6: Jesus Christ, if this guy dies, well out it with us.
Speaker 2: What a headache that would be?
Speaker 3: Headache?
Speaker 2: Yes, you take another pull from your tropical cocktail, and
Speaker 2: I'm just glad you didn't have to jump into the
Speaker 2: ocean to save the guitar god guy. Obviously, Jimmy Hendrick
Speaker 2: did not die water skiing, but he came far closer
Speaker 2: than any fan would have ever wanted to a picture.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Now, as John Roberts would later tell the story, Elizabeth.
Speaker 6: I had some good times with Jimmy, but he was
Speaker 6: a disaster on water skis.
Speaker 2: Now, now that we've done that, let's get into the kidnapping.
Speaker 2: But first, Elizabeth, Yeah, let's take a little break. Oh
Speaker 2: I got some message? Is cute up? You want to
Speaker 2: hear these?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 2: You love these me with some ads? Consider these my mashups.
Speaker 3: These are my talk backs.
Speaker 2: Hey, Elizabeth, Hi, I've got a question for you.
Speaker 3: How good were those ads?
Speaker 2: Totally right? Hot piping, hot, smelled the delicious. I mean
Speaker 2: they just hit the spot against the skin.
Speaker 3: Let's listen to some again.
Speaker 2: No, but I do have a question for you about
Speaker 2: Jimmy Hendrick. How much fun is it picturing to him
Speaker 2: water skiing?
Speaker 3: Well, it's so fun. And I like your idea that
Speaker 3: he has this like super kid grin. And then I
Speaker 3: was thinking when you're saying, like, doesn't he know how
Speaker 3: to swim, like for the army or whatever, there's a
Speaker 3: big difference between swimming and a pool and swimming in
Speaker 3: an ocean, and I highly recommend. I mean, I think
Speaker 3: everyone needs to know how to swim for emergency. Yes,
Speaker 3: every moment qua cape and it's a wonderful activity. But
Speaker 3: it's really important if you learn how to swim to
Speaker 3: also learn how to swim in an ocean just a pool.
Speaker 2: Yes, open ocean and open lakes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very important. So that's my public service announcement. Thanks
Speaker 3: for asking ahead, Good job, citizen Dunton, and call her
Speaker 3: back to you.
Speaker 2: So, according to John Roberts, I'd like to get back
Speaker 2: to his account of the kidnapping of Jimmy Hendrix. So
Speaker 2: John Roberts books. He says, the Jimmy Hendrix was, you know,
Speaker 2: just out on the town in New York, tral in
Speaker 2: the city looking for some good smack aka some New
Speaker 2: China white heroine boom. Hendricks runs into a pair of
Speaker 2: young Italian Americans. Hi, guys, John Roberts would say, not mafia,
Speaker 2: but wise guy wannabes. Oh, this pair of wanna be
Speaker 2: wise guys. Right, they see Jimmy Hendrix walking around outside
Speaker 2: the nightclub, The Salvation, and they know it's him because
Speaker 2: no one else looks like Jimmy Hendrix. Yeah, that's Jimmy Hendrix.
Speaker 2: So this dude swinding around in some psychedelic band leader
Speaker 2: outfit like you would wear on a Tuesday thing like that, Right,
Speaker 2: They quickly come up with a plan like, oh man,
Speaker 2: so imagine the conversation kind of like this. Uh hey,
Speaker 2: it's got a brilliant idea. You want to hear it? Yeah,
Speaker 2: come on, you know I want to hear it. Okay,
Speaker 2: So you see Jimmy Hendricks over there, right, Yeah, what
Speaker 2: the what the hell's he wearing? Huh No, no, no,
Speaker 2: never mind that. Listen, what if we go over there
Speaker 2: We promised to hook up Hendricks with some coke and
Speaker 2: then when he goes with us, we kidnap him. We
Speaker 2: hold him for ransom. Huh that was their place.
Speaker 3: This is so like a Sopranos exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, hey, we we'll impressed. Tell those two.
Speaker 3: But you know you know which ones in the show
Speaker 3: that I'm talking about, because I've never seen the show.
Speaker 3: But that Furio goes and rough oh yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 3: that's the whole thing.
Speaker 2: It's the whole thing that you haven't seen. Yes, these
Speaker 2: these want to be wise guys. They follow Hendricks. He
Speaker 2: goes back to the club, The Salvation, and Hendrix is
Speaker 2: on his way in for a jam session. He's supposed
Speaker 2: to show up, but the pair of mobster wanta bees
Speaker 2: they catch up to him first and they offer him
Speaker 2: some coke or heroin. I don't know exactly what they
Speaker 2: offered him whatever. He like, oh yeah. So Hendrick's like,
Speaker 2: he here's their offer and he goes looks like I'm
Speaker 2: with you fellas right, So Hendricks is rolls with him.
Speaker 2: This is the start of a very strange tip for
Speaker 2: the old Voodoo Chot. Yeah. So we'll get back to
Speaker 2: John Roberts accouncause he's the most authoritative on this in
Speaker 2: his account of the events, and went down like this.
Speaker 6: I got involved in Jimmy so called kidnapping after he
Speaker 6: was grabbed by some guys out of Salvation. Later on,
Speaker 6: some people accuse me of being involved in kidnapping him.
Speaker 6: They said I was involved with kidnappers who tied Jimmy
Speaker 6: to a chair and forced him to shoot arrowin please please.
Speaker 2: So I'm thinking he was involved, and that's just right
Speaker 2: off the bat so completely. Now, I'd like to set
Speaker 2: aside any ugly allegations and sensational aspects of this story,
Speaker 2: but unfortunately that is the story. So we're just gonna
Speaker 2: have to get right back into the sensational.
Speaker 6: Back to John Roberts, nobody would have to force Jimmy
Speaker 6: to shoot anything. Just give him a heroin and he'd
Speaker 6: injected himself. It was Jimmy going out searching for drugs
Speaker 6: that got him into trouble. Andy nine were the ones
Speaker 6: who helped him to get out of it.
Speaker 2: So he's a saint. He has the club Salvation. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's what the man does, right. So I like how
Speaker 2: this guy, you know, when he tells the story, he's
Speaker 2: like Hendrix. He needed me. I am his personal savior God, Like.
Speaker 3: He could go and shoot up, well, he doesn't also
Speaker 3: go and get kidnapped, Like, how what's the.
Speaker 2: Yeah, come on, guys, Yeah, So the great Savior, right,
Speaker 2: the liberator who freed Hendricks. I'm fairly certain he was
Speaker 2: involved from the jump, right, Yeah, and after it all
Speaker 2: went sideways, he cuts ties and starts telling a totally
Speaker 2: different story.
Speaker 3: That's my read, but that's how it comes across to me.
Speaker 2: I'll let you decide for yourself, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: Thank you, lady, thank you.
Speaker 2: Here we go back to John Roberts.
Speaker 6: Jimmy had people who would usually buy dope for him,
Speaker 6: but sometimes he gets so sick he come into our
Speaker 6: clubs looking for drugs on his own. One night to
Speaker 6: Italian kids at our club. Not mafia, but wise guy
Speaker 6: Wanna Bees saw Jimmy in there looking for dope and decided, Hey,
Speaker 6: that's Jimmy Hendricks. Let's grab him and see what we
Speaker 6: can get. These guys were morons.
Speaker 2: So now that this part, this all checks with what
Speaker 2: we know, this is you know the story right this
Speaker 2: Wanna be wise guys. They convince Hendricks to leave the
Speaker 2: club to go get the dope and is John Roberts,
Speaker 2: who apparently was able to either hear about this or
Speaker 2: see it from advantage. Either way, he says.
Speaker 6: They promised Jimmy some dope and took him to a
Speaker 6: house out of the city. I don't know if they
Speaker 6: wanted money or a piece of his record contract, but
Speaker 6: they called Jimmy's manager demanding something. Next thing I know,
Speaker 6: the club manager called me and said Jimmy had been
Speaker 6: taken from our club by some itallians.
Speaker 2: So why the manager felt immediately the need to call
Speaker 2: John Roberts, I think speaks for itself. Yeah right, yeah,
Speaker 2: what do I know, Elizabeth? So now that the manager
Speaker 2: knows Hendricks has been kidnapped, what does he do? This
Speaker 2: is his golden goose. Yeah, well, naturally the mager calls
Speaker 2: the cops. And since this is a kidnapping, what do
Speaker 2: they do? They call the Feds? They call the FBI.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's such a high profile.
Speaker 2: So this update finds its way back to the mafia,
Speaker 2: I'm assuming since they probably have feelers in the departments
Speaker 2: of the law, endorsement, and John Roberts, I'm imagine gets
Speaker 2: contacted from some folks in the organization, right and perhaps
Speaker 2: maybe it was a small voice inside of him, and
Speaker 2: it wasn't somebody from the organization. They just told him
Speaker 2: do the right thing. John. Either way, what do I know?
Speaker 2: Like I said, he gets motivated, he gets on the horn,
Speaker 2: he finds Jimmy Hendrix like boom, just like that.
Speaker 3: It's amazing, wow, so fast.
Speaker 2: Still, I'll let him tell it.
Speaker 6: It took me and Andy two three phone calls to
Speaker 6: get the names of the kids who were holding Jimmy.
Speaker 6: We reached out to these kids and made it clear,
Speaker 6: you let Jimmy go or you were dead, do not
Speaker 6: harm a hand of his afro.
Speaker 2: So I guess the wanna be wise guys they really
Speaker 2: listened to John Roberts because they were quick to make
Speaker 2: things right. As Roberts tells it.
Speaker 6: They let Jimmy go. The whole thing lasted maybe two days.
Speaker 6: Jimmy was so stone he probably didn't even know he
Speaker 6: was ever kidnapped. Andy and I waited a week or
Speaker 6: so and went after these kids.
Speaker 2: We gave him the bating. They would never forget right.
Speaker 2: So these poor meals, they get beaten down if that
Speaker 2: even happened.
Speaker 3: I I'm sorry, but every time you say John Roberts
Speaker 3: they still keep thinking about the supremein question.
Speaker 2: Isn't that fun to picture? He's like in the row?
Speaker 2: So fun, He's like a beating I'll never forget, Ain't
Speaker 2: that right? Scaliah? So you remember I said the FBI
Speaker 2: gets called in, Well, the g men, they didn't exactly
Speaker 2: go away. So even after Jimmy Hendrick showed up, he
Speaker 2: had a single hair and his afro hormed, the FBI
Speaker 2: kept sniffing around, right, and they certainly they smelled something
Speaker 2: hinky in the air.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 2: Back to Chief Justice John Roberts.
Speaker 6: Here, I was the good Samaritan, But unfortunately, when Jimmy
Speaker 6: was grabbed, some of his people contact the FBI. Even
Speaker 6: after he was safely returned, the FBI started poking around
Speaker 6: our business. This later led to them to tie Andy
Speaker 6: Benfonte and me to the murder. Robert Wood that one
Speaker 6: good day for Jimmy Hendricks was resulted in me having
Speaker 6: to flee New York for Miami. Who knows, if it
Speaker 6: hadn't have been for saving Jimmy Hendricks, I might never
Speaker 6: have hooked up with the Mediine cartel and Pablo esco
Speaker 6: By in Miami and started in the cocaine smuggling business.
Speaker 2: Wherever you are, Jimmy, thank you.
Speaker 3: Wait, there's so much to him.
Speaker 2: Thanking Jimmy Hendricks for getting him to be friends with
Speaker 2: the kidnapping.
Speaker 3: That's the reason he's bested for a murder.
Speaker 2: Yes, I related murder. Yeah, that was the other one.
Speaker 3: Just a lot. There's a lot going on in that quote, right.
Speaker 2: I just love at the end, wherever you want, Jimmy,
Speaker 2: thank you. I got to meet so as strange as
Speaker 2: this whole let's kidnap Jimmy Hendricks to get high with him?
Speaker 2: Plan was right, Yeah, and obviously it failed. What happened next, Saron?
Speaker 3: What happened next?
Speaker 4: There?
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you for asking. Elizabeth. You're gonna love this.
Speaker 2: It's gonna curl your toes. For one, there was a
Speaker 2: conspiracy that perhaps Jimmy Hendricks was in on it and
Speaker 2: that there was no kidnapping. Instead, he and the mafia
Speaker 2: conspired against his record label because remember that was mentioned,
Speaker 2: so he can have some leverage or I don't know
Speaker 2: what his contractory negotiations.
Speaker 3: How does that produce leverage.
Speaker 2: There's a more obvious angle though, that John Roberts was
Speaker 2: involved in the kidnapping. Yeah, we discussed and as for
Speaker 2: his involvements. Of course, John Roberts vehemently denied this. He's
Speaker 2: come on now.
Speaker 3: Please, Well yeah, I mean maybe it backfired because he
Speaker 3: got the attention he didn't want. But oh yeah it doesn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it gets deeper than that. He points out
Speaker 2: that he wasn't at the club that day, right, as
Speaker 2: if that has any bearing on his guilt. Becau isn't
Speaker 2: that the classic I wasn't there? Why weren't you there?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Whoever wasn't there that day, that's the one who's guilty.
Speaker 3: These are not my pants on and so forth.
Speaker 2: But I'm no one, wise guy, what do I know?
Speaker 2: Back to John Roberts, right, he always pointed to the
Speaker 2: fact that he was the one who found in freed Hendricks.
Speaker 2: I'm a salvation guy, right, he wants whoa whoa? Now,
Speaker 2: That to me is not the most convincing argument, since
Speaker 2: his kidnapper would have the same ability to free him
Speaker 2: as the person who is a savior. Right. But there
Speaker 2: were some who felt that John Roberts was involved and
Speaker 2: was working with Jimmy Hendrix manager. Yeah, which to me
Speaker 2: makes sense, okay, right, because it's a really complicated attempt
Speaker 2: to blackmail the record label into a better contract. That
Speaker 2: doesn't make sense, right, but something else does. I prefer
Speaker 2: the theory that the manager was in cahoots with John
Speaker 2: Roberts and he had the mafia kidnap his client, and
Speaker 2: then the manager would act as the hero and save him.
Speaker 2: And it is deeply indebted and grateful client Jimmy Hendrix
Speaker 2: wouldn't go and get a new manager, which he had
Speaker 2: been threatening to do. Oh yes, that's a motive, right
Speaker 2: for a kidnapper. That one makes sense to me. But wait,
Speaker 2: I have to warn you things are about to get
Speaker 2: even darker than that, because I don't have to speculate.
Speaker 2: Because there is a man named James Tappy Wright. He
Speaker 2: was Jimmy Hendrix's former roady. He also wrote a book.
Speaker 2: We got a really literate crew book title Rock Roady.
Speaker 3: Oh that's creative.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought you'd like that one. And in Rock
Speaker 2: Roady he accused the manager, Michael Jeffrey, of murdering Jimmy Hendrix. Wait, yes,
Speaker 2: the roady to Hendrix wrote that the manager confessed to
Speaker 2: him that he murdered Jimmy Hendrix. What And I know,
Speaker 2: I know this breaks our one percent rule, but I
Speaker 2: thought this one was worth bringing up. So, according to
Speaker 2: James Tappy Wright, the manager gave Hendrix a boatload of
Speaker 2: pills and booze as part of his plan to kill
Speaker 2: them and get rich off of an insurance policy that
Speaker 2: he had on the rock Star. The way he tells it,
Speaker 2: the manager confessed his murder plot one year after Hendricks died,
Speaker 2: and two years before he himself would die in a
Speaker 2: plane crash. So we have no other confirmation or denial.
Speaker 3: And that's why he hasn't sued over the.
Speaker 2: Exactly as a roady, Wright writes, I can still hear
Speaker 2: that conversation. See the man I'd known for so much
Speaker 2: of my life his face, he's pale, hand clutching at
Speaker 2: his glass in sudden rage. That's the manager he's talking about,
Speaker 2: Michael Jeffrey. Later on he quotes the manager's version of events,
Speaker 2: writing that he said, and I quote this is the
Speaker 2: manager speaking. He's quoting the manager. I was in London
Speaker 2: the night of Jimmy's death together with some old friends.
Speaker 2: We went around to Monica's hotel room, got a handful
Speaker 2: of pills and stuffed them into his mouth, and poured
Speaker 2: a few bottles of red wine deep into his windpipe.
Speaker 3: What.
Speaker 2: Yes, there was indeed a life insurance policy, and since
Speaker 2: Hendrix was estranged from his family, the manager, Jeffrey, was
Speaker 2: the beneficiary of a two million dollar payout.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding? I've never heard any of this British.
Speaker 2: I found this all in British press. The American press
Speaker 2: was hard to find this, but it was all over
Speaker 2: the British press. I'd to piece it together from different stories.
Speaker 2: But the roadie Ride recalled that the manager told him,
Speaker 2: and I quote, I had to do it. Jimmy was
Speaker 2: worth much more to be dead than alive. That son
Speaker 2: of a was going to leave me. If I lost him,
Speaker 2: I'd lose everything. Starting to sound pretty murderous.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, So there it is.
Speaker 2: It's all circumstantial, I would admit that, but for someone
Speaker 2: like me, it's pretty damn compelling.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I tend to believe Roady's teamsters, you know, the people
Speaker 2: who are around but have no real value.
Speaker 3: No one pays attention to them exactly.
Speaker 2: They seem they see everything. People look past them. So
Speaker 2: I tend to believe those guys. They are, they were there,
Speaker 2: and they tell what they know anyway, which means I
Speaker 2: think Jimmy Hendricks was kidnapped by the mafia as part
Speaker 2: of a plot by his manager, and then a year
Speaker 2: later his manager likely often.
Speaker 3: Wowow right, Wow, you know, I think that's you've earned
Speaker 3: the one person. I felt we've banked a lot of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we could do like a we've avoided often.
Speaker 2: I thought this one was important to include. Wow, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: what's a ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3: Yay, my ridiculous takeaway? You wanted to my ridiculous You
Speaker 3: have never asked that.
Speaker 2: I considered it fresh, though, what how they feel?
Speaker 3: I think my ridiculous takeaway is I'm still trying to
Speaker 3: process the idea that Jimmy Hendricks was purposely poisoned in
Speaker 3: essence with.
Speaker 2: By Chief Justice John Roberts.
Speaker 3: Justice John Roberts, that is just so much.
Speaker 2: Michael Jeffrey, the manager, Yeah, was working with apparently mobsters,
Speaker 2: and then when that didn't work, he's like, I'll do
Speaker 2: it myself.
Speaker 3: Well, and it's like, you know, it wasn't a surprise
Speaker 3: Jimmy Hendrix's death.
Speaker 2: Sadly, it was not a surprise for his inner circle,
Speaker 2: but it was still one of those things that I think,
Speaker 2: like Princess passing, you were left wondering you left with questions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that's the thing is that when
Speaker 3: you have these instances where it's not a surprise, but
Speaker 3: it's still you know, this person that the world is
Speaker 3: a little too much for them and they're a little
Speaker 3: too much for the world complete, but they that also
Speaker 3: makes them susceptible to these types of things.
Speaker 2: And these types of people. Yeah, because you know that's
Speaker 2: terrible when you're a dreamer, you don't got like, you know,
Speaker 2: the feet on the ground. People come along and be like,
Speaker 2: oh hey, I'll hold you up.
Speaker 3: My ridiculous takeaway, thank you for asking once again, you
Speaker 3: have another one. This was Zeron. This was a thrill ride,
Speaker 3: but hot doodles, it's a bummer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry about that. I didn't know how to get
Speaker 2: around that part. I was like, I can try to
Speaker 2: find them, like you have to tell a light joke
Speaker 2: and land On, I was like, there's nothing to them, Like,
Speaker 2: so how about wet Jimmy Hendricks. That was fun to picture, right, No.
Speaker 3: This was a really beautifully constructed episode. I do have
Speaker 3: to say that, Sarah, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 2: What do I got to do everything over here? Yes,
Speaker 2: my ridiculous takeaway is that. I was really uh glad
Speaker 2: to hear that Jimmy Hendricks and I have more in
Speaker 2: common than I imagined, which is that we both would look
Speaker 2: like wet cats when wet. It would likely drown. If
Speaker 2: if people you know who are supposed to be helping
Speaker 2: us by dragging us around the ocean in a boat
Speaker 2: and they put down their drinks long enough, they can
Speaker 2: save our lives because we are going to go down.
Speaker 2: I was like, man, Jimmy, I fail you.
Speaker 3: You can swim in the ocean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but with a wet suit that that has a
Speaker 2: lot of buoyancy. Oh yeah, trust I'm always glad to
Speaker 2: have that wet suit. That's all I got for you today,
Speaker 2: all I have for you. So you move maybe with that?
Speaker 2: How about that? Pretty sure? Dave hit it? Oh my god,
Speaker 2: I love you.
Speaker 5: Hi, Elizabeth and Zarin. My name is Kathleen, and I
Speaker 5: wanted to talk about Thursday's episode where you mentioned Irish
Speaker 5: step dancing. I was a competitive Irish step dancer for
Speaker 5: thirteen years and I can confirm that it's pretty incestuous
Speaker 5: and you definitely do it at bars when you're drunk
Speaker 5: as an adult. But also my teacher for over a
Speaker 5: decade was Sandra Connick. Thanks so much for all you do.
Speaker 5: I really appreciate listening to you twice a week.
Speaker 3: Wow, that was Jostle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's amazing.
Speaker 3: Love Kathleen totally. I like that she had the big
Speaker 3: boss as a teacher. It's amazing.
Speaker 2: And she also pointed out that my random dancing idea
Speaker 2: of children dancing in bars has almost an analog, but
Speaker 2: it's adults, so I got to I got correct, So
Speaker 2: thank you for that. Anyway, As always, you can find
Speaker 2: us online a Ridiculous Crime on the social media sites.
Speaker 2: We also have the website Ridiculous Crime dot com. Obviously
Speaker 2: love your talkback, so please go to the iHeart at
Speaker 2: hit us up. Let us know how you feel, what
Speaker 2: you're thinking of, what crimes you've been getting into.
Speaker 3: No, don't do that, but either way, emails to ask
Speaker 3: for confession.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you want to do a confession, obviously we
Speaker 2: love them, but we'll be your voice. You confessed, someone
Speaker 2: in your family want to hear what?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 2: Okay, email us if you'd like a Ridiculous Crime at
Speaker 2: gmail dot com. Thanks for listening. We'll catch your next crime.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett,
Speaker 2: produced and edited by Spanish Castlemagicman Dave Houston. Slave Return
Speaker 2: Research is by Marissa Golden Brown and Andrea the Win.
Speaker 2: Chris Mary is my favorite song, Sharpened Tear. Our theme
Speaker 2: song is by Thomas Axis Bold as Live Laugh, Love
Speaker 2: Lee and Well Maybe I was misbehaving Dutton. The host
Speaker 2: wardrobe provided by Body five hundred. Executive producers are Ben
Speaker 2: Fats Waller is my favorite musician named Fats Bowling and
Speaker 2: Noel He's my favorite Waller Brown, Red.
Speaker 3: Crime, Say It One More Time.
Speaker 1: Cry Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more Podcasts.
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