1
00:00:01,880 --> 00:00:05,080
Speaker 1: Rip Current is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The views

2
00:00:05,120 --> 00:00:08,920
Speaker 1: and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the host.

3
00:00:08,720 --> 00:00:10,200
Speaker 2: Producers or parent company.

4
00:00:10,640 --> 00:00:18,520
Speaker 1: Listener discretion is it fine.

5
00:00:18,720 --> 00:00:21,959
Speaker 3: Eryl Hendra's Camera Shop was an eclectic print shop and

6
00:00:22,040 --> 00:00:26,520
Speaker 3: gathering place in San Francisco in the nineteen sixties and seventies.

7
00:00:27,440 --> 00:00:30,840
Speaker 3: It was owned by Errol Hendra, a former seaman from

8
00:00:30,840 --> 00:00:34,519
Speaker 3: New Zealand author Jerry Spieler.

9
00:00:35,360 --> 00:00:38,000
Speaker 4: It was a camera shop on Folsom Street, but they

10
00:00:38,040 --> 00:00:42,240
Speaker 4: did all the printing of the various flyers and posters

11
00:00:42,520 --> 00:00:44,880
Speaker 4: for the political community in the Bay Area.

12
00:00:46,680 --> 00:00:50,640
Speaker 3: They also did rock concert posters, underground comic art, and

13
00:00:50,720 --> 00:00:53,960
Speaker 3: so on, and the shop seemed more like a clubhouse

14
00:00:54,040 --> 00:00:57,880
Speaker 3: than a business. In a footnote in his book The

15
00:00:57,960 --> 00:01:02,120
Speaker 3: Pirates in the Mouse Disney's World Against the Underground, Bob

16
00:01:02,240 --> 00:01:03,680
Speaker 3: Levin describes.

17
00:01:03,280 --> 00:01:06,800
Speaker 1: The scene his place was wal to wall posters with

18
00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:11,720
Speaker 1: Hell's Angels, rock stars, underground cartoonists, dope dealers, and sometimes

19
00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:14,720
Speaker 1: the Sheriff of San Francisco hanging out in the dark room,

20
00:01:15,040 --> 00:01:19,080
Speaker 1: sitting on the waterbed itemized as a depreciable water storage

21
00:01:19,080 --> 00:01:24,319
Speaker 1: facility on Hendra's irs returns, joking, bantering smoking weed, playing

22
00:01:24,360 --> 00:01:26,840
Speaker 1: out the dramas Hendra like to set in motion, like

23
00:01:26,920 --> 00:01:29,479
Speaker 1: he was the ringmaster of a Bedlamite circus.

24
00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:35,040
Speaker 4: Dan O'Neil was a cartoonist with a cartoon called Odd Bodkins,

25
00:01:35,319 --> 00:01:38,839
Speaker 4: which was very popular at the time. Sarah Jane would

26
00:01:38,840 --> 00:01:42,920
Speaker 4: go visit them and they would basically sort of put

27
00:01:42,920 --> 00:01:47,120
Speaker 4: her on and laugh behind her back and get her

28
00:01:47,160 --> 00:01:51,960
Speaker 4: all excited. They would tease Sarah Jane and she didn't

29
00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:55,120
Speaker 4: realize she was being teased, and she would get all

30
00:01:55,240 --> 00:01:59,280
Speaker 4: worked up about their conversations. But it was Dan O'Neill

31
00:02:00,320 --> 00:02:04,880
Speaker 4: who said, if Ford wasn't president anymore and Rockefeller would

32
00:02:05,040 --> 00:02:09,280
Speaker 4: become president, all hell would break loose. And they were joking,

33
00:02:10,280 --> 00:02:16,160
Speaker 4: but Sarah Jane took them seriously, and when that conversation happened,

34
00:02:17,160 --> 00:02:19,200
Speaker 4: they realized that she thinks that's real.

35
00:02:19,760 --> 00:02:21,000
Speaker 5: She really thinks that's real.

36
00:02:21,919 --> 00:02:25,360
Speaker 3: In her interview in Playboy magazine months after the attempt,

37
00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:29,720
Speaker 3: Sarah Jane talked about this motive, Oh.

38
00:02:29,600 --> 00:02:32,359
Speaker 6: Ford of the Nevish. I have nothing against him personally.

39
00:02:32,720 --> 00:02:34,600
Speaker 6: It was the office of the Presidency that I was

40
00:02:34,639 --> 00:02:37,800
Speaker 6: trying to attack. Killing Ford would have shaken a lot

41
00:02:37,840 --> 00:02:40,959
Speaker 6: of people up. More importantly, it would have elevated Nelson

42
00:02:41,040 --> 00:02:43,760
Speaker 6: Rockefeller to the presidency, and then people would see who

43
00:02:43,800 --> 00:02:45,480
Speaker 6: the actual leaders of the country are.

44
00:02:46,919 --> 00:02:51,760
Speaker 3: Nelson Rockefeller was a member of the extravagantly wealthy Rockefeller family,

45
00:02:52,800 --> 00:02:57,000
Speaker 3: considered it a moderate. He'd run unsuccessfully three times for

46
00:02:57,120 --> 00:03:01,240
Speaker 3: the Republican presidential nomination before Ford named him as vice

47
00:03:01,280 --> 00:03:07,560
Speaker 3: president after Nixon's resignation. Referring to Rockefeller as Rocky, Sarah

48
00:03:07,639 --> 00:03:08,560
Speaker 3: Jane went on to.

49
00:03:08,440 --> 00:03:11,359
Speaker 6: Say, killing Ford would have meant that people would have

50
00:03:11,400 --> 00:03:14,200
Speaker 6: had to face Rocky head on, which should rouse a

51
00:03:14,200 --> 00:03:16,639
Speaker 6: lot of people out of their rationalizing daydreams.

52
00:03:23,280 --> 00:03:24,359
Speaker 3: I'm Toby Ball.

53
00:03:24,919 --> 00:03:29,280
Speaker 6: And I'm Mary Catherine Garrison, and this is rip current.

54
00:03:36,680 --> 00:03:38,840
Speaker 7: We feel that the murder of Popeye Jackson and Sally

55
00:03:38,920 --> 00:03:39,840
Speaker 7: Boy was the work of.

56
00:03:39,840 --> 00:03:49,880
Speaker 6: Pigs Episode ten. It serves the pig's interests to create confusion.

57
00:03:55,000 --> 00:03:58,440
Speaker 3: In the early morning hours of June eighth, nineteen seventy five,

58
00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:02,680
Speaker 3: Popeye Jackson was murdered along with a friend named Sally

59
00:04:02,840 --> 00:04:05,880
Speaker 3: Voy as they sat in a parked car just a

60
00:04:05,920 --> 00:04:09,960
Speaker 3: couple of blocks from Sarah Jane Moore's apartment. His death

61
00:04:10,120 --> 00:04:14,120
Speaker 3: was ominous for Sarah Jane. Popeye had been her mentor

62
00:04:14,560 --> 00:04:17,360
Speaker 3: and entree to the radical groups in the Bay Area.

63
00:04:18,440 --> 00:04:21,400
Speaker 3: She had recently accused him of being a police informant,

64
00:04:21,800 --> 00:04:24,479
Speaker 3: and it seemed likely this had contributed.

65
00:04:23,920 --> 00:04:24,719
Speaker 8: To his murder.

66
00:04:25,760 --> 00:04:29,080
Speaker 3: But in truth, it was she who was an informant,

67
00:04:29,520 --> 00:04:32,680
Speaker 3: and many people in the Bay Area knew this. She

68
00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:36,880
Speaker 3: had good reason to believe she was not safe at

69
00:04:36,880 --> 00:04:39,880
Speaker 3: the time. Ellen Hume was a young reporter with the

70
00:04:39,880 --> 00:04:44,360
Speaker 3: Los Angeles Times during this period. Sarah Jane went by

71
00:04:44,360 --> 00:04:48,560
Speaker 3: the name Sally. When Allen mentioned Sally, she is talking

72
00:04:48,600 --> 00:04:50,480
Speaker 3: about Sarah Jane.

73
00:04:50,760 --> 00:04:54,760
Speaker 9: One time she called and she was absolutely terrified. She said,

74
00:04:54,839 --> 00:04:57,279
Speaker 9: I'm in danger. My life is in danger. I said,

75
00:04:57,320 --> 00:05:00,000
Speaker 9: what are you talking about? She said, Popeye's just been

76
00:05:00,160 --> 00:05:03,280
Speaker 9: killed and he was about two blocks from her apartment.

77
00:05:03,360 --> 00:05:05,680
Speaker 9: And I didn't know anything about her involvement with Popeye.

78
00:05:05,800 --> 00:05:09,719
Speaker 9: She hadn't told me about Popeye. So Popeye's murder really

79
00:05:09,760 --> 00:05:14,839
Speaker 9: freaked Sally out. After Popeye's murder and Sally, who always

80
00:05:14,880 --> 00:05:17,719
Speaker 9: acted as if she had several screws loose, I gave

81
00:05:17,720 --> 00:05:20,719
Speaker 9: her fifty dollars, which I never did, not for the story,

82
00:05:20,960 --> 00:05:23,520
Speaker 9: but I said, get out of town, cool off for

83
00:05:23,560 --> 00:05:26,600
Speaker 9: a while. Because she was so scared. She was literally shaking.

84
00:05:26,640 --> 00:05:28,560
Speaker 9: I flew up and was with her in her apartment.

85
00:05:28,960 --> 00:05:32,080
Speaker 9: A couple days later, she seemed to be okay again.

86
00:05:33,360 --> 00:05:36,320
Speaker 3: As Sarah Jane wrestled with how to protect herself after

87
00:05:36,360 --> 00:05:41,839
Speaker 3: Popeye's murder, the investigation into his death got underway. His

88
00:05:41,960 --> 00:05:45,440
Speaker 3: murder was yet another black mark for a city that

89
00:05:45,560 --> 00:05:48,719
Speaker 3: had been hit with high profile violence and gained a

90
00:05:48,760 --> 00:05:54,200
Speaker 3: reputation for fear and paranoia author Jeffrey Tubin.

91
00:05:55,120 --> 00:05:59,839
Speaker 10: In the nineteen seventies, San Francisco was synonymous with urban decay.

92
00:06:00,560 --> 00:06:03,679
Speaker 7: You get to ask yourself one question, Do I feel lucky?

93
00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:05,279
Speaker 10: Well?

94
00:06:05,279 --> 00:06:05,960
Speaker 4: Do you bunk?

95
00:06:06,880 --> 00:06:11,200
Speaker 10: Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry was a San Francisco detective. The

96
00:06:11,200 --> 00:06:15,760
Speaker 10: Streets of San Francisco, Michael Douglas's TV series was based

97
00:06:15,760 --> 00:06:18,680
Speaker 10: on the idea that San Francisco was a very dangerous

98
00:06:18,720 --> 00:06:19,960
Speaker 10: place to be a detective.

99
00:06:20,960 --> 00:06:22,320
Speaker 11: The night's episode.

100
00:06:22,279 --> 00:06:27,400
Speaker 12: Death Watch by seventy two, seventy three, seventy four, you

101
00:06:27,520 --> 00:06:32,000
Speaker 12: had cops being ambushed and killed because they're cops. I

102
00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:34,880
Speaker 12: think San Francisco lost seven officers in a year and

103
00:06:34,920 --> 00:06:38,000
Speaker 12: a half period, which was unheard of. My name is

104
00:06:38,120 --> 00:06:43,520
Speaker 12: Duffy Jennings. I am a retired journalist and publicist who

105
00:06:43,600 --> 00:06:46,839
Speaker 12: lives here in the San Francisco Bay Area. I was

106
00:06:46,920 --> 00:06:50,320
Speaker 12: a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle from nineteen sixty

107
00:06:50,400 --> 00:06:54,120
Speaker 12: nine to nineteen eighty. The city just morphed into an

108
00:06:54,200 --> 00:06:58,880
Speaker 12: ugly place. This kind of random violence, political violence just

109
00:06:59,040 --> 00:07:00,680
Speaker 12: rolled on through this seventies.

110
00:07:00,839 --> 00:07:02,160
Speaker 2: There was just no letup.

111
00:07:03,360 --> 00:07:07,360
Speaker 3: But the violence also gave opportunities to San Francisco's homicide

112
00:07:07,360 --> 00:07:12,280
Speaker 3: detectives to make their names in high profile cases. One

113
00:07:12,320 --> 00:07:16,200
Speaker 3: of those detectives was Frank Falzon, who we heard from

114
00:07:16,360 --> 00:07:18,160
Speaker 3: last episode.

115
00:07:18,360 --> 00:07:22,520
Speaker 13: Every day was a new exciting day. Every day was

116
00:07:22,560 --> 00:07:27,080
Speaker 13: a new and exciting case. And being young, energetic and

117
00:07:27,160 --> 00:07:30,200
Speaker 13: always wanting to work the big cases, I didn't have

118
00:07:30,280 --> 00:07:32,520
Speaker 13: to look very far. They were right in front of me.

119
00:07:33,560 --> 00:07:36,280
Speaker 3: Falson was assigned to Popeye's case.

120
00:07:37,600 --> 00:07:41,320
Speaker 13: Well, initially, we're totally in the dark when we started

121
00:07:41,440 --> 00:07:46,880
Speaker 13: researching the background of Popeye Jackson, and it wasn't like

122
00:07:46,960 --> 00:07:50,360
Speaker 13: he was a wallflower. He was very well known in

123
00:07:50,400 --> 00:07:56,000
Speaker 13: the criminal justice system. Within two days, a citizen called

124
00:07:56,040 --> 00:08:00,320
Speaker 13: in about finding a barrel of a gun. It was

125
00:08:00,360 --> 00:08:04,520
Speaker 13: the nine millimeter automatic gun. It had been discarded in

126
00:08:04,600 --> 00:08:08,320
Speaker 13: the street we knew it was probably linked to our murders,

127
00:08:08,520 --> 00:08:11,160
Speaker 13: but without the rest of the gun, we just booked

128
00:08:11,160 --> 00:08:14,000
Speaker 13: it into the property clerk's office to see if it

129
00:08:14,040 --> 00:08:18,440
Speaker 13: would prove to be influential at a later time. The

130
00:08:18,560 --> 00:08:24,040
Speaker 13: radical violent underground was a tangled web of competing New

131
00:08:24,160 --> 00:08:30,520
Speaker 13: left radical extremists. We started looking into all those radical

132
00:08:31,160 --> 00:08:35,640
Speaker 13: extremists individuals, trying to talk to people that might be

133
00:08:35,720 --> 00:08:39,600
Speaker 13: able to point us in the right direction. Popeye Jackson

134
00:08:39,760 --> 00:08:43,080
Speaker 13: was loved by many and hated by some.

135
00:08:44,960 --> 00:08:48,120
Speaker 3: Popeye was executed in the early morning of June eighth.

136
00:08:48,920 --> 00:08:53,400
Speaker 3: As Frankfelzhan mentioned, the investigation would center on the complicated

137
00:08:53,440 --> 00:08:57,480
Speaker 3: ecosystem of small, violent radical groups in the Bay Area.

138
00:08:58,480 --> 00:09:02,480
Speaker 3: The trail actually was laid five days before Popeye's murder.

139
00:09:03,440 --> 00:09:07,040
Speaker 3: On June third, a mysterious group called the New World

140
00:09:07,080 --> 00:09:11,560
Speaker 3: Liberation Front or NWLF, had sent an open letter to

141
00:09:11,600 --> 00:09:16,720
Speaker 3: San Francisco radio station KPOO accusing Popeye of being a

142
00:09:16,720 --> 00:09:22,240
Speaker 3: police informant. In the days following Popeye's assassination, a commentary

143
00:09:22,280 --> 00:09:25,199
Speaker 3: on whether his death was justified played out in a

144
00:09:25,320 --> 00:09:29,320
Speaker 3: letter to the editor page of the underground newspaper The

145
00:09:29,400 --> 00:09:34,840
Speaker 3: Berkeley barb It began with two communica's signed by the NWLF.

146
00:09:35,880 --> 00:09:40,320
Speaker 3: The first Communica claimed credit for Popeye's execution. It was

147
00:09:40,400 --> 00:09:44,360
Speaker 3: quickly identified as a fraud. It is still unclear who

148
00:09:44,360 --> 00:09:49,679
Speaker 3: wrote this letter. The second, much longer Communica arrived soon after.

149
00:09:50,760 --> 00:09:55,640
Speaker 3: It was regarded as genuine. In it, the NWLF stated

150
00:09:55,679 --> 00:09:59,720
Speaker 3: that Popeye's execution was justified, but denied that they had

151
00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:03,960
Speaker 3: actually carried it out. It harshly condemned the murder of

152
00:10:04,040 --> 00:10:08,480
Speaker 3: Sally Voi, and then it denounced the first fake communicate

153
00:10:08,880 --> 00:10:13,160
Speaker 3: as disinformation. Its language was heated.

154
00:10:13,960 --> 00:10:17,480
Speaker 1: When the ruling class pigs and steal fear and oppressed peoples.

155
00:10:17,679 --> 00:10:20,840
Speaker 1: We must be able to decipher pig shit from revolutionary

156
00:10:20,920 --> 00:10:25,320
Speaker 1: tactics and respond by drawing together, not in paranoia, but

157
00:10:25,400 --> 00:10:27,000
Speaker 1: in strength and imagination.

158
00:10:28,120 --> 00:10:31,760
Speaker 3: It ended by calling on an underground prison group called

159
00:10:31,840 --> 00:10:36,800
Speaker 3: the Black Gorilla Family to conduct an analysis of Popeye's murder.

160
00:10:37,800 --> 00:10:41,640
Speaker 3: This analysis, it was implied, would be the definitive judgment.

161
00:10:42,960 --> 00:10:46,800
Speaker 3: The NWLF was just one of several groups to communicate

162
00:10:46,840 --> 00:10:50,960
Speaker 3: through that week's edition of the Berkeley Barb Something called

163
00:10:51,080 --> 00:10:55,400
Speaker 3: the People's Commission of Inquiry Berkeley sent an open letter

164
00:10:55,840 --> 00:11:01,200
Speaker 3: asserting that the nwlf's June third letter contained only accusations

165
00:11:01,360 --> 00:11:05,280
Speaker 3: and no actual evidence. It also claimed that no true

166
00:11:05,360 --> 00:11:09,120
Speaker 3: revolutionary group would have executed Popeye under what they called

167
00:11:09,559 --> 00:11:14,320
Speaker 3: these circumstances. The letter went on to say that if

168
00:11:14,360 --> 00:11:18,880
Speaker 3: the NWLF didn't denounce the murderer and the previous communications

169
00:11:18,880 --> 00:11:20,199
Speaker 3: about Popeye, that.

170
00:11:21,040 --> 00:11:23,960
Speaker 1: We would have to assume that the NWLF is a

171
00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:27,360
Speaker 1: creation of the repressive forces of the state, created to

172
00:11:27,440 --> 00:11:31,280
Speaker 1: so confusion and division among the general population and a left,

173
00:11:31,280 --> 00:11:35,359
Speaker 1: in particular as to the true actions, behaviors, and policies

174
00:11:35,440 --> 00:11:37,280
Speaker 1: of revolutionary underground groups.

175
00:11:38,520 --> 00:11:43,000
Speaker 3: In short, the NWLF accused Popeye of being an agent

176
00:11:43,040 --> 00:11:47,400
Speaker 3: of the government, and the People's Inquiry accused the NWLF

177
00:11:47,559 --> 00:11:50,720
Speaker 3: of being an agent of the government for making that accusation.

178
00:11:52,080 --> 00:11:55,480
Speaker 3: To further complicate the situation, many on the left thought

179
00:11:55,520 --> 00:11:58,960
Speaker 3: that Popeye had most likely been executed by the government

180
00:11:59,280 --> 00:12:03,400
Speaker 3: in the form of the police. Pat Singer, Popeye's wife,

181
00:12:03,440 --> 00:12:06,880
Speaker 3: who was nine months pregnant at the time, told the Berkeley.

182
00:12:06,520 --> 00:12:11,240
Speaker 1: Barb Popeye's most outstanding enemies were the police. They had

183
00:12:11,280 --> 00:12:14,520
Speaker 1: talked about him being killed and made threats from the

184
00:12:14,559 --> 00:12:17,800
Speaker 1: California Department of Corrections down to the blacks and whites

185
00:12:17,840 --> 00:12:21,640
Speaker 1: on the SFPD. They were his most outspoken enemies and

186
00:12:21,679 --> 00:12:24,199
Speaker 1: the ones who would have benefited most from his death.

187
00:12:25,559 --> 00:12:30,000
Speaker 3: Rumors also circulated that the racist Aryan Brotherhood had put

188
00:12:30,040 --> 00:12:32,880
Speaker 3: out a ten thousand dollars contract for the murder of

189
00:12:32,920 --> 00:12:36,760
Speaker 3: Popeye and four other unnamed radicals in the Bay Area.

190
00:12:37,840 --> 00:12:43,320
Speaker 8: Paranoia reigned, So what we saw here was factions of

191
00:12:43,360 --> 00:12:48,160
Speaker 8: this extreme left, very divided on who they felt should

192
00:12:48,200 --> 00:12:50,800
Speaker 8: be supported and who should be taken out.

193
00:12:51,480 --> 00:12:52,680
Speaker 13: None of it was any good.

194
00:12:54,200 --> 00:12:57,880
Speaker 3: The Berkeley barb Letter section also carried two anonymous letters,

195
00:12:58,480 --> 00:13:01,520
Speaker 3: both concerned with the effects of violence within the left.

196
00:13:02,400 --> 00:13:06,600
Speaker 3: A letter signed by a comrade concluded this way.

197
00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:11,200
Speaker 1: We his fellow revolutionaries killed Popeye, regardless of who pulled

198
00:13:11,240 --> 00:13:14,040
Speaker 1: the trigger. We who got angry and left him, We

199
00:13:14,120 --> 00:13:17,440
Speaker 1: who feared displeasing his followers, We who were afraid to

200
00:13:17,440 --> 00:13:21,839
Speaker 1: confront and struggle with a strong but misled comrade.

201
00:13:21,960 --> 00:13:25,319
Speaker 3: The second letter referred to the executions of Popeye and

202
00:13:25,400 --> 00:13:30,040
Speaker 3: Oakland School's superintendent Marcus Foster instead of the violence.

203
00:13:30,760 --> 00:13:35,080
Speaker 1: The result of this approach has been confusion, divisiveness, paranoia,

204
00:13:35,240 --> 00:13:39,360
Speaker 1: and increased physical and mental oppression for us. All it

205
00:13:39,520 --> 00:13:43,400
Speaker 1: was signed with intense feelings some of the people.

206
00:13:44,280 --> 00:13:47,480
Speaker 3: A week later, the Black Gorilla Family responded to the

207
00:13:47,600 --> 00:13:52,480
Speaker 3: nwlf's requests for an analysis. This is from a report

208
00:13:52,559 --> 00:13:56,760
Speaker 3: on KPFA, a Bay Area community radio station.

209
00:13:57,800 --> 00:14:00,200
Speaker 7: Last week when the New War Liberation Front is to

210
00:14:00,240 --> 00:14:04,840
Speaker 7: communicate denying responsibility for the June eighth execution of Popeye Jackson.

211
00:14:05,200 --> 00:14:07,560
Speaker 7: They also called on the Black Gorilla Family to use

212
00:14:07,640 --> 00:14:10,880
Speaker 7: its vantage point from inside prison to analyze some of

213
00:14:10,920 --> 00:14:14,560
Speaker 7: the charges made earlier against Popeye Jackson. Today, the Black

214
00:14:14,600 --> 00:14:18,720
Speaker 7: Gorilla Family issued their response, which reads as follows. To

215
00:14:18,800 --> 00:14:22,000
Speaker 7: the people, this is long in coming because we had

216
00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:25,640
Speaker 7: decided not to become involved. However, due to the conflict

217
00:14:25,680 --> 00:14:29,119
Speaker 7: and speculations which have arisen, we feel it is necessary

218
00:14:29,120 --> 00:14:32,240
Speaker 7: to clarify our position and give an objective opinion.

219
00:14:34,360 --> 00:14:38,800
Speaker 3: The communicay was long, but this paragraph summed up the findings.

220
00:14:39,800 --> 00:14:41,920
Speaker 7: We feel that the murder of Popeye Jackson and Sally

221
00:14:42,040 --> 00:14:44,600
Speaker 7: Voi was the work of pigs. As to the murder

222
00:14:44,640 --> 00:14:47,440
Speaker 7: of Sally Voi, there is no justification to the left,

223
00:14:47,680 --> 00:14:51,040
Speaker 7: especially the Gorilla Army, but it serves the pig's interests

224
00:14:51,040 --> 00:14:54,520
Speaker 7: to create confusion within the left and to maintain control.

225
00:14:54,600 --> 00:14:58,720
Speaker 7: Through that confusion, the charges lodged against Popeye we feel

226
00:14:58,920 --> 00:14:59,960
Speaker 7: are void of foundation.

227
00:15:01,680 --> 00:15:04,440
Speaker 13: The Black Gorilla family said it was the work of

228
00:15:04,480 --> 00:15:08,000
Speaker 13: the pigs. In other words, they placed the blame on

229
00:15:08,040 --> 00:15:12,040
Speaker 13: the police department, that the police for some reason didn't

230
00:15:12,120 --> 00:15:16,000
Speaker 13: like Popeye Jackson, didn't like what he was promoting, and

231
00:15:16,040 --> 00:15:22,240
Speaker 13: the police killed Popeye. But this, obviously for us, was

232
00:15:22,320 --> 00:15:27,360
Speaker 13: totally disregarded because there was no indication of that at all.

233
00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:32,200
Speaker 13: There was also a word that Popeye was killed because

234
00:15:32,240 --> 00:15:36,320
Speaker 13: he was an FBI informant. Well, we checked with the FBI.

235
00:15:36,960 --> 00:15:41,400
Speaker 13: They don't give up their informants, so we hit a

236
00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:46,920
Speaker 13: wall there. To our knowledge, Popeye Jackson was not an informant.

237
00:15:48,840 --> 00:15:52,760
Speaker 3: But Falzan is still not sure. The question over whether

238
00:15:52,880 --> 00:15:56,680
Speaker 3: or not Jackson was an informant would continue to be debated,

239
00:15:57,480 --> 00:16:00,960
Speaker 3: But the public statements on Popeye's murder did not tackle

240
00:16:01,040 --> 00:16:05,480
Speaker 3: a big ethical question. Does a snitch deserve to be executed?

241
00:16:06,760 --> 00:16:09,840
Speaker 3: In the radical underground, it seemed the answer was taken

242
00:16:09,920 --> 00:16:16,200
Speaker 3: for granted. Yes, a code of death for informants seems

243
00:16:16,240 --> 00:16:19,240
Speaker 3: to have a kind of movie logic to it, But

244
00:16:19,320 --> 00:16:23,840
Speaker 3: to Sally Voy's sister Lee Darby, it is almost a farce.

245
00:16:25,560 --> 00:16:28,960
Speaker 14: As it turned out, all their investigation happened on the

246
00:16:29,120 --> 00:16:33,440
Speaker 14: San Francisco and pop By Jackson end of things. He

247
00:16:33,480 --> 00:16:37,840
Speaker 14: was accused of being a snitch. And you know, that

248
00:16:37,920 --> 00:16:39,880
Speaker 14: whole thing is just so ridiculous.

249
00:16:40,680 --> 00:16:41,280
Speaker 15: You could be a.

250
00:16:42,520 --> 00:16:46,800
Speaker 14: Murderer and a rapist and a child molester and hold

251
00:16:46,840 --> 00:16:53,440
Speaker 14: your head high, but a snitch that was grounds for

252
00:16:53,720 --> 00:17:00,080
Speaker 14: immediate assassination. The worst thing in that underworld is to

253
00:17:00,120 --> 00:17:05,520
Speaker 14: be an informant, and they weren't, but that probably led

254
00:17:05,600 --> 00:17:06,479
Speaker 14: to their killing.

255
00:17:11,359 --> 00:17:17,800
Speaker 13: My partner, Dave Toski, his original partner had retired. My

256
00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:22,480
Speaker 13: partner had been promoted to the district attorney lead job

257
00:17:22,520 --> 00:17:28,080
Speaker 13: as the lead investigator. I and Dave were teamed up together.

258
00:17:29,760 --> 00:17:33,199
Speaker 3: If you've seen the movie Zodiac, Dave Tashi is a

259
00:17:33,240 --> 00:17:35,160
Speaker 3: detective played by Mark Ruffalo.

260
00:17:35,920 --> 00:17:38,439
Speaker 14: Were coordinating with the Scoreboard, and we expect to break in.

261
00:17:38,480 --> 00:17:39,240
Speaker 1: The case very soon.

262
00:17:39,359 --> 00:17:42,160
Speaker 9: What do we really got and they can't get anyone

263
00:17:42,160 --> 00:17:42,800
Speaker 9: on the tip line.

264
00:17:42,800 --> 00:17:45,800
Speaker 3: In the early days of the investigation into Popeye's murder,

265
00:17:46,280 --> 00:17:49,760
Speaker 3: Falzan and Tashi struggled to get a foothold on the case.

266
00:17:50,840 --> 00:17:54,840
Speaker 3: On June tenth, Tasha even made the statement that though

267
00:17:54,840 --> 00:17:58,439
Speaker 3: they thought the target was most likely Popeye quote, we

268
00:17:58,520 --> 00:18:02,080
Speaker 3: can't rule out the possibility that maybe miss Voi had

269
00:18:02,119 --> 00:18:04,800
Speaker 3: been involved in something that might make her a target.

270
00:18:06,359 --> 00:18:09,720
Speaker 3: Two days later, it was reported that Falzan and Tashi's

271
00:18:09,720 --> 00:18:13,320
Speaker 3: boss had forbidden any further public comment about the case.

272
00:18:14,200 --> 00:18:16,880
Speaker 3: But the idea that Sally might somehow have been targeted

273
00:18:16,920 --> 00:18:20,680
Speaker 3: by a militant group was disorienting to her grieving family.

274
00:18:22,480 --> 00:18:26,439
Speaker 14: There was just a bunch of them, the New World

275
00:18:26,760 --> 00:18:34,000
Speaker 14: Liberation Front, the people who who had kidnapped Patty Hurst,

276
00:18:34,240 --> 00:18:42,880
Speaker 14: the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Black Panthers, the Aryan Brotherhood.

277
00:18:43,680 --> 00:18:49,399
Speaker 14: All of these groups delivered communic hays about the killings

278
00:18:50,160 --> 00:18:56,000
Speaker 14: that either supported it or condemned it. And we were

279
00:18:56,080 --> 00:19:01,159
Speaker 14: just who are these people? And were trying to hunker

280
00:19:01,240 --> 00:19:04,600
Speaker 14: down at our house, and you know, reporters would call

281
00:19:04,640 --> 00:19:09,160
Speaker 14: and my dad would you know, We were just bewildered.

282
00:19:12,480 --> 00:19:16,919
Speaker 3: Popeye most likely was not an informant. Sally Voy was

283
00:19:17,040 --> 00:19:22,679
Speaker 3: definitely not, but Sarah Jane definitely was. And soon this

284
00:19:22,840 --> 00:19:27,439
Speaker 3: fact was published in a newspaper. On June twentieth, The

285
00:19:27,480 --> 00:19:30,879
Speaker 3: Berkeley bar Ran an article about Sarah Jane's involvement with

286
00:19:30,960 --> 00:19:33,919
Speaker 3: Popeye and her possible role in his death.

287
00:19:34,720 --> 00:19:39,560
Speaker 1: The article began damaging information about Popeye Jackson was leaked

288
00:19:39,560 --> 00:19:42,840
Speaker 1: to numerous movement groups before his death by a woman

289
00:19:42,880 --> 00:19:45,240
Speaker 1: who had worked as an informant for the FBI.

290
00:19:47,320 --> 00:19:50,240
Speaker 3: Sarah Jane was interviewed for the article and sought to

291
00:19:50,280 --> 00:19:52,600
Speaker 3: put the best face on her work with the FBI

292
00:19:52,960 --> 00:19:56,800
Speaker 3: and accusations against Popeye, but it was the most public

293
00:19:56,800 --> 00:20:00,800
Speaker 3: of confessions that she had betrayed the radical Left. She

294
00:20:00,920 --> 00:20:03,679
Speaker 3: confessed that she had been an informant and about the

295
00:20:03,680 --> 00:20:07,240
Speaker 3: information she had distributed in the left about Popeye Jackson.

296
00:20:08,520 --> 00:20:12,200
Speaker 3: In the article, Mark Bramhall of the Vietnam Veterans Against

297
00:20:12,240 --> 00:20:15,760
Speaker 3: the War was quoted as saying we had gotten word

298
00:20:15,880 --> 00:20:20,000
Speaker 3: from many movement groups that she was a pig. He

299
00:20:20,080 --> 00:20:23,800
Speaker 3: also said that the VVAW had voted to expel Sarah

300
00:20:23,840 --> 00:20:28,320
Speaker 3: Jane from their organization. Sarah Jane was becoming more and

301
00:20:28,440 --> 00:20:34,560
Speaker 3: more marginalized by the radical Left. Isolated and desperate, she

302
00:20:34,680 --> 00:20:38,119
Speaker 3: headed into the summer of nineteen seventy five determined to

303
00:20:38,119 --> 00:20:40,119
Speaker 3: show the left that she was not an agent of

304
00:20:40,160 --> 00:20:45,840
Speaker 3: Middle America but one of them. The radical young. After

305
00:20:45,880 --> 00:20:53,560
Speaker 3: the break, it's an indication of the chaos in San

306
00:20:53,600 --> 00:20:58,320
Speaker 3: Francisco in nineteen seventy five that detective Frank Falzand lost

307
00:20:58,359 --> 00:21:03,080
Speaker 3: his partner Dave Tosh because Tashi was too busy investigating

308
00:21:03,119 --> 00:21:06,920
Speaker 3: the high profile Zodiac murderers to help with the Popeye

309
00:21:07,000 --> 00:21:07,800
Speaker 3: Jackson case.

310
00:21:09,119 --> 00:21:12,919
Speaker 13: Dave was also at the time working the Zodiac case

311
00:21:13,400 --> 00:21:17,840
Speaker 13: in San Francisco, so I grabbed Jim Lessart, lead prosecutor

312
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:21,320
Speaker 13: in the DA's office. He and I took this case

313
00:21:21,359 --> 00:21:25,159
Speaker 13: head on. We realize that we're dealing with very violent

314
00:21:25,320 --> 00:21:31,080
Speaker 13: underground groups that had fragmented into many arms and tentacles.

315
00:21:31,400 --> 00:21:33,879
Speaker 13: Group we weren't even aware of turned out to be

316
00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:36,560
Speaker 13: one of the more violent groups, a group called a

317
00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:37,720
Speaker 13: Tribal Thumb.

318
00:21:38,960 --> 00:21:41,280
Speaker 7: One name which police and certain media have linked to

319
00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:44,600
Speaker 7: the Jackson Voice shooting is Earl Satyre, a black man

320
00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:47,119
Speaker 7: who served nineteen years in prison until his release a

321
00:21:47,119 --> 00:21:49,760
Speaker 7: few years ago. Satur has been labeled the leader of

322
00:21:49,760 --> 00:21:52,840
Speaker 7: a clandestine guerrilla group known as the Tribal Thumb, and

323
00:21:52,920 --> 00:21:55,720
Speaker 7: most recently was acquitted of a November nineteen seventy three

324
00:21:55,760 --> 00:21:57,000
Speaker 7: bank robbery in Berkeley.

325
00:21:58,040 --> 00:22:01,879
Speaker 3: Tribal Thumb was another small revolutionary group led by a

326
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:05,880
Speaker 3: charismatic black man who had been involved in prison radicalism.

327
00:22:06,800 --> 00:22:11,600
Speaker 3: In this case, the man's name was Earl Satcher. Satcher

328
00:22:11,760 --> 00:22:15,480
Speaker 3: was a more formidable figure than SLA leader Donald de Friese.

329
00:22:16,119 --> 00:22:19,720
Speaker 3: Defrize had picked up radical ideology in prison, but wasn't

330
00:22:19,720 --> 00:22:25,320
Speaker 3: a leader inside the walls. Sacher, however, was. In nineteen

331
00:22:25,359 --> 00:22:29,719
Speaker 3: seventy one, E. F. Shaver of Houston's underground newspaper Space

332
00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:35,399
Speaker 3: City identified him as SOLIDAD prisons leading black panther. It

333
00:22:35,440 --> 00:22:39,080
Speaker 3: gets a little complicated, but Sacher was released from prison

334
00:22:39,440 --> 00:22:43,000
Speaker 3: and then arrested again in nineteen seventy three in connection

335
00:22:43,119 --> 00:22:46,280
Speaker 3: with the shooting down of a police helicopter in Oakland.

336
00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:49,240
Speaker 3: It was while he was in jail awaiting trial for

337
00:22:49,320 --> 00:22:51,240
Speaker 3: this that he met Rick Riley.

338
00:22:52,359 --> 00:22:55,560
Speaker 16: I met Earl in the Oakland County jail. I was

339
00:22:55,600 --> 00:22:58,480
Speaker 16: there fighting my case and they got him brought him in.

340
00:22:58,520 --> 00:23:00,680
Speaker 15: It was a police helicopter shot.

341
00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:03,160
Speaker 16: Down and some banks had been robbed, so they had

342
00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:05,240
Speaker 16: Earl in on suspicion on all that stuff.

343
00:23:05,359 --> 00:23:09,200
Speaker 15: Right. My name is Rick Riley. I'm known as Sundown.

344
00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:13,719
Speaker 16: I was the leader in the Western phil Media prison

345
00:23:13,760 --> 00:23:15,159
Speaker 16: gang criminal organization.

346
00:23:16,280 --> 00:23:18,200
Speaker 15: I was also a member of Tribal Thumb.

347
00:23:18,280 --> 00:23:22,399
Speaker 16: Prior to that, I was a martial artist and I

348
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:24,400
Speaker 16: used to work out all the time, and Earl loved

349
00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:27,560
Speaker 16: the martial arts. And so that's how we became friends

350
00:23:27,600 --> 00:23:30,240
Speaker 16: because he would want to spar with me, and he

351
00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:32,480
Speaker 16: began talking to me, and he began recruiting me.

352
00:23:33,280 --> 00:23:36,800
Speaker 15: He was a good looking black man, muscular, he had charisma.

353
00:23:37,040 --> 00:23:41,480
Speaker 16: Earl had charisma, man had.

354
00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:42,960
Speaker 15: A smile that was very charismatic.

355
00:23:44,040 --> 00:23:48,200
Speaker 16: Women loved him and guys liked him.

356
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:51,760
Speaker 3: Like many of these small groups, Tribal Thumb started in

357
00:23:51,760 --> 00:23:55,040
Speaker 3: prison and then evolved to a new form when Earl

358
00:23:55,119 --> 00:23:56,359
Speaker 3: Satcher was released.

359
00:23:58,119 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 2: The goals were anarchy.

360
00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:03,880
Speaker 16: Everybody talked about revolution, right, but anybody who had any

361
00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:06,320
Speaker 16: sense realized that in America you were not going to

362
00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:09,600
Speaker 16: have a revolution. The most you could have is anarchy.

363
00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:14,680
Speaker 16: It's like like the elite, they create problems because they

364
00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:17,639
Speaker 16: believe they're out of chaos they get control. You know,

365
00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:21,119
Speaker 16: they'll create a situation and then they'll have the answer

366
00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:22,080
Speaker 16: to that situation.

367
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:24,720
Speaker 2: Right, So out of chaos they get their power.

368
00:24:25,280 --> 00:24:28,920
Speaker 16: They also out of anarchy, the revolutionary groups that were

369
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:30,439
Speaker 16: smart would get their power.

370
00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:34,760
Speaker 3: In the previous episode, we looked at the efforts by

371
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:39,360
Speaker 3: various law enforcement agencies to plan informants in the radical underground.

372
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:43,680
Speaker 3: At the time of Popeye's murder, the FBI had two

373
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:48,840
Speaker 3: informants within Tribal Thumb. Their names were Gary Johnson and

374
00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:52,760
Speaker 3: Walter Handsacker. They were able to help Frank fels On

375
00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 3: break Popeye's murder case.

376
00:24:55,760 --> 00:25:00,399
Speaker 13: This informant, Walter Handsacker, was in possession of the stolen

377
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:03,840
Speaker 13: guns that had been given to him after a hold

378
00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:09,160
Speaker 13: up in Crockett, California, where multiple weapons were stolen. These

379
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:13,680
Speaker 13: guns were now in possession of Walter Handsacker. Jim Lasart myself,

380
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:17,720
Speaker 13: we interviewed Walter and what he told us was quite shocking.

381
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:20,919
Speaker 13: He said that the man he was talking to was

382
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:23,200
Speaker 13: definitely not a black man and was a white man.

383
00:25:24,119 --> 00:25:28,480
Speaker 13: His name was Richard London, also known as Ricardo London.

384
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:32,479
Speaker 13: He brought two guns, in particular to Walt Hansacker and

385
00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:36,000
Speaker 13: wanted Walter to dispose of them. He said one was

386
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 13: extremely hot, and when he said that, he also said,

387
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:43,239
Speaker 13: I'm now a hit man. I did a job with

388
00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 13: this gun. It was the nine millimeter without a barrel.

389
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:51,840
Speaker 13: I remembered early on in the investigation that I booked

390
00:25:51,840 --> 00:25:55,359
Speaker 13: into evidence a barrel from a nine millimeter had to

391
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:59,639
Speaker 13: be a divine intervention because we put that gun together.

392
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:01,159
Speaker 13: Now was the murder weapon.

393
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:05,480
Speaker 3: Ricardo London was a twenty six year old ex cohn.

394
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:09,160
Speaker 3: He'd been a member of Popeye's United Prisoners Union while

395
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:12,040
Speaker 3: he was imprisoned, and then joined Tribal Thomb.

396
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:16,920
Speaker 13: Our prime suspect now was Ricardo London, but we had

397
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:21,760
Speaker 13: witnesses who described a tall, thin black man with a

398
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:26,399
Speaker 13: bushy afro medium dark complexion. Well, as luck would have it,

399
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:32,200
Speaker 13: our suspect, Ricardo London was in custody in Napa, Sonoma

400
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:35,440
Speaker 13: County for another case that he had been arrested for,

401
00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:40,000
Speaker 13: and the detectives there booked into evidence from his club

402
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:46,119
Speaker 13: box theatrical makeup of bushy mustache and a black afro wig.

403
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 13: What we come to find out is he disguised himself

404
00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:52,919
Speaker 13: as a black man the night he did the killing.

405
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:56,960
Speaker 13: So we not only had the murder weapon, we now

406
00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 13: had an eye witness.

407
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:03,639
Speaker 3: Iman was handed down on March thirty first, nineteen seventy six,

408
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:08,239
Speaker 3: about ten months after the killings. The trial made it

409
00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:12,160
Speaker 3: clear that Sally Voy was an innocent bystander. She'd been

410
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:14,480
Speaker 3: in the wrong place at the wrong time.

411
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:20,160
Speaker 14: Even the murderer at his trial said, oh, well, Popeye

412
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:22,800
Speaker 14: was the target and Sally was there, so she had

413
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:28,560
Speaker 14: to go too, so she was collateral damage according to him.

414
00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:33,280
Speaker 3: Ricardo London was convicted in September of nineteen seventy eight

415
00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 3: and sentenced to life in prison.

416
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:38,879
Speaker 16: It just so happens that the person who supposed he

417
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:42,119
Speaker 16: killed Popeye Jackson is a good friend of mine and

418
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:44,640
Speaker 16: he's out trying to live his life now, you know,

419
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:46,000
Speaker 16: and do good.

420
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 2: And I don't want to be saying his name. You can't,

421
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:48,879
Speaker 2: I won't.

422
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:52,879
Speaker 16: He's free finally, and yeah, I wish him the best,

423
00:27:52,920 --> 00:27:56,200
Speaker 16: and so I don't want to talk about him other

424
00:27:56,280 --> 00:27:56,600
Speaker 16: than that.

425
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:02,160
Speaker 3: The motive in this case is still dispute. Rumors circulated

426
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:05,000
Speaker 3: at the time that Popeye had burned tribal thumb in

427
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 3: a drug deal for thousands of dollars. It seems more likely, though,

428
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:13,359
Speaker 3: that it was in reaction to the suspicion that Popeye

429
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 3: was an informant. This suspicion was most likely a product

430
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:21,960
Speaker 3: of both the accusations leveled by Sarah Jane, the NWLF

431
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:25,760
Speaker 3: and others, and two police raids earlier in nineteen seventy

432
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:29,960
Speaker 3: five on Tribal Thumb properties. In April, while trying to

433
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:33,920
Speaker 3: locate Patty Hurst, police and FBI agents raided a home

434
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 3: in Menlo Park and found materials and plans for making

435
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:41,720
Speaker 3: pipe bombs, along with radical literature, some of it from

436
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:45,920
Speaker 3: Tribal Thumb. The next month, raids were conducted on a

437
00:28:45,960 --> 00:28:49,680
Speaker 3: house in Los Gatos and one in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

438
00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 3: Weapons and drugs were seized, and three people were arrested.

439
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:58,160
Speaker 3: In Los Gatos. One of the three was Earl Satcher.

440
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:03,240
Speaker 3: He was released soon after. Eyewitnesses claim to have seen

441
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:06,880
Speaker 3: Popeye at the scene of the Los Gatos raid. Police

442
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 3: disputed this. I want to be clear about the timeline here.

443
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 3: Ricardo London was charged with Popeye and Sally Void's murders

444
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:19,480
Speaker 3: in March of nineteen seventy six, six months after Sarah

445
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 3: Jane's assassination attempt, and wasn't convicted until September nineteen seventy eight.

446
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 3: At the time of her attempt, the culprit and reasons

447
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 3: behind Popeye's death were still unknown.

448
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 6: One hundred and five days separated Popeye's murder on June eighth,

449
00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 6: and Sarah Jane's attempt on Ford on September twenty second.

450
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:47,600
Speaker 6: Our knowledge of Sarah Jane's activities during this time is sketchy.

451
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:50,680
Speaker 6: She was certainly concerned with the way she was perceived

452
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:53,640
Speaker 6: by people on the left, if she had had some

453
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:56,360
Speaker 6: sense of the danger of being an identified and former

454
00:29:56,440 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 6: before Popeye's murder left no more doubt. Sarah Jane was

455
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:04,480
Speaker 6: in fear for her life and took steps she thought

456
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 6: would convince the left that she was one of them.

457
00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 6: She wrote a letter published by the Berkeley Barb on

458
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 6: July fourth, trying to walk back some of the allegations

459
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:16,120
Speaker 6: in the June twentieth article that revealed her to be

460
00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:20,480
Speaker 6: an informant. She conceded that she had been an informant,

461
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 6: but disputed that she had widely shared her allegations about Popeye.

462
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:28,040
Speaker 6: Her letter was couched in the language of the radical left.

463
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:31,560
Speaker 6: It was sandwiched on the page between two letters from

464
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 6: the Vietnam Veterans Against the War that accused Sarah Jane

465
00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 6: of continuing to serve as an informer and criticizing the

466
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 6: Barb for giving her a platform where the VVAW had

467
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:48,080
Speaker 6: decisively turned against Sarah Jane. Tribal Thumb of all groups,

468
00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:52,240
Speaker 6: seemed to welcome her into their midst. Her association with

469
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 6: them was, to put it mildly strange. How could Sarah

470
00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 6: Jane feel safe with them when they were prime suspects

471
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:02,680
Speaker 6: and the murder of her former mentor, and given the

472
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:05,720
Speaker 6: rumor swirling that Popeye was killed because he was a snitch,

473
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 6: it seems that she would have kept her distance, but

474
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:13,520
Speaker 6: she didn't. She is known to have spent at least

475
00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 6: a couple of days that summer taking shooting practice at

476
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:19,280
Speaker 6: a Tribal Thumb property in rural Mendocino County north of

477
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:23,080
Speaker 6: San Francisco. During the two weeks leading up to September

478
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 6: twenty second, she also seems to have taken on a roommate,

479
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 6: a blond woman alleged to be connected to Tribal Thumb.

480
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 6: This roommate's identity has never been confirmed, and it is

481
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:36,560
Speaker 6: not clear whether she had any influence on Sarah Jane's

482
00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 6: actions during that time. Sarah Jane also continued to hound

483
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:45,520
Speaker 6: journalists trying to get her story. Told Here's Carol Pogash,

484
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:48,800
Speaker 6: who was working at the Hurst owned San Francisco Chronicle

485
00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 6: in nineteen seventy five.

486
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:54,720
Speaker 5: She would call the house maybe at seven in the morning,

487
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:59,240
Speaker 5: or at midnight, or many times during a day, and

488
00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:04,959
Speaker 5: I I'm sure I brushed her off, but I'm surprised

489
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 5: that I didn't simply say stop, you're dominating my life

490
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:12,640
Speaker 5: and you can't be doing that. I think at the

491
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:16,040
Speaker 5: time I wrote that if Sarah Jane Moore was chummy

492
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:19,080
Speaker 5: with you, she made your life miserable. Things that she

493
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 5: told me, I don't know if they were true or not.

494
00:32:22,520 --> 00:32:26,840
Speaker 6: Another journalist who Sarah Jane badgered was Ellen Hume, and

495
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 6: while Carol found Sarah Jane to be nothing more than

496
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 6: a nuisance, Ellen thought she was interesting and eccentric. She

497
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:36,960
Speaker 6: had initially hoped that Sarah Jane might help her find

498
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 6: Patty Hurst. That didn't happen, but Ellen and a colleague

499
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 6: were writing a series of articles for the Ellie Times

500
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:46,280
Speaker 6: about the current state of the radical movement, and Ellen

501
00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 6: thought that Sarah Jane could be a small part of

502
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:48,880
Speaker 6: that story.

503
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 11: She didn't produce Patty Hurst, but she produced such a

504
00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:57,160
Speaker 11: fascinating set of stories about herself that I decided to

505
00:32:57,200 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 11: write a little profile of her to go along with

506
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:04,520
Speaker 11: the whole story about where is the SLA Today?

507
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:06,840
Speaker 9: A year out what's happening with that and how do

508
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:09,320
Speaker 9: they fit into the radical movements of the sixties. That

509
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:12,480
Speaker 9: was really my new assignment. And she kept calling me

510
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:16,320
Speaker 9: chatty self, you know, constantly dishing, and so.

511
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:17,880
Speaker 11: I drafted my little sidebar.

512
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 9: It wasn't a main story, and it was going to

513
00:33:20,400 --> 00:33:22,920
Speaker 9: go in this huge series that Narda Zequino and I

514
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:27,480
Speaker 9: were preparing about the SLA And during that one of

515
00:33:27,520 --> 00:33:30,280
Speaker 9: those chatty calls, as I drafted my profile for her,

516
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 9: she flew down to La on the La Times this

517
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 9: money to have her picture taken. She came to our

518
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:37,320
Speaker 9: city room and had her picture taken.

519
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:37,960
Speaker 2: For the profile.

520
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:41,160
Speaker 9: So this was definitely in the works. And then she

521
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 9: confessed to me why she was so interested in my story,

522
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:49,080
Speaker 9: and it's because she had been an informant for the FBI.

523
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 2: I didn't know that.

524
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:54,080
Speaker 9: That also explained why she was so freaked out when

525
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:57,600
Speaker 9: Popeye got murdered and someone from the Tribal Thumb group

526
00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:01,640
Speaker 9: was later convicted of having murdered him. She had reason

527
00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:04,400
Speaker 9: to be worried about people on the left taking it

528
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:08,440
Speaker 9: badly that she had been informing on them. She expected

529
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 9: that my story in the La Times, explaining that she

530
00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:16,799
Speaker 9: converted to the radical cause. She had spoken, you know,

531
00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 9: as an informant to the FBI, but her real heart

532
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:23,640
Speaker 9: now had converted. She expected that would save her life.

533
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:27,400
Speaker 9: I didn't understand the extent to which she was hanging

534
00:34:27,440 --> 00:34:31,480
Speaker 9: on that and waiting for that. So the story I

535
00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:33,839
Speaker 9: drafted it, and I just took what she had told

536
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:36,480
Speaker 9: me about herself. She was just a colorful sidebar, and

537
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 9: it wasn't ready to go on the paper.

538
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:43,520
Speaker 6: Sarah Jane felt increasingly in danger. In early September, she

539
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 6: bought a gun. She did not buy it from a store,

540
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 6: which required a five day waiting period, and reported the

541
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:53,960
Speaker 6: sale to the state of California. Instead, she went back

542
00:34:53,960 --> 00:34:57,600
Speaker 6: to Danville, where she had lived before moving to San Francisco.

543
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:01,959
Speaker 6: She called Danville birch Kun because of what she saw

544
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:05,920
Speaker 6: as the influence of the John Birch Society there. The

545
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 6: John Birch Society is a right wing anti communist, conspiracy

546
00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:14,520
Speaker 6: minded organization named after an Air Force intelligence officer who

547
00:35:14,560 --> 00:35:17,080
Speaker 6: they believed to be the first casualty of the Cold War.

548
00:35:18,719 --> 00:35:23,560
Speaker 6: Among other claims, they asserted that President Eisenhower was a dedicated,

549
00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:27,680
Speaker 6: conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy. In the US In

550
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 6: the mid seventies, they had ninety thousand members. Sarah Jane

551
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 6: knew Bircher's and Danville and was introduced to a prominent

552
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:41,759
Speaker 6: member named Mark Fernwood. Fernwood was twenty six, thin, embalding,

553
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:46,279
Speaker 6: and a self proclaimed dedicated anti communist. He made and

554
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:50,319
Speaker 6: sold replicas of nineteenth century guns. He also bought and

555
00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 6: sold modern firearms from his house. Fernwood later remarked that

556
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:58,120
Speaker 6: Sarah Jane was bright, cheerful, and even gave me tips

557
00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:01,360
Speaker 6: and how to decorate my home. He noticed that she

558
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 6: was wearing a United farm Worker symbol on her belt.

559
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:08,080
Speaker 6: He believed that the UfW was a communist organization and

560
00:36:08,120 --> 00:36:13,160
Speaker 6: asked her about it. She declined to explain Otherwise, Fernwood

561
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:17,279
Speaker 6: thought she was conservatively dressed. He wanted to be sure

562
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:19,719
Speaker 6: she knew how to shoot, so he took her to

563
00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 6: a gun range. Sarah Jane impressed him with her shooting skills,

564
00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:25,840
Speaker 6: and he agreed to sell her a forty four and ammunition.

565
00:36:26,760 --> 00:36:30,120
Speaker 6: The total came to one hundred thirty two dollars. For

566
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 6: some reason, she did not pay him that day. Instead,

567
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:37,120
Speaker 6: she would return two weeks later with a check and

568
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:41,560
Speaker 6: an undercover atf Agent. The day after that, she would

569
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:45,719
Speaker 6: again visit Mark Fernwood and then drive to San Francisco

570
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 6: to kill the president next time on Rip Current.

571
00:37:14,880 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 1: Rip Current was created and written by Toby Ball and

572
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:21,560
Speaker 1: developed with Alexander Williams. Hosted by Toby Ball with Mary

573
00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:25,799
Speaker 1: Katherine Garrison. Original music by Jeff Sanoff, Show art by

574
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 1: Jeff Niyaz Goda and Charles Rudder. The producers Jesse Funk,

575
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:34,920
Speaker 1: Rema O'Kelly and Nolams Griffin. Supervising producer Trilie Young, Executive

576
00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:39,319
Speaker 1: producers Alexander Williams and Matt Frederick Hear. Episodes of Rip

577
00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:43,400
Speaker 1: Current early completely add free and receive exclusive bonus content

578
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:48,080
Speaker 1: by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts.

579
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:53,319
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

580
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:56,719
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows, and visit

581
00:37:56,719 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 1: our website ripcurrentpod dot com