Speaker 1: This is investigator Dave tell Us with the Alaska State Troopers.
Speaker 1: Today's date is November eight. We're in Tucson, Arizona, at
Speaker 1: the Pima County Jail. I'm a detective Mike Grimes from
Speaker 1: the Anchorage Police Department and Detective Tom Davis with the
Speaker 1: Arizona Department of Public Safety of the Organized Crime Branch.
Speaker 1: And we're gonna be talking to an inmate by the
Speaker 1: name of Jerry IM Paisley. The time now is nine.
Speaker 1: From my Heart Media, this is Missing in Alaska, the
Speaker 1: story of two congressmen who vanished in ninety two and
Speaker 1: my quest to figure out what happened to them. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, John Wallzack. What you just heard and what
Speaker 1: you're about to hear is a recreation of an interview
Speaker 1: of Jerry Max Paisley conducted by three investigators Mike Grimes,
Speaker 1: Tom Davis, and Dave Tullis on November eight in Tucson, Arizona.
Speaker 1: Paisley again was the man Peggy Begett married less than
Speaker 1: seventeen months after her husband, Congressman Nick Beggett, disappeared in Alaska.
Speaker 1: Paisley and Peggy's marriage lasted two and a half years.
Speaker 1: They divorced in nineteen seventy six. Paisley was a murderer
Speaker 1: and bomber with close ties to to mafia families, the
Speaker 1: Bananas and the look of Olie's. Initially, I obtained a
Speaker 1: transcript of this interview from the FBI by way of
Speaker 1: a FOYA or Freedom of Information Act request, but there
Speaker 1: was one big problem. Significant parts of the transcript were adapted,
Speaker 1: meaning they were blacked out. I could read some things,
Speaker 1: but not everything. So last year I tried a different approach.
Speaker 1: I filed the record's request with the Alaska Department of
Speaker 1: Public Safety, trying to get copies of the original interview tapes.
Speaker 1: For months, I fought with the Alaska DPS, and let
Speaker 1: me say, in more than a decade of requesting records
Speaker 1: at the federal, state and local levels, I've never encountered
Speaker 1: a more difficult, obstinate, hard to work with agency than
Speaker 1: the Alaska DPS. Was tried to charge us almost two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars just to look and see whether or not
Speaker 1: the tapes even exist. Thankfully, though, I got a huge
Speaker 1: break when a source who wants to remain anonymous, gave
Speaker 1: me a full, unredacted copy of the transcript. Thanks to
Speaker 1: that source, I now know everything, Jerry Paisley told investigators.
Speaker 1: What you're about to hear is a verbatim reading of
Speaker 1: part of the transcript. We're not sharing the entire thing,
Speaker 1: mainly because it's seventy one pages long, but this is
Speaker 1: the most important part. It's never been shared publicly. It's
Speaker 1: edited very lightly for clarity, mainly to remove ums. For example,
Speaker 1: we also bleat the N word, which Paisley said twice
Speaker 1: during this recreation. You'll hear certain sound effects. We put
Speaker 1: them in there to indicate parts of the transcript that
Speaker 1: are marked with inaudible or comments covered. Again, this is
Speaker 1: an exact reading of the transcript. The first words you'll
Speaker 1: hear are Paisley's voiced by Scott Sea leads. I don't
Speaker 1: know why things went the way they did. Sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: I was just pretty much I'm what they call in
Speaker 1: those days. There's two eras in my life. There's there's
Speaker 1: two parts of my life. There's before drugs and after drugs.
Speaker 1: Before drugs, I was just basically a fucking thuck known
Speaker 1: as a do things guy. If you wanted something done,
Speaker 1: you came to see me. If it was right for me,
Speaker 1: I do it for you, sometimes without money. Sometimes I
Speaker 1: charge you know, why wait for a favorite later? You
Speaker 1: owe me, you know. And I did a lot of
Speaker 1: that down here. I think my record shows that because
Speaker 1: I've had this, not this conversation, but I've had conversations
Speaker 1: with people that he knows are in and out of
Speaker 1: the game, been retired for years, and we can go
Speaker 1: back in the records and see that I'm a I
Speaker 1: was a do things guy for some pretty big people
Speaker 1: at one time. You know, big people wanted me to
Speaker 1: do things for them. Sometimes I was taking advantage of
Speaker 1: Sometimes I took advantage. And I don't know why things
Speaker 1: sometimes I don't know. I can't put it all together.
Speaker 1: I just know what happened and walked away, you know.
Speaker 1: Hail Boggs and Nick Baggage. Hail Boggs was a god
Speaker 1: big man. He was Speaker of the House, Speaker of
Speaker 1: the House and just been into it with the FBI
Speaker 1: and all that ship. He'd been harassing the FBI pretty bad,
Speaker 1: doing something against him. I don't know what, but I
Speaker 1: remembered it was something to do with him in the fens.
Speaker 1: There's a guy here in town called Joey A Tarola.
Speaker 1: You know, you know him. They call him Joey the
Speaker 1: Eye mafiosa from Chicago. You know. He's Nicki Palermo's cousin.
Speaker 1: He's on the outs with him now. And he was
Speaker 1: with the Bananos. A lot of people don't know that.
Speaker 1: A lot of people suspect that. A lot of people
Speaker 1: think that. But he was just he was JB's guy
Speaker 1: in town, old man Banano. You know. Yeah, Tom's already
Speaker 1: told us, you know, given us a history about. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He came to me one time and I'm hanging out
Speaker 1: at the Trail, Spanish Trail, and you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you this, but but I'm just all right. I
Speaker 1: don't think we can go anywhere with it, you know.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna say this. If we do decide to
Speaker 1: go someplace with it, you guys gotta give me a hand, Okay,
Speaker 1: huh okay, don't throw me out there. Then no fucking
Speaker 1: wolves or nothing. But I don't see how we can
Speaker 1: possibly go anywhere with it. He came to me and
Speaker 1: I'm at the Trail, the Spanish Trail motel, one of
Speaker 1: the biggest at the time, one of the biggest in town.
Speaker 1: People friends of mine own it. They were half asked
Speaker 1: Louis Marconi and his dad. I pretty much had the
Speaker 1: run of the place. If he wanted a room to
Speaker 1: spend the night, I wanted to bring abroad. Come and
Speaker 1: see me. Is a key for you? Just do your
Speaker 1: favorite the bar tab I could drink all I want,
Speaker 1: eat all I want. I was there. Guy Joey came
Speaker 1: to me and asked me if I could get him
Speaker 1: a room for one night, you know, for a friend
Speaker 1: of his who favorite for the old man is what
Speaker 1: he said, No problem, man, you know I got him
Speaker 1: a room. He said, I'll meet you down here tomorrow afternoon.
Speaker 1: So the next afternoon he met me. I gave him
Speaker 1: a key to the room. He said, take a ride
Speaker 1: with me to the airport. We drove to the airport. Well,
Speaker 1: I hate to sell you all this ship, but I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna tell you. Okay. He goes inside the airport.
Speaker 1: I sit out in the car. He came out with
Speaker 1: Peggy Baggage. We got in the car. He introduced her
Speaker 1: to me as Margaret. We went back to the hotel,
Speaker 1: took her to a room. What year would this have been,
Speaker 1: This would have been seventy two summer, all right. We
Speaker 1: went back to the hotel. I gave her the key
Speaker 1: to the room, took her bag. She had just one bag.
Speaker 1: Went in there. Joey left. I left. I had my
Speaker 1: room there. It was up the way. Joey says to
Speaker 1: me before he leaves, he said, why don't you have
Speaker 1: dinner with us tonight? I said, sure, you know, he says,
Speaker 1: pick her up at eight o'clock, come to the Conti Qui.
Speaker 1: It's a Pollinesian showing here in town. I called her
Speaker 1: about seven thirty. I said, I'm supposed to pick you up.
Speaker 1: Be about of banking. I'll be ready. So I go
Speaker 1: and pick her up. We drive to the Cantiqui. We
Speaker 1: went in there there's Joey the Eye and Joe Panano.
Speaker 1: I went to the table. We went to the table,
Speaker 1: the four of us. We sat there, We ate, we ordered,
Speaker 1: we ate. Now, Joe Banano was not my buddy. He's
Speaker 1: not a type of guy hang around with nothing. But
Speaker 1: I knew the old man. I knew him from his son,
Speaker 1: Joey Jr. I took his wife, Faye one time when
Speaker 1: she was here in two sons. Give you a little
Speaker 1: background here. And she had to go to California to
Speaker 1: San Francisco to her daughter's house, which was Katherine Genevise,
Speaker 1: and he asked me, he sent word for me to
Speaker 1: pick up his wife, take her and drive her to
Speaker 1: San Francisco, which was sort of like, you know how
Speaker 1: those daggos are. I mean, you don't just they don't
Speaker 1: throw anybody in their car with their wives, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, especially you know, mother and children. So
Speaker 1: I'm the one that took faith to San Francisco, to
Speaker 1: Genevese's house. Anyway, he's there and he gives me that
Speaker 1: old bullshit that he always does. Oh, you're a good boy.
Speaker 1: You're a good boy. You're my boy, joe You looked
Speaker 1: up for my boy, Joey. He gives me all that ship.
Speaker 1: We had dinner there and we ate. After dinner, Joey
Speaker 1: the eye gives me the sign he wants to talk
Speaker 1: to me, so we go to the bar. I leave
Speaker 1: the two of them alone. We went to the bar.
Speaker 1: We had a few drinks, me and him sitting there,
Speaker 1: you know, and basically I could I sensed right away
Speaker 1: what it was. It was just to get me away
Speaker 1: from the table. He didn't say that, you know, but
Speaker 1: I didn't question him, you know, you know what time
Speaker 1: it is in cases like that. And we went back
Speaker 1: to the table after a while, and that was it.
Speaker 1: They left. I took her. We went to the Barons,
Speaker 1: which was a bar here in town, did a little dancing,
Speaker 1: a little drinking, ship like that, and that's how I
Speaker 1: met her. I got friendly with her about two weeks after.
Speaker 1: When I say two weeks three weeks after that, Joey
Speaker 1: the Eye came to me and says, you want to
Speaker 1: take a trip, okay, for the old man? For us,
Speaker 1: he said, for us? So I said sure. I said
Speaker 1: all right. He says, meet me down here. He gave
Speaker 1: me a certain time to meet him. He says, don't
Speaker 1: pack a bag. He says, just bring us suit travel
Speaker 1: travel light because you're gonna be going one night. May
Speaker 1: be too peca. He was explicit about this, for me,
Speaker 1: not to bring a suitcase, bring us suit bag. So
Speaker 1: I took just a soup bag with a couple pairs
Speaker 1: of underwear and there pairs of socks, a change of
Speaker 1: one change. He picked me up, he drove me to
Speaker 1: the airport. He's got a one way ticket to Alaska.
Speaker 1: I've never been to Alaska, he says. Gene foul is
Speaker 1: going to meet you at the airport. Okay, Now I
Speaker 1: knew he knew Fouler because you know, Fouler used to
Speaker 1: come to Justice Court all the time. He was hanging
Speaker 1: out over there at the time, and everybody like that.
Speaker 1: I've never seen old name Banano never came in there
Speaker 1: to my knowledge. Okay. I got on the plane. Oh,
Speaker 1: when he drove up there, he gave me the suitcase
Speaker 1: and the key to it. He said, here, don't even
Speaker 1: open this funck and just take it to Fowler. He'll
Speaker 1: meet you at the airport. Fouler meets me at the
Speaker 1: airport when I get off the plane to Alaska. I've
Speaker 1: never been there before. Danny's even itches with him, and
Speaker 1: he went to some fucking It wasn't a hotel. It's
Speaker 1: like an apartment. That's where I spent the night. And
Speaker 1: I gave him a suitcase. Now that's all I know.
Speaker 1: Later on, Danny tells me when I get back there,
Speaker 1: I went back. This must have been I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: September seventy two. I went back April seventy three, and
Speaker 1: me and Zivinage got real tight. Okay. I hung out
Speaker 1: with Jean for a little while there at Chef's in
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, Me and Zivinage got real tight.
Speaker 1: Zivinache told me later that it was a fucking bomb
Speaker 1: and a high high tech bomb, you know, m hmm. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't know if he was just bullshit me. When
Speaker 1: did that plane go down? You know, when did it
Speaker 1: go down? It went down in October seventy two. I
Speaker 1: don't know who put it on there. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I was being bullshitted, if
Speaker 1: I was being lied to. I sort of feel like
Speaker 1: I was being told the truth. Well, when did I
Speaker 1: know that Peggy and Zivinitch we're half and I'm not
Speaker 1: saying Peggy even had this done? You know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know what what what the fucking story was there?
Speaker 1: You know? I know that it was something I wanted
Speaker 1: to I wanted to know, but I didn't want to
Speaker 1: delve too much off into it. But it was Now,
Speaker 1: who was it that told you that this high tech bomb?
Speaker 1: Was that Gene Fowler that told you that? Or that
Speaker 1: was Danny's Vinache, Danny Zvinach, my partner. See see, I
Speaker 1: never heard of him in years. I have no idea
Speaker 1: where he's even at He's real low pro he's real
Speaker 1: low profile. He didn't get into the drugs with us,
Speaker 1: He stayed out of the trucks. Do you know where
Speaker 1: he's at now or anything? Danny's ivanach. I heard he's
Speaker 1: an anchorage, still an anchorage, or I here owns a
Speaker 1: bar out there. But I don't know for sure. I
Speaker 1: know that me, him and Peggy went into business together,
Speaker 1: and she'd give him the she'd give us the money
Speaker 1: to open that joint. What do I think my own
Speaker 1: personal opinion, I don't know. I don't know. I know
Speaker 1: that these people got tentacles that can reach all over
Speaker 1: the country. Sometimes, I mean, that would be so fucking heavy.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's like killing the president for christ you know. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: if it's even true. Yeah, And now a quick ad break,
Speaker 1: and now we're back with more of the transcript. I
Speaker 1: do know this. I know I kept the suitcase. I
Speaker 1: know I had the key, and I never opened it.
Speaker 1: In fact, I never even I just carried it to
Speaker 1: the counter. They took it when I got off the baggage,
Speaker 1: picked it up in Gean Fowler took the fucking bag,
Speaker 1: you know. So I never opened it, but I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have done that anyway. I didn't know what was in it.
Speaker 1: I knew it wasn't drugs, though, Well, where where did
Speaker 1: I mean, this first meeting down here is the first
Speaker 1: time you ever met Peggy? Right? Yeah? Where did you
Speaker 1: meet these other people at? I mean, did she know
Speaker 1: the criminal you never heard? Or how long they've known her?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I really don't know, you know, and
Speaker 1: I you know, I tried to ask her, and she
Speaker 1: was sort of secretive about that, you know. I mean
Speaker 1: because during that time her husband was then a congressman,
Speaker 1: you know, and you know what, you just sort of
Speaker 1: expect them to travel in a different circle, and I
Speaker 1: was wondering where she would have met all these people at. Well, see,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. Let me say something to you about that.
Speaker 1: You say, different circles. The fucking deacon, see, anybody's was
Speaker 1: with them down there? You know. The head of the
Speaker 1: FBI for the Anchorage area name was Jay Daley. He
Speaker 1: was at my house for parties and ship like that
Speaker 1: after I married her. You know, even the chief police
Speaker 1: whatever his name was at the time, flying again at
Speaker 1: that time, I can't remember what his name was. But
Speaker 1: we go to banquets and ship and we'd sit at
Speaker 1: his table. He'd sit with us and try and remember
Speaker 1: I can't think of his name, you know, It's just
Speaker 1: one of those things. Uh. They were around there, Pat Brown,
Speaker 1: you know, he came to town, he'd come to the house.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, I know what you're saying. I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, when did you get back after
Speaker 1: you got back to Anchorage, when did you get back
Speaker 1: together with her? When when did you see her again?
Speaker 1: I went back up in April when I was working
Speaker 1: at the holiday in and she came to town. She
Speaker 1: checked into the holiday and she was staying there. See,
Speaker 1: and I've worked my shift. I was working the day shift,
Speaker 1: I think at that time. And me and her go
Speaker 1: honky tonk and at night and one thing leads to another,
Speaker 1: and you know, well we got married and she says,
Speaker 1: what do you want to do? I want to have
Speaker 1: me a bar, you know, And we were hanging out
Speaker 1: with Danny a little bit, you know. Danny came in
Speaker 1: with us. So the three of us bought that bar.
Speaker 1: I came down here and bought a house, bought a
Speaker 1: brand new house out here at the end of Speedway five.
Speaker 1: Acres of land paid seventy five thousand for it in
Speaker 1: those days, grand cash down. Yeah, I'd imagine she got
Speaker 1: quite a quite an insurance settlement she got. She got
Speaker 1: fucking he had double indemnity on the apartments. Is that right?
Speaker 1: Am I saying that right? Double indemnity accidental death benefit
Speaker 1: type thing. Yeah, you get paid twice, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, depending on what the policy you got and
Speaker 1: the mortgage. The apartments were paid off free and clear.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Did they blow him up? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Did JB have him blown up? I don't know. I
Speaker 1: know I took a fucking package up there and they
Speaker 1: said it was a bomb, Danny did They might have
Speaker 1: been bullshit me? What kind of bag was it they
Speaker 1: took up there? It wasn't. It was a suitcase, a suitcase, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't a big one. Mm hmm. And that's
Speaker 1: all like hard suitcase or a soft suitcase. Looked like
Speaker 1: it was soft. I mean, you know, if I pressed
Speaker 1: on it, could I have felt something in their fabric
Speaker 1: side or was it plastic hard side? I think it
Speaker 1: was cloth. It was leather. I think it was hard leather.
Speaker 1: I just started pressing on him now this would have
Speaker 1: been you went up there that How many months were you?
Speaker 1: I mean that plane went down November? Was it November,
Speaker 1: October or October? I'm not sure, I can't remember. I
Speaker 1: know it was early winner fall. You went up there?
Speaker 1: Wind was that during the summer or something? Or I
Speaker 1: went up there? Must have been September September, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: it must have been September because I I was hanging
Speaker 1: out at the trail then you know enjoy the eyes,
Speaker 1: the one that gave you the bag. Yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 1: that would have been probably late October, early November, because
Speaker 1: when the plane went down, well, because his purpose for
Speaker 1: being up there was to help the Biggitch campaign for
Speaker 1: re election, I believe. Yeah. Now later on I was
Speaker 1: down here when he went down, and we were all
Speaker 1: in the office over there on Broadway. A matter of fact,
Speaker 1: it was Walter Prito's office, remember Pritto, But he had
Speaker 1: an office over there on speed on Broadway and country Club,
Speaker 1: right across from the Austin Sandwich shop upstairs in the
Speaker 1: Coldwell bankup building. They had a big sign on it,
Speaker 1: and we're all in there, me, Louis mcconi, him, somebody else.
Speaker 1: I can't think of a couple more guys, and they
Speaker 1: were talking about bogs and the plane going down, and
Speaker 1: it was Pritto that said something about, well the funk
Speaker 1: funk with the FBI or something like that. They probably
Speaker 1: blew them up or something like that. That's what asshole
Speaker 1: pre O said, you know. So he's the one that
Speaker 1: brought up that ship about blown him up. You know, now,
Speaker 1: were they blown up? Nobody knows if they were blown
Speaker 1: up there because they never found it. Not a trace,
Speaker 1: not a trace of the fucking thing. I thought about it, well,
Speaker 1: you know how the country is up there though, I mean, well, yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: you know, And I thought about it, and like when
Speaker 1: Danny was talking to me. See Danny was drunk, you know,
Speaker 1: you know how guys are when they get drunk, you
Speaker 1: know how they start their whiskey, start your running off.
Speaker 1: And he was talking about being a high tech fucker
Speaker 1: and just how high tech was it, you know, And
Speaker 1: not only that, I thought about this later. You know,
Speaker 1: From what I understand, the plane was a spur of
Speaker 1: the moment plan. Yeah I don't recall, did you did
Speaker 1: you enough of it? From what I understand, they were
Speaker 1: gonna fly commercial to Juno. I know it was a
Speaker 1: charter right, they were gonna fly commercial to Juneo and
Speaker 1: the flights that night, so all at once they jumped
Speaker 1: up and said, well, let's chatter a plane. So you know,
Speaker 1: just how if if they they would have had a bomb,
Speaker 1: how do they know they're going to try to a plane,
Speaker 1: you know? And how do they and how do they
Speaker 1: get it on there afterwards? Yeah? You know what I mean? Sure,
Speaker 1: See unless it was made for a car and they
Speaker 1: were going to put it up under a car somewhere
Speaker 1: and said well fuck it, let's get the plane. Well
Speaker 1: how do those people know that? See, that's where the
Speaker 1: mystery comes in from me, you know, yeah, because they
Speaker 1: don't know nothing about that. Yeah, you know what, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I remember when it went down, but I
Speaker 1: just don't know enough about the details about it. You know.
Speaker 1: She she ran around on him a lot, you know
Speaker 1: that she had her. Yeah that wasn't Shelly, was it? Now?
Speaker 1: She had her an Air Force pilot from was it
Speaker 1: Elmendorf Air Force Base? That's where he was out of See,
Speaker 1: I've heard that a year or two before he was killed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she had her. She was screwing around. She had a
Speaker 1: black a black man, and Nick knew it. Nick went
Speaker 1: to Jesse Car and cried like a baby and said, hey,
Speaker 1: she told me that he's coming to Washington with us,
Speaker 1: you know. And I guess he did go somehow or
Speaker 1: other he got transferred down there or something, you know,
Speaker 1: And Nick said he couldn't do nothing about it. I
Speaker 1: never off into that with her. Peggy never did say
Speaker 1: anything about that plane going down. I stayed away from
Speaker 1: over there. The only time we ever talked about it.
Speaker 1: Trying to think now, No, she didn't talk about it.
Speaker 1: She never talked about it. The only thing she mentioned
Speaker 1: about that plane was that the president called her, who
Speaker 1: wasn't Nixon at the time. Nixon called her and told
Speaker 1: her that he's sending some kind of special plane to
Speaker 1: try and find it. And she stayed away from all that.
Speaker 1: She used to get mail from nuts telling her that
Speaker 1: they knew where he was and all this. You know,
Speaker 1: what have you since you you got a divorce from her?
Speaker 1: What year seventy seven? Have you had any comment with
Speaker 1: her at all or corresponded with her? None at all? Well,
Speaker 1: I backed out of that. I backed out of that deal. Zeven.
Speaker 1: That showed me some money. I got my money from him,
Speaker 1: and I just backed away from that whole deal up there.
Speaker 1: You know. You see, there's a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of pieces to that puzzle that will never be able
Speaker 1: to put together, you know. Now, I was out of
Speaker 1: a target range once, not a target, yeah, at the
Speaker 1: target range down there on the way to Seward shooting
Speaker 1: range out Dupotters. I was down there shooting one day,
Speaker 1: me and Lance and south Spinelli, and we looked up
Speaker 1: on the hill and Lance come up to me and
Speaker 1: he says, there's a Volkswagen up there. Guy is watching us.
Speaker 1: A few minutes later, I glanced up there and I
Speaker 1: could see the guy up there watching us. So we
Speaker 1: got in my car when we got through shooting, and
Speaker 1: we took off, and sure enough, as we drove by
Speaker 1: the place he was parked, he waited and he got
Speaker 1: out and he cold trick on us, and he's way
Speaker 1: back behind us. So I pulled into a little store
Speaker 1: and he stopped. So finally I got him into town
Speaker 1: and I pulled into a shopping center, and sure enough,
Speaker 1: he's in traffic. You know, he got up a little
Speaker 1: closer and he followed me in a shopping center. So
Speaker 1: I turned around real quick and I pulled up right
Speaker 1: alongside him to check him out, and he ducked down
Speaker 1: and he had a beard on him, sucking some I
Speaker 1: got his license plate number. So we went back to
Speaker 1: the bar and I called the Department of Motor Vehicles
Speaker 1: and I said, got a car parked here, a little story.
Speaker 1: I want to get it towed away. Can you tell
Speaker 1: me who owns it? And they give it and I
Speaker 1: called the guy and I says, hey, who are you?
Speaker 1: Why are you trailing me? And he was a newspaper
Speaker 1: reporter and he says, I've got to come down and
Speaker 1: talk to you. And he came down to the bar.
Speaker 1: He had he had a fake beard on and he says, well,
Speaker 1: I heard that Peggy was tied up with the mafia.
Speaker 1: He says, uh, I was just trying to get a story, man,
Speaker 1: and he says, da da da and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And then it started hitting up there that she was
Speaker 1: tied up with the mafia. Were you up there, we're
Speaker 1: up there? You remember that, yep, that she was tied
Speaker 1: up with the mob. And well, the reason, I mean,
Speaker 1: the reason that you know it got to becommon knowledge
Speaker 1: how you guys got married. You were playing a roll
Speaker 1: up there too. You know that you were tied in
Speaker 1: with the family down you know, in Arizona. I mean,
Speaker 1: tell everybody, Oh yeah, that speculation was out there. Peggy
Speaker 1: Biggatte tied up at the mob and then you know
Speaker 1: the and the trip to Arizona and uh and that's
Speaker 1: the end of side A. We're going to pause here
Speaker 1: again for a quick ad break. We're back with more
Speaker 1: of the transcript. We're on side B of tape two.
Speaker 1: Time now is thirteen fifty four. I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you how she was. She was very cagy along these lines.
Speaker 1: I stole money out of that barn. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: if I had a five thousand dollar night, I put
Speaker 1: five in my pocket cash and Danny would put five.
Speaker 1: You know, she didn't want to know nothing about that.
Speaker 1: In the very beginning, I was gonna, you know, chop
Speaker 1: it up with her a little bit, you know, But
Speaker 1: she wanted to stay away from that. She stayed away
Speaker 1: from ship. She wanted to stay away from see. I'm
Speaker 1: sure that's the politician of her. Yeah, you know. Like
Speaker 1: and then as soon as I picked up on that,
Speaker 1: I stayed I didn't tell her nothing. You know. Now
Speaker 1: she knew I was doing drugs. I never did any
Speaker 1: in front of her. My guess would have been, and
Speaker 1: you know, I guess I'm wrong, you know, more or
Speaker 1: less I've seen women like that. They get in the nose,
Speaker 1: habit themselves. No, not her. Never touched it. Okay, I
Speaker 1: never touched it. I would have guessed she probably had
Speaker 1: never happened to him. Pretty hung up on that ship.
Speaker 1: One time, I had a joint weed and I'm not
Speaker 1: a big weed guy. When we first started going out,
Speaker 1: and I was getting high in some weed, and I
Speaker 1: said he had tried this, and she tried a little
Speaker 1: bit of it, and she felt real bad about that
Speaker 1: later about trying that weed. Well, she had six kids.
Speaker 1: You know. I never tried to get her to do
Speaker 1: any cocaine. I never did any in front of her.
Speaker 1: Did she ever know anything about those two two murders
Speaker 1: that you were somewhat involved in. No. When I left
Speaker 1: up there, I called her back one time when I
Speaker 1: was down here, and she started questioning me about one.
Speaker 1: She says, who is ov and all this. I said,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. The police had
Speaker 1: been to her, you know. Now, his mother and sister
Speaker 1: came up there and ran his picture in the paper
Speaker 1: and remember that, um vaguely and they put down if
Speaker 1: anybody's seen this man, contact the holiday in room so
Speaker 1: and so, so and so. They were living somewhere in Nevada.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I don't know what you guys
Speaker 1: want to do on that. I want to call him
Speaker 1: and tell him any you know, if he's down or
Speaker 1: that's up to you guys. Okay, I'm gonna leave it alone.
Speaker 1: Yeah we might. But you know, he was involved in
Speaker 1: a lot of ship well he was. He was an outlaw. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a fucking outlaw. He was. I'm I'm not
Speaker 1: passing judgment on anybody, but I'm saying, you know, look,
Speaker 1: as you know, there's certain fucking rules you go by
Speaker 1: and certain rules you don't. And if you break the rules,
Speaker 1: you gotta be ready for the circumstances that goes with life.
Speaker 1: There's relatively few innocent victims out there that goes with life.
Speaker 1: I mean myself included, you know. But I can snivel,
Speaker 1: I can cry. So what man, I'm sucking down. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm lucky I went this far. I'm lucky I made
Speaker 1: it this fine. And im I'm fifty four, I'm lucky
Speaker 1: I made it to fifty four. Now Fowlers, Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: known the Fowlers for years. All they're gambling joints. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, had you ever talked to
Speaker 1: Jean after him? Well, yeah, I've seen Jeans few years.
Speaker 1: I've seen him up there after that. I used to
Speaker 1: go to his the joint, the penthouse and as other
Speaker 1: gambling joints and all that. I mean, did he ever
Speaker 1: mention anything about what that was? Or no? I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't push him on that. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's I don't know if you well, you know how
Speaker 1: business is, Okay, I'm sorry. There's certain things you do
Speaker 1: you just you just stay away from, you know, you
Speaker 1: do them, and you just shut up about him and
Speaker 1: go on, you know seven it and me with drinking,
Speaker 1: he got drunk, and as far as I know, he
Speaker 1: might have been bullshitting uh huh, I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: I and he might have had his whiskey muzzles all
Speaker 1: up and been lying to me. You know. That plane
Speaker 1: might have went down on its own. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It was cloudy weather. From what I understand, it was
Speaker 1: a bad night. Yep. And who knows. It seems funny
Speaker 1: to me that they never found a piece of it
Speaker 1: no place. But then again, how do you put a
Speaker 1: bomb on a fucking plane and now what it's going
Speaker 1: to blow up? I mean, due time it when it's
Speaker 1: over the ocean, how do you know it's not going
Speaker 1: to hit over you know? That's why I think that
Speaker 1: it might, you know, unless unless Fowler or somebody else
Speaker 1: had a lot more expertise than I'd ever give him
Speaker 1: credit for. I don't know where the expertise would have
Speaker 1: come in. I think it might have. I don't think
Speaker 1: it would have been from Fowler. Sure, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't think so. I think they're still up there.
Speaker 1: I think Jean's still up there. He's still up there,
Speaker 1: I'm sure. I talked to his brother, which one tom
Speaker 1: or must have been four three or four years ago.
Speaker 1: His brother Larry was down here, Larry, and I talked
Speaker 1: to Yeah, And I talked to Larry here at the
Speaker 1: place called Barrens. They don't see living down here now
Speaker 1: or Larry. Yeah. I think he's an anchorage, got a
Speaker 1: pawn shop up there. And that listener is the end
Speaker 1: for now. As I said earlier, we're not sharing the
Speaker 1: entire transcript. Again, it's seventy one pages long, and not
Speaker 1: all of it pertains directly to this story. During the interview,
Speaker 1: in addition to the alleged bombing, Paisley discussed other crimes
Speaker 1: to including multiple murders. He said he didn't love Peggy
Speaker 1: beggatte that he used her for her money. He made
Speaker 1: other claims about Peggy which I'm not including, and he
Speaker 1: said he couldn't stand her six kids his step kids,
Speaker 1: whom he called smart but undisciplined, though he did refer
Speaker 1: to Mark Begat as quote a nice kid. So to
Speaker 1: review the transcript, Paisley claimed that Peggy Beggett met with
Speaker 1: Joe an Ano in nineteen seventy two, that he Paisley
Speaker 1: transported a locked suitcase to Alaska shortly thereafter, and that
Speaker 1: Danny Zivinage, his business partner, later told him that the
Speaker 1: suitcase contained explosives and that the missing congressman's plane had
Speaker 1: been bombed. Eleven weeks later, after this initial interview, someone
Speaker 1: conducted a second, in person follow up interview with Paisley.
Speaker 1: According to FBI documents I obtained, which blackout the investigator's name. Initially,
Speaker 1: I thought the investigator was an FBI agent. Now I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure was Tom Davis not someone from the FBI.
Speaker 1: So too does Davis, who stayed in touch with Paisley.
Speaker 1: But because Davis can't recall exact dates, he isn't a
Speaker 1: hundred percent sure. Paisley repeatedly named the same six people
Speaker 1: as having taken part in or as having knowledge of
Speaker 1: the alleged bombing of the congressman's missing plane. One of
Speaker 1: those six people was Larry Fowler the second Paisley interview.
Speaker 1: The follow up interview took place on January twenty. Seven.
Speaker 1: Days later, Larry Fowler was shot to death on a
Speaker 1: remote road in Alaska. Next time, I'm missing in Alaska,
Speaker 1: he called Washington, and Washington said, don't do anything. You
Speaker 1: don't put anybody on this, do not open investigation. Send
Speaker 1: everything you got us this week. One task. If you
Speaker 1: agree that the Alaska Department of Public Safety should look
Speaker 1: for and release records and tapes pertaining to this case,
Speaker 1: especially tapes of interview with Jerry Paisley, feel free to
Speaker 1: contact them. Their email is DPS dot Commissioner dot office
Speaker 1: at Alaska dot gov. That's DPS dot Commissioner dot Office
Speaker 1: at Alaska dot gov. You can reach us by phone
Speaker 1: at one eight three three m I A tips that's
Speaker 1: one eight three three six four two eight four seven
Speaker 1: seven again one eight three three six four two eight
Speaker 1: four seven seven. Or you can reach us via email
Speaker 1: at tips at i heeart media dot com. That's tips
Speaker 1: T I P s at I heeart media dot com.
Speaker 1: An important note, none of the people Jerry Paisley claimed
Speaker 1: took part in or had knowledge of the alleged bombing,
Speaker 1: Joe Bonano, Joeya Tarola, Danny Zavinich, Jane Fowler, Larry Fowler,
Speaker 1: or Peggy Baggage were ever charged with or convicted of
Speaker 1: any crimes tied to any of Paisley's allegations. Peggy Baggatt
Speaker 1: and Danny Zivanitch declined multiple interview requests. Gene Fowler was
Speaker 1: unavailable for an interview. Joe Bonano, Joeya Tarola, and Larry
Speaker 1: Fowler are dead. Ben Boland is our executive producer. Paul
Speaker 1: Decan is our supervising producer. Chris Brown is our assistant producer.
Speaker 1: Seth Nicholas Johnson is our producer. Sam T. Garden is
Speaker 1: our research assistant. And I'm your host and executive producer
Speaker 1: John Wallzac. You can find me on Twitter at at
Speaker 1: John Wallzac j O n W A l c z
Speaker 1: a K special thanks to Scott C. Leeds who voiced
Speaker 1: Jerry Paisley, Joe McCormick who voiced Mike Grimes, Robert Lamb
Speaker 1: who voiced Dave Tullis, and Seth Nicholas Johnson who voiced
Speaker 1: Tom Davis. Missing in Alaska is a co production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Media and Green Forward Media