Speaker 1: Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio previously on
Speaker 1: Murder in Miami. On June twentieth of nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 1: drug smuggler Lamar Chester was killed in a plane crash
Speaker 1: on his property in rural northern Georgia. Lamar Chester died
Speaker 1: in a very strange plane crash when you look back
Speaker 1: at it, a nonsensical really that they could have come
Speaker 1: to any sort of conclusions about the cause of the
Speaker 1: crash in less than twenty four hours. At the time,
Speaker 1: the initial explanation for the crash was that the plane
Speaker 1: had run out of fuel. One of their agents, Frank
Speaker 1: Baker Jr. Was on the scene almost immediately. He had
Speaker 1: to be there when the plane went down. Among those
Speaker 1: who considered it more than just suspicious was Lamar's best friend,
Speaker 1: Ron Elliott, who was at the ranch at the Chicken
Speaker 1: Farm in North Georgia the night before the crash. Why
Speaker 1: wouldn't you have a coroner's quest, particularly given the circumstances.
Speaker 1: They wanted to just see the body, and when they
Speaker 1: opened the gasket, the body had already been cremated. So
Speaker 1: what happened to the plane? The wreckage? The plane was
Speaker 1: gone and all that was left was an oil spot
Speaker 1: on the floor. Hello, Lauren, So I have an update.
Speaker 1: Detective Denmark was able to track down Clay Williams medical
Speaker 1: records and he actually has the file. No kidding. What
Speaker 1: did you find out? Well, a lot more than expected.
Speaker 1: Turns out that we're not the only ones who were
Speaker 1: interested in tracking down that file. Now that is interesting.
Speaker 1: Multiple government agencies filled multiple ones. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco
Speaker 1: and this is the final episode of Murder in Miami.
Speaker 1: Six months after I'd submitted a formal request for information
Speaker 1: regarding the murder of Clay Williams Miami Dade coal case,
Speaker 1: Detective David Denmark reached out with news he'd located the
Speaker 1: medical report. We always hope that we're going to find
Speaker 1: something in it to be complete, but we understand when
Speaker 1: it's not. Because of the workload that's put on each case.
Speaker 1: We want to find everything, but if we can't, we'll
Speaker 1: take any little piece of that case because then we
Speaker 1: can explore a different avenue of that information we have,
Speaker 1: and the medical examiner is one of those sources. But
Speaker 1: we always hope to find the entire five and everything
Speaker 1: that was put in there in this case. Apparently we
Speaker 1: got lucky. Okay, Now, once you got your hands on
Speaker 1: Clay Williams medical records, what immediately popped out as useful
Speaker 1: for you pictures. Pictures is huge. I would tell you
Speaker 1: it's in my opinion, but I think a lot of
Speaker 1: other investigators want to see what's going on. And you
Speaker 1: could study a picture of pictures a hundred times, and
Speaker 1: every time you receive information outside of those pictures, either
Speaker 1: from a file, a piece of paper, a witness, anything
Speaker 1: that regards that case, that picture changes for you. Where
Speaker 1: you were not looking for something in the background, information
Speaker 1: by reviewing the file may point your eyes in that direction,
Speaker 1: and now you have a picture that contains a very
Speaker 1: important piece of evidence. And so what kind of pictures
Speaker 1: were included in Clay's file? Those were that of the landscape,
Speaker 1: which was a flooded area beyond southwest two hundred and
Speaker 1: seventeenth Avenue, which is way out west Everglades. Basically, it
Speaker 1: gives the waterways and then it gives the horrifying look
Speaker 1: of a torsto that has been mutilated by alligators and
Speaker 1: affected by the stunt and being decomposed. So those pictures
Speaker 1: bring all that light. Pictures that were likely the same
Speaker 1: one shown to fill Stamford in nineteen eighty one. And
Speaker 1: again it when you read it into someone's investigative rite up,
Speaker 1: it's different when you're reading it and looking at the
Speaker 1: picture that they're describing. Because words can't describe what we
Speaker 1: see and how bodies are mutilated and decomposed. The detective
Speaker 1: does their best to point out injuries and possible injuries.
Speaker 1: In this case, the key thing is which brings the
Speaker 1: medical examiner on board is that the detective will point
Speaker 1: to puncture wounds in the s all of this person,
Speaker 1: and we think as investigators gets a gunshot wounds and
Speaker 1: maybe the person was shot in the head. But the
Speaker 1: medical examiner being the people, they are saying, no, this
Speaker 1: was actually puncture wounds from an alligator too. That helps
Speaker 1: out a lot because now we know he wasn't shot
Speaker 1: in the head. Those were alligator markings of the alligator
Speaker 1: biting his head. The file also contained a small clipping
Speaker 1: from the Sunday, October fourth edition of the Miami Herald
Speaker 1: under the headline body found and flooded glades maybe missing.
Speaker 1: Private detective quote a mutilated, decomposed body discovered by Florida
Speaker 1: National guardsmen in a flooded East Everglades area. Maybe the
Speaker 1: remains of a missing private detective, police said Saturday. There's
Speaker 1: no way to recognize him, said Metro homicide detective John Parmenter.
Speaker 1: The body was mutilated by alligators and probably run over
Speaker 1: by trucks. The article goes on to mention that the
Speaker 1: nude body was found floating in two to three feet
Speaker 1: of water by guardsmen while providing flood relief aid to residents. Initially,
Speaker 1: they believed the body to be an animal carcass, but
Speaker 1: upon closer inspection realized it was human. Quote. I think
Speaker 1: he was killed and dumped, said Parmenter, though we may never,
Speaker 1: because of the body's condition, be able to prove how
Speaker 1: he was killed. The article also mentions the remains were
Speaker 1: believed to be those of a white man six foot
Speaker 1: or taller, but that dental records would be utilized to
Speaker 1: identify the victim and the possibility that it could be
Speaker 1: a missing private detective. It concludes with the sentence that
Speaker 1: quote police would not release the name of the private
Speaker 1: detective nute, but it would seem that by nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: many others were aware of Clay William's name. By reviewing
Speaker 1: the medical examined report, we found out that there's at
Speaker 1: least four or five different agencies that were involved, to
Speaker 1: include at the Lee, US Customs, i Ars, marshals, and
Speaker 1: of course Miami date or Metro date back then, which
Speaker 1: will always raise an eyebrow on the detective part, actually
Speaker 1: everybody's part, because they start understanding the amount of people
Speaker 1: and different agencies that are involved. The medical exambler or
Speaker 1: someone that was in control of that file would document
Speaker 1: as notes came in and agencies were calling in and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what happened? Who is it? Is? It probably identified?
Speaker 1: This is something that definitely again raised another eyebrow that
Speaker 1: who's inquiring, why are they inquiring, and what kind of
Speaker 1: information do they want? Something was special about this case.
Speaker 1: You know, someone gets killed on the side of the road,
Speaker 1: You're not going to have so many agencies looking into
Speaker 1: it unless they were involved in something deeper that we
Speaker 1: don't know about. Here's Bill Stanford. I think that it's
Speaker 1: because Leslie was talking to the grand jury about it
Speaker 1: and it looked like Clay's death might be connected to
Speaker 1: Lamar and these agencies. I had no idea there are
Speaker 1: so many of them wanted to get in on it
Speaker 1: see what was there. Yeah, David Denmark said that as
Speaker 1: a detective, that raises a lot of eyebrows and suddenly
Speaker 1: this is much more valuable and interesting than anybody thought.
Speaker 1: I'm going to turn over everything that I've accumulated during
Speaker 1: the research of all of this to the Miami Dade
Speaker 1: Cold Case Division. I think that they will utilize it.
Speaker 1: They might be able to close out the Clay Williams
Speaker 1: case based on what we've uncovered, which would be closure
Speaker 1: to his family because even if Chester wasn't personally responsible
Speaker 1: for the murder, he was aware that it had happened,
Speaker 1: and looks like he was aware that had happened before
Speaker 1: the body was even found. Yeah, that's certainly a possibility.
Speaker 1: A lot of that depends on Leslie's recollection of the dates,
Speaker 1: and that's going to be hard for them to pin down.
Speaker 1: But I know the family would like to know what
Speaker 1: happened to Clay. But if Leslie's recollection is accurate, it
Speaker 1: would support the likelihood Chester and Bob Adams were aware
Speaker 1: of the murder of Clay Williams before his body was
Speaker 1: even found, which adds additional weight to Phil's initial interactions
Speaker 1: with Bob at intercept. Having an investigative reporter call and
Speaker 1: then show up in person asking for a man they
Speaker 1: might have just gotten rid of days after his murder
Speaker 1: would likely have been rather unnerving, and given Phil's Washington
Speaker 1: slash political resume, possibly played into their mistaken belief Phil
Speaker 1: was actually with the CIA, speaking of which, the number
Speaker 1: of agencies interested in the autopsy of Clay Williams rive
Speaker 1: the number of agencies lamar Chester claimed in the press
Speaker 1: to have worked with, including the CIA, the DA, US
Speaker 1: Air Force Intelligence, US Naval Intelligence, and the Federal Bureau
Speaker 1: of Investigation. I did make a request through the Freedom
Speaker 1: of Information Act slash Privacy Act inquiring as to any
Speaker 1: files involving lamar Chester or Clay Williams. The DA determination
Speaker 1: letter I received back States regarding your request for records
Speaker 1: on Bain's, Clayton Williams, and Tilton lamar Chester Junior, please
Speaker 1: be advised that we have decided to neither confirm nor
Speaker 1: deny the existence of such records, pursuant to various exemptions
Speaker 1: that they go on to list and stating that quote
Speaker 1: this is our standard response to such requests and should
Speaker 1: not be taken to mean the records do or do
Speaker 1: not exist. Unquote. In light of the number of agencies
Speaker 1: interested in the autopsy of Clay Williams, and agencies Chester
Speaker 1: had spoken on record about being involved with, it's interesting
Speaker 1: to revisit the observation made by Clay's friend Ted about
Speaker 1: the computers at Intercept. He introduced me to Bob Adams
Speaker 1: and another fellow there, and I had understood from Clay
Speaker 1: that these were former intelligence people from the federal government,
Speaker 1: well the CIA, Army intelligence, and they had what I
Speaker 1: thought was awfully large computer setup. I just was impressed
Speaker 1: that such a small office would have such an enormous
Speaker 1: setup for computers. I don't know what these guys accessed,
Speaker 1: but the prosecutors an operation Loan Star, had a definite
Speaker 1: theory Intercepts computers would pop up in the transcripts and
Speaker 1: connection with the allegation that Chester might attempt to obstruct
Speaker 1: their investigation, stating that quote, mister Chester and mister Adams
Speaker 1: had discussed the purchase of a computer that would be
Speaker 1: used to tap into the various federal law enforcement agencies,
Speaker 1: and that such an advanced computer was apparently purchased for
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars does the name Intercept strike you, particularly
Speaker 1: since they all had such a sardonic sense of humor.
Speaker 1: Do you think that that was just a random name
Speaker 1: that they chose, or do you think there may have
Speaker 1: been more behind the name Intercept now looking back, Oh,
Speaker 1: I think that they tried to pick a name that
Speaker 1: made them sound competent and somewhat mysterious. I don't see
Speaker 1: too much behind it. There may be, but I don't
Speaker 1: know if there is. I did think it was interesting, though,
Speaker 1: that the prosecution at one point claimed that Chester and
Speaker 1: Adams were trying to break into other agencies computers to
Speaker 1: interfere with the investigation. Oh, I'm sure they were. I
Speaker 1: don't doubt that Bob was up trying to do everything
Speaker 1: like he could find out about the investigation. That's that's Bob.
Speaker 1: Technology and our understanding of its capabilities has obviously evolved,
Speaker 1: and Happy Miles says, so has our views on drugs,
Speaker 1: especially cocaine, which is why he views his coconut grove
Speaker 1: smuggling days as a bit more innocent than they may
Speaker 1: seem today. Back in the cheveniese and mid Chevenie, cocaine
Speaker 1: was she in a different light. Cocaine wasn't the addictive
Speaker 1: drug that we found it out to me, it was
Speaker 1: a high end drug per high end earners. The people
Speaker 1: that we're using it were doctors, lawyers, businessman, Wall Street people.
Speaker 1: It wasn't looked like it is now. The laws we're
Speaker 1: different to back then as far as punishment, when in
Speaker 1: the beginning it was a different deal and it was
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars a key, then now it's fourteen thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a key. So you know, supply and demand. The
Speaker 1: supply is so great thanks to the government and their
Speaker 1: effort on drugs. And all you have to do is
Speaker 1: look how cricket our government's gotten from where it was done.
Speaker 1: It was small agents and da and everything that we're
Speaker 1: maybe trying to make an extra bucket. What have you
Speaker 1: allowed to go on which it has been corruption, corrupts,
Speaker 1: It goes to unbelievable levels until it corrupts absolute. We're
Speaker 1: almost at a point of no return, we really are.
Speaker 1: You thought at one point there was a way to
Speaker 1: shut it down. Do you think there's any way to
Speaker 1: shut it down anymore? Oh Man, letter, Herculea and cash.
Speaker 1: It would be During the production of this podcast, I
Speaker 1: was able to reconnect Happy with CB Hackworth, whose paths
Speaker 1: had not crossed since their initial meeting at the Ritz Carlton,
Speaker 1: and I'm happy to report that the two may collaborate
Speaker 1: on assembling a collection of Happy's adventures during his Adventurers
Speaker 1: Club and cartel days. You're a good writer, I love.
Speaker 1: I read all the articles in her rogue back when,
Speaker 1: and I was impressed with them. So yeah, I'm impressed
Speaker 1: by what I know of your adventures, and I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to hearing more. I'm actually ready to come out there.
Speaker 1: So I've got two fits that will write go forward
Speaker 1: to this thing too. Some of those stories will undoubtedly
Speaker 1: involve Happy's young protege of sorts, Jack Devo. If you'll remember,
Speaker 1: Devot is now in witness protection but ended up testifying
Speaker 1: against Noriega yep, testified before Congress with a hood on
Speaker 1: his face, Wow with a black Goodover's head. In addition
Speaker 1: to Clay's murder and Chester's questionable crash, one of the
Speaker 1: enduring mysteries in this twisting tale is the identity of
Speaker 1: the informant who turned on Jack Devot. Our greatest sale
Speaker 1: ever Newmark and Lewis's presidential reta we believe this ring
Speaker 1: is the largest cocaine trafficking ring ever organized, said Robert Dempsey,
Speaker 1: Commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The ring
Speaker 1: was responsible for flying fifteen thousand, eight hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: seven pounds of high grade cocaine with a street value
Speaker 1: of two point two billion dollars into the United States
Speaker 1: between June nineteen eighty two and November nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1: Happy Miles has long taken great offense at any innuit
Speaker 1: that he rolled on de Vot. You gotta remember Jack
Speaker 1: and I were really good friends. Jack didn't know who
Speaker 1: flipped on him and even asked if you'd done it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Well, of course everybody thinks because of the
Speaker 1: DL I ended up with it, I'm the guy that
Speaker 1: rolled on everybody, which isn't true. During my research for
Speaker 1: this podcast, another former smuggler linked to the Coconut Grove
Speaker 1: Guys who wishes to remain unnamed, sent me two extremely
Speaker 1: detailed Florida Department of Law Enforcement logs from nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: detailing twelve cocaine trips from departure, the cocaine's origin Columbia,
Speaker 1: sight of the offload, and point of entry into the US.
Speaker 1: The level of detail was so specific that when I
Speaker 1: ran them past Happy, he assumed they must have come
Speaker 1: from de Vaux himself because they contained information only someone
Speaker 1: with access to Ocean Reef, the US point of entry
Speaker 1: for half of the trips, would have You were also
Speaker 1: saying when we spoke about the spreadsheet I sent you
Speaker 1: about the charges of the different runs. That had to
Speaker 1: be from a debrief of Jack Devo. I'm sure because
Speaker 1: nobody would have had all that information. It was just
Speaker 1: two de kailled Ah, so you attribute all the information
Speaker 1: on that to Jack, I would say so, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because they certainly had everybody's names and all the details,
Speaker 1: and they had the amount of the load were and
Speaker 1: so it could be because Chester shows up on that list,
Speaker 1: but that's from nineteen eighty three, so he was already
Speaker 1: being investigated before that. Yeah. Chester's name only appears once
Speaker 1: linked with Little Darby. But my anonymous source added that quote.
Speaker 1: All of the one stating Rutter cut Key were transported
Speaker 1: to the US via Derby Island, accounting for another five
Speaker 1: trips six in total, half of the twelve. My source
Speaker 1: also mentioned Jack TiVo was trying to purchase the larger
Speaker 1: Derby Island from Chester. That would resonate more deeply a
Speaker 1: bit later when I read Devot's mention of it in
Speaker 1: his testimony before the inquiry in the Bahamas on June
Speaker 1: twenty third of nineteen eighty four, Lamar asked me he
Speaker 1: seemed to know about the trips. Would I like to
Speaker 1: buy Big Derby Island. Devot goes on to state that
Speaker 1: they settled on a purchase price of two million dollars
Speaker 1: and his down payment made to Chester. I bought the island.
Speaker 1: I gave him a half a million dollars. I gave
Speaker 1: him several planes after that, and more money and a
Speaker 1: couple of keys a cooke, almost a million dollars over
Speaker 1: a period of time. It was not all done in
Speaker 1: a day. It started off with a half a million.
Speaker 1: Devout adds there was no paperwork. It was a handshake,
Speaker 1: something he was comfortable with because we had known each
Speaker 1: other a long time and that we trusted each other.
Speaker 1: Apparently Devout was busted after that payment, but before the
Speaker 1: sale occurred, and the logs were actually used as evidence
Speaker 1: to indict Devout, all of which makes the tape you're
Speaker 1: about to hear even more telling. Here's Lamar Chester, proving
Speaker 1: his participation with the Feds to CB Hackworth in particular,
Speaker 1: starting descended who were working with Jackie Bocus on darking.
Speaker 1: These same agents were living on dark I mean physically
Speaker 1: living near total every day for three weeks now. It
Speaker 1: was glad, I'm back and forth Miami. I think the
Speaker 1: first too of Nassa notte him down, get him shut up.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of things that preceded that we're
Speaker 1: all guns where they produced grugs, alcobots or any other
Speaker 1: guns that many have done after their own protection and
Speaker 1: in broad inst guns from mass All that had to
Speaker 1: come from the embassy because it didn't come through that
Speaker 1: custom that Chester mentions he was working on the Jack
Speaker 1: Devot case. Who are working the Jack focus makes Chester's
Speaker 1: acceptance of that million dollars down payment from de Vaux
Speaker 1: seemed calculated, especially since the man he took it from
Speaker 1: ended up incarcerated before testifying against people like Noriega and
Speaker 1: apparently is now in the witness protection plan. It also
Speaker 1: lends more weight to the comment on the Georgia Pura
Speaker 1: of Investigations crash report that mentions Chester was quote rumored
Speaker 1: to be cooperating with authorities. Here's Chester, in his own words,
Speaker 1: speaking to CB Hackworth about assisting a task force. Here
Speaker 1: tasport pasement. Yeah, a drug enforcement where they are signed
Speaker 1: a pass from the follow or sign past for And
Speaker 1: that's where I had been meeting them, meeting with them
Speaker 1: at task force headquarters and walking across the street to
Speaker 1: a drug enforcement airport. Passports got out commercial office building
Speaker 1: out in doctor Miami International Airport and right next to
Speaker 1: it is a new drug enforcement dumb and task force
Speaker 1: head like a huge ready room math you know the
Speaker 1: huge ball charts radios, you know, all set up and rosters,
Speaker 1: games desk in the main room, and then private offices.
Speaker 1: But these guys each had a private office each other
Speaker 1: tests the caliber the guys of them. Here's the response
Speaker 1: of mister Happy Miles to that audio, litter at litter
Speaker 1: at jack. If you're lifted to this number one, you
Speaker 1: got a hold of number two. If you want to
Speaker 1: know who the hell routed you out, its Lamar. That's unreal.
Speaker 1: That's just totally unreal. How he's bragging about flying him
Speaker 1: back and forth and bringing them guns, and you know
Speaker 1: they needed guns on Derby, Like I need a hole
Speaker 1: in my head going after Jack, and then and then
Speaker 1: to take a million dollars from the guy to sell
Speaker 1: them Derby when he knew he wasn't gonna sell it
Speaker 1: to him anyway, that he'd be going away for a
Speaker 1: long time, or let he cut a deal after doing
Speaker 1: eight and a half years and every rattle hell hole
Speaker 1: around the country testifying against two hundred and forty guys
Speaker 1: to get his freedom. Unbelievable, just unbelievable. The revelation also
Speaker 1: contradicted a sort of smuggler's code that Happy maintained and
Speaker 1: set the Coconut Grove guys apart. We were in a
Speaker 1: different league and maybe that fed into the Icarus complex
Speaker 1: of flying too close to the sun. What was the
Speaker 1: mistake that Chester made well, not having any moral compass,
Speaker 1: not having any loyalty to everybody he was working with.
Speaker 1: It just shows who he was, and you can't live
Speaker 1: that way. Everybody should have in morals and integrity. Here's
Speaker 1: Phil Stanford's reaction now that it appears that Chester actually
Speaker 1: flipped on Jack Devo. Does that open up more questions
Speaker 1: than answers in terms of who possibly could have wanted
Speaker 1: him dead? The list keeps expanding. He doesn't it I
Speaker 1: don't think that de Vot should be added to the list.
Speaker 1: But know you've got, of course the obvious, the CIA.
Speaker 1: But then, as Trento writes in his book, there was
Speaker 1: a CIA outside the CIA, and I think that's actually
Speaker 1: where Lamar and Elliott came in. The same guys who
Speaker 1: were running the drugs and guns trade in Southeast Asia
Speaker 1: were transferred to Central America. In fact, Ron Elliott had
Speaker 1: contact with them in the Mideast, so they're part of
Speaker 1: the list. Then you have the mob. Chester had borrowed
Speaker 1: lots of money from the Mob to buy his airplanes,
Speaker 1: and if he was going on trial for basically his life,
Speaker 1: had like three hundred years worth of prison time he
Speaker 1: could be sentenced to no telling what he might talk
Speaker 1: about if he got there. So you have that, You
Speaker 1: have the law enforcement officials in White County who didn't
Speaker 1: get along with him. One was in fact on the
Speaker 1: scene of the crash as the plane was going down.
Speaker 1: It might have done on their own, They might have
Speaker 1: done it at the behest of one or another agency.
Speaker 1: And the cartels and the cartels of course, yeah, who
Speaker 1: would have had the wherewithal to buy whatever help they needed.
Speaker 1: So far from answering questions. I think the list keeps expanding. Well.
Speaker 1: It's also true though, knowing that he set up Da
Speaker 1: Vot and tried to sell him an island and took
Speaker 1: a down payment for it before Devot went away for
Speaker 1: the rest of his life, that would have made a
Speaker 1: lot of people nervous because he was capable of flipping
Speaker 1: on anybody, and the domino effect of that, because de
Speaker 1: Vot had links to the cartel, so there were a
Speaker 1: lot of people who would have been pretty nervous as
Speaker 1: to who he was willing to turn on. Oh, I
Speaker 1: agree absolutely. For Leslie Beckerton, her sense of betrayal and
Speaker 1: loss of faith on multiple levels was a direct result
Speaker 1: of her experience with Lone Star and Chester, and it
Speaker 1: set her on a very specific path. What happened forty
Speaker 1: two years ago, that loss of security of who I
Speaker 1: am as a human being. I remember I was telling
Speaker 1: you about just being humiliated in the Atlanta court. It's
Speaker 1: amazing now just something like that can just trip you
Speaker 1: down where you become like a ghost. And that had
Speaker 1: such a profound impact on me, and you lose a
Speaker 1: complete sense of yourself. You're worthless collateral damage. You know,
Speaker 1: you're worthless. It's a wound and it's traumatic and it's
Speaker 1: a scar. And so what inspired out of that and education?
Speaker 1: Wanting to understand how other people think other cultures? Right,
Speaker 1: the first graduate degree is an international education and my
Speaker 1: second degree, which was at Brown in Latin American and
Speaker 1: Caribbean histories. I love teaching and I love working with people,
Speaker 1: so I was able to combine both of those and
Speaker 1: as a result, I actually started with educational school gardens
Speaker 1: in Cambodia up in rural areas. The work that I
Speaker 1: do and have been doing for such a long time.
Speaker 1: As you know, my humanitarian worked in war torn countries
Speaker 1: and teaching train small rural farmers and widows overseas, and
Speaker 1: I install nutritional kitchen gardens and orphanages and schools, and
Speaker 1: I established demonstration sites, farming sites and all low tech
Speaker 1: and the beauty of it is and it just goes
Speaker 1: back to loss of one sense of self and that
Speaker 1: you count. And these people have never counted, you know,
Speaker 1: They're just brushed to the side. There's like a an
Speaker 1: anguish in their faces. And it's something I'm really sensitive too. Well.
Speaker 1: The irony is that because I am a woman, I
Speaker 1: can go into places that a man can't and specifically
Speaker 1: say Afghanistan, Ka or in Jordan, so i can live
Speaker 1: and work with families. And also I'm not a threat.
Speaker 1: I'm a woman. Right. That allows me to understand another
Speaker 1: culture and other people their history, and to also establish trust.
Speaker 1: It seems like your path has almost been to move
Speaker 1: into these places where you know the drug trade has
Speaker 1: wreaked havoc. You're almost on the cleanup crew. Yes, right,
Speaker 1: more ways than one. This past summer I traveled to
Speaker 1: meet Bickerton in person. It's like little islands nestled. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, there's a house nestled on that island like
Speaker 1: a cab and see it. Your destination is on the left. Now,
Speaker 1: in her early seventies, she still strikes a commanding presence.
Speaker 1: Hey there's noble good why, tall and athletic and not
Speaker 1: prone to artifice. As we pulled up, she was sporting
Speaker 1: jeans and a baseball cap while hard at work watering
Speaker 1: the botanist level garden that frames one side of the
Speaker 1: rustic picturesque property she shares with her husband of four decades. Okay,
Speaker 1: so there was nothing here, Okay, this was all literally rubble. Okay,
Speaker 1: there wasn't even grass growing. So this is all perennials okay,
Speaker 1: and pollinators. Wow, look at the little beat okay, oh sleeping,
Speaker 1: you're nesting in the flowers. Bickerton radiates a crackling sort
Speaker 1: of energy. There's a shifting vulnerability to her, at times
Speaker 1: almost brittle, at other times edgy, sharp, but always with
Speaker 1: a bit of defensiveness and self deprecating humor. I don't
Speaker 1: blame my mother because I was breech birth. I came
Speaker 1: out feet kicking. My mom tied me on a rope
Speaker 1: when I was two years of age. Where you get
Speaker 1: your wanders? She says, I could never keep track of you.
Speaker 1: Inside Bickerton's home exudes an eclectic, creative aesthetic, filled with comfortable,
Speaker 1: dog friendly furnishings. The walls are lined with art, both
Speaker 1: displayed and propped along the sides awaiting display. During our tour,
Speaker 1: she unwrapped several of them, a series of enlarged photographs
Speaker 1: taken in Afghanistan during Leslie's humanitarian travels there. So they
Speaker 1: built this a couple of the Chinese wall, this huge
Speaker 1: wall Pom pomp, and then within it is going to
Speaker 1: be the farm. In a couple of buildings and this
Speaker 1: man single handedly. They would throw the mud up to
Speaker 1: him in the straw and I've got photos of it,
Speaker 1: and he would build them in rectangular shapes and he
Speaker 1: built the entire wall. One photo in particular stands out
Speaker 1: of Bickerton standing in the center of a small group
Speaker 1: of young men in a rural setting, holding a small
Speaker 1: sandy brown puppy in her arms. You're wearing those beautiful
Speaker 1: futia traditional garb with a sky blue scarf and a
Speaker 1: very western looking orange zippo. It's noteworthy not just because
Speaker 1: of the moment it captures and the fact the men
Speaker 1: were breaking social norms by standing in close proximity with
Speaker 1: a woman, but use of the calm joy Leslie radiates.
Speaker 1: It's fine, went all over the world and done a
Speaker 1: lot of good because I teach and I trained farmers
Speaker 1: food and water security, and this place just just grabbed
Speaker 1: my heart and it's it's sucking home for me. My
Speaker 1: mom said, she said, you're at peace with you. So
Speaker 1: here I are in a war country, dun country. She said,
Speaker 1: you're in your element. You found your way. It's been
Speaker 1: an unlikely and unpredictable path that's led to this point.
Speaker 1: One intensified by the uneasiness that's lingered in her life
Speaker 1: since Lone Star, but further compounded and complicated by the
Speaker 1: fact that Leslie met her husband of four decades, Mike,
Speaker 1: during the Lone Star grand jury. Was at the grand
Speaker 1: jury in Houston. There was one other person there, nobody
Speaker 1: else who was just me and somebody else. And that
Speaker 1: other somebody else is a person that I married, and
Speaker 1: he was there to testify. I didn't know for what
Speaker 1: I didn't bother to ask him about the connection that
Speaker 1: we had is that we were both hardcore sailors. In
Speaker 1: the waiting room, struck up a conversation. Now a doctor,
Speaker 1: that husband was once very much involved with Chester's smuggling operations,
Speaker 1: which makes one of her last memories of Lamar Chester
Speaker 1: after she was married and shortly before Chester's crash that
Speaker 1: much more revealing. It was down in Key Largo that
Speaker 1: Lamar shows up. Mike seems to think that it was
Speaker 1: just by sheer luck that Lamar happened to be on
Speaker 1: the same road that we were on, which is a
Speaker 1: northern part of Key Largo that connects Homestead to Ocean Reef.
Speaker 1: So Mike thought, oh, just by chance and accident that
Speaker 1: Lamar's following us. I mean you said that bumped into him.
Speaker 1: I'm like, knowing now everything we know about Lamar, Lamar
Speaker 1: doesn't do anything by accident. We went out to dinner
Speaker 1: with him, Mike must have invited him to stay over whatever,
Speaker 1: and so Lamar was in the house with us. After
Speaker 1: Mike turned in for the night. Bickerton says she had
Speaker 1: what would be one of the final interactions she would
Speaker 1: ever have with Lamar Chester. Lamar then in the house
Speaker 1: told me that he wanted me to come back to him,
Speaker 1: and I was like, wow, this is what you do
Speaker 1: to your friends. How disrespectful that was. And I told
Speaker 1: him no, flat out. But there was something about it
Speaker 1: was just something about Lamar that I almost felt sorry
Speaker 1: for him. I think he knew something was coming. It's weird.
Speaker 1: And then he, you know, he got he got murdered.
Speaker 1: As for Chester dying in a plane crash, shrouded in mystery,
Speaker 1: here's CB Hackworth. That really wasn't the ending that anybody
Speaker 1: had anybody had expected, except maybe Chester. Here's a snippet
Speaker 1: from one of his calls to CB. Hey, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna gimme or maybe right, We've tried to improve the
Speaker 1: quality of the tape, but it definitely sounds like Chester
Speaker 1: saying they're going to kill me or make me running right.
Speaker 1: Revisiting his extensive recorded interviews with Chester has given CB
Speaker 1: Hackworth new insight into Lone Star, which he will further
Speaker 1: explore in an upcoming book. It worked out well for
Speaker 1: some of the targets, and then it ultimately, you know,
Speaker 1: didn't work out well for Lamar, except to the extent
Speaker 1: that he did manage to extend this whole proceeding and
Speaker 1: turn the tables on the government and put the government
Speaker 1: on trial for so long that he did live out
Speaker 1: the rest of his life without going to jail, without
Speaker 1: ever doing what the government instructed him to do or
Speaker 1: any judge instructed him to do. He did live life
Speaker 1: on his own terms until he died. In an op
Speaker 1: ed letter Chester wrote published in the Gainesville Times December fourteenth,
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty four, Chester wrote, quote, the indictment against
Speaker 1: me was not brought by the DA but is an
Speaker 1: IRS indictment brought by the US Department of Justice based
Speaker 1: on what the government says is my net worth with
Speaker 1: the importation of marijuana and cocaine as probable sources of income.
Speaker 1: Those issues may very well have to be decided in
Speaker 1: court before a jury. I am in the fifth month
Speaker 1: of a motion to dismiss the indictment based on the
Speaker 1: false of ication of evidence, leaks of grand jury material
Speaker 1: by federal agents and prosecutors, and gross governmental misconduct. If
Speaker 1: I am successful with that motion, I will definitely tell
Speaker 1: my story to the public. If that motion fails, then
Speaker 1: the story will be told in Gainesville at trial. In
Speaker 1: any case, the truth will finally out. Six months after
Speaker 1: that letter, Chester was dead. Here's Phil Stamford. It did
Speaker 1: continue to trouble me. It haunted me. What happened in
Speaker 1: your world after Chester died? Well, you know, I was
Speaker 1: back in DC when I got the word from Bob
Speaker 1: that Lamar died in a crash. I did some work,
Speaker 1: investigative work to make some money, but no luck with
Speaker 1: congressional offices or with newspapers. That what I needed was
Speaker 1: a job, and finally, finally I got one in Portland, Oregon,
Speaker 1: which I guess was the only place my reputation hadn't
Speaker 1: caught up with me with The Oregonian, initially as a reporter,
Speaker 1: but after a few months they made me a columnist,
Speaker 1: and I was one of two Metro columnists writing three
Speaker 1: times a week telling stories, which is really what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do. Was going pretty well, and then here
Speaker 1: came the Frankie case, the news that the head of
Speaker 1: the corrections department had been stabbed to death outside his office.
Speaker 1: Eventually got crosswise with the management of the paper because
Speaker 1: I was raising questions I was doing because I was
Speaker 1: doing my job, and I got pushed out. Phil and
Speaker 1: I revisit the killing of Michael Frankie in the Murder
Speaker 1: and Oregon podcast. It's compelling content, as are the book
Speaker 1: Stamford wrote after leaving The Oregonian. I wrote several books
Speaker 1: about official corruption in Portland and also in Washington, DC.
Speaker 1: I did a book about the Watergate break in, and
Speaker 1: after a few years of that, I started getting interested
Speaker 1: again in Miami. As he struggled to make sense of
Speaker 1: his Miami experience, Stamford decided to start his own investigation
Speaker 1: Lamar's claims. I'd been very skeptical of them in the beginning,
Speaker 1: maybe because he just hadn't done a good job of
Speaker 1: explaining to me or to anyone else what it was
Speaker 1: that he did with the CIA, and it wasn't clear
Speaker 1: to me that he even knew that he was working
Speaker 1: for the CIA. I think he was working for Naval
Speaker 1: intelligence at one time. I think he was working for
Speaker 1: someone who was connected to the CIA at one time,
Speaker 1: but he didn't know. And so to come to some
Speaker 1: sort of understanding about what I got involved in, I
Speaker 1: started trying to go back over some of this territory
Speaker 1: and I went down to Georgia talked to Bobby Lee
Speaker 1: Cook sitting in his office in this Summerville, Georgia, littletown
Speaker 1: in Georgia, and he's sitting behind his desk, and I say,
Speaker 1: did you think the christ was accidentally? Says hell, no,
Speaker 1: he was quite convinced he was murdered. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: tell me what he did for the CIA, and he
Speaker 1: begged off. He said, I really don't know. You know,
Speaker 1: you'll have to ask ed Marger, who was the other
Speaker 1: lawyer just down the road about sixty miles, and he
Speaker 1: told me that he didn't think that either Lamore or
Speaker 1: Ron Elliott had direct contact with the CIA. And there's
Speaker 1: a guy who'd won a Gray Maile defense before, and
Speaker 1: he said, you want to ask Bobby Lee Cook. It
Speaker 1: was Bobby Lee Cook who came up with the idea
Speaker 1: of the gray mail defense. So they sent you back
Speaker 1: and forth between the two of them. Yeah, and said,
Speaker 1: of course I already talked to him and he sent
Speaker 1: me to you, So it didn't really answer any questions.
Speaker 1: And of course nothing I found out reduced in any
Speaker 1: way that my fee said Lamar had been murdered, that
Speaker 1: his plane was sabotized, a feeling that would be reinforced
Speaker 1: by information he'd later learn back in DC. Made some
Speaker 1: phone calls, got in touch with guy named Ferris Bond,
Speaker 1: who had been with the US Justice Department at the
Speaker 1: time and on a team working on Lamar's prosecution. He
Speaker 1: told me about the time before the trial. Of course
Speaker 1: they were more than just aware of Lamar's gray mail defense.
Speaker 1: They had arranged for someone from the CIA to come
Speaker 1: speak to them and tell them what was going on.
Speaker 1: And so he said, some guy came. They said, didn't
Speaker 1: look at all like you want you'd imagine a CI
Speaker 1: agent would be. I guess he was sort of shortened.
Speaker 1: Spindler put his briefcase on the desk, and before he
Speaker 1: said anything, he told them that if he talked to them,
Speaker 1: they would not be able to reveal his name, and
Speaker 1: they said that as lawyers they were bound to tell
Speaker 1: the other side what they knew. I guess in discovery
Speaker 1: it was an issue of that. And he put everything
Speaker 1: back in his briefcase and walked out, and that was
Speaker 1: the end of that. So what do you make of
Speaker 1: all of this now, I mean, that's another interesting layer.
Speaker 1: It had been, of course, a very intense experience for me,
Speaker 1: and I'd never really figured out was Lamar telling the
Speaker 1: truth when he said he was working with the CIA
Speaker 1: or not. You know, Even looking back at it now,
Speaker 1: after we've done all of this, you know, it has
Speaker 1: been useful to me to revisit it again. Well, certainly
Speaker 1: as the eighties unfolded, his claims became much less far fetched.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it allowed me to see it made me
Speaker 1: see that these things are real, especially with the Kerry
Speaker 1: Committee and the press. Eventually, there really was no doubt
Speaker 1: that there had been in a drugs forgotten trade going on,
Speaker 1: that it was somehow connected with the government. Lamar was
Speaker 1: anything but silent about it. One of the remarkable things
Speaker 1: about this to me is that when Lamar's plane went
Speaker 1: down June of nineteen eighty five, there was a story
Speaker 1: in the New York Times about how this indicted drug
Speaker 1: smuggler had died in plane crash, but no mention at
Speaker 1: all of the green meal defense that had been written
Speaker 1: about in cbe Hacker's paper. Yeah, that's a very strange omission. Yeah.
Speaker 1: As I was wrapping up the research and interviews for
Speaker 1: this podcast, I would connect with a most unlikely and
Speaker 1: surprising target of interest. You will never guess in a
Speaker 1: million years who I just got off the phone with
Speaker 1: and who I was able to track down. Who Morgan Cherry.
Speaker 1: You gotta be kidding. No. And the good news is
Speaker 1: we had a really interesting chat. The bad news is
Speaker 1: that he is not surprisingly unwilling to speak with me
Speaker 1: on the record and declined my request for an interview.
Speaker 1: I bet he did it very elegantly too. This is
Speaker 1: a very smooth guy. I can neither confirm nor deny
Speaker 1: that he was smooth. This is the guy whose name
Speaker 1: Lamar dropped in the Bohemian Tribunal said it was his
Speaker 1: contact with the CIA. Ron Elliott told me that Morgan
Speaker 1: Cherry was Lamar's CIA contact. Did you ask him specifically
Speaker 1: about his involvement with the CIA and DA Phil I
Speaker 1: can either confirm nor deny that we had any such discussion.
Speaker 1: That's fitting. The once conspiracy concept of covert operations and
Speaker 1: shadow wars has percolated closer to the surface over the years,
Speaker 1: and continues to do so today. My dad used to
Speaker 1: quote the opening line from a legendary radio detective show
Speaker 1: that ran from the nineteen thirties to the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1: Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
Speaker 1: The shadow knows. It's something that kept popping to mind
Speaker 1: throughout this production, But what happens in the shadows will
Speaker 1: likely stay there as long as it profits and protects
Speaker 1: the people in power on both sides. As we wrap
Speaker 1: up this season, I just want to thank our small
Speaker 1: but powerful team of Nick and Evan and Taylor who
Speaker 1: have just brought an incredible expertise and enthusiasm to every
Speaker 1: single aspect of this production. And Phil, I just want
Speaker 1: to thank you so much for being such a wise,
Speaker 1: witty and wonderful storyteller, and so thank you so much
Speaker 1: for sharing this one. It's been great working with you.
Speaker 1: We're all so appreciative to the incredible array of people
Speaker 1: we've encountered and interviewed during this process. Those named and unnamed.
Speaker 1: We also want to thank you the listener for your
Speaker 1: time and support. Murder Miami is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Lauren breg Pacheco, Taylor Chacogne, and Phil Stanford.
Speaker 1: Written by Phil Stamford and Lauren bred Pacheco, Audio editing
Speaker 1: and sound designed by Nicholas Harder, Evan Tyre and Taylor Chacogne,
Speaker 1: featuring music by Evan Tyre, Phil Mayer, John Murchison and
Speaker 1: Taylor Shakogne. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the
Speaker 1: stories that move you