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Speaker 1: CFP professional. Austin and I are back at Ron Kubie's
Speaker 1: office going through the police file. So the most intriguing
Speaker 1: thing about this file will certainly appeal to your sense
Speaker 1: of trying to see the unseen, is this memo book. Entry.
Speaker 1: Ron is holding up one page, a page of handwritten
Speaker 1: notes from a memo book. Now, do you know how
Speaker 1: a memo book? We're okay, Back when the universe was
Speaker 1: young and dinosaurs from the planet, you would have like
Speaker 1: these stenography books, and you'd write on this side, right right, right,
Speaker 1: right right right. Then you flip it over and you'd
Speaker 1: write on the other side. Pressing really hard. Upon photo copying,
Speaker 1: you will see precisely mirrored writing. See that see all
Speaker 1: this stuff here. This is the flip side of this page.
Speaker 1: Just below the writing on this page is an imprint,
Speaker 1: a very faint outline of the writing from another page.
Speaker 1: If you hold that sucker to a mirror and shine
Speaker 1: a light directly on it, the hidden writing will be revealed.
Speaker 1: And who knows what key to the universe this post is.
Speaker 1: I haven't really had enough time to play around with it,
Speaker 1: but you want to do it together, we can. Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: Ron leads me into his kitchen closet. I came out
Speaker 1: of the closet along. There's a mirror against a wall.
Speaker 1: Ron holds up the paper and we lean over to
Speaker 1: get close, studying the reflection. So, if you look at
Speaker 1: this carefully, this is narcotics Um. These are the names
Speaker 1: detectives and detectives. Yeah, I can't quite make it out,
Speaker 1: but under better light roact, maybe we can't make out
Speaker 1: a name, and maybe this has absolutely nothing to do
Speaker 1: with our case. But as we walk out of the closet,
Speaker 1: I looked down at the police report in my hands
Speaker 1: and realized that this imprint has everything to do with
Speaker 1: our case. It's all the ship that's redacted on the
Speaker 1: page before it's the same. It's this, yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: you get the redactions, so you may actually get the
Speaker 1: you may actually get the name of the guy that
Speaker 1: that's the name of. It's the name of the undercover
Speaker 1: cop who shot Billy. We sit down in Ron's conference
Speaker 1: room and Austin, who's been quiet this whole time, speaks up.
Speaker 1: So I just want to say that you've ruined my reveal.
Speaker 1: Run go into this. But while we're here, so I
Speaker 1: noticed the similar thing and I brought it into photoshop.
Speaker 1: No fucking way you didn't. Let's see. Do you have
Speaker 1: the fucking name? Yep, Oh my god, you have his
Speaker 1: fucking name and ar conics detective Ronald. Holy shit, we
Speaker 1: have the guy in the cowboy head from Crimetown. I'm
Speaker 1: io till it right, and this is the ballad of
Speaker 1: Billy Balls. She knew who had come to visit Billy
Speaker 1: that night. She knew that it was a police officer
Speaker 1: and off duty police officer and a cowboy Bill. He
Speaker 1: said to me that the dude that shot him came
Speaker 1: to the hospital and said to him, if it was
Speaker 1: up to me, you wouldn't be in here. There's another
Speaker 1: reason why you may not be able to get access
Speaker 1: a particular record because the officer was working undercover. Chapter twelve,
Speaker 1: The guy in the Cowboy had everyone I've talked to
Speaker 1: for this project who knew Billy wonders who the guy
Speaker 1: was who shot him. It sounded to me like this
Speaker 1: guy was like just some bad, dirty, sleazy, rogue cop
Speaker 1: kind of guy. The guy like busted in and shot Billy.
Speaker 1: And I heard something later on that that guy either
Speaker 1: got killed or whatever. He was kicked off the police
Speaker 1: force and investigated. He was like some dirty rogue cop.
Speaker 1: The cops broken guns ablazing, and I remember hearing people speculate, like,
Speaker 1: is this cops shooting people because their assholes? Why would
Speaker 1: the police shoot him? It's got to be more to
Speaker 1: it than there. Unless you get to interview the guy
Speaker 1: in the cowboy hat, I don't know how you're ever
Speaker 1: going to solve it. There was an undercover cop, some
Speaker 1: crazy lunatic obsessed with my dad, and there's so many
Speaker 1: things you think about that dude, like was he like
Speaker 1: put in this position to monitor my father? Was he
Speaker 1: demoted from something and he was all bitter. I've put
Speaker 1: so many thoughts into who the skuy could be a man,
Speaker 1: How are you doing. I'm out of town, so Austin
Speaker 1: and I are doing some studio coordination. Are you in
Speaker 1: the studio? Yes, I'm preparing to call the guy in
Speaker 1: the cowboy hat. He's in his early seventies, lives on
Speaker 1: Long Island and goes by Ronnie. We won't be using
Speaker 1: his last name. Well, I will tell you that when
Speaker 1: I talked to Ronnie the other day, he did he
Speaker 1: didn't seem extremely enthusiastic about this, you know, be cordial
Speaker 1: and kind and nice and all that. He may be
Speaker 1: a murderer, but he may not be so. All right,
Speaker 1: well Ton fifty nine? Okay, were recording Austin talked to
Speaker 1: me for a seke. Yes, Hello, Yeah, okay, that's good.
Speaker 1: That's good. Okay, I'm gonna call Mr Holy sh it. Hello? Hi?
Speaker 1: Is this Ronnie? Yeah? Hello? Hi? How are you fine?
Speaker 1: How are you? I'm doing well? Um, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for taking my call. I I don't know what
Speaker 1: assistance I can give you, because really probably not much
Speaker 1: other than that it's on like there's everything's on paper. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. From my side, it's like, um, you're you're
Speaker 1: probably going to be more useful than you think because
Speaker 1: this was such a big moment in my my mom's life.
Speaker 1: But because her and Billy weren't married, she was really
Speaker 1: kept out of the loop on on everything, and so
Speaker 1: over the last thirty seven years, it's kind of become
Speaker 1: this mythological story of what happened, and you are the
Speaker 1: only person who knows what happened that night. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: sure she's a pensive naturally, of course you would be.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't change back. Sure, and everything said, everything's
Speaker 1: on paper totally was completely investigated in nine different ways,
Speaker 1: and it was completely legitimate. Yeah, I know this is
Speaker 1: a fragile situation and he can hang up at any second. God,
Speaker 1: I have so many questions for you. I can I
Speaker 1: just ask you one question just about Well, I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm curious about you a little bit, like how did
Speaker 1: you become a cop? No, that was a long story,
Speaker 1: A long time ago. I was I was in school
Speaker 1: for chemistry because I wasn't looking to become a police.
Speaker 1: But it's a test. That was marriage. And then my
Speaker 1: my wife had a baby. I was twenty years old.
Speaker 1: I was in my second year of school and I
Speaker 1: left it to go to a police of honor. Ronnie
Speaker 1: started as a trainee in the late sixties. Once I
Speaker 1: got in, I loved every minute of it. A great job.
Speaker 1: It seems like a terrifying time to be a cop though,
Speaker 1: and like, oh was it that? It was? Absolutely? It's
Speaker 1: incredibly guys, How did how did you get into undercover work?
Speaker 1: In particular priborly to be coming undercover? I was an
Speaker 1: investigator and we had no one to cover, to go
Speaker 1: out and d bias to go to an area. So
Speaker 1: I did it. And then once I did it, did
Speaker 1: it again and again and again. Next thing I know,
Speaker 1: That's all I did, And I had some exciting cases,
Speaker 1: in many exciting cases. Did you like work out better? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Did you like working undercover? It seems stressful to me, Yes,
Speaker 1: I did it. It was good because you had a
Speaker 1: lot of control of the case. We were what were
Speaker 1: some of them? The more exciting ones that worked out
Speaker 1: better worked on the West East. The West East is
Speaker 1: an Irish American gang that's dominated organized crime in the
Speaker 1: Hill's Kitchen area of Manhattan for decades. There was Irish
Speaker 1: gangs on the West side of Manhattan. They told me
Speaker 1: to take them in htt and South told me that
Speaker 1: they killed over Hunter, ripping them off contract killings. Even
Speaker 1: among organized crime rings, the West East were considered especially brutal,
Speaker 1: and we're known for dismembering those they killed as he
Speaker 1: fell on the floor. That's how quick the plastic came
Speaker 1: out and seven Department about an hour. Like man boats.
Speaker 1: Almost impossible to get an inroad uh into the West Eaves.
Speaker 1: I think I was like the primary undercovering the Western case,
Speaker 1: and they had so much to introduce me to the people.
Speaker 1: Ronnie says that in the mid eighties he went undercover
Speaker 1: as a drug dealer to build a case against the
Speaker 1: West East. It was just like a drug connection to them.
Speaker 1: I was like a major drug dealer because they believed,
Speaker 1: now you know what you're doing. Very often where a
Speaker 1: wire hanging out with them, drinking, talking violin drinks like
Speaker 1: my friends. It's not it's not that they like you
Speaker 1: or anything like that, because I don't think they're like anybody.
Speaker 1: If you killed twenty five people, what kind of person
Speaker 1: would you be. They're looking to make money. They're just
Speaker 1: hopeful that you'll be able to make money for them,
Speaker 1: and Ronnie convinced them that he could make money for them.
Speaker 1: They gave me like I think it was fifty or
Speaker 1: sixty pounds of ampheta means that they stole an arm
Speaker 1: robbery on consignment. But they also told how they got
Speaker 1: this thing on a stick up on Laura. They put
Speaker 1: eight people in a y, locked them in a room
Speaker 1: circle that what they felt was a good athletic means,
Speaker 1: and left with suitcases full of stuff. Like they thought
Speaker 1: that I was like so connected, I could just sell
Speaker 1: it off and give them a couple of hundred or
Speaker 1: whatever they wanted, which of course I didn't. Instead, Ronnie
Speaker 1: says he passed on the information to the NYPD and
Speaker 1: the FBI. It was like very very exhilarating, and it
Speaker 1: was do you beat them? They won over the bad guy.
Speaker 1: You got them up the street and they really were
Speaker 1: bad people. And those people all got put away. Yes
Speaker 1: they did. For a very long time. I did quite
Speaker 1: a few cases. I worked on the Banana, the sound
Speaker 1: by the fish Market. The Bananas one of the major
Speaker 1: Italian mafia families in New York City. They were into everything,
Speaker 1: being one of them counter credit causes. The Times do
Speaker 1: your name that they did it? Seventy five year old
Speaker 1: Joseph Pinano, the reputed crime lord of New York City,
Speaker 1: leader of one of the five mafia families. Tomorrow, he
Speaker 1: goes on trial for allegedly interfering with the grand jury
Speaker 1: invest designated another cover for a total of seventeen years,
Speaker 1: I've done a total of over a thousand drug bies
Speaker 1: in my career. Police say a string of storefronts were
Speaker 1: used for the packaging and sale of illegal drugs. The
Speaker 1: peddling took place on the Lower east Side here. Did
Speaker 1: you work in the East Village in particular a lot
Speaker 1: or were you all over New York. I did a
Speaker 1: lot that was just one one location. I don't think
Speaker 1: that they can never stop the drug flow in the
Speaker 1: Lower east Side. I don't think we have enough Laura
Speaker 1: forcement agents to stop that. After the break, Ronnie goes
Speaker 1: to Third Avenue. Do you mind telling me just like
Speaker 1: what happened that night? Even if I can't go up
Speaker 1: with details obviously, I'm on the phone with Ronnie, the
Speaker 1: undercover cop who shot Billy. Can you tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit about your undercover persona that you had, Like
Speaker 1: did you have like an outfit or something that you
Speaker 1: wore back then? You know, I just tried to be
Speaker 1: like fit in with the average drug deal. Depending on
Speaker 1: a different case. M hm, did you ever wear a
Speaker 1: cowboy hat? No? No, it's weird. There was this rumor
Speaker 1: that it was that that you had been wearing a
Speaker 1: cowboy hat, well someone else and they have been that
Speaker 1: I wasn't. I never won a hat. Huh huh. Well,
Speaker 1: do you remember like when you first heard the name
Speaker 1: Billy Piano, because it sounds like he had a bit
Speaker 1: of a reputation. Do you remember, well, right when we
Speaker 1: got that from the informant, I did not know him.
Speaker 1: Price to about the informant is the one got you?
Speaker 1: Ronnie says. An informant tipped the police off to Billy
Speaker 1: And was the informant part of a bigger case? Or
Speaker 1: was that like a one off? It was part of
Speaker 1: the case and it was a lodge of target. Obviously
Speaker 1: it was not not my case. That was not the
Speaker 1: investigator was the undercover. Another detective would have done the
Speaker 1: investigation that all the backgrounds, found out who were buying
Speaker 1: what we're doing, and then he would introduce me to
Speaker 1: the informat the this is this basics of what they
Speaker 1: do and then I get introduced to buy drugs. Do
Speaker 1: you remember what the substance was that you had been
Speaker 1: told he was selling. Yeah she was. He was showing obviously,
Speaker 1: and we were. The idea was to get the connection.
Speaker 1: It was beyond him, above him who totally was doing
Speaker 1: had a bit of weight in heron in Heroin, Yes,
Speaker 1: got you. Did that case ever go anywhere? And whatever
Speaker 1: happened with that situation. I never worked for him again.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that someone else did. So. I only had
Speaker 1: one part in the case and that was it. It's
Speaker 1: just one of those things. It went wrong. Ronnie says
Speaker 1: that Billy called his supplier and Ronnie went into the bathroom.
Speaker 1: I was writing down the connection phone number, and he
Speaker 1: followed into the bathroom and you know, to me and
Speaker 1: had a gun on me. I don't know what was said, well,
Speaker 1: even if I was writing a phone number down to
Speaker 1: pull a guns about it right? And then he cocked
Speaker 1: the gun, which really set me off because when you cocked,
Speaker 1: you have like a terre trigger, and you felt like
Speaker 1: significantly afraid. It was the cocking that made you think, oh, like,
Speaker 1: this guy's gonna actually shoot me. He's not the only
Speaker 1: one that is posed ugon, I mean, but the only
Speaker 1: one to convinced me he was about the fire. He
Speaker 1: activated the round. It would have been in the chamber.
Speaker 1: It was like not a good move on his part.
Speaker 1: Ronnie says. Billy then backed out of the bathroom with
Speaker 1: his gun still up. He went out trying to me
Speaker 1: with the gun on me, and it was pretty uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: He says. He took out his buy money, so that
Speaker 1: was really basically to distract him because there was no
Speaker 1: deal at that point. And then did the car quickly.
Speaker 1: I thought that he fired. I saw coming. I think
Speaker 1: it was a simultaneous fire. Ronnie says he thought Billy
Speaker 1: had fired. He thought he saw sparks from Billy's gun.
Speaker 1: In the police report, it says that Billy never fired
Speaker 1: his gun. That was the only disagreement we had to
Speaker 1: whether there was that first shot actually went off simultaneously
Speaker 1: or I seeing my own sparks. I don't know where
Speaker 1: sparks came from his direction, But was I actually saying
Speaker 1: my own sparks as I don't know. I can only
Speaker 1: say what I saw m but he is known to
Speaker 1: fire his gun, according to the informant. Now, but the inflormant,
Speaker 1: I believe it was totally totally truthful and he was
Speaker 1: petrified of the guy. They said they never got the fire.
Speaker 1: I said that he did because I saw the two
Speaker 1: things and I'm the one who decoct the gun and
Speaker 1: emptied it. Would that make a difference to you if
Speaker 1: if it was that wouldn't have been at all? Mhm.
Speaker 1: Did he seem erratic to you? Well, didn't he? He's
Speaker 1: tears to me to be pretty high mh. I've I've
Speaker 1: seen things go down where I just say, why would
Speaker 1: this guy have done this? And drugs was very west
Speaker 1: in the cause. What happens like right after you well,
Speaker 1: right after everything we could save him to get into
Speaker 1: the hospital again, checked up, but it's just you tried
Speaker 1: to save him, yest. We did. We got him right
Speaker 1: to the hospital. He was actually interviewed by by the
Speaker 1: team afterwards because he was hospital and he survived initially.
Speaker 1: Did you ever go see him in the hospital? I
Speaker 1: know no, I'm sure you wouldn't wouldn't want visited for me.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you're comfortable telling me a little bit
Speaker 1: about like what you felt in that situation, Like was
Speaker 1: that a rare occurrence or that conference that I actually
Speaker 1: end up on a shoot out of any time? And
Speaker 1: I was not happy with it at all. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't be happy being involved in something like that.
Speaker 1: So it's bothered you not better cost did you didn't
Speaker 1: want that to happen? Yeah, I can't amage anyone being
Speaker 1: happy about it. Obviously, we were shooting people over the
Speaker 1: cops are like forty years and he was the only one.
Speaker 1: He's the only one. Yeah, oh my god, it's the
Speaker 1: sad thing. I I don't know what's siring. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is a sad thing. It's it's really wild to
Speaker 1: hear that in year forty years as a police officer,
Speaker 1: he was the only one, the only one shot. That
Speaker 1: must stick with you. Well, it is what it is.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, that's nothing's gonna change it. So I
Speaker 1: can't really talk too much more about it. I don't
Speaker 1: want to get into anything like I'm not even probably Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't want to go too far with it. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you again. I really appreciate it. And um,
Speaker 1: I hope you have a beautiful day. Insane to you.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, all right, take care bye bye, Hio.
Speaker 1: Tell me what you're feeling. Uh. I sense an openness
Speaker 1: from him. I get the sense that he cares. He
Speaker 1: struck me as somebody caught between how much he believes
Speaker 1: in his job and like a very human response, which was,
Speaker 1: this is very unfortunate, and like he stopped short of
Speaker 1: saying I'm sorry, but I could feel that from him,
Speaker 1: like he wasn't he wasn't like fuck it, like whatever, yeah,
Speaker 1: so what this happened? He was a fucking high maniac
Speaker 1: like whatever. When he said we did everything we could
Speaker 1: to save him, make sure he went straight to the hospital,
Speaker 1: there's remorse there. I'm just looking over the questions that
Speaker 1: we have for him, and it's like it was fucking heroin.
Speaker 1: It was heroin. I also find it very interesting that
Speaker 1: says he never wore a cowboy hat. I also find
Speaker 1: it very interesting that says he never visited him in
Speaker 1: the hospital, and his response to that also was interesting
Speaker 1: because he said, well, no, I mean that would upset him.
Speaker 1: We h. I find to be a very human answer
Speaker 1: to the question of did you go see the man
Speaker 1: who you just shot six times in the hospital, I
Speaker 1: too would be like, well, no, he doesn't want to
Speaker 1: see me. So he also gave some details about the
Speaker 1: cocking of the gun that makes me think that he's
Speaker 1: telling the truth about him remembering Billy cocking it. And
Speaker 1: him being the one to decock it afterwards. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think him also emptying the gun, and it was a
Speaker 1: very human detail. It doesn't seem like he was making
Speaker 1: it up. Here's my my understanding right now. I don't
Speaker 1: think Ronald went to that house to kill Billy balls
Speaker 1: based on the information that we have, I don't believe
Speaker 1: that I can see a world in which the bigger
Speaker 1: case like what if. No, that doesn't make any fucking sense.
Speaker 1: It's just like the conspiracy just falls apart from me.
Speaker 1: It seems all really fucking unfortunate and stupid. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: all very sad. It's devastating because it didn't need to happen.
Speaker 1: If Billy hadn't been erratic and high, probably and if
Speaker 1: he hadn't had a gun, I wouldn't have shot him,
Speaker 1: and all this tragedy, all this devastation of him being
Speaker 1: ripped from my mom, And it seems to me that
Speaker 1: it did not need to happen. As Ronnie has spent
Speaker 1: thirty seven years probably telling himself that he did the
Speaker 1: right thing, my mom has also spent thirty seven years
Speaker 1: telling herself that he did the wrong thing, and then
Speaker 1: this great tragedy and she was robbed, and Billy was
Speaker 1: robbed in all of these things, and the whole thing
Speaker 1: is just this like exercise and what the mind creates
Speaker 1: versus what the reality is when you just have all
Speaker 1: the fucking information alone in this world. She here, I
Speaker 1: think she's here next week, so let me just take
Speaker 1: off my coats. One last sit down with my mom.
Speaker 1: They led to kill. It's the final chapter of the
Speaker 1: Ballad of Billy Balls. Yea Crime Town is Zach Stewart
Speaker 1: Pontier and Mark Smirling. The Ballad of Billy Balls is
Speaker 1: hosted by me Io Till It Right and made in
Speaker 1: partnership with Caden's Thirteen. You can find me on the internet.
Speaker 1: Um Io loves you on everything. Do say hi, and
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about my story, you
Speaker 1: can pick up my memoir Darling Days. We also want
Speaker 1: to hear from you. We have a voicemail set up
Speaker 1: for you to call us and tell us whatever you want.
Speaker 1: Here's a guy with good taste. Can I just say
Speaker 1: I think that the the song is absolutely genius, absolutely genius.
Speaker 1: It is perfect for the podcast. I wish you all
Speaker 1: the very best regards to how this turns out, and
Speaker 1: I have enjoyed the hell out of it. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I totally agree everybody should check out the rest of
Speaker 1: their music Light Asylum. They're the best. And if there's
Speaker 1: something on your mind, thoughts, feelings, complaints, whatever, call us
Speaker 1: and leave us a voicemail at five seven oh three,
Speaker 1: nine to zero, especially if you have a family mystery.
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with hearing about them. You can also get
Speaker 1: into our discussion forum on our website, The Ballad of
Speaker 1: Billy Balls dot com. The show was produced by me,
Speaker 1: Kevin Sheppard and Ryan Swygert. Our senior producers Austin Mitchell,
Speaker 1: editing by Zach Stewart Contier and Mark Smirling. Fact checking
Speaker 1: by Jennifer Blackman. This episode was mixed by Sam Bayer.
Speaker 1: Music by Kenny Qca. Our title track is Dark Allies
Speaker 1: by Light Asylum. Archival research by Brennan Reese. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Nicole Long, Thanks to Daniella Aria, Rachel Lee Wright,
Speaker 1: Emily Wiederman, Green Card Pictures, Alessandro Centauro, Bill Clegg, Ben Davis,
Speaker 1: or In Rosenbaum and the team at Cadence thirteen, and
Speaker 1: of course my Mom, without whom none of this would
Speaker 1: be possible. And this week I want to give an
Speaker 1: extra shout out to Austin for his handy photo shop techniques.