Speaker 1: Hello, Hey, yes, Hey, this is Io Rebecca Wrights kid. Wow.
Speaker 1: I can't believe you called just one second. Basically, they
Speaker 1: could have been here from like September. For the past
Speaker 1: few months, I've been looking into the murder of Billy Balls,
Speaker 1: the love of my mom's life. I've nailed down some
Speaker 1: of his history, and I've heard my mom's version of
Speaker 1: what happened to him. But I want some more perspectives,
Speaker 1: so I'm getting in touch with other people who were
Speaker 1: close to that. I gotta take this phone call. I
Speaker 1: can't believe it. How are you? I'm really good, I'm
Speaker 1: really good. How are you? I'm really bad. This is
Speaker 1: an old friend of my mom's. We're calling her Natasha.
Speaker 1: We haven't spoken since I was a little kid. I
Speaker 1: hope you're not calling it that Rebecca. No, no, okay,
Speaker 1: she's fine, she's fine. Yeah, yeah, you know I'm I'm
Speaker 1: calling because I'm making a podcast trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what the funk happened to Billy Balls. Oh really, Okay.
Speaker 1: I have a theory on it because I was around
Speaker 1: at that time, and I don't know if I really
Speaker 1: want to say that. I mean, basically, but wait, this
Speaker 1: is not Oh my God, she didn't hang up fuck me.
Speaker 1: It's like a moment in a movie where like the
Speaker 1: person who did it was hello, Hey, sorry, I don't
Speaker 1: know what happened. Um See, I don't know if I
Speaker 1: really feel comfortable telling the story, like I don't think
Speaker 1: I mean my version of the story. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's may be different than my back us, but I
Speaker 1: would rather do it in person. He wasn't innocent. He
Speaker 1: was not innocent. Today on the show a few theories
Speaker 1: about how a darker side of Billy may have led
Speaker 1: to his death from Crimetown. I'm io till it right,
Speaker 1: and this is the ballad of Billy balls, they says.
Speaker 1: William Heinzman is shot five times. Any impression of who
Speaker 1: had shot him undercover car The dude that shot him
Speaker 1: came to the hospital and said to him, if it
Speaker 1: was up to me, you wouldn't be in here. Chapter four,
Speaker 1: Get in the Wind. How Natasha left us with a
Speaker 1: cliffhanger that she wanted to discuss in person. So my
Speaker 1: producer Austin and I went up to her apartment on
Speaker 1: the Upper East Side. So, uh, my first question is
Speaker 1: like kind of when you met Billy, like described Billy
Speaker 1: for me as a person, well, it was an original
Speaker 1: for sure. He wore a hat, usually a black hat,
Speaker 1: and he wore white socks with black shoes, and uh,
Speaker 1: he was skinning. I had a lot of energy. He
Speaker 1: had a great voice, and I thought he wrote amazing
Speaker 1: lyrics like I'd rather have a bottle in front of
Speaker 1: me than a front of the bottomy, rather have a
Speaker 1: bottom of the bottom. That he had a sense of
Speaker 1: humor to him. And I also know he really loved
Speaker 1: Rebecca that I could tap. Natasha remembers Billy's tenderness towards
Speaker 1: my mom when she would be doing her exercises back,
Speaker 1: like where her abdomen was stretched out and she was
Speaker 1: she was weightlifting. He would like go after her stomach
Speaker 1: like a career, you know, like cut that out. You know.
Speaker 1: He would always like he was like a prankster. He
Speaker 1: was like a dark haired Dennis the Menace in a way.
Speaker 1: And I thought Billy was extremely talented. In the early eighties,
Speaker 1: Natasha was experimenting with a music career and I was
Speaker 1: working with Billy. I used to pay him to work
Speaker 1: with him. I would go to the basement and he
Speaker 1: would play the piano and I would do some singing
Speaker 1: and try to write songs with him the basement of
Speaker 1: the storefront. But Natasha didn't have a ton of musical experience.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know where what's called one is, like
Speaker 1: like when you're supposed to start a song like And
Speaker 1: when he tried to create songs with me, he couldn't
Speaker 1: understand why I didn't know where one was. You got
Speaker 1: to learn account man, walk me through that whole situation.
Speaker 1: And then Natasha started to tell us her theory about
Speaker 1: why Billy was killed. It's a crazy saga that she says,
Speaker 1: began with a wealthy international diplomat. I was asked to
Speaker 1: get dope for a very wealthy politician. You know, politicians
Speaker 1: and princes and all those people did drugs like anybody
Speaker 1: else did. This person was a very heavy partier and
Speaker 1: would have these really big, extravagant orgies and nothing like
Speaker 1: dropping a hundred thousand dollars in one night. This person
Speaker 1: was a cocaine um freak, and they wanted to try
Speaker 1: some thing different. So I recommended heroin, and and that's
Speaker 1: how I got Billy to score for me. So it
Speaker 1: was more like a Christian So Billy and Natasha met
Speaker 1: up to go buy the drugs. But the only problem
Speaker 1: was she showed up in a fur coat coat. I
Speaker 1: mean thember Billy is saying, rolling his eyes, I'm going
Speaker 1: I can't believe you. I guess I looked suspicious that
Speaker 1: they thought I was on the cover. Cop Billy took
Speaker 1: her anyway. They went to Alphabet City where they got
Speaker 1: in line, an actual line of people to buy heroin.
Speaker 1: Then drugs in hand, she headed to the airport. So
Speaker 1: I went on a plane and I, you know, I
Speaker 1: went to a foreign country to meet that diplomat who
Speaker 1: was planning an international orgy. And Natasha says, when you
Speaker 1: get invited to an international orgy, you go. It was
Speaker 1: sort of like Caligula. People having sex men and women,
Speaker 1: gay straight, you know, using various toys to have sex
Speaker 1: with and you know, dildos and chains and just everything
Speaker 1: you can imagine. I mean, there would be amazing spreads
Speaker 1: of like caviare and you know, all kinds of exotic food, um,
Speaker 1: and there would be you know, people snort and cocaine,
Speaker 1: and also on the menu that heroine she brought. Ironically,
Speaker 1: the person who I got the drugs for he almost
Speaker 1: odeed on the heroine that night. That I got from Billy,
Speaker 1: and he got very, very sick, and then I came
Speaker 1: back to the United States. So she says she took
Speaker 1: the drugs back to Billy, and I knew he needed money,
Speaker 1: and I basically gave him the heroine back and as payment,
Speaker 1: you know, for whatever he was working on with me,
Speaker 1: which I think, in retrospect was a huge mistake, a
Speaker 1: mistake Natasha thinks might have cost Billy his life. Something
Speaker 1: went wrong with whoever he was exchanging the dope with,
Speaker 1: because I actually saw him afterwards, and I remember coming
Speaker 1: down stairs and he was just very frantic and he
Speaker 1: was mad at me for some reason, and he had
Speaker 1: a gun and he was waving the gun around down
Speaker 1: the basement, and he was really strung out, and he
Speaker 1: was very nervous and very neurotic. He was very paranoid
Speaker 1: because he was afraid something had gone wrong. And he said,
Speaker 1: there's a dead rat under the piano, or there's going
Speaker 1: to be a dead rat under the piano. I got
Speaker 1: the impression that he that he had possibly killed somebody,
Speaker 1: and he was like dead with him a week. Natasha
Speaker 1: thought that somebody might have ratted Billy out, so he
Speaker 1: killed them, which had something to do with why he died.
Speaker 1: Did you hear anything about who killed him or what happened? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was told um that Rebecca had come home and
Speaker 1: the place was flagged off with please tape, and then
Speaker 1: she wasn't allowed in. And I had heard that undercover
Speaker 1: cop had been in the house. But the undercover cop
Speaker 1: was there to investigate, you know, the murder and basically said,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, I'm here, like where is the
Speaker 1: body or you know or something like that. Uh. The
Speaker 1: story was that he went to go get a gun
Speaker 1: and the guy undercover cop pulled a gun out and
Speaker 1: shot him. I really don't know the answer to it,
Speaker 1: but I know that he was not completely innocent. Something
Speaker 1: had to have happened. So was Billy shot by the
Speaker 1: cops because he had killed someone? Coming up a completely
Speaker 1: different theory from one of Billy's best friends. That's after
Speaker 1: the break. Talk to me for a second. Okay, we're good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hello Mr Chrome? Yell, Hey, Cheetah's io. How are you good?
Speaker 1: How are you doing? I'm good, I'm here with This
Speaker 1: is Cheetah Chrome. He was the guitarist for the Dead Boys,
Speaker 1: an important early punk band. Him and Billy were close.
Speaker 1: You know, Jilly usually one of the best friends. Ben said,
Speaker 1: I love you guys. They had their own band together,
Speaker 1: and Cheetah says, Billy did things his way. At some
Speaker 1: point he acquired a white Davy Graham Chanel and he
Speaker 1: decided he wanted to use it a suit of Jesus,
Speaker 1: and so we all ended up getting the fucking him
Speaker 1: Chanel onto a Dolly and walking it down to Superzis
Speaker 1: from his place. You know, oh my god, it was
Speaker 1: hilarious because I mean it was literally four guys like
Speaker 1: pushing the channel on a Dolly down third having you
Speaker 1: and I mean didn't make a difference, was it didn't? Didn't?
Speaker 1: Of course I made it, Jeffer. It's not a great
Speaker 1: Billy bows on keyboards all right, sticks out drugs like
Speaker 1: a time. Yeah, it was great. It was a great,
Speaker 1: you know thing experience to have and Billy was really challenging.
Speaker 1: But you know, we didn't do that many shows. You know, Billy,
Speaker 1: I don't know if maybe he was afraid of making
Speaker 1: it or if he just was, you know, at stage
Speaker 1: fright or didn't like playing live. Plus he was going
Speaker 1: to sub subsidize in like this band was you know
Speaker 1: something pills and s side. You know, this isn't the
Speaker 1: first time we've heard it. Billy might have been dealing drugs,
Speaker 1: but I'm hoping Cheetah can shed some more light on it.
Speaker 1: What can you tell us a little more about that? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you just had a good supply pretty much,
Speaker 1: you know, to an alls and reds and things like that,
Speaker 1: you know how stuff if you wanted it. Um, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't call him a real drug dealer. I mean the
Speaker 1: only customers they had were like those friends of guys
Speaker 1: who played with you know. And he says that the
Speaker 1: drug Billy liked to take the most with speed, in particular,
Speaker 1: a prescription drug called the sox. In the sox which
Speaker 1: is like pure speed, really good pure speed pill, like
Speaker 1: one of one of those if you up twenty four
Speaker 1: hours to shot at. You know, Billy was you know,
Speaker 1: into pretty much everything like that. You know. Fact then
Speaker 1: we all it wasn't like unusual. Oh, it wasn't like
Speaker 1: he was any any criminal element or anything. It was
Speaker 1: just like a normal We all did that straight. You know.
Speaker 1: Around that time, I was on a steady diet of
Speaker 1: heroin and cocaine. You know, you're doing a recording studio
Speaker 1: or just to blow until you were done and do
Speaker 1: heroin to come down. You know, can you tell me
Speaker 1: about the day that you found out Billy was shot
Speaker 1: since to me, like I went down to sue your
Speaker 1: mom and obviously she was extremely upset because it was
Speaker 1: just unbelievable. I mean, we were all in shock. I mean,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like, oh we saw this coming or anything
Speaker 1: I had. We weren't, and you know, it was just
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, out of nowhere. You know, one
Speaker 1: of our best friends was all of a sudden murdered dead.
Speaker 1: You know, do you have any theories on why that
Speaker 1: might have happened? Billy? Did you have a couple of
Speaker 1: guns and supposedly like he had sold a gun to
Speaker 1: somebody and the gun had been used to shoot a cop.
Speaker 1: So they when they found out where he got the gun,
Speaker 1: but the way the guy got the gun from there
Speaker 1: was like a kind of a revenge thing going on
Speaker 1: where they went in there and with the intentions of
Speaker 1: what happened happening. So Cheatah suspects that Billy sold a
Speaker 1: gun that someone then used to shoot a cop, and
Speaker 1: that's why the cops targeted Billy and there's you know,
Speaker 1: they claimed that he went for a gun. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was not there. I don't know what happened. But
Speaker 1: Billy did take a lot of steed um. You could
Speaker 1: get pretty you know, whacked out there sometimes to weaken on.
Speaker 1: It starts hallucinating thinking the government's after you know, ship
Speaker 1: like that. But I don't see him going for a gun.
Speaker 1: An say cops. You know, there was a revenge thing
Speaker 1: from the cops. So we've heard from Natasha that Billy
Speaker 1: may have killed someone, and we've heard from Cheetah Chrome
Speaker 1: that Billy may have sold a gun that was used
Speaker 1: to kill someone else. Your mom, Hi, Mama, Hey, Hi Hi.
Speaker 1: So we went back to my mom to ask what
Speaker 1: was happening with guns in their home. I slept at
Speaker 1: one point with the little Colt Pearl Handled twenty two
Speaker 1: under my pillow, which he gave to me because I
Speaker 1: needed it. You needed it. You know, it's for protection.
Speaker 1: Where was the twenty two on the day that the
Speaker 1: Long Long Gone. There was no guns in the apartment.
Speaker 1: My mom says that Billy did have guns for protection,
Speaker 1: but that he'd gotten rid of them just before he
Speaker 1: was shot because he felt like something bad was coming.
Speaker 1: He sold everything, he was preparing for us to move
Speaker 1: because it was the vibe. He had a feeling. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's sensitive person. You know, he knows you know, the
Speaker 1: word on his tweets and all that, and he said them,
Speaker 1: baby girl, I'm gonna get in the wind. Could this
Speaker 1: be because of the rat flipping on him or because
Speaker 1: of the gun he sold to a cop killer coming
Speaker 1: back to haunt him. Something big had to be going down.
Speaker 1: He wanted to get in the wind to quote unquote
Speaker 1: and move like things are really changing and in our
Speaker 1: immediate world. She was hitting the fan for him in
Speaker 1: some kind of way, which he would never tell me anything.
Speaker 1: That would be like if you don't know, it won't
Speaker 1: hurt you kind of thing. Yeah, what I don't understand
Speaker 1: is why. And I'm not not in any kind of
Speaker 1: suspicious way. But what I'm really trying to understand and
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of is what was the motivation
Speaker 1: for the guy to shoot him? Why did they want
Speaker 1: to kill him? That's what I don't have any idea,
Speaker 1: and that's I don't know. I don't know. You know,
Speaker 1: you're asking me to add words. I'm not adding words
Speaker 1: because there's no words to be added, I am the
Speaker 1: only arbitor of the words, so you gotta respect that.
Speaker 1: After we leave, I start to ask myself a bigger question.
Speaker 1: I have to say, there's a little part of me
Speaker 1: now that I'm discovering that maybe Billy wasn't such a
Speaker 1: good guy, that a little part of me is like,
Speaker 1: why are you doing this to your mom? But at
Speaker 1: the same time, she's in so much pain and has
Speaker 1: been for thirty five years. Do you think that you know,
Speaker 1: if Billy was not a great guy, giving her the
Speaker 1: truth will help her. I don't know. Yeah, I love
Speaker 1: my mom a lot, but I know that people construct
Speaker 1: fragile mental houses for themselves to live in that can
Speaker 1: be built with toothpicks that keep them alive and make
Speaker 1: life survivable and make pain and loss manageable. And I
Speaker 1: wonder if I am stronger in the sense that I
Speaker 1: can handle the truth about people and about things. And
Speaker 1: I don't want to burn her toothpick house down by
Speaker 1: being bullheaded and wanting the truth. But the truth is
Speaker 1: I do want the truth. I mean, if we're making
Speaker 1: ship up based on no evidence, we can make up
Speaker 1: any ship we want, and it's all consistent with the
Speaker 1: no evidence that we have. There are answers that are attainable.
Speaker 1: There are files out there that at least give the
Speaker 1: police and witness narrative of what they claim aim happened.
Speaker 1: That's in two weeks. In the next chapter of the
Speaker 1: Ballad of Billy Balls, Crime Town is Zack Stewart Pontier
Speaker 1: and Mark Smirling. The Ballad of Billy Balls is hosted
Speaker 1: by me Io till It Right and made in partnership
Speaker 1: with Cadence thirteen. You can find me on the internet.
Speaker 1: Um Io loves you on everything and if you want
Speaker 1: to know more about my story, you can pick up
Speaker 1: my memoir Darling Days. We also want to hear from you.
Speaker 1: We have a voicemail set up for you to call us.
Speaker 1: Here's Dom from California. I just want to say this,
Speaker 1: This podcast making me feel all kinds of stuff, specifically
Speaker 1: about my friend Gregory, who seemed to have a kind
Speaker 1: of a death wish like Billy did. Um just a
Speaker 1: really wild soul, an amazing soul who got taken and
Speaker 1: I think of Billy and Gregory are somewhere special together.
Speaker 1: I hope Billy and Gregory you're tearing up the afterlife
Speaker 1: if there is one if there's somebody Billy reminds you of,
Speaker 1: or you have a theory on what could have happened,
Speaker 1: call us and leave us a voicemail at five seven
Speaker 1: oh three, nine to zero. You can also get into
Speaker 1: our discussion forum on our website, The Ballad of Billie
Speaker 1: Balls dot com. The show is produced by Me, Kevin Sheppard,
Speaker 1: and Ryan Swigert. Our senior producer is the Inimissible Austin Mitchell.
Speaker 1: Editing by Zach Stewart Pontier and Mark Smirling. Fact checking
Speaker 1: by Jennifer Blackman. This episode was mixed and sound designed
Speaker 1: by Kenny Qcack. Music by Kenny Qcak. Our title track
Speaker 1: is Dark Allies by Light Asylum. Archival searched by Brennan Reese.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Danielle Aria, rachel Leie Wright, Emily Wiedemann.
Speaker 1: Those are our girlfriends and wives, Green card pictures, Alessandro Santairo,
Speaker 1: Bill Clegg, Ben Davis, or In Rosenbaum and the team
Speaker 1: at Caden's thirteen, And of course, my Mom, without whom
Speaker 1: none of this would be possible