6 | Fire In The Sky

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Speaker 3 Shocked today after an arrest in the infamous Gilgo Beach murders.

Speaker 8 The morning of July 14th, 2023 is one I'll never forget. The day they finally caught him.
Lisk, the Long Island serial killer.

Speaker 4 59-year-old Rex Huerman from Long Island is now charged in the murders of three women.

Speaker 8 10 years earlier, we had gone on our own hunt for Lisk. And even though we didn't find him, I had no idea how close we came.

Speaker 3 We're learning that Rex Human may have called a documentary filmmaker.

Speaker 10 Will you at my house tonight?

Speaker 4 Yes, we were looking for you.

Speaker 8 It was only half the story.

Speaker 12 There's no other way to describe this except explosive.

Speaker 4 Former Suffolk County Chief of Police James Burke was put in handcuffs.

Speaker 13 See if he's still denying the accusations.

Speaker 8 I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer. Available now.
Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 6 For more information, check out the show notes. Enjoy the episode.

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Speaker 16 This episode also contains subject matter, including graphic depictions of violence, which may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 6 Previously on Crook County, Kenny got some new orders.

Speaker 7 So not only working and running whorehouses, I'm doing occasional hits on the side. All right, orders hits.

Speaker 6 And we met a new boss.

Speaker 4 Big fat Paulie.

Speaker 7 He always gave me my assignment.

Speaker 6 Kenny's twin brother, Rich, revealed an abusive childhood.

Speaker 4 I remember eating dog food because I was so damn hungry.

Speaker 7 You know, some of the torture stuff, I wouldn't. I never speak of it, ever.

Speaker 6 And remembers Ken as a troubled kid. You could see why he could be an enforcer because he just had that mentality.

Speaker 7 Very violent mentality.

Speaker 6 My name is Kyle Tequila. Welcome to Crook County.

Speaker 6 Just by the way, I'm tired.

Speaker 6 I see cause I'm living a lie.

Speaker 6 Lost in the way.

Speaker 7 There was up evil in the syndicate and the outfit at that time. The cubs were being taken over by different factions.
Drugs,

Speaker 7 there was a big turf war for drugs. There was a lot of upheaval at that particular time.
So I was able to backdoor my shit out at that time.

Speaker 6 Episode 6:

Speaker 6 Fire in the Sky.

Speaker 14 We're reporting this afternoon on the worst commercial air disaster in United States commercial aviation history.

Speaker 7 There was a plane that went down in Chicago at DC-10. Did I actually witness this plane go down?

Speaker 14 At O'Hare Field, Flight 191, American Airlines, bound for Los Angeles, the account of possible disaster victims ranges from 263 up to 279, some as high as 290.

Speaker 6 In 1979, the tragic crash of American Airlines Flight 191 shocked the country.

Speaker 14 Hugh Hill is now in position at O'Hare Field to give us our first direct on-the-scenes report. Hugh?

Speaker 18 We're standing at the oasis on the toll road, overlooking the scene of this crash. There are no survivors.
No survivors.

Speaker 6 Ken was leaving a shift at the club and stopped to pump gas at a station near O'Hare Airport when he witnessed the plane make a cartwheel in mid-air and nosedive into the ground shortly after takeoff.

Speaker 13 Many rescue vehicles leaving the area, more coming in, fighting rush hour traffic to get there.

Speaker 13 Just an unbelievable sight. Hundreds of people milling around,

Speaker 13 wishing that they could help, wanting to help, I'm sure.

Speaker 13 But the heat is so intense from the smoldering wreckage, it's almost impossible to get close to some of the areas of the plane that are left.

Speaker 6 The scene left an enormous impression on Kenny's mind. And over the course of the next few months, an idea began to form that maybe, one day, he could be a firefighter.

Speaker 7 It's just like,

Speaker 7 as I saw all the fire trucks, the police, and everybody converging in on this.

Speaker 4 I'm like, man, that'd be a cool job, dude.

Speaker 17 They are still taking bodies out every few minutes. The firemen are still here.
All of these

Speaker 17 emergency personnel, quite dedicated to the task highly professional people but of course touched by the emotion of this this day and this night so i just did a little bit of research and back then research you had to go to a library you know

Speaker 4 so i did a little research and and i and i knew i did not want to be in the outfit my whole life it just

Speaker 7 i just knew i didn't want to do that even though i was a natural but i just simply didn't want to do it

Speaker 6 but it was only an idea and a crazy one at that He was deep in the outfit, and there was no way they would ever let him go. So he put it behind him and went back to work.

Speaker 7 But I always knew, and this is kind of a, and this is kind of bizarre, but

Speaker 7 I always knew that the less I knew, the better chance I had of surviving.

Speaker 7 Now, we flip that coin.

Speaker 7 I'm doing hits.

Speaker 4 all right?

Speaker 7 You know, that's knowing too much. So I'm in the mode of,

Speaker 7 you know, don't get nosy, don't ask questions, do your job and go home. However, I guess the people that are attracted to that business and are in their business are not, there's no paper trail.

Speaker 7 And back then it was strictly paper. There's no computers, all right, strictly paper.
And if you didn't have a paper trail, you didn't exist.

Speaker 7 These people were living, they were tangible, they ate, they breathed. They did bad things.
But they didn't exist. Everything was done with cash.

Speaker 7 You know, like I said, you could walk into a goddamn car dealer in 1979 and buy a fucking Coupe de Ville for $12,000 cash because that's all they wanted was cash.

Speaker 7 And no one's asking any fucking questions. You know, I don't give a fuck who this guy is.
Here's your application. I mean, whatever you're filling out there.
Use whatever fucking name you want.

Speaker 7 You know,

Speaker 7 I got that cash in my hand, baby.

Speaker 4 That's just packed right there.

Speaker 7 So

Speaker 7 it's a cash world. No one's asking questions.
Now that, you could never do that now. That's impossible.
You just, you can't, you can't live like that now.

Speaker 7 And you can't get away with the stuff that we got away with

Speaker 7 now.

Speaker 7 It would be impossible.

Speaker 6 I asked Chicago Tribune reporter Jeff Cohen to weigh in on this general period in the outfit.

Speaker 20 Chicago in the 70s and the 80s, you're still dealing with the leftover organization of basically the Capone era at that time.

Speaker 20 It was still very kind of a top-down organization. You still had major bosses.
You had the Tony Ocardo characters who were running the outfit.

Speaker 20 And it was that leftover organization, the organization that came out of Prohibition.

Speaker 20 and was able to gain a foothold in Chicago by

Speaker 20 having tentacles that went into government and went into the police department and went into unions.

Speaker 20 That allowed them to sort of operate with impunity and they weren't afraid of law enforcement because a lot of times they had a good enough control of law enforcement that they didn't really need to be fearful of that.

Speaker 20 And so that let them expand into

Speaker 20 basically almost all manner of life in Chicago.

Speaker 20 There were certain neighborhoods where you couldn't even open open up a hot dog stand without getting some kind of permission and or street loan from somebody who would then have a piece of that business going forward.

Speaker 20 So you had money moving through the city at all levels that they controlled through legitimate businesses and definitely through illegitimate ones.

Speaker 6 As the years dragged on, The image of the plane crash still haunted him, and he found himself no longer able to suppress the urge to move on from from the outfit.

Speaker 7 Yeah,

Speaker 7 the reason I remember that plane crash so much is because that's when I decided and wanted to be a paramedic firefighter.

Speaker 7 I figured that's my career now. I'm going to do this.
Because I don't want to do what I'm doing. Everybody that worked in that business, that was their career.

Speaker 7 In their minds, that's what they were going to do.

Speaker 6 Forever.

Speaker 7 And I knew that that's just, that's just not going to happen. It's just, it can't happen.

Speaker 6 Ken had made up his mind and put a plan in place to eventually leave the outfit.

Speaker 6 With his current responsibilities taking up most of his time, he knew it would take years to finish all the classes required to get his paramedic license before he could even begin to look for a job.

Speaker 6 But none of that would even matter without the approval of the higher-ups, which he knew was impossible. So he went back to his old boss, Mickey.

Speaker 6 the maid guy who first saw potential in a young kid who had robbed his nephew and offered him a place in the outfit.

Speaker 7 I was young.

Speaker 4 I still had a chance to get out and he just kind of liked me and he knew that would not be a good life for me.

Speaker 7 So he kind of encouraged me on the side to just, you know, go ahead, get your education. All right.

Speaker 4 But so he was like a mentor. Yeah, he was like a mentor.

Speaker 14 Fucked up mentor.

Speaker 7 Yeah, yeah. I mean, he was like, you know, I mean, I looked at him like a dad, you know?

Speaker 6 I asked Jeff if he's ever heard of anything happen like this before. Someone getting out of the mob.

Speaker 20 I have a couple of friends who, as you know, everybody in Chicago kind of knows somebody who knows somebody kind of thing, where there were these two sons, and their dad was a Chicago police officer and also basically like the sub-boss of Kamiski Park.

Speaker 20 So all the concessions going in and out of Kamiski, they controlled it and they would skim it and take money out of the ballpark and blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 20 So they allow some of that to happen for the reason that you said, I think in episode one, where somebody who has value, who's going someplace, they allow them to kind of do that because they think it's something that they can use in the future.

Speaker 20 So when I heard you tell that story, I was like, yeah, that's kind of a thing.

Speaker 20 They let some people go.

Speaker 6 So with the green light from Mickey, Ken hit the books.

Speaker 7 I start studying to be an EMT paramedic, right? I get my EMT. I can take the fire department test.
Anyway, anyway, so I go through that trade.

Speaker 7 I am working in the outfit and I'm studying to be an EMT because I want to get out of the fire department. I want a career.
I want to get out of this business.

Speaker 6 But he was still years away from passing any tests. And he still had a job to do, managing the club.
And that responsibility came before all else.

Speaker 7 So I remember working the front door of the whorehouses and studying my EMT book while I was working the front door of the whorehouses. I distinctly remember that.

Speaker 7 They thought I was nuts.

Speaker 4 You know, what the fuck you want to do that for? Let's go out and party. You You know, I just told them, listen, I got more important shit to do, okay? More important to me.

Speaker 7 So, and I think they respected that.

Speaker 7 So, I think that impressed the bosses too.

Speaker 7 You know, because

Speaker 7 I wasn't doing what everybody was doing,

Speaker 4 I was trying to move on.

Speaker 6 Part of that responsibility included hiring new girls. And one new girl in particular lit a fire in Ken that almost cost him everything.

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Speaker 23 Some moments in your life stay with you forever.

Speaker 23 In a special segment of On Purpose, I share a story about a book that changed my life early in my journey and how I was able to find the exact same edition on eBay years later.

Speaker 23 There are certain books that don't just give you information, they shift the way you see the world. I remember reading one when I was younger that completely changed me.

Speaker 23 Years later, I found myself thinking about that book again. I wanted the same edition back.
Not a reprint, not a different cover, that exact one. So I started searching.

Speaker 23 And that's when I found it on eBay. That's what I love about eBay.
It's not just a marketplace, it's a place where stories live. Shop eBay for millions of finds, each with a story.

Speaker 23 eBay, things people love.

Speaker 23 Listen to on purpose on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 24 This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture Eastas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

Speaker 19 This is Bowen Yang from Los Culture Estas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

Speaker 24 Hey, Bowen, it's gift season.

Speaker 19 Oh, stressing me out.

Speaker 25 Why are all the people I love so hard to shop for?

Speaker 4 Like me? Exactly.

Speaker 24 Honey, I'm easy. But you're right.
Holiday gifting is stressful.

Speaker 19 And all the gift guides out there are boring and uninspired. Wait, what about the guide we made? A partnership with Marshalls, where premium gifts mean incredible value?

Speaker 4 It's giving gifts!

Speaker 24 A series of guides filled with premium gifts at great value for everyone on your list.

Speaker 19 Yeah, because if I see one more for the dad who likes golf list, I'm out.

Speaker 24 Right? How about something for the people who actually surprise you?

Speaker 19 With categories like best gifts for the mom whose idea of a sensible walking shoe is a stiletto, ps, she wants a pair of stilettos.

Speaker 24 Or best gifts for me that were so thoughtful I really shouldn't have.

Speaker 19 Dying to see what those are.

Speaker 24 And you won't believe their prices.

Speaker 19 Just wait till you see what else is in there. It's basically a one-stop shop for everyone you know.

Speaker 24 I started bookmarking half the list for myself, honestly.

Speaker 19 This is the guy for the 2025 holiday gifting season.

Speaker 24 Check out the guide on marshalls.com.

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I repeat, not everything is terrible.

Speaker 28 The Ripple Effect with Jenna Kim Jones is proof that the internet, it hasn't ruined humanity entirely. It's hosted by me, Jenna.

Speaker 29 I'm a comedian, so you know it's going to be funny and uplifting, of course.

Speaker 29 Each episode of The Ripple Effect features real stories of kindness, of barbers changing more than just their clients' haircut, of the secret life of leftover hotel soap, of vending machines that dispense just the help that someone might need.

Speaker 29 It's like magic, you guys.

Speaker 11 So put down your Doom scroller and pick up your faith in humanity and join me, Jenna, for the Ripple Effect. It's a reminder that you can start a ripple that changes everything.

Speaker 1 You really can. Listen to the Ripple Effect with Jenna Kim Jones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 6 Over the years, while Ken was working the club, he had seen hundreds of girls come in and out of the business. Some lasted longer than others.

Speaker 6 But many of them would be there one day and gone the next.

Speaker 6 It seemed to be the nature of the trade.

Speaker 6 But every now and then, a girl would show up that seemed different than the rest.

Speaker 6 Somehow out of place in this cruel, dark world they occupied.

Speaker 6 One of those girls was named Honey.

Speaker 7 Honey, honey was my girl, you guys.

Speaker 7 Honey was the best man. Like we just hit it off.
I don't, I can't explain it.

Speaker 7 Just one of those people you could sit on and talk with and just have a conversation for hours without even having to think about what you're going to talk about.

Speaker 7 Or you could just sit there and talk about nothing and feel just as comfortable, just as safe,

Speaker 7 just as

Speaker 7 peaceful as having a great conversation. She was just one of those people who I felt really, really comfortable with.

Speaker 14 And she felt very, very comfortable with me.

Speaker 6 She must have been special. Because Ken was breaking one of the cardinal rules of the business.
Never get emotionally involved with the talent.

Speaker 7 We would date.

Speaker 7 I dated her. In fact, I'll be honest with you, I think I fell in love with her.
I really do. I think I fell in love with that girl.

Speaker 6 I asked him what she looked like.

Speaker 7 Yeah, kind of short.

Speaker 7 I don't know, maybe five, four little baby doll cuts, you know, short bangs, you know, down the sides of the cheeks, back of the cheeks, and then cropped up around the neck, you know, just I don't know what they call them, baby dolls.

Speaker 7 I used to call them baby doll cuts.

Speaker 4 She wore red lipstick, drove me insane.

Speaker 7 red lipstick drives me insane

Speaker 7 she wore it all the time i mean she had those sparkling beautiful eyes so you could swim in them i could just dive

Speaker 7 go swimming in her eyes

Speaker 7 and that smile man that got me every

Speaker 7 time

Speaker 7 it's a great girl

Speaker 6 ken knew he would need to tread carefully with honey But the attraction was too strong. They were lovers and friends and would spend many nights confiding in each other.

Speaker 7 I would come to work, you know,

Speaker 7 stressed out because I was in school a lot.

Speaker 7 And I knew I had to work a late shift and, you know,

Speaker 7 tired, but I'd walk in the door and she would be waiting for me, man. She was always so loyal and there.
She would just, I'd see that big smile on her and just,

Speaker 6 you know, just

Speaker 6 everything went away.

Speaker 7 All the bad stuff went away.

Speaker 6 But honey wasn't the only woman in Ken's life.

Speaker 7 I was seeing honey when I was dating your mother, Kyle.

Speaker 7 We weren't married, but we were dating, and we would, for quite a period there, just like all people when they first start dating, maybe not all people, but in our particular case, we would break up for a time.

Speaker 7 And then get back together, break up for a time, get back together. And for a couple of years there, your mother and I broke up.
And that's when I did a lot of this mobster work.

Speaker 7 We did a lot of it when she was, when I was broken up with her.

Speaker 6 I asked my mom what she remembers about these years.

Speaker 31 If we got married when we were engaged at 19 and 20, I would have been divorced at 22.

Speaker 31 But the relationship kept coming back, back and forth.

Speaker 31 It was like we... We would break up and he would see people and I would see people and we would be like in a bar at the same time he was somebody and I was somebody.

Speaker 4 But it kept going on for eight years.

Speaker 6 The simple fact is Holly was a civilian, an innocent, and not a part of this life.

Speaker 6 So Ken continued to keep a wall up between his two worlds.

Speaker 6 But honey was on the inside and he could be himself around her.

Speaker 6 With honey, there was nothing to hide

Speaker 7 she was one of a kind i don't think i met anybody ever like her even even your mother who i got along well i love your mother i still love your mom

Speaker 7 but it was just it was a difference it was different i think because we were both doing that stupid work she was a whore i was running a whore house

Speaker 7 you know i think we i i think we had that little thing in common

Speaker 7 She was a soulmate, you know, almost like a soulmate, like a companion. We both escaped together, us us together.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I was her escape and she was my escape. Absolutely.
Yeah.

Speaker 6 And there was certainly a lot to escape from during this period in the outfit.

Speaker 6 The growing popularity of cocaine in America had given rise to powerful and violent drug cartels, which led to intense warring among rival organizations with origins from all over the world.

Speaker 6 competing for the same Chicago turf. There were gun battles in the streets and attempted takeovers of outfit businesses all across the Chicagoland area.

Speaker 7 There was a couple attempts to take over the clubs. There was a Russian group of Russians, maybe Ukrainians, maybe Georgians, I don't know, Eastern European, and they were coming in to

Speaker 7 take over the clubs.

Speaker 7 Not just the club I was working, but the clubs in that whole area there. And I, dude, I don't know what was going on here.
I really don't. They just appeared.

Speaker 7 And yeah, it was a fucking gun battle that broke out. I mean,

Speaker 7 I remember yanking my piece and coming right out of, right, right over the top of my desk and just unloading, just unloading on the mouth, the guy that was talking, doing all the talking.

Speaker 7 I just filled him up full of lead. His whole face was loaded up.

Speaker 7 And I don't think the guys were expecting that. So they pulled their pieces, but they left.
They turned around and ran. They didn't stay.

Speaker 7 And I don't know why they could have had me because I was I only had a couple shots left and then I had to make a phone call we had to get him out of there so some people came and wrapped him up in clear plastic.

Speaker 7 I don't know why clear plastic, but I used clear plastic for him cleaned up the mess and took him wherever they took him put some buried him some foundation somewhere because we had construction companies that we would pay to

Speaker 7 put our bodies into

Speaker 7 foundations that they were working on.

Speaker 7 No residential stuff, but all commercial stuff.

Speaker 7 And they were on the payroll so they got paid you know it'd be a it'd be a midnight pour you know they'd put the lights up and bring a truck out and midnight pour they'd be pouring concrete at two o'clock in the morning and we'd be dropping bodies so yeah i mean everything was pre-arranged you guys you guys got to realize this is a business man it's a business and a lot of people had their fingers in the pie all right so-called legit people and so called not legit people.

Speaker 7 All right.

Speaker 7 Everybody had their fingers in the pie. Everybody was getting a piece.
All right?

Speaker 7 And that's what kept the peace. Because everybody was getting a piece.

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Speaker 23 Some moments in your life stay with you forever.

Speaker 23 In a special segment of On Purpose, I share a story about a book that changed my life early in my journey and how I was able to find the exact same edition on eBay years later.

Speaker 23 There are certain books that don't just give you information, they shift the way you see the world. I remember reading one when I was younger that completely changed me.

Speaker 23 Years later, I found myself thinking about that book again. I wanted the same edition back.
Not a reprint, not a different cover, that exact one. So I started searching.

Speaker 23 And that's when I found it on eBay. That's what I love about eBay.
It's not just a marketplace, it's a place where stories live. Shop eBay for millions of finds, each with a story.

Speaker 23 eBay, things people love.

Speaker 23 Listen to on purpose on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 24 This is Matt Rogers from Los Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

Speaker 19 This is Bowen Yang from Los Culturalistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

Speaker 24 Hey Bowen, it's gift season.

Speaker 19 Ugh, stressing me out.

Speaker 25 Why are all the people I love so hard to shop for?

Speaker 4 Like me? Exactly.

Speaker 24 Honey, I'm easy. But you're right.
Holiday gifting is stressful.

Speaker 19 And all the gift guides out there are boring and uninspired. Wait, what about the guide we made? A partnership with Marshalls, where premium gifts mean incredible value?

Speaker 4 It's giving gifts!

Speaker 24 A series of guides filled with premium gifts at great value for everyone on your list.

Speaker 19 Yeah, because if I see one more for the dad who likes golf list, I'm out.

Speaker 24 Right? How about something for the people who actually surprise you?

Speaker 19 With categories like best gifts for the mom whose idea of a a sensible walking shoe is a stiletto, ps, she wants a pair of stilettos.

Speaker 24 Or best gifts for me that were so thoughtful I really shouldn't have.

Speaker 19 Dying to see what those are.

Speaker 24 And you won't believe their prices.

Speaker 19 Just wait till you see what else is in there. It's basically a one-stop shop for everyone you know.

Speaker 24 I started bookmarking half the list for myself, honestly.

Speaker 19 This is the guy for the 2025 holiday gifting season.

Speaker 24 Check out the guide on marshalls.com.

Speaker 4 It's giving gifts. Gift the good stuff at Marshalls.

Speaker 26 Breaking news, everybody. Not everything is terrible.
I repeat, not everything is terrible.

Speaker 28 The Ripple Effect with Jenna Kim Jones is proof that the internet hasn't ruined humanity entirely. It's hosted by me, Jenna.

Speaker 29 I'm a comedian, so you know it's going to be funny and uplifting, of course.

Speaker 29 Each episode of The Ripple Effect features real stories of kindness, of barbers changing more than just their clients' haircut, of the secret life of leftover hotel soap, of vending machines that dispense just the help that someone might need.

Speaker 29 It's like magic, you guys.

Speaker 11 So put down your Doom scroller and pick up your faith in humanity and join me, Jenna, for the Ripple Effect. It's a reminder that you can start a ripple that changes everything.

Speaker 1 You really can. Listen to the Ripple Effect with Jenna Kim Jones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 32 67-year-old Roy Williams, head of the Powerful Teamsters Union, guilty on all counts. 59-year-old Alan Dorfman of Suburban Deerfield, guilty on all counts.

Speaker 32 Dorfman, a Chicago insurance executive and former consultant to the Teamsters Pension Fund, has close ties to the crime syndicate.

Speaker 32 53-year-old Joseph Joey the Clown Lombardo, Lombardo of Chicago, guilty on all counts. Lombardo has been identified by federal investigators as a high-ranking member of the Chicago Crime Syndicate.

Speaker 33 Lombardo, who had never been convicted of it.

Speaker 6 The 1980s was a tumultuous time for organized crime in America. The FBI had ramped up efforts to fight corruption and the mafia stranglehold on local governments, labor unions, and law enforcement.

Speaker 32 45-year-old Thomas O'Malley, a former Chicago policeman, guilty on all counts. Messa and the other four defendants face up to 55 years in prison.

Speaker 6 Unprecedented cooperation across major federal agencies led to many high-profile prosecutions of mafia bosses, corrupt government officials, and crooked cops all over the country.

Speaker 33 The message from this jury is quite clear in that at least in this district, that conduct charged in the indictment, when proven by the government, will not be tolerated.

Speaker 6 On top of all this, the turf wars were still raging.

Speaker 7 There was upheaval in the syndic and the outfit at that time. The cubs were being taken over by different factions.

Speaker 7 The drugs,

Speaker 7 there was a big turf war for drugs. There was a lot of upheaval at that particular time.

Speaker 6 All this chaos was taking its toll on the power structure of the organization. And a feeling that this could be the beginning of the end permeated the outfit.

Speaker 20 The Chicago outfit had, especially in the 70s and 80s, still, almost like a corporate type of structure where

Speaker 20 you had a singular boss, you had almost like a board of directors, guys who were close to him who would go and make some of the key decisions.

Speaker 20 And then underneath them, you would have people at the Capo level or people running individual street crews.

Speaker 20 And then under them, you might have lieutenants who were kind of like their bosses on the street. You would direct groups of six, seven, eight, ten made guys

Speaker 20 who are really in the organization. And then beneath them, they might have all sorts of different associates and operators who were

Speaker 20 a part of the organization but not

Speaker 20 plugged into that level. But they would still do the bidding of crew members or especially a street crew boss.
So you had this kind of corporate hierarchical structure, pyramid type structure.

Speaker 20 And so when you have a conspiracy case that kind of chops the head off the snake, the organization tends to sputter and scatter.

Speaker 6 People at all levels of the outfit were panicking. Some turned government informant and entered witness protection.
Others staged bold robberies or assassinated high-level operatives.

Speaker 20 The whole way that the outfit operated, which was to try to be in the shadows, nobody really knows what's going on, kind of directing things behind the scenes, that started to become impossible when surveillance got so much better.

Speaker 20 Their sort of traditional structure just kind of became impossible to run without bringing major, major heat. And so it just kind of crumbled into looser groups.

Speaker 6 They were turning on each other in fear, and bodies were dropping. Nobody knew what would happen next, and nobody was safe.

Speaker 7 Eventually, Paul started taking a liking to honey.

Speaker 7 And there wasn't any whole hell of a lot I can do, man.

Speaker 7 But, you know, she was a pro, so

Speaker 7 she did what she was supposed to do. He was hitting on her, physically abusing her.

Speaker 7 And,

Speaker 7 you know, we talked about it, but there was nothing I can do. And there was nothing she could do.
He was, you know, he's a made guy. He was a boss.
But he was out of line doing that.

Speaker 7 You're not supposed to do that in our business, you're not supposed to do stuff like that.

Speaker 7 So he was fucking up, made guy or not, he was fucking up, man.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 eventually it was going to catch up to him.

Speaker 6 But the abuse continued, and Kenny, helpless, could only watch as it happened.

Speaker 7 Then one day, honey, disappeared.

Speaker 7 She just disappeared off the map. She was there one day and gone the next.

Speaker 7 And I fucking knew that fucking fat greaseball bastard had something to do with it.

Speaker 7 I didn't give a fuck at that time. I was angry.

Speaker 7 I took care of that fat bastard myself.

Speaker 6 Ken could never prove what actually happened to Honey.

Speaker 6 In the same way, it's possible that Polly was involved in her disappearance. I suppose it's just as possible that she simply ran away from the abuse and is still out there, somewhere.

Speaker 6 I have no way of knowing. But at the time, Ken had his suspicions and he made his choice.
And he would deal with the consequences if they came.

Speaker 7 I have some heat on me for a while. But nothing ever happened with that.
Nothing ever happened happened with that.

Speaker 7 They weren't worried about me at that time. There was a lot of changes going on.
So I was able to backdoor out, and I knew that. So I backdoored out of that shift.
Perfect timing for me.

Speaker 6 Maybe it was because of all the turmoil taking place at that time. Or maybe Kenny just got lucky.
Either way, it seemed he had dodged a bullet.

Speaker 6 So he continued his studies and looked forward to the day he could leave this hell behind. I don't know what happened to her.

Speaker 4 I miss her.

Speaker 4 You know,

Speaker 7 she was quite a girl, man.

Speaker 6 And now, a new problem had just walked in the front door and put a gun to Kenny's head.

Speaker 6 I'll split your fucking head open again, because I'm fucking stupid. I don't give a fuck about jail.

Speaker 6 That's my business. That's what I do.

Speaker 7 Tony Spilatro came in and I recognized him. I know who he was.
In the movie Casino, Joe Pesci played him just so you got an idea of who the guy is.

Speaker 6 Tony the Ant Spilatro was a feared enforcer who rose to great power within the outfit.

Speaker 7 I never talked to him before and I never introduced him before, but I know who he was. He was a legend, basically.
An asshole, but a legend.

Speaker 6 In the 70s, he was sent to Las Vegas to head up the organization's ambitions in the growing casino industry.

Speaker 34 I don't know whether you know this or not, but you only have your fucking casino because I made that possible.

Speaker 6 He was famous for his short stature and even shorter temper.

Speaker 7 Little guy, I don't know why he was such a beast.

Speaker 35 He was just a little

Speaker 4 greaseball.

Speaker 34 Where the fuck you get off talking to people about me behind my back going over my head? Your fucking warrant don't ever go over my fucking head again, you motherfucker.

Speaker 14 You.

Speaker 6 He was violent and unpredictable, but ultimately successful in racking up huge earnings for the outfit. He was greedy and ambitious.

Speaker 6 He ran a gang of thieves who would break into hotel rooms, wealthy estates, and jewelry stores. Murder rates in Vegas had spiked to unprecedented levels since his arrival.

Speaker 36 A man by the name of Tony Spilatro has attracted the attention of law enforcement officials, some of whom think Spilatro is the most cunning and dangerous member of the crime syndicate.

Speaker 6 By the end of the 1970s, Spilatro had become a loose cannon, and his illegal antics were becoming public knowledge and attracting heat from local and federal law enforcement.

Speaker 15 Spilatro would eventually be linked to as many as 25 mob-related killings. Witnesses died.

Speaker 6 In December of 1979, the Nevada Gaming Commission officially blacklisted Spilatro, which legally barred him from entering any of the state's casinos, the very ones it was his job to oversee.

Speaker 6 He would spend the next several years going back and forth from Vegas to Chicago, wreaking havoc and asserting his dominance wherever he could.

Speaker 7 So he came in and wanted to take over the clubs. He was going to take over the clubs.
He stuck a gun right in my fucking head. He says, I'm taking over these clubs.
And I says, okay.

Speaker 7 These are your clubs. Because

Speaker 7 I was just going to end up working for him anyway. I didn't care who ran the clubs.
Just let me finish my job so I can finish school, get a job. And I don't care who I work for at that point.

Speaker 6 But Ken never saw Tony again. And he never did end up taking over over the club.
But his reign of terror continued.

Speaker 6 In 1983, around the time he stuck a gun to Ken's forehead, he was tried for the brutal murder of two Chicago gang members.

Speaker 15 He was acquitted. There were at least 15 other arrests, not a single conviction.
Law enforcement officials had yet to beat Spilatro in court.

Speaker 15 A longtime Chicago mob observer reported, Some predict Tony will take a big fall someday, but it hasn't happened yet. So far, Spilatro has lived a charmed life.

Speaker 6 But that charmed good luck was soon coming to an end.

Speaker 6 In 1986, the outfit had had enough of Tony the Ant Spilatro and his crew, and orchestrated a mass hit of nearly a dozen mobsters, including Tony and his brother Michael.

Speaker 6 A hit made even more famous by its brutal depiction in the movie Casino.

Speaker 10 Get up, you fucking stopped man!

Speaker 7 No more! They found him and him and his his brother, they found him in Indiana, all baseball battered up, buried in a shallow grave in Indiana.

Speaker 15 With dozens of crime figures from Chicago, New York, and other cities recently convicted or indicted, there may be a shortage of mob men available who could run Las Vegas's rackets as profitably and as efficiently as federal authorities believe Spilatro did.

Speaker 7 You couldn't ask for better timing to get out of the outfit than what happened there with all the chaos that was going on. You know, I was already in for eight, nine years by then.

Speaker 7 So I knew that was my cue and I took it. And I was gone.

Speaker 14 I was gone.

Speaker 14 Next week on Crook County.

Speaker 7 Just when I think I'm getting away from this shit, I'm covering up dirty fucking cops who are out there murdering fucking people. And a million fucking years did I ever think that was going to happen.

Speaker 7 I mean, I mean, who even thinks of shit like that?

Speaker 6 Crook County is a production of iHeart podcasts and Tenderfoot TV in association with Common Enemy. All episodes are written, produced, and hosted by me, Kyle Tequila.

Speaker 6 Executive producers are Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set.
Main title song is called Crush by the band Starry Eyes.

Speaker 6 End credit song is called Aloha, also by the band Starry Eyes. Sound mix by Cooper Skinner.
Thank you to Oren Rosenbaum and the excellent team at UTA for their support.

Speaker 6 And to my fearless attorney, Wendy Bench, for her guidance. To stay updated on all things Crook County, follow us on all socials at Crook County Podcast.

Speaker 6 Or leave us a voicemail by visiting crookcountypodcast.com. For more podcasts like Crook County, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app or visit tenderfoot.tv.

Speaker 6 Thanks for listening. The story continues next week.

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