Coal Survivor I 5. New Year’s Eve

ABC Tuesdays, Dancing with the Stars is back with an all-new celebrity cast.

You have the crew: Robert Irwin, Alex Earle, Andy Richter, Shen Affleck, Baron Davis, Lauren Howreggie, Whitney Levitt, Tylene Fron, Jordan Childs, Ilaria Baldwin, Scott Hoyd, Elaine Hendricks, Sanielle Fischel, and Corey Feldman.

This season, get ready to feel the rhythm.

If you got it, flunked it.

Dancing with the Stars premieres live.

Tuesdays, 8-7 Central on ABC and Disney Plus.

Next day on Hulu.

Campsite Media.

It was December 30th, 1969.

The end of a long year for Jock Jublonski and his family.

He was in bed, exhausted, lying beside Margaret, his loving wife of 27 years.

A woman who'd stayed home, stayed loyal, stayed focused on his career, and set aside her own ambitions.

And Margaret had ambitions, big, sprawling, artistic ones.

Broadway screenplays, novels.

She wrote everything down, recorded some of her musings on tape in the Jablonsky Den.

In these recordings, you can hear her wrestle with who she wants to be and who she's become.

The memoirs of a nobody.

At 17, I dreamed big dreams, as youth will, of setting the world ablaze.

It would be.

She'd made peace with the life she'd chosen, taking it in stride in her signature good humor.

This dream of becoming a woman of letters was realized in a wee way,

for I'm a fairly competent Scrabble player.

But every now and then, those dreams would come back up.

But at odd moments, usually when I was cleaning the commode or swatting flies, a shrill inner voice would ask,

What was the real purpose of my existence?

For decades now, her purpose had been Jock and their children.

But things were changing.

Jock had agreed to move soon to a larger city that he'd make time and space for her career, finally.

The next year would be a big one.

Her hopes may be turning to dreams as she drifted off to sleep next to Jock.

Margaret was blissfully unaware.

that if she had looked outside of her window just then, she would have seen three men with pistols.

Three men standing in her driveway with an order to murder her husband.

The killers had been to the house before, but this time they had a deadline.

They'd been told the murders must be done by New Year's Day or else.

As the killers stepped onto the porch, Buddy Martin, the youngest and newest member of the crew, turned to the two others.

Martin said

he wouldn't come back if we didn't take care of it.

It was now or never.

From Crooked Media and Campside Media, this is Shadow Kingdom, Cole Survivor.

Episode 5, New Year's Eve.

I'm your host, Niccolo Mainoni.

The three intruders put on dark gloves to avoid fingerprints and crept up to the Oblonsky porch where they discovered the door was locked.

But Buddy Martin was ready for that.

You guys screwdriver has a trunk, and Martin took a frame off the screen door.

The inside door was unlocked.

They They slipped off their shoes and crossed the threshold.

They were in.

Above them slept Jock, slept Margaret, slept their daughter Charlotte.

It was a quarter to midnight.

The Yablonskis had installed floodlights outside to scare off intruders, but they'd installed them at the wrong angle, so instead of lighting up the yard, The light streamed into the house, through the windows, lighting the killer's path.

The men crept into the den, past the Christmas tree, pass a card from a friend encouraging Jock to keep up the fight.

Never say die, it read, underlined three times.

Paul waited downstairs as Claude Vealy and Buddy Martin started up the circular carpeted staircase, Jock's heavy snoring drowning out any sound of their footsteps.

But Claude Veely stopped abruptly.

He could now see the bedrooms.

Jock's adult daughter was in one of them.

And Claude had only signed up to kill Jock, not a family.

So...

Martin come back out and whispering real loud, he said,

Veely backed out.

Did that sound rich as turned chicken?

Again, Paul thought, another failed attempt.

I said, what do you mean to do?

Hold your hand?

It could have ended there, with the Oblonskis dreaming of their new year.

But this time, Paul and Claude had come with a true killer, Buddy Martin.

Buddy had killed before.

He wasn't about to back out.

He had just one question.

If I do it myself, will I get all the money?

I said yes.

Claude immediately clamored up.

I'll do it.

I'll do it.

He wanted the money.

Now all three tiptoed back up the stairs, pausing at the top.

Daughter Charlotte's bedroom to the right, Jock's to the left.

The clock ticked past midnight.

It was time.

Buddy whispered he'd go to Charlotte's room.

He motioned to the other two to go on to Jock's.

Margaret was tucked under floral sheets next to Jock.

Charlotte had curlers in her hair.

sleeping next to the book her brother Chip had given her for Christmas.

They counted down at the same time.

Three,

two,

one.

Two shots rang out from Charlotte's bedroom as Buddy pointed his gun a few inches from her curlers.

She was killed instantly.

But there was a deafening silence from the other side of the wall.

where Claude Vealy was now scrambling out of Jock and Margaret's bedroom back into the hall where Paul waited.

Vealy was out there hollering and going on.

It jammed, it jammed, it wouldn't shoot, it wouldn't fire.

Claude had tried to flip the safety off, but had accidentally unlocked the magazine.

So he was checking the shells out of it.

When they was hit, the floor bouncing all over the floor there outside the rooms, 16 or 17 shells.

Margaret burst up in bed, eyes wide, and started to scream.

Jock scrambled to get out of bed.

He was fixing the high tailor.

He was trying to leave the room.

Jock was trying to get his own gun pursed on his windowsill before the killers could get to their ammo, which was now skittering across the floor.

And into all this chaos stepped cold-blooded Buddy Martin.

Martin, come back here and emptied the gun, reloaded it,

went in Yubonski Rooney, and part of Mr.

Yubonski.

He turned and fired at Mrs.

Yublonsky, Margaret.

He handed the pistol to Claude, and this time, Claude fired off two more rounds.

The two collapsed.

All was quiet now.

Buddy Martin stepped further into the room and took a money clip from Jock's dresser.

Maybe they could make this look like a random burglary.

The killers fled back down the stairs.

Jock's puppy waited at the bottom, oblivious, tail wagging.

Buddy aimed his pistol between the dog's eyes, but Paul grabbed his arm.

Not the dog, he said.

They made their way past the Christmas tree, back out the front door, got into the car, and sped away.

Or tried to.

It's bad winter that winter.

Had a lot of snow.

Roads are slick.

Paul clung to the steering wheel.

and tried to keep his mind on the road.

I just was.

I just wanted to get out of Pennsylvania and concentrated on driving and keeping my mind off what happened.

What happened was Jock's worst fear.

Exactly what he had predicted, but worse.

Two times worse.

Paul asked Claude to put the pistol away, but he clung to it.

Buddy passed a whiskey bottle back and forth between them.

Paul Gilly turned onto a road that ran next to a river and pulled over at the foot of a bridge.

Buddy stepped out into the falling snow and threw the rifle over the edge.

He heard a splash a second later.

Clawed through the pistol.

Splash.

Then the wire cutters and unused shells.

Splash.

As the men drove away through the falling snow, the evidence floated down the Monongahela River.

Then when I got back to Cleveland, I took them to a bar they hung out at,

and they waited that bar while I went to the house.

Paul went home to his wife, the person who'd gotten him into all of this.

He woke her up.

She followed him into the bathroom.

Paul stared blankly at the wall.

It was done, he told her.

Everyone in the house was dead.

Jock, his wife, their daughter.

Why all three, she asked.

Paul had no answers.

All he could think of now was his father-in-law's promise.

He said that I had nothing to worry about if anything went wrong.

The union would take care of everything.

And if they needed a lawyer, they'd take care of that.

Paul took the blood money from his safe shortly after dawn.

He went to see Buddy and Claude, who were waiting at the bar, and gave them what was left of the money.

Then the killers parted ways.

Paul took his wife and friends out for New Year's Eve dinner that night.

Everyone noticed he was particularly quiet.

Paul was fixated on what would come next after the Oblonsky's bodies were inevitably discovered.

Who would be coming for him, and when?

This episode of Shadow Kingdom Cold Survivor is brought to you by Remy.

My teeth have all of a sudden become very important because they are part of my mouth, which is the only way I make my money these days.

Not a ton of money, but a little bit of money.

So with that in mind, if you are part of the 30%,

which seems high, but it's true, 30% of Americans who grind their teeth, then your smile, be it your moneymaker or not, needs protection.

And there is no better solution than Remy's custom fit night guard.

Both dentists and teeth grinders,

they somehow got together and they agreed that they recommend Remy because here's why, a custom fit night guard is the best way to protect your teeth.

But more importantly, perhaps for some of us, it's 80% less than the dentist option and it's way freaking easier.

Here's how it works.

I can tell you because I tried it and it was a delight.

First, you receive your impression kit straight to your door.

It's a nice little package, comes with a step-by-step guide on how to get the perfect impression.

You bite down on it.

It's this delightful clay type play-doh.

You bite down on it.

You look like an idiot.

And that's pretty much it.

You then you put it back in this envelope and Remy ships you this custom fit night guard magically somehow it is made in Las Vegas in the United States.

That's important to note and the final scene of this is that you get your night guard back and you start protecting your teeth without having left your apartment.

So the best part, I haven't mentioned the best part, the best part is that Remy is so confident that you will get a perfect fit that they offer a staggering 45 night perfect fit guarantee or your money back.

So having said all that, No waiting rooms, no overpriced bills, just a better way to protect your teeth while you sleep.

Try Remy risk-free at shopremy.com slash coal and use code COLE, C-O-A-L, to get up to 50% off your night guard at checkout.

That is 50% off at shopremi.com slash coal with code coal.

Thank you again, Remy, for sponsoring this episode.

You know how to make a great meal.

And when it comes to the mess, Palmalov knows how to handle it.

Palmala Voltra removes up to 2.5 times the grease versus Dawn Non-concentrated.

Palmolive's most powerful formula instantly cuts grease, leaving you with sparkling clean dishes.

Palmala Vultra.

Click or tap the banner to shop now or visit palmolive.com.

400 miles away in Washington, D.C., Chip Yublonsky was getting dressed for a New Year's Eve party.

Nearby was a check from his dad.

I was in Clarksville picking up my son and our St.

Bernard on our way back here to D.C.

And he handed me a check for $10,000 and said,

hopefully this will get you to April, but we got to pour coal on the fire between now and then.

A father's thank you to a son who gave up everything to run his campaign.

Chip kept meaning to call his parents and check in, but he put it off that night.

It was New Year's Eve, after all, so he and his wife went out.

A New Year's Eve party that a friend of hers from high school was having.

We went.

We drank more than we should.

He meant to call the next day, too, but we were hungover.

We didn't call them on New Year's Day.

The holiday season was over, and Chip got busy, back at work, gearing up for a big legal fight.

January 2nd passed.

January 3rd.

January 4th.

And then, on January 5th,

there was a telephone call.

Chip can't remember who was on the other line, but he remembers what they said.

They say that

the bodies of my dad, mother, and sister had been found.

And I just know that it was,

it was just,

it was a nightmare.

And God bless Joe Rao.

We would have come apart, as it seems, if he hadn't been there.

The man Chip always turned to in moments of crisis was his father.

But Jock wasn't there anymore.

So in his darkest hour, Chip reached for the closest thing to a father he had left, Joe Rao.

Joe was the most famous civil rights lawyer in D.C.,

a superstar.

He'd helped pass the Civil Rights Act.

He was a friend of Martin Luther King Jr.

And he'd been Jock Jablonski's right-hand man since the day he announced he was running.

Over the days, weeks, months, years of what was to come, Joe Rao would be by Chip's side.

Chip tracked down Joe, who was at lunch with a friend.

Chip called me and said, my father's mother and sister have been murdered.

And I said, where are you?

And I started to run for his office.

It was about three blocks away.

I never even had

thought of telling Ben I was leaving.

And he was on my doorstep.

It was like, we're going to Pennsylvania right now.

We're going to go to your house.

You're going to get packed.

I'm going to see if I can have my office find out what planes are flying to Pittsburgh.

We'll take care of this.

It was just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

Chip and Joe flew together to Pennsylvania.

Chip in shock, Joe instinctively trying to protect him from what he knew was coming.

Intense grief, yes, but also grief he knew Jock's son would have to process in public.

The moment his family's bodies were found, Chip's private tragedy was national news.

Good evening.

A well-known official of the United Mine Workers, Joseph Jablonski, and his wife and daughter were found shot to death today as federal and state authorities searched for clues in the killing.

Police found no weapon, but telephone lines were found cut.

KDKA reporters.

Meanwhile, Chip sat on the plane in shock.

So many things competing for his attention.

Grief, anger, fear.

Should he be afraid, too?

Just the night before the murders, he'd slept in the bed Charlotte was killed in.

He worried about his young son, Jeffrey.

Chip brought him on the plane.

This was no place for a five-year-old, but Chip didn't want him out of his sight.

And one thought kept grabbing him him again and again.

There was no doubt in my mind,

none, that the mine workers were behind it.

That Tony Boyle set this in motion.

And as the plane started its descent into Pennsylvania, Chip felt himself getting angry.

One reporter called him vengeful.

From the moment their bodies were found,

my brother and I swore to ourselves that we would never rest until the people that did this were convicted.

By the time Chip's plane landed, he seemed like a different man.

Not a grieving son, but an avenging son.

A man his friends would come to call the general.

As Chip stepped off the plane, a reporter approached him.

You can hear the general on tape for the first time.

Did your father believe his life was in danger or did you believe that it was?

From the very date the campaign started.

Everyone just sort of turned their back on the federal government, didn't give us a goddamn bit of help anywhere along the line.

Joe Rao muscled their way through the swarm of reporters, diverting attention from Chip's young family.

They were driven to Chip's brother's house, where they had celebrated Christmas a couple of weeks earlier.

The siblings embraced, but there was little time for tears.

At my brother's house, instead of us

grieving,

it was like Grand Central Station.

It was like, we got to get these different balls in the air.

We got to get the state police.

Where are they setting up their headquarters?

Joe Rowell's on the phone about the FBI.

I'm yelling and screaming at the FBI guy from Pittsburgh.

And, you know,

we haven't even picked out this burial place yet.

It was a week of insanity.

Law enforcement immediately began working overtime.

The FBI tonight is engaged in its most intensive murder investigation since the assassination of Dr.

Martin Luther King.

The first major clues were revealed at a morning briefing.

There's a report that a car with white out-of-state license plates was seen in the vicinity of the Jablonski home.

Two types of slugs, indicating two assassins.

But in the middle of all that chaos,

there was one person who was silent for days.

Tony Boyle.

The man everyone thought might have something to do with this.

Everyone wanted to know, where the hell was Tony?

What was his response to all this?

So finally, three full days after the bodies were discovered, Tony stepped out of his DC home where he'd been bunkering down.

He took interviews from within the union headquarters.

It was a shock to me when I learned of it, and I'm still emotionally upset about it because I knew Joe Yablonski for approximately 30 years, and I've been distressed over this thing, perhaps as much so as the immediate family.

The immediate family's blood boiled to hear Tony say that.

Even more so when he started to insinuate, without evidence, that Jock had financial troubles.

Maybe that's why he got killed.

Or maybe it was a union serial killer who'd be coming for Tony next.

Has there been any thought given to providing protection for Tony Boyle?

Yes, there has.

I think this is something that ought to be done.

The union offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

And frankly, Tony was incensed.

He told reporters that people weren't giving the union credit for how helpful they were being.

Eventually, Tony hired a New York PR firm and held a press conference.

He stepped before the bank of cameras and strangely raised raised his right hand as if he was on trial.

I hereby solemnly swear to Almighty God

that I will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

The whole press conference lasted hours,

and it was one of the most confusing spectacles anyone had ever seen.

Tony appeared dumbfounded when reporters pressed him on really basic details of how he ran the union.

He was like a sheltered king hearing criticism for the first time.

But even as he battled the press, in some ways, it didn't matter.

Tony still had all the power, having quote-unquote won the election against Jock.

He was still officially the president of the union, and he would soon be inaugurated for a new five-year term.

Four days after the bodies were found, on January 9th, a thousand people showed up for the Jablonski funerals at the local Catholic church.

And across the coal fields, thousands more miners walked out in honor of Jock Yablonsky.

The priest who married Jock and Margaret years earlier presided over the funeral.

A funeral he noted that felt like a terrible punctuation mark at the end of a terrible decade.

A decade in which our country was shocked and battered by the ugly war, by much domestic turbulence, and by an almost unbelievable succession of assassinations.

Jock Jablonski, the final political assassination in a decade filled with them.

Here in this corner of the United States, in a quiet mining community, all the horror of the 60s was brought home to us by a deed of infamy that's disturbing and evil beyond words to describe.

The priest paused and gestured toward the front of the chapel at the three oak caskets.

As we contemplate these three caskets,

we ask why

and who.

The priest said Jock's good deeds required him to make enemies.

And he said, Jock would have wanted his work to go on.

The mourners filed out of the church.

It was a brutally cold January day, just one degree above zero, the roads paved with ice and snow.

63 cars escorted the caskets to the cemetery, where three freshly dug graves awaited at the top of a steep hill.

And the hearses could not get up those icy roads going into the cemetery, so they had to stop.

And then the

caskets had to be unloaded and hand-carried, walked up the hill by the pallbearers.

My brother and I carried my sister's casket.

My cousins carried my mother.

And

the miners carried

my dad's

chip stood at the top of that icy hill, silently mourning as his father, his mother, his little sister were lowered into the ground.

God, I wish you had lived.

You're too damn young to have died.

One by one, people started to leave the gravesite, most returning home, except for a few dozen miners, who made their way to a classroom in a nearby Catholic school.

Bulking miners squeezed into students' desks.

Others stood along the wall.

These were all jock supporters.

Joe Rao stood at the front of the room.

Nobody spoke as the miners settled in.

Everyone still raw from the funeral.

Then, Joe stepped forward.

He was afraid he'd cry if he looked into the miners' faces.

So he stared at their shoes as he spoke.

Tony may not have pulled the trigger, but he must have set Jock's murder in motion somehow.

The only way to prove this would be if Tony's lieutenants ratted him out.

But, Joe said, no one would turn on Tony as long as he was in power.

So they would need to unseat Tony.

In other words, continue Jock's fight for a new election, and this time, win.

As long as Boyle is the president, it is impossible to get at the truth.

Can't be

done except by winning the election.

And also, if they did win, they could fulfill Jock's dream of bringing democracy to the Union.

Joe paused.

He told the men he'd understand if they didn't want to keep fighting Jock's fight.

The consequences of that fight still fresh on that icy hill.

And then Joe raised his voice, using lines he'd utter repeatedly in the days to come.

The fight to clean up the mine workers was just beginning when he was assassinated.

This fight was just beginning.

And he put his weight behind that.

If you fellas do want to fight on, I'll fight on with you.

It was no small offer.

One of the legal icons of the 1960s telling them, I'll carry this fight with you into the new decade if you want to.

Joe stopped, his eyes still fixed on the floor.

And when he lifted them,

he saw that every single hand in the room was raised.

Holding back tears, Joe said, The rebellion goes on.

Paul Gilly's men had killed the revolutionary,

but not the revolution.

This fall, explore California in a brand new Toyota hybrid.

From the stylish Camry to the adventure-ready RAV4 or the spacious Grand Highlander.

Every new Toyota comes with Toyota Care, a two-year complimentary scheduled maintenance plan, an exclusive hybrid battery warranty, and Toyota's legendary quality and reliability.

Visit your local Toyota dealer for a test drive.

Toyota, let's go go places.

See your local Toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details.

CRM was supposed to improve customer relationships.

Instead, it's shorthand for can't resolve much.

Which means you may have sunk a fortune into software that just bounces customer issues around but never actually solves them.

On the ServiceNow AI platform, CRM stands for something better.

With AI built into one platform, customers aren't mired in endless loops of automated indifference.

They get what they need when they need it.

Bad CRM was then.

This is service now.

Almost as soon as the funeral was over, Joe and Chip kick-started Jock's rebellion anew.

They started pressuring the feds to get the election overturned so they could hold a new vote.

But a new election meant new fundraising, new PR, new rallies.

In other words, They needed an army of volunteers.

They needed a call to arms.

And on February 5th, just a month after the bodies were found, Chip was given the biggest possible stage to make that call.

The U.S.

Senate convened an investigation into Jock's campaign and murder and invited Jock's son to testify, to tell his family's whole story.

It was a prime time slot.

It'd be covered in newspapers, TV, radio for days.

And so, on a cold February morning, Chip walked into the Senate chambers to flashes of blinding light.

I remember there was just a ton of TV cameras.

I mean, it was like,

it was almost like the Hoffa hearings.

Chip sat down, pulled out his prepared statement, and began to read, trying to steady his voice and get them to understand the full horror of the situation.

He told the senators, My dad abhorred guns, wouldn't even allow them in the house when when I was a kid.

But the last time I went to his house, there were guns lining the walls.

That's how afraid he was of the union.

And now he said, I know exactly how Jock felt.

And now in the wake of his death and the murder of my mother and sister,

I, who would never have a gun in my own,

go to sleep each night.

load a pistol, put it under my pillow.

My wife tosses and turns.

And he said, I know I'm not the only one.

Thousands of people supported my father in his fight against Tony, the man who is still president.

And I know that thousands of people that supported my father

are living under that same reign of terror.

They feel, as I feel,

that unless the government of the United States gets to the root of the corruption and tyranny of the United Mine Workers Workers Union, they won't sleep well.

Do something, he implored.

Investigate the election, prosecute Tony Boyle.

Chip looked straight into the camera, appealing to the committee, but also calling anyone willing to help.

I make that appeal to this committee.

I hope you heed it.

I hope that

my father didn't die in vain.

Chip's plea for help made its way across the country.

I make that appeal.

His testimony was everywhere.

I hope you heed it.

Replayed over and over across the news.

I hope that my father didn't die in vain.

And as his call to arms went out, a very curious thing happened.

Over the weeks and months that followed the murders, a very unlikely group of people began to respond to Chip's call.

And some of these people had no prior connection to miners or mining.

It was like the most random possible Ocean's 11 team, a ragtag group of people committed to Jock Yublonsky's revolution.

These are the people I spent my Thanksgiving dinners with as a teenager.

The reason I got pulled into this story at all.

I spent my youth listening to their tales of revolution and the unlikely way they all became a crew, chipscrew.

These are the guys who would call him the general.

The first to officially join the rebellion was a young lawyer named Clarice Feldman.

Polish, like the Jablonskis, and used to a good fight.

She's Jewish, grew up with classmates hurling anti-Semitic slurs at her, expecting this girl to back down.

So I'd say, all right, I'll meet you on the playground.

I'd I'd get to shit, but it beat on me, but I would make a fight every time, so then they stopped.

It wasn't worth it.

I wouldn't put up with it.

She partnered with Chip in the legal department and started recruiting.

Clarice went to speak at a college and picked up another acolyte.

Well, here's how we got Ed James.

Ed James, previously a seminary student.

I went to a Catholic seminary study to be a priest for a couple years, two and a half years.

That didn't last.

Too much silence, not enough women, not his thing.

You know, I don't know what I was doing there.

Ed left the seminary, eventually enrolled in a PhD program, and just a few months after Chip made his plea, he volunteered at an anti-war conference where Clarice spoke.

Ed got assigned to drive her to a meeting.

And he lost his way, so we never made it.

But as we were driving around,

I was talking to Ed, and I really thought he was terrific.

Smart, scrappy, perfect for Chip's crew.

So she turned their meandering drive into a recruiting session.

And I I said, Ed, you're really a smart guy.

We need you down in the coal fields.

You'd be a great organizer.

Ed told her he was getting a doctorate in 1960s post-colonial international political systems.

Clarice blinked.

And she said, that's nice, but...

You know, why...

Why are we fighting halfway around the world for democracy when we can't have it in a major American trade union here at home?

That's almost a priest Ed in 1974.

And this sounded like a righteous fight.

He said, I'm in.

Ed had helped on Bobby Kennedy's campaign, so Chip assigned him to work on campaign strategy.

They sent Ed to West Virginia, where he rendezvoused with a man named Don Stillman.

Ed pulled into Don's driveway.

All he knew about Don was that he was basically the Rebels media guy and a distinguished journalism professor.

He was sitting in a chair playing Tommy the Pinball Wizard by the Who, watching a football game with his big male cat on his lap.

Don, the professor, was 25 and, he admits, not looking all that distinguished.

I think he wondered what the hell he'd gotten into.

It was just something out of another world.

But they hit it off.

and started working together at a rented office nearby.

Turns out, Professor Don got pulled into the movement after the Farmington mine explosion.

He was teaching at a nearby college and took his class to the press conference.

So Don was there when Tony literally praised the coal companies.

And to see the company just dismiss their failures, that got me interested in mine health and safety and union democracy.

He was shocked.

Don went into journalist mode and started investigating.

Why would a union executive defend a coal company?

Don's research project turned into an obsession.

And so, by the time Chip's plea hit the airwaves, Don was primed.

He raised his hand to help, a hand that may have been holding a whiskey bottle.

And then, Professor Don recruited the most surprising member of Chip's crew.

I was 17 in high school.

Bob Hopman.

Bob's senior class took a trip from Philly to West Virginia, where Professor Don spoke to them about the miners' plight.

Bob was transfixed.

So, after the talk, Bob the Kid, jet black hair, big glasses, tapped Professor Don.

Gosh, this is pretty interesting.

Would you guys like an intern or something?

And Don, always looking for free labor, said, well, that's...

That's interesting.

Bob's parents, surprisingly, were on board.

But when Don told Chip's crew about Bob the kid, they were less on board.

We can't have a kid down here.

Who's going to take care of him?

Who's going to make sure he gets his shots or whatever?

And as it turned out, I did more taking care of them than they did of me.

Don convinced them.

It was hard to turn down the free labor.

This was a decision that would pay off, big time.

He was brilliant at math and technology, two skills almost no one else in the crew had.

They put Bob the WizKid in charge of voter data and logistics.

Before he could even legally order a beer, this kid would steer some of their biggest decisions.

Chip's unlikely crew had assembled.

Hard-hitting Clarice, almost a priest Ed, Professor Don, Bob the Kid, and plenty of others.

They began writing speeches and press releases, devising campaign strategies, getting the groundwork laid for, they hoped, a new campaign.

And all of this while Chip and Joe Rao fought in court to get that new campaign.

To keep Jock's fight alive and find the truth about his murder, Chip's crew would have to find a way to take down Tony Boyle.

That's next time on Shadow Kingdom.

Shadow Kingdom is a production of crooked media and campsite media.

It's hosted and reported by me, Niccolo Mainoni.

The show is written by Joe Hawthorne, Karen Duffin, and me.

Joe Hawthorne is our managing producer.

Karen Duffin is our story editor.

The associate producers are Rachel Young and Julie Denichet.

Sound design, mix, and mastering by Erica Wong.

Our theme song and original score are composed by me and Mark McAdam.

Cello performed by Linnea Weiss with additional sound design support from Mark McAdam.

Studio engineering by Rachel Young and Ewan Laitremuen.

Fact-checking by Amanda Feynman.

Our executive producers are me, Niccolo Mainoni, along with Sarah Geismer, Katie Long, Mary Knopf, and Allison Falsetta from Crooked Media.

Josh Dean, Adam Hoff, Matt Scher, and Vanessa Gregoriadis are the executive producers of Campsite Media.

Your sausage mcmuffin with egg didn't change.

Your receipt did.

The sausage mcmuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5.

Only at McDonald's for a limited time.

Prices and participation may vary.