The Knife: Off Record – 126

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Kevin and Rachel and Peanut M's and an eight-hour road trip.

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And Florian, the reckless yet charming scoundrel from said audiobook.

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This story contains adult content and language.

Listener discretion is advised.

Welcome to The Knife Off Record.

I'm Paisha Eaton.

I'm Hannah Smith.

And today we have two crime stories.

One from you, maybe one and a half from me.

Okay, interesting.

One and a half.

And then some recs.

All right.

Well, let's get right into it.

Yeah.

So I'm really excited about what I have to talk about today.

This started when

a listener named Nick emailed me.

He'd actually been a listener of The Opportunist years before, and then a listener of The Knife.

And he reached out and said said that, you know, he had this question about this scam that his father was involved with.

And he wanted to get more information about it and wanted to see if I could find anything out about it.

And you were the lady for the job.

I said, I don't know.

I'll try.

So we ended up jumping on a video call together.

And I recorded a little bit of what he told me about what he knew about the situation.

And so I'm just going to play a clip here for you.

Great.

What I remember is that my dad, he discovered this thing that he was involved with that was going to pay him off big time.

He explained that it was like this guy down in Amarillo named Tommy Buckley that had discovered some kind of like certificates, like

treasury certificates worth like billions, maybe trillions of dollars, and that somehow it was like illegal.

And that Tommy Buckley had discovered this, and he was going to sue the U.S.

Department of Treasury.

I know that he was sending Tommy Buckley $17 US a month to receive a newsletter.

And I remember my dad saying, and also seeing in the newsletters, the payoff is coming.

Payday is coming.

And my dad like fully bought into it.

And then he got sick.

Like he passed away in 2005.

But as he was getting sick, he was like, Nikki, remember, if I die before this comes to to fruition, you're the beneficiary.

You have to get in touch with Tommy and like you're going to get the, you're going to get the, reap the rewards.

And I was like, okay, okay, dad.

Of course, nothing ever happened.

My dad died.

I then, like,

maybe a couple of years after he passed away, I looked up Tommy Buckley Amarillo and I found his phone number and I called him.

And this like totally gruff Texan answered the phone.

And then I was like, I told him who I was.

I told him who my dad was and that he had died.

And he was like, oh yeah, I remember Ken.

He was a good green light member.

He was, oh yeah, I was a good member.

And then I was like, well, he told me that like, I was the beneficiary to treasury game or whatever.

And he's like, yeah, yeah, that's true.

But

you'll need to send me the death certificate in the mail.

So.

Ultimately, Nick didn't send his dad's death certificate.

He was like, I was raising a kid.

My life was busy.

He also, in the back of his mind, was like, I think this is a scam.

And then he looked it up a few years later, and this was after Tommy Lee Buckley had been indicted on fraud charges.

And so since that happened, it's been over, like it's been 15 years since Tommy Lee Buckley was indicted.

But his original call where he said this like gruff text and answers the phone, that was prior to Tommy being indicted.

A few years past, then he looks back at it again and realizes he's been indicted.

Yeah.

Okay, got it.

So he's probably like glad that he never sent his dad's death certificate or any of HIPF's personal information to Tommy Lee Buckley.

But at this point in time, he is just curious what all was going on with this scam.

There's not a ton of information online about it.

There's like thejustice.gov indictment information that talks about the fraud, but it's pretty vague.

And he looked back to see if he had any of the old newsletters because I was really wanting to see those, obviously, but he couldn't find any.

So, you know, he was just like, I'd love to know more information about what he was doing, if you can find anything.

So I was like, I don't know.

I'll give it a try.

Did some Googling, like not a whole lot of information out there.

But then I was able to get court documents actually from the trial because he had a trial, multiple day trial.

And I didn't get the whole trial, but I got three days.

And these were three days that Tommy Lee Buckley himself was on the stand.

Love.

I love when the defendant testifies.

Right.

A gold mine.

Yeah.

And so that was a lot of information and helpful to see, you know, his version of the story when he's talking with his own attorney.

And then when he's cross-examined, how like there's just so many holes in the story.

Right.

Right.

But payday was coming.

But payday was coming.

And interestingly, at the trial, some of his long

standing subscribers to his newsletter were there as witnesses.

And a lot of them still believed that payday was still coming, that these certificates were real and that it was just a matter of time, like even then.

So it's a really, you know, it's interesting story about how this guy sort of runs this con.

And there's a lot of it that feels a little bit cult-like to me, honestly.

So let's get into it.

So Tommy Lee Buckley is a West Texas guy.

I couldn't find where he grew up, but he went to three different universities, Arlington State College, Texas Tech, and Texas Christian University.

He didn't actually end up graduating.

Did he any of them?

No, he like spent a little time at one, transferred and transferred and then ended up dropping out.

Okay.

Originally in the trial, he stated that that was because his mom was having financial difficulties, so he had to leave to help her.

In the cross-examination, he denies that and he says he dropped out because he was offered a job.

So I don't know, but what I'm gathering is that he didn't come from a lot of money.

He ends up in the Amarillo area.

He started his own business, a clothing store called Tom Buckley's Men's Shop around 1970, and he had that for about five years before it went out of business.

Then he works at another store, a clothing store, and eventually starts another chain of men's clothing stores with some business partners that lasts for a couple of years and then goes out of business.

By this time, it's 1980 and he decides to change careers completely.

And in the 80s, there's this huge oil boom in West Texas.

So like all of a sudden, all of these huge companies, international companies are swarming West Texas and starting to drill.

And there's a lot of people who become like very wealthy suddenly because they own land or they own like oil rights, mineral rights to land that is like where there's a lot of oil discovered.

Okay.

And so he decides to get in on this and he becomes a right-of-way agent, which is like someone who helps secure land rights for drilling.

Okay.

And things are going well.

He is an independent contractor.

Then he goes, he gets a full-time job.

He's working in the oil industry.

He got married in 1970 or 71 to his first wife.

They had three kids, but they got divorced at some point.

And then in 1990, he remarries a woman named Phyllis, who he'll be with until the end.

Okay.

So, you you know, he's working in oil and gas.

It's the mid-80s.

He meets this guy named Lou Driver, also known as Louis Driver, but they call him Lou.

So they've got Tommy Buckley and Lou Driver.

These are like names ripe for a con story.

100%.

I'm like, this could be.

In the best way.

No offense.

No offense.

Great names.

So they partner up.

They start a company called International Gas Recovery.

I'm not going to get into what exactly they do.

It's in the oil and gas industry.

Yeah, copy that.

Moving on.

Moving on.

Not important.

But they end up traveling a lot.

They meet all different kinds of people working in this industry.

They meet people from all over the world.

But eventually, this business is also kind of going under in like 1989.

And part of that is that the price of oil has dropped.

And so this big oil boom is like kind of coming to a little bit of a halt.

But not a problem for Tommy Lee Buckley and Lou Driver because they're about to get into a whole different business endeavor.

Business.

So this is where things start to get strange.

Basically, what Buckley says on the stand is that his partner, Lou Driver, was in Los Angeles on business, and he met this guy named Mr.

Edison Damonik.

Okay.

He's an Indonesian lawyer and somehow they meet.

And what I think happens is that Mr.

Damonik, as he's referred to, starts to hear about all the wealth in West Texas, all the new wealth from all this, like from this oil boom.

So he is like, I'm going to let you in on a little secret to Lou Driver.

And he goes on to tell him that, you know, he has come into possession of financial instruments.

They're referred to as different things.

C Ds, treasury notes.

Certificates is the most common way that Buckley ends up referring to them.

I've heard of C Ds.

Yeah.

Certificate of deposit, C D's, which is sort of like a...

Never knew what it stood for, actually.

Yeah.

I was like, let me write this down.

C D, fixed interest rate savings account.

So I still don't really understand exactly what it is, but it's like money.

It's like a certificate that represents money in a bank account, right?

And so he's like, I have all of these certificates and some of them are worth billions of dollars, billions, some trillions.

Like the amount listed on these certificates is astronomical.

And he says they were created by the U.S.

government, but owned by foreign entities as well as rich, influential people across the world.

And somehow he's come into contact with them or he has them.

But it's complicated.

You can't just walk into a bank and redeem them.

May I have one trillion dollars, please?

Yeah, I'll just go ahead and in 20s and cash.

Yeah, 20s.

And he's also from Indonesia.

He wants to redeem them in the U.S.

And he's looking for some locals to help him.

And he thinks that Lou Davis and Tommy Lee Buckley are just the people for that.

So you might be wondering like how he got these certificates.

I am.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's, it's vague.

Buckley says in court that some of them are Swiss.

And the one in question they talk about a lot is worth supposedly $500 million, Swiss certificate.

And he said he believed Mr.

Damonik, who is from Indonesia and portrayed himself as highly connected, had received them from either the Indonesian government or some very wealthy Indonesian people.

But for some reason, they'd chosen Mr.

Damonik to be entrusted with these certificates.

And it was his job to go figure out how to redeem them.

I feel bad for anyone who actually has a Swiss bank account because, like, the context that I hear a Swiss bank account being used in, I'm like, guilty, guilty on all charges, run.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So he is convincing Tommy and Lou that he's the real deal.

He's the real deal.

Okay.

And who knows?

Maybe at this point they really believe him, you know?

Yeah.

Maybe they believe it the whole time.

I have no idea.

But they come up with a plan.

So this is what they do.

They go back to Amarillo and they put an advertisement in the local paper for low interest business loans.

And they mention the ad in the court transcript.

And right up top, it has like in big, you know, print, $500 million.

And they're looking for applicants who want to start a business locally.

And they're going to give them very low interest loans.

Each applicant, it said, can be granted as much as $2.5 million and encourage people to apply.

And there was like a number that they could call to get more information.

And it also said something like limited spots, you know.

Of course.

Yeah.

And so when people called, they were told, okay, there's going to be a meeting.

They called it the executive summary meeting.

And it's going to take place at Amarillo and this is the date.

If you want to be invited to the meeting, it costs $200 to go.

So 88 people show up to this meeting and they write proposals.

And what the meeting turned out to be was, you know, they had these certificates on display at the meeting.

And so it really turns into

Tommy Lee Buckley mainly convincing the room, selling them on this idea that these certificates are real.

The U.S.

government legally will have to redeem them.

We have figured out this sort of loophole.

And once we redeem these, that's where this low interest loan money is going to come from.

But really, the loan is like a ruse.

And everyone gets really excited about this idea.

Oh my gosh, we're going to be able to get super rich from this.

And he gets people on board.

This is the very beginning of what he ends up calling Greenlight, which is his group.

And he'll end up having some loyal followers who will continue to follow him and believe in this for 20 years after.

Because this is 1990.

So the people that are interested, he encourages them to give a $500 pledge and they also give their mailing addresses.

And he's like, I'm going to keep you updated about this.

With this $500, you're in on this.

And that is an investment so that when we redeem these, you'll get money back.

What kind of businesses do you know?

Or was it just like small businesses, West Texas?

He had a list of them that i didn't write down but it was like oil and gas agriculture stuff like that okay yeah

500 then small price to pay yeah if you think you're gonna get 2.5 million yeah for your business right

so what begins is that he then starts sending out newsletters monthly to everyone who's given him money and we're talking newsletters we're talking you know physical newsletters pre-internet you can't email so he's you know writing these out printing them copying them putting in envelopes and mailing them out to people this would be the newsletter that nick's dad would eventually get okay nick's dad was living in canada at the time so he was not at this meeting i think he joined a few years later but he would eventually have people from all over who were part of this green light the newsletters were cryptic and you know the first one he sent out thanked everyone for their pledge and said things like you're going to receive a special compensation soon he also talked about how this was highly confidential.

But very quickly, the newsletters start to change the tone of them.

You know, the next month, he's like, you know, if you haven't sent in your pledge yet, make sure to get it in.

I have gotten really busy.

I'm dedicating all of my time to this.

And we start to see this narrative develop in his newsletters where he's really creating a world and like a story about what is happening here.

And one of the things that pops up quickly is that there are like enemies who are trying to stop him from achieving this goal.

In the second or third newsletter, he says, within the last four days, I have found out who complained to the FBI and began the tremendous problems we have.

And he's like writing about how they're threatening the project, but don't worry, he's not going to stop at anything.

He's dedicated.

That's wild because if I'm someone who was at that meeting and decides to give this pledge and I want this money, if I hear that the FBI knowing about it is a problem, I'm out.

I'm done.

You can keep my $500.

I want no part of this.

You know, I don't have the newsletters, but I think a big part of the appeal and the lore around this is that it's like this secret that the U.S.

government is keeping from people.

That the U.S.

government legally has to redeem these CDs, but they're not going to want to just give it to any old regular citizen.

They lost these or I don't know what happened, but somehow these certificates got out of control.

And the U.S.

government is going to try to cover this whole thing up.

Pesky, U.S.

government.

Yeah.

Typical.

And then, of course, he ends every newsletter with like, the payout's coming soon.

We're so close.

I'm so excited.

You know, thank you for being loyal to me.

He says, I won't forget those who stand by me.

I don't know that anyone actually reported to the FBI, probably not.

I think that he sort of was creating these scenarios where he was like under attack.

So then in December of 1990, which is like a few months after the meeting, he has a newsletter where he's saying, you know, my costs are more than expected.

I'm having to pay for phones, fax, FedEx, travel.

He says, I spent $4,200 alone on plane tickets this month.

So now he's like, if you want to keep being part of this, you're going to have to pay $50 a month.

If you want to drop out, fine.

I'll reimburse you all the money you've paid as soon as that first payment comes through with the CDs.

But if you want to keep in on this and this really important thing, now you got to pay me every month.

And so people start paying him.

Dang.

yeah

so this continues to go on and you know he is doing things to try to supposedly redeem these certificates so we're thinking at this stage and whatever is happening that he's a believer in the certificates he claims that he is and he's calling people.

He's trying to make meetings with people who he thinks might be able to help him with this, like bankers and stuff.

Okay.

And then he's writing about all of his efforts in the newsletter to keep everyone updated with what he's doing to try to like get them their big payout.

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He separates his green lighters, as they're called, into active and inactive.

You know, Nick remembered his dad saying that he would call a number to get updates sometimes, and that's true.

So Buckley used something called fax mail that was faster than the mailed newsletter.

So if you wanted updates outside of the monthly newsletter, you called a number and then you would receive a fax automatically with updates on green light.

So he was writing a lot of letters.

He was really, really

busy writing letters.

Yeah, he was just like in publishing, basically.

Wow.

And he like no longer is working at any other job.

This is his full-time job.

He gives himself a salary, you know, like he's doing things like he travels to Las Vegas to meet with some people who are selling a hotel that's in bankruptcy.

And I don't know what his plan was, but obviously that he doesn't buy it, but he, you know, includes that in the newsletter and he flies to Mexico City to meet with someone who he thinks is going to help him redeem these certificates.

That doesn't pan out.

Okay.

Of course, he writes about it.

And the question really becomes to are all of these meetings real that he's writing about?

Is he really flying to Mexico City?

I don't know.

Stories from faraway places.

Like maybe, but maybe not.

Maybe not.

A telltale sign of a con.

Well, I mean, this whole thing starts with.

the Indonesian government, supposedly, which, you know, faraway places that you can't verify, especially in the 90s.

But there is one meeting that's real.

Through his network, he ends up securing a meeting in Dallas at the Federal Reserve Bank for July of 1991.

So he brings these certificates along with Lou Driver.

He brings these certificates to the U.S.

Federal Reserve Bank and meets with people there and hands them over to them and is sort of like, we just want to.

you know, confirm that these are legitimate.

Seems like a step that should have been taken a few steps ago, but okay.

Yeah.

And, you know, we want you to use your resources to confirm these are legitimate.

And here's the thing.

One of the certificates that was supposedly created by the Federal Reserve Bank is listed to Saddam Hussein.

So he hands this over.

I mean, he has this meeting at the Federal Reserve.

And they're like, we'll take a look at them.

And so then, you know, Tommy Lee Buckley and his people leave.

What he ends up writing about and how he tells the story is that this like gets them in trouble and that someone from the Federal Reserve calls him back and says, these are real, but Saddam Hussein's assets are frozen in the U.S.

So unfortunately, we can't redeem this for you.

That's what he says happens.

Okay.

And then he later says that, you know, they're having lunch and they're being followed by the Secret Service and they get arrested.

What is true about this story is that they were arrested and they were probably followed because they brought fake certificates, you know, fake U.S.

money into a bank and tried to cash them.

And so they were followed and they were arrested and taken to Dallas County jail.

And Buckley spent a week in jail.

He can't send any faxes.

What are the people going to think?

I know.

Well, fortunately, this is like, you know, before the internet.

So they're only getting monthly newsletters.

True.

So Mr.

Damonik is not in Dallas.

He's not with them for this whole thing, but he is in Austin and he's apprehended and arrested.

And what authorities quickly realize is that this all traces back to Mr.

Damanik, that he's like the one who started this.

And so everyone else is able to get out of jail.

Mr.

Damonik is in prison for 70 days and he has charges against him for being like the mastermind of all of this.

But Tommy Lee Buckley is undeterred.

He goes to Austin and he visits Mr.

Damonik in prison like five or six times.

And according to him, Mr.

Damonic is insistent.

No, no, the certificates are real.

Like they just don't want us to have them.

Like they're real.

And

does he believe this or not?

Man, I don't know.

Like you were just arrested.

Yeah.

And somehow the Saddam Hussein of it all, like that doesn't

make an alarm go off.

Right.

And it only adds to the narrative that the U.S.

government doesn't want you to know the truth.

Right.

And so this only like fans the fire for him.

So he starts calling it Project Treasury Gate.

That's when this happens.

And he decides he's going to sue the government for not redeeming these certificates.

And he looks for a lawyer.

It takes some time to find a lawyer.

We'll take this case,

as you can imagine.

Yeah.

And the other thing he does is he writes a 250-page book and makes a videotape of him talking about Treasury Gate and spinning his like story.

And he starts selling that for $100

and people are buying it.

And one of the things he says in it is that he was, he survived an assassination attempt.

Oh, so at the lunch where he was arrested and followed, is that where the assassination attempt was supposed to occur?

I think so.

Yeah.

Wow.

But pretty good marketing, you know, scheme.

You know, you were like, does he believe this?

I don't know.

You know, as I was looking into this, I wondered,

like, is he just a victim victim of the scam?

Like, did he meet Mr.

Damonik and he was like totally convinced that this was real?

Yeah.

Um, or is he, is he scamming people?

Hard to say.

Yeah.

So I wondered, like, maybe he just really believes this.

Yeah.

But then I kept reading and it just seems like impossible because when Mr.

Damonik was arrested, they confiscated many of the certificates and they actually had had an expert analyze them to see if they were real.

A physical and microscopic examination was performed.

They were compared against United States Secret Service genuine specimen files, like real certificates of deposit, as well as those of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and they were determined to be not genuine monetary certificates issued by the U.S.

government.

And it also said these documents were produced by a combination of poor quality offset printing, stamp pads, and press or rub-on letters and numbers.

Oh, no, that's a bad day for Tommy.

Yeah, and he was there.

He was at the court hearing.

So he heard this being said.

He heard, this is not real.

Okay.

So at this point, it's like, whether or not he believed it in the beginning, he's continuing to collect money from people, and now he knows it's not real.

Yeah, this doesn't make it into the newsletter update.

No, I imagine it wouldn't.

And he continues to spin this story and collect money for like 16 more years from people.

And the certificates are wild.

They talk about them.

You know, Saddam Hussein, there's also one in Fidel Castro's name.

The former president of Uganda has one.

But the prosecuting attorney points out that there are spelling errors.

Like people's names are spelled wrong.

Oh, no.

There's one for $76 trillion payable to Gandhi, dated 1958, even though Gandhi died in 1948.

Oh my gosh.

Okay, so Daminik, who's at the center of all of this, he's at this trial.

I don't know if he was at Tommy Lee Buckley's trial.

I don't think so.

I think he like fled the U.S.

He was pretty much out of this whole scheme once he got arrested in Austin.

And they were like, these aren't real.

We've caught you.

He's like.

gone.

He's no longer part of it.

He's, yeah, okay, got it.

He was the impetus of this, but then once he leaves, Tommy Lee Buckley just like runs with this narrative.

And he's already created this whole following.

He has a brand.

Okay.

And he's got a newsletter to keep up with.

He's got a newsletter.

He's got monthly money coming in.

What does Phyllis think of this?

Phyllis is a nurse, but eventually she quits her job because they're making so much money.

Okay.

And she's helping him package the newsletter and sent them out.

I don't know.

Does she know it's a scam?

I would have a lot of questions.

Yeah.

So they're doing really well off this.

It's not just like they got some $500 pledges back in the 1980s and they're riding the wave.

Like this is really continuing to grow on a global scale.

I don't know where all his subscribers come from.

Probably mostly the U.S., maybe some Canada, maybe elsewhere.

Yeah.

How did Nick's dad hear about it?

Do you know?

He heard about it on the radio, I'm pretty sure.

So at a certain point, it stops becoming highly confidential and Tommy Lee Buckley starts sort of advertising.

This is what he's doing.

You know, he had made that videotape and written that sort of manifesto and is selling it for $100.

So he's making money off that.

He is interviewed on local radio shows and he's talking about this scheme and the government is lying to us.

So he's getting people reaching out to him because of that.

And then every time that there is like getting arrested and this plan to now sue the U.S.

government, that brings in money too, because he's like, it's expensive to bring a lawsuit, but I think this is important.

And at the end of it, you all get paid.

You're going to get millions and millions of dollars.

Yeah.

So what ends up happening is that he charges people $17 a month to be active green light members.

And if you stop paying the 17, then you're inactive.

This means you'll still get some money because you've already paid him, but you're not going to get as much money.

He doesn't really specify what that means.

And you also don't get as many newsletters.

And what's $17 a month for that kind of hope?

You know,

I mean, it is kind of a lot for like the 90s and early 2000s.

That's true.

Yeah.

Maybe like, what, $30 a month maybe now?

I'm not really sure.

Right.

Like I've canceled subscriptions over or less.

Yeah.

But yeah, you're right.

It's like this dream that you're in on something.

Okay.

So if you are paying regularly, you're getting all of the newsletters and updates.

And some of them are like, he's like, I have a big update coming.

I've just gotten contact with an important person and I'm about to send out a newsletter, but some of it will be, it will be sanitized is the words.

And so he's like blacking out some of it like you would like

redacted.

But he's writing it, so he could have just left everything out to begin with.

Or it'll be like, I got this letter from so-and-so, but I'm going to redact it.

So he's creating this intrigue.

So if you're not an active member, you don't really, you don't get the newsletters.

But every once in a while, he'll send out a newsletter to everyone and sort of tease what they're missing.

Okay.

It's like they don't have the reality shows that we do right now.

Like, this is exciting.

Yeah.

This is like a monthly sort of mystery.

Totally.

That's like updating you on some secret conspiracy in the U.S.

government.

And you're getting updates.

And it's, I mean, they are paying for like entertainment in some ways, right?

But except that it's, he's telling them that this is an investment.

Yikes.

So he does sue the U.S.

government.

He files a lawsuit.

in 1993, includes one of the CDs that's worth $278 billion.

And of course, the lawsuit's just completely dismissed in 1994.

A judge noted the note was fraudulent and that, quote, any reasonable person who investigated it would have known that.

And it seems like the judge is like pretty upset that this lawsuit was ever brought because the judge orders Buckley's attorney to pay for the other side attorney fees, which is $10,000 additional dollars.

Oops.

So this whole thing cost him $40,000 and all that money is coming out of the money that the green lighters are giving him, their investment that he's supposedly taking care of.

Okay, so around 2001, it's estimated that he has 2,733 members in one of his groups and like another thousand in his sort of inactive group that are sometimes giving money.

It's a pretty big operation to send out of these newsletters.

He also has started a telecommunications business called ComM Group, and it has capacity for 800 voicemails system.

It's like a voicemail system.

People pay $20 to $25 a month to have a voicemail box.

Oh my gosh, imagine what you'd pay now not to.

Yeah, I know, to never have to listen to a voicemail ever again.

Yeah.

Oh my God, that's a million dollar idea.

That's a subscription that we need to start.

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Drew and Sue and Eminem's Minis.

And baking the surprise birthday cake for Lou.

And Sue forgetting that her oven doesn't really work.

And Drew remembering that they don't have flour.

And Lou getting home early from work, which he never does.

And Drew and Sue using the rest of the tubes of Eminem's minis as party poppers instead.

I think this is one of those moments where people say, it's the thought that counts.

Eminem's, it's more fun together.

And so his wife is working for him.

He has like a full-time employee.

He's giving himself a salary.

And he's sort of still trying to sell these certificates-ish.

Even after a judge has said these are absolutely not real and any reasonable person would know that.

Yeah.

In the beginning, he was like meeting with bankers.

He was going to the Federal Reserve.

At this point, the people that he's meeting are not reputable people.

Like he meets these brothers in Canada who swear they can redeem these certificates and he ends up paying them $75,000,

but they can't.

He also says that he goes to Germany to meet someone and he ends up feeling like his life is threatened.

So he pays that guy $50,000 and flees the country.

And it's sort of like, okay,

is he being scammed by other scammers at this point?

He seems like he's in this in-between of

scammer and victim.

Yeah.

Because just the fact that he is paying other people that kind of money makes me question, like, does he get it?

Or is he just similarly to those people who are at the trial still believing?

Like, is he just that sort of unwilling to let go of the dream that all this money is coming?

Yeah.

But in the meantime, I mean, I don't know, how many subscriptions did you see that he had or how many members?

I would estimate he had like 3,000.

Because if he had 3,000 members and they're paying $17

a month, that's $51,000 a month.

I mean, at the time and also probably in where they live, like that's a lot of, I mean, that's a lot of money, period, even right now.

But like, wow.

In 2001 in West Texas.

So that's

a ton of money.

Yeah, a ton of money.

It's a ton of money now.

Don't get me wrong.

But like then, that's like.

unbelievable.

That's enough money to pay his salary, to pay a full-time employee and to live like a very nice life and save money.

Right.

And so, yeah, I don't know.

Like when, when I hear about, okay, he paid these brothers $75,000 to try to redeem these certificates.

It's like, is that true?

Is that not true?

I don't know if there's paperwork to support that.

Did he just write that in his newsletter?

Am I getting scammed?

Cause I was like thinking, yeah, he probably did pay them, but I don't know.

Did he?

Well, I don't know.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I think he might have.

And the only reason I think that is because they do have on record that at one point he takes money out of one of his businesses the telecommunication business as well as money that has been given by the green lighters he takes two hundred thousand dollars and he invests it with this person named mr enwia

it's a real person i looked him up he was the president of the worldwide equity corporation

and apparently this guy is like promising him insane returns on his investment like this is going to turn into multiple millions of dollars red flag flag, like in a matter of like a year.

Right.

And so he gives him this money and then his money disappears and this guy disappears and he loses it.

He loses $200,000

on this investment thing.

And when I looked this up, this guy was running a scam and he was caught by the SEC and lost his job.

He was running like a huge scam.

It's like, hasn't Tommy been down this road before?

So Tommy is like, yeah, is he believing he was taking money out and investing it and trying to make more money off of this?

So this was like he was conned by this investor,

but it also seems like he was paying people to try to redeem these certificates.

And so is this a situation where he just had convinced himself it was real to not feel guilty about how he was just like conning all these people?

Yeah.

I don't know.

Wow, that is nuts.

And I mean, I don't know how old Nick's father was when he became a member, but I wonder if a lot of the people who

started sending him money after he started advertising and it was no longer confidential, if they were elderly, if he was taking advantage of more vulnerable populations.

Obviously, things were a lot different then.

You couldn't get on and Google and find a whole Reddit thread about someone if they were up to no good.

But

I mean, month after month of the same thing in different scenarios would be troublesome.

Mm-hmm.

For sure.

Nick did say that his dad lived alone for a long time, was very like lonely and sort of struggled with depression and also was living in Canada, but was born in the U.S.

And that being part of this green light group sort of gave him this feeling of connection and community and probably excitement every month when that newsletter came to read like what other intrigue is happening.

Yeah.

And so in some ways, it's like, well, maybe it was worth it for him to pay $17 a month.

That's so true.

It's like Facebook of the moment.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Totally.

So as far as like how much money he is making in trial, they look at his financials.

And in 2003, he bought a BMW for $46,000.

He and his wife bought a house in Aberdeen, Texas for $450,000.

In 2004, he listed his assets as $1.3 million.

And then by 2007, it's listed as 3.1 million.

He's like a member of multiple country clubs, living a pretty fancy life in West Texas.

And another part that he always talks about is when he gets this big payout, he's going to give most of it to charity.

Not to the people who have been hanging on every word he has said for years and years and years.

That's what I wonder, too.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, he's going to give at least a trillion dollars to charity.

Well, that's so kind of him.

Yeah.

But when they looked at his financials, interestingly enough, he had hardly ever given any money to charity.

That is shocking.

Yeah.

By 2007, he still has the same story.

You know, he updates, this is amazing.

I have so much information to share with you.

I know who the good guys are.

I know who the bad guys are.

And he's just like, it's just around the corner.

Like, maybe this is the last update because maybe you're going to get paid next month.

You know.

The story has evolved.

Now at some point, he says he sends the certificates to Europe with someone who's trusted to carry them and they're with the UN and there's this big international plan at some point to cash them out and like totally get rid of all US debt.

It doesn't make any sense, but his lore has become bigger and grander.

And part of this I think is that by 2007, 2008, he's now on the internet.

And he's now connecting with other people who are also sort of interested in similar topics.

He starts reading a lot about the Illuminati

and his newsletters sort of reflect this.

He has all this code and stuff that he starts putting in them.

He refers to this one person who's an insider kind of person who he calls White Rosetta Stone, WRS for short.

He writes in one letter, WRS has introduced me to two very, very important but secretive individuals who are critical to our success.

But in court, when they ask him about this, he admits that WRS is just this woman named Carol that he met online and they like to chat about their theories.

That's actually, Carol is fascinating to me now.

Does she know that she's WRS in these newsletters?

Like, is this, was this like exciting for Carol?

Carol, if you're listening, reach out.

Yeah, Carol, we want to talk to you.

Wow.

At some point, this catches the attention of the FBI and they start an investigation.

And in 2010, he is indicted by a grand jury on 39 counts.

He's charged with mail fraud, frauds, and swindles related to his operation of a fraudulent investment scheme.

And he's 63 years old at this point.

From justice.gov, between 2004 and 2008, he deposited approximately 2.8 million consisting of monthly checks and money orders into his account.

So that's only four of the 20 years.

Right.

You know, he was paying his wife his salary.

He had about 1,800 members at that time, they estimated, and that he misappropriated funds from this investment and was living a lavish lifestyle.

So in 2011, he goes to trial.

And the first day he shows up and when he has to testify and he's like really sick, he talks about how he had had this accident the year before and he had brain damage.

And so his memory isn't as good.

So he might not remember details.

And it's like, maybe he did, but it's hard to believe someone who's been lying and scamming for so long.

I would actually say I don't believe him at all.

Yeah.

He has a walker.

He's doing the whole I'm like this weak old man thing, but it doesn't end up mattering.

He is found guilty on 24 counts of mail fraud.

The government is like seizing his assets.

And I don't honestly know what happened, like how this happened, but

okay, so he was found guilty.

And then the next day, it just says he was supposed to show up for a seizure of his assets that there was a meeting and he did not show up.

Why wasn't he arrested when he found guilty?

I don't know, but he had died by suicide.

Oh, that's awful.

Yeah.

So he never ended up, you know, going to jail.

He wasn't even sentenced yet.

Although the sentencing that he likely would have gotten would have been at least 20 years for all of this and a hefty fine.

Essentially, like the rest of his life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm not 100% sure, but it seemed like his wife was going to leave him as well.

So it just sounded like he didn't have anything left.

And

some money was recovered for the victims, but I don't think it was very significant.

And

that's that.

You know what shocks me about that story is that back when he takes these certificates into the bank and they're like, these aren't real.

And then he's arrested.

I'm surprised that so much passed

between that point in his story and when the FBI catches on all these years later and then he's, you know, charged with fraud.

Yeah.

It seems like it wouldn't have taken very much to stop him earlier, but I know

no disrespect to the FBI.

I'm sure they're very busy, but like if a guy brings fraudulent certificates for a trillion dollars into the bank, I know.

Maybe it's one of those things where it's like, this is so outrageous.

We don't even need to concern ourselves or something.

I don't know.

But yeah.

It's weird.

And maybe they thought, well, you got a slap on the hand.

You, you spent a night or a week in jail, I think.

And so now you'll learn your lesson.

But then he's like advertising it on the radio.

He learned nothing.

Yeah.

So the week in jail, yeah, no problem.

Yeah.

So I hope that answers Nick's questions.

About Tommy Lee Buckley.

Yeah.

I imagine Nick never received a payout.

Never.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's

disappointing.

But I would have done the same thing if I was him.

I would have been like, I wonder what that was.

Because also at the time, you know, even when our parents are aging, it's like you don't want to make them feel silly for believing something.

Totally.

And what can you say?

It's like, if his dad was lonely and this was entertaining for him,

not like it was okay, but maybe he got something out of it.

Yeah.

So my story is in a different world, but similar in that money makes people go absolutely haywire.

It really does.

And I would love the opportunity to show everyone that I'm different.

That you're different.

Yeah.

Give me money.

Yeah.

See how responsible I am.

Yeah.

This story begins in 1999

in the small town of Grand Bay, Alabama, which has a population of less than 4,000 people.

And, you know, the surrounding land is,

okay, I feel like I looked up how to say this word because I know that there's different ways of pronouncing it.

Pecan orchards.

Pecan.

Pecan.

I say pecan, but I think probably in Alabama, do they say pecan?

Well, I don't, I don't, I feel like it will come off as I'm not trying to say it wrong.

Yeah,

pecan orchards and fields of watermelon.

So in March of 99, a woman named Tonda Dickerson is waiting tables at the local waffle house.

And for her, it's an ordinary day.

A regular diner comes in by the name of Edward Seward.

And he stopped by pretty frequently to get coffee in the morning.

And in one report, I saw he was a long-haul trucker.

In another one, he owned a seafood restaurant.

Interesting.

Couldn't pin it down.

But apparently, a thing that Edward did sometimes is instead of a cash tip, he would leave a lottery ticket.

And so this lottery ticket was one that he had purchased in Florida.

That's pretty cute.

It's cute.

Yeah.

I mean, probably better to give cash.

Better to give cash.

I think a lottery ticket in addition, great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And Tonda's a single mother at this point.

So she has recently left an abusive relationship.

That was in 1997.

So she's been on her own for two years.

She's working all the time to make ends meet.

She probably would have rather had the cash.

And in a way, I'm actually going to tie back to that.

But basically, there was a $10 million jackpot.

There were two winning tickets and Tonda's tip was one of them.

Wow.

Yeah.

So that's wild.

It's wild.

Can you imagine?

And I would be so excited.

Oh my gosh.

I know.

I don't know what I'd do first.

But so she, she goes home from the shift and wakes up, you know, a multi-multi-millionaire.

And this amount of money, life-changing for just about anybody.

For Tonda, it's no exception.

And she knows that.

And she wants to take...

Instead of the lump sum, her plan is the annual payments so that she doesn't end up one of those people who wins a lottery and goes broke or has something terrible happen in her life.

She wants to be responsible about it.

She wants to help her family.

But when she arrives at the lottery office in Tallahassee, Florida to collect her winnings, she is denied.

And that is because four

other wait staff at the Waffle House filed a claim that said through the courts in Alabama, that said, we had an agreement.

Now, if any one of us won the lottery, we split it.

And Honda says, no, we didn't.

And so how did they know she won?

I don't know if she told them or if it was just obvious, but she quit immediately.

And I would think in a little town.

You got to pretend like nothing has changed.

Nothing has changed.

Yeah.

And I would just imagine word traveled really fast.

Like if you tell one person, they tell one person.

I mean, whoa, it's like, it's over.

So already by the time she tries to go collect this

lawsuit or complaint has been filed.

And so before she even has a moment to breathe and like enjoy this new life, she's in a legal battle.

And so Florida has to withhold this money until this is resolved.

Another person also files a lawsuit, which is Edward Seward, the person who lost it.

And he says that he was owed a portion of it and she promised him a new truck if she won.

And that lawsuit was later dismissed.

But like, that's unbelievable.

Yeah.

Immediately, these vultures are descending on this woman.

If you give someone a lottery ticket as a tip, you got to just be okay that if they win, it's theirs.

Yeah, I know.

I mean, you have a single mother here working to support her household alone, left in an abusive relationship, and you're not giving her cash.

You're giving her a lottery ticket.

So, like,

you got to stand by that.

Yeah.

Wild.

So there was actually a jury trial in April.

So things moved really quickly in this case.

And the jury decided that Tonda did have this verbal agreement with her colleagues, and she was ordered to pay them.

So this is upsetting, but the fight's not over yet.

They appeal the decision, and the Alabama Supreme Court actually ends up reversing the judgment against her in 2001 because

I'll read the, and we'll probably have to cut this down, but.

The agreement between the parties was nothing more than an attempt by each of the five lottery ticket holders to increase his or her odds of winning some portion of the Florida lottery.

Stated differently, the agreement, according to the plaintiff's own evidence, was that Dickerson would pay the plaintiffs a sum of money upon the happening of an uncertain event over which the party had no control.

So basically, this whole supposed agreement was founded on a gambling consideration, which in Alabama, the Supreme Court rules is therefore void because you're all gambling.

So we're not going to honor this as a real agreement.

You can't make a legit agreement when you're gambling.

Yeah, you can't.

And Tonda has remarried by this point.

And she has her new husband, James.

And so how long has passed since she won the

ticket?

March of 1999, winning ticket.

April of that year, she's already in court.

And then I believe she remarried pretty quickly, but I couldn't find the exact date.

But maybe she had already been dating this first time, no idea.

But anyway, Tonda is then sued by the IRS, who says that she owes over a million in taxes for not reporting the money as a gift.

So she has to hire a lawyer again to fight the IRS.

And she's saying, her lawyer is saying, well, look, she was tipped a lottery ticket that could have been worthless and statistically would have been worthless.

And she was literally working for this money because waiters are paid in tips.

So Tonda, is

by all accounts like a very responsible lottery winner.

She goes and gets another job.

She decides to take the annual payments instead of the lump sum.

She sets up a business account that she's able to like pay family from in certain percentages.

And her ex-husband or ex-partner, I'm not sure if they're married, the abusive relationship that she left.

This guy's name is Stacey Martin.

He finds out that she's one and he is angry.

Of course, he wants in on it.

Of course, yeah.

And so he knows he has no legal standing here.

We also know that he's abusive.

And so what does he do?

In February of 2002, he kidnaps Tonda.

And he waits outside her house.

And when she leaves, he forces her into his car and begins driving her to a rural area.

And his plan is, and he tells her this, to kill her and take the money.

How he planned to do that after killing her, I have no idea.

So Tonda, she already knows what this person's capable of because she was in a relationship with them.

Yeah, horrible situation.

Horrible.

So she was ready and she was carrying a gun.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

And so 20 minutes into this drive, I think it's Tonda's phone that's going off.

Somebody's phone is going off.

And she's able to convince him that she needs to answer it because I think it's her phone.

Because if she doesn't, people will start wondering where she is.

And that could be a problem for him.

So he's like, okay, fine, answer it.

Well, when she reaches for the phone or when he reaches for the phone, she grabs a a gun and he lunges at her and she fires and she hits him in the chest.

She then drives him to the hospital.

I mean, this is someone who's driving the car.

Yeah.

She shoots him.

Yeah.

And then she somehow drives him to the hospital to get emergency care for this gunshot wound.

Wild.

And she's not charged in relation to any of this because it was self-defense.

But here's something that's really strange.

he wasn't charged either for kidnapping i couldn't find

a single charge on him that had been reported on or in the court system so if if i'm wrong i would love to correct that record but like i couldn't find anything on that that's so strange to me because it's like if you can rule that someone shot someone in self-defense then surely you can rule that that person that they shot was doing something that warranted that.

Yeah.

I wonder if it was like she would have to press charges and she didn't.

Yeah.

But no idea.

Yeah.

That's wild.

Wild.

And so at one point I had reached out to Tonda and she never got back.

I imagine she's just, you know, she's probably told this story a lot.

But, you know, she's still working.

She's living a quiet life.

I mean, I think by any stretch, she probably handled it as gracefully as one could have considering what happened to her.

Yeah.

And I think it was four people that came after the money that worked at the same diner.

Maybe it was five, but still

to have all of those people saying one thing and you going up there and saying another must have been really scary.

Yeah.

And you think these people are your maybe friends, your coworkers?

Yeah.

So did they ever get any of that money before it was reversed?

No, they didn't.

So Tonda got to keep it.

She ended up having to pay the IRS, I think around $700,000 because of the way she opened her business account or something.

But I feel like they probably would have found some way to tax her.

Oh, yeah.

I'm going to say that's not on her.

So, Tonda's story is obviously one of a kind because that is insane and she came out alive, but it's actually not that uncommon of a story for a lottery winner to be like doomed.

It's common enough that there's several examples, which I found.

And one of them I'm going to talk about a little more in detail, but we have a guy named Jack Whitaker in West Virginia who won over $300 million.

That's so much money.

So much money.

And this was in 2002, a Powerball jackpot.

He immediately hit with a series of lawsuits.

Close family members around him died.

And four years later, he's broke and says that he wished he had just torn up the ticket.

Like, that's how bad his life got.

I mean, that's just like a nightmare.

Nightmare.

$315 million.

How you even go broke from that so quickly is hard to even imagine.

It's spectacular.

Yeah.

I have to imagine it's just like, if you have that kind of wealth, it probably feels very never-ending.

But then people come out of the woodwork and maybe you get in over your head with taxes.

I have no idea.

But there was a woman named Evelyn Adams who won the lottery in New Jersey actually two years back to back.

And I think she won a two-year-old.

Back to back?

Back to back in two separate years.

And this is in the 1980s.

It was around five and a half or six million dollars.

And she gambled it away.

Tricky.

Yeah, I mean, gambling can be such a serious problem.

A guy named Jeffrey Dampier, I think is how you say his last name, in Illinois.

He was kidnapped and murdered by his sister-in-law and her boyfriend.

less than 10 years after winning $20 million, which happened in 1996.

Terrible.

And okay, so there's another story I want to talk about a little bit, which is a man by the name of Abraham Shakespeare.

Is this also a lot of story?

This is also a lot of story with just, I mean, it's tragic, actually.

So

in 2006, he wins the lottery.

There's similar to Tonda, an immediate dispute with the person who bought the tickets with him.

I guess, if I'm understanding it correctly, his coworker buys two tickets, but like at his request, can you go in and buy two tickets?

Okay, here's a ticket.

And so one of the tickets ends up winning.

Ah, yeah.

And then the coworker is like, wait, I want some of that money.

Exactly.

And so again, has to go to court.

The jury rules in Shakespeare's favor that he did not steal from his coworker, Michael.

And so he wins in 2006.

The court rules in his favor 2007.

And in 2008, he hears from a woman named Dee Dee Moore.

And she's like, I want to write a book about your story.

And Abraham was known to be generous and trusting.

And here comes Dee Dee and she

gets her claws into him and she slowly sort of takes ownership of properties.

Their relationship is a bit murky as to how close they were getting.

And

she starts buying a lot of things in his name, putting things in her name, the whole nine yards.

Is she writing a book?

No,

she's not writing a book.

No, I don't know if she ever actually wrote anything, but no, that wasn't, it was all just a fraud.

Yeah.

So in 2009, Abraham Shakespeare goes missing.

And it comes out that Dee Dee Moore, she murdered him.

And she tried to get his friend in on it and pay them a certain amount of money to say they had recently seen him so that the missing person's case would go away.

And

that person, I think, started cooperating with the police when they realized how much trouble they would be in for doing that.

That they were an accessory to a murder.

Yeah, yeah, of their own friend.

And she was found guilty of murder in 2012, sentenced to life in prison without parole, still wants to be paroled and I think tries to appeal.

That's so sad.

What was this gentleman's name?

Abraham Shakespeare in Lakeland, Florida.

Yeah, very cool name.

So sad.

So sad.

So if you win the lottery, don't tell anybody.

You hear so many stories about it causing so much pain and people losing money and it just, it doesn't seem like a good luck thing.

It seems like you really have to dodge that the bad luck is just coming at you.

You used up all your good luck to win the lottery and then all you have left is bad luck.

Truly, it's like the only way to get out of that happy and alive is to just like lay low, tell no one unless you absolutely have to and make sure you trust that person and get a lawyer.

Yeah, you have to get a lawyer immediately.

Okay, so I understand.

I think if I were in Tonda's situation and I had four coworkers who are like, we agreed, I would sort of be like, no, we didn't.

If I were in the situation where I was buying a lottery ticket with my coworker or friend every day and we were like, one or the other would go in and buy them, I don't know.

Maybe part of me would be like, I should give them some money.

Yeah.

And, you know, I couldn't find exact examples, but I know that Abraham was known to be pretty generous.

So I don't know that he didn't didn't buy this person any gifts or if maybe it got so contentious right away that he had to totally put the brakes on.

But one thing that his coworker said was that Shakespeare stole the lottery tickets out of his wallet.

I guess I left that out, but it wasn't just like, well, I wouldn't have bought these.

And then, you know, we should be splitting it.

I think it was like Abraham says, let's go buy these.

Here's the money.

He buys them.

He wins.

Yeah.

And then Michael changes his story.

Yeah, Abraham Shakespeare is famously quoted as having told his brother, I'd have been better off broke.

I thought these people were my friends.

I realized all they want is money.

That's the sad part too.

You hear about people winning and then you have money, but then your friends or your family kind of betray you and then you're lonely.

And

then you're a target for someone like Didi to come into your life and scam you.

Yeah.

Murder.

I mean, it would be so strange.

Like, because it's not like if you get super rich, okay, now all my friends are super rich and we can go go do everything together.

It's like, no, you're like gonna have to figure that one out, yeah, or pay for everything, or pay for everything, which for some people, maybe they can handle it, other people, I don't know.

Yeah, that's interesting, yeah.

So, what do you think the right amount of money to win in a lottery is to where, like, I'd be fine to win this one billion dollar power.

One billion, oh, yeah, no, I'd be fine.

I'd, I'd, trust me, I'd give some of it away.

I swear, I swear, okay, um,

to me, Yeah, to you.

Okay.

Hand on salary.

What would the right amount be?

I feel like I could handle any amount.

Okay, universe.

I could handle any amount.

Well, at least you win like $500,000.

It's not enough to put you on the map for any kind of fraud or scammers.

It's just sort of like, could it be a nice,

great chunk of change?

Yeah.

Or even a million.

Even a million.

I take a million.

I take it.

I don't need a billion.

Yeah.

Well, those are interesting stories.

Yeah.

Good luck to everyone out there who wins the lottery.

Seriously.

Okay.

So recommendations.

Do you have a recommendation today?

I do have a recommendation.

I just on the way driving into the studio this morning finished an eight-part series called The Lodge, which I'll just read the long line.

In a world obsessed with well-being, would you put your health in the hands of a cult?

A cautionary tale about the consequences of going alternative when wellness becomes a matter of life and death.

And it's fascinating.

The host and writer, his name is Phil Vine, does a really great job.

There's a cult leader.

I guess she wouldn't call herself a cult leader.

Probably not.

Her name is I Ping Wong, and she is really into energy healing.

And basically, like, if you're sick, no matter what, you can heal yourself by being more in tune with energy.

And we're all made of energy.

It is fascinating how much trust people put in her.

Actually, there are multiple deaths that take place, some believe, because of this alternative healing that doesn't heal.

I think the podcast is

a place to think about what is someone's own

power over their decision-making when it comes to their health.

Because

we can say this person is incredibly influential and giving really dangerous medical advice.

Yeah.

But if you are an adult, you don't have to take that advice.

You can go seek conventional treatment that could save your life and is proven by science to have a better chance of that.

Or you could choose not to.

Or you could choose not to.

And that's, you know, and it's not her fault, you know?

Right.

So that's really an area it dives into.

But I thought it was a great series.

And there's lots of really incredible interviews.

And I would say check it out.

Cool.

The lodge.

Yeah.

Great.

My recommendation, I've been listening to Blink.

It's been on the charts.

It's really good.

It's from The Binge.

It's the story of this guy, Jay Candle, and he's interviewed a lot in the podcast.

The host meets him because he like lives in her building and they end up becoming friends and he tells her the story of what's happened to him.

And she's like, how is this not?

a true crime podcast.

And so I actually haven't quite finished it yet, but it's so interesting.

What they kind of tell you right up the top is that Jay Candle, he contracted this super rare disease that is very, very fatal.

And you lose your sort of muscle abilities.

It happens super quickly.

So like ALS.

It's not, it's so much, it's like more rare than that that I can't remember the name of it.

It comes from inhaling really toxic things.

That's one of the

causes.

And he was an addict.

He's very open and vulnerable about like what happened in his life and how he started getting into drugs and his like journey with addiction.

And it got really, really bad.

And he ended up contracting this disease that they were basically like, you have six months to live maybe.

Oh, my God.

And what's going to happen?

Cause he started like not being able to use his hands and like things.

And they were like, you're going to eventually not be able to do anything.

You're going to slip into a coma and probably die.

And so this does.

How old is he at this point?

I think 29, 28, 29.

So this happens, and he eventually loses all ability to move.

His body is like completely paralyzed.

It's not even like he can communicate with his eyes.

And they think and believe that he's essentially brain dead.

He's not,

he's aware the entire time.

He can hear everything.

He is completely aware of what's going on around him.

It's like locked in syndrome.

Ooh, nightmare.

And eventually, like, he's the only person, I guess, what they say, that has had this disease, gotten to the stage four and has actually like lived and recovered.

But he hears a lot of things whenever he's locked in.

And this is where the true crime comes in.

So he's sort of like this silent witness to some things.

And I don't know exactly, I haven't listened to the end, but it's just really interesting.

I think it's really well done.

And Jay Candle, the person, it's his story and he's interviewed in it.

And he's just like, he's such a sweet person.

And he's so honest and vulnerable and very endearing.

And it's just, I can't stop listening to it.

Oh my gosh.

I'm going to listen on my drive home today.

Yeah, it's great.

Yeah.

Love the binge.

Well, that's our show today.

Thanks for listening.

See you next time.

If you have a story for us, we would love to hear it.

Our email is theknife at exactlyrightmedia.com, or you can follow us on Instagram at the Knife Podcast or Blue Sky at The Knife Podcast.

This has been an Exactly Right Production, hosted and produced by me, Hannah Smith, and me, Patia Eaton.

Our producers are Tom Breifogel and Alexa Samorosi.

This episode was mixed by Tom Breifogel.

Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.

Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.

Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.

Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.

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