Rude Awakening

Gamsay Media Large.

Rory.

We have arrived at episode six, that's right.

What happened last week, well, last week we learned that David is now fully aware that there's a hit man who wants to kill him, and he has learned that that hit man is the very person who has been bringing him minimal amounts of cash that he's been asking for. And he learned about this hit man through a subcontracted hit man who merely wanted to own his football jersey, and that's why he found all of this out, and

Folks, you literally couldn't make this up. That's why it's a true story. Crimeliss Hillbilly Heist, Episode six.

It's sometime before dawn on March second, nineteen ninety eight, at the FBI Field office in Charlotte, North Carolina. John Widra and more than a dozen other agents prepare to raid the velvet elvis in Pat's Blue Ribbon Field mansion of Steve and Michelle Chambers and bring them into custody.

When we go in, we don't fight fair. If there's two people in there, there's twenty agents. If there's one, there's ten.

The agents strap on bulletproof vests and check their weapons. The agents are prepared for a fight.

We knew Steve carried a gun everywhere. Keep in mind North Carolina is one of those states where it's open carry.

John Widra lives for moments like this. It's why he left the cozy comfort of an accounting job or the door bust an ass kicking world of the FBI.

There's lots of fun.

You get up at four in the morning, you stage for an hour at five, you wait for go time at six, Like why do we have to get up?

You're tired, I'm tired.

The bad guy's tired, right, you're not necessarily thinking clearly. Towards the end of my career, I was like, we're going to do this at ten am. They used to call it wide research time because I was like, I'm not getting up at that time. I was like, we'll hit it at ten. You know, as soon as we're done, we'll have lunch, we'll go write it up and call it a day.

But justice must be served.

Just like what you would see in television, there's just a stream of black SUVs headed towards one house.

An FBI raid inside the exclusive gates of Cramerton. The neighbors will be scandalized.

Sweet Jesus, oh my gosh.

While Wydra and his team go to face off with Stephen Michelle, other agents are on their way to the homes of Eric Payne in, Kelly Campbell, and still others are headed to a Hampton end where Mike McKinney is sleeping off a six pack. As for David and Mexico.

You know those guys wanted to kill me.

Right, everyone knew but you. But we'll get to David soon.

Enough.

If everything goes well for the FBI today, they'll have all the suspects rounded up and thrown into the holding pen at the county courthouse by lunch, a holding pen where the highst crew will get to have a nice roundtable conversation about where they went wrong and who's going to snitch on who first. From SmartLess media, campsite media, and big money players. In partnership with iHeart Podcasts, I'm Johnny Knoxville and you're listening to Crime List Hillbilly Heist.

And the roofs to get in the house. Because we knew they were armed.

They know just how to get Steve out of the house by threatening the crown jewel of his criminal empire, his Strip Mall furniture store. There's been a break in as your furniture store. The police lie.

Steve opens the door and we yank him out and throw him on the ground.

As the agents cuff Steve and cover him with their pistols, Wydra and others make the way into the house.

And we got her.

Keep in mind, we're looking for Michelle and she's just as dangerous. Make no mistake, but there are two kids in the house. So now you've got ten agents, all with guns. We know that Michelle and Steve have guns, and we got two little kids in the house.

The agents have studied the layout of the house, so.

We go through the door and there's an immediate staircase, like a kind of a spiral staircase up the side of a wall like you would see in a movie like of a mansion. And the kids were upstairs in a bedroom up there, and Michelle was in the master bedroom downstairs past the staircase and to the right.

They also know there's a dog somewhere, a Bassett Hound named Dallas. But so far he hasn't been an issue, probably because the agents aren't squirrels. Wydra moves through the house to the master bedroom and burst through the door.

She's getting out of bed and she's naked.

Not completely naked. She's wearing her forty three thousand dollars diamond ring. You could see that thing from space. Michelle reaches for the sheet, but the agents shout at her to keep her hands up.

When you're doing an arrest, you're not thinking about anything other than something moving and what's in their hands. That's it. That's all you're focused on when you're going through the door. If she reaches for clothing, there could be a gun there. We want her away from everything, like, let me see your hands. There's clearly nothing that she's hiding, and we pull her like out and wait for a female agent to come in to get her dressed.

Actually, there was something she was hiding.

As soon as I lift up the pillow, there's a fully loaded nine millimeters semi automatic under her pillow.

And other things she was not hiding.

I bet Michelle was mortified. No, she didn't act it, she didn't.

Care at all.

A female agent helps Michelle get dressed, keeping a close eye on her. The sun still isn't up and they're almost done at Cosa Chambers, but the kids are still in the house.

Told Michelle, call your parents and come pick up the kids. You're not going to be home tonight.

It's only later that the agents realize a key piece of evidence is missing. Sometime between Michelle being completely naked, her getting dressed in full view of the female agent, and her going to pack the bag for her kids, the forty three thousand dollars ring disappeared.

Michelle had to hide the ring and she was naked. So where did she hide it?

Well? I can think of two places. The FBI had barged into the neighborhood without a single heads up to our two Kathys, that is, Mayor Kathy with the sea and her best friend Kathy with a K. Kathy with a K broke the news and.

I call Kathy, who was the mayor and my best friend that early and I said, Katy, there are FBI agents right outside my window. I said, wouldn't it be weird if it was the heis? And She's like, I don't know, but I'll let you know.

I said, I'll call you right back, and I dialed the chief of police.

The chief of police for Cramerton is Kathy with the CEA's future husband, David.

Then I said, Chief Young, there is FBI and he said, yes, ma'am, I know. And I said, don't you think I should have known? And he said, no, ma'am, you're just the mayor.

Ouch.

But believe it or not, that pickup line worked. They eventually got married and are still living happily ever after. Despite this shot to her ego, Kathy with the Sea had the hot and was ready to spill it. She now knew why the FBI.

Was there, and she called me back and it was the heist and we were freaking out.

But delivering the goods to Kathy with a k could only be so much of a bomb. Mayor Kathy realized she wasn't exactly a political power broker.

It's very much just a small town. Everybody has your number and they call you because their next door neighbor isn't scooping their dogs poop out of the yard.

If that's the worst problem in your town, your community is doing a oka. But now Mayor Kathy has legit problems on her hands, so she patiently awaited word of her official duties.

I was so excited when the FBI finally reached out to me because I felt like, is the mayor, I should be doing something. I felt like there was something, but I didn't know what it was. So the call let me know that I was needed. So I had on my red blazer with the shoulder pads and my high heel shoes and I was going to go to be a mayor.

She expectantly marched past all of the black SUVs and ride up the Chambers driveway.

And as I arrived, the agent, the lead agent, came out and introduced himself and said, you know, thank you so much for coming out.

To help us here. It is the moment that will make her political career.

The family has a facet hound and the FBI doesn't handle pets, and there's no one to come and get it, so could you take the dog? So he's okay.

Kathy with the Sea dutifully accepts Dallas the dog, but she can't get him to walk down the driveway, so in her red blazer and high heels, she gallantly scoops up the pooch and carries him away.

I was pregnant at the time. On top of that, so it was definitely a look.

She takes the dog back to town Hall to her office that just prudently got new carpet.

And I put him down on the carpet and I sat behind my desk and he started walking in circles and peeing.

Meanwhile, the FBI set up money county machines inside the Chamber's house in full view of the front window.

All the kids could see what was happening. They let Kathy's boys come and sit on the bank of the property and that went on all day long. They were literally just dumping big bundles of money just flying through this machine, and you just don't realize how much actual physical money that is.

By this point, the national media had caught window. The arrests Kathy with a case, sets the scene, and after that.

All hell breats outside the the news crews, the big booms with the cameras up high, parked all in front of my house, and the twenty twenty news crew was there.

It was just wild, how wild.

I fed them sandwiches and I had made a homemade banana pudding, and you know, they're like, oh my god, you know, we wish all of our cases were like this, you know, because I had them in my kitchen, sitting at my big Island. Yeah, they were all really nice.

Even though Kathy with the Sea was forgiving Dallas for his pee, it was still turning out to be a rough day for bad boys all over North Carolina. Across town still early in the morning, the FBI knocked on the door of Big Eric's mobile home. Big Eric aka Eric Payne was there the night of the heist. He was among Steve's crew that lost the keys to the Lumas van in the parking lot. He later went on to become one of the highest's biggest spenders, only behind

He woke up, you know, and answered the door in his boxers and his chunk was kind of hanging out his boxers. The agents she said to him, She's like, you're under rest and put that away.

Maybe we should have called him Little Eric. So Little Eric, Steve and Michelle are all cuffed and in the back of separate SUVs on their way to the holding pen at the courthouse. Nearly all the key players are now in custody, but down in Mexico, David Gant is nowhere in sight. Okay, David wasn't in sight because unbeknounced to the crew in North Carolina. The end of his life on the Lamb came to a screeching halt one day

If you're a six foot tall, redheaded dude in a Mexican village, you stand out.

According to David, though, this weakness became a strength because he could easily monitor the slow trickle of gringoes in and out of town. David was keeping an eye out for Bruno or someone else connected to Steve who might be coming to kill him, but at this point it wasn't Bruno David needed to be looking out for.

When the FBI learned that there was a murder plot that seemed to be in very much in the works. They sent FBI agent Mark Rozzi down to Plaide del Carmen and Cozimel, where they thought David was based on their tracking phone calls.

Special Agent Rosie wasn't allowed to carry a gun in Mexico, but he teamed up with several members of inter Pole, the international police organization that helps law enforcement agencies coordinate with each other, but they weren't that much help. The phone calls had traced David to the hotel La Tortuga, a modest place with sealing fans instead of air conditioning.

For someone who had stolen seventeen million dollars then was expecting to live the high life. This is definitely a sign. As charming as the place was, this is definitely a sign that things are not going according to plant.

The inter Poll officers were tasked with keeping an eye on David during the rare times that he stops stress eating M and m's and left his hotel room.

They had tracked David for a while and then the Interpol folks lost.

Him, but David says he managed to keep an eye on them.

All government agencies seem to use the same barber because they all wear in the same shirt, they got same haircuts, saying if they have a mustache, it's to the same standard.

And I really thought it was odd.

Because there's no tourist bote in and all of a sudden, instead of being one GREENO, there's three.

And I'm like, wait a minute.

But David decides there's not a whole lot he can do about it, and anyway, he has to do his laundry, so he heads out with the bag of dirty clothes.

I know these guys are following me. I've seen them all through the town. I make the turn going to the hotel Lotuga and this car pulls up.

Suddenly he gets tapped on the shoulder. One of the guys with the government issue mustache asks him if he's David Gant.

I give him a really good cover story that I'm Mike McKinny, I'm excellon, I'm on vacation.

And then the agent says, you're not really Mike mckinn are you, mister Gant. David looks back to see the very American and very FBI looking agent Rozzie, standing just behind the inner poll officers. He's busted, and oddly enough, relieved.

I'm glad to see you guys.

Then David tells Rozzi, you.

Know those guys wanting to kill me, right? He said, oh, yeah, we know all about We've already we've already arrested them.

Actually, if the FBI said this, it wasn't true, but they were working on it.

I have conversation.

And they'd say, we'll see you on the plane tomorrow.

I interviewed Mark Rozzi, the FBI agent who arrested Ghent, and he told me that on the plane, on the US Airways flight from Mexico back to Charlotte, he was starting to interview Ghent, and at one point he asked them what was going on between you and Kelly Campbell. He asked David this because they had heard from people that they were dating, and they had heard on the phone that David would say I love you and she would kind of not really, you know, reply in the same way.

Here's David Gant, master criminal, author of what at the time was the second largest cash heist in American history. He's an FBI custody after almost six months on the run, and all the FBI wants to ask him about is his love life. David's a bit offended. He tries to put them off.

The kiss is not nearly as dramatic as people have made it out to be. I mean, it wasn't to be honest, it wasn't worth the money it cost me.

But the FBI won't let it go, and.

They were very curious.

You know.

They also knew that she was kind of involved in murder plot to some degree and whatnot. They knew a lot at this point, so they asked him what was going on between the two of you, and David says, I only kissed her one time. One time, He says, pretty expensive kiss, wasn't.

It to the tune about five mill at least? Probably about Hershey's planning get all the kisses you ever wanted.

That same day that David's being flown back to North Carolina and FBI custody. Mike McKenny is sound asleep at a Hampton end in Gastonia. He stayed up late the night before, polishing off a six pack, reading a John Bishop novel, and fighting off paranoid thoughts.

You kind of get an ominous feeling when something's about to go down.

Mike opens his eyes and reaches for the phone on the bedside table.

I'd left to wake up, called the desk so I could get up and go to the airport.

But when he picks up the phone, a stern voice asks, this is Mike McKenny. He is.

FBI open the door?

What this the NBI open the door?

Mike scrambles out of bed in his boxers.

No sooner, just barely turning knob. They were coming in from the jointed suite and with your front door.

The Hampton End room is now packed with FBI agents.

Of course, the first thing they say is hands up. Put them where I can see him, get up against the wall.

And he turned around and asked him, well, which one do you want?

You want the hands up or you want me on the wall.

These commands seem pretty compatible to me. But look, to be fair, it's really early in the morning.

That's why law enforcement always prefers pre dawn raids. So you're not fully aware.

John Whydra is gonna be pissed when he hears you say that. Meanwhile, the agents start tearing apart the room.

Ask him where the money is. Where the money is? I was like, I don't have it. There's like a million and a half missing. They automatically assumed I had it, but I actually got arrested. I had like fifty five dollars on me, so kind of disappointed them.

That day.

I think I'd been out partying the night before, been four wheeling in the truck, and so when I got home, I just, you know, stripped down to my underwear and went to bed. And then the phone rings first thing in the morning, and I answered the phone, and they said, this is the FBI. We're outside. Don't hang up the phone. Coming unlocked the door. If you don't open it, we're gonna knock it down. And I was like, well, okay.

Kelly jumps out of bed and looks out the blinds. They've sent an army after her. Police an FBI are all over the yard.

So I'm freaked out. So I didn't put my robe on. I just grabbed it and put it up like this.

For visual reference, she's holding her hand up over her chest in my core as she recalls her rude awakening. She hurries to the door.

And of course, soon as I get to the door and unlock it and start to open it, they just hit it and knock it open. And because I'm holding the bathroom, but one of the FBI agents just jerks it down like that. So I'm standing there nothing but my underwear, which I hate because you know, it's so embarrassing.

The FBI agent, who looks to be in charge, tells Kelly she's being arrested and asks her if she knows why. She says, it's probably for the Loomis money. Says, that's the only thing the FBI has ever talked to me about. A female agent searches her and her bathroom, and then Kelly turns to the head guide and I.

Said, can I at least pick up my robe? He said, yeah, go ahead and pick up your robe.

The FBI had a female agent help Kelly.

He says, she'll take you back there to your bedroom. She'll get you clothes that you want to put on.

But when Kelly goes back to the bedroom.

Sit down on a bed and look over on the night stand and my pistols laying there, I'm like my pistols laying over here where.

The agent starts to help Kelly get dressed, but she is left deeply underwhelmed by the agent's bedside manner.

Whoever that female agent was, she was a really snotty bitch. So and she just kept looking down her nose at men. You could tell by the look on her face. And then when I she'd have to pick out with clothes or whatever, she'd just like throw them to me. And I really hated her attitude.

The cuffy and stuff. You take you down to the Fed building and we drove in.

There were all kinds of reporters, everything lined up along the building, so you basically walked in the gauntlet of reporters and cameras. I basically just kind of put my face down trying to let them get as many pictures, and it's kind of hard to hide when you're a foot taller than everybody else.

After his first taste of infamy with reporters snapping pictures and shouting questions outside the building, Mike McKinney walked through the doors of the Federal Courthouse.

This western district in North Carolina and Charlotte. It was never built for a large group of people. You could film an old style nineteen twenties nineteen thirties type of al Capone type movie there. There's only two cells back there, so they're all going to have to sit together.

They just walked Mike to the holding cell and locked the door behind them. When he looks around, he sees some familiar faces.

I recognize Kelly, Michelle, Steve Pain, Pain is Eric Pain. All the guys were in basically a dog kennel because the front side.

Was all.

This fence, like a chain link fence type of cage deal. And then there was a dividing wall on the other side of the walls where they had the women.

But even though they're divided up, everyone can hear each other and things are getting ugly.

All these people were bickering back and forth about well, yeah, you're stupid, you bought that house, You're stupid, you bought that vehicle, blah blah blah. And I didn't have a dog in that fight at all, so it's basically just letting him bicker.

Steve has some theories about who's to blame for them all getting pinched.

Yeah, he accused me, accused everybody else.

Steve accused us all wearing war type when he was the one being wired or tapped.

Other than David, who's brought in separately. They're all stuck there together, so there will be plenty of time to broke her peace on all these matters and make a plan to evade the Feds.

One of the interesting things about interviewing so many people in this case is that they all seem to think that it was the fault of everyone else that this went so badly.

Stay silent requires complete trust among compatriots. All it takes is one singing canary to throw them all in jail for good. But who will it be that Hoodwink and Kelly can't remember shit.

Campbell crs can't remember shit?

Or Senior Frog's number one fan, David Gant.

Pepto Bismo Grande.

Or that subcontract and half assed assassin to Mike McKinney.

No, I was never models and bottles.

I was always betchit crazy barflies and cheap beer.

Or some other nut. Entirely find out next time on Crimeless, he'll billy heist.

So Rora.

I feel like there's a warning to people who sleep naked that if the FBI ever raised.

Her say the same thing.

With a three piece suit.

On always.

Well, if you've been up to no good, yeah, beware sleeping in the nude.

Yeah yeah, yeah.

If you're even slightly doing something illegal, that the FBI might be monitoring you go ahead and go to bed with a full outfit on.

Although I got a hand in some Michelle not even face. She just stood up in all her glory.

Well, you know, Michelle's had the boob job and is you know, I'm pretty sure she was like, hey, look an opportunity to really show off that doctor's incredible work and get some second opinions on what people think of it.

Yeah.

I love that she very confidently stood there naked.

I love that.

Also, I love finding out that they do this so early in the morning, which all makes perfect sense that the FBI would bust you so early when you can't possibly kind of put two and two together and think very quickly. And also you are in a vulnerable state of sleep and whatever it is you sleep in. I like that everyone got busted in their house, and that Mike McKinney was just at a Hampton end. That's uh, that's just that's actually the saddest part of the whole thing for me.

I know, he couldn't at least afford a Radison, just a radison.

Pretty interesting to learn about the mayor. The mayor seems just a little too uh, just a little I don't know that Kathy with the CEA understands what a mayor actually does, because I think she's more of a spectator. Also, I like that she thought the FBI would inform her of them coming in too, Like you have to let the mayor, the mayor of a town know just because that's the person who cuts ribbon at grand openings of things that for some reason, they would be privy to FBI knowledge.

Rory, she's the chief executive of that town. It's true, it's true.

So how much time would you give these guys who do you think deserves the most? Because I feel like that's where we're headed. They're pretty much dead to write to me.

I got to say, the sentencing that we're going to get into soon here is is shocking. Would I would easily have put Steve way up there and David Gant way up there? Even though I like David a lot, he did still do it. He did steal steal seventeen million dollars. Despite the fact that he's very likable and you can tell that he doesn't seem to be a like an evil person. Steve does seem to be like an evil person. He does seem to be someone who's greedy and wants the money and then also is plotting

No, he went to Cancun and wanted to party exactly.

He went to those foam parties. And you know, so I gotta say, I gotta I would put Steve at the absolute highest and then honestly second just Michelle because it angers me how aloof she was about depositing that money.

And poor David, he cannot deny that he's on videotape. He's on videotape, no way around.

It left the country.

All right, Well, stay tuned next week because I feel we are going to find out the fate of our heroes in episode seven of crime Less Hill Billy Heist.

We'll see you next week.

So yeah.

Crimeless Hillbilly Heist is a production of SmartLess Media, Campside Media, and Big Money Players in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. Bill Billy Heist is narrated by me Johnny Knoxville and created by Liz Elkington and Stuart Bailey, Written by Michael Kenyon Meyer with Liz Elkington and Stuart Bailey, Produced by Lane Rose and Sierra Franco. Additional production help by Rajeev Gola.